Eventually the sun begins to set, and we drift back to the jebel. Billy K. is still a little antsy. By now he is shooting at large boulders that are impossible to miss. Ben and I take the lead and are about forty yards up the slope when K-Man shoots Ben in the back.
It’s not really a big deal. The range was long, and it didn’t more than sting him, but it ignites a pellet-gun war.
To those who ran in different circles when they were young and aren’t conversant with the etiquette of a pellet-gun war, the object isn’t to hit the opponent in a vital area but to get fairly close, and if there is a shot at an exposed shin, take it.
So Ben shoots back at K-Man, and Walt returns the favor. I fire off the repeating BB pistol, a hopelessly inaccurate weapon, but its hail of BBs make Landis and Walt duck. Ben fires again and hits Billy K. in the thigh.
He starts jumping around and twitching his spine at the same time. We all break out laughing. Ben shouts, “Let’s twist again, like we did last summer,” and then Landis wings a pellet my way.
It’s getting darker. I’m halfway up the hill but wedge myself into a cleft of the mountain and lay out my fireworks on the chest-high rock ledge in front of me. I balance my bottle rockets pointing down and light off all five of them. It’s glorious.
In the dying light they streak down and explode all around our enemy. Ben keeps shooting, but he’s three against one, so I fire another round of BBs and then start lighting the fireworks in front of me and throwing them down the hill like grenades.
You should know that there are three kinds of firecrackers. Ladyfingers, which are tiny one-inch-long noisemakers, are virtually useless unless you light off a whole string in the movie theater.
Then there is the standard firecracker about as big as your little finger, packed in strings of twenty for three riyals. Each firecracker contains a significant amount of gunpowder, and any semi-industrious kid can break open a whole string and collect a pile of the explosive – the first step to creating an ingenious exploding device.
At the top of the heap is the Blockbuster. The size of a Cuban cigar, this is a serious piece of ordnance easily capable of launching a galvanized-steel garbage can lid several feet into the air. At ten riyals apiece, they are saved for special occasions. I’ve got three of them as well as two strings of firecrackers on the ledge right in front of me.
I light a Blockbuster but accidentally light the fuse near the middle and the front half of sizzling fuse falls off. It’s now a short-fused bomb, and I quickly throw it into an arc where it explodes just over Walt’s head and briefly silhouettes him in a bright flash. I laugh.
I look down. The other part of the burning fuse has fallen on the string of firecrackers and BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. They are exploding, pinning me against the rock; wedged in, I can’t run, and they are blowing up in my face.
A Blockbuster goes off amid the exploding firecrackers, and the sonic boom nearly bounces my head off the rock. I see the remaining Blockbuster with a sputtering fuse roll off the ledge into the cracked fissure I’m standing in. I plant my hands and leap vertically just as the giant firecracker goes off. It’s my turn to be lit up like an epileptic puppet in the sudden flash.
Down below, they think this is hysterically funny. Ben does too, but he lets off a round at them anyway. They return fire, and the skirmish resumes for about half a minute, and then from below there is some whispering. They aren’t shooting back.
Walt shouts, “Landis is hit.”
“Oh sure. Nice try.” Ben yells back.
“No, really. He’s bleeding all over.” ....
I can't believe you played so dangerously. Tina Clausen and I just roller skated on the sidewalks of the steep hills above the hospital. You sometimes got busted, didn't you? Diana Lynn, DH60
ReplyDeleteSome of the adventures didn't exactly work out as planned.
Delete