Clubber

I’m going to tell you the story of the first and last time my oldest brother, Matt, was allowed to watch the neighborhood kids and how my best friend Megan got the nickname Clubber. I say neighborhood but, in reality, I’m talking about a one block radius and three kids total. I used to live in a cul-de-sac with only three homes and lots of room to run around and play. One of my neighbors, Megan, had a back yard that was full of tall Elm trees with thick branches that her parents had used to build two medium sized treehouses connected with a wooden string bridge. This bridge crossed a small creek with lots of unkempt brush around the banks.

Both sets of our parents worked in the summer and our days were usually full of different types of camps. Some were educational, some were art camps, some were sports camps. We rarely got days that didn’t evolve some sort of structured event with loads of supervision. This story comes from one of those unsupervised times. Our normal sitter was sick and needing to go to work our parents left us with my older brother thinking one day wouldn’t hurt. Now, being the rambunctious and energetic children we were, he very quickly got fed up with our antics and sent us out to “find treasure” in the area surrounding the creek. He opened the shed, handed us some toy shovels and a beach bucket, and sent us on our way.

About 30 minutes into our treasure hunt we came across a large object. It was stuck in the ground and no amount of stabbing at the sides with our little plastic shovels would help dislodge it. To show my brother that we weren’t just annoying babies we made the executive decision to go and grab real tools. After all Matt had left the shed open for when we were done. Entering the shed we went right to the side wall where all of my father’s tools were neatly hung against the wall. This shed was also home to all of our lawn games like corn hole, horseshoes, and of course croquet. Assessing our needs in the best way a couple of seven-year old’s can, we realized removing the tools may result in us getting in trouble if one of our parents were to come home early. This meant we needed alternatives.

To the best of my memory, we decide to go full on adventure mode. This meant business. We were going to unearth ruins, an ancient city maybe, even a crystal of mass destruction like they did in Indian Jones. This buried object caught so much of our imaginations that we were sure we were about to get famous as kid archeologists. We got bungie cords, grabbed the croquet mallets, a large tarp to protect the ruins and even brought our buckets of hose water to clean off any artifact we might dig up. 20 or so minutes later we have our base camp set up and are taking turns swinging the couple mallets to displace the dirt around our “hidden city.”

In true elementary school fashion Megan asks for all eyes on her as she takes what is sure to be the biggest and best swing any of us have taken so far. Naturally, I step closer. I’m sure you can tell where this is headed… As I stepped closer Megan wound up. On her back swing the mallet collided with my face. Shattering my eye socket and breaking my nose. I remember stars. A sudden burst of pain and an inability to right myself or focus my eyes on anything. Tears ran into the blood pouring out of my face as Megan raced across the yard screaming for my brother. “Matt!” MATTTT!” each shout getting more and more desperate and ragged.

An important piece of information here: at this time Matt was only about 13 so while he was in charge, he was by no means an adult and when faced with a bleeding, swollen faced child he panicked. Trying his best to be the brave older brother he bandaged by face with toilet paper and the Spongebob bandaids kept in the bathroom. Worrying about how much trouble he would be in he wanted to wait to call our mom. Megan did not like this as she was pretty sure I was dying. So she did the only thing she could think of and called 911. She didn't know our address so she sent the cops to her house. I can only imagine their horror as a sobbing 7 year old covered in someone else's blood came tearing out of my house towards them. After plenty of commotion and repeating that not only was it an accident but my brother didn't do it, and of course immediately calling my mom, I’m being rushed into an emergency room. I can happily report that there were no lasting issues though I did have to undergo reconstructive surgery to reset my eye and nose. Twentyish years later and Clubber hasn't lived down the nickname and our friendship is still going strong. In fact every few years she apologizes for that time she "broke my face."