I learned something that day (ok, other than don’t run head-first into a freakin’ flagpole!).
Sometimes the people you want most to pick you up in life, instead, leave you lying prostrate on the ground. But sometimes, at least if you’re lucky enough to have heroes like mine, they lift you up and carry you away to safety. Even in my groggy state, I was starting to understand the power of This Island.
By the way, as I remember it, it was a touchdown.
JimmyRocketBabyKid!
The resident doctor on the island, Dr. Miller, a gastroenterologist by specialty, came to our cottage to check me out. I was in bed with an ice pack. Upon brief examination he rattled off a litany of metaphors such as, “That really rang his bell” and “quite the goose egg you’ve got there” while he had me follow his overly thick, slightly yellowed finger (explaining the pack of Camels in his shirt pocket), which was moving nauseatingly around in loops and circles for several minutes, before proclaiming in a loud confident voice, that I’d be: “on the disabled list” for a while, but “as good as new” and “back in action” in a few days. Which I was. At least, my head was—my ego not nearly as much.
Funny thing, the older kids acted like I had won the game or something and from that point forward included me in all their sporting events, football, softball, frisbee games, whatever, much to the envy of my peers. I felt like a king!
Chapter 8
Run
For weeks I lived the good life on Mashnee, feeling much older than my ten years and allowed to do so much more than when I was home. Everything was laid-back and easy-breezy. I would start each day before most were up with a long morning run, usually entailing two laps around Mashnee (I was now familiar with every street.) then up and down the dike. The narrow causeway dredged by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers was leased to Mashnee, simultaneously separating Phinney’s Harbor from the Cape Cod Canal and connecting Mashnee Island to the Gray Gables mainland. The round-trip was about 3 miles, and even though my parents had set my outer boundary as Hog Island, I’d run the full dike’s distance to Gray Gables.
Running was my thing. My talent. I mainly ran because I genuinely enjoyed the solitude and calmness of my surroundings, passing Mashnee, Hog Island, Phinney’s Harbor and the Cape Cod Canal all cast in a silhouette of damp morning fog. And I ran because, well, I was fast. Very fast. It was what I was good at, and on one particular trip, I damn sure had to be.
It was 6:30 a.m. on a foggy Monday morning, sadly, less than one week before we would have to check out, and I was preparing for my usual morning run, having gained familiarity with most of Mashnee’s nooks and crannies.
I awoke, grabbed my shorts, t-shirt, underwear, and Chuck Taylor Converse low-top sneakers, and tiptoed into the knotty-pine den to get dressed. As was my routine, I sat at the kitchen table and wolfed down a bowl of Frosted Flakes, having added a slightly overripe banana, sliced into quarter-sized pieces. I left through the side door, trying in vain to avoid the audible squawk of the hinges, and off I went. It was particularly wet and foggy, which by Mashnee standards meant pea soup. I immediately regretted my choice of apparel, the weather dictating long sleeves and a windbreaker, but hey, I was young and stupid, so it goes with the territory.
I jogged easily past the first few cottages then steadily increased my pace. I did my two laps around the island’s circumference. Then I headed up the dike, a narrow two-way causeway made even narrower by sand constantly drifting onto the road, and lined on both sides by a series of large rocks intent upon discouraging parking. It had a partial opening at Hog Island, allowing “authorized vehicles only” (We thought that meant us!) access via a gravel road running through the center of the US Army Corps of Engineers owned, uninhabited island (and a natural haven for skunks come nightfall).
I was still somewhat wet, but running at a good clip and hugging the edge of the road, when I first heard, then saw, an obviously souped-up lime green sports car, roaring its way in my direction, fishtailing on the freshly slick road as it went. This didn’t look right. I quickly scooted well off the road in time to see crazy Eddie O’Connor, wide eyed behind the wheel of his easily recognizable jacked-up, Plymouth Roadrunner, accompanied by a blonde, female blur of a passenger as he whizzed by too fast, clipping the edge of a large rock at the road’s edge. And in surreal super-slow-motion, the car flipped in the air, rolled over twice, then slid to a horrific halt, high up on the scruffy beach. For a long moment I was paralyzed, frozen in shock and disbelief. Did that just really happen? Impossible. I couldn’t have seen what I just saw. Then the screams started. High Pitched. Blood-Curdling. SCREAMS!
