Fiction

Idiocy most believe is the ramification of boredom or the inability to find beer, at least when one is not of legal age. For the teen years this means idiocy is generated at an alarming rate, almost once per weekend, and even more on breaks and vacations. It’s not something that’s premeditated, and it’s not something that is done with malicious intent. It’s just something that is done. Like a ritualistic tradition that is handed down from generation to generation. Because no matter how moronic the idiocy turns out to be, it is highly unlikely that you were the first to commit the said idiocy. For the idiocy is like an icon. And in our town one night, we created a new icon.

It was one of those nice cool fall nights. The kind where you needed a jacket, but not the paraphernalia that went with it, unless of course you were Paul, whose Mother felt that his immune system was still in the womb, and refused to let him out without some type of winter gear on his nob, hence Paul rarely left the planet without a bonnet. The rest of us however were adorned in the proper attire, light jackets. The kind that kept the sting of cold out, yet made us look like we’d just left a James Bond movie where we not only fantasized that we were James Bond, but would manage to annihilate what little maturity we possessed upon meeting the first female we ran across by attempting a seduction that began with the word “Yo.” It was just something we couldn’t help.

Why it started I don’t know. Or what it was that possessed Pitcoe to spew the exact verbiage that he did only he knows, and I truly doubt that he even did. But he did. And we were made to be a part of it whether we wanted to or not.

We were taking our usual shortcut; the one linked the high school with down town, Pinnel Park. It had a nice access through the woods, and occasionally one would run into some more fortunate delinquents that had in their possession what we didn’t have which is what started what it was that was about to happen, beer. But on this night it was not to be. We not only didn’t find any beer, we didn’t find anybody, which for a Friday night was highly unusual. We knew that there weren’t any parties, as none of us had been invited to any, so we figured everyone else was either grounded or engaged in some illicit act with a member of the opposite sex that none of us seemed to be able to procure at that moment.

Now when one exits the woods and enters the park, one has a view of only one thing, the Police Station. Our town was far from a thriving metropolis, but we did have the luxury of three fulltime officers. Officer Blatter. Officer Rigsby. And Officer Perrin. All three on their own were rather decent guys, at least as far as cops were concerned, but put two or three of them together and it was like trying to eat a nineteen foot tall peanut butter stuffed donut without the luxury of a cold glass of fresh milk. Not only was it impossible, it was also blessed with a malignant intensity of vapid insanity. That’s when it finally dawned on us; they were just as bored as we were.

It didn’t take long, and the advent was rather painless, if not unexpected. It merely took Pitcoe, and his high-pitched whine of a voice, to instigate an innocuous folly that retched of shear stupidity.

“Officer of the law,” he bellowed and then took to running. It didn’t take the rest of us more than a few seconds to realize what was about to happen. Officer’s Rigsby and Perrin, flashlights in hand, were rapidly descending on what innocence we decided best not to voice. We were for all intensive purposes, off to the races.

We quickly split into groups of unintentional numbers. I was naturally absorbed with Pitcoe, and since his brilliance was the instigator, this naturally caused Officer Rigsby to dwell in our direction, which in the dark was any which way we could manage. Pitcoe, sensing something I didn’t, veered towards the right, while I took a different approach and jumped a small rock wall that took me directly into a pine tree. Luckily my eyes were closed as a relatively enormous branch lambasted my face in such a manner as to knock me backwards, and right onto the ground. And this I decided was a fabulous place to be. Not only couldn’t you see me from the path, but I had the additional coverage of the branches above me. Had it not been for the aromatics of dog fodder, I could have spent the remainder of the evening there.

I silently calmed my breath and tried to envision myself as invisible. Panicking, while always something I considered myself master at, didn’t seem like a great idea, especially when the noises coming from the other side of the wall had the nuances of a severe grounding if by chance we were caught. Even though the realization existed that we hadn’t in fact actually done anything, the chances of any of our parents believing this had absolutely no justification. Our only hope for survival was to escape.

In a way it was like being at war with an enemy that wouldn’t actually harm you, but would more likely than not give you a severe scolding for interrupting a melancholy that was more conducive to their overall liking, because boredom creates a lethargy that is difficult to rouse on serene Friday evening. But serenity and Pitcoe were an oxymoron. They just couldn’t coexist.

For my part I considered myself to be in neutral territory, a place that wasn’t actually involved, but suffered from the guilt on non-action. What to the normal parent would be considered intelligence. Our parents knew we were far from saints, they also knew we were for the most part decent kids. The one rule that seemed to generate from the lot of them, was to keep them ignorant of the doings, and most importantly, don’t get caught.

But with Anthony Pitcoe in existence, the chances of staying clean were not a Vegas favorite.

