The Dummy Part 2

If you haven't read Part 1 you can do so here.

Since we couldn't skate on the ice or slide the furniture around, we went back to our court and each went to our houses to gather some old clothing.  We met in my backyard near the hole in the hedge and began assembling a dummy made of a pair of pants and long sleeve shirt and then stuffed it with the other old clothes and rags we had found.  Holding him up for inspection we couldn't help but giggle at what we had created.

We took George (the dummy's name) to the pool complex, heaved him over the fence and then clambered over it after him.  Jimmy had brought an ice pick and he chipped out a half circle in the ice at the edge of the pool big enough for the dummy and we took the lifeguard hook's pole and stuffed the dummy under the ice, pushing him about 3 to 4 feet away from the edge with the pole.

Through the milky white ice, George the dummy looked exactly like a body trapped under the ice.  We put the pole back and scrambled over the fence giggling and laughing the whole time as we high-tailed it back to my yard. 

We waited.

A week went by, then two.  Every day we would nonchalantly walk past the pool and one of us would turn and look.

"He still there?"  Jimmy would ask.
"Yep, still there," his brother John would say.

We couldn't figure out why no one had discovered The Dummy. 

The following week, just before dusk, we were playing kick the can in the snow and we heard sirens in the distance getting closer.  We all froze.  As they grew louder we could tell they were heading for the pool so we hauled ass, laughing and cackling to the hole in the hedge at my back yard and watched.

Two police cars, 3 fire trucks, an ambulance and a small gathering of neighbors watched for 30 minutes or so as the firemen attempted to rescue The Dummy.  This part remains frozen in my memory as distinct and clear as the day it happened:  Sound travels well over the snow and we could here the emergency vehicle's radios squawk now and then along with the frantic voices of the police and fireman.  As they rescued The Dummy, holding it up to see, everything became deathly silent as the guy holding George said:  "Fucking kids!"  and threw The Dummy to the ground.  It made a wet slapping noise as it hit the deck.  We ran.

There's a reason I posted this little clip of my childhood.  The other day Annandale popped into the news and it made me think about all the good and bad times I had there.  The town and The court I lived on were some of the most dramatic and memorable of my young life.  But what if things had turned out just a little different?  What if the prank had gone wrong?  Could be a good story in there.  I may just have to put my pen to it.  When I'm finished, I'll post it on this blog.