As we grew older, so did our desire to stay out later at night, in addition to entertaining ourselves with mischief, (typically egged on by the older kids). The daytime mischief was all about breaking pool rules, jumping off the dock where we weren’t supposed to, swimming outside of the beach’s roped-off area, or simply tormenting those poor souls in charge.
But come nightfall, which always started with everyone meeting on the clubhouse’s front stairs, (gobbed with so much lead paint it would peel and stick to your ass), we became way more creative. Now, a bit older and bolder, our favorite nighttime activity became…
Door Knocking!
One night early that summer, Rick the Stick and I, along with Dereck Shifter, Jackie Junior, the Shifter twins Steve and Ernie, plus Patrick and Ken Flaherty, had been hanging out on our go-to perch, the front steps of The Club.
We were spread out on the stairs like so many ships at sea, each secured to their own mooring. In our case, that meant the nine of us had each staked out one of the nearly twenty cement steps. A three-foot-high galvanized steel pipe railing ran up the middle of the steps where it had been mounted for use as a handrail. The sturdy rail did double duty. It subdivided the up and down lanes of the stairs, and functioned as a reasonably decent gymnastics bar, perfect for practicing “muscle-ups” or simply spinning like a top around the rail until we were either comatose, nauseated, or after a few nasty spills, blood splattered, while trying to figure out how to entertain ourselves until our respective curfews. (We basically had three groups: younger, older, and much-older kids, so our curfews varied.)
That evening we were approached by a couple of the older kids, led of course by Tony Dupré, and Howie Kauffman, who made even Rick the Stick look short, one of Tony’s buddies. Both were holding extra-large “frappé” cups, filled with anything but frappés. Howie said it made them feel “extra happy.” And they certainly looked the part.
Pleasantly inebriated, and with smirking straight faces, the two of them proceeded to explain the importance of an apparently long-standing Mashnee tradition and rite of passage, which would put to the test one’s speed, dexterity, cunning, and most of all, balls of steel!
They had dubbed the risky business, Door Knocking and Roof Stomping. The names sounded so exciting we were already “In-Like-Flynn” before hearing another word. Well, most of us were in. The three youngest Shifter boys had an early curfew, so they had to go home, and the girls who were hanging out with us, although officially aghast at the idea, still volunteered to serve as “spotters,” who would be close enough to monitor and observe, without risking direct association with the wrongdoers (who were already laughing hysterically in anticipation).
According to Tony and Howie, the door-knocking part of the sport was simple. Wait till as late at night as possible, pick out a house of particular interest (more on the science behind this later), preferably on a dark lot, then in a group of three or four, ever-so-quietly sneak up to the house, strategically positioned under a few windows—best if they were open a crack—with someone assigned to the front or side door, and on cue (whoot whoot!) bang the crap out of some poor unwitting renter’s cottage and run like hell for dear life!
Nearer to the July Fourth holiday, the door-knocking process was likely to include a firecracker or two tossed on the front steps, or better yet, into an open trash can, or once or twice, although I hate to admit it, tossed into an open window.
Wow, was that fun!
“But…” We were further challenged: “If you’re man enough—” Tony paused to look each of us in the eye, one by one “—and want to be considered for early entry into the “Mashnee Hall of Fame…” (Wait, is that a real thing? We wondered.) “Or, maybe you’re just bored out of your freakin’ minds… if so, you can up the ante with the considerably riskier, balls-to-the-wall challenge of Roof Stomping!”
This apparently long-standing Mashnee tradition required considerably more stealth, speed, dexterity, and frankly, nerve, and was therefore ill-advised for those who were slow of foot, faint of heart, or deficient of courage. Hey... we were young and naive, so they laid it on pretty thick.
While door knocking, necessitating its own set of stealth and skills, was a rite of passage for many Mashnee kids, roof stomping was reserved strictly for those who were daredevils, or those who could be suckered into thinking they were. Those kids were the most fun, and, little did they know, they’d be cruisin’ for a bruisin’!
The recommended combat plan was brilliant in its simplicity. First we’d choose a cottage. Rentals only. Basically from Mashnee Road on down, with exceptions made for special circumstance properties, aka Reginald G. Knight’s mansion house. But that would come later. The selections were carefully considered and diligently debated, almost never chosen willy-nilly at random. The leading candidates for our total and unmerciful disregard for peace and privacy and complete disregard for basic human decency were, in order of priority.
Any rental cottage housing a cute girl was automatic. Bonus points if we didn’t know her yet. Mega bonus points for multiple hotties in the same cottage. (What better way to impress?) Any rental homes with the little “guest shacks’’ out back. These special-reservation-and-extra-charge upgrades, (there were only four available), were cute little miniaturized versions of the main house, complete with matching door and shutters, which could sleep anywhere from two to five, or possibly six kids, depending upon how tightly packed they were. (Yes, there were rules against more than four!) It also housed a small three-quarter bathroom and cooking area with a toaster.
Also in contention were cottages with particularly dorky kids we couldn’t stand. Then cottages with what we termed, “good escapability factor.” This typically meant, backing up to the ocean (Clipper Road was ideal.) with enough clearance to get to the beach, having adequate tree and shrubbery coverage combined with appropriately dismal lighting, or at the least, offering quick and discrete access to one of our many, strategically located hiding spots. We were also very considerate in our selections, excluding, for example, a cottage which purportedly housed: “An old fart with a limp and a bad heart, I think.”
