The End of the Dream (3 page)

He was charismatic.” Kevin was surprised though when he talked with Scott’s dad after a youth meeting. Kevin spoke of his ability to astral project, and the minister was astounded. “I never knew that you believed (in out-of body experiences) or had any kind of spiritual awareness, “ he said to Kevin. “I thought you were a preacher, “ the skinny kid shot back. “Don’t you know what I mean?

“

“No, noi’ve never done what you’re talking about.” Kevin walked away, confused. He still believed that everyone felt as he did and that mind travel was a common human experience especially for ministers. He himself had often “followed” people around with his mind, and he already had a nagging sense of what was the right path and what was the wrong one not that he didn’t sometimes step over the line back then. Scotty Scurlock was a good-looking kid with regular features and a mass of curly almost-black hair. He was the best-looking member of his family, in fact. Sometimes the crap shoot of genetic components falls just right, and a baby so blessed receives the perfect combination of genes that bring with them both physical beauty and high intelligence. Scott was one of those babies. Where his father was a short, stocky man with craggy features, Scott was tall and lithe, and he had the face of a Greek statue, with liquid brown eyes, a classic nose, and full lips. The only outward characteristic Scott shared with his father was his hands, they were as short and stubby-fingered as the Reverend Scurlock’s. Scott was as wild as most “PKS” (Preachers’ Kids) are, striving as the other rebellious ministers’ children did to prove that he was neither a goody-goody or a sissy. To be perfectly honest, Scotty Scurlock was wilder and more rebellious than most. If Kevin or Randy thought of something dangerous to do, Scotty could be counted on to add an even more outrageous twist.

But beneath the surface of the teenage rebel, there was a longing in Scott Scurlock, a sense that he could never hope to have what others had. Sometimes it seemed that his thirst for danger was born out of that longing. One of Scott’s earliest activities that seemed to be only boyish hijinks was, in truth, against the lawif only a misdemeanor.
 
Scott and Kevin Meyers regularly lay in wait to rob early morning delivery trucks. They didn’t consider it stealing, they thought of it as just one of their games. Hidden from view, the two boys would lie on their bellies on a hill above a road. “When the pie truck came by, “ Kevin remembered, “we’d wait until the driver left the truck to make a delivery, and then we’d race down the hill and steal a cherry pie. We’d start on that, but we’d watch for the milkman. When we saw him park down below us, we’d do the same thinggrab a couple of quarts of milk to go with our pie. That was breakfast.” Scotty Scurlock dressed like a ragamuffin, he always would. He wore cheap low-top Converse sneakers, he always would. A few years later, when he and Kevin were old enough to date, Kevin would sometimes comment that Scott’s clothes were a little .. . bizarre to wear for social occasions. “God loves me for my body, “ Scotty would laugh. “Not for my clothes.” Scott’s parents, William and Mary Jane, had lived in Reston almost from its inception. While Bill served as the youth pastor of the Baptist church on Lake Anne’s Washington Plaza, Mary Jane taught in the elementary school.

Kevin always described Scott’s dad as “a Hobbit” because of his blunt, misaligned features. Mary Jane was a plain woman who wore simple clothes, often with knee-high boots. She wore little makeup, and her face was crisscrossed early on with wrinkles because she spent too many hours in the sun. It didn’t matter that they lacked classic physical beauty, the elder Scurlocks had made a huge circle of friends and were quickly caught up in the exciting popular culture of the sixties in Reston. They were the leaders that everyone looked up to. Bill’s approach to his ministry was that religion didn’t have to be stodgy and bound by musty tradition. His church was alive with new ideas, and he was much sought after as a counselor. Indeed, Reston’s founder himself, Robert Simon, considered the Reverend Scurlock a trusted friend.

