8. Stop, drop, and roll

(aka Asians don't eat their pets)

Listen and read along to the next chapter of Misfortune Cookie. 🥠[If you’ve missed the previous chapter, don’t worry.] But I hope you click play ▶️ as this is my most dynamic recording to date! 😁Thanks ~

The younger brother with either Harry or Snowball; who can tell which adorable fur ball he has?

Larry’s Native American childhood name should have been “Plays with Fire”. The tribe would have watched him hold a magnifying glass on a sunshiny day to burn ants. Or seen him go to the backyard with salt from the kitchen to sprinkle over slugs. Elders might have also noticed that sometimes objects found themselves a new home in the comfort of his pockets.

He loved nature though. After all, you must in order to squat down by some flowers and try to pet a bee. As the older one, I’d watch this for a moment, then warn, “It’s going to sting youuu.” He ignored me, holding his finger out because the bee looked soft and inviting? After the bee stung him, and he went off crying to Mom, I contemplated, not for the first time, his intelligence.

But life has a funny way of laughing back because it turns out Larry’s the smarter one. So remember that the next time you see a kid trying to choke his grandma with the telephone cord or running into walls with forks in his fists, he’s a genius in waiting.

Larry and I were constantly outside, exploring, pushing the limits of how late to return home without getting in trouble. And even though we lived in a neighborhood of mostly boys, I was out as often as them, catching geckos (and releasing them), climbing walls, trees, and play structures. We rode our bikes, taught Garin’s younger brother Gavin swear words (or was it the other way around?), and lived for being outside. Boredom was not a problem.

So, you could argue that Larry was pretty much encouraged to grab a can of aerosol, hairspray, or air freshener, along with a Bic lighter to destroy whole colonies of insects. We were lightly supervised, if at all. Without the internet, or bad weather to tie us down, we even played outside our front door spilling our toys out on the AstroTurf. But thankfully, Larry had the good sense to practice his “flame thrower” method out of doors.

Contrary to what some folks think, not all Asians eat pets. I mean, Garin and Gavin’s family, who lived up the street, might have. That was the rumor. They’re Filipino or Korean. Maybe both. Dogs supposedly kept disappearing from their house, but I didn’t believe it. Speculation among us kids was strong, and there was serious discussion at parks and in between Lego and Atari sessions.

“Where did the black dog go? It was there for only three days.”

“Garin told me their Uncle took him.”

“Yeah, to eat.”

Snickers and laughter.

“No! That’s not true!” I said.

They were our friends, and friends didn’t eat dogs. Right?

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Whenever I was walking home and heard a fire truck I would quicken my step, my heart would beat faster and my eyes would sweep across the skyline for the telltale sign of smoke. I’d imagine returning home to see our house in flames. Larry finally did it. He burned the house down.

But most of the time, I’d try to figure out what I’d do if I woke up to the smell of smoke. My bedroom was located on the second floor. I used to imagine throwing a drawer from my dresser out the window to break the glass. If I had the time, I’d toss all of my stuffed animals into a garbage bag and then walk out onto the roof and jump on to the stone wall that surrounded the townhouse.

I’d look out the window and try to measure the distance. Could I make that jump? Yes, it’s not that bad, I could do it. I’d have to. After all, the firemen who came to our school made it abundantly clear that the door could be hot and we might not be able to leave that way. Mom’s bedroom was on the first floor and had sliding glass doors. Larry’s room was near the stairs, but he was pretty much screwed if he had to jump out his window. He’d have to create a Rapunzel situation and rappel out of danger. Well, he had the bunk beds, so he had extra bed sheets. It could be done.

While I can’t recall ever doing homework or learning how to read or write, I can remember talking to Mom about coming up with a fire escape plan. Sadly, she didn’t understand the importance of an agreed upon meeting point. Her idea was if the house is burning, you get out, and remember to grab Mom’s purse. Adults were useless I figured. We kids would have to save the day in the end.

Never mind that Larry and I ended up creating fires of our own.

Our first real pets were two male albino rabbits: Snowball and Harry. I think Larry named Snowball and I named Harry, and they were rock stars in our household.

We held them with love and wonder, and watched them with delight as they nibbled lettuce and carrots, hopped around the yard, pooped little pellets, drank from their upside-down water bottle, humped each other, snuggled, and slept. We gave them baths, and we let them hop around the living room, laughing at the trail of poop pellets they’d leave behind with every bounce.

Although, there was the time Snowball escaped from the yard. Larry was around eight years old when this happened. Normally, the rabbits hopped on the front lawn. But this time Snowball went farther, flattened himself like a pancake, and slid under the fence. Larry ran after him, but the little fur ball was too fast.

I gave up on ever getting Snowball back, and I really loved them too, but my baby brother, he was like the Gladiator that day, rallying the troops, fighting to the end.

