- October 31, 1990 -

I'm jittery with excitement as I fumble through the Safeway bag for the battery and electronic circuitry that lays muddled amongst an absurd collection of candies. My hand touches upon the cool plastic sheath of the battery and I smell the faint fall fragrance of fallen leaves. My breath rises in small visible puffs while I struggle to sort the mess of wiring that lies at my feet. My best friend Tony peaks from the shadows, scanning the darkness for motion. All is quite.

With an emphatic flurry of hand gestures I wave Tony from the shadows. He hesitates, teetering on the brink. Tony is aware that he stands at one of life's junctures. Down one road, peace, quiet, and the social norm. Down the other… who can say.

The course is set: Tony leaps from his nook, a dark, lumbering shadow breaking through the moonlight. A chill runs from my toes, up the arch of my back and settles like needles into the back of my neck. All is ready on my end. I quickly scan the unbroken stream of wire running from the blue box in my hand, across the darkened yard, to the rapidly unspooling shape cradled in Tony's arms. No loose ends. Lights on the box on. Battery charged to full.

Tony dives into the full view beneath a street light. He ducks his head and surges on, his target now in sight. Wire pours in waves from the object in his hands. I'm tense. My hand moves towards the box.

Smoky Dan changes channels on his TV. It's been a quiet night. He reflects on how few children are about in older neighborhoods such as his. He sips at his beer and is immediately aware that it has become warm and flat. He must have dozed off during Riptide. Dan fumbles for the pretzels that he knows lie somewhere by his side.

Tony lunges for the orange pumpkin that sits on the edge of the porch. He rips off the lid and slams the package home. Tony's arms windmill wildly. I hammer the red button on the box as Tony streaks for cover.

Nothing. Silence. Darkness. Confusion.

Smokey Dan finishes the last pinches of pretzel dust from the bottom of the bag. The TV babbles about irrelevant sports highlights. It's 10:30 Halloween night and all decent children are in bed. Dan's day has wound to an anticlimactic close. He gathers up the remainder of his Halloween offerings and turns for bed. He passes one last glance out his front window. Tony is looking right back at him.

Tony freezes in his tracks as I frantically trace through the nest of wiring leading from the box in my hands. I'm engrossed in the problem. Something must have happened to the circuit as the wire was uncoiling. Red wire to green wire. Green wire to relay…

The screen door slowly opens on the house where the pumpkin sits. Tony shrieks toward the pumpkin, every ounce of strength committed to averting the impending cataclysm.

Smokey Dan stands puzzled above the pumpkin, confused but wary about the production in his front yard.

…Relay to … nothing? The battery must have come disconnected. I snap the battery clip closed, Tony screams something undistinguishable, and darkness turns to light.

The still fall night is shattered by a boom that can best be described as galactic. A huge ball of orange fire rises off the porch where the pumpkin had sat. To my horror, two shapes are silhouetted by the blast, each no more that four feet from the epicenter. A hail of pumpkin rips through the air, hosing the world in sheet of orange slop.

I'm paralyzed. Primal needs are screaming at my feet to run. My cerebrum beacons that I stand my ground out of curiosity for the hell I've caused. A cool fall breeze slowly fans the smoke from point zero revealing the most titillating sight imaginable.

Tony and Smoky Dan stand facing each other, each concentric to a large scorched mark on the porch. Pumpkin drips from Dan. Pumpkin oozes from every piece of Tony. Dan is very, very mad. Tony is much too close to Dan. Dan leaps forward, tacking Tony to the ground in a crying heap.

I bolt. I run until my lungs burn and my knees are weak and I run some more. I run until I can no longer here Tony crying or Dan yelling.

- July 9, 2001 -

I sit in my office and sip a glass of herbal tea. I am married. I have what some might call a good job and what others might not. I own a cat and read best sellers. Last weekend I spent a few hours shooting cans of food with a handgun.

That event, long ago, brings up some interesting questions. The first is what the hell was I thinking to want to blow up my coach's pumpkin in the first place? Irrelevant. The second is whatever happened to my friendship with Tony. We've drifted apart. The third is how I survived such wonderful stupidity without learning a single God Damned Thing.