Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man Read online

  cubed steak with, you guessed it-stewed tomatoes. We called this gourmet delight bloody brains and shoe leather. "Oh please, Mom can't I invite a school friend over for dinner?"

  To be fair, Mom made great sloppy joes, but never often enough. We would have been happy eating hamburgers and hot dogs all our lives. But no. This is incontrovertible proof that there something

  wrong with adults: they think you won't be happy having the same thing every night for dinner. Tell that to my daughter when she's debating between macaroni for dinner or macaroni for dinner.

  My wife, by the way, is an excellent cook, but after years of marriage, my menu requests are seldom met. When we first dated, she'd actually ask me what I liked. Sound familiar? When you first date a woman, you get a lot of things that you'll never get again. She once made me twice‑baked potatoes. I'd never had one. You take all the stuff out of the potato, cook it, and put it back in. I ate six of them. I said, "You keep cooking like this, I'll marry you." I married her. I haven't had one since.

  - -

  As a kid you're dependent on a female, and that would be Mom. She cares for you, comforts you, and nurses you when you're hurt. Think about it, men. When those essentials are covered, you get to go out and play. Even today.

  When you scraped your knee, Mom never panicked. You panicked-and loudly, as soon as you saw the iodine or Mercurochrome. "Hey, Mom, why not just pierce my chest with a kitchen knife?"

  Then it was Band‑Aid time. There were all shapes and sizes. There were big pads for the really cool injuries that usually had a neat story attached. There were the standard "flesh"‑colored Band-Aids that ingeniously matched the skin color of nobody. By the way, weren't "flesh‑colored" Band‑Aids and "flesh‑colored" crayons just a bit racist? And what the heck were those little round dot‑shaped Band‑Aids for? You certainly couldn't let your friends catch you wearing a Band‑Aid dot! Very bad for the image. (Tip for later: Never cover a zit with a Band‑Aid dot. Everyone knows what's going on.) And what about Band‑Aid removal? What a drama. Although my sister believed in the very slow incremental method, I preferred the popular one, two, three. . RRRip approach.

  When you were sick, Mom was there. Sometimes she even believed you were sick. Who's to say if your stomach really hurt or not? I used to tell my mom I had a sore throat and she'd look inside and say, "Okay." I was amazed every time I got away with it. Now I realize, it always looked red. Throats are red. I've looked at my daughter's throat and said, "God, is that red."

  Moms. They're so amazing. They're incredibly caring women who, despite the most torturous and agonizing pain of their lives forced us out through an opening of laughable proportions, then loved and nurtured our needy little selves through our adorable infancies, our less adorable teens, and into our know‑it‑all adulthoods. They helped us redefine our boundaries all the way.

  On the other hand, what else did they have to do with their lives?

  - -

  Once fueled up with sugar, our bikes parked nearby, we'd lie around on glorious summer days, blades of grass in our mouths, plotting what to do next. It was all very innocent, but the potential for trouble remained. We were tiny Neanderthals, after all. But unlike our sloped‑forehead forefathers, we couldn't hunt for meat; we could only hunt up mischief. Then mischief was shooting out Mrs. Campbell's windows with a BB gun. Today I guess it would be shooting out her windows with an AK‑47. This reminds me of hearing Bob Talbert, a Detroit Free Press feature writer, talking about the problems with kids twenty years ago-and today. Then: not dressing properly, not being quiet in the cafeteria, and not finishing meals. Now: pregnancy, gunfire, and barbiturates.

  This is social progress?

  I think what gets me the most, though, is that somehow kids today don't share our sense of childhood wonderment. When's the last time you heard "Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free?" or seen the neighborhood kids play Kick the Can or Capture the Flag? Did we just drop the ball on this generation? Is it just not safe anymore? Are we not generous enough to teach this stuff to our kids?

  - -

  When I was little I asked for a BB gun. My mom and dad looked at me like I was crazy. "Are you kidding?"

  Did it sound like I was kidding? It was a Daisy handgun, very cool. "Can't you just give me the money?" I said.

