How dumb am I to think she just wants to see my telescope?
In my room, Cleo grabs The Outsiders off my shelf. “I love this book!” A spiral notebook with an STP sticker on the front falls on the floor and spreads open. I tremble and freeze for an ice age because I’d scribbled several poems in the notebook. A clumsy reach to close the book, pick it off the floor, and shove it safely back on the shelf next to A Martian Sends a Postcard Home. Fortunately, she puts S.E. Hinton’s book back on the shelf without noticing my semi-autobiographical book of poetry verses. Instead, she plucks an orange Nerf ball off the floor while I pull out my telescope and assemble it on a tripod next to the window table with a clean sight line between backyard tree limbs. The bedroom door thumps shut, causing me to turn toward Cleo in delight.
Is she thinking what I’m thinking? She leaps up off the ground, revealing bony ribs underneath her midriff shirt, and dunks the sponge ball down through the plastic rim hanging from the top edge of the door in Doctor J-style. You dope, that’s why she closed the door.
The ball bounces my way. She dives for the ball, and I snatch it off the carpet before she can claim it. A bank shot good from fifteen feet, then a mad scramble for the ball as it rolls past my Venus flytrap at the foot of my bed, but she snares the ball first. I block her way to the hoop, but she elbows past me for an epic layup, and I grab her by the waist, and we somehow tumble to the ground in tangled limbs.
A mixture-scent of Butter Up tanning lotion and peppermint Chiclets leaks into my nostrils. She loops her bare leg around mine, and we roll over so our faces are pressed together, and I think I’m in heaven while trumpets sound in my ears. We press our lips together. The high-pitched tune grows louder and more familiar in my brain, and Cleo removes her lips from mine. Her neck arches up as she lies on top of me and next to the orange Nerf ball.
“Did you hear that?” she remarks. The sound of a shrill whistle pierces through the screen window. Virginia’s stupid wolf whistle. What’s she doing back so early?
“Fooord!” A three-step dash to the window. Eye on the target through bionic telescope. Virginia in her Sunday best for Friday bridge club. Damn. I can kiss this chance with Cleo goodbye. She’ll tell Pop if I have a girl in the bedroom and give me some moronic lecture about girls like she knows anything.
“We gotta go, Cleo. My dog’s escaped.” Thanks a ton, Virginia. GOD!
I rush her down the stairs and out the front door before Virginia sees us and gives me the third degree. Cleo skids to a stop and glowers across the street at a yellow AMC Pacer that’s parked in front of the Carters’ house. Laney Carter struts out her front door with a gold purse and gets into the jellybean-shaped car.
Although she’s my age, I don’t think much about Laney Carter because I’ve rarely set eyes on her even though she lives across the street. Ralph Lord has, though. (Ralph’s uncle once wrestled both The Sheik and Bobo Brazil at Cobo in a tag-team match under the professional name Atlas Lord.) He lives in the house behind her on Glouchester and owns a decent pair of Army binoculars. He’d told me once that Laney Carter spends all day writing poetry (I dig that) in her backyard hammock and spinning her hula hoop between her bikini top and Bermuda shorts. Anyway, Laney goes to a K-12 all-girls private prep school called Glendower in South Kensington—the Palm Beach of the Hills. (I’ve spent hundreds of rainy days and nights exploring the universe at Glendower’s epic planetarium, not to mention one midnight laser show to Pink Floyd’s haunting, seizure-inducing Dark Side of the Moon.)
Cosmic lightning beams ripple through Dot Ave asphalt from Cleo’s retinas. “I hate that bitch.”
Huh? “Laney Carter?”
“No … Pippa.” She bites down hard. “Farnsworth,” she says, dragging out her name in contempt. “Don’t ask me why.”
A girl in the passenger seat flips Cleo the middle finger, and the car jolts down Dot Ave. I’ve never heard of any Pippa Farnsworth, and I don’t ask her why she hates her guts so much. Perhaps Pippa is her nemesis, like Nick Lund is for me. It’s shaping up like we have lots in common.
