Curse of the Black Walnut

There was a prank often played in our neighborhood, it was called Doorbell Ditching; this involved sneaking up to someone’s house (usually a sometime friend but more often, a sometime enemy) and either knocking on their door furiously or if they were better off than you, ringing their doorbell.

After quietly arriving at their front door and performing the prank, you and, of course your best pal would hide in a good viewing spot to see the outcome of your mischief.
Sometimes, if it was Earl or DJ’s house, it might be their old man who came to the door, and who, in a fit of characteristic verbosity, would spew forth some choice swear words; And if we were lucky, we might even hear some of those words that were forbidden to say at any time in the company of older sisters (or little brothers) let alone an adult.

Other times, if it were Earl or DJ’s house, their mom would come out. Then we were more paralyzed by fear. Their mom was a short, plump woman with an eagle eye (probably because of her vast experience with large groups of kids – she had twelve or sixteen – I guess). She would spot us hiding in the bushesand then with a commanding voice, she would point her finger directly at the bush in which we hid behind and proclaim, “John, Scott, get out of our yard!” “Go blow!” that was the best she could serve up. We thought, it was undoubtedly because her husband had already made use of all the swear words for the day that they were allowed by Catholic law (none of us were well schooled in Catholic principles).

But when she came out to tell us to ‘Go Blow’, her accompanying brood would follow her out onto their porch, hanging onto the rails, chanting, “John and Scotty, go blow, go blow.” Worse yet, Earl and DJ would follow us as we ran, screaming “go blow’ in between mouthfuls of whatever they had manage to scrounge from their kitchen during the time their mother was distracted. Lucky for us, we were average kids while they were overweight. We could outdistance them in a matter of minutes leaving them to their more favorite occupation; eating whatever they had in their chubby fists.

Scotty was my best neighborhood buddy. He and his sister Lorie were orange haired kids who lived around the corner from us on Hamilton Street. Scotty was shorter but much tougher than me. I had seen him take on a schoolyard bully without so much as the wink of an eye. He was good pal to have in times of need.

His dad was in the process of building a modern house out of brick and concrete while they lived in the older part of the house on the same lot. It was an interesting process for boys our age (eleven years old or so); we could watch men and machines at work on the house and step on a rusty nail at the same time.

While my dad had a size 40 waist and drank lots of beer, Scotty’s dad was fit; he had been in the marines and played football, Scotty once explained to me.

He not only drank beer, but also mixed liquor drinks. We knew that because when his friends would come over for ‘relaxation’, they would sit in his unfinished patio or driveway smoking cigarettes and plastic tipped cigars that they tossed into the graveled portion of the drive. They would puff away while drinking beverages made from one of the various large bottles clustered around the kitchen counter. Once we had poured a drink from one of the large bottles and found it sweet, yet bitter tasting. Unbeknownst to us, we had tasted a mixer, not the true alcohol from a liquor bottle.

During one of his dad’s ‘relaxation’ episodes, we decided that we would be like the big boys: earlier in the day, we had collected the discarded cigar and cigarette butts from Scotty’s drive. We poured a small cup shaped Tupperware container half full of liquid from one of the brown bottles sitting 0n Scotty’s kitchen counter.

Later that afternoon, we sat under the back porch of my old house on Sixth Street lighting up the worn out plastic tipped cigar butts and sipping the brown bottle liquid from the Tupperware container.

It tasted good for only a moment; because it seemed much quicker, that our bellies were soon on fire. Besides that, the cigars tasted terrible, much like soot or dirt with a smoky aftertaste.
As we coughed and wretched, we suddenly heard voices from at least two people walking quietly along the side of the house. They quickly faded out, but then we heard knocking on my front door. ‘Doorbell ditchers!’ we thought.

My sister’s voice rang out (which one, I couldn’t tell – I had five of ‘em - sometimes they all sounded alike – especially when they were mad – like the time I squirted my sister Jean with the garden hose – when she came out on the front porch, hair in rollers – she sounded like my sister Jessie – Jean chased me around the house, caught me and dug her long fingernails into my arm).

