Is Harvey Dunne?
A Novel
K. L. Romo
Published by K. L. Romo
© Copyright 2009 K.L.Romo. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
First published by KLR on 2/22/2009
Printed version ISBN: 978-0-5780-1521-7(sc)
Printed in the United States of America.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
This book is dedicated to G. Gideon Dingle, Rollo Fludzinger, and the Reverend Pricker T. Birmingham - the one and only. I miss you.
Acknowledgments
A thank you for your love, support, and words of encouragement to my wonderful husband Drew, my beautiful children and grandchildren, my loving Mom and Dad, and my fabulous friend Karen Wells.
Chapter 1 October 29, 1988
Sometimes you don’t know something, really know, until it slaps you in the face and knocks you down. You might have suspicions, and fear, but not until reality’s grip tightens around your neck and shakes you with a mighty force are you sure of what the truth is.
I'm terrified of losing my kids. The custody hearing which will decide the fate of my two children is only three days away. My life seems to hover in slow motion, a limbo that I had hoped might end when I finally revealed the truth about myself, emerged from the cocoon of fear and shame that had silenced me for most of my precarious life.
I’d worked my fingers to the bone to prove to the world, and I guess to myself, that I could be a winner. But sacrifice came with that success. I’d become a human sacrifice, relinquishing all honesty, my own identity, to be normal. Somewhere in the course of the years, in the midst of the web of lies I’d spun, I lost myself. A high price to pay.
Then, the burden had finally become too great, my conscience weary from carrying such a massive load. I owed it to my wife and kids. My God, I owed it to myself. Instead of slowly seeping from my manufactured life, the truth burst from my lips, the cork no longer able to contain the secrets inside. Blurted like an obscenity for all the world to hear, and fear, and run from.
I’d been a prisoner of myself.
It should have been a relief, coming clean to the world, after all those painful years filled with secrets in the dark and the deception that had become all too easy. Not hiding anymore; a prisoner released.
Instead it’s been a nightmare. I’d just moved from one set of shackles to another.
Three days to D-Day – my court day. Our court day. Louise is suing me for sole custody, and I am countersuing for joint custody. Happiness and agony both see-saw around November 1, battling for control, for victory. I wait in a dark tunnel, looking at the date. Feeling that I’ll never get there, but at the same time, being scared to get there.
So I sit in my empty apartment with a glass of Jack Daniels in my hand, my loyal companion, looking into the brightness of the fire. The scene of a good commercial. I am once again trapped in the vicious circle of searching for who I am, and trying to figure out what will happen in my life. Harvey Dunne, the successful accountant. Harvey Dunne, the divorcee without his children.
Harvey Dunne, the successful failure.
I'm losing it all. Whoever said honesty was so great?
Staring into the flames, I see the blurry rerun of my life, the sparks igniting all the pain and confusion of growing up. I wonder who in the Master Plan chose which children would have to bear a burden such as mine, to grow up this way? Surely it was a random selection, a careless game of Russian roulette played on a universal scale. A careless mistake. Surely no Loving Power would inflict this nightmare on a child intentionally?
I know where my life has been. I not only see it but can still feel it, every morsel of anxiety and shame. Hiding where I thought no one could find me; hiding for forty-two years. I’d spent the majority of my adult life trying to determine when I’d passed the point of no return. But then one day it just dawned on me, like the light of elemental knowledge being plugged into my brain, shining a universal truth: There was never a point in time I could have turned back.
I just always was.
Chapter 2 My Life – 1954
In 1954, everything was black or white. At least for most of the world. But not to a nerdy kid like me. I was a fair-skinned, freckle-faced boy of eight with an asinine cowlick in the middle of my forehead. A kid who passionately loved to play the piano, probably the only thing that I was really ever good at in my life. It was a natural talent, a skill I picked up very easily, and ran with. And I was a boy who loved to read, and would get lost in those stories of adventure, and pretend I was the masculine hero I would read about on the pages. A kid who had a whole life of opportunity just waiting around the corner for him, or so all my aunts and uncles told me as they pinched my cheeks. My parents professed to the world that I was the persona of normal, apple-pie Americana. I always wondered guiltily why this was so important to them, secretly knowing they were wrong. But in their heart of hearts, I think they had some reservations about me even then. Something nagged at the pits of their stomachs that they just couldn’t place, but I’m sure it got its start with my unusual interests – so odd for a boy of eight.
I loved to sit and watch my mother sew. She could create masterpieces with a needle and thread, a Michelangelo of the Singer world. In those days, it was especially fashionable to make your own clothes, a woman’s self expression of the times. And she loved to make herself pretty dresses, the kind Mrs. Cleaver wore in Leave It to Beaver, but with her own personal twist. She embroidered a small angel on each of the lapels; her own assurance that her guardian angel would watch over her every day. (To this day, every time I see the image of an angel, I think of her.) Mom would get so involved in her sewing, pinning the material to her mannequin and making all the right adjustments. I would just sit and watch her, and marvel at how she could fit all those pieces together so perfectly. Mom was a perfectionist, and I constantly wondered how this concern with the meticulous had seemed to always miss me. I never could figure out why I was such an uncoordinated klutz.