Man, did I race!
I do not remember my feet touching the ground, but I was sprinting closer and closer to a real mess. A smoking mess. First, the car was on its roof. Second, I smelled oil. Or was it gas? Shit, is that something I’m supposed to know? Third, although somehow alive and out of the wreckage, Eddie was rolling on the ground with his hands clasped over his head. I had no clue what he was saying, but I saw blood. Fourth, it looked bad. Really, really bad.
Much worse, a justifiably hysterical, blonde teenage girl, one whom I vaguely recognized from the island, had been jettisoned from the car (nobody wore seatbelts back then) as it was rolling, and managed to get her right leg caught between the rear bumper and a large, protruding boulder.
There was blood everywhere, and I felt sick. Eddie still lay there rolling around, and there was nobody to help. The girl kept screaming. My brain was firing away salvos…
Get help!
Where’s the closest phone?
Closest phone!
Think!
Gray Gables?
Mashnee?
Mashnee, yeah definitely Mashnee!
In all the panic and confusion of the moment, I had a thought, one which surely stemmed from watching all those episodes of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins. I rushed to the girl, removed the laces from my sneakers, and forced my trembling hands to somehow thread them above her mangled wound. I had to block out her cries, which competed with my thundering heartbeats, and concentrate like I’d never concentrated before.
I managed to tie the laces tight just above her knee; I gave them a good yank, which was met with more deafening screams. I quickly wrestled off my soaking t-shirt, a victim of my sweat or the morning’s residue, and wrapped that in the general direction of the blood source.
Still no cars! No neighbors charging to the rescue! No boaters coming ashore! No fisherman hightailing it from Hog Island. Nobody. Nada. Not a freakin’ soul!
Tears of fear ran down my face as I circled over to Eddie, ushering him farther away from the car. He seemed to be in shock, and his head was bleeding. It needed to be stopped.
Fuck, it! I yanked off my running shorts and used them as a compress against his wound as he babbled on about what had happened. Something about a tire blowing out, which, judging by how far one tire had traveled from the rest of the vehicle, could definitely have been the case. Not that it mattered at the moment.
I was trying to think of what to do next (Where are the damned cars?!), when a glassy-eyed Eddie, now stumbling toward his panicking girlfriend, started to smell gasoline, as did I. Eyes wide, he looked over at me and shouted one single word, putting my body into immediate motion, “RUN!”
Now in bare feet and wearing nothing but my boxer shorts, the humiliation of which was not lost on me, I tore off toward Mashnee Island like a freakin’ missile.
At first I only thought about running faster than I’d ever run before. I thought about pumping my legs so fast that my body was simply along for the ride. I thought about the tall blades of seagrass lining the causeway, that were now all a blur. I thought about not tripping, not stumbling. My legs siphoned extra oxygen from my furiously racing heart as my feet gripped the wet pavement firing forward. Still. No. Cars! Come on somebody, pass me!
Then I allowed myself to think about that poor girl and the grotesque vision of her leg. What if she loses it? What if I’m too late? What if I messed up? What if she dies? I’m just a kid; this can’t be happening!
But it was.
As I came closer to the island and realized it would be too early to seek help at The Club, my thoughts started to crystalize—Dr. Miller, the doctor who took care of my head. I sort of knew where his house was, but... WAIT... I DID KNOW! It had blue shutters and a white picket fence. He’d know what to do!
Now with a clear target in mind, I disconnected my legs from the rest of my body and set them free. I blew through Mashnee like a hurricane, pleased with myself for remembering exactly which house the doctor lived in, and in short order, I was streaking up his front lawn, shouting like a banshee.
Although the screen door was shut, the main door was open, and without a second thought, I blasted straight into the house, nearly colliding with the doctor’s wife as she was attempting to answer the door. I blurted out a quick version of the horrific events; car flipped, the girl’s legs stuck and really hurt, cut head, pungent smell of oil, need help, all told while still panicked and hyperventilating. The doctor was right behind her.
“Margaret,” the doctor stated in a calm but firm manner, “Call Bourne Fire and Ambulance, STAT.” He grabbed a small red-cross-embroidered duffle bag, and said, “Son, you come with me; show me where the wreck is.”
