Bats

 

The Waterman Street School brick that Walker Gaines gave me Thursday triggered some memories.

I remember in the 7th Grade one school night I was playing in the front yard after dark.  A streetlight was in front of our house.  I begin to notice a bat would  fly quickly under the light.  I sat down and studied the situation.  I finally figured out the bat would swoop under the light when a moth or someother bug attracted by the light would be near. 

Then I experimented.  I threw up a rock and the bat materialized and charged at it but it fell to the pull of gravity before the bat could reach it.  I tried again and again, each time getting lower and each time the bat would swing in lower.

I had a plan.  Cars passed now and then.  I wanted a car to hit the bat.  I knew this was risky.  The rock could hit the car instead of the bat.  As the car approached I would have to shoot the rock low and hopefully it should shoot past the oncoming car before actuallyu approached the "X" spot and the bat should be right behind the rock chasing it and wham!   I practiced my throw and watched the cars that sped down the street now and then. 

I made my move.  A car was speeding down the road and when it was about 15 to 20 feet  before the "X" spot I threw the little rock.  The stupid bat, as planned, fell line right behind it, and SPLOT!!!  The car missed the rock and hit the bat.  Was I a genius or what?

I went over and studied the bat.  It looked dead.  I put it in a netted orange sack, put it under a box and got ready for bed.

The next morning I carried the bat in the net to school with me.  I don't think I told my parents.

I wanted to show it to my teacher Mrs. King.  Mrs. King was very nice and flirty with me so I naturally liked her.  I wanted to impress her with the bat I caught.

The bell had not rang yet.  A cluster of us were standing in the hall just outside our 7th grade classroom.  I showed off the bat in the netted sack and was running my mouth about probably how I killed it when a girl classmate said, "Look!"

I looked down and the dead bat was prying itself loose from the bag by making one of the net holes bigger.  Then it was airborn.

Oh shit!

In a matter of minutes the bat was flying up and down the hall with hordes of kids running crying and screaming.  Cliff the janitor was chasing it and swinging a broom.

Miss Whitehead, the principal, came up to me, red faced and shaking, said, "Eddie Hunter what were you thinking?  Don't you have any sense?"    The look on her face looked to be complete hatred or fear, I wasn't sure which - after all, there was a bat flying rampant overhead.

I thought that old bat (pardon the pun) came close to having a breakdown I think.
I don't remember the fate of the bat.