The Boys of Summer

by Richard Cox

  “But since I’ve been hanging out with you guys, we mostly sit in this game room. One of these days we’re all going to wish we’d had more fun as kids.”

  Adam couldn’t believe Todd had the nerve to call them out like this. He should have been grateful just to be here. Who cared if he fought Bobby to a draw?

  “Everything is different when you grow up,” Todd explained. “It doesn’t matter if you sell used cars or become a teacher or if you turn out to be a millionaire and move to California. This is the only time in our lives we’ll be smart enough to do cool stuff but not have any responsibilities.”

  “That’s, like, really profound and all,” David said, “but it’s too hot to play football right now. It’s 110 or something out there.”

  “Too hot? We’re thirteen years old.”

  “Since you’re such the go-getter,” asked Bobby, “what do you suggest we do?”

  “I don’t know. But there must be something we can do for excitement.”

  “You mean something we can do to get in trouble,” Adam said. Even if the world of Dungeons & Dragons was rife with black magic, at least it wasn’t real.

  “The point would be to stay out of trouble,” Todd said. “Do something that could get us in trouble, but not. Think of a roller coaster—it feels like you’re going to die, but you don’t.”

  Adam didn’t say anything else. He’d always been the outcast in this group, the friend least likely to be invited for a sleepover or a pool party or to play football. Since none of them ever talked about Jesus, and since they all knew Adam’s parents were devoutly religious, he assumed the other guys resented him for his Christianity. For his occupying of the moral high ground in every situation. But he wondered how they might feel about him if they knew the secret darkness that lay within his heart, if they knew he was the committer of ancient sins. Had any of them ever looked down at their baby sister and seen her head caved in, seen a blood-soaked brick where her face was supposed to be? What would they think of Adam if they knew of his immense guilt, of the desire he sometimes felt to inflict pain—on himself, on anyone—for having failed his baby sister?

  “I know something we could do,” Jonathan said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Todd replied. “Let’s hear it.”

  “You know that little dead end street after you turn right on Ridgemont, when you’re heading toward Turtle Creek?”

  “Driftwood,” David said.

  “Right. Well, there’s this house there, it was built a while back and no one ever moved in.”

  “Yeah,” David said. “My dad said the couple got divorced while the house was still being built.”

  “Well,” Jonathan said, “I was at the fort a few days ago, looking for a different trail out of the woods, and I came out near the backyard of that house. And, I don’t know, I just went up to the house for some reason and started checking the windows.”

  “Checking them?” Adam asked.

  “Yeah. Bobby’s dad told me that construction workers will sometimes leave a window unlocked in case they forget their keys. So I wanted to see if I could get inside the house.”

  “You broke in?” Adam asked.

  “No, the first window I tried was unlocked. I just opened it and went in.”

  “Is there electricity?” Bobby asked. “Is the water on?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, let’s go!”

  “Why?” Adam asked.

  “Why not? It’s better than sitting around here.”

  19

  Ten minutes later the five of them were standing in an empty den, _ looking around with a sort of awe. They’d all been inside houses that were being built—Adam particularly enjoyed the earliest stages, when the projects were still just flat concrete slabs—but until now only Jonathan had stepped foot inside an empty house that was completely finished.

  “It feels like we’re trespassing,” Bobby said.

  “That’s because we are,” Adam pointed out.

  But no one seemed to care. At David’s suggestion, they had brought along a cassette player for music, some Cokes in a small ice chest, and the D&D gear in case they got bored. Todd carried his keyboard as well.

  “There’s power,” Bobby said. He flipped a light switch, and a chandelier flickered on in the formal dining room. “See?”

  “Yeah,” David said. “You can tell the A/C has been running because otherwise it would be an oven in here.”

  “I bet we can make it even cooler,” Jonathan said. He put down the cassette player and walked down a short hall, where a thermostat was mounted to the wall. “What would you guys like? Seventy-five degrees? Seventy?”