My sister’s voice rang out, “you bad, bad boys! Get out of here! Just go home!” ‘Geez,’ I thought, ‘I could think of better words to scream. Girls don’t know anything!’
But it was my sister Joanne! And, the two voices of the doorbell ditchers were those of Earl and DJ.
In the neighborhood, Joanne was known as JoJo. She was a few years younger than me. JoJo had short brown hair and hardly ever wore a dress - she was a tomboy back then. She could run, jump and play baseball just as well as any of the neighborhood boys and because she was a girl, she couldn’t be beat up – there was a gentleman’s code afterall - fighting girls anyway.

Earl and DJ knew that. When they saw that it was JoJo, they were terror-stricken; horrified by what might be meted out from a well-positioned kick of her strong little legs.

JoJo chased them around the old house; Earl and DJ running as fast as their chunky legs could carry them. They had tossed aside their bits of food (later, we found cold wiener bits on the front porch and the remainder on the sidewalk).

As Scotty and I emerged from the back porch, we gazed at JoJo chasing Earl and DJ towards their house. Trotting back as quickly as she had left, JoJo spotted us; “What are you guys doing?” she asked. “Just hanging out,” I said. “Did you catch them?”
“Almost,” she said. “They ran into their house and then I heard their dad hollering at them. So I left,” she said nonchalantly. ‘She didn’t even care about their old man,’ I thought to myself.
“Hey, what smells?” She looked at Scotty’s hand; he quickly hid it behind his back.
“Hey, that’s a cigar!” Were you guys smoking them?”
“Yeah, so what,” I said.
“I should tell," she replied.

JoJo wasn’t a tattletale and I knew she wouldn’t anyway. Besides, I think she was really mad that she didn’t get the chance to try one herself.
“Yeah, well remember that I didn’t tell when you took Sam for a walk and he puked in front of the BF Goodrich store downtown.”

I was recalling the time when JoJo took Sam, our manic boxer, for a walk by herself. Sam was almost uncontrollable for me and for a smaller person like her; he literally dragged her to wherever he wished.

The time in question was when she had take Sam for a walk one early morning in downtown Geneva, the Sunday after Swedish Days (back in the early 60’s, Swedish Days ended on Saturday afternoon). Sam had dragged JoJo from garbage can to garbage can; eating bits of hotdogs, popcorn and whatever else might be left over from the previous day’s parade.

In the process, he had knocked over several waste containers and then had relieved his stomach of its contents in front of the BF Goodrich store on the corner of North Second Street and State Street. I had come along on my bike after doing a paper route for a vacationing paperboy and saw the mess. Biting her lip to keep from crying, JoJo was beside herself.

“What happened?” As if I couldn’t figure out the scenario in front of me. Still I wanted to hear from her, the story.
“I took Sam for a walk and he started eating junk,” she wailed, pointing to the trail of devastated trashcans Sam had left in his wake. “Then he got sick!” “How am I gonna clean this up?” “Which?” I asked. “That mess,” pointing my hand in the direction of the destruction, “Or this? (the vomit).
“All of it!” Apparently JoJo was more civic-minded than me.
“Get on the back of my bike,” I said quietly. “Unhook Sam’s leash and we’ll make him chase us home.”
“What about the mess?”
“Did anyone see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then it will be a town mystery,” I said darkly (I was still into reading Hardy Boys books). “Okay?”
“Okay,” she said wiping her nose.

Thinking back to that time, JoJo weighed the balance of tit for tat. I think she also thought that I might reveal to Scotty that she might have teared up. The disgrace!
The doorbell ditching went on through most of that summer. We would forget about doing it for weeks and then remember it as if it were something new.

The final straw occurred in August, a few weeks before the start of school. Scotty and I were watching an afternoon Sox game at his house. We heard his dog Deuce barking and looked out the window, only to see Earl and DJ scurrying back through the break in the wooden fence of his yard.
“I bet they were gonna doorbell ditch me,” said Scotty.
Later that week, Scotty and I had ridden our bikes to the Geneva Pool on Western Avenue near the train tracks.
Afterwards, saying good-bye to Scotty at the corner of Hamilton and North Sixth Street, I rode the short half block home.
There, standing outside on our front porch was my dad and JoJo. She was getting hollered at for not latching the front door. Sam and our other dog, a brown mongrel named Queenie had gotten loose.

The two dogs had learned the trick of jumping on the front door handle while pushing against the door. Over the summer we had unknowingly trained them in this bad habit by teasing Queenie about getting squirrels. She was an absolute squirrel crazed mutt, chasing and treeing any neighborhood squirrel she heard or saw. Simply by saying “squirrel or get the squirrels Queenie!” would throw the hound into frenzy. Of course, we did this as often as we could remember.

