It was Friday afternoon and the last bell rang for the end of eighth period, the end of the day at Tappan and the end of my fourth week of school in this crazy junior high place with a thousand other kids.

It had been a very weird day because we had done swimming again in the school’s indoor pool for Phys Ed, and we didn’t wear swimsuits, we were naked that is.

Our Phys Ed teacher Mr Wash had said, the day before the first day last week when we did class in the pool, that it was his and the school’s “strong preference” that we swim without suits, because they didn’t want us bringing swimsuits to school and hanging them wet in our lockers, because they said stuff in there would get all moldy and stinky and stink up the whole school. He said if we insisted on wearing a swimsuit, we had to bring it that morning and take it home at the end of the day, and not leave it in our locker.

One of the cool kids, Max, had asked Mr Wash if the girls were supposed to swim naked too, which got the other cool kids Stefan and Ronnie to laugh, and some of the other kids did too, including me, because we didn’t want the cool kids to think we weren’t cool too. Mr Wash did a big smile, shook his head slowly, laughed through his nose and said that the school supplied the girls with special “tanksuits”, “because they are girls”, like we all knew what THAT was all about.

Ronnie had looked at some of the rest of us and said that girls were “wussies”, like us boys were better than them and we were fine swimming naked because we WEREN’T, wussies that is. When he heard Ronnie say that Mr Wash said, “All right GENTLEMEN, that’s enough of that kind of talk!” like maybe he even agreed, but that we were big boys now and shouldn’t talk about girls that way, at least in front of him. So I guess that meant that if any of us brought a swimsuit to wear the next day, we were wussies too. So what do you know, none of us brought a swimsuit that next day and all were there in the pool naked.

I had figured out how to take a shower naked after regular gym class so hardly anyone saw my tiny penis with no hair around it. But to spend the WHOLE CLASS in the pool naked, and at least half the period having to just stand by the side of the pool with everyone else and not actually in the water, there was nothing I could do to protect myself from all those other boys looking at those parts of my body.

At least Martin was in my class too, and he was really fat so the cool kids in my class – Ronnie, Stefan and Max – who liked to tease other kids, would talk about HIM, when we were all naked, though really quietly so Mr Wash wouldn’t hear them. But sometimes the three of them would look at me, and I could tell they were chuckling inside their minds looking between my legs, like “what’s that little kid doing in junior high”.

Mike was in the class, and last year in sixth grade he’d kind of been my best friend. He had been the only one of my school friends that I’d let come over to my house, because he was the only kid in sixth grade that had figured out that my mom and dad were divorced, but didn’t think I was weird, and didn’t tell any of the other kids in my class who I was worried MIGHT think I was weird if they knew. All three cool kids liked him, because he was so big and tall and good at sports and on the JV football team with them. So I guess he was a cool kid too now, though I don’t think he’d ever tease anybody like the other three did. But I don’t think I ever saw him get mad at the other cool kids when they teased Martin.

And now in Art class it was doubly weird, because I’d told the teacher, Mr Beenhower, that I was having trouble coming up with an idea for our current assignment, to make a poster. He had suggested that I do one on not wearing a swimsuit in Phys Ed class in the pool, with the words, “Skip the drip, swim suitless”, and with a picture of an open locker with a swimsuit hanging off the hook dripping water on books or other stuff below. I’d thought it was kind of creepy, him coming up with THAT idea for a poster, and all excited about suggesting it to me. But I’d decided to do it because I couldn’t think of anything else and I wanted to get a good grade in the class, like I wanted to in all my classes. And if I DIDN”T get a good grade in Art, I was afraid mom might call him again, and that would be REALLY BAD!

At least it was an “M” day today, so I had French instead of Band and didn’t have to bring my saxophone to school or back home now so I could practice over the weekend. I probably wasn’t going to get much of a chance to practice anyway, because we were going to spend the weekend with dad at his new apartment by the arboretum. He was really excited about his new place, because for the first time he didn’t have any roommates and the place came with a couch that opened up into a bed that David and I could sleep on. That made it so much easier for us to spend the night with him on the weekend.

So as usual, I walked home with Teddy and that new kid Craig who were both in my eighth period Art class. Craig lived at the corner of Ferdon and that street across from Granger whose name I could never remember. Last year, when we were all into secret clubs, Billy had called that street “Secret Granger”, and even though we didn’t do those stupid secret spy clubs anymore I think he still called it that. So even now, when I walked down it to go to Tappan and back home every day, I thought of Billy and “Secret Granger”.

