Werewolf II: Terry, Don't mess with youngest member of the Wolf Pack!

(Continued) 


The cool kids in our seventh grade class rarely ever picked Harry for kickball. He was tall and lanky and a little slow and I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for stray dogs, for big fat Pinky (who was now living with us), and for anyone I felt was an underdog! 

Go figure! With a hundred older brothers and nine hundred of their friends who all tortured the baby brother - that's me - I thought it was my job in life to protect the "least of these" and to stand up for widows and orphans. You would think that when I dished out Terry's punishment the Nuns at Saint Marks would have been happy with my cause - especially since it had to do with justice and caring for a "slow" kid in class. 

No.  As it turned out, they weren't happy at all! 

As a matter of fact Sister Schultz, who was built like a NFL linesman and outweighed me by 200 pounds, put me in a headlock and I figured that Jesus wouldn't be happy with me if I took her down like I did Mike "Curtzy" back in the fifth grade (Post 6/29/13). I fell on the ground and pretended to pass-out hoping they would send me home.  No such luck!  I would have to go in and smell the sweaty aftermath of recess. 

Here's what happened. I could have cashed-in on the "bloody-knuckles thing" and get a higher pick for one of the kickball teams now that my approval rating was at an all time high, but I chose instead to do the ridiculous helicopter thing with Harry since he was left out again. He wasn't just picked last, he wasn't picked at all. Don't ask me how I did it, but I even managed to recruit Ralph to the silly nonsense that was making Harry so happy. 

Terry was one of the big kids and I'm sure he had hair coming in under his armpits. You could always tell when that was happening, because these guys were the ones who smelled like a garbage truck after recess. It was the same with eight grade boys too...they were plagued with this thing called puberty, but hadn't learned to take showers yet - like the high school boys had, so our end of the hall at Saint Marks always smelled like the rotting carcass of a dead cow that had been left in the sun too long. 

Terry was upset because I had stolen Ralph away from his team and Ralph could kick the ball over the church roof. Anyway, Dino had a mean kick and sailed the ball out-of-bounds over mean 'O Mr. Schneider's fence (who lived on the other side of the chain-link on Garfield), which meant that the kickball game was over.  Now Terry, was not only one of the big kids - I'd say in the top three, but was probably the brightest among the tallest and he like to let every know how smart he was.

Because he was upset that his team lost without Ralph he came over and began making fun of us twirlers. I was okay with it, it didn't bother me or Ralph that much, but when he started calling Harry hurtful names - THAT WAS IT, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I had been attacked by a rooster, whacked by a Nun, and totally humiliated in front of all the girls. This was not the day to sweat and stink and have hair under your arms or be too tall and pretend to be too smart and pick on the underdog -"slow Harry." 

I had to use restraint. I didn't want to just jump on his head and take him down. I had to think of a way to show how stupid he was at the same time. You know, like, cut him down a notch or two in his own eyes. 

Epiphany! The idea came to me. I asked Terry if he had ever taken the "Viking-Neck-Strength-Test?" (say that three times fast). I felt if Terry was too stupid to fall for it then he double deserved it. I told him we did this at home all the time and then proceeded to show him how to do it. I stood in front of the concrete wall and let Ralph demonstrate on me. He pretended to pull really hard and I pretended to fight back the best I could. I said the object was to see how far he could pull my head away and we would measure the distance and see who had the stronger neck muscles. The bet was on and all the boys gathered around for the Viking challenge. Since Ralph had just demonstrated on me, I "let" Terry try his strength test first. (Grin) 

You know that story in the Bible about wolf in sheep's clothing... well... I smiled on the outside as the inner werewolf went to work. I pulled Terry's head...the kids cheered.. he really thought he was something - UNTIL...

Until I had planted my feet against the wall and had his head out from the concrete wall some four inches and LET IT GO! 

"Whack" Cracked his recoiling head against the wall that sounded like a watermelon that had been dropped from the top of our three story house. 

Bam  Went Terry's limp body to the ground. 

I stood over the top of Terry in a symbolic jester of victory, foot on his chest, raised my hand and said, "Yeah! Who's smart now..Huh?" and called him one of the names he had insulted Harry with. Applause from the smelly 12 and 13-year-olds, prompted me to go into my "Wicked Witch" routine, "I'm melting...Good bye cruel world!" Laughter! 

Then  thud... I was on the ground, tackled by a 290 pound female linebacker dressed in black in white in a police choke-hold. She thought I killed Terry, but I knew he was only unconscious and would wake up momentarily seeing stars. 

