CHAPTER 1

“Run!” someone shouted, but it didn’t need saying. The violent shriek of contorting tires on hot summer pavement and the menacing red glow of brake lights was enough to set the pack in motion. If you hung back long enough to watch the conclusion of the lengthy skid and witness those taillights turn from red to white you were yielding your precious head start and the consequence of that lost time could be terrifying and bloody. Experience had effectively recorded the scene in those freshly developing brains and their collective cortex was switched by default to flight. Not one of them wanted a fight and their retreat had always been too swift and surefooted to result in actual physical contact. Tonight, that was about to change, their spotless safety record of two years running was about to reset to zero. 

They were already thirty yards from the scene when the 3,000 pounds of 1970’s Detroit steel finally fishtailed to a shuddering halt, jammed the transmission into gear grinding reverse and briefly disappeared in a billowy white cloud of shredding, disintegrating rubber. Their young, muscular legs carried them like bounding gazelle on Starsky wannabe sneakers their mothers had purchased at Kmart or Grandpa Pidgeons or Sears, for those a little better off. They stayed off the street and sidewalks away from the betraying streetlight, uptight against the deep shadows of the houses and trees. They could have ran faster on the street but they yielded speed for cover and they actually yielded very little as they knew every hedge to leap, every yard ornament to dodge and every cut-through that would cast them into the unseen backyards and private spaces that divided the streets and disoriented their pursuers. For the group however there was nothing disorienting about their neighborhood, they knew the general geography and the particular lay of the land as if far off future Google Maps had programmed their memories.

Tonight they were six and rarely if ever did they play the game with less than four. If there was no actual safety in numbers there was at least a false sense of security. Game time usually began after 10:00 pm in the summertime, well after the last remnant of sun had left the sky. Darkness was essential and though they weren’t so well coordinated to have planned it this way or made note of it, the game mostly occurred on moonless nights. Nightfall not only provided the cover needed for the getaway but it hopefully obscured their features enough so if they mistakenly unleashed their vile torrent on the parent of a friend, an older sibling or God forbid one of their own parents, they would be unidentifiable as nothing more than a random herd of mid-teen boys. Anonymity was not paramount to play but it was desirable and prudent. They had become so well versed in identification of headlights, variables of speed and rumble of engines and exhaust that identifying a proper target had grown instinctively ingrained.  

The targets were other teenage boys, three, four, five years their senior that roamed beyond the dividing line of the licensed driver and those who were still restricted to making their way on foot or bike; cocky bastards in fast cars with testosterone and attitude to spare. Now and then they might snare a grown man in his twenties but beyond that age the quarry became too slow and disinterested to feast upon. There was no purposeful challenge in targeting a fifty year old man whose likely response would be a self contained muttering curse, shaking of head and gloomy assessment of where society was headed as they simply continued driving to the all too familiar environs of The Drinking Horn or The Bottle House or home to their similarly disillusioned wives. Worse still was the accidental targeting of a woman of any age. Not only did it offend their ill-conceived sense of chivalry but also there was little to no chance that a girl was going to stop and chase you. It happened rarely but on a smattering of occasions their avalanche of profanity came crashing down on the innocent. As in any battle there is always collateral damage.

The game had no name and the rules were simple. They stood in the side yard of the large lot on the corner of Gallatin Drive and Phelps Lane idly trespassing, although it would have never occurred to them as they rather innocently considered this entire section of town their own.  As they loitered, awaiting opportunity, they talked about girls or the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica or how many games back the Cardinals were or how they would kick the ass of the Son of Sam if he just tried his cowardly bullshit in their neighborhood. It didn’t matter or occur to them that New York City was 1,000 miles away; there was never much rationale to their fantastical scenarios. They practiced Billy Jack moves on the boxwood bushes lining the sidewalk and then on each other. They magically pissed away time as only teenagers out on the street in mid-July with the locusts droning and the highway humming, CAN piss away time.  They could see far off, any headlights climbing the long, steady, considerable incline of Gallatin but it was only when their ears discerned the thundering rumble of 350 horsepower or more that they stood silent and alert like prairie dogs listening to an approaching coyote. And then the game was on. 

Wait for it, wait for it… now it was almost on them and they could distinguish the make and model, a black or midnight blue, Pontiac Firebird. The windows were down providing the occupants a much-needed breeze. The added (and more important) benefit of the open windows was evident in the way the rushing air caught the dense cloud of pot smoke, whipping and swirling it in a hazy cyclone and then sucking it out to perfume the sticky, still summer night. The thought was that if a cop should pull them over, then the interior of the car would be well fumigated. The three bushy young men inside were so accustomed to the sweet, skunky smell of weed that it never occurred to them that the upholstery, their very clothes and hair, reeked of the stuff. Any cop who pulled them over would smell it ten yards back the moment he exited the patrol car. The silhouetted figures inside were oblivious, sharing a laugh and rocking enthusiastically as Queen’s Brighton Rock blared from the 8-Track player. Now the car was parallel and the boys stepped from the shadows, realizing they had struck the mother lode. What happened next was the initiation of the game, the catalyst that set the wide-open playing field in motion. 

“You pussies!” “Suck my dick!”, “Slow down faggots!”, “Get that piece of shit off the road!”, “Hey assholes!” and so on. The hurled invectives and insults crashed down on the Firebird’s occupants in a cacophony of cuss, shattering their stupor and rankling their senses. A heavy foot was already on the brake before the first of us leaped up, legs already churning in place like Scooby Doo and Shaggy running from a ghoul, as we hit the ground running.

