Sox paraded awkwardly on clumsy feet that looked like cement weights on his spindly legs. His toe nails needed clipping sending off loud clicks on the cement driveway as he loped back and forth from the garage to his cage.
He gazed at me in stupid wonder as he jumped up on the cage my father built. It was an eight-foot by eight-foot cement slab surrounded by an eight-foot high chain-link fence. He had a right to stare at me in stupid wonder. I was locked in his dog cage. I was also naked and nine years old.
The oaks lined the winding dirt road like sentries
“Guarding us from the unwanted,” Sally joked.
I was Sally’s guest. We’d spent more than a few nights at Jake’s Brew House down the block from the office – pondering office politics, whether any of guys in the office were worth any time investment – and most recently whether I thought she should develop an interest in Mark, to which I responded, “I think that boat has sailed.”
She blushed and looked away surprised she had given such obvious signals.
That was our first visit to the bar and our friendship grew.
“That’s the 13th hole.” Sally pointed to a circular pond floating beneath a raised tee box. And this is the 12th green.”
The road continued alongside the 12th fairway between additional foreboding oaks. She knew I had little interest in the golf course but was attempting to keep me calm. She parked the car in front of the Shakespeare house, a replica of his actual residence that served as the club house. More monstrous oaks were spread about a spacious front lawn that opened up to another golf hole.
A sparse group of people dressed in cocktail attire mingled in the shade as the sun set over the course. These were the friends I had heard about on our drinking nights, and during these discussions I discovered that one of the friends was someone I knew over twenty years before. He was the reason I was there.
My black hair hung wet on my shoulders and I was pissed because I had just taken a bath, and as hard as we always tried to keep the cage clean, it was filled with Sox’s black fur, which made me cringe with an image of it drifting through the air into various crevices in my body.
“Danny!” I yelled, but I knew he wouldn’t answer. If he thought I needed saving he would definitely do anything in his power to do so - but he was the reason I was in the cage. Danny is my fraternal twin brother. He felt very strongly this was the cure. I told him I didn’t agree, but since Danny came out of our mother two minutes ahead of me, and was taller and stronger, I was often forced to listen. He was usually more wrong than right. My mom called it a man thing. Being a twin to a boy – if you’re a girl – was a weird thing. Cases like this proved it beyond a doubt.
“Danny, I don’t see how this is gonna work.” I stood at the fence, my fingers curling through the diamond openings. The metal was cool in the shade of the big Maple in the backyard, though the August temperature showed 86 degrees on the big round thermometer hanging outside the kitchen window across the backyard.
“You’ll see. Trust me,” he called from the sidewalk on the other side of the garage.
I knew that’s where he was standing, though I couldn’t see him. He always stood there when he waited for someone.
“Come on. How weird is this, really?”
“It’s not. You’ll see.”
If he repeated that again I was going to kill him. Sox jumped on the fence, his drooling tongue flopping out of his open mouth. “You have to clip Sox’s toenails,” I yelled, hoping to divert his train of thought, get him thinking about something else, so he’d lose interest in this ploy and release me. He had the key to the Masterlock on the cage door.
In hindsight I could have exercised more control of my emotions. Nine years isn’t a lot of time to grow a thick skin, and if you must know; Gary was my first boyfriend and I didn’t regret feeling that way, just regretted letting Danny see my reaction.
It wasn’t a pretty sight, I’ll admit to that. I was normally a tough cookie, a tomboy through and through. I was faster than Danny. I could climb trees better than he could, and I was braver than he was, especially when it came to listening to ghost stories. So when he told me Gary was moving away, I should have bit my tongue and waited to emote until I was in the confines of my bedroom.
The idea of never seeing him again, going to school and not watching him play kickball at recess was a very disconcerting feeling. My outburst came out of nowhere - maybe because Gary hadn’t bothered to tell me himself.
It’s not like we talked to each other that much. I mean we were only in third grade, but it was pretty cool to have a guy who looked like that, who is that athletic, as a boyfriend. I mean, it was a bragging rights thing, you know. The other girls in class couldn’t say Gary was their boyfriend – and now I wouldn’t be able to either.