After five or ten minutes of whiffing my dog’s aromatics, I decided on a plan of attack. A subtle yet intelligent strategy that merely involved me lifting my head and looking over the wall to scan the battle zone. And that’s when I found Harahan, or better yet, his foot found me. Apparently he had had the same plan, and just as I was instigating mine, he was instigating his, and his foot and my face had an instant love affair that left him sprawling on the dog’s fodder, and me with visions of light unlike any seen outside of Meteor Days.

Now it was just a matter of realizing who was who, and not giving away who we were to anyone but us.

Once we quickly realized who the other one of us was, it was now a matter of formulating a good plan that we could both utilize without killing the other or getting caught. A mere matter of simplicity that neither one of us could fathom at the moment, as were suddenly inundated with the screams of Anthony Pitcoe. Screams that we noticed were not those of innocuous folly, but those of intense pain.

This naturally became our plan.

It was the perfect diversion. One’s pain would become another’s realization of freedom. It was just now a matter of realizing what type of pain and how long that pain would last. Timing, when escaping from innocence, is a matter of utmost importance, as one’s innocence can quickly turn with each opportunity that has yet to have been met. We decided that it would be best if one of us peered over the wall in the direction of the pain. This we felt was not only our best option, but our only option, as two of us doing it might not only give away where it was we were, but also create a panic if the pain was the type that might make one nauseas when actually viewing it. This quickly eliminated Hanrahan, as he had nearly fainted while dissecting frogs in biology class, so whether I liked it or not, the viewing was ultimately left to me.

I took a deep breathe and lifted as little of my head as possible with the hopes that my feathered locks would appear to be some form of raccoon or opossum if I happened to somehow be spotted. But as luck would have it, I wasn’t. Not only wasn’t I spotted, but the pain of Pitcoe was so far in the distance that I had to stand to merely see what it was that I was trying to see so we could stay hidden, and even then it was hard see. By the time I had any type of vision of situation, I was so far out in the open that even a blind person with poor night vision could have spotted me. I was what most people would now refer to as obvious, and yet I was still invisible, as Pitcoe continued his melodically challenged dirge.

Off in the distance the sound of an ambulance drew nearer, and the flashlights of the two officers formed a spot around our downed comrade. It wasn’t until my eyes finally adjusted to the night, and to the distance that I noticed Bozo, Brooks, and Joe silently perched in the tree above them, just feet above a certain doom. That’s when I started to laugh. Not loud enough to be heard, but just loud enough to make me feel better. I was free. All of the evil I was avoiding was centered in a different vortex. Once Hanrahan noticed this, he was off, this time in a direction he knew, and this time in a direction without the luxury of obstacles.

I on the other hand, decided on a lethargic swagger so I could fully absorb the enormity of what I was about to escape. That’s when I felt the tap on my shoulder, the kind of tap that makes ones innards effectively jettison in an effervescent tidal wave of majestic splendor. The kind of tap that means you won’t be seeing Saturday night. I slowly turned around and it was the one person I didn’t want to see. The one person who I knew would believe me, but the person I didn’t want to explain the idiocy too.

It was my Father.

I’d all but forgotten that he spends the occasional Friday night with friends and a few beers. I’d forgotten that when he did this, this was his way of getting home. I’d also forgotten that this was one of those Friday nights.

There was nothing I could do. Running would only make me guilty, that, and really moronic as we’d already made contact. So I did what any true American teenager would do. I lied.

“Mom sent me down to get you,” I sputtered. “Apparently there’s some kind of family thing she wants to see you about.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on over there?” my Father asked.

“No,” I quickly lied. “I have no idea what’s going on over there. I was coming to get you, remember?”

“So is that why your friends are hiding up in the tree?”

It was all but over now. He knew. He always knew. That was the one thing about parents, no matter how ill conceived or brilliant your lie was it was just that, a lie. And for some reason they could absorb that. They could take whatever type of semantics that you ambiguously spewed forth and twist it into what it really was, total bullshit. I never knew why I even tried. It was like trying to con a master. It just couldn’t be done.

“So what did you do?” he finally asked.

“Truth?”

“That would be nice.”

“Pitcoe.”

“That’s what I thought. Looks like he broke his ankle pretty good.”

“So now what?”

He paused for a moment, slowly scratched his chin, and then spoke in a low whisper. “Since you’re over here, and they’re over there, let’s just pretend I didn’t see you and leave it at that.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

That’s why I loved the man. “Thanks Dad.”

He just smiled, then nodded, and then continued his stroll through the woods. “Just make sure your Mother doesn’t find out.”

I smiled back, and then ran into the bushes where I stayed until I heard the branch break.