We hiked along the swelling creek knowing that it would soon be gone. All of it would soon be under water. It was to be called Lake Frank. I have no idea who Frank was or why they were naming a lake after him. We had spent a lot of time in those woods, but now the giant dam was almost complete and our stomping grounds would be gone forever. It was Bob Pearce who had called us all together to explore the woods one more time before it was gone. There was already a great expanse of shallow water covering the grassy areas in the lowland. Where the creek had been maybe twenty feet across it now was closer to a quarter mile and expanding by the minute. Our creek was rapidly becoming a lake.
Bob was leading the way almost as if he knew where he was going, but our old path was under water now, out of necessity, we were cutting our way through the thicket to higher ground when we came across the construction trailer tucked neatly into a clearing at the top of the ridge. There was a muddy road cut through the trees where the bulldozer had cleared the way to get the trailer in. It was a Sunday afternoon and the construction site was quite. We had the place to ourselves. Chris Shaffer was along. He tried the door to the trailer. It was locked, of course. Donny Pearce, no relation to Bob, noticed a tiny open window at one end of the trailer. “Monto,” he said, “Do you think if I gave you a boost, you could get through that window?” I looked up. “I think I can get through there?” I said. I was the smallest of the group. Donny interlocked his fingers and knelt down for me to step in. When he looked up at me, he had a silly grin on his face like he knew we were doing some bad shit. Donny had that look a lot. None of knew at the time that Donny would always be in trouble; that after a short time in prison, he would be executed in the Florida swamp by New Jersey mobsters over a cocain deal gone bad.
I stepped into Donnie's hands and up I went. I had to snap open my blade to cut through the screen, then I crawled through the window and came down on my hands inside. I pressed my hands flat on the drafting table below the window and jumped to the floor. The guys were outside pounding on the door anxious to get in, but I wanted first dibs on anything cool, so I looked around while they pounded and threatened me. “Monto. If you don't open this door...” I ignored their threats and searched drawers and closets. I found a yellow hard had made of plastic. I put it on an examined myself in a the bathroom mirror while Bob glared at me through the little round window in the door. “If you don't open this door you are so dead, Monto.” I ignored him.
I found a fire ax and a machete and a carton of Marlborough cigarettes, then I let the other schmucks in.
I stepped outside having already seen all I wanted. I gave everyone a pack of cigarettes as they ran inside, then I began looking for something to chop down.
There were piles of bulldozed trees and stumps all over the place. Then I noticed something red that caught my eye, deep inside one of the piles of branches. I gabbed hold and pulled away the brush to discover a large red steel box, wrapped with thick chains and a big lock. Written across the red box in white block letters, were the words, “Danger-Explosives”.
We couldn't find the key to the lock, but we managed to break it open with some tools we found in the trailer. The box was a terrifying display of firepower. Neat rows of red stick dynamite, and 144 to agross boxes of blasting caps and plastic explosive called C4. We looked in amazement but no one touched anything at first. It was as if we all knew that we were at a crossroad of some sort. The amount of trouble we could get in was enormous. We knew about trouble. It seemed to find us. I used to lay awake at nights trying to remember if there was anything I had done that I could get in trouble for. Thiskind of inventory taking had become a habit with me ever sense my father knocked my block off for something I had completely forgotten about. So I was always wondering when the rain was coming.
Now that we were looking into this box of death I was trying my best to suggest we leave well enough alone without sounding like a pussy, when Donny reached in an picked up a box of blasting caps.
“I don't think they'll miss one box,” he said. Bob reached in and took another box of caps and a stick of dynamite. “Hold on you guys. What are we going to do with this stuff. We can't just use this stuff to blow up mailboxes.” I said. “We canuse the blasting caps to bring down trees.” Donny said. “ It's all going to be underwater anyway.” Bob said. I finally remember us walking in single file carrying our dangerous loot through the woods. We decided to bury the stuff in the woods by Bob's back yard until we could plan a time to use them. I don't think any of us ever considered what a shit-storm we had just started.
Our first clue came in homeroom class on Monday morning. A police officer made a special announcement over the school intercom. “Some dangerous explosive have been stolen from the Lake Frank construction site. These explosives are a danger to the community, and in the wrong hands, can cause great injury or death.” He went on to explain how powerful the explosives were. I swallowed hard as I listened to the details.
