Summer of '69 Page 20

  Arno takes a few steps closer. “We’ll clean it up.”

  “Oh, yeah? Maybe I don’t want hippie garbage like you pickin’ up hippie garbage like that.” The leader turns to his pals, grins proudly at his clever turn of phrase. A regular lowbrow Oscar Wilde. Then he steps nearer. “What are you, hippie boy, six two?”

  “About that.” My heart drums. I squeeze the stick hard.

  “Go one eighty? One ninety?”

  “About that.” I’m trembling. If they come any closer, I’ll get into batting stance. Hopefully, when they see I’m serious, they’ll have second thoughts.

  Lamebrain cracks his knuckles. “So you got five inches and twenty or thirty pounds on me. What do you say you drop the stick and we settle this mano a mano?”

  “Lucas!” Arno calls anxiously from behind.

  My breaths are coming short and fast; my heart is a jackhammer. “I don’t think so.” I raise the stick. “What do you say you guys just go away?”

  Lamebrain laughs scornfully. “Believe me, Luke-ass, that ain’t in the cards.”

  The goons begin to spread out. A couple of them reach down and pick up rocks.

  Bang! With a flash, a firecracker pops behind me. The bad guys jump. “Mother of Mary,” one says with a gasp, and points behind me, where Milton’s standing with something dark in his hand.

  “He’s got a gun!” someone says.

  I don’t know where Milton got the firecracker, but he set it off and is now holding up something small and dark that he knows can be mistaken for a gun in the night. Pure genius.

  “Don’t do nothin’ stupid, okay?” Lamebrain takes a step back. The others drop their rocks.

  These bozos are buying it! I almost burst out laughing.

  The hoods start quickly away, sand and pebbles crunching under their boots, looking back over their shoulders to make sure Milton isn’t following. My knees go weak, and I have to lean on the stick, using it as a crutch while I catch my breath. When the hoods are mere silhouettes down the beach, I turn to congratulate Milton on his brilliance.

  But Arno speaks first: “A gun? What the fuck, Milton?”

  “It’s not a gun, stupid,” I start to explain. “It was a —”

  Milton lifts the dark thing in his trembling hand. No, it can’t be. . . . But it is: a black pistol with an unusual-looking brown wooden grip.

  “Your father’s?” I ask.

  He nods. Now I recall that after the birthday cake, when we told Milton we were taking him out to continue the celebration, he’d asked for a minute, then disappeared into the back of the house.

  “Peaceful demonstrations aren’t going to change anything,” Milton says in the back seat of the GTO. The Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” is on the radio. A few minutes ago, when Arno started to drive home, no one said a word. I guess we were all in our own worlds and thoughts. I keep replaying in my head what just happened at the beach. Not the gun part, but the part where I almost got into a fight. I haven’t stopped alternating between relief and incredulity.

  What was I thinking? I could have gotten the shit kicked clear out of me. But what choice did I have? The idea of those guys getting their hands on Tinsley. And what they might have done to Arno and Milton . . .

  “The Panthers know it,” Milton goes on. “Malcolm X knew it. Nonviolence is exactly what the Man wants. As long as we’re being peaceful, he doesn’t have to do doodley-squat. You think the colonists would have gotten their independence if they’d staged sit-ins at Lexington and Concord? The British would have laughed their limey asses off.”

  “But sit-ins and marches have worked,” argues Tinsley, who’s sitting beside him. “Look at civil rights.”

  “Yeah, right. King endorsed nonviolence and look what it got him,” Milton counters. “I’m telling you guys, it’s time to bring the war home.”

  “Are you willing to die?” Tinsley asks him.

  Milton gazes out the window into the dark. “It won’t come to that. We just have to show them we’re willing to fight.”

  At Tinsley’s gate, I get out of the car with her. “Thanks for making Milton feel special tonight.”

  “Thanks for being our knight in shining armor,” she says.

  We’re standing in the headlights of the GTO. I sense she’s waiting for something, but what? A good-night kiss? With Arno and Milton watching in the car, it feels a little awkward.

