Vanity Insanity (10 page)

Will was shirtless, tan, and proud of his physique. Not a flaw except for a big scar—even that looked good—that served as a reminder of an operation that had removed his appendix when he was seven.

“Grab your towel, Ben. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be working?” A.C. came back to the neighborhood more often than not.

“I got the day off!” I boasted and finished off my TaB. “I’m just taking my bike.” No swimming for me today. No need to show off my big arms and muscular physique at the neighborhood pool.

“No towel? Just going to watch, Ben? Not a bad idea…” Anthony Mangiamelli rarely talked to me, so I was both impressed and embarrassed by his comment. Of course, I would watch. It was perfectly legal to go stare at all the cute girls in their swimming suits.

Up until three years ago, during the summer months on Maple Crest Circle, a little blue kiddy pool sat at the edge of most driveways to cool the children down on humid, hot days. The Mangiamelli family also had the ultimate Slip-N-Slide in their backyard, which was actually three Slip-N-Slides hooked together that would practically throw a kid down to the creek if he got to sliding too fast. We took turns spraying the slide with the cold water from the hose. Mrs. Mangiamelli was really great about letting us run the hose for a long time. That was how we tried to get comfortable in the heat until we were older, and our parents decided the fee to the local pool was worth giving the older kids something to do. Brookhill Country Club was three blocks from our cul-de-sac and the highlight of our summers. A.C. would use a British accent when he talked about the club. “You can buy frozen Three Musketeers and greasy hamburgers from the Snack Shack if you want. I’m a member of the
club
.”

“Hey, Ben, I just picked up a new Wacky Pack. The st-st-stickers in this pack are awesome. Check it out.” Stinky Morrow pointed toward his bike.

Stinky’s entire bike was covered with stickers from Wacky Packs. His green bike had a banana seat and long handlebars, and we were all pretty sure that it was his sister’s old bike. He called his bike the Rock and saturated it with any of the latest trends to give it personality. The name came from the Pet Rock he had gotten at Christmas; Stinky was so amazed by the fact that some guy had come up with the idea to sell rocks in a kit and become “like a bazillionaire or something like that!” Stinky’s little brother, Andy, was riding a clunker bike that day, painted red, white, and blue in what looked like paint that had not been intended for bikes. Andy’s bike was his own personal contribution to the celebration of the country’s bicentennial celebration that year.

Stinky went on, “Check it out, Ben. I have Kentucky Fried Finger, Choke Wagon, S-s-spit and Spill, Windhex, Lip-Off Cup-o-Slop, B-b-blunder Bread…My favorite is Dr. Pooper…”

Andy chimed in, impressed with his older brother’s finds: “Shit, you gotta be kiddin’ me. My favorite is Liquid Bomber. Get it?” Andy was seven with a mouth like a drunken sailor. Reacting to or laughing at his potty mouth encouraged him to pull out his filth repertoire, so we learned to ignore his expletives. “Liquid Plumber—Liquid Bomber? Get it?”

“We got it. When you ladies are done chatting, we can head to the pool,” Will growled.

“OK, Evil Knievel,” Andy retorted. “I forgot you’re too cool to understand Wacky Packs.”

At that, six bikes started moving in the direction of Brookhill Country Club. Even though the pool was only three blocks away, we chose to travel in a group on wheels to avoid the Saragossas’ chow, which looked cute and fuzzy but had bitten Lovey Webber the summer before. There was also the cool factor that weighed in taking our bikes. We weren’t old enough to drive, and only the dorky kids walked; we did everything on our bikes. The last reason for the bikes was mostly unspoken though probably the most
important motivation not to walk to the pool: the Wicker Witch—our very own neighborhood witch. No neighborhood should be without one.

Technically, we didn’t know for sure that Ms. Wicker was a witch, but we did have what we considered several experiences and observations that certainly added up for us. First off, she just looked wicked. Her hair was always muddled and frizzy, at least during the few glimpses we had of her peeking out her windows. She never interacted with anyone on the block, and the few times we did see her, she was watching us from her kitchen window, her head half hidden by the curtain. She never, ever left her little green house. Eleanor Wicker stayed home all the time with nothing but time to cast spells from her window. Every once in a while, we saw a deliveryman bringing groceries—milk, bread, and probably some eye of newt.

