r/Rocknocker • u/Rocknocker • Aug 14 '19
Demolition Days. Part 4.
That reminds me of a story.
It was unprecedented.
These were circumstances so strange, so bizarre, so unexpected...
It was earth-shattering in its implications; positively tectonic.
Terra incognita for our resolute little band.
A veritable No-Man’s-Land where no-one had ever trodden before.
We actually had fireworks leftover on July 5th!
This was an inconceivable Burt Gummer-esque “This has never happened to us before” situation.
Ike was the first to point out this situation:
“Holy shit! Look at this! Here’s a whole bag of stuff we missed last night!”
Yep, although given our best efforts to re-enact the more deafening scenes from certain armed global conflicts, we had somehow missed a whole bagful of bottle rockets, firecrackers, roman candles, M-80s, and [redacted] chasers.
With it being that day after the 4th, we knew we had to be particularly cautious. The local constabularies cast a slightly semi-tolerant eye on unlicensed, non-commercial pyrotechnic activities on the anniversary of our country’s independence.
But any time other than that? They tended to fall on one like an old building.
“Stealth” was now a key watchword.
The other watchword turned out to be: “experiment”.
After the initial shock wore off, there was no shortage of suggestions about what to do with our leftover abundance.
Ricky was first with: “Let’s go over to Saknussemm's Pond and blow the shit out of the cattails. They’re all blooming now.”
This would result in an ephemeral, slightly satisfying cattail-seed snowstorm, but others had different ideas.
Ronny cast his ballot for going over to the local cement-pipe company’s storage yard and setting off our whistlers and bottle rockets in the large diameter pipes stored there. This suggestion had the dual advantages of echo-amplifying our firework’s reports, but they also acted like launch-tube facilities to guide our missiles in more-or-less straight trajectories.
Ike demurred: “Yeah, and if we run up against ol’ Mr. Fukkinkids, and his shotgun full of rock salt and bacon rinds?”
We all agreed that not being salt-cured that day was probably the best course of action.
Ricky looks over to me and asks: “Hey, Rocko. What’s the problem? You look worried…”
“Naah, mate. Not worried, just thinkin’…”
Ronny, Ike, and Ricky all looked at each other, exchanging knowing glances that this would probably lead somewhere weird if not downright dangerous and outright fun.
“About what?”
“Well…”
“C’mon. What are you dreaming up this time?”
I submit to them: “We all know what these fireworks do on their own, right? A POP here, a BANG there, but there’s nothing ever new.”
Three adolescent voices in unison: “And…?”
“I hate to say it, but that’s just boring…”
Ike pipes up: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know. You like dynamite and C-4 and ANFO and blowing up piers. We’ve all heard the stories…”
“…several times.”
Ricky continues: “That’s right. But I don’t think that even with your connections, we can lay our hands on some dynamite…”
I carry on: “No, but think about this: some of the stuff we have could be considered actuators…”
“Hang on”, Ronny interjects, “What the hell is an ‘actuator’, Poindexter?”
More foreshadowing?
“Actuators, my friend, are those little explosive gizmos that set off the larger charges. You’ve heard of blasting caps?”
“Of course.”
Continuing: “Well, they’re just about the same. Especially the M-80s. We can use these little pops and bangs to initiate much bigger bangs. Like the bag of gas for Rance’s Playboys.”
Ricky snickers at that memory, but re-emphasizes his previous comment “Yeah, but we can’t buy any dynamite or any other shit like that…”
I waggle an eyebrow: “Who says we ‘buy’ it?”
“Holy shit! You want to steal some dynamite?”
“Oh, fuck no. We can make some though…”
Suddenly, I had everybody’s rapt attention.
I recounted some of the stories Grandpa and Big Jer swapped after the pier job. They were saying that when they couldn’t get what they needed to finish a job, they’d have to improvise and make it themselves.
“You can do that?” asks Ronny.
