Maybe, just maybe, you and your buddy have watched a little too much TMNT.
And you know play time is definitely over when up rolls the MP…
“MUAH-HA-HA-HAH! Screw you fence!” I over-enthusiastically taunted the inanimate object in front of me, as my expertly-thrown knife hit its target it once again.
“You’re getting pretty good at this, amigo,” my junior-high bestie, Nick, said.
“And I, too, would like to affirm your bad-ass knife-throwing skills, my ninja!” I reciprocated. “Why don’t you take a turn or two?” I said as I gave the knife a good tug to dislodge it.
“It would be my pleasure,” Nick said, deftly taking the knife from my hand and gracefully flinging it toward the fence in one fell swoop.
*spliiiinter*
That particular flick of his wrist must have had some extra sauce on it, because the knife dang near went all the way through the fence.
“Sweet shot, bro-ski!” I said.
Nick just stood there with his arms folded in triumph, as he knew he done did get a good shot in.
We paused for a moment to bask in our own glory. For a couple of youngsters like us–me ringing in at 14 years and Nick at 13–mastering such a cool skill as knife-throwing was a real thrill. Like, if we had to, we could fling a knife into the torso of a bad guy or the plank of a neutral-looking-but-secretly-threatening fence. It could potentially save our lives and/or the lives of those we love.
But had we not trained on the little fence surrounding the power transformer between my sister’s house and her neighbor’s? That knife would probably have just hit its target while oriented parallel to it, doing no damage before pathetically thunking to the ground. We would have looked like complete assholes in that scenario.
Our moment of ninja-like glory was short-lived though.
“Hey did you just see a pair of beady eyes peeping over that-there fence?” Nick asked, gesturing towards the neighbor’s backyard.
“Ah, don’t mind her. She’s just probably being a Nosy Nancy,” I demurred.
“You sure it’s cool?” Nick asked, for the first time considering that what we were doing might be considered mildly delinquent.
“It’ll be fine, man. She’s probably just jealous of our sweet, sweet, knife moves…”
“Young man, can we have a word with you?”
Those are words a young man never wants to hear. Especially when they’re coming out of the mouth of the MP–that’s Military Police, for you civilians out there–officer at your front door.
“Uh…yeah, I guess so,” I stammered. Normally, my nose was as clean as a whistle, and it would be my brother, 1SkinnyJay, who would have to worry about what the po-po might want with him. Incidentally, it was 1SJ that introduced me to the joys of knife-throwing…though surely that was irrelevant to this pleasant officer’s visit.
“Your neighbor here said she saw someone flinging sharp objects just outside her backyard, and that she fears for the safety of her children” the officer said.
I rolled my eyes at the thought of how little danger her kids might have ever been in.
“Nosy Nancy, you ----- ----- snitch,” I muttered under my breath.
“So, are you the one that’s been throwing knives at the fence around the corner?” he asked menacingly, gesturing in the general direction of our make-shift target.
“No, no, you’re mistaken…” I started.
“Oh, really?” the MP asked suspiciously.
“…there wasn’t just one of us throwing knives.”
Remember the incident Nick and I had with the rare candy? I sucked ass when it came to lying, but I was a ----- ace when it came to telling the truth. And I could tell this wasn’t going to end well for my accomplices.
“Do tell…” I definitely had the MP’s interest now.
“Yeah, of course I was one of the ones getting really, really ----- good at throwing knives. But you’ll also want to talk to my good friend Nick B. He’s almost better than I am. I can take you to his house, even, if you like,” I said, realizing that I was oversharing and not even making him work for the intel.
“Oh, that would be just lovely. So, you say it was you two fellas doing all that damage to the fence? Which, I might add, is federal property, seeing as how it is part of this fine Naval Base we like to call Point Mugu,” this officer said, clearly with the intent of intimidating me.
I think I peed myself just a little in that moment.
“Pfft! Do you think we would just come up with the idea by ourselves? Who do you think gave us the big idea to desecrate that fence in the first place?” I said flippantly.
“Heck, man, I don’t know. But twenty bucks says you’re going to tell me without me even having to ask,” the officer said, starting to get the hang of my game.
“It was my brother, Jason,” I stated matter-of-factly.
“…and there it is. You owe me twenty bucks?” the officer said.
“How about double or nothing?” I said, not really paying attention to what he was saying.
“Okay, so let me see if I got this straight?” he said, looking down at his note pad. “We got three minors that need to be held accountable for destruction of federal property? Is that right?”
