A gray October wind whispered down the deserted length of Canal Street, past silent afternoon soap-opera houses and rows of bleakly colorful half-naked suburban trees. As it played games with his unkempt hair, Billy Joe McPherson hummed quietly to himself, a gray, October sort of tune. The sky loomed oppressively, edged with madly shifting shadows, and there was more than a hint of winter in the steady somber breeze. Billy Joe listened and paused, and the wind told him a secret, and the secret that it told him was of the majestic magic of autumn, of homework-less Friday afternoons and an impending Halloween that could almost be tasted hanging in the frosty air. And Billy Joe felt that autumn magic flowing throughout his eight-year-old body, a magic that was special, that was his and his alone, a magic that dove beneath the surface euphoria of an October Friday and splahed merrily in the depths of his soul. The whole street, the whole world seemed infused with a mystically livid light, and gravity for him did not exist. His legs simply floated beneath him, and the ground glided away underneath his feet, his arms present but unfelt beside him, his head well into the clouds that shrouded the sky.
      Would it rain? he wondered. Perhaps. Perhaps not. It had been a dry autumn so far.
      The chill breeze picked up slightly. It extended a tendril and smacked Billy Joe soundly in the back, ruffling his jacket and soliciting a shiver. He glanced up at one of the tall, skeletal trees that stood nearby just in time to witness a minor migration of small leaves, which departed from its branches like a flock of somnambulant sparrows. Caught up in the whim of the wind, they whirled and twisted drunkenly as they danced toward the ground, where each would finally skid to a rest on the dry blacktop with a pleasant crackle.
      One of these former air-dancers stopped right by Billy Joe's left sneaker. He looked it over dispassionately. It was a creamy shade of pale brown, dried and curled into itself like an angry talon. Its skin was parched and withered enough to almost make it seem mummified, making the leaf look somewhat like a dessicated bat's wing. It looked frail and vulnerable, somehow helpless, all the way down there on the cold, hard ground, far, so far from the safety of the tree limb which gave it berth...
      On a sudden impulse Billy Joe lifted his foot and brought it down hard on the defenseless leaf, which shattered with a satisfying crunch.
      Something in the timbre of that crunchreached out to Billy Joe and burrowed itself snugly into the small-boy center of his heart. That crunch was more than just the brittle death-crackle of some luckless leaf; no, it was an archetypal sound, the sound of cracked ice on winter's first puddle, of a well-tossed pebble pegging a nest of furious wasps, of a shattered pane in the highest window of a deserted house. It was a sound that rang in his ears like summer laughter, one that he felt in his teeth like the sharp rush of an arctic breeze. He swallowed joyously, then crushed another hapless leaf. Then another. And another. And then he was running down Canal Street, laughing hedonistically, wantonly crushing every weary husk within reach of his sneakers.
      At the side of the street there was a shallow gully, a drainage ditch where leaves which landed in the street tended to coagulate. With a kangaroo leap Billy Joe was in it, walking along, noisily shuffling his feet, spewing leaves in all directions, a miniature cyclone amok on Canal Street. He trudged slowly, deliberately, filled with admiration for his own destructive ability, crunching through the leaf masses like some vast Tokyo-demolishing dinosaur.
      Soon, however, he had reached the end of the ditch and stood at a deserted crossroad. He thought about turning around and tromping through the ditch agai - Ha! They'd never expect it! - when better game caught his eye. A small gust of wind had sent several leaves skittering swiftly down the street like miniscule hovercraft. One had a suicidal trajectory which would bring it to within inches of Billy Joe's right foot. If the wind held up, if he was patient, and waited... just waited...
      Yes! He pounced, sailing regally to land with both feet square on the unsuspecting leaf, which departed from the world of the mobile with a mournful crackle. Got 'em, sir! Both barrels! Never had a chance.
      A second breeze blew up, and a particularly juicy leaf rattled by on his left side. Watch your flanks! Zeroes at ten o'clock! His adversary drew nearer, folded over onto itself and looking for all the world like a baseball glove for an infant ballplayer. A very little leaguer! He laughed at his joke as it came into range and then, like a cat, like liquid lightning, he moved, bringing all the force of his right sneaker to bear on the offending leaf. With a loud, crisp crunch the baseball glove surrendered its breeze-blown afterlife and became a tattered, torn, flat pile of crumbs on the withered blacktop.