Teddy lived just down Granger past Baldwin where I turned to cut across Burns Park to get to my house, though sometimes I would stop at his house for a Coke. Billy lived in the next house down from Teddy, and Gill in the one after that. And Cal lived next to Craig in the only other house on Secret Granger.

On our way home from school, Teddy, Craig and I would talk about school stuff, though not about the cool kids, or the girls versus boys stuff, and certainly NOT about swimming naked in Phys Ed. Mostly about the stuff we were learning in Unified Studies class. They had the same teacher I did, Mrs Woods, but they had it fifth and sixth period. But since it was the same teacher, they were reading the same books we were and the same chapters in our history book. Unlike most of the cool kids in my Unified Studies class and theirs, they liked learning about history, reading interesting books, and talking about it all. Both our classes were reading “The Phantom Tollbooth” and also doing the history chapter about the Revolutionary War.

Teddy asked me what my favorite character was in “The Phantom Tollbooth”, other than the main character Milo. I said I liked the “Dodecahedron”, because he liked to figure out things with numbers and thought everything should be called what it really is. Teddy liked the “watchdog” “Tock” the best, because he was “faithful”, and always made sure Milo was safe and didn’t do anything stupid. Craig said he liked “Chroma the Great” best, because he was dedicated to his job of bringing color to the world and when he let Milo lead the orchestra to color the sunrise, and Milo made a mess, he didn’t get mad at him and let Milo figure out how to fix it and do it right.

We also argued over what were the most important battles in the Revolutionary War. We could all pretty much agree that there were four that were the most important, Saratoga in the north, Cowpens in the south, the American surprise attack across the Delaware river in Trenton, and of course Yorktown, where the surrounded British army had to surrender.

I would never talk about any of this stuff in class, because the cool kids would think I was trying to be the teacher’s pet, and think that I wasn’t cool, and probably tease me too.

Teddy said he’d gotten this new game called “Win, Place and Show” about horseracing that he thought was really neat. Craig said he had a new game too, “Blitzkrieg”. I had seen “Blitzkrieg” at Rider’s, and knew it was a new Avalon Hill game. I had never talked about my Avalon Hill games with any of my regular school friends, and just played them with my friend Jake, who didn’t go to Burns Park or Tappan, and my friend Vincent, who was a year younger than me and still in fifth grade at Burns Park, or played them by myself.

I was really excited to hear that, and so I told both of them that I had Avalon Hill games too – D-Day, Bismarck, Midway, Battle of the Bulge, Afrika Corps, Le Mans, Waterloo and Stalingrad. Teddy was surprised that I played those kinds of games.

“I didn’t know you were into those Avalon Hill games”, he said, “How long have you been playing them?”

“Since third grade”, I said.

“Why didn’t you say so?” he asked. I wasn’t going to tell him the REAL reason, it was too embarrassing.

“I don’t know”, I said, “I didn’t think anyone else was interested.”

“So what”, he said, “You just play them by yourself?”

“Mostly”, I said, “But I’ve got a couple other friends that you don’t know that I play them with.”

“Well I have Le Mans and Bismarck”, he said, “Some of those other games have too many rules for me! I like racing games, like Le Mans and Win, Place and Show. Oh and I have Risk. I like that one, because it doesn’t have a lot of rules. But you can’t really play it by yourself.”

“I got Risk”, I said.

“Me too”, Craig said, “But Avalon Hill… I’ve got Blitzkrieg, Guadalcanal, Tactics Two and Bismarck.”

“I’ve looked at Guadalcanal and Blitzkrieg at Riders”, I said, “They both seem pretty cool. Tactics Two was their first one, right?”

“Yeah”, Craig said, “It’s got the squares instead of hexes. It’s okay, though Blitzkrieg is an updated version, you know, the same kind of imaginary conflict, blue versus read, and is much better. Bigger board. It even has air force units.”

“Wow”, I said, “Air force units too. None of the games I have have air force units.”

“You should come in when we get to my house and I’ll show you”, he said, but I knew dad was probably already waiting for me at home, because we were going to his new apartment for the weekend.

“I want to “, I said, “But I can’t today.”

“Maybe over the weekend”, he said, like he really wanted to show me.

“I can’t”, I said, though I didn’t want to tell him that it was to see my dad because he didn’t live with us anymore. But I also didn’t want him to think that I didn’t want to come over. “How about Monday after school?” I suggested. Craig nodded.

