on being a generally lucky person

i know there are plenty of luckier people then i, but i have to consider myself one of the dis-proportionately blessed individuals. not that i think it comes from anything religious, because i am pretty much agnostic and don't really have a relationship with any specific higher power . when it comes to spirituality, i have the gut feeling that we are parts of a larger being or consciousness, like the planet, and maybe that consciousness is part of yet a larger one, like the solar system. so on, and so forth. most likely these larger entities are as aware of us as we are of an individual cell of skin on our arm, i.e. not aware at all, just suspicious. kind of like the ending of MIB when the extreme camera pull out reveals that our universe is just part of a set of marbles that some ultra huge alien is playing a game with. i saw that shot and it was as if my gut feeling had just been visualized. i was grateful for that shot, not just because that's the kind of stuff i work on (it was well done from a technical animation perspective), but it was also well done from a theological point of view. at least from MY theological POV.

anyways, back to why i am an unusually lucky person. whether or not i have an angel looking after me, which some people think i do. i have had a large amount of incidents in my life where i really shouldn't have survived. idiotic choices and consequential events that follow, where it's the kind of thing that you might see on an after school special. picture the first five minutes, the setup part, and i am that dumb-ass who becomes the tragedy that sparks off the life lesson. i am the guy who takes it that extra step. like subway surfing or cliff jumping with 15 year old skis that i personally mounted with a rusty screwdriver at settings that would insure they never pop off, even when my leg is about to break.

one of the moments that comes to my mind, is a car "accident" i was involved in up at my friend Half-e's (I am using graffiti aliases and nicknames to protect the guilty) country house when i was about 15. Half-e has, like hundreds of acres of land upstate new york. that land includes several houses attached by dirt roads, and a lake, a swamp, cow fields, bridges, woods, rivers, a sauna house on the lake and any other thing you can imagine in a perfect new England wooded community. picture little red riding hood meets deliverance and bob newhart. one thing that was common up there, was the consistent nature of Half-e's cousins. they were a motley crue of country boys, bored from country living and insane because of it, rowdy car-wrecking loonies. they always threw big ass-kicking parties in one of the houses belonging to Half-e's aunt. they were a few years older then us city kids. their level of raucous was probably a nice match to ours, only it was set in a much more user-friendly, pick-up truck crashing environment. the effect of that, the lack of street peril, was they had even less good sense then we did.

this particular party was extra crazy because the uncle of the cousins (or maybe he was just a much older cousin) had concocted some kind of alcoholic punch that could literally strip a ten year old bong clean of resin. at least that's what he claimed. so, after consuming pitchers of this molasses, my other friend, Lips (he never liked this nickname, but it suited him since it was one of his more characteristic features, not that his lips were really huge. he was a good looking dude, we just liked it because he didn't) decides that we are drunk enough to go outside and wrestle. So, of course, we all agree on a battle royale, what self respecting drunk teen wouldn't? The house we are helping to wreck, is on the side of a steep river bank that drops off steeply about 20 mud covered feet . we decided that the best kind of wrestling, was the kind that involved real risk and topographical consequences, although at the time, it was really because we were plain stupid. so the match was on and immediately i tackled the two of them and all three of us went tumbling, literally head over heels down the wet soil drop off and then came to a painful crash at the bottom in the muddy cold creek. it was almost unremarkable for us at that time in our lives, so many battles, so many riverbanks. we laughed about it and immediately got up and realized we now were forced to climb up the slope to get back to the party. we were like roaches caught in a tub, trying to desperately and very ungracefully to climb out. we'd get to a certain point, all three of us at roughly the same time, and then one would lose traction, and of course we were using each other as stops, which more or less insured that we all fell back down in a newly arranged pile of expletives. the lunacy and overpowering drunkenness made the situation both laughable and out of control. finally, in exhaustion we stopped and realized it wasn't going to happen. we walked downstream and found a less steep way out, which was surprisingly easy. there was no embarrassment since we were at an age that celebrated the anarchy rather then the solution.

now we were covered in mud, which leads us to why the car got involved. we needed to jump into Half-e's lake and wash all the mud (and possible blood) off. the only problem was that the lake was a long walk from the house and it was pitch black out. One of Half-e's cousins country-fried friends was also very needy for a swim. when we got back and announced we were going to the lake, he stood up and claimed that he could commandeer his buddy's car since his buddy was passed out in the hammock in the back and wouldn't miss his Tercel until the morning. So a few minutes later we were outside piling into a beige Toyota. He and his girlfriend got in front and then we piled in the back.

