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The more I watched the television spy programs, the more inebriated I became with the idea of being a spy. First, there was The Saint, and then came James Bond, followed by The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and The Wild, Wild West. The sixties and seventies spawned a spy genre that captivated my imagination. Each tale brought with it a unique and sophisticated array of weapons and gadgetry that apparently was necessary to be successful in the spy business.
If I’m going to be a spy, I’m going to need some gimmicks, I thought to myself. I decided to consult my ten year old cousin on how I could become a secret agent, since he had been in the business for several years already. “First thing you need is a place to hide stuff,” he said.
“I don’t have anything to hide.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll find some stuff to hide later.” He snatched a book from the bookshelf and pulled the binding off of it. A small Christmas box, the same size as the binding, was placed inside the book to replace the pages. When the book was placed back on the shelf, it appeared to be a volume of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. In reality, it had become a place to hide weapons of mass destruction. “What can we put in the spy book?” I asked my cousin.
“Let’s put this old Swiss army knife in there, for starters,” he said. He reached into his pocket, took out an old rusted knife, and carefully placed it into the box. “Go downstairs and get some packs of matches and some Alka-Seltzer tablets,” he said.
“What are we going to use those for?” I asked.
“I’m not certain, but I’m sure we can do something destructive with it,” he said. I retrieved the items and placed them in the box.
“Get a small Christmas glass ball ornament and then we’re done.” Following his orders,. I went to the basement and found a small ball ornament and placed it in the book.
“What now?” I asked.
“Now we place the book on the shelf and lay low.”
Christmas was approaching rapidly, and I needed to give some serious thought to what Santa could deliver to further my spy career. On my next field trip to Woolworth’s, I found the perfect tool to give me the boost I needed. It was a Man from U.N.C.L.E. assault weapon, complete with attachments. The gun had a pump action that shot ping pong balls out of the main barrel. On the side of the barrel were two separate spring loaded tubes that launched rubber darts and also a steel capped grenade for heavy artillery action. This firearm was the answer to my prayers. I immediately began a heavy lobby for the Man from U.N.C.L.E. assault weapon. “Hey, mom, do you think I should get out there and shovel that snow? The stairway is getting pretty slippery.”
Christmas morning arrived, and I discovered the true meaning of influence peddling as I opened my first gift and found the assault gun ready for covert operations. After Christmas dinner, my cousin and I convened to the basement to trial the fire power of the weapon. “We need a moving target in order to test this thing for accuracy,” my cousin said.
“Let’s call Tommy,” I said. My little brother or grandma usually took the brunt of these spontaneous attacks.
“Hey, Tommy, come down here. We have some Christmas candy we’re opening.”
I took the weapon and hid behind the sofa. When he reached the bottom flight of stairs, I jumped up and pumped him full of ping pong balls. A loud thumping sound was expelled by the gun each time a ball was ejected. “Ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump,” the gun sang as the balls exploded at a stinging velocity. My brother tumbled down the final flight of stairs and immediately began crying while my cousin and I stood wide-eyed with amazement. “That sucker really kicks butt,” I said.
I took my one-week grounding like a good operative and returned to my clandestine activities. My cousin, my brother, and I decided to put on a mock war in the basement with the following ground rules:
1. My cousin and I would have command of the assault weapon.
2. We would build a fortress of sofa cushions where my brother could hide.
3. We would both have wooden building blocks to hurl at each other.
4. My brother would get to wear his steel-toed corrective shoes, which also served as a weapon of mass destruction. At any time, he could charge us and deliver a death kick with the shoes. He was like “Odd Job” from the James Bond movies, but rather than wielding a steel-rimmed derby, he had steel-rimmed shoes.
5. No crying.
The war started slowly, but quickly escalated into a full blown fire fight. Wooden blocks were hurled through the air like hand grenades; ping pong balls were strafed into the fort; and my brother made several near lethal attempts on our lives with “clod-hopper” attacks.
“We need to flush him out of the fort. I think he means business this time,” my cousin said.
“If you can run out there and knock the top cushion off the fort, I think we can get him,” I told him.
“I’m not going out there and getting whacked by those shoes. Are you crazy?”
“Nobody said this was going to be easy.”
My cousin hunkered down and then made a mad dash to dislodge the cushion. Suddenly my brother jumped out of the top of the fort in a jack-in-the-box like ambush, and delivered a steel toed death kick to the groin. The horror! My brother retreated behind the sofa as I tried to assimilate this sudden turn of events. There was only one alternative. I inserted the steel-capped grenade into the assault gun. “Do you feel lucky, punk?” I shouted as I jumped from the stairwell, and ejected the grenade with a lob of uncanny accuracy over the sofa.
“Thwack!” The grenade reported a direct hit, and then, “Thud.” Something crumbled against the wall. Silence. Then crying.
“Oh-Oh.”
This time I was a prisoner of war for two weeks. I passed the time by watching reruns of my favorite spy episodes and perusing my baseball card collection. My incarceration passed slowly, but I was determined to continue my furtive career. My cousin and brother met me upon release. “Let’s go out to the garage; I think the walls are bugged in this place,” I said. We walked out to the garage and opened the door. “Jeez, did you see that!” my cousin exclaimed.
“What?” I asked.
“You didn’t see that huge rat run under your dad’s Rambler?”
“No.”
“We need to get that little son of a bitch before he infiltrates your house,” he said. We shot up to the bedroom and pulled the secret spy book from the shelf. By tying a piece of dark string to a Big Ben alarm clock and running the thread across the stairway, we had set up an alarm system that would alert us of any intruders. If anyone walked up the stairs and stepped on the string, the alarm button would be pulled out and we would be aware of the trespasser. My cousin took the Swiss army knife and began cutting the heads off the five packs of matches.”Crumble up those two packs of Alka-Seltzer,” he said. After a thorough mixing, he packed the ingredients into the Christmas ball ornament.
“What’s the Alka-Seltzer for?” I asked.
“Special effects.” The alarm suddenly sounded and we heard a thud. We jumped up, opened the door, and bolted to the stairway. My grandmother lay face down in the hallway with the alarm clock still ringing. I could hear her cursing in Italian as we leaped over her.
“This is the plan,” my cousin said. “I am going to take this cigarette butt to use as a wick. Once I light the wick, I’m going to roll the secret smoke bomb under the car. When the bomb ignites, the smoke will flush the rat out and then we’ll hammer him with these secret whiffle bats. Since we only have two whiffle bats, Tommy will use the shoes.” My cousin lit the wick and rolled the bomb under the Rambler. Once the bomb ignited, there was a flash and then smoke began spewing from underneath the car. The garage filled with smoke and the smell of sulfur soon permeated the air. “Hey, someone is going to think this place is on fire,” I said.
“Don’t worry about that,” my cousin said. “Keep an eye out for the rat!” Without warning, the rat shot out from underneath the car and charged my brother.
“The shoes! Use the shoes!” we shouted.
“Ay-eee!” he squealed as he turned and ran the opposite direction.
“That’s it, he’s gone,” my cousin said.
“Hey, what’s that siren noise? It’s getting closer,” I said. The fire truck pulled in front of the house and five firefighters jumped out dragging the fire hose. “I think I’m going to the hole this time.”
.
A month in solitary confinement can do strange things to your mind. I spent the time by familiarizing myself with every baseball player in the majors and studying my cards while tossing a rubber ball against the wall, like Steve McQueen did in The Great Escape. Once I was released from the box, we held a summit meeting. “Fellas, I have decided to make a career change. I am going to be a baseball player. I don’t think baseball players encounter the same occupational hazards that spies do!”
(excerpt from “Bustin’ Chops”)
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