After Cleo leaves, I stand dreamy eyed, pondering how this Egyptian princess is different than all the girls I’ve ever known in the entire universe. Chimney suddenly appears and drops the boomerang from her slobbering mouth, and I pluck it off the ground and launch it toward deep space, and it nearly nicks the Clarks’ gutters before plunging back to Earth. Chimney spots the space debris, and the chase is on. I dive for the falling object but not before the hound snatches it out of the air. I fall on the grass with a heap of fur, resting my back on the grass with bits of Cleo thoughts hovering in my mind I’d never dare share with anyone.
I yank the boomerang out of my dog’s jaw. The momentum spins me around, and I face our giant, aquarium-sized living room window. And there’s Pop, peering at me with a sourpuss frown and that stupid survey map in hand.
No way Pop’ll ruin my mood today. Chimney chases me upstairs to my bedroom, where I spin ELO’s “Do Ya” and make a new entry in my poetry notebook:
This is goin’ to be the most epic summer eveeeerrrr!!!
here’s a big party down at Harkness Park tonight.”
Rocket tells me this while he strums his acoustic guitar in my basement in the dying hour of a summer day. He knows two songs: “Stairway to Heaven” and “Hot Blooded,” which is two more than I can produce.
“Who’s going to be there? Public kids? Catholics? Stoners? Preppy penny-loafer Hills kids?” Maybe Cleo will be there.
“How should I know?” Rocket turns his guitar upside down and places his guitar pick on top of it. “You show up and find out. It’s a public park … it’s not like anyone can kick you out.” Rocket never spends a split second thinking about how he might fit in like me. I agonize over every little thing. He picks up the guitar pick, puts it between his crooked teeth, and bites down. “Arrr yee innn?” I flash him the thumbs-up sign.
We have a couple of hours to kill before heading to the party, which might as well be a lifetime. Rocket gathers three ping-pong balls off the floor and juggles chin-high circles in front of me.
Does he ever stop moving for one second? He’s a fine juggler, though.
Rocket balances a ping-pong ball on his snub nose while I blow tiny Bubble Yum bubbles. The ball slips off Rocket’s nose, and he yells, “Gumfight.” He isn’t asking me, he’s telling me.
“You’re on.” I throw him a cherry-flavored pack, rummage through an old trunk next to me, and pull out two straw cowboy hats. I toss one to Rocket. Gumfight on. We don our hats, face off, and assume gumslinger pose: shoulders up, elbows bent, gum stick in hand, knees bent slightly forward, feet planted firmly on ground, toes pointed in. Loser pops first.
Blow hard.
Gum balloons grow from our mouths, stretch across the room, forming pink zeppelins before mushrooming into hot air balloons. POP! Score one for Quinn.
Wipe. Reload. Assume gumslinger pose.
After four messy gumfights, we hit the fresh evening air. Rocket jumps on Billy’s ten-speed and flies out of my driveway, red hair trailing behind him like a flame from a drag car.
“Where the hell are you going?” I shout after him. Parties don’t start till after dark.
“To get some stuff for the party,” he yells back at me as I catch up with him at the end of the block.
“What stuff?”
He smirks. “You’ll see.”
I assume Rocket means sparklers or firecrackers. His favorite holiday is the Fourth of July, when he always manages to finagle from some friend of a friend an odd assortment of Kentucky fireworks—M-80s, Cherry Bombs, Magic Mustard.
Rocket skids to a stop at an uptown parking lot for Dawson’s Insurance Agency. The sun lags below the taller buildings of downtown Kensington Hills, casting a shadow across half the city. A man in a wrinkled blue suit eyes us suspiciously before hopping in his yellow VW Beetle
and driving away.
“I give,” I say, using my snarkiest tone. “Are you buying life insurance?”
A hazard sign appears: Rocket’s thin devious grin. “I’m gonna get us some booze.”
Terror strikes. “Is Basil here?” Perhaps his brother has left a six-pack behind the dumpster.
“No, but Farmer Jack is.” Farmer Jack’s is the local grocery chain.
“That’s called stealing.”
“No, it’s called livin’.” Rocket throws me a foul snicker. “You should try it sometime. C’mon, ding-dong.” He waves me along.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” There’s no way I’d ever lift anything, let alone beer. I’m no Boy Scout, but stealing is stealing.
“Fine,” he replies. “Then just watch and learn, brother.”
