Freddogg Off The Chain

His name was Mike Carfagno and he was electrocuted by a sump pump. He was in my fifth grade class and then he wasn’t. Carfagno is the sump pump dead kid from the deepening pool of my stored memories.
There was a sump pump in my basement. I used to stand on the stairs and stare at it. Sump pumps scare me because they’re electric and run in water which all in all seems like a bad idea. I used to dream at night of the sump pump and I wanted to go touch it to prove to myself I wasn’t afraid but then a voice said, ”You’re sleeping on the cat idiot, roll over.”
We remember all kids who die when we are kids. There was a kid in my hometown killed by a window box, a girl in my high school felled by a brain aneurism and the president of my high school class who slipped on a rocky path embedding a sliver of stone in his temple killing him instantly.
That is why we all approach life leerally, if not Timothy Leerally. Our very own houses attack us, cars sometimes blow up for no reason or maybe our very own heads simply leak on the inside like a garden hose and our last words “I feel faint” are gone before we hit the ground.
Yesterday a whacked by a stick field hockey orange ball narrowly missed my skull. Twenty years ago a 12 pound indoor shot was putted just over my head as I walked across the throwing sector.
I do not want to go out getting my head dented by a round hard ball. I do not want to die the way I live like a stupid sports guy who walks in front of deadly orange balls.
In 1977 I was in an alley on a too steep ladder painting an old house when it started to slide from the top and I knew I was going down. I came out from 15 feet high onto a brick sidewalk with a paint bucket in my right hand and a brush in my left. I landed on my feet right in front of this goofy bald headed lawyer who always considered me a brute. I didn’t even splatter any paint.
The lawyer began telling stories about me like I was this bigger than life legend of the fall.
Yesterday I was creakily creeping around under my house with wolf spiders, black snakes and hanging wires looking for an ice maker shut off valve. I am cautious and careless at the same time.
I thought of Carfagno and wondered why I got all these years to crawl around and fall off ladders while he only got 12?
I am never depressed because I always feel lucky and I’ll remain lucky until the day I’m not.

Father Freddogg