CONTINUED: Opportunity

“Sandwich machine,” said the trucker.  “Not in great shape, but that’s what it looks like to me.  We have one at the shipping terminal.  Half the time the sandwiches taste like machine oil, but that actually helps the taste of the tuna fish.”

“Look, I don’t need a sandwich machine. I didn’t order a sandwich machine and I’m not going to take delivery of a –“

I paused while Willard walked up to us.  Only Willard might think of a use for an old vending machine with a sign on the front that read “Wholesome & Fresh.”  Who but Willard would see a use for a machine that in its day delivered food when you put a lot of quarters into the slot, pushed the D5 button and watched your baloney sandwich  make its way around to you on a lazy susan and drop through a hole down a chute to your waiting hands.

“Willard,” I said without much hope for a sensible answer, “this must be something you ordered. Please tell the man he’s delivering the machine to the wrong address.”

“But Dave, I got it for free and we need to keep it here.”

“I told you, Willard, no more hare-brained projects and never again in my barn.”

“But there’s a small fortune to be made,” he said.

“Oh sure,  every crazy idea you ever had was going to make us rich as Croesus.”

“But this idea won’t fail, greases or not.  Let me just explain.“

The trucker tried to interrupt. He wanted to drop the machine off the back of his truck and get going. Neither Willard nor I was listening.

“Willard,” I said, “I don’t understand –“

“I’ll try to explain and I can only hope you have the imagination to appreciate it.”

“Try me, Willard.”

“What’s up at the end of the road?” he said.

“The mountains, Willard.”

“And what flows down the mountain?”

“The creek, Willard.”  I was getting more impatient by the second..

“A fishing creek,” he said. “The hundreds of fishermen who pass this barn each day are a market ready to be exploited.  All we need is a tireless salesman. Since that would not be you or I, we can harness modern electro-mechanical technology as our slave.”

“You’re saying this machine –“

“Day and night, no long lunch hours or maternity leave.“

“You’re going to use this to—“

“Exactly,” he said as the trucker nudged the vending machine from the truck bed on to the powered rear gate.  “This is our get-rich answer to a poor retiree’s prayer.”

 Willard stepped up to the powered gate and raised a hand in salute to the sandwich machine.  With a flourish his other hand swiped over the words “Wholesome and Fresh,” painted on its bottom panel.

“Gentlemen,  I give you  the world’s first Worm Machine,” he announced in a voice of wonder.

“It makes worms?” I said

“It delivers them in packages,” said Willard.  “And this is the perfect spot, right next to the road with power from the barn. And lights, of course.”

“Why not music, too?” I said.

“Customers put a dollar in the slot,” he said, “and a styrofoam coleslaw cup of worms packed in dirt comes sliding down the sandwich chute.”

I laughed.  “With ketchup or mustard?”

The trucker spoke up.  “How’s a guy driving by gonna know the sandwich machine was converted to worms?’

Willard tapped the bottom panel with his finger.  “I can easily re-paint “Wholesome and Fresh” to read “Wholesome Worms.”

“Wholesome wo-“

“A new concept in bait sales,” he said.  “How’s this jingle? ‘For a Wholesome Fish you need a Wholesome Worm.’”

“What the hell is a wholesome worm, Willard?”

“It’s the name of our new company,  The Wholesome Worm Company.”

Neither the trucker nor I knew what to say.

I counted five spaces on each of the ten stacked trays.  “That’s 50 cups of worms, or … carry the one … 600 worms you’ll have to dig up every night if you want to sell each cup for a dollar to earn $50 a day.”

“Should come to more than that,” Willard said.

“Nope.  And who’s gonna dig the worms out of the garden every night?”

Willard thought for a moment.  “We can buy the worms in bulk from Louie over on the woods road. We’ll pack the containers each night, fill the machine and come back the next night to rake in the profits.”

“Well, I’ll bet Louie will want at least 50 cents a dozen wholesale,” I said. “That means we’ll only net $25 on fifty cups.  Less the cost of cups and everything.  And there aren’t a hundred  fishermen going past here to the creek every day.  Maybe five or six and usually they’re fly fisherman with their own flies.  We’ll be lucky to split two bucks a day.”

