Me N Poot Make It Two in a Row

First thing Wednesday morning, Poot asked to borrow 79 cents. He wanted to buy some more lighter fluid, and he wanted to burn another house down. That night.

“You have to be crazy!” I yelled out loud. We were by the street, Rosemary Lane, where all the boys who rode to school parked their motorbikes. “You can’t burn a house down two nights in a row. It’s the wrong time.”

“It’s the best time,” Poot said. “Nobody will expect us to hit again tonight. Nobody.”

Then somebody rode up, Paul Darby on his Honda 65, I think, so we had to stop talking. I walked to class shaking my head. Poot had to be crazy.

But I kept thinking about it, and the more I thought the more right Poot sounded. Nobody would expect the fire bandits to come back the very next night.

Before the end of first period, I give Poot the money.

We were itching to talk all day but we had to be careful. At lunch, we couldn’t say much, but we mumbled some and spoke in code.

“Tonight we run till our lungs burn?” Poot asked.

“Yeah.” I knew what he meant.

Poot come by a little before eight o’clock.

“Y’all running again tonight?” Mom asked.

“We’re getting in real good shape, Mizz Hodge,” Poot said layin it on thick. And we were. “I think Zane’s gunna be a star.”

“Well if he becomes a star, he’ll have you to thank, Robert,” Mom said and gave him that big smile. I thought I was gunna puke. But even though it made me sick, it was to my advantage that Mom always reacted to Poot the way she did. I could always get out of the house, even on a school night, if Poot was involved.

Out the door, we started a slow run towards Key Street then over to Park Ave. We went a little way up Park and crossed over onto Medallion. The sun had set now and it was darkening fast.

By the time we got to the swing, it was dark enough to swim, but this time we had the sense to walk upstream before getting in so we would land in the right spot on the other side.

I didn’t know till we got ready to wade in that Poot hadn’t taken the lighter fluid over. He had it on him which meant one of us had to swim with it which meant I had to swim with it cause Poot would never make it across with a can of lighter fluid and a cigarette lighter in one hand.

I still beat Poot across the river and we got our shorts and shoes on. A little orange was still in the western sky, but it was full dark now, dark enough to be able to cross Wade Road without being seen.

Just like the night before, we got to the road and sat there for a long time. This time there wasn’t anybody in sight, but we knowed there might me somebody in one or all of the houses.

Finally, Poot said, “Why don’t you slip across and peek in the window. If the coast is clear, motion for me, and I’ll come on over.”

So I shot across the road bent down low and then crawled to the window on the side away from the houses where people lived. I got right under the window and sat there a while on my knees and listened. When I didn’t hear nothing, I slowly raised up to look through the long broken out window.

I couldn’t see nothing inside, so I eased back down. There coulda been half of Patton’s army in there and I wouldn’t have been able to see ’em. Then I thought what to do. I reached and got a dirt clod from under the house and hook shot it through the window. It hit with a thud. Nothing. If somebody had been in there, they would have hollered or run out or something. But when nothing happened I started motioning for Poot.

He came over and said, “You go back over and watch for cars. This won’t take long.”

And it didn’t. In less than a minute we was jogging back towards the river with the house already burning. We made it to the tree where we calmly hid and teeny shoes and shorts. This time, we were breathing hard but we weren’t about to heart attack like last night. We walked upstream and then waded in and started swimming. Last night, we were breathing so hard and were so skeered my legs felt weak and the swim was frightening. I thought Pool might even drown.

This time it was not big deal. We even walked upstream to land at the swing. But when we got there and crawled out, we forgot we left our clothes upbank where we took ’em off before swimming over the first time. Poot called me a dumb dickhead for not thinking to undress at the swing. I called him a turd brain for always wanting to do stuff that could get us in prison.

We got dressed and went the Riverside Drive/Walnut Street route. A policeman came motoring up when we was on Walnut Street.

“What you boys doing?” he asked.

“We just out getting a jump start on track this spring,” Poot said, holding up the stopwatch he had around his neck. In those days you didn’t wear stopwatches on your wrist, you wore these big things around your neck. Poot had talked to his dad about maybe running track, so his dad bought him a stopwatch. I had thought it was ridiculous when Poot had showed up at my house with that thing around his neck. But when the policeman saw that, he just rode away. He didn’t say nothing neither.

So that is how we burned down our first three houses and two in two nights. And we got away with it.

But there’s more.