“Want to buy cookies, mister?”
I turned to see a scout girl. She was about eleven years old, and her brown hair was hidden in a ponytail. She was wearing a dark green shirt and khaki pants. A light green belt, adorned with pins and medals, was draped over her chest. She smoked me, showing braces. She was standing at a table filled with boxes of Girl Scout cookies. I stopped at the table and looked at the boxes.
“Do you like cookies?” I said.
Her smile widened.
“Everyone loves cookies for girl scouts,” she said. "Want to buy?"
“What is your favorite cookie?” I said.
She looked at the boxes of cookies on the table.
“I like fine mints best, but they are all really good. My mother likes Samoans. ”
"Samoans?" I said.
“Yes,” answered the intelligence girl, “the view with chocolate and coconut in them.”
I dropped a twenty dollar bill from my wallet.
“Then a box of fine mints,” I said, handing her money, “and a box of Samoans.”
The girl scout took a twenty-dollar bill, picked up a box of fine mints and a box of Samoa, which are delicious, unlike Samoans, Samoan-born people, who are delicious but not very tasty. She handed them to me. I look into my head.
“They are not for me,” I said. "They are for you, and you can save changes."
She was looking down at a twenty-dollar bill and boxes of cookies. Her eyes are wide open.
“Really, mister?” She said. "But why?"
“Really,” I said, smiling at her. “And if you have to know the reason, it’s because I never said thank you.”
“Thank you?” She said. She looked confused. "Thanks for that?"
“I am grateful to all the girl scouts,” I said. "You do not know this, but long ago, long before you were born, girl scouts saved my life."
I was seventeen when it happened. In the church where I studied, there was an annual camp, and my friend, Sean, a small officer in the navy, a young man with a bright face and a haircut with military regulation, told me that he was coming. I had the only campsite I had, an old green army sleeping bag with a broken lightning bolt, in the back seat of Sean's little blue car.
“Is that all you bring?” Asked Sean, looking at my sleeping bag. "You have no tent?"
“No,” I said, “who needs a tent?”
“You will need one, cam,” he said. “It's cold in the mountains. You should at least take a jacket. ”
“I will manage,” I said. "It looks like eighty degrees outside."
“Good,” said Sean. "Do not say that I did not warn you."
We headed to a campground located in the mountains east of San Diego. The church reserved about half of the campgrounds, and we were met by familiar faces. The campground was surrounded by hundreds of tall oaks. Sean is slowly drifting, following a small asphalt road, winding through a campground, passing by church members near pleasure vehicles and tents. Some rode on bicycles, others did their cooking over a barbecue or raised tents. They washed us when we made our way and we washed off. We passed the camp of a group of scout girls, all in matching green uniforms, running down in all directions, setting up tents, preparing a ring of fire, installing lawn chairs, all under the supervision of a brunette in the early thirties. I paid them little attention.
Sean parked at the campsite and began setting up his tent. He worked carefully, paying attention to every detail, carefully scoring tents, even when spaced, on the rich, dark land, inserting the poles of the tent, raising a small green tent to a perfectly formed A-frame. He unfolded his sleeping bag and gently laid it on the floor of the tent. He collected stones and built a ring of fire, digging a hole in the center of the ring to contain fire. He removed the wood from the trunk of his car and put it in neat rows next to the fire ring. Finally, he hung an electric torch on a small pole near the entrance to his tent.
I grabbed my sleeping bag with a broken zipper from Sean's car and rubbed it on the ground next to the ring of fire. Is done. Sean grinned at me, shaking his head. I think you could say that we were opposites.
It was a warm and pleasant day, lulling me into a false sense of security. Who needs a tent in San Diego in the end? But as soon as the night fell, the temperature also. Sean built a fire, and I sat down next to him. Campers from the church group roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire and were generous enough to share with me. But, as the night gets cold, they retreated to the comfort of their tents and pleasure vehicles. Around midnight, Sean also turned, climbing into his tiny tent, leaving me alone by the fire, which by then was a little more than the dying embers. I moved as close as possible to the heat of the fire, lying on the floor of the sleeping bag, covering myself with the other half. Somehow, despite the cold, I managed to sleep.
