OUT ON A LIMB
by
E.R.Yatscoff
Copyright © 2012 E. R. Yatscoff
Published by yatscoff books.
*****
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This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author © Out On A Limb
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This book is a work of fiction. Certain locations and public figures are mentioned but all other characters and events are totally imaginary. Any similarities are coincidental.
Dedication
To Bill Stuart.
A toast to the boys of summer and long carefree summer adventures.
Also a special thanks to my writers group; Edna G., Tim P, Savanna H., and Ray S.
Thanks to my son, Joel, for the cover art.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 CRAZY OLD MAN
Chapter 2 READY, SET, GO
Chapter 3 ONWARD AND UPWARD
Chapter 4 BIG AL
Chapter 5 SABOTAGE
Chapter 6 E-W-D
Chapter 7 DADDY E
Chapter 8 CRISIS
Chapter 9 OUT ON A LIMB
Chapter 10 BIG TROUBLE
Chapter 11 OLESKIW’S MACHINE
Chapter 12 GOIN’ IN
Chapter 13 BUSTED
Chapter 14 THE OLD CAT’S CLAWS
To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
-Anatole France
French novelist (1844 - 1924)
Chapter 1
CRAZY OLD MAN
"I know you’re plottin’ something," I said to my friend Bill.
He raised a hand to shush me.
Bill Stalart and I sat on the bottom of the long wooden stairway beside his ground floor suite. The stairs ran up the side of the yellow-stucco apartment building to the one suite above.
"Like puttin’ an egg in a microwave. Ever do that?" asked Bill, nudging me with an elbow.
He was talking about Egghead, the rotund man pushing a gas mower across the front section of lawn. Bill’s green eyes were wide in expectation and his intense expression made me think of a hyena patiently waiting for a lion to leave its kill.
"Uh huh," I said, fascinated at the man's ugly head. "It looks like it could really blow today." I recalled cleaning the mess from trying to speed up a three-minute egg. But to see a human head explode...well, that was something else entirely. Cleaning up would take an awful lot of paper towels.
Egghead’s baldhead seemed to throb with every push and pull on the ancient mower. The shape of his body and head combined to give him an oval appearance of an egg. Blue smoke belched from the ancient machine, coughing and sputtering like a diesel truck badly needing a tune-up.
"Looks like he poured oil in the wrong hole again," commented Bill.
Blue veins on the sides of the old man’s head swelled with his effort. His double chins wobbled as he sucked in air. Three coils of skin, like fleshy ropes, wound back around his head from one ear to the other. An abnormally hot April sun baked down on him, creating thin rivers of sweat that forked around his large ears and stained his blue shirt collar. He usually let the yard grow wild until he got the inclination to cut it back. Sometimes the grass grew as tall as a barley field, nearly hiding the mower.
"He may be going down for the count here," I said.
After every swath he’d pause to wipe his sweaty brow with a ratty rag. He lacked eyebrows to divert the torrent from his eyes. All throughout the wiping he’d stare at us for a time before returning to his task.
"He’s giving us the evil eye," said Bill.
The deathly, cold look was pure horror movie stuff. His eyes were black and unblinking as a snake’s. Bruised rings circling them were just like a Zombie’s.
"Uh, then what’s the stink eye?" I asked.
"It’s like the evil eye, but it means he’s comin’ to get ya."
I shuddered.
"Something’s gotta happen," said Bill.
Okay, maybe his head wouldn’t blow, but fainting, hitting the ground, getting knocked out, and getting run over by his own mower was likely. Sliced and diced. If an accident did happen, Bill and I would swoop in like superheroes to finish the lawn--for a price.
Because it was a big job, it required a substantial wage. There was only grass on the front and on Bill’s side, but a lot of it.
"And if it does happen?"
"Ten bucks. No prisoners," I replied.
We slapped high fives. It was a fair price based on what Bill charged his customers. Of course, we’d try to squeeze him for fifteen, but ten became bottom line for a five and five split.
Egghead did have a real name--Mr. Morella. It was hard to judge his age. Not only was he bald, but his entire body appeared to be hairless, smooth, as if he’d been dipped in a chemical bath. Not a nose thread or spiraling ear hair in sight.
