Burning Second Street Park

A Novel

by Tom Bessette

Copyright 2009 BessetteBooks

Chapter 5
Jimmy Yoder

Goddam that Gilly, sometimes!

He has to go and get all tough acting and show Moose he can hit.  I know goddam well he hit Moose on purpose, the jerk, and I had to pop him one to show everybody who was boss.  I didn’t care he whacked Moose.  He could kill Moose for all I care, really, but I had plans and I didn’t want him to fuck them up. I should have done business with him right there and then, to really show him. When he wakes up, he’ll be sorry.

I walked over to Moose and pulled all the little pussies off him, give him room to breathe.  The bigger guys playing cards hadn’t even looked up to see what was going on.

Moose was starting to breathe again, but you could tell he’d be a hurtin' buckaroo for a while.  I figured he’d better go to the hospital to get an X-ray to see if he broke some ribs.  He was sitting up, now, saying how much it hurt.

“Moose, ya better get yer dad an’ go ta the hospital, see if yer all in one piece, OK?”

“I’m OK, dammit, Gilly really whacked that.  Where is he, anyways?”

I said, “I popped the sumbitch one; he’s out cold over there at home base.”

Moose grunted up to his feet and walked over to where Gilly was moaning and coming to.  I had got him right on the chin and there wasn’t any blood, or anything, so he couldn’t prove I hit him.  Not that Gilly cared about getting the police after anybody. But I didn’t want to take any chances.

We went over and poked at Gilly until he sat up.  He wanted to jump me right there, but Bobby and Moose stopped him.  Moose said he’d have popped him anyway if I hadn’t, so Gilly finally shut up, not wanting to fight the whole world.  Stupid jerk!

Moose said, “I hurt pretty bad, maybe I better go home.”

Bobby said, “I’ll go with you, Moose, me and Doodles.  See ya, guys.”

Bobby, always the true blue friend. Dicky Doodles, always following Bobby. What ‘sweet’ guys!  They walked off through Bobby’s Indian Trail, up to Main Street.  See you, guys!  Good riddance!

Nutso wanted to keep playing.  I think he’s so crazy he couldn’t see that we didn’t have enough guys to play a decent game, now.

I said, ‘Naw, I don’t wanna play no more, anyways. Not without Moose, anyways.”

Gilly was still rubbing his chin, but had forgotten about me hitting him, I think.  He’s stupid like that.  He is always doing whatever comes into his head, right that second.  I do that, too, I guess, but I don’t care.  I am bigger and older than these stupid idiots and I’ll show all of them anytime I want to.

Joey Molinari and his wimpy little brother Nicky were still around.  Joey was OK but Nicky was always worried about stuff. I had my eye on him. I could have a lot of fun showing him the ways of the world, but Joey and Moose would for sure gang up on me if I did anything.  Joey was pretty tough; Moose was even tougher, especially for a kid only not even eleven yet.  Between them, and maybe Gilly, I thought they could give me a hard time in a fight, all three together, so I was biding my time.  One of these days.

Nutso’s stupid brother, Slug, was sitting off behind home plate picking at grass or something.  Boy, he is a weird kid.  I’ve never seen someone just sit and hang around, doing nothing, like that.  Just sits and dreams his life away.  Not me, I want to do stuff, exciting stuff.  I want to live, not just sleepwalk all the time.  Nutso, he’s a piece of work, for sure.  He’s kind of like Gilly, but even crazier; he just doesn’t care what he does, or who he does it to.  He doesn’t come right at people, but he holds grudges and is likely to attack you when you least expect it.  I’ll be ready for him, when he does.

We were all sitting around home plate.  Rousseau, Lucky Breault and that Willy Woolly kid, whatever his name is, said “see ya” and took off over to the yard past the Fatso Family’s to steal apples.  They were green apples and always made me sick to my stomach whenever I ate them.  Those jerks could eat all they wanted for all I cared. Let them get sick and have their guts all rotted away and wormy.  Hell with them!

I started figuring that Nutso would do almost anything.  There was this old factory of some kind down past the towpath, all off in the woods and weeds. We called it the old Cavalry Fort; I don’t know why. It was pretty cool, all rotting away. It had a second floor over part of it that would bend and sway when you crawled up the ladder. You could take little kids there and tell them it was where pirates buried their treasures and all that stupid hokum, and’ they’d believe you and dig for days before giving up.  I had also told lots of stupid kids it was haunted and that made it even more fun, to scare the piss out of them when they got up the nerve to sneak over there.

