George Verongos has contributed short stories to both our recent contests, The Coffee Shop Chronicles and Defying Moments.  Many of you have mentioned in the Comments section that you would like to see more, more, MORE!  So George has kindly obliged us with just that:  a story-in-progress for our A Word with You writer’s showcase.  You may recognize portions of it from George’s previously-posted story, “Unhappy Birthday,” but that won’t hurt you a bit.  Also, this story is rather longish, but that just means there’s more of it to enjoy.  So, get a cup of coffee, settle in, and read on.  Then, after you’ve had your fill, please fill the Comments box with respectful suggestions, tips, pointers and constructive insights about how George can hone this piece for publication and give David Sedaris a run for his money.

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Mow

Mowing the lawn sucks.  In fact, yard work in general sucks.  I know that some find a sort of Zen methodology in the process of yard work but I find it monotonous, boring and even soul crushing, depending on what day of the week I was forced to do it.  I guess that’s where the problem lies: In the forced part.  My father made me cut the grass every week on what seemed to be the hottest hour of the hottest day of that week, like he was trained in some ancient art of meteorological torture.

The actual mower was a joke.  My dad thought he could fix anything and rarely gave up even if it put some one’s life or limbs in jeopardy.  Unfortunately the lawn mower was one of his ongoing pet projects.  I think my father may have been some sort of genius when it came to building machines that can possess human emotion because all of the things he “fixed” seemed to express violent feelings of revenge.  It took about thirty pulls on the cord to get the old Briggs and Stratton going and the idle fluctuated so that my dad was constantly sticking a screwdriver in the engine to make adjustments so it wouldn’t die.  There were times when the mower was so close to death that my dad would actually flip the damn thing over and get it started by giving the blades a spin with his bare hand.  But there were just as many times when the mower sang like a lark and seemed to hum in tune with nature as it assisted in propelling itself along and I would begrudgingly be guiding it as well as any grumbly preteen could.  I know it seems like I was lazy and maybe even spoiled.  Even though those accusations may be true, what I was forced to do before cutting the grass was way more annoying to a preteen me and actually embarrassing…I had to harvest (and I use that term loosely) the dandelions that littered the yard.  I had to crawl around on my hands and knees and use this strange tool my father actually made (this was his second hobby: making odd tools) to uproot the dandelions and place them in a huge white bucket, the kind you get pickles in from restaurant supply companies.  Now the first time I did this “harvest” I was so angry with my dad because he was obviously just making more work for me.  I was on to his math:

George + extra tasks=more time for sitting on porch, smoking, drinking beer and overseeing child labor.

Well I came up with a great idea and there is no way he could rebut it.  After all I was a straight “A” student and I had even been recommended to the gifted and talented program so I was sure I could outwit my father.

“Dad, why don’t I just mow over the dandelions like everyone else does?  That way I wouldn’t waste so much time.”

“Don’t be stupid.  Then we couldn’t use them. “  He sensitively replied.

Yes! I have him now.  What on earth could you do with dandelions they were weeds, waste, trash.  There is no way he could get out of this.  I have effectively out smarted my father AND weaseled out of a chore!  I am awesome!

“Use them?  What do you do with them?” I retorted arrogantly.  “Eat them?”

“Yep.”  He replied without looking up.

My face snapped from a smug look into one of shock and terror but I managed to keep my know-it-all tone.

“You eat them? Gross!  You eat weeds?  Does Mom know?”

“Not just me.  You eat them too.”

Oh he was good.  But I wasn’t going to back down.  There is no way in hell that my mother would feed me weeds, she didn’t even like us to drink soda pop.

“What!  You feed me weeds? I have never eaten a dandelion.  I wouldn’t.”  I boldly stated.

He no longer felt the need to engage me on this matter and told me to go ask my mother as he proceeded to start digging up the dandelions and putting them in the bucket.  My mother sat me down to explain to me that we do in fact eat dandelion greens we just call them horta, which is a Greek word referring to greens in general.

“But…but horta is spinach.”  I whimpered.  I was less arrogant with my mother.  She spent more time and was way more thoughtful and honest explaining this whole weed eating thing to me than she was when we had the “Birds and the Bees” talk.  I knew my dad was disappointed in me.  I could see him out the kitchen window, Pall Mall hanging from the corner of his mouth, his normally slicked-back hair flopped forward and hanging in front of his face just daring that lit cigarette to make contact.  Ever so often he would glance up towards the kitchen window and sigh.  I know he couldn’t see me but he sure knew I could see him.  After my mother gently broke the news to me that we were in deed weed eaters, she armed me with a peace-offering beer and I reluctantly reported back to duty at the bucket.  I stood there at the bucket waiting for my father to acknowledge me but he just kept his head down and continued to uproot all the dandelions within his reach.  It was hot and the ice-cold beer I was holding behind my back felt good as it dampened my t-shirt.

The smell of dirt and beer mixed with the bluish grey smoke that rolled off the side of my dad’s face and I felt like I was observing what life would be like if I didn’t exist.  I still wonder if he was thinking that too.

Finally he eased back and sat in the grass supporting himself with his right hand exposing the grass-stained knees of his imposter Sansibelt slacks (he never wore shorts). He took the last drag of his cigarette and put the butt in his empty beer can and then squinted at me through the smoke that encircled his head.

“I’m back.” I said trying to sound a little positive but he didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

“I’m almost done now so I’ll just finish the dandelions.”

“Uh..ok.  I’ll go start cuttin’ the back yard then.”  I replied trying to show some initiative.

“You won’t be able to start the lawn mower.  I’ll do it.  Why don’t you just go play with some of your friends or go ride your bike.”

What did he just say?  I didn’t have to cut the grass?  I’m free?  Oh my god!  I don’t know if I have ever been this happy before, bar the discovery of pizza delivery.  I thrust the beer at my father and ran around the house to the garage to get my bike.  I mumbled to myself as I tore down the street peddling as fast as I could:

“Well that worked out better than I thought.  Yeah it’s gross that we eat weeds but he obviously feels bad about it and letting me out of cutting the grass was his way of apologizing.”  I was on my way to Rose Park, which was about two blocks from our house.  It was Saturday afternoon and most of my usual gang was mowing their lawns or doing other various chores but I decided to check the park first and then start hitting up the individual houses.  I was bursting to tell somebody what had happened but I had to think about how I could skip the part about eating weeds, so I decided to stop by the drinking fountain first to figure it out.  When I got to the park I stopped pedaling and coasted past the kiddy pool and into the center area where the drinking fountains and bathrooms were.  I hopped off my bike and stepped up to the drinking fountain and as the cool water of independence bathed my lips and splashed off my tongue as I slurped from the fountain of freedom that’s when I realized: My father didn’t let me go because he was being nice and wanted me to go have fun because he felt like an ass about the weed eating AND couldn’t match wits with me.  He let me go because I had disappointed him and he couldn’t bear the sight of me.  Now that’s what I call a moment of clarity.  I had to sit down on the nearest picnic table and try to understand this confusing wad of ideas in my skull.  This was really the first time I spoke up to my father and questioned his methods and motives.  I guess that might have caught him off guard a bit and put him on the defensive but to be revolted by my behavior seemed a little extreme; melodramatic even.  I had a fairly good history to this point.  I did every chore he assigned me.  I stood at attention to hand him tools whenever he played auto mechanic or appliance repairman.  I attended every sport camp he required I participate in, even soccer camp and this was 1980 in Indiana so there wasn’t even a soccer team for me to join after I completed camp.  I had to find out if he really was that repulsed by me, but how?  I couldn’t just ask him because we just didn’t do that, directly talking to each other does not a Verongos make.

I finally decided to just nonchalantly ride by the house and survey the situation to see what my dad was up to.  As I approached the corner near our house, I heard the characteristic sputtering Briggs and Stratton.  “Good!” I thought out loud,  “I’ll just ride past at a normal speed and he’ll see me and smile and wave at me, then I will know all is right in the world.”  Rounding the corner I saw my dad pushing the mower away from me, if I slowed down a little I would be right in front of the house as he turned the machine around for the next pass.  Okay here we go.  I thought it best if I didn’t wave first insuring that his wave would be genuine and not a reply wave.  While I cruised by I glanced in his direction and our eyes locked but no wave, not even a smile, not even a nod, not even the slightest twitch that could be misconstrued as a gesture of forgiveness or apology.  “Maybe I was going too fast and by the time he raised his hand from the mower handle I had already whizzed past?  Yes that’s what happened, that must be it!”  I rode up the street a few houses and turned around just before the pavement started to ascend the large hill at the end of the street.  I wasn’t allowed to go all the way up yet anyways, but my future would host many a near death experience involving that hill.  As I made my second pass Dad was just starting on a fresh strip of grass facing me so he saw me coming and I kept my eyes glued to his lowered eyelids.  This time I would for sure see him wave at me and smile.  I even involuntarily waved at him and when he didn’t even look up I waved ever more vigorously hoping that the vibrations I made in the air would get his attention by smacking him in the face.  It was true.  My father was disgusted with me.  I let him down and he was making sure I knew it.  This was uncharted water for me.  I had always done exactly what he wanted when he wanted it.  I didn’t know what it was like to be on his bad side.  Since the day I was born it was like an age old prophecy had been fulfilled.