      With an internal shout of joy he threw himself whole-heartedly into this new game. He ran down Canal Street after the rapidly scattering throng of dead leaves like a young lion loose in a herd of crackling, dry zebra. First this leaf, then that, left sneaker, right sneaker, no mercy. One pale leaf skidded into the overbrimming gutter, perhaps seeking to lose itself in the crowd. A clever ploy, Sir Leafington, but it will avail you not. The eagle eye of Billy Joe McPherson found it in an instant and sent it crackling off to leaf heaven.
      Along with more than a few innocent bystanders, it must be said. Billy Joe felt a momentary twinge of guilt at that. Perhaps he should have pulled the offending leaf out from the crowd, then stepped on it. But a voice inside him spoke up in the crisp baritone of the History Channel: Pull yourself together, soldier! This is war, people die. You can't chanhge that, so yo might as well get this through your thick skull too - there are no innocent bystanders.
      
      That in mind, he stomped on a few more for good measure. And resumed the chase.
      A really good breeze blew up just then, propelling a fresh flock of leaves off of the protective branches of a nearby tree into the air behind Billy Joe. A few of the more courageous among them struck his back half-heartedly, ineffectual origami kamikazes. A sneak attack! He crushed a few with his bare hands while they were still airborne, then trampled as many as he could after they hit the ground. However, there were too many for Billy Joe to handle at once; more than a few got away. Your day will come, he thought as he watched them drift on down the street. Oh yes, your day will come.
      
      Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a hint of movement from behind him. A slow wind had come up, and several leaves were creeping in his direction. Aha! Guerrilla warfare! He whirled and charged them, shrieking a blood-curdling war cry. Was it his imagination, or did they tremble at his might? Did their leaf lives pass like shadows before them as he approached? Did they send up last-minute prayers for deliverance to some crinkly leaf God? No matter, the relentless wind drove them inexorably to their fate, and he, Fate, was happy to oblige. Six leavescharged, six leaves fell. They tried, they died. Yet still the battle went on, and as another mob of leaves began to rattle away down the street, Billy Joe sighed wearily. Was there no end to this carnage, to this incessant slaughter?He began to feel like giving up entirely and going home to dinner when the History Channel voice chimed in again: Don't give up now, man! This is your big chance! You've got them on the run!
      But I'm tired of crushing, killing, destruction and all that stuff, Billy Joe replied.
      Well, it's a tough job, but someone has to do it, Billy-boy. Someone must make suburbia safe from this auburn blight, this umber menace, this gray-brown and crinkled threat to our way of life, and only you, Billy Joe, only you have the knowledge, the will, and, above all, the POWER to do the job right. Only you. They're evil, ugly, wrinkled, and they outnumber us a thousand to one, but we'll win, do you hear me, we'll win! We're the good guys, remember? Now go out there and kick some leaf!
      Yes! Yes! I will! cried Billy Joe McPherson.
      He sprang into pursuit, striking with random ferocity. Terror-stricken leaves scattered hysterically in all directions at his thundering approach, but he showed no mercy. And when at last the wind died down and he turned to survey the battlefield, he saw a cold gray stretch of road strewn liberally with the shattered carcasses of his enemy. He looked down at this desolate landscape which was his handiwork and he laughed. Out loud, a triumphant, gloating laugh. He was monarch of Canal Street, his right no leaf could dispute. He laughed. And then he turned around.
      His laughter cut itself off in mid-chortle. A slight breeze sent several small serrated leaves tumbling past him, but he scarcely noticed them. One particularly gnarly leech-husk of a leaf brushed his right sneaker, but he was not tempted. His eyes stayed fixed, unblinking, to the center of the road before him, mesmerized by what they saw. How could he have not seen it before? There, not thirty feet away, reposing drowsily like a semi-conscious hippopotamus, was the largest leaf Billy Joe had ever seen. It was an elephant among leaves, a leafy leviathan, larger by far than leaves should ever grow. It lay there face down, back arched, with its long stem trailing out behind it, looking not unlike some sort of spectral horseshoe crab. The breeze rippled lightly across its flaking flesh, shivering it slightly but moving it not at all. It just waited there silently, sizing him up. Was he boy enough?
