Kool-Aid War

My home has become unrecognizable. I haven’t been back to Roscoe Village in years. My kids have no idea the freedoms, adventures, and trials we faced growing up in the 80s. My son, in particular, thinks he is street wise. His life consists of our subdivision and the places his mother or I drive him to. He’s lived a life of constant supervision. I lived a life as a free-range kid roaming the far reaches of the city either by bike or the El. Wandering so far from home never created the trouble that we found in our own neighborhood.

With our parents at work, we needed to fill our time on those long summer days. We had all the time in the world; however we did not have the money to do much. Any money we did get was spent on video games. My brother, Jason, and I were constantly at the arcade, even though our parents had told us to not go there because older kids hung out there. They were worried about the bad influence. Along with our friend, Eric, we decided we would make some money for a trip to the arcade through a lemonade stand. Jason and I had a wagon that we used to have a mobile stand. Our house was always the home base for such adventures. Eric’s mom was home during the day, so having a place free of parents was more conducive to our schemes.

Never having actually made homemade lemonade we resorted to using the small Kool-Aid packets to make the drinks. At the time Kool-Aid packets were only 10 cents each. We would make a double batch adding two Kool-Aid packets and two cups of sugar to make a gallon. I always added a handful of sugar to make the drinks even more sweet. To give our customers options, we decided to have both cherry and tropical punch. Considering that the Kool-Aid cost us all of sixty cents to make, we’d only need to sell 6 cups to get our money back. Plus, some people would buy a cup and tell us to keep the change, so our profits would be even more. We loaded everything into the wagon.

Eric suggested, “We should set up outside of Sam’s. There are more people there during the day than in the park.” We agreed and set off. Sam’s was a local grocery store. It had everything you needed, it was just a bit off. The carts always had wobbly wheels. The shelves weren’t quite level. The fluorescents had a distinct buzz. The old ladies without cars shopped there bringing their groceries home in their granny carts. We arrived at the store and organized the stand. We set up the pitchers with labels for each flavor. We had a pair of tongs from our kitchen to add ice to the paper cups. We used all of the ice from the plastic trays in our freezer to fill a small Igloo cooler my dad used for a six-pack on fishing trips. Our sign was a little lackluster. It simply said “Kool-Aid 10¢.” It didn’t take long for us to get our first customer. An old man who was with his granddaughter bought two cups. He gave us a quarter and told us to keep the change.

As we finished our sale, the Buckner kids came out of the store. The Buckners were always causing problems and starting something. Half the time we got in scuffles with them were over non-existent slights that one of us bestowed upon them. We knew them from school. Mikey was in our grade. He always wore his little league baseball ball uniform and today was no different. With him were his older brother and sister, Bunky and Samantha. Bunky was a nickname, but no one ever called him by his real name. I didn’t even know what it was. Eric saw them first, “What’s up?”

Scowling, Sam said, “This is our block. You guys can’t be selling your crap here.”

“What are you talking about?” I snorted back.

Bunky chimed in, “You need to leave. We live in this block, you don’t.”

Being a hothead, Jason got in Bunky’s face, “So, why do you even care?”

“Because we were going to have a lemonade stand here today.”

“You are full of crap. You’re just being a pain in the ass,” I shot back.

Mikey finally joined the conversation, “You’ll see. We’ll be back.” They all left toward their apartment, which was just down the street. They were acting like this was some sort of gangland turf war. Jason and Eric felt like they had scared them off and we had won.

After about thirty minutes passed, we had several other customers. “Not too bad. How long do you think it will take for us to sell all of this Kool-Aid?”

With each of us having a cup of tropical punch in our hands, I replied, “If we keep drinking it, we’ll be done in no time.” We laughed and kept on hawking our wares.

We took turns barking at the shoppers. “Ice cold Kool-Aid.” “It’s a hot day, how about something cold to drink?” “The best Koo-Aid you ever had.” We must have been doing something well because we had a steady stream of customers. Of course, just as we got rolling, the Buckners returned. They brought one of their cousins with them. He was a short, rolly polly kind of kid with glasses. He already looked scared and did not want to be there. They were pulling their own wagon complete with their own lemonade stand setup. “What in the hell are you doing here!” Jason shouted. “You are ridiculous.”

