One thing we couldn’t really do ahead was bring extra clothes out to the cabin, because our Moms would know. But I was pretty sure I could get away with one day ahead, and I hoped the other guys could, too. I wanted us all to meet out at the cabin, tomorrow, and if it was possible, with two changes of clothing to stash away. We had asked our support crew to meet us there, with whatever they could scrounge for food. They wouldn’t be able to risk hiking out on Saturday or Sunday, or any time before the following weekend.
On our way out, we bumped into a couple of girls in our class, Kate and Jackie. They were the smartest girls in our class, and pretty nice; not at all snooty. They both lived in the Villa Drive neighborhood, and they had known all of us since first grade. We chatted a bit, about the Fair, and about the summer, then the girls left to walk home, smiling and saying “we’ll see you Tuesday.” Little did they know.
I got to the campsite early on Friday afternoon and waited for the other guys. I had brought most of what I needed for clothes simply by wearing two pairs of underwear and two pairs of socks. It was a cool, cloudy day, threatening rain, which made it easy to justify wearing a long sleeved shirt over my tee shirt and carrying a light jacket. Rolled up inside the jacket was another tee shirt and another pair of socks and underwear. When I got to the cabin, I shed my extra clothing and piled it in the corner I had chosen as mine.
The others showed up shortly, and Win and Tom had done something similar, so each of them had most, if not all of what they would need. Rollo, however, showed up empty-handed. He said it was impossible; his Mom was watching him constantly and he couldn’t get away with any extra clothes. That meant he was going to have to bring everything on Saturday, and, since we had to be seen at the Fair, he would have to bring his stuff with him to the Fair and then out to the campsite. We all gave him a ton of shit, but, as always, he calmly farted and said everything would work out.
Jimmy and Larry and Roy came along, with a big load of food. They brought two loaves of bread, a couple packages of Baloney, some hot dogs, and a whole box of Devil Dogs. Those guys were amazing.
A little later, Karl walked in from Lost Nation Road with a load of his own, and it was a huge help. He had brought us a second battery-powered lantern, a full gas canister for our camp stove, and a big bag of clothing. He had volunteered to drive down to Burlington with a load of stuff his parents were donating to the Salvation Army, and had brought it to us instead. Some of it was his Mom’s clothes, but mostly it was stuff he and Larry and his Dad had outgrown, or had worn out, and there were some useful items there. Not enough to outfit Rollo, though; he was still going to have to bring his own shit tomorrow.
We spent a couple of hours going over things before we all headed home. We meant to see those guys the next day at the Fair, but then we wouldn’t see them until the next weekend. Even that was up in the air; they would have to be sure it was safe to hike out to the campsite.
I left my jacket and long-sleeved shirt at the cabin, of course. The sun had come out and it had warmed up nicely, so I just told my Mom I had forgotten the shirt and jacket at Win’s house.
I had a nice big dinner that night, knowing I wouldn’t be eating this well in a while. There was a lot of talk at the dinner table about school starting up on Tuesday, but I didn’t say much. In Essex, everybody started French in the seventh grade, and they tried to get me talking about it, but I wasn’t really interested; had a lot on my mind.
The morning of Saturday, September 5th, I was out of the house around eleven, with extra socks and underwear again, and a grocery bag full of stuff. All I needed to do was get out of the house with it; there was no more worry about consequences. So I filched a whole bag of potato chips, most of the leftover chocolate cake, and lots of fresh apples, and put it all in a big brown grocery bag. It was a little awkward carrying it, and I had to hope I didn’t have to run. Fortunately, the hole under the fence behind Barretts’ house wasn’t well guarded, so it wasn’t a problem.
I spent quite a bit of time just walking around the midway, and the other guys did, too. We wanted to be sure at least somebody would remember seeing us there. Eventually, we all met up over by the grandstand, where we planned to watch what we could of the Demolition Derby before sneaking away. We were all a little worried that Rollo hadn’t shown up, and after a while, Tom went to look for him. We knew he would have sneaked in from Williams Street, so Tom went over that way to see if he could find him. I didn’t want him to go; Rollo knew where he was supposed to meet us, and I figured he had just chickened out. But Tom went anyway, and Win and I waited.