We got to Craig’s house on the corner and Teddy and I continued walking across Ferdon down toward Baldwin.

“Craig showed me the Blitzkrieg game”, Teddy said, “Cool board, but FOUR PAGES of rules, and that’s just the BASIC game! I mean, I like board games A LOT, but ones with simpler rules like ‘Win, Place and Show’ and ‘Risk’. You should join us when Craig, Billy, Gill and I play Risk. Maybe we could even get Cal and have six! That’s the best when you play with six, because you can make so many different alliances.”

I nodded and said, “That sounds good.” Teddy continued down Granger to his house and I headed down Baldwin and then across Burns Park by the tennis courts back towards mine. I could already see dad’s Volkswagon Bug parked out in front of our house. We hadn’t seen him since that Saturday he’d taken us to get hamburgers at Crazy Jim’s and then take them for a “picnic” at Island Park. Mom said he’d been busy moving these last couple weeks.

Dad saw me halfway across the park and waved. Just the way he waved, he seemed really happy to see me coming, and I could see him smiling too. That was one of the few NICE things about mom and dad being divorced, dad always seemed really happy when he came to pick us up, and I figured he was extra happy and excited today because we’d be staying at his new place, where he didn’t have any roommates to worry about and David and I could sleep there and spend the whole weekend.

I guess another nice thing was that since he wasn’t around, he and mom didn’t have those bad “fights” where mom would get really mad yell at him, though mom would still sometimes call him late in the evening and yell it him on the phone in her bedroom, which David and I could definitely hear.

***

Dad’s new apartment was pretty cool. It was on the same street that he used to live on when he had that apartment with that other grad student guy when they lived next to the cemetery, except it was way down the street and around the corner, so instead of being next to the cemetery it was next to the Arboretum. It was in a building with maybe five other apartments, but they all were on the first floor and had their own doors in the front.

Inside his front door was like one long room that was both the living room and the kitchen. Between the two parts was a table where we could sit at to eat or dad could use to do work, and the living room part had a couch that opened up into a bed that David and I could sleep on, plus a window that looked out into this big backyard with grass and the trees of the Arb behind it, and a backdoor that went out there. Another small table had a small black-and-white TV, kind of like mom’s, that he had just bought used from his roommates at his old apartment. There was also a small bedroom where dad slept and a super small bathroom that didn’t have a bathtub but had one of those “shower stalls” that was just big enough for you to stand in and take a shower. Dad said his apartment was small, but more of his “own space” than he had at either of the other apartments he had lived in since he moved out of our house last November.

He also said it was in the same apartment building that he and mom lived in when they first got married. I wondered if that made it a sad place for him to live, but I didn’t ask him, because I didn’t want him to start thinking about that if he wasn’t already.

We brought our baseball gloves, a baseball, and a football to throw and catch in dad’s backyard. We were mostly thinking about football now, because Michigan had won their first two games and were ranked number eight in the country, and had a game tomorrow at the stadium against North Carolina. It was cloudy outside with a cold wind, so that felt more like playing football, even though the baseball season wasn’t over yet, and the World Series would start on Wednesday. Even though the Tigers had a pretty good season, the Orioles had clinched the American League last week, and the Dodgers would probably win the National League, unless they lost all of their last three games. Dad and I knew that that probably wouldn’t happen, because of their great pitching staff, and their ace, Sandy Koufax, pitching their last game on Sunday.

Dad suggested we take a walk in the Arb, because the leaves had started to change kind of early. We walked along a dirt road with all the trees above us, some of their leaves still green but others starting to turn yellow or brown and kind of whooshing in the wind. I was used to walking into the Arb from the other side, on Geddes, but I remembered going in this way from when dad lived in the house up the street last year right after he moved out of our house.

We talked about how good Michigan was doing in football, even though they’d just played their first two games, and the big games, against Michigan State, Purdue and Ohio State that were still to come. He asked us how school was going, and I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to get him all worried about my crazy school, or think that I didn’t like school, because he was a teacher and seemed to like school a lot. But luckily David started talking about HIS school, third grade at Burns Park, and that he liked his teacher and his friend Eddie was in his class. He said they were learning the multiplication tables.

I remembered my own third grade, four years ago at Bach. I was such a little kid then and now I felt so much older, except of course at school, where everybody was older than I was. I really missed how much simpler elementary school had been than junior high, with only one teacher that you had to worry about and show how good you were at school stuff, and just one group of other kids in your one class that you had to be friends with.