  She steps close and whispers. “We can use the pool house. I’ll drive you home later.”

  After I couldn’t get it up the other night, you’d think I’d be eager for a second chance, but it’s the opposite. I’m spent and drained by what happened at the beach. I’m actually glad I’m feeling this way. Ever since the other night, there’s been this nagging thing in my head. It almost feels like my body was trying to send a message that fooling around with Tinsley isn’t going to help increase whatever meager chance I have of winning Robin back. I should have figured that out a long time ago. Look at my father’s “relationship” with my mother. You can’t have it both ways.

  “Thanks, but . . . I should really go.”

  Tinsley studies my face. “The girlfriend?”

  Astonishing . . . and somewhat disheartening. “It’s really that easy to read me?”

  “Sometimes.” But her voice and expression are flat, without emotion. She turns away and lets herself through the gate. Something tells me I won’t be seeing her again anytime soon.

  “She’s really nice,” Milton says dreamily as we drive away. He sounds like he’s twelve.

  “For a cock tease,” Arno grumbles.

  We drop Milton at his house but don’t go directly home. Arno wants to cruise and smoke. It’s late and dark. Not many cars on the road. Suburbia has shut down for the night.

  “What would’ve happened if Milton hadn’t pulled that stunt with the gun?” Arno asks.

  “Guess there would’ve been a fight.”

  He glances at me. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Was there another option I wasn’t aware of?” I ask.

  Arno doesn’t answer, but something about the force with which he flicks his butt out the window tells me that he’s pissed off. “Looked like Tinsley was waiting for something when we dropped her off,” he says.

  “Nothing important.”

  “Didn’t look that way to me.”

  “Leave it alone, man. It’s been a bizarre night. Let’s go home.”

  “You’re such an asshole,” he grumbles. “And a lucky fuck.”

  “Jesus, Arno, what are you so angry about? You worried that Tinsley thinks you’re a wuss because you didn’t do anything at the beach?”

  “If only she knew what a wuss you once were,” he mutters peevishly.

  “Robin did.”

  “Nah. Back then she didn’t know you existed. Tinsley know about her?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “But Robin doesn’t know about Tinsley, right?”

  I stare out into the night as we pass dark house after dark house. God, how I wish sometimes that Arno would get a life of his own so he didn’t have to be so wrapped up in mine.

  “Well?” he noodges.

  “Arno, I don’t know what crawled up your rectum and died tonight, but either drop it or pull over and let me out.”

  He responds by speeding up. “What happens at the end of the summer when Robin comes home?”

  “What happens next week when the three of us go up to the festival and instead of hanging out, you have to spend every waking moment trying to unload that huge stash of acid?”

  “There’s no way I’m gonna be able to sell all that shit at Bucknell.” He’s practically yelling now. “I don’t even know if there are two thousand kids in the whole student body.”

  “Well, why the hell do you have to do crap like that anyway?” It’s my turn to practically yell. I’m not sure where it’s coming from. Pent-up tension? Aggravation? Frustration that Arno values the almighty dollar as much as,
if not more than, our friendship? “It’s not like you need the money. The only reason you sell drugs is because you think it makes you look cool. Want to be cool, Arno? Stop wearing aftershave, start wearing bell-bottoms, and trade this stupid car in for a Volvo!”

  The radio’s on low, playing Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna.” We cruise in near silence. It’s not the first time we’ve yelled at each other. Probably won’t be the last. But I’ve hurt his feelings.

  “Sorry, man, I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t know why you can’t leave my life alone. Want to know what’s really going on? Robin dumped me.”

  Arno shrugs dismissively. “So? You’ve still got Tinsley.”

  “No, Arno, I don’t still have Tinsley. It’s not the same. I realize this may come as a shock to you, but human beings aren’t interchangeable.”

  Arno turns up his nose and does one of his mincing nasal imitations: “‘I realize this may come as a shock to you, but human beings aren’t interchangeable.’”