  Unfortunately, it cost $24 and they weren't about to just go out and buy it on my little whim. So I did the age‑old kid thing and whined for a couple of hours. Finally, they said, "Wait until your birthday." Kids can't imagine a sentence more devastating than "Wait for your birthday." And I had nine months to wait.

  Fortunately, that night, I found my salvation on the back cover of a Silver Surfer comic. It was an ad that said I could earn big prizes selling. . seeds.

  I sent for a box, and they actually fronted them to me. I mean, they gave me the product. That's when I learned that with trust comes pressure. I had to sell it, and pay them back later. To this day, fm pretty sure I still owe them money. Now you know the real reason I changed my name: in case the seed people come to collect. They must be very old by now.

  My family bought most of the seeds and ended up paying for the BB gun anyway. I still went door to door, which turned out to be good practice for later in life when I'd make a quick $300 as an independent salesman and then cruise for the rest of the summer. A bit of advice: selling Amway, mints, and magazine subscriptions was the worst. Seeds were okay.

  Of course, I didn't tell my customers why I was selling seeds. "Hello, ma'am. I'm selling these wonderful seeds to get a BB gun, and then I'll be back to pelt your windows and annoy your pets."

  Once I got the gun, I was unstoppable. Moving targets were an irresistible challenge. I shot a squirrel. Then a bird. After that, I stopped shooting anything alive. I liked them better when they were moving.

  Instead I concentrated on harmless stuff like traffic lights, windows, cans, my little brothers, stuff like that. From a distance it doesn't look like you're doing any damage. Get closer and you can see the little pinholes where you've shot the glass out. I shot at our neighbor's window: "Ding, ding, ding." Finally, she told my mom, "Someone's been hitting the window," like it was the big Mystery of the Week. It was pretty obvious who did it. Before I shot it out, the window was across from my room.

  Just last year I confessed to my mother that I shot out that window. She said, "No, you didn't."

  "Yes, I did."

  She got really mad at me. I tried to calm her, "Maybe I should just go back there and tell her I'll replace it or something."

  "It's too late now," my mom said. "She's dead!"

  "Oh. In that case there's no sense in me worrying about it."

  My mom wanted to know why I'd do something like that. I said, "Mom, there's lots of things boys do that they're not sure why they do it." (Understand that and you'll understand men.)

  Like shooting at my grandmother. She was old, and she never complained. I don't think she actually felt it. If we concentrated on one leg we could actually get her to wobble a little bit. We told her it was carpet mites biting the backs of her legs. BBs won't really puncture the skin, but they'll sure raise one beauty of a welt.

  All right. I never really shot at my grandmother-as far as you know.

  - -

  BB guns are fun, but, let's face it, not very loud and not very destructive. And if boys love anything, they love noisy explosions and creative demolition. Boys destroy because we're hostile. We're built hostile.

  Blowing stuff up is a rite of boyhood that continues well into manhood. We're contractors and soldiers. You can't destroy stuff unless you build it first. We're very good at this: why else would the United States be the home of Caterpillar tractors and Seawolf subs.

  This dynamic is very basic. What starts with sparklers and smoke bombs later becomes roaring car exhausts, motorcycle engines, rocket ships, and diesels.

  It's all about combustion.

  My grandmother used to help us get our firepower. Not that she knew, exactly. Awarene
ss was never her strong suit. She'd take us to the corner of 54th and Federal, where they sold the stuff: To get in to the store, an adult had to sign a paper acknowledging to the salesman that she or he knew fireworks were being sold. We told her we were just getting sparklers. She'd sign, then wait in the car while we stocked a small arsenal.

  Ka‑boom!

  Two M80s equaled a KKK. Four KKKs became a stick of dynamite. It could blow your arm off. We'd buy a gross. You'd fire one off, and it would make so much noise you'd have to save the rest for a year because you can't just keep setting them off without the police showing up.

  Capsticks were our favorite. You'd strike them and they'd smoke. Four seconds after the smoke stopped there'd be a loud report. We'd sneak them into people's pockets. It would rip the pocket right out.

  Ka‑boom!

  We were also into fire.

  We burned everything.

