Trouble
25.May.2003
By Shalagh Knight
Growing up in the wilds of Montana as a child provided me with many things I carried through to my adult life. One was a wild sense of adventure, and another was the ability to amuse myself. In the summer months, when the sun was hot, we girls would go out to see what kind of trouble we could get into. As soon as we found it, we got down to the business of getting into it as fast as we could...
One of the places we were able to find all the trouble we could manage was the farm next door. We were a farm of girls and they were a farm of boys. One of the boys was named Robert, and the other's name was Roy. I was in love with the former. Robert was a big tall boy, age fourteen, with a love for animals that matched my own. He was the cutest boy in my whole eight-year-old world. I went over and followed after him like a puppy as much as I could in those years, sitting at his feet and soaking up all the wisdom he could pour out onto me. Also soaking up all his colorful language. I was proud of this new language and tried to use it in big sentences to impress my parents. They were not so impressed. So much for self-improvement.
One summer day we spent long hours in the sun setting off M-80s in all the fresh and semi-fresh cow pies we could find. We all took turns seeing how close we could get to the explosion without being struck by the offending muck. We would also light the firecrackers and place them under things. Pots, pans and hubcaps were our favorite items. Once in a while we even threatened to use them on each other. When that got old, the boys lit the fuses and held them until the last second before throwing them high in the air to explode like a cannon. The girls never attempted this trick. We did, however, run for water and bandages often for the boys. We all did our part for one another, I suppose.
After a day of blowing various things up, the boys included, we would move to fire. The boys had motorbikes, and Robert would dump some of the gas onto his hand and light it on fire. It was a trick which never failed to get giggles and shrieks out of us girls. I remember the time he poured the gas onto his hand and it dumped on his pants and shoes as well. The delight we had when Robert fired up his hand and the flame jumped down one leg and set his shoes on fire was indescribable. (I will, however, do my best.)
The flame lit up Robert like fourth of July fireworks, blazing down one side of his body, and this brought a certain alarm to him. He began to use his colorful words, which I quickly noted, saving them in my memory banks for later use. He began to dance around, beating on himself with his hands. Unfortunately, every time he hit himself with his flaming hand, a new place on his person burst into flames. He then became frightened and started running in circles frantically, while swatting the air with his hands, and threw in a few Russian squat kicks for good measure, all the while screaming a pretty sissy scream if you ask me.
After several laps around the yard, his brother tackled him to the ground and snuffed out the fire. When we girls could see through the tears of laughter, we assessed the damage. Robert had no hair on his hand and a good deal was gone from his eyebrows. His shoes were melted and his jeans had a hole in it. It would have been the coolest thing ever if he hadn't been crying. For the rest of the evening we amused one another with gross pantomimes of Robert's performance. He was not amused by our shenanigans. It almost made me feel sorry for him, but even more impressed.
The lengths he would go to amuse us girls went unrivaled all summer. Oh sure, he still lit things on fire, but never again was it himself. I guess when it came to firing up his own person, Robert was a one-trick pony.