      
      Billy Joe stared at it, relishing the hint of a challenge. The grandfather of all the leaves! What a stentorian crackle it would make beneath Billy Joe's heroic heel! He licked his lips and took a tentative step forward. The leaf waited for him, scornfully. Go ahead, Billy joe, make my day. Another step. Softly. Slowly. Not to disturb the resting behemoth. He was the lion, it was the prey. He was patient. He would pounce when ready.
      The leaf trembled lightly at his approach.
      Is that fear, grandfather leaf? Is that fear, or is it anticipation? Are you scared, or are you eager? Ha! I may be more than you bargained for!
      Come and get me, then, young Billy Joe, come and catch Ol' Grampa Leaf.
      It began to skitter down the street. With muscles tensed like steel cables, Billy Joe sprang to action and launched himself into pursuit. The leaf began to pick up speed, then the wind slackened and it slowed down. For one tantalizing second, Billy Joe thought it was his. His mouth began to water as he tasted the delicious crunch it would make beneath his tread-worn sneaker. But then another gust of wind seethed in, snatching victory away.
      The gap between them began to widen. Billy Joe pushed himself, and began to feel the first metallic twinge of fatigue in the pit of his lung. He could not keep up at this pace for long, no sir. But then he smiled triumphantly to himself, allowing his gait to slow even as the leaf put on an even greater burst of speed. Canal Street was a dead end! Soon the leaf would have nowhere to go. And what do you suppose will happen to you then, Ol' Grampa? What then?
      However, before the leaf could run itself aground at the end of Canal Street, the wind died out completely and Ol' Grampa scudded to a halt halfway across the mouth of Barry Lane. Billy Joe slowed himself to a leisurely walk, savoring the moment. It was all over now. He fixed the leaf with a sneering glare.
      You're history, do you know that, leaf? History.
      The leaf was silent.
      Billy Joe strode up to it, looming malevolently like a miniature colossus. He raised a Brodbinagian sneaker, casting an evil oblong shadow against Ol' Grampa's arched back. A light breeze caused the imperilled leaf to tremble slightly in apprehension. Billy Joe chuckled. That's fear for real, now, isn't it? You know who's master here! He raised the foot higher. Say your prayers, leaf. With all the strength his young muscles could summon he brought that sneaker down with the force of a canned meteor, deliberately missing the leaf, slapping the pavement with a liquid whap!, the concussion from which caused the leaf to jump sharply sideways. Scared you, didn't I? Ha! You're mine, mine to play with, mine to allow to live or die as I please. You're nothing! You'll go when I say so, and not a second before. You are leaf meat.
      With a wicked grin he lifted his left foot and placed it gingerly at the apex of Ol' Grampa's humped back. He could see skeletal ribs and withered veins through the flaking skin that arched beneath his shoe like half of a petrified basketball. The immensity of the leaf dwarfed his seemingly ineffectual sneaker - but looks were deceiving, weren't they? He held the cards now, and he had dealt himselfthe winning hand... Softly, lovingly, he began to press on Ol' Grampa's back, savoring each delightful snap as the wizened leaf began to crack. He pressed expertly, exerting just enough tension, pushing just hard enough to bend Ol' Grampa's weary spine to the point of collapse, to the breaking point but not beyond it. And when he reached that subtle point, suddenly, swiftly he lifted his foot off altogether, causing the leaf's spine to snap itself back into shape with a painful crackle of relief.
      Well, Ol' Grampa, I could have done it, yes I could. But I didn't. I'm going to give you a fighting chance, that's what I'm going to do. Maybe you don't deserve it, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm that kind of guy.
      He stepped back a pace. The leaf didn't move. Another pace. Not a movement. A third pace. Nothing.
      Go on. What are you waiting for? This is your big chance!
      The wind whispered over the leaf's arched back. It didn't move.
      Billy Joe began to grow impatient. Come on, make a break for it! I dare you. Look, I'll even turn my back.