I woke up immediately after dawn to low temperatures. The sun rose above the tops of the mountains, but it gave very little heat. My muscles ached from sleeping on cold, hard soil. My body trembled, my teeth chattered. My breath came out like steam in the cold. Nothing was left of the fire, but a few hot coals were buried under gray ash. No firewood left. Wrapping a sleeping bag around me, I swung the nearby zone for everything that was burning; cardboard, fizzy crates, paper towels, dry twigs, everything I could find. I blew up hot coals until a small collection of flammable materials caught fire. The heat from the fire was wonderful, but fleeting when the paper, cardboard and twigs were ignited, flared hot, and then burned out. I was looking for more items to burn, desperate to keep warm, but soon the flammable materials ran out. The fire is dead.
I needed to burn something more.
Turning to a sleeping bag, I expanded my search by skipping several campgrounds, including a site related to girl scouts, on a near meadow, finding pieces of wood, pieces of fallen branches, and more branches. I returned them, putting them in a ring of fire, blew on the coals until the fire came to life. Pieces of wood burned longer than cardboard and twigs, but they also burned, leaving me cold and unhappy.
I needed to burn much more.
I headed back to the meadow, my sleeping bag snapped at my shoulders. I looked through the pieces of wood. Something more, I thought, something much more. When I saw it. An old round log two feet long and one and a half feet wide lay on its side beside one of the large oaks. Of course, so many trees burn for hours. With joy, thoughts of a warm, roaring bonfire in my head, I picked up a magazine. It was hard and cumbersome. I struggled under my weight, carrying it in both hands, stumbling as I walked, stumbling over a sleeping bag that was thrown over my shoulders. I walked past the scout camp. There was a big flip chart on the stand. I assumed that the leader of the brunette scout turned over the pages of the chart, preparing for the class. I noticed the words Stop, Drop and Roll on the front page of the chart. A fire extinguisher was sitting on the ground next to a flip chart. Several girls scouts were watching me as I walked past, stumbling under the weight of a log, sometimes stumbling over the edge of my sleeping bag.
I returned to the ring of fire and threw the magazine right in the middle of the hot coals and waited for it to catch fire. The smoke rose from the log, and the part concerning the coal turned black, but it did not catch fire. I blew up the coals, and they blushed for a while, but the magazine did not burn. I am becoming desperate, my hopes for a warm fire dissolving before my eyes. I remembered that one of the church members at the campsite next to us had a bottle of lighter fluid near the barbecue grill. I went to the camp and “borrowed” a light liquid. The bottle was half empty. I sprayed a log with a lighter fluid and bent over, blowing on hot coals. A log ignited in a flame of gently warm fire. I stood as close to the fire as possible, soaking in the heat. But, to my chagrin, the fire consumed a lighter fluid, not a magazine. When the fuel burned down, the fire died.
“This magazine will never catch fire,” said Sean. I turned to see him get up from the entrance to his tent. He reached out and yawned, wiping the dream from his eyes.
I poured the rest of the “borrowed” lighter fluid onto the log. The fire broke out again, a surge of fluid. I once again admired the warmth. Then, as before, the fire died. The log smoked, but it did not burn. Sean came up to me, looking down at the log.
“This is too big, Konklekhed. You have to break it into firewood before you can burn it. ”
"Do you have an ax?" I said. He shook his head.
I look at the empty bottle of light liquid and headed to another camp, looking for more. It was the answer, sitting on a folding table next to a recreational vehicle. Of course. Dual Calorie Capacity Kerosene. Now it would reduce anything. I “borrowed” a can of kerosene and headed back to the ring of fire, feeling triumph. Sean was on his knees, straightening the inside of his tent. The campground came to life, and several church members sat on chairs close to the fire. I unscrewed the lid from the top of the kerosene can and impatiently poured it on the smoking magazine. Nothing happened. I bent down and blew the embers. They became redder, but kerosene did not catch fire. I looked around the can. It was kerosene. The warning “flammable liquid” was written on the front of the can. So why is it not covered? Disappointed, I tried again. I poured kerosene through the log.