Rocket drops the bicycle on the ground and struts out of the alley toward Farmer Jack’s. I squat down on a parking curb, hoping Rocket’s simply pulling my leg, but I know better. To pass the nervy time, I fish out a set of Topps baseball cards from my back pocket, shuffling through them, and notice some Wacky Packs cards mixed in. Ron Guidry, Larry Bowa, Milk Muds, Cap’n Crud, Gaylord Perry, Cracked Jerk, Minute Lice, Roy Smalley, Kentucky Fried Fingers, Tommy John … Oscar Gamble. Only one Detroit Tiger—our former weak-hitting, sure-gloved shortstop, Tom Veryzer.
A police siren blares in the distance; my bones quake with fear, and I crane my neck around the corner and go back to reading through the stats on the back of each baseball card fifteen times—Fred Lynn averaged .333 for the Red Sox last season. That’s ace squared. But still no sign of Rocket. Should I go in after him? No. Rocket works best alone.
Three more nervous shuffles through the cards. I stand up and gaze down the alley, and a flash of red hair accelerates toward me at Mach speed, pushing an overloaded grocery cart. My cards spill out of my hands, and I scramble to pick them up.
“Quick, follow me, Ford.” We duck behind the dumpster, and a rodent darts through a crack in the brick. “I got it.” Rocket pulls a sweating case of Stroh’s beer from the cart. “The blue gold, man.” He rips into the box, and out come two blue cans. I poke my head around the dumpster for spies but only notice a suspicious pigeon perched on a telephone line above our heads. Rocket pops the tabs on the beer cans and forks one over. Before I manage to take a few poisonous sips, Rocket tosses an empty one into the dumpster and reaches for another can.
Another pop from an opening tab. “Damn. I forgot to get some chew.” I ask him how he’d managed to steal the beer. “I’ve done it like five times.” A satisfied smile on his lips. “No problemo.”
He must be putting me on. “With who?” I’m pretty much Rocket’s only friend.
“Me, myself, and I. While losers like you are caddying their asses off in the blazing sun, I’m drinking beer.” He downs the last sip of his beer. “Hurry up and drink that thing, Ford. We got a party to go to, bro.”
Empty cans rattle in the dumpster. We hide the grocery cart in the alley after Rocket shoves a carton of Pop-Tarts in my hands and rides off into the retreating twilight toward the park. Rocket balances the case of beer on top of his handlebars, half covered by his Ted Nugent “Double Live Gonzo!” T-shirt. He drinks a beer along the side streets of Kensington Hills, his front wheel wobbling past the immaculate houses while I munch on a cinnamon Pop-Tart.
Just past Hillsdale Lane, the case slips off Rocket’s handlebars and crashes onto the ground, sending beers rolling out one by one down a hill and into the road. A car honks. A mom with two kids in the back—each pressing their puzzled, smiling faces to the car window—runs over a beer. Tires crush exploding beer cans. We jump off our bikes and make a mad dash to collect the beers before jumping back on our rides toward the party as darkness settles in.
We reach the long path sheltered by rows of pine trees leading into the park. Voices echo from the open field. Kids mill around, Bic fireflies spark in the air, some guy’s lip-locked with a girl next to a bonfire.
Is that my sister Kate and her jackass boyfriend, Theo? Jason Sanders comes up to me with his arm around Polly Ledbeder. I hand him a foamy beer. Jason gives me a “right on” nod and a toothy smile.
“Where did you score these beers?”
“We’re not giving away our source,” Rocket says. He’s never had any use for my Holy Redeemer friends.
“Suit yourself.” He turns to me. “Quinn, you want to go swimming at the country club tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Hell yes!
Jason looks toward Rocket. “You, too, if you want.”
“Is she coming?” Rocket nods toward Polly, trying to get Jason’s goat. Sometimes I think Rocket wants me to be his only friend, thinking if I make it in tight with Jason Sanders or Jack Lott, I’ll leave him behind. I’ll never do that to him.
“Nooo.”
“Then I’ll pass. I’m allergic to country-club air, anyway. I get all stuck up.” Rocket lifts his freckled face to show his nostrils. “By the way, I don’t need your invitation to use the club.”
