I’m sixteen years old living in the suburbs of Chicago. A blizzard’s howling out there. Snow’s blowing sideways. It’s nighttime, 10 degrees. And we just learned there’s no school tomorrow: Snow Day! My “friend” Bullet’s dad has a Bronco. Fast Eddy has some weed, and a thermos filled hot chocolate and peppermint schnaps. And my family has a ten-person toboggan. My judgement is wobbly at best. I usually just listen to the loudest voice in the room. And it’s the 70’s which means our parents have no idea where we are or what we’re doing!  …We’re heading out!

The toboggan’s sticking out the passenger’s window cause it’s way too long to fit in the car. Because I called shotgun, I’m in the front seat, so I’m not bothered by the snow blowing in through window. Bullet can’t see a thing cause it’s a white-out. He tries bright lights, fog lights. Nothing helps. And the toboggan’s undulating in the wind and we’re the only ones on the road in the entire universe …

We start our night with some skitching… (for you Californians, that’s when you cling to a car’s bumper and ski in your boots across icy roads). Fast Eddy and I grit our teeth like characters from Mad Max… or Jackass. We latch on, and soon there’s sparks are shooting out the heels of our boots. Not really, but it feels that way. Then Bullet tries to shake us; he finds a cul-de-sac and starts whipping around it, officially inventing the Chicago-style sideshow…

But Bullet can’t shake us until he loses control. His Bronco slams into a snowbank, and so do we. Watch two ragdolls get launched to the heavens, arms and legs flailing. We land in a snowbank, laughing our asses off… An adult comes out of his house, so we pile back into the Bronco and hightail it out of there…

…Next up: Flick Park, where we gotta use teamwork to drag the toboggan to the top of the hill. But crashing through a mountain of powdered sugar at 100 miles an hour makes it all worthwhile.  After a few runs our fingers are frozen. We don’t care. We invent “toboggan bowling,” and one of us becomes the bowling pin, but the toboggan’s hard to maneuver. It’s too easy to jump out of the way.

                  So we call it a night before frost bite sets in. I call, “Same seats!” We slide the toboggan through the open window, crank the heat, and finish off the schnapps. Bullet’s barreling through the blizzard and we’re all stomping and singing to Freddy Mercury’s new song: We will, we will rock you!  … And then, we hear this deep thud that’s not a part of the song… And I know the toboggan hit something, cause I feel the impact move through my body.

I turn off the radio, but Bullet keeps driving. He says, “I ain’t stopping. It was prolly a mailbox.” Prolly?! And I realize… this isn’t a game anymore. We’re not toboggan bowling. And something stirs inside me, and I shout, “STOP THE FUCKING CAR.” And I wonder… who took control of my vocal cords.  Miraculously, Bullet listens. He runs his fingers through his thick black hair and says, “You know, if we did hit a human, things could get ugly.”

From the back seat, Fast Eddy says, “If we hit a human, we can’t leave ‘em out there to freeze to death…” Because of the toboggan, I gotta climb into the backseat before sliding out of the car with Fast Eddy. Bullet makes like he’s gonna drive away and leave us, but we don’t react. We plod through the storm… terrified of what we might find. And I know it’s one of those pivotal moments that can change the lives of so many people… forever. But we can’t walk away, and we can’t drive away. Like the game of Jumanji, we gotta keep on playing. I’m not a religious guy, but I’m praying to God we don’t find a dead body.

A hundred yards down the road, we see a 20-year-old dude, sitting up on a snowbank, blood’s out coming of his nose, but nothing bad! He’s slurring his words, but that’s cause he’s drunk. We offer him a ride, but his friend lives close by. No need. All good. Then, he says he’s lucky he was wearing so many layers: “Extra padding!”

What?! This guy thinks he’s lucky cause he got smacked by a toboggan in the middle of a snowstorm… and didn’t die. Bullet says he’s lucky the police were never called. And I feel… unsettled. The thud of the toboggan caused this new identity to bloom… It was demanding I do the right thing… and reconsider who I called a friend.