jaywalking with jesus 12-20-10 part 3

8/8/2019 Jaywalking With Jesus 12-20-10 Part 3

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I wiped a tear from my eye and yelled into the gloaming: "Allaboard!"

I hit the train transformer's whistle button and turned the speedlever up to get the bull of a locomotive going. Like a big, black Bisonsnorting smoke and gathering speed, the Flyer started to move downthe tracks and one couldn't help but notice Two-Jay had never lookedmore alert or alive since his ill-fated rescue. I hit the speed dial hardand the Flyer bucked under my electronic command, whippingaround curves and switchbacks, hurtling down a grade hot andheavy, roaring into town with whistle blaring as little people wavedand cheered and the Big Blue Bastard Jaybird rocked gently backand forth with the cant of the tracks.

I had the big night-train at full, runaway speed now, and therewasn't anything that could stop it. Two-Jay winked as he roared pastme towards the mountain range, his beak raised defiantly in the airlike a beautiful black sword, his fledgling wings fluttering as hechirped loudly, his black eyes bright with excitement, shining liketranslucent coals. He looked marvelous!

I hit the whistle for all it was worth..."Whooo, Whoo," cried the

train, "Chirp, chirp," went my bird. "Whooo, Whoooo; Chirp, Chirp;Whoo, Whooo; Chirp, Chirp," they alternately sounded.

"Tunnel down!" I screamed. The Frenchman slammed the tunneldown over the tracks and with one long, last proud chirp, Two-Jaylifted his beak straight into the air, hit the tunnel and....and went outlike a trooper. The Jay Bird was dead.

Years later people still ask me about that day. How could I, a

known lover of animals, have "done that" to the blue jay? Done that?The blue jay was more than intimate with the Grim Reaper when Idtaped him onto his electronic coffin; he was gonna die; let him reallylive a little! How many blue jays on the face of the earth had a ridelike that before they died? Other than this story giving someone theidea, does anyone really think in the history of humankind anotherblue jay went out with such panache and singular style? In response

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to this I simply say, I think not my friends, I resoundingly think not!Two-Jay knew, as sure as the crow flies, me and the Pack gave himtwo things no other bird ever enjoyed: A ride into eternity unlike anyother and a Railroad Engineer's Union card.

Trouble Brewing

An integral part of our team effort that many of The Packsground breaking projects featured was the "Mud Daubers". Thesewere collectively the drones, or worker bees of my neighborhoodgang. Comprised of younger and weaker (and probably smarter)boys and girls of all shapes and sizes, their one common trait wasblind obedience to my orders. I wasnt sure if it was really blind

obedience as opposed to sheer fear, but for whatever reason, theywere very good at following my orders.

Originally named after the Mud Dauber Wasp for their ability to"collect" things (not mud, however) as instructed, they worked like acrew of convicts bagging litter on highways under the mirrored,watchful eyes of an armed deputy. Their expertise at "collection"became evident one summer when I decided to make a "Brew" in myparents side yard.

Driven once more by a lull in our sports-playing schedule andboredom, we'd dragged a huge cast iron pot from the old barn ruinsinto my parents side yard. Hefting it atop a circle of stones thatsurrounded the Acker family's "bonfire area", we stared in sootysilence at the gaping cast iron mouth. The big empty pot wasscreaming to be filled with something, but what?

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ABOVE: The barn from which the Brew kettle was salvaged standsbehind my sisters Ann (left) and Marilyn Look how happy theyappear to beWhat actresses! By the time Marilyn was eight andyoungest sister Gina was seven, all three of them would huddle in acorner and take turns sticking a darning needle into one of their dollsthat had been crudely painted to look like me. Voodoo was no lost art

in our house. The old barn was in the process of being torn down; Istill wish I had that kettle!

"Let's hose some water in there and start a fire under it" I said.

That's how it started; pretty tame with some boiling water andsome spit, a few dead worms and the dregs of some cans of pop.

