What is there for a thirteen year old to do on a Saturday night in January?  Not a whole lot on French Island.  So Jeff and I always found our own ways to entertain ourselves.  Hide and seek just wasn’t cutting it anymore. 

            It was usually Jeff, a third party, and me.  Usually Matt, John, Greg, or Chris.  John and Greg were both from French Island, but they lived at the other end of the island.  Matt lived right across the street from Jeff, but he was at his dad’s every other weekend.  Enter Chris.  His mom lived in our neighborhood, and he went to school with Jeff.  This kid was fucking crazy.  I only saw him on some weekends, but I’ve heard he wasn’t much different at school.  Anytime Jeff, Chris, and I were together, two things were going to happen for sure: Laws would be broken and things would be blown up.  That was an understatement on a cold Saturday night in January of 1997.

            Jeff, Chris, and I were sitting around Jeff’s garage, trying to think of something to do.  After messing around with Jeff’s step-dad’s snow blower for an hour, I shouted out with excitement the words that would spark the inferno that was to become a dreadful Saturday night. 

            “I have some fireworks stashed in my garage, should I go grab them?”

            That was probably one of the five dumbest questions I ever asked.  Of course they wanted me to go grab them.  So I went back home and climbed up to the shelf that held the fireworks.  It was actually a box of fireworks that a family friend brought back from South Dakota and gave to my mother.  That box had everything.  Jumping Jacks, M-80’s, Bottle Rockets, Smoke Bombs, Cherry Bombs, and my personal favorite, Roman Candles.

            Of course we busted the Roman Candles out first.  Obviously we couldn’t just light them and shoot them up in the air.  Not us, we had to shoot them at each other.  We were basically playing “Tag” with Roman Candles.  Chris chased us about three blocks with the Roman Candles when I started thinking, “wow…this dude is fucking nuts.”  It kind of reminded me of a game that Heath and I played when we were little.

            After we got tired of shooting explosive fireballs at each other, we moved on to bottle rockets.  Bottle Rockets were fun.  Much like the Roman Candles, we couldn’t just play with Bottle Rockets the way that we were supposed to.  We had to get creative.  It’s always fun to light Bottle Rockets in your hand and throw it up in the air, just as the fuse is about to go out.  My motto has always been “Go big or go home”, so we went bigger.  By bigger, I mean we duct taped about five Bottle Rockets together.  Then seven.  Eventually we started running out of bottle rockets.  Our stash was running short, but we had enough to shoot out of the rain gutter like it was a bazooka. 

            For three pyromaniacs like us, fire was like heroin.  Once we started playing with those fireworks, we needed more.  Since our stash was cashed out, we needed to improvise.  We were out of fireworks, but we did have newspaper, tin cans, and a whole bunch of gasoline.  Not the best combination of things for the three of us to be around.

            I believe it was Jeff’s idea to start dumping gasoline on the snow and light in on fire.  Now there’s a good idea.  There were trees, bushes, and a wooden fence, not to mention a few houses all around us.  We were putting the neighborhood in danger, just so we could write our names in cursive in the snow and light it on fire. 

            Soon, even that became boring.  So we started making our own fireballs.  Well, kind of.  What we decided to do was fill tin cans full of gasoline, stuff balled up dry newspaper inside, light them on fire, and then, well you can probably guess what we did with them.  So after nearly burning two houses down, we once again grew bored.  We needed to go bigger.  So I said to myself, “self, what can we do to top throwing flaming cans at each other?”  We needed time to think, so we went over to a neighbor kid’s house to take a break and play Nintendo 64.   

            We played about five minutes of football on N64 before we got kicked out.  The kid’s parents said that we smelled too bad to be sitting in his house.  I suppose the scent of three idiots that have been drenched in gasoline all night isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world.  So they gave us the boot.  As we were leaving, the dad yelled something to me.  “You might want to stop by the garbage can and throw your coats in it.”  And that’s when it hit me.  A garbage can.  What is bigger and better than blowing up little tin cans?  Why blowing up big metal garbage cans of course. 

            I conspired with Jeff and Chris about the idea.  They liked it.  They liked it a lot.  But we weren’t going to just dump a bunch of gas and paper inside and watch it burn.  Forget that, that’s fucking child’s play.  We came up with the brilliant idea to make a bomb.  We were going to fill the garbage can with as many flammable liquids and explosive chemicals as we could find.  Then we were going to make a big fuse and light it off down by the river.  Or in the park, depending on how tired we were.

            Finding the contents wasn’t too hard.  My step-dad had a bunch of flammable shit, but the jackpot was at Jeff’s house.  You see, his step-dad is an aviator.  He was even building an airplane in the garage.  He had airplane glue, paint, and so many goodies that I can’t even list them.  Basically, anything that should be kept away from pyromaniacs and/or idiots is what we found. 

            Somehow Chris acquired a big metal garbage can.  He said he found it, but the fact that it had “Property of the Town of Campbell” painted on the side made me wonder.  We took everything to the park, and created our “Can’O’Boom”.  Jeff made the fuse, and it was time to rock.  We were too lazy to go down by the river, so we setup a spot in the corner of the park, where nobody would see us. 

            As I sat and waited for Chris to light the fuse, we ran into a roadblock.  We had nothing to light it with.  We had no matches or lighters.  Crazy, eh?  We had enough explosives to blow up a building, but we didn’t have a match.  This was a big problem.  Since we reeked of gasoline, we couldn’t go into anybody’s house.  We were like a couple kids on Christmas that found out we weren’t getting any presents.  It was heartbreaking. 

