[footfootfoot]

Heehee Marichiko!

Part 2

Now, armed with our serendipitously aquired larder and library, we headed off for the wilds of the abandoned field just down the street, past the alley, behind the parking lot, through the tall, dry phragmites, beyond the train station.

We set to work establishing our fort. Discarded plywood became the walls, old tires were put into service as seats, a large cardboard box was unfolded to make a roof and soon enough we were safely ensconced in our outpost.

Sitting still for a while reading, eating, and discussing the relative merits of the misses October and November we let the cold December air gradually make its stealthy entrance into our stronghold. Instantly we sprang to action and began assembling kindling, and larger bits of wooden refuse in order to make a fire.

Possesing matches was something that my friends with smoking parents could pull off with a bit of leger demain, other wise it meant hiding an entire box of ohio bluetips. If you were lucky they were strike anywhere, otherwise you could grab a handful and tear a bit of stiker from the box, but that was pretty much an instant bust. One of us was prepared that day and we set the kindling ablaze and sat back for some dramatic handwarming in front of the fire.

Little did we know that our movements were being watched that day. We were just beginning to enjoy our new campfire when out of nowhere our fort was beseiged! The big kids in the neighbor hood had found us out were attacking our fort. The walls were torn asunder. Like Alexandria, our libraries were burned, our comforting hearth was rudely kicked wildly into the dry phragmities growing next to that enormous puddle of water alongside the train tracks on that freezing winter day.
Puddle of water? Freezing day? Ice all around ? What madness is this? What are all those 55 gallon drums lying sideways in the puddle?

Soon, the dry grasses were ablaze, even the once reckless and destructive big kids were sobered and began frantically trying to stamp out the blaze. It spread faster than we could respond and almost all at once we saw the puddle itself catch fire. We now had a small lake of fire about as wide as a drainage ditch and a few dozen feet long. The fire was making its way toward the barrels from which the puddle seemed to be emerging.

At this point we took off, every boy for himself, pushing our stingrays as fast as we could charging up the hill that lead to the road home, not daring to look back. About at the top of the hill, we turned when we heard a loud BAVOOM to see the flames engulfing the barrel and a large tower of very black smoke shooting into the sky. Already sirens were sounding and fire trucks were on their way.

When we reached the apartment building my friends and I split up and went right to our homes agreeing that noone would say anything. We didn’t even talk to one another for three or four days, terrified that simply making a phone call would instantly reveal, magically, that we were the culprits.

We searched the papers daily to see if our names or pictures or descriptions had appeared. They never did. After a while we relaxed and felt that it was safe once again to scrape all the heads off a box of Ohio blue tip matches, stuff the contents into an empty 30.06 casing, cram some piece of lead sinker in there and set it overhanging the edge of a brick with a zippo silenty burning beneath it.

Did I mention that we were all latchkey kids?