why I shaved Matt (true stories part II)

It was 1986 I think. Spring. My friend Matt lived across the street and his mom was a school bus driver. That matters for this story.

It was about the same time of year as now and we were ready for spring/summer and ready to get outside and play some sports. The basketball hoop hung on the side of the granary toward the garage. It was a cool place to shoot hoops because the ball wouldn't get too far away from us even if we missed badly. This was also where his mom usually parked the bus when she was home. She had several routes. High schoolers and middle schoolers like Matt and I were on the early route. In the late afternoon she was out picking up the little kids, the afternoon session for Kidergarten and the rest of the elementary school kids.

That's where Matt's mom was when he caught fire.

See the thing was, we were eager and the weather wasn't cooperating. Springtime in Ohio is rainy and crappy, and 1986 was no exception. Where Matt's mom parked the bus, there were big tire ruts that weren't really conducive to playing basketball but when they were full of water they made it impossible. We needed these ruts to be dried out and for some reason that day we couldn't wait any longer for mother nature to take care of it for us.

You might remember that I was a visionary in my youth. An idea man. And I had an idea on how we could dry out the court. FIRE! Matt was totally on board. He had no idea what the fuck I was talking about ever, but he sure loved to burn shit. I explained to him my idea for drying out the court and he was on board.

"We'll fill the water puddles with gasoline" I told him. "Gas is made from oil I think so it won't mix, it will just sit on the top" I had no idea what the hell I was talking about but I had to make it sound good. "Once we get enough gasoline in the puddles we'll light it and it will get so hot it will dry out the water." Matt agreed. He knew I was a goddamned genius.

Matt grabbed his mom's lighter and we headed for the gas. They had several 5 gallon cans in the garage and one smaller one in the milk shed. They called it a milk shed. It was the exact same building as our milkhouse but they said shed so his was a milk shed. I opted for the smaller can so we wouldn't get in trouble for using so much gas. Matt grabbed a 5. We headed to the puddles. The puddles were like 4 inches deep at their deepest, maybe 2 feet wide, (each one the exact width of dual school bus tires) and about 15 feet long or so. I poured a little from my can around the edges of the puddles and tried to talk Matt into a test run. He would have nothing to do with that. That was a pure waste of gas. Then I realized he was planning to light it directly with the lighter. I knew that was retarded.

So I told him about the old starting fluid torch. You hold the zippo out lit in front of the starting fluid and hit the trigger. You can shoot at least a 15 foot flame out so you don't have to be anywhere near the puddle. He was in heaven. We tested the torch a few times and nearly required a change of underwear it was so fucking awesome.

So we started filling the puddles with gasoline, Matt poured way to fucking much. He set the can about 5 feet short of "far enough away" and hit the torch. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!! THAT IS A MASSIVE FUCKING INFERNO!!!!! Things happened pretty quickly. I'm not sure exactly when I shit my pants but I believe it was sometime between when the flames shot out and engulfed the 5 gallon can and when Matt in his brilliance kicked it over. I was sure the granary was going to be a casualty when the gas started spilling out of the can and I was concerned until I realized Matt was on fire. The fire on Matt was short lived thank god. I think it was just fumes and Matt was inside them but regardless all the hair on the back of his right arm and leg and the back of his neck was singed. The fire was under control and approximately 4 seconds later Matt says, "Can you tell I was on fire, cuz if my mom can tell, I'm dead" He and I had done some retarded shit in our day and knew the worst was if his mom found out. That wasn't an option. When I said yeah that the hair was all singed on both his right arm and leg and the back of his neck, his next statement was pure genius. "You gotta shave me"

So we headed into the house, got out the clippers and I went to town. It was the first time I gave someone a haircut with clippers (a skill I have since perfected) and the second to last time I would shave another guys arms and legs. I had to do both arms and both legs to make it seem "normal" to Matt's mom.

The puddles were untouched. Not a drop of water dryer than before. The granary and garage were intact. We used a lot more gas than we'd hoped. But in all it turned out ok. We saw an awesome fire and Matt got a haircut. I think he told his mom that athletes sometimes shave all their body hair to be less wind resistant. She bought it. He was retarded and it wasn't anything too far different from any of the other stuff he did.

We learned a lesson and it was this. Gasoline fires are pretty awesome. Don't set your full can too close to the action though.

Glossary
Granary - a building for storing grain or porn mags because it's build on stilts it stays dry inside
Milkhouse - a small usually block building for storing milk I guess at one point but now for storing gas and starting fluid and porny mags.