Killer Tomato

Camping out at Stroker’s for the third night in a week, Homer, Grunter and Stroker proceed with plans to meet Crazy Larry at midnight, halfway between Crazy Larry’s and Stroker’s. Crazy Larry usually is good for sneaking outside after hours.

It’s a midnight warm and windy. The trees sway and rustle, thick and heavy overhead, as Homer, Grunter and Stroker creep south down the middle of Stambaugh Street, each with a carton of ammo.

Three blocks west, at the corner of Igneous and Poplar, where Crazy Larry lives in a white colonial home on a ravine, a burned‑out streetlight rocks in the wind. The boys continue to advance in the deep front line of night, wondering whether Crazy Larry, the ultimate sniper, has been captured somewhere between his bedroom and the front door, or whether he’s just plain forgotten about the plan, downed some chips and pop, watched some TV, checked out for the night.

“It’d be his style,” Stroker mutters.

Senses fully dilated, they wait beneath the skyscraping poplar tree across from Crazy Larry’s, scoping the surroundings, surveilling the home, considering whether to advance as far as the walnut tree in the front yard. The wind makes sounds in the tops of the trees. It flips Homer’s windbreaker collar against his jawbone. For a long time, there’s only the sonorous swaying of tree branches.

“Figures,” Stroker mutters.

“What’s that sound?” Homer says. He spreads his arms, palms up. “Is it sprinkling?”

“I don’t feel anything,” Grunter grunts.

“I think I did,” Stroker says, looking at the sky. “It doesn’t compute. Unless rain comes from stars.”

From up in the poplar tree come muffled giggles. Homer sighs. It’s Crazy Larry, all right, relieving himself in style. A typical entrance for him.

“You sucker,” Stroker bawls, as Crazy Larry drops from the tree, clutching a brown paper bag.

THE brown paper bag.

They hike three miles to an obscure field of weeds and sycamores off U.S. 7, unanimously endorsing it as the optimum site from which to launch their offensive.

And so they wait, each clutching that first round of smooth, cool, oblong ammo. There’s no time now to analyze, no time to turn back. And the oddest thing is, it’s come to feel pretty natural, this scene, the four of them ensconced in the weeds of the familiar unknown, under the stars.

It is, however, nothing short of supernatural when the first headlight beams flicker on the road. The boys crouch, alive with the gravity of the moment, with the possibility of disaster, with being poised at yet another point of no return. The hum of the engine is far off, seems to take forever before it can be matched confidently with the flickering light.

And then, there they are, big and bright and beaming like mad down the middle of U.S. 7. Making quick calculations for trajectory and lead time, the shadow infantry takes aim and lets fly. In seeming slow motion, four white eggs sail into the black and disappear. The universe screeches to a halt, as the car whisks by obliviously, untouched. Not even a splat somewhere in the distance.

Suddenly, the pavement lights up again. This target has a serious muffler problem, an unfortunate distraction in the calculation of its ETA. In the ensuing confusion, all four triggermen over-adjust for wind shear and distance, letting go too early. Two eggs come close, flying in front of the headlights.

“That was mine that almost nailed it,” Crazy Larry brags.

Homer resists the urge to counter, knowing really it was his.

With each successive offensive, the night soldiers inch closer to U.S. 7, applying more physics to their aims, throwing with more muscle, following through with more conviction. But success eludes them.

Finally, with the standard-issue ammo spent, the time comes to invest all their hopes in the equivalent of the hydrogen bomb, Crazy Larry’s Killer Tomato. It’s the last chance, and it mustn’t be squandered.

With solemn ceremony, Crazy Larry produces the ultimate from his brown paper bag. As always, it requires but a modicum of persuasion to effect his solo advance to point‑blank range.

Homer, Grunter and Stroker promise him cover, wish him luck, and retreat to a less vulnerable position as Crazy Larry’s striped, short‑sleeved shirt drifts into darkness and disappears.

Homer thinks it’s incredible, the way he feels, the way the pricklies break out on his scalp and the blood rushes hot in him when the ill-fated pair of headlights rounds the bend. Crazy Larry with the centerfold sister is up there somewhere, big man on campus, only he and his Killer Tomato facing one ton of rolling metal and the night, and as always, Homer can’t believe it.

All sound seems sucked into an apocalyptic silence, then … “BOOM!”

Homer figured it’d be loud, but no way was he prepared for the mind-blowing sound one flying fruit could make. The evil thundercrack reverberates through his bones as he and the reinforcement remainder, tripping over one another, escape across the railroad tracks and into uncharted territory, hearing car tires screech, a door open and slam shut, possibly someone shouting profanities.

Homer’s thrilled with the danger. He’s thrilled with the fear. He’s thrilled with the need to giggle—at Crazy Larry, at Grunter and Stroker, at himself, the universe, everything. The deep, hard giggles pulsating in his chest are but whispers in the dark.

But the main thing, the overriding thing for Homer, is to keep going and not look back and have no doubt he’ll get out of it alive.