Parades, Rooftops, and Dead Birds

For many years my dad had decorated our bikes, dressed us up as clowns and entered us in the town parade. We were never official, Dad would just show up and we would sneak in line behind the fire trucks. Although we were not official, we were favorites, one year the newspaper even did a story on us. If people in our town don’t know us by our tree house, they do remember us from the parades. Mom spoiled all of the fun saying it was too dangerous just because baby Dallin was hit in the face with a water balloon one year as he rode in a trailer that my dad was pulling. This year we would have to be like the rest of the crowd and just watch the parade. The only problem with this scenario was that we were not like the rest of the crowd, we were a peculiar family and we always stuck out. My dad could see no point in saving places the night before that was a waste of time, besides we were busy at that time collecting discarded chairs and blankets that people had left on the side of the road.
My dad had a plan, I could see it in his face, and it made me nervous. I didn’t like sticking out, and I hated doing things that could get me into trouble, Dad was the opposite. He was always dragging us into situations that could get us yelled at or driven off in a police car. For instance, he frequently made us get up on the roofs of the local schools so that we could get all of the balls and other things that the students had thrown up there.
The time of the parade arrived and we jumped on our bikes to ride down to Main Street. Before getting on his bike, my dad casually threw a 12 foot ladder on his back. I looked over at Andy and mouthed the words, “A ladder?”
Andy shrugged his shoulders indicating that he hadn’t the foggiest idea what we were about to do.
I looked over again at the interesting sight of my dad on his bike with a ladder on his back and my little sister sitting on an extra seat that he had welded to the frame just in front of his own seat.
As we approached Main Street it was obvious that there were way to many cars for us to make it to Dad’s secret spot without being noticed. While maneuvering through the cars my dad’s ladder caught the side of a car and left a long gash in the shiny red paint. My dad glanced back, but kept riding. Now I really began to panic, I didn’t want to get into trouble for scratching somebody’s car so I hurried as fast as I could across the street, it was a mistake and I knew it as soon as I began the dangerous crossing. A car was coming fast and I saw it, but I needed to stay with my dad so I wouldn’t be blamed for scratching the car. I turned my pedals as fast as my legs would move, but I wasn’t fast enough and the car clipped my back tire. The force threw me most of the rest of the way across the street and I landed softly on the grass; a grand total of a two foot flight.
“Ouch!” I screamed more out of fear than pain.
My brothers and a couple of strangers ran over to me to assess the damage. Dad ran over to the bike, picked it up and immediately began to check all of the different parts to make sure that the precious bike had not been damaged.
“Are you okay?” Andy asked.
“My knee, my knee,” I cried figuring that since that is where I landed, that must be where my injury was.
“Well, it looks like you have some grass stains, and both of your knees are red,” Andy replied trying to sound sympathetic.
“I think my injuries are internal!” I was hopelessly reaching out for any kind of opportunity to get out of this scary situation with the ladder and go home to my mom.
“Shake it off, and let’s get going,” I heard the familiar voice of my father command.
I stood up and walked over to mount my bike with an exaggerated, pitifully looking limp that made me look more like a penguin than a little boy. We ended up riding our bikes to the back of Bountiful Drug. I was still confused, especially since we could not see the parade from where we were standing. My dad got out the ladder and set it against the back of the building.
“Up you go,” he calmly stated staring right at Andy.
Up Andy went without even giving it a second thought. When he reached the top my dad started to climb the ladder. Once Dad reached Andy I saw my brother climb onto his shoulders and suddenly I realized what we were doing. We were going to watch the parade from the roof of Bountiful Drug! It would be a great view, but I could think of two problems; one, we wouldn’t get any candy, and two we would probably end up in jail. As scared as I was of going to jail, I was even more scared of my father, so when it was my turn I obediently climbed the ladder, my father’s shoulders and then the last few feet of the wall until I landed safely on the roof. Dallin was also able to climb up on his own, but Alex and Marne were too short. Luckily, Alex was a good climber so once Andy and I gave him our hands he was able to scurry up the wall with ease. The problem came with Marne. Marne was brave for a girl, but when it came to standing on top of Dad’s shoulders on top of a 12 foot ladder, she reverted back to her silly girl tendencies to freak out. As soon as we grabbed a hold of Marne’s arms she started screaming and kicking as if she were an inflated, untied balloon that had just been released.
“Calm down spas!” I screamed at Marne attempting to facilitate my grip on her flailing body.
“I’m FALLING!” Marne pierced the air with such fury that a nice family of birds in a nearby tree took flight for a safer refuge.
I finally was able to get my arms around her chest and pull her onto the roof. We both tumbled backwards and the gooey snot from her temper tantrum covered my arms and hands in a transparent, sticky film.
My dad came up right behind us and pulled the ladder up after him to cover our tracks, as if six people on top of a roof would not tip anyone off.
I have to admit that we had a great view of the parade. My siblings and I stood right next to the edge for the whole parade, Alex and Marne needed a boost to be able to see over the wall that surrounded the border of the roof.
“Look,” I said to Andy pointing to a dead bird on the ledge.
“Touch it,” I dared Andy. I should have learned my lesson by now, but whenever Andy and I found something new and interesting, I always dared him to touch it to make sure it was safe.
“No way, Dallin you touch it,” Andy said.
Just like always Dallin obeyed, reached out his finger and poked the dead bird. The bird immediately took flight, not by its own power but through the power of gravity. We all three stretched our necks over the ledge and watched the bird falling head over heals toward the ground. The soon to be smashed piece of poultry landed right in the lap of a man who was just about to take a bite out of his sandwich. The man jumped to his feet out of sure fright and knocked his drink onto the people sitting directly in front of him.
We dropped down out of sight, too scared to recognize the humor in the situation. After a couple of minutes we got up to watch the rest of the parade confident that it was now safe to resurface. Andy reached over and brushed the gravel off that had imbedded itself in the skin of my face.
My dad had done it again, he had given us another unique childhood memory that we would never forget. Somehow we got through the parade, got down and rode our bikes through a crowd of police without anyone ever questioning us. The next year we ended up watching the parade lying in hammocks in the Sycamores that provided shade to a section of Main Street.