My older brother is a pyromaniac. He came close to burning down each of our houses and those of our neighbors on several occasions. His fiery obsession boiled over to explosive devices and we would devise rockets from our mother's discarded hair spray cans. Our launch area was a nearby sandpit. The fuse was a simple fire. Some would exploded and others would arced across the sky at low altitudes spitting toxic flames. Neither of us suffered injuries from these experiments, however the town police warned our parents that we were constituted a danger to the community. My older brother obeyed their orders to abandon his worship of fire. I also heeded their command.
Even at my parochial high school I resisted the draw of the rocket club. Instead I ran cross country in the fall. Our course took runners past an old mansion. Other schools were never forewarned that they had to leap a stone wall to cross through the estate. This gave us an edge and my school won two consecutive state championships. Our dominance was challenged by a mysterious government agency purchasing the mansion. The men occupying the estate wore white shirts and black ties. My friend Jamie Parker said they were CIA experimenting on apes. The brothers were informed that the grounds were off-limits to the cross-country team. We lost our first race that season.
When the brothers asked for special access for these bi-weekly races, the men in the white shirts refused their request without a smile. We called them assholes, but had no other recourse other than to train harder to beat our competitors. Few people cared about the track team. Our school's football team was state champs. They had cheerleaders from the nearest Catholic girls school Our only fans were the rocket club. They said that this matter was not over. No one paid them much mind. They were nerds and the cross-country team worried that nerdiness might be contagious. We won the next race. I barely beat out our rival's 5th runner. Afterward the rocket club glared at the distant mansion and then exchanged a conspiratorial glance.
The next day they announced an exhibition of their rocket skills. This was the time of going to the moon and the brothers proudly assembled the students in the field behind the high school. We were instructed to stand a good distance from the launch area. The rockets were not small. One of them was at least ten-feet long. The rocket club signaled they were ready and soon missiles were soaring into the sky. Even the football team thought the rocket club was cool. The brothers beamed with satisfaction, thinking maybe one of these boys might end up at NASA, until they pointed the 10-foot missile at an angle. Off in the distance a few of the men in the white shirts were standing outside the mansion. The rocket club lined up the final missile, the ten-footer, at a funny angle. It took us a few seconds to realize that the trajectory would take it very close to the mansion. The men at the mansion started shouting and then the president of the rocket club lit the fuse. They ran from the missile and the men in the white shirts ran for cover.
It took about a seconds for the missile to cover the half-mile between the field and mansion. The explosion was muffled by out applause. The men in thew white shirts complained to the brothers. The police ignored the incident, since some of their kids were on the track team. We received permission to run through the field a week later and won the state championship thanks to regaining our advantage.
No one ever said anything bad about nerds in our school.
They were heroes, because they were dangerous.
At least to anyone not on our side and that's the way it should be when you're young.
ps my older brother was really pissed that he hadn't been there.
