Men from UNCLE (from Villains of the Gallows Tree)

I’m Napoleon Solo; Dave is Ilya Kuryakin, a compromise we make when both of us can’t be James Bond, or when we’re arguing over which one of us wants to be the Green Lantern rather than the Green Lantern’s side kick. When we do play Green Lantern, we fix green lamps on the handle bars of our bicycles and barge out the bottom door of Dave’s apartment building, riding hard into the night to avenge wrong-doing, armed with ash cans, cherry bombs and an assortment of fire crackers Dave’s mom bought in Pennsylvania to be saved for the Fourth, snuck out in the middle of her after work nap and hidden in the cellar where she never goes, we aching to blow something up, we just don’t know what, each night taking us deeply into part of the city we rarely rode in, to the ugly parts of Paterson near the railroad where the farmer’s market unloaded produce at sunrise and where my father once worked for a while, my mother says, a mystery man I never met, not even to get his veteran’s check like Dave’s mom does, our green lights cast out across the rough cobble stone streets our bicycle wheels struggles to navigate, this bump leading to that bump until we come close to denting the wheels, yet no closer to finding bad guys for us to blow up.

Dave’s younger brother, Dennis, bugs us to come along. We never let him, knowing if we find what we want we won’t have time to drag him away when we flee, running through unfamiliar landscape towards and unfamiliar destination we think as home, my uncles always enraged when I roll my bike back up the driveway, green glow glinting off the dusty windshields of the boats they want me to clean, arriving so long after curfew they need the adding machine they use for billing to calculate all the punishment I deserve, how many more chores they might make me do, how many more days should I be grounded in my third floor bedroom, Green Lantern, Napoleon Solo, caught in the bad guy’s trap, with no easy escape – Dave’s voice whispering over our cheap walkie-talkies about his mother blaming me for his being late, telling Dave I’m the one who stole her fireworks, so they won’t have a Fourth of July this year, both of us sneaking out the next night after dark, seeking bad guys we both know we only find when we get back home.