I was a head shorter and unsure of my surroundings being new to city life, Brian Taylor had it in for me from the jump....Slaps, Punches and Insults would never end...The final straw was a Cruel, Cruel joke, He shows up one day in front of my apartment building acting incredibly charming......I should of known something was fishy,"There's a big football game and we need more guys, Jump on the back of my bike..I'll ride ya there". We show up to a field by the elementary school, no one's there except two of Brian Taylor's sidekicks listening to Boston on a giant ghetto blaster. Things get bad fast,a football is whipped at my head and I'm being shoved in three different directions while being showered in a cavalcade of choice insults outside my naive vocabulary. A milli-second before I endure a true beating i jet thru an opening in the fence and never stop until I get to the relative safety of my apartment and lock the door.
For weeks I avoid Brian Taylor's side of the apartment complex..he lived in the red brick buildings we called "The Reds"and I lived in the grey brick buildings shockingly called "The Grey's"..the Reds were no mans land for me...so The Grey's i stayed...
My best friend at the time Mark Oakley lived directly across the hall from me, A perfect partner for an eleven year old, We would race AFX slot cars thru flames, blow up army men with firecrackers and shoot his Crossman BB gun down the hall way under his fathers house rule we yelled"FIRE IN THE HOLE"before we blasted away at targets.
One saturday morning Mark and I were blowing up his Guns of Navarone army man set with several packs of black cat firecrackers and we heard a familiar voice outside the window three stories down, we peaked out the window and saw Brian Taylor under our carport smoking a cigarette with a friend.
I looked at Mark since he suffered similar tormenting from the person down below,We both instinctively looked over at the Crossman BB gun,our eyes simultainiously staring at the BB gun then back at our mutual shit eating grins, back and forth until I grabbed the Crossman and Mark grabbed the BB's.The gun was loaded instantly. If you have ever fired an air powered Crossman BB gun with pump action, you know several pumps is enough. I pumped that thing until it took both of us to close the pump to ready for action. I had one shot ........and ....one shot only.
We slowly and silently slid the window open about six inches and gently pulled the curtain aside just enough to acquire a sight line and fit the barrel of the bb gun out the window a couple of inches, Mark was whispering now like a seasoned soldier"breath slow,pick your target,gently squeeze".....I sighted up Brian Taylor,his back was to me,we were up three stories and across the street,he was standing still now, now was the time, I aimed between the shoulder blades and squeezed and saw the bb travel in slow motion and peg him in the back of his neck and bounce off, I slowly pulled the BB gun back and Mark quietly slid the window shut.....
The next sound we heard was the most satisfying and incredible fire truck like siren cry ever known to man. It started soft then developed into a wail as Brian Taylor jumped around like bee's were in his pant's before he broke into a sprint in the direction of the Red's............
To this day..........I hear Boston, I smile
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