“If anyone has any information about these explosives, please notify the proper authorities immediately.” After homeroom we all got together by my locker to discuss it. “Has anyone told anybody that we have this stuff?” Bob asked. It had only been one day and the secret was safe for now. “We should give and anonymous tip and leave them somewhere,” I said. “Screw that. It'll blow over in a few days and then we can blow shit up. Besides, I think I can sell them.” Bob said.
Nobody liked the idea of selling them but Bob. I mean, who do you sell blasting caps to, anyway?
It gets worse. That night at dinner, the subject of the explosives came up when my sister Debbie told of the announcements at her school that morning. My younger brother Ray who went to yet another school, said the explosives were part of their morning announcements also. After dinner, the family gathered in the living room to watch the local news and there is was again. “An engineer from the construction site was interviewed on TV. Once again I listened to the concerned voices warning the public and asking for tips. I called Bob.
“This is insane. They said the FBI is getting involved. We gotta give this stuff back,” I said.
It went on like that for well over a week with no let up. There were detectives interviewing all the usual suspects all over town. A squad car even showed up at my house one night. Yes, I was one of the usual suspects. I hadn't been busted for anything, but I had a reputation. Luckily, I was lying on the floor in front of the television when the squad car pulled into the driveway. This could have been big trouble for me. Had my old man seen the squad car and found out it was me they were looking for, I would have received a major ass kicking, no questions asked. There was no “innocent til proven guilty” in our house. One night my math teacher called my house and asked to speak to my father. Once she identified herself as my teacher my father cut in. “What did he do?” he said. Then he called me to the phone. “What kind of trouble are you in now?” he said before slamming the receiver into the side of my head. I went down in a blizzard of stars. It was like the big bang was happening in my own skull.
He hung up the phone and whipped my ass good. I found out later that Mrs. Luck had only wanted to ask my father to help with my math homework because he was and engineer and was very good at math, but my old man never asked why she called. He just hung up and pounded my ass.
Because of the blinds being down and the curtains closed and the thick bushes outside the window, no one saw the headlights of the squad car as it pulled into the driveway, but I was on the floor and could see under the blind. I saw the lights on top of the car and knew it was officer Rapcheck. I got up and went into the kitchen like I was going to get a drink of water, and snuck out through the garage. I ran up to officer Rapcheck who was still sitting behind the wheel. “What's going on officer Rapcheck? My old mans gonna kick my ass if he sees me talking to you guys.”
“Get in the back, we need to ask you some questions,” he said.
“Okay. But drive around the block.” I got in the back and they drove me around the block while they played good cop, bad cop. I laughed at them. I had been raised on Jimmy Cagney movies and I learned that no matter what the cops accused you of, it didn't mean they had anything, so play dumb. Some guys get scared and try to fool the police and they make up stories that always break down under questioning. It's best to play dumb and don't offer up any bullshit that can come back to bite you later. Still, they seemed to know something. Their questions were very specific. “How many of you were there when you broke into the trailer?” “What trailer? What are you talking about?”
“Come on you punk. Talk, or we'll drive you out in the country and say you were resisting arrest.” Rapcheck had first appeared in the neighborhood a year earlier posing as a construction worker in a dirty old Ford. Ours was a new development and many houses were still under construction. Rapcheck first appeared posing as a construction worker right after someone started breaking out window panes in the unoccupied houses. It was too much for any boy to resist. All of those empty houses to roam through with all of those inviting window panes and all of us boys with nothing better to do.
We would stand on a mound of dirt and throw rocks and dirt clods at the tiny window panes. We played our own version of tic-tac-toe, trying to see who could be the first one to complete a diagonal or break a line of windows straight across. I don't remember anyone ever winning the game, but a lot of windows were broken. That's when Rapcheck finally appeared in his dirty black Ford. He would pull up along a group of us playing in the road and made jokes with us and then tried to find out who was breaking out all the windows. We figured out he was a cop right away and began looking for him. It became a game for us. We vandalized things just to draw him out, and then we all played dumb and offered to help. We told Rapcheck when he showed up that we had seen a group of Richard Montgomery high school boys throwing rocks at windows. Richard Montgomery was a rival school and we were always fighting with them behind Twinbrook shopping center because they claimed it as their territory and any time we were seen there we would be surrounded and have to fight our way out. It seemed like a natural thing to blame them for everything we were doing. But Rapcheck knew what we were up too and no Twinbrook guys were ever questioned that I knew of.
Rapcheck finally gave up on his line of questioning and let me off around the block and I walked back home. I came in the way I went out, and no one noticed I had left the house. I have to admit I was a little shaken, but I also felt pretty good about how I handled Rapcheck. I couldn't wait to tell the others.
