On My Street This Summer
When Dad saw the blue knapsack, he asked what it was for. I told him I had things in it. I’m pretty sure I went red when he asked, but I kept a straight face and went out front to wait.
Dad’s car was in the shop so we took Mom’s brown Oldsmobile. It was huge and had deep bench seats so that my feet didn’t touch. I looked out the window as we drove and saw Johnny and Greg playing catch with a baseball. They saw me. Johnny waved and Greg gave me the finger. Greg is the kind of kid who swears at his mom. He’s two years older than me, and I once heard him tell his mom to ‘f’ off. I also once saw his mom on the toilet because she’d left the door open to take a crap. She shouted at Gregory and I left his house. His mom is weird and my parents say she has no money and sometimes we think she beats him. When we were at the end of the street, I looked up at Johnny’s house to see if Jennifer was out front drawing with sidewalk chalk. She wasn’t. I love Jennifer. She has freckles and brown hair. I told her I love her. I told her mom, too, but not her dad. Johnny’s her brother and he sometimes makes fun of me because of Jennifer. Dad parked outside Romano’s and we went in. A guy was getting his hair cut, but otherwise we were the only ones. As soon as we sat down, I looked over at the stack of Playboys. I looked back at dad to see if he saw. It was embarrassing to be sitting so close to the Playboys. I wondered if he knew they were there. Dad waited while I got my hair cut. Romano asked me if I had a girlfriend. I told him no. He asked me about the girl Jennifer I told him about last time. I told him she wasn’t my girlfriend. When it was Dad’s turn, I sat next to the Playboys again. Romano and Dad talked Italian. They were talking about the Maple Leafs or something, but they were talking loud like always. I waited till Romano was cutting the hair on the side of Dad’s head. That way neither of them would see me. I’d planned it out like that last time I was here. That’s also why I knew to bring my knapsack. When Romano was blocking Dad’s head, I slowly brought the knapsack near to the table with the Playboys and opened it. I checked one more time to make sure they couldn’t see. I grabbed a handful of Playboys and slid them into my bag. I looked up and Romano was still blocking Dad. I grabbed another handful and slid them in my bag and then I heard the little bell on the door go and some guy was walking into the store. The guy was looking straight at me. I quickly closed my bag and pushed it under my chair. I’m sure the guy saw me and he was still looking at me when he said hi to Romano and my dad. I couldn’t tell if he’d seen, but he smiled and sat down. “Dad,” I said, “I’m going outside.” Dad nodded at me in the mirror. Outside I felt the fresh air on my scalp. I took my bag over to the car and squatted on the sidewalk and opened it and looked in. I counted nine Playboys. I counted again. Nine. When Dad and I got home, I ran upstairs and hid the Playboys under my mattress.
The next day Johnny, Greg, Randy, Matt and I were in the park. The park was at the end of the street and it had a forest and in the forest were pine trees that formed a ring and inside the ring was our hangout. The guys were excited because they knew I had the Playboys.
Matt was the most excited and before I even took the magazines out he jumped up and shouted, “Oh my god I can’t believe it,” and whacked a tree with a stick.
The guys crowded around and I opened my bag and pulled out the Playboys and put them on the ground. Greg was the first to pick some up.
“These aren’t even Playboys,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
Greg held a magazine that had a woman in oven mitts holding a lasagna on the front.
“That’s not a Playboy,” Greg said and threw it into the forest.
“Oh my god,” Matt said. He was really excited. He was looking over Randy’s shoulder who was looking at a real Playboy.
“That one is,” I said.
There were four Playboys, two Sports Illustrated, one Maclean’s magazine and the magazine Greg threw into the forest. There was one more. A Penthouse. I wasn’t prepared for the Penthouse. There were ladies inside who were holding open their vaginas. I didn’t even know what a vagina looked like when it was held open like that. I didn’t even know it had those pink parts on the side to hold it open with. I’d seen vaginas in Playboys before, but they were always mostly hair and the ladies never held them open like that. I wasn’t sure what I felt about it, but I kept staring. “Those are some wicked pussies, eh?” Greg said. I kept staring. “Penthouse is wicked,” he said. All the other guys wanted turns looking at it and they all became quiet and stared at it when it was their turn, except Greg. I said I didn’t know they had the parts to hold onto. “They’re not handles,” Greg said. “They’re flaps. They close when the girls go to sleep.” Matt looked like he was going to cry. He was next to Randy who was still staring at the Penthouse. “It’s not such a big deal,” Greg said. “All girls got ’em.” Everyone beside Randy looked at him. “Even your moms,” he said. “Oh god!” Matt shouted and started rolling on the ground. “Even Jennifer,” Greg said, and stared at me smiling. “Shut up,” Johnny said. But Greg saw I was uncomfortable, so he kept at it. “Jennifer’s got a pink pussy like that.” “Shut up, Greg,” Johnny said and stood up. “Danny boy wants to see Jennifer’s pussy,” he said, pointing at me. I could feel myself go red. “You do, Danny, don’t ya?” Johnny looked at me. “No,” I said. “Only homos don’t like pussies,” Greg said. “You gotta wanna see it.” I wasn’t sure what to say, so I shrugged and nodded. The next morning Matt and I were on the street. I was on my skateboard and Matt was fooling around with a tennis ball. Matt said we should get the guys out to play street hockey. Randy and Johnny