The reason I was with Sally, other than the fact we had become close, was because of what I revealed one night at the bar. It was one of those slow nights when a few of us had survived a bruising day and deserved time just to chill and forget our current issues – mine being saddled with an unobtainable sales target and not making enough progress toward attaining it – Sally’s bemoaning a poor presentation she’d given that day – which really wasn’t as bad as she thought, but the only way I was going to convince her that it wasn’t was to pour a few beers into her. Glenda who is Sally’s assistant was there for moral support.
As so often happens when we are down in the dumps we’d go back and try and find some moment in time when – if we could – we would change it or in my case gain some enlightenment on it. Fantasy frolicking, we called it.
And when Gary’s name slipped out and my recollection that I thought he had moved to the Chicago area Sally suddenly looked at me as if I had grown another head. “Gary Wood, you say?”
I nodded, sipping my beer.
“I know him.”
I fell back into my seat and smacked my front teeth with the beer bottle.
A blue jay was perched on a Maple limb above the cage and was confused at my presence. He kept turning his head, first left, then right as though one side might offer a better view of me, or make more sense.
I swore to lock the bathroom door from now on, even though Mom and Dad forbade it. “What if you slip and knock yourself out while taking a bath…and drown,” Mom used as an argument.
“But you won’t know, cause there doesn’t have to be a sound, and by the time you figure out I’ve been in there too long and come checking, I’ll be blue in the water. Too late!”
At any rate, the door was locked from that point forward.
Even though it was a lame trick, Danny pulled it off like a pro – turning the door handle slowly and quietly, and then bursting in ninja-like as I climbed out of the tub. He must have been listening at the door, because woosh! I was grabbed from behind and was hauled downstairs, through the kitchen, out the back door and across the yard before I realized what was happening. Even then I couldn’t figure out a good reason. Bathwater from my body dripped all over everything and I don’t know how he held onto my slippery figure.
The cage door was open and the lock hung in one of the links. Sox barked at us as we crossed the lawn. I was too surprised to scream until we were on the lawn, and as much as I wiggled and struggled to get free, I was defenseless. I was confused but tried to find the humor…until he told me.
The blue jay flit off, obviously unimpressed by my nudity, and because of it, I looked down at myself, a bit surprised at my paleness – considering it was August and we led a very active outdoor life. Not that there wasn’t a faint line where my shorts reached, but I wondered at the lack of a tan. Suddenly I wished I had a mirror out there, because the natural light revealed too much truth.
“He’s coming!” Danny called.
Panic set in. A deep purple blush raced over my paleness and I watched it travel quickly up my legs from my toes. Reality had set in like a big stink.
The cage was void of cover. Dad planned to get Sox a doghouse to place in the corner, but realized it would take up too much room, so he put off that idea and said he was working on another. I glanced about feverishly, sweat flooding my pores, which of course wasn’t the most attractive look – I mean, if in fact I had to be seen in the nude.
Earlier, as Danny locked the gate he explained, “You’ll hate him for seeing you naked.” That was his wonderful, well thought out plan. “You’ll be happy he moved, so he won’t be able to brag to all your friends about it.”
My arms rose automatically as if controlled by a marionette.
“You are out of your mind!”
He wouldn’t listen.
“Makes no sense,” I sighed. Brothers can be stupid. But I wasn’t totally upset, because even in the heat of the event, I understood he hated to see me that upset.
“He’s at the end of the block.”
And I became suddenly tranquil – the pressure bringing a controlled logic and my escape route became apparent.
The links dug into my toes like knives, waves of searing pain racing up my legs, and I was soon splayed over the top of the fence with the same oomph feeling of fielding one of Danny’s punches in the gut. Balancing, bare ass floating in mid-air, I tentatively surveyed the thin grass sprinkled over the sun-baked dirt, took a deep breath then flipped. Had I more time to think, I would have slithered carefully over, inched down the outside of the fence and saved the painful scrapes on my butt and back – never mind the twisted ankle as I hit the ground in an awkward spread eagle landing, gasping for air as I waited for the breath to come back into my lungs.