One tradition that had emerged over a few years, was driving to the lake drunk with so many passengers that a rider or two had to use the roof or trunk of the car. Since all of the land and roads were private, we thought nothing of the law, or of the inherent dangers of doing this, only the pure fun factor (or the ingenious jack-assery) of it, and the seemingly logical solution of getting all members of the party from A to B using one small vehicle. So it was to be Lips on the roof since he was busy peeing on the side of the house when we started loading up. I took one look at him, he being a rather accident prone individual of thin stature, and thought that it should actually be me who attempts to ride the roof. a decision that he still thanks me for to this day, decades later. I did have previous experience roof riding after all. When I was a kid we used to ride the family car roof while the car was stationary. this was up in Vermont where i spent most vacations and summers. i'll even admit that sometimes my sister and i did it when it was being driven VERY daintily on our dirt road by my father or older brother. I stress "very daintily" so as not to give anyone the impression that my family is irresponsible. they are very safe and have stated that they would never do these things these days. but in the 70's, there was much less hysteria about car safety and just much less hysteria in general, ESPECIALLY in Vermont. I had never even seen both ends of a seat belt until i was in high school. Our family cars were an assortment of old, huge, tank-like American sedans donated by our patriarch grandfather, who was equally huge and tank-like. He was of pure and sturdy Jewish peasant stock from Russia. I think he probably could have eaten Brezhnev for lunch. His hulking frame wouldn't have fit into anything these days except maybe a suburban or an Esca-bling. His cars were so big and solid that we were once rear ended in Vermont by one of the first Datsun going like 70mph while we were stopped and about to turn . I was 4 and was literally in the middle of climbing over the sofa-like front seat with a book for my mom to read, at the moment of impact i was straddling the seat back. it hardly shook me at all and i didn't even lose my 4 year old balance. the Datsun was totalled, like a soft taco would look after being drop kicked onto the third rail (which i have seen as well). our thick chrome (real chrome) bumper had a slight ding in it. who needed a seat belt? they certainly did, as do all cars after the 60's.

My perfect part-time country/city childhood wasn't my only experience with car roof riding, however. the year before I had volunteered for the same ride, but that time it was an SUV and i had decided to straddle the spare tire on the back, while my friend Zar stood next to me on the bumper. we were having a great time and we were proving how well we could hold on in spite of the drunk driver (Half-e's crazy cousin) trying actively to buck us off by swerving from side to side and putting us in the line of grabby tree limbs and leaves on the side of the dirt road. At some point we must have hit a large rock near the side ditch because there was a large jolt. i managed to hold on. Unfortunately for Zar, he did not.

I will never forget how we were laughing and slapping each other five, when the truck jumped and slowly Zar started to drift backwards, as his grip slipped from the roof rack he was holding on to. it felt to me as if time slowed down like a record player with a cat on it, like all those moments when something momentous or dangerous has happened in my life, it seemed like the end of Die Hard when the bad guy falls off the sky scraper and everything slows down so you can see his eyes bulge as the realization of inevitable death hits him in the span of 10 feet of free fall. only Zar suddenly sped up to light speed at the moment when his ass hit the ground and the red brake lights illuminated, for one brief nano-second, an explosive, flailing, body distorting impact with gravel and rocks. then, just as quickly as the impact, his red lit form disappeared into the pure blackness behind the truck. i had to wail on the roof to get them to stop, and by then we had gone another several hundred feet.

well, i survived that experience, as did Zar. we ran back in the darkness with a flash light and found him. he was limping with a shit eating grin. which was quickly mirrored by us because he had a large dark raspberry scrape under above his lip and below his nose, making him look like a puerto rican Hitler. polaroids and puns ensued for the vague and blurry rest of that evening .

So, with my lifelong experience with riding large moving machinery, coupled with my fortunate ability to slow down town time and think a bit too clearly during catastrophic moments, i decided to veto his decision and climb on top myself. Lips claims that i grabbed his elbow and declared, "I do believe that I have to do this one alone". i believe him now because i like to speak overly dramatic at those moments, as if everything was happening for a reason, like some thing in the future, perhaps a blog. so i waited for the doors to shut before i grabbed either side of the roof with my hands for support (this was possible since the windows were open on the warm summer evening and it was a small car). the car started forward and the breeze started to blow coolly through my hair as the woods all around started to move, creating a flickering effect on the moon that made it through the layers of leaves and branches. it was one of those moments in young life were its as if you are finally starting to inherit the world as your own, that it is yours for the taking, that it has been waiting for you the whole time you spent struggling for control as a child. i was totally uplifted, and the fact that i was somewhat isolated from my friends made it easier for me to hoot loudly and my eyes to tear without even the slightest thought to my all important "coolness". nobody knew what i was seeing or how i was feeling. at least that's how it felt.

I was floating through the woods with a heavy buzz and what seemed to be my very own world sliding by around me. i could here snippets of laughter coming from below inside the car, but i didn't care that was being said because i was on top and above everything. that went on for a few minutes until the lake came into view as we crossed the dam/bridge that led to the hill before the lake house and beach. the hill had a road that went around it gently to the left and the lake was to the right. the car came to a stop right before the turn and was still for a few seconds, i wondered why it stopped and considered jumping off, but figured the guy knew the road as well as i did and might have another reson for stopping. all of a sudden the car starts forward pretty fast. i realize immediately that he is heading straight over the hill for the beach. the only problem with taking that route is the fact that there is a ledge that drops off before the beach that is about 6-8 feet high. this is where time slows down for me, again. my drunken mind is suddenly sharp and alert and i gauge quickly that to jump would put me in a great deal of danger. it would mean trying to push off the roof with my already wide open arms and hoping i can somehow clear the car, and the ledge completely. the chances that i could do that in the half second before the car and i go hurdling into the unkown are immediately ruled out and i commit to riding this broncho bitch all the way to it's conclusion. I hear Half-e shout "no dude! cliff!!", and then "oh shiiiit", and the car drops from under me.

