The Wagon Debacle

“Let’s build a fort.”

Now there are few more important words to a child than those four. So when my neighbor and best buddy Lance mentioned them, I agreed wholeheartedly.

This led to an exhaustive search of our neighborhood.

Over the 30 years since then, I’ve often wondered what our neighbors must have thought of us rapscallions trudging, crawling, scampering, and snooping around their yards, homes, and basically anywhere that looked interesting.

We thought of our entire neighborhood as an extension of our parents’ property.

I recall constantly stopping by Mr. Curry’s garage, which stood on the west end of our neighborhood. It was situated right at the beginning of the alley that ran behind my house. So it just seemed logical to me to swing in and see what he was up to from time to time.

He always wore green overalls, a soiled railroaders capped knocked crooked and back on his head. He was nice and visited with me. His wife was even nicer, for she often invited me in for cookies, though she did once call the cops on me when I was hanging around some older friends who decided to raid her garden and chuck tomatoes at each other.

What amazed me most about his garage, though, was that he employed a technique that was both fascinating and frustrating. On one full wall of the garage, he had pegboard hanging with all of his tools neatly organized on it. I remember eyeing up his hammer and pliers, just thinking about how I could use a pair just like those. But what made it nearly impossible to borrow (i.e. steal) them was that he had ingeniously traced their outlines on the pegboard, so if you were to snatch one, he would easily spot that it was missing.

On the opposite end out the alley stood Mr. Simonoski’s garage. This one fascinated us for completely different reasons. He had a nudie girl calendar hanging up in there. We would sneak around the edge and wait for him to shuffle off into his house before craning our necks around to see what Miss July was not wearing. Unlike Mr. Curry, Mr. Simonoski had no time for us. As soon as we heard his door open, we beat it out of there and safely over to Lance’s garage, usually under a barrage of scolding from the old man.

Those two garages were the boundaries for our neighborhood, but everything else in between was fair game.

We scaled any trees we wished. Lance and I would crawl under steps and porches. In the evenings when we played kicked the can, we used every house, doghouse, and picnic table for cover.

So when Lance came up with the brilliant idea – and this was big for Lance because brilliant ideas were usually my department – of building a forte, we had to make sure that we could find the perfect spot.

After a few weeks of investigation, we determined the best spot to simply be the lilac bushes between my house and the Miller’s.

They were located right next to our small driveway. From our vantage point, we could see Third Street, which ran in front of our house. But we could also get a view of the alley. We also had a good view of the entrance to the hill leading down to the football field, hockey rink, river, and park that was just across Third Street.

They were dense enough to offer us complete anonymity. However, they were close enough to allow us to spy on the neighborhood going ons. From the lilacs we could keep tabs on Robbie’s family (they lived a block to the south of us) and on Brendan’s family (they lived to the north of us, just across third street).

An added bonus of the lilacs was that the Miller’s house was literally about four feet from us. There was the narrowest of walks ways behind the bushes. That way we could avoid any ambush attempts from our mortal enemy, Jbird Sullivan, who lived a couple blocks away.

The only trouble with our plan was that about a thousand honeybees already occupied the lilacs. Let me tell you now, if there was one thing Lance and I were terrified of, it was honeybees. Mosquitoes we could swat and wood ticks we could pluck, but bees were our worst enemies (again, outside of Jbird).

Lance recalled how we had vanquished a ‘barn’ spider that had nested by their fuel oil pipe on the side of their house (we put on all of our army gear – my dad had picked up a bunch of stuff for us at an army outlet store). Once we had our helmets, belts, boots, and canteens (what we would use those for, I have no idea) ready, we next raided the contents of our mother’s cleaning supplies beneath their sinks.

With our arms full of Clorox, Windex, Pledge, and Ajax, we did battle. That poor spider didn’t stand a damn chance. I’m surprised we didn’t poison ourselves in the process or blow ourselves up by mixing all of those things together. Today, homeland security would have been notified and we’d have found ourselves being water boarded.

However, our moms were on to us and we couldn’t get any cleaning supplies. So we simply used the ammunition we found in our driveway: sand and rocks.

It was a battle of attrition as Lance and I hurled handfuls of sand at the bushes and then ran like hell whenever a squadron of bees took flight. However, after several systematic campaigns we were able to rid the bushes of the bees. Now that I think about it, the bees probably had just finished pollinating all of the blossoms on the lilacs and naturally moved on to the next target. I wonder what the Millers must have thought as we shelled the east side of their house with enough sand to fill a sandbox.

Once it was safe, Lance and I settled in to a little opening in the left side of the bushes.

Now, here is where our plan kind of began falling apart.

We figured that since we were pretty much out of the house and on our own, we would need some essentials. Lance was able to acquire a large cushion from the old couch his mom stored in their garage while I acquired some Oreos. With shelter and food taken care of, we turned our attention to the next objective: a source of heat.

We figured that since we’d moved in, we might want to prepare for winter. Lance came up with the idea to build a fireplace. We both peered at the middle of the bushes and imagined a large red brick fireplace and chimney soaring out of the bushes with some delight.

It didn’t seem to enter our minds that not only was this absolutely freaking impossible but it would also spoil the covert location of our fort.