      He did, but still the leaf lay there, immobile, disinterested. He watched it over his left shoulder, somewhat saddened by its lack of spirit. Could he have broken it so easily? He turned to face the conquered king.
      This is your last chance, leaf.
      Nothing. A small eddy of breeze sent smaller neighboring leaves tumbling about like minnows in a whirlpool, but Ol' Grampa didn't budge. Well, so be it. He would put this old, wearied, spiritless methuselah out of its misery. A mercy killing. Yelling a war cry, he charged it. Time moved in mystical slow motion as he stepped once, twice, again, and then leapt majestically into the air, gliding weightlessly toward the leaf as if guided by invisible rails. He closed his eyes tightly in anticipation of the thundrous crunch his prey would make. Perhaps windows would rattle all tthe way up Canal Street.
      And then his sneakers slapped hollowly on bare pavement, sending up a seismic shudder which rattled Billy Joe's back teeth painfully and left him feeling suddenly off-balance and a trifle foolish, like someone who had reached for a top step that wasn't there. For at the last second Ol' Grampa had fooled him and skittered safely away up Barry Lane.
      Oh, you're a clever one, all right, Billy thought, as the leaf agin slowed to a halt. It trembled slightly, and this time Billy Joe was sure that it was laughing at him. Enraged, he threw himself at it, covering the short distance it had travelled in a record-breaking sprint. However, Ol' Grampa was no fool. It didn't wait for Billy Joe this time, but instead dashed on up Barry Lane.
      Being in the heat of pursuit, Billy Joe did not have time to ponder the bizarre wind shift which had so conveniently caused a ninety-degree change in Ol' Grampa's trajectory. No, the only thoing on his young mind was the pusuit and capture of the immense and elusive leaf which had just embarassed him in front of all of the trees on Canal Street. He just ran on, more slowly now, occasionally gasping for breath, worn out but completely determined that the quarry would be his. Contrastingly, Ol' Grampa seemed to move faster and faster, belying his apparent age and weight. The wind had picked up considerably, and the distance between Billy Joe and Ol' Grampa grew correspondingly. Barry Lane stretched endlessly ahead of them, and the chase continued.
      As Billy Joe's lungs began to turn almost entirely to rusted steel, things began to look as though they were turning in his favor. The wind died, Ol' Grampa slowed. But looks were deceiving, weren't they, and, frustratingly, both wind and leaf picked up speed again and left Billy Joe staggering to catch up.
      Soon he was barely more than walking, his breaths coming fitfully in harsh sobs, a cramp starting to burrow its way into the flesh of his right thigh. He needed to rest, but he couldn't let Ol' Grampa get away - he couldn't! He'd gone through too much. He stumbled onward.
      The distance between Ol' Grampa and Billy Joe had grown substantially, and only a severe change in he vitality of the wind could restore the upper hand to Billy Joe. He began to lose hope, but then, as if in ympathy with his plight, the wind died off again, and again Ol' Grampa dragged to a halt.
      
      Billy Joe slowed to a hesitant crawl, more out of necessity than bravado. This time he knew that it was too good to be true. Catching his breath, he looked ahead at the resting leaf, parked innocently at the mouth of Prescott Avenue... Wouldn't it be funny, thought Billy Joe, if the wind shifted again and sent the leaf up Prescott? Considering what had happened so far, it wouldn't surprise him in the least...
      His eyes betrayed this last sentiment, widening in astonishment as the leaf, indeed, darted suddenly up Prescott Avenue on the back of a fresh sprint of wind. Almost as if it had read his mind. Yet instead of gasping in shock, Billy Joe burst out laughing. For Prescott Avenue was the deadest of dead ends, a short, bleak street which ended flatly and finally at the old McCabrey house. No more side roads, no outlets, no escape. He didn't know what the leaf hoped to accomplish by veering off in this direction, but he certainly intended to take advantage of the situation. When he reached the entrance to Prescott Avenue, he sat down beneath the weathered street sign and watched Ol' Grampa, who obligingly slowed to a halt and waited, patiently, immobilized, while Billy Joe regained his strength.
      After several minutes' rest, Billy Joe stood up leisurely, stretched slowly, and then began to stroll up Prescott Avenue. No need to run. Ol' Grampa had nowhere to go.
