Indiana Jones and the Giant Pit of Consequences

By Timothy C. Goodwin

In hindsight, my hat looked nothing like a fedora, and the mustache my best friend Charley made from scribbling black marker on paper, cutting out, and taping to his upper lip looked nothing like Hitler's; in hindsight, we should have stayed at the scene of the accident, calling out to my parents for help from the backyard instead of running to get them, so that we didn’t look like we were fleeing the scene; in hindsight, there are plenty of other ways to play Indiana Jones, so taking the swings off the swingset and dangling from the top bar, crossing from one end to the other, hand over hand—Charley chasing me over an imagined, giant pit of lava-snakes—might not have been the best idea, because of course my five-year old sister would want to join us, even though there was no role for a kid like her in our serious pretendification, and—in hindsight—maybe I could have told her to scram, but I didn't think she would follow us up to the top of the swingset, I didn't think she would fall, and I didn't think that landing on her butt with her arms behind her would snap her wrists—all 2 of them—like 2 plastic straws, and after keys were swiped from the table top and coats were ripped from hangers while my parents shouted new concepts like CONSEQUENCES and WHAT WERE YOU THINKING and HINDSIGHT over the sound of lots and lots—and lots—of sisterly screaming, the front door slammed shut and the wailing receded into the distance, leaving Charley and I in (sniffling) silence, together on the couch, his mustache barely hanging to his lip, flapping with each pant, my hat crumpled in my fists in my lap, both of us now aware of how much thinking we have to do in our world, how there are consequences in our world, and in that silence, from the backyard, we could still hear the Indiana Jones theme playing on our cassette player, soundtracking an adventure that, in hindsight, now seemed so childish, now seemed so long ago.

Timothy C Goodwin has work included in HAD, Trash Cat, Twin Pies, Dishsoap Quarterly, JAKE, Maudlin House, and elsewhere; he lives in NYC.

Art by Gary Goodwin.