Vanity Insanity (5 page)

Beyond the sleeves, fall signaled the best sport ever known to mankind: football. Football meant Friday nights lost in high-school games and Saturday afternoons lost in college games. I couldn’t get enough. I thrived on the intensity every week as the analysis of the past victories and losses still lingered in the crisp fall air and the anticipation of the next set of rivalries made my eyes widen with excitement. Living in a home as the only male surrounded by fits of estrogen and an overabundance of nail polish, I held the conversations about the games in my head as though I were one of the sports announcers commentating on a game.

A.C. and I were heading out to throw the football to each other when we heard a group of voices coming from the other side of the cul-de-sac. The streetlight in front of the Webbers’ created a silhouette of a large group of kids gathered beneath it. As we walked toward the gathering place, I zipped up my green windbreaker. Winter was knocking.

I knew once winter hit, I would not see most of the kids under the streetlight, who were from different grades and schools, till the first nice spring day in late March or early April. That’s how winter worked for us. Nice weather and vacation from school meant going outside. Division was gone when we were in our yards. I liked that. The kids of the Maple Crest cul-de-sac were a gang of convenience.

Fifty-two kids living within a two-block area usually gathered in the cul-de-sac down by the Webber home. I’m not kidding. One time Mrs. Webber counted us. She said we had a full deck of cards. That is, if you counted the handful of babies, who never came out to the cul-de-sac, and a few older kids who were too cool to hang with us. But nonetheless, we had fifty-two kids in the Maple Crest area that summer.

At any given time, a group would be gathered, usually with bikes. We were always planning. One summer we built an underground fort behind the Mangiamellis’ backyard fence. From five feet away, you couldn’t see anything but dirt and weeds. That was the plan. Once upon it, you could see the square opening in the large piece of plywood covered with dirt and weeds that served as our roof. A ladder would take you down to the secret room where we usually planned other things. Another year we had a trash
carnival, probably one of our stupidest endeavors, though you wouldn’t hear me say that around Lucy, who planned the whole thing in the great, altruistic hope of cleaning up our neighborhood and having fun.

I could see the breath spraying from the mouths of the kids under the streetlight, clouds of conversation filling the fall air. They were definitely planning. A few basketballs bounced as they talked. Several kids were on their bikes.

“We can’t play Capture the Flag. The best places to hide the flag are down by the creek.” The same voice quickly moved to another subject. “How about Kick the Can or German Flashlight?” The voice belonged to the tallest silhouette, whose face became clearer the closer we got to the group. Will had the dark Mangiamelli features that impressed any girl around him. His height, looks, and strong voice gave him the commanding presence that made people want to follow him.

Another voice chimed in. “Hey, A.C. What are you d-d-doing here?” The question came from Stinky Morrow, a kid who was a few years younger than us, but his inferiority never kept him from hanging around the older boys all the time. Stinky was sometimes annoying, but we always felt something was missing if he wasn’t hanging around. Stinky stuttered.

“We miss you, A.C.” No one laughed as the slightly overweight eight-year-old girl came up and gave A.C. a big, long hug. Hope Webber was the second daughter of Ruth and Ed Webber.

“Hey, Hope, I miss you, too,” A.C. said as she continued to hug him.

“Let him go, Hope!” This time the voice, which had a nasal and obnoxious edge to it, was that of Hope’s little sister Lovey. Ruth and Ed Webber had a clear plan in naming their children. The very religious couple felt that Faith, Hope, and Love were beautiful names for the three daughters of whom they were so proud. The three little Webber girls had very dark hair with blue eyes and freckles on very fair skin. A knockout final look, if you ask me. A few years later, Robert was born. The Webber plan became a little less clear at that point, but the Webbers remained proud of their clan. Lovey, the third daughter, through her very vibrant and rather flamboyant personality, was able to transform the religious intentions of her name into
something of a parody. At the very end of the hippie era, “Lovey” took on a different flavor. Lovey would constantly remind us of how she felt about herself, usually twirling her hair as she canted, “Faith, Hope, and Love…and the greatest of these is Love!”

That night under the streetlight, with one hand on her hip, Lovey tilted her head and said, “You can’t go around hugging every cute boy you see.”

