That old school bus had

May 23, 2003

That old school bus had been there too long in the parking lot of the complex. Anything that sat too long around here got tagged, invaded or otherwise consumed by the fiery and restless bands of school age marauders. Not just the teens but the tweens and the preteens all hung together under the flag of twilight boredom. It was discovered that there was no lock on the gas cap.
If they weren’t out breaking something they were inside the apartment, when Mom was at work, listening to Kiss. Each kid had picked their Kiss member and would adopt his mannerisms when the air band took to the stage. The stage was bordered by an imaginary line drawn from chair leg to sliding glass door to Lazy Boy to hutch on which the Baycrest AM/FM stereo turntable sat. Tonight they would all be Gene Simmons. This would be the logical step next step after biting down on the pilfered A&W ketchup condiment pack suitcased neatly in the left cheek. Viscous blood that stains the shag were the precursors to actually breathing fire.
He didn’t even know how to syphon. The other guy had to show him. After snaking the four foot piece of garden hose down the neck & into the bus’s innards he put his mouth to the end. The vapour wave screamed, “NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION!”. Its one of the few things you can taste so strongly without it ever touching your tongue. “Just suck until you feel it go up and listen hard for the upward sound. You can feel when it gets close and then pull the hose out of your mouth and stick it down in the bucket”, The boy who knew what he was doing whispered these instructions quickly. The bus was parked under the one lamp standard that still had a bulb that worked. Lucky the opening to the tank was on the far side of the bus away from the last building of the complex. You always get a taste of it in your mouth the first time and it numbs your lips and makes the inside of your mouth feel like it will never be the same. Its hard enough to wash the smell off your hands. Later it burns like poison clown makeup. It burns enough that you’re sure people can see it on your face ...but they can’t.
They filled the bucket and met the others on the back lawn of the prefab real estate shack across the street from the complex. It was darker back there and none of the houses faced this space. It took two guys to make it work. One guy drew the gas up into the length of thick garden hose. By “thick” I mean its the softer kind that is about an inch in diameter and features the corduroy ridges down its length. Its usually the pastel green not the solid darker green. You know the kind. The lawn was only lit by the moon and just a little bit brighter in the strips where the distant street lamp swath could cut sideways through the columnar cedar trees marking the perimeter. The boy who knew what he was doing drew a measure of fuel up into the hose and held the the other end up like Hamlet holds the skull in community Shakespeare. Another boy held the Bic to the end and cranked the flint wheel over. The cheeks of the garden hose trumpeter billowed Dizzy Gillespie big before he blew into the tube as hard as he could.
Six foot fireball. The faces of the six or so boys who had gathered for the event lit up under that glorious yellow and orange flare. Their smiles were more wicked and joyful than a parent wants to admit is possible in these circumstances. They cheered with “fuckin' ehs” and “fuckin'’ rights” and “holy shits”. Each one hesitated too long the next morning when mom asked why they smelled of gas after the sleep over.