The Adventure
About 2342 Words
About 2342 Words
My name is Charlie Newton, and my next-door neighbor and best friend was Wayne Thompson. We were around the age of twelve or thirteen at the time of this story. Now we are old men, and Wayne and I have long ago lost track of each other, but I still think back on our adventures with fondness, and I suspect Wayne does the same.
We lived on the edge of a small community named, Westerly. All the lots were fairly large; thinking back, I’d say most were about an acre. There was a large wooded area behind us where Wayne and I spent many an hour exploring in spite of my mother’s warning not to go into the woods. She advised, “You never know what kind of snakes and other stuff might live there.”
Wayne and I had been friends since third grade and we got along great. I would have to say that Wayne was particularly gullible. I could talk him into pretty much anything as long as I used some logical sounding, but not necessarily valid, explanation.
For example, I had a dog named, Skinny who had the habit of peeing whenever someone tickled his ribs. One day, Wayne and I saw Skinny laying in the shade. I got behind his back and was petting him and Wayne knelt in front of his belly. I decided to tickle Skinny’s ribs to see what would happen. Sure enough, he peed all over Wayne’s pants legs. Of course, I apologized, explaining I didn’t know he would do that. Several months later, I decided to try that on Wayne again. I got in position behind Skinny’s back, and told Wayne to kneel at his belly. Wayne refused, remembering how Skinny reacted. But I explained that was because he was a puppy then, and he didn’t do that anymore. Sure enough, Wayne went home with wet pants legs. He didn’t quit complaining about that for four days.
We both had big yards, and it was our job to keep them mowed and looking presentable. We each had a riding mower, and we would work together to do the mowing on both yards. We would divide a lawn in half, and race to see who could finish first.
One day when mowing my yard, we found a good-sized hole that had not been there before. We talked about the hole, and speculated about what it was. Early in the morning of that same day, there was a slight odor of skunk in the air. We naturally concluded that our mysterious hole was where the skunk lived.
We decided that we needed to get rid of that skunk and began to devise various plans to do just that. Wayne thought we ought to shoot him. I said, “Look, the only gun we have is your BB gun, and I don’t think that would kill a skunk. Wayne said we needed to use a rifle, like a deer rifle. I told him that the problem was that we didn’t have a deer rifle, and even if we did, our Dads wouldn’t let us shoot it.
Next, Wayne came up with the idea of putting out some food, maybe dog food, mixed with rat poison. Again, I had to explain why we couldn’t do that. I thought maybe Skinny would wander by and eat the food and get sick. Besides, we didn’t have any rat poison, and I wasn’t going to spend my money to buy some. In addition, we didn’t know if rat poison would kill a skunk. It was beginning to look like it was going to be up to me to come up with a plan.
I didn’t want any half-baked plan, so I took a whole day to figure things out. Once I had all the details in mind, and was pretty sure it would work, I explained it to Wayne.
I said, “Look, we never see the skunk, so he must spend most of his time in the hole. What we need to do is get him to come out of his hole.”
Wayne quickly responded and asked, “Yeah, how to you plan to do that?”
He was leading right into my sales pitch, so I explained that we would put a long garden hose from the house to the hole, and then put water in the hole. The skunk would come out rather than drown.
After I had shot down all Wayne’s plans, he was anxious to show me where my plan wouldn’t work. He agreed that putting water in the hole might make the skunk come out, but then what are we going to do, “We can’t shoot it or anything.”
Again, he was asking just the right questions for me to explain and sell my plan. “What we’ll do is, I’ll turn on the water, and you kneel beside the hole with a baseball bat, and when the skunk comes out, you knock him in the head and kill him. He’ll never know what hit him.”
Wayne was skeptical, saying “Maybe so, but why can’t I turn on the water, and you hit him?” Frankly, I was also skeptical about the plan, and I wasn’t going to get close to that skunk in case something went wrong. I had to think fast.
“Look, Wayne, you were on the baseball team last year, and I couldn’t even make the team. You got two hits, and one of them would have been a double if you hadn’t tripped between first and second base. I’d really like to kill that skunk myself, but you are the best one to get to do it because you know how to bat.”
Flattery can work wonders with Wayne, and he pretty much had to agree that he was the athlete, and as such, was the best one to hit the skunk with a bat and kill it. I told him, “Just hit the skunk in the head as hard as you can. You have to kill it on the first hit.”
We had three 50-foot hoses at our house, so I told Wayne to get another hose from his house. Wayne pointed out that my three hoses would reach from the back of my house to the hole. I explained that the water faucet in front of the house put out more water than the one in the back. That is where we need to run the hose from, so we need another hose to reach that far. Wayne agreed, and went to get a 50-foot hose. I reminded him to bring his baseball bat as well. That part about the front faucet putting out more water wasn’t true, but I wanted to have as much distance as possible from the attack point just in case something went wrong.
We stretched the four hoses out from the front of my house to the hole. They were just barely long enough. With all the equipment in place, we were about ready to execute the plan, but Wayne was beginning to get cold feet.
