Burning Second Street Park

A Novel

by Tom Bessette

Copyright 2009 BessetteBooks

Chapter13
Dicky Boulerice

I walked out to the dirt road and watched Mrs. Galarneau walk away with the Molinari’s. In a minute, my brother came out, too. 

He watched with me for a minute and then said, “Dicky, somebody set this fire with Slug in it. They did it on purpose, I bet.  I think it was probably Yoder, or maybe Nutso, whacked out playing army.  What do you think?”

I don’t know,” I said, “but it really scares me, people setting fires and people dying.  Mim’s family last night and now this.”  it was kinda sad a bit thinking that Slug was dead.

“Yeah.  And I know that you and Bobby and Gilly set the one behind our house yesterday, not Yoder.  And Gilly also told me that Bobby set the one behind the church yesterday morning.  Lot of fires, for one weekend.  And Yoder or Nutso, they didn’t set either of those.”

“Ours was an accident! And Bobby says that so was the one they lit before.  Not on purpose like these were.”

“Yeah, and what about the whole nigger thing?”

Crap, I forgot all about the niggers!  “There weren’t any,” I said.  “Gilly made that up so we wouldn’t get blamed.”

“So, we went chasing all over for something that never happened, huh?”

“I guess.”  it hadn’t seemed so bad yesterday, but now, it seemed like it was all a big lie.

“Darn it, Dicky, you gotta start thinking pretty soon. You can’t just go off running every which way anytime somebody says lets do something or say something.  You gotta be your own man, like me.”

“Well, Geezum, you’re big and strong and know how to do everything that I can’t, Pauly.  Like baseball and beating guys up and all that.”

“I know it,” he said. “But you have to start anyways being your own man at least.   Guys will respect you more when you stop worrying that they won’t like you or that they’ll beat you up.”

“But what if they do beat me up?  What then?” 

“Goddarn it, so you get beat up!  it ain’t so bad!”

That was easy for Pauly to say. Nobody ever wanted to beat him up, even the big kids like Bobby’s brother, Bummer.  Or, Clark or Nosal or Harvey of any of them.  They almost kind of thought he was a big kid like themselves, I think.

“So,” I said, “what are we going to do now?”

“Well, let’s head up to the park, see what everybody else is doing.  Maybe we can get up a game.”

Baseball, baseball, baseball.  Here were people burning everything down, and killing people too, and my stupid big brother just wants to play baseball.

We walked up to the towpath and were surprised to see our dad coming down Whitney Hill from our house.  He saw us and waved for us to wait.  When he got close, I could see his poison ivy was really going strong. It was all over his face and hands and he was all over calamine lotion.  You could see the whiteness of it spread over the mad red of the rash.  He was scratching like a madman, too. It was pretty funny  when you thought about it!

He came puffing up to us.  He used to play pro ball but I guess that was a long tome ago and he wasn’t as good in shape now.

“I’ve been thinking, boys.  I think we shouldn’t do the barbecue in the park today.  With all the fires around, the firemen might get pretty mad at us if we do.”

Pauly said, “Barbecue?  What barbecue?”

“Why, the barbecue you’re planning this afternoon. What did you think I meant?”

“We’re not planning any barbecue!” Pauly said.  He turned to me.  “You planning a barbecue with Bobby or something?”

“Nope!”

Pauly said, “Who said we were planning a barbecue, dad?”

“Well,” he said, “the older Kozinski boy, you know, Ricky.”

Me and Pauly looked at each other.  Nutso!

“What did he say?” Pauly asked.

“He wanted a can of lighter fluid and some matches, said you all already had the charcoal.  I wondered about it because he borrowed two cans yesterday, too.  I didn’t think to ask him where they were today!”

“Well, we didn’t plan on no barbecue, dad,” Pauly said. “I wonder what the heck he’s doing.

I said, “Sounds like he wants to set a fire somewheres.”

Dad said, “You don’t suppose he set any of the fires yesterday, do you? He was acting pretty strangely both yesterday and today.  He seemed to be playing some game of some sort.” Dad was itching like crazy. I had to look away to keep from laughing!

