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Mid-morning I sat behind the steering wheel of Francis’ buddy’s little red car. The car was dead in the street and Francis was under some form of obligation to get it going before his buddy returned from military training. While I guided the zero-power steering wheel, Francis hooked the riding lawn mower to the back of the car and towed it steadily back up the street. I’m sure that was an interesting sight for the neighbors.
About two hours later, Puck and his buddy from school, Mickey, burst through the front door with stacks of Minecraft books.
They spent most of the next four hours in the backyard building and maintaining a fire in the fireplace. But before they got the flames roaring and the hot dogs roasting, I made an unpleasant discovery.
“Are they using axes out there?”
“Yes. Yes, those are definitely axes.”
I beelined for the back corner of the yard.
“Boys? What’s going on back here?”
“Well, we’re chopping up firewood and there was a little bit of an accident…”
“It was Puck’s idea.”
“Yeah, but you participated.”
I could see the spray of white paint all over Mickey’s right arm, right leg, left knee, and – I couldn’t see very well – possibly his school polo.
“We wanted to get the marble out of the paint can,” Puck held up a completely mashed aerosol paint can. “And when I chopped it with the hatchet, it exploded.”
If there ever had been a marble in that can, it was now one hundred percent flattened. Fortunately, Mickey’s mom was not bothered. When she picked up her charcoal-smeared paint-(somewhat-removed-with-rubbing-alcohol)-splattered full-of-hot-dogs-chips-and-ice-cream nine year-old son at four o’clock, she insisted that the messier things got, the more convinced she was that Mickey had a great time.
That evening while I managed to not grab a single second of a crucial yet detested – although winning – NLDS game taking place downtown, the kids (minus Carrie-Bri, preparing for a bachelorette party in the Ozarks) came over for Domino’s and “Gaslight”.
NLDS Game One: Cards take Cubs in shut-out: 4-0.