“How about you, Coop, how’s Tappan?” dad asked, “Pretty different from elementary school I imagine.” I nodded, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him about it, since he loved school, and he still taught some kids, though they were college students.

“Yeah”, I said, “It’s a lot more complicated.” Grownups were always talking about how things were complicated, so I figured saying that didn’t make me feel like a little kid who couldn’t figure stuff out.

“Because you don’t just have one teacher?” he asked.

“Yeah”, I said, “I’ve got like EIGHT different teachers for EIGHT different classes.”

“Wow”, he said, “I don’t remember having that many when I was your age. My students at Eastern, fulltime COLLEGE students, only have maybe four to six.” He stopped talking and looked up at the trees above for a minute and looked worried, like he was thinking hard.

David looked at me like he couldn’t believe that and asked, “You have EIGHT DIFFERENT TEACHERS?” I looked at him, made my eyes big, and nodded big and slow, like hadn’t I already told him that.

“Well”, dad finally said, “You’re a really smart kid, Coop. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. It’s just different, part of growing up.” I nodded again. I certainly didn’t want him to think I WASN’T a really smart kid and I WASN’T growing up.

“Is your classwork hard?” he asked. I shook my head really fast to make sure he knew that THAT wasn’t a problem, I could do all my school work. “Oh good!” he said.

After a minute he said, “I miss teaching fulltime. I like my current job at the Center, and it sure pays better and that’s most important right now, particularly since I have my own place.”

I remembered that day two years ago, before mom and dad got divorced, when our school was closed because of the snow, but dad’s was still open, and he took us with him to his office at Eastern, and we went down and spied on him when he was teaching a class and we could see him through the glass in the door sitting on a table at the front of the room swinging his legs off the edge like a kid while he talked to his students, and even said something that made them laugh. Dad never said funny stuff to us or to mom.

When we finished our walk in the Arb, we drove over to Crazy Jim’s and got hamburgers and fries to take back to dad’s to eat for dinner. He said they had the best hamburgers in town, but I think he liked them because they were the cheapest in town too. We ate at the table in the main room of his apartment between the kitchen and living room parts.

While we ate we talked about sports. Dad always liked to talk about that, and David was getting old enough to talk about it too now. The baseball season was just about over, and even though the Tigers had a pretty good season, the Orioles had clinched the American League pennant last week. Who they were going to play from the National League still had to be figured out. The Dodgers led the Giants by three and a half games, but if the Dodgers lost their last three and the Giants won all of their last four, they would end the season with the same record, and have to play one extra game against each other to decide who would win the pennant and play the Orioles. Dad didn’t think that would happen, because the Dodgers’ two “ace” starters, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, were starting the last two games.

And then of course we talked about Michigan football. They had won their first two games, 41-0 against Oregon State and then 17-7 against Cal, and they were ranked number eight in the country. They were going to play North Carolina tomorrow at Michigan Stadium. We didn’t go to the games, because the tickets were pretty expensive, but dad always listened to them on the radio. Mom also listened to them, and David and I liked to listen too most of the time. It seemed like everybody in Ann Arbor either went to the game or at least listened to that Bob Ufer guy do the play-by-play on the radio. He’d say “Meesh-i-gan” instead of saying it the regular way. Mom said that he said it that way because he was imitating the way the most famous Michigan football coach, Fielding Yost, said it.

Dad was really excited that Michigan could have a good season and maybe even go to the Rose Bowl, if they could beat North Carolina today and then beat Michigan State next week. But they were playing that game in East Lansing, home field advantage to Michigan State, who were ranked NUMBER ONE in the country. Mom and dad both REALLY liked the Michigan football team, and the team had been pretty bad last year, after winning the Rose Bowl the year before. I mean I liked them too, but dad liked them SO MUCH that he could be kind of mad ALL THE REST OF THE WEEKEND if they lost their game on Saturday.

After dinner David and I watched our usual Friday night TV shows while dad graded quizzes for a journalism class he was teaching at Eastern. His regular job during the day was at the “Center for Research on Language and Language Behavior” at the U of M, but he also still taught two evening classes at Eastern to make some extra money so he could afford to have his own apartment, and I think also because he really liked to teach.

Friday night was always hard to figure out what to watch, and it had gotten even more complicated now, like my whole life I guess. Before this new TV season, at 7:30, David always wanted to watch The Flintstones. I used to really like the Flintstones when I was a little kid like him, but I always wanted to watch The Wild Wild West instead. So I would try to say to David that since I was older, I got to decide which one we watched, and sometimes David would be okay with that, like when I could say he “owed me”, because I had bought the new Batman comic for him when I went to the Blue Front or I had made a sandwich for him at lunch. Or maybe I would say he could watch the Addams Family at 8:30 instead of Hogan’s Heroes, which I said I liked, though I was really okay watching the Addams Family instead, because that show was cool too.

