Holy smokes/talk show hosts, what’s with the trains around here?
Snow was coming down as quick and hard as a judge’s gavel, so my pal Parker and I decided to take advantage and do some sledding. We made our way to Letna park ‘cause we figured there’d be hordes of hills to hurl ourselves down. Turns out we were correct.
We started with a gimpy little f*ucker that could only be conquered with 100% involvement. We weren’t really in the mood for a mission. Wishin’ for more ignition, we petitioned to position ourselves on a more traditional sledding slope. One with some hair on its chest.
“Onward and upward,” I said, clutching my Albert bag filled with phone books.
“What is that?” Parker questioned with a finger point, having taken notice of my load on the subpar hill we started with.
“It’s my sled,” I said.
“Aha…What’s in there?”
I pulled one out just to make sure, “Phone books,” I claimed looking from it to him.
“Haha…ok. What the hell do you need phone books for?”
“Support. Check it out, I put these two side by side and I’ve got a little platform to sit on,” I said as I assembled my makeshift sled and gave it a test sit.
“I think I’m just gonna use trashbags,” he admitted, holding up a roll of black plastic trash bags.
“O…k…,” I said with an exaggerated raise of my eyebrows and volleying eye glance. “Suit yourself. But you’re gonna be burying asterisks(*) in you’re a*ss as I’m floating on a cloud of comfort,” I jested, lightly nudging him in the belly with a phonebook. “…Dyou see what I did there?” I added.
“What do you mean?” he returned looking down at his stomach.
“Well I said you’re gonna be getting asterisks in your a*ss, then I put an * in the word a*ss. So there it is, case and point.”
“You’re weird.”
“Thank you very little,” I heard the birthmark on my chest shout through the layers of clothing I was insulated by.
We climbed to the peak of a pretty impressive hill.
“Alright, this one looks like a winner. So who’s gonna go first?” I asked.
“We could Rochambeau for it.”
“I’m down.”
We participated in a cutthroat game of rock, paper, scissors. Sadly enough his paper mercilessly incapacitated my rock.
“Alright, looks like you’re up,” I said looking down the hill.
“I won,” he returned.
“Ya…” I started, turning in his direction.
“So I get to choose, and I want you to go first.”
“You’re a fu*ckin’ pussy,” I said laughing whilst shaking my head.
“Hey you know what they say-” he began.
“Shhh,” I sounded with my finger pressed tightly against my lip. “I just used that last week…Come on, man,” I finished, having brought my hands up to shoulder-level, upturned to the heavens to match my tilted head.
“Oh, right right. Well anyway, since you’re goin first you’re gonna have to plow through that chunky peanut butter snow… pave it a bit,” he said slowly stroking the imaginary cat at chest level from front to back. “Then when it’s my turn the path’ll be Skippy smooth.”
“Mmmhm,” I mentioned. “You’re still a pussy.”
He made no comment, but instead opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, wagging it like a dogs tail.
I proceeded to work my way down the lengthy hill. It was steep enough, but he was right, there was just too much bumpy snow. There wasn’t a clear enough route for me to build any momentum.
Parker sailed down once I’d gone then I went back for seconds. This time there was a bit more freedom of motion. Halfway down the hill I’d found enough movement for one of my phonebooks to rip right through the bag.
“Fu*ck,” I said looking down at the tattered remains.
Thankfully Parker was gracious enough to let me cash in on his roll of trashbags. On my third run down I had an excellent ride. I got so much speed that I sped right through the thicket of brush and shrubs, at the base of the hill, and launched off a little one meter ledge and into a bank of snow. Just then I heard a loud “Breeeeeeh.” Startled, I looked to my right and saw an intimidatingly tank-like train barreling towards me. Life flashed: accidentally swallowing a bug while riding my bike and nearly retching, ink drenching my hands from a faulty pen, the eyes of a past lover, opening and smelling a sac of primo ganja, then the train was gone. I looked down at the tracks not but 2 meters to my side.
I stood up laughing and brushed the snow that’d piled onto me in my near fatal wipeout. I ran back up the hill whooping. “Man, that was an awesome run…Did you see that sh*it,” I asked Parker as I reached the top of the hill.
“No, what?”
“I almost got annihilated by that f*ucking train,” I said with a heavy breath, due to my excitement and explosion of exercise.
“Really, holy sh*it…Nah, you can’t really see to the bottom of the hill from here,” he explained.
I turned and scoped the view. “Oh, ya. You’re right.” There was a patch of shrubbery and enough of a dropoff to where the bottom was obscured. “That train was like this close to me,” I said expanding my hands nearly as far apart as they would reach.
We each made several more runs eventhough the hill kind of bowled on the sides and the steepth along the rim prevented the sight and sound of an onward headed train to carry to our launch pad. Regardless, the paved path we’d created made the 150 meter roller coaster ride too good to pass up.
My last run down the hill delivered me to a resting point directly on the tracks. I slowly looked around and scrambled back up the hill. Having seen trains pass periodically during our procession we decided to call it quits. We figured fate had been tempted well enough.