…and he will come to us in the form of a baby human bringing with him the penis of the ancients.  Along with that penis came the possession of certain powers that made him more advanced and more valued than the penis-less human creatures that came before him.  I ask YOU other worldly warriors of the olden times: What greater gift is there than the gift of a penised one?  The culmination of all your hopes and dreams; a final chance to live out your fantasy life lies within this feeble human cub.  Fill you heart with the hope that days gone by never could shoulder.  Worship and cherish this penised one as a miracle that defies modern day science.  For the breading she-wench that bore this savior of shattered dreams was past her fertile years by nary a fortnight yet still conceived. Huzzah!!!

But seriously, most unplanned pregnancies are met with the cute anecdote that they were surprises or blessings, not mistakes, but for my father the “mistake” with that all-important penis was a gift. Thirty-seven was not a popular age to bear children in 1970 but my mom pulled it off with out any difficulty and she was like a goddamn war hero to my dad for it because he finally had a son… after three girls he finally had a son.  Most of my adult life I have struggled with the fact that my sisters don’t seem to really like me so much.  I mean there have been times and moments where I felt like the really loved me. When I was younger they bought things for me and took me places.  They would cuddle me and play with me but it gradually changed and as they got older and I grew up the distance between us grew as well.  I have always wondered what happened.  Why did they hate me?  Why did they doubt me?  Why did they seem to relish my failures?  And why was I ultimately dismissed save the once-ever-so-often polite email or civil holiday gathering.  It was my father’s fault.  He had basically destroyed the very notion of me long before he had even met my mother, which I am certain he referred to as The Vessel in Which to Grow My Man-child, at least once.  I am certain that in the weeks leading up to my birth that the speculation of me being a boy was weighing heavy on my father’s mind and tongue.  I’m sure it was all he could talk about with his friends and he had a lot of them.  There were the guys from work and the neighbor men that filled their summer evenings with traded beers and stories, but the most poisonous were the guys at church.  We belonged to a Greek Orthodox Church and it was filled with immigrant men just like my dad and they shared his thirst for legacy.  Of course the men whom already had male children boasted relentlessly and all this talk of my mother carrying the last chance of keeping the Verongos name alive, definitely fell upon the ear holes of my sisters who were like 13, 10, and 6.  Not conscious of what was being said but subliminally being affected by it laid the sturdy base for their unintentional loathing of me.  On that fateful Indian summer day in 1970 as the nation struggled with an unpopular war, bell bottoms and annoying Beatle leftovers there was something sinister on the horizon, something worse than disco for three little girls from Indiana.  They were about to get a little brother and one generous slap on the right side of their faces.  After the excitement and rush of Mom going into labor had settled down and the girls had been whisked off to Yai yai’s house for a day or two, word of the prodigal son spread through the sleepy Northern Indiana town like pot brownies at a Grateful Dead show and the evil that men do began.

While my parents and I were at the hospital and my sisters were at Yai yai’s, our house was empty and that’s when some of the neighbors got together and made a huge sign to hang in front of the house in honor of the birth of my dad’s long awaited son.  The sign depicted a stork carrying a nondescript baby in a blue sling, to signify its gender, and a caricature of my dad passing-out from the shock along side three foot tall letters spelling out the message; “FINALLY, IT’S A BOY!!!” : great for my dad, not so great for my sisters.  So my mom is released from the hospital and they are coming home with me and my sisters are already at home with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends and neighbors all waiting for our arrival and to see my dad’s reaction to the huge sign on his house.  There was one other guest there that day.  One that no one knew, yet they were invited and delivered the backhand that graced the left side of my sisters’ faces…a photographer from the local news paper.  The next day in the Living section of the South Bend Tribune was a picture of the sign and a short article summarizing and celebrating my birth as well as providing concrete reasons for my sisters to despise me.  Of course everyone was oblivious to this, even my sisters, for they were all caught up in the joy and gayety of Dad’s dream coming true and hence began my charmed life as Daddy’s little “Yes man” which I played to perfection. I was always respectful and dutiful towards him.  I was so obedient that when he told me to stop crying I stopped, when he told me to shut-up I shut-up, when given a chore I did it.  I could do no wrong.  I was on a pedestal goddamn it and I was never ever coming down.  But that too changed when I made that one little suggestion about mowing over the dandelions instead of picking them, my father’s world started to crack.  He had invested almost 10 years in making sure he didn’t raise a weak sissy for a son.  He painstakingly engineered every moment we spent together to make sure I would grow up a man that feared only him and took his word as law.  All those afternoons fishing the banks of the polluted St. Joe River where he would make me bait hooks with big fat juicy squishy night-crawlers and then he one upped the ante by trying to get me to tare open a small fish I had caught to use its organs for bait.  I never understood that.  Are fish cannibalistic?  Anyway, I just couldn’t do it so my dad finally relented and in frustration squeezes the tiny fish he firmly held in his hand and forced its vital organs to pop out through its skin and then given to mew to bait my hook, which was gross enough.  Or all those summer evening we would play catch with a baseball in the front yard, without gloves.  He thought that baseball gloves were for pansies and not to mention a decent glove cost at least 20 bucks and he couldn’t justify that kind of purchase.  In fact I didn’t get my first ball glove until the first day of T-ball practice when I was like 8 and I’m pretty sure Mom enlisted my oldest sister to sneak me out to Brown’s Sporting Goods and then drop me and my stinky new glove off at practice at the park.

But now his life’s work, his legacy, his own flesh and blood brought his master plan to a screeching halt and he had no idea how to deal with it.  I was just trying to get out of extra yard work but instead I struck the blow that put the first tiny chip in my dad’s windshield of reality while simultaneously ushering in a new era of rebellion.  Of course my almost 10-year-old brain was already overloaded and I was totally oblivious to the big picture and the complete history involved. All I knew was that I had really pissed off my dad and I had to figure out a way to fix it.  It was close to 4 now and I had a good hour before dinner and I needed help, so headed back towards the park to Jeff’s house hoping he had completed his lawn mowing by now.  When it came to cutting grass, Jeff had it way worse than me.  His back yard was like a quarter of an acre and even though they owned a riding mower, and a pretty fancy one at that, Jeff’s dad thought Jeff was too young to use it so Jeff had to use the push mower.  Jeff’s dad was kind of rough too so I knew Jeff would be able to relate to my father issues.  In fact now that I come to think about it Jeff had it way worse on the “Dad’s raising a man” front too because not only was his dad concerned about raising a sissy he also had two older superjock brothers to constantly be compared to.  Jeff was my best friend but he was a year older and wiser than me so I looked up to him as well and valued his opinion.  I loved going to Jeff’s house because his parents always had the air conditioner on and his mom always had lots of treats for us, plus they had cable and an Intelevision.  I rang the doorbell, which I could hear through the door and I thought about the doorbell at my house…our doorbell was busted and like most busted things my dad had to fix it and he never got it quite right.  The last time I rang our doorbell there was a loud pop and sparks, the power on the ground floor of the house went out and I found myself on my ass at the bottom of the front steps.  After that my mom put a plaster over the doorbell to deter any further electrocutions, that’s how we fixed the doorbell…I saw a figure approach through the beveled glass.  You could hear the sound of the seal between humid hot outdoors and cool dry indoors being breached with a squeaking suck.

“Oh hi George.  How are you?”  Smiled Mrs. Maggioli.

“Good.”  I lied as the cold synthetic air wrapped its arms around me.

“Jeff?  George is here!”  Mrs. Maggioli yelled over her shoulder up the staircase.

“How’s your mom and dad?”  She asked as she let me in and I slipped off my shoes (shoes were not allowed in the Maggioli house due to the fact that they recently had new carpets installed.  But I didn’t mind, the feel of that cool new carpet under my hot feet was an unexpected thrill, one that to this day I still enjoy.)

“They’re good.”  I replied as she disappeared down the hall towards the kitchen.  Mrs. Maggioli or Ronnie as she was known, was a fantastic cook.  She was responsible for introducing me to authentic Italian food and I loved it.  She was always cooking and the Maggioli house was always filled with the beautiful perfumes of a great meal.  Our house was like that too, just Greek, but it didn’t seem nearly as interesting as Jeff’s house.  Here comes Jeff clumsily barreling down the stairs.