As the owner of the building he was also the caretaker in every sense of the word. He did everything no matter how tough the task. His sacred space occupied the other entire half of the building with his suite upstairs, diagonal from the Stalarts', and his dirt-floor garage below. A young married couple lived above Bill but we hardly ever saw them.
Egghead's dirt-floor garage sure raised a lot of speculation about what lay under it. Bill and I believed it hid plenty of secrets. No one in the neighborhood seemed to know much about Egghead as he lived here long before any of the neighbors.
Old Mr. Oleskiw, a neighbor of thirteen or so years told us his suspicions. "Morella’s got a treasure of loot buried under the dirt. Might be some kind of Commie gold from when Mr. Morella fled Hungary, or somewhere, in the 50’s. I see a light in there sometimes at night." Then he gave us a look holding all the intrigue in the world. "I can sometimes hear him digging in there."
The treasure in our minds somehow became riches beyond belief. Egghead guarded his garage as if the Holy Grail itself were inside. The only time the wooden garage doors remained partly opened for any length of time was when he cut the grass or hoed the garden. The few times when he happened to leave it ajar and unguarded for a minute or two, Bill and I'd stroll past, real slow, for a long look. The old man didn’t have a car so nothing inside blocked our view. Sure enough, there were sections of the floor that looked recently disturbed making it awful tempting to sneak in some night with a shovel. The only thing stopping us was our lack of invisible powers, the heavy padlock, and fear.
"I been thinkin’ about him and got some stuff in mind," said Bill.
"Such as?"
He held up a hand. "It’s still brewin’. Seeing if it’ll fly before I tell you."
I thought he was plotting another mean joke on Egghead. Bill once got his kid brother Johnny, to jump on his shoulders and, with a pencil, draw a jagged line high up on the stucco wall. Bill said it drove Egghead to distraction, going so far as calling in a builder, making sure the building didn’t crumble.
Egghead’s pushes became robot-like struggles; planting his weight on one foot, then another, developing a mechanical sway as he leaned heavily to bull the mower forward. Even so, the old man never forgot to keep one eye targeted on us like an armed Hellfire missile.
Bill’s mom said he gave her the creeps. The look maybe couldn’t stop a small car, but it did occasionally stop a kid on a bicycle. The longer the stare, the more uneasy we’d become. Strange how that look could make a person feel guilty, as if Morella knew every deep dark secret in our souls.
Bill figured him for a one-time prison warden. Mr. Oleskiw mentioned Morella might have been a death-camp guard to which Bill nodded, validating his own suspicions. You’d want a face like Eggheads all your guards. Scary having a guy like that in the neighborhood. I couldn’t face those inky eyes for more than a few seconds before feeling myself tremble.
I think Egghead disliked my hair; bright as an orange peel, short-cropped, and bristly, it was my constant nemesis; a beacon atop my pale freckled face attracting all manner of comments. Carrot Top being the most common.
My mom gave me the hair and fair complexion that tended to burn in the sun. My father added a short, wiry build, so I was always a year or so behind in height compared to other kids. "Down a quart" as my father would say. My nickname became Squirt--somewhat better than Leonard. Only my parents called me Leonard, or sometimes Lenny. If there existed such a thing as reincarnation, next go-round I’d choose tall parents with Latino complexions.
Bill handled Morella’s ‘evil eye' well enough. He could meet those eyes longer than I could. The old man always blamed Bill and his younger brother, Johnny, for every problem around the building. Last January, some local kids rounded up a few dozen Christmas trees which were set out on the street for the Boy Scouts’ annual tree burn. The kids tossed the trees into a huge pile right on Egghead’s driveway. Bill wished he’d thought of that one. As usual, the grouch came directly to the Stalart’s door, grumbling and complaining, and the usual threat to throw the family out, which always tended to unnerve Bill’s mom. Bill’s father, a pipeline worker, died in a gas explosion about five years ago.
The mower began to cough and sputter like a wounded animal.
Bill nudged me sharply. "Check that out, Squirt!"
Egghead slowly tilted himself down onto all fours to unclog long, wet grass from the mower’s side chute--with the engine still running. The dark blue case containing glasses he rarely wore, slid out of his shirt pocket.
