Random thoughts
One afternoon shortly after school had let out for the summer, Stephen, Russ and I sat down in the clearing in the vacant lot behind Russ' house and decided that Jay was totally weird and that our mission over the next eight years was to make him completely miserable.
Jay was the new kid who moved into the house on the corner. Stephen and I were six; he was Russ' age - a year older. Jay said he was from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his dad worked for Westinghouse. Not surprisingly, all the major appliances they owned were Westinghouse appliances, which was weird to us kids, since nobody else on the block owned anything by Westinghouse. That was the first weird thing, and maybe that was all it took because pretty soon after that Jay was weird.
Jay had weird, thick blond hair that stood straight up on his head. And he had weird freckles - no one in our neighborhood had those! Jay was a weirdo, a pensive and weirdly furtive sort of kid. He couldn't really communicate his feelings well, and that was weird. And he did weird and undeniably stupid things - like jump into the deep end of our swimming pool without knowing how to swim right in front of all of us (which pegged our collective weird-o-meter). Two of our dads had to jump in and pull him out, pitching him onto the deck coughing and sputtering. He also threw rocks at girls - also weird, stupid and we added psychopath to our list; a word we relished with glee when Russ told us about it and what it meant. Since Jay was older and an actual Little League pitcher, he had some velocity and accuracy with that arm. He hit my sister Randi on the butt and sent Stephen's little sister Cecilia to the hospital to get 3 stitches on her forehead ('another inch or so lower and he would'a put out her eye, little creep.' said Vince, Stephen and Cecilia's dad.) So that was weird - but what ultimately made him too weird for the rest of us was his weird and psychopathic mom. She was some kind of stay at home drug addict - she lived in muumuus and bathrobes and slippers full-time, and actually had a little Lazy Susan for all her prescriptions next to her bed, which she'd spin and then wait until it stopped and dispensed her a drug at random. They could be M&M's (which Jay sometimes used to substitute for some of her drugs) - it didn't matter to her. She'd knock back a fistful and then yell at us.
It was Stephen's idea to charge Jay a quarter each to play with the two of us. A quarter lasted about 5 minutes. In Stephen's case, it wasn't so much being cruel as he learning how to be what he would grow up to be - rich off of other people. However, I WAS cruel; I loved being mean to uncool kids, and socially isolating an uncool loser through alienation and xenophobia was my torture of choice. It was my idea to ACTUALLY SLOW DOWN right before we hit him up for another quarter. We'd be playing and then I'd start to slow down my movements and my speech, like turning off a 45rpm record in the middle of a song and let it wind down. . ."Let's go play some more . . but - y-o-u. .h-a-v-e . .t-o . . p-a-y . m-e. . u-h. . .n-u-h-h. . .t-h-u-r-r. . . .q-u-a-r-r-r . . .t-e-r-r-r-r-r-r. . .
Throughout our childhood, Jay never truly fit in. My dad made an effort though, damn him. He did this to punish me, because he thought I had been cruel and that Jay needed friends or else something could snap in him and then where would we be? "And it will all be on your head. You want that?" Dad was concerned because Jay's mom was creepy and nuts and Jay's dad was on the road most of the time.
So by the time I was about thirteen, Jay would spend each and every freaking night sitting at our kitchen table listening to my dad's limited, but never-ending summer-reruns of his childhood. Or playing Oh Hell. Or helping my dad fix stuff.
Something somewhere in the house always needed fixing, and Jay was, diabolically, extremely handy with tools.
Then he'd have stay for dinner. Dad would insist.
The summer I turned fourteen, he was there at my house before I got up, he was there when I made my lunch, there when I went to bed. I even had a lawn-mowing job with him - his mower, my broom and my back.
Life sucked.
And yes, I knew that payback was a bitch. I coined that phrase, swear to God.
