Riding a bike is my main mode of independent transportation. I think that when I grow up I'm gonna be riding a motorcycle, wearing leather jackets and things like that. But things haven't been exactly smooth sailing with my bikes all the time.
I remember when I was five… or was it four? Hmm… I think I was five. About Lisa's age. Anyway, I was on a tricycle, riding down the street. Mom and Dad told us not to ride in the middle of the street until we're all old enough, but they really didn't say what age is "old enough," so we all were very liberal with that rule. I remember it was Lori on a scooter, Luna on a skateboard, Luan also on a scooter, and Lynn on a bike of her own. Leni and Lucy were with Mom and Dad at the mall. Wait, were they at the mall? Dang, I can't remember. Man, things are starting to slip from me. I do remember that it was a bright, sunny summer day, and oppressively hot, like, ninety degrees or something like that.
Back then, life was definitely simple. Kindergarten was full of joy and merriment, I could nap in class – can't do that nowadays – and my tricycle made me feel free. I didn't get a phone yet, though, but I do remember sometimes borrowing dad's tablet to play games on. Although, I did have to ask someone else to buy something I wanted, and it was a fifty-fifty chance of the proposal getting shot down. I can't really complain though, I was just five.
So, I was on my bike, I had my helmet on. We were coming up on an intersection, and I rode up ahead of my sisters. Lori said something like "Don't ride ahead of us, Lincoln!" Of course, I didn't listen to her. I almost never listen to her anyway. Well, dang, I really should've listened to her this time. I didn't even look both ways, and so when I was in the middle of the intersection, I got hit by a car. Like, bam! It happened really quick, in like, a second or two. It didn't hit me straight on my side, otherwise I would've died. Rather, it clipped me, sort of. Okay, the bumper slammed into my front wheel, and the force of the impact swung me around to where I hit the driver's side door with my body. From what I've been told, the car was going at least forty miles per hour, and the driver was drunk. Anyway, then I slammed down face-first onto the road. I do believe that without the helmet, the force of the impact on either the car or the ground would've just knocked me unconscious outright, or maybe even killed me.
The first thing I did in the immediate aftermath was cry, because I was in such horrible pain, which was coming from my face, my leg, and both of my arms. I cut my tooth in half, and blood was generously dripping out of it, painting some of my face and clothes red. I had gashes all over my right arm, and a few scratches and bruises on my left. Then I saw my leg, where the skin and muscle and tissue was hanging off of it and blood was pouring out of it. I was wearing shorts, so I could see it in all of its brutal glory. Man, thinking about it gives me the shivers.
Bone white is really white.
I freaked out over how I could actually see my leg bone, which made me cry even more. Then I touched it once with my finger because of some macabre curiosity. You know, what does your bone feel like, does it hurt when you touch it? It does, and feeling your actual bone being touched is a really weird feeling, so I cried harder. In all fairness, your leg bone isn't supposed to come in contact with the air, so it just being out in the open was a freaky feeling enough. Me touching it out of curiosity just made things a bit worse. Tears blurred my vision as blood began to paint the steaming-hot blacktop I sat on. A terrible, stinging pain radiated from my face, legs, and my right side and arm. I took awkward, deep breaths, shaky from my shuddering cries. I quickly heard my sisters' cries of concern.
"Oh crap, Lincoln!" yelled Lori. That was the first time I ever heard someone curse.
"Linc!" cried out Luna. She dashed to me, and was the first of my sisters to appear at my side. She wrapped one of her arms around my shoulder, not knowing that it only made me hurt more.
"Oh my God, oh my God!" babbled Luan. I heard her start crying.
"Oh shit… oh fuck…" said a male voice. I glanced in the direction of the voice, and I'll never forget the guy. Tall, around six feet tall. Lanky. White. A slight stubble. He had on a white tank top with gray sweatpants, sneakers, and a Detroit Pistons red and blue cap. "Man, shit, sorry kid…" I didn't know it back then, but based on the smell, he was absolutely wasted.
"Call for help! Lori, call for help!" yelled Luna as she hugged me tight, still ignorant of how painful her grip was. I kept bawling my eyes out as my blood started to stain her clothes. Lori whipped out her smartphone – the same one she uses to this day… I know, right? – and dialed 9-1-1.
"It hurts, it hurts!" I cried out as I just sat there and wept. And then I blacked out for the first time. When I came to, it must've been only a few minutes later, since there was an ambulance, and a couple of police cars. I saw the guy who hit me handcuffed, with one of the cops stuffing something in the guy's mouth. I later found out it was something called a breathalyzer, used to test if someone's legally drunk. The guy was, and they hauled him away after the thing beeped. I was being lifted onto a gurney and wheeled into the ambulance when I blacked out again.
I woke up the next day in a daze, laying on my back in a hospital bed. It was morning from what I could tell by looking out the window. I saw Mom and Dad comforting each other on the far side of the room, but when I uttered my first groan after waking up, they rushed to the bedside. Dad had a full head of hair in these days, but we all knew it was thinning, and he only had a matter of time. Mom looked mostly the same, man she doesn't really seem to age.
"Lincoln!" said Mom. "Oh, thank God you're awake…!" She gently caressed the side of my face, careful not to touch anything that looked like it hurt.
"Are you alright champ?" asked Dad. He and Mom were clearly fighting back tears.
"I'm okay…" I weakly answered. "What happened?"
