Backyard Boys

That’s Jamie on the right with his best friend, David Lambert when they were 9 or 10.

David lived two houses over on our cul-de-sac. He and Jamie were friends from kindergarten.

A year or two before this picture, Jamie and David almost burned down their fort in the netherworlds of our huge backyard. The fort was smartly hidden by some bushes at the farthest point from our house on a point where two creeks met.

I used to “watch” both of my brothers over the summer when mom and dad were at work. I got an allowance for that and cleaning the house. It was pretty sweet deal. 

I was the boss.

It wasn’t always a walk in the park, though. 

If you took your eyes off a pair of 8 year old boys for more than a few minutes, all hell could break loose.

I was probably practicing my guitar, while they were in the backyard playing. I looked every few minutes just to make sure they were still there. I noticed at one point they were up to something, but I couldn’t tell what. The best I could tell, they were digging a hole. 

That’s normal. Boys love to dig holes, I was down with hole digging. They were doing it right, too. I learned the hard way you aren’t supposed to dig huge holes in the middle of the front yard.

Jamie had learned a lot from the mistakes Paulie and I made over the years, but I guess he wasn’t around when I burned my eyebrows off messing with a milk jug, gasoline, and some matches.

I hadn’t seen either one of them for a few minutes, so I decided to go check. As I walked out through the garage I noticed the gas can was gone. That’s weird.

I walked out into the yard to see Jamie squatting down in the creek to my left, with a strange look on his face. Then, I look to my right and David is suddenly running like a bat out of hell across the yard toward his house.

“David! What’s going on?” 

He was gone.

What the hell?

“Jamie, what are you doing?” I called.

He answered just like he did every time I asked that question.

“Nuthin.”

Something was up, I just didn’t know what. He squatted there with this weird expression on his face. He looked guilty and like he was in pain at the same time. 

Then I smelled it. Gasoline.... and smoke. 

“Shit, Mus! What did you do?” I yelled.

I ran back to the fort. There was a big hole in the ground that was charred, and the grass around the fort was burned. The gas can laid over by the bushes and there was a box of matches spilled on the ground next to the hole.

Shit!

They were lucky they didn’t burn down the fort and half the backyard. I’m sure David was scared, so I understood why he took off. He had seen my wrath before. 

Then it hit me. Jamie.

I ran to the creek where he was squatted down in the water. 

“Mus! Are you okay?” I asked, splashing into the creek.

“I’m sorry, Mike! I’m sorry! David did it!”

I pulled him up, his white shorts were now green from the moss in the creek, and his legs were red as hell. I checked him over... his hands were red too. 

“It burns, Mike! It hurts really bad,” he moaned. His eyes were tearing up. 

“What happened?” I asked as I inspected him, frantically.

He looked at me, wide eyed. 

“When David threw the match in the hole, the fire blew everywhere! It got on me!”

Jamie was really too big for me to carry at that point, but he was a skinny ass, so I grabbed him, and started jogging to the house.

“You know you aren’t supposed to play with matches and gas, Mus! Why did you do that?” I asked him as we stumbled into the bathroom. 

“I don’t know,” he said.

Another classic Jamie answer.

I could relate. I used it quite a bit myself.

I couldn’t be mad at him. I felt so bad! I could tell he was hurting. His hands were starting to blister. Dammit! I just wanted him out of pain.

I put him in the bathtub and started the cold water.

Paulie heard the commotion, and came running into the bathroom.
"What happened?"
"He got burned... Paul, will you get all the the ice trays out of the freezer?"
He stood there for a second, and then said, "Burned?" 
He sprang into action.

As the water rose up on his legs I could see blisters forming on them as well.
"It hurts, Mike." 
"I know Jamie, listen.. It's gonna feel better. We are going to put ice in here. It's going to be cold as shit, but it will help."
He looked at me with those big baby blues, and said, "Please don't tell mom and dad, Mike. Please. I'll never play with matches again, I promise!"

Poor kid. He was already hating life, but he was still worried about getting in trouble. We had a few incidents before this one that we were able to cover up, but I didn't see us skating this time. Our bro code was very strong, even then. Jamie had covered for Paulie and I quite a few times. He was very good at pleading the fifth with mom and dad. Like I said, we got a lot of milage out of "I don't know," back then. Spicoli had nothing on us.

I gave it to him straight. "I don't know," I paused looking at his blistered hands. Paulie came in and started emptying ice trays into the tub. "Put your hands down in the water. Maybe... maybe, if these blisters go down, we wont tell them."

He lowered his shaking hands into the chilly water, and let out a hiss as he did.
Paulie and I looked at each other. It was a look we had shared many times...we are so screwed.

Jamie sat in the water for a few minutes. He started to shiver, but he never complained about being cold. The cold water was bringing relief. We sat there with him and watched to see if the blisters on his hands got any worse. Thank God, they didn't. There were a few coming up on his legs, but they were very small. His hands worried me, though. I knew we were not going to be able to hide this one. Plus, I wasn't going to take a chance on making the situation any worse by trying to hide it, and risking his health in any way. I didn't know how serious the burns were.

He looked at me, pitifully. He knew.

"I have to call her, Mus."

He looked at his blistered hands. "I know," he sighed. "You think I'm in big trouble?"

"Well," I said, "Since you're burned up, you will probably not get it too bad... at least not right now. Does it feel any better?"

"Yeah, a little bit." He whispered through clinched teeth.