After the piano, cooking was my passion. I begged Mom to let me make cookies, the chewy peanut butters with the Hershey kisses on top. Mom always loved the idea of me helping her in the kitchen; she had always dreamed of having a little girl. Of course, when Dad ended up with two boys, he was ready to stop. I guess the joke was on him. Although Mom had never gotten her girl, I usually did a pretty good job of filling-in - I guess I was the next best thing. But Dad sure wasn’t very pleased, always telling Mom that she was making a sissy out of me (as if I’d had a choice), and always reminding me of the things I should be doing instead. I could spend all afternoon measuring and mixing, and having a great time. I never even gave a thought to the activities I was supposed to do, and expected to do. My father would sit quietly in his recliner, simultaneously reading the paper and listening to the news, and casually glance at me now and then, his disappointment plastered across his forehead. And he definitely never smiled during my escapades in the kitchen, his granite jaw remaining in the don’t-push-me-I’ve-had-it position. I baked so much the summer after second grade that I could make better cookies than Mom. She was awfully proud of this fact, and so was I.
My dad wasn’t.
Truth be told, I’d been a constant source of irritation for my father, the John Wayne of Enderby Street. He was the All-American male. Dad had always been perplexed with my interests, in specific and in general. His male ego would cringe at witnessing me at my favorite pastimes. As soon as my piano music filled the house, his bedroom door would immediately close.
My older brother James was a great guy, following right into Dad’s footsteps, leaving me to watch from a far distance. He knew it, my parents knew it, and the world knew it. And believe me, I knew it. We were only three years apart chronologically, but light years apart in every other way. He was already the Greek idol of my life, my measuring stick for personal worth for many years to come, though I didn’t hold it against him. He was just one of those people for whom everything works out well, the predestined chips always falling into all the right places. I, on the other hand, had apparently been born running the race to the masculinity goal backwards.
My dad could sure see the difference in the two of us. He never told me this in so many words, but the perplexed look he frequently wore let me know easily enough, and I knew he wondered where he’d gone wrong.
But that was O.K. Often enough, I wondered the same thing.
Even at the young age of eleven, James was a great athlete. The best. He could pass, and catch, and kick. The words coordination and talent radiated from him like a neon sign. I, on the other hand, thought it a miracle just to catch a ball one out of ten times. I think all of the athletic genes accidentally ended up with James, and there were none left over for me. It wasn’t that I was particularly scared of the ball, although I must admit I never enjoyed having a football wedged between my nostrils, but it just slipped right through my fingers every time. Every time. My breadbasket did most of the catching for me – it was a larger area to hit than my outstretched hands. Needless to say, my father knew then, when I was eight, that he’d have to struggle to get me to fit in. Little did he know, though, what a terrible struggle it would be. Especially for me.
James had always wondered what to do with me too. I think he felt sorry for me, and protective, and disgusted, all at the same time. The emotional triangle that constantly permeated my life. When he’d walk into the room and see me reading a book, he’d gently punch me in the arm and call for a game of catch.
“Come on, Harv. We need to practice on your throws. You’ve got to get them down before you start playing teams at school.”
He and I both knew that my arm acted like a wet noodle when it came to throwing a ball. Gumby would have been better at it than me.
“But James, you know I can’t throw a ball. I can’t even catch one. All it does is make me mad.” And James mad, for that matter.
He gave me the look.
“Harvey, all I know is, you stay in the house too much. All the other kids your age are always outside playing, while you’re in here, either playing the piano, or reading. Or making cookies,” he said, with his usual edge. “You need to be outside with them, playing something. Anything. Now come on. Go get your glove.”
I would lackadaisically retrieve my glove, as stiff as it always was and would remain. Anything to fit in, I thought.
At least I was happy that he wanted to spend time with me, even if it was on his terms. My idol up to that point. I loved James, and would never intentionally do anything to
make him angry. I really wanted to please him, suffering through countless hours of dropped catches and wild throws, just to see the acceptance on his face, the smile that appeared when I occasionally caught the ball (of course, quite by accident). I didn’t care about the ball, but I did care about James.
Looking back, I know that James was really just trying to help me adjust. Maybe my dad put him up to it; maybe he just did it out of concern. I don’t know. But I do realize one thing now - at that time, I didn’t know just how important fitting-in would one day be. How much it would mean to me and to my later life. Eight-year-olds aren’t yet equipped with the intuition of the crystal ball. But school yards are brimming with a cruelty that should only be reserved for the adult world, as if it didn’t already have enough.
In the following years, I would come to know it quite well. But my one saving grace was Kathleen.
* * * * *
“Come on, Harvey. Be serious.” The command Kathleen would frequently bark as we played in her driveway on the hot afternoon asphalt and in the cool evening breezes. Two peanuts in a shell. Kathleen Turrelli was my down-the-street neighbor, and my self-professed best friend, much to my father’s chagrin. We spent hours making up stories and acting them out, our personal expressions of our early views on life. We proudly referred to them as plays.
“Harvey, if you’re gonna be a knight, you better act like a knight. You have to act like you’re real strong and not scared of anything.”
I was running around the sword as it twirled in its place on the cement, more a balancing tool than anything else. “Well, what do knights do? I mean, how do they act? I know I’ve never met one. Have you?”
Kathleen’s eyes were in her habitual squint position, and her lips were pursed together. Her exasperated look, which she wore frequently when she was with me. But that of course is what I had been trying to do – frustrate Kathleen. It was nice to be able to affect her that way.
Her hand went to her hip in that see-it-all-know-it-all way I loved so much. “Everyone knows how knights are supposed to act,” she answered, with her head cocked to one side, seriously wondering if I’d had my head buried in the sand and had just dug my way out. “Brave and handsome,” was her official answer.
“But why can’t this one act different? Why do all the knights have to be the same? I wanna be a silly knight.” I knew what would come from her lips next, but it felt good to yank her chain just a little bit harder anyway.