“Dinner in an hour, Jeff.” Warned Mrs. Maggioli.

“Hey! I was just about to ride down to your house.  You done with the lawn already?”

“Nope.”

“No? then how did you get away?  Did the mower finally die?”

“No, my dad’s cutting it.” Jeff’s eyes almost fell to the floor,

“Your dad is cutting it?”  He echoes but with emphasis on each word.  “God, must be nice?  I had to cut the back yard twice because my dad said it was sloppy and I was careless.  Why is he doin’ it?”

“Because I made him hate me.  He wanted me to do some other chore before the grass and I thought it was dumb and then he got mad and now he won’t even look at me.”

“What was the chore?”

I didn’t know what to say.  I knew this would come up. I mean, how do you tell your best friend that you eat weeds?  And then how do you defend it?  Fuck it, I’m just gonna tell him, could my life get any worse, my own father hates me why not have my friends think I’m a freak.  This could all justify a future snapping involving a clock tower and a rifle.

“Pullin’ weeds.”  It just slipped out but hey it was pretty good.  It wasn’t like I was lying or doing anything dishonest.  Technically dandelions were weeds after all.  I’m so good under pressure like that, I am so smart.

“That sucks.  Luckily I don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, well your lawn is a big enough chore.”  I had averted exposing my family as weed eaters but I still had my dad to deal with and it was almost dinnertime.  How was I going to sit across the table from him?  Maybe I should act sick and just try to go straight to bed?  No, that’s no good, then I wouldn’t be able to go outside after supper and the idea of being in bed by 6 on a Saturday in the summer seemed like a crime against humanity.  How was I going to deal with this?  Just then Ronnie came into the TV room drying her hands on a kitchen towel that came from a set she received as a Christmas present.  These towels stuck out in my mind.  They featured a different barnyard animal on each towel with a vintage looking detailed picture and the name of the animal emblazoned beneath.  What was strange was that the words they used for the animals were the not-so-common names, for instance, instead of “Cow” they said “Bovine”, instead of “Pig” they said “Swine”, instead of “Chicken” they said “Hen”, and instead of “Rooster”  you guessed it, “Cock”.  This always sent Jeff and I into a frenzied giggle and there was Ronnie standing there with the “Cock” towel.

“Jeff, did you ask George if he would like to stay for dinner?”

What a great idea.  Now I wouldn’t have to face my dad just yet.

“You wanna stay?  Then we can watch a movie or go to the park or something.”  Jeff asked.

“Sure.”

“I will give your mom a call, I need to ask her something anyways.”  Ronnie concluded.  As she dried her hands on the  “Cock” towel and headed back into the kitchen, we erupted into laughter.

Jeff’s two older brothers and his sister were not joining us for dinner so it was just Me, Jeff, Ronnie, and Denny (Jeff’s dad).  As the men sat down Ronnie started bringing dishes to the table and boy did it smell awesome.

“Well if it isn’t George Verongos.  How are things?”  Denny bellowed cheerfully.

“Hi Mr. Maggioli.  Things are good, ” I replied a little shy.

“Did you see how crooked Jeff cut the back yard there?  I had to go count the beers in the garage to make sure he wasn’t drunk.”  I glanced up at Jeff while Denny laughed at his own joke.

“Oh leave Jeff alone, Denny.”  Interrupted Ronnie,  “I made your favorite, George: stuffed shells.”   She sings as she sets down a hot casserole.

“Oh boy!  Thanks Mrs. M.  it looks great.”  All this worrying and stressing out had really made me hungry and I couldn’t wait to dig in.

“Let’s see we also have some sausage Nonee made, some fresh mozzarella with tomatoes from the garden and some cicoria,” Ronnie said as she dished a giant shell onto my plate, “Help yourself, George.”  I took a piece of sausage, some mozzarella and tomatoes, and some cicoria even though I didn’t know what it was exactly.  As I was putting some cicoria on my plate Denny said,

“You ever have cicoria before, George?”

“I’m sure he has, Denny.  Greeks eat it too,” said Ronnie.

“You know what cicoria’s made out of?” asked Denny.

“Denny, leave him alone and let’s eat in peace.”  Ordered Ronnie.

“I don’t know.”  I said, “It tastes good, what’s in it, spinach?”  I asked, looking at Jeff.  But he didn’t reply he was too busy trying to keep from laughing because his mother had set the “Cock” towel down right next to his plate with the word “Cock” facing straight up plain as day.

“Your mom and grandma cook dandelion greens don’t they?” said Ronnie in my direction.  What the hell?  Did she just ask what I thought she asked?  How did she know and what am I going to say?

“No, it’s not true!”  I blurted out a bit more zealously than I had intended.

After five seconds of awkward silence Ronnie tries to make things less confrontational.

“I thought they might because dandelion greens are a delicacy in most European countries.  Everyone in this neighborhood eats them, the Italians, the Poles, the Belgians.  I thought the Greeks loved dandelion too.  Well maybe you just know them by the Greek name like Jeff knows them by the Italian name.”

“Really?”  I questioned, well it was more of a realization.  This new information changed everything.  Maybe I wasn’t a freak and maybe my parents weren’t leaders of a weed-eating cult.  I liked the way Ronnie put it, a delicacy.  That sounds classy not like a bunch of poor immigrants foraging for weeds on the front lawn, but I still was not comfortable confessing to the fact that my family and I eat them.  My focus was snapped back to the conversation at hand when Jeff answered my question that really wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, its cicoria, the stuff you’re eating right now.”

“Oh yeah, we call it horta.”  I said trying to sound nonchalant, but inside I was squealing with relief.  Eating weeds uh…I mean dandelion greens was normal, it was even considered a delicacy in more affluent social circles.  I suddenly felt a tinge of snootiness knowing that my family partook in a delicacy.  With the weed-eating fiasco put to bed and my rekindled confidence as a consumer of a delicacy, the issue with Dad seemed less severe.  If he hated me and didn’t want to talk to me or see me then my list of spontaneous chores would disappear.  You can’t tell some one what to do if you aren’t talking to them and you can’t watch and inspect someone’s work if the sight of said person makes you recoil in disgust and uncontrollable retching.  Don’t you just love the simplified fuzzy logic of an inflated preteen ego?  Hmmmm maybe this situation wasn’t such a bad thing after all.  It’s hard to believe that from a simple chore sprang such conflict and emotion.

The first of the great milestones on the journey from boy to man is the responsibility of mowing the grass.  It’s the first real grown-up thing that involved real danger.  The possibility of loosing a couple toes or even a whole foot weighs on me to this day.   I don’t agree with it nor do I like it but it is an unavoidable event.  My dad could not wait to kick my sister Sophia off lawn duty and induct me, his only son, into the role of lawn boy.  I’m pretty sure I hated it from that very first time I grasped the handle of our crappy mower and it sent jolting vibrations up my arms.  I thought I was being shocked and ever since the busted doorbell launched me down the front steps I was a little skittish.  I let go and my dad went berserk.

“What are you doing?  Hold it.  Like this.”  He pushed me aside and showed me that you had to keep your arms loose as to absorb the shocks of the violently sputtering motor.  “What’s the matter with you?  It won’t bite.”  I guess he was expecting me to grab the handle like a man and show that machine who was boss but the only thing I was confident of was that I had a fairly good chance of ending up in the emergency room. The lawn mower was so old that it didn’t have the safety lever that stops the motor if you let go of the handle.  This keeps people from sheering off fingers when they jump in front of the mower to pick up a stick or other obstacles.  It helps keep you behind the running mower where it is safer.  It was also missing the safety flap that covers the gap between the bottom of the mower and ground in the rear so you can’t stick your foot into the blades.  It was by no means safe for a nine-year old kid to operate.  It was a proud moment for my father as I struggled to push the behemoth mower in a poorly estimated straight line, but I was scared shitless.   Little did I know that I was embarking on a grass-cutting odyssey of Homeric proportion and length.  One of the worst parts of the mowing culture, and there are many, is the fact that you do it in public.  You’re right out there where everyone can see you.  Neighbors driving by will honk and wave, hell, even strangers will often give you a nod or a slow headshake out of sympathy.  It’s worse than I thought, people actually feel sorry for you but you also have the parasites.  These are older people in the neighborhood that will see you mowing your own lawn and then want you to mow theirs too but this where they really get sneaky, instead of asking you and giving you the option to say “no” or negotiate compensation, they will ask your parents.  In my case they asked my dad and I’m sure it was because they knew how he felt about me being a man, like I was gonna rack up testosterone bonuses the more lawns I cut.  Of course he would proudly accept their offer and not a word about compensation would be uttered.  So the next thing I know I’m cutting like five different lawns.  I guess this is where I really start building up some negativity towards my father.  You see when I cut these other peoples’ lawns I used their lawn mowers and they were all newer and safer and easier to operate than ours.  And as a huge shock to me, they paid me.  Anywhere from 5-10 bucks and I usually got some cookies or soda out of the deal as well.  This one time the lady on the corner baked me a cake. Another one had a pool and said that I could come over anytime I wanted to swim, and I did.  The other cool thing about this was that all these other lawns were about half the size of my own and took no time at all to mow.  It ended up that our lawn was the lawn I loathed the most and it was mostly because of the lawn mower.  That was until that fateful day when Nana called.

