I Dare You

“I dare you to ride over that gravel pile,” my brother had said.

Being the youngest of three with a pretty large age gap between us, I wasn’t about to back down. Barely able to handle the old Schwin, I made it up one side of the loose chat pile in victory. What happened next is still a mystery to me, still today. The end result was a good scolding from our father, no bicycle riding for three days, and a bad case of road rash down my back and ribs. The only explanation I can come up with was the bike decided that since I rode it to the top, it would ride me to the bottom, and so it did.

As the years marched on I became the victim of more than one dare. Sadly, you would think that I had learned my lesson; wrong! I have done things that my mind may not remember the details, but the scars on my hands and the pain in my joints have a way of jarring the fog from my memory. I was in my late teens, maybe early twenties, when my father bought an electric fence charger. This was a handy item to have on the farm, you know to keep the big critters where they needed to stay. My brother sent another dare flying my way and instead of being the bigger man and walking away, I accepted once again.

“Stick your fingers on the electrodes,” he sneered. “Bet you won’t do it!" was his next well placed barb.

I was young, no excuse I know, but I wasn’t going to allow him to think that I was scared. Truth is, I had no idea what I was about to get hit with. Never a fan of pain, or electricity, I was about to get a lesson. Placing my fingers on the electrodes, I looked him dead in the eye and said, “turn it on!”

He either thought I was crazy, the jury’s still out on that one, or thought it would hurt me, and tried to back out of his dare. Now it was a matter of principal to me and I was going to show him that I was tougher than he thought.

Did you know that knuckles can bend sideways? I have never before, nor since, experienced anything like that. As soon as that switch came on and the battery kicked, sending that small lightning bolt from the atmosphere into the machine, around the windings, and out those two little prongs into my hand I knew that I had made a bad mistake. Pretty sure that’s why I still get twitchy around electrical outlets. I watched as my knuckles folded sideways, my hand contorted, and my arm jerked back, probably saving my life. I was victorious again though, because I had accepted the dare and was able to hobble away with only a few minor twitches.

The dares stopped coming from my brother as I got older, so I started to dare myself. A way of overcoming fears I imagine. I have done some rather dumb things, one of which may have involved hanging a dead opossum on a trucks bumper, just down the street from a local police station. Hey, before you get all judgey, there was alcohol involved. Tried to jump off the front of a canoe once, because in my mind I knew I could make it, don’t recommend doing that. Had a bruise on my taint for a few weeks and sitting was horribly uncomfortable.

My most dangerous dare to myself was to see if I was brave enough to play a game of Cowboy Poker at a local rodeo arena having a Bull Buckout. It’s just what it sounds like too, four idiots sitting in lawn chairs, pretending to play poker, while some demonically possessed bull tries to stomp the stuffing out of said idiots. I had to know, so I signed my name to the list. Should have backed out when they handed me a flack jacket, but I was going to prove a point to myself. I had been told which seat to claim before going out to face this hair covered freight train set on kill.

“You want the chair facing the chutes, that way you can see what the bull is going to do,” my buddy Kevin had said.

“Don’t worry, the bull they use doesn’t have any horns,” my other friend Roland had said.

Well folks, Roland lied and I didn’t get the chair facing the chutes, but I didn’t get the one facing away from them either. Still don’t know what happened to that guy. Anyway, I could see the chutes out of my right eye and nerves of steel I do not have. This cocky little punk was sitting, facing the chutes looking like he was the coolest cat out there, so I made sure to hook my feet around the legs of the chair. The object of the game is to be the last one in the chair. Bravest dummy wins, so to speak.

Boom, the chutes open and here comes this short, Dalmatian looking bull, that wasn’t even interested in the clowns. One of which walked over to the four of us idiots saying, “That one was for us. This one is for you!” and he hopped over the fence and left us there to stare in the cold black eyes of our own fate.

I didn’t hear the chute open, but I saw the red demon, with turned down horns, come out into the arena, looking for the man that insulted his mother. He stopped to asses which idiot looked like the best one to stomp on, ducked his head, and came at us with a speed that was just too fast to comprehend at that moment. The poor fool facing away from him disappeared, as this bovine from Hell tore between us. I knew I was on my back in a split-second and rolled over onto my feet. The cocky fella was gone too, didn’t really care what happened to him, because I was still in here with this maniac.

Safety was right behind me, I just had to hop over the fence and it was over. My friends were at the other end of the arena though and there was a beer vendor there: I knew where I was headed. I took off at a slow jog, stopping to look at the carnage. This was a bad idea. The red demon bull stopped killing whatever he had in front of him and locked eyes with me and I knew that I was in trouble. I saw his head go down and, never a runner, I took off. I wasn’t setting any land speed records that night, but I stayed one step ahead of Satan’s pet as I reached the fence and climbed like my life depended on it, which it did.

When it was over a rather angry looking fella handed me a $100 bill and took the flack jacket back. I had survived and later realized that I had been hit in the knee. That’s why the chair and I flipped over. There was merriment that night and a good story to tell. Would I do it again? Maybe, if I was thirty pounds lighter and twenty years younger. Time really does have a way of slowing you down.

There haven’t been many other things that I have dared myself to overcome, except for catching a snake by hand recently. That’s a story for another time though!