Twin Summer

Twin Summer


I didn’t notice exactly when they moved in, but they changed my life. Retarded it, really. I had been a pretty normal kid, collected baseball cards, rode my bike no hands down steep hills, went swimming and chased Popsicle Joe in the summer, and secretly played piano because my mom forced me. But I didn’t smoke or curse much. Entering the eighth grade, I was considered a ‘good kid,’ straight as spaghetti in a box.

Then the Conways appeared, thin air, surreal cabaret beings. It was late June in 1967, and still damp as Seattle summers are stubborn to let go of spring’s moisture. I thought I was minding my own business, dribbling my bald ABA ball while dreaming of netting treys like only the red-white-and-blue rock permitted. Forget the stodgy, everything-is-a-deuce NBA.

Hey, kid, called a voice like an ‘off screen’ script direction. Wanna play?

I stopped, gyroscoped the ball through my Chuck Taylor supported wickets, then glanced up, trying to pin the source. Nothing.

I’m not bad, he continued.

Getting a sound bead, I snapped my head upward, and spotted a kid who seemed about my age. His triangular melon was wedged inside a beige window shade, scarecrow to the home’s second floor. I also noticed he wasn’t wearing a shirt, which was odd seeing it was no more than 60 degrees.

Hey, I shouted instinctively, where are the Andersons? I knew every house and inhabitant in a six-block radius of my own, thanks to being born and raised and used to roaming up and down the same dreary suburban streets. I also cut plenty of lawns--75% went into my bank account, Pop’s rule--and had mowed this one a few times for old man Anderson.

Andersons? the kid squawked. Never heard of ‘em.

They owned this place as of last week, I shot back.

Well, they ain’t here now, Converse. Now ya wanna get busy and try to stop my running hook or what?

Shocked he was interested in hoops, I began sizing him up. A goon, I thought, an isosceles mug framed in long stringy blonde hair, like a Paul Revere Raider. I kept mine close cropped, not allowing the emerging culture to dictate. I was a jock, well, I wanted to think so anyway. Come on down, then, I challenged. Can’t score from there, goldilocks.

The kid barked at me, a spaniel anticipating a biscuit, and vanished behind the shade.

I admit, it made me want to exit, stage right, but it also made me want to kick his ass for being an idiot. Come on down, Fido, I snickered under my breath. Let’s see what you got for a jumper. Only then did I notice they had jerry-rigged a backboard to the side of their house. It was almost hidden in a narrow court stuffed inside their driveway. Damn! I cried. No net! Half the fun of playing is making the net sing.

I took a few warm-ups, getting used to the foreign court and carpet of moss growing along the right side of the driveway. I figured this kid couldn’t have practiced much because the Andersons hadn’t been gone long. My first shot was a fifteen foot airball, but I quickly dismissed it because the driveway’s slope. I adjusted the next shot, adding some arc, and the ball zipped through the cordless rim. It still felt good, however, and I began getting a sense for this kennel court. Hehe, I laughed, pleased with that nickname. I’m gonna call this the kennel, and I’ll be playing Fido, the Barking Boy from Borneo.

My chuckle was immediately plugged by a gulp when I saw the kid exit his house wearing nothing but tighty whiteys. Looms, to be precise.

The kid trundled down five cement steps. I saw his unit jiggle and tried to look away. I mean, I’m not, nor ever have been a homo, and he didn’t have a boner or anything, but still it was hard not to glance, mostly from shock. Why I didn’t run, I’ll never know. I guess I was kind of hypnotized or something.

Whatya play to? asked the kid, swiping my ball and going in for the strangest layin anyone ever released on any of the four planets closest to the Sun. Ten, perhaps?

The unfolding spectacle muted me. Missing the layin, he leapt for the ball like a crippled Slinky, and his crusty brown racing stripe surfaced, a scarred humpback off Newfoundland.
Backing up, he began another assault at the hoop, dribbling like the ball was aflame, slapping it away with an absurd gusto. Ten feet from the rim, he clutched the ball to his chest, advancing like two year olds do with a cat the first time they scissor it in their awkward arms. When he got directly under the backboard, he bunny-hopped from right to left, probing his angle, considering his release for at least five seconds.

For crying out loud, I thought, hadn’t he heard of three in the friggin’ key?