The adrenaline rush was fierce and instantaneous and it fueled our frantic, yet calculated retreat. A quick glance over the left shoulder saw the arcing headlights spotlighting the trees and swiveling with compass like deliberateness as our pursuers came roaring up behind. That same glance revealed Drew and Kyle already peeling off left, crossing the street just ahead of the grumbling juggernaut and swiftly disappearing into the inky, enveloping shadows of the Franklin’s carport and from there, God knows where. Intended as a diversionary tactic or not the splitting of our force into two separate factions served us well just the same. Brakes were applied and car doors briefly thrown open until one of the stoners from the backseat realizing it was better to chase the visible rather than the invisible screamed, “Go after those motherfuckers down the street!”

Those motherfuckers were four now, Harry, Brian, Chris and Larry. There is no truer test of ability, agility and speed than when being hounded by an impending, presumptive beating or worse, as it seemed every pothead carried a knife. Exaggeration or not we ran as if our lives depended on it. Larry always instinctively sought the safety of the middle of the pack. Out front your mates might peel away and leave you all alone before your ever realized they were gone and bringing up the rear left you vulnerable, like the weakest zebra in the harem. 

Still in all it was a pretty evenly matched contest but given a straight line, Harry was always going to be out front. Naturally athletic, built like a stallion and tempered with the sort of resolve that comes from being the youngest of a brood of ten kids, he excelled at most everything including girls for which the rest of us openly envied and spited him. If there were a leader of the pack he was it, only because none of the rest of us would have ever stood up to him but he wasn’t the bullying type and most of the groups decisions were made by committee anyway. Brian was the same age as Harry and my closest friend of the bunch as we were the only two who lived one street over on Ralls. In many ways, just one street over was the adolescent equivalent of a neighboring county or state. Borders were borders and though they were readily crossed they were still recognized and respected. Brian was the only friend of who I could look through my window and see if he was out and maybe available for adventures, so naturally we spent more time together than with the others. We were also the most alike with a wicked shared sense of juvenile humor and a cavalier sense of mischief that were almost always in lockstep; in short, a couple of smart-ass punks.

Chris was my age and we shared a common bond as the youngest of the crew. (Drew was our age too but what he lacked in years he made up for in height and disposition.) Chris and his family were New England transplants who brought their Boston accents and their old world airs with them. His mother had it heaviest and I’m certain somewhere in her lineage was an ancestor with a first class berth on The Mayflower. Chris’s father worked as an engineer for the aerospace behemoth McDonnell Douglas and struck me as Martin Lane, Henry Mitchell and Mike Brady rolled up in one, pipe and all. His older brother oozed East Coast preppy arrogance but his older sister was sweet and charming. Somehow I always had the impression that Chris was rebelling against each and every one of them. He would play me records I had never heard before like Light My Fire and Polythene Pam and mimic a Lennon sneer. He was passionate and showed it too often, which made him suspect and vulnerable. He endured more than his fair share of abuse from those of us who weren’t sophisticated enough to ever let our guard down.

Drew was big and lumbering like all kids who have grown too fast for their age, not fat but hulking and quick to agitate, usually because he wasn’t in on the joke. Kyle was the oldest of the group, a year older than Harry and Brian and two years older than the rest of us. He was a protestant, whatever that was. To me it meant he came from a good family who had a clear and respectable course laid out for him. His grades were excellent and he was mannered and restrained in a way that set him apart. While the rest of us unloaded hateful bales of nasty we had learned either at school or from older siblings, Kyle actually once shouted at one of our targets, “Don’t compromise, Midasize!” We were appalled and embarrassed and threatened him with permanent banishment from the ‘let’s get chased game’. He was however blessed with a gangly track and field body and a practical sense of self-preservation that assured he would never be caught.

But now Kyle and Drew were nowhere to be found and Harry, Brian, Chris and I were running like thoroughbreds in the homestretch, exchanging leads and jockeying for position. Our tennis shoes slapped and paddled the driveways and landscaping of the otherwise quiet street but all we could here was the blood and breath rushing through our heads and hearts and the ever increasing roar of that big, badass machine closing the gap between us and them. Just then we heard the jarring, sickening squawk of heavily applied brakes which told us without looking back that our pursuers felt close enough now to chase us on foot. Close enough to get their hands on us. It was decision time.

We were now halfway down Phelps when Harry, back in the lead, made a quick right turn between two houses. With that herd mentality that makes a hundred antelope move in one synchronized, smooth syndetic motion each of us followed suit. The older boys were so close now you could hear their breathing and sense their bloodlust but there were no war cries or curses. Every teenage body of both the huntsman and prey were reserving every atom of oxygen to the task of running. The only sound now was the ring and rattle of the chain-link fence as the first of us hurdled it, one foot on and over in a single bound. I was second to last now and just before making my leap I thought I felt the wisp of a hand clutch my tee shirt. Glancing over my shoulder in a split-second I saw the terrified face of one of our crew, clear and white with fright, mooning upward and backward until parallel with the ground, facing the starry sky. As I leapt the fence we all heard what sounded like a half-choked woof accompanied by a sickening thud like that of a sack of potatoes being dropped off the back of a delivery truck. We were already over the second fence and pushing through the lightly wooded ridgeline that separated the backyards from the delivery lot of the local IGA when a desperate, woeful cry pierced the night as well as our consciences, “Don’t leave me!”

And that’s how we knew we had lost Chris.