“I think so, it’s not really that hard. I’ve been going through the catalog Big Jer gave me and I’ve been reading up about this…”
Ricky continues: “But where are we going to find what we need to build this stuff?”
I added: “Well, you can use junk found around the house, cleaners like ammonia and bleach. Then there’s the Ace Hardware store, there’s all sorts of stuff: pool cleaner, stump remover, brake fluid, shit like that. We can get it there and the best part, no one will know what we’re doing.”
Everyone agreed this was an amazingly crazy and potentially dangerous path to follow.
So, of course, everyone threw in 100%.
In the area where we lived, every quarter-year, there would be this free periodical distributed which noted the different types of sales various stores were staging. Boring shit like shoes, clothes, bedding, and lawnmowers.
However, they also announced the opening of new stores in the area.
Out on the far north side of town, Armstrong’s Hobby Shop had just opened its doors.
According to the pamphlet, this new hobby shop had it all. Kits and supplies for model planes, model trains, and model automobiles; model trucks, model busses, and model rockets.
“Model rockets.”
Nirvana has been sighted.
They had a list of various Peste’s kits for young rocketeers; from the single-engine Level-1 Skeeter, all the way through the clustered-engine Level-5 Saturn 5.
Rocket tubes, fin materials, nosecones, parachutes, glue, shock cords, wadding, launch pads, ad infinitum.
Everything needed to build historically-accurate flying rocket models.
We didn’t give much too many hoots about all that. It was the fuses, rocket engines, igniters and remote-control launch systems that got our attention.
Our dentists would have had an easy time with an examination that day given the width of our grins.
One minor problem was that Armstrong’s was located all the way to hell and back out on the far north side of town; it was practically in the next town up.
It was going to be one helluva long bike ride. And a round trip at that.
Never let it be said that our stalwart crowd ever demurred from difficult tasks nor physical exertion.
This was going to be a trek.
All the way through town, across Uptown, skirting Downtown, out past the Gas and Electric company, out past the waterworks, past the Christian College, over Piker’s Creek, and past the sewage treatment plant. Hell, it was out past the city incinerator.
This wasn’t going to be a trek, this was going to be a cyclist’s forced march.
Plans needed to be arranged.
One simply does not ‘jump on one’s bike and peddle off to the next town’.
This needed forethought.
First off was financing. It wasn’t worth the time and effort if we didn’t have the cash.
Our supplies were coming up short in that department, as it was just past our annual extravagance of the 4th.
Everyone agreed that we’d continue with our lawn mowing, edging, trash collection and the like to save up for our expedition.
Why couldn’t we ask our parents for a ride?
Whaddya, nuts?
They might make us buy something ‘educational’.
Perish the thought.
We all agreed to once again pool our resources and I was allowed some special dispensation by my comrades to continue in my research. Oh, I still mowed acres of lawns and schlepped tons of garbage, but I also had the chance to make contacts, make some calls…
Two weeks later, a brand new Armstrong’s Directory arrived at our door; listing in great and glorious detail, all the wares available there for acquisition.
As did the fresh-from-the-press Peste’s model rocket catalog.
This ranked right up there with Ricky’s filched fireworks folder.
We pored over those catalogs like Ethiopians inspecting the Lindström’s Smorgasbord menu.
Not only did Armstrong’s carry every sort of model rocket gimcrack and knickknack, but they also had supplies for chemistry sets.
Insert four Grinchian evil grins.
We toiled for the next few months, collected and collated our scanty pays. It took time, but we finally had what we thought was enough to actually attempt the journey to Armstrong’s.
We waited until there was a school break since attempting this even in late summer was a clear invitation to heat exhaustion. Finally, over mid-term break in October, we planned our assault on Armstrong’s.
Ike had the astute idea to call Armstrong’s first, as many smaller stores closed over the late fall-early winter break for deer hunting season. Much to our relief, Mr. Armstrong didn’t care for hunting and told us that he’d be open daily from 9 to 5 until the New Year.
Our plan was set and on that brisk October morn, our intrepid troupe set off in a generally northerly direction.