That’s when I felt my forehead heat up, and became aware of what I was doing: watching some freak show in his undies try to gauge the easiest shot in basketball. I wanted to run home, but the fruitcake had my rock. I know it wasn’t much of a ball, but I’d had it since third grade when I won it in a school raffle. And we had a history (such as the times I’d wash it in the sink with steaming water and Comet, then parade around the house, palming it like Connie Hawkins). Still, I found my reliable inner voice warning: get the hell outta here, this guy’s mental.

Yet, I stayed and watched him finally flick the ball at the hoop, worse than a girl with no brothers. It struck the underside of the rim and ricocheted back, tattooing him between the eyes.
I released a delighted gasp, immediately smothering it in fear of being seen.

Okay, I said, grabbing my ball as it caromed back toward the sidewalk. I think maybe we shouldn’t play. I better be going, anyway.

GO?! NO!! We got a game, buddy boy! He stopped rubbing his eyes and raced out to block my path, whereupon he snapped the blue ring to his Looms, burning it in my mind to this day. C’mon, he pleaded, I’m Jerry West. You can be Oscar! He bent over, abruptly, touched the ground, jangling his simian arms, and crouched in a defensive posture I guess he felt basketball players assumed.

What the hell is that? I asked. Ya look like a dang sumo wrestler.

He barked again, this growl roiling from a loony bin zip code. Check it in, Converse.

I swallowed. I-I-uh-uh don’t think so.

CHECK IT IN!

I looked around. Mrs. Granberry was pushing her stroller up the opposite sidewalk, her newborn son dozing inside. Look, I said, I’m not gonna play some kook in underwear.

The kid pecked his beak at the ball. Bawk! I knew you were chicken!

Now I was trapped, exactly as I feared. Mrs. Granberry--I’d mowed her lawn for a buck-fifty every week for two years--was parallel to us across the street. One head turn and I’d be off her dole for being some pervert. I didn’t have time to think. All I could do was hope she wouldn’t catch glimpse of my face. So I turned my backside to her, trying to shield this undie-wearing sicko from her angle.

Quit Joe Stalin! he croaked. Let’s play!

I waited a minute, wishing Mrs. Granberry’d get tunnel vision on some recipe, Vietnam news item, or whatever occupied house wives’ minds back then. Inhaling deeply, I handed the kid the ball, who immediately checked it back in.
I’m skunking ya, Big O.

You’re in Disneyland, diaper boy, I chided. I doubt you’ll even get the ball back. Winner’s outs. Let the games begin! Disoriented, my only goal was to embarrass him. Though, I doubted it was possible to do to this piece of work.

I had a good first step back then. All my youth coaches praised me for it. I wasn’t super fast, but clever and quick with my jab foot. I learned it at Lenny Wilkens’ summer camp two years earlier and honed it ever since. I knew this clown couldn’t stop me if he got hit by gamma rays and multiplied into three separate entities.
So I thrust my right sneaker, my jab step, taunting him, flicking it out a couple times, a worm on a hook. He didn’t react. That’s when I knew he was a fish. I had drilled untold hours incorporating jab fakes with a rocker step; meaning I’d come back and fake a shot then blow to the hoop with all I had. There was no way this pigeon would be ready. That was auto.
So I drew back, mirrored my shot, and exploded like a cherry bomb, my first step never truer. I felt my right foot plant with turbine power, my left following it up even swifter. Cake, I thought.

Thwip!

Somehow the kid, with boggling cobra hands, hijacked the ball from my grasp, took it back behind the free throw line, drove spastic to the hoop, bunny-hopping once again, and flailed the ball up as if he had two waffle irons for hands.
It did a Ripley and banked in.

I screamed travel! after slipping prone on the moss subsequent to his steal.

But he just snapped his waistband and snorted, One-zilch! Check in!

I pushed myself off the driveway, blaming his lucky steal on a slip. That’ll be your last point, Looms, I said, through gritted teeth. Then I stiffly tossed the ball back into his gut, making him wince.

Call me, Mr. West! Then he grabbed the ball before I could even raise my hand and launched one twenty miles high off his A-framed roof.