Nana is one of two of my mother’s spinster sisters.  Her real name is Esther but we call her Nana (the stress accent is on the second “na” like you are singing part of that song…”na na na na na na na na hey hey hey good bye”).  I suppose I should tell you how the name came about.  In the Greek Orthodox religion the person that baptizes you is called your Godmother or Godfather and their immediate family becomes symbolically part of yours and bares the God prefix.  So you got Godparents, Godbrothers and Godsisters, in Greek they are called Koumbadi (plural)  Koumbada (singular).  Ok so it is a big deal and quite an honor to be asked to be someone’s Godwhatever and the specific role of Godfather is called Nuno and Godmother is Nuna, follow?  Now Esther was asked to be the Godmother of my firstborn sister and apparently my sister had some trouble saying “Nuna” and it sounded like “Nana” and well everyone thought it so cute, as they tend to do when children start speaking, that it stuck.  Esther particularly liked this because she insists on being called Nana to this day.  Even the friends of my parents and friends of my sisters and mine are instructed to call her Nana. And if you think that is strange, my other aunt is called “Yoyo”, I know, all sorts of lurid thoughts are running through your head trying to figure out why someone would take the name of a primitive toy whose primary function is to go up and down repeatedly… Anyway, Nana calls and asks to talk to me.

“Hi, Nana.”  I said fairly excited because to this point my relationship with Nana consisted purely of her buying me clothes, toys, or food and taking me to the Zoo, cinema, or mall.

“HI THERE GEORGIE!!!”  Nana yells at top volume like she’s trying to tell you the most important thing in the world while her head is stuck inside Keith Moon’s kick drum that just happens to be nestled between two jet engines in the middle of “Teenage Wasteland” during a concert that just so happens to be taking place in the bottom of that pit underneath the business end of a launching space shuttle.  The bitch is loud.

“Hi Nana.”  I say again but I am now holding the phone at arms length.

“GEORGIE, WILL YOU COME MOW NANA’S LAWN?”  Until I was like 20, Nana would refer to herself in the third person like Michael Jordan, Ali, or the Jimmy character on that Seinfeld episode.  Of course being the good kid I was I told her I would and thus started the nightmare.  Nana has always been old to me.  It my earliest memories of her, she would have been like 50 so that only contributed to her character.  It’s also a family consensus that she is a virgin.  My mother only recalls Nana having a lone male suitor while she was in her 20’s.  He is politely referred as “that Indonesian fellow”. Which is weird because Nana is completely racist.  I realize her racism is a side affect of the era she was raised in but she did little to hide it.  When my oldest sister, Helen and her husband announced they were adopting a baby from China the first words out of Nana’s mouth were not “congratulations” or “that’s just wonderful” they were “Why Chinese?”  When Nana got sentimental and I stress the mental part, she would reminisce about her brother, my uncle Louie.  I never met Louie but Nana would go on and on about him and tell me how much I looked like him and how much I reminded her of him.  This would always creep me out because he was dead and here was Nana telling me I looked like a dead guy.  She would say, “Those damn Japs.  They killed your poor uncle Louie.  He was such a kind person and they killed him those damn Japs took him away from us.  Every time I look at you I see your uncle.” Her ranting implied that my uncle saw combat in WWII and even though I didn’t like being compared to a dead guy I thought it was pretty cool that he could have been a war hero.  Years later my mother filled me in on the truth about Uncle Louie.  He did serve during WWII but he never saw combat.  He worked in the mess hall.  His cause of death was not enemy fire but from a very aggressive cancer like twenty years after the war.  My mom would not admit this but my sisters believe that uncle Louie was mildly retarded as well, so I reminded Nana of her cancer riddled, slow, dead brother.  She really knew how to boost the fragile self esteem of a child.

When it came to cutting the grass my aunt made my dad look like a choirboy, the castrated kind.  She was brutal and her lawn mower had to be illegal.  It was twice as old as ours, three times crappier, and it had the added bonus of being louder than a biker gang on Harleys.  Her lawn was bigger than ours and it was full of rocks and stumps that I couldn’t see and that I swear moved from week to week.  I’m only allowed to cut the grass when she is there because she has to inspect every blade and she is hollering over the sound of the mower the whole time.  She would make me go over a patch of grass 5 or 6 times insisting that it wasn’t cut properly before.  She would stand in front of the mower and point down to her feet and claim that I missed a spot yet not move out of the way until I told her to.  She would do a couple of creepy things as well, like insist on wiping my face with paper towel and I would have to literally wrestle it away from her.

“I can do it.”  I would bark at her.

Or she would tell me 20 times to take off my shirt.  Now, I was a fat kid and we were raised to be ashamed of our bodies (hence the reason why my mother used a blue crayon to draw pants on the naked boy illustrated in the Maurice Sendak book, In the Night Kitchen) so you were lucky if I took it off to go swimming let alone parade around her lawn as the vibrating mower turned me into a wiggly pile of goo in sneakers.  My dad never even went shirtless, in fact he was always wearing a white short sleeve undershirt and a button front short sleeve shirt unless he was working on something super greasy like the car.  When I finally completed her lawn Nana would take me inside to get a snack (which was usually a glass of water and a banana, I guess she didn’t quite understand that kids like sugary treats and drinks) and pay me.  It almost wasn’t worth it because she only gave $5 while my other customers were paying me $15 or $20 plus snacks and drinks and she would take like 15 minutes to find the money.  Come to find out later the reason she took so long to find the money was so she could gather gossip from me as to what was happening in our house.  This really pissed off my mother when she figured it out so from then on she insisted on accompanying me to Nana’s for the grass cutting so Nana couldn’t drill me for information.  Which was fine by me because Nana was too busy talking to Mom to bother me and I got done in a fraction of the time it took me when Mom wasn’t there.

Soon after that I was allowed to cut Nana’s grass when she was not at home and that made me very happy.  My dad was super proud of me, things turned out better than he could have ever imagined.  I was mowing all these lawns and making some decent money for a kid and saving it all.  I was beginning to understand why he was so upset.  I totally blindsided him.  He had no clue that I would question his motives that fateful day.  He was in paradise and enjoying the fruits of years of hard work teaching my not to be a sissy or act like a girl.  We lived with four women so it was hard for me not to pick up some girl oriented ideas and my dad would to hurry up and nip things in the bud and my sisters were always doing shit to piss him off.  I swear I saw his temples go gray right before my eyes when I emerged from the bathroom one afternoon in full make-up a la Rocky Horror followed by a couple of my sisters who were very proud of their work. I got yelled at for an hour and sent to my room, which really confused me because I didn’t do anything.  I thought I was helping my sisters.  Of course they got read the riot act.  My mom had to be involved with their lecture because my dad would get so furious he would slip into Greek and swear a whole bunch so my mom would translate and leave out the expletives and mean comments.  They were accused of trying to turn me into a girl and were grounded for eternity.  So maybe he was puttering around the garage right now as Jeff and I were watching Ultraman, beating himself up because he had failed at raising the perfect man.  What if he was even crying?  Oh God, NOOOooooooooo.

“I gotta go home.” I blurted out as I jumped up from the couch.

“Why?  Ultraman isn’t even over yet.”  Jeff was puzzled by my behavior.

“I have to talk to my dad.”  And I was gone.

It was about 7:30 and the big dark orange sun was hanging low on the summer horizon.  The temperature was already starting to drop and a warm breeze was slithering through the treetops.  I took the alley that ran along our garage in the back since I knew my dad would be on the front steps smoking, drinking a beer and watering the lawn.  I parked my bike in the garage and quietly made my way to the back door.  I thought I would sneak in and check with Mom on Dad’s status.  As I slid the screen door shut behind me I heard the far off laughter of several people that was obviously coming from the front yard.  No one was in the house so I crept over to the big bay window in the family room where I could spy the front steps.  There was like a dozen people in our front yard drinking beer and yuckin it up.  A bunch of neighbors were over and a couple of my sisters’ neighborhood friends.  Just then I heard the front door slam shut and saw Sophia go past the door way towards the bathroom.  A heard the toilet flush and she appeared in the kitchen.

“Oh, what are you doing?  I thought you were at Jeff’s.”  She said startled.