I decided not to take out the Nun, because she was Jesus' wife and knew that it wouldn't have bode so well for all the Purgatory time I already had coming, but Terry? He DESERVED IT!  Poor...poor...Terry! 

Sister Schultz pinched my ear, dragged me inside and made me sit next to her desk for the rest of the day in front of the entire eight grade class to give Sister Edith a break.  "Yuck!" Those guys smelled worst than seventh graders. I sat there and stared down David Smith for the rest of the day and only managed to heave twice.  

                      It was a good day after all!  

"In a city known as Venice, there's a grand old school
Pledged to God and to our country, hail all hail to you.


Joyous days. Happy Days. Spent with in our hearts. 
Hail to you, our Alma Mater. Hail, all Hail Saint Marks!" 

P.S. Alma Mater.. means pregnant mother or something like that in Latin.        
 

Rotting in a Shallow Backyard Grave!

Still underestimating the boy’s evil genius, I ignored the water from the sprinkler that went rap-tap-tap on the plastic tarp that had been stretched out over my head. The noise was torture, but I was distracted from the monotonous back and forth intervals of the fake rain - by focusing my ire instead on the disgusting looking rooster which was now strutting right outside my tiny, concrete-block, maximum-security prison cell.

Through the narrow spaces between the concrete blocks that the Wolf Pack had stacked up around me, I nervously watched the crazy attack-rooster with a foreboding sense of impending death worse then what I had felt when I was trapped in “the hamper of death’ underneath Edna’s great big Buick (if that were possible - see POST 6/5/13). Without the use of my hands, I couldn't see any way out of this latest predicament other than by way of mortuary. 

I offered up the words my seventh grade teacher, Sister Edith, said we should say before we die, “Lord I love you and I’m sorry for my sins.”

 I wondered if any other 12-year-old in the world has ever said those words as much as I have. I felt like was beginning to wear them out – like eating too much Captain Crunch cereal that begins hurts the top of your mouth or like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz who clicked her heels together three times and said, “There is no place like home.”

My question is, “How many times can you say that and still have the magic work?  When does it become presumptuous or so overused that it loses it effect? I began to worry about whether God would let my stinking corpse into heaven should the skin rot of my bones in this forsaken backyard grave?

The motivation of the oozing-pink-and-red-patches-of-skin-and-feathers that patrolled the boarders of my solitary confinement was not that of a mindless minion doing the evil bidding of the Wolf Pack.

Instead, the determined raptor paced inches from my face as though I was his prize, as if I was a bleeding man in a shark cage.

I think the hideous rooster was trying to send a message to the cat that sat glaring from the kitchen window without so much as a blink.  The fighting cock looked up to Chewbacca’s pampered cat (that pompously peered out the window as though it owned the butter and the counter-tops inside) as if threatening the scabby feline that this was his territory and that I was his prize and that it had better not even think about touching one paw in its sovereign domain – or else! The rooster crowed and scratched at the dirt as if saying, “You have used up all nine of your lives in the fraternity fire cat – so don’t even think about it” (Post 2/8/14). I felt flattered that I was being fought over even if it was just by a rooster that wanted to tear the flesh from my face.

That’s when it happened… the noise of groaning bricks over my head brought me back from the imaginary world where animals talk and act as despicable as humans. 

Epiphany! 

I understood!  I got it!  I figured out the diabolical genius of the Wolf Pack.  The plastic tarp - the sprinkler - the water -  the bricks - everything! I didn't now how things could be worst than being buried in a hole in the backyard, NOW I KNEW!  

This was brilliant! Those stupid hippies weren't so dumb after all. Puke Breath and his slide-rule had come up with a way for a time release murder.   

While they were away at Tuna Canyon in Malibu the tarp would fill up with water and eventually pull in the concrete-construction blocks...crushing my skull and caving in the igloo. 

They had the perfect alibi. I would be dead, then eaten by the rooster while the commies would be on a happy play-date in Malibu. 

The yellow tarp begun to bulge under the weight of the water it had been collecting, and had begun pulling the large blocks closer and closer to the inside rim of the encasement so that they would fall in on me...  

"Oh Lord I love you. I'm sorry for my sins.. there is no place like home... and these words feel like Captain Crunch tearing up the top of my mouth...in the land of the free and the home of the brave...Amen"

"Help!  Help! Save me Mrs. Blaser! Save me Edna! Kippy...Tommy... Mrs. Lennon...Anybody!" 

Anyone... but the person who just walked out the back door. Just when I didn't think it could get any worst. IT DID .. IT DID GET WORST.   Now I prayed for a quick and sure death!  

part 3 THE HAMPER OF DEATH: Blazing Saddles

Last time I left off with the old metal container being carried off by the wolf pack as though they were a cannibal tribe carrying an unwelcome guest in a giant stew pot to the sacrificial fire.  Kidnapped and squished inside the tin can of death I had no idea where the agitated hordes were taking me.