  He’s right. It sounded pompous. I sigh. “And if you want to know the whole truth, I couldn’t get it up with Tinsley the other night. Couldn’t stop thinking about Robin. And how the draft’s got me dead in its sights. And how my family’s falling apart, and how, if by some miracle I don’t get drafted, I’m looking at the end of the summer when you guys go away to college and I’m stuck here with nothing to do and no future in sight.”

  There. I’ve laid it out for him plain as day so he can see that maybe I’m not quite the luckiest fuck ever. Arno drives quietly, one hand on the wheel. Someone else would appreciate the honesty, but what does he do? Says, “For your information, limp-dick, some girls like aftershave.”

  That’s it. “Pull over, asshole.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I’m gonna walk the rest of the way.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He hits the brakes and screeches to the curb. I get out, am about to slam the door, then think of something and stick my head back in. “What about the gun? We can’t just let him walk around with it.”

  “Maybe he should give it to you. Probably help where you’re going.” Arno pops the clutch, and the GTO’s tires scream loud enough to wake the dead as he leaves forty feet of rubber.

  “I understand completely. He shouldn’t have done that. I’m sure if you sit him down and speak very seriously . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . No, he will cooperate. Alan just needs to see that you’re very, very serious.”

  Mom has stretched the long white telephone cord taut, all the way to the sliding glass doors that face the backyard. With one hand she holds the phone to her ear and listens. The other hand is clasped tightly over her mouth as if she is trying to keep from screaming.

  “Yes, I do understand. I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am. . . . Yes, I realize it’s beyond the scope of your responsibilities. If you’ll give him . . . Of course I’ll speak to him. . . . Yes, yes, I’ll tell him that. Those very words. . . . Oh, thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. . . . Yes, yes, thank you. Really, thank you so much.”

  She crosses back. The receiver goes on the hook. I’ve just gotten home from work. Once again, the emptiness of the house of dashed dreams is magnified by the lack of TV background noise. Before Alan left for camp, I didn’t know if I’d miss him, but I do. A lot. He’s the glue that’s held this family together. Our concern for his well-being was the only thing left that we had in common. Without him, there’s nothing to keep us from splintering into small pieces.

  Mom’s wearing a pale-blue housedress. Her face and arms seem thinner than I remember. Her eyes are red rimmed, and she looks drained, white as milk, beyond weary. She tells me that Alan left the camp without permission, setting off a search that included the state police until he was found walking along the road five miles away. When they asked why he’d left, he said he wanted to watch TV.

  “Got a cigarette?” Mom asks. This from the mother who leaves newspaper articles on my desk about why I should quit.

  When I give her a Marlboro, she clasps my wrist and frowns disapprovingly at my gnawed fingernails. “When did you start doing this again?”

  “About the time you started smoking again.”

  She smirks, then starts toward the patio behind the kitchen. When I begin to follow, she holds up her hand. I watch her go out and stand in the sunlight with her back to me, her arms crossed. She brings the cigarette to her lips and exhales a plume of smoke into the air.

  Why does this make me think of Robin? Unless it’s because everything makes me think of her. It’s like looking at the world through Robin-colored glasses: “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” comes on the radio, and tears force their way into my eyes. I think of Odysseus and there she is, sitting beside me. Or I notice my copy of The Stranger on the bookshelf and recall that magical day last fall when we sat in the school courtyard and talked for an entire period.

  And sometimes the tears seem to come for no reason at all.

  Once again I feel the urge to write. Another letter to Robin, even if I don’t send it? A poem? All I know is that more and more, writing feels like an antidote for the emptiness.

  On my desk is an application for a library card from the Bay Shore Public Library with a paper-clipped note: “Fill out immediately.” There’s also a new driver’s license with my address now listed at Penataquit Avenue, Bay Shore, New York. A note from the paterfamilias clipped to the license says I should throw out my old license and replace it with this new one.