“Harvey, don’t be a doofus. Knights all have to be the same. They all do. That’s just the way it is.” And that was that. Her vision of the world, at least when she was eight. How little did she know that those few words were a prophesy to our future, and the prophesy to the struggle my identity would have for the majority of my life. Have to be the same. Have to be the same. The refrain that would be sung over and over again in my world.
I guess the joke was on me.
“Now go over there and act like you’re gonna kill a dragon, then save the beautiful princess and marry her. I’m the princess,” she added matter-of-factly, as if it were
plainly obvious. I just stood there and stared at her, my feet cemented to the driveway, and she just looked at me as if the nut police would snatch me at any minute. Everything had to be perfect for her, in its proper place and proper order. “Harvey, please!”
And I would ultimately do what she asked, although slowly, as a pouting child grudgingly minds its mother.
But even through our tug-of-war charades, Kathleen and I were best friends. I somehow managed to get along with her better than any of the boys in my class. She was more fun. Plays and make-believe were much more appealing to me than studying the strategies of baseball and army men. And she loved to listen to me practice the piano – something no boy would ever want to do, or at least admit to.
My dad stayed in a constant state of frustration over our friendship, a mood from which he seemed either unable, or unwilling, to shake himself, although I could never figure out which. He was the General George Patton of my life. A man’s man. And a real man did not play with girls.
Oh, well. I already knew I wouldn’t pass the test any time soon anyway.
In spite of my father, Kathleen and I were pretty much inseparable. Together, day in and day out. Until, of course, fate would one day turn our individual hopes and dreams in opposite directions.
Chapter 3 Friends - 1957
“We don’t want Harvey. He’s a sissy. He trips over his own feet.” The words again uttered from one of my classmates, unwilling to pick me for the dodge ball team. Of course it didn’t matter what team – it was always the same.
How many times had I heard those words as we lined up to call teams for basketball, or baseball, or whatever the sport for the season was? Didn’t teachers know that this was a humiliating way to operate, at least for some of us? The game of popularity shouldn’t be confused with other sports, intermingled. A thread of either acceptance or rejection which ran through every choice of teammate and every pitch thrown. And in 1957, my life was such a web of confusion: lack of self esteem and insecurity, uncertainty and fear, all entangled in what seemed an impenetrable veil. My sensitive spirit was just lying in wait for the tarantula to strike.
“Jimmy Don, he’s not that bad. He just needs some practice. Come on Harvey. Come be on our team.” Tommy Jacobs again came to my rescue, my white knight in seventh-grade gym class, always saving me from the medieval barbarians I went to school with.
“All right, Tommy. But you’re gonna be sorry,” Jimmy Don, our class Bluto, blurted from a mouth trained to kill. But his barbed darts just seemed to roll off Tommy’s back, like beads of water sliding off a freshly waxed car. I wished with all my heart that I had been so weather-proofed. Tommy always welcomed me to his team and never seemed to be sorry I was there. Or maybe he just covered it up well. After all, I had seen him wince once or twice before when I’d tried to shoot a basket and missed even the backboard by about a mile.
Tommy was the brother of James’s best friend, Tony Jacobs, and he was even cooler than both of them. James and Tony were always together, both in school and out. The Siamese twins of Mayfield Junior High, and later Mayfield High. My mother had commented more than once that they would someday have to be surgically detached. They were, of course, the born athletes of what-ever team they were on. I’d always thought it must be great to be so close to someone else, so alike.
And sometimes Tommy tagged along when Tony came to our house. Tommy was just like his brother, and just like James. I knew in my heart that he was the brother James always wished he’d had. But I don’t think I was ever jealous of him, just awed by the fact that he was all the things I wanted to be.
Tommy was always in the middle of everything, while I was always on the outskirts looking in. He was a beacon in the sea of activity and acceptance, and the other kids liked him there. He had natural charm, the Cary Grant of our class, and was probably the most popular boy in the seventh grade. Whatever Tommy said was fine, with everyone. And truth be told, especially with me. He was the perfect person to have on my side for a change. I don’t know if Tommy really liked me or if his friendship was just an extension of his sympathy for me. I was a piano-playing, art-loving introvert, not knowing what to do to be like the other boys. But Tommy didn’t seem to care. He was just plain nice, the peacemaker. Willing to accept me while everyone else seemed to avoid me like I was the primary carrier of the bubonic plague. He was a rare find among mean twelve-year-olds. My misery was over-shadowed by a transient pride when he smiled at me, that one expression telling me that it would be O.K.
Once Tommy came over with Tony when their parents had gone to visit an aunt, an all-day trip. I was practicing the piano, when he snagged me by the shirt. “Come on, Harvey. I’ve got to show you something.” He walked past me toward the front door, and of course, I auto-matically rose and followed in his every footstep.
“Now, Harvey, you have to move your glove to where the ball is. It just won’t fall into the glove. Like this. Throw me the ball.”
And I did. Not an impressive throw, coming from an arm that usually imitated a slinky, but at least it made it into his glove. Amazingly.
“Now pretend the next one’s a pop fly.” I launched the ball into the stratosphere, or at least as far as my puny arm could hurl it.