Bunky responded, “We told you this was our block. You need to leave.”

“You are crazy. You actually went home, made Kool-Aid, set up the wagon, and came back over here? Don’t you have something better to do with your time,” I shouted. Although normally quiet, once pushed past my aggravation point, I could become quite severe. Jason knew that if he annoyed me too much, I would as soon walk away as punch him in the face. I could see Jason smile as I walked toward Bunky. Just then a shopper came out of the store. The sight of an adult helped me gain my composure. For the moment, there were going to be two Kool-Aid stands outside of Sam’s Grocery Store.

Tensions grew as we competed for customers. We would make our pitch at the same times the Buckners were making theirs. Confused by the dueling stands, most people just kept on their way in or out of the store.

“Listen,” Jason exploded, “You guys are screwing this up. We were doing fine before you showed up.”

In a dead pan manner, Sam shot out, “Too bad. This is our block.”

“What does that even mean?”

“We live on Roscoe Street, you don’t.”

“So, your house is a block away. It’s not like we’re in front of your house.”

“Too bad, we’re not leaving.”

Eric asked the next shopper first, “Excuse me. Would you like something to drink?”

Before he could finish his pitch, Mikey shouted out, “You don’t want their stuff, it’s dirty.”

The guy looked at the two competing Kool-Aid stands with bewilderment. He seemed a willing customer looking over the two stands. He asked, “Well, let me see inside the pitchers.”

Jason uncovered our pitchers while Sam uncovered theirs. Ours were perfectly clean, but a slight film of undissolved powder or sugar rested on the top of our tropical punch. The Buckner Kool-Aid looked lifeless and pale. They obviously stretched the batch with too much water. The guy, however, chose to buy a cup from them.

Jason started at Eric. Eric stared at me. Then Jason shoved Bunky. They both grabbed each other trying to wrestle the other to the ground. Eric pounced on the cousin who just kept backing away. He cornered the kid against the store window. Mikey came at me, and I immediately smacked him across the face, surprising both him and myself. His face turned red, which honestly scared me a bit. Instinctively, I ran. He chased after me as I turned the corner of the store and continued down the alley. I could feel him behind me, but he wasn’t catching up. Two choices popped in my head: turn around and fight or something that would end their Kool-Aid stand for good. I chose the second option, so I continued to race around the store making a right at the end of the alley and another right when I reached the street. As I rounded the last corner, where the stands were set up, I reached out and grabbed their two pictures as I zoomed by. With Mikey still behind me, I flung the pitchers over my head. The cherry and grape Kool-Aid from their pitchers exploded in the air and rained down on Mikey in a sticky wave of violet and red. At that moment I turned around and tried to punch him. I was sobered by someone shouting, “KNOCK IT OFF!!”

By this time, the scuffle outside the store had been witnessed by customers and employees. The manager came out and said he was going to call the cops. Both groups didn’t need our parents hearing about this, so we gathered our wagons and went our separate ways. Jason and Eric filled me in on their parts of the fight. Eric scared the cousin so bad he started crying. He ran into the store and was the one who got the manager. Jason said he had gotten Bunky into head lock and was dragging him across the parking lot. Sam was just a bystander. She never got involved with any of the actual physical parts of our run ins over the years. At the time, we’d thought we won.

It was only after we walked back to our place and started cleaning up that we realized the cost of this turf war. Eric opened up the little lock box we used to hold our money, “It’s gone.”

Jason and I together, “What?”

“The money, it’s gone. They stole it.’

“No way,” Jason responded. He checked every part of the wagon and cooler to make sure.

Not only were we out the money that we made, we were out the money we had put in the box to use as change. Our assumed victory had turned sour; the Buckners had won the day. Eric stuck around for a bit, but the fun of the day had died. This was the last time we set up our Kool-Aid stand. All that work, just to end up with nothing.

Sam’s isn’t there any more. It has since long been torn down and replaced by condos. The neighborhood has changed so much. Families like mine and the Buckners couldn’t even afford to live there anymore. Those types of adventures couldn’t even happen today. My kids will never know what it is like to disappear on their bikes for hours, get into turf wars with neighborhood kids, or get robbed and remember it fondly. Parents wouldn’t allow it. Every corner, street, and building unlocks the memories of summers that don’t exist anymore