I'm just getting out of a car, on a bridge, with a skateboard. As I get out, I notice that the boards that make up the floor of the bridge are of inconsistent length, so it would be really easy to accidentally step off the edge. I decide not to get on my skateboard on the bridge.

My brother Steve seems to make the other decision, and I see him on his board speeding toward the edge of the bridge, and then as if he expects to do a little jump, kick up the nose of his skateboard just as he gets to the edge, but then he just flies off, all splayed out in his fall, his board hurtling off away from him.

I run with my board to the end of the bridge, where it meets the land, and scramble down to the underside. The river is narrow and flanked with large planes of concrete, which is where we apparently intended to skate. Steve is squatting on the ground, curled up against a huge concrete supporting pole, wrapping a blue tarp around himself like a blanket, like he's in shock. I run over there, along with somebody else who has come along, expecting the worst.

I ask Steve how he is, and he seems to be ok except he broke his hand. He pulls it out to see, and it's all purple and misshapen. The other person with us immediately starts poking and squeezing it hard, and I tell him not to do that, to be very gentle with it, but Steve doesn't seem to be bothered.