Reach for the Sky

The next day, Travis and I had completely re-assembled my Motocross bike, and I was able to begin working on new tricks to show off at the Red Bull X-Fighters; as I considered the ramp, I looked again to Jim DeChamp - trick mastermind - and Travis - trick master - and sighed.

“So you’re sure this one will work? For real? I’m not going to decapitate myself on the ramp?” I asked, thumping my chest protector with a fist out of habit, as if to make sure it was still there.

“Well sure!” Enthusiastic as ever, Travis bounded over to where I sat considering and began to explain what I was about to do one more time. “All you have to do is make sure you’re going to rotate, and let go of the handlebars, swing your feet up over your non-existent fenders and make sure you don’t get your feet caught between your nerf bars and your tires. Oh, and remember your extension, you get more points for that. Game on.”

“Oh man.” Travis had a knack for making things look and sound much easier than they actually were, and in the back of my mind I wondered how many pieces I was about to end up in. Good thing I had become extremely talented at cloaking the doubtful part of my mind over the years, or I never would have hit the thin ramp in third gear.

My rotation was perfect, I just did exactly what Travis had told me not to - got my feet caught between the nerf bars and the tires on the landing, almost rolling both of my ankles.

“Quick, Scottie, get out here and do it again before you realize you’ve just broken your ankles!” The gangly, brown-haired boy called from just outside the pit, as Andy tossed the cable which would pull me out of the blocks of the foam pit. I secured it to the bike first, and watched as the tractor pulled it out.

“Damn, I’m just glad I didn’t land on my head!” I called, as the cable nearly wrenched my arms out of their sockets. “We need to put a seat on that or something,”

Momentarily, I was back on the bike. After a few hours of trying, I finally “stuck” the trick in the foam pit - and after a few more stuck landings (because, as usual, as soon as I got the trick it became nearly impossible to wreck as I had earlier).

“To dirt?”

“To dirt.” I nodded at DeChamp, who did the same in response; I was ready.

Unfortunately, it was nearly never the same flipping from a ramp into a foam pit than flipping from a ramp into dirt. The first attempt was nearly the death of me, I flipped over the handlebars because I had under-rotated the flip and landed on my front tires.

“Whoa, are you alright?” Jolene and Travis were both at my side - my head was reeling and I couldn’t even distinguish who had asked me the stupid question.

“Ugh. Help me up,” Travis picked me up from underneath the armpits, and I groaned as he set me on my feet.

“Are you sure you still want to keep trying?” Jolene asked, looking concerned. “You don’t have to do this,” I shook my head at her and began to make my way to the bike with a hand on my back for support.

I clambered back onto the quad, and started it, riding slowly to where I began the run to the ramp, wondering why it was so difficult to sick the damned trick; it wasn’t like I was trying to land while doing a lazy boy, my hands and feet were back on the handlebars and pegs by the time I was supposed to land, so it should have been easy. Thinking about this, I began to barrel toward the ramp in third gear. I watched the ground rotate underneath me, and sighed as the tires finally hit the ground. Then I went around for round two, which didn’t turn out so well at all. I under-rotated the backflip, and landed too far on my back wheels to be able to save the jump. When the front tires met the ground, I was bucked forward, I hit the dirt face-first and skidded down the landing just ahead of the atv before we both came to a halt - I was pinned underneath the bike.

I didn’t realize the bike had been pulled off of me until Travis was pulling off my helmet and striking my cheeks with an open palm to wake me up. I guess I hadn’t realize I had been knocked out, either.

“Ow, Travis, ow.” I couldn’t speak as loudly as I had wanted to, and there was definitely a hint of coppery blood in my mouth.

“You probably shouldn’t talk just yet, Scottie. Stay still,”

“My shoulder’s out again. Need to pop it back in,”

“I don’t think so. Just stay still, we’re calling the ambulance.” He was gently stroking my hair, and speaking softly; it was then I realized that there was definitely something more wrong with me than a dislocated shoulder. My chest hurt more than usual after such a landing.

“Aw, shit.” And my nose was bleeding into my mouth. Someone (I couldn’t tell who it was by the way he had my head angled in his lap) passed Travis something to blot at the blood which streamed from a cut between my eyes - not my nose. “What did I do?”