            Then, Jeff said the nine words that would once again raise our spirits.  “I know where the key to Matt’s house is.”  The show was back on.  We were going to celebrate the Fourth of July in January.  Matt kept a spare house key in the garage (which was unlocked).  We had already used gasoline from his garage to burn snow, why not go inside and steal some matches.

            We snuck in through the basement and didn’t turn any lights on.  We were very stealthy.  We had one mission, grab matches and go.  Of course, we got sidetracked.  Jeff started feeling a little tummy ache.  He had eaten Mexican food for supper, and he was now starting to feel the effects of it. 

            “Andy, I gotta take a shit!”

            “Go outside then.”

            “Fuck that, I’m going in here.”

            “Hurry up and shit dude, I’ll get the matches.”

            At this time Chris, who was supposed to be watching the door in case somebody came over, decided to go into the upstairs.  I caught him in the kitchen putting a light bulb in the microwave.  This was not stealthy.  This was stupid.  We were wasting time crapping and blowing up light bulbs when we could be igniting our “Can’O’Boom”.  That’s when Jeff came running up the stairs with some great news.

            “Andy, dude, I shit downstairs and I’m not gonna flush the toilet!”

            “Dude, that’s fucked up.  I can’t believe you would do that.  That’s so fucking…brilliant!”

            I know we were just supposed to get matches and leave, but we had to take advantage of this opportunity.  We could get a twofer and fuck with Matt as well.  That got me to start thinking of a way to fuck with Matt.  So I decided to lay a few porno mags on his bed, and other places in the house.  I knew his mom would be home before he would.  He would be in so much trouble.  A log in the toilet and porn on his bed?  That’s means for a week with no Nickelodeon. 

            The whole “fuck with Matt thing” made me forget about the mission at hand.  Matches.  We needed matches.  I searched all over but found nothing.  Not one fucking match, even in the kitchen.  Once again, I was saddened, this time it was Chris whose good news cheered me up.

            “There’s matches right here!”

            “Where, I don’t see any.”

            “Right on the tables by the candles check it out!”

            Then he made the biggest mistake he could’ve made.  Chris’ dumb ass turned the living room light on.  The living room was right in the front of the house, with a humongous window, which allows people outside to see the shenanigans that are ensuing inside, but only if the fucking light is on.  So when Chris hit the switch, anybody that was outside could see me standing in the living room.  Was there anybody outside?  Only Jeff’s parents, who were looking at the dismantled snow blower in their garage.  They were also facing Matt’s house, knowing that Matt and his mother were both out of town. 

            Unless they were completely clueless, they had to have seen me.  I might as well have shot off a flare gun and stuck my ass against the window.  In the rare case that they didn’t see me, I dropped down to my stomach on the living room floor and army crawled away from the window.  I then proceeded to call Chris a “Fucking idiot” amongst other things.

            A few minutes went by and I peeked out the window.  Jeff’s parents were no longer outside.  Then the phone rang.  We knew it was time to grab the matches and go.  Yes, we still planned on blowing up our Can-O-Boom.  I ran to the living room one more time to see if the coast was clear.  It was not.  Jeff’s parents were back outside, walking through the front yard as if to check the mail.  Then I thought, “who checks the mail at 10:00 Saturday night?”  When they didn’t stop at the mailbox, I knew we were fucked.

            All three of us headed for the back door and started running, but we were too late.  I started to run, but I heard the voice of an angel behind me.  An angel that was about to rip my nuts off and stick them down my throat. 

            “Jeffrey! Andrew! Christopher! Get your asses over here now!”

            Jeff and I knew that we were done, but Chris was in denial.  He kept running.  Jeff’s mom told me to get home and tell my parents before she did.  Great, I had to tell my mom.  Why couldn’t I have just gone to jail?  I was more afraid than I was the first time I met Kevin. 

            I went home and told my mom, and of course she ripped me a new asshole.  Then Jeff’s mom called and talked to her, but that was after she called the cops on us.  That’s right, Jeff’s mom called the cops on us.  Who calls the cops on their own son? 

            I got grounded, and I wasn’t allowed to play with Jeff or Chris anymore.  About two weeks later, I had to go talk to a social worker about the whole thing.  My mom went along with me.  In the elevator, she said something along the lines of, “hopefully you won’t get some asshole to talk to.”  Ironically, the other guy in the elevator was the “Asshole” that I had to talk to.

            Marc’s mom decided not to press charges on us, but Matt told them that he was missing $20.  I know I didn’t take it, and I was with Chris and Jeff the whole time they were upstairs.  Whoever took it had to have been really sneaky.  I was on probation until I turned eighteen, but I wasn’t getting fined or anything this time.  Even though I know that I didn’t take the money, I sent $10 with an apology letter to Matt’s mom.

            After a few weeks, I was allowed to hang out with Jeff again.  Matt’s mom forgave us, and let us hang out as well.  We actually became a lot closer after that.   Sometime later, we were all talking about the whole situation.  Matt then informed us that HE had taken the $20 and forgot about it.  Gee, that didn’t piss me off at all.  I lost $10 because of that bullshit.

            At the time, I was really pissed that we got caught.  In retrospect, it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened.  Who knows how far we would have gone?  I still don’t know what happened to the Can’O’Boom.  If we wouldn’t have gotten caught, we might have blown up somebody’s house.  Or somebody.  Now that I think about it, part of me still wonders what would’ve happened if we lit that fuse.  I guess there’s still time to find out.  I’m going to go call Jeff.