But other times, no matter what I said to try to make a deal, he’d get mad and say it wasn’t fair, and mom would hear us arguing and say, “Let your brother watch the Flintstones. Your show’s an hour, so you can at least watch the second half!”

I liked that Wild Wild West show because it was like old-fashioned science fiction, kind of like Jules Verne stories, and then also a spy show, like James Bond or Man From Uncle. I also liked how they ended each fifteen minute part, before the commercials, by turning the last thing you saw into a kind of picture like it was painted by somebody instead. Then the end of each new fifteen minute part would add a new picture next to ones that were already there, until the end of the show, when they’d show all four pictures on the screen together.

So now it was September, which was the new TV season, and Flintstones and Addams Family weren’t on any more, but channel seven had two new shows at 7:30 and 8:00, Green Hornet and Time Tunnel, that David really liked, and I kind of liked them too. Wild Wild West was still on channel two at 7:30, and Man From Uncle was now on earlier, after Wild Wild West at 8:30, starting in the middle of Time Tunnel, which was on til 9:00. So I didn’t know WHAT to watch anymore, so we usually ended up watching Green Hornet and Time Tunnel.

What I liked best about the Green Hornet TV show was his sidekick Kato. He wasn’t just a boring helper guy like Batman’s Robin, he was like a super cool fighter guy who did all this judo and karate stuff, but didn’t make a big deal about it. So like a gang of badguys would get into a fight with Green Hornet and Kato. Green Hornet would slug it out with the badguy boss while Kato wiped out like all twelve other guys in the badguy gang. Then Kato would stand with his arms folded as Green Hornet continued to duke it out with the badguy boss and finally knock him out. Kato would then say, “Nice work boss”, after Green Hornet barely won his fight with just ONE guy, while Kato had quickly wiped out the other TWELVE with his judo and karate punches and kicks.

I wanted to be like Kato. Super confident, super good at everything, so much better than anyone else, but never making a big deal about it, all show and no tell.

Then we watched channel seven’s other new science-fiction show, “The Time Tunnel”, about this whole pretend giant experiment by the U.S. government to build a deep underground laboratory and build an experimental time machine. To prove that it worked so the government didn’t shut it down, these two scientists, Tony and Doug, went through the tunnel and were sent back in time to various places, though no one could control where they went and what year in time they went to. I guess because it was an experiment and the other scientists at the lab were still trying to figure out how to control everything.

Tonight’s show had them go to Honolulu Hawaii on December 6th 1941, the day before the Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. Tony and Doug appeared in the Japanese embassy, where the Japanese guys that work there were burning important documents, I guess because THEY knew the attack was coming tomorrow, though no one else did. The embassy guys let them go, but thought they were probably spies for the U.S., so had them followed. Tony told Doug he was living there in Honolulu as a kid with his mom and dad the day of the attack. So he and Doug decided to go to his house and he saw the kid version of himself, which was a pretty wild idea.

Dad usually just let us watch TV, and he would just do his work sitting by us so he could be with us and hear what we were talking about. But this Time Tunnel story, I guess maybe because it was about World War Two, got him interested to watch too.

So Tony and Doug tried to tell Tony’s dad about the attack tomorrow and that they were from the future, but he didn’t believe them and thought they were crazy, and told them to leave or he’d call the police. So they went to leave, but they got captured by Japanese agents who took them to this place and interrogated them. When Tony and Doug said they were from the future, the Japanese agents didn’t believe them, so the agents gave them shots of truth serum, but they still said they were from the future because that WAS the truth.

Finally the attack started, but Tony and Doug got away from the Japanese agents and found little Tony and his mom and got them to leave where they might get killed and go up on the mountain where it was safer. Then Tony and Doug went to the radio room where Tony’s dad was doing his work for the navy. A Japanese plane bombed the radio room, but the bomb didn’t explode, but Tony’s dad was badly wounded. When Tony and Doug got there they helped his dad use the radio to warn the Enterprise, the U.S. aircraft carrier, about the attack and not to come back to Pearl Harbor, but then his dad died. Finally the scientists that ran the Time Tunnel were able to get them out of there, so they weren’t killed by more bombs.

