04JULY1976

We left the box in the clearing in the woods behind the Weidner’s house, with the roach clips and the plastic bag o’porn that Corrigan swiped from his dad’s closet and everything else that made us feel dirty and alive back then. Stu was older so he was the reefer guy. Kenny always brought fireworks to blow crap up. My job was music—I carried the boombox with the built-in 8-track player. I had Zeppelin IV on 8-track that summer because my old man made me take the vinyl back to the store; the symbols on the cover looked satanic to him. Is that what you want to do? he said, disgusted. Invite the devil into your head? Next thing you know you’ll be in the woods doing cult rituals. That’s how it starts, he said. Little things. Tiny fingerholds.

We were lit up, rambling on with Plant, Going to California, when Kenny showed up carrying old Mrs. Morton’s cat with its pink collar and we thought that was some hilarious shit and all of a sudden Kenny shouts incoming! and runs and the boom knocked us all backwards and when we sat upright our ears rang and there were little red stringy bits stuck to our legs. Stu yelled what the fuck was that and Kenny said M80 and we made that asshole scoop the back half of the cat into the box so we didn’t have to look at it.

We walked back to Millwood without a word. Someone was blowing Sousa out their front porch window for the Bicentennial and the air reeked of charcoal grills and gunpowder. I felt fingernails in my head, digging, and they didn’t ease up until I resolved to knock on Mrs. Morton’s door and offer to mow her lawn. She would call my mom and say what a nice young man I’d become, not like 1976’s other derelict youth, and will you please let me know if anyone finds my Tinkerbelle.

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