I lofted the hard husk of the walnut into the cool november air. I watched it's dark shape spin and and begin its vertical drop. I waited, waited, and then swung the plastic yellow bat with all my strength. The connection was perfect and the nut sailed into the air, across the yard, and cleared the neighbors' shed, landing on their lawn well out of sight.
Somewhere off to my left, a sharp clang as my brother-in-law shattered another walnut against his metal bat, the shards of walnut splaying out like the wreckage of an exploded aircraft across the ocean of dying grass. It seemed a little counter-productive to be littering the lawn that we had just been raking with walnut fragments, but we weren't thinking about that.
We weren't thinking about much at all, to be honest. Mostly, we were revelling in the simplicity of the physical action itself. Where the projectiles were landing, or in what condition was of little importance to us compared to the smooth satisfaction of a perfect swing and the gratifying crack of a dead-on contact.
Brent's hit percentage was much higher, but his bat was fatter than mine, too. My flimsy plastic bat was barely thicker around than the rake handle I had been using minutes before, but the combination of the wimpy bat and the decaying walnuts was just right for getting the walnuts up high into the air. I had bounced them off the roofs of my in-laws' shed as well as the neighbors', and many had landed harmlessly on the lawn on both sides of the fence, but somewhere in the back of my mind I was vaguely aware of the potential for damage inherent to the activity.
Maybe that was part of the allure.
When one walnut had fallen with a clatter on the patio in the neighbors' backyard, we had all caught our breath. There was a window above that patio, just to the left of the shed. A low-arcing hit towards left center right over the short-stop's head would go right into the neighbors' kitchen. But again, we weren't really considering that.
It had started with mushy apples turned up during our raking. Brent and Jason had begun tossing an apple back and forth, attempting to catch it on the end of their rakes. Their friendly game of catch developed into a competition of who could get closer to beaning the other with a mushy apple. When apples became scarce, a mushy tomato, and then walnuts took over.
Brent and Jason both had plastic rakes, but mine was metal, with longer, separated fingers that rattled like chimes as I raked it across the cold hard earth. The separation of the fingers made it hard to pick up the apples, and especially the walnuts. They bent too far back and the walnut would slip between. And that's why I had abandoned the rake for the bat.
I found another hard, dry walnut at the base of the apple tree by the garden. It was not as rotten as the others we had been hitting, and promised to give me a much better hit. Baseball was the one sport I felt reasonably competent at, having been in several little-league teams as a kid. Now, years down the road I still thrill at the ability to send a ball, apple, or walnut flying.
I tossed the walnut high, and held my stance. Still ingrained from my little-league years, I heard in my head "keep your eye on the ball." I swung and connected. The walnut sprang away towards short stop. It was clearing the corner of the shed in a low arc. Then the sound, like a sound from a cartoon, or movie, something any foley artist would brag about. The musical, sinister sound of glass fracturing and falling. The sound felt like a bad joke, like something that was inevitable, and yet impossible. I didn't want to believe my ears.
And I immediately felt like a kid again. Shame, embarrassment, and fear overcame me as the reality of what had just happened cut into my awareness by means of that single, sharp-edged sound. From the deck I could get a visual of the window, though I didn't need to see to know.
From then on, I hid behind my mother-in-law. I didn't want to confront the neighbors. I didn't want to walk over and knock on the door, or even call. I had been chewed out by this neighbor before, for - she though - recklessly rounding the corner by her house. I knew this would secure my place in her "bad" book for good.
All along, I had known it was going to happen, or at least that it might happen, but I had subordinated prudence to the pleasure of play. In the aftermath, I desperately tried dodging the circumstances. Just like a kid.
