The Pyramid Scheme

The pyramid wasn't actually a pyramid—it was more of a lopsided pile of two-by-fours and chicken wire that my brother Josh had spent the entire summer building in our backyard. He called it an 'architectural statement.' The neighborhood HOA called it a violation.

'You coming to baseball tryouts?' asked Leo, leaning against the chain-link fence with his glove already broken in, the leather soft and brown like caramel. 'Freshman team, bro. We could actually start.'

I glanced at the pyramid, where Josh was currently duct-taping a solar panel to the side. 'Nah. Busy.'

Leo scoffed. 'Busy with what? Your brother's escape pod?' He kicked at a pebble. 'Whatever, man. But everyone's gonna be there. Including Jessica.' He raised his eyebrows suggestively. 'You know she thinks guys who play baseball are... you know.' He made some hand gesture that was supposed to mean something but just made him look like he was conducting an invisible orchestra.

The social pyramid at Westwood High was crystal clear: baseball players at the top, then the rest of us clinging to the sides like loose stones. But the pyramid in our backyard? That was different.

That night, I climbed to the top of Josh's creation with my phone and a borrowed blanket. The wood groaned beneath me. From up here, I could see the whole neighborhood—Mrs. Henderson's prize-winning garden (she'd called the cops three times about the pyramid), the elementary school playground where I'd scraped my knee in fourth grade trying to impress a girl who moved away two months later, the baseball field glowing under stadium lights like some alien mothership.

I opened TikTok and started recording. 'Welcome to the Pyramid,' I whispered, doing my best mysterious narrator voice. 'Where weird stuff happens.'

The video blew up. Suddenly, everyone wanted to see the pyramid. The baseball team came by after practice. Jessica came by with her friends. Even the HOA president came by, though she just left another violation notice.

'It's actually kind of cool,' said Jessica, standing on top of the pyramid with me, the March wind making her hair across her face. 'Like, nobody else has anything this weird.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'It's definitely weird.'

'So about baseball tryouts tomorrow,' she said. 'You should come.'

'The pyramid needs maintenance,' I said, but I was already downloading the signup form.

Josh found me there at midnight, eating pizza and watching baseball highlights on my phone. 'You're climbing the wrong pyramid,' he said, and I couldn't tell if he was being philosophical or just talking about wood.

Some pyramids are built by pharaohs. Some are built by bored teenagers with too much free time. And some? Some you just climb, because sometimes the view from the top is worth the terrifying wobble of every step underneath.