At night I tossed and turned and had bad dreams and generally felt pretty stressed out. We had all taken our shoes and tossed them into a dumpster and bought new sneakers. With all the mud at the scene of the crime we knew they could tie us to the scene through our footprints in the mud. This was a lessen we had learned the hard way, but learn it we had. Still, the local news continued with the story, and the announcements at school every morning were making me very nervous.
I stood by the back door watching for the school bus. I smoked a cigarette and practiced smoke rings in the still crisp autumn air. I tried to blow a ring and then blow another ring through the first. The air was so still I was able to do it several times. When I saw the bus make the turn onto bitter root way, I started walking to the corner. As soon as I stepped up into the bus I saw Bob in the back row waving to me.
I slid in next to him. “Check it out,” he said as he kept his eyes forward while opening his gym bag. He lifted out his gym clothes to show me all of our stolen explosives laying on the bottom of his bag.
“What the fuck are you thinking?” I said. “You can't bring that stuff to school. A police radio could set that stuff off and blow this bus to bits.” Bob put his clothes back in the bag and zipped it up. “Don't worry about it. I'm meeting a guy by the athletic field who's gonna buy them.”
“But, why do you have to do it at school? Why not anyplace else?”
But it was done as far a Bob was concerned. I had a bad feeling about it, but the wheels were in motion. Once we arrived at school, Bob wanted to walk through the school and take the gym exit to the athletic field. I thought we should just walk around the outside of the building, but Bob was pretty persuasive. Once inside, there were two routes we could take. Bob chose the route that passed the main office where Dr. Dunn stood every morning greeting students as they passed. “No,” I said. “Not that way. I don't want to see Dr. Dunn right now.” “Just be cool,” Bob insisted. “We'll just say good morning and walk on by like we do every morning.”
As we turned the corner I looked up the hall and Dr. Dunn was there as usual. Only this morning there were two other men in dark suits standing with him as well as Vice Principal Lewis.
“Turn around,” I said. Those guys with Dr. Dunn look like cops.” I said. “Be cool and walk on by.” was all Bob said, and we continued up the hall. I made eye contact with Dr. Dunn and I noticed he was very focused on us which was not the norm. Still we walked forward. Once we were in range, Dr. Dunn greeted us. Something else he rarely did. He would nod and smile when we said hello, but he was not usually outgoing. “Good morning boys,” he said as the men in dark suites fanned out across the hall. One of them was trying to take our flank. “Good morning Dr. Dunn,” Bob said. “What's in the gym bag Bob?” asked Dr. Dunn. “Just gym clothes,” Bob said. “Mind if we have a look?” This time is was a dark suit talking as he moved in. Bob and I both turned and started running back the way we came with four suites chasing us. We dodged in an out of the students headed for class with the suites closing fast. Books were flying everywhere as we bumped and shoved our way through the crowd. Coming our way and easy to see because he was a head taller than everyone else was Lee Smith. Bob shouted,
“Lee!” and threw the gym bags over the heads. Lee, being one of us, needed no further instructions. He saw the men chasing us and took off with the bag. Someone tackled Bob, and I make a zig and a zag and bolted into the gym and hid under the bleachers and the suites ran through and out the other side. When the coast was clear, I went to my home room class like nothing had happened.
As soon as I entered homeroom all eyes were on me. I sat down next to Bob Mohler and Jimmy Messit. “Who were those guys chasing you Monto?” Mohler asked. Word travels fast in high school. I looked around the room and all eyes were on me. Then the intercom crackled and a voice said, “Mr. Kovack. Would you please send John Monto to the office?” Mr. Kovack looked at me and I got up and headed for the door without a work being spoken.
When I got to the office I was expecting to see Bob sitting in the waiting area outside Dr. Dunn's office, but all the seats were empty. “Sit down right over there and wait,” said the secretary, “Dr. Dunn is talking to the other boys and he'll call you in when he's ready for you.” This made me very nervous. This seemed to me like some kind of set up. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Who else is in there?”
The secretary was busy writing something and didn't even look up as she spoke as she spoke.
“Bob Pearce, Lee Smith, Chris Shaffer, and Donny Pearce.” she said. This was a startling development. How could they know all of those names already? I didn't like being the only one left out. I figured they were saying I had told on everyone else and without me being there to defend myself they would all confess and I would be blamed as a rat. I waited until the secretary was distracted and quickly walked in to Dr. Dunn's office. As soon as the door opened I could see the boys looking very scared sitting around the conference table. The suits and Dr. Dunn and Mr. Lewis were all looking very stern.