“You never know with Nutso,” Pauly said. “Dicky, lets go see if we can find out what’s going on.”

“Pauly, look!” I said.  I could see smoke coming from near the end of the towpath, near First Street.

“Oh, my God,” said dad. “You think that’s your friend? Holy Cow!”

“I don’t know,” Pauly said. “We better go see.”

So, we all three of us ran down to the end of the towpath. As we got to the crossover road, Gilly and Bobby and Frecks came up running, too! Everybody was always excited about watching a fire.

I thought we were fast runners, especially Pauly, but my dad, huffing and puffing, outran us all. It was a whole crowd of us racing down the towpath, like a herd of runaway wildebeests.  I knew what they were ‘cause I saw them on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, which was my favoritest show.

When we got to First Street, sure enough, there was smoke coming out of the third floor apartment where Yoder lived.  We heard screaming around the front and ran up there to see what.  Sure enough, there was Yoder’s mom, twisting around and trying to get away from old Mrs. Mason.

Mrs. Mason was half crying, trying to hold onto Yoder’s mom.  “Calm down, Irma.  They’re coming.  They’ll be here any minute now.  There’s nothing you can do.  You can’t go back up there.”

Yoder’s mom was yelling at the top of her lungs. “I hate this stinking place! I hate it!  These crazy kids, terrorizing us!  Attacking us for no reason!  Beating my husband!  Oh, God!  Augh! Let me go! Let! Me! Go!”

Frecks, who had come with Gilly and Bobby, took off.  He always ran off when things got interesting.

Dad went up to them. “Millie, what can I do?”

Mrs. Mason said, “I don’t know, Paul, I don’t know what to do.  I had ridden in the ambulance with Irma, here, and her poor husband to the hospital.  That Kozinski boy, the crazy one, battered her husband with a stick this morning, about killed him, with half the neighborhood kids watching like it was a TV show. He had already attacked them in their kitchen last night!  I don’t know what this world’s coming to.  We got back here; I was going to help her gather some things to bring to the hospital and that same Kozinski boy comes running out the front door.  We see flames coming out the windows and see he obviously set the apartment on fire.”

“My God,” said my father, “that’s why he wanted it!”

I said to Pauly, “Geezum, Nutso burned their house?  Where do you think he ran off to, now?”

Gilly said, “He always takes the tracks back to Second Street. You think he’s burnin’ down the whole city, maybe?” Gilly would definitely think that was way cool.

“Pauly said, “Wait a minute!  Hold your horses, there!  Did Mrs. Mason say that Nutso killed Yoder’s father?”

Bobby said,”Holy Moley!”

Gilly said, “Yeah, I think!  it musta happened when he was beatin’ him with the stick, there in the yard before. You saw it!  I thought he’d jus’ knocked ‘im out er somethin’.  If I knowed he killed ‘im, I might a stayed ta see!”

“Holy cow!” Pauly said, “Nutso the killer!  Wait!  You think Nutso set the Manette’s fire last night?  If he went crazy, there’s no telling what he’ll do!”

Gilly said, “Yeah! I bet he did!  Wheee, Nutso!  I bet he’ll kill Yoder, too!”

“Hey!” Pauly said.  “I bet Yoder set the fire that killed Slug and Nutso figured it out and that’s why he killed Yoder’s old man and then set this today.  Holy Cow!”

Yoder’s mom heard that and started screaming again.

“These terrible children!  Devil’s spawn!  Killers!  My poor baby! I hate this stinking place!”  She collapsed onto the ground, right out of Mrs. Mason’s arms.

I said, “Geezum, Gilly!  He can’t go around burning and killing everything!”

Dad came and said, “Boys, you have to get out of here.  This is not some TV show.  This is real.  Shut your mouths and get home, all of you. I mean it!  Mr. Beauchamp, I’ll be talking to your mother about this later, you can bet on that. Mr. Nolette?  You here, of all people?  Your mother will be very interested to know this. And you two!”  He looked at me and Pauly. “I’ll deal with the two of you later.  Watching a man getting about beaten to death and not doing anything about it, and not even coming home to tell me!  I’ll deal with you both later.”

