My Movie

I like to tell people I’m from California. There’s so much glitz and glitter associated with the place. People think being from there means you must have some access to it. As far as I know that may actually be true. Californians may be our modern Olympians, and Hollywood our modern Olympus, but I wouldn’t really know. I was born in California- but I, along with my small yet growing family, moved five times before I was able to properly piss in a potty.

My father and mother began their marital journey as creative arts missionaries in California- a graphic designer and feature writer, respectively. Their promotional pieces for World Vision’s magazine told the colorful stories of the missionaries actually “in the field.” They lived in San Bernardino, the least magical city in an otherwise glorious state, for seven years.

Eventually my parents felt confined by the parched, gasping heat of Southern California. My mother shot out a baby me, causing my father to decide to shoot the family off to my parent’s native Virginia. He wanted to grow his own graphic design firm in a place where summer didn’t require a shirt change every time he crossed the street.

Sprawled in my burgundy armchair, watching the sun sink behind the hills, sipping a glass, or maybe a bottle, of scotch, I often wonder what might have happened if I had stayed in California. As a kid, I too got caught up in the California dream and loved watching Hollywood movies. I loved hearing the stories my parents would tell about the missionaries and all their crazy experiences. Movies were a way for me to see that kind of action I had until then only heard about. Not just any movies would do, though. I wanted to see epic movies with fantasy and action and love and betrayal. I wanted to get wrapped up in a story like that. I told people I was from California hoping that I could live my own movie someday. I hoped if I said it enough, maybe it would come true. What I didn’t get was that sometimes a movie is so fun to watch because you assume you’ll never really face that situation yourself, or actually become any of the characters. Sometimes distance is everything.

* * * * * * *

When I was ten I lived in a home that, during the summer days, consisted of my mother, my two delicate sisters, and myself. During the hours from eight to five, while my father was at work, my Y chromosome was not particularly welcome amidst the constant tea parties and impromptu fashion shows my sisters always held. I wished desperately, and often, that I had a brother. Preferably an older brother (and if he came with a video camera I certainly wouldn’t have minded), but I wasn’t particularly picky. I constantly wanted somebody to help me offset all the femininity in my life.

On about the third day of that summer, while pretending I was King Kong, I found myself ripping some doll’s arm off, leaving it forever crippled (until, of course, our capable mother could get around to performing miracle limb-reattachment surgery). I was promptly evicted and told to amuse myself elsewhere. This suited me just fine. What movies were made sitting around a house full of girls? And, of course, once I was no longer confined in the overly feminine house, I made for the pool as quickly as my bare feet would allow.

Our neighborhood was named Redfields, or “Happydale,” as my sarcastic cousin Keith called it. Sarcastic though he was, Keith was much closer to the truth than Redfield’s modest residents would likely admit. And while there was nothing so wondrous as perpetual sunshine in that little community, there did always seem to be an air of light-heartedness and prosperity. These feelings stemmed from being safely anchored in the middle-class, and living in a place with too-green grass and slowly sloping hills packed with sturdy residential dwellings. I didn’t really feel like this neighborhood was exactly an ideal starting point for any film-quality adventures, but I was determined to experience my movie regardless. Many movies started in a seemingly mundane setting and I was sure I could find a story worth living here.

As Redfields grew, the pool quickly revealed its inadequate size. In those languid summer days, large populations of children came out, or were kicked out by their exasperated mothers, to cool their fidgety bodies in the pool’s welcoming three to five foot depths. Though the pool itself was gated, it seemed to be a mere formality. The pool was unguarded and unsupervised, except for some (evidently useless) security cameras rolling their lazy, metal eyes over non-specific areas of the pool. This minimal security made it especially easy for kids of surrounding neighborhoods to sneak, or rather clamber, over the squat, blunt gate and tumble ungainly into the shallow waters.

This created a sort of adolescent utopia out of the pool area and adjacent park. I spent countless summer days thrashing in those waters along with the other neighborhood boys. And when we grew bored with the water we charged over to the rise in the middle of the park and played king of the hill- throwing each other from the top and staining our knees a violent green as we tumbled from the peak. When we grew sufficiently dirty, we simply turned and scrambled over the pool’s low-lying, black metal gate and sterilized ourselves in the chlorine-rich waters.

