Setting Fire to the Woods

We met at the park down the street. Well, we called it the park, but it was the empty lot where we played football, it backed up to the woods that separated the trailer park from our neighborhood. I rode right up to the fence and kicking my back tire out I skidded to a stop amongst the piles of pine straw.

“I got ‘em. The matches, let’s go!”

Leaning our bikes against the fence, James, Ted, and I hopped over the chain link with ease. We walked to the midpoint of the woods so we could just make out the sun reflecting on the metal roofs of the single wide trailers and we could still see our bikes through the underbrush.

Ted, being the oldest took the lead, “Make a small pile of straw, James. Warren, grab some pine cones.”

“Do you think anyone will see us,” I asked.
“No, Warren, everyone is at work. Relax,” Ted commanded.

James had a couple handfuls of straw stacked criss cross and I placed a two pine cones on top. We sat down around the pile and I passed the matchbox to Ted. He accepted the gift as a king would receive jewels from a triumphant knight. Ted nodded and holding the box with both hands he pushed with his left forefinger revealing an army of soldiers awaiting their command. Gingerly pinching one from the box he held it before us, waving it as a wizard with a wand. The match looked like a skinny man with a bright red face and a white yamaka sitting on the crown of his head. Ted slowly ran his face along the side of the box and he exploded to life. Without fear he held the match as the flame moved closer to his fingertips and nestled it within the stacked up straw.

We all sat waiting for something, anything to happen. Thick smoke began to billow around the pine cones. White smoke made a wall to where we couldn’t see each other. In an instant the smoke turned to flame and we all fell backwards. Laughing we sat up trying to hide our fear and act cool. We stared at the red and yellow flames without speaking and watched the pine cones burn. We felt like rebels, lighting a fire in the woods without our parents permission.

My Casio watch alarm started beeping.

“Give me the matches! I have to go! Shit! I’m supposed to be home doing homework, my sister is getting home soon. If I’m not home she’s gonna tell my mom. Put out the fire, I’ll come over to your house later.”

I tucked the matchbox into my back pocket, hopped the fence, and rode home as fast as I could.

“Your gross,” she said.
“What, booger breath? Why?”
“Your all sweaty.”
“So.”
“You better do the dishes before mom gets home.”
“I will. Chill out. You have to vacuum, so leave me alone.”
“Shut up, J A C K A double S!”
“I’m gonna tell mom.”

I filled both sides of the sink with as hot of water as I could handle and put soap on the left side and began washing the breakfast dishes. Dunk, scrub, dunk, rinse. Dunk, scrub, dunk, rinse. I grabbed all the silverware and shook it around in the rinse water and tucked them neatly into the drying rack.

“I’m done! My homework is done! I’m going over to James and Ted’s house.”

I closed the door as my sister was yelling some command at me and was on my bike and down the driveway before she could even open the door.

“What!? I can’t hear you,” I yelled as I rode down the street.

I dropped my bike in their front yard and knocked on the front door.

“Can James and Ted play,” I asked as soon as the door cracked open enough for me to see their mom.

“James, Warren is here,” she yelled to the back of the house, “He’ll be right out. Do you want a cookie?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Thank you.”

I stood outside with eight butter cookies, poking my fingers through the holes in the center and slowly biting them off the edges one at a time. James and Ted came out and grabbed their bikes and I shoved the last three cookies in my mouth as I sat on my bike seat.

“Did you guys put out the fire?”
“Yea, but lets go back the pine cones looked cool, all white and ashy,” James said.

Pulling up to the empty lot we could see a haze from within the woods. The sunlight was cutting through it like daggers slicing between the trees.

“What the hell? What is that?! You said you put it out!”
“We did!,” they both yelled in unison.

Throwing our bikes down we leapt over the fence barely touching it with our feet. Where our small, two handfuls of straw fire was grew a dark black circle as big as half a basketball court.

“What do we do?!”
“Shit!”
“Oh, man, we are, like, gonna get our asses whooped for sure!”

We could see a low flame traveling all the way around the circle.

“Quick, start stepping on it!” I said.

We ran around stomping and kicking pine straw into the black burnt hole. We jumped, kicked, stomped. Jumped, kicked, stomped. Jumped, kicked, stomped. We each went around the circle three times. Peering down for any red light, confusing a setting sun casting a red glow, and stomping some more.

Sweaty we looked down at our black, ashy shoes and thought surely we would be caught. Surely someone saw the smoke. We walked around the circle one last time and hoped we stomped out all the embers.

“I have to go home,” I said, “my mom said I had to take a bath tonight and we are eating Shake n’ Bake pork chops tonight. I don’t want to miss that.”

We climbed the fence and each picked up our bikes looking back into the woods with hope we wouldn’t get caught.

We never got caught.