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After: Chicken


Ashley

When he was a kid, Nick's uncle liked to share stories about his time serving in the army in Vietnam. It's because of this uncle that Nick and I became friends. Let me explain. See, this uncle told Nick about a little game he and his buddies back in 'nam used to play when they got bored out in the foxholes. This game was called Chicken. And for those of you who don't know Chicken, the basic rule of the game is this: throw a dagger at your best friend's foot and the person who gets the closest without actually stabbing the other person's foot, wins. Nick decided this was one hell of a cool game and came to school the next day with a pair of Crayola safety guard scissors and a plan. He wanted to become the ultimate Chicken champion.

I just know you're laughing at this right now, but I swear it's going somewhere.

So here's the picture for you to imagine: Six year old Nick with his neon screen safety guard scissors stands in the center of the playground riff raff and asks, in as deep a baritone voice as a six year old can possibly have, imitating the voice and tone of his uncle, "Which one of you Dogfaces wants to take me on?"

See, this is what his uncle claimed to have asked.

All the other kids backed away. But me, well, I didn't have much to lose and I was very much a tomboy and I thought Nick was cute, so it was like, well duh I'm gonna do this - challenge accepted, you know? So I stepped up.

Nick looked at me skeptically, "You're a girl," he said dismissively.

"I can beat you," I challenged.

And it was on. We competed until it was quite clear we'd never settle the game of Chicken using Nick's safety scissors, which wouldn't even stab through the grass, not to mention each other's feet (this became apparent after the moment when Nick should've lost the first time when he hit my sneaker and the scissors bounced off). The first day was a draw, but we agreed to play until one of the two of us lost. And it went on for days. Indian burns, noogies, punches, slaps, pinches. You name it.

Nobody ever won. It was just this on going game that went on and on and on and on and -- actually, every now and then, we still play it.

Which is what I thought of as I paced up and down Nick's living room, my stomach churning and my brain working double time to figure out where he was. Maybe, I thought, in a slightly irrational sounding mental voice, maybe he was playing some kind of crazy ass game. A ploy to make me freak out and lose at Chicken. Maybe, even as I paced back and forth in the living room, Nick was hiding out somewhere, watching, laughing his ass off, just waiting for the moment to declare our 27-year battle a win in his favor.

I turned to look at Chris, who was zoning out on the couch with a bottle of beer in his hand, the TV flickering news stories at him.

I rushed over and stood between him and the TV. He leaned trying to see around me. I moved. He leaned the other way. I moved again. "Chris," I said, "He isn't here. Right?"

Chris waved at me to move out of his way, "What?"

"Nick," I replied, bouncing foot-to-foot, trying specifically to stay IN his way, to keep his attention on me. "You're not like helping him pull off a prank?"

Chris didn't focus on me, though. He just kept trying to lean around me to see the stupid news.

"Whatever he's paying you to keep your mouth shut about this prank," I said desperately, "I'll pay you twice that."

Chris raised one eyebrow.

"I have powers," I said, "I can help you get hooked up with almost any girl. Just ask Nick. My powers are great." I sounded like a wicked witch in a woodland hut trying to seduce the tinman into surrendering Dorothy.

Chris' second eyebrow went up.

"We can turn this on him," I said, "Get him back for all the times he's been a giant prick."

His eyes went wide, jaw a little slack.

"All you have to do is tell me where Nick is."

"THERE!" Chris pointed, his hand flying forward, his finger aimed directly at me... but slightly to the left... beyond me. I turned slowly, and my eyes landed on the TV.

I screamed.

If Nick was playing Chicken.... he had most definitely just won.




Nick

I struggled against the restraints that held me into the seat for what felt like forever, though I was told later that it was actually only a couple of moments. I thought I'd been there for days by later guesstimations I made, but I found out it was really less than an hour that it took them to get to me, only about 50 minutes, in fact.

It was 50 minutes that changed my life.

One moment, I was a thirty-almost-three year old playboy with a bright red tie around my neck with a voicemail on my phone about a memorial service I felt obligated to attend, about to order the hell out of the vodka on the in-flight menu... and the next...

It started with the ding of the seatbelt light. The flight attendant was gorgeous, and I turned to make a dirty comment to Ashley and -- she wasn't there. I reached for my buckle, to undo it, and my light pinged, and an attendant was there telling me to put my seatbelt back on until after we'd reached altitude, and the plane moved across the tarmac. I clicked my buckle as she went back to her preflight checks and closing compartments, and I sat there, wondering where the hell I'd been about to go, what I'd been about to do. And the pilot announced that the runway was clear, and the plane's wheels groaned as they moved across the tarmac, picking up speed with every second, and the plane started to launch itself into the air, that almost weightless feeling pulling down on my stomach as it left the ground...

And well, like I said. Everything changed.

Because that weightless? It feeling stuttered. It shook.

But then, there was a terrible sound. The ripping of metal, the choke of an engine.

And it gave out.

And those next 50 minutes from that moment - when my world literally went crashing down - those were the minutes that changed everything.

Especially the first few minutes.

Those are the ones that I spent... well, you know. Dead.