The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me. Section Eight.

 

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.