Ian Swenson .com

Getting out of the vehicle, I quickly offered my thanks to Dara. I swung my backpack over one shoulder and closed the door behind me. Still watching my schoolmates, I closed the other backpack strap in the door. I hadn’t noticed what I’d done. Dara hadn’t either. True to her driving style, Dara suddenly peeled rubber.

For a moment, I was flying. Something was wrong. I shouldn’t have been staring into the sky as my feet left the ground. The oddity of my situation did not strike me as quickly as the concrete did. The backpack jerked me onto my left side as I was hauled across the pavement. I was being dragged headfirst by my stepmother’s car.

I must have screamed. Some survival skill buried in my head must have forced a cry from my throat. Had she heard my yelp? Did she see the pointing fingers of the curious and worried students with their heads rapidly turning to gaze at my predicament? I’d like to think it was one of these factors that forced her to stop the Mustang and my asphalt torture. But I have a feeling that she just paused to make the turn out of the parking lot. Shouts from faculty members and students must have clued her to the fact that something was amiss.

Sadly, I cannot know for certain the cause of my rescue, for I was not there at the time. My consciousness had retreated to someplace safe.

When I awoke from oblivion, several paramedics were standing over me. One was cutting into my pants to see if my leg was broken. He didn’t need to cut much; the jeans were already reduced nearly to shreds. He informed me that I had been dragged over two hundred feet. Dara was in tears.

Strangely enough, I felt no pain. Stranger still, I felt no fear. The boy I had always been, as I had gone through life, should have felt fear at something. I should have been afraid about how injured I was. I should have been afraid at what my father would say and do to Dara when he found out what she had done. I should have been afraid of the teasing I was sure to receive upon returning to school. But, for the moment, fear was foreign to me.

But I was mad my jeans were ruined. Those were good jeans! At least I got out school. I rode in an ambulance to the Auburn General Hospital. Dara stayed with me throughout the hospital examinations. I had escaped with minor lacerations across my left side from head to toe. Dara was relieved when she discovered that I had not suffered spinal injury or broken bones. The hospital released me to her care and I was taken home. My father never found out the extent of what had happened.

Two days later, my father dropped me off at school in his minivan. That trip was rather uneventful. Upon seeing my limp and scratched face, my schoolmates cried out, “That’s the kid who got hit by the bus!” It was a uniquely satisfying experience. I was receiving attention and friendship from dozens of classmates who had previously not even known my name, though I had known theirs. My shyness and timidity was rapidly fading away. The experience had vaulted me to the status of celebrity.

But I was not one to accept false adulations. I quickly corrected them on their mistake. “No, I just got dragged by a car.”

“Well then, that makes you the Drag King,” someone shouted. They all shared a laugh with me.

That title, I did earn.

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