Darryl didn't say anything. Dustin peeked out of the closet door again. Wendy and Guillermo were doing the same thing, tame groping on top of the bed. Dustin announced his entry with a loud, "Ahem," and proceeded to stand up and open the closet door noisily. By the time he had completed his ruckus and returned to the room, Wendy and Guillermo were sitting safely and innocently on the side of the bed, separated by about two feet.

Dustin yawned. Behind Dustin, Darryl banged around loudly trying to get out of the closet. As she stood up, she tangled herself in a dense cloud of garments, causing hangers to scrape against the bar and clothes to rustle against the door. Free of that, she tripped over a field of shoes, all neatly layed out like rows of a crop, and landed with a thump. Wendy cultivated high heels, pumps, loafers, boots (both cowboy and lace-up hussy style), sandles, tennis shoes, and unnameable others. Darryl stayed on all fours and crawled toward the opening. She bumped her head on the wall once before managing to turn and make her way through the exit, still crawling.

When she looked up from her low vantage point, Dustin, Wendy, and Guillermo were all staring at her and chuckling.

"What? I'm tired, O.K.? And you've got too much shit in your closet," Darryl exculpated herself. Darryl hardly ever swore.

"O.K. Well don't worry. We're going to put you to bed now," Guillermo soothed.

Darryl curled up in the middle of the carpet and closed her eyes.

Dustin stood near the stereo, watching the smoldering ring of red move down the very last of the incense, leaving a feeble ash in its wake.

"O.K. Well I guess we're going to go then," Guillermo told Wendy.

"O.K. Thanks for coming over," Wendy said.

"Sure. Tell your mom we loved the brownies," Guillermo joked.

"Oh, yeah right," Wendy laughed.

Wendy and Guillermo stood up. Dustin turned toward them. Dustin and Guillermo moved hesitantly toward the door.

Wendy put out the incense in a quick motion and moved her index finger toward the glowing green power button on the stereo. Robert Plant intoned the last dying phrase of Stairway to Heaven. She pushed the button. The phosphorescent green haze abandoned the room, and the three of them went out. They left Darryl asleep on the floor.

Dustin and Guillermo found themselves again in the middle of Chestnut, but this time without ambition. The trip home toiled on endlessly in their minds. They decided to come up with a diversion.

They walked briskly under the dim light of an ailing moon, among the queer shadows and absurd, looming shapes of houses and trees. Unseen foes dared not come into the light but cast their flailing appendages from a distance and under the lying guise of a menacing truculence. These timid foes grew bold with the moon's stern command but withdrew from at the slightest hint of confrontation. Dustin and Guillermo did not confront. They wished quiet passage. So the foes spread their formidable, clawing talons and monstrous, gnashing teeth across the road and shivered with their own ferocity.

Dustin and Guillermo hurried down the forboding, arbored tunnel, trying to ignore the shapes and pretending they were too old to be scared. Quickly they got to Hyde Park Road, on which they turned right. Hyde Park was less bowery and plagued with fewer shadows.

Up the road about a hundred yards was Hyde Park, basically a big, shallow pond. Splotches of lawn separated thickets of oaks and other stout trees. During the spring, ducks found a home on the pond, and visitors fed them bread from the paved walkway that ran the perimeter of the water. The front gate lay off of Hyde Park Road on a small side street, for some reason called Twill.

Across the street from Hyde Park, a residential community, Boyle Heights, wove through the undulations of the hillside. At the entrance of the community, long, flourescent tube lights illumined a cement placard that announced in majuscules to all comers, BOYLE HEIGHTS. This sign contained the essence of Dustin and Guillermo's diversion. They moved stealthily up to the sign, checking carefully for any cars or pedestrians. Unlikely at four in the morning, but good to check anyway. On either side of the sign they kneeled and tugged to remove the flourescent lights from their connections. After a minute they both had a mildly warm flourescent light in hand.

So great, now what? you ask. They had a specific use in mind for the lights. They tramped across the street to the park. Dustin handed Guillermo his tube, climbed the cement wall and sat atop it. Guillermo stretched up and handed Dustin both the tubes. Then he climbed the wall himself and dropped over to the other side. Dustin reached down and handed the tubes back to Guillermo. This process was necessary to insure the safety of the tubes. They were fragile, and a broken tube was intolerable because there were only two in the sign. You just couldn't get another one if you broke one--not until they replaced the lights in the sign at least, and that could be a week, sometimes two.

Over the cement wall they edged their way through thick bushes until they got to the walkway. They could have walked around to the front of the park and come in the easy way, but that would have risked detection.

