A Summer Life (11 page)

With nightfall came stars, and with the stars, the quiet of sitting on a front lawn. TVs showed through the windows, blue as heaven. From dark porches, cigarettes glowed. The littlest of the kids made sparks by scratching a screwdriver across the cement. Teenagers sat on car fenders, socking each other in the arm. I lay on my back, the coolness of the lawn pricking my neck and arms. Summer was like winter, only different in degrees.

______

T
HE CANAL
raced out of town before us, green sparkling water with leaves carrying troubled ants and the microscopic makings of boredom. The sun flashed off the surface, and wind brushed tiers of weeds along the bank. My best friend and I sat at the bank, desperate because no girls bothered to turn red when we were around. They chewed gum and pressed transistor radios to their ears. They turned the pages of their magazines, brushing back their hair with hands that were white doves.

We poured sand through our fingers and wondered out loud how the first-period coach could get so mean by 8:30. We were no good at long-distance running and had to hold our sides when we ran laps. The coach's silver whistle filled with saliva, anger, and milkish hate.

“Hell's bells,” he yelled, clipboard in hand. His stomach was an imperfect ball, and his cap said “Coach.” Even in the morning, faint moons of sweat hung under his arms. We ran because we didn't know any better, and played volleyball because it was spring and it was all right to show our legs. We jumped a few times, but mostly we argued about the rules, then showered, left school by the south gate, and drove to the canal. We didn't know rivers or lakes, and the sea was a postcard that came our way now and then. The pond water at Roeding Park Zoo was dead to life, except mosquitoes gorged on the blood of dogs and half-naked kids.

The canal water was swift under the afternoon sun, but cold as a frozen spoon. We sat in loose sand and talked about the coach, our step-fathers slouching in their sour chairs in front of the TV, and (if we had the money) the record albums we would buy by T-Rex and Hendrix. Their music was spooky, especially T-Rex with their faraway planet music, and their album covers held a wisdom of psychedelic meaning that would render us intelligent if we looked at them long enough.

We tossed rocks into the water and thought about how earlier in the week we had parked in front of our teacher's house. We both loved Mrs. Tuttle, the blue of her inner thighs, her laugh, her hair teased by wind and hair spray. We knew it was wrong to look up her address at a filthy gas station and drive by, late, with only the parking lights on. We knew it was wrong to return the following night and park in front of her house and watch the bluish light of TV fill her drapes. We imagined her husband sitting in a La-Z-Boy recliner, and imagined Mrs. Tuttle's knitting needles clicking in her lap. We had wild thoughts about the two of them squeezed together as they sat side by side like pals. When we couldn't stand it any longer, we started the car and drove to the canal to watch the pulsating stars on the water. The radio grinned an orange light, and we tried our best to make out the words to a loud song.

We walked along the canal, shivering, until we came to a cluster of mobile homes. At one, the TV blared. Wind banged the gate, and a sickish porchlight outlined the frame of a swing set. A black rope hung from a tree. We climbed over a wire fence and hung on that rope, swung, and laughed because it was something to do. When a dog began to bark, we made our way back to the car where we sat waiting for the radio to play T-Rex. Mostly the radio sold cars and couches, but now and then a planet-music song would play and make us think that we were not going to live very long.

We drove to town, and for the rest of the night we took corners sharply, snickering when the tires squealed and sticky coke bottles rolled and clinked on the floorboard. At yellow-lights-going-red, we braked as hard as we could without dying.

That was earlier in the week. Now it was Friday, late afternoon, and we were so lonely we were talking about parents. We didn't understand them. They liked us best when we had rakes in our hands and a slave's smile as we hauled a burlap sack of grass clippings over our shoulders. Or when orange soap suds climbed our elbows as we scrubbed a pan of hardened macaroni and cheese. We talked about the coach, grades, and Mr. Moss, the biology teacher, and how he made the prettiest girl in class kiss a petri dish. Three days later, a horrible fungus had climbed up the sides, ready to spread into the hallway.

