Ninja Week: Day 3/5

In the eighth grade, my neighbors converted the small, metal storage building in their backyard into “The Toke House,” a tiny, two-story club house which was used as a place to smoke cigarettes. To be honest I only went in there once; it stunk and burned my eyes so bad that I never wanted to go back. It was like sitting in a hot metal closet full of smoke. As a non-smoker, it was dreadful.

Seeing as though actually assassinating someone in my neighborhood probably would have got me kicked out of honors classes, most of my ninja missions revolved around recon — that is, intelligence gathering or simply “spying”. On more than one occasion I would slink out the back of my house dressed in black from head to toe with no other purpose than to hide and observe the goings on in my neighborhood. I was kind of a weird kid.

On one of my night “missions”, I saw light emanating from inside the Toke House. I decided to investigate.

The Toke House was located in the far back corner of my neighbor’s yard where a stockade and chain link fence met. Alongside the chain link fence was a row of tiny trees. During the day you couldn’t hide a quarter behind one, but at night when it was real dark, if you lied down on the ground and were real still, one could hide a person. Next to the Toke House was a bunch of old firewood. It probably would have been a good place to hide, but it left no escape route and it was also full of icky spiders. And, as everyone knows, spiders and ninjas are natural enemies.

It was so dark outside that I didn’t feel the need to act particularly stealthy at all while walking across the street. I just walked out of my yard, across the street, and down to the Toke House. As I crouched down to hide behind one of the tiny trees, my hands landed in gravel. I don’t know why, but I picked up a hand full of the small rocks and threw them at the Toke House. The rocks sounded like a machine gun hitting the metal sides of the tin building. RA-TA-TA-TA-TOW!

The building shook as the guys inside poured out of the shed. The door flew open and members of the Toke House Crew stood there, puzzled. “Hey, asshole!” they yelled. “We can see you!” I stayed perfectly still. After a minute or two of standing around, they went back inside.

RA-TA-TA-TA-TOW! The second fist full of gravel left my hand with more force than the first. Again, the door flew open. The hornets were madder this time. One walked along to the firewood pile and kicked a few pieces of wood around. Nope, I’m not over there! Another walked down the stockade fence, occasionally jumping to peek into the neighbor’s backyard. Nope, tee hee, I’m not there either! Unfortunately, a third began walking down the chain link fence, directly toward me. With each step my muscles tightened; the longer I waited, the less of a chance I had at escaping. All my neighbors were really fast runners. They played sports. I played Atari.

Before reaching my minuscule tree, the three of them gave up on their search and returned back to the Toke House. Even though they hadn’t caught me, I knew the gig was essentially up. I waited a minute or two before launching one last hand full of rocks, turning, and running as fast as I could. RA-TA-TA-TA-TOW! I heard the rocks sting the shed’s walls behind me.This time they were ready for me. The instant the rocks hit, the door flew open and the chase was on.

I don’t know how far they chased me — it couldn’t have been long, or they would have caught my slow, pudgy ass. My getaway plan was to round the neighbor’s house and run for the creek, at which point I could hide in a tree, a bush, or down in the creek itself. None of that was necessary, as my pursuers lost interest long before that.

At the time I deemed my little mission a success, although in retrospect it doesn’t seem like it had much of a point. Still, I learned a few things:

– It’s pretty easy to hide in the dark when you’re wearing all black.
– If you are hiding and someone says they can see you, don’t believe them.
– If you can’t join ’em, throw rocks at ’em.