It was there, amidst the sea of squirming bodies and unruly little hellions, that I met Johnny and Daniel. I ran first into Johnny in a very literal sense, headfirst. Pursued by my friend Joseph, who was threatening to end my existence with his laser sword built from a flimsy, foam aquamarine water-noodle, I plowed blindly into Johnny’s chest, toppling us both into the water.

“Wha- what in the heck are you doing?” Johnny said, spluttering to the surface.

“I…” Thwack! Before I could finish replying, Joseph, who had seized the opportunity to deliver a crushing blow, slapped me in the back of the head. Joseph half ran, half flailed as he tore away from us in order to regain his strength and plan his next attack. I turned around to face the kid I’d just smashed into, only to find that another, decidedly older, boy was already there.

“Johnny, you okay?” this new boy asked of the recovering Johnny.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. You don’t need to baby me.”

“I’m not babying you, you idiot,” rejoined the other boy. “I’m just being a brother. Making sure you weren’t dead so Mom won’t get pissed.”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

The boy, sure his brother was sufficiently undamaged, smacked Johnny on the cheek playfully before finally turning to me and smiling.

“Hey,” he said extending his hand, “name’s Daniel. That little wiener there,” he gestured to his brother, “is my brother Johnny. Sorry if he got in your way.” He waved a hand in his brother’s direction without looking to silence the boy’s impending protest.

“Yea- Yeah thanks. I’m Addison.” I hated telling people my name. It was such a girl’s name. Just one more feminine thing in my life. I needed a name like Alan or Rick. Anything from The Predator really. Nobody messed with those guys. “I think I kinda ran into him though,” I said, somewhat confused at the boy’s friendliness. Daniel was certainly older, looking to be about fourteen or thereabouts, but he wasn’t all that much bigger than I was. His short-cropped, whitish-blonde hair sat atop a blindingly pale face. His fair skin seemed to be burning from the sun right before my very eyes.

“Told you!” Exclaimed his tanner, healthier-looking younger brother.

“Whatever,” Daniel said. “Do you live around here?” he said, directing his attention back to me.

“Yeah, over on Grace Street.”

“Nice. We live on Oak.” Daniel pointed imprecisely over his shoulder. “Hey!” Daniel exclaimed as he remembered, “a bunch of us were going to try and pet or ride or whatever some of the horses in that pasture over by the nature trail in a few minutes. You should come with us.” Johnny, who had been mostly staring off absentmindedly, quickly forgot any potential animosity toward my head butting and suddenly snapped to attention.

“Yeah!” He shouted, waving his arms wildly. “I want to ride on George!” He was referencing George the Pony, a pony well known for being both the perfect height for a small kid to ride and perfectly impossible to catch. All of the neighborhood boys wanted desperately to snag the pony, but none had ever succeeded.

“Sure!” I said quickly, knowing I still wasn’t allowed back in my house, and still wary of another sneak attack by Joseph.

“Let’s go then.” Daniel slowly pulled himself out of the pool, favoring a splotchy, purple bruise on his forearm, and went to dry off.

Johnny hopped out after him but, noticing my hesitance, turned back to me saying, “Come on, man. Let’s go ride a freakin’ horse!” and offered me his hand. I grasped it quickly, noticing his surprisingly strong grip- considering he appeared to be no more than a year older than me- and hoisted myself from the pool.

* * * * * * *

The “bunch of us” Daniel was referring to turned out to be several of his siblings. It just so happened that Daniel and Johnny ranked fifth and sixth oldest in their family of ten children. The four eldest were all daughters and the three oldest had left Redfields as soon as they were able. Their very-strictly Catholic father had evidently decided early on in the marriage that he was against birth control. Not surprisingly their family grew exponentially almost immediately and had been growing ever since. A military man, their father, Leo, had been stationed in Virginia right after the Gulf War. He moved his family to Redfields soon after acquiring a job at the University of Virginia as a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps instructor.

And so it was that I found myself with five blonde-haired, blue-eyed people of varying age from fourteen to eight years old, wandering off into the woods in search of adventure. It felt like a movie. It felt like I had brothers.

Their family was not a family of athletes. The trek to where the horses were located was no more than a mile through well-marked, relatively flat terrain. They moved as if struggling through a mudslide. Being the rambunctious kid that I was, I was quickly leaping and bounding around the others like an excited puppy while they traipsed slowly up the slight inclines.

