Chapter 13 - Page 175 - Tunnel Vision

   Rhasha reached inside the cutoffs, grabbed the elastic waistband on his briefs, and yanked. “And what do you call this, Jim?” Rhasha asked, laughing.

   “That’s not briefs. That’s my undergarments.”

   “It looks like briefs to me,” Rhasha said.

   “It doesn’t matter,” he replied, “I’m still not taking my pants off.”

They heard snickering and looked around. People sitting on both sides of them had heard every word. While Jim was looking around to see how large their audience was, he caught sight of two boys swinging on a vine-the same teenage boys who swung on the vine at every picnic.

   As Jim watched, one teenager grasped the vine and jumped off the fifteen-foot-high boulder, aiming for another boulder a short distance away that was about the same height. As he swung over the water, the vine snapped. The boy plummeted to a flat rock that lay at water level, fifteen feet below. When he hit, the impact was the same as if he’d been hit by a car going thirty miles per hour.

   Jim jumped up and ran as far as he could along the shore. Rhasha was right behind Jim, crying as she ran. Several other people had already reached the boy before Jim could dive into the pool. The lower boulder lay in about thirty feet of water. The teenage boy had bounced off the rock and slid into the water. Several people, including the boy’s parents, pulled him back onto the rock and laid him on his back.

   As Jim and Rhasha swam to the crowd around the boy, Jim could see both his parents crying. The boy’s face was crushed. It looked as though it had been run through a meat grinder.