I
always loved playing with fire and Justin and his brother Ryan were
always on board for a little dabbling
in pyromania. Their neighbor had some kids who were much younger than
us and they had a great sandbox it was deep and pure and perfect for
us to build a G.I. Joe ad worthy war diorama and populate it with
many of Justin and Ryan's toys. Anyone who has built a diorama knows
that building it is the only fun part and it is incredibly boring
when it is finished. After about five minutes of pretend war play we
switched over to to bringing so gas over from Justin's house to
simulate some nice napalm and lake-o-fire effects. We would pour out
a puddle of gas and light it with a match and make hilarious
screaming in pain sounds for the plastic soldiers who were bravely
dieing in the conflagration. After a few hours of amazing play time
with all sorts of fire based scenarios were played out the neighbor
came home from work and discovered his once pristine sandbox was
destroyed. Well, if you think a sandbox filled with puddles of
burning sooty gas and melted toys is destroyed then it was, in fact,
destroyed. He was a little upset about it and he started yelling at
us to clean it up and I, as is my style decided to avoid the conflict
and when the neighbor walked away to go get some rakes and shovels
for us to use to clean up I ran as fast as I could into a field to
the south and kept running abandoning my comeuppance and my friends.
I ran fast and hard the four block to my house and then hid in case,
as was my private fear, that the neighbor would call my parents and
bring down punishment on me. I spent the evening and most of the
night with my stomach trying to climb up out of my throat while I
contemplated the unendurable suffering that would surely be mine when
I was ratted out. But nothing happened, when we went to church that
Sunday I tried to avoid the man who's sandbox I destroyed but he came
right up to my dad and joked with him about how I burned down his
sandbox and then ran off as fast I could. For some reason them making
fun of me hurt worse than the horrible dismemberment I thought I was
going to get and I hated them both.