We lived at Anania Circle, a neighborhood of townhouses with three parks running down the middle. It was a great place to grow up because the community was like a gated one, but without the security. The only traffic that usually came by was from the folks who lived there, and plenty of speed bumps kept cars from driving too fast. To complete the island feel, our entire neighborhood was surrounded by a large stone wall on one side and a fence on the other, both forming a circular shape.

The parks were where most of the action occurred, particularly Tire swing park, probably because we spent the majority of our time there. It was where Larry threw a rock at some kid’s head (and then later hid under the cover of night when he was in Big Trouble). It was where I made mud pies, sang songs to myself, and where I fell out of a tree. It was the meeting place where we pretended to fight with the kids who lived on the other side of the circle. How we mocked them when they showed up with makeshift shields and swords! It was where, in high school, I prevented my brother from getting into a fight because a stranger had tipped me off, giving me just enough time to get there to stop it. And it was where I made out with Jenny’s brother under the pine trees.

Tire swing park was also the most centrally located, and yes, there was a tire swing attached to an oversize wooden play structure. This was before plastic made its grand debut on playgrounds across America. There were benches surrounding it, under lots of trees. We had our own mooner and flasher at one point, too. I don’t remember the flasher, but when the mooner dropped his drawers, we kids laughed so hard.

Rainbow park was a wooden rainbow-shaped formation with handles sticking out on both sides, as if you were supposed to climb on it, but only a long-limbed monkey could do that. It also provided no shade. Heather broke her ankle roller skating near here. None of these parks were really functional, but we tried.

Not like these days where you walk up to a play structure and recognize where I slide down the pole, walk on the wiggling bridge, squeak down the curved slide, and so on. We played on structures that were concocted by a misfit lumber yard employee or a conceptual artist. There wasn’t this big fuss about falling or getting hurt. Children were seen, but not heard, and parents were heard, but not seen.

Finally, there was Pool park, consisting of another massive wooden structure located by the gated pool and hot tub. Not much happened at Pool park. It had a Lord of the Flies Castle Rock vibe and was a bit of no man’s land surrounded by hills covered with yellow weeds and bees. Plus, we were here to go to the pool, not “Castle Rock”.

Though there was the time that I made out with my first boyfriend in the Jacuzzi while Larry and his friends watched from behind the bushes. I only know this because I found out later he was spying on me. I also remember experimenting with a tin can and string telephone at Pool park as well. It worked.

But the day that Snowball ran free, I occasionally went out to see how the chase was going. Larry and his band of neighborhood bandits combed the entire area of parks. Once or twice, I caught glimpses of white fur darting from tree to bush to shrubbery, and my brother leading the charge with his friends after him. Sometimes, I saw them walking around looking, calling out Snowball’s name as if he was a dog or a cat, instead of Peter Cottontail with his own agenda. At one point, Larry ran back to the house asking for the fishing net, because, yes, we fished and had one.

And despite the odds, eventually, after a long day, they surrounded Snowball at Tire swing park. Our fluffy friend was probably too tired to run anymore, and they caught him. Larry got him in the net! The boys were cheering victoriously as they walked back to our place–and my brother was beaming with pride and happiness.

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Interestingly, for all of Larry’s pyro ways, a fire truck was only called on once. Apparently, he decided to light the corner of a cardboard box in one of the neighborhood dumpsters. He thought that once the heavy black rubber lid was back on then there wouldn’t be enough oxygen to sustain the flame, but he was wrong.

My brother, the trendsetter.

So while he got the fire department involved, I was the one who ended up almost burning the house down. Larry was about seven or eight, so that made me around 11. It was just us at home which was typical since Mom didn’t believe in babysitters. Well, she did, but it was rare. When we were younger one of her friend’s daughters hung out with us, but often we were on our own. I guess it was too much of a hassle.

We got hungry, so I slid a frozen pizza in the oven. Then we went back to sitting too close to the TV and continued watching Every Which Way But Loose with Clint Eastwood. It’s the one with the chimpanzee in it.

Time passed until we realized we were surrounded by fumes, and we ran into the kitchen. The smoke was really rolling out like you see in the movies. I turned off the oven and opened the windows and doors. The pizza was a crusty charred disk.

Strangely, I had no sense of getting in trouble, yet I knew things were not good. I think this was because as we made our way back to the living room, we were distracted by how cool the house looked filled with smoke. It took us a moment, then Larry and I whooped, hollered, and started playing WWIII. We got out our make-believe guns and tumbled over the love seat, then jumped on to the sofa, shooting each other, hiding from the unseen enemy. We were feigning death, gunshot wounds, and sound effects in our war zone.

“Oh my God! What happened!?”

Mom and her latest boyfriend had come home.

I was so excited though. I showed Mom what happened to the pizza. Together we looked, and for the first time I saw the blackened wall behind the oven, but Mom didn’t yell and scream like she normally does. She was quiet and never brought it up again.