The one thing about Nutso was that you couldn’t call him Nutso to his face without getting him all pissed off and start hatching plots against you.  Everybody called him Nutso when he wasn’t around, but most everybody called him by his real name, Ricky, to his face.

“Ricky, how ‘bout we head over to the ol’ Cavalry Fort.  We could get some a that broke car glass from one a the ol’ cars in the weeds and bury it and tell kids its diamonds, Whataya say?”

Nutso’s eyes lit right up and he was game.  So was Gilly. Joey, even though he was older than some of them, was always ready to follow me, and little Nicky would come with him.  I don’t even know if Slug knew what we were talking about, but he would probably drift along after us. This might be fun.

So, we all started walking down the towpath towards the cavalry fort, like we were all a bunch of wonderful little boys with only innocent fun on our minds.  After a few minutes we turned left down into the old canal bad where people had dumped all kinds of trash instead of bringing it to the real dump down near Green Island.  People were so stupid lazy that they would trash up all around them to save a little bit of time and work.  Stupid jerks.

We walked through the dump area until we got to the low dirt road that extended from Jefferson Street. It was all bushy here with blackberry picker patches and tons of poison ivy. While we walked, the other kids thought about playing at the fort, I’m sure, but I was thinking about them.

I had a secret that they didn’t know about.  If it got out, I’d be screwed, but these little kids were too stupid to figure it out, even Moose.  Joey Molinari and Nutso were the oldest of the bunch, both right around twelve, and the other kids were, like, nine and ten or so.  They all thought I was twelve or maybe even thirteen, because I was bigger than they were.  What nobody knew is that I was real small for my age.

Nobody knew about me because we had just moved to Cataract from Albany, where I had gotten in a lot of trouble in school.  So, right after I got kicked out, we moved here, like my mother said, to start fresh.

In Albany, nobody my age treated me right because I was small and weak compared to the other kids my age.  So, I felt better when I was hanging around with smaller kids.  I could be strong next to them and they looked up to me.  But after all the trouble, nobody would let their kids be anywhere near me, and mom decided to move.  The hell with all them stupid jerks in Albany.

Mom was all worried about me, but I told her it was all a misunderstanding.  I didn’t do anything wrong, just people lied and blamed me for stuff. It would be better here because of Mim.  Kids here didn’t know anything about guys like Mim or about stupid niggers either, so they would believe anything that ‘tough’ kids like me would say about them.  This would be way better, and my mom wouldn’t have to get all worried anymore. Mim would be the one to get in all the trouble, this time. Hah!

In no time, we got to the old fort. It smelled real musty and damp all the time, and the floor was mostly rotted away and buried in spongy wood and wet wads of paper and ceiling stuff, all crashed down.  Rats skittered away when we came in and you had to wipe spider webs from your face all the time.

Gilly, Joey and Nutso went to get some shattered windshield glass from one of the old junkers in the woods outside the back of the fort. They left me alone with their little stupid pussy brothers.  I had already done business with stupid Slug, he most didn’t care or even seem to know what was going on all the time, but I hadn’t done business with little Nicky yet.  He would be fun, if I could scare him enough.

Slug just sat down in a corner near a whole bunch of old dress manikins and started pulling pieces of rat turds off the ground.  He’d pluck them up and look at them and then make a little pile.  He had that stupid smile on his face. Made you want to bash him one.  But he was really easy to do business with.

Nicky started acting all nervous again, as usual, asking, “When’s my brother an’ Gilly an’ Nutso comin’ back, huh, Jimmy?” He looked worried that they wouldn’t come back at all.

“Don’t cry, ya little baby, big brother’ll be back real soon ta hold yer hand, OK?”

it was hard to always remember to talk young and stupid with these kids, to keep them from figuring me out, you know?

Nicky just sat down near Slug with his chin on his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs, like that could protect him.

I said, “Geezum, what if Mim was ta come in here, huh?  Wonder what he’d do?”  I said it with the scariest of all my looks.

Slug looked up and smiled his stupid smile.  I thought I saw him look at me funny.  If he ever says anything, I’ll goddam kill him.  He’d be no loss to anybody.

Nicky looked even more worried than he already had.

He said, “Mim wouldn’t come here, would he?” 

I was pretty sure he had no idea what everybody was talking about what Mim did to kids like him. He was going to find out, sure enough.

I said, “Why, do ya think he’d try ta suck yer dinger, like they says?”

Nicky just scrunched closer around himself. Cool, he was real scared!

The three clowns came back with their ‘diamonds’. 