And if the family as a whole was struggling, Daniel was certainly having the worst of it. He was sweating profusely and dragged, rather than walked, along. But despite the apparent fatigue, the whole family was very friendly and happy, to a fault. (Today, I realize that the family’s pace was likely in deference to Daniel’s physical challenges rather than to their own limitations.)

I ran ahead when I became tired of such slow movement, and imagined myself lost in enchanted woods. The trees swayed together and whispered about these disturbances in their grove. They reached out with their strong, supple boughs to grab me. I was too quick for them. I ran from the great trees and felt their frustration in the rustling of their leaves. My heart leaped in my throat cutting off my air passages as I started to believe in my own wild imaginings. I tripped, crashing into a pile of dead leaves and scraping my elbows on the rough dirt. I yelled out in my pain, unable to contain my fear of the trees that were bending over me. Before I could even begin to pick myself up or turn around, I felt a hand upon my shoulder.

“You all right?” Daniel asked, still breathing heavily. The trees straightened and looked elsewhere for amusement.

“I think so. I just kind of tripped over those roots.”

“You were running like a thing possessed,” Daniel said, laughing. “I half expected you to get lost, or die.”

“Sorry,” I replied, looking down sheepishly.

“Not a problem. But hey, we’re here.”

I looked around, realizing where I was. Fortunately, in my mad rush I had stopped just before crashing into the strips of barbed wire that separated the woods from the horses’ field. These horses were known to be wild and I knew any wrong movements could invite a swift kick to the chest and a swift trip to the emergency room. On top of that very real danger, there was Farmer Meyers.

Farmer Meyers owned the pastures adjacent to the nature trail, but he was nothing if not elusive. I had been in that pasture several dozen times growing up and I never saw the man tending to the horses. There was a house at the very far end of the pasture, on top of a grassy knoll. Presumably that was where he lived, and doubtless he could see anything that happened to his horses. We were afraid that in messing with his horses we would incur his infamous wrath. Nobody had ever actually seen him out in the pastures and as far as I can tell he never was.

Maybe he was scary and maybe he wasn’t. We were more afraid of him than was certainly plausible or rational. That was the point. When the lights were out and we huddled in makeshift tents like the kids we were, we would tell stories of how Farmer Meyers had abducted our once friend Kenny and drowned him in the lake. Obviously that was why Kenny’s family had moved away. We relished the fear. We were afraid of Farmer Meyers because it was fun to be afraid of him, and we became closer friends because of it.

It was with that fear and pulsing excitement coursing uncontrollably through our veins that we all slowly stepped under the barbed wire and into the long, sundrenched grass. The first thing we saw, the only thing we could see, was the vast array of horses. Running, grazing, and simply standing, horses littered the fields. Their coats created a sort of muddy rainbow with colors ranging from the darkest blacks to the purest whites to the reddest browns, and everything in-between.

I spied a particularly striking chestnut-colored horse not too far from me and I crept toward it in the hopes of petting his flowing mane. He looked to me like the horse from the movie National Velvet, which only made it that much more exciting. When I got within five feet of the beast he reared up on powerful limbs in a snorting reddish-brown fury and galloped away. Undaunted, I moved toward a horse that was as black as the end of a movie.

Within minutes, agitated horses were hurtling through the long grass, creating ripples like rocks skipping across glassy ponds- here one second and three feet farther the next, moving too quickly to track. Johnny snuck up behind a massive, snowy stallion, attempting to leap onto his back. The huge creature simply bucked up, throwing Johnny into an awkward bundle on the ground without so much as turning. While I watched Johnny, my second horse galloped away. I glanced behind me, scanning for Farmer Meyers and his fabled pitchfork.

What I saw astonished me. Daniel was approaching George; impossibly shy and difficult to even touch George, and making little cooing noises with each step. George’s coat was a fuzzy tan, his black mane draped over his forehead falling lightly into his large auburn eyes. Wary of Daniel’s approach, George kept making as if to bolt at any second but yet did not. George shook his head and made little grunting noises and lightly stamped his feet, but wasn’t actually moving anywhere. Daniel kept coming closer and closer whispering to him all the while, like the pony was a newborn child.

