Trash Mountain. Bradley Bazzle
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to the actual firebombing. I learned that firebombs, aka incendiary weapons, looked like rusty logs and were thrown from planes during World War I to light towns on fire. Since I couldn’t get my hands on one of those logs, I would have to settle on an “improvised” incendiary weapon such as a Molotov cocktail. Molotov cocktails were easy to make. All you needed was gasoline and a glass bottle and some fabric for a wick.
The beer Dad drank came in cans, so late that night I snuck out my window to check the alley for glass bottles. The bottles in the alley were all broken, though. Then I heard a distant clang and saw a dark shape lurching down the alley. At first I thought it was a junk monster of some sort, born from the dump, but it turned out to be a lady hobo pushing a grocery cart. I watched her lift the top off a trashcan and root around in there until she pulled out some bottles, so I did the same thing and found some nice clean bottles of my own. She noticed me and muttered something, probably a hex.
Next, I got the big red jug of gasoline Dad kept by the side of the house for his mower. The jug was almost empty (he had used it to top off his car) but there was just enough gas in there to fill three bottles halfway, which was how much you were supposed to fill them for Molotov cocktails. It was dark outside and hard to see so the gas went all over the bottles and my hands and shorts. I rinsed the bottles in the kitchen sink then balled up my shorts and hid them under the stairs in front of the house. They were my favorite shorts so this was a terrible sacrifice, but it felt good to feel the feeling of sacrifice.
Next came the wicks. I looked under the sink for a dishrag but got nervous because Mom had a peculiar memory. I opened my closet and got my worst, most skid-marked underwear, but the underwear was so threadbare that I worried it might burn too fast. So what I did was cut a strip from the bottom of my bed sheets. If I cut cleanly enough, I reasoned, no one would notice that my top sheet was a few inches shorter. I cut the long thin strip into three and tied each strip as tight as I could around the side of each bottle. (The internet said most people stick the wick directly into the bottle, but the wick can get too much gas on it and explode in your hand so it’s better to do it on the side.)
I kept the Molotov cocktails under my bed until five o’clock Saturday morning, when I stuck them in my backpack and crept out the door before Mom and Dad woke up. It was still dark outside, which was good. I needed to commit my act of terror under cover of darkness. But as I walked down the alley I started thinking about Ruthanne, because what if I died? Wouldn’t she want to know what I died for? I was still sore at her for what she said about me not thinking, but I didn’t want to leave things bad between us in case I was blown up by my own firebomb. I decided to write a note.
Back at the house I got a piece of paper and puzzled for a while over what to write. It had to be somewhat vague in case the FBI questioned her, but also heroic and majestic and memorable. Finally I wrote, “Dearest Ruthanne, You’re the best sister a boy could have. What I do today I do for you, for all of us, and for the galaxy. Your ever loving brother, Ben.” I folded up the note and was going to put it in her favorite shoes, but then I heard Dad banging around in the kitchen looking for something to eat. I thought about sneaking out, but I knew I shouldn’t risk it. He had eagle eyes like me, and it was getting light outside anyway. I didn’t want to spoil my plan out of hastiness.
I spent the whole day fidgeting alone in my bedroom until the sun was just over the treetops, then I grabbed my backpack and told my parents I was sleeping over at a friend’s house. What friend, they asked, which was a reasonable question since I didn’t have friends. I told them Timothy McCoughtrie. I had slept over at his house one time, years before. They looked suspicious. “Didn’t his family move away?” Mom asked.
“Yeah,” Dad said, “and I thought McCoughtrie killed himself. But maybe I’m thinking of Mike McCutcheon.”
“No, that was Mike McCoughtrie,” Mom said, adding that Mike McCoughtrie had been a great basketball player and should have gone to college for it.
“You always were hung up on that guy,” Dad said.
“I just think it’s a shame he’s dead is all. When someone’s so good at something it makes it harder to imagine them dead. It’s funny is all.”
“Nothing funny about being dead.”
I said, “So, um, is it okay if I go?”
They said okay so I hit the road.
I walked the way Carl had driven me home, which was only a mile and had a sidewalk the whole time. It was a pretty nice walk.
In Haislip, all the houses were the same size and had the same little screened-in front porch so it took me a while to locate Demarcus’s house. When I did, I circled it, peeping in windows for Demarcus, but he wasn’t there. No one was there. So I strolled out to the field where I had found him before, and sure enough he was out there stacking rocks in a pile while the older boys played ball. I told him tonight was the night. He asked if I needed his help.
“No way,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Then why’d you come tell me?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say to that. By then some older boys had noticed me and were approaching us. I worried that if I ran they’d come after me, so I stood my ground. They were bigger than they looked from a distance and crossed their arms to show their muscles. One, the tallest, who was basically a man, asked me who I was.
“A friend of Demarcus,” I said, but Demarcus just looked at the ground.
The boy turned to Demarcus. “He a friend of yours?”
Demarcus didn’t say anything.
I thought the boys were going to attack, but they just stood there, arms crossed, staring at me. They seemed to be waiting for something. Finally I just turned around and walked away. I didn’t dare look back until I heard them hollering, resuming their game, but by then Demarcus wasn’t among them.
Who needs him, I thought. Each man stands alone. But I really didn’t want to be alone just then. I wished Ruthanne were with me.
I found my way back to the hole under the fence, but I didn’t slip through it right away. I strolled around a bit, trying to look casual. Then, when I was sure the coast was clear, I carefully slid my back-pack under the fence and slid through after it, on my back. On the other side of the fence I looked up at Trash Mountain. It was reddish from the sunset, like a wayward outcropping of the mountains of hell. Its shaggy piebald flesh of plastic rippled in the breeze. I walked along the base, looking for a spot that was partially blocked from view, in case anybody crept up on me, and I found a nook between two rusted-out refrigerators. I opened my backpack. It smelled like gasoline even though the bottles were closed, and the inside felt greasy. I took out one of the Molotov cocktails and turned it in my hand, appreciating not only my handiwork but the craftsmanship of the bottle itself, which spoke of a bygone era when kids like me hung around corner stores with bar stools and bartenders who served soda instead of beer, and the kids were always stealing candy but the bartender guys just shook their heads and said, Boys will be boys.
There was a rustling nearby. I ducked into one of the refrigerators to hide, and in a moment I saw Demarcus walk past holding a heavy bucket. “Psst,” I whispered, and he turned and saw me in the fridge.
“Ben!” he said. He said he was sorry again and again but that Daryl and Boogie one time beat up this white boy for goofing with Boogie’s sister.
“What’s goofing?” I asked.
“You know,” he said, then made his finger and thumb into a circle and stuck another finger through it.
I said the whole thing was no problem, but Demarcus seemed pretty worked up, so I said I absolved him, which was something I saw a priest on TV say.
“Thanks,” Demarcus said. He held up his bucket to show me it was half-filled with water in case I lit myself on fire, and we got started.
I had planned to dig a hole in the side of Trash Mountain so I could ignite my Molotov cocktails beneath it, to cause it to collapse from the inside or possibly explode at the