Pirates and Elephants

Pirates and Elephants

         A small boy with a nose full of freckles extended a crude homemade wooden sword above his head. Skinny legs, in rope tied dungarees’, a newspaper pirate hat covered his short curly dark brown hair. Overlooking the streets below the boy did not see the endless sea of rooftops or the flood of flowing cars. He saw only a steel gray ocean, the ships of his fleet rising and falling upon the salty waves of his imagination. He was the Lord High Pirate King; the manhole cover was his ancient quarterdeck. His two trusty mates, grim faced and stoic, were standing cross-armed on either side.


         Such was what I saw that smog filled afternoon at the start of my ninth summer of freedom, and adventure. All of which was also about to come to a screeching halt. In days long ago, when DVD’s and video stores were then known as books and libraries.  Video games consisted of repeating various three syllable words from some projected kindly kindergarten teacher type in front of the family black and white TV. or sport balls for boys, or rag-dolls and sometimes the rare and coveted Barbie for girls. We were a poorer neighborhood and still unaware of any socio-economic prejudice until later in life.


         A child’s imagination can be, and in my case often was, a boundless, powerful, and personally captivating expanse. I could get lost in it for hours. This was not always a good thing. Regardless of how good an idea appeared to me at the time, it nearly never turned out as well as I had hoped. Such was the end game of my pirate adventure that sunny city afternoon.


         It all started with cartoons and kiddies’ shows that Saturday morning. My buddies, the tall and lanky Freddie Spaghetti and Fat Frank, who seemed to be built like a basketball with shoes and a ball capped head, had come over and off we went. Out of the house and suddenly bored, we were wondering how to spend the day. Forage around the warehouses and factories for ‘stuff’, or climb a few fire escapes and run the rooftops? Neither seemed particularly daring or exciting enough, as this was standard faire for us, and Fat Frank wasn’t really into too much climbing anyway. I was the brains of the outfit; again this wasn’t always a good thing.


         Now this adventure has it’s genesis in two foreign countries years if not centuries ago. I grew up in a three generation, old school North Jersey, Sicilian household. This is to say the least, a bit stifling to a rambunctious and imaginative child, if not downright painful on the southern parts of one’s body. I mention this because of the three great steamer trunks that my grandparents hauled over on the boat from the old country. After my Grandfather and Grandmother came through Ellis Island, with the eldest of my uncles and aunts, Gramps and Nana got busy, real busy, real soon, and for a quite long time it seems. We had a huge Sicilian family by today’s standards; thirteen out of the seventeen kids survived; six girls and seven boys. Having this many children to care for would explain why these three trunks had lain in unattended peace for years, or in my mind, centuries!


         There they had lain nestled in the cobwebs and shadows, unmolested and hidden in the furthest reaches of a low ceiling, clay bricked, dimly lit basement. These three huge, dome shaped metal strapped chests resided in the scariest basement of all times, my basement. My young mind had no choice but to see the similarity of these steamer trunks to the fabled treasure chests of ancient times. This correlation was my first mistake.


         Slumped down in the alley sucking down a cold Yoo-hoo from the neighborhood factory, chewing on a Tootsie Roll, the task had fallen upon me to come up with a plan of action. I honestly can’t remember if it was a cartoon, TV show, or some book I was reading which sparked the idea in my head, where an actual pirate’s treasure existed in my basement or not, but whatever it was, it was my second mistake.


         So with some old newspapers turned into pirate hats and a head full of adventure stories, we headed over to ‘Our Lot’. This was an undeveloped lot full of broken concrete, glass and other discarded urban articles.  There we managed to split an old wooden crate in to some things that sort of resembled swords and lashed cross bars near the base with some sun baked clothesline off a wheeless, overturned shopping cart.  We had already appropriated those for our ‘Go-Carts’, which was another in an ever growing list of not so good ideas, and a story for another time. Everything we needed was right there in that neglected factory lot, and some things we could have done without as well. It did hold the beauty of possessing an ever-changing inventory and selection.  To us this urban blight was better than any department store.


