Enter the Ninja, conclusion.

Perhaps it was hubris, or perhaps it was foolishness on my part for placing such reliance in a cheap plastic knick-knack... in a fucking child’s toy, over my own god given senses; in that moment - that wretched, confusing, chaotic moment, Matt and I thought we’d actually make it out of there unscathed.

We made slow progress… it should have been slower. We were careless. We were hasty. Maybe it was because we were impatient or nervous, but we both could feel the fluttering of a thousand butterflies in our stomachs… or perhaps a better comparison would be the uncomfortable scratching of eight thousand spiny legs of one thousand cave dwelling spiders squirming in our 13-year-old guts ready to burst out. Matt had crossed the line. He had defaced public property. In addition we were out past curfew. In addition we could be nailed for “breaking and entering.” In addition, we were carrying knives, vials of acid, and a host of homemade, bladed weapons. If we got caught it could mean juvenile detention or possibly worse… we could be sent to a “pound me in the ass” prison for big boys… for grown men.

“Are you sure this place doesn’t have motion detectors?” Matt softly asked as we inched our way up hallway B-12 into corridor K-2, poking the coals, as a dizzying army of gray lockers whizzed past us.

My eyes remained fastened forward. Our training had led us up to this moment. We had logged endless hours training ourselves to remain focused, to ignore distractions. Fear is a distraction.

“Hey, do you think...”

“Matt, I heard you the first time, Jesus! Let’s discuss this later...”

My eyes remained fastened forward. Our training had led us up to this moment… to ignore distractions. Yet, distracting thoughts kept popping into my brain like the zits that had started popping onto my face that summer. I had read somewhere once the hardest part about climbing a mountain is not the ascent, but the decent. History has proven more people die coming back down the mountain once they’ve reached the peak...

“Stay focused Hermes. Block out the bullshit.”

“What?”

“ I didn’t say anything dude.”

I kept the sound amplifier an arms length in front of me. My trust in this device was ill founded. Like some lucky charm, or a vampire hunter’s crucifix, I held my child’s toy in front of me as Matt and I rounded the final corner that led into the final hallway that invariably led to freedom… to the open starry night. The device continued to give me static. Almost there, not a creature was stirring...

Right as Matt and I rounded that last shadowy corner, right as I inhaled that final satisfying victorious breath, there they were, two larger than life grown-ass men… janitors. The “Spy Tech” microphone was perhaps 4 feet away from the first guy’s chest. The scene was almost comedic. There we were, Matt and I, completely frozen in our tracks. The janitors stood like immobile statues, squinting their eyes, trying to make sense of what they THOUGHT they saw standing right there in front of them in the gray darkness. Two 5’2” kids, dressed head to toe in black... wearing ninja masks. Like a wild west stand off we all stood like idiots staring at each other, daring the other to make the first move. Luckily for us, our training finally kicked in.

I ripped off the earphones and chucked the entire microphone at the first janitor, it dully thumped off his shaved head and landed by his feet. They both turned and kneeled down to examine the dark object lying on the floor. I turned around and took off. Matt followed suit.

“Hey you FUCKING KIDS! Heh, It’s too late, the cops are already here!” The second one shouted after us. By now the janitors were in hot pursuit. Matt and I had a 30-foot head start. My little distraction afforded us an extra 20 seconds. We ran like we’ve never run before. The adrenaline powered our bodies and pushed us to speeds we had always thought were unattainable all those countless summer days we spent training in the hot sun, stopwatch in hand. We were also completely in tune to the other’s movements. Matt was a little bit quicker than I was and he led. We careened down the halls, turning random corners, trying to lose our pursuers. I knew these guys were gaining on us - we were weighted down by our gear, but it didn’t matter. An exit was directly in front of us. I jumped and kicked the handle in. The door flew open. Matt and I emerged into the welcoming night. Like newborn babies gasping for our first breath, the cool air filled our lungs. We continued to run. By this point our pursuers had given up their chase. Freedom.

We ran a safe distance and finally looked back, both of us kneeling, gasping for breath. There stood the high school exactly the way we found it. There wasn’t an army of janitors chasing after us with torches and pitchforks. The parking lot wasn’t filled with SWAT and an army of cops hiding behind their cars with guns pointed at us. Nothing.

We both turned and looked at each other at the exact instant and started giggling. This giggle turned into a laugh. Laughter turned into uproarious hysterics… Matt and I called this insane laughter “laughing profusely.” There we were laying in the damp grass clutching our sides with tears rolling down our cheeks laughing at the “dumbfuck” janitors, an inept system, at our own brilliance, and most of all, we laughed at the idiotic mishap with the piece of shit “Spy Tech” sound amplifier.

The laughter died down as we both continued to stare at the high school.

“You remember ‘year one,’ even Batman’s first mission wasn’t perfect.” Matt assured us.

We were both completely silent now, sitting in the grass, our eyes transfixed on this building, this... living breathing structure, that moments earlier, could have insured a swift end to life as we knew it. If this concrete entity had NOT felt benevolent this night, had it sealed us in... had it swallowed us into it's belly, it would have insured our childhood, so lazy and fun and innocent, would have been irrevocably altered... forever.

Matt and I knew this.

“You know, we’ll be in that shit hole next year dude. We’ll be pee-on’s once again.” I said in a wistful tone.

An uneasy calm. Then the city, as if on cue, replied. About 100 feet away two cop cars came screaming down the street toward the high school with their bar’s lit up and sirens blazing.

“OH FUCK!” We both said in unison as we both jumped up and took off running in the opposite direction.

********

"The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope."

Terminator 2, 1991."