My friend Billy and I were about 14 years old. It was summer. We were in a rural location with fields and houses set apart. Although fireworks were illegal to some extent in Massachusetts, we had plenty of them. And we were blasting away. The booms and whistling from the bottle rockets echoed everywhere. The bombardment had lasted over an hour. We had created cannons out of PVC pipe and fired at trees, stone walls, bird house, fences, a vacant shed, and an old lawnmower. Man, launching rockets was cool. Occasionally, we would take a break and blow up firecrackers.
For some reason, we both suddenly stopped and looked at the nearby road. Sometimes, you are just lucky or have some strange instinct. About a 100 yards away, the cop car was just pulling over. We weren’t in our own yards, so we logically threw everything and ran towards the woods. The woods was far off, and we had to cross some yards. It must have looked like we were heading to one of the houses. In the yard where we were blowing off fireworks, the family had two boys and one daughter. As a matter of fact, in the neighborhood, there were twelve boys and one girl. We were a bunch of jerks. Some of us took her Easy Bake Oven and used all the cupcake mix, picked her last in our games, put toads in her playhouse, called her names (to be fair – everyone got called names.), subjected her to our idiocy from the bus stop to cookouts, and whatever else.
othing too mean, or at least I hope not.
Well, Billy and I made the woods and hid behind a stone wall for about half-an-hour. We heard cars coming and going down the street. We peeked over the stone wall and saw nothing. Mosquitos were bugging us, so we headed back. No police were in the yard. Elizabeth was though, and she claimed we owed her one.
According to Elizabeth, the following happened:
The police cruiser pulled into her driveway, and two officers got out. She meet them at the door. “Hello, do you know where the gentlemen next door are?” one asked. She replied, “There are no gentlemen next door.” “Do you know who they are?” “No, I don’t.” “Okay, thank you.” The officers looked at each other. With that, they left. It was hot and then chasing us would have been fruitless. Back then, at 14, I could run for miles, even without the cops chasing me.
Yes, we did owe her one. In hindsight, unfortunately, Elizabeth was right – there were no gentlemen next door.