  “Turn it down to sixty,” Bobby said. “Make it nice and cold.”

  “Electricity costs money,” Adam said. “They have the thermostat turned up for a reason.”

  “Fuck ‘em. They shouldn’t leave their house unlocked.”

  There were three bedrooms and a study. The walls were white, except for one in the den that was paneled with artificial wood laminate. There were two bathrooms. Linoleum on the kitchen floor, and a bar between the kitchen and den.

  “This is great,” David said. “This could be our clubhouse when it’s too hot to hang out in the fort.”

  Todd had taken his position against a wall in the den and switched on his Casio. “What do you guys do in the fort?”

  “We meet there,” Jonathan said. He pushed some buttons on the cassette player, but no music came out. Adam wondered what he was doing. Recording them, maybe?

  “What do you meet about?”

  “Well, if we’re going to have a vote, or—”

  “We don’t do anything with the club,” Bobby interrupted. “David had already built the fort, so we just called ourselves The Dragons and made it our headquarters.”

  “We keep our secret stuff there,” David pointed out. “We’ve got some porno magazines and a couple of packs of cigarettes.”

  “And three beers,” Bobby said. “I got ‘em out of my dad’s cooler last week, when his friends came over to watch the Rangers.”

  “See there,” Todd said. “I knew you guys had a mean streak in you. Jonathan, you should totally bring Alicia here and make out with her.”

  “I would if I were you,” David said. “That girl is so hot.”

  “I have to ask her to go with me first.”

  “You better,” David suggested. “If you don’t, someone else will.”

  Jonathan shook his head but didn’t say anything.

  “Why do you keep porn magazines in the fort?” Todd asked. “Why don’t you take them home where you can make use of them?”

  No one volunteered an answer for that.

  “Come on. Surely the four of you don’t just huddle around those magazines and talk about how big the tits are.”

  Everyone remained silent.

  “It’s beat-off material,” Todd continued. “That’s what they make it for.”

  Adam had known from the moment he laid eyes on Todd that the kid was trouble. He wanted to say something to that effect—or simply leave—but again he was reminded of being the outcast, the one who mattered least. Adam knew his relationship with Jesus was far more important than being friends with these boys. He knew this and still he couldn’t let go of his pressing desire to belong. It seemed like the more Todd wormed his way into the group, the further Adam was pushed to the side. He couldn’t stand it.

  “I don’t do that,” Bobby mumbled.

  “Me, either,” Adam agreed.

  “Yeah and both you guys are full of shit.”

  “I am not,” Adam said.

  Bobby would neither confirm nor deny.

  “I beat off every day,” Todd said. “At least a couple of times. Sometimes when I wake up, and always when I go to bed. I only wish I had nudie magazines to look at.”

  “I do it, too,” Jonathan abruptly said.

  “Yeah,” David added. “Me, too.”

  “You don’t have to be asham
ed about it. It’s fun. Every kid our age does it. At least those who know about it.”

  “All right,” Bobby grunted. “I do it, too.” He looked around, daring anyone to laugh at him. “Fuck, I never thought I’d admit that.”

  Todd looked at Adam. “What about you?”

  “I already told you. Not me.”

  “So what do you do when you look at the magazines?” Todd asked him. “Just read the articles?”

  “I really don’t like looking at them, to be honest.”

  “That’s a lie,” said Bobby.

  David shot a look at him. “Bobby, don’t—”

  “What?” Adam asked. But he was afraid he already knew.

  “He’s seen you at the fort by yourself,” Bobby said, thumbing at David.

  “So what if I—”

  “More than once.”

  Adam stood up. He could feel the blood in his face, knew his cheeks were beet red. They really did hate him. All of them.

  “Screw you guys. I’m going home.”

  “Sit down, Cartman,” Todd said.

  “What?”

  Todd stood up and intercepted him. “Come on, man. It’s not a big deal to admit it, all right? You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

  “That’s because I don’t do it!”

