Procrastinating in Bemidji

The following is based upon a true story I heard years ago. I wish I could tell you the names and places, but they've long faded from my memory. Rest assured, while I filled these things in, the majority of what you read here actually happened.

The City of Bemidji snow plows had been running non-stop for two days. Their efforts to clear the streets created four to five-foot high walls of snow along the city walks. Atop one such snow pile at the corner of Washington and Roosevelt sat Chris Collins and Jeremy Saunders who had hollowed out frigid, but otherwise comfortable seats in the snow. It was cold--bitter cold. Colorless snow fell in great, swirling waves from an equally colorless sky. The weather offered no promise of relief to the Bemidji plow crews.

Sitting bundled in matching Minnesota Vikings parkas, Chris and Jeremy were two splotches of purple staining a landscape that was otherwise simply shades of grey. The intersection, normally busy, was quiet this Saturday evening. Few people had any destination important enough to brave icy roads and falling temperatures.

The boys had been quiet, catching snowflakes on their tongues as they waited. Eventually, Jeremy fished in his pocket surprised to find a forgotten Sky Bar there. “Whoa! I forgot I had this. You wanna split it, Chris? You can have the vanilla and peanut parts.”

“Yeah, I'm starving!”

After breaking off either end, Jeremy handed Chris the center portion of the candy bar. Chris nodded. “Are these any good frozen?”

“Probably, but that one's gonna taste like dirty gloves.”

Chris shrugged and took a bite before his friend continued, “I should mention that my dog was chewing on my gloves this morning. They were covered with slobber when I put them on.” He thought Jeremy was grinning, but it was hard to tell with their hoods pulled up so tight. Chris took another bite.

Jeremy continued after sniffing his gloves, “Seriously, I think he might have crapped on them too. They wreak. Could be cat puke, no idea.”

Chris popped the last bit into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it. “Delicious!”

Jeremy shook his head. After swallowing his portion of the candy bar, he moaned, “You coulda died, man . . . still might.”

“Yeah well, everyone dies.”

The conversation faltered for a moment as they looked up at the swirling white flakes. Both attempted to catch a few in their mouth, a futile attempt to wash down the chocolate. Jeremy finally broke the silence by asking, “You ever think about it?”

"Eating dog crap?"

“No moron, dying. Doesn't it scare you, Chris?”

“We're twelve, Jer. I don't need to be scared of dying for like thirty years, maybe forty.”

Jeremy nodded. He asked, “What do you think happens after you die?”

“Heaven or hell, everyone knows that.”

“You think? I’m kinda scared of going to hell when I die. Aren't you?”

“Yeah, well no one wants to go to hell. That's probably why my Mom goes nuts when I tell my sisters they should.”

“But that's what I mean. Our parents are always mad at us for something; why wouldn't God be mad at us and send us to hell? That’s in the Bible somewhere, right, obey your parents? Is that why you go to church all the time--to make up for it?”

“No way! I wouldn’t be caught dead there except my parents make me. Besides, it doesn't work that way. You don’t make up for the crap you do, at least that's what they say at church. You have to accept Jesus to be forgiven and stuff to get to heaven.”

“So you did that, Chris?”

“Nope, I got it all figured out though. Church people can't do anything fun. You have to listen to your parents, no cussing, no drinking, no smoking, right?”

“We don’t drink or smoke.”

“Yeah, but it must be fun since we’re not supposed to do it. Besides the point, I'm going to just have fun right now and do what I want to do. But when I get older, when there isn't so much fun stuff to do, you know, like when I have kids and stuff, then I will get saved. I don't wanna miss all the fun by being a church person now.”

Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, sounds like a good plan, I guess," his tone implied he might not be convinced. If he had more to say it was interrupted by a red Volkswagen Beetle. It approached the intersection, the engine whirring with the bravado of a chirping, vintage biplane on final approach. The driver eyed them warily through his horn-rimmed glasses as the car slid to a stop.

The boys waved then laughed as the car chugged away. Chris noted, "VW's are no good. The bumper is too low. Driver sees you every time too." Wanting to move on to a new topic he said, “I wish there was a game on tonight.”

Jeremy groaned at their misfortune, before joining in on the new topic, “Why don't the Viking's play everyday? There's nothing to do when they aren't playing.”

“You think they're gonna win the Superbowl this year?” Chris asked.

“Tarkenton is the man. MVP last year--we're gonna win it this year for sure!” Jeremy grinned, then added, "The first two tries were just warm-ups."

The sun was fading as evidenced by some patches of gray which had turned black. The street lights had been on all day. What little traffic there had been seemed to have fizzled out. Chris announced, “I'm freezing. I think I'm gonna head home.”

Jeremy protested lightly, “One more car, then we can go. We'll be headed toward home anyway. Why not bob home, right?”