Now the experiences. They may seem a little farfetched, but if you had lived them, you would have agreed that we might have a witch on our hands. We were pretty sure that the Wicker Witch had put a curse on the Shanahans’ cat—not that this was a bad thing. Precious Christmas Morning, the most spoiled pet on the planet, was a snooty, fuzzy, gray-and-white thing. She was a gift from Mr. Shanahan to Mrs. Shanahan one—you guessed it—Christmas morning after all of Mrs. Shanahan’s children had grown and moved out. She named the feline and spoiled it like a bratty grandchild. “Precious Christmas Morning! Precious Christmas Morning! Mommy needs you to come have your lunchy-poo now. Precious Christmas Morning!”

One not-so-precious morning, said cat walked onto the lawn of said witch and never returned for his lunchy-poo. Stephano Mangiamelli said that a guy he knew from the next block over had seen the precious fur ball walking onto the lawn of the Wicker Witch. We never saw that cat again. Enough said.

Lucy said her dog, Grandma, had a protective, witch-proof aura since Grandma had been known to meander over to the Witch House and take a nap on the sunny side of the wicked, green house. Eleanor must have liked Grandma. We weren’t about to test our own auras. Because our destinies on
those grounds were uncertain, none of us risked the fate of poor Precious Christmas Morning.

Every Halloween, our neighborhood looked like Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. Fun, silly, and scary costume-clad children marched down the sidewalks, parents stood out on the lawn with big bowls of Mike and Ikes and Baby Ruths, and houses lining Maple Crest blazed with light—all except the tiny, green Wicker house, the last house out of our little block, waiting. It sat dark and eerie, welcoming no one on a night when most witches are probably pretty busy.

So, while most of the evidence was questionable, we still justified any evil activity on the circle as the work of the Wicker Witch. When we were not directly in front of her house, we felt pretty safe. Proximity meant fear, and so speed was the answer as we flew by the green house.

I shared a secret with A.C. about the witch.

“I swear, I feel like the Wicker Witch is watching me. Like she singles me out. It kind of creeps me out.”

“Ben, she’s watching all of us. You’re just paranoid. Paranoia will destroy-a.”

Whenever my mom overheard us swapping witch stories, she would scold us and tell us that we should mind our own business. “Leave that poor woman alone.” Once she pulled me aside to further reprimand me, seeing this as an opportunity to teach her only son a little compassion. “No one knows what a person’s life is really like.” She explained that Eleanor Wicker had been married once. Though my mother was not sure of the details, she knew that Eleanor had never had any children and was somehow able to maintain her residency without working. She explained to me that life is just a little more overwhelming to some than others. I figured the world must have been extremely overwhelming to Ms. Wicker.

This did not stop me from wondering, and it certainly didn’t stop me from racing by the last house out of the cul-de-sac on Maple Crest. On that perfect summer day back in 1976, our clump of bikes directed our thoughts to the pool as we whizzed past the green house. Thoughts of the Wicker Witch vanished as girls and freedom filled our minds.

About a block before we got to the pool, we could hear the pool sound system blaring WOW radio station playing the top-forty songs, over and over again. The song “Shannon” blasted out of the pool speakers. I remember because A.C. starting singing it really loudly as we got closer. His high-pitched nasal bellow made the rest of us laugh.

It’s no wonder that this stinker song was a shoe-in for the A.C. and Ben’s Top Ten Dumb Songs of All Time. Theories abound about its dumb yet well-known lyrics. One theory suggests that one member of the Beach Boys, the writer of the song, had a dog named Shannon that drowned, and so he wrote a song about it. This would explain the part of the song that whines about the dog finding an island with a tree, just like the one in the family backyard. How dumb is that? First, the dog is dumb because it loves to swim away and so it drowns. Then the guy singing the song is dumb because he’s crying about how his dumb mom and dad are missing the dumb dog. If your dog was that dumb, why would you write a song about her, even if her name was Shannon? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. No-brainer for the list.

Our list was called the A.C. and Ben Top Ten Dumb Songs of All Time, but we had more than ten songs on it. Over time we lost count, but we could make strong arguments for each and every song on the list. Most people wouldn’t argue, though. Our list included “Muskrat Love” (duh, dumb), “All by Myself” (the guy is assuming someone is listening to his dumb song), “Having My Baby” (what a lovely way of saying how dumb the song is), “I Am, I Said” (Neil Diamond sings to a chair that doesn’t reply), anything by Neil Sedaka, and most songs by Barry Manilow. Just to name a few.