Rocket couldn’t care less about who people hang with, what country club a kid belongs to, or where on the social pecking order his parents stand. When Sanders is really bored, he calls me. Nick Lund and Jack Lott must be at the annual summer camp with a bunch of other Hills kids at Otsego Lake. Every summer I’ve wanted to go to camp with the other kids from school, but Pop has never had the extra cash to send me.
A Jimmy Connors junior clone comes huffing and puffing toward us. “Fat Albert got busted with a beer ball.” He wipes his forehead with a red, white, and blue wrist sweatband. “The cops are coming.”
As news of the police raid spreads through the park, kids scramble through a narrow dirt path that leads to the park exit. Jason Sanders grabs Polly’s hand. “I’ll pick you up at noon tomorrow, Quinn.”
On a hot summer’s day, the kind where the walls are sweating before ten o’clock, I dress quickly, throwing on the nearest shirt on the floor next to my bed, and wait on our concrete front steps. The Sanders’ black Cadillac drives up in front of my house, and I dive into a waiting, open door. With two drumsticks, Jason, a fantastic drummer (he fancies himself a “percussionist” because he also plays the xylophone and bongos), strikes the back of the front leather passenger seat occupied by a barking terrier, tapping along to the song on the radio, “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick. A brass ashtray cover on the side door serves as a cymbal. Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat, clang. His mom roars off down our street under elm trees that hang like awnings along Dot Ave.
At the club, we saunter straight through the front door of the clubhouse and into the men’s locker room to change into our bathing suits. Sweat forms on my forehead from the humid, suffocating locker room air. We pass an elderly man with one foot on top of a bench at the end of a row of lockers, applying brown polish to the tip of a leather golf shoe. Another man with a pot belly traipses by, wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist.
We change into our suits, and Jason leads me outside and into the pool area, encircled by a large ornamental fence. A boy of about ten sweeps a dead horsefly from the water with a new Prince tennis racquet the size of a snowshoe. He looks me up and down with his upturned nose. “Hey? What do you think you’re doing here, caddy boy?”
How’s the little twerp know I’m a caddy?
“Your shirt.” Jason nods at my chest. “You better take it off. Caddies aren’t allowed to swim in the pool.”
Those epic TV mini-serials flash through my brain—Roots and Rich Man, Poor Man—and give me a partial seizure. You can’t just waltz in here with a caddy shirt, you dope. You’ve embarrassed Jason, and now you’ll never be invited back. I might as well be carrying a sign above me head that reads “I’M A LOWLIFE CADDY.”
“Yeah, you might contaminate the pool.” The kid has a gap between his two front teeth wide enough to fit a harmonica between. “I hope you t
ook a shower.”
Jason threatens him with a fist. “Get lost, Frankel.”
The kid snarls. “Don’t worry, Sanders.” He flicks his racquet, and the wet horsefly soars across the fence onto Yellow Brick Road. “I wouldn’t swim in this caddy-infected pool now.”
Before this moment, my green-mesh caddying shirt has been just a green-mesh shirt. I’ve forgotten caddies are second-class citizens at the club, servants for the spoiled members. I shed the Scarlet Letter shirt, roll it up, and hide it under a lounge chair.
For a hot day, the pool is empty, unlike my public swim club, which would be wall-to-wall bathing suits. The members’ kids don’t know how good they have it. Sanders dives into the deep blue water and disappears into the depths of the pool. I dive in after him.
Waterlogged and spent, Jason and I spend the next hour in lounge chairs, sipping cherry-flavored shakes. Across the pool, a gaggle of girls with bouncing ponytails stroll past with tennis racquets in tow and proceed out the latched gate. Only the backs of their heads and white tennis outfits can be seen. A girl swings her head as if swatting a fly with her taut brownish-blonde ponytail. I eye her tan legs as they disappear from my view toward the girls’ locker room, but she’s not Cleo.
A rebel yell from the other side of the pool. Two guys with goggles and Speedos appear out of nowhere and launch themselves into the deep end. One lands a majestic belly-flop. The second one flashes a toothy grin I’ve seen a zillion times in the past eight years and grabs his knee, jackknifing into the pool. A tsunami roars across the pool and propels a jetsam across my feet. They sink deep into the pool and resurface, spitting chlorine water into the air.
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