Affixing his attention on me, my dad said, “John, I want you and Joanne to get on your bikes and start looking for those two damn dogs!”
“I got my paper route to do!” I whined.
“Do it after you find those dogs!”
I should’ve known better; he used the word ‘damn’ and said Joanne instead of JoJo; he was more angry than usual.

Just then the phone rang.
“Daddy,” yelled someone from inside the house, “it’s the police, they want to talk to you!”
Our eyes grew wide. “Geez, ya think they’re calling about Sam and the puking?” asked JoJo.
I hunched my shoulders.

He came back out, red-faced about to explode. “Ride your bikes down to the State Bank, those two damn dogs are down there!”
The State Bank of Geneva was on the corner of Third and State Streets; a corner that held one of the few stoplights in town.

As we rode down to the bank, I asked JoJo how she had left the door unlatched.
“Doorbell ditchers,” she said. “It was Earl and DJ. I chased them down the street and kicked DJ in his butt. Earl got in the house too soon. His mom came out and yelled something at me and I stuck out my tongue.”
‘Man she’s brave,’ I thought.

“My ankle is sore from it too. I heard the front door slam and saw Sam and Queenie running down Hamilton Street. That’s how they got loose.”
“Well, I’ll get them back,” I said, referring to Earl and DJ.
“I’m helping,” she added.

By the time we reached the State Bank, a large crowd had formed. Traffic was backed up.
Sam and Queenie were racing around the intersection, completely stopping traffic. Two squad cars with their lights flashing were stopped in the street. The two officers were attempting to round up the two dogs without any success.

As an officer would approach, Sam would splay his front legs while Queenie would run circles around him, barking in the process. Just as the cop would get close enough, Sam would quickly jump up and almost hop away. This was typical Sam rough housing. As Sam and the cop would perform this feat over and over, the crowd would roar in laughter.

I whispered to JoJo, “If we can catch Sam, Queenie will follow him. You get the leashes ready!”
Willie, one of our neighborhood pals had heard of commotion and rode up to me. Willie was eating an ice cream drumstick watching the fun. “Ya think Sam will bite somebody?’ he said hopefully. Willie needed more drama to suit him.

“Willie, give me your ice cream for a minute. I’ll give it back to you.”
Willie handed me the drumstick.
“Here Sam, here Sam,” I called out extending the drumstick towards Sam.
“Hey, don’t give your dog my ice cream!” yelled Willie.
“Don’t worry, Willie, I won’t.”

Sam approached, sniffing at the ice cream cone. As he snapped at the cone, I slid the choke chain collar over his head, dropping the drumstick onto the street. Sam quickly gobbled down the cold treat. Queenie followed Sam to the treat. JoJo quickly snapped the leash onto her collar.
Both dogs were caught!
“Hey, my ice cream!’ cried Willie.
I gave Willie a dime that I had been saving to buy Milk Duds for the next time at the pool. “Here, sorry about your ice cream, Willie.”
“Okay, thanks.” Willie was already eying Nelson’s store – the penny candy shop.
“You kids, keep those dogs home,” commanded one of the officers. “And on a leash,” added his counterpart.

“This is as bad as last June when we had to clean up those knocked over garbage cans and that mess some drunk made on Second Street.”
Sam was beginning to make hacking noises; JoJo looked at me nervously and sniffled. I shook my head and looked down at my shoes in hopes of gaining pity.
“Just get those dogs outa here,” said the older of the two officers, noticing JoJo’s look of consternation.

Realizing how foolish they appeared, they cut their orders to us short. Telling the small crowd to move on, they began directing the snarled traffic through the intersection.
Walking our bikes and the two dogs home, we plotted our plan of revenge on Earl and DJ.
It was a simple idea; we enlisted the help of JoJo’s girlfriend, Bobbi. She lived across the street from Earl and DJ and had several older sisters.

Bobbi’s mom was an attractive lady (in the eyes of the boys our age – she was up there in good looks alongside Dinah Shore and Doris Day – even the fourth grade teacher at Fourth Street School, Miss Pierce - maybe it was her blonde hair). She was also a very good cook. Consequently, her husband had a huge belly.