Then he was petting George. Daniel just laid his hand on the pony’s muzzle and a quiver ran through its entire body. But George did not run. He stayed there letting the strange boy pet him, becoming less ill at ease with each passing second. I stared dumbfounded at the boy who had managed to pacify the most elusive, distrustful beast in a difficult herd. I was the only one who witnessed the event.

At the time I couldn’t comprehend what was so special about Daniel. I just assumed it was some fluke or blind luck that allowed Daniel to get so close to George. But I think George must have been able to sense Daniel’s delicate nature.

Daniel had always had a weak stomach. When he was born the doctors weren’t sure he would live through the night. Now that he was fourteen, he still spent a good deal of his time in and out of hospitals for surgeries on his stomach lining. He knew that he could die randomly at any minute, so he figured there was no point in being afraid of living life while he could. That’s why he had chosen to come out and mess with these horses despite it being quite dangerous for him.

He tried to explain to me his condition once. From what I remember it was as if the walls of his stomach couldn’t keep the acid inside. No matter how many surgeries he had, no matter how many pills he swallowed or shots he took, he could not keep that damaging acid in his stomach. I think Daniel himself was just like that. He couldn’t hold onto anything bad, anything unkind or evil. Those things would just leave his mind and his body. But some things you can’t let go, no matter how weak your stomach is. Those things will tear you apart just like acid eating away at your organs.

* * * * * * *

About a month after Daniel’s encounter with George I still had never seen inside Daniel and Johnny’s house. I had frequently watched the brothers gallop down their front steps to meet me and begin our day’s meanderings. I had even gone so far as to throw rocks at their window at night, but never had I managed to penetrate the exterior of the house or even glimpse into the foyer.

I had suggested several times that we spend the night at either our house or theirs and they had always settled on mine. Being fairly young I didn’t think twice about it, the first seven times. Then it began to be noticeable, even to me. We were spending time together nearly every day (due to it still being summer and us continually neglecting our summer reading). Reluctant to cut our fun short when the sun went down, I often suggested we continue to hang out as night crept in. And after several consecutive nights of our hangouts being deferred to my house I felt compelled to ask them the reason. As with all things, I was tactful. “Why the heck do we always stay at my house? Does your house have, like, crap smeared all over the walls or something?” I made a vulgar, sweeping gesture. “Am I not allowed?” I asked, laughing. Daniel and Johnny looked at each other, having a hurried conversation with their eyes. They turned to me.

“Actually… yeah. Kinda,” Johnny said, falteringly.

“There’s crap all over the walls?” I said, spitting up my coke.

“No, you idiot! You aren’t allowed. Nobody is allowed. Not just you.”

“Our dad-” Daniel paused. “Our dad can be a little crazy about people coming over.” Daniel stared angrily at the floor.

“He doesn’t let anybody in the house except us.”

“And repairmen!”

“Yes. And repairmen,” Daniel said with not a little sarcasm.

“I mean that’s cool, I guess. Just wanted to know.” I turned back to the television screen, suddenly engrossed in the antics of Ace Ventura. I wondered what their father’s reasoning could possibly be. Why couldn’t people go into their house?

“He just doesn’t like it. We don’t like to get him pissed… He can really- really get mad. He just hasn’t been the same since he got back from the war.” Daniel trailed off his sentence, unsure of what to say. “I just wish he wasn’t around… If it was up to Mom you could be there all the time…”

“It’s cool. Seriously, I don’t care. I was just wondering what it was. And now I know, so-”

“So we can get back to Jim Carrey talking with his butt,” Johnny finished.

“Hear, hear,” said Daniel, glad to be finished with the awkward topic, and we did exactly that. We watched Jim Carrey cry out to the animals by spreading his butt cheeks apart. I soon stopped thinking about the issue and everything returned to normal. Or as normal as it could be, considering the spread butt cheeks.

* * * * * * *

Another week trolled listlessly by. We were getting well into the summer now, and we were beginning to grow restless. After several days of watching and re-watching the “Star Wars” films we were ready for some cinematic excitement of our own.

I suggested we see if there was any adventure to be had in the woods, so we trudged off into the great wilderness of the nature trail in search of danger. Something rustled in the underbrush. We stopped to listen. Suddenly a squirrel exploded out from under a pile of leaves, causing Daniel and me to jump back. Johnny laughed at our reaction then continued meandering.