  We used to build model planes and set them on fire during mock battles. Nothing beats a burning model for realism on the field. The B‑17 Flying Fortress bomber was the best because you could light every one of the four engines and you could actually see what it looked like going down. The black smoke. The smell of cooking styrene. Pure exhilaration.

  One time I lit up the engines to provide air cover while my friend Chris was busy with the armored half‑track on the ground. It was trouble. A whole glob of plastic fell off, right onto his hand. He started high‑stepping around the alley, his knees almost hitting his chest. I'll bet he still has the scar.

  This was dangerous stuff. Once I blew my thumbnail off trying to light a firecracker and throw it up so it exploded in midair. I was holding the firecracker while my brother lit it. Instead of lighting the fuse end, he lit it near the bottom. I couldn't even get it out of my hand. I'm lucky I still have my hand. When my dad saw what happened he just said, "You shouldn't hold them that long." At least that's all I could make out because my ears were ringing like I'd been to a week of Black Sabbath concerts.

  But that was all he'd said. My dad was a man of few words. I liked that. He turned out to be extraordinarily cool where explosives were concerned. Once, he showed me and my friends how to make a mortar. From my adult perspective this seems like both a good and a bad thing. Dads are not supposed to teach their kids to be terrorists, but I guess he knew we'd try it on our own, so he figured we might as learn to do it the right way. I had to respect him for that.

  One thing I always loved to blow up was the fish at Cherry Creek. In the spring the creek would fill with water and the fish were so hungry they'd eat anything. So. . we'd wrap a cherry bomb in wet Kleenex, cover it with salmon eggs, light it, and toss it to a desperate fish. He would gulp it down and then blow himself right out of the water. The carcass would fly everywhere and then you'd have to find the head, and blow that up.

  You should know that, as an adult, I have not continued to actively destroy things. The impulse is still there, but with age comes control and the threat of lawsuits. I've learned to channel that destructive energy into the positive belief that I, by virtue of being a man, can fix things.

  If you believe the words "anyone can do it" or "as seen on TV" or "with just these few tools," chances are you're also heavily invested in mink‑oil futures. I've made eight or nine trips to the hardware store just on one job.

  Recently, I thought I needed to replace a ballcock in the toilet (someone had to be laughing when they named that part). It was running all the time. But after I replaced the ballcock, there was still a leak. Apparently, I hadn't properly sealed it. So I had to go back and get the sealer. Meanwhile, my wife was saying, "When are you going to fix this toilet?"

  "I'm working on it."

  "Pay a plumber. We can afford it."

  Not me. I'm a man. But somehow, putting in the sealer, I twisted something too hard and broke the washer. They didn't sell what I needed, so I had to replace it in brass-which didn't seat correctly, and stripped the water tube. When I pulled that out it bent the tube coming out of the wall.

  Now I had to call the plumber to put the tube back in the wall.

  He said the reason the toilet was leaking in the first place was that the mount on the bottom was wrong. Did I mention that I had thought of that?

  I ended up buying a new toilet.

  That is when I discovered that some do‑it‑yourself projects should begin with the words "Yellow Pages."

  - -

  We used to go to Crestmoor Swim Club and use the pool. My mother insisted on the half‑hour rule: no swimming for a full thirty minutes after eating. Not twenty‑five minutes, twenty‑six, twenty-seven, twenty‑eight, or twenty‑nine. It had to be thirty. Otherwise you'd die.

  I haven't passed this on to my kid, though. I'm a new scientist. I force-feed her way too much, and then make her go swimming. Not five minutes or three or one minute after. Immediately after. I make sure she's still chewing when she hits the water! Of course, I'm with her when she swims. I watch her. I just don't believe this cramp thing really happens.

  In fact, as far as I can tell, no one has ever locked up in the water and gone, "Oh, God. I should have waited two more minutes!" Even if the theory is true, and you get rigor mortis and sink to the bottom, isn't it conceivable that one of the seven thousand other people in the public pool will notice one kid in big trouble? Or will a sunbaked clan of righteous mothers rally at poolside, restrain the lifeguards, and say, "Let this one go down as an example to all the other wise‑ass kids who don't listen to their mothers."