Whenever she was baking pies or cakes or cooking fried chicken, a wonderful aroma would waft through our neighborhood. Enticed by this, Earl and DJ would often stop by Bobbi’s house to beg for a sampling of the desserts or any other fare being prepared.
We asked Bobbi to tell Earl and DJ that she would give them some chicken legs her mom had cooked if they would doorbell ditch her friend JoJo’s house as a joke. This was too easy, "of course they would," they said snickering – easy eats.

Meanwhile JoJo and I would have Sam and Queenie waiting under our front porch to give chase. Scotty would be waiting next door.
The perfect day came. Bobbi’s mom had cooked fried chicken the day before. Bobbi brought out three chicken legs that she gave to Earl and DJ. The two piggy boys ran over to our old house on Sixth Street and knocked hard on our front door and took off running. We unsnapped the dogs’ leashes.

“Get the Squirrels Queenie!” I yelled.
Queenie took off running looking for the squirrels. Sam followed her in quick pursuit. Sam quickly sniffed the air, smelling fried chicken, dirty underwear and pork rinds (pork rinds and dirty underwear were DJ’s own odor).
Off he ran in search of the tantalizing scent. Queenie forgot about the squirrels and joined Sam in hunt. JoJo and I followed the dogs.

Seeing the two dogs and JoJo and I in hot pursuit, Earl and DJ raced towards their house, clutching the chicken legs in their greasy hands.
“Yeow!” Yelled Earl. He had run into Scotty, who had stepped out from the lilac bushes. He fell to the ground. Scotty jumped on him,
Before Scotty could make a good wrestling move, Earl slipped from his grasp, his greasy skin benefiting him apparently.

Jumping up, Earl reversed direction and took off running, behind DJ by a few yards.
Now, both the lard-laden brothers were being chased by our two dogs, Sam and Queenie, Scotty, JoJo and I. ‘This will end soon,’ I thought. Into Ernie’s garage, our old man neighbor who lived across the street, ran Earl and DJ..

Crash! Earl had run into the black walnut drying rack Ernie had constructed. It was two full size screen windows mounted onto sawhorses. Into this rack, Ernie had placed the latest batch of black walnuts he had collected a few weeks before. Black walnuts and their rotted husks scattered onto the garage floor.
Earl dropped his chicken leg; Sam quickly gobbled it up. Looking expectantly at DJ, Sam licked his chops.

“You better give those to him,” I warned. “Or else.”
“I won’t!” said DJ defiantly, stepping close to Earl.
As he did this Scotty tripped him. DJ slipped on the floor, dropping the two drumsticks he held and knocking his porky brother Earl down on top of him. More black walnuts fell out of Ernie’s drying rack. Sam and Queenie chewed on the dropped chicken legs.
JoJo walked over to DJ and kicked him in the butt. Then for good measure, she kicked Earl in his butt.

“Ow, ouch,” grunted the two boys.
“Now quit doorbell ditching our house!” she said in her best tough girl sounding voice.
Earl and DJ got up, their jeans and dirty tee shirts covered in the oil that dripped onto the garage floor from Ernie’s old Ford. Worst was the brown stains on their face and arms from the rotted black walnut husks they had fallen into.
Just then, Ernie appeared. “What are you kids doing in here?” he asked crossly. We looked at each other.

“Oh we were looking at your black walnuts,” said JoJo, “and Earl and DJ slipped on the floor,” she said not untruthfully.
Ernie’s face softened seeing JoJo. “Well you boys have made a mess of yourselves. And that black walnut stain won’t come out all too easy. Just clean up the mess and I won’t say anything to yer folks. JoJo you can try some of these walnuts while you hold onto the dogs and the boys clean up their mess.”

Earl and DJ heaved a sigh of relief (as did Scotty and I).
The four of us cleaned up the mess. Scotty and I allowed Earl and DJ to pick up the rotted black walnuts (they were already walnut stained anyway).
Later, we walked home. “You stink!” JoJo told DJ. Even Sam wanted nothing to do with him. It was the smell of black walnuts.

The two stained slob brothers walked home. As they approached their house, they turned around and yelled “go blow!” Then they quickly ran up the steps of their front porch and into their house. We looked at each other and then smiled as we heard their old man yelling, “Jesus Christ! What the hell! Got Dammit!”

We had our revenge.