“You know what would make this really exciting?” Johnny said, clambering to the top of a massive rock. “If we took Dad’s gun out here and hunted some of them squirrels.” He pretended to shoot at a low-flying hawk.

“Your dad has a gun?” I was shocked.

“A big one. I think he kept it from when he used to be in the army. Kinda looks like the Cougar Magnum in Goldeneye. I bet we could shoot a bear!”

“That sounds like a horrible idea.” I didn’t like the thought of getting in any trouble with their father. I did wonder what it would feel like in the palm of my hand. How heavy would it be? Would the steel be cool or warm? When I fired, would there be any kick back? Would my arm shatter from the recoil? Would I look as awesome as Pierce Brosnan did in the movie Goldeneye? The thoughts were equally exciting and frightening, and my pulse quickened at the thought.

“A gun is not a freaking toy, Johnny,” Daniel said. “I think we should find something to do that doesn’t involve fighting bears.”

“What’s more exciting than fighting bears? I can’t think of anything more exciting than fighting bears,” Johnny said.

“We could go to Farmer Meyers’ house,” I said. They spun around to look at me.

“Is he even real?” Johnny shuddered. “I’d rather fight a bear.”

“I mean somebody’s real. There’s a house isn’t there?” Daniel pointed to the top of the hill, peaking just over the tree line.

“Isn’t he like, evil, though?”

“Johnny, even if he is evil, he won’t be able to catch us.” I placed my hand reassuringly on his shoulder.

“Addison,” Daniel said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”

Johnny, aware of an imbalance, placed his hand on Daniel’s shoulder, creating a triangle of hands on shoulders. “Daniel, I don’t have anything clever to say.” We laughed, shaking the hands off our shoulders.

“Come on guys. We’ll just go touch the house and run away. Then we’ll be legends.” I was getting excited about the drama and danger that would come from approaching that house. It felt like something the kids from the Sandlot would do. Those kids were awesome and I wanted to do something worthy of the silver screen, just like those kids did. I remembered a quote from that movie. “Remember guys, ‘heroes get remembered, but legends never die.’”

“Sandlot?” Johnny said.

“Yeah.”

“Nice.”

“Let’s do it,” Daniel said. “I’m bored with just sitting around anyway.” He started walking in the direction of the hill.

“You sure you’ll be okay? Like with your stomach…” I realized as I spoke I was likely just going to piss Daniel off.

Daniel stopped walking midstride. “I’ll be fine.” Unwilling to push the issue further, the three of us set off toward Farmer Meyer’s place.

The hill Farmer Meyer’s house upon was almost wholly covered in thick oak trees. The house itself was entirely encircled by trees, but the shack was inside a clearing, having no trees within about fifty yards. The walls of this hovel were built with logs while the rest of the house appeared stitched together with random pieces of warped, grey wood. The cabin sagged to its left, threatening to tip at the slightest breeze.

We arrived at the place around mid-afternoon, approaching the front of the house. It looked empty. There was no car in the little, gravel driveway. The grass around the house was well kept, but there were no signs of any sort of flowers or garden. It didn’t appear to me that anybody was home. I felt a little relieved. This would be easy. I couldn’t imagine anything better than achieving legend status fit for a movie without having to actually do something dangerous. We crouched behind the massive trunk of a fallen tree just on the outer rim of the clearing.

“Just run up and touch it.” I pointed to the lilting wooden door.

“You first,” Johnny said. His eyes darted furtively across the windows. “If he’s here he’ll shoot you first so I can get away.”

“We’ll all do it together. That way it’ll be quick.” Daniel held up three fingers. “Ready? One-” He lowered the first finger. We sat up on our haunches, ready to spring. Adrenaline gushed through my veins. Daniel kept counting. “Two…” I started breathing more rapidly. Daniel lowered another finger. “Three… Go!” We leapt up from our hiding place and ran wildly toward the house. Johnny reached the house first, smacking the creaky wooden door with his palm before whirling around and sprinting back toward the woods.