“Si se puedes!” yelled Chewy like a cheerleader. The swarm of neighborhood locust heard his chant and cheered thinking he was egging them on in his native Spanish.  Up, up, up… they excitedly lifted me precariously high over their heads in the ex-baby-diarrhea-diaper-pail, turned hamper, turned sacrificial tribal-pot-of-torture and imminent death.  Thinking about the mountain of stinky baby diapers my stomach heaved desperately wanting to release all of its contents but my brain knew that trapped inside this dark, small, airless space was a bad Idea.   I could hear angels singing. I was going to die, they were here to carry me home.

Wait!

It wasn’t angels…it was the Lennon Sisters practicing for the Lawrence Welk show. The restless brood was carrying me off in the direction of the Lennon’s house. That was all I knew at that moment!

The metal coffin crashed with a loud thud as they dropped my ceremoniously to the ground in middle of the street.  Were they going to leave me here to play chicken with traffic?   Blind and unable to move I had a serious disadvantage. Was Tony going to electrocute the container I was in…the mad scientist loved to play with electricity.

 

Mr. Steadman stood on the porch and yelled inside to Mrs. Steadman, “Lock the doors; the Wolf Pack is on the move.”  Peering out through the blinds she mumbled back… “No wonder lions eat their young.”

Thump…. Thump…. Thump… Thump…. Thump…  Several hands began tapping out a beat on my metal container like a tribal war drum.  They giggled and laughed and began to sing along with the rap-tap-tapping on my vessel of death. Then one of the boys (I think it was Dooh-Dooh Pants) began to lead them in a chant that sounded like the witch’s minions in the Wizard of Oz…

“Oh-Wee-Oh. Wee-Oh… Oh-Wee-Oh, Wee-Oh…”

On and on they droned along with the tribal rhythm being pounded out on the lid of my latched container until someone kicked it onto its side. Crash!  Then, with a great shove, one of the boys sent me - my container - the lid - the latch and all, sliding sideways across the asphalt. The metal grated against the asphalt with a horrible screech that sounded like Sister Godzilla’s fingernails against a chalkboard, only a thousand times louder!

“Ughhhhhhhhhhhh,” I screamed, thinking this is how they were going to kill me… they intended to slide me around the neighborhood until my ears bleed and my brain explodes.

IF ONLY!

If only I knew what was going to happen next… I would have wished this was the way they had conspired to kill me.  If only.

Anyway, they shot me across the asphalt like an astronaut in a cockeyed rocket launch…that went sideways. My metal container screeched until it crashed to a halt with a colossal CLUNK striking something ginormous and solid and heavy and metal.  I didn’t know just how frightened I should be...but began to get a clue when I heard all ten-thousand feet hurriedly scramble away in a million directions as if they had seen King Kong. It was like a scene in an Alfred Hitchcock horror film. 

 Even the angelic voices from the Lennon House stopped singing. It was an ominous sign that I felt deep in my bones. I had no idea just how diabolical the plan was that they had hatched for the hamper and me.

That was until!

Until, I heard the dreadful and terrifying sound of Edna’s screen door hinges screeching. 

GOOSEBUMPS!  Every single hair on my arms and back of neck stood up in the sudden realization of exactly where I was… My rusted burial sarcophagus had come to rest and was lodged under the rear differential of Edna’s behemoth precious BUICK. 

I screamed as I heard her frantic footsteps racing off her wooden porch towards me.

“Help Edna, stop!” I wanted her to know that there was a child stuck inside the putrid can that was stuck under her car.  ‘Edna, Nooooooo…if you kill me, you’re breaking the 5^th commandment” I thought a dose of Catholic guilt might save my life, until I heard her keys jiggling in the door. I WAS A GONNER!

 

They couldn't erase me at Salton Sea, so maybe this was their next chance.

Varoom roared the engine to life…Her car jerked backwards as she hastily forced the gear shift lever through reverse on the way to drive… creasing the hamper and pinning me inside my tiny metal coffin under the heavy metal housing of her behemoth Buick’s rear end.   

Tires squealing, can screeching, sparks flying and kid screaming.  The angry grouch tore down the street in her 18 ton battleship with my hamper of death heating up and shooting a forty foot rooster tail of sparks. 

Talk about blazing saddles... my stinky death container was getting red hot and my Swedish little derriere was hotter than molten lava... Krakatoa (east of java) was about to erupt.