Not only did Sally know Gary, but they had been close friends since the year he moved to her town, the same year he left my town, and the relationship was even cozier because his parents and her parents became friends and both bought summer homes along Lake Michigan and joined the same club.
And sitting on the front seat in the heat of the summer afternoon I was suddenly nervous. I wasn’t quite sure what I expected – certainly didn’t know what to expect.
The pain didn’t occur to me until I was hobbling and coughing through the kitchen, each step throbbing as I wondered if my ankle was going to hold up.
A jolt of adrenaline empowered me up the stairs and back into the bathroom. It was the only room with a lock – and I quickly turned the bolt, relieved by the sound and quickly sat down on the toilet. My ankle throbbed. The scrapes on my back and butt stung.
I was stuck and sat and waited. There were no windows, so I had no way to know what was happening. I had only my bath towel and was afraid Danny would grab me again if I dared leave the room.
Time crept slowly as I imagined Danny’s reaction when he found the cage empty and I conjured Gary’s responses. I’m sure he was upset at missing a chance at seeing me naked. I mean, come on.
I was startled by a knock on the door.
“He’s gone.”
I didn’t trust my brother. What if Gary was waiting in the hallway with him?
“He wasn’t interested.”
“What?” I cried from my seat on the toilet. My stomach tightened - a raw feeling. “What do you mean?”
“Said to say goodbye, though. He’s leaving this afternoon.”
I stared into the mirror through tears and wondered, and continued wondering about my reaction, more importantly his reaction, as I climbed back into the tub water, now tepid and cloudier than before.
“That’s him,” Sally pointed as we climbed from her car.
I couldn’t be sure which one in a group milling about under the oaks he was, but as we approached their silhouettes, images of my reflection in my bathroom mirror floated above them and I realized Gary had only been an innocent though important player in my early leap into adulthood that day and without his involvement, I wouldn’t have turned into the person I’d become.
That wonder that had hung around unanswered since that day so many years ago suddenly disappeared, and I’m finally free of those chain-links.
He gazed at me in stupid wonder as he jumped up on the cage my father built. It was an eight-foot by eight-foot cement slab surrounded by an eight-foot high chain-link fence. He had a right to stare at me in stupid wonder. I was locked in his dog cage. I was also naked and nine years old.
The oaks lined the winding dirt road like sentries
“Guarding us from the unwanted,” Sally joked.
I was Sally’s guest. We’d spent more than a few nights at Jake’s Brew House down the block from the office – pondering office politics, whether any of guys in the office were worth any time investment – and most recently whether I thought she should develop an interest in Mark, to which I responded, “I think that boat has sailed.”
She blushed and looked away surprised she had given such obvious signals.
That was our first visit to the bar and our friendship grew.
“That’s the 13th hole.” Sally pointed to a circular pond floating beneath a raised tee box. And this is the 12th green.”
The road continued alongside the 12th fairway between additional foreboding oaks. She knew I had little interest in the golf course but was attempting to keep me calm. She parked the car in front of the Shakespeare house, a replica of his actual residence that served as the club house. More monstrous oaks were spread about a spacious front lawn that opened up to another golf hole.
A sparse group of people dressed in cocktail attire mingled in the shade as the sun set over the course. These were the friends I had heard about on our drinking nights, and during these discussions I discovered that one of the friends was someone I knew over twenty years before. He was the reason I was there.
My black hair hung wet on my shoulders and I was pissed because I had just taken a bath, and as hard as we always tried to keep the cage clean, it was filled with Sox’s black fur, which made me cringe with an image of it drifting through the air into various crevices in my body.
“Danny!” I yelled, but I knew he wouldn’t answer. If he thought I needed saving he would definitely do anything in his power to do so - but he was the reason I was in the cage. Danny is my fraternal twin brother. He felt very strongly this was the cure. I told him I didn’t agree, but since Danny came out of our mother two minutes ahead of me, and was taller and stronger, I was often forced to listen. He was usually more wrong than right. My mom called it a man thing. Being a twin to a boy – if you’re a girl – was a weird thing. Cases like this proved it beyond a doubt.
