Oh, you haven’t heard of it? My little cousin got confused too when I asked him if he wanted to go. He lives a few hours north of here, and he thought I was talking about the town near his house. 
        “Do I want to go to Corning?” he says, looking at me as if I was trying to sell him a three-wheeler without the wheels. 
         I said, “No, do you want to go corning.” 
         See in this case “corn” is a verb, not a noun. My English teacher taught me that. A kid might say, “Man, we corned the shit out of Shawn Dutton’s house.” Or, “You corning this Friday?” It’s like a sport, but better. More like an army mission.
         After the stalks have gone brown—middle of October—and those long, dry leaves start making a sort of papery rattling sound when it’s breezy, that’s when it’s time. I grab my friend Tink and the two Wilson brothers, and we plunge into those fields to snag the fattest, hardest ears we can find. We look for the ones with the husks starting to curl back, with that coarse, dark silk sneaking out the top. Looks like pubes, Tink says. 
         Then you shuck. Shuck—I like that word. We sit on Tink’s patio and pop off every last kernel, do it till our thumbs get raw. We shuck till we’ve got a backpack full of those little pellets. You’re probably thinking, why not just fill a bag from a silo? Some kids do. It’s cheating though. Part of the fun is going to the fields, finding the best ears, and shucking.
         Near as important as your bag of corn is good gear. We get ours long before the season starts. We go to Tom’s Army and Navy and buy as much crap as we can with the cash we’ve saved up from our summer chores. Mom stays in the car because of the smell. The store reeks like old tires. My uncle, a Marine Corps vet, says it’s the Vietnam jungle boots. That smell is on everything. You have to lay your gear in the sun for an afternoon or two to make it go away. No biggie, I guess. 
         Last year, I had a bunch of money saved from tossing hay bales for Grandpa, so I bought woodland BDU pants—used, but the camo isn’t hardly faded—a watch cap, MRE crackers and jam, and a snake bite kit. Oh and three different size pouches with belt clips, perfect for holding a few handfuls of reserve corn. I’m not allowed to get the boots. Mom doesn’t want the house smelling like Tom’s. Whatever. I could go on about gear all day though. 
         Corning happens after dark, after your neighbors finish dinner and hunker down in front of their TVs. Jack-o-lanterns flickering on the front stoop. Chilly air. And, unless you’re wading through dry leaves, it’s dead quiet. Prank time. 
         We always scout out the neighborhood first. Which houses have dogs? What about motion lights? Where are the bone-breakers? You know, the clothesline poles, ditches, wire fences. And, most important: which neighbors can run? You want to get chased. But not caught. 
         It goes like this. Each kid grabs a handful of kernels from the backpack. You surround the house and aim for the windows. Everyone throws at the same time, like you’re tossing grenades. CHISSSSS! Inside, it sounds like the glass is breaking into a thousand pieces. Startles the crap out of someone.
         Folks will turn the porch light on. They might step outside in their slippers and say, real timid, “Is that so-and-so out there?” 
         The nice ones aren’t much fun.
         If the person’s a grouch, they might shout, “The cops are coming!” 
         Or, best case, they come ripping out onto the porch, cussing and trying to get their shoes on, maybe shouting that they’re working midnights at the factory and you just woke them up early—that’s Shawn Dutton’s dad. Cranky bastard.
         But those are the easy targets. 
         You know how every neighborhood has that one house, dark and spooky, off the road a ways? Set in behind some scraggly pines and overgrown jaggers. Muddy ruts in the driveway. No pumpkin out front. You keep saying you’re going to hit it, but you chicken out? Maybe your aunt told you the guy who lives there shot rock salt at her and her friends back when they went corning. Or maybe you heard he’s a sicko. 
         Well, last year—I’m whispering because I don’t want Mom to hear this—we snuck up on the house of old Jim Ricks, the wrecker driver. Creepy dude. Tink got under his window—there was a little glow coming out from around the blinds—and he peeked inside. 
         Then he jogs back to the tree where we were standing lookout and says, “He’s in there watching a porno tape! Some orgy thing with whips and masks and all that!” 
         Well, the Wilson brothers thought they ought to see for themselves, and I didn’t want to stand there all alone. So we all crept over to the window to have a look. 
         Inside, the back of Jim Rick’s greasy little head was sticking up over the top of his recliner. In his hand, a spit bottle for his snuff juice. But the only thing on the TV was some dumb old John Wayne movie.
         Tink was snickering, so I pinched him hard on the arm and he jumped. 
         Jim Ricks turned in his chair like a dog hearing his name called, and we bolted for the road.
         I can’t say if he saw us. But I can say that this year we’re going back. We’re going to corn the hell out of that weirdo.