I watched Tommy raise his glove and follow the ball with his eyes, running backwards. A cat in perfect motion, his eye on its prey, his body synchronized with the flight of the ball. As it descended, he moved his arm so that the glove was in the perfect position for the perfect catch. The flowing movement of a dancer. Oh, how I envied him his ability to do what I was now witnessing. And although I’d been recruited to practice catch many times before, I remember that particular day distinctly. As I watched Tommy’s graceful demonstration, I couldn’t help but think how handsome and strong he was, the muscles tensing and releasing under his skin. It was beautiful, really. I could feel an attachment to Tommy that didn’t seem to feel exactly like friendship. Something more. An attraction; a mesmerizing, captivating quality. I didn’t quite under-stand it at the time, but it felt comfortable to me. Admiration, I was sure, for everyone else seemed to be drawn to Tommy, too. He was a magnet of adoration and respect.
I didn’t really realize it then, because I didn’t even know it was possible, but I had a huge crush on Tommy Jacobs. But in all honesty, wouldn’t anyone?
“Now, did you see how I did that?” he yelled with a questioning look. I nodded with a half-earnest smile, my mind filled with his image and not the ball’s. “Now you try it. Pop fly!”
God how I hated pop flies!
And with that, he threw the ball high up into the sky, a guided missile in my direction. I squinted as I raised my face to the sun, looking desperately to find the ball, blinded as though I’d watched a solar eclipse at close range. There it was, going over my head. I raised my glove into the I-hope-to-God-I’ll-catch-it position and began running backwards, the graceful cat. Just like Tommy had done. Well, almost like Tommy had done. I tried like hell to catch that ball, and just when I thought it might go into my glove; my feet seemed to entwine themselves with each other, my legs two limp rubber bands with a will of their own. God, what were they doing? I collapsed backwards with a terrible thud. The ball then ended its meteoric descent on my inviting forehead (my body part that always had HIT ME HERE written on it). I was, in fact, in pretty good position. Lights out.
The next thing I knew, Tommy was bending over me, calling my name and trying to shake the fog away, pulling me back to consciousness. The face that stared into my eyes with care was so captivating, dark green eyes concerned about me. Me, Harvey Dunne - the class weenie. I felt such gratitude for Tommy’s concern, I could have hugged him around the neck. But I didn’t. I just lay there, moaning like an old dog, relishing the attention.
“Harvey!” Tommy called my name, trying to shake me back to Enderby Street. “Harvey! Come on, Harvey. Get up!” he commanded. “Let’s get you into the house. We need to put an ice pack on that shiner. You look like you’ve gone ten rounds with Floyd Patterson.” And with that, he gently squeezed me by an arm and helped me to my feet. Back in those days, no one would have thought to call an ambulance, just for an injury from a runaway baseball.
It’s funny that I noticed the tingles all over my body more than my throbbing head, the little pricks of excitement that seemed to explode just under my skin. We walked into my house and I prayed that my mother wouldn’t see me and get hysterical. I was, after all, her little baby.
I collapsed on my bed; Tommy fetched the ice. Why did I feel this way about him?
Tommy laid the ice pack on my forehead and sat in the chair beside my bed, like a parent worried about his sick three-year-old. “Well, I’ll hand it to you, you really tried.” It seemed the overstatement of the year, but well intended.
I appreciated him trying to make me feel better about my clumsiness. Baby Huey in sneakers. He didn’t seem to mind too much, and I really didn’t either, if everyone else in the free universe would just stop trying to force me to be an athlete. We sat there quietly, thinking our own private thoughts, until Tommy’s voice cut into the silence.
“What’s that?” Tommy pointed to the wall over my bed, his voice wrapped in curiosity and interest.
“It’s a painting,” I replied hesitantly.
“I can see that. I mean, how did you come to get it? It looks like one of those paintings I saw in the museum when our class went last year. I’ve never known anyone with a painting like that in their room.”
And I had never met another twelve-year-old with a painting like this either. “It’s a Renoir. You know, the painter.” Madame Charpentier and Her Children, I thought, but didn’t dare tell him and again run the risk of being nerd-king of the seventh grade. “It’s one of his most famous paintings.”
Tommy studied it a few more seconds, and then looked in my direction, studying me like he had the painting, like I was an abstract he couldn’t quite figure out. But I guess I was pretty much used to that. But his look did not convey repulsion, as did those steely glares of my classmates when the subject of art came up, mental needles that would stick me like I was a voodoo doll. I loved art, like I loved the piano. And I made the huge mistake of showing it. When our class studied famous painters, I thought I’d tell them what I knew. I guess art was another of my weird quirks, at least according to them. I still can’t figure out why it should have been. It’s beautiful, just like music. I suppose the other kids just didn’t think it was too normal to understand and appreciate it at twelve. I should have been interested in comic books and football and roughness. The picture of normal boyhood.
“I like it,” Tommy finally said, “It’s really cool.” He smiled a knowing smile, as if I’d discovered a trunk filled with gold, opened by the magical key to life. And that was one of the many things that set Tommy apart from the other boys at school. From that day on, my already high regard for him had probably tripled. He hovered high above my head, somewhere with my hopes and aspirations. Along with my brother James, he was my hero.
When Tommy left my house that day, a cocoon of loneliness quickly wrapped around me, isolating me even further from normal boys my age. I was an alien from another planet, trying to blend in, but not having much success. Confusion held my mind in a vice. What exactly did I feel for him? It seemed to me that I loved Tommy, but I knew that couldn’t be. Boys loved girls, not other boys. Maybe that’s why I was so different from everyone else. I’d certainly never met anyone else like me, and surely other kids hadn’t either. Maybe this was why I was such a phenomenon to them, the circus freak of Melville Intermediate, always appearing in tent number one. I knew I was the only one in the world who felt this way about another person, and decided it must be a mistake, an oddity of nature. I also knew I couldn’t tell anyone about it. So I’d keep it a secret, my own little strange confession to myself. A burden which one day would hopefully dissolve into normality. I hugged my pillow that late afternoon as I lay on my bed, trying to grab hold of the boy I was supposed to be, trying to convince myself that I was O.K. My muffled sobs, lost in the goose down, were a lullaby that finally exhausted me into sleep.