“Man, what if there isn’t a skunk in that hole, but maybe a wolverine or a badger. Mr. Bates said that wolverines and badgers are two of the meanest animals there are.”
I countered, “Mr. Bates is a science teacher. What does he know about animals? I bet he probably never even saw a wolverine or a badger, let alone touched one. There’s no wolverine or badger in that hole. I’m telling you.”
“Yeah, how do you know so much about wolverines and badgers, and how do you know there really is a skunk in that hole?”
“Look, I just know that’s all. If there was a wolverine in that hole, why did we smell the skunk? Now, you take the bat and go kneel beside the hole, and I’ll turn on the water.”
Wayne took his position beside the hole, and I went to the front of the house to turn on the water. I couldn’t see Wayne from where I had to turn on the water because the faucet was around the corner of the house.
From about 200 feet away, Wayne hollered, "Okay Charlie let 'er rip!" I stepped out from in front of our house and waved my arm in an arc to signal Wayne to come to me. We needed to talk.
We sat down on my back porch, and I said, “Look, this is my plan, and I am the one who decides when to let ‘er rip, not you. You go back, and wave at me when you’re ready and I’ll decide when to let ‘er rip.”
I stood at the front corner of the house and Wayne sat down by the hole with the bat on his shoulder, and waved at me. He was ready. I hollered at him and said, “Okay Wayne, I’m going to let ‘er rip.”
With that, I walked to the water faucet and turned on the water. Back at the corner of the house, I peeked around to watch Wayne kill the skunk by knocking it in the head.
Nothing was happening, so I went back and turned on the water on full blast. I was back peeking around the corner when it happened.
There was a skunk in the hole, and when he came out, Wayne took a mighty swing at it. Maybe it was because he was kneeling rather than standing, but for whatever reason, he didn’t swing the bat hard enough to kill the skunk. He did hit it though. I have to give him that much credit.
I suspect that the skunk was rather irritated from having his home flooded, and then getting hit with a baseball bat made him even madder. Anyway, he sure seemed to be mad. He walked a couple steps; stamped his feet; lifted his tail and let go with his skunk smell.
Wayne was quick enough to turn his head, so he didn’t get it right in the face, but he sure got it good everywhere else. He began yelling and cursing. I was caught up with fear for Wayne, but at the same time laughing. It really was funny. Wayne jumped up and began running to the house where I was. The skunk odor had not reached me yet, but it sure did as soon as Wayne got there. Man, he was mad; madder than I had ever seen him, and I thought for a minute that he might hit me.
“Man, dammit, I told you this idea wouldn’t work. I didn’t know a skunk’s head was that small. You are so dam stupid, man, and I got sprayed by a skunk. Now what am I going to do?”
I told him to go home and get out of those clothes and get in the shower, and wash off the smell. Well, Wayne didn’t think about taking off his clothes on the back porch. Instead, he went into the house with his stinking clothes.
About an hour later, Wayne came to the back door. He was still mad. He said the whole inside of the house smelled like skunk, I assume from his clothes he put in the hamper. Also, the shower didn’t wash off the smell. He knew he was going to be in trouble when his folks got home, and they would be home soon.
When my Dad and Mom got home, they of course smelled the skunk. By this time, I suspect it had pretty well drifted throughout the neighborhood. Anyway, my Dad wanted to know what happened, and I saw no way out of this except to come clean and tell him.
After hearing the story, Dad said that was a stupid bone-headed idea. Apparently, Mr. Thompson, had gotten the story from Wayne, and he was knocking at the front door, and it wasn’t a very friendly knock. Dad and Mr. Thompson talked for twenty minutes or so, and Mr. Thompson left. Dad told me that from then on, Wayne and I were not to get together in any way, not even talk to each other.
Actually, this punishment would last only about two weeks until school started, and then we would have to see each other because we were in the same grade.
When school started, Wayne still wouldn’t talk to me. He would sit on the opposite side of the room from where I was, or if I sat near him, he would get up and move. Finally, I guess he cooled off, and we began to talk. We talked about everything except the skunk misadventure. In a few days, we were friends again.
By this time, the skunk smell had pretty well dissipated from the neighborhood, and things seemed normal at home, but all this was a slow process.
I don’t know what happened to the skunk, we never saw or smelled him again. I guess he realized he wasn’t particularly welcome in our back yard, and probably moved into the woods behind out house.
It wasn’t until much later that Wayne and I discussed the skunk. The clothes he wore could not be salvaged, and were thrown away. Wayne had to do all the laundry for the family to get the skunk odor out. We agreed that the whole idea of killing the skunk was a pretty dumb thing to do, and that we had about equal responsibility in the operation.
After we graduated from high school, I landed a job selling heavy road and bridge building equipment for a Dallas company. Wayne decided to enlist in the US Navy, laughingly saying that he didn’t think there would be any skunks in the ocean. We parted, each seeking his own way in life, and that was the last Wayne and I spoke or saw each other.
Maybe somehow, this story might find its way to Wayne, and if he reads it, I hope he enjoys it as much as I have enjoyed reliving it in writing it.
The end