         With swords in hand and our newspaper pirate hats, we were now the men of the Jolly Rodger. Valiantly defending piles of debris and conquering concrete caves. We soon tired of this and ran off to terrorize the local villagers and inhabitants as the marauders we were. Hacking and slashing our way through alleyways and private property we ended up once again in our alley, winded, thoroughly yelled at, and cursed upon in several languages.


         Breathless and panting all eyes once again turned to me. As I mentioned, this story was centuries in the making, mostly due to the wonders of DNA, genetics and three old trunks. As a child, I possessed an uncanny and inherent gift to tell fantastical stories in any given situation. I believe that this was neither a character defect nor even my fault, hence relieving me of any personal responsibility for the outcomes of these tales or to those who often fell victim to them. I believe this is a floating genetic device, from my father’s side of the gene pool, which was of pure, if not concentrated, Irish blood, unlike my siblings and self.


         It is said that prior to my great grandfathers emigration to America our ancestors lived for centuries within site of the famed Blarney Stone in Ireland. No doubt, many, if not all of my clan, kissed that sacred stone at one time or another. I however, believe that at least one of them, failing to understand fully the gravity of such a decision, actually bit off a piece and digested it, hence sealing my genetic fate before birth and consequently this Saturday morning. I have to naturally and justly, I might add, place the responsibility squarely upon the shoulders of some ancient ancestor whose lack of foresight caused all this to happen in the first place. After all, I  have not even been to Ireland. I am just a victim here. I would try this defense later this day, and that would prove to be another major mistake.


         This ability to weave unbelievable stories with great detail and with such conviction often proved my undoing, and to the undoing of most of my associates as well. They would more often than not bite into them hook, line, and sinker, and I would get them to act upon these tall tales. I hope that my work with them back then has paid off for them now later in life. I truly hope they have now learned to be levelheaded realist with a firm grip on reality. As for myself, I have no hope or illusions of ever aspiring to such a lofty goal, nor would I want to. That may also still prove to be a mistake.


         Slumped back against the bricks of that alley, I began intricately weaving a tale of Pirates, Indians and Redcoats.  I concocted a great tale for my young audience. It was a colorful story, full of merciless pirates, British soldiers and pursuing savages who once roamed these very neighborhood streets back in the olden days, once upon a time. I had my friends captivated and myself as well, and that was now my third mistake.


         I told in greater and greater detail how these salty seafarers crossed the stormy seas, waves crashing across the decks. Two of the ships snapping apart went down in the night, all the crew forever lost. Finally, their battered and broken ships traveled as far as they could. They had had to turn off the Hudson and had broken down only a few miles from right here. Worried about their treasure, they had decided they would carry it away from the ships and bury it here in our neighborhood. I could vividly picture them and their treasure chests; all three of them seemed vaguely familiar to me. This was the beginning of my fourth mistake.


         When questioned by my, at first, skeptical friends to provide the mechanics of how and why, I merely employed my nine year old logic. Why would the pirates carry it so far from the river to bury it here, and why not bury at the top of Belmont Hill where all that grass was in the park? With exasperation, I explained they couldn’t just go there because the British and Indians were hunting them and beside they didn’t want to do it up there because there weren’t any real tall buildings up there so everybody could see them, and everybody knows treasures have to be hidden in secret. When asked about why did nobody see them walking down the street with the treasure chest, I merely stated the obvious to my non-believing friends. The pirates were smart and sneaky; you had to be to be a pirate you know? They used the storm sewers to get here and had to fight off the rats. Great big rats, so big that the rats ate two or three of theirs guys too. The rats were huge back then, they were almost as big as Blackie.


         Now Blackie, whose real name was forever unknown to any of us kids, lived on the end of a logging chain in a fenced off tiny corner yard a couple of blocks over. Looking back on this, Blackie was either a genetic experiment gone terribly amiss by a military lab somewhere, or the single, largest, meanest, dirtiest dog in the history of mankind. Even the really tough kids, along with any sane adult, crossed the street rather than have Blackie’s snarling, battering ram charge into the chain link assault them. One never really knew if that steel fence and chain would hold him. To Blackie’s way to thinking, there was only him, and everything else was dinner.