  “Everyone else admitted it. It’s no biggie.”

  For just a moment, a brief and fleeting moment, Adam considered telling the truth. Yes, he’d gone to the fort many times to look at the magazines—it was fascinating to see the women up close with their legs wide open—but something told him this whole conversation wasn’t what it seemed. Why was Jonathan recording them? Were they hoping to get him on tape so they could blackmail him?

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. I couldn’t pray with a clean conscience if I did that.”

  He knew this was probably the end for him. With everyone on one side of the truth and him on the other, Adam didn’t see how he could continue to be part of the club. He wondered what he would do now. Where would he find new friends? There were no other boys in Tanglewood his age. He would be all alone.

  But then Todd smiled and put his hand on Adam’s shoulder.

  “All right, man. I didn’t realize it was a religious thing. That’s cool.”

  Adam felt like snapping Todd’s arm in half. He could maybe use the broken pieces to gouge out his eyes. He smiled.

  Finally Todd turned away and sat back down against the wall. Adam glanced around to see if anyone was smirking at him, judging him, but no one seemed to care. He might have relaxed, except he was already imagining the prayer of apology he would offer to Jesus tonight. Sometimes he could be such a hateful and imperfect boy.

  “Who wants a Coke?” David asked. His question seemed to break the tension, and suddenly every one of them was thirsty.

  While David went into the ice chest to grab sodas, Todd sat back down and resumed tinkering with his keyboard.

  “You’re pretty good with that thing,” Jonathan said, gesturing at the Casio. “You know how to play any real songs?”

  Todd hit a couple of the buttons above the piano keys and then tapped out a few notes. Adam realized it was the chorus to “Down Under.”

  “Dude,” Bobby said. “That’s pretty good. What else do you know?”

  Now he switched the instrument again and played the opening bass line to “Billie Jean.”

  “I can play the other part, too,” Todd said, switching the instrument and keying the string chords that came next. “But it’s difficult to play them at the same time. I wish I had a four-track recorder. With that and a drum machine, I could record real songs.”

  “How do you know how to do that?” David asked. “Did you take piano lessons or something?”

  Todd shook his head. “My Grandpa showed me some stuff, chords and whatever. But basically I just started messing with it after I woke up. My parents noticed, when I was asleep, that I seemed to respond to music more than anything else. Especially MTV. Apparently I would sit for hours watching and listening, and my mom said sometimes I would hum or sing along with the music.”

  “Sing?” Jonathan asked, sounding skeptical.

  “She said it was like whispering. And kind of robotic, like someone sounds when they’re talking in their sleep.”

  “That’s creepy,” Bobby said. “It’s like you were possessed or something.”

  Jonathan still looked skeptical.

  “Anyway, my parents got me this keyboard as a gift when I woke up. They thought it might help me, you know, rehab or whatever. The doctor said I needed to exercise my brain, and that music would be a great way to do that. I figured out pretty quickly I could record songs off the radio and learn to play along with them. It doesn’t take that long. I figure them out pretty fast.”

  “Have you tried writing songs of your own?” Jonathan asked.

  “Well . . . ” Todd answered, and then trailed off.

  “Hey,” Bobby said. “Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed, Mister Badass.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Adam agreed. He couldn’t imagine Todd being uncomfortable about anything, but he was interested to see it.

  “All right,” Todd said. “I’ve got two. The first one doesn’t have many words, though. It’s called ‘In the Name of Love.’”

  He selected an instrument and then looked up at them. “I don’t know how to sing, so don’t laugh, all right?”

  No one said anything, thereby reserving the right to laugh at whatever they wanted.

  “It’s only a chorus.”

  “Just play it,” Bobby said.

  So he did. It was a six note melody, followed by the lyric “in the name of love.” Then the same six notes and the same lyric. Then the same six notes a third time, except the lyrics changed to “I can’t get enough.” It was repetitive, but Adam liked the melody. It had a familiar quality to it, almost as if he’d heard it somewhere before.

