Farmer Road

Scott and Jeremy stood in front of their work with great admiration. It was nothing to be admired, they would later recall years later. But in this moment, it was the greatest treehouse slash fort ever built.

What actually happened was Scott and Jeremy decided to build a treehouse slash fort in the woods somewhere along their usual bike riding route. They’d circle their neighborhood for hours, going off “jumps” which were just bumps and swells in the pavement from the rapidly changing New England weather. ‘Frost Heaves’ Scott used to say there were called. ‘Wicked Awesome Jumps’ Jeremy would correct him with the actual name.

One day, they rode through the neighborhood, scouting for the perfect location. They rode their usual route. They hit their usual streets. They rode all the way down Farmer Road. All the way to the stretch of Farmer Road where there were no houses and only trees. There it was, just before they would normally turn back around. Off to their left, of course, plenty of trees. But there was a small clearing behind some dense woods.

They dismounted their bikes at the edge of the road, walked them across the dip on the side of the road where the water would flow during storms, and then into the woods. They scouted the area, clapped their hands testing the acoustics.

“Checks out to me.” Jeremy said after several claps of his hands. “We’d be pretty covered in here.”

“Oh yeah.” Scott agreed, picking up some pine needles, tossing them into the air and watching them fall as if that told him anything. “Yeah, this is a primo spot for sure.”

They gathered as many materials as they could. Random planks of wood, branches that were long and sturdy and that they thought could double as planks of wood, two handfuls of nails, a hammer, a screwdriver and no screws, and a couple 20-ounce bottles of Sprite.

They returned to their new spot in the woods and dropped off the materials. They stood there, searching around. All of the trees in this particular area were completely smooth and had no branches for the first 20 feet. There was no way to climb them, let alone build a treehouse. So… a fort it would have to be!

They tried nailing planks of wood into a couple of trees that were right next to each other. A few of them stayed. Most fell off. They leaned lots of their planks of wood and branches against one another and made a makeshift fort. It was unspectacular.

“We’re missing something.” Scott pondered.

“I know…” Jeremy rubbed his chin like he’d seen his Dad do a thousand times. Rubbing the chin must help adults to think. It must send the brain juices flying back up into your brain. “Oh, I got it!”

The next trip back to their spot, Scott and Jeremy had arrived with the finishing touches. Two folding chairs that Jeremy’s parents were going to just throw out. They set the chairs in the makeshift fort. The two barely fit in the fort sitting in the chairs, but it was alright because this fort was now perfect. They’d probably spend a lot of time sitting in the leaves anyway… the chairs were mainly there for aesthetic purposes.

The next day, they brought their treasure chest of goodies they had been hiding away for the fort. Jeremy had stolen two adult magazines from his Dad. Scott had found some cigars from the brand ITSABOY hidden in a box of his family’s old stuff. They had candy, cookies, a pellet gun, and half a bottle of Irish Whiskey.

Neither of the two of them even being 10-years old yet, they had never had a sip of anything alcoholic. The first sip didn’t go too well.

“My Dad says it’s a slow-sipper.” Scott recounted.

They sipped it slowly and swished it in their mouths. They spit it out quickly and fanned their tongues. They continued to practice drinking it, slowly and slowly getting better. They got so good, sometimes they wouldn’t even make a face when they drank it. Oh yeah, Scott and Jeremy were pros.

They had trouble getting their hands on a lighter… but they did manage to get a deck of cards. Many days they would spend sitting in their fort down the stretch of Farmer Road where there were no houses and only trees, with unlit ITSABOY cigars in their mouths, playing Go Fish. Eventually, Scott stole a ‘How To Play Poker’ book from his older brother and they taught themselves to play Poker. They didn’t have Poker chips, so they wagered candy and cookies. Wagering a 20-ounce soda was essentially going “all-in.”

This continued for weeks. Practicing drinking the whiskey. Practicing poker. Practicing making a cool face while having a cigar in their mouths. Practicing looking at the adult magazine and acting like ‘they had seen it all before.’

One day they showed up to The Hideout, as it had eventually been dubbed, and they skidded to a stop in the road on their bikes. It looked like someone was at The Hideout. There seemed to be someone in there… past the trees. How could anyone have found The Hideout? They were always so careful to fold the chairs back up and cover everything with leaves… including their little treasure chest.