Joey said, “Hey, Yoder, let’s do this later.  I gotta get Nicky home for supper.”  Nicky suddenly looked pretty happy.

Nutso said, in his Donald duck sounding voice, “Annnhhh, Yeah, I’m hungry, too, c’mon, Matty.” Matty was Slug’s name but Nutso was the only one who ever called him that.  I think even their stupid parents called him Slug!

“C’mon, guys, let’s do the treasure thing now.  Ya can eat supper later.”  I didn’t want them to leave.  People were always leaving.

But the Molinari jerk offs were already walking away, like they were glad to get away, or something.  They didn’t even say ‘See Ya’, or anything.  I’ll show them!

“Come on, Ricky!”  I wanted him to stay.  I wanted to see what could happen.

Nutso stopped.  Slug hadn’t even gotten up, yet, was still just sitting there, looking stupid. Nutso said, “Annnhhh, Matty, get up, c’mon!”  He looked at me. “I don’t know wha’s wrong wid ‘im.  Annnhhh, he’s been real weird about ever’ thin’ fer the las’ month er so.”

Yeah, I guess!  Slug smiled his stupid smile and kept picking at the crap all over the floor. 

“Yeah?  I thought he was jus’ quiet an’ never said too much.”

“Naw, he use ta talk lots, an’ played ball, annnhhh, an’ went hikin’ an’ all that stuff.”

Gilly said, “Yeah, ol’ Slug use-ta was OK, ya know?”

“it’s prolly that jerk, Mim, maybe bothered him like he done ta some other kids.”

Right away, Nutso started jerking all around and got that real wild look on his face that he got when he was about to earn his name.

“Annnhhh, that goddam fag, I’ll kill ‘im.  We should a goddam burned his goddam house down when we was still at the park, goddam it!”

Gilly said, “Yeah, le’s go burn ‘im right outa the house, c’mon!”

This will be great, I thought!

“Hey, Ricky, I’m with ya.  But we gotta do this right, like.  No sense lightin’ up his house inna daytime when everybody’ll see us.  We ought a wait till tonight.”

“Annnhhh! Yeah, yer right!  We’ll get ‘em all when they’s asleep an’ they’ll all burn up and there won’t be no more Mim family to stinkify the neighborhood up no more!”

Gilly said, “OK, when ya wanna do it?  Midnight?”

Now this was going somewhere!  it was way better than leading them on a fake nigger chase.  In fact, we could blame it on the niggers.  People around here will believe anything, especially if it’s something they’re afraid of like niggers and fires and stuff like that.

I said, “Yeah, let’s meet at midnight in the park near the swings.  Nutso, you bring some matches an’ old newspaper, and maybe some lighter fluid if ya can get some. Gilly, bring a flashlight, if ya want.”

They both said OK and we all walked out of the fort into the woods, the three of us.  At the dirt road, Nutso and Gilly went towards the park and I turned to head home to get some supper.  I was thinking about Slug and what he might be thinking, wondering just how much he remembered and what would happen if he came out of his funk.  He could get me in trouble.  Gilly and Nutso had both forgot that he was still in the fort, that he hadn’t left with us.

When Gilly and Nutso were out of sight, I turned back into the woods. It hadn’t rained in two weeks and there was lots of dried out sumac branches and dry gasses around.  I collected a few armfuls and piled them in the corner of the fort near the door.  I snuck in quiet and saw that stupid Slug was still inside. He probably didn’t even realize that we had all left and was still sitting there dreaming his life away. Go to sleep, little pussy-wussy!

From my pocket, I pulled out my pack of Kools and my book of matches and lit a cigarette.  I tossed the lit match down into the pile, all accidental-like, and saw the dry grasses catch and start smoking. It wasn’t my fault I accidentally dropped the match!

In a couple minutes, I had a good fire going.  I collected lots more dead sumac and threw it on the fire, spreading it out a bit towards the walls.  The place felt damp, but the old wood walls were dry as could be and I figured they would burn good and fast.  When it looked like they would start to catch, I ditched my cigarette and took off.  If I was lucky, old stupid Slug would be stuck.  That stupid smile and messed up brain wouldn’t cause me any trouble from now on.  He could go to hell for all I cared.

I ran through the woods quick, ran past the dirt road, through the dump and up to the towpath.  I could follow the towpath away from the park until it came to First Street right behind our new house. I looked back and could just start to see smoke coming from where the old fort was. Cool! I ran through the backyard and up the back steps.  My mother was in the living room watching TV and I could see she had a couple TV Dinners on the counter for supper, like usual.  She didn’t hear me come in and I snuck into my bedroom without her knowing.  Safe!