I turned to gobble up his comical shot while the ball bounced off his shingles before settling into the gutter. Then it began faithfully back toward its owner posed near the rockery in a fundamentally perfect rebounding stance--elbows out, chin up, butt ready to box.

Now my confidence was back, knowing the kid was a farce, this shot cementing it. The ball abruptly hit the lip of the roof and kicked up, a rambunctious marble on a roulette wheel. The ball hovered for an insane moment before I realized my fate.

Two-zilch! cried my foe, as the ball passed through the bare rim.

That’s when I knew I was in trouble (bad luck had always shadowed me, and does to this day). Sure, I tried to deceive myself, saying this was just another preposterous chain of events and I would crush him like an Interstate bug on a semi’s windshield, but deep down my thoughts sabotaged. What if he keeps this crazy junk up? What if my shot is off? What if some cute girls from class walk by? Should I quit now, quit while I’m behind?

C’mon, check it, Converse!

The kid had the cocky swagger all the great ones get when encountering the zone--an elusive bubble that buoys peak performances into headlines.

I am ashamed to say he proceeded to hoodwink me with a Globey standby. The deviant rolled the ball between my legs and by the time I looked through the Golden Gate he had scored another doofus layin.

Check in! he squealed. Three-zilch!

I juggled my ball from palm to palm, debating if I should concede, my eyes fighting to stay north of his disgusting, pee stained kangaroo pouch. And while I glanced away, he sneaked past me again, a sandcrab with eight left claws scuttling to the hoop and laying it in.

I thought you said I wouldn’t score?! Presto! he donkey brayed, then nailed a two-hand setter, unseen since the forties.

That was all I could take. I snatched the ball, and began to run home, cutting between the tube of his house and his neighbor’s. My breath came in anxious chunks while my heart pumped foul dollops through every pore.

No fear could ever top this, I thought, sprinting toward the neighbor’s backyard gate. I grabbed the handle, but it wouldn’t budge, offering a defiant clatter. Pressing my hands into the wooden posts, I saw a Master Lock through the slats, the thick metal ring looped through the latch.

Damn!

I considered running back the way I came, but it was a dead end to racing stripes. With bleak alternatives, I tried the Conways’ gate. It was unlocked. And with one yank I burst into their backyard, racing toward my home, my ABA ball safely tucked under my right arm.

CLUNK! Something echoed solid across the yard.

I tossed my ball over their fence and was about to scale it, but that sound froze me even though I imaged the Lot and Pillar of Salt story from Sunday school. Don’t do it, I advised myself.

Hey, kid? came something like honey. Wanna play?
I tried to resist, but something foreign spun me around.

And there she stood, the sister of the kid I just ran away from. She was my age, playing croquet in her baby blue panties and bra. I stared at her the way savages stare at shiny totems.

S-sure, I finally stammered, walking toward her, a zombie.

We played three games. She won every one because she was a knockout.

During the second game, her brother crawled out on the roof. He watched us for a while in his underwear before raising his hands skyward to shout, Lisa’s doing it again! She’s stolen my new friend!

Lisa gently took my hand, looked me in the eyes, and said, Don’t listen to my twin. I never steal anything. It’s just that the boys seem to always end up with me.

Then she bent over--my eyes bulging at her shadowy blade of cleavage like foam escaping a torn sofa cushion--and smacked her orange ball ala Yaz in Fenway Park.

I foolishly returned all that summer to play croquet and obediently stir metal pitchers of grape Tang, Lisa’s jones. But it was all so she could torture me with hints of devotion, brush teasingly against my shoulder, and whisper propaganda of intimacy, deliberately toying with me as I would later than sooner discover.

Each day I walked home, devastated she wouldn’t permit me to even kiss her on the cheek. Once she made me eat a slug. Another time, she tied me to their pine tree with jump ropes and fell asleep in the hammock for three hours listening to Donovan on some crude headphones.

June bridged August in an unprecedented loss of time. I’d long ago quit my baseball team to spend hours polishing her croquet equipment and watch her lazily paint her toenails every neon color imaginable.

Oh, yes, she never once wore anything other than her bra and panties, which melted my mind into hissing sludge. My parents remarked how I had changed and quizzed me why. But I only grew more sullen, my adolescent hormones scrambled as Lisa’s curves swelled in the heat before my eyes.

