Stalking the Paper Boy

Had an epic night on the town and don’t feel the need to stop the shenanigans? All you need are two duffel bags full of fireworks and a paper boy to make it more interesting.

So there we were, a bunch of drunk Lieutenants cruising through town in a Chevy Blazer after the bars had closed for the evening. I’d like to say we had a designated driver chauffeuring us about the town like responsible young officers, but honestly I don’t remember who was behind the wheel, much less his state of inebriation. For all I know, Snoopy or the Great Pumpkin was piloting a Roman Chariot.

It was 3am and for some reason we felt the need to enact a little mischief on Fayetteville, North Carolina. When you think about it, this is really a bad idea. Fayetteville is the ulcer attached to Fort Bragg and is home to several thousand elite soldiers. If there’s one heavily armed community prone to violence and adamant about defending their property rights with firearms, it’s Fayetteville and its surrounding communities.

“I got fireworks,” a guy we’ll call Sparky said. Suddenly the situation went from boring to mildly perilous. For some unknown reason, Sparky had decided to hoard fireworks in his apartment for like, ten years. He’d amassed half of China in two hockey bags full of bright colorful munitions, all splattered with the word DANGER across them. If you’re never seen a hockey bag, it’s the most gigantic duffel known to man that’s built to carry an entire team’s worth of gear. You could hide Anna Nicole Smith’s body in one, even in her most bloated state. And these things were stuffed full of bottle rockets, jumping jacks, roman candles, small sticks of dynamite, industrial strength mortar-type munitions, and some sort of Himalayan fish paralyzers. The sight was beyond belief.

Half an hour later, we stood at the end of a dam…or a reservoir, I’m not sure which, with one of the bags at our feet, lighting entire bricks of bottle rockets at a time and throwing them into the air to watch them whizz away in every direction. The theory was that if something happened, we could dump the bag into the water (thirty feet below) and skeedaddle. That briefs well until you hear the one question that stops all the fun.

“Uh…what if a spark gets in the bag?” Lieutenant Worrywart asked.

“Ha! It would take a lot more than a spark to…”

WHOOSH, WHOOSH. Two bottle rockets flew out of the bag past my head followed immediately by the white-hot balls of phosphorous from a roman candle. One of them actually singed my ear. In a nanosecond Pandora’s Box was unleashing hell on the world. I felt like a bear on the wrong end of an angry beehive attack.

“Run for your lives!” Worrywart screamed like Monty Python fleeing the killer rabbit. I didn’t hesitate to follow his example since every firework known to man was spewing out of the bag and arcing in vengeful anger toward our backs as we sprinted toward the car. A hundred feet away and satisfied we were out of the maximum effective range of anything in the bag (we weren’t), we stopped and looked back at the Mount Vesuvius of gun powder erupting at the end of the reservoir. Every form and color of fire possible was flying in every direction. For the next three minutes it was the greatest show on earth. Only Jimmy Hendrix’s version of the Star-Spangled Banner in the background would have made it better. The hollow slapping sound of a round slamming into the side of the Blazer only took it a notch up the awesome scale.

When it ended I only saw one feasible course of action. “Time for the other one,” I said reaching into the back of the Blazer.

“No way!” Sparky replied angrily. “It took me a long time to collect that stuff and you guys just blew it off in seconds.” He was pissed and probably had a right to be. One of his giant hockey bags smoldered at the end of a dam in a four-foot high greenish-blue fire. He wasn’t open to the prospect of having it happen again to the rest of his precious munitions. I argued, but it was futile. The bag sat in the back of the blazer, the embodiment of temptation as we drove away wondering what we were going to do because we STILL didn’t feel like going home. In the end there was no other option. We pointed the Blazer toward our apartment complex and surrendered to the night.

Until we saw him…pedaling his bike in all his innocence delivering little wrapped up tidbits of happiness like Santa Claus – the Paper Boy. Somehow Sparky (that’s who was driving…I knew I’d remember it) found a shortcut through an affluent neighborhood just as the dutiful lad was making his rounds, starting everyone’s morning off right (yes…this was before the internet – get over it).

“Pull over,” I said to Sparky.

“Why?”

“Be like Nike. Just do it.”

News Flash! Ranger Up are jackasses.

With the Paper Boy a good hundred meters in front and sure he wouldn’t turn and focus his “I want my two dollars” rage on me, I ran out and grabbed the paper he’d just dropped in a driveway and ran back to the car with the stupidest trophy I’d ever won. It wasn’t the kleptomaniac “I must steal something” satisfaction, but more like a giddiness at causing some wealthy North Carolinian a moment of confusion. I laughed at the thought of him walking to the end of his driveway in slippers and a monogrammed robe only to return to his abode empty handed. It seemed like a good Fuck You to The Man even though I had nothing against The Man. He seems like a pretty respectable guy to be honest.

“Happy?” Sparky asked.

“Nope. Follow him.”

“Are you serious?”

“YES. Follow him!”

After accumulating fifty papers and completely wearing out the humor of the prank, I should have listened to my buddies and given in. But alas, I did not.

“Just let me get this last one,” I said leaping from the still moving vehicle. I should have realized I was phucked when the vehicle slowed only enough for me to dismount without being killed, but again…drunk. Reason is an afterthought in these times. I grabbed my “last” paper of the morning and turned only to see the tail lights of the Blazer screaming away as Worrywart and some other backstabber in the back seat tossed every paper into the street. If that wasn’t enough, just moments after they rounded a corner I heard Sparky’s distinct voice echo through the neighborhood.

“Hey Paper Boy. That dude back there is stealing your papers!”

Oh crap.

To this day I think this kid may have been Lance Armstrong because before I could blink he and his bike were staring me down on the sidewalk. He pedaled at light speed while my brain continued to operate in slow motion, still holding the “last” paper in my hand. He couldn’t have been more than 12 years old, so I figured I could take him if he started shit. But then he whipped out his secret weapon that hit me where it really hurt.

He cried. Right there on his bike he looked at the strewn about papers in the street and welled up. “Why would you do that?” he implored.

It cut me to the bone. I didn’t say a word. Just looked at him with that “I’m an idiot,” face and picked up his day’s work. I couldn’t carry them all, so I took my shirt off, made a little basket with it and walked the long, slow walk of shame back down the street dropping each one off as he rode his bike behind me.

When the last paper was back in its rightful place and I prepared to walk the two miles back to my apartment, I looked the kid in the eye and apologized in my own dumb way.

“You don’t realize it now, but this will be funny in ten years. Hell, you may even do the same thing yourself.”

“These people count on me,” he said. “I could lose my job because of you. I’m already way behind today.”

I admired his sense of duty. He seemed over-emotional, but he took pride in what he did. I respected that a lot more than the douchebags who left me out there at his mercy. It was time to return the favor.

“Do you like fireworks, kid?”