The Summer Time Lie

Co-conspirators, conceivably, therefore I believe we, no, no, let me rephrase, I insist, we share any available credit. The elusive blame perhaps belongs to another a bystander or simply a victim of fate. I don’t want to take the credit for something I may have merely dreamed of after a spicy meal, and then recorded in this creative essay. Regardless, this tale, this imagined incident I expect, if it actually existed, has moved beyond the “criminal statute of limitations.” Certainly you have watched a Law and Order television show or one of its many spin offs and heard this term. A legally specified period when a prosecutor can file criminal charges. Moving beyond that point when the accused person or persons can be charged with a crime that was allegedly committed decades ago; and then released from culpability. Or on the fantasy TV version, some last-minute piece of evidence magically appears sending the criminal to prison, forever. Often, some observant detective concludes upon further investigation that the unsolvable crime had to be committed by a left-handed person. Yes, sports fan always be wary of the quiet lefty. 

The story about to unfold transpires on a sunny weekday morning. With breakfast completed, we consider what creative diversion we might pursue. It was summer break. School is out. Each day designated for fun and games. Adventures constructed by creative minds to fill time, that blank canvas from sun-up to sun-down.

Many of our relatives and acquaintances will freely testify that my cousin (whose name I shall not mention) and I seemed to be well-behaved adolescents. Both boy scouts, serving family and community, weekly church attenders, students above reproach, mature, and very responsible.

Although I cannot vouch for my Aunt Sue, my mom noted within hearing range, on multiple occasions, that when we hung out together, our cumulative “Super Power” was finding a pinch of mischief. Today, it appears, we will confirm her hypothesis. Or not, you be the judge. 

Here we are on a normal, nondescript summer morning at my cousins’ house. We were outside in the street playing catch among the trees.

With a hardball.

From our location, standing in the middle of the road, looking at the house, to the right side of Aunt Sue’s house was a park with a slide, swings, seesaw (teeter-totter or teeter board), and lots of space containing no trees surrounded by a chain-link fence. Looking to the left, a well-maintained lot, a large cleared space with grass and no trees. We have options.

For today’s entertainment, we chose the street, lined with mature elm trees. A rarely used roadway offering ample shade and possibilities.

Now we decided rather than just tossing the hardball back and forth, we would toss the ball up into the branches and, being the athletes we were, we would let the ball ricochet back through the branches and, of course, catch it. I can only surmise we thought this to be more of a challenge than just simply tossing the ball back and forth.

This day was going to be special. 

Two city workers, in a city vehicle, choose to stop for an early lunch in the shade under one of the large trees, entertained by two athletes playing catch in the road. 

We stopped and approached and chatted with the city employees for a few and then returned to our game. Things were going well on this nondescript summer morning until…

Now some of you are predicting, an important skill to possess as readers but, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Someone, we will never know who, tossed the ball into the verdure, and we waited. As the projectile returned to earth, to our amazement we noted it was moving, unexpectedly, toward the City Vehicle and to our astonishment, and the two laid-back city workers munching on brunch, found its way to the very center of their windshield.

The hardball did not penetrate rather bounced off (there may have been a momentary sigh of relief, but) and the impact at the center of the glass caused what they, in the glass repair profession call a starburst, cracks that, in this case, branched in multiple directions.

The genius of four criminal minds is not a lot better that two. Possibilities aplenty, options weighed. With the help of two adults, the city employees decided, “We will report this to our supervisors and tell them that while we were working, away from the truck, someone broke the windshield.”

“Yeah, it must have been a rock thrown by a rowdy teen,” confirmed our other adult co-conspirator.

And that’s the story that we will articulate if approached.

The End.

Oops, that, my friends, is not the end. For again, in my cousin’s presence, I wondered, “What were we thinking?” Still awash in guilt, but confident the story would hold up, how these “delinquents” who never existed, uncatchable, now freed us to move on with our lives exonerated.

The End…

The next day on the front page of the local rag, I did not know the Gazette, a tiny, a minute paper, that a blurb, would appear in our small town daily, posted for all to read:

VANDALISMS in the streets of Pleasantville! City Vehicle vandalized, window smashed by unknown vandals.

Apparently, the co-conspirators reported the incident to their supervisor, who passed the information up the chain of command and then onto the City Police Department, who then leaked the information to the Press, and here it is on the front page, above the fold. The report noted the street and block where the criminals breached the city statue.

Who would crack, no pun intended, who would spill the beans?

Mom always pointed to the Reformatory on the Hill. “That’s where the bad kids go.”

I cannot state, because I do not know, if the co-conspirators stuck to the story. Was there a leaker? I only know mom asked me three times, so biblical, if I knew anything about the broken window and I lied three times and I was pretty sure I was going to spend eternity in Hell or at the very least the Reformatory.

If only the City workers had not parked on our street, under our trees, if the ball bounced differently, if my cousin never created such an odd game. Still…

By all appearance we had successfully pulled off the crime of the century. And, should anyone ask, I will deny ever being involved, case closed.