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This was nothing more than a tepid bums stew warmed over a canof Sterno and hopelessness. I wanted a hearty stew, a gob-stopping"goulash" as it were. Anyone can make a pot of boiling water with afew lung-oysters floatin' around, but I wanted something with somebite and substance to it. It didn't take long before inspiration strucklike lightning and I hurriedly told the boys to gather the mud daubersASAP. This pot needed to be filled with a brew, a real honest-to-badness witch's brew.

"We're gonna' make a brew, people," I said. I began handing atrash bag and putty knife to each of the kids as Craig and Waynestoked the fire under the pot.

"I want you guys to go up and down Bell Road and start picking

up every dead animal you can find. If they're smashed you canscrape 'em up with your little scrapers, bigger stuff just grab it by thetail and peel 'em off the road and chunk 'em the bag. Don't worryabout maggots or flies or anything, everything goes into your goodiebag and just remember to hold the top closed tight so nothin' crawlsout."

Some of the mud daubers looked a little hesitant and I continuedto ease their fears saying, "Nobody ever got sick by scraping up roadkill, so don't worry and come back with your bags full." As theysomewhat nervously fanned out heading towards the "Road ofPerdition", I further encouraged them by yelling out: "The fullest baggets a free can of pop and a Heath bar!"

Forty minutes to an hour later me and the boys had the "BabyBrew" at a nice rolling boil and the first wave of the younger, weakermud daubers were straggling in. Pulling their death bags behindthem, they were like little beardless Santas, reeking of road kill, theirlittle hands and arms streaked with dried blood, bits of fur and black

skin, I was so proud of them! Little Billy Troutwig (although thebiggest, strongest dauber) was the last to arrive back at home base,and looking at the pregnant bulge of his scrap-sack we knew why.

"Whatta you got there Billy?" I asked. I couldn't help but notice

he also held something in his other hand.

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Dropping his sack of plunder like a seasoned "Road Pirate", Billygleefully stretched out his arm at the end of which dangled a finelooking, albeit dead possum.

"I thought for a minute he was just playin' possum Master Jack,but you can tell he's dead; he ain't breathin'!" Billy exclaimed. Thepossum, other than being dead, looked to be in perfect shape. Itmust have been talked to death by Dinky Don Schmelt, or caught aglimpse of Miss Stonebeak (youll meet them both later) as she droveby and was literally scared to death. Whatever, this was one primepossum and assured Billy a full can of pop and a refreshing, re-frozenHeath bar.

I gently brushed a few maggots off the lad's filthy forearm with atwig and gave him a clap on the back. "Billy," I said, "you've reallydone yourself proud! Not only do you win the prize for the fullestscrap-sack, but I'm gonna' let you drop that possum carcass into thebrew yourself!"

You'd have thought hed won a case of bubble gum. Dashingexcitedly over to the seething, steaming cauldron, Billy plopped hisprize possum into the roiling liquid as the other daubers looked onwith ill-concealed envy.

This started a frenzy of scrap-sack dumping that was so violentwe had to keep the daubers at bay with burning sticks and bruteforce. Smashed and rotting carcasses of frogs, snakes, coons,rabbits, birds and even a snapping turtle were unloaded into the greatkettle. Me and the boys had already made a "base" brew of paintthinner, old paint, June bugs, caterpillars, doggy turds, nightclawlers,sour milk, rotten fruit, nail polish, outdated lunch meat and a bucket ofstagnant pond water with a couple of dead bluegills we'd hauled out

of the Dismal Swamp.

Belching and puckering with blisters of popping putrescence, the"Brew" was starting to come into its own. You could actually seeteeth,paws, bones and some leathery, shriveled tails of assorted species

rolling around in the big boil. At this point in time the odor wasn't too

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bad, but we had no idea what ageing and condensing could do to thecontents of this great "Brew" kettle.

Our unwatched concoction simmered through the night, and

sunrise found us stoking the fire and feeding the monster once again.A little more of this and a little more of that; between games andchores we'd intermittently feed and stir the oily, black elixir. Thesmell of the brew was beginning to intensify with each passing day,and we began noticing the sticks and branches we stirred the brewwith kinda' dissolved, and we took this as a good omen.