It did make sense. They were here to hooky bob, why not get towed partway home? If he walked, Jeremy might hitch a ride right by him. The thought of his buddy getting in a last ride and ending up safe and warm before first didn't seem right.

“OK, one more.” he consented. After pausing to breathe into his gloves he asked, “Hey Jer, remember last year when we were Hooky Bobbin' in the neighborhood and your mom pulled up behind us and we were sure she was going to yell at us.”

Jeremy smirked and replied, “But she only yelled at me . . .” In unison they bellowed, “Jeremy Saunders! Put on your hat this instant!”

The two of them fell into a long fit of laughter which subsided when an Impala station wagon pulled up to the stop sign. Behind the wheel was elderly woman bundled in a fur coat. She appeared an elf, so small in the huge car that she could barely see over the dashboard. The boys grinned at each other.

Jeremy punched Chris playfully in the arm. “See Chris, aren't you glad you didn't go home?”

The pair hopped from their perches. Unnoticed, they grabbed the bumper of the enormous blue station wagon. The tires slipped on the slick road for a moment before gaining purchase. With a loud scraping sound, the back of the Impala shifted sideways a foot before the car began to move. The boys looked at each other and smirked. They'd get in their last bob of the day and cover the first leg of the trip home in one step.

“Old ladies are the best,” Jeremy announced. “They never notice bobbers and they never drive too fast.”

Chris agreed reservedly, “Yeah, but sometimes they drive so slow it's less fun than walking.”

As expected the Impala cruised slowly to a maximum speed of about eight miles an hour. They proceeded north toward the grocery store. Settled in for a dull ride, Chris looked dolefully at Jeremy when the Impala slowed to a crawl in front of the grocery store. He wondered if she was going to just stop in the road.

“Walk up there and tell her the grocer is closed so she can drive a little faster,” Chris joked.

“You're on the driver's side, you tell her.”

They barely had time to laugh before the car accelerated up the wrong side of the road. She was headed toward Highway 2, in the wrong lane! The car was creeping up on speeds that bordered on frightening when Chris yelled, “The railroad tracks! We need to bail.”

They'd long ago guessed that the maximum safe speed for crossing the railroad tracks while bobbing was ten, maybe fifteen miles an hour. Chris calculated their current speed to be approaching twenty. Bobbing was all about the thrill though. They were daredevils and there was no glory in playing it safe. He was considering the possibility of making it across the tracks when Jeremy yelled, “We can do it. Come on.”

He nodded and adjusted his grip on the top of the bumper. Peeking around the side of the car, he looked for the tracks. A tractor trailer was cruising up the highway a good quarter mile away. The old lady would have plenty of time to get to the right side of the road. The tracks were close. He yelled, “Get ready!”

The car thumped lightly over the tracks. Though both boys stumbled lightly, they held on and remained upright. As the adrenalin rush of surviving the possible twenty mile per hour face plant eroded, they looked at each other and burst into laughter. They had defied the odds, beaten their self calculated point of no return and crossed the tracks.

With that hurdle passed, the fact that the woman was heading down the wrong side of the highway didn’t seem like such a big deal. Chris carefully peaked around the back of the car once again. The cold wind and snow stung. Though he could barely open his eyes, he saw the tractor trailer flashing its headlights as it moved over to the shoulder. Thankfully, the car had stopped accelerating once it reached a slightly-terrifying, completely-exhilarating twenty-five or thirty miles per hour.

From the end of Washington Avenue, it was only four blocks until the boys would arrive at their personal highway exit. Chris listened to the silence around him. The crunch of snow under the tires, insistent warning of the truck horn and hiss of his boots on the snow were lost in the rush that enfolded him. Even the freezing cold faded away. He thought to himself, this is the kind of thing church people don’t get to do. I’m not supposed to cross the highway, let alone play on it.

A moment later things turned on their side, literally. The woman, suddenly realizing she was on the wrong side of the road pointed the car across the concrete median. It fishtailed slightly then lurched violently. Chris’s feet hit the curb, his hand slipped and found himself rolling head over heels. Everything went black for an instant. He could hear Jerry yelling. Stunned, he rose with a gasp and realized he was in the highway. Instinct screamed for him to run, which he did, right into the path of a pair of oncoming headlights and the blast of an air horn.

Jeremy, having managed to exit the ride unscathed, watched through the sheets of gray as his friend ran in front of the semi. His mind could barely comprehend what was happening as the trailer tried to pass the truck before the whole rig toppled on its side. It slid the length of a football field. It twisted slowly as it did, trailing boxes from a gaping hole in the trailer. The Impala continued on, driver apparently unaware that anything interesting had happened. He stood mouth agape for a moment, wondering what to do, fighting off his tears.

Jeremy ran the last quarter mile home at a full sprint, falling more times than he could count. He crashed through the front door screaming through the tears that could wait no more, “Dad, help! It’s Chris . . .”

