THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

                                                         THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

I was excited. Mom promised me a real birthday party, not just the” family only “kind but the one where you can invite your friends. I was turning thirteen, a teenager at last. I told my Mom I wanted all the guys from my class invited, all ten of them. She laughed as she knew if half the families drove out to the farm that would be a lot. We lived in the country so having someone drive you somewhere for a party in the middle of a Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours was asking a lot. To Moms credit she sweetened the pie by telling the parents they could pick their own apples from our orchard, and she wouldn’t charge them a dime. That was quite generous of Mom as that was her pocket money, selling apples by the side of the road.

My Dad was first and foremost a farmer, besides our fruit orchard we had cattle and pigs which would get slaughtered for our food.  Dads’ real money came from the junkyard in the back field. The junk brought in cash with no paperwork attached.

The junkyard was behind the old farmhouse where we lived. Dad got into the scrap business initially by bringing up cars from the South and selling them in western New York. They were rustproof, not having to endure brutal Northern winters. He gradually expanded selling old tractors, trucks and eventually heavy equipment. It was a cash business and Mom said they made more at that then when years later they went legit and formed a company, paying taxes.  How does this all tie into my birthday party you’re probably wondering. First let me give you a little background of the area.

If you know anything about the 1950’s and the Niagara Falls area, which we lived very close to you will understand. The construction ,demolition and scrap metal business was run by the Italian Mafia in that area, and they were not known to be the most honest businessmen. They were always in need of some piece of equipment or some way to get rid of equipment. Enter my father, always a smart man despite having only an eight grade education. He was always looking for a way to make a dollar., but he saw nothing wrong with bending the law in what he saw as minor ways, not that he ever went to jail. He became involved with them over equipment only, not any of their violent crime stunts which we were always reading about in the papers. Murders in which they were involved  in and there were quite a few reported , always very gruesome. There were reports of body parts being found buried in shallow graves or bodies floating in the Niagara River or thrown over the Falls themselves. Everyone was afraid of them.

In fact it was just a couple of weeks before my birthday that my dad was visited by three men in a big black car. Dad had a little building by the junkyard that he used as an office. I saw my dad open the office door and when he saw the men he waved them over. They seemed to stay for quite a while and after they left I saw Dad open the office door a little way and peeked out, like he wanted to make sure they had left.

 Later that evening I overheard him talking quietly to my mom. I hid behind the door as it was clear he didn’t want anyone to hear. He said “Look, Bernice it’s no big deal, its straight business. They need some equipment for their business and don’t really know what’s a good buy or not. They said they will pay me by leaving some of their junk equipment and it could be mine for payment. They are even dropping off some sheet metal from a demolition job they’re doing this weekend. Do you know what steel is bringing at the recycling plant? I don’t see what can go wrong.”

Mom said” Johnny, they give me the creeps, you asked my opinion and I’m giving it. I know you’re going to do it anyway but don’t blame me if it turns rotten. Those guys are crooks.

I ran to my bedroom where my brother was doing his homework. “Hey Sammy the Mafia is coming to our place, pretty exciting right?”

“Yeah right, the Mafia is coming and so is Santa Claus, he laughed”.

Well, a few weeks passed and I put the Mafia excitement aside. I had bigger fish to fry. I was having a birthday party, and I was going to be a teenager. The day was filled with lots of presents and junk food. We played some games but we really not into stuff like pin the tail on the donkey, remember I was turning thirteen. We did play baseball but after a while we tired of that. My friend’s parents, actually just their mothers stayed in the house with my mom gossiping. I guess they figured their boys were in the country on a farm what could go wrong.

“Yeah, I said its pretty neat, we always play hide and seek back there.” I said.

“Hey, let’s do that now,” one of the guys said.

“Hmm, I don’t know dad said stay out of the junkyard someone is bound to get hurt, scraping a leg on rusty metal or falling out of a truck, stick to baseball,’ dad said.

The thing was though, Dad was not home and you know what that means to teenagers, especially teenage boys.

So, “Hide and Seek” it was. We all took off running. We drew straws and Bobby, the smallest of my friends, was to run and hide. We would give him ten minutes and then we were coming in.

After the ten minutes were up we all scattered, laughing, screaming, jumping off and on the junk cars and trucks. It seemed like an hour had gone by and still no Bobby. It was probably only fifteen minutes. Then suddenly, we all heard a scream. Looking at each other we all ran in the direction of the scream. Sitting on the ground by our old pickup truck sat Bobby, tears and sobbing like I never heard or saw. I grabbed him and started to shake him, but he kept crying and pointing at the inside of the truck.

On the floor of the truck was, oh my god, something that looked like a human bloody bone. We all started screaming and started running for the house. By this time my dad was home. He ran out of his office, and my mom and the other mothers came running .

I yelled to my dad, “There’s apiece of a human body in the truck.” My mother was hysterical yelling and crying and by now everyone was screaming. My father’s face was white. My mother stared at him. “ Jesus Johnny go see what they’re yelling about’”

Mom tried to calm down, first herself and then the other mothers. Dad went back to the junkyard with me; all the other kids stayed with their mothers. I pointed to the truck. Dad walked to the truck alone and opened the door. He stood motionless. I was shaking. He bent down and picked up the bloody mess. He started to shake too but I realized he was laughing and not crying.

The bloody bone it seems was the bone from one of the cattle we had butchered the day before. It had obviously fallen out of the butcher’s bag yesterday. The truck was our old Ford pickup, and the hired man had driven it yesterday. He obviously had not seen the bone that dropped.

Dad sat on the bumper looking a little shaken and holding the bloody bone. Somehow, he had the look of relief on his face.

 The party was pretty well over by then and everyone got a good laugh once they found out it wasn’t from a human. Well, everyone but Bobby, he was still sniffling.

Later that evening I heard mom whispering to dad, “You know what I first thought?’ Dad laughed,” You don’t have to tell me.”

After that I noticed dad was always around when the “boys from Niagara Falls” sent a piece of junk to the yard, inspecting it thoroughly after they drove off.