“But daddy,” I yelled, “Bobby’s big brother and his friends were there.  We couldn’t do nothing if they wouldn’t! And we didn’t know he was killing him! Geez!”

“Shut the hell up and get your asses home!” he yelled. “I don’t want to hear another goddam word!”

He turned right around and went back to try to help Mrs. Mason and Yoder’s mom. Me and Pauly just stood there, stunned.  Dad had never said anything like that to us before.  Pauly grabbed me by the arm and said, “Come on, Dicky, we better go.”

The fire trucks and some policemen were just pulling up.  I really wanted to stay, but Pauly was right.  Dad was PO’d and we better get out of sight, for sure.  Also, too, I didn’t want any policemen asking me about the fires. What if they knew?

Gilly and Bobby caught up to us about halfway up to our house.

“I think we gotta go catch Nutso,” he said.

Pauly said, “Nah, we gotta go home. My dad’s gonna kill us as it is!”

“Aw, no ‘e ain’t!  They alla time forget what they said anyways.  An’ lookit this.  If we find Nutso an’ turn ‘im in, we’ll be heroes.  Huh?  Whataya think, guys?

Bobby said, “Geezum, I think maybe my brother and Nosal helped kill Yoder’s dad, too.  He told me they fought after the rest of us ran away.  Geezum, my brother’s a killer, too!”

“Nah,” Pauly said, “Mrs. Mason said it was Nutso.”

“Yeah!” Gilly said. “I was there, remember?  Yoder’s stupid ol’ man threw me down the stairs fer no reason an’ Bummer an’ Nosal beat ‘im up.  But then Nutso came an’ whacked on ‘im with a big stick.  That’s when the stupid guy got hisself killed. It weren’t Bummer or Nosal. An’ the stupid guy deserved in anyways”

“Still,” Bobby said.

“Yeah,” I said. I could see how Bobby felt. It would be pretty weird, your brother being an almost killer.  I knew how I’d feel if Pauly was going around killing people. Sheesh!

“So, what do we do now?” I asked.

Gilly said, “Like I said.  We find crazy Nutso an’ get ta be heroes!”

Pauly said, “And what do we do when we find Nutso?  If he’s crazy and killing people, especially grown ups, what are we gonna do?”

“They’s four a us,” Gilly said.  “We can take ‘im!”

That was Gilly!  Take anybody, anytime, he didn’t care!

Pauly said, “Bobby, maybe we better first find your brother an’ Nosal an’ them guys.  They’re bigger.  If we find Nutso or run into Yoder, they might be really crazy an’ everybody knows that crazy people have the strength of 10 men, so we need all the guys we can get.”

We all thought that was good thinking, except Gilly.  He wanted to be the hero without the big guys, but Pauly said we had to be a gang if we wanted to do it right.  So, Gilly gave in and said OK, but he grumbled about babies and scared-y cats and that stuff.  Pauly just ignored him, like he usually did.  He didn’t care what people thought.

So, the first thing we did was to pass right by our house and head on down to Bobby’s, where maybe the big guys might be.  Sure enough, they were out in front of his house, throwing rocks into the soap factory windows. It hadn’t been a soap factory for a long time, and little by little, the big kids were breaking all the windows with rocks.

Bummer, Bobby’s big brother was there, and so was Nosal and Clark and Harvey.  Luc Girard was there, too, with Wooly and Trixie, but they were mostly watching.  With all them and the four we had, we had the ten men we needed to take on any crazy guy.

Bobby ran up to his brother and said, “What, are you crazy?  Throwing rocks at the soap factory in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Relax, stupid,” Bummer said.  “Mom and dad went to the store, shopping, and won’t be back for an hour, at least.  And, nobody else is around, anyways.”

“Mom still mad at dad for staying out late?”

“Probably, I guess.  She’s mad at everything all the time, anyways, no matter what anybody does, so what difference does it make? I’d stay out, too, if I were him.”