My eyes widened. "He’s crazy!" He obviously hadn’t read the manual and the number one rule of machinery--kill the power during repairs. "Even cats only have nine lives."
Our backs stiffened, anticipating this just might be it--the final time he would tempt fate.
Bill cackled like a crow. "That's gonna hurt. We may have to get out the rake."
I thought more along the lines of ice and a plastic baggie and a hand-off of several fingers to a surgeon.
But Egghead dodged another bullet. He tugged out a clump of sod. The motor, now free of the obstacle, roared to full rpms again. His hands patted the grass in front of him, feeling around, finally clamping onto the glasses case.
Bill sighed. "It’s always an adventure when he’s out here."
I nodded. "The Evel Knievel of yard work. I wish he’d hire us before he really does hurt himself. I know I could use the cash."
Bill looked down at me with a raised brow. "If you want some bucks you gotta start bangin' on doors like I did last year. All the old codgers are one year older this spring. Sooner or later, you’ll have to get lucky. Egghead’s not gonna live forever."
"Easier said than done," I replied in my defense. "Being a short for my age doesn’t give me any advantages. I tell them I just have to push the mower, not wrestle it." People said I looked even younger than thirteen. I’d been cutting grass in my own yard since last year. The old codger clique around here was a tough nut to crack. Many of them already had someone on their payroll, grunts who also shoveled snow.
Bill did both for Mr. Oleskiw all last year. In contrast to me, Bill was big for his age and already had faint traces of a beginning mustache. He kept his thin, brown hair long, with a part down the middle.
I had a sudden brainstorm. "We should fertilize his yard, like you do to your customers. But do it at night, of course. The extra work will run him ragged, really get his head to pop."
Bill chuckled as only an opportunist could. "Yeah, at night. Brilliant," he muttered. "Has to be at night. Grow like a jungle up past the windows."
Part of Bill’s lawn service was to dump plenty of fertilizer--what he called magic beans--guaranteeing a return trip in little time. That’s why he had more money in his pockets than mine; however, one stop at the corner store would empty them.
Egghead’s Super Happy Fun Place was at a picnic table under the giant weeping willow growing on Bill’s side. His second favorite spot was perching like a hideous lawn ornament on a white wooden stool in front of his garage monitoring Bill across the street cutting Mr. Oleskiw’s lawn. Bill never did approach Egghead on mowing the expanse around the apartment building, but it was obvious he could get the job done.
Every other kid around here was terrified of Egghead. He’d often yell at kids passing by, barking like a guard dog.
Bill flipped his long, brown hair from his face with a flick of his head. A thoughtful look crossed his face.
"C’mon," he said.
We moved away from the stairs to the shed behind the building. I could tell gears in Bill’s head were beginning to mesh because his eyes darted madly. He cleared his throat to speak--impatient his mouth had to catch up with his rapid thoughts.
"Well?" I prompted.
"No," he replied flatly and cited yard measurements. "Fertilizing this would cost way too much. It’s too big, we’d need two or three bags every time."
His rapid calculations and logic made me wonder how he could do so poorly in school. "What about just dumping some piles here and there?"
"That’s an idea. Grow massive mountains of grass."
The mower died in a series of sputters. A ring of silence, like a ripple of water, swept across the yard. We stepped around the corner.
Egghead’s face paled noticeably. He leaned against the mower’s push arm for support, dizzy, his body swaying as if swirling around inside a toilet bowl. Out came the rag for a shaky mopping of sweat. He trudged across the yard to the garage.
"He’s not looking so good," I remarked.
Bill’s tall frame stiffened. "Now’s our chance!"
His green eyes sparked. If he were a cat, I’m sure his tail would be whipping back and forth.
"It is?"
"Yeah. We sabotage the mower and wait until he gives up tryin’ to fix it. We go over, offer our fix-it services, and collect."
He made it sound so easy. The hardest part wouldn’t be removing the plug wire or clogging the air intake--it would be getting up enough nerve to approach Egghead face-to-face, then actually speak to him.
We headed up the gravel drive, double-time, toward the mower. But Egghead was already returning. Bill and I played it cool, slowing, and continued walking out to the sidewalk.
