“Painting a Squirrel Blue”

Ask any child these days what he likes to do in his spare time, and he will say, “I like to do stuff.” Of course, what he means is, “I like to play video games and eat fattening foods!”

When I was in grade school, the Nintendo Entertainment System was the only available video gaming system, and though it was thrilling to play, in all its 8-bit glory, it had its limits. Current video entertainment systems can provide a gamer with characters that look and act like real people. Some are actually more animated than a few acquaintances of mine. But the NES could not offer enough reality to beat real reality, and so my friends and I were outside more often than we were in front of a television screen.

When an adult would ask myself or one of my friends what we liked to do in our spare time, we would say, “I like to do stuff.” And we meant it. We never specified exactly what “stuff” was, however, and for good reason: we would get in trouble if we did.

It goes without saying that the outside world offers a great many things to do for a young boy. The simple task of exploring one’s own neighborhood could be stretched out over years! But if there is one thing we had in common with today’s boys, it was that we had very short attention spans. I read somewhere that the attention span of a goldfish is three seconds. To us, three seconds could sometimes prove to be an eternity. Because of this, we were forever searching for new things to do, and by “things to do,” I mean “things that could get us in big trouble.”

The summer of 1996 was my first without my best friend, Chris Chagdes, at my side. He had moved to a faraway place that was inaccessible to me at 15 miles away. Thus, I was confronted with the difficult task of finding things to do without him.

For a week or so after school ended, I puttered about around the house and in the yard. I knew of a thousand interesting places to go and things to do around the neighborhood, but what fun were they, when I was all by myself? I was determined to enjoy my summer, anyway, so I did a few tried and true activities to keep me occupied.

Chris and I often dug holes in the ground, just to see how far we could go, and to race each other. Despite his small size, Chris usually won. Although, now that I think about it, the race was to see whom could dig a hole big enough to fit himself in the fastest, giving Chris an exceptional advantage. After our parents would come home, we’d scurry away to safety in one of our many forts stationed in between our two homes, to escape the impending lecture of goddammit boys we’ve told you at least 6,000 times not to dig holes in the backyard and this is the last time we’re going to tell you so go out there and fill those holes up right now or you’ll get a spanking and go to bed without dinner!

But I found that digging a hole by myself was boring, and made me lonely. Climbing trees, building forts, exploring the Ravine where I wasn’t supposed to go, and throwing rocks at stuff concluded with the same result: boredom and loneliness.

Something had to be done.

One evening, after I had spent the day being chased by bees after hitting their hive with a rock, I approached my parents with a radical proposal: to extend my territory by over a mile. My parents showed their willingness to carefully consider my proposal by laughing hysterically. Dad even fell out of his chair, just to show me how serious he was. When they were done, I made a case for my cause:

Me: “Mom, Dad: I’m bored! I don’t have anyone to play with and there’s nothing to do!”

Mom: “There’s plenty to do! You and Chris found endless ways to get yourselves killed last summer! Can’t you just do some of—“

Dad: “Honey, think before you speak.”

Mom: “Can’t you find some new, constructive things to do, like clean the house?”

Me: “Mooooooom! I don’t want to clean the house! I want to play with my friends! Look! I got seventeen bee stings today and I didn’t even have anybody to show them off to!”

Dad: “You have plenty of friends around here! What about Elvin?”

Me: “Elvin is three.”

Dad: “Well, he might not be much for conversation, but I’m sure you could find something for the two of you to do.”

Me: “Such as?”

Mom: “You could play… um… Why don’t you two dig holes together? I mean, in his yard.”

Me: “Elvin can’t lift a shovel.”

Dad: “Well… hmmm. Jan?”

Mom: “We don’t want you to go so far away from the house that you can’t get to a phone if something happens.”

Me: “Nothing will happen!”

Dad: “You don’t know that!”

Me: “Well, if you let me go as far as the school, I could just go to JC or Mark’s house if something happened.”

Dad: “Look, son—“

Me: “Please?”

Dad: “Doug—“

Me: “Pleeeeeease?”

Dad: “Stop—“

Me: “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?”

