The Wind Proofed Burnt Leg Polyester Rocket Powered Matchbox Car Disaster!

hildhood, for me, was an adventure involving snakes, setting things on fire, theft, smoking cigars, and innovative homemade toys of nefarious--and potentially lethal--design.

Every day, particularly in the summer, my friends and I were hustled out of our houses and left to our own devices. Given that we weren't anesthetized by cable, and we could read, and were sub-genius bored 11 year olds, we tended to find ways to amuse ourselves that should've involved rope harnesses, fire-proof suits, and an emergency unit on stand by.

Take the rocket powered car.

We learned about rockets pretty quick and Tim McDonald's dad would happily drive us to the hobby shop to buy us rocketry equipment assuming it was keeping us out of street gangs and prison. Our chosen launchpad, our cape Canaveral, was the swamp just west of the cemetery.

We built all kinds of rockets, launched them, and lost them. We'd launch during ceremonies, at night, during school. We didn't care. We just wanted to get as much stuff into the sky as possible.

Eventually, the intensive labor of building a rocket lost its appeal. The launch was the thing. The fire--that's all that mattered. We realized that there were plenty of rocket shaped things lying around and immediately discarded our plans to build bigger and more aerodynamic rockets in favor of launching whatever was close by.

We launched barbie dolls, GI Joes, picnic ketchup bottles, OWL brand metal cigar tubes--anything we could stick an engine into went up. Or around. Often directly back at us.

One day my buddy Mark English and I were forming a sideral rocket launching cabal over a bowl of fruit loops and lack of cartoons. I had two C rocket engines but didn't have the launch rig. Mark had a nearly palpable, hyperinsane need to be entertained, a book of matches, and not much else. We rooted around through the debris in his room and discovered a Matchbox car. Mark held it up with an evil glint in his eye.

We weren't scouts (yet) so be prepared wasn't part of our motto. Our motto was Festina, prae mater videt!¹ We raced out into the cul de sac, carved all the dry rocket fuel from the engine with a pocket knife, and piled it up on the ground. Mark rubber-banded the other engine to the car and pointed it down the street. We both assumed the positions of two pre-teen scientists, testing the wind direction with a wet finger, looking around for adults or cops, hesitating for reasons that were entirely subconscious (our subconscious minds, mute with fear and indignation, couldn't actually tell us we were about to blow ourselves up, only make us pause meaningfully which we took as some kind of noble gesture).

Mark knelt with a lit cigar to ignite the saltpeter and black powder pile and I did what came naturally back then, I listened to what the esteemed writer, Neal Stephenson, refers to as the imp of the perverse: I stood directly behind the engine, the car pointed away from me, and stated, nobly, assured, full of purpose and aplomb:

"You light it, I'll block the wind."

Mark set flame to powder. There was an enormous, powerful flash, the car leapt into the air, bounced off Mark's skull, slammed into the asphalt, then spun around for a minute or two before the chute charge blew. Then it just laid there, smoking.

Much. Like. My. Left. Leg.

I didn't feel any pain. I was wearing the usual assortment of 1975 clothing made entirely from petroleum, uncomfortable as a burlap sack, emblazoned with a motocross closeup. I was a flammable boy. My pants--long pants--were deep blue polyester with a smoking hole in the middle of the shin.

I pulled up my pants leg, and stared in horror as blackened skin peeled off my leg with them. There was a black oval about the size of a train-flattened nickel in the middle of my shin. The skin around it was bright red and there were pieces of melted polyester fused with charred Christopher and things were curling up away from my skin like I'D BEEN HORRIBLY BURNED BY A ROCKET ENGINE!

We both screamed and ran away in different directions. I was literally hopping up and down while I ran. I was completely terrified as somehow this burn has morphed into an all consuming holy fire and I was about to go poof.

Tim McDonald's sister heard us and somehow collared Mark, found me limping home crying copiously, holding my charred polyester pant leg. She rushed us back to her bathroom (she was older than us, listened to David Bowie, and smoked. She was the epitome of wisdom) slapped some Vaseline on my burn and smacked us both in the head for being  "such [DELETED] idiots!"

You might think we learned a lesson about improvising chemical fun but I assure you we did not. We went on to ever more colorful ways of injuring ourselves, all predicated on the simple principal that a boy's untethered imagination, unlimited access to power tools, and depraved ingenuity add up to great stories told by people in slings, the worst case involving molten lead, a coke bottle, and screaming. Coming soon.
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¹ Hurry, before Mom finds out!

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My kids are TRYING to be the death of me!