Suburban Pirates of the Caribbean
June 4, 2022 – Orlando, Florida, USA
He could have let his kids hoist the Jolly Roger up the flagpole, but Greg Schmoltz did the honors himself. The flag was the final addition to the massive backyard pirate ship built around a magnolia tree. The two-story ship was a combination playground and play fort and the tree’s branches and leaves created the illusion of green sails hanging above the deck.
Greg hired professional builders for the bulk of the work, but he proudly installed some of the accessories himself. The swing and the slide were all his doing. He also added the wooden cannon, which attached to a swivel for easier aiming.
Standing next to the ship’s flagpole, Greg looked down on his seven-year-old son, Amos, and five-year-old daughter, Vera. “I’m turning over this ship to the two of you. You’ll both be Captains. Take care of it, okay?”
Amos and Vera answered together, “Okay,” and “We will.”
“I told you how I wanted to be a pirate ever since my first drip to Disneyworld.”
“Because of the Peter Pan ride,” Amos said.
“And the Pirates of the Caribbean,” Greg added. “I would have given anything to have a ship like this when I was your age.”
Amos and Vera nodded their heads like they had heard their faither say that before.
“Now before you can be real pirates with a real ship, you have to take the pirate oath,” Greg continued. “Raise your hands and repeat after me.”
Amos and Vera raised their hands into the air.
“I promise always to be fearless,” Greg said.
“I promise always to be fearless,” the kids said in unison.
“I will always have fun and follow the pirate code.”
After Amos and Vera repeated his words, Greg announced, “You’re now official pirates. Where will you go on your first journey?”
“I don’t know,” Amos said with a shoulder shrug.
“With this ship and your imagination, you can go anywhere. You don’t have to be stuck inside watching movies or playing video games.”
“Can I pull the flag down and put it up again?” Amos asked.
“You can do anything you want. I don’t want to influence you too much. I’ll leave and let you have your own adventures.”
Amos fiddled with the flagpole while his father climbed down the staircase which led from the ship’s deck and into the hull. Greg peered out one of the portholes before walking out the doorway and across the lawn to his house. He hurried inside and stared back at the ship through his kitchen window. His wife, Erin, found him standing there.
“It’s pretty much the greatest treehouse ever made,” Erin said, looking toward the pirate ship.
“I know. It’s hard for me to let them have it to themselves,” Greg replied. “I just hope it stimulates their imagination. Then all the time and money it cost will be worth it.”
Once they were left alone, Amos and Vera remained on the ship’s deck for only a few minutes before taking the twisty slide to the ground. Amos wandered to the front of the ship’s hull where a bookshelf was built into the wall. The ceiling was covered in laminated maps of Caribbean islands. Amos looked up at them before pulling one of two pirate books from the shelf.
Both pirate books had been chosen by Greg. The first was an easy reader with lots of cartoon pictures. Amos flipped through it before handing it to his sister. Then he picked up the second book. While the cover made it look like it was intended for children, the content was better suited for tweens and teens. Amos was only a second-grade reader, but he had unusual patience. He sounded out the words and figured out what they meant. The teenage pirate book described how pirates hijacked helpless ships. Real pirates were mean and scary and mostly cared about money, not having fun.
“If we’re going to be real pirates, we have to steal stuff,” Amos said to his sister.
Vera had been listening as Amos sounded out words from the book. “Who are we gonna steal from?” she asked.
“Other ships.”
Vera looked around the interior of their play ship. “I think this is the only ship around.”
Amos sighed in frustration. Then he remembered the pictures of rowboats next to the big ships in his book. “What if we made a smaller ship we could move around?”
“With wheels?”
“Yeah, with wheels.”
Amos and Vera talked about the ship with wheels as they took a few more trips down the slide. Greg watched from the kitchen with satisfaction and wondered what deserted island his kids might be imagining. He was no longer watching when Amos and Vera left behind their ship and wandered into the garage. They quickly decided Amos’ red wagon would be a fine mini-ship on wheels. They also spotted Greg’s bowling ball and hefted it into the wagon. It looked enough like a cannon ball that it was sure to intimidate other ships.
Amos and Vera dropped their toy swords into the wagon before pulling it out to the front sidewalk. Vera wore a pirate hat over her cascades of curly hair. Amos moved his eye patch to the middle of his forehead so that he could look scary while maintaining a complete field of vision.
