Naturally, the local men in blue at the Bourne Police Department were well aware of the track’s ongoing problems. They practically took residency in the front parking lot on weekends, along with initiating constant drive-by patrols, since the main drag in front of the go-kart place also served as a late-night drag strip.
But it wasn’t just that the verbal skirmishes, dirty looks, and profane hand gestures were showing up at Mashnee or Memorial Beach. The feud was taking place all over town; at the go-kart tracks, gas-dock, convenience store, bait-’n-tackle shop, local diners, convenience stores, and the Buzzards Bay movie house, along with assorted festivals and eateries. In fact, I heard there was even one incident at the local parish, where two boys had to be separated in the parking lot, directly after Sunday services let out (way to go Patrick!).
Funny thing was, the parents didn’t get along either, as one parental altercation over the seeding (favorably positioning the runners in advance, to allow faster runners an unimpeded start) in the annual Mashnee Road Race led to one Memorial Beach parent being escorted by police out of the Boat ’n Bottle Bar in handcuffs late one Friday night. I kid you not!
For what it’s worth, I continued to run in that same annual Mashnee Road Race every summer, even after my first bad experience. Not one to be bullied away.
But bad blood is bad blood, and when blood gets to boiling, people tend to forget how things got so riled up in the first place, but not me. I had the scars on my ego to show for it.
As tensions mounted, so did our run-ins with The Lumps on The Bump. While we were busy causing trouble and hunting for criminals, they were busy trying to catch us. Of course, with the way we knew the ins and outs of Mashnee, no way was anyone gonna catch us doing anything, especially not two fake cops!
Needless to say, it was so ever-predictably a colossal failure, and instead of protect and serve, we turned most nights into elaborate cat-and-mouse game of kids vs rent-a-cop, in a nightly rerun of “How can we drive the overzealous lumps-on-the-bump crazy and get away with even more shit tonight?!”
It’s amazing just how much fun during the most immature time of our lives can be gained and monotony avoided at someone else’s expense. Our nightly pranks ranged from the relatively mundane, such as lighting flares and running, to the just plain annoying, bird calls and whooping noises from behind brush, to the extremely creative yet hazardous, catch a skunk and release it near the rent-a-cop, each, by the way, carried-out on our behalf by Crazy Eddie, typically in response to a “dare” or heaven forbid, a “double-dare,” challenge!
Between the Lumps on the Bump, the case of the missing finger, the resident Island Narc, and freaked-out island parents, we had plenty to worry about that summer, but tonight’s meeting at The Hut wasn’t about any of those. Tonight was about Memorial Beach, or more specifically, our sworn archenemies.
We had recently made some improvements to The Hut, fastening a series of overturned wooden milk crates together to form intimate couch seating for six, and we had stacked a large truck tire inner tube in the corner, which similarly functioned as furniture. On this night we had a big but closely knit group in attendance: me, the Flaherty Brothers, Patrick and Ken, Dereck, their cousin Owen, Rick the Stick, Brian, Mary Ellen Kramer (her eyes always surveying for trouble), along with Christine and Sally from Memorial Beach.
As usual, Tommy had the floor.
And per usual, we hung on his every word.
“They got to Stevie. Those muther flippers got to him.”
“What. What the hell are you talking about? What got to him?” responded the mass voices of inquisition. “Yeah, what gives, Tommy?”
“I just heard about it from my old lady (cool speak for mom). She ran into his mom over at Liberty’s Pharmacy.” The story goes:
“Stevie rode his bike over to Gray Gables Market, and I guess he left it at the bike rack on the side, where everybody else does, and was picking up shit in the store for his mom, and probably getting smokes too. (Stevie looked like a twenty-one-year-old beatnik. He probably started shaving when he was ten.) At fifteen The Bird could easily buy cigarettes at any convenience store and was occasionally fortunate enough not to get carded at the local liquor stores.”
“Anyway, so when he came out, I guess the Jackson Brothers and some of their motley henchmen were loading his bike onto the back of their shitbox pickup, man. So you know Stevie, he didn’t know what to do, so he goes running after them just as they’re pulling out, and they jump out and slap him around pretty good, his old lady says hard enough for a fat lip and a cut from his glasses breaking. Oh yeah, plus a chipped front tooth. Some other shit too. Sounded bad…”
“Bike’s probably been trashed by now. Anyhow, the Bird-Turd lives, but guys, this is friggin’ war.”
“Absofreakinglutely!” said everybody.
“Absofreakinglutely!” echoed Tommy solemnly.
We lit a small fire and crowded around it to the sound of pesky gnats and mosquitoes sizzling and popping in the air when they dared get too close to the flames, which were much better suited for marshmallow toasting then daredevil insect landings. So we pushed all curfews aside, and dug in for the night to passionately fan the flames of THE ENCOUNTER, and, of course, planning our retaliatory strike.
ret·ri·bu·tion – ˌretrəˈbyo͞oSH(ə)n/noun
Punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act.
Retribution for Stevie! Yeah, man. That was it—the catchphrase which would be repeated dozens upon dozens upon dozens of times over the next twenty-four hours, and for decades beyond.
That’s when Tommy put out the challenge…
He laid it out very clearly. We would not be limiting our strikes waiting for an opportunity to jump one of their guys like they did with Stevie. No, this cut was too deep, and called for something bigger, bolder, and more direct than that.
Instead this would be a direct challenge to those idiot Jackson Brothers and their co-hordes. So, he wrote a note for Christine and Sally to hand deliver;
Tomorrow night. 7 p.m. Mashnee Beach.
Our best guy against your best. Asswholes.
Be there. Unless you’re chicken shit. Chicken shits!
Which we certainly were not.
Well, at least Tommy wasn’t!
Chapter 37
Juiced
So, remember when I told you this was the summer of being tough, or at least pretending to be? Well, the next day was one of the best, worst, most exhilarating, and scariest days of my life, as we got ready to fight.
I woke up from the little slumber I had maintained throughout whatever remaining portion of the night I had returned home to, carefully entering and sneaking into my bedroom like a mouse, shushing Alison as I did, with a desert-dry throat, a soaking-wet mop of hair, and similarly drenched pillow.
I already had that feeling of butterflies in the pit in my stomach, the ones I usually got before playing in a big game only a million times worse, thinking about what the day might potentially hold, as we prepared for battle.
I say potentially because I never truly thought any sort of real “showdown” would ever happen, although admittedly, the very thought of it sent bolts of pure adrenaline rushing through my skinny teenage veins, enough so that I openly wondered if an almost fifteen-year-old could actually have a stroke. I had no idea, but was counting on it being technically impossible, but I was still worried enough to wake my sister.
“What the eff do you want, Jimmyrocket? You’re being a total brat!”
Ok, I admit, it was still too early, but hey, the sun was up, and I needed a little reassurance. I also wanted to tell her some stuff too. You know. Important stuff.