“No! You forget about Josephina!” I blurted out, desperate to make sure that there was an accurate and factual accounting of events.
“Who, now?” he asked.
“My brother-in-law, who we’re living with here. Who do you think showed Jason how to throw knives. Jeez, get with it, yo!” I said condescendingly for some reason.
“It looks like we better round up the four of you degenerates and take you down to the station…”
“Mom, are we going to be homeless?” I asked without a hint of sarcasm or irony.
“I don’t really know, Honey,” she said, clearly wishing she could reassure me. “I told you that you needed to keep a low profile, seeing as how we’re living illegally here on Base with your sister.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” I said quietly, deeply concerned that my loose wrist and even looser lips had ruined our housing situation (and maybe even have put Joe’s status in the military in limbo, to boot).
Long story short, during the preceding summer while I was staying with my dad, my now-presumably-ex-stepfather had moved my mom and brother from our home of 5 years in Springfield, MO, to Odessa, TX for some unknown reason. Then the dickhead just took the only vehicle they had and jetted out of there back to his mommy in Houston.
Well, this nut-sack had put my fam in quite the pickle, now hadn’t he? And, not realizing that the lease on her apartment back in Springfield wouldn’t technically run out for another week, my mom turned to my sister in California in her time of need.
“Sure, you can come live with us on this here fine Naval Base we call Point Mugu!” Sis had told her. “But, uh, technically, parents and siblings don’t qualify as dependents, so you’ll just have to be our ‘long term guests’, per se.”
And thus, my entire eighth grade year I lived as an illegal alien, never freely able to come and go off the base as I pleased. I either had to be in a vehicle with my sis or Joe driving–or on occasion, with Nick and his parents. But never could Mom just roll out with us to live normal lives in the surrounding cities.
Oh, I almost forgot that I was also able to smuggle myself on and off base on the the school bus–which, if you ask me, is actually kinda of a weak point in their security. Anyways, I digress…
“I really shouldn’t have drawn attention to us, should have I?” I said meekly.
“No you shouldn’t have,” Joe glared at me from across the table down at the MP headquarters. “Just let me do the talking, okay? We don’t need you unnecessarily volunteering any more facts…”
“You ----- ----- snitch” Jason muttered under his breath, as he ripped the board–the one we had thoroughly destroyed–off the fence.
“You little snitch,” Nick muttered under his breath as he hoisted the new replacement board into place.
“You little ----- , just had to go and snitch,” Joe muttered under his breath, as he handed me the screws and the drill.
“Fellas, fellas, no need to point fingers and say who-did-what and what-not,” I deflected, as I secured the new board in place.
I stepped back to admire our work.
But instead of looking at the newly-refinished fence, my three comrades were glaring at me.
“No, there is need to point fingers,” Jason seethed.
“Yeah, you were the one to get busted. Why did you have to drag us into your mess? My step-dad whooped my ass the second the MP left our house,” Nick said through gritted teeth.
“You couldn’t have fallen on a grenade for your brothers in arms, could have you?” Joe was clearly peeved.
“Fellas, fellas, come now,” I implored them. “Don’t be making the moral of this story ‘maybe it’s worth learning to lie every now and then for the sake of your brethren, you little snitch.’ Nay, the point of the story here is supposed to be: don’t judge an illegal alien until you’ve walked a kilometer in their shoes (on account of anyone coming into the U.S. from anywhere else in the world will indubitably be more accustomed to metric units rather than imperial units). Also keep in mind that on average they’re less criminally mind, lest their deviant behavior draws the attention of the authorities and gets them deported. So show them a little love, yeah?”
“Really? That’s what you’re going with here?” Jay said.
“I like the ‘don’t be a little snitch’ line better,” Nick chimed in.
“Me too,” said Joe. “Anyways, how do you explain to your imaginary audience you not getting kicked off base, when a true illegal alien would have got their ass deported for pulling the same stunt you did?”
“Yeah, man, we got off waaay easy just having to pay for the supplies and put in the time to repair this fence,” Jay noted.
“Fellas, fellas,” Nick said, half-mocking me. “Isn’t it patently obvious?” he said as he presented me as if I was a prize on the Price is Right and he were one of their models.
I sighed, reluctant to acknowledge my inherent privilege.
“It’s because I’m as Caucasian as a White Russian, my ninjas.”
Nick pensively stroked the peach fuzz on his chin for a moment.
“Somehow,” he finally said, “I think you’ve managed to culturally appropriate two different cultures here, all in one fell swoop…”
Content created on: 20/21 July 2024 (Sat/Sun)
Leave a Reply