I recall a distinct moment where i considered my life in its entirety and quickly came to the conclusion that it was WAY TOO SHORT. i had the sudden grim awarness of my own inexperience, where a second before that i was sure i knew everything there was to know about life. at that moment the thought in my head was "YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN CHINA YET YOU FUCKTARD!". i was mad at myself. mad that i had made all those small decisions up to that point that gotten me into this ludicrous and possibly fatal situation. but, thankfully there wasn't enough time for me to really beat myself up over it. we were already airborn.

It was very much like the feeling of surfing, when you catch a large wave a bit on the lateside, where your board hangs on the back of the lip as it rolls forward and you get sucked in over the top. it drops ahead of you and all you can do is go loose and hope that when you land the board is under you, and your feet are far enough back that the tip doesn't dive and you can absorb the break and let it push you forward and out in front. only the board was a car, and my feet were actually my ribs as i was laying, splayed out, on the hard top roof.

i am still confused about how the car dropped so much faster then i did. i remember my ecclectic physics teacher Dr. Chuckrow (the one who sewed and wove his own clothes and built his own car, proving just how much smarter and weirder he was then everybody else who had signed up for this crazy thing we call civilized modern society) he had promised me that all things drop at the same rate in a vacuum. i can't image that wind resistance for me was so much greater then it was for the car. yet, magically, and against everyting that i had learned , a space opened up between my body and the car. my hands let go so as to not get yanked at impact and i guess my body took a loose, but totally open and swan-like dive.

i must have done exactly the right thing. if i had tried to put my arms forwad to block the impact i am sure they would have broken or worse. instead, my body came down as gravity took hold, just as the nose of the car made it's initial contact with the earth and reeled back up instantly like a basket ball. the fucker actually bounced! and it's nose bounced BEFORE it's tail bounced making it buck like a wild bull. the nose lurched up towards me, probably doubling the velocitiy that my body struck the roof.

judging by the deep, front heavy, indentation my body made on the car, and the two very prominent spots that must have been my collar bone. i hit chest first and then the rest of me took in most of the weight of the crash. then, of course, the back of the car followed with its own bounce and subsequent sudden stop as drunky pants mcDriver dude slammed the breaks after noticing the ground doing a disappearing act. apparently hitting the breaks very hard (maybe the nose digging about a foot into the earth also helped to suddenly stop the car), so as to launch himself through the windshield up to his chest, and his girlfriend's drink to explode against the glass. she had had her legs up on the dashboard while drinking and had been wedged, ass first, into the space where your feet usually go. i only know all this because the mayhem inside the car was discussed by lips and half-e in the post crash debate. my fate wasn't fully decided at that point. whats really crazy, is that when i bounced up and somersaulted over onto my back and impacted with the hood of the Tercel, in that flash moment when i made my second large indentation on the body of that poor car. i noticed quite clearly, the astonished face of the driver was now outside of the car, poking through a hole in the shattered windshield, and he was looking down at me.

then suddenly i launched forward rapidly, or i should say the car stopped fast and let me continue on my journey off into the pitch black woods. i cleared about 15 feet of soft ferns and ended up coming to a stop in a bunch of large bushes. finally everything was out of momentum and stilness set in. there was a pause while i tried to breathe. i was so winded that i couldn't even inhale. the pain was excrutiating and i was writhing and clutching at the dirt trying to gain my breath back. i heard my friends say "oh shit, where'd Zen2 (that's me) go?!". i couldn't answer. i just lay there in the darkness and thought i was going to die from asphyxiation. but, as luck would have it, i didn't. my breathe came back a minute or so later and they found me, slightly bruised, making a dirt snow angle.

the really ironic thing about that story, is that Lips was the only injured party among us. He busted one of his lips open on the front seat, despite being the only one in a seatbelt. the car's chassey was now roughly the same shape as a banana, making the middle dip down and almost drag on the ground. later that night we tried to convince the driver to hide the evidence by pushing the car into the lake. it was a good thing he had the sense not to listen to us, as the lake wasn't deep enough to hide the car. it would have rolled in a bit and just gotten stuck. seemed like a good idea at the time.

the driver, who's name i have long since forgotten, was so drunk, he passed out in one of the beach chairs and was woken up the next day by the car's owner. i know this because we witnessed it going down from a safe spy spot across the lake, and then jumped in our car and sped off to the safe haven we called NYC in the 80's. Half-e still claims that when the car came to rest after the drop, the driver pulled his head out of the windshield, and after a second goes, "oh fuck, dudes. the windshield!".