Justin Halpern - More Sh*t My Dad Says

Michael was about ten feet to my right when he waved me over. “Whoa. Check this out,” he said.

I hopped over a fallen tree and made my way over to him.

Michael moved aside, pulled back a couple branches, and pointed to what lay behind them. As he stood there holding it open for me, my mind started racing. I do not want to look inside that hole, I thought. Yes, I do. I should look inside the hole. There’s nothing there.

“Hey. I’m not your branch-pulling guy, asshole. You gonna check this out or not?” Michael sniped, still holding back the brush as he waited for me to make a move.

I leaned forward and stuck my face into the opening Michael had created for me. Just past those branches lay a clearing, much like the ones I had seen in my dreams. Except this time there was no Patrick Swayze. In his place was a dirty sleeping bag and several blankets surrounded by garbage.

“I think somebody lives here,” Michael said.

I could hear myself breathing in and out as my hands began to tremble once again, this time in fear.

“We should go back to practice. Coach is probably wondering—”

“Coach can suck a dick,” Michael snapped.

He nudged me out of the way, pulled the branches farther open, stepped on the trunk of a fallen tree below him, and in one motion hopped through the small hole he’d created for himself. The branches snapped closed as I stood on the other side of the clearing. I could hear Michael walking around but couldn’t see him. I stood motionless, hating myself for being frightened. Then the small window of branches reopened and Michael popped his head back through. “Are you seriously going to be a bitch?”

He grabbed my shirt and yanked me into the clearing. As I stumbled onto the other side of the branches, I realized that more than one person might be living here. There were piles of clothes caked with dirt, and empty cans of beer were strewn everywhere. Michael approached the sleeping bag surrounded by the trash pile.

“I think this is a bum cave,” he said, nudging a couple of empty cans with his foot. Then something in the pile of trash next to the sleeping bag caught his attention. He knelt down beside it. Suddenly his head whipped.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT.”

“What?”

“It’s the mother lode! Look at all this porno!” he shouted, shoving his hands into the pile like a pirate who’d found a trunk full of gold doubloons. With a look of pure ecstasy, he held up two handfuls of the dirtiest porn I could have imagined. There must have been a hundred more pages at his feet. I picked a few up and fanned them out in my hand. I had never seen so many pictures of beautiful women, let alone naked ones. I pumped my fist in the air like I’d just hit the game winning shot in the NBA Finals. This was my greatest accomplishment. The adolescent equivalent of landing on the moon.

At the time, porn magazines were like Lamborghinis: You knew they existed, and though you’d never seen one in person, you were sure you’d have one when you got older.

“I can’t believe this. I just—man, we did it. We did it!” he screamed.

There was only one problem: What were we going to do with it all? Leaving it behind was not an option. After a few minutes of brainstorming, the best option we came up with was shoving the pages into our pants and keeping them there till we were through with practice. Michael shoved a trial page in his pants, then took a step forward and backward, as if he was trying out a new pair of sneakers.

“It’s too itchy,” he declared. “New plan.”

Eventually we decided the only option was to carry as much of the porn as we could out of the canyon and hide it beneath some leaves at the bottom of the embankment next to the field. After practice we could come back and get it. We started sorting through the loot, trying to decide which pages were must-takes.

Suddenly I heard a crack of a branch, as if caused by the weight of a foot. I jumped back, ready to run. We both looked around, but saw nothing. The silence was eerie.

“What if we just came back and got it later, or tomorrow, or next practice or something?” I said, fear creeping into my voice.

“Man, I like you pretty okay, but you’re sort of a pussy. Just go wait outside the canyon and yell the code words if you see Coach. You remember the words, right?”

“My dog peed in the house yesterday,” I muttered.

“Yeah.”

As I walked out of the clearing, I was overwhelmed with shame. I had gone into the canyon to defeat my fears, but here I was, leaving the canyon because I was too afraid to stay. I stood there thinking, eyes downcast, till I heard Coach’s voice.

“Justin. What are you doing?”

I looked up and saw him standing at the top of the embankment.

“I told you guys: Don’t spend all day down there.”

I froze for a split second, but then recovered.

“MY DOG PEED IN THE HOUSE!” I yelled.

“What?” Coach said.

Then, from behind me, I heard the rustle of bushes and the sound of heavy breathing. Oh no, it’s Michael, I thought.

“MY DOG PEED IN THE HOUSE!” I yelled in that direction, terrified that Michael was about to walk out carrying a huge stack of pornography.

“What are you talking—”

Coach never got the chance to finish his sentence. In a flash, Michael burst through the bushes, running full speed ahead and clutching the porn to his chest like a woman holding her infant as she fled an explosion.

“RUNNNNNNN!!!!” he screamed in terror.

He ran right past me, and without giving it another thought I sprang into a full sprint, hot on his heels.

“What in the heck is going on?!” Coach yelled as we rushed up the embankment toward him.

I turned to look behind me.

There, hightailing it out of the canyon, came two bearded homeless men, each of whom looked like Nick Nolte rendered in beef jerky. I had never seen homeless guys move so fast and with such a sense of purpose. The last thing I saw on Coach’s face as we blew past him was the look of a man who had no idea how the next fifteen seconds of his life were going to transpire.

The other players on the field turned to watch, mouths agape, as Michael and I sprinted by them, followed by Coach and the two homeless guys. Michael slowed down just a touch so that I could catch up.

“Take some!” he shouted, shoving a handful of pages at my chest. “Go right! I’ll go left. They can’t catch both of us,” he said between breaths, gearing back up to a full sprint.

I could hear a chorus of shouts behind us. I’m guessing it was one of the homeless guys and not Coach who hollered “Gimmie back my titties!” but I was too scared to look back and confirm. When I reached third base, I took a hard right turn and ran off the field and across the street. I didn’t look back until one mile later, when I rounded the corner of my street and headed down the hill to my house. My legs were on fire and sweat poured down my face.

There were no cars in the driveway, so I made my way to the side of the house, unlocked the gate to our backyard, entered, then slammed it behind me, and for the first time in about ten minutes I stopped moving. I took the stack of porn, some of it now stuck to my chest with sweat, and placed it on the ground. I leaned over, put my hands on my knees, and gasped for air. I looked down at the bounty that lay at my feet, but my joy was soon displaced by fear. What the heck am I going to do with all this? I thought.

Then it hit me: like thousands of thieves before me, I would bury my loot. I ducked into my house, grabbed some newspaper, grabbed a shovel from our shed, and started digging in the corner of our backyard. After I’d dug a hole about a foot deep, I gathered every scrap of porn and placed the pile gently in the ground, as if I were planting a seed whose fruits I needed to feed my family. I placed newspaper over the pages and then filled in the hole.