Rock Fight

By Paul Roberts

I’ve been wanting to write this “potential chapter” for some time. It’s lengthy for a blog post, and a rough draft, but as a chapter in a novel it is workable. The characters and the incident are fictional, but also an amalgam, a mix of actual childhood events. If the chapter ever needs a title, I’ll probably call it…

                                                                          Rock Fight

The Remington home - what Grandpa Remington still referred to as the ranch - had been encroached upon over the years to the point where there were other homes on two sides of the property. The river, with its raised dike road, ran along the north side of the ranch; the chain link fenced school district property was out the front door and across the road to the west; to the east, behind the 1920’s two story Remington house, was a five foot tall wooden picket fence that separated Remy and Kyle’s childhood world from the “backyard neighbors” in their modern 1960’s subdivision homes; and to the south, running along tree-lined Elm Street, was a quarter mile more of the subdivision. 

The first house to the south - the first subdivision house to be built, on the other side of more fencing - was home to the Wilson’s, a family of five consisting of mom, dad, two pleasant enough older sisters, and an unpleasant enough younger brother. Two grades ahead of Kyle, Will Wilson had taken it upon himself to be in charge of the neighborhood since moving in when the Remington boys were just old enough to play outside while their parents remained indoors. There were several boys Will’s age and older who lived further down the street, and it was clearly Will’s preference to spend his time bullying them. But when no other kids were around, he’d work his way out in front of the Remington’s, a hulking presence, quietly staring at whatever game Remy and Kyle were engaged in, arms folded, lips sneering. Fortunately, he seemed reticent to cross  the line onto the Remington property. He’d simply wait until the boys noticed him, thrust his chin up in his best intimidating gesture, and return to his side of the fence. Remy and Kyle learned to play most of their games towards the far side of their one and a half acre lot.

However, a favorite pastime for Remy and Kyle on a lazy summer day was target practice, with the target being the trunk of a massive elm tree on the front corner of their lot, adjacent to the Wilson home. The missiles they fired were rocks, thrown initially from only three “giant steps” steps back from the tree. Each successful strike meant backing up an additional three steps. The rather elaborate rules of the game required a full, major league baseball windup and fastball. No fair lobbing your rock to ensure an accurate throw. Any toss “in the dirt” was a miss. Any toss that struck the “climbing limb”, a branch at the top of their reach, was deemed too high. If a rock struck a glancing blow, the thrower could be awarded another toss, a “freebie” if his opponent felt it was warranted. If both missed at the same distance, the game continued at that distance.

At six and seven years old, Remy and Kyle were nearly identical in size, but Kyle’s additional year was evident in strength and confidence when it came to most of their games. Target practice was not one of them. Both boy’s aim was typically on the mark until they were at least nine steps away. The record without a miss for either brother was 15 “giant steps.” Eighteen steps was a mark they had never reached together, but each one had attained that elusive goal on his own.

Their years playing together had led to a shorthand form of communication that required a minimum of words.

“Rocks?” Remy asked his brother. Lunch was over, and the long, hot, summer afternoon had just begun.

Kyle nodded his agreement. “One.” Kyle wasn’t in the mood for a best of seven world series of rocks. One game would do.

They walked to the tree. Remy had issued the challenge, so Kyle got to select first from the pile of smooth but irregularly shaped, palm-sized stones they had spied and brought home while out exploring.

“It’s me,” Kyle said. Remy nodded, stewing a bit over the fact that losing the previous match meant Kyle got to go first today. Kyle stepped off three “giant steps” from the base of the tree, turned, and fired his rock at the tree.

“Stee-rike!” he called out, doing his best major league umpire impersonation. Remy stepped to the light line Kyle had drawn in the dry summer grass, wound up, and fired his own rock. These first throws tended to be a formality. Nobody could miss from three or six.

Nine was a different matter. No matter how much he concentrated, there were times when Remy’s arm seemed to have a mind of its own, and his rock would smack the fence to the left of the tree, or skitter into and across the road. “Southpaw!” Kyle would lightly jeer at him. Remy tried not to listen to his brother scoffing at his left-handedness. 

But they both hit nine steps. Then they both hit twelve. The sound of the rocks smacking the solid tree trunk was satisfying, and could be heard several houses down.

“Fifteen!” Remy beat his brother to the punch with the verbal challenge. There had only been a handful of times they had both thrown a strike at fifteen giant steps. Remy thought about shouting or moving during Kyle’s wind up, but that too was a violation of the rules. Kyle threw his rock and it glanced off the left side of the trunk, striking the Wilson’s fence loudly before it landed.

Kyle turned and looked into his brother’s eyes. Remy thought he knew what the look meant. The rules were that Remy could call it a miss, and step up to throw knowing he could win. Or he could give his older brother a “good enough” and by doing so would accept the pressure that came with needing a successful throw to keep the game going.

“Good enough.”

Remy stared back into his brother’s eyes, and then was surprised to see a smile creep onto Kyle’s face.

“Do it. You can do it!”

Remy heard his brother’s words, saw the look on his face, and realized what his brother really wanted: both of them, at 18 steps.

Remy stepped to the line in the grass, then looked toward Kyle, who simply nodded. Remy focused his eyes on the trunk of the tree, reared back, and began his forward motion.

“Haaaah!” Will Wilson’s shout as he came around the corner of the fence was impeccably timed, designed as it was to disrupt Remy’s concentration and cause him to miss his target. However, Will’s decision making was “lacking” as their father said to them later that night, after he and Mr. Wilson “had a little visit” about the afternoon altercation.

When Will rounded the corner of the fence, shouting to high heaven, Remy missed his mark but managed to hit the older boy in the shoulder. Will stopped in his tracks, rubbed his shoulder for a moment, then bent over and picked up the rock Remy had thrown. He tossed it lightly from one hand to the other, and then, for the first time that Remy and Kyle knew of, dared to step onto the Remington property. Making a beeline for Remy,  Will held the rock in his hand high above his head, looking for all the world like he intended to bring it down on Remy like a hammer. Remy was so shocked he couldn’t get his legs to move. He just stood in place waiting for the blow.

Later that night, as they talked some more with their father about the incident, Remy confessed that when he first heard Kyle’s shout, he thought for sure it was his father’s voice.

“You’ll not be doin’ that!” Everything about the commanding shout from Kyle sounded like their father, except the octave. But even that was close.

Will stopped in his tracks, and his attention was drawn toward Kyle. There was a moment of confusion for him, until he realized it actually had been Kyle’s voice that stopped him. “What did you say?”

“I said you’ll not be doin’ that. You’ll not be touchin’ him.”

“Well how ‘bout if I touch…you.” 

Each word brought Will one step closer to Kyle, until on the final syllable, he jabbed at Kyle’s forehead forcefully with the rock in his hand. Kyle stumbled backward, caught himself, and brought his hand to his forehead. It came away smeared with blood.

“That was when the banshee attacked,” Kyle told his father with a smile later that night.

The sight of the blood dribbling down from his brother’s forehead loosed whatever had been holding Remy in place. He ran at Will from behind, leaped high onto his back, and with his legs wrapped around Will’s torso, his right arm around his neck, “Remy finally put that southpaw of his to some good use, Dad.”

“And he’s not going to do it ever again. Are you Remy?”

“No sir.”

“And the next time you want some target practice with that old elm tree, what are the two of you going to do?

The brothers answered in unison. “Invite Will over, sir.”

***********************************************************************************************************************

Pick an event from childhood and fictionalize it in a story. Can you make a difficult story “safer” by retelling it as fiction?

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