  "Bobby, see little Timmy down there? On the bottom? Didn't wait that half an hour like his mother told him."

  I wonder how long they'd let me stay down there? Would they leave the chalk outline underwater after I'd been removed to remind the other kids?

  As we well know, little girls don't disobey their mothers. In fact, given half a chance, they'll parrot their mothers back to their brothers. "Mom said thirty minutes." They pick up that attitude real quick. And when they get older, they do whatever they want because they think that their rules don't apply to those who are already perfect. Meaning them. Rules are meant for guys.

  - -

  Going to camp for the first time is like going to prison. I know. I've been both places.

  The worst part of camp is being away from your parents and your normal life. Suddenly, you see yourself as a solo entity. There you are with a big trunk and a bedroll, some comics, and a picture of Mom and Dad, in a cell block-oops, cabin-called Potawatamie or some other Indian name. There are guys your age, an older guy who teases you, a straight‑arrow counselor, and the camp director, whose mere presence and his habit of showing up unexpectedly makes your skin itch. You have to get to know the people around you right away and it's very uncomfortable. Because you're so scared you puke all over yourself and on the kid in the bunk next to you. Since you can't do laundry, your mom sends your underwear up in a box.

  The same thing goes in prison. Again, you're alone for the first time. Really alone. Then there's the vomit stage. And the indoctrination period, which is the day most people get their impressions of who you are. If you're quick, you realize most other guys in indoctrination are going through the same thing. It's the guys who've been there awhile and know so much who are whistling and calling, "Hey, chicken, you're in my cell."

  Now I'm sure the camp people aren't going to be too happy that I'm equating a childhood camp experience to the federal penitentiary, but the experiences were remarkably similar. Remember that rather odd guy in camp who stared at you, and then wanted you to be his close friend, to be his special friend. Years later he's the rather odd man in prison who stares at you, and then wants you to be his wife.

  - -

  f camp was a scary experience, newspaper routes were a stupid experience. Nonetheless, every boy had one. I did. I hated it. You'd have to get up early, fold the papers, put rubberbands around them, and stick them into a heavy bag on a bike. Then you'd have to toss them on people's steps. Sometimes the rubber band would p
op and the paper would butterfly. Then you'd have to pick it up. When it's all wet and you only have so many papers, then you've got to go back and get a new one for the guy.

  I admit it: I wasn't a real businessman at that age. In fact, I probably have some apologies to make because I don't actually remember quitting the job. I think people just stopped getting their papers, and I moved on to selling seeds.

  - -

  All the elements of boyhood come together when you're playing war. War was big. Bigger than big. Girls never played, or if they did they just wanted to play at being nurses.

  My four brothers and I-our whole life was based on warfare. We had an arsenal in the basement. We had toy soldiers. When we played with wooden blocks we made forts.

  I think war-for boys and men-only exists because the toys are so much fun. Who wouldn't want to shoot a machine gun? Or go sixty miles an hour in a twelve‑ton tank? Can you blame the Joint Chiefs for buying weapons by the hundred gross, even if they don't work? You know those generals get films about new weapons that are real slick, then they sit in a dark screening room, chests heavy with badges and decorations, going, "Hey, neat!"

  When we were kids, the Marx Toy Company (remember the Marx parrot, in the commercials? "By Marx!") made guns that were almost exact copies of the originals. Each year they would come out with a new gun that looked more and more like the real thing. No pink flowers or pictures of elephants, just camouflage-color direct copies of the ones Vic Morrow used on Combat.

  Vic on Combat was like God in his Heaven. I lived that show and I wanted to be in that squad. So we put our own squads together to go against other groups. Our favorite expression was "Da‑da‑dow. You're dead!"

  "No, you just winged me."

  "No, you're dead."

  "Do I look dead?"

  "Just wait until I get over there. . "

  We'd have arguments. We'd get so mad. It was great!

  I requisitioned weapons purchases for the gang. "No, no, it's gotta be fifty caliber." Why? Bushes were "cover" and you couldn't shoot someone through a bush even if you could see them. But. . but. . fifty caliber could go through a bush. I told you it was great.