I didn’t know it then, but later the same week, my life would take an unexpected turn.
* * * *
“Harvey, this is Warren Robertson. He and his family just moved into the Hamilton house today.” My mother’s hands were on the shoulders of this new kid on our block, welcoming him into the neighborhood, welcoming him into our lives. Warren smiled at me that day, a premature gesture that I was sure he would not remember he’d made. He hadn’t yet had a chance to find out that I was not the ideal friend. But, of course, I was sure he would. Oh well, I might as well enjoy the company as long as it would last. “Hey, Warren” I said in greeting, and awaited his invitation to throw the ball around. It never came.
“Why don’t you boys go out to the backyard, Harvey.” A subtle command from our sergeant-at-arms, my maternal expert on getting two boys to talk. And as we walked through the back door, into the sunlight, into a friendship that I thought would last about two seconds, I still wondered when he’d produce the baseball glove and ball. He must be hiding them somewhere, I thought. The dreaded symbols that would again remind me how I hated the game, and how I despised myself for hating it.
“Where’d you move from?”
Warren looked me square in the eye, no smile on his lips. He gave me only a bland stare, the empty look of a 90-year-old man who’d survived his own family only to be miserable. “My parents got divorced. We used to live in Waco, in a really big house.” He looked down at the ground as if wishing he were still there, and his life were still in one piece. “I think my dad really screwed things up for us. My mom said he just didn’t want to be married anymore. I don’t even have any friends here.” Warren’s brow furrowed, as if the weight of the world were sitting there; his mouth a thin line of anger and self-defense. I wasn’t sure if he was ready to burst out into tears or punches.
But neither happened. We just sat there, the two of us, on my back porch, squashing ants with our fingernails. At least we had some control over something. We talked about everything and nothing.
My heart went out to Warren. It was just he and his mom. No brothers or sisters. He seemed to be a lost soul, just like me. We were specters searching for our rightful place. I almost reveled in his loneliness, not out of meanness, but desperation in trying to find someone who needed me as much as I needed him. I hit the jackpot in Warren.
Warren and I soon became close friends, even much more than friends. I’d found my soul mate. He was quite slight of form and didn’t seem to care too much about football, or basketball, or any sport. He liked to read and daydream just like I did. And he loved to listen while I played the piano. He was content to just sit there and listen to the music.
Warren, Kathleen, and I soon became inseparable.
And then the following summer, it happened.
Chapter 4 The Beauty of Innocence 1958
It came to be as easily and swiftly as an action planned for many years, a predestined event. A moment in my history that would shape my life forever, for better or worse.
The day was hot and muggy, and seemed to wrap around us like a wet and sticky blanket. Kathleen had gone somewhere with her mom, so it was just Warren and I. We’d been playing cards in Warren’s room, and had decided that a romp in the sprinkler out back was the best way to keep ourselves from smothering.
We flew down the stairs two at a time, and burst through the back porch door, two inmates finally escaping their claustrophobic cell (and society’s prison, although we didn’t know it at the time). Our swimsuits even a burden to our sweaty skin. And then Warren got a gleam in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before, a spark from his cerebral light bulb - one-hundred and fifty watts of pure mischief.
“Harvey, let’s run through the sprinklers buck naked. Like they do in the movies, when they swim in the ocean in the dark. We can pretend we’re on a desert island or something.” The smile that crossed his face was so mischievous that I just had to laugh, and go along with his request. He looked like he’d just planned the perfect crime.
“But what if someone sees us?” I asked, in fear of my parents’ wrath if they ever found out, a hazard of showing the free spirit.
“No one’ll see. Remember, Mom’s at work. And look at the bushes. You can’t even see into my backyard from the front.”
Warren did have a point. I looked around just to make sure the coast was clear, then looked at Warren and grinned in impish agreement. Wild giggles spilled from our throats as we pulled our trunks down around our ankles and stepped into the land of unrestraint, a strange world neither of us had visited before.
As Warren ran to turn on the sprinkler, I looked at him closely, making mental comparisons of his parts to mine. For some reason, I’d always been certain that my penis was certainly at least two sizes smaller than those of the other boys my age, although I’d never actually seen any of the boys at school naked before. Only James, and he was older anyway. This terrible belief had lived inside my brain for a long time, another hidden truth to prove I was so different from the rest. But when I saw Warren, it was as if the great tide of relief spontaneously filled my whole body to the tips of my toes, then carried one of my biggest fears away with it when it rolled away. He was about the same size I was, if not maybe a little smaller. At least one of the square pegs of my life had, at that moment, disappeared. The word happy could not begin to describe how I felt. I was elated, overjoyed, almost carefree. The burden of my singularity was at that minute of that day not so sharp and piercing. Maybe I wasn’t so weird after all. I ran out into the water a little happier to be myself.
We kicked the soccer ball around under that sprinkler for awhile, more to pass the time than to enjoy the game of soccer. We didn’t seem to notice that the clouds overhead had turned to dirty cotton balls, ominously threatening to drench us any second. And then the sprinkles came, big splattering drops that promised the downpour which soon followed. For some reason, Warren and I thought this was the funniest thing that had ever happened to us. A rain shower while the sprinkler was on. The biggest example of world waste since paper plates.
