juvenescence: tales of boyhood

Talking Turtles

Filled of the shimmer of glistening possibility, the shining dawn of childhood is where it all begins, at least for many. Arguably, some begin living long after childhood has passed. While others, never live at all. That, too, exists as possibility.

I had told my parents I would be at the playground. “Okay”, they said. “Don’t get dirty, and don’t stay long. We are going to dinner with Bill and Janet.” My thoughts wandered, immediately. Bill and Janet were inseparable, at least in name. They might be divorced by now, or not, but one name was never spoken without the other. And, it was always Bill first, as though the universe might implode if the names were reversed. I don’t recall much about Bill, despite his leadership role in the naming scheme. Of Janet, I recall tan corduroy pants, with thick, but closely woven cords and plush, patterned sweaters, primarily beige, worn over a collared shirt, all of which fit loosely over her lovely form. She was pretty, in a very natural, unadorned way, and she had a kindness, an emphatic understanding in her eyes which was worthy of remembrance. Her name should have come first.

I met up with Kenny and Mark, whose names were, also, always spoken together. Kenny, as the older brother by two years, was always first. He was my best friend at the time. Best friends change frequently during childhood. We were fickle that way, holding grudges for forgotten transgressions, but we were inseparable for that bit of time. The three of us headed off in the direction of the afternoon sun in search of the unknown chaos of adventure. We did not go to the playground. The option of fenced-in familiarity wasn’t even honored with a second thought. Adventure, meant the woods, and beyond, if such a place existed.

The woods seemed like they were ten miles away, and the thought occurred that we should have brought provisions. All of our childhood haunts, our entire world, seemed so much bigger then. Maybe it was the discovery of all the minutiae, the eager fascination with the smallest of details, and the immersive wonderment which diminish with the cynicism of age. The woods weren’t far away at all. Upon re-visitation as an adult, they were just a narrow, but deep, patch of land, still undeveloped, a natural barrier between the clutter of disheveled townhomes and the quaint single-family homes on the far side of the woods. The neighborhood, itself, looked much older, the humble, time-beaten townhomes seemed to sag at the middle, too damned tired to hold themselves with pride. We didn’t’ think in terms of rich and poor back then, but we were poor. Still, others had it more difficult, and we didn’t know any different, anyway.

Like most things, the first few trepidacious steps are the most difficult. The shadows of the trees fell ominously as we entered the woods, and the trees, themselves towered well above any of the trees we had yet dared to climb. In the coming months, we would climb so high that the we would sway in the branches from the sky-breezes which didn’t reach the earth below. That day, the trees dared us, but we weren’t yet ready to answer the call. Brittle branches cracked beneath our small feet as we walked slowly. Kenny was in front. He had a need to be the leader, the bravest of us. In school, he was an outcast. We all were, each for our own reason. That world faded into irrelevance; we had our own hierarchy. The others didn’t matter here.

As we lost sight of the houses and the high-crowned road, our lifeline, the choice became to continue, or to turn back. We weren’t so far in that we had lost our way yet. Mark saw it first. Ahead, a few hundred feet, was a structure, a plywood building which someone had assembled. It had a roof, and a window which faced the sun, cut out on one side with a hinged flap to keep the rain out. The door, we found around the front side. We had approached from the back. The plywood and plastic roof jutted out over the door which would keep some rain out, but not all. Again, Kenny led the way in.

The makeshift shack smelled badly of mildew, the wood had turned beige from aging, and the floor was covered with some sort of white, chalky chunks of debris. I would see the same thing later in other abandoned places, still not knowing what it was. It turns to dust and powder if stepped on. In the far corner, stacks upon stacks of magazines, Playboy, and Hustler, and Oui, and some names I dare not even mention, lay rotting from the dampness. As we thumbed through, we all pretended we had never seen such sights, but we all had a father or an uncle who had a similar stack hidden somewhere. It was the seventies, and the women looked natural. Curves were still the celebrated female form. The stench of the place became too much to take, and we didn’t stay long, despite the allure of the magazines. We each took a few magazines which we thought didn’t smell too badly, but they weren’t fated to survive the adventure.

Somehow, we knew to stay in the middle of the narrow woods, keeping the edges on both sides equidistant. If we came too close to the edges, the adventure was over, and we would be staring into someone’s back yard, watching them hang laundry, or swear at the lawnmower which wouldn’t start, or scream at their children, who were just being children. The path was to be straight ahead, even if it meant weaving through patches of thorny bushes, or climbing over massive, entangled piles of deadfall, we soldiered on, mainly silent, and focused, swearing occasionally as torn by the thorns.

The woods were flanked, at the north side, by a small pond. Cat ‘o nine tails, and eight foot tall grass grew on a muddy hill to the west. The water was dark brown, barely translucent. Further north was a large drainage pipe feeding the pond with muddy rivers of rain runoff, trash, and other debris produced by the tenants of the run-down apartments which sat quietly, directly across the parking lot from us. We vaguely knew the area, and rarely even traveled out this way by car. A bit further up the adjacent road which passed the apartments, on its way to nowhere, there were a few fields, broken by a side road, which also led to nowhere, and some vacant lots to either side of the roller skating rink which someone had decided would be a good idea to build there. It sat vacant, as well, a boarded-up monument to bad ideas.

We knew there had been some fights at the abandoned rink, now covered in graffiti. Pipes and chains, and fists were swung by angry teens who didn’t understand why they were so angry, but had decided that race, black versus white, was as good a reason as any. The anger, and the random hatred, now given a face, a direction, had spilled over into grade school as well. Todd Hasper, had left to go the bathroom down the hall one afternoon. All the girls watched him go, with a bit of sadness. He was tall, with dark, wavy hair, and dark eyes, in which the girls would lose themselves, daydreaming of fairy tales they wished might come true, yet knowing already, that they never would.

When he returned, stumbling, he was barely able to open the door to the classroom, falling, in a bloodied heap of broken beliefs. He had been jumped by several older boys, of the opposite color. The anger had nothing to do with color, that was a mere excuse, though some never grew to understand that. While less tidy, and requiring more than a casual regard, requiring some additional thought, and questioning, the truth of things is never as black and white as we are told.

Though the water looked as though nothing could survive, some turtles had found their way there, a few enjoyed the last warm rays of the evening sun as it cast tall shadows on the muddy hill near the Cat ‘o Nine Tails, others swimming in the murky water. Their heads breached the surface with curiosity. We were just as curious. Once one foot is in the water, drenched, filthy water wicking its way up the pant leg, the rest doesn’t matter too much. We splashed in, chest deep in the runoff water of the drainage pond, chasing turtles who were much smarter than we were. Our pirated magazines were still in our back pockets. I had almost caught a young turtle when I heard one speak, saying my name. It sounded just like my father. This was impossible, of course. But then, I heard it again.

In up to my neck, and covered in sludgy mud, I looked up, blinking, like a curious turtle. There was the orange Datsun, my father standing next to it at the edge of the parking lot which overlooked the drainage pond. My mother sat in the passenger seat, her hands covering her face to keep from laughing at her mud-covered, turtle-catching son. They had been driving all over the area, for hours, searching for me. My father looked much angrier than usual, which wasn’t easy to accomplish.