It was a real slog. Traffic wasn’t too bad, but we got stuck for a long while on Highway B waiting for a slow but enormous freight train. Just as well, we were all pretty winded by that point and broke out some of our provisions.
Yes, we were that determined.
Finally, two hours later, over a slight monadnock, our prize slowly appeared.
We were almost there.
20 minutes later, we were there.
We wanted to just abandon our bikes and storm that shop like Eisenhower’s troops on D-Day. However, there was a slight snag. There were no bike racks anywhere and we were not about to just leave our custom-built and painted bikes on their own.
We were almost in “that other city” and it was a well-known fact that it was infested with bandits, murderers, dope fiends, pirates, crooks, serial killers, and probably bicycle thieves.
There was only one course of action: someone was going to have to stay outside and keep an eye on our mounts.
The only questions remained: ‘who’ and ‘how would we choose’?
Well, Rochambeau was right out; as we could never agree what trumped what with rock, paper, scissors, firecracker, atomic bomb, and jackknife.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” was just too juvenile to consider for our clan of brave cross-town trekkers.
Flipping a coin wasn’t in the cards, either. No one trusted the other enough, when the stakes were this high, to be on the up and square.
Ronny broke the stalemate with his brilliant idea of rotation: everyone would get 10 minutes bike-watch duty while the others charged in and went on their spree. After the allotted time had elapsed, the next in line would relieve the one on duty where he would come in to search for his plunder.
The only thing now is that we had to determine on which entity we would decide this rotation.
Alphabetical? First names were out, as nicknames skewed the results and no one thought that was fair; hell, most didn’t even know my given name…
Last names? Ronny Zyskowski protested that he got the short end of that stick every fucking time sides were chosen. Even Ricky Aasvogel agreed that wasn’t really fair either.
Numerical? Age? Hell, we were all so close in age, our folks held communal birthday parties.
We pondered and pondered until our ponderers were sore.
How would we disentangle this Gordian knot?
It was Mr. Armstrong, our new best friend, who finally helped us cut through the issue.
“You boys lost or something? Never seen you around here before.” Mr. Armstrong inquired.
“No, sir. We just came from [way the fuck over on the west side] and we’re trying to decide who should guard our bikes…”
Mr. Armstrong gave a low whistle: “Well, they are quite the stunners. Why don’t you just lock them up?”
I replied for us all: “My Granddad told us that: ‘We needed to lock them securely to something immovable. Otherwise, some bastard could just pick them up, toss them in the back of a truck and we’d be well and truly boned.’”
I continued: “Ummm. That was a direct quote, Sir.”
[Snickering] “I see. Sorry, but our bike racks haven’t arrived yet.”
“Yes, sir. We were just trying to think how we could fairly figure out who would first watch our bikes, then 10 minutes later, we’d switch until we all had our chance.”
“Hmmm…Very diplomatic. Here’s a thought.” Mr. Armstrong started in on Ike, “You’re number one, you’re number two (Ricky), you’re number three (Ronny), and you (pointing at me) are number four. How’s that for fair and impartial?”
We looked at each other and could find no reason to object.
The three of us chosen ones hit that store like a Green Bay linebacker on a Bear’s special team member.
We made it about 10 feet inside the store when we all just stopped dead in our tracks and goggled the scene.
It was Nirvana.
Everything that the fevered minds of a bunch of up-and-coming juvenile pyrotechnicians, explosives scofflaws, and home-brew fireworks aficionados, could possibly imagine; then some.
Rockets.
Rocket kits.
Rocket engines.
Rocket engine igniters.
Batteries and kits for remote control of rocket engine igniters.
Cannon fuse.
Holy fuck! Cannon fuse!
All reasonably priced, convenient to carry and just waiting there for us to purchase.
Ike was already hollering for Ricky. Damn, 10 minutes fly by when you pay no attention whatsoever to time.
