The Caretaker of Lorne Field

The four teenagers started running, the bag only half-filled. Sam Parsons tried holding four tomatoes against his stomach as he sprinted away. Two of them fell loose. He ignored them and kept running.

“Don’t think I don’t recognize you!” Lloyd Jasper yelled out at them. “Tony Morelli, I see you. You too, Sam Parsons. And you other two, I know who you are! Don’t think I won’t be calling your parents!”

Before too long the boys were out of earshot of the retired schoolteacher. They kept running until they reached the woods bordering Crystal Pond where they had stashed their bikes. Panting hard from the run, they caught their breaths and consolidated the tomatoes Sam Parsons and Lester Durkin carried off with the half-filled shopping bag Tony Morelli had under his thick arm. Morelli leered at Lester and said, “So Weedpuller, you still in on this, right? You’re not backin’ down ’cause we’ve been made by that old prick, right?”

Lester’s mouth turned sullen. “Fuck you. I’m doing this. And quit calling me Weedpuller.”

“You do this, you lose that name. Until then you’re Weedpuller. Right, Sam?”

“Exactly.” Sam Parsons smiled nervously, his face flushed with perspiration. “Weedpuller does this with us, he gets a new name.”

Morelli winked at Carl Ashworth. “You agree, too?”

“Fuck, yeah,” Carl said.

“Then what the fuck are we waiting for?” Morelli asked gleefully, a malicious gleam shining in his dark eyes. He pulled his bike off the ground and rode off, carrying the bag full of tomatoes. The other boys got on their bikes and followed. Morelli led the way along the dirt path around the pond, then across woods until they reached the road leading to the Caretaker’s cabin. As they rode past the cabin Lester lowered himself on his bike and tried to shield his face from view, hoping neither Bert or his mom saw him. When Morelli pulled onto the path leading to Lorne Field, he turned back to leer at his companions, then raced on until he pulled up to the edge of Lorne Woods.

The other three boys caught up to him and they divvied up the tomatoes. Lester Durkin, Sam Parsons and Carl Ashworth all took off their shirts and used them as makeshift sacks to carry theirs while Morelli held onto the bag. Morelli pointed out where in the woods he wanted each of his co-conspirators to go. “You know how far it is to the field?” he asked Lester. Morelli’s round dark face was frozen in a heavy leer, but a wavering in his eyes betrayed his bravado. Lester shrugged and told him he had no idea.

“You’ve never been there before?”

“No. What made you think I would have?”

“I don’t know. I would’ve thought your old man would’ve taken you sometime.” Morelli paused before showing a nasty smirk. “After all, he’s got to teach you how to pull weeds since you are the Weedpuller. But I guess you get practice pulling your own weed every night when you’re alone.”

Lester tried shoving Morelli but didn’t budge him. “Quit calling me that!”

“You try that again,” Morelli said, “and I’ll shove one of these tomatoes down your throat. Understand?”

Carl Ashworth put an arm around Morelli’s thick frame and guided him to the side. “Come on, man,” Carl said, “this is going to be fucking awesome. Let’s just get to it.”

Morelli glared menacingly at Lester before turning to Carl Ashworth and Sam Parsons. “Stay hidden until the signal, okay?” He hesitated for a moment, and then looked back at Lester, a tenseness momentarily weakening his smirk.

“You’re sure the field’s this way?” Morelli asked.

“That’s the direction my dad heads off every morning,” Lester said.

With that the four of them ran into the woods, moving quickly at first, then slowing down as they crept closer to the field. Lester tried to keep low to the ground and hidden behind trees and rocks. After a while he could see the field and his dad in the middle of it. He tried keeping even closer to the ground as he edged forward, crawling to a thick oak tree sitting on the edge of the field. When he got to the tree he hid behind it, his heart beating like a drum in his chest, pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode out of him. But the wild panic he felt at first was replaced by humiliation as he watched his dad walking up and down that field pulling weeds. He wanted to run up to his dad and pummel him for making him such a joke to his friends but he stayed where he was, tears flooding his eyes as he watched his dad work his way up and down the field, moving a little closer with each pass.