Loverboy, XL
Marshall J. Pierce
Copyright 2011 by Marshall J. Pierce
Published at Smashwords
I have been electrocuted 5 times in my life. Once by a lamp when I was 5, once by a record player when I was 6 playing a Disney record, twice by electric fences, and once by an exposed wire sticking out of a restaurant. What’s important is that they all happened before I turned 13, they all hurt, and they were not therapeutically induced. Only the fourth time was my fault – but I feel that the cloud of naiveté in which I floated at that time in my life excuses me from a good portion of the blame.
It was 1982 and I was chubby. My cousins and I were participating in a walkathon to raise money for the summer recreation program that my father ran for our little town. It was hot for a Vermont summer and quite humid and we had gotten very thirsty around the five-mile mark. So Jody, Tim and I, and about 15 other walkers who were more or less assembled in our group, detoured off the dirt road into a stream that ran under the road and into a cow pasture. We all stood in the shallow rushing water, cupping and dipping our hands into it and drinking and talking about how hot it was, and how far we had to go. Someone pointed out the cows, who had the right idea laying cross legged in the shade at edge of the woods on the other side of the pasture. An adult noted the leaves were already changing on some mountain – the usual Vermont topics. I was still hot, I hated my parents for making me do the walkathon, the water tasted weird, and I wanted a swim. I had noticed some rusty barbed wire strung between 2 maple trees on either side of the stream so I took off my shirt, flung it onto a barb, and fell backwards into the deeper part of the stream, splashing just like the Nestea commercials.
Several people heard the splash and looked over. I heartily waved back, knee deep in a sandy bowl at a bend in the stream and fell back again, showing off a Nestea Plunge perfected from weeks spent being the Kid With The Pool’s friend. A few adults clapped, and most of the kids quickly followed suit, throwing their shirts and hats onto the shore and wading in to cool off. Soon after the shore was covered in shirts and shoes and ball caps as one by one adult and child alike was inspired to cool off. A few of the kids I knew from school were even doing the same Nestea splash that I had done. Notably, I was the only one who hung up my shirt up on the wire, and I looked up at it proudly from the impromptu swimming hole, watching it toss slowly in the humid breeze, hanging in space over the water. It was a Loverboy t-shirt, a beloved possession from my first concert the winter before, and I suddenly realized I was the coolest 11 year old on the planet, if chubby. I floated on my back with my feet sticking out like I had seen my dad do so many times, and let my ears sink underwater. As I lay there half submerged I listened to the muffled joyous shouts of the other kids, and that endless prattle of adults talking about nothing – underwater they really did sound like the adults on the Charlie Brown specials. The water was cold and I was in pure heaven.
It was at that point my cousin Tim, who had gotten in the water with his "Life. Be In It" shirt on, splashed me to get my attention. He noted in a hushed conspiratorial voice that if I put my shirt on and got it wet like him and Jody, I would be cooler when I started walking again. Smart kid that Tim, and I was always up for impressing my cousins by being agreeable. So I got up, trudged through the rocky shallows to my shirt waving in the breeze over the little stream, and grabbed the wire to pull it closer. Naturally, I was immediately electrocuted.
I screamed in pain and surprise as an electric charge meant to ward off animals far larger than myself shot through my arm and body and into the water. The group of swimmers and drinkers had swollen to nearly 20 people at this point, and a split second later they were all similarly shocked at exactly the same time. It was sudden pandemonium. Most of the people had no idea why they were experiencing acute pain and shrieked and jumped around and scrambled for the shore. A heavyset lady tried to run, fell and began yelling "help help!" the peaceful scene turned into a mass of chaos. What made it worse was that, for some reason, possibly because my hand muscles had locked in an electrified grip, I was unable to let go of the fence and I pulled and pulled on it trying to get away, screaming in pain, half laughing half crying, and begging for help.
One thing that is slightly odd about me is that I often react to sudden or acute pain with hysterical giggling. It’s a slightly demonic trait that I share with my brother and was inherited from my father, who does the same thing. I recall the first time I saw him do it as clearly as the first time I saw Star Wars. He fell off our little house in Ohio while trying to paint it, nearly breaking his leg in the process, and scraped himself to all hell as the ladder dragged him down the siding. No one saw this happen so he had to unwind himself from the ladder, drag himself into the house and crawl up the stairs with his injured leg bumping behind him. His chest and arms were covered in blood, and his head was now half painted the deep cobalt blue he had chosen. He was giggling uncontrollably, and gasping, using the railing to pull himself up. He saw me at the landing, looking down at him, no doubt very frightened and clutching my Tonka, and he began begging me to get my mother in a strange croaky voice. I remember being very frightened by this, but all I said was