A damn good throw

When I was about 11 or 12, me and my younger brother and my friend Ronnie used to hang out at this small playpark just near the woods. To get there, you used to have to walk for maybe 10-minutes through the “spooky woods” as Ronnie used to say (although he said it funny-like; in a looney-tunes kind of way). The woods weren’t that spooky (unless it was past dinnertime), and me and Ronnie used to kid around with my younger brother and shit. We would say that we were playing hide-n-seek and that he should count to 50, but Ronnie would get on all fours on the ground in front of him when he had his eyes closed, and then when he got to 50 and opened them, I would stand behind him and push him forward, causing him to trip over Ronnie. It sounds mean but it was fun though: Ronnie never cried or tattled to our parents. Anyway, the park was really cool. It had everything: swings, a roundabout, monkey bars, a seesaw, and even one of those things which you stand on and it spins you round real fast until you feel like vomiting. The only problem was that in front of the park was a steep drop down onto bushes and jagged-looking trees. It must have been at least a 30-feet drop down there. When we got bored on the swings and stuff, we used to lob rocks off it to see who could throw the furthest (Ronnie always won that game because he played Baseball). We got the rocks from the edge of the woods behind the park. Oh man, the amount of time we spent throwing rocks at that time... I practically became an expert in choosing rocks to throw! The smaller, flatters ones went further, of course; but the bigger ones felt better to throw; like I was chucking a grenade at an enemy fleet or something. The worst part about those days was that the walk back home sucked. Because we’d been playing all day, we were drenched in sweat; and we had to walk all the way through the woods and back up the street to our homes until we could get water! As the year went on, the walk back got darker and darker until in October it was pretty much pitch-black walking back. Our parents told us to stop playing out so late and that we shouldn’t let my brother tag along. When school started again in January, me and Ronnie used to head back there alone. We kind-off got tired of running about like maniacs, though. Eventually we found it more fun to just sit at the edge with our legs dangling down or sitting cross-legged and just talk about girls or movies or TV. We still threw rocks; although not as much as we used to. Ronnie was REAL good at it now; and it showed on the field when baseball-season started back up. Eventually my brother grew up a little bit too, so he was allowed to hang with us again. We started throwing rocks and stuff, but me and Ronnie got bored so only my brother was doing it. We stopped going altogether and soon my brother was the only one still hanging out there. One day with the boy scouts, me and this nerdy kid called “Chandler” got dropped off down a street I’d never been too, and we had to go door-to-door shovelling snow for a badge or something. I was shovelling this old lady’s front lawn, when I noticed that you could see the park we used to play at: it was up way behind the houses and trees, and I could even see a kid standing up there. “I think that’s my brother up there. You see?” I pointed up to the edge. Chandler squinted and put his hand above his eyes to shield the sun. “Oh yeah! I can’t see who it is. Could be anyone though. Is he throwing snowballs or something?” Small round things were flying off the edge and disappearing into the wooded area. “Oh, he’s throwing rocks. We do it all the time! Or... We DID it.” Chandler stepped back and took a sip of soda. “Damn. I wish this snow would-” A rock whacked him right in his temple. He fell to the floor like a ragdoll. Both his head and the rock were caked in blood. The ambulance-men later told me it was an instant-death. The old lady rushed out right away; she was probably staring at us from her window the whole time. “Oh god. Kid, run in and phone the police. Not again. Those damn kids...” I remember she held the cool coke bottle against his head, despite the fact you could see his skull. She later told me that the previous year, rocks would fly through people’s windows. It usually happened once or twice a week. Eventually it was happening way more; cats were found dead, as well as a couple of kids who were swimming in the lake in the woods. She said she could never make it out who it was up there. I don’t even remember feeling guilt, just kind of sick. Of course, we stopped it after that; that rock that hit and killed Chandler was the final straw (as well as the furthest rock that has ever been thrown from any of us). I didn’t tell Ronnie what happened; just said that he was the winner for all times. Damn good throw that kid had.... Damn good throw...