  The familiar twinge of defiance rears its head. Why should I? For so long I did what I was told. Then I swung 180 degrees and stopped. Is it psychic weariness that now lets the pendulum swing back toward the path of least resistance? It just feels like there are so many bigger issues to confront than whatever stupid scam the paterfamilias is involved in. Who has the energy for mindless rebellion? I take out my wallet and replace my old license with this new one.

  Then I pick up a pencil and begin to write.

  Lucas was twelve when his father began to enter them in father-and-son tennis tournaments. With his father on the court beside him, Lucas felt intimidated by the pressure to win. Every time he swung at a ball, he felt his father’s demanding gaze. Lucas always choked, and he and his father always lost. And it was always Lucas’s fault. Sometimes they would drive all the way home from a tournament without speaking. Sometimes Lucas’s father would talk about the match and what they could have done to play better. His father said that if they kept playing, eventually Lucas would get “tournament tough.” But with each tournament, Lucas would still choke. He started pretending he didn’t care if they won or not. Finally the day came when Lucas’s father lost his temper and yelled that he wished to God that Lucas wouldn’t be such a goddamn goofball.

  Lucas’s father wanted Lucas to be just like him. Not a goofball. Lucas’s father owned some businesses and made his own hours so that he could take time off to play tennis tournaments all over the Northeast. He won lots of tournaments and collected trophies. In their den at home, the trophies multiplied like rabbits. When Lucas was young, he wondered what those little golden men were doing at night. Were they sneaking out to meet women’s tennis trophies? Did women’s tennis trophies get sent to stay with relatives far away when their little golden tummies began to expand?

  Like most kids, deep down Lucas wanted his father’s approval. So when he was a sophomore in high school, he went out for the tennis team. The coach paired him with Johnny, who was Lucas’s friend and someone he often played tennis with in the summer. Lucas and Johnny played third doubles, the lowest position.

  Johnny was a good athlete and after a few weeks, the coach moved him up to second doubles. Lucas’s new partner was an obnoxious kid who wasn’t very good. But that didn’t stop the kid from criticizing Lucas every time he missed a shot.

  Things were changing for Lucas. That fall he had started growing his hair long and smoking grass. He was getting tired of always doing what his father wanted. He hated
his obnoxious tennis partner on the school team and didn’t like having to go to practices every day. Finally, he quit.

  Johnny kept playing tennis. By junior year he was the best on the team. By then Lucas and Johnny were in completely different crowds. Johnny’s crowd was all straight-A, top students who wouldn’t touch grass in a million years.

  The summer between junior and senior years, Lucas’s father’s regular doubles partner tore his Achilles tendon and had to have surgery. The recovery was expected to take a year. Lucas’s father asked Lucas how he’d feel if Johnny was his partner for the annual country club doubles tournament.

  It was a weird moment. Lucas knew it probably made sense for his father to team up with Johnny because they’d be the strongest doubles team in the tournament. But still . . . Lucas couldn’t help feeling like he’d been replaced.

  Lucas’s father and Johnny won the club doubles championship. Only it didn’t end there. That summer and fall, they went on to play other tournaments. They won a bunch of them and were ranked number two in the East.

  The next summer, Lucas’s father’s former doubles partner had recovered from Achilles’ tendon surgery and was ready to play again. But Johnny was younger, faster, and a better player. Lucas’s father decided to keep Johnny as his doubles partner. They won the club championship again and traveled all over the Northeast playing other tournaments.

  Lucas worked in his father’s factory and pretended not to care.

  By the time I finish the story, it’s almost ten p.m. I missed dinner and didn’t notice. This is the longest piece of prose I’ve ever written voluntarily. After rereading it, I think maybe it’s a little too maudlin. Nonetheless, I’m proud of it. It may not have much of a setting, but I think it has well-defined characters, a conflict, plot, and theme. My first short story!

  I put it in an envelope and address it to Miss Landers, care of the high school.

  Every writer you’ve ever heard of

  Was at one time a writer

  You’d never heard of.