We huddled in our jackets. Our companions were bickering jays in the bush and a bloated frog flopping in the weeds. We looked east, where the Sierras were still white with snow, and west, where the wind peeled up dry earth from foreclosed farms. We could go only so far in our car but, while we sat, the canal water got the hell out of town.

______

B
Y SEVENTH GRADE
I knew better than to spit while girls were around. I had started liking them and those little bumps behind their blouses. Their legs were still stork-thin, but they were looking better all the time.

I no longer acted dumb. I swallowed that lump of spit that formed in P.E., feigned a smile, and walked around looking troubled because everyone had begun to perceive me as a thinker. I looked moody, but inside I was wildly happy. I was getting good grades by simply sitting up in my chair and folding my hands on the desk. The nuns were right after all. Posture could get you anywhere. Now that I was going to public school, I was in the front row studying the Euphrates.

First impressions mattered a lot. My friend, Cesar, threw up eggs in civics, and because it smelled bad and lingered in the air like mustard gas, no one liked him for three years. I felt sorry for Cesar, and for nerdy classmates who didn't catch on that it was insane to drink at the water fountain near west hall. That was where stray dogs lapped water. Everyone knew that, even the teachers who drank from red thermos cups. Everyone except the dips and nerds.

When I was with a girl, say Rita Castro, who used to share her homework with me, I was always careful to close my mouth after I had said something. I thought it was impolite to let your mouth hang open. Who wanted to look at a tongue, or crooked teeth? I was also scared that a gnat might fly into my mouth and I would choke and throw up just as some good-looking girls came into the library. After that, I would have to hang out with Cesar, who spent his recess near the backstop with three fat boys.

I began to think that mother was right when she said good manners were important. I began to say “yes,” not “uh-huh,” and began to walk, not run when someone called. When my aunts kissed me on the cheek, I didn't turn away and make a sour face. When my uncles after a drinking binge dropped on the front lawn, I no longer rained flakes of grass on their heads. Instead, I peeled an orange and listened to them mumble about their lives.

One afternoon my friend Scott and I got it into our heads that girls liked having their pictures taken. With a borrowed camera, we went downtown. We didn't have film, but we thought we looked pretty smart kneeling, one eye squinted, before a rose bush and snapping the shutter a hundred times. Rose bushes were one thing, girls another. When we clicked the camera at them, they hid their faces in sweaters, giggled, and ran. We enjoyed seeing them run, skirts jumping above their knees.

One time we ran after them, laughing with our mouths open. Then they stopped, and we freaked out. We had to say something, and I was so scared, so shy, that I blurted out that my pants cost $7.95. Red climbed to my face, and I ran away, thinking that maybe that's how Cesar felt when eggs exploded from his mouth.

Neither Scott nor I were good at math. The girls knew this, and fanned themselves with their B+ quizzes. I was good at geography, though. Mr. Johnson pointed to a map of Africa and baffled everyone by saying that the Nile flowed northward. It looked impossible because, according to the map, the river flowed
up
, and every other river in the world flowed
down
.

“Water can't do that,” a girl remarked. Some boys shook their heads. I raised a hand and explained that Africa was mostly rocks and sand and what looked like a flat surface on the map was really mountains. Of course, when I said this, my posture was straight and my hands were folded coolly on the desk. The teacher, Mr. Johnson, wiped his hands clean of chalk dust and smiled.

I was happy after figuring out the Nile River, and during lunch, Scott and I walked around the schoolyard taking pictures. We clicked some pigeons eating toast. We clicked a bicycle seat puddled with rain. The clouds, pulled thin above the trees, seemed interesting as well.

When three girls started following us, we pretended not to notice them. We busied our faces with deep thoughts and clicked a backstop scrawled with orange graffiti. The girls watched us a while, then left. We didn't see them again, up close that is, until we were at a ninth-grade dance. The one with piled hair now had short hair like a boy's. She and I danced and drank punch thick with round ice cubes. Toward the end of the evening we escaped to the parking lot. A sweep of headlights lit up her eyes. I kissed her and left moisture on her neck. She kissed me back, and told me about her family and her runaway brother. Her father was red-faced from welding, and her mother jittery from flailing her hands on a stenograph machine.