Dad: “Now—“

Me: “PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE?”

Dad: “Fine, dammit!”

Me: “HOORAY!”

And so it was that my territory was expanded exponentially.

The very next day, I awoke earlier than normal and energetically rode my cheap 8-speed bicycle over my old boundary line and up to Kelly Gezzer’s house. I strode through the overgrown lawn and up the cracked steps and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, louder. I began beating on the door, and suddenly heard a roar. A roar? What could be roaring?

I thought quickly: it was Saturday. Mr. Gezzer is in bed with a hangover! I sprinted to my bicycle and took off down the street.

I next visited JC’s house, where there were also no signs of life. I knocked on the door, and a few minutes later, Mr. Sawa came to the door. He squinted at me through the screen door. “Doug?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” I replied, confused. “Why?”

“It’s 6:30 in the morning!”

“Oh.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“Can JC come out and play?”

“He’s asleep.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake… Come in.”

Obliged, I walked in, and took a seat on the couch. Mr. Sawa followed me, rubbing his eyes, and sat in the easy chair across the room. He looked strange to me. I had never seen my friend’s dad unshaven and unshowered. Likewise, I had never seen a man other than my father wearing a robe and slippers before.

“My mom has a pair of bunny slippers like that,” I said, pointing to the white, fluffy, whiskered creatures on his feet.

“Oh,” he said, turning a bit red. “These are my wife’s.”

I nodded and said, “My dad wears my mom’s slippers sometimes, too. The tile on the kitchen floor is really cold, and he keeps forgetting where his are. This one time, he forgot to wear them into the kitchen in the morning and one of the neighbors called the police because of all the horrible wailing coming from our house and by the time they got here, Dad had put the bunny slippers on but he was so surprised that the police came that he forgot he wasn’t wearing his robe and answered the door wearing only his underwear and bunny slippers.”

Mr. Sawa, who was convinced that I and his son were both insane, stared at me thoughtfully as I went on, but his face became more and more knotted up as I went on, so I stopped. There were tears coming out of his eyes, and he made a couple of chortling noises. Seeing nothing else to do, I continued, “so the police arrested him just like that for disturbing the peace and indecent exposure and they took him out to the police car in his underwear and bunny slippers while all of the neighbors watched, and he yelled ‘I’M NOT WEIRD!’ at them until the policeman shut the door on him.”

Mr. Sawa had turned red. Just as I finished my story, he burst out in raucous laughter, laughter that shook the walls and echoed through the house. Mrs. Sawa came out into the living room and stared at her husband with her hands on her hips. “John!” she said, with a tone of voice that suggested that Mr. Sawa might be in trouble. “Just what is so funny at 6:30 in the morning?”

“I… he…” he managed to squeeze out before laughing again. Mrs. Sawa rolled her eyes.

“I’m going to make coffee,” she said, and left the room.

Presently, Mr. Sawa stopped laughing, and wiped the tears from his eyes. “So where were his slippers?” he asked me.

“I had them,” I said. Mr. Sawa started laughing again.

I heard a “JOHN! What will the neighbors say?”

“Aw, the neighbors are crazy, anyway!” he yelled back.

An while later, Mr. Sawa was all laughed-out and had gone out on the patio to wait for the newspaper. Unwilling to wait inside for JC to get up, I went with him. Mrs. Sawa had reluctantly given me a cup of coffee, and Mr. Sawa watched with a strange look on his face as I greedily guzzled it down. “Son,” he said, “that stuff’s gonna stunt your growth.”

“Nah,” I replied. “I’ve been drinking it since I was two, and I’m taller than most of my class.”

“Two?” he said.

The newspaper kid rode up that moment, and none other than my friend Mark Shelton stomped up the steps and handed Mr. Sawa his newspaper.

“Doug?” he said.

“Mark?” I replied.

In unison: “What are you doing here?”

“Jinx!” I yelled. Mark frowned.

“That doesn’t count during summer,” he said.

“I didn’t know you delivered the newspaper,” I said.

“I didn’t know you were allowed to come out here,” he replied.

“I fought for and won that right just last night!” I said, proudly.

