My grandmother taught me many lessons. One of those is that you have to pick your battles. Another was that boys will be boys.
Suzy was in the bathroom, meticulously styling her shoulder-length red hair. She did not have anywhere to go or anyone to impress, but this was something she did for herself. It was her belief that when you have children, you steal as much time as you can for yourself, even if just to make yourself look better when you have no place to go.
Her arms were starting to ache as she tediously dried the ends of her hair around a cylindrical brush. The ache frustrated her and frustration was always a perfect reason to have a cigarette. The nicotine demon had been elbowing her for about fifteen minutes! There was no desire to shoo the demon away.
As soon as the hair dryer was off, and the hum of it left her ears, other surrounding sounds became audible. At first she just heard a faint swooooosh. As she listened closer in an attempt to identify the sound , she heard others. Trying to piece the sounds together, she was not yet certain about what she heard, but she was certain that somewhere on the other side of her bathroom wall there were children up to no good.
There it was again! The first sound was a plopping kind of a bang, the second was a grinding swooooosh! Just on the other side of the bathroom wall was the north side of the yard. An undetermined number of children were out there and all audible indications were that those children were about to be in trouble.
The short round woman slipped on her worn comfortable slippers then headed for the source of the commotion. She was not sure what they were up to, but they were certainly up to something. Experience had taught her that “something” was generally destructive, dangerous, or both! She stopped halfway through the house to pick up her jacket. As she put her arms through the sleeves, she automatically shoved her hands in her pockets. Her searching hands came up empty. She wondered where she had left her cigarettes.
A quick glance around the room revealed the package that contained the implements of her one-and-only vice. She grabbed the half-empty pack and lighter in one swift swoop and headed out the back door. Here on the deck was where she smoked. The wooden platform generally allowed for comfortable surroundings and insured that her nasty smoking habit would not stink up the house and everything in it.
It was a cool but sunny spring day. The air was clean, and warm but there was that noise again, piercing the clean gentle breeze! Suzy breathed in the cool fresh air and pulled a Basic-Ultra-Light-Menthol-100 from her pack. She shoved the tobacco pacifier between her lips, flicked the Bic, drawing the flame to the end of the cigarette, and took a nice long relaxing drag. Her exhale was a combination of smoke expulsion and a heavy sigh.
Sounds she had not heard before suddenly came into the mix. As Suzy drew deliberate drags from her tranquilizer, she heard the sound of a child running; there was a slight pause, then plang!, swooooosh! These sounds were quickly followed by another pause then a faint thud, as if something had hit the ground. Children laughed and squealed with delight. She stood there trying to fit all of the sounds together, wondering what mischief the children had concocted for themselves. As she heard it again, she closed her eyes and exhaled another long breath of poisoned menthol.
Anyone watching might have thought she had no intention of seeing what the children were up to, but she had been a mother for long enough to know she dare not venture around the corner of the house until her nerves were settled! She could imagine the police swarming down on the house with guns drawn. Something that was going on just around the corner of the house surely would prompt Suzy’s being arrested on charges of child abuse, neglect, or both.
The wooden deck was about ten feet from where the noise was originating. She heard the children laughing just around the corner to her left. She took another long drag from the menthol comfort stick, exhaled, and listened intently. Visions of the sounds began to become more vivid. Children running, pause, plang, swooooosh, pause, thud. The swooooosh was obviously a skateboard, but the surface the skateboard was gliding on remained a mystery. There was no sidewalk or cement of any kind on the north side of the house, yet the skateboard was gliding against some solid surface. From the length of the swooooosh she could tell that the surface was not a long one. The thud had to be child, skateboard, or both, at the moment of landing. She took another drag from her cigarette.
On the next lengthy exhale, her youngest child ran about a foot past the north-east corner of the house into her field of vision. He was preoccupied with whatever he was doing, something that his mother was reasonably sure that he should not be doing. He never noticed her standing there.
Sam was twelve but small for his age. He stood about three inches short of four foot tall and weighed about sixty-eight pounds. The small brown-haired boy crouched forward on one leg then shoved off with the other foot. She heard his running, then the pause, plang, swooooosh, pause, and thud. She threw down her cigarette and walked down the steps of the deck and to the corner of the house. As she reached her destination, she decided not to reveal her presence. If the children were not in danger of killing themselves, or breaking limbs, she would not interrupt their activity, whatever it was.
