I Was a Teenage Crash Dummy

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I Was a Teenage Crash Dummy

At fifty miles per hour and only inches from your face, asphalt appears in soft focus, almost fuzzy, as if Motor Trend had commissioned Hugh Hefner to shoot the centerfold for an upcoming feature on Roads of the West. The reality is quite different, of course, and if your eyes are easily taken in by the illusion, your skin will set you straight regarding the texture of pavement. Eyes, whose only function is to interpret light, are artists and can afford the frivolity of Impressionism, but practical skin, the body’s largest organ and first line of defense against a perpetual onslaught of viruses, bacteria and (sometimes) pavement, is no dreamer.

I made this observation several years ago after being thrown from a motorcycle at high speed. It was a Friday afternoon, and I had just finished another week of blue-collar labor at a factory near Davis, packing plastic bottles into cardboard boxes, eight hours a day, six days a week. When the whistle blew, I scooped up my helmet and sprinted from the plant, motivated by much more than Miller Time: tonight I would have my first date with a woman I had been hopelessly infatuated with since we first met over a dissected frog in high school biology. Little did I know that an event only minutes away would leave me feeling less like Valentino and more like that matchmaking lab specimen than I would have cared to.

I burst out of the plant parking lot and quickly accelerated to 85 miles per hour. As I shot past the plodding cars of coworkers I gestured derisively, intending to communicate salutations as well as my biker’s disdain for their inferior form of transportation, and before they could respond, I was gone. Approaching the intersection th...

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...ver, my skin rushed to inform me of the evening’s physiological events, raising its voice to ensure I heard every detail. Oddly enough, I smiled at the pain, for it is a sensation reserved for only the living. I was happy to be back.

As the doctors predicted, the sensation of having a hot iron pressed against the sole of my foot would eventually fade away, but for years afterwards the hairs on the top of my foot stood at permanent attention. Perhaps they sensed the presence of death that we often forget is a constant companion of life. They too would eventually relax, but my skin has never completely forgiven me for following the advice of my eyes, or for that matter, my doctor. To this day any unexpected touch to my bare foot will send a shiver through my body, reminding me to slow down, pay attention, and enjoy life as it is. Faster is not always better.

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