Beneath the Polish Moon

Summer vacation had ended three weeks earlier, a distant memory in the world of a boy. Now it was homework, book reports and living life to the sound of bells: bells to go to school, bells for lunch hour, and bells for recess. The only reprieve from the new regimen was Saturday, a day set aside for early morning cartoons and endless adventures the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, this Saturday was not living up to its expectations. The boys had awakened to grey skies and rain. Luke stared out the kitchen window contemplating the unfairness of the universe. Just yesterday it had been sunny and warm. A lot of good that did him. He had been trapped in Mrs. Riemenschneider’s classroom doing his best to feign interest in Janine Nolten’s “show and tell” presentation about her family’s summer vacation.

A quiet rap was heard on the kitchen door. Luke almost missed it. It repeated, still so faint the visitor might not have even knocked. He shook his head, grinning . . . Stanley. Who else could it be? Luke hurried over to the door and pulled it open. Sure enough, Stanley was just turning to leave, the timid boy convinced nobody was home.

“Stanley. You gotta knock louder. I barely heard you!”

The diminutive figure just smiled shyly in response, water dripping from his yellow raincoat. “What ya doing, Luke?”

Luke smiled in return and opened the door wider. “Nothing. I was thinking of going over to Eugene’s. Wanna come?”

Stanley smiled broadly, nodding his head enthusiastically. He started to step into Luke’s flat but looked down, where the rain was now puddling on the hall floor. He looked back at Luke apologetically.

“Don’t worry. My mom doesn’t care about that stuff. It’ll dry up. I’ll just get my coat and we can go.”

A minute later, Luke was stepping into the outer hallway, pulling his raincoat on as he closed the door behind him. Stanley moved aside, letting Luke take the lead. He called out to Luke as his friend flew down the stairs ahead of him, “What are we gonna do over there?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll think of something.”

***

Eugene stood in the first-floor hallway of his house, Luke and Stanley craning their necks to see what he was doing. He stepped over to the wall and opened the small square trapdoor that led to the clothes chute. He stuck his head in and looked up and down the metal ductwork. His voice echoing, he called back to Luke. “I could do it,” making his pronouncement like he had just discovered uranium. “I could climb in upstairs and slide all the way down to the basement.”

The clothes chute at Eugene’s house was special. His house was the only one with two stories. Because of that, the chute stretched from the second floor all the way down to the basement. You could drop dirty clothes into the openings on the first and second floors and they would fall through the metal chute into a big wooden box that hung from the ceiling in the basement. His mom could then remove them and place them quickly into the washing machine. It was an engineering wonder.

“Wouldn’t you get hurt?” Luke asking a hypothetical question as he took his turn sticking his head into the opening.

“How could I get hurt? I’ll just land on the clothes. No big deal. You guys could open the door on the first floor and watch me go by. I can even say hi on the way down!”

Luke listened intently, thought about it for about a tenth of a second, and admitted he couldn’t really see a flaw in the plan. “Cool.”

Stanley, on the other hand, sensed a repeat of the pigeon caper. Maybe even worse. He looked around, wondering if it might just be better to run now and be ahead of the game . . .

Eugene took one last look into the opening, already thinking about the stories they would tell about this in the days ahead. Pulling back into the hallway, he looked at his two friends, a broad smile on his face. “What do ya think?”

Luke was wide-eyed with excitement. Stanley smiled politely; he knew the decision was already made. This would probably get him grounded until he was old enough to enlist in the army.

Eugene sprinted up the stairs to the second floor while Luke and Stanley waited in front of the open door to the chute on the first floor. When Eugene opened the door to the chute upstairs, he shouted down to Luke, “Can you hear me?”

Luke stuck his head in the lower opening and shouted upwards, “Yep! I can see you too!”

“Ok. I’m getting in! Are you guys ready?”

Luke stepped back and yelled, “Ready!”

He and Stanley waited in anticipation as they heard Eugene squeezing through the opening and into the narrow metal chute.

“OK, here I come!” his voice now a bit muffled.

The boys would later consider Eugene’s words an understatement. There was to be no greeting as he passed the first-floor opening. In fact, what followed could best be described as an extended scream. Luke was actually quite shocked at how fast a person could go past a small opening. Eugene dropped in a lightning-fast blur—just a whoosh, really; only to be followed by a loud crash as the wooden clothes hamper in the basement exploded into a million pieces. Luke turned to say something, but Stanley was already running for the door.

Luke paused a second, his first thought being that they probably should have checked to see how many clothes were in the box downstairs . . .. Reluctantly, he leaned his head in the opening and looked down into the basement. He called out quietly in a tentative whisper. “Eugene . . .?”