| Jake took off with more bags in hand ready to help his friends if he could find the battle. However when he came out of the back yard he saw a cop turning the corner into the subdivision. Jake tossed the water bags and gunned his bike, turning the wheel toward a tight path that would cause him some scratches but ultimately would kick him out into an adjacent housing development. Behind him he heard the sound of the police siren going off. He suspected it was because the cop had seen him dart into the brush and the cop was probably hoping the siren would bring him back. It wouldn’t. The housing development which Jake entered, also had bike paths which cut through its back ways. That path was actually worse than the first one in terms of being over grown, thus causing scratches. If you were lucky. If you were unlucky you either got a thorny vine caught up in your chain or tires, which could result in a wreck, or you went home with a lot of scratches all over your body. Probably a shirt which is torn beyond bothering to save, also. Small price paid to avoid the law. Especially in Jake’s case because as much as he might have gotten scratched up or risked getting a vine in his chain or tires, because his bike was smaller in stature, it allowed him to get a lot of places that the others could not, or if they did the cost was a much higher price. He could go up steeper hills because he could basically stand up and let the bike run through his legs, and then once the bike was up ahead he could just jump back on and be all the better for it. He could cross railroad tracks with 100% confidence. His peers needed to either be quite strong for their age, or in most cases they took a risk crossing railroad tracks because the railing sets so high off the ground that you have to know what you are doing to get a bike through both rails without it getting caught in a circumstance where you can’t get the bike off the tracks. It gets stuck because of the angle you are forced to use when the bike is sitting between the rails. If you have a bike you can man-handle, you can pick the front up over the rail and then by gunning it, the back of the bike goes over that last rail. You might be able to imagine how if the bike is not perpendicular to the rail, that by gunning it, it just makes the front tire slide down along the rail, because it can’t climb over it. All the power given to the bike goes to forcing the front tire to slide along the rail, not cross over it. Jake took advantage of all the afore mentioned circumstances to keep himself safe from the enemy and from the law, who would have been by that point, been cruising all the neighborhoods and probably with back up arriving to help. All hoping to catch that kid the first cop saw, duck into the brush on the little dirt bike. Jake wondered if anybody had been caught by the cops? The last he saw of David Green and Denny, they were laying on the ground under that clothes line. The odds the bike was able to start after having been laid on its side, and then had two bags of water thrown on it, couldn’t have been good. Fifty-fifty at best, he figured. Jake arrived back at Brian’s house to discover only Brian was there. The two friends did some swimming, and about twenty minutes later Jeff and Cory came rumbling up the driveway. They were soaked in something nasty. Brian had them strip down to the tighty-whities and then he hosed them down with the outside hose. After that the two jumped into Brian’s swimming pool to get warm. The water fresh out of the hose was much colder than that in the pool. After an hour and a half of swimming, the boys got tired of that and wanted to go get some snacks at the quick-stop. They fired up their bikes and headed for town. Everybody was aware that there might be cops about, so the back way was taken for most of the journey. They needed to cover about two hundred yards of blacktop to reach the quick-stop. After checking every possible direction, it was decided it was safe to make the jaunt. All the boys made it going into the quick-stop. On the way home they were not as lucky. Jake left the quick-store first. He bought a coke and a handful of Jolly Ranchers. Once back out to his bike he shoved the drink into his waterbag carrying case, and then kicked the brand new red Honda to life and took off down the blacktop for that spot a couple of football fields away, which would allow him to get off the main road and into cover. Right behind him was Cory, then Jeff and finally Brian. As soon as the first two had got out onto the blacktop, which incidentally was when Jake was turning off the blacktop, a cop came over the hill which allowed him to spot Cory and Jeff. He lit up his lights and turned on the siren. The cop car engine could be heard revving as it raced past the quick-stop toward the spot where the southers were leaving the main road. Which is what they did. And as soon as the cop went racing past the quick-stop, Brian pulled out taking his bike the opposite direction. The way the cop had just come. Brian made it home without incident. The southers who left the main road to go the back way had quite a ride getting to Brian’s house. The cop which was after them obviously knew a little bit about the local terrain as well, because he was actually waiting for them at one spot where they jumped from one development to the next. However he was not able to get back into where the trail was, with his car, so they simply turned around, and then acted like they went somewhere else. Instead after they turned around appearing to head back up the trail, they again turned around and went back the way they originally had wanted to go. The cop was gone and they raced the few remaining miles back to Brian’s house. The bikes were all parked behind Brian’s barn. Everybody’s heart was racing and needing the chance to calm down. So they all jumped into the pool for another swim. The day was made a short one by choice of the boys. The ones still needing to travel to get home didn’t want to be predictable by waiting too long to get home. They all pretty much had curfews which were up at dark. So a smart person if they wanted to get them, would set up an ambush along the most obvious path back to their homes. Choosing to get