“Better hurry up, slow pokes!” Johnny said as he galloped past us. I reached the door second, and as I slapped the timber the front door erupted open. I paused, staring at the old man standing before me. He was stooped over and his flowing grey beard was draped over his ample stomach. He glared at me intently. I spun around and sprinted away from the old man. Daniel hadn’t fully turned around, and I collided jarringly with him in my desperate bid to escape. We collapsed to the ground in a heap. Heavy footsteps crashed back inside of the house. I heard a loud snap like a round being chambered into a shotgun.

I sprang to my feet. “Daniel, let’s freaking go!” I tried to pull him up but he was holding his stomach and groaning. “Let’s… Go!” I jerked him to his feet and dragged him, stumbling behind me, as I ran. The old man, back on the porch, swore, yelling something about trespassing and stupid kids. The sound of the shotgun blast ripped through the air as he fired into the trees well above our heads. We didn’t stop running, crashing through the underbrush, until we left the nature trail and reached the street. We buckled to the ground, falling on our backs and gasping for air. Johnny had beaten us there and bounded over to us when we emerged from the woods. I looked up at his excited, nervous face and began laughing.

“What are you laughing at? We almost got shot,” Johnny said, starting to smile himself.

“We are freaking legends!” I said. I laughed again. “Nobody has ever even seen Farmer Meyers. We not only saw him but we ding-dong-ditched his house.” I realized maybe there were some stories to be told in this quiet neighborhood.

“They will tell great tales of our adventures I’m sure,” Daniel said, panting and holding his stomach.

“Maybe we should just stick to playing videogames,” Johnny said and laughed.

* * * * * * *

We needed a Nintendo 64. My friend Joseph had just gotten one and I had been over to his house, with Daniel and Johnny, probably fifteen times to play 007 Goldeneye. The game box’s sleek, smooth curves were a technological masterpiece, fusing art with science. The game itself was unlike anything that we had ever seen before. I felt as if I actually was Pierce Brosnan, taking down communists and snagging women. It felt just like a real movie, except we actually had an active role- like a movie you could play. This used to be the real draw for me. It was the closest thing I could find to actually being in a movie. I wanted my life to be a movie and a videogame provided a sort of virtual sense of just that. Living a movie. There was only one thing that shattered that illusion for me. Joseph.

Joseph did not see the beauty of the game. He did not see how we were playing out a movie with our own choices. The only thing Joseph saw was the dripping blood on the screen indicating he did not win the game. And if this was the case then everybody had better look out. He would throw his controller at us and rampage around the room screaming. “You guys have cheats in your controllers! There’s no way I missed that shot. You were right there!” These pointless howlings echoed through his basement, until he finally settled down enough to play another round. It was frightening.

There was no way for us to enjoy the game, because beating Joseph brought the aforementioned verbal abuse. Winning consecutive games brought his uncontainable rage and a vigorous water-noodle-thwacking form of physical abuse. He always had that thing with him. And of course none of us wanted to lose, and doing so intentionally to simply appease Joseph did not make a loss any easier to swallow. We needed a Nintendo 64.

One night, as Daniel, Johnny and I were sitting in my basement, we brainstormed schemes to pool together enough money to get the system, game, and extra controllers.

“Let me finish before you say anything,” Daniel began, clearing his throat. “We sell Johnny.” Daniel received a swift slap to the face.

“What if we did yard work?” I said.

“What if YOU do yard work?” Johnny said.

“What if I throw you into a wall?” Realizing the conversation was going nowhere I stood up to go get more chips from the pantry on the first floor. On the way back down I noticed a deck of dusty Pokémon cards I hadn’t touched in well over a year resting on the bookshelf. It hit me.

“What if we just walk around the neighborhood selling our crap?”

“Dude. I’ve smelled your crap. There’s no way I would buy it. No matter how well it could fertilize a plant.” Daniel received a swift slap to the face.

“No! Like our old toys and stuff.”

“Hmmm, I like it.” Daniel’s muffled voice rose from the thick, maroon shag carpet.

“I’m down,” Johnny said, grabbing a stuffed animal from under the couch.

Two days later we assembled in front of their house to inspect our goods. We had one deck of Pokémon cards, eight various stuffed animals, my old Gameboy Pocket, some rocks, an etch-a-sketch, and several other random games and toy novelties. Almost everything in the pile was mine.

“Okay,” I started. “We need to get fifty-eight dollars out of this mess. I’ve got about thirty saved from allowance, which has taken me almost a month to save. So how much do we need?” I rapidly spun around and thrust my finger directly at Johnny.