A pickup truck pulled off the road and came up to the barn while we spoke.  The driver stepped out and walked over to us.  He wore jeans and a flannel shirt.  A fishing vest rounded out his costume along with a canvas hat that said “The Big One”  across the front.”

His eyes were fixed on the machine and he said to no one in particular, “Is that a worm machine?”

Willard hooted.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“A couple of farmers over on the Beaverkill used to have them next to their barns.  They’re really convenient.  Just drop a dollar in the slot and ‘Presto.’”

“Presto,” said a smiling Willard, “the sound of profits ringing in my ears.”

“Used to have?” I said.

“Yeah,” the man replied, “after a while everyone noticed the worms weren’t catching any fish.  They smelled like sewing machine oil.”

“I told ya,” said the trucker.”

“So they sold the machines cheap,” said the The Big One, “even gave a few away.  That’s why I stopped.  Thought you might be selling it.”

“What are you planning to use it for?” said Willard.

“You see those mountains up there at the end of the road?” said the man. “What do you think is up there?”

“A fishing creek,” said Willard.

“In the winter,” said the man.

“Oh”, said Willard, “you mean the ski resorts?”

“Right,” said the man, “and what do the hundreds of skiers who go by here every day need?”

Willard looked at me. I rolled my eyes and said,  “Not worms, probably.”
       ”Gloves.  Ski gloves,” said the man. “I want to put this machine right here and sell gloves.  I’ll rent the space in front of your barn, pay for the electric and tightly wrap gloves in elastic and sell them in the machine.”

 “I don’t think so,” I said.  “I think I should tell you—“

“Well, you think about it,” he said.  He handed me a business card and walked over to his truck.  “We could make a fortune selling gloves.”

I started to follow him. “But, let me—“

He drove off.

The trucker spoke.  “Gloves might make more money than worms.”

“How many skiers,” I said, “do you think go by here each day on their way up the mountain?”

“Not hundreds?”

“Tell him, Willard.”

Willard reluctantly shook his head. “None.”

“That’s right,” I said.  “The road is closed in the winter. The skiers take the state highway.”

The trucker looked at Willard and then glanced back my way.  “What do you guys want to do with this machine?”

Willard watched as I held The Big One’s card in the air.  The old fellow sighed and nodded.  I passed the card to the trucker and said, “Take it to the glove man.  Tell him ‘our compliments.’  And suggest he find another road.” 

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copyright 2014 by David Griffin

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Listen

I thought back to all the times as a boy I had come awake on this day,  sure that a surprise gift or two waited for me under a glorious tree festooned with colored lights.  There would be no tree or gift this morning and I felt lonely and rather sad, even at age 24.  I switched on the lamp and beneath it on the bedside table sat a small box wrapped in Christmas paper. Opening it, I discovered a pine cone,  round and open with square woody sprigs sprouting out.   The touches of pine sap had dried to a white frosting, making it very Christmas-like.  It was beautiful.  It was wonderful.  I’ve kept it for years.

The pine cone is an ancient symbol of enlightenment and no doubt one of the nuns  believed I was in need of a good measure of it  I laughed to myself.  She was probably right. 

     A half hour later I stood next to an old priest on the altar as he said Mass and I functioned as the altar server.  I looked out at the forty women in their religious habits and saw one who might have been the oldest smiling at me.  She was beaming and her hand gave me a little wave.

     Later at breakfast, I spoke to her.  “Thank you so much for the pine cone. Why did you do that for me?”

“You’re the youngest here,” she said.  “You would miss Christmas presents the most.”

I was embarrassed.  “I guess I’ll get over it someday,”  I said.

“Oh, you needn’t rush,” she said. “Embrace that longing you have for a gift from under the Christmas tree.  Feel it and let it remind you that something deeper in you is longing for Him."

“Longing for a Christmas present and longing for God are not the same,”  I said.

