That water tower in the neighborhood was a landmark in those days. Back before the shops, mills, restaurants, and houses sprung up like weeds, the Wolfeboro water tower was at the center of our existence. We used it for hide and seek, as the base, you know. The kids these days play in their back yards, but back then we had the whole damn neighborhood. The older kids used it as a spot to sneak off and smoke their parents’ cigarettes—or weed—or to drink, or to have sex up on the catwalk.

In the summer of 2002 (I would have been twelve), my friend Dillon and I got the bright idea to climb up and tag it. Spray paint it, you know. Like how small-town water towers in movies have graffiti on them, we wanted to do something like that.

“What about ‘fuck police’?” Dillon said.

“There’re no police in Wolfeboro to see,” I said.

Walking alongside Dillon with a Walmart bag of paint cans clinking against my leg, the water tower loomed over us from Fourth Avenue, like a monolithic structure. To us, it was that. It was the first wonder of our little world. The second—and less appealing wonder—was the town dump, where we could find old bowling balls and baseball gloves in dumpsters. The third, and final wonder, back then anyways, was the pond, where on Sunday mornings you could find old men fishing. That pond is now at the center of the Wolfeboro Town Park.

“Besides,” I said, looking up at the water tower with the gloomy clouds behind it. “We’re not criminals.”

Dillon held a can of violent red paint, which he shook as we walked. The ball bearing inside clanked against the aluminum. “Come on, Justin. What about an evil eye?” He suggested. “The Eye of Sauron!” Dillon had a hard-on for Tolkien creations.

I laughed a little but didn’t like the idea. It was true Wolfeboro was a wicked place; Tommy Croke of Leer Avenue was a nefarious psychic, if stories were true; Edvard Thorpe over on Wolf Trap Road was rumored to have murdered his twin brother Edwin; and Darren Knox on Ledbetter Street was a known pedophile who had raped and murdered three kids in the seventies. The water tower was the first thing you saw coming down US 1, rising up from the tall pine trees, and I didn’t like the idea of an evil eye giving that immediate annotation to travelers.

“What about something simpler?” I asked. We were coming up Third Avenue, where it crosses with Fourth. Ms. Gardiner was outside in the yard of her home on the corner, watering her magnolias in a short, white skirt and pink blouse. Her black hair fell in truffles down her shoulders. She gave us a Mrs. Robinson type of wave and smiled. She knew what she was doing.

“Hey, Ms. Gardiner!” Dillon said boyishly.

“Hey,” she said. “You boys stay out of trouble, now, ya hear?”

We both nodded gleefully, praying for her to bend over a little more.

Dillon shrugged as we turned onto Fourth. “Something simpler …” he said. “Let’s just get up there first. We’ll be the first boys our own age to do it.”

Standing in front of it, the water tower looked taller than it did down Third Avenue. Everything looks bigger when you’re a kid, you know. The security fence around the structure was old, rusted, and covered in kudzu; ‘the vine that ate the south,’ the old-timers call it. Dillon and I went through a hole in the back an older kid cut. Two or three grasshoppers jumped up and flew off in meandering directions. Inside the fence, there was a pile of broken cement blocks (ruins of the original building that once stood there) with a long piece of rebar sticking straight up. I set the bag of paint cans on one of the blocks and started taking my belt off.

“What are you doing, Justin?” Dillon said. “You going fag on me?”

A cardinal was singing a song in one of the pine trees behind the water tower.

I laughed. “No,” I said. “I’m going to tie the bag to one of my belt loops, to carry it up.”

Dillon made a grunting noise. He slipped the red can into a leg pocket of his cargo shorts. “Smart idea,” he said. “I’ll go up first.”

“Right behind you,” I said, tying the bag closed before tying it through a beltloop. “Don’t fart in my face.”

Snickering, Dillon stalked through the tall grass to the front, where the ladder was. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll save my blessing for later.” He turned around and winked at me.

With the bag snugly at my hip, where it drooped down and clanked against my leg, I followed Dillon up the narrow ladder, taking each rung carefully.

