Soup Bowl

The winter wind sliced across the icy slope. A night of freezing sleet had left the entirety of the steep descent as clean and slick as a frozen pond. The big kids sledding hill was a clean shot down and out into an empty parking lot where a single frozen car sat encased in ice. We would have never dared to venture up here but, somehow, we had it to ourselves that morning. The only splash of color in the wintery landscape was the solitary silhouette of a lone fire hydrant far off to the left at the bottom of the descent. A tiny crimson sentinel pinned to the base of the hill, it stood rooted as a grounding symbol of societal order, municipal planning, and other meaningless things that held no significance in a child’s world.

There were five of us, six counting JJ, but he didn’t count, he was only 5. We had never been up here before and we had to hurry, big kids could show up any minute and kick us back down the ridge to where the slope was gentler - back where we belonged. It was determined that JJ would go down first, to test the speed. We reasoned that he was lighter and would therefore not go as fast. Also, we were cowards. Sending the smallest and weakest member of the group first into any perceived danger was a time-honored tradition among 7 year olds and we saw no reason to break from convention now. He could protest, of course, but his fate was already sealed. This was just the cost of tagging along with your older brother. JJ was given strict instructions to hold onto the sled, not to turn, and not to bail out for any reason. He was totally safe as long as he stayed in the sled - nothing could go wrong.

We all knew immediately that something had gone wrong. We had given him a good push (in retrospect totally unnecessary) and he should have sped straight down the hill and come to a stop way out in the empty parking lot. A fast and terrifying descent but totally safe - we had seen the big kids do it many times. Instead, from the moment the padded loft of JJ’s winter coat had separated from our mittened hands the little sled seemed inexorably drawn toward some alternate destiny. He instantly careened off to the left, as if the earth had momentarily tilted slightly on its axis, bowing to the will of some unseen cosmic force.

The 7 year old mind is capable of incredible things. It can take in vast amounts of information, speed, altitude, pitch, velocity, friction, acceleration and, in an instant, calculate a single inescapable conclusion. The 7 year old mind can calculate all of this and then go completely blank. We watched in silent horror as the molded plastic lines of the little red sled careened down the slope, intent on obeying the unseen arc of some predetermined fate. All the while, JJ sat unmoving, like a doomed cosmonaut drawn toward the overwhelming gravity of a black hole, resolute in his fate, with no possibility of escaping complete and utter annihilation.

When he hit the fire hydrant there was no sound, just the slight sense of a vibration that rolled up the hill and came through the bottoms of our boots. He had made no attempt to turn or bail out. He hadn’t even cried out or tried to shield himself from the impact. The collision had been straight on. An arm and a leg splayed to either side of the hydrant with the plastic form of the sled rocketing instantly backward. The effect had been reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons - narratives that informed a great deal of our understanding of the world but were very rarely ever actually witnessed in real life.

He was surely dead. The crumpled form of Joseph James the 3rd lay motionless at the base of the hydrant. Not a word was uttered as the enormity of what we had done dawned upon us. We had sent JJ to his death. The silence was broken by a high pitched wail that seemed to build in strength and volume as it rose up the hill. It built to a crescendo, as if little lungs from where it originated were running a systems check on their full capacity after being momentarily deprived of their function. We ran down the hill toward the now stirring form, bracing for the massacre that would surely greet us at the bottom.

When we got back to the house both JJ and his older brother went in first. They told their mother that JJ had slipped on the ice and fell on his face. JJ stuck to the script and she didn’t ask too many questions. It was the 80’s and parents never seemed too curious about injuries as long as there was no trip to the hospital. She invited us all in for lunch. She served homemade chicken soup in mismatched bowls. My bowl reminded me of this one. JJ had a pack of frozen peas over the left side of his face, which had swollen to an alarming size. Aside from that, and a few deep scratches below his eye, he seemed remarkably unscathed. He ate down his soup with a big grin, no doubt fueled by the fact that, somehow, he still had all his teeth and, more importantly, he didn’t rat us out. JJ was the only one of us that ever went down that hill. That’s why we made this bowl. A beautiful object hand-crafted with care and a healthy dose of nostalgia. This is for you JJ, you were the best of us.