"Hey, if you guys get permission, you wanna sleep over tonight?I asked C-man and Wayne. It was Friday night, the Brew was in its

fifth day and Ghoulardi would be on the tube later with some "Z-rated"horror movie. Sounded like a plan to me.

Permission was granted and after a perfect late summer eveningof shooting baskets and bullshit, we stoked the fire beneath the Brew,watched Ghoulardi and egressed to my parent's front porch to retirefor the evening. Just before crawling into my sleeping bag I snuck alook at the Brew in the side yard. I could barely hear its low, gutturalgrowl as it simmered and burped away like a pot of molten mortalsins in the Devil's kitchen. When I looked out into the darkness Icouldn't believe my eyes.

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ABOVE Left: Bond, Jack BondThats me disguised as asuccessful adult in 1996. ABOVE Right: Thats me dressed up forHalloween in 1958. I believesIe was dressed as Gerald McBoingBoing, whoever he was. This is the porch me, Craig and Waynewould sleep out on. Years later the Brew was bubbling in the sideyard 70 feet to McBoing Boings left.

"Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus," I swore. Craig and the Frenchmanfollowed my stare, and C-man softly utterered, "What the hell is that?"Wayne was dumbstruck.

A large tongue of blue-white flame hovered above our Brew,flickering ominously in the moonlight. About as big as a softball, wewatched it slowly expand and contract as if it were breathing.

"You know" I whispered, "I read about this happening out at sea

on ship's masts and even on the horns of cattle duringthunderstorms, but it's dead clear out. I think its called St. Elmo'sfire." We watched the flame dance and coruscate, mesmerized untila slight breeze came up, and like a ghostly wisp of earthbound auroraborealis, it vanished. We weren't sure we'd even seen it, but latersurmised it must have been "burn-off" from the highly volatile mix ofcombustibles we'd poured into the maw of the kettle. We crawled

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into our sacks and were awakened next morning when the wind reallypicked up and shifted big-time.

The stench slammed into us like a blast wall from a hugeexplosion, crawling like malodorous, microscopic millipedes of stinkinto our noses, eyes, ears and even our mouths. It was a suffocatingmiasma that had substance and taste, and we actually tried to push itaway like a deployed airbag after a car wreck. This was no air bag,and it sure as hell couldnt be pushed or even washed away byanything.

The Brew had hit its stride just before dawn and was now aliving, breathing, malevolent beast whose strength was matched onlyby its ubiquity. Invisible, yet indivisible, when the Brew cloud hit the

pastured cows across the street they began frantically lowing andmooing then stampeded in fear as flocks of birds parted like the RedSea as the stench cut a swath through the neighborhood. Unripe fruitbeganfalling from trees and small flying insects dropped from the sky,pinging onto my parents cars in a flurry of winged, multicolored hail.

My father burst out the front door, and doing a slow burn turnedto our intrepid trio and said between clenched teeth, "Jack, I want toknow what the hell that smell is, NOW!"

"I can explain!" I cried. Wayne and Craig stood still as statues,hoping against hope their silence would somehow equate toinvisibility.

"Does this have anything to do with that cast iron pot from thebarn you guys been foolin' with?" he asked. I nodded mutely andhung my head.

"We made a brew," I offered lamely. "We must have put somestuff in it that didn't quite react right."

My Dads dad's face was now a mottled red, white and purple, socontorted with anger and nausea from "Brew inhalation" he didn'teven appear himself. He was a double synaptic jump away from anervous breakdown, murder or suicide; possibly all three in that

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order.

I could hear my mother, overcome with brew fumes, weepingsoftly in the dining room, while one of my brother's dogs whimperedand gagged under the porch.

"REACT RIGHT!? Just what in God's name do any of you knowabout what 'WOULD ' make it react right?" he bellowed.

What are you, scientists? React right my ass! You three dumpwhatever's in there ASAP and clean up that bad area around that fire.Your mother and I went out to roast a marshmallow the other nightand we tripped over a turtle shell. I don't have a need to know what's

really happening out there, but I keep seeing dogs diggin' up bonesand parts and stuff. I want it cleaned up and I mean today; youfollow?" We followed.

