With Help from Friends

With Help from Friends

It was a scorching hot Saturday afternoon in July and my friend Eric and I were about to go swimming and drink some beer. The problem was that we only had enough money for gas to get to the swimming hole of our choosing. Thankfully a group of kids from down the street knew we were going swimming and that it would cost them to ride with us, so they showed up with a gas can just as we were pulling out of the driveway. Eric, while brushing his messy black hair out of his eyes looks at me with a smile and says, "Well hell yeah, now we've got beer money!" We had them fill up my 1989 gray Jeep Cherokee and then had them cram in all the way to the space in the back that acted as a trunk.

This group consisted of five boys, three of which were brothers who all had it pretty rough growing up; they were always wearing dirt covered clothes and seemed as though they hadn't showered for a few days or so. All three of the brothers shared the same features of sandy blonde hair, pointy noses and crooked smiles. Johnny the oldest at fifteen, Levi the youngest at twelve and then there's thirteen year old Chris who stands out because of the burn scar's that are visible on his neck even with shirt on. When he isn't wearing a shirt you can see the scaring covers his entire torso, but oddly enough there are no burns any other place on his body. The other two boys who were new to Eric and I blended in so well with the three brothers they hardly stood out to us. We were all ready for that swimming trip so off we went,

The drive to the pit took about thirty minutes, but on a hot day like this one stuck in that jeep with no a/c made the trip feel a whole lot longer. Everyone was ready to show off their tricks to one another and the talk of it the entire trip pushed our eagerness to the brink of a minor adrenaline rush. We were, after all, heading to a pit with roughly a thirty foot drop on one side and about a forty foot drop on the other side, so naturally it was bound to be a fun filled day for all of us boys. When we finally arrived everyone was so excited to jump off the cliff that before I had even stopped the doors were open and everyone but me was already on foot halfway to the jumping spot on the thirty foot cliff. I remember closing the doors and thinking about reminding them of manners and safety with a firm scolding then I quickly realized that the sun was making my skin fry and I decided to ditch the speech and just get into the nice cool water with my friends.

After a while of doing our usual tricks and our good old contest of who can jump out the farthest, the time came to try out some new tricks. That's when Chris decides it's time to go for a one in and half front flip to a dive, pretty daring for a thirteen year old to perform