“I was.  What’s going on here?”  I asked

“Nuthin’, help me take some beers out.”  And she handed me four beers from the fridge and I followed her towards the front door.  Again, my plans were foiled I wanted to talk to Dad but I couldn’t now.  Would it be better later when he was drunk and everyone had left or would that be the worst time to talk to him.  Damn it, what am I gonna do?  As we walked out the front door and I made my way through the maze of people sitting on the steps I was greeted by our guests.

“Hey there he is.”

“Hi Georgie boy.”

“There’s the landscaping mogul.”

“It’s almost football season, huh George”

“There’s the big guy.”

I was a bigger than average kid and participated in a lot of sports; football, basketball, wrestling and track at school and in the summer I played baseball for the city parks and attended football camp, wrestling camp, basketball camp and soccer camp. This too was the fruits of my dad’s labor making him proud and fueling a lot of guy talk with his friends. By the time I was in forth grade and eligible to play organized sports I was as tall as some of my teachers.   My mother had to make my basketball uniform because they didn’t have one to fit me.  My mother had to go buy me an adult sized flag belt for flag football.  I was a champion wrestler.  I sucked at the act of wrestling but there was never anyone in my weight class so I always won by default.  Needless to say every coach in my present and future schools had their eye on me and that also was a source of pride for my father.  Of course that’s why I eventually rebelled by developing a love for Volleyball and Tennis.  I didn’t realize it at the time but this could have actually killed my father.  It wasn’t until after he died that I stopped playing the sports he approved of and spent my extra curricular high school time focused on Tennis, Volleyball, Drama, and Music.  Now that would have killed him.

So I said my hellos and received several hair touslings as I passed out the beers I was carrying making sure to give one to my dad.  There wasn’t anyone my age there and Sophia and her friends were doing cartwheels and talking about girlie stuff so I decided to stay in the man crowd hoping this would reinforce my manly status with my father.  I think I caught Dad glancing my way a few times but he still didn’t talk to me.  The other guys did though.  They asked me about baseball, and the wrestling camp I had just finished.  We talked a little about the NFL I think my favorite team then was The Cowboys but I often wore these really cool Oiler tube socks that had three stripes: one reddish orange flanked by two turquoise and a little drill thingy with oil spurting out the top in reddish orange as well.  As soon as one of the guys was slurped the last drops of beer from his can I would bolt inside and grab more before my dad could order me to.  I was on it, and I always gave my dad a beer first.  I was gonna keep feeding him beers till he fell off his lawn chair.  It was almost dark and Jeff came riding up the walkway.  I was glad to see him because more of the neighborhood kids were gathering and they were more Sophia’s age with a history of abusing me so it was good to have someone on my side.  These neighborhood kids would often hang out in the summer on our lawn with my sisters.  Their favorite summer’s night pastime besides stealing kisses, copping feels and sneaking beers from their numerous parents’ garage refrigerators was a game called Ghost in the Graveyard.  Basically it was like reverse Hide and Go Seek with a shit load of screaming and usually some injuries and blood shed which was probably due to the amount of beer they were able to steal.  How you played was you divided into two teams.  Both teams would start at a central location deemed the “safe zone” usually a tree or a square of pavement worked well.  The Ghost group would run and hide as the Gravedigger group would cover their eyes and chant out loud…

”One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock around.  Four o’clock, five o’clock, six o’clock round.  Seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine o’clock.  Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock,” and then yell really loud “TWELVE O’CLOCK GHOST IN THE GRAVEYARD!”

Then the Gravediggers would split up and go searching for the Ghosts.  Now here is where it gets crazy.  The object is for the Gravediggers to find a hidden Ghost.  When they do they yell, “Ghost in the Graveyard!” which lets the other Gravediggers know a ghost has been found and they need to high tail it back to the “safe zone” with out being tapped by any Ghosts.  It also lets the other hiding Ghosts know that one has been found and they all come out of hiding and run back to the “safe zone” trying to tap any Gravedigger they can.  It also must be played in as close to pitch-blackness as possible so as to increase the chances of making out while you hide and having a collision as everyone races back to the “safe zone.”  The game usually started with five or six horny teens but after one round, droves of hormone laden, pimply faced, peach fuzzed, short-short wearing teenagers seemed to migrate in the night towards the spooky grope-a-thon.  I think that’s why the Gravediggers yelled “TWELVE O’CLOCK GHOST IN THE GRAVEYARD!” so loud as to announce to any sex-crazed teen within earshot that it was time to get funky.  But tonight something different would happen, something I still have a hard time believing.  It was getting pretty late and mumblings of  “Ghost in the Graveyard” started to erupt.  Most of the adults had dispersed leaving my mother and Nana sitting on the steps and my dad sitting in a lawn chair totally shit faced.  There were a few neighborhood teens sitting in the grass with my sister including a couple of older (16 or 17 years old) boys when one of them said, “Look, a bat!” and pointed toward the street light.  And sure enough a few little bats were spastically fluttering around the light slurping up insects and everyone became experts on bats.

“Oh my god, Mary.”  Said Nana, “They’ll fly into your hair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Esther.  Bats don’t attack people.”  Said my mother.

“They use fruit bats in vampire movies because they are bigger than actual vampire bats.”  Said one of the neighborhood dudes.  Then the other one informed us, “Bats use radar to see because they are blind.  That’s how they fly in the dark so good.  That must be where they got that saying –Blind as a bat- from too.”

I noticed my dad had slipped away.  He must have gone to bed or inside to watch TV.

I was just thinking about how I would play it with him tomorrow when he came around the side of the house carrying some long pole or something.  As he got closer I could see that he was actually carrying three 2×4’s that were sloppily nailed together to make a crooked 12-foot pole of sorts.  I think he just ran into the garage and hammered them together right then but I don’t recall hearing any hammering and there were at least 4 three-inch long nails in it that I would have definitely heard the hammering of on this quiet summer night.  Or is it scarier to think he already had this “tool” made, ready and waiting somewhere in the garage.  Anyway, it was another of his ingenious inventions and I’m not being facetious, his homemade tools always did the job intended no matter how messed-up they looked.  He was all business as he marched into the front yard.

“Gus, what is that?” questioned my mother. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to show these kids how to catch bats.”  He replied like my mother’s questions were completely inane and unfounded, like it was obvious what he was going to do. He spoke with such conviction I almost expected my mom to reply to him…Oh of course, Honey.  How stupid of me.  And that of course is your bat-catcher.

As soon as my dad’s words hit the earholes of the two teenage boys they looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Right on!” and jumped to their feet.

“Now I’ll show you hippie dippies how we pass the time in Greece,” promised my father.

“Kids, back up!” commanded my mother to me and Jeff.

“Boy, your dad’s really drunk.”  Observed Jeff with an air of impressiveness.

My dad pulled a blue bandana from his back pocket.  He always carried a hanky and tried to get me to do it as well but as soon as I realized you carried a day’s worth of boogers around in your pocket and that was the point of having a hanky, well I had to pass.  I’m guessing that since he had been carrying this hanky around all day it too was full of boogers.  He proceeds to tie the hanky to one end of the “bat catcher.”  As he prepares for his demonstration he explains in an accent reinforced by fifteen beers.

“Bats dun yoos theirr eyes.  Day yoos theirr brrain.” He squints and uses the middle finger of his right hand to thump his temple.  Of course it looked like he was flipping us off.

Since last year when my sister imparted the knowledge on me of internationally recognized rude gestures (USA-back of hand with protruding middle finger; UK-back of hand with protruding index and middle fingers like an inverse peace sign; Italy-a flick of the inside of the upper front teeth with the thumbnail) I noticed that my father and many of his immigrant cohorts favored their middle finger over their index finger.  They would use their middle finger to point, pick, poke, scratch, and even thunk it on the table to accentuate a point.

This made Jeff and me giggle which made my dad shoot us a dirty look.

“They have radar like the army,”  he continued, “so we fool them into thinking we arre food and… WHAMMO!”  Nana let out a little noise that meant she was startled.

“For cryin’ out loud,” she said to no one in particular.  This was one of her favorite sayings along with, ”What in the Sam hill,” “Gee zow,” “Gee willickers,” whose affinity she shared with my mother.  If you told them a shocking juicy piece of gossip at the same time they would unleash a tsunami of For cryin’ out louds, What in the Sam hills, Gee zows, and Gee willickers with a couple Oh my goshes thrown in for good measure.

There is also some evidence here of American pop culture weaseling its way into my father’s vernacular with his use of the exclamation- Whammo!.  This was clearly from the Whammo! toy company who saturated summertime TV with adverts for their very popular (and fun) Frisbees.  Their catch phrase was simply: WHAMMO!  And it dominated every commercial they produced.

