“Yeah, I’ll only burn down at the brook” agrees Stanley Brownell to Joe D’s demand that we not light fires in the dry leaves on the way.  I’m the only one to see that Stan’s fingers are crossed.

 

 

 

He’s my red headed friend from the Hanken Road cul-de-sac named Welch Road but called “the Circle”.  The winter after the botched pie robbery Stan and I had turned to Christmas bulbs, sneaking two from each string around half the block, popping some in the circle after school the next day, hiding the rest in his father’s old toolbox, and hitting the other side of the block that night.  Our stash had grown to over a hundred when one popped in Stan’s hand.  The shard pulled out but the blood wouldn’t stop so he had to tell his mother.  Christmas was over by the time his stitches and grounding were done.

 

The next fall we stumbled upon some older guys from the neighborhood, sixth graders, floating burning rafts of sticks and dried leaves down the Middle Brook.  At school the next day we recruited five classmates to try it out.  We agreed to meet at the park that afternoon and that’s when Joe D issued his warning while we waited for our match supplier.

 

 

 

Richie Jeskulski finally runs up with an entire carton.  He rips off the paper and holds out the cardboard box explaining “I hadda wait till my Dad left”.  His father worked the evening shift at the Union Carbide factory just down river from Bound Brook.  The town was surrounded by factories which later became superfund sites:  Carbide’s PVCs; Cyanamid’s aniline dyes; Johns Manville’s and Ruberoid’s asbestos.  My father hauled for them all in the days when truckers unloaded their own toxic loads. 

 

We stuff our pockets with packs of matches labeled West Brook Inn and head for the brook gathering sticks and singing “Come on baby light my fire.”  Stan torches a pile of leaves under the Union Avenue bridge while the rest of us launch our flaming rafts until the fuel is exhausted. 

 

“Where’s Fuddy?” asks Eddie Cornwall about our classmate from the West End who had missed the meeting at the Park. 

 

“Let’s cut through the woods to get him” suggests Stan.

 

“We don’t know the way through the woods” cautions Joe D, insisting on taking Tea Street to get to Fuddy’s house.

 

 “It’s shorter down the path”, I opine.

 

“Yeah, let’s go”, Stan concludes.

 

A line of fourth grade boys climb the rock wall next to the bridge and hit the trail along the ditch, winding through a ravine, past the poop hole, and up onto an open field.  A half dozen crows fly up as we’re heading back into the woods when Stan yells from behind “Help, it’s getting away.”  Orange flames sizzle in the dried grasses all around him.  We race back and stomp on the clumps of fire but it spreads faster than our feet can move.   Kenny Sella heaves a big rock onto the flames and a wall of white smoke shoots up stinging our eyes.   Stumbling out of the ring of fire, we set to work on its edges, stamping and jumping in a desperate dance.  Then the whistle blows.

 

POSTCARD: The Middle Brook

 

Bound Brook had a strange fire signal in the 1960s.  A series of low whistles would moan from three huge wooden poles around town.  The sequence indicated the street of the blaze so that firemen could head that way along with about half the town.  From up in the woods we hear “ah-un-ah, ah-un-ah” and then a pause.  That’s enough to know it’s going to be 2-4-6 for Hanken Road.  “They’re coming” Stan yells and we scatter into the woods.  I take off for the brook tossing matches on the way with Stan close behind yelling “Wait up, Bates, wait up.”  He catches me as I wade through the hip deep creek.  We emerge in the West End as fire trucks blare down Tea Street. 

 

“What are we gonna do?”  Stan whines, crouching in the brush beside the road.

 

“We should sneak down the Park and pretend we were playing”, I suggest.          

 

We’re sitting on the merry-go-round watching billowing clouds of smoke above the houses when Joe D and Kenny Sella walk up.  They had fled west from the fire and followed the highway back to town. 

 

“Did anyone spot ya?” Stan whispers.

 

“Nah, but we saw Louie DelleToro riding his Kawasaki 75 up there” answers Joe D.

 

“Where the hell are Eddie Cornwall and Jeskulski?” asks Stan.

 

An awful silence settles over us along with the smoke as we contemplate the fate of our friends.  Then out of the haze walk Eddie and Jeskulski who’s scratched all over his face and arms.

 

“I had to yank him out of the briers” explains Eddie. “We saw flames shooting across the Brook onto the houses.” 

 

“What’ll I tell my Mom?” worries Richie.

 

“Tell her you got tackled into the bushes playing football” I offer.

 

“What if they catch us?” asks Stan.

 

“Whadya mean us?” counters Kenny Sella.

 

“We’ll say we were smoking in the woods and Stan dropped one” suggests Joe D, settling the issue.

 

The fire dies back that night after the woods completely burn.  Only three houses have roof damage thanks to the Bound Brook Fire Department.  My friends and I lay low the next few days in school but when the cops haven’t shown up by Friday we think we’re in the clear.  I’m playing downstairs on Saturday afternoon when Mom yells “Dave, get up here.”  Anticipating chocolate chip cookies, I leap up the steps, turn the corner, and freeze.  Officer John Rotunno is standing in the kitchen.

 

The interrogation begins with “Did you light that fire, son?”  Choking back tears, I blurt Joe D’s lie and watch in amazement as the policeman apologizes to Mom, hops in the squad car, and starts around the block toward the Circle.  It hits me where he’s headed so I run for the upstairs phone.  There’s no answer at Stan’s house.

 

Monday at school Stan tells us “It’s reform school if I get nailed again.”  Then to me “Why’d you rat me out?”  The cop had confronted him with “Your friend Dave said you did it”, thwarting our coordinated lies.

 

 

PHOTO: Fourth Grade Arsonists

 

 

We all try out for Little League the following spring, sitting in the back row as coaches call out their picks.  Joe D and Eddie Cornwall go to Lasko, Kenny Sella to the Congers.  Jeskulski is picked by P&M Furniture, Stanley Brownell by the Elks.  The last pick goes to the Truckers and I jump up when my name is called.  Then I see the coach and sink back into my seat.  It’s Officer John Rotunno.