My mind started imagining other time travel stories. What if I was able to go back in time before mom and dad got divorced and try to warn him not to have sex with that other woman, would he believe me? Or what if some guy came up to me, kind of looking like me but way older, and said he was me from the future, would I believe him?

Even though dad had been grading papers, he’d kind of been watching too, especially during the last half, so I asked him.

“So dad”, I asked, “If this guy that was a lot older than me but kind of looked familiar like me came up to you and said he was me from the future, would you believe him?” Dad looked off out the window outside, pushing his lips together like he was thinking, then up at the ceiling, nodding slowly.

“Good question”, he said, “I’d probably want him to prove it to me by telling me some things that no one else would know about you.”

“Like what?” David asked, before I could ask that, if I even would have. Dad rested his chin on his open palm, and his fingers tapped his top lip like he was playing notes on a musical instrument.

“Hmm”, he said, with his mouth still closed and his fingers still tapping. Finally, he raised his head out of his palm and wagged a finger in the air.

“I’d ask him where we spent Christmas when he was three years old”, dad said, “And what was the name of his best friend as a little kid, then where he went to nursery school.”

“Binghamton and Molly”, I said, “And I only went to nursery school for one day, but then I went to play school.”

“Exactly”, he said, his eyes twinkling, but not looking right at me, “That would make me pretty sure it was really you. Then maybe I’d ask what your first nickname was.”

“His was Clubius”, David said, not wanting to be left out of the talking, “And mine was Mister D, I think.”

“That’s right”, said dad, finally looking at both of us and smiling, “You were Mister D. Coop was Clubius, that was the nickname I gave him, or Zooper, that was your mom’s, though that one didn’t stick.”

“Why Clubius”, I asked, figuring David would ask if I didn’t.

“Well”, said dad, “You know you didn’t talk much until you were three, but we knew you were a smart kid because of the way you listened, and the way you knew all the right answers to yes or no questions, nodding or shaking your head. So your mom and I thought you were ‘dubious’ about the world, not ready to fully engage with it in its current form, and I made up a story that you were a reincarnated Greek philosopher named ‘Clubius’, kind of a silly name, but it rhymed with ‘dubious’. So ‘dubious Clubius’.”

He got up from the table and walked over to his board and brick bookcases that used to be in our basement in the old house and were in the study in our new house before he moved out. There was this sculpture thing, it was a guy’s face with something covering his head. I’d seen it on his bookcase back at the old house, but never really looked at it much.

“After I made up that story”, he said, “Your mom found this at a garage sale and thought it looked like my imaginary Clubius. Your mom even wrote the name on the back in india ink.” He turned the thing around so we could see the black letters on the back.

He chuckled through his nose and said, “She even put that line over the first ‘U’ to show you pronounced it like a long ‘U’, ‘cloob’ instead of ‘club’.”

“What about me?” asked David, “What if I came back in time?”

Dad kind of chuckled through his nose again and said, “I guess I’d ask the nickname, and maybe the name of the girl who was your best friend when you were little.”

“Mister D and Hannah”, David said.

So after “Time Tunnel”, we watched the second half of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” at 8:30, and I wanted to stay up to watch “The Avengers” at 10:00, but it had been a long day as usual at Tappan, and then this whole evening, so I fell asleep before I wanted to.

***

I woke up pretty late the next morning. I never seemed to get enough sleep during the week because and at night it usually took me a long time to get to sleep because my mind couldn’t stop thinking about stuff, and then I had to get up super early to walk all that way to school in the morning. And last night I had woken up in the middle of the night and had trouble getting back to sleep because my mind kept thinking about so much different stuff that was going on in my life. All my eight different classes, having to swim naked in Phys Ed with all the other boys looking at me, this girl in my Homeroom that I kind of had a crush on but I was too shy to talk to, mom still so sad and still yelling at dad on the phone, but at least dad a little happier now that he had his own place, though it didn’t look like mom and dad would get back together though dad said he wanted to.

I guess dad and David had already been awake a couple hours. David was drawing on his sketch pad and dad had already driven to Quality Bakery and back to get donuts. He had a box of Cheerios that we could eat first if we wanted a regular breakfast, but both David and I just ate donuts, and so did dad, as he continued to grade tests he had been working on last night.