  “That’s all right,” Bobby said.

  “Yeah,” David said. “Not bad.”

  “But maybe it could use some other lyrics,” Jonathan suggested.

  “It’s just the chorus,” Todd explained. “And I’m trying to think of some lyrics to sing over that melody.”

  “What else do you have?” Adam asked.

  “Well, I came up with this other song last week. It’s about a dream I had a lot when I was catatonic. About this girl, like the hottest girl you’ve ever seen. I think she lived on the beach in California, or at least I wished she did. Every time I dreamed about her, she was walking down the sidewalk of her house, toward me, wearing a light-blue half shirt and pink shorts. She had a perfect tan and her bellybutton was just, like, you couldn’t not look at it. She always had sunglasses on but they were pushed back on her head, and she wore those—what do you call them?—jelly shoes. Pink jelly shoes. They made her seem so feminine.”

  Here was something that interested Adam, this description, because he had seen girls like her, had (God help him) lusted after them. She was the kind of girl any guy might dream about. Todd had drawn their full attention now.

  “So this song is about her?” David finally asked.

  “I wrote it for her.”

  “Play it,” Adam urged him.

  Todd tinkered with the buttons on his keyboard again. “All right,” he said. “Here goes.”

  This time he began playing a slow melody with his left hand, and then accompanied it with a faster one with his right. There was an intro, and then Todd began to sing:

  Nobody on the road

  Nobody on the beach

  I feel it in the air

  The summer’s out of reach

  Empty lake, empty streets

  The sun goes down alone

  I’m driving by your house

  Though I know you’re not home

  But I can see you

  Your brown skin shining in the sun

  You got your hair combed back and your sunglasses on, baby

  And I can
tell you my love for you will still be strong

  After the boys of summer have gone.

  “And then it goes on to the next verse,” Todd said. “But I don’t have any more than that yet.”

  Adam couldn’t believe it. The song was fantastic. It was just like something you’d hear on the radio.

  “Holy shit,” Jonathan said. “That was really good.”

  “It’s fucking awesome,” Bobby added. “That’s what it is. How do you know how to do that?”

  Todd smiled and even blushed a little. Adam wondered if maybe the guy was powered by human blood after all.

  “I don’t know how I do it. The songs just come to me, almost like I’ve heard them before. For this one I thought of the melody first, like it would play in my head when I dreamed about her. And the way she looked made me think of those words, or some of them at least, and the rest just sort of came to me.”

  “She must have been a fox,” Bobby said. “In your dream, I mean.”

  “She was. Every time I go to bed at night I hope I see her again.”

  “What was it like?” David asked him. “Like, for real? I don’t know how to say this, but we’ve all been talking about it since we met you. It seems like you ought to be, I dunno, stupid or maybe immature. You missed four years of your childhood, but instead of being younger you seem way older than us.”

  Todd didn’t answer right away. He looked at David for a very long time, for what felt like forever. Adam watched both of them and wondered if there would be a fight.

  “I’ve thought about the same thing, David. A lot. And I don’t know what the answer is, because you’re right—it doesn’t make any sense. What I can tell you is that I dreamed some pretty weird things when I was asleep.”

  “Like what?” Jonathan asked.

  “Sometimes I saw still pictures instead of movies the way dreams usually are. Sometimes there was nice music, like when I saw the girl. And sometimes the music was scary and loud, not the sort of thing you hear on the radio. Once I dreamed I was in a city in Europe, and in that one I could actually feel the cobblestones under my feet. I could hear the warbling trains. One time I saw a cloud hovering over New York City. I saw cars I didn’t recognize, cars with rounded shapes that looked like they were out of some futuristic movie. I saw a burning house. A football stadium. A school. And the more I think about it, the more I remember hearing that song I just sang for you guys, repeating itself, and even now I can recall more lyrics, some other guy’s voice, not mine, singing I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said don’t look back you can never look back . . . ”