“Lovey!” Hope retorted. “Be nice.”

“Hope, you can hug me any time you feel like it.” A.C. Perelman was a complex kid. This not-really-black and not-really-white kid lived in a world that asked he be clearly labeled. The waters muddied as you threw religion and socioeconomic factors into the pot. A.C. would always say, “At least I don’t have a split personality.”

Arthur Charles Perelman was born in the same year I was born, when his parents still lived next door to our house. He and his little sister, Elizabeth, had been among the neighborhood gang until a year ago when his parents decided to move to a bigger house. An older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, moved into the Perelmans’ old house and kept to themselves. Evelyn and Howard Perelman agreed to stay in touch as they moved closer to the downtown area and transferred their children into Brownell Talbot, a private school in the Dundee area. Both Howard and Evelyn were extremely bright and had met at Harvard getting their doctorates, Evelyn in medicine and Howard in business. Financially, they had outgrown our humble neighborhood, though they struggled to leave it, not quite knowing the best environment in which their two uniquely defined children could thrive.

“Hey, Will. My cousin T-T-Theresa is spending the night at your house tonight. Lucy, Marty, and Theresa are having a slumber party or something.” Theresa’s aunt Sheila was my neighbor and Stinky Morrow’s mother, who seemed to be in a perennial state of pregnancy, with a few kids around her and one on her hip. Theresa’s family lived about six blocks from our little cul-de-sac in the Dogwood subdivision. The houses there were a little newer than the houses in our subdivision. They were still small, but the carbon-copied floor plans in Dogwood touted the dawning of the
split-level house that grew to be a favorite in Omaha’s twenty-year era of Boring Construction. Split-level, raised ranch, whatever you wanted to call it, the guests of those homes had immediate options upon entering the doorway.
Do I go up; do I go down? Maybe I should leave.

Theresa lived in Dogwood, but she hung out in Maple Crest, and we were all too proud of that decision. Stinky’s comment to Will was really an attempt to get his attention or impress him. He must have sensed, as we all did, that Will had a crush on Theresa O’Brien.

“She really is spending the night, Will.”

“I think I know that, Stinky. Can we get this game thing figured out? I’m freezing.”

The circle of kids was again interrupted as three figures walked from the Mangiamelli home. Lovey shouted, “Hey, Lucy, hurry up, we’re gonna play Capture the Flag. We need a few more kids.”

Lucy, Marty, and Theresa hurried toward the group with hands in pockets. Will scowled as he muttered, “We are not playing Capture the Flag.” Will looked up and caught a glimpse of his little sister. “Wow, Lu, looks like you three fell into a humongous pile of makeup. Yikes. Must have been some accident.”

Lucy ignored her brother, though he did have a point. She ran to A.C. and squealed in her scratchy voice, “Hey! This is perfect. This is the greatest! A.C.’s here. We almost didn’t come out, but we just did each other’s hair and thought, ‘Hey, let’s go see who might be hanging out on a Friday night.’ Good thing we did.” Lucy’s hair was covered with all sorts of colorful barrettes and ribbons. It looked more like a carnival than a hairstyle, though she seemed very proud of the new and almost trampy look as she tilted her head and said, “We’re staying up late tonight to watch
Creature Feature.
Dr. San Guinary’s going to make an announcement before
Teenage Caveman.
”

“I heard about this. He’s announcing haunted-house kits you can order.” Stinky stepped into the center of circle as he spoke.

“Yep,” Lucy continued, “and we’re thinking of having one before Halloween. You all can help if you want. We send the money we make
from the haunted house to Dr. San Guinary. He’s collecting money for muscular dystrophy.”

“Who’s she?” Stinky asked seriously.

Marty stood with her usual solemn expression behind Lucy. Her straight, brown hair had been braided and finished with ribbons as well. As for her makeup, I thought she looked as though she had been hit a few too many times in the face. Theresa O’Brien was another story. She looked beautiful. The makeup had done what makeup should do. It accented her already striking features. Not even childish adornment could hide the amazing beauty of Theresa.

“Where’s Faith, Lovey?” Lucy looked over at Lovey Webber.