“Your back tires hit way too early, so when the front tires hit you were bucked off, and kind of landed on your shoulder and… er, face, really. Thankfully for you, you were wearing a helmet and a chest protector, but I don’t think the chest protector helped you too much. So then the bike smacked you on the back, and I think we definitely need to order you new chest armor.” Ah, Travis. Even when he held a bleeding body in his arms, he still chattered on. With a pained laugh, I tried to go back to sleep, but Travis shook me into awareness again. “Come on Scottie, you gotta stay awake.”

“I don’t wanna, it hurts.”

“Travis, the ambulance is on the way,” Jolene appeared at his shoulder, then vanished with a grimace. Someone had let Achilles out of the house and the dog nudged my hand with a whine; when I lifted my hand to pet him a searing pain shot through my chest.

That time, Travis couldn’t wake me up.

Bright lights blinded me when I finally opened my eyes, and caused me to screw them shut once more. Somewhere nearby, someone called my name, and there was a quiet beeping in rhythm with my heart. I finally opened my eyes and glanced around; faces smiled down at me, falsely calm as if that would help me relax.

“What did I do?” Breathing was painful, speaking even more so - I spoke in a whisper because I couldn’t summon any more.

“Well, we had to dial whine-one-one, they took you in the ‘wha’-mbulance…”

“That’s enough Andy, really.” Jolene whacked her fellow Canadian in the shoulder with a balled fist, which he rubbed at ruefully as Travis explained my situation.

“They say you broke your collarbone and dislocated your shoulder, so they did surgery to put in a plate and pop your shoulder back in. You broke a rib and punctured a lung, they went in and took out the rib and re-inflated your lung. Oh, and you had fluid on your knee, so they drained all that. And they re-aligned your broken nose.” Travis sounded proud of the laundry list; if one crashed and got hurt at the Pastrana Compound, they had to crash hard.

“They took out my rib?” I tried to sit up, but about six sets of hands pushed me back down.

“It was just the last one, don’t worry about it.” Travis’s dad was one of the faces around my head, along with Gregg Godfrey and a grinning Oakley.

“Oaks… what?”

“You’ve been out a few days, Scottie. Plenty of time to drive up to Mary-land.” An attempt to chuckle along with him produced a good bit of pain, and I laid my head back on the pillow.

“When can I ride?” My boy started to open his mouth as if to say something, but dirty looks from those around the bed silenced him, and he plopped down in the chair beside my head.

“The suggested healing time is four weeks of rest, and then two of light activity.”

“So when can I ride?”

“The doctors say six weeks.” Oakley grasped my hand tightly as I frowned, and glanced around at the other people around the bed. Robert and Travis Pastrana both had the same look on their faces - I could ride whenever the hell I wanted to, damn it! - but the remaining people looked like they would tie me to a bed and leave me there if I tried to mount a quad any time in the next few weeks.

“But X-Fighters…”

“Will still be open to you next year.” Was he my best friend or my mother? I shot Oakley a look and sighed.

“What do I have to do to get out of here?” A nurse in the corner told me I would have to walk on my own. “Did anyone bring me clothes?” Jolene produced a backpack from a nearby chair, and began to shoo the boys out as she laid a pair of pants, a t-shirt, one of Travis’s jackets and the necessary undergarments on the foot of the bed. Oakley and Travis set about helping me to sit up - neither left because both had seen me naked before (Oakley had been my unofficial caretaker when I had broken both wrists while my mother was on vacation). Before she would let me get up, Jolene rolled a thick pair of socks over my feet, and looked to the nurse who nodded her approval.

With a grunt, I stood and tested my knee - a bit painful, but I could survive. I took two steps and nearly fell.

“That’s it, get back in the bed!” The nurse and Oakley rounded on me, and I put up my hands in protest.

“Both of my feet are asleep! Give me a God-damned minute!” Speaking didn’t hurt so much in a standing position, I realized, as I swayed gently without anyone’s support. After a minute of balancing on the balls of my feet, I took a step. And then another.

Finally satisfied after I had crossed the room several times, the nurse allowed me to dress (the cool breeze between my legs had only been invigorating for so long) and join the guys in the corridor.