I just lay there on the couch bed half awake for a while, but I eventually got bored and wasn’t sure what to do. But since it was a “football Saturday”, and I didn’t have anything else to do at the moment, I decided I’d try to write a story about a Michigan football game in the future that I called “4-8-6 on Hike 3”. The Michigan halfback, John Cramer, was going to be the main character. I got dad to give me a pencil and one of his empty bluebooks so I could start writing it…

Everybody stood up as the Purdue kicker kicked off the ball to Michigan in the opening game in 1969. John Cramer took the ball on the 3 yard line, a body block on a Purdue player gave him running room. Putting his head down he charged forward lifting his feet up high.

“That halfback can really run”, said their coach Mick Jordan.

I continued to write, feeling that football Saturday energy in the air and going through my body and mind. My cursive writing was slow, and I didn’t like the way I put the words together the first time so I had to do some erasing and writing over the old words.

After a first down short run by the fullback, the big play, “4-8-6”, was a sneaky pass play where it looked like the Michigan quarterback was throwing the ball to the split end running to the right, who faked catching it, but let it continue so the halfback Cramer running left and crossing behind him could catch it and confuse the defense. The play gained some 36 yards down to the Purdue 10 yardline. Two more short running plays got the ball down to third and goal on the 2.

Dad had bought a dozen “day-old” donuts because they were a “deal”, so lunch was just more donuts. But with the big Michigan game getting ready to start on the radio, dad opened the back door of his apartment and plugged in an extension cord so he could bring his radio out in the backyard and put it on a chair so we could listen while we threw the football around back there. Even though I hadn’t slept very well, I felt all charged up to do a lot of running and catching.

Before the game started, as dad, David and I threw the football and pretended to go out for passes, that Bob Ufer guy was talking about how the “Meech-i-gan” football team was off to a good start this season and that they were ranked number eight in the country. Finally the game started, and Ufer said that the crowd of 88,000 people in the stands was the most the North Carolina team had ever played in front of, which seemed to me like a huge homefield advantage for Michigan.

Michigan started out really good. They stopped North Carolina on their first drive. Then the Michigan quarterback, Vidmer, threw a pass “high and hard” to Clancy, who managed to catch it anyway “with one hand” and gained twenty yards, and when Michigan continued to get first downs and finally scored, we were all really excited. Dad pretended he was Vidmer and I was Clancy going out for the long pass.

But the rest of the game was bad. At the beginning of the second period, Michigan’s best runner, Carl Ward, fumbled deep in Michigan territory, and dad got angry and said “Jesus”. North Carolina went in and scored several plays later, tying the game, and dad said “damn it to hell”. And for the rest of the second period, Vidmer kept throwing passes and got intercepted twice, getting two more Jesuses out of dad. But at least as the first half came to an end, it was still tied seven to seven.

At halftime the three of us continued to throw the football, all hoping that Michigan would not have any more fumbles or interceptions and go back to scoring touchdowns. When we heard the band on the radio playing that first part with no words to the Michigan fight song, the three of us pretended to be instruments and sang along.

Bomp bom, bom bom bom bom bom
Bompta bom, bompaty bompta bom bom

And then at the end of the no words part, you could hear the whole band singing the words part of the Michigan fight song, “Hail to the Victors”, a song Dad, David and I had probably sung together a thousand times before at bedtime.

Hail to the victors valiant
Hail to the conquering heroes
Hail, hail, to Michigan
The leaders and best…

So after hearing the band play at halftime, all three of us felt again like Michigan was going to win. But about halfway through the third quarter, North Carolina scored a touchdown, and dad was angry and said “dammit”, throwing the ball too hard and way over David’s head. But then when North Carolina kicked off the Michigan guy ran the kickoff back for 40 yards, and then Clancy caught a pass for 19 yards and dad said “I feel like the momentum is changing”. But then three more plays and they couldn’t get a first down, and dad said they were still out of field goal range so they had to punt. The North Carolina guy caught the punt and ran for 73 yards and almost scored a touchdown except for one last Michigan guy knocking him out of bounds.

Dad was really angry, I could tell, and David could too.

David asked, “Should we keep throwing the football?”

“Of course”, dad said, but I could tell that he just wanted to listen to the game, like listening harder could somehow help the Michigan team do better.

So we kept going out for passes and Dad or I would throw them. David could catch okay, but he couldn’t throw very well yet. While dad had been happy and pretending before that David and I were Jack Clancy or Carl Ward going out for a pass, now he would still throw the ball to us, but he was quiet and looked worried.