The were two giant oak trees in the front yard that must have been at least fifty years old and very close to them was the street light where it was easy to see the bats flying around.  My father knew that for every bat we saw in the dim glow of the streetlight there were about 20 more in the trees. He hoists the “bat catcher” into the trees and starts waving it around.  We are all staring up at the hanky tied to the top.  The two teenage boys are kind of staring and wandering around underneath the hanky.  It looked like my dad was trying to simulate the flapping of wings with the hanky but it seemed a little awkward trying to hold the “bat catcher” as high as he could and still control it.  We were straining to focus into the darkness but we soon could make out several bats fluttering around the hanky.  This immediately escalated the excitement factor and brought my sister and her friends to their feet and caused my mother and Nana to take shelter behind the front screen door.

“Wow, look at ‘em.  There’s like ten bats right there.  They’re so close,” commented one of the teenage boys as he tripped over his own feet, dizzy from staring straight up.  My sister and her friends started making some quiet noises expressing their disgust at being so close to vermin.  My dad was concentrating hard, he was squinting into the dark above him and his mouth was open slightly with his tongue thrust against the inside of his cheek.  He then let out a little grunt and jerked the “bat catcher” and made contact, a hollow “plink” resonated through still warm air as time seemed to stop.  It seemed that everyone’s vision suddenly had become crystal clear and we could all see the maimed bat flopping through the air in slow motion.  Its descent was ungraceful as if it were falling through an invisible tree and hitting every branch on the way.  Every one watched in slow-motion silence.  Everyone but the neighbor girl from up the street, she was preoccupied with her looks and the boys so as we were witnessing my father’s crimes against nature she was looking down at her slutty way-to-short short shorts and trying to straighten them so as not to be too slutty.  As we watched the bat flip and flitter about in the air we started to realize its trajectory and our facial expressions changed.  The teenage boys’ expressions turned into goofy grins of satisfaction while my sister and her friend that was paying attention donned defining expressions of shock and horror, as Jeff’s and my eyes grew even bigger while my mother and Nana exclaimed simultaneously  in what seemed like a slowed down recording, “Gee willikers…” while my dad stood there stoic yet proud with “bat catcher” in hand as if he were part of the Iwo Jima memorial.  And then, THWACK!  The bat smacked the girl that wasn’t paying attention right in the chest.  Now in addition to the slutty shorts the girl who wasn’t paying attention was also sporting a skimpy camisole-type top with a little lacey trim on the upper edge and that is what the bat wrapped one of those little claws at the end of its wing around and feebly hung on for dear life.  Then time seemed to return to normal speed as the girl that wasn’t paying attention screamed, jumped up and down, and flailed her arms.  My sister and the girl who was paying attention let out a chorus of sympathy screams and I’m-glad-its-not-me moans.  The two teenage boys took a second to realize what happened and then started laughing,  “Holy shit!” one exclaimed while pointing at the girl who wasn’t paying attention.  Jeff and I were just stunned and our eyes got even wider while Mom and Nana gasped a lot and ran the gambit of non-offensive exclamatory sayings until my mom said the wisest thing,  “Those bats might have rabies!”  which sent the girl with the bat on her shirt into shock and all she could do was shake her arms as if she were trying to shake her very hands right off the ends and scream bloody murder so my Dad stepped towards her and slapped the bat to the ground.  Apparently I was using a misnomer for my dad’s invention.  It wasn’t a “bat catcher,” it was a “bat killer” and that’s just what my dad did with the butt end of it.

“Eeewwwwwww,” we all said excluding my father who was wiping the remains of bat off the “bat killer” and onto the lawn and the girl formerly known as the girl who wasn’t paying attention but presently known as the girl that had a bat land on her shirt started sobbing and ran home.  No one ran after her.

“You wanna try?” asked my dad as he held the “bat killer” out toward the two boys.  It wasn’t a friendly invite like, “Oh this feather tickles my cheek, wanna try?”  It was a challenge.  He was really asking, “Are you man enough…to kill a bat?”  One of the teenage boys stepped forward and took the “bat killer” from my dad.  He looked it up and down,  “Whoa.”  And let out a typical teenage stoner laugh a lá Butthead.  He then grasped the butt of the tool which had moments ago been used to pulverize an innocent bat into a mere grease stain in the grass.  I don’t even think he realized he was touching bat shmootz.  As the teenage boy turned hunter started waggling the “bat killer” in the air, which seemed more like a phallic symbol under his control because he was absent mindedly thrusting his pelvis at the same time, my dad along with everyone else just stared like they were watching a great artist at work.  I thought he looked ridiculous running around the yard humping the air and jabbing the “killer” into the lower tree limbs.

Then I realized something odd; my father had not said a word this whole time.  He would normally be coaching and giving his opinion about technique or at least calling you a girl or stupid, but he just stood their enjoying his post-kill beer and watching the kid make a fool out of himself.  What is that look on his face?  Is he smiling?  Oh shit, he either is really enjoying that beer or he is actually feeling some sense of pride from this.  How could he be proud of this poor excuse for puberty running in auto-hump-pilot.  He hasn’t even touched a bat.  His style is too jerky and spazzy.  He’s all over the place and keeps taking his hand off the butt of the “killer” to wipe the hair from his face not realizing he is smearing bat juice onto his face and hair as well.  I could do that, I thought to myself meaning more “What an idiot this kid is!” and less “I want to be a killer.”  But then I realized that is exactly what I had to do.  I had to kill a bat for my father’s love.  I know that sounds melodramatic and Goth but it was obvious to me now.  He had been dangling the proverbial carrot in front of me all night.  It was so simple.  He presents a challenge, shows he’s manly enough, opens it up for competition, and then to turn the knife some more he chooses to throw his support behind this geeky teenage hormone sack for no reason at all…except of course to get to me…and it worked.  I took a step forward toward the kid with the “bat killer” as he floundered around the yard still unable to attract even one bat.  He looked like he had been to hell and back.  His longish wiry hair was matted to his sweaty forehead and his one size too small white undershirt was streaked with dirt, sweat, and I would bet some bat juice from the butt of the “killer.”  He was sporting the 1979 summer essential denim cut-offs and untied Chuck Taylor Hi-tops.  He definitely was not going to be getting any action during Ghost in the Graveyard tonight.  “I wanna try.”  I calmly stated as I stepped into the unmarked kill zone.

“George,” said Jeff with an air of warranted disgust because he knew I wasn’t much of a hunter.

“George,” said my mother shamefully.

“George,” said Nana along with some teeth sucking noises to make sure I knew how shocked and disappointed she was.

“George!” yelped the other teenage boy who was obviously relieved that he wasn’t next.  And finally…

“George,” said my sister’s friend in an awkwardly breathy sexy tone with a hint of excitement that got a raised eyebrow from everyone.  This was normal behavior for her though because she frequently was inappropriate.  In fact just last week I went over to the neighbor’s pool and Sophia and this friend of hers were there and this girl kept coming within a few feet of me and smile at me all weird.  Her eyes would get real big and stay focused on me but she would roll her head around for a like a minute and she would suddenly stop smiling and point at me and say “George pissed in the pool!” like she was making some miraculous decree and then swim away while everyone quickly left a large enough circumference around me and my supposed pee infested water.  Then she would do it over and over again.  She did it so much my sister even told her to stop.  Of course I hadn’t pissed in the pool but she was so adamant I thought maybe I had and didn’t know it.

As the “bat killer” was being passed to me I was wondering how I could avoid the bat grease smeared all over the butt end.  I glanced at my dad who was taking a slurp of beer like it was hot coffee and looking at me through squinted eyes.  I had to remain cool and project confidence at all times but I didn’t want to touch the bat goo.  Come on man think, think!  What kind of gifted and talented student are you? THINK!  Then I saw the big gulp cup that one of the neighbor ladies left over here.  She was pregnant and not drinking alcohol so she brought over a soda.  So in a total MacGyver moment I told Jeff to hand me the cup.  I dumped out the flat warm soda with a wet splat and slipped the over the juiced end of the instrument and folded it around to fit every corner and knot.