Guillermo still held both tubes. He handed one back to Dustin. The two boys stood at the edge of the still water. All was quiet. The moon had dropped beneath the treeline and hardly shed any more light. From a carp's perspective, the boys were two smeared silhouettes, barely discernible against the black hillside, but somehow poised and statuesque.

Guillermo looked at Dustin. Dustin looked back.

"Now, you think?" Guillermo said. His eyes sparkled in the darkness.

"Sure."

Guillermo gripped the tube with both hands and held it parallel to the ground about thigh level. Then he sent the tube hurtling upwards as high as he could throw it. As he released the tube he flicked his wrists to impart a spin that would keep the tube parallel to the ground throughout its flight. He knew the impact was more spectacular if the tube landed perfectly even. The tube halted for an instant at its apex and then dropped furiously toward the pond. The two boys gaped. The tube crashed against the surface of the water, shattering into infinite pieces and sending forth a futuristic, artificial sounding thwuck, something straight out of Star Wars, that retreated quickly into the night and delighted the boys to no end.

As soon as the tube exploded, the boys were off, running toward the entrance to the park. They turned left down Twill and then right at Hyde Park. One dog barked from a muted distance, but that was all. They sprinted until they got back to Chestnut and then eased into a breath-gathering lope.

They went down Chestnut, following its curves once again, ears keenly attuned to any sound of pursuit. They didn't notice the shadows anymore. They slowed to a relaxed walk but didn't talk. Dustin still held the other tube in his hand. The diversion wasn't over yet. They walked for about fifteen minutes until Dustin stopped at the top of a slope in the road.

"This looks like a good spot," he said to Guillermo.

"Good as any, I'd say," Guillermo confirmed.

Dustin spotted down the road, crouching like a pro-golfer on an unpredictable green. He was looking for a straight path that would give maximum roll. When he ascertained a line, he brought the tube down sideways to the road, adjusted the direction slightly, and then delicately released, bringing both hands directly up. The tube started to roll. It grated against the asphalt with a glassy, tinkling song. As it picked up speed, a curious thing happened, which of course the boys expected and is why they rolled the tube in the first place. The tube began to shrink. Somehow, the two metal ends of the tube began to move closer together as the middle of the tube disintegrated. No hole appeared in the tube, at least not a noticeable rift, and the two ends continued to steadily converge as the tube rolled down the hill. When the two ends finally came together the tube signaled the end of its journey with a muffled pop.

Very satisfied, the two boys sprinted once again, just in case they'd woken any nearby residents. Once again after several hundred yards, they slowed and walked. They didn't bother not to talk anymore.

"That was so sweet," Dustin praised, "A perfect roll."

"Yeah, that was a good roll. Straight down, no veers or anything. Why do you think that happens--the way the tube shrinks and all? I mean I could understand if it lost its ends and kept shrinking from the outside in, but it loses its middle," Guillermo pondered.

"Hell if I know. It's cool though," Dustin said.

"I guess the sound it makes on the water is from the vacuum breaking, huh?" Maybe Guillermo was to be a physicist one day.

"Yeah, it must be, 'cause that's not a natural explosion sound. It's sorta high tech," Dustin posed.

They chattered general excitement and giddiness as they continued the stroll home. No one chased them down. They reached Borogrove and headed back toward Lemon, again staying snug against the fences and shrubs, but not as careful. They split up at Lemon--Guillermo lived a few streets down--and exchanged cursory, "Catch ya laters."

Dustin trudged up his street along the sidewalk, still pretty alert but weary from all the walking and sprinting. Just two houses down from his own, a cop pulled up next to him. Dustin stopped. The cop rolled down his window.

"What are you up to, son?" the cop asked, not harshly.

"I'm just coming back from a friend's house," Dustin answered plainly.

"Do you need a ride home?" the cop offered.

"No thanks. I just live two houses up. Right there. That yellow one." Dustin pointed.

"Are you going there now?" the cop questioned.

"Oh, yeah. I'm going to bed now," Dustin said.

"All right. Well, go ahead. Have a good night," the cop finished, amiably enough.

"Thanks. G'night."

He considered going through the front door but knew he couldn't get past Roderick on the stairs. He had to use the trellis and hope the cop didn't freak out. Dustin started up. The cop must have been a kid one day himself because he didn't get out of the car to snitch to Dustin's mom or to get Dustin to come down.

Dustin was high up now. As he put his weight on the fourth crosspiece from the top, the wood snapped. Dustin tumbled downward and lay in a limp heap at the base of the trellis. Blooming racemes of wisteria from the trellis caressed his cheek as a gentle breeze blew.

The cop flicked his spotlight to Dustin's location and hustled over. Roderick heard the commotion and yapped. Inside Dustin's mom's room, behind heavy curtains, a light switched on.

Back where you came from