I said “yes” a couple of times with throaty conviction and asked her if she remembered how in geography I figured out why the Nile flowed
up
, not
down
. I told her that I was still good at geography and that I was getting good at words. I left more moisture on her neck and then breathed, “You
exude
feelings that remind me of Istanbul.”

I perfumed the air with more beauty, then called it a night with a long, long kiss.

______

F
OR OUR FAMILY
, moviegoing was rare. But if our mom, tired from a week of candling eggs, woke up happy on a Saturday morning, there was a chance we might later scramble to our blue Chevy and beat nightfall to the Starlight Drive-in. My brother and sister knew this. I knew this. So on Saturday we tried to be good. We sat in the cool shadows of the TV with the volume low and watched cartoons, a prelude of what was to come.

One Saturday I decided to be extra good. When she came out of the bedroom tying her robe, she yawned a hat-sized yawn and blinked red eyes at the weak brew of coffee I had fixed for her. I made her toast with strawberry jam spread to all the corners and set the three boxes of cereal in front of her. If she didn't care to eat cereal, she could always look at the back of the boxes as she drank her coffee.

I went outside. The lawn was tall but too wet with dew to mow. I picked up a trowel and began to weed the flower bed. The weeds were really bermuda grass, long stringers that ran finger-deep in the ground. I got to work quickly and in no time crescents of earth began rising under my fingernails. I was sweaty hot. My knees hurt from kneeling, and my brain was dull from making the trowel go up and down, dribbling crumbs of earth. I dug for half an hour, then stopped to play with the neighbor's dog and pop ticks from his poor snout.

I then mowed the lawn, which was still beaded with dew and noisy with bees hovering over clover. This job was less dull because as I pushed the mower over the shaggy lawn, I could see it looked tidier. My brother and sister watched from the window. Their faces were fat with cereal, a third helping. I made a face at them when they asked how come I was working. Rick pointed to part of the lawn. “You missed some over there.” I ignored him and kept my attention on the windmill of grassy blades.

While I was emptying the catcher, a bee stung the bottom of my foot. I danced on one leg and was ready to cry when Mother showed her face at the window. I sat down on the grass and examined my foot: the stinger was pulsating. I pulled it out quickly, ran water over the sting and packed it with mud, Grandmother's remedy.

Hobbling, I returned to the flower bed where I pulled more stringers and again played with the dog. More ticks had migrated to his snout. I swept the front steps, took out the garbage, cleaned the lint filter to the dryer (easy), plucked hair from the industrial wash basin in the garage (also easy), hosed off the patio, smashed three snails sucking paint from the house (disgusting but fun), tied a bundle of newspapers, put away toys, and, finally, seeing that almost everything was done and the sun was not too high, started waxing the car.

My brother joined me with an old gym sock, and our sister watched us while sucking on a cherry Kool-Aid ice cube. The liquid wax drooled onto the sock, and we began to swirl the white slop on the chrome. My arms ached from buffing, which though less boring than weeding, was harder. But the beauty was evident. The shine, hurting our eyes and glinting like an armful of dimes, brought Mother out. She looked around the yard and said, “Pretty good.” She winced at the grille and returned inside the house.

We began to wax the paint. My brother applied the liquid and I followed him rubbing hard in wide circles as we moved around the car. I began to hurry because my arms were hurting and my stung foot looked like a water balloon. We were working around the trunk when Rick pounded on the bottle of wax. He squeezed the bottle and it sneezed a few more white drops.

We looked at each other. “There's some on the sock,” I said. “Let's keep going.”

We polished and buffed, sweat weeping on our brows. We got scared when we noticed that the gym sock was now blue. The paint was coming off. Our sister fit ice cubes into our mouths and we worked harder, more intently, more dedicated to the car and our mother. We ran the sock over the chrome, trying to pick up extra wax. But there wasn't enough to cover the entire car. Only half got waxed, but we thought it was better than nothing and went inside for lunch. After lunch, we returned outside with tasty sandwiches.