Thanksgiving Weekend

Saddleback, New Jersey

"DAMN NEAR NAILED TINA LAST SUMMER. DRY HUMPED the shit out of her. I would a' got in but her dad came home," Mickey bragged. "I'm telling you, Ryan, I was two inches from the goal line." Mickey's black eyes and round cheeks were shining like polished fruit. He ran a chubby hand through his oily curls and grinned at his prep school roommate.

They were sitting in Mickey's upstairs bedroom under a huge brown plastic B-25 that hung from the ceiling by a thread. Two fifteen-year-olds on a hormonal bombing run, engines roaring, diving out of boyhood, bomb racks full, searching for targets of opportunity.

It was Thanksgiving vacation, and Mickey Alo had invited Ryan Bolt to his parents' huge house in Saddleback, New Jersey, for the weekend. Ryan who lived in California, would otherwise have been stuck at boarding school.

The boys were at opposite ends of the physical scale. While Mickey was short, dark, and round, Ryan was tall, blond, and angular. He was handsome in a way that most teenagers could only dream of. But Mickey was the leader. What he lacked in looks he more than made up for with charisma and energy. He was always at full throttle, balls to the wall on everything… a chubby adolescent kamikaze leading a charmed life.

"So what do I do, stand around and take pictures while you and Tina do it?" Ryan asked.

"Fuck no. Her sister Gina, she's a year older, tits out to here. My mom and dad are picking up guests at Levit Field. They're gonna be gone for at least three hours. We steal the Olds and zip over there, take the girls out to Frazier Lake, peel them and feel them."

"We're gonna take your dad's car? We don't have licenses. What if we get stowed?"