One Afternoon

Redwood Estates, a small mountain community off of Highway 17, was conducive to a very interesting and adventurous childhood. The name of my hometown was somewhat misleading: there were countless redwoods, yet very few estates. Highway 17, which I'm told has the highest fatality rate in the state, is a convoluted and serpentine four-lane road through the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Down the street from us lived the Dill brothers. Zach, the older one, was a year younger than me; the younger one, Trevor, was a year younger than my brother. We spent our summers wandering the the forest and discovering abandoned houses that were presumably haunted, albeit haunted with broken glass and decomposing maple leaves. Under my leadership, as the oldest of us four, we skinned many a knee and trespassed on numerous private lots. Oftentimes we would ride our bikes around the dangerous mountain roads, choked with potholes and patrolled by packs of belligerent dogs, who would chase us, barking loudly, as we pedaled to escape their foaming jaws and jagged yellow teeth.

One time Trevor hit a pothole and fell to the road, screaming. The dogs' barking escalated and we thought we had lost Trevor for good. I grabbed a large and club-like pine branch, and with the help of the other two we scared the dogs away long enough for Trevor to remount his bicycle and race home, screaming profanities to the dogs, though he was unscathed save for a bloody shin from the fall.

Trevor had the foulest mouth of any six year old I've met in my life. He knew more obscenities than most kids my age. His favorite word was "shitty." Trevor would catch me off guard with his cussing sometimes, and I cussed more than most kids I knew. He cussed at the dogs as he rode off.

"I'm gonna kill you, you shitty fucks! Fucking bitches!" he screamed. We all paused, perpetually impressed at this precocious kid with a fouler mouth than any of ours. His parents had no idea.

"Shit shit shit! You pieces of shit!" His tears dried as he raced down our street. He spun out in the gravel of our parking pad, which wasn't really a driveway, but just a place to park cars up the hill from our house. We all spun out behind him, sending gravel flying. We had lost the dogs; they were up the street, barking loudly.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Yeah,"   he sniffled in response. Trevor, though crying, was a trooper nonetheless.