Leaves

In high school my group of guy friends and I would engage in illicit after dark activities. Not drinking or drugging- I only drank twice in high school, smoked pot once- but nighttime pranks. TPing for the most part, we prided ourselves on not only using a lot of toilet paper but in the artistic drape of our many and varied sheets, the carefully composed shaving cream scribed messages on blacktopped driveways, the careful mandalaesk scattering of smoked fish. We were craftsmen.

Once, in the fall we started collecting bags of leaves. For about a month we drove around in Adam's van and picked up peoples bags of leaves and stashed them behind some bushes on the side of my house. On one of our trips we found ten full bags at the end of a driveway with a poster board sign that said "Jim Did These" with a photograph of a shirtless old man. We took that too.

After we had accumulated sixty bags full of those brown badges of autumn I had the guys over for a sleepover. We snuck out after midnight, packed up the van, and headed to the house of Marissa the object of our juvenile stunt.

Drew, James, Adam, and I gleefully dumped mound after mound of leaves on Marissa's immaculate yard. Covering it completely. Her block had few trees, what little leaves there were had already been raked and disposed of, the image was striking. Rows of houses with clean green lawns and one lone house squarely blanketed with brown. In one of the bags we found yellow flowers as yet unwithered which I carefully arranged on the door step.

Before making our stealthy departure we capered and rolled in our handiwork like the kids we were slowly unbecoming. And as we sped off in the warmth of Adam's Ford Aerostar the flush of satisfaction and victory was in our cheeks. Fat on the glories of youth and the generosity of Fall.