There were about 15 or 20 gallons of liquid to dispose of, and thepot had to weigh 60 to 80 pounds. Combined, they had to come in atclose to 220 pounds. How were we gonna' move it?

"We're going to have to" jar" some of this brew, you know," I saidto the boys. "There's no way we can move that hot pot with the brewin it very far, if at all. We've gotta tip it and fill jars or something tolighten it up."

"Why don't we just pour some out on the ground?" theFrenchman asked.

"Wayne," I began, "the smell alone may linger for months, andfor all we know the brew itself could explode from the dying fire or

vaporize into some kind of toxic bloom. We have to can it or jar mostof it and take it down to the legal dump."

By "dipping and tipping" we filled 14 paint cans that we took tothe dump, saving one for "posterity". The remaining sludge was amix of skeletal remains suspended in an unidentifiable paste theconsistency of motor oil. Just for fun, we decided to pour this onto

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the road at the entrance of our subdivision, Gopher's Grove, andwatch cars drive through it. What could happen?

What happened was that three or four cars in the Grovesustained extensive paint damage due to an unknown substance thathad also partially eaten through the asphalt of Gopher's Glen Drive.We only knew this because the only town cop had called every familyon our street to inquire as to any heretofore knowledge of saidsubstance being poured onto the roadway. Luckily, I had answeredthe phone at my parents house and fervently denied any knowledgeof the crime, committing yet another un-confessable sin by lyingthrough my teeth with an expertise that shocked my soul.

This was just another ignominious end to another adventure;

except for one footnote. A couple years later, taunted and teased bya group of impeccably dressed rival lads from the rich side of town,we felt it necessary to defend our turf by any means. I knew one ofthese kids fathers name was actually the aforementioned LordPlover, and was so famed for wearing clothing festooned with ducklogos and figures hed earned the nickname about town as TheMallard. Pitiful. My father had been bugging me to get rid of the canlabeled "Memorial Brew, '64" and I decided now was the time toground Mini-Mallard and his pals.

Suffice to say that the Big Three were armed with mason jarsfilled with carefully poured "'64 Brew" and we were hot on the trail offour fleeing rich kids in the cornfield next to my house. One luckytrespasser split off from the group and escaped, but our Packcornered the other three inside the foundation walls of a new housethat was being built. Showing no mercy and being careful not to hittheir eyes, we doused the little scions with the last of the MemorialBrew.

The screaming started low but grew to a crescendo and anacrid smell (go figure) filled the air along with a hiss and cracklereminiscent of frying bacon. With smoke trailing from their Brew-bombed legs and parts of their torsos, the rich kid's designer's clotheswere disintegrating before our eyes! It was major awesome.

Lurching about like figures from "Night of the Living Dead", we let

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them scurry past us like burning wraiths in a Stephen King novel,secure in the knowledge theyd learned their lesson well.

Night of the Sod Balls

I still cant recall whether Id been semi-grounded for repeatedlyshooting a twelve gauge shotgun into the basement walls or staginggladiator fights that featured the entire neighborhood battling in theback yard. At any rate, Id been told to stay within the geographicalboundaries of our yard the entire weekend. Bummer.

Me and the boys had planned on sleeping out down by the creek

(about a hundred yards past the brew area) in a little valley borderedby an apple orchard. Waynes cousin Vinny was staying theweekend and wed really been looking forward to our outing.

Relentlessly begging and swearing not bend, spindle or mutilatemy younger brothers and sisters, my parents somewhat reluctantlygave me the OK to at least have Craig over to sleep out, as long aswe stayed on the front porch.

Craig came over and as the shadows grew longer we watchedenviously as Wayne and Vinny, carrying a rake and shovel to make afire pit, as well as sleeping bags, satchels of foodstuffs and stolenbeer, waved to us before descending into the Fertile Crescent.

They were FREE, unfettered by arbitrary parental chains andgeographical constraints. Oh, to run with the pack! Sleeping underthe stars with a real fire and sinking your teeth into a sooty, sizzlingOscar Meyer wiener cloaked in yellow mustard; does it get any better

than that?