“Danny, I don’t see how this is gonna work.” I stood at the fence, my fingers curling through the diamond openings. The metal was cool in the shade of the big Maple in the backyard, though the August temperature showed 86 degrees on the big round thermometer hanging outside the kitchen window across the backyard.
“You’ll see. Trust me,” he called from the sidewalk on the other side of the garage.
I knew that’s where he was standing, though I couldn’t see him. He always stood there when he waited for someone.
“Come on. How weird is this, really?”
“It’s not. You’ll see.”
If he repeated that again I was going to kill him. Sox jumped on the fence, his drooling tongue flopping out of his open mouth. “You have to clip Sox’s toenails,” I yelled, hoping to divert his train of thought, get him thinking about something else, so he’d lose interest in this ploy and release me. He had the key to the Masterlock on the cage door.
In hindsight I could have exercised more control of my emotions. Nine years isn’t a lot of time to grow a thick skin, and if you must know; Gary was my first boyfriend and I didn’t regret feeling that way, just regretted letting Danny see my reaction.
It wasn’t a pretty sight, I’ll admit to that. I was normally a tough cookie, a tomboy through and through. I was faster than Danny. I could climb trees better than he could, and I was braver than he was, especially when it came to listening to ghost stories. So when he told me Gary was moving away, I should have bit my tongue and waited to emote until I was in the confines of my bedroom.
The idea of never seeing him again, going to school and not watching him play kickball at recess was a very disconcerting feeling. My outburst came out of nowhere - maybe because Gary hadn’t bothered to tell me himself.
It’s not like we talked to each other that much. I mean we were only in third grade, but it was pretty cool to have a guy who looked like that, who is that athletic, as a boyfriend. I mean, it was a bragging rights thing, you know. The other girls in class couldn’t say Gary was their boyfriend – and now I wouldn’t be able to either.
The reason I was with Sally, other than the fact we had become close, was because of what I revealed one night at the bar. It was one of those slow nights when a few of us had survived a bruising day and deserved time just to chill and forget our current issues – mine being saddled with an unobtainable sales target and not making enough progress toward attaining it – Sally’s bemoaning a poor presentation she’d given that day – which really wasn’t as bad as she thought, but the only way I was going to convince her that it wasn’t was to pour a few beers into her. Glenda who is Sally’s assistant was there for moral support.
As so often happens when we are down in the dumps we’d go back and try and find some moment in time when – if we could – we would change it or in my case gain some enlightenment on it. Fantasy frolicking, we called it.
And when Gary’s name slipped out and my recollection that I thought he had moved to the Chicago area Sally suddenly looked at me as if I had grown another head. “Gary Wood, you say?”
I nodded, sipping my beer.
“I know him.”
I fell back into my seat and smacked my front teeth with the beer bottle.
A blue jay was perched on a Maple limb above the cage and was confused at my presence. He kept turning his head, first left, then right as though one side might offer a better view of me, or make more sense.
I swore to lock the bathroom door from now on, even though Mom and Dad forbade it. “What if you slip and knock yourself out while taking a bath…and drown,” Mom used as an argument.
“But you won’t know, cause there doesn’t have to be a sound, and by the time you figure out I’ve been in there too long and come checking, I’ll be blue in the water. Too late!”
At any rate, the door was locked from that point forward.
Even though it was a lame trick, Danny pulled it off like a pro – turning the door handle slowly and quietly, and then bursting in ninja-like as I climbed out of the tub. He must have been listening at the door, because woosh! I was grabbed from behind and was hauled downstairs, through the kitchen, out the back door and across the yard before I realized what was happening. Even then I couldn’t figure out a good reason. Bathwater from my body dripped all over everything and I don’t know how he held onto my slippery figure.
The cage door was open and the lock hung in one of the links. Sox barked at us as we crossed the lawn. I was too surprised to scream until we were on the lawn, and as much as I wiggled and struggled to get free, I was defenseless. I was confused but tried to find the humor…until he told me.