The Schmoltz children were confident of finding victims. They lived in a gated community and their street was filled with kids their age. Parents kept a collective eye on the neighborhood, with the understanding that their children should be able to wander outside a little to find each other. On a warm summer afternoon, there was sure to be somebody close who Amos and Vera could rob.
The ship-on-wheels rattled down the sidewalk with the bowling ball banging against its side panels. Three doors from their house, the Schmoltz’s found twin brothers, Tyson and Teegan, riding electric scooters up and down their driveway. The twins were in the school grade between Amos and Vera.
Amos stopped the wagon and picked up his sword. Vera copied him. “I’m Captain T-Rex and this is Captain Blackbeard,” Amos announced, using the names he and Vera had borrowed from the pirate books. “We’re real pirates now and we’re robbing you.”
The twins were obviously impressed by the pirating operation. One of them said, “We don’t have any money.”
“Then you have to give us the scooters,” Amos replied.
“No. How come you get to be pirates?”
“Because we have two ships and these swords and this cannonball. If you don’t give us the scooters, we’ll use it to blow up your house.”
“I’ll tell my mom and she won’t let you.”
Amos did not want parents involved. He also remembered the teenage pirate book saying that pirates always wanted larger crews. “How about if you give us the scooters and you can be pirates too? You’ll get your own pirate names.”
The twins were quickly sold on the idea once Amos and Vera promised access to the bigger ship and all its weapons. Everyone on the crew would also share in the booty of stuff they were about to take from the neighborhood.
Tyson and Teegan gladly rode their scooters to the Schmoltz backyard and deposited them in the corner of the ship fort designated for treasure collection. The twins chose pirate scarfs, swords, and names from the pirate books. Tyson became Captain Sharkfin. Teegan chose Captain Morgan.
The larger crew returned to the sidewalk for more raiding and recruiting. In the next two hours, bikes, drones, water guns, and portable speakers were added to the treasure pile. Seven more Captains were also added to the crew and made to recite a modified version of the pirate oath. With raised hands, the new Captains repeated words which were new each time but had the following essential elements: I will find more treasure. I will scare people who are not pirates. I will return to the ship.
The backyard pirate ship became the flagship of the fleet. Flagship was a term Amos had read and it meant a kind of pirate headquarters. As the different Captains moved around looking for victims, they were careful to return often to the Flagship.
Greg and Erin Schmoltz proudly watched all the activity from their kitchen window.
“I knew the other kids would love it, but I didn’t think it would be so popular this fast,” Greg said to his wife. “The whole top deck is full. There’s someone going down the slide every five seconds.”
“It’s nice to have somewhere where they can go and just be sweet and innocent kids,” Erin added. “And I like that it’s right here in front of us.”
While viewed from the outside, the Flagship may have appeared all fun and games. Inside was serious business. The Captains practiced with the wooden cannon for a possible attack. They also practiced evacuating down the slide as quickly as possible. And while the treasure hoard might have looked impressive for only one afternoon’s worth of work, any decent pirate always wanted more. The crew unanimously agreed more pillaging was needed.
The next morning, Amos and Vera were up unusually early and scouring their garage. They did not know much about digging, but they knew it involved shovels. They found two kinds of shovels and dragged them to a spot in the yard behind the pirate ship. It was a spot which could not be seen from the kitchen window. By the time any of the other Captains showed up, Amos and Vera had removed a circle of grass and were extracting small chunks of dirt on their way to a nice treasure hole.
For a crew consisting of all Captains, the young pirates were surprisingly cooperative. They could see the hole needed to grow along with the treasure hoard. And they could always use new recruits. As Captains reported to the Flagship, those with digging experience stayed behind while others were sent on raiding parties.
“When you go back to your house looking for stuff, try to get some gold,” Amos said encouragingly. “The best treasure is gold or silver or jewels. It should look shiny.”
By noon, everyone under the age of eight who lived on the street had taken the pirate oath and added something to the hoard. They ran out of good names from the pirate books, so new recruits were allowed to make up their own. This led to titles like Captain Captain and Captain Unikitty.
