Hot Toss Up.

I was sitting around with the boys today, and told the story of this six year old boy who asked me to “throw me like my daddy does.”

It wasn’t a major event. It wasn’t profound. Just a story about a kid I freaked out because I threw him like his daddy did, only a bit higher, and a bit further…

The image of this kid still flies around in my mind so I thought I’d try and share.

I’ve mentioned this before- on my birthday, in fact- and I’ll say it again. I’ve got a lot of natural strength and I’m reasonably big. I surprise people by how strong I am when I’m forced to be strong. Nowadays, my spine is what limits me, and I am careful not to be who I once was, because I want to get old without too many aches and pains; but at one time- say pre-forties- I could squash you or break you or squeeze you until your eyes became marbles on a string.

Somewhere in this period (where I could be strong without fear), a friend asked me if I would help him redo a roof for a lady and her kid. It was sort of a charity job- not much money- but she was nice, he said, and the kid was nice, and it was all for a worthy cause (his penis, honestly) and I said sure and Monday through Thursday we slaved away and roofed and roofed and roofed.

They had a pool. It was summer and it was hot. So while we were up on this hot roof, her kid and his playmates swam and splashed and made life a bit “jealous” for us up on the roof.

We worked late each night and we got to Friday, and the roof was done by 2 o’clock.

Now about that pool…

This kid- this skinny little six year old kid- as precocious as any kid, as thin and bony as a dead bat in an attic- who had lost his father to divorce and apathy- swam with us. He was a cute kid. A bit Harry Potterish. He didn’t wear glasses but you could see them on him. He said words like “indubitably“. He was often picked on by dumb kids and favored by teachers. You could imagine the skinny little rascal with an English accent. This kid… had the temerity to ask me to “throw me like my daddy did.”

“Well Alright…” I said. “Tell me how your daddy threw you.”

“I stand on one of your hands, and you just… throw me.”

“I just throw you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“How far?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Out there in the middle somewheres, I suppose.”

“Well, OK, then,” I said. “Climb on up.”

It took some figuring and explaining and working out, but the little kid and I finally got it figured that I would go under water in a squat, and then he would stand in my right hand, keeping his knees locked (the first attempt he let his knees break and he went almost nowhere) then I would act like a shot-putter and use my shoulders and legs and tricep to launch him into the air (out into the middle somewheres) and he would attain height and stature and joy out of it, as any six year old would.

“OK, then, you ready?” I asked.

“Ready.” he said.

I ducked under water and put out my hand. The little skinny kid climbed on. He put one hand on my shoulder and locked his legs, so that whatever force I could generate would not be soaked up by collapsing knees.

I surged. My legs got him going. We erupted from the water like a missile from a sub. I put all I had into my arm and shoulder. I powered the kid into the air…

Ummm… Way into the air.

The kid was eight or nine feet out of the water. He wasn’t flying into the middle of the pool somewheres. He was flying toward the other end. Forty feet away. He was so shocked by how high he found himself, that he looked back at me in mid-flight. His skinny six year old face said “What The Fuck?!” I remember him actually turning back to look at me. How could you DO this to me was written there as well. In his wrinkled brow and pasty white cheeks that surrounded the “O” his mouth was making.

I started to worry that I may have thrown him too far. That he would hit the other end of the pool. Time slowed down for both of us…

He fell a few feet short of a fractured skull. I breathed a sigh of relief. The skinny kid swam straight to the side of the pool and grabbed the edge like he was hugging a long lost dog. At first he only looked at the pebbled concrete. He was breathing in and out like he had been swimming sprints in the Olympics.

I laughed.

“You wanna do it again?”

“That’s OK,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“Was that how your daddy did it?”

“NO!”

His mother, later, thanked me for playing with her kid.