The blue jay flit off, obviously unimpressed by my nudity, and because of it, I looked down at myself, a bit surprised at my paleness – considering it was August and we led a very active outdoor life. Not that there wasn’t a faint line where my shorts reached, but I wondered at the lack of a tan. Suddenly I wished I had a mirror out there, because the natural light revealed too much truth.
“He’s coming!” Danny called.
Panic set in. A deep purple blush raced over my paleness and I watched it travel quickly up my legs from my toes. Reality had set in like a big stink.
The cage was void of cover. Dad planned to get Sox a doghouse to place in the corner, but realized it would take up too much room, so he put off that idea and said he was working on another. I glanced about feverishly, sweat flooding my pores, which of course wasn’t the most attractive look – I mean, if in fact I had to be seen in the nude.
Earlier, as Danny locked the gate he explained, “You’ll hate him for seeing you naked.” That was his wonderful, well thought out plan. “You’ll be happy he moved, so he won’t be able to brag to all your friends about it.”
My arms rose automatically as if controlled by a marionette.
“You are out of your mind!”
He wouldn’t listen.
“Makes no sense,” I sighed. Brothers can be stupid. But I wasn’t totally upset, because even in the heat of the event, I understood he hated to see me that upset.
“He’s at the end of the block.”
And I became suddenly tranquil – the pressure bringing a controlled logic and my escape route became apparent.
The links dug into my toes like knives, waves of searing pain racing up my legs, and I was soon splayed over the top of the fence with the same oomph feeling of fielding one of Danny’s punches in the gut. Balancing, bare ass floating in mid-air, I tentatively surveyed the thin grass sprinkled over the sun-baked dirt, took a deep breath then flipped. Had I more time to think, I would have slithered carefully over, inched down the outside of the fence and saved the painful scrapes on my butt and back – never mind the twisted ankle as I hit the ground in an awkward spread eagle landing, gasping for air as I waited for the breath to come back into my lungs.
Not only did Sally know Gary, but they had been close friends since the year he moved to her town, the same year he left my town, and the relationship was even cozier because his parents and her parents became friends and both bought summer homes along Lake Michigan and joined the same club.
And sitting on the front seat in the heat of the summer afternoon I was suddenly nervous. I wasn’t quite sure what I expected – certainly didn’t know what to expect.
The pain didn’t occur to me until I was hobbling and coughing through the kitchen, each step throbbing as I wondered if my ankle was going to hold up.
A jolt of adrenaline empowered me up the stairs and back into the bathroom. It was the only room with a lock – and I quickly turned the bolt, relieved by the sound and quickly sat down on the toilet. My ankle throbbed. The scrapes on my back and butt stung.
I was stuck and sat and waited. There were no windows, so I had no way to know what was happening. I had only my bath towel and was afraid Danny would grab me again if I dared leave the room.
Time crept slowly as I imagined Danny’s reaction when he found the cage empty and I conjured Gary’s responses. I’m sure he was upset at missing a chance at seeing me naked. I mean, come on.
I was startled by a knock on the door.
“He’s gone.”
I didn’t trust my brother. What if Gary was waiting in the hallway with him?
“He wasn’t interested.”
“What?” I cried from my seat on the toilet. My stomach tightened - a raw feeling. “What do you mean?”
“Said to say goodbye, though. He’s leaving this afternoon.”
I stared into the mirror through tears and wondered, and continued wondering about my reaction, more importantly his reaction, as I climbed back into the tub water, now tepid and cloudier than before.
“That’s him,” Sally pointed as we climbed from her car.
I couldn’t be sure which one in a group milling about under the oaks he was, but as we approached their silhouettes, images of my reflection in my bathroom mirror floated above them and I realized Gary had only been an innocent though important player in my early leap into adulthood that day and without his involvement, I wouldn’t have turned into the person I’d become.
That wonder that had hung around unanswered since that day so many years ago suddenly disappeared, and I’m finally free of those chain-links.