So, one kid covered the front door as lookout, while the others snuck to the back of the house where the roof sloped low over the refuse room, and as quiet as a mouse wearing cashmere slippers and walking on a pillow, we had the biggest kid make an interlocking ten-finger sandwich to help boost the other kids onto the roof, probably six or seven feet high, then hold his ground and stand guard. This was critical, as there would be three or four pranksters scurrying down a pitched roof simultaneously and needing momentary, but critical, assistance.
Hunched-over, scurrying atop a pitched roof was already not a pretty sight as it was, but our retreat would be nothing short of cataclysmic should our sentry bail, which had been known to happen, so henceforth any such dereliction of duty would be dealt with harshly, post-hence.
Our first venture into these sordid activities produced mixed results. First off, we decided that we would initially entertain only the reportedly less-hazardous avocation of door knocking that night and save the apparently death-defying shenanigan of roof stomping for when we were a good bit more seasoned.
This, of course, generated synchronized eye rolls (and two arm-farts and a belch), from the older kids, but our minds were made up.
There would be five of us manning doors and windows: me, Rick, Dereck, Patrick and Ken Flaherty, along with two (not-so) courageous lookouts, my sister Alison and our neighbor, Mary Ellen Kramer, who mostly served to bear witness to our absurdity. The other kids would wait back at The Club’s stairs.
We waited until dark and predictably the fog rolled in, smothering the night and whatever remaining light there was along with it. The dank night air was a curious sensory concoction. I could identify the scent of salt and fish along with something that smelled a bit like sulfur and iodine, along with a hint of something significantly more pungent than rotten eggs and which could be carried on the wind as much as a half mile from its initial deployment site.
The latter was a reminder that skunks were a regular nighttime occurrence on Mashnee. Mild-mannered skunks, browsing the island for an all-you-can-eat garbage buffet by moonlight, were likely to be startled enough to feel defensive around a bunch of lunatic kids racing blindly through backyards and brush to avoid certain capture.
The group decided to scope out cottages fronting the far end of Leeward Road, whose backyards adjoined the backyards of homes fronting on Clipper Road. That target area provided an easy escape route to either the beach, darkened yards, or back to The Club.
“Will you guys shut the F#@&k up!?” Rick the Stick loud-whispered to anybody and everybody in sight, just as our victim’s cottage came into view. It was one door down from the corner, a typical run-of-the-mill Mashnee cottage, with gray weathered shingles and grass-green shutters painted to match the front door.
The house easily met several of our predetermined criteria: dark lot, only one light on, good escapability features, and rumor had it (incorrectly as it turned out) there was a “very cute” female renter as one of the occupants.
Stick was right. It was go time! We split up, now two pairs of striking forces; the fastest, that would be me and Dereck, took the doors. Dereck had the front door, and I took the back. Rick and the Flaherty brothers were in charge of manning the windows. After getting into position, it would be Mary Ellen’s job to give the go signal, a dopey, owl-whooty noise kind of thing!
With a quick nod from our lookouts, we were off to our assigned posts, each quietly high-stepping our way for dramatic effect. When being stealth is what’s called for, or at least “stealthy enough,” we’re your undercover men!
Let’s just say, we were well prepared to cause trouble. I was quick to reach the kitchen door first, ducking out of sight just round its corner. Dereck raced to the front of the house, the steps of which were dimly lit by a yellowing forty-watt bulb screwed into the most basic of brushed-metal fixtures. Dereck impressively dived and rolled behind a shrub for cover.
Patrick and Ken scrambled beneath two side windows, Patrick, younger but bigger than his brother, probably did more lumbering than actual scrambling. Nevertheless, both effectively secured their positions under dark windows, both with drawn shades. One window was slightly open, and that’s all that mattered.
That was when we ran into our first problem.
Rick the Stick was too damned tall. He thought he was positioned nice and low under the darkened, half-open rear window, but his cranium was fully exposed, sticking up above the sill, so he could easily have been spotted. Happily, Mary Ellen saved the day, by sneaking through some shrubs to the back of the house and throwing a rock, with great accuracy I might add, to within a foot of Stick’s bobbing head, prompting him to reactively duck back into place. That’s the stuff of legend right there!
Mary Ellen snuck back into position and seconds later she let loose with a guttural screech which bore little resemblance to the “whoot owl” sound we had carefully practiced.
We might have winced at the sound, but we still knew it was our signal. It immediately unleashed a heart-stopping syncopation of loud bangs, knocks, slams, whacks, wallops, and clobbers, which near instantly generated the sounds of hurried footsteps mixed with assorted hoots and hollers, as fleeing culprits skedaddled our way from various directions, just as multiple lights flashed on in the victim’s cottage, accompanied by indignant shouts of
“Hey!”
“Who’s out there?”
“Damned kids!!”
And we were gone in a flash!
But even best-laid plans need refinement, as Ken soon found out as he blistered his way through some renter’s backyard and tripped over something in the dark, leading first to, “Oh... SHIT!” quickly followed by the unmistakably pungent odor of Hog Island’s most-notorious Mephitidae, Pepé Le Pew, the black and white northern striped skunk. Ken had just accidentally drop-kicked a skunk into mid-orbit. Not good.