“Great!” Mark said. “You should come over today! Matt and I are gonna do stuff!” Do stuff. That was exactly what I wanted to hear.

“Deal!” I cried.

“Can I have my newspaper?” asked Mr. Sawa.

“Newspaper?” Mark asked himself, and looked at the rolled-up paper in his hands. He grinned. “Here ya go,” he said, and went down the steps to his bike.

“Thanks,” said Mr. Sawa, and went indoors.

“Come over after 8!” he yelled, and took off.

A short while later, JC and I were sitting in front of a mound of pancakes that was quickly disappearing. Mr. and Mrs. Sawa spent less time actually eating than they spent watching in weird fascination as her son and his friend inhaled what was widely believed to be the best cooking in town. Then it was a “thanks for breakfast!” And we were out the door.

Mark’s house was walking distance from the Sawa household, so we took off at a brisk pace, which eventually turned into a frantic run. We were excited! We reached the house and found Mark and his fraternal twin Matt in the backyard building a tree fort. Hooray! My summer was saved!

Rarely was this formula available to kids our age: four destructive boys, three months’ free time, and freedom to roam. With the increased manpower, and the extra energy generated by the thrill of all the new possibilities, the tree fort was completed in weeks.

Truth be told, there have been better tree forts: our tree fort was more a chaotic collection of old wooden boards nailed to the tree and to each other than it was an identifiable structure. But by our standards, it was the greatest achievement any of us had ever made. That fort was our blood, sweat, and tears—literally. Mark cut his arm on some of the aluminum and bled all over the floor, I smashed my hand with a hammer and bawled like a baby, and other injuries decorated the tree fort with the human touch.

After the fort, there was still endless stuff available for us to do. We did all of the regular stuff: explore the Ravine where we weren’t supposed to go, build forts, throw rocks, play ball… you name it, we did it. But there still came a time when the four of us became bored.

One day, as we were sitting on the front steps of the Shelton household, trying to think of something to do, Mark, a natural leader, said, “You guys, we have to do something.”

“We know,” his brother Matt replied. “That’s what we’re tryin’ to think of.”

“No,” Mark said, shaking his head. “I mean, we’ve gotta do something special.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We’ve got four guys… We can do something good. Something big.”

“Like what?” I repeated.

“I don’t know yet,” Mark said.

“Well, you figure out what to do, and the rest of us are going to go inside and watch ‘Forbidden Channel.’”

“The Playboy channel?” Mark asked. “Again?”

For the next few days, we went about our usual activities while Mark tried to think something big up for us to do. Matt tried to do a handstand on his skateboard and broke his arm, for the second time. JC took to chasing a squirrel that had taken up residence in our tree fort. But still, Mark was stumped.

About a week after he first announced that we had to do something “big,” Mark was frustrated. The rest of us were, too. We had a fantastic foursome, and it was disheartening that our seemingly endless potential could have limits.

Then came a day when Matt found an old bucket of ugly blue paint in the back of the garage. He hauled it out with his good arm, set it on the ground, and suggested, “we should paint the fort blue.”

“I don’t know,” Mark said. “The fort blends right in with the tree. If we paint it blue, then it won’t be camouflaged anymore, and we’ll lose the advantage of surprise.”

“The advantage of surprise on who?” Matt replied.

“You know, people,” Mark replied.

“That’s stupid,” Matt said back. The two growled at each other and started bickering. I rolled my eyes and picked up the bucket of paint to look at it.

Just then, the squirrel ran past, with JC hot in pursuit. A few moments later, JC returned, panting and sweating. When he caught his breath, he said, “I hate that squirrel.” I set the bucket of paint down. Matt and Mark stopped talking. We looked at the bucket of paint.

So it was decided that we would paint a squirrel blue.

The next day, we met at the Shelton house especially early and began setting traps for the Squirrel. I should note here that none of us knew how to set a trap, or at least set one correctly. Our scarce knowledge of trapping had come wholly from one source: Looney Tunes. Elmer Fudd had taught us everything we thought we needed to know.

