If Trampolines Could Sneer

They made it look so easy, those happy neighborhood children in the local rich kid's backyard. It's called a trampoline, this device upon which they gleefully bounced - Latigo Flint has seen them before in the picture books and on the television.

And Latigo Flint desperately wanted a turn!

I carefully observed them with my keen, squinty-eyes. They had to be using some sort of structured selection protocol to determine who got to bounce next. Ah yes - It didn't take me long to ascertain what it was.

"I call nexts!!!" I bellowed, vaulting the fence and crashing through the hedge. I shoved my way through the crowd of surprised children and placed a possessive hand on the stretched black mesh. "Nexts! I got nexts!" The selection process was obviously two tiered - you "call" from afar, but must affirm it verbally as well as physically. If you are unchallenged at this point, the next turn is yours.

(Actually it's not unlike the method of selecting a prostitute in Dodge City in the late 1870s. William B. "Bat" Masterson would have been proud.)

I strode confidently to the center of the mat and took a couple exploratory hops. The fabric undulated powerfully beneath my boots. My word, it was an elegant force, so yielding yet so explosively repercussive. I launched into a series of mighty bounds. Something about the fourth jump seemed a little off. When I landed on my face, my spurs managed to embed themselves in the back of my head.

The children started shrieking and in the distance I heard an urgent door slam. I paid no mind, I had just been completely weightless! What glorious devices, these trampolines. Unable to stifle a giddy laugh I staggered to my feet. I made it to five this time, each one successively higher. Then the sky lurched and I crashed to the mat like a screaming pretzel. Most of my limp body tried to rebound, but the toe of my left boot snagged in the springs and I was flung in a vicious arc into the side of the garage.

In a stumbling run I charged the trampoline. A device hadn't fallen in my esteem so rapidly since my loom exploded. In a blind fury I attacked the vile mesh. I would stomp it into sloppy fibers beneath my savage boot heels. Too late I remembered the futility of this form of attack, and I ended up kneeing myself in the mouth twelve times before collapsing into an oozing heap of diminishing bounces.

When I came to I was staring into the angry eyes of a wealthy housewife. "Just what do you think you're doing?!" She inquired. "I had nexts." I managed to mumble between pulpy lips. She waggled a disapproving finger in my face and spoke to the children without looking around. "What's the rule about shoes on the trampoline?" The children were in a traumatized daze, but at least this was one thing still familiar to them, and they answered loudly in unison. "No shoes on the trampoline!" The woman nodded. "That's right, no shoes, or boots on the trampoline, they scuff the material."

I started dragging myself to the edge, a dark smear marking my path. She repeated the question. "So what's the rule about shoes on the trampoline?" Despite the pain, I managed to chuckle slightly to myself. "Damn lady, they just answered you-" Oh wait, she was asking me. For some psychotic reason I was supposed to answer as well. She clapped twice in my face. "I'm waiting... What's the rule about shoes-" I tried to kick her, but lost my balance and toppled off the trampoline into some rose bushes.

She leaned over me and I could see down her blouse. "Lady, soon as I can stand again, I'm going to kill that trampoline." She laughed humorlessly. "Oh hell, suit yourself. Soon as I find out where Roger hid my pills, I'm baking the whole bottle into the dinner roast." (And eyes that empty were capable of it.)

She abruptly straightened and started herding the children into the house. "Who wants a juice box?" She was almost inside when I called out. "Lady!" She turned. I motioned toward the trampoline. "It's pure evil isn't it?" She stared at me for a long time and I thought she wasn't going to answer, then she gave the slightest of nods and disappeared into the house.

I gave the trampoline a knowing squint. "Your secret's out trampoline. You're exposed, and I'm going to kill you soon." A spring detached and whistled past my head. I started to laugh at that point, and don't remember when or if I stopped.