"Go ahead and call her."

I called mom at work with emergencies a few times since I had been watching Jamie and Paul over the summers. This one is the only one I remember, though.

"Tom T Hall Enterprises, Judi speaking." She answered.

"Uh, hey mom, it's Mike. Listen, something happened."

"What's wrong, Michael?"

I tried to choose my words carefully, but I knew there was no way to avoid the inevitable.

"Well, it's not as bad as I thought, and we have him in the bathtub...."

"Bathtub? Who? What are you talking about?" She asked. Her voice was a little higher.

I let out a stream of sentences in one long breath that basically covered the whole story in 20 seconds. I ended with, "But, he's okay! Just some blisters on his hands and legs. I think he's going to be fine."

"BLISTERS?" She yelled. "Michael Andrew! Why weren't you watching him?"

Well, there it was. Everybody on Clearwater Drive was going to be in trouble now. She didn't even say goodbye.

Not one minute later, Betsy Lambert, David's mom, came busting in the house.

Betsy and mom had been best friends since we moved to Edge-O-Lake in 1968. She was very sweet, and loved us, but she was no nonsense, and could be kinda scary when she was mad. She was mad.
"Where is he?" She asked.
David came sulking in behind her. I shot him the evil eye from hell.

We pointed toward the bathroom.

Mom called Betsy, told her what happened and that she was on the way home. Betsy came over, checked on Jamie, then called mom. She told her yes, he was burned, but it was not an emergency and she would wait until mom got there, then they would take him to the doctor if she thought he needed to go. She scolded David under her breath in between sentences while mom was talking on the other end. Good times.

Paulie and I went to the den and sat on the couch. We were like two prisoners awaiting our sentence. Paulie didn't do anything wrong, but that didn't matter. In situations like this, all you had to do was be there to get in trouble.

It turned out the burns looked worse than they actually were. Mom and Betsy put some cream on his hands and legs, propped him up on pillows in his bed, then mom took him to the doctor the next day.
We all got a stern lecture, but the fact that it was not serious, and our fast reaction apparently saved Jamie from scarring, we got off easy. I even got a few "attaboys" in the days that followed.

Hero status didn't last long, though. Guess who was assigned the job of trimming back all the bushes in the back yard and tearing down the fort?
Mmm Hmm.

As far as I can remember, Jamie never played with fire again.


***

We loved our big backyard. We practically lived there whenever we were home. I hated having to go inside at night. We were always up to something and always had a project of some sort going on back there. Having a creek on each side of the yard was pretty sweet, too. 

One time I built a ramp and tried to jump the creek. That’s another blog, though.

I still feel bad about blowing up frogs and craw dads with firecrackers, and building the damn in the creek that flooded our neighbor Smitty’s yard. 

One time we mowed out a three hole chip and putt golf course in the backyard. Dad let us keep it for a couple weeks until the rough got so high that the neighbors started bitching.

My favorite backyard memory is about Jamie when he was 10 or 11, I was 16 or 17.

He had a section to the left, about 20 yards back where the yard met the bank of the creek. It was where he would build his intricate “Matchbox” worlds. 

It was not only Matchbox cars; he would use Hotwheels,  army men, Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tonka Trucks and other little model buildings. 

He would carve out roads in between tufts of grass, and build little villages along the ridge of the creek bank. He had these little roads going out to different outposts in different areas.

It was amazing! 

This particular Saturday morning, I came home after being up all night. I think I told mom I spent the night with Jeff or Joey. I don’t remember what happened, I just know I didn’t want to go inside.

I saw Jamie, busy with something, so I went over to see what he was up to.

“Whatcha doin’?” I asked.

“Nuthin.’” He responded. 

Then he made a noise, “Zzzzzzrrrrrroooom!” That was his truck noise. He was pushing a Tonka truck over to the edge of the cliff to dump some dirt. He was very focused on his project.

I grabbed my favorite little blue Hotwheel motorcycle and started doing some motocross on the little track he had. 

“Vrrrrroooommm!” I said, as I spun out and then did a jump off the edge of the “cliff,” landing perfectly and climbing back up, “Rrrrrr Rrrrrr Rrrrrr...”

He smiled, and kept digging.

Jamie’s feral cat, Ben came wondering over while we were playing. 

“Is Ben gonna be Godzilla today?” I asked. 

He grabbed Ben up, and snuggled his neck. The cat started licking his face. 

“Nah, I’m doing construction today.”

I sat there, a little hungover, and looked in wonder at my sweet little brother. He was dirty and sweaty, but he was so beautiful. I was overcome with emotion in that moment. I loved him so much.

He put Ben down, and I bent over and gave him a hug. 

“I love you, Mus.”

We hugged a lot in my family, but this one was kind of out of the ordinary. Plus, it had probably been awhile. I had been off being a teenager for a long time.

He pulled away, but I wouldn’t let him go. “Mmmmmwhhhhuah!” I kissed him on the cheek.

“Ewwwww! Gross! Mike, stopuuht!” 

I started laughing. I let him go. 

He looked at me, half smiling, “Gross, what’s wrong with you?” 

“Nuthin, I just love you,” I said.

He looked at me curiously, then said:

“I love you too, but your breath stinks. You smell like beer. You better go brush your teeth before mom smells it.”

“I will later. Can I stay here and play with you for a while?” I asked.

“Yeah. Let’s go down there,” he pointed at the creek, “I was gonna make a boat ramp down there.”