December Park(24)

“I’ve got my butterfly knife,” Scott suggested.

Peter seemed to consider this for a moment before saying, “Okay.”

While Scott’s butterfly knife had always impressed me with how deadly it looked, it suddenly seemed inconsequential now in light of all that had been going on in our hometown. But I said nothing.

At the top of the hill we crossed the intersection and continued north. Here, only a few clapboard houses dotted the landscape, which was pretty much farmland straight out to the main highway that led out of town.

A water tower appeared from behind a stand of leafless trees, looking like one of the giant alien fighting machines in The War of the Worlds. Just beyond the water tower was our destination—the Harting Farms town sign that stood at the southernmost border of our town. It had once proclaimed, Welcome to Harting Farms, before a wicked storm in the early eighties eradicated the first two words, leaving only the city’s name on the sign.

The four of us approached the large hand-carved sign and stared up at it. This close, it was higher off the ground than any of us had originally thought—perhaps fifteen feet. It was spotlighted from beneath by two halogen bulbs that cast stark shadows around the three-dimensional wooden letters screwed into the wooden plank.

“Fuck, that’s high up,” Michael marveled. “Doesn’t look so high when you drive past it, huh?”

“It’s more lit up than I thought, too,” Peter added. He was still trying to catch his breath. “Those lights are seriously bright.”

“You changing your mind?” I asked Michael. I had forgotten about the halogen bulbs, too; it seemed foolish to climb up there while they burned so brightly. If a car happened along this stretch of road, we would be spotlighted like inmates escaping a prison yard.

“Heck no.” Michael walked around the base of one of the two thick posts that held the sign up off the ground. “I’m just recalculating.”

“Wonderful,” Peter muttered under his breath.

Scott swiped at the air with his butterfly knife, feigning an attack on an invisible assailant. When he caught my eye, he looked briefly embarrassed, but then he smiled and shrugged, as if to say, Eh, what can you do?

“Here,” Michael said. He was on the other side of the sign now, standing in the tall weeds. “Come take a look at this.”

We all went around to the rear of the sign. Huge bolts had been drilled into the rear of the posts and into the back of the sign. Each bolt head looked nearly the size of a child’s fist. Michael pointed them out to us even though they were perfectly evident.

“We can use them as handholds, like rungs in a ladder, and climb up,” he said. “When we get to the top of the post, we can stand on it and lean over the top of the sign. This way we’re partially shielded from cars, and we can duck behind it quickly if we have to.”

“What’s all this ‘we’ business?” I said.

“You’re such a *, Mazzone,” he countered. “You don’t have to do a single thing, okay? How’s that sound?”

“Sounds pretty good actually.”

Hands on his narrow hips and his oversized pith helmet crooked on his head, Michael took a few steps backward while keeping his gaze trained on the rear of the sign and the twin posts. He chewed on his lower lip and looked lost in his own unique brand of mischievous contemplation.

“Anyway,” he said after a moment, “we only really need one of us to do it.”

“Not it,” Peter barked.

“Not it,” I shouted.

“Not it,” Scott said just as Michael unhinged his jaw to perhaps disqualify himself from his own plan.

Peter laughed and pointed at Michael.

“Yeah, yeah,” Michael said, dropping his pith helmet to the ground and motioning for Scott to hand over the knapsack. “I was gonna do it anyway. Couldn’t leave something as important as this to one of you goofballs.” He took a screwdriver out of the knapsack.

It looked huge and ridiculous in the garish light from the halogen lamps, like a rubber horror movie prop. If we were attacked by a faceless child killer tonight, I’d sooner take the screwdriver as protection than Scott’s butterfly knife.

Michael stepped over to one of the posts and propped his sneaker on the lowest of the bolt heads. “You guys hoist me up.”

Peter and I came up behind him and pushed against his bony ass. Michael pulled himself up, using the bolt heads as handholds. Without warning, he released a meaty and powerful fart.

“Oh, you shit head!” I cried, staggering backward and wrinkling up my face.

Peter, who’d burst out laughing the second we heard the trumpet call, waved a hand before his nose and tried to speak but couldn’t. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

Scott poked his head up underneath the sign and laughed at us, then looked at Michael who was scaling the ledge along the back of the sign.

I hurried around to the front of the sign just as Michael’s head appeared over the top.

He grinned like a Cheshire cat. In the light of the halogen lamps, he had the wild-eyed countenance of the devil himself. He brought his arms down and felt around for the letters below him. “They’re bigger than they look. The letters, I mean.”

“Just hurry.” I felt naked out here in the open. If a car drove by we were screwed.