As for her crazy brother, he ruined it all. One day he challenged a naive younger boy to a game of Twister--of course he was donning the Looms. Though he never touched his adversary, he did bark as the boy’s alarmed mother ushered her stray son home.

The police arrived to find Lisa’s brother squatting in the front yard, frying potato bugs with a powerful magnifying glass. Things unfolded badly from there. High pitched pig squeals, elephant trumpets, chimp screeching, as well as his highly developed dog barks greeted the brow-raised officers. They vainly tried to convince Lisa’s brother to go inside and at least put on bathing trunks (his pubic hair now vined out of his Looms and was unsettling). Instead, he put the Sun to his back and focused a narrow beam onto the taller officer’s forearm.

Lisa and I watched through the living room window as the taller cop’s furry arm hair went up as if Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over the lantern.

That’s when the cops saw Lisa in her underwear and me standing next to her, but we were too turgid from sun and Tang to duck away quickly enough.

This nudist colony is going to be shut down, said the shorter policeman, once he corralled Looms inside and found Lisa and me hiding behind separate curtain folds.

Lisa’s parents, as usual, weren’t home. They both worked ten-hour shifts at Boeing (I was always told to leave before they returned each evening. Weekends, I wasn’t permitted over).

The police asked me what my story was and I started with the first day I met Looms and how he based his meager game on horseshoe luck and how I ran into the backyard and saw Lisa and was basically helpless to stay away and couldn’t they understand why and I was rambling like a man who dribbles his lips for weeks on end inside an asylum.

Okay, pal, you can go, finally said the taller officer, preoccupied with his missing patch of forearm hair, which I swear resembled a pineapple.

There was a part of me wanting to leave, and an equal portion that wanted to stay behind those curtains and never leave Lisa, to somehow unravel her motives regarding me. And I knew if I left I might never see her again.

It wasn’t a suggestion, kid, it was a command, sternly said the shorter officer.

I looked wistfully at Lisa one more time as she used the curtains to mummify herself. I purposely didn’t look at her brother because I knew it could only be interpreted badly, and I walked out that door, never turning around, my heart aching for I don’t know what.

I went home that day and holed up in my room listening to The Doors’ album: Strange Days. I kept replaying People are Strange until I thought Jim Morrison’s voice would be lathed off the vinyl grooves. But no matter what, all I could think of was Lisa’s face, which became frustratingly elusive, fragmenting like shuffled cards.

The next day, though every impulse I usually obeyed flashed red, I involuntarily drifted around the block to spy the Conway twins from afar. I promised myself I wouldn’t step foot on their property, but I knew I couldn’t hold to that, and I helplessly inched toward their house, knowing I had to see her no matter what. To this day, I have never felt that same undertow for another woman.

Twenty feet from their home I saw it: a large white and red FOR SALE sign staked in by Windemere Realty.

An invisible mallet struck me in the solar plexus. I felt dizzy, nauseous, and ran to their front door, pounding. But no one answered, the curtains curiously drawn. I hustled around to the backyard and opened the fence. The croquet equipment was gone, and I rushed to the sliding glass door and peered through the reflections.

Empty as my heart.

I sit back all these years later wondering what happened that summer in 1967, asking myself why I have never had a close relationship with a woman. Oh sure, I have had plenty of girlfriends, had amazing sex, especially when I was in my twenties, but I’ve never really been in love, or even cared about being fully committed.

It makes me wonder if Lisa somehow ruined me. I don’t really have an answer to that. Professionally, I have made a decent living selling those mobile latte carts--they’re big here in Seattle.

But my life is a joke I keep hidden from even my closest friends. I’m going be fifty come April and nothing inspires me anymore. Frequently, I log on the Internet White Pages and type in ‘Lisa Conway’ to various cities, praying she moved in and never married, or on the lark maybe she changed her name back if she divorced.

It’s pitiful. I’m ashamed to reveal such a wretched self-image, but it’s true and she possesses me to this day.

Why did she have to scorch me with her quixotic beauty, with the one thing a man can’t fight: a longing for something he’ll never own yet pursues like a ship on an angry sea sailing for the balm of a brilliant red sunset.


THE END

People are strange when you're a stranger.
Faces look ugly when you're alone.
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted.
Streets are uneven when you're down.