Tales of Fearless Jimmy: the Bravest Little Boy in the World

Jimmy Doyle was indeed the world’s bravest little boy.  He spent his formative years jumping without pause from teetering bunk beds, the tops of contemptuously tall washing machines and any available rooftop or awning.  He challenged his older siblings to no-holds-barred wrestling matches where Jimmy would volunteer to do battle with one arm tied behind his back or with an eye gouged out by a screwdriver.  He routinely raced his Big Wheel around the neighborhood at foolhardy speeds.  He snorted mountains of coke and ate hot peppers by the handful.  He brazenly cursed God and repeatedly challenged the universe to strike him down if it could muster “the guts required to do so.”  He was the world’s bravest little 2-year-old boy, and his family took great pride in that title.  They often bragged to friends and associates that Jimmy could and would do anything in this world that he damn well pleased.  He was scared of nothing and nobody.

Jimmy was so fearless in fact that on his third birthday, on a family camping trip to the Shawnee National Forest, when a 900 pound Black Grizzly Bear appeared at the Doyle’s campsite, Jimmy, without the slightest hesitation,  marched right the hell up and challenged the mighty beast.  And it killed Jimmy immediately.  Ripped him in half like a cheap rag doll.

Flecks of Jimmy’s blood spray-painted the family, a sticky red reminder that no matter how fearless your brave little three-year-old may be…he should probably still be afraid of giant grizzly bears.  And tigers.  Yes, definitely tigers.  …Also downed power lines.  And probably child murderers.