Author: Majoki

Given how things turned out, I probably shouldn’t admit to giving Bucketmaster his name. We were kids goofing off at the playground one early summer morning, and this runt shows up with a steel bucket on his head. A dented galvanized pail with two eye holes punched out.

Chuck laughed and pinged the pail with a flick of his forefinger. “What’s with this, nimrod?”

Stevie struck a Superman pose. “Where’s your cape, pailbrain?”

The runt just stood there, bright green eyes watching carefully through the eye holes as Stevie kept taunting, “Huh, pailbrain. Think you’re a superhero? What’s your superpower? Mopping floors?”

Chuck, Stevie and I laughed. Then the runt did too. A little giggle before he ran off. We laughed harder.

When we got to the playground the next morning, the runt was sitting atop the monkey bars, dented bucket on his head, a threadbare white towel tied at his neck, a ratty mop in hand and called out a challenge: “What’s it gonna be?”

Even now I can’t understand what possessed me, but before Chuck and Stevie could get all huffed and puffed, I went ramrod straight and saluted. “All hail, Bucketmaster! Command us!”

That’s how it started. Chuck and Stevie fell in line with my joke and it became our summer game.

From his monkey bar throne each morning, Bucketmaster would shout a command and we, his loyal minions, would deliver. It was childish, but Bucketmaster’s absurd tasks became a daily contest we increasingly felt compelled to win.

“Bring me ten live salamanders!”

“Two hundred feet of Christmas lights that don’t work!”

“A ball of old tin foil that weighs at least three pounds!”

“Four sacks of rotten potatoes!”

Seemingly random things. Seemingly. Though, I noted after every task we completed, Bucketmaster’s green eyes brightened markedly, as if he was ticking off key items. A sort of bucket list.

Chuck, Stevie and I only talked about it in the sense of what crazy thing Bucketmaster would ask for next. The craziest came the day before school was set to start again. That morning Bucketmaster was not atop the monkey bars. He stood waiting for us in his dented bucket, his towel cape and mop were gone, and in one of his little hands was what looked like three neon green glow sticks.

“Take these!” he commanded like usual, though it was very unusual. Of course we each took one.
“They’ll protect you.”

“From what?” Stevie asked.

“Them,” Bucketmaster said, pointing to the sky. Which began to fill with buckets. Gleaming buckets, the size of water towers, with flaming jets slowing their descent.

“Is this for real?” Chuck asked.

“It is for them,” Bucketmaster said. “All of it is for them. Though they don’t quite get us. They said that was up to me for helping them. And you helped me, so don’t lose those sticks. We got a lot more stuff to do.”

Then we climbed with Bucketmaster atop the monkey bars, our eyes glowing green awaiting the next command.