         When asked how the rats got that big simple logic prevailed. I patiently answered that they grew bigger back then because people hadn’t invented garbage can lids yet so the rats could eat more, gee don’t you’s guys know nuthin’? And on and on it went.
By the time the questions were all answered I had convinced them and myself that these three treasure chest did in fact exist and were now secretly hidden in my basement. This was a really big mistake.


         Unlike most of my friends, our family lived in a single family home. There were still a few of those in our neighborhood. Most my friends lived either in the surrounding apartment buildings or in the projects down the block. We even had a little backyard ending on the far side of the short lawn at the fence of the garden the elderly Italians in the apartment building there grew. I would get to see that view a lot this summer; it’s really not that nice. The other end of this tiny yard was my backdoor and the almost horizontal homemade doors to the world’s scariest basement. It was almost always dark in there. It had ceilings that could not have been more than five foot tall, it had a couple of one-foot square windows, and though they allowed a little light in they did not open.


         There were only two ways into this cave, as I saw it now, where the treasure was hidden. One was through the back door and kitchen to the rickety stairs down. That particular path I have found, was never a good idea on a perfectly good Saturday, too many grown ups and always something needed done. The second route involved lifting the heavy plank doors outside; I don’t think I could lift those even with my friends, besides the British and Indians were guarding them, somehow disguised now as my grandparents in the backyard. My men asked me how we were going to get in and get the treasure. I pondered this for sometime and figured we needed ‘stuff’ so off to the lot we went. That was a big mistake.


         What we came up with was a battering ram, an old log, which or may not have been a round fence post at one time. We came up with some rope, and a not so good idea. I figured the best way in was in through the window. Covert like, we could sneak past the guards by hopping the wooden fence at the side of the house where these two windows were. We would then use the battering ram to remove the window and climb down the rope into the cave landing on the two big rocks down there or the washer and dryer as my mother liked to referred to them. Then we’d tie onto these massive chests, drag them up over the rocks and out through this tiny window. Accomplishing this all without detection or noise. I told my friends I didn’t see how anything could possibly go wrong.


         For some reason the overall physics of the operation failed to come to my attention, and this was my ultimate mistake. It in no way, however, failed to get the attention of my parents and grandparents, or my friends parents and their grandparents and possibly further generations back up the line. We managed to get as far as hopping the fence and sending our battering ram sailing through the glass window, crashing onto the washer, flipping and taking out the one lone ceiling bulb down there and finally coming to rest, only after destroying an open folding aluminum picnic table that I somehow failed to remember was down there.


         It was at this very moment that we were all instantly transported back into mid-twentieth century New Jersey. It was actually the third Saturday of June, nineteen sixty-four, to be exact. I remember this because it was also the first Saturday of my summer vacation; it was also the end of my summer vacation for all practical purposes. When we exploded the window and subsequent raucous, my grandparents nearly fell out of their chaise loungers, my mother blew out of the backdoor, while my father simultaneously flew through the front door. We were caught red-handed and found ourselves surrounded by a very angry mob.


         My sentence for this heinous crime, as all my elders tended to view it, was two weeks basic solitary confinement with all free speech privileges revoked, which may have had something to do my genetics argument. I managed to work that little bit of creativeness into another major charge against me. There did not seem to be a lot that went nearly as well as I somehow convinced myself it would that morning. I now had the entire summer to think about why, alone, in the backyard, cutting the lawn daily with a pair of old scissors. I’m pretty sure they would have gone much easier on me if I hadn’t tried to convince them all this was really my dead Irish grandfather’s fault. He was a great storyteller.


         I have not smashed any windows lately or tried to dig up buried treasure in the basement, but I still dream of it, and I believe at times I truly find it. I found it last night at a ballpark. I found that buried treasure in the hopes and ideas of two wonderful children and their graying dad who were sitting in the seats in front of me. The little six-year-old girl was a precocious, wide-eyed wonder, with a outgoing and friendly disposition, her older bother of eight was the more practical thinker of the two. Little Miss was a stone cold starry eyed dreamer with a great imagination. She saw elephants and horses in the sun setting colored clouds. She got lost in their beauty and in the tale she made up and shared. She made me happy and hopeful for our future and the new generation she represents, and that is never a mistake.