The Flagship also ran out of weapons and uniforms. Fresh Captains were forced to improvise swords from sticks and broom handles. Any scarf or handkerchief made an acceptable head covering. Some Captains resorted to old Halloween costumes. A raiding party often consisted of pseudo-pirates, at least one Pikachu, and someone carrying a wand.
They were very good at sneaking in and out of their own houses and they had a decent idea where shiny stuff was kept. Items disappeared from bedrooms, closets, and dining room shelves. Piled into the treasure corner of the ship was a growing collection of watches, jewelry, candlesticks, plates, trophies, and gold-colored shoes. Electronics, the ultimate in high-value treasure, were kept in a separate pile. They included phones, iPads, wireless routers, and batteries.
“The hole has to be deep enough to hold all this stuff,” Amos continued to call to the digging Captains. “Deep enough so someone can stand in it.”
The diggers were surprisingly persistent. They removed a cup of dirt at a time and were spurred on by the idea they might discover a hoard buried by an earlier pirate crew.
During dinner, Greg congratulated his children on involving so many neighborhood kids on their adventure.
“We’re real pirates, just like you said,” Amos reminded him.
“I know, I know,” Greg replied with a laugh.
“Real pirates have big crews,” Amos added. “We have a lot to do.”
It was the Diaz family, four doors down, who first noticed something was missing from their house. Not only did their WiFi not work, a clock that usually sat near the front door was gone. Mrs. Diaz realized she had either misplaced some jewelry or it was also missing.
“Could someone have gotten in the house?” Mr. Diaz asked.
“I don’t see how. Not without us noticing,” Mrs. Diaz replied.
An unnoticed intruder seemed impossible, but Mrs. Diaz messaged her neighbors anyway to see if it sounded familiar. When people looked around, more things came up missing. Homeowners checked footage from security cameras without seeing any unusual faces. One neighbor called the police. A couple of uniformed officers dropped by to investigate.
Meanwhile, at the Flagship, the top-heavy power structure of the crew was fracturing. Captains could not agree whether the hole was deep enough. Some of them wanted to bury stuff anyway. At least ten Captains worked on maps to the treasure and could not agree on the best version or whose steps to use for measuring distance. A good portion of the crew decided they were probably done playing pirates. They wanted to move on to something like a dinosaur park and they wanted to remove their contribution from the treasure hoard.
The Flagship was at the point of a standoff when two police officers wandered into the backyard, followed by the Schmoltz parents. The first reaction of the pirate crew was to retreat to the safety of the hull and top deck.
“Hi guys. These policemen want to ask you some questions and look at your ship,” Greg Schmoltz called to the neighborhood children.
“No! You can’t come aboard!” Amos shouted.
“You can’t come aboard!” others of the crew repeated.
“You can’t talk to the police that way!” Greg shouted back in surprise. “You need to show respect.”
“Pirates have their own rules!” one of the kids yelled.
The police officers grinned to each other and began circling the ship fort. When they reached the opposite side, they found items from the treasure hoard lying next to the hole.
“Where did you kids get all this stuff?” one of the policemen called.
“We stole it! We’re pirates!” Amos shouted back.
“Did you get if from your houses?” asked the second police officer, trying to suppress a laugh.
“It’s ours! We stole it fair and square!” Amos insisted.
Greg and Erin’s faces turned red as they raced to explain the situation. “They’re just playing pirates,” Greg stammered. “I don’t know where they got the idea for stealing.” Greg looked up at the faces on the ship. “You should know stealing is wrong, no matter what.”
Word of what happened quickly spread and parents walked over to the Schmoltz backyard to claim their kids and missing property. Greg and Erin issued embarrassed apologies and swore they never imagined a ring of thieves getting started.
“They can’t play pirates anymore,” Greg said to his wife, later that night.
“You’re not thinking of taking down the ship, are you?”
“No. Never. Building it was too much work. Maybe a little rebranding. How about a spaceship? We can add some wings and paint on a NASA logo. They can’t get in trouble in a spaceship, can they?”
Erin thought for a minute before replying. “Don’t make it sound too realistic. Maybe skip the part about no oxygen out in space.”
Please remember to subscribe for weekly reminders about new stories. You can subscribe by clicking here: Subscribe. You can also follow new content on any Podcast platform or on YouTube.