Our house was a three storey wood building at the corner of First and Main and we had the third floor as our apartment. It had a front room, a middle room, a kitchen and two bedrooms on the sides.  My bedroom was a lot smaller than the one I had in Albany, which I missed, goddam them!  But, I’m not going to talk about all that old stuff.  I won’t get caught again, and if I do, I’ll just kill myself this time, and I’ll take a lot of jerks with me, too.

My father just about wants to kill me, anyways. “What kind of a son are you that would do stuff like that? Huh?  Answer me, huh? I didn’t raise you that way, huh?”, and on and on and on, never stopping.  Bo-ooo-ring!  He didn’t get that all these stupid little weenie jerks didn’t count for anything at all.  When you were smart like me, you had the right to do what you wanted.  I’d do business with anybody I wanted and nobody could stop me.  I’d show the bastards!

I turned on my radio and that new Animals song was playing, House of the Rising Sun, talking about ruined small boys.  I wanted to ruin all of them.  I was ruined, so they should be, too.  Slug and Frecks and Gilly and Nutso and even baby Bobby; I’d do business with them all, and wreck every one of them.  They’d see!  I didn’t care, and I’d kill myself anyway so I wouldn’t go to prison.  That’s what I wanted.

My mom had heard the music and came into my room.

“Honey, I didn’t know you were home, when did you get in?”

“I come in about a hour ago, mom. You were busy so I just came in here to take a nap.”

“Oh, honey I was worried about you.  Mrs. Mason was outside and said that some niggers had come into town and stole some boy’s jacket.  And there have been fires all over all day.  I was worried you might get hurt in all the excitement.”

“Naw, I’m OK.  There was a fire up behind the Boulerice’s house in the field.  I don’t know how it got started.  Maybe little kids playing with matches or something, I don’t know.”

“What have you been doing all day, hon?”

“Played some ball in the park   Walked downtown for a while.  Helped a lady carry some groceries from the store, stuff like that.”  My mom would believe me, no worries.

“Oh, I’m so glad you are keeping busy and not getting to know any younger children.  You remember what the social worker said; play with children your own age, dear.”

“it’s not fair, mom, I didn’t do anything!”

“I know, baby, I know, but if there are any more false accusations like before, they’ll take you away from us.  You know that!”

I let my eyes get a little wet.  “I know, mom, it just isn’t right, that’s all.  Why should I have to live like this when I didn’t do what they said?  Even dad hates me, now.”

The tears came good, now, and my mom came and sat with her arm around me.

“We’ll get through this, sweetie, don’t you worry, it will all come out OK.”  She was starting to sob a bit too.  She was always good for a few tears. You could count on it.  I laughed inside.

“Mom?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Does dad hate me?”

“Oh, baby, your father doesn’t hate you!”  She was crying for sure, now. “He just couldn’t stand all the talk, what people were saying about you, that’s all.  He’ll come around in a little while, you’ll see.”

Yeah, he’ll come around when I’m dead.

“When’s he coming home?” 

I knew he was working a second job.  He had to give up his good job when we moved from Albany.  There weren’t that many good jobs here, so he needed two to almost make what he made before with one, the stupid jerk.  He was too dumb to be able to get another good job. Goddam stupid bastard.  But, it was just as well, because he was hardly ever home to give me a hard time and that was fine by me.

“He won’t be home tonight because he got an offer of overtime at the mill.  We’ll see him tomorrow morning when he gets home.”

“OK,” I said, snuffling like I was really upset.

“Hey,” she said, “Have you been thinking about your new school?”

They were sending me to St. Simian the Oppressor, the Catholic High School here in Cataract. It was supposed to be more structured than the public high school I had gone to in Albany.  You had to wear a uniform, a blue jacket and tie and dark pants and black or brown shoes.  You were taught by nuns and priests and had to go to church and all that.  I had been hoping they wouldn’t let me in because we weren’t Catholic, but the social worker talked to the principal, Monsignor Mulqueen, or some name like that, and he said that they would take me and lead me down some bright and shining path, or something. It was really going to suck.

“Aw, mom, Catholic nuns?  Like penguins? You gotta be kidding!”

‘it’ll be for the best, you’ll see.  Your father feels you need more structure in your life.  Remember, he could have insisted on that military school.”

“I know.  Mom, I would have committed suicide if he’d done that!”