“Are you sure?” She laughed.  “Don't be so holy.  Let your desires show you what your soul already knows to be true."

"I'm not sure I know what I want," I said.

"You will know when you listen," she said.

 When I listened, I found strength to live by, and coincidentally the meaning of Christmas.  It is Emmanuel, the name that means He is with us.   There is someone who walks the path by our side throughout our lives, who shows himself at the oddest times through a variety of people.  It turns out our salvation is worked out among our friends and neighbors. And all we need to do is what that little sign tells us … the one we often see at this time of year hanging in a store, a bar, an office, a dorm room or a home.  It explains everything in one word, "Believe."  It's all we need if we want to see miracles happen all around us.

You know, I can't give Kickstart his faith.  But I can give him a symbol and pray that he listens.  I can give him my pine cone.

Listen and you will hear what’s inside you..

 Believe and He will be with you..

 Emmanuel.   Merry Christmas!

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Copyright 2014, David Griffin

The   Windswept   Press 

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Sanctuary

And so it was no surprise Mike and I took advantage of the lengthy sermon during Christmas Eve’s gruesomely long Midnight Mass.  Our mirth bubbled over as we tried out one-liners for the trial scene in our upcoming Neighborhood New Years Play, “Manger Animals Meet Brown Franciscan Alien Sisters.”  When Dad grabbed Mike by the ear and threatened to hug him to death, the two of us were ready to challenge Our Father, as we referred to him in his presence when we wanted to get his goat.  We pointed out that a little laughing was certainly not as bad as the animal noises we made last year when seated near the manger.  These were performed as realistically as possible so that nearby worshipers began to wonder if  any of the cattle in the manger scene were real. 

We also found ways to acoustically amplify our bodily functions while Father Fartslubber brought us all up to date on the latest from the Vatican in their unending quest to stamp out everyone’s night life.

“Just how has it come to be,” Mike and I now asked each other, “that Our Father should swat us while we are supposed to be safe here in the sanctuary of Holy Mother The Church?”

“I’m sure our Catechism would be of help,” said Mike.

“Amen, Brother,” I replied.  “Question 4,381 of the Baltimore Catechism, subpart VIII, paragraph 2 says: ‘Would Holy Mother The Church ever lie to us?’”

“And the answer?”  said Mike.

“Probably she would not, but Caveat Emptor,” I said.

Behind us old Mr. Kennedy who ran the  liquor store listened to this exchange with a look of horror growing on his face.  It was said that his son went away to become a priest, but no one ever heard from the young man afterward.  Therefore it became one of those popular boyhood beliefs the Kennedy kid was in jail doing 25 to life for murdering a showgirl.

Dad smiled and whispered, “Sanctuary doesn’t apply this morning because we didn’t chase each other in here.  We all came in of our own accord.”

I took a deep breath.  “So,” I said, in my self-appointed role as  Neighborhood Child Legal Advocate ( my advertising jingle was ‘Naughty or Nice, For a Quarter You Can Call Dave Twice,’) “if next week Mike and I decide to skip church, what do you suppose will be our sanctuary status then?”

“I haven’t  deliberated long enough to render a  polished opinion,” Dad said evenly.  “But I can guarantee you’ll wish you never heard of sanctuary if you don’t come to Mass.”

“Yes, Sir.  I got it, Dad.  Turns out Mike and I will be available.”

Fifteen minutes later we stood at the invitation to “Pray, Brothers”  and then knelt for more prayer from the missal. Soon the Mass reached the Consecration of the bread and wine.  The small hand-held altar bells jingled and the priest offered up the bread by raising it to heaven.  From everywhere around us short whispered prayers began to softly dribble from the lips of fervent worshipers.   In a voice beyond a whisper, but loud enough to be heard twenty to thirty feet away in the quiet church, Mike intoned in a voice deeper than normal, “Ogee Fatogee.”

Sitting between Mike and Dad I saw my father’s big arm shoot across my field of vision.  One end of it connected with Mike’s ear and pulled the boy bodily across my lap where he was stuffed down in the narrow space just beneath Our Father’s elbow.     

