Michael Douglas starred in a film titled “Falling Down,” in which the only people falling down were those in Douglas’ way as he tried to “go home,” and he whacked them down with his briefcase and a captured baseball bat. But I’ve often said that once a person leaves the age of eight, that person should never again fall down. I’ve openly bragged about not doing so.
I once did a stand-up comedy routine that riffed on the perils of the icy hills of Pittsburgh, Pa., when one slips at the top wearing a full-length leather coat.
“When you slip and fall at the top of a hill wearing a full-length leather coat, you are going to slide 3 miles, straight through the Golden Triangle and into the Ohio river; your so-called ‘friends’ will jump out of the way as you shoot by.” (I can’t remember the exact monologue, but it was Cosby-esque.) The thing is- this never happened to me. I don’t fall.
Ten years ago, I was telling my coworkers about my perilous tiptoe down icy streets to get to work. One young whippersnapper joked that I should be careful.
“You might break a hip,” he said, thinking he had made a joke. I did not laugh.
“I don’t fall down,” I said. Which was a lie, of sorts. I did not then, nor do I now, “fall down” as a matter of course. Which is not to say that I have not fallen.
My friend Nancy remembers a flop I took down the steps that lead to her basement playroom. She claims that I missed a step, tumbled down the flight and popped up, saying, “I did that on purpose!” Apparently, most of my children and all of her children were there. (There might have been moonshine involved, I dunno.)
Nancy’s daughter told me recently that she wished that she could read as many books as I do. I bragged to her that I used to walk to work reading a book.
“How can you do that?”
I told her that I memorize the pattern and hazards of the path. “I just walk and read, and skip over the bumps.”
Which was a true statement, up to the moment I did the cartwheel.
I used to say to people that, “If I think I’m going to fall down, I will just burst into flames and die.” I was not able to execute the “flame on” thing when I did the cartwheel.
I was walking to work, reading a book, skipping over lumps, bumps and chunks of sidewalk, when I took a misstep. I was wearing a black Army-issue trench coat that I had inherited from my brother. When I took this misstep, I immediately passed outside of my body, and saw this:
My trench coat flared out like Batman’s cape and my arms and legs flew out as I executed a magnificent cartwheel onto the grass. I slid a short distance, popped up from the wet grass and held up my hand for “time.” I looked around and pretended that I did not see faces pressed against the windows of the passing bus, and open mouths that may have been laughing. I picked up my book, scraped the grass from my coat, and slunk toward my job.
I’ve put that aberration out of my mind, but winter’s breath is in the air these nights, exhaling the prospect of ice. When my world includes ice, I break out an extra ration of caution; I am too cool to slide, and I will do no falling down.
cjon3acd@att.net