Minutes later, half a dozen fathers from the neighborhood arrived on the scene. Alternating red and blue spots from atop a pair of police cruisers cast a surreal pall on the oddly silent scene. In the wooded area west of the road, flashlights swept back and forth. The only sound was the hiss of flares and the occasional sizzle of cold snow dripping on hot metal.

Chris’s father, Dean, was crunching heavily across the snow at a full sprint having stepped out of the woodside AMC Hornet Wagon before it came to a stop. The truck driver was wrapped in a blanket leaning on the back of the police cruiser talking to a police officer. Dean interrupted, “Where is my son?”

The officer tried to usher him away, saying, “We’re trying to figure out what happened, sir. We think he probably landed in the woods if the truck hit him.”

The driver stood up appearing worried, distraught and perhaps a little defensive. “I did everything I could. He ran right in front of me. I don’t know how I could have avoided him. But I swear, I don’t think I hit him.”

The other fathers jogged toward the police officers searching in the woods. Dean walked toward the big rig, alternating between the most intense anger and sorrow he'd ever felt. He didn’t want to find his son's body in the woods; he'd come to bring him home. Dean found himself praying, “Please let him be alive.”

He approached the front of the enormous truck. While the wreckage seemed to sag like a worn out swing set, up close the cab seemed relatively unscathed. He scanned the front of the bumper with his flashlight, fearing what he might find yet hopeful it would be nothing. The chromed metal was snow splashed and dirty, but there wasn't a smudge on it anywhere. The grill of the truck was equally untouched. Despite resting on the passenger side, the Powerliner cab was practically unscathed. There was no sign that anything or, thankfully anyone, had been struck by the front.

Dean walked around the massive snub nosed cab over engine tractor. The trailer did not escape as cleanly. The quilted, aluminum trailer looked as if someone had taken an enormous can opener to it. The highway behind the accident was littered with fifty feet of frozen food boxes, many of which were in a similar condition to the trailer they had escaped. Among them Dean spotted a boot which he was sure belonged to Chris. Torn with grief, he took a step toward the boot. He was stopped by a tiny whimper.

“Chris!” he shouted. A surge of hope pulled him closer to the truck where he was sure he'd heard it. He spotted a glove between the cab and the trailer. The flashlight beam swept down revealing an arm, a shoulder, a torso and finally his son's disoriented face. He was alive.

Chris fluttered in and out of consciousness finally waking up completely the next day shortly after noon. He found himself propped up in a hospital bed, a tube running from a bag sticking out of his arm. Jeremy was sitting in the chair next to him reading a paperback copy of Jaws. Chris greeted his friend, “Hey.”

Jeremy put down the book. He smiled weakly and returned the greeting, “How do you feel?”

Chris ignored the question asking his own, “Where are my parents?”

“They left after the third time you woke up. They went down to the cafeteria to eat some lunch with your sisters. You want me to get them?”

Chris shook his head and found that he hurt everywhere. It was not that he wasn't thankful for Jeremy's company, but he he felt a little ripped off. Here he was waking up in a sterile white room, with no idea why and his family was off eating lunch? He thought for a moment and pieces began falling back in place. He had been here for a while. He had spoken to them. He was run over by a truck. There was some sort of surgery, his spleen he remembered.

He remembered tears with his mother, father and sisters at the bedside. He remembered visits from half the church congregation it seemed. The number of cards, flowers and stuffed animals in his room indicated there were indeed a lot of visits . . . flowers, stuffed animals? Seriously did they forget he was a boy? Still he was grateful for the thoughts.

“Jer, I got run over by a truck. How am I not dead?”

“Actually the truck fell on you, which is much cooler.” Jeremy replied with a smirk. “You ended up right between the trailer and the cab. The cops said that if the driver hadn't jack-knifed the way he did, you would have been crushed. Instead you ended up just getting pushed along by it I guess.”

“So now I can tell people a truck fell on me and it barely hurt, how tough is that?” Chris joked.

“That's definitely tough.”

Silence encroached on the conversation for a moment as Chris thought about his brush with death. He never expected something like this could happen . . . at least so quickly. He turned back to Jeremy and asked, “Remember when you asked me if I was scared of dying?”

Jeremy nodded.

“I really wasn't. I figured it didn't matter yet, you know? If something happened, there was an accident or whatever, I would just call out for Jesus to save me and I'd be covered. That was my plan. Just have fun until I got older or something went wrong, how long could it take to yell, 'Jesus save me,' right?”

“Except you know what? When I ran in front of that truck I wasn't thinking about Jesus at all. I was thinking was, well . . . I was cussing, not praying. I think maybe I'm not going to spend as much time having fun, Jer. Sorry, but I think I might wanna be a church person from now on.”

Jeremy laughed as he leaned back in the chair, “And what, you don’t think I’m gonna hang out with you anymore cuz you don’t wanna end up in hell? Fat chance moron.”