Later Mike said he thought he’d spoken Latin.  He had watched a Tarzan movie and the natives all said “Ogee Fatogee” when their new king ascended the throne.  Tarzan, an illiterate Zulu dilettante, asked what the phrase meant.

“All Honor to You, Sahib,” came the answer.

Mr. Kennedy approached us after church as we crunched our way back across the brightly lit parking lot  toward our car.

“You’ve got quite a bit on your hands with those two boys in church, John,” he said to Dad, an old fellow Knight of Columbus.

“We make do,” said Dad.  “Mary works so hard with the boys all week.”  With a chuckle, he added, “I gave her Christmas Eve off.”

“Might be better for her soul and for the boys’ behavior if she came along to help you control them at Mass.”

I heard my father’s jaw grind shut.  He was no pushover, but he was indeed a nice guy and respectful of his elders, including Mr. Kennedy.  He looked the man in the eye but otherwise didn’t respond.  Everyone became quiet.

Mike lifted his face and stared up at the old man.

“Ogee Fatogee,” he said as a winning smile crept across his face. 

“Esprit de Corps,” I added.

“Una lucha entre el pasado y el futuro,” said Dad, recalling Fidel Castro’s definition of Revolución.

“Muy bien,” I said.

“Ya Wah Bong,” said Mike.

“Ya What Who?” Mr. Kennedy asked.

“Chinese Jingle Bells,” said Mike.  He and I began to softly sing, “Ya Wha Bong, Ya Wha Bong, Ya Wha all the way.”

It appeared to me Mr. Kennedy was impressed.  Or in any event stunned.  He looked down at two angelic faces gazing up at him and then twisted his head back to Dad, who stood no more than 36 inches from his nose.

“Merry Christmas to you all,” said Mr. Kennedy, but his eyes were on only my father as he backed away slowly, a step at a time.

“Please,” he added, “extend my good wishes to your wife.”  He turned and rapidly sped off in the direction of his car.

“He’s afraid of us,” said Mike.

My father laughed. “More likely he’s afraid he’ll catch something from us.”

“Why didn’t you slug him, Dad?”  I asked.

He glanced at me to see if I was serious. He relaxed and answered me.

“Sanctuary,” he said.  “We’re in church, right?”

“Actually, Dad, we’re out on the sidewalk,” said Mike.

Sanctuary isn’t always about four walls,” he said. “Sometimes it’s nothing more than giving a person a second chance.”

Not all of Dad’s bits of  wisdom stuck in my memory, but that one did. 

My father was a pretty astute guy, a wise man who thought about his reactions to things before he let his reaction go too far.  As a beneficiary of all his wisdom, I should have grown up almost perfect.  But lucky for both of us he was ordinary as well as special.  Lucky for me, I’m as much a product of his failures as his successes, leaving me blessedly normal.

Mike, on the other hand, became a genius.

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copyright 2017, David Griffin

Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Guardians

I truly hoped they would ride with us on this Christmas weekend.   Walking on the road through Central Park  in a blinding snow storm is something only an idiot would attempt, or a barely handsome young man.  I suppose I shouldn’t be so harsh.  In truth, I often do it myself.   And after all, as the young woman said, it was a lovely snowfall.  It’s impossible to describe the beauty of falling snow in New York City.  The charm in part stems from the covering of the city’s many visual sins.  Then too, the mantel of pure white helps to hush the incessant noise of a million automobiles.

I was relieved when the couple accepted our offer and climbed up into the carriage.  Had they been native New Yorkers, they might have refused us with suspicion.  And maybe with reason, since my partner, free on a kind of parole from a place you seldom hear about anymore, is not the most angelic looking individual.  The top hat doesn’t improve him and barely hides his horns.  Myself, you wouldn’t take  notice of me unless I was standing in your living room, all 1400 pounds of me, swishing my tail and leaving hoof prints on your Oriental carpet.