I glance again at my father, we locked eyes, he had a look of restrained hopefulness from my ingenious cup maneuver.  Things were going my way and I felt good, if I had a bandana I would have wrapped it around my head ceremonially like a noble Samurai.  I hoisted my weapon into the air (queue the Vangelis track) and began to fluidly wave the instrument as if it were an extension of my arms, my heart, my very soul.  I concentrated on making the hanky flap in a rhythmic manner like my dad had.  I also kept it “flying” in a circle and in a matter of 10 seconds a few bats started circling the hanky.  I heard some whispers and mumbling but no one said anything louder than that.  My father even refrained from coaching me and more importantly he wasn’t heckling me or calling me stupid or a girl.  This meant he was truly impressed or so loaded he didn’t know what was going on but I was hoping it was the first one.  Then he produced a secret weapon to make my success even more elusive.  He produced a cigarette and lit it knowing full well that the smell of smoke would repel the insects and the bats that ate them.  Oooooohhhh that was sneaky but I couldn’t show any signs of cracking I had to keep my confidence up.  Luckily there was a breeze so the smoke from my dad’s trusty Pall Mall was being wafted over his head and carried up behind him away from the kill zone.  Now I was kind of stuck because so far things had gone my way and I was faking it pretty good but it was time to start taking some swipes at the bats to knock one out of the air but that seemed to require motor skills and spatial estimations I just wasn’t capable of.  Video games had started creeping into my life a couple of years earlier when I discovered the concept of arcades and just applied the same logic used in video games that I had not yet grasped the techniques of.  I spazzed.  Hey it got me through many a level of Virtua Fighter and Mortal Combat.  I just made some random thrusts with all my might and then…a hollow PLONK!  I GOT ONE I GOT ONE!!  I was screaming at myself in my brain but on the outside I remained calm and cool.  I must have looked so good, like some kind of natural, if bat hunting with a stick and a booger infested hanky is something you can naturally be good at.  The bat fell like a brick, no flitting fluttering spastic ballet of death, no graceful transition into the bat afterlife, no ceremony or procession to remember his bat-life by, just a PLONK then a FLONK as he hit the sidewalk.  My admiring on lookers gasped with shock at my hunter instincts and flawless execution of skill.

“Look at the size of that thing,” said the teenage boy that didn’t try to catch a bat.

“Gross, it’s hairy!” said Sophia.

“Whoa, you killed it in mid-air,” observed Jeff.

Great it’s dead already so I won’t have to crush it, and it was really big, twice the size of the one my father caught.  Ha! Whose the big man now?  Not only was my bat bigger than his, but I administered a fatal blow in flight to swiftly put an end to its life.  Everyone was impressed as they gathered around the carcass of the great winged beast.  I relaxed a bit and held the “bat killer” to one side while it rested on my sneakered toe and I let a faint smile of self-satisfaction leak on to my face.  My mother opened the front screen door out of curiosity and asked,

“Did he get it?  Is it dead?  Who wants ice cream?”  I looked over at my father who hadn’t moved and was taking a drag from his secret-weapon cigarette but it was an over hand drag, you know the super manly hold where the cigarette is pinched between the thumb and the index and forefingers.  He was trying to hold onto his own masculinity and outwardly claim it through his cigarette hold. Then threw the unfinished smoke to the ground (which he would never do, he would normally smoke his filter-less Pall Malls down so far that if you were to look at his ash tray you would think they were joint roaches) and walked towards me.  I was a little scared because I couldn’t tell what was going on in his brain.  I didn’t think he was stupid but sometimes he was very instinctual like a T-rex and the mix of beer and excitement made him seem very prehistoric right now.  Was he proud of me for being so awesome on the hunt or was I too good and made him look bad in front of his audience?  It was anyone’s call at this point and all I knew was that I couldn’t go back now.  As he approached me I wasn’t sure what he was going to say I pretended not to see him or at least not react to his approach.

“AAAHHHH, it moved!” yelled my sister’s friend, the girl that was now paying way too much attention.

“No it didn’t.  It’s dead,” said the boy that did try to catch a bat.  They were still huddled around the corpse.

“AHHH, it moved again!  Didn’t you see that?” said observant girl.

“It did, I saw that,” said Sophia.

“Me too,” said Jeff then he turned around to me and said in a quiet voice as if he could see into the future, “George, it lives.”

“What?” I replied in disbelief as I ran over to the deathwatch circle.  Just at that moment a most horrible high pitched screeching started emitting from the bat and it started to flap one wing vigorously (it seemed that the other was broken) which caused it to start sort of spinning around like the amateur break dancer it was.  I just stared at it as it seemed to stare back at me and chaos erupted around me.  My sister and her friend were screaming as Jeff retreated to the higher ground of the front steps and the two boys had jumped back a bit and were engrossed in their own exchange of expletives and expressions.  There I stood watching the great beast fight the inevitable darkness.  I pleaded with it in my mind, “Just die already, won’t you?  It is the easiest way.  I’m sorry but it just has to end. I mean what kind of life is there for you now after your accident?  If you don’t die now then I will have to kill you and I’m not too excited about that.  Come on just go toward the light, that’s it.”

The screeching intensified and a few more teenagers had arrived ready for a mid summer’s night make-out misinterpreting all the screaming as Ghost In the Graveyard screams but soon joined in the present excitement.  As the newcomers were being filled in and the level of cacophony increased I was trying to accept my fate.  I spread my feet to shoulder width and raised my weapon to hover ominously over the wounded furry giant.  What was I gonna do?  I can’t squish this bat.  I know.  I’ll save it.  Yes I will nurse it back to health and name him Harry.  He could be my pet I could get him a leash and we could have nightly flights around the neighborhood, or maybe he could be like a homing bat. He would forgive me and love me and I would love him and take care of him forever. Or at least take it to the vet or make it comfortable in its demise.  But this would not satisfy my father, it would really piss him off and he would never talk to me again but it is the right thing to do.  I can reverse the damage I have done.  It’s like when a cop shoots a criminal and then calls for an ambulance.  The cop had to shoot him but he didn’t have to kill him.  I’m like the cop, I had to arbitrarily thwack the innocent bat out of the sky but I don’t have to splatter it.  Wait that defeats the purpose of this whole thing.  I wanted to make my father proud so he wouldn’t think less of me.  I can’t do the right thing now it would destroy my relationship with my dad for sure.  This is too much morality for a 10 year old to deal with.  I wish some one would just tell me what to do.  Please just tell me.  I can follow directions.  SOMEBODY TELL ME!!!!!  As I stood there in position poised to bring a violent unwarranted end to the drama I was visited by a demon.  My head was enshrouded in a thick musky stew of stale sweat and rotting hops.  I could even smell the smokiness of his singed skin.  Just as I began to feel his presence close to my left ear all the background noise seemed to all but disappear except the screeching.  I heard his serpentine tongue slither out of his mouth and flicker over his lips as he prepared to speak.  And then in a voice that resembled what Barry White would sound like fronting a Swedish Death Metal band he said,

“Do it.”  Then suddenly the screeching stopped, the conversations stopped, and everyone’s eyes turned towards me.  There I was, the murderer caught red handed with the butt of my weapon planted firmly in an extra large smear of bat goo with my father hovering over my left shoulder.  Just then the screen door swings open and there’s my mother with a gallon of ice cream and a stack of cones, “Ice cream anyone?”

I dropped the weapon and fled the crime scene.  I was feeling proud of myself like I had won something but then I felt horrible too. I never killed anything that big on purpose before.  And it was screaming.  Oh God I’m a murderer at 10, what’s next raping and pillaging by 11?  Everyone will look at me different now.  There’ll be whispers and rumors when people see me approaching.  No one will be allowed to play with me.  Mother’s will slam doors in my face and lock them.  I’ll be alone for the rest of the summer and forget about school they might as well lock me up in a tower somewhere and leave me to rot.  I guess they should withdraw me from the Gifted and Talented program.  I sat on the back porch deep in thought when around the corner of the house came Jeff with two ice cream cones.  He handed me one and sat down next to me.  After a couple of maintenance licks and fair amount of silence Jeff dared to speak.

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah, that was pretty crazy back there huh?” I tried to be nonchalant.

“That was the biggest bat I’ve ever seen.  Were you scared?”

“Sort of,” I said but there was an uncontrollable wiggling in my voice.

“I mean it was kind of gross but kind of cool at the same time,” said Jeff revealing his slight confusion over the event.  I cracked, “I killed it, Jeff.  I’m gonna go to hell for that.  What did that bat ever do to me?  I’m a monster.  You probably won’t be allowed to hang out with me anymore as soon as your parents find out.”

“Naw, they won’t care.  My dad will think it was cool then he’ll be like… ‘Why can’t you be more like George and kill some bats?’” joked Jeff using his best Denny voice.  “What made you even try to catch one?” he asked more seriously.

“I thought it would make my dad like me again after I had that fight with him this afternoon but he apparently wasn’t impressed.”

I reason I was sitting on the back steps was because that is where my dad spent a lot of summer nights after my mom retreated inside to watch TV or go to bed.  This was like his sanctuary, where he did his thinking.  He would have his last beer of the evening and smoke a few Pall Malls and look up at the stars are into the shimmering leaves of the giant oak tree that capped our backyard.  But tonight he didn’t come back here.  What else could I possibly do to regain his pride in me?  I killed an innocent wild creature for Christ’s sake.  The neighborhood teens started gearing up for Ghost in the Graveyard and a few were milling about oblivious to Jeff and me.  My mother appeared in the doorway behind us,

“Your father and me are going to bed so you two don’t stay up too late,” she said softly through the screen.