“Bill Scurlock was very important in the early days for me, “ Simon , it. recalled. “I used to go to him for advice. I can’t remember what I’d talk with him abouti didn’t have a psychiatrist, so he was the next best thing.” Bill and Mary Jane went to Esalen classes and later embraced those things that signaled New Age religion. They chose mantras and were intrigued by auras. And, since they both counseled others, many people in Reston admired their lifestyle and emulated Bill even studied Rolfing, the vigorous massage that was said to have the ability to free the mind of pent up memories and emotions through physical pummeling. His Rolfing sessions in the church basement were in great demand. In Reston, many people in their thirties and forties were questioning old attitudes. The very fact that they had chosen to move to Reston stamped them as people with open minds and vision. The Scurlocks’ group of friends were amenable to all manner of communication, intense confrontations, “letting it all hang out, “ marriage seminars where couples blurted out old resentments and new confessions. While their children were listening to the Beatles, parents searching for something to give their lives meaning were turning to faddish philosophies. Many couples in the Scurlocks’ circle were divorced, unable to withstand the truth that emerged at confrontational seminars. Some couples even switched partners. It wasn’t just happening in Reston, it was a sign of the times. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice was a smash hit at the movies. But Bill and Mary Jane’s marriage remained intact.

They spent some time at nudist colonies, grew deeply tan, and ate health foods. And they believed in the laissez-faire approach to raising children. Discipline was not a part of their philosophy.

Their children were free to choose and to make their own mistakes. The fact that Scotty Scurlock could discuss anything with his father without fearing either punishment or disapproval amazed Kevin Meyers.

When Kevin had done something against his father’s rules, there were no friendly discussions.

He had been whipped. “When I lied, I got whipped more. But when Scott asked his father what he should do about something or confessed something he was thinking about doing, his dad just said, Do what you think is best, son. Scott didn’t have any rules at all. None. As long as I knew him, he made his own rules. His father taught him to be totally free.” But Bill Scurlock had no rules either. He believed in free will and in the individual’s ability to find his own way through life. Both Kevin and Scott came from families with four children, but while Kevin had three brothers, Scott was the only son. One of his two older “sisters” was really a cousin that Bill and Mary Jane had adopted, and Scott was the third child. He had a younger sister, too.

But Scott, of course, would be the one to carry on the family name.

He was his father’s immortality, and the Reverend Scurlock clearly doted on Scott and secretly smiled at his antics. Even when Scott, at age fifteen, “borrowed” a van and took several friends on a joy ride to the ocean, nobody in his family was very upset. That was just Scotty.

Scott had certainly inherited his father’s charisma.

He was smart and clever, and he was movie-star handsome, better looking with every year he grew older. Physically, he was still the marvelous changeling child dropped into a plain family. More than that, he had a glow about him, a wild, rakish charm that well-nigh hypnotized anyone who came close. He was kind and considerate and infinitely amusing and attractive. Every one wanted to be his friend. “I certainly liked Scott well enough then, “ Kevin Meyers said. “But I think I liked the feeling of his house more, it was almost like being a part of a real family. I envied him.” Joanna Meyers wasn’t really in the Scurlocks’ social circle, although she knew them. They were parents of a similar age, raising children in the same era, but the Scurlocks were stars while Joanna and John lived a quieter life. Joanna was a serene woman who seldom found reason to disparage anyone else. She simply viewed the Scurlocks as alien creatures whose lifestyle was completely dissimilar to her own. She had to laugh once, however, at Mary Jane Scurlock’s attempt at watercolors. Mary Jane’s admirers thought her paintings were exciting, while Joanna, a watercolorist herself, quickly realized that Mary Jane’s efforts were amateurish at best. Perhaps it was only that anything the Scurlock family did seemed bigger than life.

They were the perfect family to live in Restonspecial, brilliant, talented, and much beloved by their friends. The town was new and open to limitless opportunities and avant garde ideas, and so were Bill and Mary Jane. Although Scotty Scurlock played basketball at Herndon High School, it was his friend Kevin Meyers who became the real athletic star. He had been “discovered” in seventh grade at Herndon Junior High.
 
Ever the hyperactive kid, Kevin was clambering in the girders high above the gymnasium when Ed Zuraw, the track coach at Herndon High School, happened to look up.

Zuraw didn’t shout at him to come down, instead he marveled at the kid’s agility and thought he saw the makings of a pole vaulter.