“Now don’t talk like that, honey!  This is something that will go away and everything will be fine again.  You just need to have faith!”  She looked so serious it was all I could do not to laugh!

“I know, I’m sorry!”

“Honey, I’m worried about you, you know.  When you talk to me alone, you are still my sweet, beautiful boy.  But when you talk to your father, you seem to turn into a monster before my eyes.  You know, wanting to fight, hating everything and everybody, clenching your fists, saying hurtful things.  When you’re like that, I don’t even know you.  Is there anything you want to talk to me about?”

This was one of the problems talking to my mother.  I had to keep up the act, and she would want to keep talking until I just about wanted to punch HER brains out!  Goddam her, can’t she leave me alone for one GODDAM STUPID MINUTE!??

I took a deep breath.  “No, I’m really OK, just a bit tired right now.  That lady’s groceries were heavy.  Can I take a nap again until supper?”

“You go right ahead, honey. A short one, though. I’ll have some dinners heated up in little while.  Sleep tight.”

Finally, she walked out of the room.  I looked out my window toward the fort and now say big clouds of smoke over it.  Going good.  She’ll never think to look out and notice it.  Busybody Mrs. Mason will have to tell her, like she does everything.  Bye-bye, Slug.

Little Weenie Nicky should be next.  He was a little scared kid and his brother Joey thought I was cool and tough and so might not think too hard about what went on.  Besides, Joey was always off playing baseball, and Nicky wandered around alone a lot, so might be easy to catch.  Cool!

First, though, since I had started taking care of old business with Slug, maybe I should think about Frecks, too.  We had left him in the park, all scrunched in on himself and crying about Mim.  Would he keep his mouth shut?  I don’t know.  Maybe I’d check him out after supper.

Now I heard the sirens.  The firemen were heading to the fort to put out the fire.  Nobody could prove I set it.  Slug would be burned to death.  One down!  One less weenie jerk to cause trouble.

The doorbell rang.  I heard stupid busybody Mrs. Mason yelling up from the street to my mother, “Irma, there’s another fire, is your boy home?”

None of her goddam business who’s home or not home, the jerk.

“Yes, Mrs. Mason, he’s in his room, safe and sound.”

“it seems the whole city is burning down today, Irma.  I worry about it so. These kids!”

Her voice faded away so I could goddam think again.

I still had the radio on. WPTR, the Albany station, not that wimpy WTRY from Troy.  ‘You Really Got Me’ was playing, clangy guitar, great! What I felt when I was doing business with stupid kids.  I really got you, kid, and you’ll like it, too!  I’ll never set you free!

“Jimmy!  Come out for supper.”

I walked out to the kitchen table and she was just pulling the two TV dinners out of the oven with her big oven mitts that made her hands look like flippers.  They had these charred places at the edges and her thumb stuck out of one of them so that she had to be careful when reaching into the oven.  She had scars on the thumbs, too, where she had forgot and touched the hot grate.  Stupid!  Buy some goddam new mitts, if the old man was working two jobs.  Makes you ugly!

She carried the dinners into the front room where the TV was, so we could sit and watch while we ate. Local news was on before Huntley and Brinkley would come on to bore us all to tears.  Or, maybe not, I think they were only on weekdays.  Who cared anyway?

That’s the trouble with this stupid world.  Everybody’s always trying to tell you what they think you have to know.  These assholes on TV sit behind desks with suits and ties and talk at you like you’re a moron, explaining about Arabs protesting and fighting communists and how much it costs to fire space rockets and all that stupid blabber.  Makes me want to puke!  We should kill all these jerks so they’d leave us alone to do what we want.

Now, they think I’m going to this stupid Catholic high school with stupid pansy priests and nuns.  They expect me to wear a stupid jacket and tie myself.  Well, not me, pal.  I’m going to do some business and then go out in a flame of glory.  I’ll show them all.  I’m tired of all this shit.

We ate our stupid TV dinners.  Big deal!  Aluminum trays with Salisbury steak, some mush that was supposed to be mashed potatoes, some half frozen, tasteless green beans and ‘compote’ that was supposed to be dessert.  Probably filled with chemicals or something.  Maybe we’d all die and save me the trouble of killing myself!  I saw myself and my stupid mother rolling around on the floor, grabbing our rotting guts, blood coming out of our mouths, crapping and pissing ourselves on the front room rug.  Our muscles would all knot up and we’d scream in pain and stupid busybody Mrs. Mason would run in and scream at the sight of us.  The city’s Cadillac ambulance would come and the ambulance guys would throw up when they saw us dying right in front of them. It would be in the Troy Record next day, not only in the Cataract section but right on the front page.  Everybody would see it.  They’d be sorry!  They’d wish they treated me better.  I’d be a hero!  Everybody’d respect me then.  I’d walk down the street and people would turn and stare.  People would want to be with me.  My father would pat me on the back.

