MARSHALL PARK by Jon Hanks

here's a little short story thingy that's kind of like part 1 in a weird series that's vaguely inspired by Perkins Playground
-i stole all the photos from various websites 'cause i thought it looked wicked naked

Steve never seemed to tire of telling Craig and Jason to stay off the trails and out of the woods.
“You’ll just stick to hanging at the playground and ball field if you little fuckheads know what‘s good for you,“ he had warned them just the day before, jabbing his brittle finger into Craig‘s small chest as he had done it.
But now on this day with Steve’s warning ringing hot in their eleven-year-old ears, the boys were powerless against the forbidden allure of the woods‘ homemade BMX trails. The trails were originally built and established by the older kids in the neighborhood, mostly by Craig’s brother, Steve. Craig and Jason wanted to ride the trails like Steve and his friends had done before them. Steve used to live for riding bikes, but now that he was older, it seemed to them that he was trying to hog the woods all to himself, and it wasn’t to ride BMX. Steve, like most teenagers in the neighborhood were no longer really interested in riding bikes. They used the woods and the old BMX trails as a place to go make out with girls or smoke pot.
Craig knew none of this when he went by Jason’s house to retrieve his friend for the day‘s activities. Jason quickly clambered down the weathered front steps of the split federal that his father rented for the two of them, the springs of the screen door whining in the early summer sunshine.
“Whatup sucka!” Craig greeted his friend. “You ready to rip up these jumps or what?”
“You ready to keep up?” Jason responded as he pulled his bike from his father’s storage shed.
They pedaled hard off the sidewalk, across the street and through the small playground where they had both grown up--in the sandbox as toddlers, in summer at day caps and pick-up games on the cracked basketball court--and now as a jump-off point for their daily boyish mischief.
Craig led the race out across the ragged infield and depleted pitcher’s mound and onto the unkempt grasses that were the outfield, toward the chain link fence that separated the ball field from the overgrown woods and their BMX trails. As they pushed their bikes through the chain link fence and out toward the clearing Jason nearly smashed into his friend’s back. Craig was stopped dead in his tracks and petrified to see Steve and one of his buddies laughing and smoking some weed on a log very close to the clearing.
The younger boys froze, thus far unseen by Steve and his cackling stoned friend.
“Let’s get out of here,” Craig whispered. Jason was already creeping his bike backwards through the fence.
“Damn dude, that was close,” Jason exclaimed when the boys were back out on the ball field.
“No shit huh,” Craig blurted. “My brother would’ve rung my frickin’ neck if he knew I saw him smoking pot!”
“I guess we’re not gonna get to ride those trails today after all,” Jason said as he squinted into the sunshine.
“Yeah, we’ll have to try another day,“ Craig responded pragmatically. “ Let’s ride downtown and check out the flea market or something.”
Jason was truly crestfallen. It had been about a week ago when he and Craig had first tried to ride the trails. They had spent a few afternoons since covertly stomping out a new hole in the fence while ducking Steve and his friends coming in and out of the old one. The younger boys lived their lives in fear of Steve and his buddies, but they resented them more. Even though most of them were now getting their licenses and were able to leave the neighborhood, and even the town, they still hung out in the woods all the time, and didn‘t even ride the trails. Jason truly loved freestyle BMX and he hated the fact that the older kids had quit doing it, yet still monopolized the trails.
The next day the boys met up around noon under the oak tree in front of Craig’s house, its branches allowing as much sunlight to hit the sidewalk below as they would all day. The plan was to get out on the trails while Steve was still at his part-time job at the grocery store, and to be back by the time he was out. Barring one of Steve’s buddies showing up for an early afternoon toke or date, the boys were free and clear to ride the trails for a good chunk of time.
Riding over narrow muddy passages, spring-loaded with jumps and bumps that Steve and his friends had fashioned out of the forest’s gargantuan root systems and fluctuating ground levels, Jason and Craig were both ecstatic. Smiles were permanently plastered on their faces as their small legs whirled them through the gullies and gulches and overgrown mossy jumps and hits.
Hours passed and the sunlight waned.
“Man it’s getting kinda dark,” Craig realized aloud. “I bet my dad’s almost home. Steve too. I should head home for supper.”
“You think I could come over?” Jason asked his friend, expecting the same “sure” that he usually got.
Jason ate at Craig’s house quite often, a fact that was not lost on Craig’s parents who at best had strained relations with Jason’s drunken father.
“I don’t think so man, my mom says that she can’t feed the whole neighborhood all the time. She says your dad should do something for you guys for a change”, Craig blurted through the unfiltered cruelty of a child.
“Oh, okay man. That‘s cool,” Jason reeled. “Well I guess I’m gonna stay back here and ride the trails for awhile more then. I don’t really have to be home at a certain time like you do. My dad’s probably asleep on the couch and he might take me up to Wendy’s later anyway. I’d rather have that than your mom’s food.”
“Whatever dude,” Craig sneered. “I’ll see ya tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” Jason agreed.
And then Craig was gone, headed back the way the boys had come, to have dinner with his family.
Jason was content to have the trails to himself in what was left of the fading daylight. He found a certain confidence in being alone. He allowed himself to whoop and yell as he worked on his jumps and tricks.
He started watching the pros on the X Games at a very young age and it wasn’t long before his dad had gotten him a BMX of his own. The bike soon engulfed the boy’s entire world. He wanted to one day be a pro BMXer like his hero, Ryan Nyquist.
Pedaling down the decrepit, homegrown BMX trails Jason caught air off a large jump and tried to do a tailwhip like Nyquist.
Something was wrong.
In the dark forest evening Jason felt time slow down and almost stop. He felt the gravitational pull of one of the large oak trees calling him out like a noisy alarm clock, distant and unrelenting.
He pictured his father dozing on the couch with only the TV on and Craig and Steve goofing around at the dinner table in their brightly lit kitchen. He pictured his mother-long-since moved away from he and his father. He pictured Ryan Nyquist doing a backflip at the X Games. He pictured a number five with cheese from Wendy‘s, his favorite.
Mid-air, the eleven-year-old boy heaved his bike away from his flailing body and smashed into the ninety-year-old tree, whiplashing his skull against its thick bark, and knocking all the vibrant life out of him nearly instantly.
Jason’s body slumped across the muddy trail. With his bicycle mangled laying beside him, his brain gave out, and he died.