Boys During Wartime

Possible triggers: gore; ethnic slurs

In the area behind Tristan’s house and the condemned apartment building separating Ashland Avenue from Elmwood there lies our stone yard, a discarded appliance and home furnishings cemetery decorating the rubble and detritus of some contractor’s ignorant distraction from detail, and it is here that we —me, Tristan McCabe, Rob Pollock, and Sean Barone, colloquially known as those damn kids— escort Aaron Barone, Sean’s six-year-old younger brother, to his initiation into, until we happen upon a better name, The Club.

The Lake Erie humidity effect is thick and breathing is laborious and we see, quite literally, steam rising from The Stone Yard as though the discarded appliances, the one stove and two refrigerators in particular, were just unplugged with rubber gloves to prevent an electrical fire. We excavate through the thorny bramble and like static electricity the burrs collect on our hiked-up tube socks, and by the time we reach the crevice in the pocked, distressed wall that is our portal into the ravages of the Iran/Iraq War that President Reagan said last night we would not withdraw from, our headbands and wristbands are saturated, and are therefore just worthless, added weight.

“Corporal McCabe, off with added weight. It’s worthless,” I whisper.

“What added weight, Command Sergeant Major?”

“Don’t be a dumbass, McCabe. And keep your voice down. There’s towel heads beyond that wall.” I proceed to relieve myself of my soaked headband and wristbands indicating to Corporal McCabe what "added weight," and he follows suit. Corporals Pollock and Barone do likewise as they do not want to be perceived as dumbasses. Soon-to-be Private Aaron Barone has no added weight. In fact, STB Private Aaron Barone wears no clothes save his sagging skivvies and hiked-up tube socks to protect his legs and to collect the burrs. 

“Corporal Pollock, you’ll do reconnaissance. Watch out for towel heads. Corporal Barone, you’ll collect STB Private Barone’s burrs from his hiked-up socks once we cross into enemy territory. Corporal McCabe, you take rear detachment.”

Corporal McCabe looks behind them and assumes that means to watch their backs and Corporal Pollock gives me the salute I’ve worked hard to perfect in him — “That’s a good salute, Corporal. A bit stiffer next time” — and, crouching, he flips on his flashlight.

“Corporal Pollock, flashlight’s not necessary. It’s daytime.”

“It’s my lightsaber, Command Sergeant Major, and it is necessary against towelheads.”

“Good thinking, Corporal.”

Corporal Pollock crouches even lower and parts the thorny brambles from the crevice. He picks up a brick. “Fire in the hole,” he calls, and we all fall to our stomachs and plug our ears, except STB Barone, who just stands there, perplexed. He then begins giggling.

“STB Barone, that was your ass. Good thing the grenade was a dud; otherwise, that was your ass. Corporal Barone, do you copy?”

“I copy, Command Sergeant Major.” Sean goes over and slaps his little brother across the head. “That was your ass. And, there’s no giggling in The Stone Yard.”

STB Barone, really wanting to part of The Club, says “aye aye, Captain.”

“Corporal Barone, you’ll work on that response with the young cadet, yes?”

“You bet your ass.” I give him a look. “Command Sergeant Major,” he adds.

“Okay boys, clock’s ticking. We’ve been in country for oh-five-thirty and I am expected at the mess hall for chow in oh-three-minutes, so Corporal Barone, escort STB Barone to The Sitting Place.”

As we proceed through the crevice into The Stone Yard, I see Corporal Rob Pollock amidst the rubble and detritus with his shirt tied around his head. I look around cautiously, wondering if Pollock is attempting to fit in with the Iranian enemy. No one in sight.

“Pollock, your shirt.”

“It’s damned hot, man.”

“You will address me as Command Sergeant Major and you look like a towel head.”

“Can we just get this over with, Command Sergeant Major? I’m tired and my crotch itches.”

“Me too.” This is Barone, from behind.

“Your crotch itches too?”

“No, idjit. I’m tired. And ‘sides, man, Justice League is coming on.”

Realizing I’m being out maneuvered, I decide to drop the military parlance. Admittedly, my own crotch has been feeling itchy for the past oh-two-hundred.

“Alright, you win. Sean, you collect his burrs?”

“Yup. Got nine’a them.”

“Excellent. Nine’s a good number. Bodes well for Soon-To-Be Private Barone. Put ‘em on The Sitting Place; Aaron, remove your drawers.”

“I gotta take my underwear off? Uh-uh, no way.” He shakes his head so feverishly that his wet hair, so long he always blows up to keep it out of his eyes, showers me with fine Barone sweat. “I’ll sit, but the underwear stays on.”

“Whelp, them’s the rules, Barone. Alright, boys, we’re going home. No-Longer- Soon-to-Be Private Barone is a pansy.”

“Thank God,” mumbles Rob.

“Way to go, dipshit. Make us come all the way out here so you can chicken out. I’m telling Dad you found his girlie magazines. In fact, I’m gonna tell him right in front of Mom.”

“Sean, no. Wait. Guys? Okay, here. Look.” And like a good little initiate, Once-Again-Soon-To-Be Private Barone lowers his Fruit-of-the-Looms, kicks them to the side, and obediently sits on the nine burrs neatly arranged atop the overturned five-gallon plastic bucket.

“Mother-fucker!” the six-year-old wails, and we laugh with delight.

“Gotta sit there for one minute, then you’ll no longer be a soon-to-be. Boys, let’s forage.” This was me, Command Sergeant Major of The Club, revered and respected, the mind behind it all, Finder of The Stone Yard, Creator of The Sitting Place: a plastic, five-gallon hardware-store bucket overturned beneath the rusty, corroded, two-hundred-pound cement-bucket counterweight for the rusty and corroded fire-escape ladder, a counterweight hanging by one tired tendon. Perhaps it was the mingling of the reverbed echo of Aaron’s wail and our laughter that, like the butterfly’s wing-flap causing the tornado three-thousand miles away, created a vibration in that tendon that was just too much; or, perhaps it was God, or karma, or coincidence, or chance, or what-have-you that finally released that two-hundred-pound cement-bucket counterweight, to freefall seventeen feet directly into the thoracic outlet of six-year-old STB Dead Aaron Barone.

There is a rest as quiet as dusk as we process the far-too-mature reality of our little buddy, Sean’s little brother, crushed into the detritus and debris of The Stone Yard, blood and sputum escaping his mouth and nose and ears like a gusher, his eyeballs having popped from the sockets from the pressure. During this rest, anywhere from two to thirty seconds, I stare, immobilized like in sleep paralysis, at the remains of the little boy who, a mere thirty-seconds ago, was a soon-to-be; who, a few minutes ago, was giggling with excitement over being a part of; who, now, is a casualty of my wartime torture operation plan.

Sean breaks the rest with a scream, and we all follow suit.