"You… you got hit by a car," explained Dad slowly. "The man was drinking alcohol and well… he wasn't right in the head. The police took him away. All that matters, though, is that you're okay. You're very much okay, Lincoln…" He wearily smiled at me. As he spoke to me, I saw the sisters that were around back then appear on the opposite side of the bed: Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lynn, and Lucy, who was being held by Lori. They were all in tears, except for Lucy, who was almost stoic aside from the faint look of genuine confusion at what was happening.
"Lincaaaah…" she babbled as she reached out with one of her stubby little baby hands. I, with a lot of effort, met her hand with my own left one (the right one was stiff and sorta aching, so I didn't even try to move it), and she gripped my outstretched index finger. I smiled.
"Oh no," said Leni. "Linky… you broke your tooth." She spotted my chipped tooth with my wide smile. I got concerned and reached for my mouth.
"No, Lincoln, no," said Mom. "The doctor said you shouldn't touch any place that got hurt in the crash. That includes your tooth, the bandages on your arms, your right leg, and your right side. Oh, and you can't eat any solid foods, so no burgers, no sandwiches, no pizza, nothing like that. No really hot or cold things either, so no ice cream." I frowned, almost driven to tears. "Don't worry, though, the doctor also said you can start eating those things in a few weeks, and you can be normal again in a month or two." I looked up at my Mom, and smiled quietly.
A few months after the accident, I was back to riding my tricycle… on the sidewalk. Yeah, Mom and Dad weren't taking any more chances, at least for the time being, when it came to my sisters and me riding. I didn't mind it, though. To this day I get the heebie-jeebies I get near an intersection while I'm riding my bike. I remember when I was riding with Clyde once, this was years later, about a few weeks ago, I saw that guy again. The guy that hit me.
Clyde and I were riding in a park, just hanging out, when we saw him. He was a park maintenance worker, walking around picking up trash with a poker thing and a trash bag in his hands. We made eye contact, where his face just sunk and lost all color. He recognized me in a split second. I rode up to him in my bike, and stopped a short ways away. He stood still.
"Hey, mister," I said.
"Hello," he replied. "Is your name Lincoln Loud?"
"Yeah, you hit me with your car when I was five," I replied bluntly. I wanted to get straight to the point with him, no beating around the bush. I got off my bike, putting out the kickstand to keep it from falling.
"Linc, what're you doing?" asked Clyde.
"I got this," I told my friend. I walked up to the guy who hit me, but he stepped back a bit, looking around nervously, obviously really guilty about what happened all those years ago, and even more ashamed that I'm here to remind him.
"Listen, I've paid my debt to society," he stammered, looking away from me, avoiding eye contact. "I've served time in prison, you know. I'm clean, too. Sober for seven years. Haven't touched a bottle since."
"I know," I told him. I just stood there, thinking about what to do next, whether to yell him down for disfiguring me or not. He forever altered my face. Every time I smile now, I have a big gap in my teeth, a chip. It's led to me getting laughed and pointed at for having a broken smile before. While I've managed to shrug it off, it still stings, deep down, and I just wanna punch the wall – or someone else – sometimes because of it. On the other hand, it's what makes me unique. Well, other than the white hair. It's given me a quirk that I can flaunt and talk about, something that makes me stand out… aside from the hair. (You know, I really gotta figure out why the heck my hair's white as snow.) Plus, I've largely gotten over the accident. I breathed in deeply, and chose what to say. "I just wanted to say that I forgive you. I forgive you for what happened." He was in shock, and looked into my eyes with teary ones himself. I silently hugged him for a few moments, where he didn't really know what to do except drop the poker thing and pat me a few times on the back.
"Th-th-thank you," he stuttered, choking up on his tears.
Then, I let go. "It's getting late, mister," I said. "Time for me and my friend to head home." I got back up on my bike, and Clyde and I rode off into the sunset.
"That was really magnanimous of you, Lincoln," said Clyde, flexing his wider knowledge of grammar. "Why'd you do it?"
"Because I needed to," I answered him. "It wasn't just for him, it was for me too. You can't keep holding onto the bad in your past, blaming other people for it, even if it is their fault. Then you're gonna live your whole life hating everyone and everything for every little thing that happened, and that's not living anymore."
"It's scary how philosophical you are sometimes, dude."
"Eh, I practice in the mirror. Plus I give little lectures like this to myself sometimes. You should do it too, it'd get a load off of Dr. Lopez."
Clyde and I shared a good laugh as we continued riding. Then, we reached an intersection. As we were chuckling, I forgot to look both ways. And then… bam!
Hah! Psych! Nah, I didn't get hit. I was close though, there was this lady who was looking on her phone in a sedan that managed to look up at just the right time to stomp her foot down on the brakes. Her car's bumper barely kissed my right leg. If she didn't brake right then and there, it would've been a rerun of my first accident. At first I screamed out in bloody terror, outstretching my arm to shield myself from impact, my hand slamming down on the hood of the car. Luckily, I only stumbled a bit on my bike and fell on my left side. The incident left me with a few bruises and a scratch on my left elbow.
"Oh my God, Lincoln!" a concerned Clyde yelled. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm good, I'm good! You know, I am not in the mood for looking at my leg bone again, lemme tell you." Clyde nearly keeled over with that statement, me putting that image in his head. I chuckled again. Honestly, though, I am not interested in seeing how white bone white is again.