I was getting all excited thinking about it.  Almost as excited as I was when I was doing business with these stupid little kids.  I had a boner you wouldn’t believe! Somehow, it was mostly exciting because I saw my mother suffering, too.  Stupid society says you’re supposed to love your parents, especially mother and apple pie, but thinking about her dying made me feel good all over. Weird.  They’ve been hiding something from me all along!

“Mom, what do you think they put in this stuff?”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“Like, poison, I mean?”  I said this with my best smile on my face.

“Why, I think it’s perfectly good for you, honey.  Honestly, sometimes I wonder about you, sweetie.  You sometimes seem so strange.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know, just kind of questioning and unbelieving, you know, like you were thinking bad thoughts, maybe.”

“I’m not thinking any bad thoughts, mom, I’m sorry if I made you think that.  I’ll be better, I promise.”

She smiled at me like she didn’t really believe me and turned back to the TV.  I wasn’t thinking bad thoughts at all.  These were all good thoughts.  Her rolling around on the floor, dying.  That was a good thought.  I had to work on one for my father, too.  We could all die together, in real pain.  Screaming and dying, knowing it was the end, knowing that there was nothing left to do except suffer until the blackness came.  That would be great!  That would be the best!  No more of this stupid life, just pain.

They were talking about the weather on TV, how it was going to be a clear, warm night, and still nice and warm tomorrow.  A beautiful Sunday coming. A perfect day for suffering.  I couldn’t wait.

I suddenly thought:  I could’ve done more business with stupid Slug before I lit the fire.  Damn!  Why didn’t I think of that?  it just goes to show.  Now he’s probably all dead and charred up and firemen and police looking at the body and no chance to do anymore business with him, now.  Damn!  I wouldn’t have had to worry about leaving marks at all.  I could’ve used a knife or hatchet or whatever and had some real fun.  The evidence would have burned up and nobody would know.  DAMN!

I figured I better go check to see what was going on, if they found him or what..

“Mom, I’m going to go see what’s burning over there where the smoke and sirens are, OK?”

“Oh, honey, it’s dangerous around fires.  Stay here and watch TV with me, OK?”

She was driving me goddam NUTS!

“I’ll be real careful.  They probably have it all roped off, anyway.  I’ll stay back where it’s safe, don’t worry.”

She didn’t like it but I dropped my tray on the floor and skipped out the back before she could even get up and start crabbing at me.  What a stupid bitch.

I ran down the back stairs and through the yard and headed down the towpath.  By the time I got to the crossroad to Galarneau’s store, I could see the fire trucks all parked on the dirt road near the old fort.  There were hoses all around and firemen running all over and a few cops there, too.  There were red lights flashing on the fire trucks and police cars and lots of people watching.

I saw Gilly and Bobby and Moose and Doodles, all watching with their mouths open like they had never seen a fire before.  I ran up to them.

“Hey guys, what’s burnin’?”  Like I didn’t know, huh?

Moose answered: “The old Calvary Fort.  Damn, there goes that place.” He meant Cavalry Fort, but these goons couldn’t ever say anything right!

Gilly said, “Geezum, it was OK when we all left it, weren’t it, Yoder?”

“Yeah.  Geez, I went home ta eat an’ was watching the news with my mom, an’ alova sudden heard the sirens an’ looked out an’ saw the smoke.”

“Yeah, we was in the park and saw lotsa smoke an’ runned over ta see.  As soon as da coppers got here, they sure looked at me like I done it, but ever’ body said I was inna park the whole time, so they lef’ me alone, the stupid jerks!”

“Yeah,” I said, “the stupid fuzz always wants ta blame somebody whenever they can.  Ya know, they tortures little kids in jail, ya know?”

Bobby and Doodles looked at me like I was crazy.  Just what I wanted them to think.  Boy, I’d sure like to do business with them, but their brothers were too tough.  Maybe, if I could figure a way just before the flame of glory, I could.  I wonder if anybody ever told them anything.  No, either Moose or Bobby’s big brother, Bummer, would a creamed me already, or their parents called the lousy cops or something.  So, I was OK.

