Wine Tasting

Wine Tasting

"Sciolino, when we find you you're dead meat!"

The other boys laughed when the older kid yelled that.
I heard the foot steps as they ran toward me. The sound of crinkled small branches and dead leaves came closer to me on that narrow pathway.

I held my breath, then, slowly let it out.
I let them chase me into this cornered hell.
We were behind the old homes on Harris Hill Road. Wire fences, older than the homes, ran along the very back of each yard, separating these properties from those on the road that ran parallel behind Harris Hill, Arondale Drive.

On the Arondale side of the back yards were hedge rows, oak trees, some pines and several cherry trees. In between the strands of trees and shrubs on one side and the old, vine covered wire fences on the other, was this narrow "easement" path. My hiding spot existed just over the old wire fence in a neighbor's backyard and within a thick grapevine.

Though that was almost fifty years ago, to this day, the scent of concord grapes brings back that terror.
The group of five were close, very close.
The older kid yelled as they ran, they came upon my hiding spot.
There was no doubt now that I would be caught, and then, who knows what will become of me...killed by kids who themselves knew not the extent of the anger they had for a skinny young boy who just didn't fit in.

I saw their sneakers and their socks. The older kid wore army fatigues.
To me, the feet and the legs were the size of adults as I lay on my face, my right cheek on dead grape leaves, smelling the scent of fermented wine and decaying foliage.

I was about to confessed my location. I had the urge to just get it over with, let the inevitable unfold, find out if these kids truly meant to honestly kill me, beating me savagely until I stopped breathing. Last week, it came very close; the older kid smacked me until I ate raw rhubarb, picked from his backyard. We sat on an old crumbling stone wall behind an ancient house with very old chicken coops in the far backyard. I choked down the rhubarb, green and bitter as he smacked me with an old "Mad Magazine", forever making "Alfred E, Newman" the same fixture of terror as the smell of concord grapes were becoming at this moment. remembering that, I now stared at the pairs of grass stained Keds high tops.

And so, I was to give myself up. I waited for their breaths to come back, so hard had they run, trying to catch a very fast, very terrified non-conformer. They were already angry that I somehow alluded them this long. Yet now, they stood still, knowing I must be very close. There was no way I got so far ahead on that narrow pathway that they couldn't see me. I just had to be hiding! And so they were silent. One of them said, "shut up...listen for that little shit!"

And they were right there. I could have reached out and touched four of those sneakers. If they just looked down, and looked hard, they could have made me out under those dense vines. Yet, their attentions were on the older kid, his anger palpable, so palpable even I could feel it, so there was no doubt the sheep in his flock drew from it. So, much was their
allegiance to his power, they failed to see just how close I was.

Suddenly, as I was breathing in deep enough to let my surrender out, a power within spoke deep inside me, "be still, be quiet". I obeyed. I let the breath out ever so slowly as each one of the predators stood silent. It became a game.

Suddenly, a small well of energy emerged within. I felt a warmth envelope around my lungs, radiating outward and rising to my head. The fear began to slowly subside. In its place came control and peace. A calm rushed forward.
The hunters seemed so persistent and their persistence revealed their anger. They knew I just had to be near. I realized I too was becoming angry. My anger became immense silence, my ability to remain calm was matching their own persistence.

They had but to start shaking the bushes, kicking them, splitting up and rooting me out, and they would find me instantly! Yet they didn't. They were that sure I would give myself up...make my presence known, surrender. As I came to realize this, I became even angrier.
I was determined to make them find me. I knew if that happened, I had won, I had defeated them!

Even if I was beaten to death, they would know they gave up. It was they that would have surrendered to the silence, not I. So, I waited for them to surrender in that way...ending their silence and rooting me out. Yet, the longer they remained quiet, the greater would be my victory. For minutes that became hours, I watched those sneakers and smelled the scent of concord grapes, fermenting with dead leaves. We all waited. An eternity ensued. I began to think random thoughts about school, about flying my kite in the backyard, of playing with "Sam", the stray dog that came to visit me each summer morning, really my only friend. As I thought, I watched the sneakers as they pointed in my direction. They must now be looking down. They must now be discovering my shadowy form underneath the dense grapevine. Victory was close.

And they knew it.

Suddenly, the older kid said, "Well, it looks like he booked across the fence and out onto the road, and he thinks he's safe, but wait until tomorrow!" I knew that speech to be directed at my ghostly presence...and to be a surrender.

The other kids like the sheep they were, turned their sneakers around. They followed the older kid in his green fatigues back where they came.

I laid there for another hour, dead silent to insure my victory. Quietly, I plucked a few concord grapes from the lower branch and placed them in my mouth. I sucked on them until the thick skin around them separated and let the succulent nectar bathe my tongue. It tasted sweet. It tasted good.

The smell of that grape always found my fear.
The taste always confirmed my victory.

I shall have a glass of red wine after my first hard ride on my new bike, knowing I defeated yet another nemesis once again.