As soon as I appeared in the door Dr. Dunn jumped to his feet and began pushing the door closed.
“We'll call you in a minute,” he said. I blocked the door with my foot and talked as fast as I could.
“I just want to know why I was called to the office,” I said. Then I looked at the guys. Do you guys know what this is all about, because I sure don't.” Dr. Dunn shoved the door hard. “Out!” he said.
My attempt proved to have been effective a little later as the boys filed out in single file. “Keep your eyes straight ahead,” said Dr. Dunn. “Go with Mr. Lewis and no talking.” They kept their eyes forward as suggested but each one gave me a subtle thumbs up as they passed, which I took as a good sign.
Then they had me alone in the office sitting at the big conference table. There was Dr. Dunn and the two suites. Dr. Dunn spoke first.
“Okay, John”, he said. “We already know the whole story and the other boys have all signed confessions as to what happened. They have all been expelled from school and you will be too, but we just want to hear in your own words, your version of what happened.”
I have to admit it seemed like a done deal. Signed confessions? How was I going to get out of this one? But then I figured if I was already doomed, what would a little exploratory lying hurt.
“Well,” I said, “I'm glad you've got the whole story and all, but somebody better tell the story to me because I don't know what you're talking about.”
That's when one of the suits slapped his hand hard on the table and jumped to his feet. With his “Bad Cop” face a few inches from mine, he said, “Listen you little punk. We can get you for withholding information and it will only get worse for you.” And that's when I knew I had and edge.
“How can you get me for withholding information if you say you already have signed confessions?”
The suit kept his red angry face closes to mine. I could smell his rotten coffee breath.
“We already know it was you who went in through the window of the trailer. You then opened the door and let everyone else in. None of those other boys would have gotten through that window.”
I played dumb. “What trailer? What window?” I said. The madder they got and the longer the questioning went on, the more I knew they had nothing without my confession. I held fast to my ignorance of the situation, neither offering alternative versions or saying anything I could mess up later. “If you're so innocent, then why did you run this morning?” growled old coffee breath. I was a real smart ass. “Hey, a bunch of strange men in suits were coming at me. I thought you guys were child molesters. Bob said Run, so I ran. Maybe if you guys had shown a badge or something I wouldn't have been so scared, but I thought you guys wanted to feel my balls or something.” The other suite started laughing and the red faced guy stood up and turned away from me. I stuck to my story which was no story at all, and just pleaded ignorance.
It ended with them releasing me back to class. I had gotten away with it for now.
After school all of us met up at hill 69 to discuss matters. Bob was caught red handed so it was all over with him. Lee, who had nothing to do with anything until he caught the gym bag and ran, didn't even try to defend himself. He had almost gotten away with the bag, but he tried to hide it in a drain pipe and the cops saw him go into the pipe with the bag and sent a dog in after him. Chris Shaffer, who was great at playing innocent, just said he had gotten caught up in the mess and knew it was wrong and he was just doing what any boy would have done in the same situation. He was on the football team, and his parents made the case for him, so he got off with a three day suspension. Donny admitted to everything outright because he just didn't give a shit. But none of them mentioned my name. The code of silence had saved me.
Bob, and Donny were given a deal to avoid prosecution. Being older that the rest of us, they agreed to join the army, which they did. Bob served his time in Germany while Donny went to Vietnam. Lee was too young for the military and just disappeared for about two years. He lived in Florida and worked odd jobs until he was old enough to join the military and then he too went to Vietnam. Chris was back in school, but Dr. Dunn and the authorities were not done with me yet. Every day for two weeks as I was dressing for gym class, the announcement came over the intercom. “John Monto please report to Dr. Dunn's office.” It became comical after a while. I hated gym class and it was more of a reward than a punishment to be called away. Dr. Dunn referred to my office visits as, “grilling”. I think it really bugged him that he knew I was guilty and he couldn't prove it. Finally, Dr. Dunn told me one day that they had me. “We've got a witness. He told us everything and he's willing to testify in court.”
“What witness?” I said. “You'll find out when we go to trial.” I wasn't fazed. “I know my rights. I have a right to face my accuser. If you can't produce him, he doesn't exist,” I said. I knew there was no one because the only guys who knew I was there, were gone accept Chris Shaffer, and he had nothing to gain by ratting me out. So that episode ended finally with me getting off clean. I felt bad for the guys, and bad that so many of my buddies were no longer around. But I also knew I had dodged a bullet.
Jimmy Cagney would have been proud.