At the top, looking across the town, my fear of heights was realized. I could see it all as it was back then. My house on Church Street running two blocks west, next to the Baptist house of worship with its towering steeple; Dillon’s home three blocks north where Third Avenue crossed First; the Burlington looming mill, where my dad worked as a third shift supervisor, was five blocks north-east; the Grapevine country store owned by Mr. Grape, where he sold unleaded gas ten cents cheaper than neighboring towns, stood out ten blocks away on Ledbetter. The tic tac toe of blacktop was like an oil painting laid out in front of me, with the sunset giving the gloomy day a certain contrast I’ve come to appreciate in my older age. But it terrified me too, being that high up. I was too afraid to look straight down over the rail.

“This is amazing,” Dillon whispered, shaking the can again. Then, in a louder, more excited voice he said, “I’ll take the south side.”

I nodded at him.

Dillon walked around back, and I held onto the rail—gripping it like a baseball bat—as I centered myself to the northern face. Wolfeboro, in big block letters, spread across it, facing the network of streets and homes below. Untying the bag from my hip, I leaned against the cold surface of the water drum, in fear of leaning too far back and falling over the rail.

I grabbed a can of green paint—my favorite color—and shook the ball bearing inside. The rattle was loud, and I feared someone on the road would hear, but we were already up there, anyways. I could hear Dillon already spraying as it was.

“Justin,” he said. “I can’t wait for you to see this shit!” His voice echoed across the quiet street. “I want you to see it from down—”

“Keep it down, dude!” I said, smiling.

“I want you to see it from down there,” he finished in a loud whisper.

I thought about what to paint. Comedy was never more my niche, which was Dillon’s. If Lord of the Flies had a water tower in it’s story, I could have done something with that, but the more I dwelled on it, the more I realized I didn’t know of any water towers in the world of literature. Which was my niche. Then, thinking back to the horrible reputation the town had garnered itself, I eventually added a comma after ‘Wolfeboro’, followed by ‘a happy place,’ in green. I shook a can of blue paint afterwards and added a smiling face large enough to be seen from the highway. I applied too much, however, and it ran down in streaks, giving the face a crying and melting appearance. Art was also not my niche.

Putting the cans back in the bag, I held onto the rail and turned away from the cold surface. I could see the highway and the bridge crossing over the train tracks to the west. A pair of headlights like yellow eyes cut across, and a pair of red eyes went in the opposite direction. It had grown darker. A semi’s engine roared in the distance. A horn honked just below us.

“Oh, shit!” I yelled, peering around. “Dillon, we’re caught!”

“Fuck them,” he said in a manner of nonchalance. “I’m done anyways.”

As I started making my way around, I heard Dillon scream—a gravelly, hoarse noise—and a bar of wavering light shone up from the road. A flashlight. He screamed again, distantly, like an echo down a well, and I realized Dillon was falling. The last sound, that final, terrifically horrible sound, of metal puncturing flesh, will forever haunt me.

I looked over the railing from where I stood, on the western side, and saw, with a dreadful certainty, that Dillon had fallen onto the piece of rebar that protruded out of the broken cement. It pierced through the center of his chest. Standing there speechless and breathless, frozen to the rail, I watched as my friend grabbed for the pole and writhed in agony, like a frog impaled by a spear when we went froggin’, before finally dying.

I went down the ladder as quickly as my shaking legs would allow. I tried to help, but it was no good. The woman who caught us, phoned the police, who showed up five minutes later, followed by an ambulance with screeching sirens everyone in Wolfeboro could hear.

The coroners pronounced Dillon dead, and an investigation ensued.

Investigators considered Dillon a victim of foul play, at first, but the woman, who turned out to be Emily Jenkins (a teacher who later taught me senior English at Wolfeboro High School) was a witness and told police Dillon had simply fallen. She didn’t know how, he just tumbled over.

The town never did paint over the water tower, and kids have since gone up and painted their own graffiti. To this day though, when I’m walking around town, I never venture to the south side, because I know that what Dillon painted is a constant reminder of how misleading “Wolfeboro, a happy place” is.

Ryland Louvierre is a dedicated husband and stay-at-home father. Prior to staying home to write full-time, he worked as a sheet metal mechanic, pawnshop clerk, and spent several years as a retail manager. When he’s not writing, his time is spent reading, being with his family, or playing Magic: The Gathering. He has a love for small towns, and the secrets within them. He currently resides in Wilson, North Carolina with his wife and son. Find his social media: Instagram handle @r.s.louvierre Facebook: @RS Louvierre website: rslouvierre.com