The first trap we tried was the simple “bait in a box” method. JC found an old, rusty birdcage in the alley behind his house, and we propped it up with a stick at the base of the tree. Mark tied a string to it and we all went to a hide behind a large box sitting outside the back door to wait for the Squirrel. Some time passed, and the Squirrel did show up, but made no motions that suggested that it might be interested in our trap.

“Do you think it maybe needs bait?” JC asked.

“Crap,” said Matt. “I knew I forgot something. I’ll be right back.” Matt ran into the house and returned a few minutes later, a popsicle in one hand, and a leftover pork chop in the other.

“Which one are you going to put in the trap?” asked Mark, with a hint of sarcasm.

“The pork chop, duh,” replied his brother.

“Do squirrels eat pork?” asked JC.

“What do you think they are, Jewish?” Matt shot back. JC shrugged to me. Matt walked over to the cage and placed the pork chop under the cage. He retreated once again to our hiding spot, and we once again waited.

The Squirrel came over to our cage and sniffed around. He was barely out of reach. I could see Mark waiting impatiently for the Squirrel to make a move in the wrong direction. But the Squirrel was apparently not interested in the pork chop, and scampered away. “Dangit!” Mark spit out. “So close!”

“Do you have anything kosher?” JC asked. Matt shot him a look.

“What do squirrels eat?” I asked. Everyone frowned.

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “I never really took the time to notice.”

“Let’s ask Mom tonight,” Mark said. “And we’ll ask if Doug and JC can stay the night. That way, we can get a head start on that little furry sucker tomorrow!”

The necessary calls were made, and the four of us sat around the table at dinner with Mrs. Shelton. We ate quietly, shooting each other looks, and sometimes snickering. Mrs. Shelton watched us carefully, with narrowed eyes. I kept my eyes on the ceiling, knowing that the piercing you’re-in-trouble look that adults were so good at using could drag anything out of me.

Finally, Mrs. Shelton broke the tension and said, “Boys?”

“Yes?” we answered in unison, using our best innocent voices.

“What are you up to?” she said, suspiciously.

“Nothing!” we said, again in unison. Her eyes remained narrowed in suspicion. Mrs. Shelton was a very responsible mother, and she knew her boys were prone, like the rest of us, to trying to get themselves killed. However, she left it at that, much to our relief. We ate in silence until the plates were clean, and the four of us formed an assembly line to wash the dishes. Afterwards, we retreated to Mark’s bedroom to begin outlining new strategies.

Almost as soon as we closed the door, Mark asked, “Did anyone ask Mom what squirrels eat?”

Mrs. Shelton was on the couch in front of the television when I approached her. “Mrs. Shelton?” I began.

“Hmmm?” She answered.

“What do squirrels eat?”

“They eat nuts and corn, sweetheart.”

“Not pork chops?”

“No, dear.”

“Thanks.”

As I padded down the hallway to Mark’s room, I heard her sit upright suddenly and say, “Wait a minute! What?” I closed the door as she said aloud, “Dear Jesus…”

“Squirrels eat corn and nuts,” I told Mark, Matt, and JC. “Not pork chops,” I said to Matt. He rolled his eyes.

“Okay, where can we get corn and nuts from?” Mark asked.

“Would bird seed maybe work?” I proposed.

“Yeah, it has nuts and stuff in it,” said JC. “My mom has some.”

“Great,” Mark said. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll go to your house and get some.”

“I can’t wait to paint that squirrel,” Matt said.

“I hate that squirrel,” JC said.

“What time does your mom go to bed?” I asked Mark. He cocked an eyebrow at me. “There’s probably something good on TV,” I offered. He rolled his eyes.

The next day, we dumped a healthy amount of the bird seed on the ground, placed the bird cage over it, and once again retreated a safe distance away. The Squirrel did not take long to show up, and begin munching on the bird seed. “Yes!” we all said, in hushed tones. “Pull the string!” we urged Mark. He obliged. The cage fell, but the Squirrel got out from underneath it in plenty of time.

“That’s a fast squirrel,” Mark said, looking at the scene.

“I hate that squirrel,” said JC.