He gave us the evil eye like he knew what we were plotting. He’d shed the blue-button shirt for a fresh white T-shirt. A brown towel draped around his neck. He yanked the start cord, firing up the old beast. There wasn’t much grass left to cut, but the effort took its toll, leaving his skin ashen and his legs wobbly--a candidate for the intensive care unit. He hobbled away dragging the mower like a reluctant pet.
We ambled over to the back yard fence and stood under the giant weeping willow beside the creaky picnic table. He set his hands on his hips and gazed up the massive tree.
"We really should do something with this tree, you know," he said, his head bobbing as he calculated, plotted, and weighed the odds.
"Like what?"
"Remember that old tree house we used to go to?"
"In the woods?"
"No, we didn't have that one long. The one by the old canal, remember?"
It might be a stretch calling a wooden platform in a maple tree a tree house. Everyone tried to claim it. Plenty of kids used it and abused it. We'd bike out there a few times in summer and have a front row seat to watch water skiers zip past on the old Welland shipping canal. The Water Ski Club kept a jump ramp out there; the wipeouts were tremendous.
A group of kids from the far corner of town tried to claim it as theirs. One day last summer, Bill got into a scrap with one of them, mostly pushing and some shoving. Our last time there we were chased off by hostiles. It wasn’t worth catching a beating so we eventually quit going there. It seemed like such a long time ago.
"It was kind’a far though," I added.
Bill nodded. "But fun, eh?"
"Yeah, for sure. I liked having the water so close, going for a dip anytime we wanted."
Bill cleared his throat. "Well...I think we should put one up..." he pointed high above his head to the very center of the tree, "...right there."
I blew out a blast of doubt. "Sure. Right up Egghead’s nose. No problem," I said wryly. "I’ll go knock on his door to tell him, save us from wasting our time."
He held up a hand. "It won’t be easy--but it will be exciting." A mischievous glint sparked in his eyes. "Maybe even dangerous. Best of all, it’ll be right here!"
I shook my head and scratched my short-cropped hair.
"C’mon Squirt. A tree house right here anytime we want? All summer? It’ll be the coolest thing ever. What more could we ask for?"
"Ask to get your brain checked."
Chapter 2
READY, SET, GO
We stood under the shady willow for some time discussing our secret project.
"It’ll be right here, in the yard. No one can kick us out or tell us what to do," said Bill.
"We can put in some furniture and some shelves for our slingshots and comics inside," I said, my excitement growing.
Bill nodded. "And when everyone’s complaining about the hot, humid nights we’ll be sleeping out under the clouds."
If Bill wasn’t afraid to do the job, neither was I. With my help he’d build it faster too, with less chance of getting caught.
"Okay, but if things get too hot with Egghead I gotta back out," I said.
Bill clucked and flapped his elbows in a really bad impression of a chicken. It didn’t bother me because I really was afraid of the scary old man. Bugging me most was being part of something resulting in getting the Stalart family in trouble. I didn’t want any part of that.
The chances of getting caught were high. So far Bill survived tormenting the old man, but it wasn’t for lack of trying by the old man. He just couldn’t catch Bill red-handed. Bill did small things to drive him wild: moving the picnic table out of the shade, fooling with the garage doors, or leaving junk on the front lawn.
Egghead often left his hoe standing in the garden while he went to his apartment. Bill would swipe it, then return it the next day to the exact spot, no doubt causing the old man to doubt his mental faculties. In return, Egghead would occasionally turn off the water to the Stalart’s apartment.
They played a cat-and-mouse game. Egghead, the cat, had good eyes--with the glasses--and keen hearing for an old guy. Like a phantom, he could sneak up on a person with his black, or sometimes plaid, open-heel slippers--stealth footwear.
Bill, the mouse, was quick, doing his mischief and scurrying away to his hole. We had no idea what the old man would do if he caught us in a tree house in his yard, especially with his quick, hot temper. Our best defense: keep our project out of sight.
"Big Al told me the trunk of this willow had to be at least the diameter of a tractor tire. Said it could be the biggest tree in town," said Bill.
His mom said it was a very old tree, maybe over a hundred years old.