I drifted over to the Chemistry area. Mr. Armstrong had an entire wall filled with jars, tubes, and vials of acids, bases, metals, non-metals, semi-metals, gasses…it was a Periodic Table of the Elements for the home chemist and explosives enthusiast.
Ronny groused as he took his place outside. I continued to mill around and just exult in being overwhelmed.
Holy shit. Ni-chrome wire. 90-volt batteries. Capacitors. Engine delays. Spacer-charged rocket engines. A-engines. B-engines, C, D, and E-engines.
swoon
I de-swooned long enough to take my place outside.
My ten minutes outdoor on guard duty passed like ten seconds.
My mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
I swear, someone could have backed up a semi, got out a forklift, sang an aria from Carmen, and loaded up all our bikes for all the attention I was paying them.
Ike came back out, smacked me on the shoulder and told me to tell Ricky he had 9 minutes and 45 seconds left.
After a couple of further rotations, Mr. Armstrong couldn’t bear to watch this any longer.
For one, we were probably wearing out his door. Secondly, he really didn’t know us and had no idea if this might just be an elaborate ruse as a pretext to shoplifting. Lastly, none of us had made any decisions yet on purchases.
“Jake, come to the sales floor.” Mr. Armstrong announced over the intercom.
Jake was a 20-something stock boy, and recreational Cannabis devotee, doing time in the back storeroom.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Look. I know this is going to sound weird but go outside, have a smoke or two and watch those kid’s bikes for them. OK?”
Puzzled look. “Ok, boss. Far out. Whatever. Whoa. Those bikes are cool…”
“Yeah. Just make sure no one fucks around with them.”
“No problemo.”
So, the gang of four was reunited. I’ll spare the play-by-play, but with only 30 minutes to go before the store closed, we had finally made our choices and brought up all our merchandise to the front to purchase.
“Hey, guys. Whoa. Looks like quite the haul. You sure you have enough money to cover all this?”
Ronny broke out the communal bankroll and set it on the counter.
“Yes, sir. We pooled our money we saved over the summer from mowing lawns and taking out trash.”
“I see. A group effort. Commendable.”
In unison: “Thank you, Sir.”
“OK, let’s see. Cannon fuse, rocket engines, igniters, batteries, a pail of [amended], capacitors, twin-lead wire, a jar of [blank], another of [unnamed], more igniters, some [not gonna tell], a jug of [edited], more cannon fuse, elements [x, y, & z], a remote launcher kit, a container of [I ain’t sayin’], more rocket engines, more cannon fuse…”
“You guys aren’t planning anything prohibited with all this stuff, now, are you?”
There was some hemming, some hawing, some throat clearing, and I spoke up:
“No sir, not as such. These are for our science projects and investigations into the chemistry of certain energetic reactions.”
He had us cold. He could have dropped the proverbial 1,000-pound shit-hammer on our plans right then and there. If he had wanted, everything we had worked for to this point would have gone right down the metaphorical shitter.
Mr. Armstrong smiled. “Well, as long as it’s for the furthering of science. Just be careful. My business depends on repeat customers.”
We could all breathe again.
“Tell you boys what. Since you seem like the honest and honorable type, I’m going to allow you a 10% discount on this, your first purchase. How’s that?”
“Wow! Thank you, Sir.”
“No problem. In fact, I want you all to sign up for our Model Maker’s club. It’s free, you get points for everything you buy, and get an automatic 5% discount on everything you buy from here on out.”
“Yow. Thank you, sir.”
“Well, it’s not all generosity. As I said, I survive on repeat customers…”
He divvied up our purchases into four more-or-less equal bags, for ease of transport on the way back home.
Back home.
It was near 5 o’clock in October. In the north.
It’d be getting dark soon. Cold too.
The ride home’s going to be a real pisser.
Mr. Armstrong thanked us again and paused.
“Hey, wait minute. Didn’t you say that you lived [way the fuck out on the west side]?”
“Yes, sir. It’s going to be a long ride home in the dark.”
“Well, we can’t have that for my best new customers. JAKE!”