She peered around the corner just as the next round of sounds began. Billy, the neighbor’s son, was running up a set of automobile ramps, the kind used to project the front end of a car into the air when changing the oil and filter. There was a pause of sound as he jumped in the air. Plang!, he landed on the skateboard which rested on top of the patio table. Swooooosh!, the skateboard glided across the three-foot table. Pause, child and skateboard sailed through the air. Thud! Child and skateboard hit the ground. Child and skateboard also tumbled toward the freshly planted four-foot tree that sat ten feet in front of the patio table.
A heavy sigh escaped from Suzy’s lips as she stepped back around the corner unnoticed. The situation had to be assessed, and quickly. Were the children in any danger? Yes. Was the danger life threatening? No. However, one must consider the life of the small tree. Should she stop the dangerous activity and become the “bad guy”? Should she let them make a discovery on their own?
She reached into her pocket and pulled another cigarette from the pack as she walked back toward the deck. She sat down on the steps and rolled the cigarette between her fingers and contemplated. She flicked the Bic with her other hand and then drew both flame and cigarette toward her mouth at once. As she drew the paper wrapped tobacco to her lips and puffed, the thing ignited. Once it was lit, she took a longer drag. She exhaled, expelling a menthol exhaust and another sigh.
Just at that moment, plang-pause-swooooosh-pause-thud joined hands and went ‘round the mulberry bush with a crunching kind of crack! Children’s laughter mixed with a lone child’s cry of pain and multiple cries of “are you ok?” The chain-smoking mother no longer had any decision to make. All she could do now was assess the damage.
Suzy stood up, tossed down her cigarette, and smashed it with the full force of an infuriated stomp. One stomp was followed by another and that one by yet another. Children began to scatter as the cause of the shaking earth strode nearer. The looks on the faces of the remaining children appeared to express a pain far more excruciating than was evident by blood. Perhaps they had some vision of what was to come.
Sam had obviously taken the spill and was determining the extent of his injuries. Billy stood perfectly still, as if even afraid to breathe. The tree was leaning over as if it wanted to kiss the ground but all of its tender branches were intact.
The following scene was like that of a western movie where two gunslingers stand on opposite ends of the street ready to draw their guns and take fire. The silence is eerie yet you know that soon, one gunman will twitch, and the other will draw. As the silence loomed, the twitch came in the form of a smirk on the face of the twelve-year-old neighbor. In an instant, the draw and shot came in the form of a quickly confiscated skateboard. Carefree boyish antics lay bleeding in the dirt and the street stood still.
Slowly, the remaining scattered children wandered back toward the site of the dual. Their faces bore witness to the demise of the favored gunslinger, and that this town would never be the same.
“What do we do now?” an unidentified child queried.
The faster draw lay down the skateboard and rested her heavy foot on its surface as a visual statement of “touch this and die.” She drew a well-deserved tobacco reward from her pocket and began the ritual of ignite, draw, exhale, and sigh.
In her best threatening slow southern drawl, she gruffly said, “Why doan choo boyz get a shuvul.” The tune from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly played in her head.
Children’s eyes had never popped so far out of their heads as these eyes did at that moment. Their expressions revealed their thoughts. They didn’t know if the woman intended to use the shovel to beat them to death or if she would just dig a hole and bury them alive!
“I mean it! Git!” she shouted, and two boys shot off toward the garage. Suzy stood there with her foot atop the skateboard and finished her cigarette just as the two returned and handed her a shovel. As soon as the handle fell into her waiting hand, both boys jumped back a good two feet and their mouths flew open with a fearful gasp.
“Hey smiley” she jeered toward the smirking neighbor. “I want you to take this shovel and I want my tree replanted, dig?” pun having definitely been intended.
“Yes ma’am” sounded the somber and respectful reply.
“Sam” she called out to the younger one.
“Yes ma’am” echoed a more timid version of the same response.
“You and these other boys go get some of that plywood out of the garage. Make yourselves useful and build a ramp for this skateboard.”
“Really?” he questioned in disbelief.
“Yes, really” she assured him as mental images of hammered thumbs filled her head.
Then she laid out the rules. The return of the skateboard required fulfillment of certain conditions. The return could only take place when the ramp was completed and met all of her specifications. No nails could protrude in the direction of a potentially falling child and the boys would have to clean up any mess they made, including blood!
The children’s faces were once again smiling and laughing, except for the one now dubbed “Smiley” but before the plywood could be hauled from the garage the tree had already been replanted, properly upright. The shovel was being put back in its proper place, and a smile began to emerge on Billy’s face too.
The woman enjoyed one more cigarette as she surveyed the careful preparation for the ramp’s construction. Then she picked up the skateboard and without another word retreated inside to hold it hostage while she resumed styling her hair and romancing her nicotine demon.
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