More than anybody, I would really, really like to do business with Moose.  He was way bigger than I usually liked, and probably way too tough to actually do the business with, but I would sure like to show him what for.  I could show him who’s boss.  The way everybody looked up to him and did what he said and wanted to always play with him, he needed to be taken down a peg, for sure. It really pissed me off to have to act like he was some big guy when I was so much older than him, even though I didn’t look it.  I had hoped somehow to get him stuck and forgotten in Devils Cave, like maybe hurt or something, then come back for him later, but I couldn’t figure a way, dammit.  I’d keep my eyes open.

We watched as the old fort fell in, throwing sparks all over, with sounds of crashing walls and popping and crackling. It was about 7 o’clock, so it was still light but you could see the sun was getting pretty low and the smoke and sparks had a really cool glow against the sky.  Like, almost, watching fireworks.  The woods around the fort were on fire, too, and people were saying that Desormeau’s garage had caught on fire and that the fire department was mostly hosing down the houses on Congress Street so they wouldn’t get lit on fire.  Too bad. It would be exciting to see a whole city block burn up. Dead, burnt bodies everywhere you looked.  That would be cool!

“Anybody seen Nutso an’ Slug,” I asked?

Gilly said, “Naw, Nutso said he was goin’ home ta get supper an’ listen ta the Oriole game onna radio, or somethin.  Boog Powell, all he talks about sometimes.”

He didn’t mention Slug, and nobody else said anything.  Nutso probably wouldn’t have thought to wait up for his brother.  Slug was always just around and people pretty much ignored him. Like I figured, Slug was forgotten about. Dead. Burned.  Cool!

After about another hour, close on to 8 o’clock.  The fire was pretty much out and the firemen who weren’t still hosing houses were starting to leave.  I saw Joey and Nicky down towards the end of the dirt road.  They looked my way and I know they saw me, but they didn’t come over.  Screw them. Bastards.

Since it was just about dark, Moose started talking about getting up a game of Blacksmith, which was just kind of a long distance Hide and Go Seek.  They had more space here than we had in Albany, so this game usually centered at the park and included about two more blocks in each direction. It was a great game if you wanted to be alone in the dark, and especially good for stalking little guys that might need some business done to them. It was how I had gotten to Frecks and Bubby and Slug in the first place.  Maybe tonight I could work on Nicky, if he played.  Maybe I could tell Joey to make him play.

Bobby was saying, “I gotta be in by 10 tonight.  I could go get Zlotsky, he’ll play for sure.”

Doodles had run over to the Molinari’s and was already walking back with them.  I was hoping that a lot of guys would play because the more there were, the more easily you could get someone off alone in the weeds or somewhere.  I thought of who else we could get.

“Hey, what about that Trixie guy, an’ ol’ Woolly, an’ maybe Breault, an’ go get Nutso an’ Slug, whataya think?”

Joey Molinari said he knew Trixie and Woolly pretty good and would go see if they were at their house, or at Galarneau’s.

Doodles said, “While we’re over here, lets go down to Galarneau’s for a soda. Then if Trix and Woolly are there, we got ‘em.”

Bobby agreed right off and so did Moose.  He was always thirsty.

Gilly as usual didn’t have any money, and neither did I.

“Somebody gotta buy me one, or share,” I said. 

Moose said, “I got enough for one for you. Gilly, you too?”

“I don’t need no soda, unless yer sure ya got some extra moola.”

“Yeah, no probs, come on.”

So, we all walked down to Galarneau’s store.  That was where the retard kid was.  He was always mouthing stuff in the store, getting his yucky drool all over the bottle caps and everything.  Everybody tried to ignore him, but I thought he should be ripped to shreds and not bother anybody anymore.  But, I didn’t want to do business with him, because he was really creepy, couldn’t talk or nothing.  My stupid bitch mother says he was an angel but that was pure crap.  He wasn’t any angel, just a stupid useless retard that didn’t have any right to be alive at all.  Somebody should do something.

The store was still open.  In fact it was doing a good business because of all the people out to see the fire. The lady who owned it gave a hug to Joey and Nicky and talked with them about their family, asking how everyone was and all that crap.  The retard was there, making stupid sounds, sucking on the cap of an orange juice bottle.  Yuck.  Like I would drink from something here.

We all crowded in around the soda cooler.  Moose lifted the cover and we saw the bottles in the cold water with the half melted ice swimming around with them.  There was enough for everybody, R.C.’s, 7-Up’s, Tru-Ade’s and Yoo Hoo’s, whatever you wanted. 