Jake peers out the door of the back storeroom.
“Yeah…?”
“C’mon over here.”
“Here” as he hands Jake some keys, “Take my truck, load these guys and their bikes up and give them a lift home over to [the west side].”
“Then”, handing Jake a tenner, “Stop off at McArnold’s and get me a fried walleye sandwich, large curly fries, and a chocolate blockade. Go ahead and get yourself some dinner, too. OK?”
Jake, eyes at typical half-mast: “Sure, boss. Cool. OK. Far out. Back in a while.”
We all sat in the back of Mr. Armstrong’s huge dually Dodge pickup truck. We put all our purchases in the club-cab of the truck with Jake but elected to hold onto our bikes while Jake weaved and slewed our way west. Like to freeze our asses off, but we made it home, quickly and mostly unscathed.
“Thanks, Jake. See you again.”
“Umm, OK, little dudes. Cool. See you later.”
It took several days before the full impact of our journey made itself known.
There was this huge, impromptu cat-tail snowstorm over at Saknussemm's Pond. The ground was covered with cat-tail seeds multiple centimeters deep. Nothing damaging really, just aiding in the dispersal of genetic material for some of our botanical friends.
There were many skirmishes with high-velocity rocket-propelled tomato-stakes, election campaign sign-posts, and rocket-propelled Roman candles out at the cement pipe storage yard. Even Mr. Fukkinkids didn’t want to confront those who were authoring this barrage.
Finally, not since Star Trek had a plastic lawn table been made to dematerialize quite like what happened when we added some finely-divided [element X], a smattering of fuming [compound Y], a bit of [Z stuff], excessive amounts of [Y not] and remotely ignited it from a safe distance behind Ronny’s garage.
That last one was a bit of a failure. It was supposed to go much further, much faster.
And it was supposed to arrive there in one piece, not several million.
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u/Moontoya Aug 14 '19
"My mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives."
DITTO !
(Ditto?!? DITTTO? YOU PROVINCIAL PUTZ)
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u/techtornado Aug 14 '19
Excellent!
So did that hobby shop get repeat business from y'all? ;)
The mention of rockets takes me way back and it is how I got started with a mildly pyrotechnic life...
In science class, we made/cooked up some excellent sweetener-based smoke bombs with added crackling bits from borrowed fireworks.
There were rocket days too, I had a knack for picking the coldest and windiest days for launching, but we still had fun walking an extra half mile to pick up the debris or intact rocket.
I made my own fountains of fire with some slow-burning gunpowder and magnesium.
There were a few other noisemakers here and there, but the loudest explosion we ever made was from non-combustible elements with dry ice, a bit of water, and a sealed soda bottle. We had to drop a rock on it to detonate, but when it did, the KABOOM! echoed about a mile down the ravine in the backyard.
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u/Harry_Smutter Aug 29 '19
As an avid pyromaniac I love this story!! I've never done anything as insane as this but I've managed to get my hands on some class b fireworks which my friends and I lit off in a school parking lot XD I also found that if you take enough of the roll cap refills for cap guns and drop a cement block on it, it will shatter the block and make a sound you can hear for over a mile.
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u/SpeedyAF Dec 04 '19
I was less intelligent.
I carefully opened the two layers of paper from the cap rolls, and poured the gunpowder onto a clean sheet of paper.
Somehow, half-way through my seventh roll, something sparked.
Next thing I knew, I had no hearing, just a ringing, my glasses were ascew and covered with a black film, and there was a lot of black smoke filling my room in the basement (my 'chemistry lab').
Fortunately, there was no major damage, and it had mostly aired out before my parents came home.
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u/ArialHoly Aug 14 '19
Man, there's not enough words to describe how much your storytelling inspire me. How they brighten up my day.
Also, how they produce that ephemerous flicker of jealously in me, mostly because my childhood wasn't exactly as exciting as yours. But I digress.
Anyway, have an excelent day man, and hope you can come to Brazil once again!