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- Story Listed as: True Life For Teens
- Theme: Action & Adventure
- Subject: Adventure
- Published: 03/06/2013
THE SWISS CHEESE FACE OF THE MOON
M, from Baltimore, Maryland, United StatesTHE SWISS CHEESE FACE OF THE MOON
After moving from the city to the suburbs,
we boys began hiking to and in the wooded places
far, far out of sight and sound of our home.
In the woods,
the easiest way to move forward
was to break free of the brush, briars and branches,
and seek out and follow the meandering stream,
skipping stones across the shallows.
And where the creek bent behind fallen logs,
we'd heave rocks into deep pools
and pretend they were bombs.
we dipped our hands and cupped the cool water
and sifted through pebbles for arrowheads.
We flipped over soggy debris,
disturbing the bottom,
stirring the silt into a swirling muddy commotion
that looked like a series of mushroom clouds
while waterspiders tiptoed out of range
as we stooped to scoop up crayfish
darting backwards and blind
between the sluggish eddy
and the steady relentless current.
We caught tadpoles
wiggling and tickling and slithering
through our fingers before dropping them
to vanish beneath the safety of a submerged ledge.
And on a good day, we'd construct a dam
out of dirt, limbs, and stone
producing a knee deep pond, a ragged creation
in which we'd slip, slide, splash, and play.
Once I made a terrible mistake
when after defecating on the brooks edge,
I wiped my ass with poison ivy
and the next several days
my mom lectured me about being more careful
while she applied calamine lotion
to the agony and stinging welts
between my spread em wide cheeks.
After my slow recovery, we brothers
along with the Hardiway siblings
embarked on our own "Heart of Darkness" expedition
to follow that stream as far as it flowed.
Again we took the water way path
only further than we ever dared before
and we ran smack into a construction site
where the unfettered spillage
turned the creek into a red clay goo.
In 1961 there was nothing we found more appealing, more irresistable
than the excavations, machinery, and rising structures of a construction site.
We started horsing around when Robert suddenly stumbled into a bull dozed muck ditch.
He was as stuck as a tarbaby, the mud was up to his calves, and in the struggle
the suction removed and buried his shoes.
Through tears of frustration,
Robert futilely tried to scale the slippery sides of that maddening trench.
I was just able to grasp his hand and tug him up and out.
He was coated in mud from head to toe
like a white potato smothered in gravy,
and for his sake, we aborted our quest,
teasing him all the way home about
how his clumsy mud caked strides
resembled the gait of a stiff legged mummy.
A week later we set out again,
determined to overcome all obstacles and distractions.
Gradually the stream widened
enough to part the trees and open the sky
and within a few rugged hours
we reached the mud flats of the municipal reservoir.
The air was so thick and stifling and humid
that our white cotton shirts stuck like glue
to our sweat soaked bodies.
Suddenly as if awakened, giant dragonflies
swarmed and buzzed us like bees on a poo bear
with a honey jar stuck on his nose.
Panic stricken we took off so fast, we ran out of our shoes.
Upon realizing they wouldn't bite us,
we regained our bearings and retrieved our sneakers.
We trudged homeward barefoot, thirsty but beaming big smiles
as if we were the first little men to set foot
on the swiss cheese face of the moon.
by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
April 2010
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