“Yeah.” Bobby said.

“Ask him!” Pauly said.

“Ask him what?” said Bobby.

“Geezum, what we said!”

“Oh. Oh! Hey, Billy! Guys!  We just found out that Nutso Kozinski killed Yoder’s old man.  And, he lit up their house on fire.  And, we think it was maybe him that set the Manette’s fire last night.  We figured if he’s crazy, we need ten guys to catch him.  Us four and you guys makes eleven and that’s enough!  What do you say?”

Nosal laughed.  “Hey guys, we’re goin’ huntin’ huh?”

Harvey started singing, “A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go, hi, ho, the derrio, a hunting we will go...”

Bummer said, “Yeah, my stupid little brother and his big, tough friends want to go catch one of their little crazy buddies and toss ‘im to the fuzz!”

Nosal said, “Yeah!  What about the stupid dead kid in the Calvary Fort, huh?  Nutso kill him, too? Burn that place down, too, ya think?  Huh?”

“The stupid dead kid is Nutso’s brother, OK?  Who kills their brother, anyways?” Bobby said.

“Maybe I’ll kill mine someday, hey guys?” Bummer said, laughing.

“Jerk!” Bobby said, all the guys laughing in the background.

“Stupid punk!” Bummer said.

“Penis breath!” Bobby said.

“Penis breath!  Hahahahaha!” Nosal said, falling onto the ground.  The other guys were just about busting a gut, too.

Harvey danced all around, singing, “Penis breath, penis breath, wherefore art thou, penis breath?” and everybody about died, then, falling over each other and slapping each other, us included.

“You’re such a dickwad!” said Bummer. “A little baby dickwad what knows what penis breath smells like!”

Bobby yelled out, almost in tears, “Shut up! Shut up!  You’re a dickwad, yourself, and see how you like it, you stupid jerk, dickwad, poop head!”

Nosal was rolling around on the ground, right in the street.  “Poop head, ‘e calls ‘im!” And kept laughing up a storm.

Gilly ran over in front of Bobby, yelling, “Baby’s got penis breath, baby’s got penis breath!” and he pushed Bobby in the chest.  Nosal had stood up behind Bobby and pushed him back at Gilly.  Bobby was trying his best not to cry.  I felt real bad for him.

Bummer jumped in and pulled Bobby away from them.

He said, “All right, knock it off, knuckleheads.  Leave him alone.”  When Bummer talked like that, everybody stopped like their life depended on it. Which it maybe would if Bummer got mad enough.  Bummer was pretty tough on Bobby, but nobody else could give Bobby a hard time and get away with it, not if Bummer ever found out about it.

“Yeah!” Gilly said, like he wasn’t one of the ones being a jerk.  “We gotta decide what ta do about goddam Nutso an’ Yoder.”

Nosal said, “Yoder!  I thought they took him ta jail already!  Bummer didn’t you say your old lady said that?”

“I said she said the cops said they were gonna go get him, I don’t know if they actually got him or not.”

“Cool,” said Nosal. “Him, I’d like to take care of, you know what I mean.”

Bobby had got better by now. “Billy, remember, we don’t know if Yoder really did that stuff.  We don’t know what he’s done.  Ain’t nobody here he’s done anything to, right?  Gilly?  Doodles?”

“Nope!”

“Nope, not to me,” I said.

“Well, the little punks right about that,” Bummer said.  “I don’t want to go out beating up a guy that maybe didn’t do anything wrong, really, although he did say all that stuff about Mim that maybe turned out wasn’t true, and now Mim’s gone and died, maybe because of it.”

“I wouldn’t mind killin’ either of ‘em,” Nosal said.

Clark spoke up, now.  “Well, that goddam Nutso Kozinski lives right across the street from me and the shit goes on in that house with him and that stupid no-brain brother of his, well I just think they ought a be kicked outa the neighborhood, anyways.”

“The stupid no-brained brother that got himself killed in the Calvary Fort yesterday, you mean,” said Bummer.