   It was indeed a wonderful evening to be out and about in the city,  but perhaps not a great night for a carriage ride through the center of the Park.    Each driver coming up from behind insisted on passing, swishing his car in the snow and sliding around us, often getting hardly beyond the carriage before an oncoming car zoomed down on us like a bobsled.   Cabbies tooted and swore and seemed to aim at us as I strained to pull the carriage behind me off to the side each time a vehicle careened our way.  

 New York City  drivers should stay at home when the snow falls, but instead foul weather brought them out that night.   As conditions worsened, so did their driving skills, common sense and demeanor. They were  like crazed battalions of novice soldiers turning more inept as they continued to lose the battle.

 I began to feel sorry for myself and wished I’d let my lazy devil of a partner talk me out of this last trip of the evening.  He and I are from two separate worlds, as different as night and day.  We were paired for that reason, so that we might better understand humanity.

   We crossed the park and delivered the young couple safely to the Tavern.  I’m sure they quickly ran out of money.  But that’s not my concern.  I’ll come across the two again.  Keeping lovers safe while helping out a little is why we’re here.  You could say we’re old softies, especially for the younger lovebirds.

 You may call us whatever you like … heralds, guardians, cupids.   Not all of us have the youth and beauty of an Adonis or Psyche.  We take the  physical form we’re given.  I’m sometimes sorry I wasn’t made to fly.  The view up there is wonderful, surely a lot better than down here between the traces of my harness.  If I were an eagle, you would see my wings spread in grandeur, rather than watch my backside clomping along ahead of you. 

 Ah, but wishes are for the young.  So are magical evenings and snowy walks in the park.  Age brings wisdom to expose our conceit of self-reliance, and with it the dawning awareness that a carriage of benevolence has brought us through the storm.

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David Griffin                     copyright 2009

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Fast Train

On a summer evening in upstate New York in 1954, my father brought my older brother and my ten year old self down to Utica’s Union Station to watch the Twentieth Century Limited thunder through the city  without stopping.  Inaugurated in 1902 and running daily until 1967, the Limited carried fathers and brothers and grandmothers and lovers from New York City to Chicago each day.  Every night it brought back another group of souls, arriving at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan well after midnight.

 At nine p.m., she exploded through Utica’s station at full throttle, pounding down the platform at seventy miles per hour to where we stood.  I felt my father's hand grab on to the back of my shirt collar, an oddly comfortable feeling.  A tornado could not have wrested me away from his strong grip, so tightly did he hold me safe.  When the train burst past us a mere ten feet away, the enormous sound and the blast of air were magnificent. A lighted blue eye on the end of the last car quickly sped away from us down the track to wherever trains go.  She had taken my breath away and won my heart.

 Eleven years later, the redheaded girl meeting me at Grand Central Terminal was quickly winning my heart.  Each time her blue eyes rushed at me, they took my breath away.  I had asked her to meet me in the center of the main concourse, under the clock, a romanticism from bygone movie scenes.  We were going north to my parent’s home for the weekend.

 I arrived early so I could watch her as she approached, unaware of my presence.   I hoped that viewing the young woman from afar would help explain why she was changing my ideas, my plans and my life.  I looked up to see her descending the escalator.  Like an angel she scanned the crowds below in search of the boy she’d been sent to make happy, and then I understood that a blessing doesn’t need an explanation.

 When she reached the floor and started my way, I hid behind the large round Information Booth, watching   her for just a few more seconds.  Then I popped out and spoke.

 “Is it the man of your dreams you’re looking for?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “only the man I’m going to marry.”

 “And how could you be sure of that?” I said, surprised not by her intention, but her voicing it.  She looked me in the eye, and in the most matter of fact way said, “Because it’s you I want with all my heart.”

I swallowed, or tried to.

“Then I won’t be disappointing you,” I said.

 On the train, we held hands like teenagers, for we weren’t much beyond those years.  The river and the hills seemed to fly past us, but in reality they sat still, like old married couples on a porch, watching two youngsters hurry ahead into life.  At my parents’ house that weekend, we were never apart, never in separate rooms.  Except at night, by patriarchal decree.

