Crimson & Clover

The Beach

Here I am in 1968, the year that would define my life. To those of you reading this story, I must sound like a completely selfish jerk. I was, but you have to understand, I'd spent the greater part of my youth living for my family, or should I say at the whim of my family.

My brother always came first, the doctor, or as they put it back then, the child that would amount to something. As fate would have it however, I was the one taking care of Ma financially and I really didn't mind. I felt it was my job and even though she didn't appreciate what I did for her, it made me feel good to do it. Truth be told, I didn't begrudge my brother either. He always treated me well and he did work very hard to get where he was.

I always felt that my sister had it the best. She went as far from here as possible. That way she could have plausible deniability when it came to anything having to do with responsibility for the family.

With Tom, on the other hand, I would like to think that except for a few small indiscretions, I was good for him. Without me he wouldn't have had any fun in his life. I was there to push him when he was nervous about a girl, I helped him on his basketball game for an entire summer when he decided to try for our high school team, and he made it as a bench player. I was the starting point guard. Don't let it sound as if I was some sort of hotshot on the court, we had an awful team, but being a starter did have its privileges with the girls around school. They always loved an athlete in a letterman jacket. Those were the days when you could stab a best friend in the back and all it would mean is that he was pissed at you for maybe a week. On the other hand however, what I did to Tom with Julie was far worse. I worried constantly about what would happen to our friendship if he ever found about it. Believe it or not, I was even more worried about the consequences for Tom with Julie. I don't think he'd ever be able to look at her the same way.  That must mean that deep down I have a sense of morals, and a conscience. It was those morals and conscience I suppose that kept me on the straight path with both Tom and Betty, for a while.

Thinking back on that spring and summer makes me smile. I'll tell you one thing; it's amazing how much you can remember about the past when you take the time to write it down. What's even stranger are the small details that the mind chooses to recall, like the Orange Crush bottle cap I found on a beach that spring. That memory sure opened a floodgate of others.

I'll begin with Tom, who against my advice, apologized to Julie for that insane marriage proposal. At the time I felt that Tom should have just accepted the rejection and moved on. At least that way I could be certain that Tom would never find out what I had done with her that night. Instead, after hours and hours of talking, they decided that their friendship was too important for each other and vowed to pretend as if no proposal ever happened.

For the first time I was starting to believe that this wasn't Tom's fault after all. It seems that sweet Julie enjoyed having him dangle from a string. If Julie cared for him even a bit she would have had the common courtesy not to let him wallow in his hopeless misery. Tom was indeed stuck in that senseless trap. It even occurred to me that if the two of them kept this up long enough they actually could get married. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

My fondest memories of that amazing summer were of Betty, Billy and I at the beach and the hours we spent driving there and back. It felt like I was going on a family outing with my wife and son. I started to realize how much the thought of family life appealed to me.

"When can we stop for ice-cream?" Billy screamed from the back seat of the Thunderbird convertible. With the top down you needed to scream if you had any chance of being heard over the sound of wind hitting the car.

"There should be an ice-cream stand at the beach," Betty answered as she kept her hand firmly placed on my lap.

"Hey, Adam," he yelled again.