“Well, OK, yeah,” said Clark. “What I mean is that that Nutso’s a real whack job.  He’s always off in his own world or somewheres, and no tellin’ what shit he does.  I wouldn’t be surprised he’s doin’ all this stuff.  We know he went berserk and killed that Yoder’s old man up the street, you guys saw that.  An’ I heard him an’ that Yoder fuck sayin’ somethin’ to you little kids yesterday afternoon, somethin’ about burnin’ down Mim’s house.  Beauchamp, you were there, and so were all you.  Over by the basketball court.  I heard you!”  He was looking at us!

Bummer looked at Bobby.  “That true?”
Bobby got all confused. “Well…uh…um…it was Yoder and Nutso, talking like they usually do.  You know, stupid and tough and all.  Moose, you told them to shut up, that nobody was burning down anybody’s house, remember?”

Pauly said, “Yeah, sure.  I just thought they were being jerks and I told them to knock it off.  They did that stuff all the time, never meant nothing.”

Bummer smiled, evil, like.  “Well, it looks like this time it did mean something, dickwad!  So, they do it together, or which one, you think?”

Pauly said, “Bobby, didn’t you say they were both in your yard last night, breaking your window and lighting the papers?”

“Yeah,” Bobby said, but we think Yoder was there, too, maybe egging him on.  Who knows what the heck was going on?”

“I think both the bastards are whack jobs,” said Nosal. “I think we gotta go lookin’ for both of ‘em, huh?”

Clark said, “Yeah!  Get the fuckers!”

Pauly said, “You think we should get your dad, Bummer?”

Bummer said, “Shit, he’ll just want to call the cops or something.  Mess us all up. Besides, he’s not here, now.  Why wait?  I think we should look for these assholes ourselves and give ‘em what’s coming to ‘em.”

Harvey sang out, “They’re comin’ to take me away, ha ha, they’re comin’ to take me away, ho ho, hee hee, ha ha, to the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time, and I’ll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they’re comin’ to take me away hhahahaha…”

Nosal pointed at Harvey and whispered to Clark, “There’s somebody that they should take away, for sure!”

Pauly said, “So how you want to do this?”

Bummer said, “You guys know where they hang out, don’t you?”

Gilly said, “Usually the park, sometimes at the Frog Pond behind the soap factory.”

“So,” Bummer said, “let’s check the Frog Pond first. It’s right up here.  Easiest way is right though that door and on up to the 4th floor and out that back freight door right next to the tracks.”

This was cool for every body because it was always fun to go into the soap factory.  But, I was worried because I knew the 4th floor was pretty rotted and I didn’t want to fall through.

“Don’t you think we should take the path up the side, guys?” I asked.

Pauly said, “Nah, come on, that paths all pickers and steep and stuff. Let’s go this way.”

“Geezum, I don’t think we should, it might be dangerous!”

That got Gilly going.  “Dilly, dally Doodles, afraid a the big bad wolf, dilly, dally-“

Bummer cut him right off     . “Aw shut your stupid pie hole, dickwad, you’re a pain in the ass.”  To me, he said, “Come or don’t come.  Suit yourself, we don’t care.”

I didn’t want Bummer mad at me, so I figured I’d go.  I figured it’d be better to fall through the floor and get killed rather than have ol’ Bummer mad at me. It’d hurt less, probably!

I stuck with Bobby.  We all herded into the soap factory through the broken down door in the front.  The steps were rickety and I didn’t trust them much, but Nosal and Bummer and Pauly and Gilly and all them just ran right up them, like it was nothing. It’s like they just didn’t care if they got hurt or anything.

The inside was real weird and spooky.  Even though the windows let in lots of light, there were deep shadows where monsters might be hiding and I didn’t want to get too close.  The walls were all covered thick with old soap scum.  I mean it; they were like two inches thick with the stuff.  I could just imagine scratching my fingers down a wall and getting all that gray stuff stuck under my fingernails.  I’d get so much under there that it would lift the nails right up and they’d be hanging loose and hurting and I would lose them and never have fingernails anymore.  I told these guys we shouldn’t go this way!

