Continued…The reason I know our house was a rutabagas toss from Blanchard’s house surely wasn’t because Blanchard had thrown a rutabaga our way. It is common knowledge that a twelve year old boy can spit further than an old man can throw a rutabaga. No, the reason I know is because I threw one of Blanchard’s rutabagas from his garden, behind his little blue house, to my brother Ray who was playing in the sand box behind our house.

I didn’t so much throw it “to” him as “at” him, but let’s not get caught up in details, just know that it was one heck of a toss. One of those tosses where you stand for a moment prior to launch feeling the weight of the rutabaga in your hand as you contemplate windage, distance, trajectory, and how angry that turd Ray’s going to be when that rutabaga hits him true and square.

That last thought is the one that focuses your senses, puts that extra spring in your crow hop and whip in your arm as you let it fly. When you let something fly from a good distance you have what seems like an eternity to shift your hopeful gaze back and forth between what you’ve thrown and who you’ve thrown it at. Once the projectile leaves your hand you become a mere observer, watching with anticipation as the distance between the two objects gradually decreases.

When you make it your business to throw things at people you get good at your business. I knew the instant that rutabaga left my hand that it was a money shot. It just felt right. It wasn’t a matter of if it was going to hit Ray it was a matter of where. A head shot might render him unconscious, a blow to his bony little back might knock the wind out of him, both of which would be cause for bawling and potential tattling, but that was a chance I was willing to take.

The potential for collateral damage was accepted long before I let the rutabaga fly. Somethings are just worth the consequences. The head, the back, a glancing blow to the shoulder, all were possibilities, but the south side of Ray’s north facing Toughskins jeans was the target of choice. Every big brother worth his salt knows that a shot in the seat will produce the optimal balance between pain and anger. Painful enough to drop him where he stands while simultaneously producing enough anger to keep him from limping to mommy. The perfect scenario. He knew as well as I did that it would be a waste of time to limp to mom crying about taking a rutabaga in the bum. Mom would’ve laughed his bruised backside out of the house.

Ray stood there in the sandbox completely unaware of what was about to rain down on him. Under normal circumstances he probably would have detected something was amiss, he would have heard the smile stretch across my filthy garden looting face and the little grunt I let out when I launched the rogue rutabaga, but he was much too busy pounding some character into his Tonka trucks and Matchbox cars with a hammer to notice he was under attack.

Just as he raised the hammer up high above his head to give a particularly resilient dump truck a good whack the rutabaga found its mark. With a fresh smear of dirt on the right back pocket of his Toughskins he went down with a whimper amongst the carnage of crushed cars and dismembered G.I. Joe action figures. It got him good.

To be continued…