The Great Pumpkin
Todd
Ballard
I can’t remember whose idea it was. It had to have
been my brother’s. He had all the crazy ideas, as you
will soon see. All I remember is seeing that beauty lying there
in that garden for weeks. It kept growing too, which made it
all the more tempting.
Now there is something inside a boy that yearns to destroy.
I remember spending most of my childhood destroying things:
building models and setting them on fire, crushing Star Wars
figures with rocks, and igniting baseball mitts after soaking
them in gasoline. Yes, those were the days.
The Great Pumpkin, as we began calling it after the name of
the annual Charlie Brown special, was a horticultural triumph.
It stood over two feet off the ground and measured several feet
in diameter. There was nothing on the whole bus route that surpassed
its greatness. We had already smashed many a potted plant in
the neighborhood. As the bus passed the house each day all of
our greedy eyes would peer out those horizontal windows at that
beautiful orange orb wondering how we could lay our hands on
it. It shown out as a sun with all the smaller pumpkins orbiting
it like the nine planets.
During Halloween week there wasn’t one pumpkin left after
our many evenings rampaging each road in a half-mile radius
of the trailer park in which we lived. But it wasn’t Halloween
week when we spotted this beauty. And for that, we were puzzled.
“I just don’t think it’s right,” Jimmy
kept saying.
“What d’ya mean by that? Like it’s ever right
to smash somebody’s pumpkin?” Billy had a good point.
Was it really ever right for someone to go around smashing pumpkins,
even on Halloween? Sure, most folks probably expected their
pumpkins to be smashed—surely not the porcelain lanterns
we got a hold of that one year—but the natural pumpkins,
the real ones, people expected those to be smashed. We all agreed.
However, we were facing a dilemma. It wasn’t Halloween.
“I just don’t think we can smash someone’s
punkin when it ain’t Halloween.” Jimmy always said
“punkin.” It was really annoying.
“But this beauty ain’t gonna last until Halloween.
It’s still months off.” My brother had a point.
“Yeah, what if the Great Pumpkin is gone by then?”
I added to aid my brother’s argument. Finally, after much
debate, it was settled upon. That very night, under the cover
of darkness, we would end the life of the Great Pumpkin.
Dressed in black, we crossed the sheep field, darting from one
shadow to the next: an oak, a hay roll, the fence line, the
house. The sheep bayed in the distant corner of the paddock.
There were five of us: Jimmy, Billy, my brother, Morty, and
me. I’ll never forget that night. Morty had actually put
a black line under each of his eyes with shoe polish. “For
the glare of the moon,” he explained. “I have a
fair complexion.”
Lights shone out where the pumpkin lived. Why would that stop
us? Smashing someone’s pumpkin when they are not home
is like pouring milk into a glass when your parents are away.
Everyone drinks from the jug.
Billy led the way, followed by my brother. The oldest guys always
lead the troop. We paused, backs against the home of the pumpkin.
No turning back now.
Billy glanced up. “It’s clear,” he whispered
in the darkness after making sure no one was in the kitchen
window. With stealth we rendezvoused at the pumpkin, each taking
a different path. The pumpkin seemed to shine out with a light
all its own in the darkness—a silver moon lying in a dark
gray patch of outer-space.
Getting the pumpkin to the road was easier than I thought. Billy
and my brother could carry it alone. Unspotted, we all put a
hand on her and lifted her aloft.
“One, two…” Billy began in a whisper, “THREE!”
He yelled.
None of us witnessed the pumpkin hitting the ground. We only
heard the hollow sound, as if someone were striking a five-gallon
bucket with a stick. Too scared to look back, we scattered.
Morty’s feet patted behind mine. My brother’s shadowed
form darted behind a house, following Billy. I remember lying
in the dew drenched grass trying not to breathe, then my breath
coming in short gasps. We ran all the way home after resting
there for only a few minutes.
The real horror of what took place never dawned
on me, not at the time anyway. The next day on the bus trip
home we did not find the road littered with the remains of a
once glorious botanical achievement as we had expected. Instead,
we saw a stake in a freshly mown yard with pumpkin shells stacked
beneath it. Aloft the stake was a simple placard that read,
“Why?” Later, we found out that Mr. Schmidt was
growing the pumpkin for the Illinois state fair.
....
Todd Ballard lives in Indianapolis where he teaches driver's
ed and speaks Japanese. Actually, he only teaches driver's ed
in the summer, we think, and teaches something else the rest
of the year, but we don't recall what. And we're not even sure
if he still speaks Japanese, or if he lives in Indianapolis.
Sorry. Real bio coming soon.