I remember one day when the weather turned chilly, I went home to get out of my cutoffs and t-shirt and put on something warm. I topped the hill, and saw Jay watching my house! I snuck down to a neighbors and literally sat in a tree and spied Jay as he caseed my house, waiting for me to show up. I started shivering as the sun disappeared behind some clouds and the wind picked up - and I made the decision to sneak - SNEAK! - into my own bedroom to get some jeans and a jacket, oh, and shoes and socks. In and out of the window well of my basement room - then I hightailed it, jumping over several small fences that separated the row of back yards until I thought I was safe.
I'm pretty sure he saw me. After seven years, he had become pretty well trained my my methods of deception and betrayal.
By fifteen, Jay had left our definition of weird behind and started living by his new definition - creepy. Unfortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) Jay became obsessed with my sister Randi and started spying on her when she was changing. He'd stand in our back yard and try to peek in through her bedroom window. Sometimes my sister would catch him, whipping up the window shade and screaming his name, which made him run away before my Mom or Dad could see him. My dad talked to Jay, but it didn't really stop. Despite my sister's begging, Dad still felt sorry for him and let him stay around.
I told my Junior High friend, Rob about it one day, shooting pool in the basement. "He could be spying on Randi right now." "Bullshit," said Rob. "I bet he's standing there right now," I said. "I could open that basement door and he'd be right at the top of the stairs, trying to see in her window." Rob laughed, went to the basement door opened it without looking up and yelled "Hey JAY!"
He looked up - his face turned white. After a second he looked at me. "Damn. He was standing right there."
Then one day my sister found that her favorite bikini had been cut with scissors. Someone - JAY - had snuck into her room, found her underwear drawer, found the top to her bikini and cut holes where her nipples would be. This was too much even for my Dad, and he took Jay aside 'man-to-man' and told him he had to stay away from the house.
And finally, FINALLY, I was free of the guy.
In high school, Jay got a girl pregnant. They got married. They had a lot of kids. He dropped out (or not, I can't really remember anymore) and he got a job working as a manager in a burger place.
He still sent my parents Christmas cards of himself with his family long after I'd moved away from home. When I saw the card on the mantle I told my Mom that I thought it was weird. "It is," she said.
"Your Dad liked him though." She frowned. "He was a dark little ghost, wasn't he?"
And no, I don't feel bad.
Jay was the new kid who moved into the house on the corner. Stephen and I were six; he was Russ' age - a year older. Jay said he was from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his dad worked for Westinghouse. Not surprisingly, all the major appliances they owned were Westinghouse appliances, which was weird to us kids, since nobody else on the block owned anything by Westinghouse. That was the first weird thing, and maybe that was all it took because pretty soon after that Jay was weird.
Jay had weird, thick blond hair that stood straight up on his head. And he had weird freckles - no one in our neighborhood had those! Jay was a weirdo, a pensive and weirdly furtive sort of kid. He couldn't really communicate his feelings well, and that was weird. And he did weird and undeniably stupid things - like jump into the deep end of our swimming pool without knowing how to swim right in front of all of us (which pegged our collective weird-o-meter). Two of our dads had to jump in and pull him out, pitching him onto the deck coughing and sputtering. He also threw rocks at girls - also weird, stupid and we added psychopath to our list; a word we relished with glee when Russ told us about it and what it meant. Since Jay was older and an actual Little League pitcher, he had some velocity and accuracy with that arm. He hit my sister Randi on the butt and sent Stephen's little sister Cecilia to the hospital to get 3 stitches on her forehead ('another inch or so lower and he would'a put out her eye, little creep.' said Vince, Stephen and Cecilia's dad.) So that was weird - but what ultimately made him too weird for the rest of us was his weird and psychopathic mom. She was some kind of stay at home drug addict - she lived in muumuus and bathrobes and slippers full-time, and actually had a little Lazy Susan for all her prescriptions next to her bed, which she'd spin and then wait until it stopped and dispensed her a drug at random. They could be M&M's (which Jay sometimes used to substitute for some of her drugs) - it didn't matter to her. She'd knock back a fistful and then yell at us.