We got to the first stairway.  They guys all clopped up it like racehorses or wildebeests.  Me and Bobby were last and I tested each step to be sure it was safe. It took us a real long time to get to the second floor.  Before we were halfway up, we could hear the guys clopping up to the third floor, and I think they made it to the fourth before we got to the second.

The second floor was spookier, still.  There were big rusty metal vats everywhere, with weird knobs and levers hanging off them, like you could get tortured from them or something.  They were big, real big.  Big enough to stew up a whole buncha guys like me and Bobby if someone was there to catch us and dump us in.

“Bobby,” I said, “I wouldn’t want to get thrown into one of them and cooked up for any cannibals, huh?”

“Yeah.  Maybe some salt and pepper and we’d taste pretty good, huh?”

“Make us sneeze, probably!”

Bobby always likes this stuff.  “Yeah!  We’d maybe sneeze inside the pot and the juice we were cooking in would spray up on their faces all boiling and all and they’s get all burned up and run away and we’d get loose.  Or, maybe catch them and dump them in the pot, huh?”

We started laughing at this and decided to look for more pots to talk about.  We looked down at the other end of the big open room and saw a wall with a doorway in it.  Bobby wanted to go in.

“Hey, Dicky, let’s catch us some monsters in there, huh?”

“No way, Jose,” I said.  “The monsters are way bigger than us and can eat you in one bite!  No way!”

“Well I’m going in!”

“Bobby, come on, don’t, huh?  You don’t actual know what’s in there!”

“Well, that’s why I want to go in, dummy!  If I knew what was in there, I wouldn’t have to look, right? Come on!”

Geezum, I don’t like this, but I don’t want to be too chicken in front of Bobby!

He went in first.  I kind of waited a bit to make sure the coast was clear.  All a sudden, Bobby started yelling real loud, “Dicky, help!  Help, Dicky, help!  Oh my God, Dickyyyy!!!  Dickyyyy!”

Geezum I didn’t know what to do!  Bobby was in there getting eaten up by a monster or something, or killed by a murderer.

I yelled, “Bobby!  What’s the matter?”

“Dicky!  Come, Dicky!  Please, buddy, don’t leave me here to die!”

I was crying, now.  My friend was in there getting killed and I couldn’t make myself go in.  Then, running down the stairs behind me was Gilly and Pauly, tear-assing right at me!

“What’s going on,” yelled my brother?

“Bobby’s in there getting killed!” I bawled.

Gilly was first to run in, as usual. Pauly was in right after him. 

I heard silence for a minute, maybe, and then they all started yelling, “Dicky, help!  Nutso and Yoder are killing us, Oh, my God, ya gotta help!”  They kept yelling this stuff over and over.  I couldn’t stand it.  I had to go help my brother and friends, but I didn’t want to get killed, too.  Then all of a sudden, their voices kind of gurgled and rattled and then they went silent.  I did not hear another sound.  That was spookier than them screaming for help.  I was so scared I wet my pants, Geezum!  I turned and started to run away, crying, and as I made it to the stairs, there came Bummer and those guys.

“What the hell are you stupid jerk faces doing?” Bummer wanted to know.

“Bobby and my brother and Gilly all got killed by Nutso and Yoder in that room over there.”

“Oh, my God,” Bummer said, and he ran right to the door and rushed right inside.  I tried to take off down the stairs but that Nosal caught me and held me so I couldn’t go anywhere.  He dragged me, screaming back to the doorway of the room.  “Bummer, they all dead?”

“Yeah,” said Bummer. “Bring that little shit in here.  I want to pound his face for letting my brother get killed.”

“I don’t want to, I don’t want to,” I screamed, but Nosal dragged me right into the room.  I closed my eyes, ‘cause I didn’t want to see all their dismembered corpses laying all over the floor, soaked in blood and all, like I figured they must be.

The minute I was in there, Bummer said, “Look what you did, you little baby! Look, damn you!”

I slowly opened my eyes.  Pauly and Bobby and Gilly started laughing their heads off, pointing at me and rolling on the floor, getting their clothes all covered with soap scum.

