Danny Breaks his Coccyx

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I knew nothing about the town of Paeroa other than it was green on a map, and that tomorrow would be an easy hitch into Auckland. Regrettably, that day, Paeroa was hosting its annual gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts. I watched the queue of steaming traffic and felt like crying. Tired, sunburnt and confused, I was at a low point when a small, muscular man called Danny wound down his car window and entered my life. A few months later, when he has made a full recovery, Danny will vow never to do such a stupid thing again.

"You look like you could use a swim, mate."

Bare chested, Danny sits on a beach towel, arms eased up away from the steering wheel. His smile runs from his eye-creases all the way over his shaved head. The car smells of petrol and cigarettes. Danny lights a Malboro, glances at the mirrors and takes a small road off to a place neither of us have been to before: the Karangahake Gorge. A few cars and bikes are parked in a shady grove, and we pull up. The road is deceptively high above the water. We (me and several other jumpers) enjoyed an hour of leaping of the rocks and thumping into the freezing water. There were unspoken rules: wait for your turn, jump high (don't plop) and aim for the white ripple left by the previous jumper. However, amongst us was a showman: Danny was bored.

Danny leapt high, flipped once, twice, and hit the water hard. His head bobbed up to our applause, and he paddled off into the distance. We continued jumping. Each time I surfaced I was aware of Danny scrambling higher up the rocks. We stopped jumping.

Danny towered over us across the gorge, arms outstretched, Christ-like. He leapt high, hung in the air by the sun and plummeted, hitting the water with a crack. His head bobbed up, face screwed in pain. Fuck.

"Fuck!" He screamed. "I hit a fuckin' rock!"

He paddled painfully slowly to the bank, crawled out and vomited noisily. As he began his accent I made an ignorant diagnosis: Danny is walking - climbing, even - therefore hasn't broken his neck. One day this could make a funny story.

As he sat supporting his head in his hands, his vision turned fuzzy. He could see my fingers in front of his face, but on both sides was a black void. He tried to take the keys but I drove him to hospital. He lay on the back seat and told me about all the stupid things he had done in his life. He was on first name terms with the receptionist at the emergency room, who sat me down with a magazine as the groaning Danny was led away. An hour later and a nurse popped her head round the door; Danny wanted to say goodbye to the hitchhiker. In my final memory of Danny he is propped up in a hospital bed, still wrapped (only in my imagination, perhaps) in a wet beach towel. His X-ray showed a shattered coccyx. Danny is an idiot.

http://s7.zetaboards.com/PPooDD/topic/8386089/1

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