showed up and then Greg showed up too. Over by Johnny’s house, I saw Jennifer and her friend Laura standing on the sidewalk talking. Jennifer looked over so I did an ollie on my skateboard. It was a high one and I landed it and looked up but she wasn’t looking anymore. Matt went home to get his hockey net and told us to go get our sticks. We sat around for a bit. I was sitting on my skateboard rolling around a little. Jenny and Laura walked over and came straight up to me. Jenny had been crying and she wiped her eyes with her arm. Behind me, Greg said something to the guys and laughed. Jenny pulled something from her pocket and unfolded it. It was a picture from the Penthouse and the lady was oily and holding her vagina with one hand. Tears came to Jennifer’s eyes. “Greg said you wanna see me like this,” she said and started sobbing. “What?” I said. I felt the air go out of me. “He said you brought this picture,” she started sobbing and had to force the words out. “He said you brought this picture and showed everyone and said you want to see me like this.” “No I didn’t,” I said and looked at Greg. He was sitting on the curb smiling. “Yes you did,” he said. “I did not,” I said. “Yes you did. Didn’t he Johnny?” Johnny nodded and Jennifer looked at her brother and then at me. “I hate you,” she screamed, “and I’m showing my parents!” She really screamed it loud and burst out crying and ran away with Laura. I turned to Greg. He could see I was really mad and he started laughing. “Asshole!” I shouted, and Greg started laughing more. I ran over and picked up Randy’s baseball bat and ran toward Greg. I guess he could see that I was mental because he jumped up and ran off. He was still laughing, but I could tell that he wasn’t so sure anymore. I chased Greg down the street towards the park. I was screaming. He ran into the woods and I followed. We were running through the woods and Greg was shouting that it was just a joke and things like that. Greg was a fast runner and he was ahead, but his voice sounded scared when he shouted back to me. Greg turned and started running toward Sheldrake St. I thought I might catch him if he tried to climb over the stone wall that runs along the park. But he must’ve been real scared because suddenly he stopped and turned to me. He was panting and holding up his arms and he looked like he was going to cry. “I’ll tell her it’s not true,” he said. I was still mental and I walked closer to him. “Please,” he said and he had tears in his eyes. I threw the baseball bat down and walked right up to him. He must’ve known what was coming because he fell before I even hit him. When he looked up I hit him again. The first one didn’t really land and hit his chest and he was already falling. But the second one landed real hard on his mouth and I knocked a tooth out of his head and bust open his lip and bust open my hand. Greg was crying and spitting blood and holding the broken-off tooth in his palm. He looked up at me and a string of drool and blood was running from his mouth down his arm like a baby. He was saying things, but I was looking at my cut open knuckle and then up at him. He stood up and kind of half-ran half-walked away. I stood there for a long time and then went and sat in the pines where there was still a couple of Playboys. I sat there a long time till Matt showed up and told me I was going to be in a lot of trouble.
Everyone hated me then. Greg with his busted mouth and Johnny would hang around outside and wouldn’t talk to me. The girls wouldn’t talk to me and Jennifer would go inside or to the backyard if she saw me come out on the street. Matt stayed friends with me and I would still go to his house, but I wasn’t invited into Jenny and Johnny’s house anymore. I tried to tell Jenny it wasn’t true, but Greg and Johnny must’ve kept telling her it was true because she kept hating me. I even told her mom it wasn’t true and her mom said it was okay, but I couldn’t tell if she believed me. That was the first time I knew I could be on the other side and feel that I’d done something very bad and that everyone could decide to hate me even though I didn’t really do anything. My parents were real upset at first. Greg’s stupid mom made my parents pay to have his tooth fixed. Greg was two years older than me and it was an adult tooth, so it wouldn’t grow back and he had to have a fake one put in. Mom said his tooth must have been rotten because her dentist told her a boy like me shouldn’t be able to punch it out. At first my parents were angry about me saying I wanted to see Jenny like in a Penthouse. They said they were worried about me, but I told them that Greg was a liar. I think they knew Greg was a liar because they believed me and told me not to worry about it. I cried a couple of times anyway.
The next time we went for a haircut I sat away from the Playboys. Dad and Romano talked in Italian and I just sat there. When it was my turn, Romano put the wooden board across the arms of the chair for me to sit on so I’d be higher up when he cut my hair. He took a comb and scissors from the jug of blue liquid and looked at me in the mirror. He leaned close. “You’re a good boy,” he said. I didn’t say anything. I knew what he was talking about. I wondered if he was mad about the magazines. “Your dad told me your girlfriend won’t talk to you.” Romano started to part my hair with a wet comb. He leaned in again. “But you know, girls are always mad at boys. That’s the way it goes. There are other girls.” I closed my eyes and wished with all my heart that she would talk to me again. He snipped my hair. “Your dad also said there’s a little brat on your street – a real little monello – and you taught him a real good lesson.” I opened my eyes. Romano made a fist with his hand. “Pow,” he said and did a little punch and laughed. Then he grabbed the back of my neck and squeezed.