R.C. Cola was the hard stuff so I always got that, even though some guys I knew in Albany had started getting older guys to buy beer. In a little less than a year, if I lived that long, I would be eighteen and be able to buy it myself.  I had tried it lots of times and could tell these guys here some things, boy.  You were alive and free when you had drunk a sixer of Shaefers, after you puked out the bad stuff.  But here I didn’t know anybody to buy me any, and since I looked the same age as these stupid kids I was with, nobody would buy me any anyway.

Bobby and Doodles were at the penny candy rack, looking how to spend their dimes.  Sodas were a quarter and for thirty five cents they could get a Tru-Ade and candy straws and candy cigarettes, whatever they wanted.  Kid stuff!  You wouldn’t catch me dead eating penny candy.  I wanted the nickel candy bars, especially Hershey’s.

Moose had some extra money so he said that we could each pick out a few pieces of penny candy, so I got a couple of those small peanut butter cups in the foil wrappers that I liked.  Not them baby candy cigarettes that wouldn’t even light, like Bobby and Doodles and Nicky got.  The wusses!

We all jacked our caps off at the opener on the side of the cooler.  Everybody made sure their capo went into the cap collector next to the cooler, but I just threw mine on the floor, to show everybody who was boss.  Punk Nicky moused over and picked mine up and put it in the collector like a wuss and I laughed at him.

“Aw wittle Nicky-poo, yer such a nice wittle sweetie boy, aincha?”

He said, “Mrs. Galarneau’s real nice ta us and we don’t gotta go messin’ up her store.”

Why the little punk!  I’d show him.  Maybe it really was time for him to get the business.  Joey saw me looking at him and looked away, real nervous-like.  Yeah, you better look away if you know what’s good for you!  I’ll show you and your stupid wussy little brother, you watch!  You’ll be open for business.

When everybody had gotten their sodas and stupid penny candy, we all left the store and headed on up to the park.  I shoved the retard on my way out and he looked at me like I was a monster or something, the stupid jerk, and I just made a tough face at him and showed him my fist.  He looked away and kind of hunkered down on himself, like he better, if he knows what’s good for him. What a useless pile of crap he was, sucking on his bottle and getting it all gross.  Somebody should just kill him and get it over with.

There were still a few fire trucks finishing up on Congress and we walked by them towards the new Central Market store.  We hung out a bit near the firemen.  The guys liked to hear what they were talking about.  Maybe they knew who started the fire or something and wouldn’t that be cool.  In fact they were talking a bit and the fire chief was there talking to the police chief and saying that it looked like Arson.  They thought it might be possible that old Mr. Arsenault had set it for the insurance, since he owned the property and was worried about the damn kids (that was us!) getting hurt in the old fort. Cool!  Blame him. That worked for me!

I tried to hear about if they found a burned body but nobody said anything about that.  I sure was hoping that Slug was dead in the fire so I wouldn’t get in trouble for the business I did with him.  But I guess they hadn’t found him yet.  Probably the roof had caved in on him as he was burning and they would find him later when they bulldozed it all up.  Maybe I’d get to see his burned up body, all charred and mucous and all that.  His skin would be flaking all off and you wouldn’t be able to tell who he was and it would be a big mystery. They’d arrest stupid Mr. Arsenault for murder and he’d rot in prison, damn him. I couldn’t wait.

Pretty soon, we left the firemen and walked on up to the park. It was just about dark and we could start playing blacksmith anytime.

There were no teams in blacksmith.  Moose did the ‘eeny-meany-miney-moe, catch a nigger by the toe’ game to see who would be ‘it’ first.  They guy who was ‘it’ would have to count to 500 while we all scattered around, hiding.  The ‘it’ guy would guard the home base, usually the Sandbox or the Teeter-Totter, and all the guys that were hiding had to try to get back to the home base without being seen.  If the it guy saw you, he would yell out “1-2-3 Blacksmith, I got so and so” and the guy would be caught and would have to be ‘it’ next time.  But, we usually kept playing until about half the guys were caught or people had to go in to bed, whichever.

Gilly got picked as ‘it’ and so had to count.  He was pretty pissed but wanted to play so didn’t bitch too much. Moose set the boundaries as Main Street, Second Street, Congress, and First Street as usual.  That gave us lots of room to run away and not be seen, and lost of ways to sneak back. Gilly hid his eyes behind his arm and started counting.  I didn’t think that he’d be able to count all the way up to 500, but anyway we all ran off and disappeared.

As I ran past the basketball courts, there was good old stupid Frecks still sitting next to a tree, still all hunched in, looking.  Hiding.  Scared. Well, he should be.  Time for business.