PHUMP!
Kerosene is lit by a small explosion, a bark of air around the ring of fire and burning my eyebrows. Everything seemed to slow down. I watched, froze in place, when the fire rose from the log and rose along the stream of kerosene, entering the can. In my hands can grow hot. The fire erupted from the hole. Someone once told me that gasoline explodes if it caught fire. I thought that was true for kerosene. I saw the church members sitting together and worried that the bath might explode, hurt them. I had to take him away from the people. Turning away from the church members, I threw the jar using both hands, but stumbled before throwing it. The power left my hands, spinning in the air, ending at the end, a fiery liquid pouring from the jar when it spins in the air, covering and lights the ground, the neighboring bushes and the right leg. He landed about five feet from me. My right foot was on fire. The earth was on fire. The bushes and leaves burned around me. Thinking that the bank might still explode, I made a brilliant decision to push it further. I ran to the bank and hit her hard with my right foot. He flew, spewing more fire, turned upside down at the top of the neighboring bushes. The rest of the kerosene spilled out of the can, setting the bushes on fire. I stand watching the fire as it grows, consuming bushes and dry leaves. I felt no pain, but I smelled of burning flesh. Bright smoke swept over me. Everything burned around me, and I was dizzy from the smoke. The world burned before me. My knees limped and I felt like I was falling. I fell in the flame.
“Stop! Drop it! Drop it! ”The girl screamed.
Someone grabbed me from behind. I felt light hands around my waist, pulling me to the ground. I fell, landing on the left side. The girl behind me covered my right leg with a wet blanket. The one who in front of me used a fire extinguisher, firing fire.
“Hang on,” the girl said behind me. "You'll be fine."
After a few moments, the fire went out. A girl of about twelve years old appeared, seemingly out of smoke and a hazy white residue of a flame retardant substance. She had long dark hair and worn glasses. A light green flap was draped over her chest, over her dark green uniform. Her pins and medals glistened in the morning sunlight. She was holding a red fire extinguisher in her right hand. I craned my neck to see the girl who pulled me out. She was a blonde brunette, dressed in a belt and uniform, like a girl in front of me.
“We need to get it out of the smoke,” said a scout girl with a fire extinguisher. She joined the girl behind me. Taking my hands, they stretched, pushing me away from the smoke. I heard clapping and cheers. Dozens of vacationers, attracted to the confusion, welcomed the bold actions of my two young rescuers. It must have been a pretty sight; I, covered with soot, sitting in the mud, my right leg, black and charred, two female scouts looked at me with concern. And in the middle of all the confusion, my lungs were still filled with poisonous smoke, I forgot to say thank you.
Sean took me to the nearest clinic. He was a friend of mine, and that meant, of course, that he laughed at me the whole trip and for many years told the story of the bold and steadfast actions of the scouts for everyone we knew.
In the clinic, a doctor, a man at the age of forty, removed my cinch with a pair of scissors. The skin on the inside of my ankle melted to the base and went off with a pantleg. He removed the dead skin around the burn with surgical scissors and put on a wound. Sean was sitting in the treatment room, watching the procedure. I winked at him.
“Doctor,” I said, looking down at the dressing on my leg. “Do you think I can knock out a field ball in a couple of weeks?”
Sean shook his head and smoked. The doctor thought about it for a few moments. He nodded.
“As long as you change the bandage in accordance with the order and keep the wound during the game, I am sure that in a couple of weeks you will be able to hit the goal,” he said.
I grinned at Sean.
“This is amazing, doctor,” I said. "Before, I could never hit the field game."
- Dedicated to the memory of Sean Mecher, my faithful friend -
