In our teens, I but especially Gabe were rather enamored of firearms. For me it was a passing interest as I sagely considered Tae-Kwon-Do to be an equally potent means of combat. For Gabe, it was better described as a way of life. At 15, he owned multiple high velocity air rifles capable of killing a large rat, and even had a black-powder muzzle-loader carbine which he had made himself, albeit from a kit.
The preceding paragraph is not there to brag or convey some kind long held bad-assery purchased at retail. I actually consider such discussions about as gauche as boasting about your annual income. No, the paragraph is there only to explain why there was a pound of frontier-style black powder in my house in the first place. Our parents had forbid us from using it, my mother had concealed it behind several books in the living room bookshelf and then entrusted the care of our home to me at 17 years of age while she and my father worked long weekend shifts.
Being the responsible older brother, I had insisted Gabe and Bri aid me in tearing apart the house to find our black powder on a sunny summer Sunday. It took roughly 45 seconds to ferret it out. We then brought the tin out to the concrete patio and started pouring small piles on the ground and ingniting them with a welder's spark lighter. It would erupt into a huge amount of smoke and a little bit of fire. Safe enough, innocent fun, and quite easy to clean up before mom and dad came home.
After a few rounds of this, one of Gabe's friends came pedaling into our driveway looking like a malnourished, emaciated, midget love-child of Alfred E. Newman and Uncle Fester (really.) This particular little shit was otherwise completely useless, but very well adapted to goading others to do his dirty work. I stood inside while he, Gabe, and my sister proceeded to experiment with larger and larger piles at Alfred's behest. At some point, Alfred insisted via a series of especially high pitched whines that an especially large pile be ignited. Gabe kindly obliged and began pouring the pile.
Not being a ding-dong, Gabe knew he'd need some distance between himself and the pile if he wanted to keep his eyebrows. So he poured the pile of black powder at his feet, and then very carefully poured a thin "fuse" line about three feet away from himself, squatting over the pile the whole time. I mentally checked off that Gabe was doing it right, then turned my attention to Alfred, who was doing this idiotic clown dance in excited anticipation of - who the fuck knows - LOTS of smoke? The sound of the spark igniter turned my attention back towards Gabe, who I realized hadn't moved since he poured the pile and was about to ignite several dozen grams of black powder directly beneath his belly. He may not be a commensurate ding-dong, but at 15 years of age mistakes should be expected.
It took him three strikes to detonate it. As soon as I noticed, time slowed. The first strike I was inhaling to speak. The second I said the words "Dude, you better - " (this was Bothell in the 1990's, where there seemed to be some kind of decree that every male between 11-25 preface each sentence with the unword "Dude.") The third strike was immediately followed by a hissing burst of flame as my brother disappeared under a plume of grey smoke, with Alfred doing excited and flamboyant little cartwheel flips-kicks in the background, his plaque frosted tongue limply hanging over his mossy, amber teeth like a caricature of every immature idiot who ever lived, but meaning it.
I don't know how long it was before I could see him again because my perception of time had slowed down (that's an actual physiological response to extreme stress, Google it - I can do it at will.) but when he came out of the plume he was on fire in a few places and he was doing a pain dance that made Alfred look slightly less flamboyant and quite grown-up. I observed him until I knew what he would need, which took maybe three seconds but felt like 30. He looked down at his hands while the color drained away from his face (which I could see under the soot covering it,) as he went into shock. His hands were flash-fried. His eyebrows were gone. There were holes burned in his clothes, especially his pants. His bangs were shorter than I had remembered from earlier that minute. The wind carried the remainder of the smoke away....
At this point I see (still in slow-mo,) my ten year old sister Brianna not comprehending the gravity of the situation and eager to score points with the big boys. She struts up to Gabe with her finger pointed at his face laughing her most exaggerated man laugh. "HA HA HA!!" she guffawed, and I saw the corners of Gabe's lips go back and his jaw clench as his eyes glaringly chose a target.
I could tell what was about to follow would hurt, and I was afraid she was about to be genuinely injured. Gabe rocked his left hand back and up, forming a solid fist and slamming it with adrenaline and terror fueled power squarely into her shoulder. The gross disparity in their two sizes and Gabe's temporary inability to gauge his own strength launched poor Bri up and back a good two feet, and I watched her face twist into crying before she hit the ground.
Alfred made a sanctimonious show of comforting Bri, and it occurred to me to to twist off his ugly little head of his chicken neck by his teacup ears. Instead I went inside to get Gabe some cold water and to think of the best lie in the world that would explain the burns without incriminating us. What crystallized was a lie about steam burns, and the scrubbing of concrete with a wire brush while Gabe slept off the shock with his hand in a bucket of water. I collected the blackened remains of his clothes and put them in the outside trash underneath some other trash.
For all intents, we got away with this one. My Dad was very suspicious but being an aficionado of the "real life lesson" never told my mom that steam burns don't usually remove eyebrows nor trim bangs. I think he figured we'd learned our lesson, and he was right. We didn't do that again for at least a week.
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