keeping pants

        They walked slowly, the pavement baking in the July sun, the street
fresh with the smell of tar.  Steve wiped sweat from his forehead with his
shirt and looked over his shoulder.  Scott had stopped walking and was focuing
a magnifying glass on a firecracker.  Suddenly he dropped the firecracker, and
it exploded, scattering bits of paper across the street.

        "You're a fire bug," Steve said.

        "If I'm a fire bug, then your dad is, too.  He sold them to me."

        "How many do we have left?"  he said with agitation.  The boys had
spent every day of the summer together, and bickering had become their pastime.

        "Damn!  Ten, okay?  We have two more packs, and the smoke bombs.
Plus two M-80's, but we're saving those."  He didn't trust Steve to hold
the fireworks, not even the smoke bombs.

        They heard Steve's mother calling from behind them.  Scott was
annoyed by her intrustion.  They turned around.  "If you want lunch, you
better come home now," she said.  Her hair was shocked outward.  She wore a
red robe and held a rolled up newspaper.

        "Let's go to Dairy Delight," Scott whispered.

        "Scott and I are going to Dairy Delight for lunch, okay?"  Steve's
mom disappeared into the house.  The door smacked shut behind her.

        "Cool," Scott said.  "Let's hurry, before it gets crowded."  They
turned the corner as Gugga walked toward them.  Scott slowed and began to
turn around.

        "Come on," Steve said.  "He won't bother us."  Gugga's face soured as
he approached them, and a pit formed in Scott's stomach.  He wanted to turn
and run.  His history with Gugga had been less than ideal.

        "What are you two doing?" Gugga said, standing in their way.

        "We're just goofin' off," Scott said nonchalantly.

        "What grade are you going to?" Gugga said, pointing his finger into
Scott's face.  Scott felt afraid while recalling the rite of passage for boys
going to seventh grade.  During the summer, older boys were allowed to steal
your pants.  Thus far, Scott had avoided the ordeal by steering clear of every
older kid in the neighborhood.  In one more week, he'd be back in school and
in no fear of being forced to walk home in his underwear.

        "Seventh," Steve volunteered.  Scott glared at Steve.

        "Seventh, huh?" Gugga said.  "Maybe I should take your pants, then."

        "Don't, Gugga," Steve said.

        "Shut up!" Gugga said.  He looked down at Steve, four years and a
foot his junior.

        Scott knew he couldn't outrun Gugga all the way home, three blocks
away, but he could climb the tree in Steve's backyard.  He made his decision
and ran full speed toward Steve's house.  Gugga and Steve were scuffling
behind him, but he maintained his stride, rounding the corner and hurdling
a hedge.  He reached the tree, a tall maple with a rope hanging from the
lowest branch.

        "Come here you little faggot!" Gugga said.
        
        Scott climbed the rope, then slung it over the next higher branch and
climbed higher.  He reached the next branch, then the next, a dizzying
progression of handholds, footholds, and grunts.  He passed the highest point
he had ever reached in the tree and kept going.  His chest ached with exertion,
so he stopped to rest.  Steve and Gugga watched him from thirty feet below.

        "You better come down now!"  Gugga said.  "The longer you stay up
there, the worse it'll be for you!"

        "I'm staying here," Scott said, his heart still racing.  He
slowly caught his breath.  He was at least thirty feet from the ground, a
maze of branches and fat green leaves below him.

        "You'll have to come down sooner or later!" Gugga said.

        The leaves rustled in a breeze which disturbed the stagnant air, the
horizon dark with clouds.  Scott hugged the trunk as the tree swayed in a
gust of wind.  Thunder rumbled deeply in the distance, a line of thunderheads
approaching from the horizon.  The leading clouds bruised the sky with gray
and purple.  The following clouds were as black as pitch.

        "Come down now!" Gugga said.  "Look, a storm's coming!  You'll be hit
with lightning!"

        Gugga watched Scott expectantly.  The dark clouds, low and edged with
mist, moved closer.  Thunder rolled across the river valley, and the hills in
the distance disappeared behind gray curtains of rain.  The horizon strobed
with lightning, orange forks of electricity that turned yellow as the storm
approached.

        "Holy shit!" Steve said.  He jumped from the thunderclaps.  "Scott,
maybe you should come down."

        "Yeah, listen to him!" Gugga said, sneering.

        Scott shivered as the wind rose again.  The tree twisted, branches
scraping branches.  Birds fled for cover.  A robin alighted upon a branch a
few feet above his head, then flitted away upon seeing him.  He wondered
which was worse -- braving out a thunderstorm high in a tree, or running three
blocks in his underwear.

        "Why don't you leave first?" Scott said.  "Then I'll climb down."
Gugga didn't move.  "See!  You don't care.  All you want to do is take my
pants!  I'm staying."  He wondered how long Gugga would wait to beat him up.

        "You're a sissy," Gugga said.

        "You're a jackass," Scott said, his voice trembling with anger.  He
was surprised at himself for talking like that to Gugga.

        "I'm gonna kick your ass!" Gugga said.  A white bolt of lightning
split the sky, and thunder crashed a second behind it.  Scott saw spots from
the flash as huge, cold raindrops spattered his arms and forehead.  The wind
rose to a continuous roar, with intense gusts, the tree swaying four or five
feet.  He hugged the trunk with all his strength and asked God to protect him
from the lightning.

        Black clouds swirled above.  More lightning flashed as the sky
opened up.  Cold rain blinded him and stung his face, bolts of electricity
lacing the sky with blue.  Scott forgot Gugga, Steve, his pants, and seventh
grade.  The storm soaked his clothes and shoes, filling the air with the
smell of rain upon hot pavement.  Gugga and Steve had fled for cover, the
ground littered with broken twigs and leaves.

        The rain swept across him in sheets, whipping him, nearly plucking him
from the tree.  Gusts of wind left him breathless, as the tree twisted and
rocked, branches snapping.  A powerful bolt of lightning sheared off a tree
branch in the neighbor's yard.  The air crackled with electricity, sparks
showering about the tree.  The blackened branch fell to the ground, the air
acrid with ozone.

        He shouted out in victory, recharged by the storm's power.  He
scissored the tree trunk between his legs and raised his arms.  Clouds swirled
above him, electricity arcing from cloud to cloud.  He laughed, knowing that,
one block away, Gugga was standing safely in his house, his heart longing for
revenge.

        Soon, he climbed down from the tree, his feet slipping as the tree
danced in the wind.  In several minutes, he reached the ground and looked up
into the branches, the leaves bright green against the sky.  Street lights
had turned on, then off again as more lightning lit the sky.  Bored, Scott
walked home through the storm.  He reached the back porch of his house as
rain hammered the aluminum awning.  After drying his hair, he climbed the
stairs to his bedroom.  There, he removed his cold, wet pants.