Craig and I sat forlornly on my front porch, a couple of ex-consunder house arrest with GPS ankle bracelets. No open campfire forus; we took turns jabbing stale graham crackers into a jar of rancid,salmonella ridden generic Chunkee Peenut Budder purchased at aprivate-label garage sale. I was sure it was purchased at the same

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joint I secretly referred to as The Hobo Hut.

This was an old milk cottage dump of a house with an adjoininggarage (as it were) that some good old boy named Fred Cuttshawsold veggies and assorted foodstuffs out of. A spindly-legged tablefestooned with fruit-fly buzzed goods was his trademark. Everymonth or so hed have a special buy-one; get four free dented cansale. He dubbed it the No-Label Sale and only God knows wherehe acquired these dented cans of stuff, but wed be there everymonth or so; shaking the piss out of unlabeled cans trying to figureout from the sound whether it was soup, creamed corn orsuccotash.

It was a very inexact science and at a later date when we all took

guesses and opened the can, it was with bated breath we hoped astreaming jet of botulism laden clam chowder or Dinty Moore beefstew wouldnt find its mark. We always pointed the depth bomb tin-missiles away from each other, but man, I once saw a can of rottenasparagus spears fly across the kitchen and bounce off the cabinetslike little green arrows onto our plates of Spam-a-ghetti. A culinaryArmageddon, that dinner was not soon forgotten, nor forgiven.

Quashing my rancid memories of last suppers gone by, I bitdown on a hunk of petrified peanut the size of a gerbil that wasprobably harvested during the Ice Age. I spat out the peanut pelletand swore softly under my breath, all the while envisioning theFrenchman and Vinny washing down tube steaks with stolen beer.

I could feel the envy and jealousy clog my throat like ropes ofcoagulated blood. They probably even had that canned CheezWhiz stuff that came out in squiggles for the hot dogs. Richbastards.

The least they could have done was bring me and Craig a sorry-

sack of charred dogs that had fallen into the fire along with a foamyRolling Rock or two. Damn, if there was one thing my mom and dadhad taught me and the whole family, it was to think of the other guy.But noooo, our pals were too busy selfishly hogging all the fun whileCraig and I languished on my front porch prison.

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We crawled into our sleeping bags shortly thereafter and I fellinto a troubled sleep; dreaming of driving aimlessly, then running overa deer with Waynes antlered head staring into my headlightsseconds before impact. There was a horrible beauty to it.

I woke with a start around 2:30 AM and quickly roused Craigfrom his untroubled sleep.

C-man, I whispered. Get up big boy, we have some stuff todo.

My spider web encrusted mind was trying to formulate a plan, and

like it or not, Craig was along for the ride. I figured my mother wassure to be asleep, as shed done 27 loads of laundry that day inaddition to spraining her wrist trying to scrape the family dinner ofoverdone fish sticks off a warped cookie sheet. Pop Acker was sureto be exhausted after rebuilding the engine of the family car whoseengine block Id had accidentally cracked the week before.

Consider this old saying from Transylvania: Even a man whospure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf whenthe wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. The Pack hada full moon, it was close to autumn, wolfbane was in bloomsomewhere, and my hair looked perfect. It was time go. Lions andtigers and bears my ass, I thought; this was Rolling Rock, CheezWhiz and wienies.

As we approached the crest of the ridge overlooking the valleywhere Wayne and Vinny slept in the lap of luxury, my plan coalesced.Stealthily moving forward in the soft, marsh like soil, I stumbled andgrabbed a stalk of weeds that pulled completely out of the ground.

Looking down at the end of this bristle of weed, I couldnt help butnotice the heavy, globular root ball at its end.

I looked excitedly at Craig and said, Lets start pullin these sodballs out and put em over by those boulders.

It didnt take long to amass about three or four dozen sod balls

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with perfectly formed softball-sized root balls.

It was time to get the party started and I thought it would be a nicetouch to roll a few boulders down the hill towards Wayne and Vinnyscampsite. We peered over the hill and could see their sleepingbagged bodies next to what had been pretty large fire that now was amass of glowing embers.