But we didn’t really think of that, like the time we thought we could connect our houses with tunnels. We should have known our plan was doomed from the get go, I mean we were the geniuses who devised a game where Lance would ride on the back pegs of my bike. Since it was spring, Lance would pull my stocking cap over my eyes while I steered. He then would give me directions. What I didn’t know was that Lance was not too sharp on his lefts and rights just yet. Needless to say, I was quite shocked when we collided with a parked car and Lance when flying over me onto the hood of the car.

While we debated how to go about building our fireplace, we noticed one day on our scavenger hunts around the surrounding neighborhoods (we had exhausted our own for raw materials) that a neighbor three blocks down the alley was adding on to his house.

And what did he have a surplus of? Bricks!

It was the best news of the summer.

The only problem was how to acquire them. Lance wanted to use my Coast-to-Coast wagon.

Now I’ll say here that this was one of my most prized possessions. I was the only kid in the neighborhood to have one. And boy did I lord that over them all. And here Lance wanted me to scratch it all up with bricks!

No way.

I kept that wagon in mint condition. I polished it and even had Dad make some large side panels for it out of plywood so I could have my own ‘topper’ for it like some pick ups had.

I hardly let anyone even sit in it. In fact, I recall tying it up to the back of my bike and tearing around the neighborhood and refusing rides to anyone else, even if they didn’t have bikes. They could just run along with me if they wanted. But they weren’t getting in my wagon.

The worst part was those red plastic covers on the wheels that snapped on over the bolts that held the axles to the wheels. They were always popping off, and I had to spend hours scouring the neighborhood to find them. I was not going to have a hubcap missing from my wagon and pull it around like some white trash wagon. That was for sure.

However, after a week or two of begging, Lance finally wore me down. I relented and agreed to use my wagon to load up the bricks.

After carefully laying half a dozen of my mother’s dishtowels in the back of the wagon to prevent any possible scratches, Lance and I headed out.

We had to wait a bit until the man quite mowing his lawn and went into his house. Once he did, we quickly pulled the wagon out of the bushes and began loading the bricks.

Now here is where my memory is distorted by my 8-year-old imagination. Here are the details I recall for sure.

We were loading the bricks. We heard the man’s screen door slam. Lance said, “Run!”

Those are the details I recall. But my imagination blew things out of proportion. I seem to remember having a quarter ton of bricks in my poor wagon. I recall hearing the man yell at us that he was calling the cops and hearing Lance yell, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” Since neither of us had yet been fascinated with cussing, I knew that this was serious.

I recall imagining the man taking my wagon and impounding it at the police station. I had images of Boss Hog always threatening the Duke boys with doing the same thing with their General Lee.

Once we tore down the alley, my memory sharpens once again.

I recall grabbing the handle of my wagon and pulling with all my might. Lance leaned down and began pushing on the back of the wagon.

I must have had a major shot of adrenaline for the wagon seemed weightless. I chalked it up to that same theory that Dr. Banner proposed during the pilot episode of “The Hulk” where he talked about people under great stress were capable of amazing feats of strength, such as a mother lifting her car off a pinned child and so forth.

I recall breezing by several homes and across Chicago Ave without even looking. Then I hit our block. I recall flying down that alley. I saw that Mr. Curry’s garage door was open. I briefly thought of pulling in there, but what if he ratted us out? What if he noticed that in the upper right corner of his pegboard that there was an outline for a monkey wrench, which was stashed under a pile leaves in the lilacs.

I recall Lance shouting, “Run . . . Run . . . Oh my God! He’s catching up . . . Run, Kurt, Run!”

I recall tears forming.

I recall breezing past the Millers house.

I recall Lance shouting “Hurry up! He’s right behind us! Pull!”

I recall running right past our homes.

I recall breaking into sobs thinking of my wagon being confiscated.

Then I couldn’t help but face a major decision. We were coming to the end of the alley. There was just an empty lot beyond the street we were quickly coming to.

I knew I couldn’t abandon my wagon. I knew we couldn’t dash into Mr. Simonoski’s garage. That was worse than getting my wagon confiscated.

Lance seemed to believe we could just jump that damn street and keep on going right through the empty lot . . . “Run . . . Run . . . Oh my God! He’s catching up . . . Run, Kurt, Run!”

Then I recall giving in to my burning lungs. I ground to a halt and peeked back at Lance, finding if funny that he still wasn’t pushing hard even though he still as shouting how we were going to get caught and that the man was right on our heels.

While my imagination had blown many of these details way out of proportion. I am sure this image is one hundred percent accurate for it is etched in my mind forever.

There was no man chasing us. In fact, there never had been. The alley was completely empty. However, Lance was perched on the back of my wagon. His short legs dangled over the end. His feet touching the gravel and having carved two long marks down the alley. The marks traveled all the way back to the man’s house. Lance was still encouraging me to “Run . . . Run . . . Oh my God! He’s catching up . . . Run, Kurt, Run!”

Again, he was not the sharpest kid. But he was sharp enough to enjoy a three-block ride in the back of my wagon like it was some damn rickshaw!

He was lucky too that I was so winded. Because that little shit shot out of the back of my wagon and ran right past Mr. Simonoski’s garage and into the safety of his house while I almost fell over after taking a half dozen steps in hot pursuit.

He didn’t show his scrawny hide outside of his house for two days too. He knew better. All the while I sat in our damn fort plotting my revenge.

But without anyone to talk to or play with, the fort just didn’t seem to have the appeal it once did. Besides, the measly four bricks were managed to steal weren’t much good for anything. So I sat on his rotten cushion from his garage, ate my Oreos and plotted my revenge.