The day was clear, the sky was bright…
Picture a boy’s paradise: A huge yard with a massive tree and no
supervision, a
barn with a loft, furniture, a stereo, a fridge, a fire pit, a
trampoline
and all manner of projectiles to hit, hurl, launch, and kick.
The house was large and continually filled with members of
the mutants
doing
what they do best. This was
160th,
Shangri-La, our base of
operations
for several years, and the home of (at one time or another)
dem
bones,
hemos,
robnotrob and
Shannon Stewart.
Now picture
dem bones handing
lawnjarts to
thefez
and
lawnjart
on a
summery day and saying “Look what I found cleaning out my
grandma’s
garage.”
They were beautiful weapons/toys from a bygone age when people were
free to
endanger themselves and their children at their own risk.
With grins splitting their faces almost in two,
thefez and
lawnjart
stride out into the big, beautiful yard and hurl the new/old missiles
(two
per
strider) toward the tree.
They walk all the way out to the tree to retrieve what is sure to be
the
activity for the better part of the afternoon. Once out there,
dem
bones, near the barn and some 50 yards away, calls out “Bet you
bastards
can’t hit me!”
lawnjart looks at
thefez and shouts back “
no way
!”
“Come on! you won’t hit me, I’ll move!”
With another
look at
thefez,
lawnjart just shrugs and lets loose with his two…
landing nowhere
near
bones.
thefez follows suit with the same result.
Walking back to where the jarts are sticking up in the yard,
dem
bones
says “I got a great idea!” Using the toe of his shoe to scratch an
X
in
the parched yard, bones steps back and explains, “One person stands on
the
X and the other two go out there. Whoever gets closest gets to stay
out
there and throw again… the loser trades places with the target!”
fucking brilliant!
This game had all the appeal of
bottle rocket wars or
stickfighting, but
was actually a bit safer as
lawnjarts at this distance are quite
difficult
to wield with deadly accuracy, and can be easily avoided by stepping
either
left or right.
“
Bones! You are a friggin genius!”
And so the afternoon passed away while
dem bones,
thefez, and
lawnjart
threw
lawnjarts at one another under the summer sun and loving every
minute of it. At some point,
robnotrob,
hemos and
Neb decided to add a little bit more danger by launching salvos
of
bottlerockets at the poor bastard standing on the
X. A greater
game was
never invented.
As the afternoon progressed,
lawnjart was displaying a small amount
of
skill, enough so that it had been several rounds since he was made to
stand
on the
X. With
dem bones on the spot,
thefez’s missiles planted
firmly in the earth a safe distance away,
lawnjart let his first shot
of
the round fly. The shot went wild as his throwing arm was suffering
from
fatigue, and landed some distance away from bones.
“You are gonna have to do a lot better than that!” shouted
dem bones
from
the
X.
With grim determination,
lawnjart heaved the second jart toward bones
and
it flew true as the black arrow that sought
Smaug’s soft spot. So
convincing was this murderous trajectory, that a look of panic washed
dem
bones’s face as he made a terrible decision. The arc of impending
doom was
actually high, and would have sailed an uncomfortable distance above
his
shaven skull, but in panic, bones turned and ran away in a straight
line
instead of moving left or right to safety. In a geometric miracle, the
speed that bones ran brought him to the exact point of the jart’s
descent.
Time stretched to an agonizingly slow pace for
lawnjart as bones
staggered
to a stop and his hands flew up to his head at the point of impact.
Anatomy
flowed through
lawnjart’s mind as he envisioned the fat steel tip
embedded
first in the ropy muscle of the neck, or maybe punching through the
skull
and into the soft, brilliant brain tissue of his friend. Time
elongated his
cry of
NOOOOOOOO as he began to run, as if under an ocean of
molasses, toward his stricken comrade.
White-faced and wide-eyed,
dem bones looked into
Neb’s face while
he
slowly pulled his hands away from his head and asked “How bad is it?”
With
hands removed, the miraculous point of entry was revealed.
Clean, dead-solid perfect through
dem bones’s right earlobe.
The ear was pierced.
Bones suffered more collateral damage from the fin of the jart as it
had
drawn a large scratch across his shoulder.
The entire troupe went in the house after bones had removed the jart
from
his ear. Inside, bones cleaned his ear with whiskey while
lawnjart
stood
in front of him searching for words to express his sorrow and
relief…
“I created the game, I made the rules, there is no way I can be angry
with
you over this… none.”
“So I guess I won?”
That Thanksgiving at
clampe’s house, each at the table was required
to say
what he/she was most thankful for that year. When lawnjart’s turn
came, he
stood…
“Even though I have met
the most incredible woman this year, who is
responsible for a great amount of my happiness, she is not what I am most
thankful for.
I am most thankful that I did not murder my good
friend
dem bones.”