“She went to Cheap Skate with the older kids.” Lovey rolled her eyes and moved her head and shoulders in an exotic swish. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that Faith was off skating that night. I could learn to roller skate if it meant that I could look at Faith, the older, more mature girl that I found myself staring at too much. A.C. would catch me gawking and whisper, “Out of your league…”

“Who needs her anyway? I know what we can—” Lovey stopped in midsentence. Her eyes froze on something as she looked past the group toward the entrance to our cul-de-sac. Her lower lip dropped. Her upper lip rose to scream; nothing came out. The group turned in the direction that Lovey was looking. The glare in our eyes from the streetlight above us all made it very hard to see the large shadow moving toward the group. I wanted to be brave and calm, but my gut did a somersault as my eyes tried to detect the large, lumpy body moving toward us. Why none of us ran will never be clear to me, but I was planning, as I’m sure Will and A.C. were, how we were going to attack this man—heck, maybe even kill him if we had to, to protect the ladies and youth of the neighborhood. I’m certain that everyone in the group, grateful for the safety-in-numbers factor and the close proximity to our parents in the houses behind us, was wondering if Johnny Madlin had run into this same creature down by the creek.

Once the man had moved to the point in the street where the light showered down, we all visibly sighed in relief upon the realization that the
coulda-been-a-monster-coulda-been-a-killer who now stopped and looked at the group was only Mr. Payne. Corky Payne looked tired and confused as he looked at each face under the light. His eyes stopped on me and stayed there.

Corky Payne, unkempt and unsure, carried a grief in his heart that came from his son Tommy’s tragic accident six years earlier. Tommy Payne and I were born on the same day back in 1961. On October 7 of that year, my mother and Patti Payne delivered healthy baby boys within forty-five minutes of each other. For Patti and Corky, this event was amazing since this was their first child delivered after years and years of trying to achieve a pregnancy. They were elated, and this may have been a good or bad thing for my mother since the two women shared rooms following the births of their babies. My mom was a newly single parent giving birth to me.

Grandpa Mac shared with me that, though my own father was gone by then, obviously he and my sisters were there for mother and would visit her on the days she stayed at Immanuel Hospital. He mentioned that Corky Payne was up there every moment he could and kept the two ladies in stitches as he entertained them in his father-high state at the time. “He was good to your mother. Made her see that some fathers do stick around. Maybe caused her a bit of pain, though.”

A few years later, Tommy Payne and I had little play dates, my mother called them. Though we didn’t look that much alike—Tommy had red hair and one of the biggest heads I have ever seen on a kid—the mothers loved to call us the twins. Tommy and I used to ride our Big Wheels all over the neighborhood. The Paynes lived behind us a few doors down, so the mothers would walk to the corner to meet and tag off with us following behind on our Big Wheels. Tommy had this loud, scratchy voice that sounded like Charlie Brown when he belted out gravel commands in his driveway. “You’re Batman and I’m Superman! OK?” He always got to be Superman.

The summer before we turned five, Mr. Payne was backing out of his driveway. He had just seen Tommy in the backyard and didn’t know that Tommy had climbed the fence and grabbed his Big Wheel from the side of the house. Corky had no idea what he’d hit as he backed out to head to
the hardware store. The Paynes drove Tommy to the hospital as fast as they could, and though the doctors did everything they could, Tommy didn’t make it through the night.

Six months later, Patti Payne left Corky, and from that day on, Corky pretty much wandered. Some said he was a drinker, but Grandpa Mac said that Corky was doing the best he could. Corky stayed in his little house and did fix-it jobs here and there for people, but he mostly wandered.

That chilly Friday when Corky came upon our group under the streetlight, not one kid snickered at the strange man who had singled me out.

“You the Keller boy?” he asked me.

“Yes, sir.”

Corky looked deep into my eyes. “How old are you now, kid?”

“Eleven, sir.”

“Eleven?”

I nodded my head.

Corky dropped his eyes and then his head, and then wandered back out of the cul-de-sac. Bummer baby bookmark. That’s all I have to say about that.

Lovey broke the silence.

“Well, are we going to play something or what? How about Sardines? We can keep warm, don’t you think?” Lovey elbowed A.C. and tilted her head. She was only seven or eight at the time, but I swear to you that the girl exuded sexuality in her every movement.