TWO
Mr. Gagner lived at the very top of our street; his house actually being on Fullerton Avenue. He had the biggest house out of all of our neighbors. No, he wasn’t the rich old miser in the mansion at the top of the hill, but he was a cranky old bastard.
His house was a two story, made of stone and wood slats. It looked as though it might better fit in with the cabins you might see in Big Bear to the east. But instead of being surrounded by pines and furs, it sat on two acres of land with lots of orange and avocado trees. Surrounding his entire property was a three-foot tall brick wall with another three feet of wrought iron fencing on top.
I was never really sure if Mr. Gagner had any kids–we never saw any–but if he did they were grown and had moved away. What I did know was; he was a mean, old man that owned a big, ferocious St. Bernard named Ben.
My brother caught up to me after getting himself back under control. It took me only a few seconds to see how silly the whole situation had been as well. I was even snickering about it when he came up and punched me lightly on the shoulder. Here I was, thinking that a sweet lady like Mrs. Miller would pull a shotgun on a couple of children. It sounded ridiculous. But when you’re a kid, your imagination is a twisted track of runaway trains.
“We didn’t have any breakfast this morning. You hungry?” Jason asked.
“A little, I guess.” I said. “Why, we going to pick some oranges?”
Crossing his arms over his chest and giving me that ‘I’m older than you’ look, he said, “Nope. You are. Get up there and get us a couple.”
“Aw, Jay, what if Ben hears me. He’ll bite my arm off.”
I could tell that my brother had already formulated a plan. “It’s okay. I’ll go look through the front gate and see where he’s at. Wait for my signal.”
The entrance to the dirt driveway of Mr. Gagner’s house had two wrought iron gates that swung inward on an automatic opening system. They were about thirty feet from were we were and Jason jogged lightly to them and crouched down at the end of the low brick wall, peeked around the corner. He stayed that way for about five seconds before looking back in my direction. He made a series of hand signals and mouthed something, but I was too far away to read his lips.
I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head as if to say I had no clue what he meant.
Looking frustrated, he first pointed at me, pointed at the orange tree in front of me, and then made a picking gesture. Next he pointed back toward the gates, cocked his head to one side, put his hands, palms together, under his head and mimicked someone sleeping.
Pick some oranges. Ben is asleep.
He gave me the okay sign circling his thumb and forefinger.
Now, kids and monkeys have a couple things in common. For one thing, both usually smell funny. For another, they’re both good climbers. The latter came in handy for me then as I grabbed the bars of the fence and lifted myself from the sidewalk onto the low wall that surrounded the property with the skill of a macaque. As I reached my arm through, I silently prayed that Ben would stay asleep at the other end of the yard. My hand felt only empty space for what seemed like an eternity and then something, yes, a nice sized fruit brushed my fingers.
I pulled.
The motion of it coming free shook the tree and made a little more noise than I had hoped. Or was comfortable with. I cringed at the thought of Ben lying in the driveway, suddenly raising his massive head. I looked over to where Jason had crouched at the end of the wall and waited for some sort of sign.
He wasn’t looking at me but he had his hand behind him and was raising it up and down in a quick motion, telling me to slow down or keep it down. I wasn’t sure which.
But I froze. My heart felt a pound heavier in my chest, and then he gave me the okay sign again and I released my breath.
I looked at the orange I had just picked and saw that it had a hole and a big black spot on it. Knowing it wasn’t any good I dropped it back into Mr. Gagner’s yard and went for another. A plump, mature Navel caught my eye, even bigger than the first and I shot my arm back through, plucking it from its green shady home. I turned sideways and dropped it into my little blue wagon. It made a bonk sound when it landed.
I looked back at my brother who was now looking at me, giving me the thumbs up. One more orange and the job would be done.
Looking through the bars once more, I saw one the size of a grapefruit and went for it. It would be for Jason. He’d be happy with me for giving him the bigger of the two.
Reaching through for the third time I found that my prize was a bit out of reach. I could touch it with the tips of my fingers, but couldn’t quite get hold of it. I’d have to climb up higher on the bars and reach over.
I adjusted my position and threw my arm up and over the spiked tops of the wrought iron when I heard my brother came running back down the sidewalk.
“Jump! Jump! He woke up. He’s coming.”
At first I thought he was just messing with me, pulling my leg so to speak, and then my heart skipped three beats as I heard something big smashing its way through the undergrowth that surrounded the orange trees. A whine escaped my throat as I started to climb down. I got one foot off the wall when I realized my shirtsleeve had snagged a spike at the top of the fence.
Oh crap, I thought.
I looked back down into Mr. Gagner’s yard and saw this thing made of fur and teeth and slobber heading full bore at me.
“Jason!” I screamed. He was running toward me as well. He was yelling something, but I couldn’t make it out over my own screaming.
Ben hit the fence at my chest level, rocking it. He was barking and snapping, foam flying from his cave like mouth. He wasn’t a mad dog, but he sure was a pissed off dog. I had invaded his territory and he was out for blood. His head was too big to get through the bars, but he was still only inches from my small body. That dog must have outweighed me by a hundred pounds, and there was no doubt in my mind that he could swallow me whole. I was sure that dog had pieces of kids bigger than me in his stool.
By the time my brother got to me the front of my shirt was covered in stinky, ropey, dog slobber. He grabbed me by the waist like a defensive tackle and pulled. I came free from the fence with a ripping sound and we both landed on our butts on the sidewalk.
We jumped up, I grabbed my wagon and we bolted. The whole time the dog kept pace with us along the other side of the wall, his head, bobbing up and down, barking. Twenty seconds later we were past the property and away from the barking nightmare named Ben.
Just past Mr. Gagner’s was six acres of orange trees that we all called Dead Grove. It got its name from the fact that as long as we had lived in the neighborhood, that grove never had any oranges or even any leaves on its trees. They were all dead and stood like skeletons on a battlefield two years after the war had ended.
There were three different spots that led into the grove. If you went past Mr. Gagner’s house and took a left at the third tree, there was a pathway that a person could follow into its depths. Or you could walk across the street from our house, jump a fence, walk down a short ally and enter next to a shed that housed the water distribution system for our block. And if you went straight on through you’d end up on Magnolia Avenue, which was the third way through. Dead Grove was a twisted labyrinth of trees, tumbleweeds, and trash. At night, you could get lost in it. I’d even heard stories of kids going in and never being seen again.
We walked next to Dead Grove on our way to the construction site while I got my bearings back from the confrontation with Ben. My brother comforted me in the way only older brothers can; with ridicule and laughter.