“Twenty… twenty-six? No. Twenty sev-”

“Twenty-eight, moron,” Daniel said without so much as a glance at his brother.

“Brilliant. I guess we’ll split up and meet back here in a couple hours before it gets too late. Sound good?” The brothers nodded, turned, and headed toward the lower parts of the neighborhood. I watched as Johnny almost walked in front of a car before being pulled out of the way by his brother, who then smacked Johnny in the back of the head, laughing. I wished I had a brother like Daniel. He looked after Johnny and everybody else in his family. I wondered what it would be like to have a brother that would do anything for me. I turned slowly and something caught my eye. The lower window next to the door was completely filled by the massive figure of Leo. He didn’t move but he seemed to be looking directly at me. Was he watching me? I quickly looked away hoping he hadn’t noticed and scurried up the road toward the houses on the opposite side, my bag filled with various sale items bumping forcefully against my leg.

I had no idea on how to begin my first experience in sales, so I just sort of meandered from street to street hoping to find a wandering kid to approach and swindle.

I imagined myself a brave explorer, bringing furs and trappings to trade with the Indians. I felt like John Smith from Pocahontas on a grand adventure. I hacked away at invisible vines impeding my progress, searching for an Indian with whom I could make a deal.

After an hour I had sold exactly nothing. Surprisingly, nobody wanted to pay for any of my treasured goods. Increasingly frustrated, I felt the sweat trickling down my back from heat of the midday sun. I had decided to give up early and just head home, when I noticed Molly, Daniel and Johnny’s older sister, lounging outside their house reading a book. I feared walking so close to their house, at least during the daytime, but I wanted to see if I could potentially make a sale, seeing as I actually knew her fairly well. I settled on shouting at her from the road.

“Molly! I’ve got the deal of a lifetime.” She turned leisurely toward me.

“Oh yeah? And what might that be?” She brushed her hair back from her face revealing a faded bruise near her temple.

“A Wartortle Pokémon card, no scratches. Only five dollars!” She threw back her head and shrieked with laughter.

“That is the worst trade ever,” she eventually replied, gasping for breath. “The only way I would buy something from you would be if you had a portable videogame or something like that. Dad won’t let me have any videogames, says they’re sinful. He says they make you want to go out and shoot people in real life. He flips out any time a video game is even mentioned. Obviously he won’t get me anything and I don’t have a car to get anywhere. At least if it was portable I could hide it.” I rummaged through the articles in my bag, finally grabbing the Gameboy.

“I’ve got a black Gameboy Pocket!” I exclaimed. “Mint condition.”

“Really? Bring it over here.”

I looked around hesitantly, afraid to tread on their lawn in the open daylight. Molly noticed my tentativeness and laughed again, “Come on. Dad’s not home and won’t be for several hours. You’re fine.” Reluctantly I slinked over to her, constantly scanning around me. I handed her the Gameboy.

“Yeah, okay. I’m down with this. How much do you want for it?”

“Thirty dollars,” I said immediately and without thinking. Instantly I regretted it. There was no way she’d give me that much money and, now that’d I’d asked for such a high price, she’d surely tell me to bug off rather than haggle for a better price.

“Sounds good. I’ll go get what’s left of my birthday money from last year. If the thing breaks though, I’ll get Johnny to sit on your face.” Afraid that if I said anything I might change her mind, I simply nodded. I fidgeted nervously while she went inside to get the money. As soon as she returned, I grabbed the money from her outstretched hand, and flew like a drunken tornado toward my house.

* * * * * * *

Eager to get back to Daniel and Johnny, I decided to take a quick shortcut through a wooded area between a few streets, rather than running along the main road. I was so excited to get back to them that I didn’t notice the two boys until they grabbed my shirt, wrenching it across my throat and knocking me to the ground.

“Where you going so fast?” The first boy asked, bending over me. The two boys wore dirty gray t-shirts and ripped jeans. I recognized them as being thug high schoolers from the apartment complex right outside of Redfields. They had stolen over the fence a few times to dip in our pool.

“Just headed home.” I was having difficulty breathing and was painfully aware of the wad of cash in my back pocket.

“Oh yeah?” The second boy poked me in the chest. “Excited about that little sale you just made?” My stomach dropped. They must have seen Molly hand me the cash.