And then another wicked grin crossed Warren’s face, like the Grinch storming Who-ville. “Mud wrestling!” he yelled as he lunged at me with all the strength his hundred- pound frame could carry, ready to bury me in the naked flower bed. He’d seen mud wrestling on the Zenith on Saturday nights before, and knew just how to do it. We both fell with a splat, and I was determined not to let him get the better of me. We rolled round and round, grunting as we each tried to be the victor, the mud sucking at our skin. As we tumbled, we were alternately covered in gooey brown and then rinsed by the rain. I’d never felt so free and unrestrained in my life, a canary who’d escaped his cage.
And then the rolling suddenly stopped, as if a silent timer had at that instant gone off in our brains. I’ve never been able to explain to myself exactly why, in all the years since. We just seemed to stop in mid-motion, one body reading the other.
Warren was on top of me, pinning me to the ground, breathing hard. I could feel his erection, his penis pressed against my leg. And then in no time, I had one too. As if by some predestined design, Warren put his hand on me and began to rub, ever so slowly, so gently. I could only lay there and breathe, short excited breaths. A blanket of excitement wrapped around me like a steaming towel; my skin was on fire. It felt so incredibly good, I thought I would explode.
And then I did. And so did he. And it was over, almost as quickly as it had come to be.
How simple it had been to give each other such pleasure, to show such pure affection. Afterwards, we rolled over and just lay on our backs in the mud, letting the rain wash the proof of our acts away, enjoying each other. We weren’t embarrassed or ashamed. Just happy. The utter joy I felt at that moment was more comforting, more serene that anything I’d felt in my life up to that point. And since, for that matter. It was the first time that I knew I wasn’t alone anymore. There was at least one other person in the world like me. Lying there, I could almost feel the weight of my burden jump from my body to melt in the rain, an unwanted shadow I hoped I was finally rid of. Surely this was the way things were supposed to be.
His touch left an indelible legacy on both my body and my spirit.
It had been peaceful lying in the rain that day. The gray thoughts hadn’t yet entered my brain. They seemed to have been washed away in those summer showers. But returning home that night was like putting on an old coat I couldn’t seem to replace. I was once again the different one, the weak one. And the word queer kept flitting through my mind, teasing my conscience. Was I one of those? The butt of one of James’s jokes or Dad’s insults? How many times had I heard that word hurled across the room at the television, if the image of a man who didn’t seem quite a man filled the screen? I wasn’t even positive I knew what it meant, but I knew it was bad.
A blanket of guilt seemed to settle over me that night, permeating my thoughts, choking my already low self-esteem. I hoped that I’d grow out of it, whatever it was. Maybe those kinds of things were supposed to happen in childhood, kids experimenting. I kept trying to tell myself that it was normal, just a phase, like my mother always labeled those whiny periods in my life.
But why had it felt so right?
Fear set in - heart-stopping, throat-choking panic. What if someone found out? What if my parents found out? Or James? How would I explain what had happened? Or would I even get the chance?
I hoped and prayed to God that I would never have to find out.
And so the beautiful experience I’d had with Warren was nicked by the swords of guilt and fear and self-loathing, those all-too-familiar self-defeating weapons. Why can’t something beautiful just stay that way forever? Or even just for a little while?
I was convinced I was a bad person, but I honestly wasn’t sure exactly why. It was just a feeling that I was soon to realize would stay with me night and day.
My secret shadow had found its way back, and it would continue to follow me relentlessly.
Chapter 5 Teenage Beginnings - 1959
Thirteen. The age of infinite confusion - about myself, and about the world. But one thing had been quite constant during my years on Enderby Street: my friend-ship with Kathleen and Warren. And it hadn’t taken long for Kathleen, Warren, and I to become an inseparable trio, the Three Musketeers facing the challenges of the world together. Eighth grade had been yet another difficult year for me, another hurdle jumped in the wild race of my existence. The summer afterward was a welcome break that I had wished would last forever.
Warren and I had never again mentioned our romp in his backyard the previous summer. I guess we both thought that if we just pretended it hadn’t happened, the scene would be erased from our history, the slates of our young lives wiped clean. We seemed to know at that tender age what many older people had known for eons, and had built their lives around – that denial is a won-derful thing.
1220 Enderby Street - our preferred address that summer. Kathleen’s house had evolved into our refuge. We spent hours talking, walking, and doing anything else that would occupy our time without adult interference. Kathleen had never known her dad. He’d been a long-haul truck driver who’d apparently decided one day that the best thing to haul was his ass out of town. She knew he’d deserted his wife of six years and his beautiful three-year-old daughter, and that was all the information she had about him, and all she cared to know. The truth hurt far more than just pretending he had never been there at all. The theory of immaculate conception suited Kathleen just fine.
Kathleen’s mom, on the other hand, was one of those rare species who was cool. She gave us our space, and respected Kathleen’s privacy. Wow. I had never known that a parent could act that way. It sure beat the crap out of being at my house.
Kathleen’s room, first door on the left at the top of the stairs, was usually our target destination right after breakfast.
Upon our visits, Kathleen usually lay across her bed on her stomach, her head held in her hands, legs bent backwards in the air with ankles crossed. Her usual pose for relaxed conversation. But today was different. As Warren and I crossed the threshold to her room, she was ready to pounce, like a vulture who had zeroed-in on its prey. She pulled us in by the arms and closed her door. I heard the click of its lock and knew that misbehavior lay tucked right under her sleeve.