Athletics and Ed Zuraw saved Kevin Meyers from a life without purpose or ambition. Ed kept an eye on the kid over the next few years, and recruited him for the Herndon High track squad. Zuraw completely turned Kevin’s life around, giving him a belief in himself he had never had before. Kevin became a champion vaulter.

When he was a freshman, lean and tautly muscled, he placed fourth in the Virginia State meet by jumping fourteen feet, six inches. After that, he won every meet for the rest of his high school career. He became second in the nation as a senior when he sailed over a fifteen-foot-three-inch bar. He was offered track scholarships at a number of colleges. Ed Zuraw instilled a strong sense of discipline and positive thinking into his athletes and none of them believed in these philosophies more than Kevin Meyers.

Kevin would compete in some very difficult circumstances. Even though he cut his leg severely once during a meet, he insisted on vaulting again and he won. Quite naturally, Kevin’s best friends in high school were other pole vaulters. One was Bobby Gray. Another was Dan Becket. The trio formed their own little “fraternity” during high school. Still, over the years, the age difference between Kevin and Randy shrunk.
 
Kevin’s friends become Randy’s friends and vice versa.

Maybe it had something to do with the spirit of Reston, Robert Simon’s dream that all kinds of people could live together in harmony and friendship. Even though there might be periods where they didn’t see each other and lived thousands of miles apart, so many of those boys from the early days in Reston would remain linked throughout their lives. Oh, but they would go into adulthood kicking and screaming, some of the gang tag group simply didn’t want to grow up. It wasn’t that they wanted to be Peter Pan. They modeled themselves, instead, after Captain Hook. With the wisdom of retrospection, their hedonistic, foolhardy adventures which continued long after they should have outgrown them quite possibly set them up for tragedy.

Nobody can take as many risks as they did and emerge unscathed .

The piper must be paid. Both fate and circumstance would dictate who they would become. One of the boys of Reston would develop a deep social conscience and a belief in God that pulled him continually away from the games that never stopped. Another would go in an entirely opposite direction. Even so, not one of them would escape chaos and disaster. It is the way fate singled them out and wrote the scripts of their lives that is baffling. Steve Meyers suffered the most damage from living with a father who seemed unable to give much of himself to his boys. His father laughed at Steve’s dreams of being an artist and told him he had better face reality if he expected to earn a living.

He showed little, if any, admiration for Steve’s talent. Gordon Meyers’ words hurt Steve far more than the whippings he administered.

Despite Joanna’s pep talks and her belief in Steve, his father constantly undermined his self-confidence. After his mother and brothers moved to Virginia, Steve followed them to Reston and enrolled in college at Northern Virginia College in Fairfax. He stayed close to the family until 1970, studying political science and literature at Northern Virginia College. Most of the young people who lived near Washington, DC, were interested in politics because they had matured in the shadow of the Pentagon. There were people living in Reston whose names were household words in American political circles, living so close to the national center of government, local kids formed opinions early on about politics.

1970 was a year filled with disenchantment with old values.

Richard Nixon was in the White House, students were demonstrating against the war in Vietnam, and National Guardsmen shot into a crowd of students at Kent State, killing four of them. Young men either went to college, to Canada, or to war, many of them decried big business as much as they did big government. Steve stayed in college and tried to conform, to study subjects that would lead to the kind of job his union-man father would approve of. But it didn’t last. He longed to work with his hands and create objects of beauty. In the summer of 1970, Steve traveled to England to attend Emerson College in Sussex where he studied his true love, art. He was an incredibly talented young ma nand already possessed the gifted hands of an artist twice his age. He was a sculptor. He studied sculpting and art in England for two years, where he also worked with developmentally disabled children.

In 1972, while his brother, Kevin, was graduating from high school back in the States, Steve Meyers met a German architect, Ingleberg Schule, and moved to Vinterbach, Germany, where he would serve an apprenticeship in furniture design and cabinet making. He studied with Schule for three years. Steve carved and smoothed tables that had no legs, but were rather intricate puzzle pieces of ash and maple that nested together to make a base for smooth tabletops. His chests and armoires were softly chiseled and shaped so that it seemed his fingers had left their imprint in the hollows. No one but Steven Meyers could have built these pieces.
 
His technique was so distinctive that he hardly needed to sign them.