      As Billy Joe neared, the leaf reared to life and sped down the street. Billy Joe continued at his deliberate pace. How could it escape now? Soon, real soon, Ol' Grampa would find himself either boxed into a corner or stuck on a lawn, unable to move. Either way, Billy Joe would have him. And what then? Would it put up a fight? Billy Joe smiled at this thought. Enough was enough, and despite all he had imagined and anthropomorphized for it, Ol' Grampa was still first and foremost a leaf, a dead leaf. Nothing more. It would certainly crunch more loudly than its brethren, but one sure step and it would perish as assuredly as they had. Just a leaf. No more.
      The wind was really strong at his back, and Billy joe felt as though he could almost jump into the air himself and be propelled up the street. Ol' Grampa's speed was almost incredible, and occasionally it would lift itself entirely off of the road and into the air, only to skid regretfully to the pavement again, like an overloaded airplane struggling to take flight. Finally, just before it reached the end of the road, it took an herculean leap and was airborne, gliding upward as if intending to rejoin itself to the mighty tree which spawned it. At this point Billy Joe began to run again, for this was a truly interesting development. Ol' Grampa arced marvelously through the air, turning gargantuan somersaults and careening with elephantine merriment across the overgrown McCabrey lawn. Billy Joe slowed to a jog, then stopped entirely, hypnotized by the slow grace of Ol' Grampa's final flight. For moments it climbed, higher, higher, and it seemed that the leaf would fade from Billy Joe's grasp like a lost balloon. But at last its strength gave out and, turning a crowning pirouette, the leaf looped sadly downward, landing with a soft crickle on the pinnacle of a cyclopean leaf pile, which dominated the center of the McCabrey lawn.
      Billy Joe drew an excited breath. This was perfect, too perfect! A leaf-pile! And what an enormous, beautiful leaf-pile! The grandfather of leaves atop the grandfather of leaf-piles! His heart jumped ecstatically in his chest, and he began to run toward it. Knowing full well that it was probably home to all manner of sightless slimy things, he ran. Realizing only too well that there might be raked up dog-crap awaiting him like some camouflaged predator, he ran. Like a demented madman, like a small boy, he ran, all exhaustion gone, his lungs now steeped in the afternoon exhileration of the imminent leaf-pile. He covered the last few yards of Prescott Avenue in seconds. He sprinted effortlessly through the tall grass of the McCabrey yard. He charged at the leaf-pile like a randy steam engine, as if he were part of the wind itself. He trampolined into the air as if propelled by cannons, he flew like a caped super-hero, he landed feet-first dead-center on the wrinkled peak of Ol' Grampa's back and shattered it into shreds; he sank loudly into the leaf-pile up to his knees, his waist, his neck. And then he was in over his head, and the wind-shifted leaves covered him over as if pawed to smoothness by a tidy housecat. No one looking at the pile would have even known he was there.
      A wistful zephyr kissed the leaf-pile lovingly, and all the leaves stirred in erotic fervor.
      The search party hunted for Billy Joe McPherson for five straight days before giving up. The woods were combed, and combed again; neighbors were questioned, drifters threatened, abandoned buildings searched, but he never turned up. His parents grieved, his friends speculated gruesomely upon his probable fate, his school gave several stern lectures on the proper avoidance of strangers with Billy Joe as an unmentioned case-in-point. His face was plastered on milk cartons and "have you seen this child?" posters and his case was discussed grimly on the six-o-clock news, but he never turned up and eventually talk turned to fresher tragedies.
      And Mr. Caldwell, the mailman, still hurried past the old McCabrey place, the old haunted McCabrey place, just like he had always hurried past it ever since he was a kid. His eyes made a peripheral observation, and something somewhere deep in his mind wondered who on earth could have raked the leaves into such an enormous pile in front of the old, haunted, deserted McCabrey place; who could have erected such a vast brown pyramid in the center of the deep gray weed-strangled McCabrey lawn?
      But then he dismissed the half-formed question from his mind and continued on his rounds as the chill autumn wind sent dried leaf-husks scurrying up Prescott Avenue after him.