They slowly walked their bikes into the woods as they had always done. They slowly approached The Hideout, being sure not to step on too many crunchy leaves, trying to stay as silent as possible. They moved closer and saw that there was definitely a man leaning against a tree just next to all of their stuff. Their stuff was still covered under leaves. Although their stuff seemed to have not been found, inexplicably, there was a man sitting right next to it all. A baseball cap reading, BOSTON FISHES, pulled over his eyes, covering his face. He seemed to be asleep.

“Let’s get our stuff and move it.” Scott suggested.

“Okay, I’ll get the chairs. You get the box.” Jeremy whispered back.

They slowly approached, the man never budging. Silently sleeping against the tree. They started to move the leaves off of their belongings. Scott got his hands on the box. Jeremy began pulling the chairs up. He was unaware the man was slightly sitting on the chairs. When he pulled them up, it yanked from underneath the man and he tipped over. He fell onto Jeremy’s foot, and he screamed. Scott screamed. The hat fell off the man’s head and revealed his face. Where his two eyes should have been, deep holes into his skull, dried blood stained his face. Blood stained his mouth and revealed one of his lips had been cut off. They noticed two stab wounds in his chest.

The man laid perfectly still in the leaves. Scott and Jeremy were panting, trying to catch their breath. They stared at the man a good ten seconds before they determined… he was most positively dead.

“This is crazy! What do we do? Do we tell someone?!” Scott asked frantically.

“No! We can’t! If we tell someone they’ll come here and they’ll find all our stuff and we’ll get in trouble!” Jeremy was pacing back and forth.

“You’re right. So, what do we do?”

“We have to hide him. No one can find him.”

They snuck back to Jeremy’s place and got some shovels. They pedaled furiously back to The Hideout. They needed to get this job done quickly but they also needed to be as fast as possible so no one in the neighborhood saw them riding with shovels. They returned to the spot, rushed into the woods, and began digging like crazy. Shoveling up dirt and digging down. Just enough to plop this body down into the dirt. They pushed the loose dirt back over his body. They threw a bunch of leaves on top. Then, some branches. They even carried a heavy log over to the spot and plopped it on top.

“So, we just leave him here?” Scott asked.

“The worms will eventually get him.” Jeremy explained with his PHD on body decomposition. “They can eat a body his size in two days, no problem. Maybe less because he already doesn’t have eyeballs and that’s the toughest part for a worm to digest.”

“And then we just leave our Hideout here? With him… there?” Scott kept staring at the spot they just shoved a dead body into. Jeremy fixated on it as well.

“Well, in two days he will be gone. So, if we come back in two days… then it’s like he was never here.”

Two days later they returned. Neither could concentrate on Whiskey drinking or Unlit Cigar Holding or Poker Playing. They both made excuses for things they needed to get back to. Dishes to be washed. A bookshelf to be reorganized.

They came back the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Each time they didn’t spend more than 10 minutes there. Each time someone had to ‘clean his room’ or ‘help his Dad with the garage’ or ‘finish that Mario level once and for all.’ They both knew deep down inside why they couldn’t spend anymore time here. But neither would say it.

They stopped coming to the The Hideout. It was fine. Both of their homes were great enough hangout spots anyway. They had TV’s there. And they both loved TV.

One night, they were at Jeremy’s eating his mom’s famous enchiladas. The TV was on in the background. Jeremy’s parents had it on the news.

“It’s been a week now that McCormick, the high-level member of Boston’s Black Clover Mob, has been missing. Officials say he was all set to testify on members of the Mob, linking them to the selling of drugs, illegal weapons, and the largest bank heist in Boston in two decades. Officials fear he has gone missing due to the Mob, but they urge citizens throughout all of New England, if you have any information, please come forward to your local authorities.”

Scott and Jeremy glance over at the TV inconspicuously. A picture of the McCormick man is shown on the screen. His face, very clearly the same as the man in the woods, but with an extra lip and two extra eyes. A baseball cap on his head in the photo reading, BOSTON FISHES. It was so clearly the man they had buried.

Scott and Jeremy quietly continued eating their enchiladas. After dinner Jeremy asked his parents if he could put something else on TV besides the news. His parents agreed. Scott and Jeremy watched basketball. Then, they remembered they had rented a Kung-Fu movie and so they popped that into the VCR.

Scott and Jeremy never spoke of the man again. They never spoke of The Hideout again. They never spoke of, or attempted to retrieve their Whiskey, their ITSABOY cigars, their cards, their adult magazines, their pellet gun, none of it. They would still ride their bikes along their usual route. But they always turned back before they reached the stretch of Farmer Road where there were no houses and only trees.