 She went back to work in the city on Sunday evening.  I followed a few days later, when I had finished helping my parents move to the small apartment they rented in readiness for their later years.

 And then I was standing with my father on the rail platform once again, this time waiting for the train to take me back to New York.  I told him I was getting married. 

 “To the redhead, is it?” he said, as if he’d been elsewhere for two days and not seen the girl and I mooning over each other and gamboling about like puppies.

I said yes.

 “Is she the one for you, then?” he asked.

I said yes, she is.

 The train arrived, pounding fast down the platform, coming to get me.  My father put his hand up behind me and grabbed my collar and held on.  When the last car stopped before us, he sighed.  And this time, he let go.

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David Griffin           copyright 2009

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Glamorous

I decided to probe gently but deftly.  Willard would surely be aware his spouse required a hefty investment, that she would need sprucing up before she glided out on that runway of broken dreams.  A few more teeth, at least.  Some extra hair on top would help, plus a new “do,” and more than just a shave and a haircut down at Pete’s. Also,  a beauty contest is probably the wrong event to be obvious about always presenting only one side of her face as she does around the neighborhood, often walking backward to do so.  Gladys is still sensitive to the missing ear lobe O’Reilly’s dog tore off, although  the red scar down the neck could be disguised with makeup.  The earlobe itself would need professional plastic surgery. Willard’s attempts with chewing gum never really worked.  O’Reilly has never offered to help with any expense.  He just complains  about Gladys’ sleepwalking.

Willard can be sensitive, so I did not want to be obvious with my concerns.

“I suppose,” I said, “getting ready for a beauty contest can entail some cost.”

“How do you figure?” Willard replied.

“Well, you know … uh … Gladys may want to get her  hair done.  And a new dress to wear, instead of that “I Love My Laxative” sweat shirt.”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” said the old guy.

“What about a new body brace to straighten her up, Willard?”

“Oh, I think we can get along by bending her old brace back into shape on the fence post.”

“What about travel, Willard.? Where’s the big event, Las Vegas?”

Willard looked sheepish.

“No, in my hometown.”

“That is still a bit of a distance, Willard.”

“Ain’t goin’,” he said

“Who’s not going, Willard.  You are not going?”.

“No need for either of us to go.  It’s all done with pictures.”

“Huh!” was all I could think to say for a  moment.  Then I thought … of course!  What better way to conduct a beauty contest of aging daffodils.  Through the mail!   Why bother with lost old ladies who can’t remember why they got on the airplane or their cranky husbands who can’t find any event but the pole dancing in the bar?   And this was no doubt why I hadn’t heard Willard complain about the cost of teeth and hair and all the expensive  beauty aids that make up supporting a glamorous woman like his 87 year old wife.  He had no doubt discovered the least expensive solution to making Gladys glamorous … Trick Photography!  The simplest trick being to get Betty Lou down at the coffee shop to pose as Willard’s wife for the photo session.

“Still,” I said to Willard without waiting for him to speak, “incidental expenses can mount up.”

“Sure,” he said, “Any investment requires an initial outlay.”

Willard’s vocabulary doesn’t ordinarily include these terms, so I was immediately suspicious about what he’d been reading.

“Oh, I get it,” I said as I rocked back in the porch chair. “They come by and take pictures for a fee.”

“Ain’t no new picture taking needed,” said Willard. “They have all they need from the yearbooks.”

I let that remark hang in the air for a while.

“Willard,” I said after a moment, “tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into now.”

He shifted around in his chair and then said, rather quietly, “Well, you know me and the boys back home get arguing and bragging on the Internet forum we started, ‘The Big Ones.”

“Uh-huh,” I offered.

“Albert is the town librarian now … only ‘cause he works for free … and he suggested a … well, a little wager.”

“Wager, Willard?”

“Like a wager.  More like a beauty contest, of course.”

“Of course, Willard.”

“Anyway, we all decided to kick in $500 each for a $10,000 pot.”