“Guess what?” she asked with a tilt of her head and a serious gleam in her eyes. “I went into Bob’s room to hang his shirts in his closet – little pissant that he is - can’t even do his own laundry – and guess what I found?” She was trying her hardest to keep us in suspense, but if she didn’t let it out soon, she’d explode.
Kathleen held up a Playboy magazine with a half-naked woman plastered on the cover. Her older brother, Bobby, would have killed her had he known, and a shiver of fear ran down my spine. My wimp-warning went into full gear that day – I was always terrified of Bob. And with good reason – Bob would kill all three of us if he found out.
“Kathleen, Bob will murder us if he finds out you took it. I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head, very certain that our mischief wasn’t worth losing my life over.
“No, he won’t. If Mom ever found out he had these, she’d kill him first. It’s called blackmail, my friends, and I’m the best.” She grinned at the disclosure of her devious
plan, and moved toward the door that led to her makeshift patio on the roof. “Come on boys. We have some serious reading to do.”
The sun shown in my eyes as I leaned against the shingles of her sloping roof. This was our special place, our hide-away. It was as if the rest of the world couldn’t reach us there.
Kathleen sat between me and Warren, our bent knees pointing to the sun-lit sky, the Playboy outstretched on her lap. As the pages turned, glistening naked bodies beamed up at us, an open invitation to our pernicious minds.
“I know there must be some men in here someplace. I know you guys don’t care, but I sure do.” Kathleen slowly thumbed through the pages in search of her fantasy. “Kimberly told me that some men in porn movies have penises that are ten inches long. I’ve got to see one.” She continued her search as she flipped from one page of females to the next.
So far, watching the large, naked breasts flit across my line of vision, my attraction factor registered somewhere around National Geographic. No stirrings, no tingling. What was wrong with this picture? Nipples glaring at me from each page fell upon silent disinterest. My God, what would Kathleen think, or Warren? What did I think?
I stole a glance at Warren, who kept his gaze on the magazine, but didn’t register anything in particular on his face. Kathleen seemed like the only enthusiastic one of the bunch. I chalked our disinterest up to fear, and tried to leave it at that. But mortification finally won out, and I had to do something about it.
My acting ability suddenly kicked in. I transformed myself into the mad ogler, opening my eyes wide and drooling at each breast and curve, trying to pretend I’d sell my soul for just one touch. I hoped I was convincing enough.
Warren just looked at me, as if I were insane. And actually, I wondered the same thing.
Kathleen continued to flit through the pages, searching for the penis that apparently every girl dreams about, her dirty mind in full throttle. No telling what thirteen-year-old girls thought real men looked like. "There's gotta be a guy in here somewhere," she said, with an air of desperation.
And suddenly it occurred to me that I was also hoping for a male body hidden somewhere between the pages with the bare breasts and arms and legs. Crap. Why did I think that? And instead of feeling my penis shrivel up at the thought of its size compared to what Kathleen was looking for, I started to get an erection. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I was terrified that either Kathleen or Warren would notice. Then salvation - huge breasts winked at us from the centerfold. In those pages I could pretend that women’s bodies were more exciting, pretend for Kathleen and Warren. And pretend for myself. My hard-on would now be permissible. It was safer here. I wanted no more searching for pictures of naked men, those insidious images that again made me wonder how I was so turned around.
I looked at Warren, and his face was neutral. I wondered what was going though his mind.
And then Kathleen turned to the last page. There hadn't been one huge penis in the entire magazine. Well, actually no men at all, not to mention those who were well-endowed.
"Well, damn. I can't believe there's not one picture of a naked man in this whole stupid magazine. What a waste," Kathleen declared.
"Kathleen, there probably aren't any men in there because it's called Playboy, not Playgirl," I suggested, hoping that she wouldn't smack me.
"Shoulda known," was all she said in answer, her sails of expectation quite deflated.
How little did Kathleen know that her fantasies seemed to be mine as well. The conspiracy of my body to reveal my oddities had almost won.
We sat for another half-hour, going back through the magazine and reading all the dirty cartoons. Our way of believing we were young adults.
Later that night, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of the pictures that Kathleen and I had been searching for. Why did I have no interest in the breasts, as I knew I was supposed to? Why were women not in my fantasies and dreams? I tried to chalk it up to teenage hormones – who knew what was supposed to go on in the minds and bodies of thirteen-year-old boys?
I finally closed my eyes, thinking of nothing at all. Sleep usually came easier that way.
Chapter 6 Summer Days
The next afternoon, Kathleen, Warren and I decided to kill a few hours at the golf course which sprawled across a good part of our end of town. Mayfield didn’t have a lot of prime activities to offer, but it did have a killer golf course. The clubhouse served great cheeseburgers, greasy fries, and Dr. Pepper, our favorite lunch. We sat and ate and watched the golfers waltz in and out, meeting partners and arranging tee times.
“Have y’all ever wondered why golfers wear so much plaid?” Kathleen asked, in her contemplative, slightly bemused way. We looked around and noticed that the clubhouse looked like a plaid clothing factory outlet. We were the only ones not wearing it, and giggled to ourselves, inwardly making promises that we’d never, ever dress that way.
We stuffed down the last bites of cheeseburger, and grabbed our Dr. Peppers, Kathleen buying a big, fat sour pickle on the way out. We exited out the back, and made our way to the edge of the course, our own personal walking path. Or so we thought. We just had to keep our heads up in case disobedient golf balls made their way in the wrong direction. Sometimes it seemed they had a will of their own, flying by with a whoosh of air, close enough to make us fear potential brain damage.
