The story I am about to tell, though it may seem far-fetched and made up, is indeed 100% true. It is important that I protect the names of those involved, so it is for that reason I will be going by the name Mike.
When I was young, my mother was poisoned by Varathane. She was sealing the inside of a shower stall wall without ventilation. It was basically the same as filling a sack with rubber cement and huffing it. She collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where she nearly died. It was a very long and painful healing process which took years because the toxins affected her brain. Because of this, my two siblings and I were given caregivers and farmed out to different homes to be taken care of.
I have cousins in Anacortes, Washington named the Duncons. They live at the base of Mt. Erie and because I was born in Anacortes I spent a lot of time with them. I have so many wonderful memories with them; it was sad to spoil those memories with the botched “Slumber Party Caper.”
The Duncons have eight kids; two boys and six girls. They also have two restrooms with a number tag dispenser and a digital readout board which says “Now serving, #437”, and so on. With ten total in the family, it could get quite chaotic at times. The family home is located on a hillside overlooking Lake Erie and facing the majestic Mt. Erie. The property borders a cemetery, long abandoned and not cared for and buried in trees. If you weren’t told, you wouldn’t know it was there. (Remember this part. It may be on the test).
It was late summer and nearly time for school to start and dad brought me down to again stay at the Duncon house for the weekend. My age put me in the middle of the pack with the ages of the Duncon kids. The girl closest to my age was Babe. Because one of Babe’s girlfriends was moving away, she put together a massive slumber party at the house for all her girl friends to honor the friend soon to leave. Because so many girls were to be in attendance and there were only two bathrooms, the consensus was that it would be inappropriate for me to stay at the Duncon home.
There was an alternative housing opportunity though just three miles up the road at a friend’s house. His name was Kurt. I had known Kurt as long as I had known the Duncon kids. He was the same age as Babe and coincidentally, they were also cousins.
It was never, never, ever a good idea for me to spend time with Kurt because within a day one of us was usually in trouble for a prank gone bad.
“So, did you know that there is a slumber party at Babe’s house tonight? Most of the girls in your class are there.” This was totally cruel of me to say because Anacortes at the time had very little to do in the evening for middle and high school kids. Aside from shooting your sister with rubber bands or watching Gun Smoke on the black and white TV, the options were limited.
He stood staring at me glassy-eyed. Although I was speaking, I knew he couldn’t hear me for this was an opportunity. A million different plans and scenarios were flying through his head. In all fairness, I can’t remember who suggested, “Let’s sneak over there and spy on them.” But now as I say it, it could have been me.
The plan was typical middle school boy thinking: we tell his mom and dad we wanted to sleep out on the lawn. Ok all you dads out there, doesn’t this immediately raise a red flag? My response to my boys was, “Do you think I’m stupid? You think I haven’t tried the old “pretend to sleep in the yard” ploy?”
“Sure, you and Mike can sleep outside,” Kurt’s mom said. “Take Brute outside and let him run first.” Brute was a black lab pup who was still at the stage where everything including pant legs and coat sleeves were fair game to chew on. If you were under five feet tall, he also had a college football tackle’s ability to jump up and take you to the ground and didn’t finish with you until your sleeves we’re chewed up and dripping with dog slobber. I was just glad he was too young to think about romance.
The plan was very simple; take sleeping bags and pillows out to the shadowy part of the yard and pretend to sleep. When the last light in the house is out, we are gone. With Brute back in the house, we laid watching the lights and sometime around 10:00 pm, the house went dark.
We were off. Only three miles separated us from spying on school girls in pajamas. Adrenaline and or fear flowed through my body as we walked, barely able to talk I asked Kurt what he thought the chances were of his dad coming out and checking on us.
“Nope. He’s asleep. I’m sure he’s never heard of the ‘sleeping in the yard ploy.” And yet, there was still the possibility that any car headlights coming from the direction of his house could be his dad looking for us. So, for every oncoming car we would run off the side of the road into the brush and wait for it to pass. I’m sure this happened about 20 times. I might add that without flashlights, we didn’t know what we were running into.
We ran along Lake Erie and passed the general store where we could look up the hill and see the lights from the basement of the house and hear the sound of music. Then running up the road past the old cemetery we jumped into the ditch and stared across the lawn at the shadows on the curtains which were dancing to some 60’s rock music. The light from the basement shown across the lawn. A large Juniper bush was planted along the house under the picture window.
“What’s the plan?” I panted.
“We run across the yard and crawl into the Juniper bush. Then we can peek in through the slit in the curtains.” Kurt whispered.