After about ten minutes, the two of them showed up together, Rollo carrying a gym bag. He was a little out of breath, and very nervous. He said that the guards were looking for him and we had to get out of there right now. It didn’t make any sense to me, but he was very agitated, so we agreed.
The plan was that we would sneak out of the Fair without being seen (that was something new,) and disappear. Tom and Rollo circled around behind the horse barns on the other side of the racetrack and went out over Willey’s Hill. Win and I went under the fence behind Barretts’ house and down to Lincoln Street. Within a half an hour, we had met up at the sand pits and were on our way to the campsite.
Rollo explained on the way what had happened. Slowed down by his gym bag full of clothes, he had gotten caught crawling under the fence. This was a humiliating admission in itself; it had happened to some of us before, but we had always either talked our way out of trouble or outrun the guards. Rollo was being led away by one of the guards, who had threatened to turn him over to the police, when he realized that this would jeopardize not only his own escape, but possibly ours, as well. So he made a break for it.
Looking at Rollo’s rotund figure, you would never suspect him of being fast, and he wasn’t. But he was faster than anybody would think, and surprisingly nimble at changing direction. So he quickly got away from the guard, who called for help. Darting around and between the livestock barns, he got to a place where he could hide, and that’s when he saw Tom come looking for him. The two of them carefully made their way to the grandstand, looking over their shoulders for the guards.
What was really worrying Rollo was that one of the guards who had caught him knew him. The guy worked with his Dad at IBM. Rollo was convinced that he was in trouble already.
“Rollo, what’s the big deal?” Tom asked. “We’re all going to be in trouble when we don’t show up at home tonight. That’s the whole point.”
“Tom’s right,” I said, “and this might even help us. Someone who knows you saw you at the Fair, with a gym bag, and now you’ve disappeared. They’ll assume that you’ve run away with the carnies, which is exactly what we want them to think.”
That made Rollo feel a lot better about it, and he started to relax. By the time we reached the cabin, we were all laughing and joking, our adventure just beginning.
Now it was a matter of getting into our routine. We each had a corner of the cabin claimed for our own, and we proceeded to make ourselves at home. I insisted that we do an inspection of the grounds outside; it wouldn’t do to be tripped up by something stupid that anyone could see just passing by. When we were sure that everything was good, we filled our canteens and settled in.
It was still too early for supper, so we turned on the radio to the Yankee game, set up our table, and played cards while we listened. I was a veteran poker player, but the other guys weren’t, so there was a lot of teaching and learning before we actually started to bet on the games. We didn’t have any money, anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Rollo had brought some poker chips, and we recorded how much each of us owed for chips in a notebook. By the end of our adventure, thousands of unreal dollars had changed hands.
Rollo’s game was Blackjack, which I barely knew, and Tom and Win didn’t know at all. We learned the rules pretty quickly, but Rollo always seemed to win. I tried to steer us back to regular poker, but we gradually got into a routine of playing almost all Blackjack.
Baseball would be our fifth companion for the next who-knows-how-long, and it started well. The Yanks beat KC 9 -7 that day, Ralph Terry winning in relief of Al Downing, and Mantle and Pepitone each hit three-run homers. We were still three games behind the White Sox, but we were playing well.
We were flush with food, for the moment, so we had hot dogs, beans, and potato chips for supper, with chocolate cake after. I wasn’t sure how long the bread was going to keep, and we knew our friends wouldn’t be able to come out at least until the next weekend. I was pretty sure the mustard and ketchup would be good without refrigeration, but not so sure about the jar of mayonnaise. As it turned out, thanks to America’s chemical industry, both the bread and the mayonnaise were so loaded with preservatives that they lasted longer than I thought they would.
More card-playing followed our supper, with lots of hot tunes on DOT, and then we settled in for our first night of freedom.
Chapter 13 – Disappearing