He was a little more than a block from his house when he was goaded into a dead run by her relentless pursuit. At the home-stretch he carried out an innate lunge onto the front porch of his house, but success turned to defeat when he realized it was hopeless to thwart the forward momentum propelling his body. His stars were aligned at that moment, pubescent neurons sparked, and he converted a straight jump drilled into his brain from seventh grade P.E. into a rolling front flip. Airborne, he congratulated himself…

Pretty damn good!

...being confident he’d land sure-footed on his porch. But he had under-estimated gravity: his tattered kicks never touched the ground and he crash-dove onto his doormat in a lump. Then, scrambling to his feet, sweat dripping off his face and trickling down his back, he turned the knob, hurried inside, slammed the door and locked it. Pressing his back against the door to reinforce it, and because it felt good, he gasped for breath. After several beats, his weight shifted and his backpack slid from his shoulders and onto the floor. Two seconds later, on a puddle of sweat, he lost his balance, slipped, and his 67-inch tall, 123 pound body came to rest on top of it all, his knees forked over his head in comic repose.

Am I hurt? Nah…but damn….

This type of return trip home was outlandish for him except for one specific afternoon when he was in sixth grade. He had sucker-punched Boris Decker and found himself making a not-quite-but-similar bee-line for the same front door...though that match-up, even through piles of snow and over slippery ice, had been a less desperate, much less foolhardy contest.

Neurons in his fifteen year-old brain triggered again and passed along information to his bruised ego that he had never hauled ass quite like this before. He had never had to: Decker knew his house number.