“I’m not running across the lit yard. Are you crazy?” But by then Kurt was already gone, sprinting across the yard and diving head first into the Juniper Bush.
Mr. Duncon, George, and his wife, Gracie, had built this large multi bedroom Rambler style house in the 50s. It sat on a large chunk of property which stared straight into the face of Mt Erie. It is one of the most majestic views in the world.
My plan was safe and simple: skirt the edge of the yard staying in the shadows and make my way to the Juniper Bush. I crawled from the ditch and stealthily side stepped the edge of the lawn with much the same skill as a Ninja warrior. Without so much as a noise I skirted the lawn next to the road. My eyes strained to see in the dark. Next I moved quietly along the lawn bordering the cemetery. Next, I stepped squarely onto the center of George’s chest as he lay asleep in a sleeping bag on the lawn.
George, finding it way too noisy to get any sleep with a house full of screaming teenage girls decided to find peace and quiet in the shadows of the back yard by the cemetery fence. Now, I’m not sure what he was dreaming at the time and I didn’t think it wise to ask him, but I am pretty sure it had to do with zombies and now one was dancing on his chest. He started making a loud “whoo, whoo, whoo,” sound. I on the other hand was sure that there was a rather large zombie digging himself out of the cemetery like a mole and I started my panic dance. I guess it would have looked like River Dance and thinking back on it, I had pretty good form high stepping from his chest, to his face and back to his chest. When I finally bounded off the zombie, George, fleeing for his life stood up in the sleeping bag and while making the “Whoo, whoo scream” jumped across the yard like he was in a gunny sack race at the church picnic. I’m sure to the casual observer it would have looked like an event from the Awkward Olympics.
When we both finally realized there were no zombies, George screamed at me, “Where are you supposed to be Mike?”
“With Kurt,” I said.
“Where is Kurt?” He yelled.
Not being one to save my buddy in the time of need, I pointed to the Juniper Bush. Kurt raised his hand up out of the branches and waved.
“You two get out of here!” George bellowed.
I really wish I could say that this was the lowest point of the adventure, but it only continued to spiral downward. On the way home, we were sure that George had called Kurt’s dad and we really wanted to avoid another chewing out so with every car that came from the direction of Kurt’s house, we would once again go bounding off into the brush until it passed.
At approximately the halfway point, another car approached. This time very slowly. There was no shoulder on that section of the road so we had to hop over a guard rail and slide down rip rap rock right into blackberries and that is as far as we could go. Stuck in the thorns, we were a mere eight feet from the road. Believe it or not, the car slowly pulled up and stopped exactly where we were. I am now crouched in the blackberries in the dark feeling a great need to pee, mostly from terror. The jig is up. We are caught. We are dead. An obviously very drunk man opened the driver’s door, staggered over to the guard rail and began to pee over the edge. Now believe me, I come from a long history of being peed on so this is nothing new. (By the way, a footnote for you young boys out there; if two or more of you are climbing up the same tree, always be the first one up. The second one will most likely get peed on).
Kurt and I sat crouching in the vines trying not to make a sound. It was my belief that that if we had both jumped up and screamed, the drunk would have died on the spot. As soon as he finished, he belched, climbed back in his car and drove off none the wiser.
Kurt and I climbed back to the road and within 15 minutes we were back in his yard. The house was still dark. We were safe. I slipped off my leather shoes, stuffed my horned rim glasses inside one and crawled in my sleeping bag to fall fast asleep.
Sometime in the early morning, someone let Brute outside. When we awoke, I had no shoes or glasses. After a thorough search of the yard, I found each shoe. Though they were chewed to shreds and looked more like sandals, I was able to put them on and wrap my feet with duct tape to keep from walking out of them. The glasses on the other hand had both temples chewed off to the hinges. This we remedied by taping two popsicle sticks to the remaining stubs. MacGyvered it. All was well.
In the kitchen, Kurt’s mom was making breakfast when we entered the house. She seemed pleasant enough but just as she was setting our pancakes in front of us, the phone rang.
“Oh hello Gracie. Oh I’m fine…. THEY DID WHAT?”
She spun to stare at Kurt as she reached into the drawer for a rather large wooden spoon. Then, grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him down the hallway where I could hear, “whack, Yelp, whack, Yelp.” Was death just around the corner for me too?
Maybe it was because Brute ate my shoes and glasses and made cut offs out of my blue jeans that Kurt’s mom took pity on me and spared me the spoon. Someday I will have to ask her if that was the case.
This I do know, that I am glad for the cast of family and friends and dogs like Brute who gave me so many wonderful memories and shared in my adventures. I have been truly blessed.
Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Snips Tributes
