The Race

            by Jonathan Guerra

 

Being alive for 17 years, you might not think that someone was wise and experienced. But I am—wise and experienced in how not to do things right.

 

For instance, there may be no “right” way to have a shopping cart race with a friend.

 

My friend, who we will call Gordo for legal purposes (the we-don’t-want-to-go-to-jail kind of legal purposes), was in San Francisco with me.  Now, San Francisco is not flat, in a scientific, mathematical sense. From this and common knowledge it follows that, in math terms:

shopping cart x gravity = high speed

high speed x shopping cart = accident

OR

shopping cart x shopping cart x gravity = accident

Or

accident = shopping cart² x gravity

Technically, you could say that:

accident

 gravity     =   shopping cart²

 

If “shopping cart” is equal to zero, and your current speed is zero, we can then conclude that gravity is equal to zero. But since we all know that gravity does not equal zero--because if it did, then we would be floating around and we would have no traffic because cars would be useless except as floaty places to take naps, and there would be absolutely no point in telling this story--but in fact, we know that it equals 9.8mps².

 

Now, if you substitute 9.8mps² for the term “gravity,” then

accident

 9.8mps²       =     shopping cart²

 

From this we can therefore conclude that the accident will be very painful, and that when attempting a high speed shopping-cart race you should wear a seatbelt.

 

But now I’ve lost my train of thought.  Let me get back to the story.

 

My friend Gordo—remember him?—climbed into the shopping cart and I began to push him. (Don’t worry about where we got the shopping cart, that just distracts from the story.) We arrive at this very pristine hill, pristine in racing terms, and I decide that it would be a terrible waste to not use it for a race. Races are splendid. You should never, ever pass up an opportunity for a race.

 

So I pushed Gordo, in the shopping cart, down the hill, and threw myself into this life-and-death race. It was me versus the cart.

 

Headed down the hill, with Gordo folded up in the cart and me racing beside him in my Nikes, the cart began to pick up speed. This was bad because it implied I might lose the race. And, in fact, I was soon enough not beside him at all. Gordo pulled far in the lead, going really, really fast. The shopping cart was beginning to shimmy and bounce (and so was Gordo). I think he became a little concerned about the traffic at the approaching intersection, because he started yelling.

 

I tried to catch up to slow him down, but he had gained too much speed. Gordo tried desperately to tip the cart over, as the only way to stop it and to keep from getting smashed to bits by the traffic up ahead. It didn’t tip—in fact it just speeded up even more.

 

As I ran behind him I waved goodbye.

 

Eventually, his attempts to tip the cart made it veer sharply towards the left, straight into a parked Lexus. Gordo flew out of the shopping cart and did a triple sow-cow alley-oop onto the pavement.

 

I couldn’t tell if he was glad to be back on the ground or was just in too much pain to move, but Gordo hugged that pavement like salt on nuts.

 

I arrived at the scene to assess the damage.

 

The car was fine, just like brand-new . . . minus the part where the cart had hit it. The cart had nailed the front end of the car right above the bumper, putting a major dent in it. But the poor cart—it was totaled. The frame was completely bent and it was missing a wheel or two. No homeless man would ever carry his bottles and cans in it again (not for lack of functionality, but for fear of ridicule from his peers).

 

As I mourned the loss of that perfectly good shopping cart, a man I thought must be the owner of the car came running out of his house. We must have woken him from an awesome nap, because he was in his boxers and a T-shirt, and it must not have actually been his car, because his girlfriend yelled from inside, “Is my car okay?”

 

Thinking quickly, I put my butt in the dent and pretended to be out of breath. The man looked over the car, and then looked at us. “Stay right there,” he said “I’m going to put some pants on.”

 

He headed back toward his girlfriend and his house.

 

 I peeled Gordo off the sidewalk, and we ran.