The Treasure Hunt

The Rat Treasure Hunt

“Now Dickie, You stay out front, out of the dirt and I’ll be down to take you with me into Boston”

“Yes Mommy.”

Dressed in his Sunday best, looking like Buster Brown in his black vested suit jacket, black short pants, high white stockings and pattern leather shoes the little guy goes down the flight of stairs from the second floor in the newly built, East Boston Housing projects. Being one of the first families in the early forties to reside here the family was joined in the next building by the U.S. Navy. The over flow of sailors from the Navel base across the street were billeted in #74 Sumner St., Dick and his family lived in #66, apartment #347. Each building had twelve apartments four on each floor. The Navel Headquarters on Sumner St. was situated on the Boston Harbor across the street. We watched daily as the sailors and waves marched up the cobblestoned street. The newly built projects had beautiful court yards and fenced off garden areas. The brilliant red brick entrances on the street side also had trees and benches, we were fortunate enough to experience the clean brilliance of the proud undertaking of the City of Boston. As little Dickie walked out onto the courtyard he could see the start of unappreciated tenants, renters’ who did not take pride in their turf. He noticed a sand box play area calling to him. Some of the kids found if they dug up a couple of bricks, there was sand underneath. Removing several bricks then opened a sand box. Mom would have beaten him silly if she ever thought he would do something like that. The sand now afforded a place for the stray dogs and cats to urinate and as the kids continued to play they started to get sick. Ignoring, not thinking about the warning “to stay clean” because the sand box was more appealing, Dick sat down to entertain himself. A boy came out of the building and Dick became uneasy. He remembered this boy and his brother chasing Dick and his older brother Brian as they were trying to help mother by going to the store for her, when they moved in a couple of months ago. Nothing ever came of the situation but because Brian had continued to tell Dick “If they catch us we’re going to get a beating”, now seeing Tommy Carrol, little Dickie froze. Although they were both the same age, Tom was much taller and appeared to be older so when he commanded Dick to come with him on a treasure hunt, the little guy became intimidated.

“Come on kid were going on a treasure hunt.”

“My mommy told me not to leave the front of the house or I’ll get a licking, we have to go on the train”.

Tom reached down and selected a nice full red brick, “If you don’t come with me, I’m going to smash you over the head with this brick. We’ll be right back, she won’t even know and when we come back from finding treasure, shell be very happy with you. If you don’t come you’ll have a broken head and no treasure”.

Dick obediently responded, he had considered the options and thought a red bottom would hurt less than a red head, split with the brick.

“Follow me where going to play Follow the Leader.”

“Wait, I can’t go across the street, alone?”

“You can’t what”, Tommy screams as he raises the brick again.

“I’m sorry but my mother’s going to be mad.”

“I told you when we bring home the treasure she’ll be happy.”

Across the cobblestoned street Dick followed, down to the end at New Street where the two boys squeezed through the stretched opening at the bottom of the fence marked, Government Property, No Trespassing and Police Take Notice; down around the broken pavement under the rotted piers.

“I can’t go under there’, Dick cried. “My Mother will kill me if I get dirty and its all grease and green seaweed; what about the water rats”?

“Just shut up and follow me”, Tommy said as he raised the brick menacingly over his head.

Stumbling after the bigger boy, Dick kept slipping on the grease left by the harbor ships sewerage and spillage prominent at low tide. He now started sobbing as he slipped and fell forward following his tormentor.

“I want to go home; I’m scared, my mommies going to kill me”.

“Shut up you baby, go ahead, go home your a pan in the neck, anyway. You’ll be sad when I find the treasure, alone and keep it all for myself”. This was an option Dickie hadn't considered. Curiosity got the best of the confused little boy. "What if?"

Tommy must have seen or heard of the movie ‘Treasure Island’, where the treasure washes ashore. There was no end in sight, just a continuation of rotted piers, grease and trash.

“Wow, look at this tennis ball, it means we’re getting closer to the treasure.”

Tom started collecting crappy rubber balls covered with grease and throwing them back at Dick. Fumbling and stumbling, slipping and falling into grease covered rocks; Dick started to become filthy, now the fear of Mom’s upset caused him to stutter and stammer while crying and drooling spittle all over himself.

“Shut the hell up you fraidy cat, cry baby”, Tom screamed. “’The Treasure is just around the next pier”.

Dickie noticed the water was now getting closer and thought about the perilous near drowning incident with the rat in his face last week. His fears now mounted.

“We’re going to drown and the giant water rats are going to get us; I know they had me last week but I got away”.

“You’re lying”, Tom screamed. “Get moving; there’s no water rats and you never came here before”.

