TWENTY-THREE
“Can you guys come out?” Steve asked.
It was after eight so we’d already had our breakfast and our mom was good to let us go.
“Yeah,” Jason told him as we stood in the entryway. “What’s up?”
“Just come on. I’ll tell you when we get there,” Steve said hurriedly.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Cory, in his usual, bullying tone said, “To the Tree, runt. Now hurry up! I’m dying to know too.”
I begged them to hold up while I ran back to my room to get my shoes. Jason shouted to our parents, who were back in their bedroom, that we were going out to play.
“Hold on a second,” mom yelled back as I put my second shoe on.
Mom and I walked back down the hall and out to where Jason was standing on the front porch with Steve and Cory.
“Listen, boys, all of you. I want you guys to promise me something, okay?” Mom told each of us. “I want you to promise that you won’t talk to any strangers while you’re out playing. Can you do that?”
“Promise, mom,” Jason said with a confused look on his face.
“Okay,” Steve told her.
Cory nodded.
“I worry about you kids is all. If someone you don’t know approaches you, I want you to just run as fast and as far away from them as possible. Got it?”
“Got it,” we all said together.
We knew mom worried about us. What mother doesn’t worry about her children? But this was a little odd that she’d say this. She had never gone to this length to warn us about strangers in broad daylight. Or other people’s children for that matter.
“Alright. Don’t get into any trouble, either,” She added. “Hear me?”
“Yes, mom,” Jason told her a little impatiently. “Can we go now?”
Mom gave us a sigh and said, “Yes. Just be careful.”
And with that the four of us were headed up the street to our new club house.
The Tree.
On our walk, I noticed up in the pale, blue sky, a single, lazy, thin, wisp of a cloud hanging like an old spider web. Down below, on the street, the mimosa trees in the parkways were fuller than ever, their leaves a gorgeous dark green. Some of the puff-ball flowers that sprouted from the smaller branches up top had snapped off and made suicidal leaps to the lawns below were they lay like pink snow.
We walked on farther through our neighborhood, past houses that stood twelve feet apart from each other, some of them with lawns as green as a spring meadow and others that had turned an awful yellow and were dying of heat stroke. There were houses painted in browns and tans and some with brightly lit colors as if deranged circus clowns lived within.
But all in all, our neighborhood and the city of Corona was a pretty normal place to live. At least we had always thought of it as normal.
Up until that summer, actually up until that very day, we all thought of our home town as a peaceful little berg in Southern California. But within the next half an hour our outlook on Corona and the people that resided there would change. The feeling that we were safe there ended July fourth, 1982.
At the corner of Cottonwood and Fullerton, Steve said what we were all feeling.
“Damn it’s hot.”
“No crap,” Cory confirmed. How come no one brought water? It’s gotta be a hundred out here.”
“Hey, I still don’t even know why we’re going up there,” Jason chimed. “What’s up, Steve? You going to tell us why we’re going to the Tree or what?”
“I’ll tell you guys all about it when we get there,” Steve said impatiently, “and not a second before.”
“Well screw this,” Cory said halfway down Mr. Gagner’s yard. “I’m getting an orange.”
“Be careful,” I warned. “Ben almost got me the other day when I was trying to get one.”
As Cory climbed to the top of the cinder block wall, holding on to the iron fencing above it, he said, “Ricky, the only reason you almost got chomped by that stupid dog is because you’re a scaredy-cat. And everyone knows dogs love chasing cats. I, on the other hand, will kick the living shit out of that mutt.” He reached through the bars and plucked an undersized orange from its spot.
“I ain’t no scaredy-cat, you butthole,” I told him through gritted teeth.
He turned around on his perch at the top of the wall and chucked the orange at me. I was quick enough to duck as it sailed past my head and rolled out into the middle of Fullerton where it was promptly flattened by a passing station wagon.
“Watch it, jerk!” I yelled.
“Knock it off. Both of you,” Steve commanded. We did as he said and he turned to Cory. “Grab four while you’re up there. One for each of us.”
“I’ll grab one for you guys, but I ain’t getting one for that little turd,” Cory told him.
“Just do it,” Steve said.
With a hurt look on his face, Cory picked a couple and tossed them down to Steve and Jason. Then he picked a small yellow looking thing and threw it at my feet. I picked it up and dusted it off as Cory hopped down with an orange of his own.
“Come on,” Steve said. “Let’s get going. Save the oranges for the Tree.
We continued on our journey, but just before we got to the dirt path on the outskirts of Dead Grove, we heard, “Hey. What the hell do you kids think you’re doing?”
Mr. Gagner stood on the other side of his closed gate that led down his drive, Ben, growling and staring holes through us, at his feet.
The four of us stopped dead in our tracks. Steve looked over at him and simply said, “What?”
“What do you think what?” Mr. Gagner fired back, standing there in his red and black flannel shirt, denim jeans and cowboy boots. The beard he wore would make you think Abraham Lincoln had become a lumberjack. “You picking my oranges?”
“Yeah,” Steve answered.
“Well, did I give you permission to pick them?”
Looking down at the big Saint Bernard, Steve said, “No. We didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Yeah. We only picked four,” Jason added.
Getting a little more flustered and putting his hands on his meaty hips he shot Jason a glance.
“I don’t give a damn how many you picked. You think I want every kid in the neighborhood hopping my fence and stealing my oranges? Hell no!”
Jason flinched and looked down at his feet shaking his head from side to side.
“Not to mention you upset my dog when you do that. You want I should turn him loose on ya?” Mr. Gagner yelled.
“No,” we all said at the same time and took a step back.
“Now, I had to pick a BB out of Ben’s lip the other day. You little brats see anyone shootin’ at my dog?” He asked us.
We looked over at Steve just as he said, “Nope.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Gagner continued, “well if I find out who did it, I’m going to beat ‘em on their ass with a switch. They’ll wish they’d never been born.” Then under his breath, he said, “Sons of bitches.”
“Hey, sorry about your oranges,” Cory said to the older man behind the gate.” They really don’t taste all that good, anyway.” And just as Mr. Gagner’s expression was changing from anger to confusion, Cory added, “Oh, and you and your ugly dog can kiss my butt.” He bent over and shook his rear a couple of times and darted off down the dirt trail along Fullerton.
Mr. Gagner was shocked and surprised now. His face turned crimson as he yelled, “Damn smart ass. You kids get the hell out of here.”
Ben started in with his own outrage, slamming up against the gate and letting out a thunderous tirade of angry barks.
The three of us nearly came out of our Vans as we headed off after Cory.
When we finally caught up to him at the end of the block Steve said, “Why the hell do you always gotta do stuff like that, ya dick?”
We all stood catching our breath for a second and Cory replied, “Man, that guy’s an asshole. He can’t tell me he’s
going to beat my ass. Screw him.”
“You’re going to end up getting us into trouble, man,” Jason chided him.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Cory said. “He ain’t going to say anything to our parents.”
“You better hope not,” Steve said and chuckled. “Man you’re crazy.”
We all had a good laugh about it as we crossed Magnolia and once on the other side of the street we stopped and stared at the abandoned house at the corner, the one that was supposedly haunted. Or so rumor had it.
We looked at each other for a bit and then Steve said something I didn’t particularly want to hear. “Hey, want to see if we can get inside?”
“Yeah,” Cory and Jason said at the same time.
Frisbee Page 28
