He jumped to free them and misjudged the drive's concrete lip. The ankle shifted just enough to throw him off without buckling and down he went. There was a blast of white pain as the pedal sliced his neck just below the jaw. In the bathroom his father hovered nervously as his mom pushed it around with her fingers. "I think he's gonna need stitches," she said. He still remembers the blue light of the chrome and porcelain world in that bathroom. "You really got yourself good," she said to him, half laughing. "I mean, really." Later kids pointed at him at a ballgame and he felt like Frankenstein. And many years after a girl named Rachel ran her finger along it as they lay under the window, naked and cold. "What's that?" she asked.
"I got it playing Kick the Can," he said.