“You stupid jerks!” I yelled.  You had me really scared.  I thought you were really getting killed!

“Yeah,” laughed Gilly.  “So scared you’d run away when your brother and best friend are getting killed.  I’d rather have a good ol’ enemy any day than a friend like you!”

“Oh, I knew you guys were just fooling me.  If I thought you were really getting killed, I would have come in and helped”

Gilly said, “You just said you were scared!  Little Scared-y Doodles, Little scared-y Doodles…”

“Shut up, Gilly,” my brother said, “leave him alone!”

Bummer said, “Real nice, you little punk, playing mean tricks on your friends, huh?  You stupid little jerk-off!”  He was talking to Bobby.

Bobby said, “Sorry, Dicky.  Billy’s right. It was mean and I’m sorry I did it.”

Bummer cuffed him on the back of the head.  “Better!” he said.

I said, “it’s all right, Bobby.”  He came over and punched my arm and we were friends again.

Nosal said, “Aw, the wittle baby boys made up!  Ain’t that sweet?”

Bummer said, “Knock it off.  Where’s Clark and Harvey and them other goons?”

“Still up at the frog pond, prolly playin’ pirate by now,” said Nosal.

So, we all headed back up the stairs.  Nosal said to me and Bobby, “Now stay with us, pussies, we ain’t waitin’ for ya while ya pussyfoot around on these stairs, understand?”

I still didn’t like the stairs, but Nosal held onto my arm and I had no choice but to half run up, half get dragged all the way up.  On the fourth floor, Bummer made sure we all walked near the walls, ‘cause there was a big rotted spot in the middle where Booby Flatley had fallen through last year.  He had fallen to the third floor and got six broken bones and a concussion.  All the mothers went crazy and yelled at the mayor to knock the building down.  We were all afraid that they would do it and ruin this cool place, but the city said it didn’t have the money, so nobody did anything.  Bobby’s father said they had money all right, but the fat cats needed it for their vacations and fancy cars and didn’t want to waste it on the stupid residents.  I think he wasn’t talking about kitty cats, neither!

We got across the floor all safe and back to the big freight door at the back of the building. It was all broken in and you could see places where bums and rats had slept on old skuzzy blankets right inside the door.  A part of the train tracks had come right down next to the building here to load the barrels of soap and stuff. 

We went out and walked right up to the main tracks.  On the other side was a weedy hill with a path through it that led down to the frog pond. It was pretty big and there was big, steep hill right behind it that led up to the fields where Bobby’s dad liked to go kill pheasants and rabbits.

The frog pond water was all muddy and you couldn’t see nothing underneath the surface.  The shoreline was littered with all kinds of wood pieces from where all the guys had built rafts all summer.  Trixie and Wooly and Lucky were on shore watching Harvey and Clark teetering on a shaky raft out in the middle of the pond.

Bummer yelled out, “Ahoy mateys, you still searching the deep blue seas for Nutso and the other stupid punk?”

Harvey yelled back, “Arrgh, scalawag, me captain, we canna find the slimy dogs, arrgh!”

Then, he elbowed Clark in the ribs and Clark waved his arms like he was trying to fly and then crashed into the water.

Everybody bust out laughing, even me, and ol’ Clark came to the surface, spitting water out and looking all muddy.  He lunged at the raft that Harvey was trying to pole back to shore and Harvey whacked him with the pole.

Bummer said, “Harvey, you best get moving, cause if Clark catches you, he’s gonna rip your stupid head off!”

Harvey looked pretty worried about it. He was poling as fast as he could, but the boards were pretty waterlogged and he couldn’t get the raft to move very fast. Clark was swimming after him, and said he was gonna rip him a new asshole when he caught him.  Just before Harvey got the raft to shore, Clark caught it and turned it over, right in the water, and Harvey went flying right into the mud next to shore.  Clark went and jumped on him and they rolled around in the shallow water, grunting and telling each other that they were going to kill each other.

It looked mean, but these big guys did this kind of stuff all the time, so we all knew it wouldn’t amount to much.