I remember being nervous walking past the high school principal on the way in to see our school hockey team play. I had replaced most of the Coke in my pop bottle with rum, and I had taken a few big swigs with some friends before coming in. I was 16 and it was my first time sneaking alcohol into a school event. I was something of a late bloomer. After the game, it was a small town tradition for everyone to go to the MacDonald’s on the other side of Beford for a bite. And because our team had won the game, there was an excitement in the air – anything could happen.

My friend Matt, being a natural small risk-taker, told me he was going to walk the shortcut down the train tracks which ran right behind MacDonald’s. “C’mon man. You’ve never taken the tracks? We’ll get there way before anyone else.”

We walked past the streetlights to were it was dark — to the tracks. I found it difficult to walk on the railway ties and talk at the same time because I was a bit tipsy. Every few steps I would loose rhythm and my foot would slide between the ties and trip me up.

The moon was only a sliver, and not much help for light. When we reached the train bridge, close to our goal, Matt told me about the suicides that had taken place there. The bridge was about 40 feet high, and the river below no more than 3 or 4 feet deep. “I heard from my dad that a few people have died here. Some kid tried to jump off into the water on a dare – and of course the water was too shallow. Another guy jumped off to commit suicide.”

I suddenly remembered a scene from Stand By Me where the kids are crossing the huge train bridge and the train comes. I laughed out loud at the thought. “Hey Matt, you ever seen that movie Stand By Me?”

As the words come out of my mouth, I heard a train whistle from around the corner, 100 meters away. I’ve always had impecable timing. “Oh Fuck, train!” Matt yells. “Let’s go!” We both took a second to look at the tracks toward the train and behind us, to mentally calculate which distance was shorter. We were at about the middle point of the bridge. Matt started running along the tracks away from the train and I followed, letting my bottle of rum and coke fall down, through the foot-wide space between the railway ties, into the shallow water below.

Adrenaline kicked in, and suddenly I was clear headed, realizing I was running for my life and that if I missed a step on the dimly lit tracks, I wouldn’t have time to make it up. As the train got closer and started across the bridge behind us, the lights made it harder to see where I was stepping. The train whistle blew frantically as the driver surely noticed us, and I heard the screech of brakes as it came nearer, still catching up with us quickly. Matt was just ahead of me, and didn’t say a word, concentrating on stepping on the ties. The train was still barreling toward us — the screeching of metal on metal, whistle blowing — when we neared the end of the bridge. “Jump!” yelled Matt, in a frantic voice. The train was less than 15 feet away. We jumped off the end of the bridge, down a grassy hill behind the MacDonald’s. We rolled down the steep hill, and by the time we recovered and started brushing off the grass, the train was rolling by, the whistle still blowing.

We sat down for a minute and couldn’t say anything except “Holy shit.” When our friends showed up at MacDonald’s a few minutes later, Matt, equal parts great storyteller and embellisher, told about our near-death experience. We were heroes for the night, and our friends bought us each an order of fries.

I remember thinking to myself, “wow, I will never put myself in another situation like that again.” Three years later I tried train-hopping for the first time. I’m not quite sure what that means. Although nowadays, before I decide it might be funny to quote a cliche from a movie, I definitely think twice.