The next step was the final blow as Dick’s foot wedged between two greasy rocks: panicking now he pulled and pulled wedging it in tighter.

He started screaming, “Help me, help me, I’m going to drown”.

Tommy put down the brick and tried pulling under the little guy’s arms but the harder they tried the tighter the wedge became.

“Come on pull your dam foot you’re your not helping?”

Finally in fear for his own safety, Tom abandoned the situation.

“I’m leaving; I’m not going to drown because a stupid cry baby doesn’t know how to hunt treasure”.

“Please don’t leave me; I don’t know what to do”.

“The hell with you, I’m going”.

“Help me, don’t leave me, please.”

Now struggling and screaming in total panic Dick slips on the greasy bottom and as he falls his foot slides out of the shoe.

“Oh heck, oww.”

Free at last he limps after the fleeing captor.

“Wait, Unhuh, unhuh,” he sobs. “I lost my shoe my mommies going to kill me.”

He is at least grateful that he may not drown. His next step is the bad icing on an already terrible cake.

“Aaarrgghh, I cut my foot; I’m bleeding.”

Dick steps on a broken bottle under the seaweed and slices his foot open. He cries out in pain and goes into shock over the gushing blood now covering the grease.

“Oww, I can’t walk, I’m bleeding”, he cries.

“Then crawl, you stupid crybaby; the end is just around the corner. I’ve been here with my older brother and we found more treasure than today. You’re a jinx; you’ll never come with me again”.

Tom hastens towards the bend under the piers.

“Please wait; don’t leave me, I’ll drown.” Little Dickie raises and sloshes after him not wanting to be left behind.

“Ha, ha, ha, you’ve got to be kidding.”

Suddenly the boys hear laughter; a Party or Wedding group has now spilled out onto the dock. A woman peers over the rail and sees the two dirty little greasy rats scurrying as they stumble and fall, trying to get to the pier.

She laughs and tells her friends, “Look at those rag muffins; that’s what you call a real ‘grease ball’.

She screams, “Oh my God that little guy is in a puddle of blood”.

“Come here you two.”

A couple of men have climbed down the ladders with blankets and carry the two boys into the kitchen of the club.

“Bring them some cokes and cookies, Joe”, says one man trying to calm the little boys’ sob’s?

“Where do you kids live,” asks Joe.

Tommy says, “The Housing Projects”.

“Where”, shouts Joe?

“Sumner Street in the projects”, answers Tom.

“You’ve got to be shitting me, that’s almost a half mile away. You must have been wandering for hours? Call the Cops, Charlie, their parents must be going nuts.”

“What the fuck, arr, excuse me, what the hell were you doing all this time”?

“Uhh, uhh,” Dick is still sobbing trying to catch a breath while Tommy proudly announces, “We were hunting for treasure”.

“Dese fricking kids are nuts”, another member says.

"Charlie, you know first aid; what can we do with this kids greasy bloody foot?" Charlie ties a bandage from a medical kit on the wall around the wounded foot but the blood still shows through.

The Boston Police arrive at the Jefferies Point Yacht Club.

“Who's going to do time for this big crime you folks called us for today?” As they joke about the severity of the situation, today.

“Hey Dianne, how you doing; grab us a couple of high balls, will you.”

They laugh and joke with the woman while being handed the drinks in the back room.

“Wait till these little bastards get home; dare going to get their asses kicked. Da fricken parents have been on the phone going nuts all afternoon”, one cop remarks.

“The little guys still bleeding”, says Charlie from the club. “We put a type B tourniquet on to temporarily to stop the bleeding. We didn’t want to shut off the little guy’s circulation plus it looks like a butterfly bandage may do the trick.”

“What are you Charlie, a fricken medic,” asks one of the cops?

“Why don’t you guys stop screwing around with the ladies and get them kids home”?

“What are you a freakin wise guy or someding”?

“No, I’m Charlie Welch, BPD and I work in the Area D in West Roxbury where we have real crime” as Charlie flashes his tin. "Now take the kids home; the parents are nervous wrecks by now.”

“Come on you little grease balls, get in the car and don’t get your dirty little asses on the cushions.”

The boys climb into the back seat Tommy excited about riding in a Police Car and Dickie now thinking about the reception committee at home starts to whimper, again. They both sit on the towels given them by the yachtsmen. They push forward so as not to get the seats dirty and get yelled at again.

“You little bastards caused us a lot of fricken aggravation; we could have picked up a couple of broads and got laid. Have you boys broken your cherries yet?”

“We ate cherries at my house, the other day,” said Tommy.

“Ya, that’s it; eating cherries kid, aren’t they delicious? Don’t you just love eating cherries, sucking the juice”?