“What sale?” The first boy kicked me in the ribs; I felt the wind rush out of me. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes roved wildly, desperately searching for help.

“You know exactly what we mean. Give us the cash, punk.” The second boy lifted me up and started digging through my pockets. I squirmed trying to break free of his grip, but he was too strong.

“Stop struggling.” The first boy’s stomach punch doubled me over. Darkness circled the edge of my vision, but I couldn’t let them have the money. It would take way too long to get that much again. I tried to stand up. They knocked me back to the ground laughing. They flipped me, grabbing at my pocket

“What are you jerks doing?” The boys released me.

“What does it look like we’re doing? Get out of here.”

“It looks like you’re about to get in some massive trouble. My brother is going to get help- don’t think I don’t know who you are, Baxter, Ralph.” I rolled over slowly, recognizing Daniel’s voice. He was standing twenty feet away, cool and collected, a massive branch in his hands.

“I don’t believe you.” Baxter looked around furtively.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me.”

Ralph looked nervously to Baxter. “Dude, maybe we should go.”

“We could beat the hell out of him before they get here, and take the cash too.” Baxter whipped out a small pocket blade.

“Try it,” Daniel said. Baxter walked right up to Daniel and stared him in the eyes. Daniel held his gaze. Ralph, unnerved by Daniel’s demeanor, tugged at his friend’s sleeve.

“Let’s freaking go!”

Daniel took a step toward Baxter. Baxter wavered. He looked back down at me and spat. “Lucky thing your friend was here.” They turned tail and dashed off into the woods.

“And don’t come back,” Daniel shouted after them, cupping his hands around his mouth. He bent down to help me up. “You okay? You look pretty beat up.” He extended his hand to me, pulling me back to my feet.

“Yeah I’m okay I think. My stomach hurts.” Daniel laughed and clapped me on the back.

“I know the feeling.” He touched his own stomach. “I’m just glad you came this way. Johnny is hiding somewhere along the main road. One of us was going to scare you as you came by.” I thought about this for a second.

“You mean Johnny isn’t getting help?”

“Nope, just a little trick I pulled. Good thing they believed me.” He laughed again.

I looked at him, stunned. “Dude, you are like an action hero! You’re like freaking Rambo. There are probably a dozen movies with a scene just like this.”

I still can’t believe he did that for me. I can hardly believe that he would risk getting hit in his feeble stomach, or worse, just to keep me safe. I still can’t believe how self-sacrificing he was. I realized then that I did have a big brother. Daniel would be there for me just as he was with his own family.

“Come on, man. Let’s go to your house and get cleaned up,” Daniel said. I put one arm around his shoulder and limped back to my house.

Johnny was waiting for us at my house when we got there. “Whoa! What the heck happened to you?” He gestured to my limp.

“Nothing really. Just some punk kids jumped him in the woods. They’re gone now.”

“If I’d have been there I would have beaten the crap out of them.”

“I’m sure you would have, you little Hercules,” Daniel said, patting Johnny’s head.

I sat down to rest for a second. “Check this out.” I pulled out the cash I’d gotten from Molly. Daniel and Johnny stared at it wide-eyed.

“Where the heck did you get that?” Daniel asked, unsure if what he was looking at was real.

“I sold my Gameboy Pocket to Molly. I can’t believe she bought it.” Daniel and Johnny looked at each other. They erupted in laughter.

“Her birthday is on Wednesday. She’s getting a Gameboy Color,” Johnny said, laughing at the irony of her having bought a much crappier version of the present she was about to receive in three days.

“We were going to give it to her as a secret, since Dad won’t let her have it,” Daniel said. “And,” he added. “That’s why we don’t really have a lot of cash of our own…”

“Oh. Turd. I have plausible deniability right?” I said, using a phrase I had just learned from watching the movie Independence Day.

“Dude. Shut up. The fact that you even said ‘plausible deniability’ makes me want to punch you so hard you’ll wish you weren’t punched so hard.” Johnny motioned mock-menacingly with his fist. “Except, you know, that kinda already happened.” He gestured broadly to my entire person.

“I’ll protect you.” Daniel placed his hand reassuringly on my shoulder. “Nothing more will happen to our little titan of industry.”

To be continued, Friday July 6.