by
Ronald E. Wright
“Fuckin’ bull’s-eye!” Larry said. Both boys fell to the ground, doubled up in laughter.
But their celebration was cut short when a pair of headlights knifed the darkness at the entrance to the high school parking lot.
Sixty feet away in the circle drive behind the wheel of his idling pickup, Steve Wilson, the third member of the dubious triage, urgently shouted, “Haul ass, you guys! Someone’s comin.’”
Giggling hysterically, Larry and Benny leapt to their feet, sprinted for the escape vehicle, and dove headfirst into the pickup’s bed. Like a choreographed ballet, Steve stomped the gas pedal, and the old Ford fishtailed out of the parking lot via the back entrance burning rubber while Larry and Benny were pummeled by unused pumpkins rolling around in the truck’s bed. “Whoo-haa!” Steve said through the open rear window over the engine’s roar, “Bet you two turdheads never knew bein’ bad could feel so damn good!”
Fifteen minutes later, Steve pulled over beneath a weeping willow tree draped along the side of county road D, four miles removed from Hay Corner, Iowa. So far, they’d had quite an evening thanks to a volatile blend of youthful testosterone and two cases of Old Style beer - - eleven mailboxes either dented or knocked clean off their posts by pumpkins stolen from local farmers, or Jack-O’-Lanterns filched off of front porches. And of course, there was the ‘crowning jewel’ of their achievements at the high school.
Savoring the moment, the trio sat in the front seat and laughed their asses off. Then, gasping for breath, Steve turned to his friends and said, “Goddam - - gonna piss myself, yet. One of you guys wanna snag me another ‘Dog Style’ from the cooler in back?”
Benny snorted at Steve’s sexual innuendo regarding their favorite beer. Then he turned, grabbed a can, and lobbed it to his friend. “Sure thing, boss.” Then he said, “I don’t know about you two fuckheads, but I don’t want this night to freakin’ end. What’s next?”
Steve belched and wiped the froth from his lips after chugging half a can. “Well, it’s gonna be tough toppin’ what we’ve already done. I mean: trashin’ those mailboxes is a Federal offense. By now, I’m sure someone’s phoned in some of our ‘handywork’ to the cops. I think we’d better lay low and cruise the countryside for three or four hours, then sneak back into town while we’re ahead. And speakin’ of that, we’d better ditch the rest of the pumpkins in the back so’s we don’t get busted.”
His friends were about to agree when a sly smile crossed his face. That thought would change the entire evening, and not for the better. “Wait a second. There’s something that we haven’t done, yet. You guys ever tipped a shitter?”
“Sure,” Larry said. “Tipped several of ‘em down at Goldie’s Cafe. Worst waitresses I ever had.”
Benny snorted and sprayed beer on the console. “Dammit. Just made me waste a quarter of my fuckin’ beer. What the hell you talkin’ about - - tippin’ a shitter?”
Struggling mightily to regain control of himself, Larry said, “He’s askin’ whether we’ve ever tipped over one of those old-fashioned outhouses, numbnuts. Used to be a major Halloween prank back in our grandparent’s generation.”
“No, can’t say that I have,” Benny replied. “And anyway: where we gonna find an outhouse? They’re not exactly common nowadays, you know.”
“You kiddin’ me, Benny?” Steve said, “We’re smack-dab in the center of southern Iowa. I know where there’s one not five miles from here.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the trio pulled to a stop on the edge of a dusty gravel road. “This is the place,” Steve said, pointing to a crumbling Victorian crouching in the moonlight on their left. Near the front of the yard, a tilted Realtor’s sign struggled to stay afloat in a sea of weeds. “Shitter’s around back.”