The Legend of the Ditto Twins (2 page)

For most
kids, I suspect summer is their favorite time of the year. For us, it certainly
was. And the best part of summer was that it always ended with a trip to the
State Fair. I remember that Mom always bought us pink cotton candy—but only one
stick to be shared between us, so as not to spoil our supper. While Dad spent
the day at the livestock pavilions, she would drag us through all the exhibits
of interest to her—but I will say this: She always saved the best till last.
The Midway. The magical Midway. I remember she always hurried us past the
girlie shows and the performing freaks but allowed us to spend as much time as
we wanted in The Psychedelic Fun House—that is, until the summer we humiliated
her.

We must
have been eight or nine the summer we discovered the wonders of The Psychedelic
Fun House. Mesmerized by the great, tall mirrors, my brother and I scrutinized
each other's reflection. Then, with screeching giggles, we would take a step to
one side and watch ourselves e
xpand,
grow fat, and then explode into nothingness. But the most fascinating trick, we
soon discovered, was to take a step forward and watch ourselves grow tall.

"Do
you think we'll ever be that tall?" I asked my brother.

"Someday,"
he replied. "When we're old, like Mom and Dad."

I leaned
closer to him and whispered conspiratorially, "Do you think everything
about us will ever grow that tall?"

Clark giggled.
He knew exactly what I was talking about.

"You
want to find out?" I asked.

"You
want to?"

"I
will if you will."

"I
dare you to go first."

"I
dare
you
to go first."

We both
hesitated.

"I
know. We'll do it together."

"Right,"
said Clark. "On three."

On the
count of three, we pulled down our shorts and underpants, grabbed our Little
Fellas, and aimed them at the mirrors. We had to adjust our positions a bit
until we found the exact spot on the reflective surface where our Little Fellas
began to grow to gigantic heights. We screamed with delight. That's when Mom
noticed.

She never
let us go back to The Psychedelic Fun House again.

A year or
two later, during an Indian summer heat wave just after we started sixth grade,
we soon discovered that most of our buddies were as curious about sex as we
were beginning to be. Every day during recess, we'd all sneak away behind the
jungle gym to talk about forbidden things. One of the guys seemed to know
everything about sex already. He was a tall, rawboned, redheaded kid whose
hands and face were splattered with freckles. I think his name was Bill or Jim
or something like that—his name's not important. What is important is that one
day he confided to
us that he'd spied on his parents in bed
the night before and that they slept in the nude.

"Huh" was all I said.

"Huh," agreed Clark.

A question instantly zoomed through
my mind: Did our parents sleep without pajamas too? I knew Clark was wondering
the same thing, but I also knew that we would not discuss the matter further
with an outsider—no, the subject would not be mentioned until we were alone
together that evening.

"Naked," I said.

"Completely bare-ass
naked?" asked Clark.

"That's what he said."

Simultaneously, as if on cue, we both
began to remove our PJ's. There was nothing unusual about the act. Neither of
us thought a thing about it; we often began synchronized actions at precisely
the same moment without saying a word. And that is exactly how we tossed our
pajamas away—in tandem. Once bare-chested, we snuggled close, pressing against
one another as was our custom, only to discover that we were both slick with
sweat.

"You're all slimy,"
whispered Clark.

"Yeah," I murmured.
"Nice, huh?"

My brother wriggled closer.
"Yeah. Nice."

I wrapped my right arm around him
tightly and whispered, "Now I can feel your skin better."

"And your nipples. They're hard,
Mark."

I ran my hand over his chest.
"Yeah, so are yours." My fingers lingered on his nipple. "Like a
kernel of sweet corn."

"That's just what I was
thinking." He smiled contentedly and found mine. "Nice."

Then we crawled up on our bed, as
naked as the parents of the tall, skinny redhead, and said our prayers.

"And God bless Clark."

"And God bless Mark."

"Amen."

"Amen."

We put
our arms around each other, kissed goodnight, and crawled under the sheet.
Automatically, we nestled close and intertwined our legs, groin to groin, as we
drifted off to sleep.

"Your
Little Fella is so warm," murmured Clark.

"
So’s
yours." I squirmed into his crotch as we settled
in for the night. "Nice. Nice and warm."

We never
wore pajamas again.

Around
the time we turned thirteen and started Junior High School, we were at
Walgreens one afternoon when we spotted that tall, skinny redhead who'd told us
about his parents sleeping in the nude. In the years since then, he'd explained
a lot of other wild things to us, so we'd kind of come to depend on him for
prohibited information. See, that very morning, we'd overheard some of the
older guys whispering about something called "jerking off," and since
the tall, skinny kid had become our Go-To Guy for explaining dirty words, we
hurried over to him.

"Not
now," he muttered, skittering to the store's street door.

He was
always saying or doing something dangerous, and to us, that made him the most
interesting guy in the entire school. So we followed. Outside, he strolled
casually but quickly down the street and, with no more than a slight nod to us,
slipped into the nearest alley. Without looking back, he scurried deep into the
dark shadows of the alleyway between the back doors of McDonald's and the
barber shop and snuck behind a stack of packing crates, where he finally
stopped.

"Hey.
What's
goin
' on?" we asked.

He just
stood there, a big grin smeared all over his freckled face. Elaborately, he
opened his Levi's jacket and waited for us to notice a pack of cigarettes tucked
into the top of his jeans.

"Huh,"
I said.

Clark
said the same thing.

"Cigarettes.
Wow!" I added.

"Marlboros.
Wow!" Clark was always more specific.

"Where
did you get them?" I added.

"Swiped
em. Old Man Johnson damned near caught me." With veteran skill, he found
the tab and pulled the cellophane off the top of the pack. "You guys
smoke?"

I looked
at Clark; he looked at me. I spoke first.

"Uh...
Not really. Not yet."

"But
we've talked about it," Clark assured him.

"Only
we've never gotten around to it. We..."

"...were
gonna swipe some of Dad's, only..."

"...
he quit smoking before we could."

"That's
cool." He popped open the lid of the Marlboro box and pulled out the
tinfoil wrapper. "I'll sell you one."

"How
much?" we asked.

He told
us.

We dug
into our pockets for our lunch money.

"We'll
take two," said Clark.

That's
about the time I started writing this memoir.

That
night, Mom and Dad went to bed halfway through the TV showing of
Die Hard 2
—too
violent for her tastes, and he didn't argue—but they agreed that we could
finish watching it if we promised to go to bed as soon as it was over. We
noticed Dad's hand slide down over Mom's butt as they headed into their
bedroom, and like most thirteen-year-olds on the cusp of adolescence, we
snickered. By then we'd learned cows were not the only animals that fuck.

"Do
you suppose they sleep in the nude?" asked Clark.

I
shrugged. Not the time to think about such trivial matters—when two king-sized
Marlboros were literally burning a hole in my shirt pocket.

"Were gonna smoke tonight,
aren't we?" said Clark.

I nodded. "Soon as the movie's
over."