home before usual, greatly reduced the chances of ambush. May you be in Heaven thirty minutes before the devil knows your dead, sort of thing. The next day the fighting increased, or at least the running from the fighting increased. There was a lot of chasing bikes through the town which meant that by afternoon, the cops were cruising too. Both sides were aware the cops were cruising the town, in fact, in pursuit of catching the motorcycles that had been racing through town. Word travels fast in small towns. So both sides were keeping to the back ways, paths and trails that allowed the motorcycle riders to traverse through the town without ever much worry of getting caught by the cops. That tactic put the bikers at more risk of ambush however because it was just almost impossible to see what was waiting for you up ahead behind the many bushes and trees that were there for the hiding, when using the back roads and trails. Ambushes had to have a couple of aspects to be done right however. You not only had to have a spot which gave you cover to hide, but after you hit the other side with your water bombs you want to be able to get away clean. You don’t want them to be able to just go after you because they will catch up. At least in Jake’s case. So ambush spots were sought out that had things like a barbed-wire fence between the area where you would hit the enemy, and keep your bike parked. They would do the ambush and then run back over to their bikes which were hidden on the opposite side of the barbed-wire fence. Natural hedge fences also worked well. Really anything that could buy ten or twenty seconds of separation did the trick. The fact that Jake had hit his last two victims with clean water gained the southers absolutely nothing so instead of having Brian’s brother contact the northers, it was concluded that the other side enjoyed the souther’s special stew of now incredibly rotten fish floating in a rich broth of fermented raw beef liver (a two-pound package) and the original raw chicken parts. Mix in a nice bottle of Karo’s corn suryp and two pint-sized containers of white and off-white paint and you’ve got it! All donated to the cause out of either Jake or Cory’s basement freezers which also had a chunk of really frozen venison that had been left in the bottom of one of their freezers. Unlike the raw chicken parts, it had just recently found the way into the souther’s special after shave. So it probably wouldn’t be adding its special twang of spoiled venison for another day or two. The northers would just have to settle for sour, sticky, spoiled beef liver and rancid raw chicken stew. The five gallon bucket they were getting their … fluid, … eh, liquid, for their bombs, stunk like nothing any of the boys had ever smelled before. It was so bad that nobody would make up ammunition for anybody else. They didn’t really want to go near it at all but then they would remember how they tried to go the high road and got nothing in return for the effort. Now if they wanted, no, insisted that this war stay nasty. So be it! The southers knew the other side could not possibly come up with anything worse. Until they did. This day while filling alligator baggies with the southers made their stew even worse by a hundred fold, because Cory found a dead carcass on the road of what was probably a raccoon at one time. It had the stench of death on what was left, which was the kind of stink that if you touched it, you would have the stink on you. Anything you touched after touching it, would also stink of death. Rotting flesh in the hot summer sun. That was added into the mixture. The stuff was so nasty that they had begun using a soup ladle to get a good sample of everything in the bucket, then filling the baggies using the soup ladle. Then they were tied quickly and carefully placed into the hauling bags. The last day of the war finally arrived. Both sides were acutely aware the war ended at midnight. Any blows made, had to be done before then. The southers decided they were going out with a bang. The ammunition was made, the stuff nearly fizzing at that point, and an ambush of all ambushes was done. It was a simple plan. Jake, being the smaller bike, therefore a favorite for the bigger bikes to try and catch, was to lead the northers past an overpass where on the far side would be the ambush. Jake drove through town that morning making himself an easy spotted target. Sure enough, he picked up David Green with Denny riding on back. Behind them were Mike Berlin with Phil Dutchman riding shotgun. Riding by himself was Tommy Weihner. The three northers gunned their bikes at first sight of Jake. Lucky for him he was already pointed in the right direction. He too, gunned his bike and he headed for the overpass. Capable of riding and throwing at the same time, Jake used that to further rope in his victims. He did his best to hit the enemy bikes as they raced behind him in chase. Jake emptied his arsenal of nasty water bags hitting Mike Berlin and Tommy Weihner. He missed the front bike with David Green and upon seeing he was out of ammo, David sped up to get into position to blast Jake. He was too late however. Just then they burst through the overpass. First Jake, then right on his heel was the first of the norther’s bikes. The rest of the southers fired at will at all three of the norther’s bikes as they passed through the overpass. Jake didn’t even bother to slow down. He just kept right on going to Brian’s house. There the rest of the southers slowly came rumbling in. They would finish the day out swimming at Brian’s house, never giving the other side another opportunity to land any blows. It was a field day at the ambush however. Brian, Jeff and Cory unloaded on the northers. They hit all three bikes, multiple times in some cases. Mike Berlin got it the worst. He was hit straight on in the neck so the bag of nasty water splashed down the inside of his shirt. After drenching the enemy the southers went to Brian’s and enjoyed an afternoon of swimming. After Brian’s parents came home they invited everyone to stay the night. The next day it was time to start thinking about football. The summer festivities were over. The summer of water balloon war was officially ended. The End |  |