When I was seven years old, I got hit by a car.  Eleven years later, I can still remember the black Cadillac racing down the alley way after me.  Maybe saying “hit by a car” isn’t the right way to phrase it.  I was chased down by a car and then run over.  I can still remember clenching my eyes shut and making the face of a person in pain just as the car was about to hit me.  I guess I figured that when they found my dead body, they would know it was painful.  Thankfully, I didn’t die, so sorry to anyone who thought this was a ghost story about a ghost telling a ghost story.  That seems like a good idea for a book, doesn’t it?  If I get time later in life, I’ll write a book like that.

            I remember lying on the pavement with the right side of my body throbbing in pain watching as the Cadillac drove off.  The strange thing was that after it hit me, the car slowed down.  At first, I was confused.  I know I was seven but I also knew I was hit on purpose.  I mean come on, who takes the big Cadillac and turns down an alley that is normally used for walking.  There weren’t driving restrictions against the alley, but I never saw a vehicle pass through there except on the day I was run over.  And then when they made the turn, they saw me, and hit the gas pedal.  As the Cadillac slowly made its way down the rest of the alley, it was forced to stop for a moment until it could pull out into the traffic.  The driver was kind enough to put on their right turn signal.  I guess they didn’t want to cause an accident. 

            The license plate was the one thing that caught my eye:  GGALLOW.  No numbers, just letters.  I began to wonder why someone would try to run me over with such an obvious license plate.  I mean all I had to do was tell the cops and they could run the plate and find the driver of the Cadillac and tell them that it’s not good practice to run over seven year old boys.  At least that’s what I wanted to have happen. 

            What actually happened?  I really don’t remember.  My leg was broke, my arm was broke, I had a mild concussion, and my ear was cut.  It really annoys me because I still have a scar on my ear.  And I’m self conscious about it too.  When I meet someone, I always feel like they are looking at my ear.  Again, maybe the word scar isn’t the right word here.  The tip of my ear, on top, well, it was cut off.  So while my other ear, like everyone else, rounds nicely, my right ear goes up stops, goes straight across, and then back down.  It’s like having a square ear.  The worst part is that each time I get over my self conscious feeling of whether people are really looking at it or not, someone asks me about it.  They call me right out and it leads me to tell them the story about the Cadillac. 

            When I was ten, I was punched by a monkey.  Right in the back of my head; one quick shot that gave me another concussion.  I remember because there is a picture of me standing in front of the monkey cage a few seconds before it leveled me.  I say “it” because I’m not sure if the monkey was male or female.  I hope it was male, but if it was a female monkey, she had one hell of a punching arm.  My mother insisted I get a picture with the monkey.  She made me step over the little wooden fence that was put there to keep people from going too close to the cage.  There was even a sign that asked to not go near the cage.  When I stood there, the monkey hung from the cage, like it was posing.  My mother snapped the shot, and the monkey punched.  I remember stepping forward and falling.  My head hit the fence.  So I had a bruise on the back of my head and my forehead was bleeding.

            Those weren’t the only times in my life that I was hurt; I was hit by a foul ball right in the eye at a baseball game when I was twelve.  I also got kicked in the gut by a horse, bit by a cow, stung by a jellyfish in a very sensitive spot, and was struck by lightning.  Combine all those things and they didn’t hurt half as much as the news I found out a few days ago.  After eighteen years of life, learning, and injury, my mother finally told the man who raised me, Edward Garverson, that he was not my father.  My real father was Garrett Gallowgan, the man who ran me over with his Cadillac.