RAIN OF TERROR: Rooftop Shenanigans Three Decades Ago

What the hell we were doing up on the roof in the first place, I don’t know.

But we had a small folding table, several lawn chairs, a deck of cards, a cooler full of beer, and burgers cookin’ on a little grill. We had been up there so many times in fact that we had set about furnishing the roof as if it were any other room in the house. It was cozy.

Being young men inclined to imbibe, we always kept a few condiments on hand in prank-ready squirt bottles. Mustard, ketchup. Just the basics. When Independence Day drew near, there was a proliferation of fireworks set off in and around the house that was sure to reach the rooftop patio before long.

Squirting mustard on top of cars driving or parked nearby soon fell from grace as our number one rooftop pastime. To be only momentarily replaced by shooting bottle rockets at passers-by. The doorway to the little market across the street was a favorite target as well.

On one occasion, our friend Ed from the golf club managed to fire a fistful of bottle rockets at the feet of a kid who was standing in the market’s doorway. It was after closing time and it had taken the kid several minutes of pleading through the locked door with a disgruntled clerk who was reluctant to open the door just to sell this kid a Twinkie. Finally the clerk was persuaded to unlock the door. Just as he opened it to see what the kid wanted, Ed fired a half dozen or so bottle rockets in their direction. The fireworks hissed and popped and ricocheted all around in the doorway, causing the kid to jump like a cat and fall off his bike. Thinking the kid had set off the firecrackers, the clerk abruptly slammed the door in his face and began screaming at him through the glass. The poor kid was almost instantly in tears, terrified, and had no idea what had just happened.

Up on the roof, we were in tears, too.

A few years later and just a couple blocks away, we had a second floor apartment with a balcony across the street from a church. We threw so much crap on top of that church. Everything from alarm clocks to beer bottles and more fireworks. From our perch on the porch we pelted passing vehicles with snowballs.

After closing time there were always drunk college kids on the sidewalk below, stumbling back to their dorms and apartments. We pitched pennies down from our balcony under cover of darkness and the sound of coins raining down on the concrete drove people crazy. One night some poor sucker actually laid down in the grass in front of the church, too drunk to even walk. The tinkling sound of copper coins raining down roused him from his drunken slumber and we heard him cry out, "It's the guy with the pennies again!" A repeat customer.

The absolute pinnacle of these pranks was the rain of terror we brought down on our neighborhood with the Aqua Sling. This was essentially an oversized rubber band fashioned into a slingshot that required three people to operate it. Two people formed a giant 'Y' while a third person in the middle would pull the sling back about ten or fifteen feet, adjusting tension depending on the intended target and desired distance. We used this diabolical device to shoot water balloons all over the neighborhood for an entire summer. You literally could shoot a water balloon two or three blocks with no trouble at all. With a busy intersection just a stone's throw from our patio, the temptation was more than we could resist. In all my life I don't know if I have ever known a satisfaction greater than anonymously dropping a water balloon in the middle of the street from two blocks away and watching people on the sidewalks jump out of their shoes in shock and terror. It must have seemed to them that the damn thing dropped out of nowhere, splashing in the street and spraying water all around. That intersection with its heavy foot traffic was an easy and obvious target for the Aqua Sling. For the record, we never shot water balloons into the street when there were a lot of cars on the road. Usually late at night when things were relatively quiet. That way you could ensure maximum fright factor on your unsuspecting victims. Aside from specific targets like the aforementioned intersection, there was also a great deal of satisfaction to be had from just randomly shooting water balloons out over the neighborhood. All you really knew was that you were blasting these things randomly out over the houses and treetops, pelting buildings and rooftops and cars and Lord knows what else when they came down. This was 30 years ago but to this day I still have to stifle the sadistic laughter that bubbles up from my belly every time I think about it.