Fuckin’ buddy dropped out of site!
One second he’s beside me, the next, swoosh! I felt his hand brush my arm as he clawed the air, hoping against all hope that what was happening, was not happening to him.
I knew what was happening to him at that brush. His brush with death. Or at least near death. Or wanting to be dead.
Buddy knew it too. We all knew…
What we knew in that instant was that some of us were going home tonight, and some not. Buddy was in the “not” category.
Yep, this Halloween would be a harbinger for the remainder of buddy’s life because tonight, buddy’s future sploodged in a hole new direction.
If he lived, I thought, he’d be more cautious. Likely waay more cautious. He’d probably be much more skeptical about the supposed good nature of mankind, too.
If he lived…
I bet future buddy would watch his step more. And he would watch the steps of other people more, too. It didn’t help matters that he was a native guy and had already been through a fair bit of shit.
But whatever, up to now he had faced his challenges head on, with as much confidence as he could muster and even though we seldom thought about buddy’s race, or anybody’s race for that matter, tonight was about to change how we all felt about ourselves and people in general.
Why?
Because tonight was the first time that all the kids on our street banded together to send a message by exerting our minor influence on the meanest old dude in our neighborhood.
Tonight was icing night for a frog tossing, knock out ginger cake delivered to Senior Sad Sack of Shite the week before and the time had come to give BugEye Boozer the recogition he deserved…
***
The lessons of time teaches parents and kids about the ins and outs of tattle-tales. Both groups understand that tattle-tailors are often not well respected, usually not appreciated and mostly unrewarded for their efforts.
Adolescents, on the other hand, don’t contemplate tattle-tailors on account of their reality being made up mostly of games, gossip and grand exaggerations and even though our group didn’t acknowledge the risk, kid snitches were a thing and tonight the stench of that basic knowing wafted over us.
It just so happened that two of our fellow caperists were doing double time as Backoff Buckoh’s kids. Sure, they swore up and down that they hated Hammered Hank too, and they were right there with us on the front lines, catapulting frogs and supervising meat cannon logistics, so every cocked arm new exactly when Sir No Funnery would open his front door.
But, as it turned out, one of the haters didn’t hate enough because, well… buddy…
Was our cohort threatened? Maybe. Coerced? Possibly. Regardless, he was right there among us, creeping through the same cold, wet grass we crept through. Suppressing the same squeaky giggles we all suppressed. And ya, gulp gasping as we all fucking gulp gasped – while saving his own omission lying ass by being the furthest witness away from a good compadre’s murky oblivion.
Fucker.
See, what buddy and the best of us didn’t know, and what was to cause all of us – especially buddy – a great deal of emotional grief, was that the little prank we were about to play on Master Moron had been revealed to him.
Because you know what the old bastard did?
As twilight faded into that cool Halloween evening, Sir Sam SmartAss stealthily moved his outhouse ahead.
Image: https://www.parhlo.com/25-kids-secretly-plotting-revenge/
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