Paul's Boutique

High Plains Drifter

Trouble doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. Trouble with your girl or at home, trouble on the mind, trouble on the basepaths. You can use one as a means of dealing with another...channeling one's energy has long been a way of that.

I ran into Jay the other day...we were elementary school friends, but life has a way of separating people in adolescence. I gravitated toward sports, while he went on to doing...whatever it was people do when they're not athletically inclined. He wanted to hang out; said he had some leftover fireworks from the fourth of July he wanted to blow off. What the hell, I thought...I could make some time for that.

I rode up to his house, and we ventured into a field off the intersection before the mall. It was the old Conrail property...train tracks from a forgotten era. I'd been on them before, just farther down. It's federal property, as Scooter and I found out the hard way the previous winter. Turns out whatever's back there needs to be left there, or the government will take your tiny a** to juvenile court for theft.

But this was different, I convinced myself. It wasn't so far back into no man's land, yet far enough from civilization. The tracks themselves were broken apart like toy sets. There was even a burned out, abandoned rail car. Was I skeptical? Hell yeah...the family court judge's words were still ringin' in my ear..."The next time I see you, if I see you again, you better bring a toothbrush." But my explorative nature ruled out...there's no way we're gonna get caught, and what kind of damage will a few M-80's do to something that's already busted out? If anything, we'd just be p****** up some hobo's home.

At ease, I let Jay set off some firecrackers just to free up the last bits of my worries. His fireworks, his call; I wasn't gonna tell him what to do or how to feel, just like I wouldn't let him on the baseball field as me so he could order me around if he didn't know what he was doin'.

Boom! Crack! *fizzle* Each pop helped me feel more at home in the wild. I stopped throwing rocks at trees and birds long enough to take Jay's lighter, and we hoped into that rail car...it was time for serious blow-upping. It looked like the kitchen of a mobile home that had been left for dead and wildlife...lots of broken everythings everywhere in a 4'x12' space. Like cracking a single through the infield, lighting a wick is so drop-and-run. Only now, we were much more at war with the surroundings than a I'd be on the field of a kid's game. Even if I was still a kid.

But that gets boring. How many holes can you blow in something made of holes? Off in search we went for more destruction, because we're boys, and that's what boys do. Another M-80 in a tree? Why not? A pack of ladyfingers under the moss by the puddle with the frogs? Do it. I walked my bike alongside Jay, doin' the inconsequential. We came up on a clearing...green grass the day is long, I swear. The forest- our youth- behind us. If Huckleberry Finn were alive today, he'd have been d*** proud of us.

And that's when things got dicey. Off in the distance, a beat-up a** Pontiac started tearin' down the plain field. It was too pimp-blue to be a cop car, but once the megaphone sounded with "Stay where you are! Or we'll release the dogs!", clearly we weren't dealing with just your average donut pigs. This was the feds. Straight federal police, p***** off that some stupid kids were tearin' up property they owned and weren't doin' s*** with. Like a granddad, gettin' mad because they can...and ain't nothin' you can do or say about it.

Mountain bike or not, I wanted no part of dogs coming after me. Jay took off back into the trees..."If we split up, they can't catch us!" I used my instincts to try and get back to where I thought the streets were that we came through in the first place. After battling the elements, I found the main road and Jay's house. Sweatin' my a** off, I chilled in the coolness of the shade for about fifteen minutes...or plenty of time, I thought, to let the swine pass. I tried to make a road map in my head of where they'd be.

Here's where I'll say the spandex shorts come in handy. I had them on under my super-comfy cut-off sweatpants/now shorts, which I ditched because identity. I took of my tank top and tucked it in my back, hoping going shirtless would change my appearance enough along with the switch from grey-looking shorts to black. When I felt rested enough and clear, I took off for home...instead of the straight shot from Jay's down a busy road parallel to the Conrail property, I went down a side street just for evasion's sake. I hustled like you'd think I was tryin' to take second base standing up on a sharply-hit ball in the outfield gap. Thinking I was home free, a block and a half away from my house I was startled by a car horn. Same pimp-blue Pontiac. Same fed detective that investigated my case with Scooter. Panic sweats differently than August nights.

When I finally made it home, I drew a bath and told my mom not to answer the door. That doesn't imply guilt or anything, right? Sure enough, Det. Roger was bangin' on the threshold within moments. No rest in the stationary tub for me. No alibi either. He saw us the whole time, and cops are smarter than the burgeoning cockiness of a fourteen-year-old kid. I can run for days...between bases and on infield dirt. Not from the feds in fields though, apparently.

He sat mom and I down at our kitchen table, and explained to us that apparently a battery box of some kind was blown up on Conrail land. Because I was there with explosives, I was now a suspect. C******* your pants is a totally different feeling, say, after too much Mexican food compared to c******* them when you're under the impending feeling of being in deep s***.

That turned into a tense few days around the homestead, which didn't really affect me at the plate. I scored daytime release on account of mom working and being too old to be babysat, but young enough not to get my a** totally beat as long as I came home at a decent (daylight) hour. Investigators did their work in the meantime, and I guess we didn't blow up anything too important (and if something purposeful did get wrecked, it wasn't our fault). Roger knew my situation. He understood that I could be a good kid. When he called a few days later, he said there wasn't anything he was willing to pursue. Didn't stop my mother from giving me a verbal beat-down (again, too old to smack, but young enough to fear the anger from her mouth).

And Jay's aftermath? He cleared the forest to the other side of town and walked home. No repercussions. Nothin'. Son of a b***. Scooter laughed his a** off at me for being dumb enough to get caught again, no matter how hard I played up that I tried. Take chances, he said. I f****** knew better. Trouble can find you in the dumbest of places, no matter how straight-A'd you are. It doesn't discriminate, and it doesn't care how sick your glove was the inning before. Tempt it after it taught you a lesson, and it'll make you pay...you can take a fist, but you'll never get over disappointing your single parent to the point that the words hurt more when you keep swinging at the hangin' curve.

Lyrics.  



Word Count: 1330.