It was Stephen's idea to charge Jay a quarter each to play with the two of us. A quarter lasted about 5 minutes. In Stephen's case, it wasn't so much being cruel as he learning how to be what he would grow up to be - rich off of other people. However, I WAS cruel; I loved being mean to uncool kids, and socially isolating an uncool loser through alienation and xenophobia was my torture of choice. It was my idea to ACTUALLY SLOW DOWN right before we hit him up for another quarter. We'd be playing and then I'd start to slow down my movements and my speech, like turning off a 45rpm record in the middle of a song and let it wind down. . ."Let's go play some more . . but - y-o-u. .h-a-v-e . .t-o . . p-a-y . m-e. . u-h. . .n-u-h-h. . .t-h-u-r-r. . . .q-u-a-r-r-r . . .t-e-r-r-r-r-r-r. . .
Throughout our childhood, Jay never truly fit in. My dad made an effort though, damn him. He did this to punish me, because he thought I had been cruel and that Jay needed friends or else something could snap in him and then where would we be? "And it will all be on your head. You want that?" Dad was concerned because Jay's mom was creepy and nuts and Jay's dad was on the road most of the time.
So by the time I was about thirteen, Jay would spend each and every freaking night sitting at our kitchen table listening to my dad's limited, but never-ending summer-reruns of his childhood. Or playing Oh Hell. Or helping my dad fix stuff.
Something somewhere in the house always needed fixing, and Jay was, diabolically, extremely handy with tools.
Then he'd have stay for dinner. Dad would insist.
The summer I turned fourteen, he was there at my house before I got up, he was there when I made my lunch, there when I went to bed. I even had a lawn-mowing job with him - his mower, my broom and my back.
Life sucked.
And yes, I knew that payback was a bitch. I coined that phrase, swear to God.
I remember one day when the weather turned chilly, I went home to get out of my cutoffs and t-shirt and put on something warm. I topped the hill, and saw Jay watching my house! I snuck down to a neighbors and literally sat in a tree and spied Jay as he caseed my house, waiting for me to show up. I started shivering as the sun disappeared behind some clouds and the wind picked up - and I made the decision to sneak - SNEAK! - into my own bedroom to get some jeans and a jacket, oh, and shoes and socks. In and out of the window well of my basement room - then I hightailed it, jumping over several small fences that separated the row of back yards until I thought I was safe.
I'm pretty sure he saw me. After seven years, he had become pretty well trained my my methods of deception and betrayal.
By fifteen, Jay had left our definition of weird behind and started living by his new definition - creepy. Unfortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) Jay became obsessed with my sister Randi and started spying on her when she was changing. He'd stand in our back yard and try to peek in through her bedroom window. Sometimes my sister would catch him, whipping up the window shade and screaming his name, which made him run away before my Mom or Dad could see him. My dad talked to Jay, but it didn't really stop. Despite my sister's begging, Dad still felt sorry for him and let him stay around.
I told my Junior High friend, Rob about it one day, shooting pool in the basement. "He could be spying on Randi right now." "Bullshit," said Rob. "I bet he's standing there right now," I said. "I could open that basement door and he'd be right at the top of the stairs, trying to see in her window." Rob laughed, went to the basement door opened it without looking up and yelled "Hey JAY!"
He looked up - his face turned white. After a second he looked at me. "Damn. He was standing right there."
Then one day my sister found that her favorite bikini had been cut with scissors. Someone - JAY - had snuck into her room, found her underwear drawer, found the top to her bikini and cut holes where her nipples would be. This was too much even for my Dad, and he took Jay aside 'man-to-man' and told him he had to stay away from the house.
And finally, FINALLY, I was free of the guy.
In high school, Jay got a girl pregnant. They got married. They had a lot of kids. He dropped out (or not, I can't really remember anymore) and he got a job working as a manager in a burger place.
He still sent my parents Christmas cards of himself with his family long after I'd moved away from home. When I saw the card on the mantle I told my Mom that I thought it was weird. "It is," she said.
"Your Dad liked him though." She frowned. "He was a dark little ghost, wasn't he?"
And no, I don't feel bad.