“We’ll just have to try again,” I said. And try we did—up until the Squirrel went to bed. The Squirrel, we decided, was not as unsuspecting as we thought. It knew exactly what it was doing, and knew full well it could escape the trap.

“We’ll have to rethink this,” Mark said. We again spent the night in the Shelton home, scheming. A list of plans was compiled, and we watched Looney Tunes for several hours for ideas.

Day Two was spent digging a deep hole—a classic activity, but for a deeper purpose. Sticks were spread out over the hole, and a covered with leaves. The bait was set, and we hid behind the box again to watch. The Squirrel sauntered over, sniffed, and stepped out onto the sticks. Nothing! The Squirrel was too light!

Mark stomped angrily out from behind the box, scaring the Squirrel away. We removed the sticks, and carefully constructed a veil of leaves to cover the hole. Again we waited. The Squirrel came. Success! The Squirrel fell in, and we immediately rushed over to the hole, and looked in.

A furry bundle of fury rocketed out of the hole and shot up my leg. I shrieked and started dancing and swatting at it with my hands. “Hold still!” the other guys were saying. “Let us catch it!” Easy for them to say! They didn’t have a Squirrel assaulting them! The Squirrel jumped off of me, presumably with tiny pieces of me stuck under his claws.

On Day Three, we used an old hammock as a net and tried to drop it on the Squirrel. He squirmed through the holes.

On Day Four, we contrived a fence, which the Squirrel easily climbed and vaulted.

On Day Five, we were tired and angry, so we threw rocks at the Squirrel and played in the tree fort to spite it.

Day Six, out of desperation, we exhausted all of our auxiliary plans—plans involving mouse traps and spider webs and other animals and the bird cage again—all unsuccessful.

By Day Seven, the Sawas and my parents were calling, wanting to know if their boys were ever going to come home. After some begging, we were given one more day. Day Eight would be the last day.

On the eve of Day Eight, we all sat on the back doorstep, exhausted, frustrated. It seemed that our great potential as a group had fallen flat. As dusk fell, Mrs. Shelton, who had not asked what exactly we were up to (probably for her own benefit) since that first day over dinner, stuck her head out the door, and we all looked up at her. Confronted with four sets of sad-faced puppy-dog eyes, she rolled her eyes and broke down.

She sat down in between her boys, and asked, “All right, you’re killing me. I know something must be wrong, and I can’t stand to see you little troublemakers so down.” She looked at each of us. “What,” she said, and sighed, “are you trying to do?”

We told her. She grinned. “You want to paint a squirrel blue?” she exclaimed, exuberantly. She got up and faced us all. Laughing, she said, “And here I thought you all were just trying to get yourselves killed again! Hell, if it means that much to you, and it keeps you out of trouble, I’ll help you catch the damn thing!”

Hooray!

Day Eight was fortunately a Saturday. After a big breakfast and some planning discussion, Mrs. Shelton helped us rig the box—the very box that we’d been hiding behind—into a trap.

It was simple. A short trail of bird seed would lead into a small hole in the side of the box, and a door would drop over the opening once the squirrel was inside. We couldn’t believe that we hadn’t thought of that before.

Mark, the natural leader, was allowed to go on the roof on the garage, above the trap. The rest of us went and waited behind the screen door. The moment came. The Squirrel went in. The door dropped. SUCCESS!

The Squirrel was allowed to cool off for a while, and then we opened the top of the box, and peered down. The Squirrel was angrily trying to scurry up the sides of the box, but to no avail. There was nothing to latch on to. He was helpless!

“Boys, get your thick clothes and gloves on,” Mrs. Shelton said. “Matthew, get the paint!”

For a couple of years afterwards, we would still occasionally see the Squirrel, a brilliant flash of blue, streaking up and down trees, and, I imagine, probably screaming squirrel curses at us.

We were revered at school, and some kids even tried to do it themselves. But they didn’t have an awesome mom like Mrs. Shelton to help. As far as I know, we are still the only kids ever to catch a live squirrel, no less paint one blue.

Painting the Squirrel blue was considered the greatest achievement of our young lives. I haven’t seen Mark, or Matt, or JC for years now, but I’m sure they’d agree: it still is.