“Harvey, I heard Tina Hanson is going with Willie Tarrell. Can you believe it? He gave her his I.D. bracelet and everything. I can’t believe it. Tina’s a slut.” Kathleen’s philosophy on life. If a girl she wasn’t friends with went with more than one boy in a three-month period, her reputation was damaged for life.
“Well, maybe that’s why he’s going with her,” I answered philosophically. Then, being serious, “She always seemed nice enough to me,” I said matter-of-factly. “I mean, what I know of her.” My attempt at neutrality. I didn’t even really know the girl. Kathleen shot me an I-can’t-believe-you’re-a-traitor glance, then swung her hair to the other side as her silent rebuff of my opinion.
“I’ve never heard anything bad about her,” said Warren, backing me up as much he could, without escalating Kathleen’s annoyance to an even greater level.
“Well, all I know is she’s gone steady with Freddy Gordon and Timothy Scurley. Now Willie. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already necking with him.”
The smell of sour grapes filled the immediate vicinity. I knew, in truth, that Kathleen just wished it were her. All three boys were athletes, extremely popular, and had been the focus of Kathleen’s sights for the last year. Of course, she hung around with me and Warren, so needless to say, they didn’t even give her a glance.
“Yeah, I guess that is kind of loose.” My inadequate consolation. What else could I say to my best friend? Kathleen wasn’t exactly the picture of a swim-suit model. I didn’t even think her skinny frame would hold a bikini up, much less look appealing in it. Her mousey hair was usually mussed by the wind, or activity, or lack of good brushing, and even brushed, it resembled dry straw. Although she’d inherited that gorgeous olive skin, the features it covered were less than perfect: a long thin nose that was a tad crooked at the end, with a crooked thin-lipped smile to match. And as Kathleen’s mother was fond of saying, her “flowers weren’t in bloom yet.” Her euphemism for the flat chest that tormented Kathleen constantly. Once I was even asked to critique how the padding in her child-like bra made her look. Like a bra stuffed with Kleenex, I’d said. Well, it was the truth.
And that was the last time I was asked to comment on her breasts. Thank God.
“Well, I’m glad I have a good reputation. I’d hate to start high school with the boys thinking I was loose. I actually feel kind of sorry for Tina, to tell you the truth.” Kathleen’s own consolation for her lack of male attention.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’d rather have the good reputation,” I acknowledged. “And in the opposite-sex department, you’re light years ahead of me,” I admitted with a touch of self pity. I was pretty pathetic.
Warren again just didn’t comment at all, his usual style.
“Harvey, you just have to loosen up and talk to people more. I mean, you never even come within twenty feet of a girl. You’ve at least got to try.”
“I talk to you,” I said, a fact she couldn’t argue with. “You and Warren are my best friends.” And you’re safe, I thought. I could be myself with Kathleen, without running the risk of being called a sissy, or weird, or any other words in the conglomeration of the usual synonyms for Harvey Dunne.
“Harvey, that’s different, and you know it. We’re just friends. I mean talking to other girls who might become your girlfriend. And that’s definitely not me.” And then she turned her head to look at me. “Don’t you want to have a girlfriend?”
The question was a catalyst for the familiar chain reaction in my stomach, the one that made me scared that I wasn’t what I was supposed to be, that something might be wrong with me. I didn’t know what I thought about having a girlfriend. I hadn’t been that interested or that attracted, and usually managed to push the subject right out of my mind.
Who said a thirteen-year-old boy had to have a girlfriend?
“I don’t know,” was all I managed to say, was all I could offer at the time. It was the truth.
“Who’s James dating these days?” Kathleen tried to inquire matter-of-factly, as an old woman asks about one of her friend’s grandkids. But I could hear the interest in her voice, lurking just beneath the surface, ready to pounce on any promising word.
“He’s in-between,” I replied, and waited for the hope to radiate from her face, which it promptly did. Kathleen had had a crush on James since we were little, and he never gave her the time of day. To him, she was just the enemy of my masculinity. Although truthfully, she was more masculine than I had ever been. But nonetheless, Kathleen had never given up.
“Really? I haven’t seen him around much. Where’s he been hiding?” she asked, as if she were ready to go and find him.
“He’s been in and out. I mean, with baseball season and all. You know, he’s just not home much.” And her hopes again were put on hold. If she didn’t see him, she couldn’t talk to him, and if she couldn’t talk to him, he’d never notice her. But it had waited for the last four years, so it could wait for a while longer yet. It would have to.
“Let’s go this way,” Kathleen said as she squeezed between the hole in the fence that separated the green from the adjacent woods. Warren and I dutifully followed, as always. And as we made our way through the dry grass, we each heard a crackling sound that didn’t come from us. We stopped in our tracks.
“What was that?” I whispered in Kathleen’s ear, imagining that we were in the middle of a mystery book.
“It came from over there,” she said, pointing to a small stand of trees. “Let’s go see. And you guys be quiet,” she softly commanded. She knew our clumsiness all too well.
We tried hard not to crackle any leaves as we walked, drawing attention to our presence, and made our way down the side path. And in the distance, we saw a quilt spread on the ground behind two rather large bushes. But the bushes weren’t large enough to hide the drama evolving behind their thin curtain. A boy on top of a girl, moving up and down, breathing hard. Legs and arms all intertwined, an octopus of passion.