My family, on the Torkildson side, is descended from royalty.
Jimmy Antone had a great garage
for experiments.
It was empty most of the time,
since Mr. Antone preferred to
park his car on the street,
as did my own dad.
It was a lazy man thing;
too much trouble to open
and close
those old garage doors.
They had huge groaning springs
and byzantine hinges like a
drawbridge.
They'd give Tarzan a hernia.
So in the Antone garage we brought
our spoils from the nearby railyard
to fiddle with.
I specialized in half burnt flares.
Naturally. Since I always
inclined towards pyromania.
Ronny Antone contributed a two foot
steel pipe.
We plugged up one end with gravel.
I stuffed it full of sulfur from the flares.
Jimmy Antone lit it with the forbidden
matches he carried around
furtively like a cartoon
anarchist with a bomb
at a parade.
It roared to life
wanting to suffocate
us dumb kids.
But we were so dumb
we kept the garage door
wide open --
cuz we were lazy, too --
and the violent fumes floated
harmlessly away.
Laid on bricks,
the steel pipe turned red,
then yellow, then blue
from the heat of the dripping
sulfur.
We roasted stones in the flame.
Mad alchemists.
Until they cracked and flew apart.
The heat and the glow
and the fumes gathering
near the roof
produced an unhealthy
excitement.
A callous disregard
for the life of small animals.
"Let's try a squirrel"
suggested Jimmy Antone
with a Boris Karloff leer.
Just then
Mrs. Antone
came out
of her kitchen
to investigate.
She denounced us
in ringing tones:
"You kids have got to be the worst bunch of idiots
this side of the river! Dammit, Ronnie, you're
supposed to be old enough to keep your little brother
out of trouble! Wait until your father gets home. Wait
until I tell your mother, Timmy! Just wait until I get
my hairbrush! Burn down the whole neighborhood --
that's what you're doing! Put that thing out! Bring me
the hose, Ronnie! Look at the garage floor. You've ruined
it! Where in the Sam Hill did you get that all that junk from?
Did you steal it? Have you kids been STEALING? Wait
until your father gets home! Just wait! That's all I can
say -- just wait!"
I decided not to wait.
I ran home and told mom
that Jimmy Antone was
playing with matches.
She told Mrs. Antone,
and in the ensuing hullabaloo
my part in the Great Sulfur Scandal
was forgotten.
I may be a dumb kid
but I know how to protect
my own tush.