We loosed a few boulders, gave a shove and the great stonesstarted tearing down the hill like giant baked potatoes. It was musicto our ears as their heavy, dull thud contrasted nicely with the snap,crackle and pop of twigs, bushes and small trees that were easilyobliterated. That got their attention.

I moved four feet to my left and grabbed a sod ball by the stalkand began twirling it like a lasso.

Craig, just grab and twirl, grab and twirl, get the right trajectoryand smother em in sod balls, I hissed. Hit em with everything wegot!

Like flag twirlers gone berserk, our arms cranking like little Ferriswheels, we arced sod balls into the moonlit sky that rained down onthe boys like stringed buckets of dirt from an angry heaven. Wewitnessed a direct hit to the fire pit and watched with glee as hotcoals erupted in a geyser of red-hot confetti.

Wayne and Vinny had popped out of their now burning sleepingbags quick as spit watermelon seeds and were jumping around likefleas on a hot griddle. Craig and I watched the holes burning intotheir sleeping bags began to expand like orange ripples in a pond asthe fire fed itself.

Pour it on, C-man; Pour it on! I urged.

With a furious final fusillade of sod balls, our arms tingling withexhaustion, we watched as Vinny and Wayne desperately tried toelude the deadly root ball /fire combo. Wheeling about like an uglyballerina, his little flannel jammies throwing sparks off like a Roman

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candle, the Frenchmen was valiantly trying to stomp out the growingconflagration while dodging dirt balls falling from the night sky.

Wayne continued dancing about like a beheaded chicken, andwhen his foot stomped onto the upturned tines of the garden rake itsent the handle flying directly into the center of his forehead.Sounding like a long triple to right-center off Mickey Mantles bat, thecrack! actually echoed throughout the small valley and we watchedthe Frenchman fall backward into the fire like a two-legged bowlingpin.

His screams rolled over the crest of the hill, a siren of humanmisery. Dogs began barking and Craig and I watched in horror asevery home in Gophers Glen lit up like a strand of Christmas lights,

one after another. A true domino effect, lights continued to stringtogether relentlessly climbing up Gophers Glen Drive.

The euphoria of our brilliant victory was beginning to wane andthe adrenaline that had fueled the attack was spent. As Craig and Iwatched Wayne thrash about like a mummy in burning bandages, wesaw Vinny scrabbling up the hillside in smoldering underwear with acan of Cheez Whiz clutched in a blistered fist.

Then I heard it, and so did Craig.

Jackie, Jackie! It was my mothers unmistakable commandovoice and, Jesus H. Christ; here she came over the crest of the hillwith flashlight in hand like a Predator drone. My own mother hadbecome my personal Enola Gay and I was Hiroshima.

Is this what you call the front porch young man? Craig, do youthink I should call your mothernow, at 3:30 in the morning and tell herwhere you are? I learned later these are referred to as rhetorical

questions, best left unanswered with no explanation offered. Craigwas a bent and broken man at this point, and I knew I had to come upwith at least a fairly plausible explanation for what we were doing inthe middle of a field at 3:30 AM with the smell of napalm in the air andthe enemy retreating fast.

We were chasing some hoboes that tried to steal our peanut

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butter, I blurted out. I heard Craig whimper in sympathy at this lameexcuse. There mayhave been one hobo within a hundred miles ofus, but two? Since my mother had graduated Magna Cum Laudewith a double major, I knew this missile of deception had missed themark by a huge margin.

Jack, my mom said, Any hobo in his right mind would throw thatpeanut butter into the trash. We only gave it to you in hopes it wouldweld your mouth shut for a couple of days. The only hobo aroundhere may be you, sooner than you think. Now get home and backonto that porch. Craig, your mother and I will have a talk about this,believe you me.

Id always hated that Believe you me crap. What was that? Ididnt even know what the hell it really meant but it sure soundedominous and final. Man, allwe boys wanted to do was sleep out androast our little wienies. Some things never change.

A Tree in the Forest

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jaywalking with jesus 12-20-10 part 3

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