A.C. was best at making sound arguments to justify placement on our list. Lucy and A.C. once went at it over the presence of the song “The Candy Man” on our famous (or infamous) list. A.C. looked Lucy squarely in the eye and asked her, “Do we really need to argue about sprinkling a sunrise with dew?”

Lucy could not answer.

A.C. responded, “I rest my case.”

The dumb dog song was just ending as we got to the fence and was replaced by Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.” Not on the Top Ten Dumb Songs of All Time. Perfect background music for checking out girls.

We rode up to the fence on the side of the pool where the diving boards were. Our unspoken plan was to stand by our bikes acting not very interested, as though we were just stopping by on our way to another and more interesting place. Soon one girl might come up to the fence, followed by a friend or two, and in time we would be hanging with a group of girls—granted, with a fence between us. That was the plan.

While waiting for the group to assemble, we would stand there looking cool and talking about not-so-cool things, like the fart machine and the Farrah Fawcett poster Will had bought at Spencer’s Gifts in the mall. Is that a paradox or what? Will was boy enough to think that foul bodily noises were hilarious and man enough to think that a woman’s body was beautiful. I thought it was kind of stupid to buy the poster of the Charlie’s angel wearing that amazing, orange swimsuit, but that didn’t stop me from looking at the revealing pose that hung above his bed in his basement.

That day by the pool, we also discussed important issues like the mental state of the master on the TV show
I Dream of Jeannie
. Like, why was Larry Hagman so uptight when he had this gorgeous woman who lives in a bottle, calls him master, and says that she will do anything he wants? Was Larry dense or what? Our debates were disrupted by the loud, irritating singing of Lovey Webber. Lovey, who was now thirteen and developing nicely, sang loudly as she sauntered toward our clump. She wiggled over to the fence and giggled. She looked directly at me.

“Somebody got a haircut!”

“I got them all cut…”

Exaggerated laughter exploded. Maybe some other, more interesting girls would hear us and want to know what was so funny.

“Oh, Ben.” Lovey rolled her eyes and tilted her head. “Hey, we’re all asking our moms if they will take us to Peony Park tomorrow night for Sprite Nite. You want to meet there?”

Peony Park was the Omaha amusement park located in the center of the city at that time. Grandpa Mac told me that he used to go listen to the big bands at Peony Park Ballroom when he was a young man. In 1976, the older Mangiamelli boys worked the rides at the amusement park, and my sister Cheryl was at the big pool every day. My friends and I were more excited about a dance called Sprite Nite, where a DJ played the same top-forty songs we had listened to all day at the pool.

Will answered for the group. “It depends on who ‘we’ includes.” Careful now, not too cool.

“Oh, Lucy, Theresa, Marty…”

“Theresa’s here?”

“Lucy has her as a guest. Didn’t you know?” As Lovey spoke, our eyes darted around the pool area for a glimpse of Theresa. The radio in the background, the smell of chlorine and suntan lotion, the sun on my back…My senses all seemed heightened.

A scratchy voice yelled from the door to the Snack Shack. “Hey! Did you tell them about Sprite Nite, Lovey?” Lucy may have appeared to most as a bossy little thing, but on closer observation, those around her appreciated her bossiness as a gift. She organized fun. She directed them to enjoy life. She was the Julie McCoy of Maple Crest Love Boat.

Tiny little Lucy walked toward us with what appeared like two bodyguards towering behind her. Theresa and especially Marty had grown tall and slender as they entered their early teen years, while Lucy stayed petite. One small disappointment of the day was that Theresa was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. No swimming suit for us. They had already finished swimming and were heading home. The girls all looked at Will. To me, Will was just a grump who bossed us all around. To the girls, he was very attractive. I wasn’t stupid. I’d figured that one out all by myself.

Lucy looked at Will. “If Mom says we can go, we can have Subby or Stephano drive us there. On the way we were going to stop by that billboard where the DJ from WOW is living in a huge banana. He’s broadcasting from up there and not leaving for a whole week.”

“WOW has gone bananas!” A.C. used a deep voice and held his pretend phone to his ears. During that week, the radio station was calling listeners. If you answered the phone like A.C. instead of saying hello, the station was offering prizes. The big prize was a trip to Kansas City.