“I’m gonna go home pretty soon Mrs. V.  We’re going to early mass tomorrow.” Jeff assured her.

“Stay as long as you want but just make sure you call George when you get home to make sure you made it.  Okay?” and to me, “Don’t forget you have church tomorrow too, Mister.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. V,” Jeff replied.  Just then Sophia went trotting through the yard and my mother called to her, “Hey there young lady, not too loud aye?”

“Sure Mom,” she said not stopping or even looking in the direction of our mother.

“That’s the whole point of Ghost in the Graveyard, isn’t it, screaming your guts out?” whispered Jeff and we started giggling.

“Goodnight boys,” said Mom.

“Goodnight,” we sang in unison.

“That was pretty funny when your dad wacked that bat onto that girl.”

“Yeah it was.”  And we melted into hysterics imitating the poor girl who wasn’t paying attention, as the first round of Ghost in the Graveyard was just getting under way.

Jeff hung out for a bit and we watched teenagers with over active glands try to construct sexually charged scenarios.  Jeff left and I decided to go to bed since I did have to get up to go to stupid church in the morning.  Church was strange for us.  We went to a Greek Orthodox Church and since it was the only one for about 200 miles around a lot of people traveled to go to it.  I tried to simplify the complexity of religion to make easier to understand and with Jeff’s help came up with the idea that Orthodoxy was similar to Catholicism except that Orthodox did not frown on sex and drinking and gambling.  In fact it seemed like it was encouraged.  Our priests could be married and have kids or date if they were single.  Gambling took place in the church building on a regular basis since that is where my father went to play poker frequently.  They even use real wine in the communion.  Even with all these liberal aspects I still hated going especially since I couldn’t understand what was being said since it was all in Greek.

There was only one person who hated going more than me and that was my dad, but he had to make appearances so he could not feel guilty about the poker.  There was this men’s club at the church called AHEPA (American Hellenic Education Progressive Association) which never seemed to have anything to do with education except I think there were some scholarships sponsored by the nation wide faction of the AHEPA.  Basically this was the group of guys my dad played cards for money with.  They would hold a meeting at the church, eat a bunch of great food since like half the guys there owned restaurants, drink and play poker till the wee hours of the morning.  When my dad went to church he would spend about ten minutes in the actual temple and then excuse himself.  And his buddies would also excuse themselves at random times and then they wouldn’t come back.  Rumor had it that they were actually playing cards during church until the priest found out.  But on several occasions I would go to the bathroom and see my father out in front of the church smoking with his buddies.  Sometimes I would go out there and hang out with them until he would send me in and tell me, “Tell your mother you didn’t see me.”   Basically my dad didn’t go to church unless he planned on going to the AHEPA meeting that night, on Sundays when there was no meeting there was no dad going to church but I always had to go it seemed and no matter how much I begged to stay home with Dad, I never was allowed.  The only time it was different was when I was an Altar boy, but that is a different story.

I went to bed restless trying to figure out what the whole bat thing meant and if my father was even going to remember it.  In my exhaustion I decided it didn’t matter and I fell into a deep sleep.  I opened my eyes and my clock said 10:00 AM.  I blinked.  That can’t be right church started at 10 and my mother was usually hollering up the stairs to wake me around 8:30.  I laid still.  Did they forget me?  I listened to hear if anyone was moving about.  Not a sound.  I slithered out of bed and slowly opened my bedroom door with a stuttering creek.  Across the hall was my sister’s room and the door was wide open and she wasn’t in it.  I tiptoed over to the window that looked down onto the garage and the garage was open and the car was gone.  They had left without me.  I sat on my bed for a second.  Holy shit I have been totally cut out of the family.  Oh God this is horrible.  Maybe I could live with the Maggioli’s?  Yeah they love me, Jeff and I were already like brothers.  Maybe I should pack and be gone before they get back from church.  But wait, if it’s true then I won’t have to do anything.  I won’t have to do chores or go to church.  Maybe I won’t have to go to school either.  Hey this could be pretty cool after all.  I can do whatever I want.  I really got carried away and I trotted down the stairs and into the kitchen to survey my new life of nonexistence to my family and get something to eat.  As I turned the corner and slide onto the linoleum of the kitchen there at the table sat my father.  He had a cup of coffee and the Sunday comics held up in front of his face obstructing his view.  I literally started to back peddle slipping on the floor and waiting for the cartoon sound effects of bongos and screeching car tires but they never came and I just ended up standing there like an idiot, so to make myself even more idiot-like I started talking uncontrollably.  “Where is everybody?  Well not everybody I mean where are Mom and Sophia?  Why didn’t anyone wake me up?  Are we still going to church?”  Damn it shut up, fool.  He totally caught me off guard.  I wonder how long he has been sitting there waiting for me.  This whole thing stinks of a set-up.  Ok I gotta get cool and stay calm.  I walked over to the fridge and opened it welcoming the cold blast of air since my room was like a frickin’ oven.

“They went to church.” He replied as emotionless as possible, he wasn’t given me anything to go on here.  I took out the milk and expected him to slip away from the table to retreat to the garage where he would always be king.

“Why didn’t Mom wake me up?” I said still staring into the fridge.

“I told her to let you sleep.”  With that he folded up the newspaper and left the table.  What was he up to? Why did he let me stay home form church?  This was unprecedented.  Maybe it was a reward for last night’s events?  Maybe this is one of the privileges manhood, not having to go to church.  I’m sure it’s not that easy, he probably just couldn’t bare to hear Mom call my name up the stairs to wake me up so he waved her off and hoped I would sleep all day if he remained quiet enough.  I made myself some scrabbled eggs and toast and sat at the table waiting to see what would transpire with my father.  I was replaying the bat murders in my head and wallowing in guilt and self-pity as I perused the Sunday comics, I forgot about the bat killing for now.

I was long finished with the comics and was just sitting there watching the kitchen curtains alternate between being blown inward and flapping about to being sucked up against the screen.  Even though it was in the 90’s the three giant oak trees that surrounded our house kept it relatively cool on the first floor.  I heard the screen door slide open and I tensed up a little in anticipation of what my father’s next move would be.  He had been unnervingly quiet so far.

“Come on, I promised your mother we’d cook.” Said my dad cheerfully.  Who the fuck was this guy?  I watched him carefully as he took out a roasting pan and started preparing the chicken he removed from the refrigerator.  This was not my father.  My father hated me.  He was disgusted with his only son and would not work side by side with him to do such a womanly task as cook goddamn Sunday dinner.  This had to be a pod father.  I’m sure that if I were to have gone out to the garage I would have found a big empty pupa case and a bunch of space goo.  I must have had a real dopey look on my face because he looked up from the chicken carcass and chuckled and then said,  “Peel some potatoes eh?”  I shook the shock from my face and jumped up to fetch the potatoes and the peeler.  “When does your football camp start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Do you have everything ready?”

“I guess.”

“What about shoes?”

“Um, I was gonna wear my sneakers.”  What was going on?  This was like a conversation like we would have back in the old days before I questioned him and he disowned me.  He was even suggesting he might be willing to buy me new shoes for football camp.  That was huge for my dad to be on the verge of suggesting he buy you something.  Normally we would have to beg and plead and then he would get mad and then Mom would have to step in and work her magic if she felt it was a battle worth fighting.  But we prepared dinner together and Dad told me stories about how his mother would cook chickens on a spit over an open fire and that when he was about my age she taught him how to pluck the feathers from a chicken.

“You had to pluck the chicken?  Didn’t they come plucked?”  I said naively.

“No, they were alive.  We had to kill ‘em and clean ‘em.”

“Really?”  I asked cautiously uncertain whether I should believe his story or not.

“You have to snap their necks.”  He said as he picked up the neck of the chicken we were going to eat for dinner.  “You have to corner them and then grab them by the neck and give ‘em a jerk or snap the neck.” He accentuated the word snap by snapping the chicken neck in his hands.  But I wasn’t shocked anymore.  I expected this sort of behavior now and took it in stride.  Everything was back to normal with my father in fact I think he might have even respected me a bit more than before.  We finished making dinner and my mom and sister arrived to find my father and I setting the table and placing the food on the table.  We enjoyed our dinner and later that afternoon my mother took me to Sears to get me some new sneakers for football.  I briefly thought about the bats that sacrificed their lives to make mine better, and the chickens whose carcass my dad and I made peace over.  Did they know they were contributing to my life, or were people just stick-waving, neck-breaking ogres to them?

***************************

Ahhhhh, the ties that bind.  (Where have I heard that before?)