By Drew Bufalini

When cousins Paul and Jerry were young, daring, and impressionable, they made a good name for themselves in their bad Detroit neighborhood. They were smart types who went through phases of intense interest in a particular subject, invest all their time and allowance into it, becoming as close to an expert as age allowed…until finally abandoning it in favor of another oddly intense avocation. The summer they both turned eight, two major passions presented themselves nearly simultaneously. The first, was Star Wars. They both wanted to be Han Solo. Since they couldn’t afford the action figures, the duo settled for acting out the scenes with sticks and sneaking into the movies.

            That June, tragedy struck. Paul’s dog, Ingrid, asphyxiated on a chicken bone and died a loathsome, painful death on the kitchen floor. Anyone who witnessed the senseless death was too young or frozen in place to save her. The Paul and Jerry mourned their own way. They started an exclusive club, baptizing it in the name of the deceased pet. The Ingrid Club. Membership was open to anyone who wanted to be a veterinarian. To school themselves in canine first aid and anatomy, Jerry hit the library for the books on dogs, which he smuggled to Jerry’s dad, who had his admin make color copies, just in time for whatever meeting or event they planned.

            Of course, every club required a club house. Now that they had a cache of medical books to maintain, the clubhouse would need to be, in the parlance of the wee ones, “kick ass.”

More than that, it would need to be waterproof, and temperature controlled. A few chairs, table, bookshelf, and maybe a mini cooler for a Dew stash. Primo security.

            Living precisely 14 dilapidated houses apart in a Detroit neighborhood not known for its hospitality, their clubhouse options were significantly limited. The neighborhood had since recovered. The cousins had three choices:

            The wooden storage section built in Paul’s garage was three levels high. The ground level was filled with bicycles and camping equipment. The second level was piled with cardboard boxes. The top level, however, was empty with extra head space so we could stand up inside. We could reach it by a rickety ladder that the neighborhood kids had proven themselves too frightened to try. That’s security. As cool as a three-story clubhouse might be, there were still drawbacks. Namely, the leaky roof and the help they would require (from adults) hefting the furniture up to the clubhouse. The Ingrid Club demanded secrecy. What fun is a club if everybody knows about it?

            Option two require more work and meant involving Brian, an awkward neighborhood kid.  He was nice, but so awkward he made Paul and Jerry look like jocks. He offered to hollow out the “interior” of an overgrown copse of evergreens and had already begun. The cousins inspected the potential clubhouse that day and were horrified to discover Brian sawing the branches off the trees. With a dull steak knife. The trees probably wouldn’t survive. Paul and Jerry didn’t want to start their club where the founding act was murder. Brian was unceremoniously 86-ed from their Club.

            Forlorn and exhausted from their afternoon of clubhouse hunting, Paul and Jerry’s mouths dropped when they saw what was parked in the driveway at Jerry’s digs. Parked side-by-side were two practically identical, tomato-red Volkswagen Beatle’s. They were sixties models. One on blocks. Jerry’s dad was hard at work on the engine of the other bug, wearing his cammo pants from Vietnam and a white t-shirt so filthy it could tell stories of their own. He turned around when he saw the boys and held up a piece of the engine like it was a glowing talisman, saying, “Behold! The mighty distributor cap! Soon to be extinct.” He winked at Paul and Jerry, pride oozing out of every pore, as he proceeded to install the functional distributor cap into the functional Beatle.

            “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jerry whispered to Paul.

            “Yeah, but how do we pull it off without your Dad losing his shit?” Paul made no bones about the fact that he feared the hand of Jerry’s father, who was famously volatile.

            Jerry led Paul upstairs to his room, where they designed a well-thought-out plan of attack. A mobile clubhouse would meet every one of their needs. Jerry was tall enough and knew how to drive, so long as he stayed in the neighborhood. They needed to park where no one would notice.

There was an abandoned car wash six blocks over that would do the trick. More than once the two boys had broken in and helped themselves to parts, bells, and whistles of vintage automobiles. The cars were classic and in perfect condition, abandoned by their owners when some riot broke out.

            Plan in hand, the boy’s bee-lined to the kitchen for an afternoon snack. From the counter, they could see Jerry’s father hard at work in the driveway, but also his snarky, little sister – the four years-old – watching, scheming the way little girls do. He could mostly read his sister’s mind but still wasn’t fluent. Before he could do a thing about it, he was helpless but to watch as his little sister began using the VW Beatle’s roof as a trampoline. Her friend from next door joined and soon the Beatle looked like someone had stepped on by the Monty Python foot.

            Jerry and Paul rushed outside to stop them but were corralled by Jerry’s father’s sweaty arm. “Don’t tell your mom.” He eyeballed Jerry meaningfully, then indicated the VW with the collapsed roof. “But I’m letting your sister, and her friend use the Spare Parts Beatle for her new clubhouse trampoline.” Then, laughing and tossing some spray paint to his daughter, don’t forget to give it your tag!

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Drew Bufalini launched his writing career as an advertising copywriter (www.drewbufalini.com). He has published fiction in A Thin Slice of Anxiety and Close to the Bone; and non-fiction in Aoide Magazine, Innovative Health, Creativity, Advertising Age, and The Big Idea. Drew recently completed his first novel and is starting another. He lives with his wife and dogs outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan.