#37-10: day, seconds, first-person aggressor

I would have been eleven or twelve. We were Belair Road (US Route 1) boys: four or five of us little guys—punks in training you might say—hanging out in the woods. In the summer we used to hide out in the drainage tunnels along the creek that fed into Back River, until the bums starting coming up in them to sleep. They were old-time bums, hobo style guys with the old clothing. There was really no army surplus attire in those days (early 1960s).

We were hanging in the woods and these older boys came by with sticks and a gas can. We said, ‘What are you doing?’

They were like, ‘We’re goin’ to burn a bum.’

We were like, ‘Can we come?’

They said, ‘Yeah, get some stones.’

So off we went, as happy as boys can be. We collected our rocks. I always preferred the composite rocks with the little pebbles and gravel sticking out of them to give them a cutting edge. They were disallowed in stone battles—igneous and metamorphic rock only.

Our job was to stand on top of the tunnel and throw rocks when the bum came out. We were the auxiliary punks. We didn’t participate in the actual immolation. They went in when we had our stones piled. They doused him while he was sleeping, lit him up, and came out yelling, ‘Get out of here you bum!’

The bum was bellowing and yelling threats, chasing them. When he came out on the concrete ledge he was pretty well engulfed in flames. We commenced pelting him with stones and he jumped into the collection pool—a pond really, which was about fifty feet across. Most of the stones were thrown at him while he was swimming to the far side. The concrete ledge to the tunnel was sheer and slick right were the water was deepest.

The older boys were scattering through the woods. Once I ran out of stones I ran to my grandmother’s house. I was lucky, she lived right up the road, and the bum was a little upset. We never saw him again.

-Tattoo Rick