Falling Hard

Alongside the property line that connects our lawn and the DNR, vines of concord grapes grew in triangular clusters. Each vine, thin like a shoe lace, intertwined, wove through and around the chicken wire that served as a lattice—scrapes from my grandparents’ coop no doubt.

Jenny and I would gather bunches in our shirts that we cupped next to our bellies as our baskets, staining our shirts polka dot purple. Beside the back wall of the garage, we’d climb the four by four pool deck that someone had also not wanted and given my parents. Swimming season was over, so we used the deck as a fort and a ladder to climb up to the roof of the garage, the only place where you could eat concord grapes.

Straddling the peak, we devoured the grapes. Pinching one after the other, we popped the slimy, tangy green insides into our mouths. Warm sticky juice ran down our fingers and chins. We spit the seeds, always at least two, onto the driveway below along with the tough skin.

One day we got caught by our parents. Mom yelled, “Don’t ya waste those grapes!”

While my father hollered, “What the heck ya trying to do? Break your necks?”

We didn’t care about wasting. We didn’t care about breaking our necks. We ate until our stomachs soured. . . . We wondered what it was like to fly.

It was the only place where we could see the tops of our parent’s heads. Being on the roof, gave us a power we couldn’t get anywhere else.

We kept returning to the roof every chance we got, sometimes to act like we were falling. I’d lay on my belly, hands clasped around a shingle that was peeling back, and ask Jenny if she’d save me. She asked, “Would you save me?”

When we were younger we had no idea what it meant to fall and fall hard.