Part 2 of 2

I don’t know about girls, but when you are a 13-year-old boy, your thoughts are pretty much limited to the here and now. You live in the present and don’t think very far ahead.

When we dropped that water balloon from the top of the hotel, we weren’t worried about the consequences of a wet, angry 230-pound football player and his desire to pound the pipsqueaks that soaked him. Jumbo was a hero at school, a good athlete, had a pretty girlfriend and was one of the leaders of the senior class. He was not used to being humiliated. As Jumbo stood there dripping wet, it occurred to Roger and me that we were in deep trouble. We looked at each other with stricken faces and ran for the elevator.

We got there, punched the elevator button, got it and started our descent. The Basinger Hotel elevator was vintage, but like today’s elevators, it didn’t stop if someone had punched the up button as the elevator went down.

We expected Jumbo and his friends would be waiting for us in the lobby. Get off at second floor? No, we would still be trapped in the hotel and eventually Jumbo would have us in his grasp.

What to do? It seemed at the time to be darn near a matter of life or death. We knew Jumbo was not the verbal type and certainly wouldn’t let us off with a cussing out. No way! We knew a bloody nose was likely and could only hope the beating would be short-lived.

Sometimes the answer to a problem is complex and sometimes simple is the best way to go. We knew Jumbo, although no mental giant, was no dummy. He wouldn’t climb the stairs, for he might miss us as we came down in the elevator.

However, we couldn’t stay in the upper floors of the hotel, for Jumbo might send his teammates to scout us out. Jumbo was camped on ground floor to give us a thumping as we got off the elevator. As he stood there dripping, Jumbo wouldn’t be very worried about hitting a couple of smart alecks. He would have one thing on his mind. Revenge!

However, we had one small advantage over Jumbo. I knew the hotel and the workings of the elevator better than he did. The elevator went one floor lower than the lobby to the basement. We could bypass ground floor and Jumbo and ride the elevator to the basement. This was a simple solution and hopefully one that would work. As we passed ground floor we looked out the wire glass window and saw Jumbo, his clothes sodden and his hair slicked down with water, waiting for us. We landed in the basement, threw open the elevator door and fled up the basement stairs to the alley in back of the hotel. No Jumbo. We split up to make a chase more difficult and went our separate ways home.

I wasn’t looking forward to school Monday morning for I didn’t know how much longer I could elude Jumbo. He was both much bigger and faster than me. I saw Roger and asked him if he had seen Jumbo. "No," replied Roger, "do you think he’s still wet?" We giggled a little bit, but not too much for Jumbo and his 230 pounds were still very much on our minds.

We needn’t have worried, for Jumbo never bothered us. I think that he either didn’t get a good look at us or more likely Jumbo realized he wouldn’t look good pounding on a skinny 13-year-old and decided to forgive us.