“And …” I said, expectantly.

“Bill Boron, the town mayor, was supposed to look up each of our wives in the 1940’s yearbooks after we paid in our $500. He’d choose the prettiest.”

“What could possibly go wrong with that?” I said with the heaviest sarcasm I could muster.

“He went through all the yearbooks from the 40s and chose Betty Coutant. No one could argue with him.  She was dead to rights the prettiest girl of the decade.”

“But …” I said, with even heavier sarcasm.

“Yeah, ‘But’ …” said Willard, with a forlorn face.

“Let me  guess, Willard.  Betty wasn’t married to any of The Big Ones.”

“She wasn’t married at all,” he said.  “She became a nun.”

“So who got the money, Willard?”

“She did,” said Willard. “She still runs an orphanage in Toledo, and she’s pretty persuasive.”

“You must feel blessed your money went to a good cause.”

“I guess so …”

“But now you’ll have to tell Gladys she won’t be hobnobbing with the Miss Universe girls.”

“That’s the only good part to  this story,” he said.  “I never told Gladys nothing about it.”

“That was smart,” I said. “Nothing?”

“Mostly nothing,” he said. But now she’s wondering why I straightened out her back brace on the fence post.  She thinks I’m taking her out to the movies.”

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David Griffin           copyright 2016

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptrpess.com

CONTINUED: Dragon Breath

A fellow student named Burton was Sister Mary Anthony’s pet and the keeper of all the locked-up chemicals in the lab.  I can’t really tell you how we bribed him into giving us a pinch of the powder because, even years later he would be so embarrassed by the subject of the blackmail that he would probably sue me for writing about his crime of nature.

 Suffice it to say that we obtained a rather large pinch and were able to keep it in a stolen test tube overnight.  The next day,  just before lunch, by which time the boys’ bathroom urinals were always dry, we carefully poured the magnesium powder  toward the rear inside of one of these  ancient porcelain monuments that looked like upended bath tubs, built wide for boys with impaired aiming ability.

"Put more in," said George as he crouched

beside me while I carefully tapped a pinch of magnesium on a dry spot at the bottom of the urinal.

     "No, that's enough, George.  We don't know what more will do and-"

     "What a chicken-shit," he said.  "Let me have the test tube.  I'll show you what a future explosives engineer can do."
     "I thought you wanted to be a car mechanic."
     "It's all about noise," he said, “loud noise.” He would eventually become a drummer in a rock band.  I gave him the test tube and he emptied the entire contents into the urinal.

 Hiding ourselves in one of the nearby pooper stalls (as we boys called them,)  George and I waited and soon our random victim walked in to use the very urinal we  had salted.  We couldn’t have prayed for a better dupe.

 Eddie was a year ahead of us in school and was an excitable kid, being Italian, and rather effeminate to boot.  He was what today one might call a drama queen, and his reaction to any upset was always sure to be over the top.

 Eddie unzipped and whipped it out.  A split second later the boys’ bathroom erupted with a clap of thunder and a blinding purple flash.  Every foot of plumbing pipe rang throughout the building.  Eddie staggered backward, fell down and peed up the wall and across the floor, he even managed to piss up his shirt and tie.  He jumped up and through the purple haze of smoke ran from the scene as if he had just been licked up the front by a fire-breathing dragon.  Not pausing to put himself back in nor to zipper up, Eddie bolted out of the bathroom and down the hall about 30 feet before colliding with Sister Mary Anthony, who was approaching the area at high speed for obvious reasons.

 “Put that thing back in your pants, Mister,” shouted the nun.  I don’t think I have ever heard  the word “thing” pronounced with such malevolence.

 Laughing uproariously,  George and I danced in the pooper stall as the nun came crashing through the bathroom door.  Our stall door opened only inward and the two of us were having a problem getting out.  As Sister’s  feet pounded toward us, George pulled down his pants and sat down on the toilet.  The stall door crashed open,  knocking me backward onto a sitting George who said simply, “He did it, Sister.”

David Griffin                                      Copyright 2007

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