“Carl, cut the shit these kids are just babies; what the hell are you talking about?”

“Aww fuck it, they have to learn some time. Hey, you little shit are you getting that seat dirty?”

Tom and Dickie bolt back, up straight as they started to relax and slouch. The cruiser pulls up to #66 Sumner St. and the cop called Carl tells Dick to get out, “Your bleeding all over the friggen car. Get the hell upstairs and tell your Mudder and Fadder your home, we’ll be up in a minute.”

Dick hops out of the car and limps across the court yard, up the front stairs and enters the first floor hallway; leaving his bloody footprint as a trail. Walking into the hallway from the darkness he notices someone has burned their initials with matches on the beautiful white ceilings. Climbing the stairway, happy to finally be out of the stressful events of the day; still quietly sobbing he stops in front of apartment #347 and as he reaches for the doorknob; he freezes.

“I can’t go in looking like this; my mother will kill me. Sob, sob.”

He turns and sees the bloody footprints leading to the door. He hops on his clean shoe to the window over the roof shed, climbs up on the sill and slips down in the corner; shielding himself from the Police car below.

“Come on Carl finish that report upstairs; we need to get back to the Club. You saw that broad Dianne didn’t you? Well she slipped me her number with the drinks.”

“You whoremaster, how come I didn’t catch that move?”

Dickie watches as the Police now approach the front stairs beneath the roof shed and out of sight. He tries to scrunch his body into a cocoon; to be as small as he can be, trying to be invisible. He hears the Police banging on his door.

“Who is it,” he hears his Dad call out as Dick is just beneath the parlor window.

“It’s the Police where’s your son?”

“What are you talking about? You found our boy? Where is he? Is he safe?” Dad is rattling off as many excited questions as he can spill out not realizing Dick’s safe.

“We sent the kid upstairs. Look his footprints lead right to the door.”

Dad looks down and sees the bloody little trail and says, “I think I know where he is.” He walks to the open window, leans out and sees his beautiful son, whimpering, filthy and bloody.

“Come here, Dick.”

He reaches down with his strong hands rough from all the metal cuts in his job as a ‘tin knocker’. dads a Sheet Metal worker at the Charlestown Navel Shipyard. He pulls his baby in and crushes him to his strong hairy chest and breathes a sigh of relief. Under his breath he says, “Thank you lord.”

“If that were my kid he’d get the licking of his life; running away and sneaking out on the roof like that.” Officer Carl interjects.

“Well it’s not your kid and we’re happy to have him home safe and alive. Thank you for bringing him home. Bye the way, where did you guys find the boys”?

“At the Jefferies Point Yacht Club, can you believe that?”

A few years later a little boy from the projects wandered away into the ‘No Trespassing' area and was found crushed to death between the dock and a tanker.

“Now calm down Honey; he’s O.K. He’s just a little ruffled.”

“Oh my God; look at you? You’ll be the death of me yet?”

“Sob, sob, I’m sorry, Mommy.”

“Where’s your shoe? What happened to your beautiful clothes?”

“I don’t know? I lost them. I fell down. I’m sob, sob, sorry, Mommie.”

After being stripped and cleaned up in the tub; little Dickie still traumatized climbed into bed. He was shivering and still sobbing as he fell asleep. His dreams were violent; bricks, rats, blood, grease, drowning, lickings; he was withering and shaking when a beautiful peaceful calmness eased over his entire being. It was soothing and felt like he was floating on clouds of feathers. He stopped sobbing and the shakes were quelled. He was quietly awakened by a soft pleasurable feeling on his fanny. His peepee was pulsating. He was startled when he realized his brother Brian was rubbing a soft hair brush across his butt. Brian had Dick’s pinus in his mouth. Groggily Dickie wonders what is going on.

“What are you doing Brian?”

“Shhhh, doesn’t it feel nice?”

“Yes but what are you doing that for?”

“Because it makes you feel real good, doesn’t it?”

“Why are you rubbing the hair brush on my fanny?”

“Shhh don’t let Mommie know you feel good. Nice, doesn’t it feel great? Now do it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your big brother and I made you feel good so don’t you think it’s fair that you should do it to me? Watch”

Soft brush bristles across my buttocks.

“That feels great, right? Now try doing it to me. That’s it, now put it in your mouth; you know like a lollipop.”

“It’s yechey, I don’t like it.”

“Oh it feels soo good, Thank you Dickie; you’re a great brother.”

“O.K. then I’ll try it again. It feels better this time, nice and soft but I’m tired and I’m falling asleep, good night Brian.”

“Good night Dick.”