And in the fourth quarter, North Carolina kept running and making first downs, and when it was third and long, the North Carolina quarterback would go back to pass, avoid getting tackled, which would have meant they’d have to punt, and instead start running and always get the first down. Each time they got another first down, dad would say “dammit” and scrunch his face like something was hurting him. And finally their quarterback ran the ball down to the Michigan one-yard line.

“Oh no”, he said, “If they get this one, I think it’s all over for us!” And that Bob Ufer guy said pretty much the same thing on the radio. Dad walked over to the chair that he’d put the radio on, put his foot up on it then his elbow down on that knee and rested his head in that hand and stared at the radio. On the next play, North Carolina did a quarterback sneak and scored a touchdown.

As soon as that Bob Ufer guy said it was a touchdown, dad said quietly but sharply, “God damn it to hell!”, then he scrunched his face again in pain, closed his eyes and hand still on his chin, let his head sag down toward the ground. David and I were watching him, me holding the football.

“Dad, are you okay?” David asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine”, dad said, not looking at us and staring at the radio but not sounding fine. He puffed out his cheeks and then blew air out of his mouth and said, “Just a little disappointed, but at least it’s not a conference game.”

“Conference game?” David asked.

“Yeah”, dad said, “The games that count to who wins the Big Ten are the conference games. Michigan has their first one next Saturday.” He breathed in and out slowly and then looked up at the cloudy sky. “But they play Michigan State up there next week and MSU is ranked number one in the nation right now.”

“And”, he said, “After playing so poorly and losing today in front of a big crowd at home, it’s going to be mighty tough for them to go into East Lansing next week and get the win.”

Dad looked at both of us with sad eyes. “Do you guys want to listen to the last few minutes?” he asked. We could both tell HE didn’t want to.

“Nah”, I said. David shook his head. Dad turned off the radio, and suggested we go for another walk in the Arb “to clear our heads”, which we did.

Dad made Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese for dinner along with frozen green beans. He went back to grading papers and David to drawing, and I kept working on writing my football story.

At 7:30 David wanted to watch “Flipper” on channel four, so we turned it on but dad and I didn’t really watch and both kept at our work. I could tell dad liked that I was doing writing, and that he was seeing me as more of an older kid now.

After that show was “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”, which neither David or I liked very much. Dad said it was kind of interesting that the dad in that show was an English professor like he was, and the mom was a journalist “of sorts”, which was the class he was teaching now in the evening at Eastern beyond his regular new job at the Center. But he said we were “welcome to turn it off”.

At 8:30 was the one really good show on Saturday night, “Get Smart”. David and I were really getting into satire now. We had Tom Lehrer records making fun of lots of things in the news these days, things most people were really serious and worried about, like pollution, nuclear bombs, religion, and even World War Three, which was my favorite…

So long mom
I’m off to drop the bomb
So don’t wait up for me

But while you swelter
Down there in your shelter
You can see me upon your TV

Since the Cuban Missile Crisis when we did “duck and cover” drills in my third grade class, I’d worried about World War Three starting and everybody getting killed by nuclear bombs. Somehow Tom Lehrer’s song making fun of it, made me not worry about it so much.

We also had Allan Sherman records making fun of regular life stuff, like kids’ camps, commercials, dentists, drinking booze, Christmas, the Beatles, and even sex and herring, though I wasn’t really sure what made that one funny…

When I’m in the mood for love
Your in the mood for herring
When you’re in the mood for herring
I’m in the mood for love

“Get Smart”, like “Rocky and Bullwinkle” and “Spy vs Spy” in Mad Magazine, made fun of secret agents and spying and all that James Bond type stuff. I mean James Bond books and movies were cool, but they WERE all about killing badguys while not getting killed yourself to, I guess, save the world from some REALLY bad badguys, along with finding sexy women and making sure you had sex with them if you could. “A bit much for my tastes”, mom would say.

For me, who I guess worried about stuff a lot, all those satires of secret agents and spies made them all less serious, less worrying, and even kind of stupid really. I was finding that if I could see and laugh at all the stupid parts about what grownups did, I wouldn’t be so worried about them all the time, and how they might try to be in charge of me and, like the Who sang, “my g-g-g-generation”.

***

For breakfast the next morning, Sunday morning, dad took us to the Food & Drug, which he said had the “best cheap breakfast in town”. After mom and dad got divorced and dad moved out of the house, back when I was still in sixth grade at Burns Park and came home for lunchtime, he used to come by the house and take David and me there for lunch. We had eaten lunch there a bunch of times last year, but now that I was going to Tappan, and didn’t come home for lunchtime anymore, I guess he was doing it now with just David. Mom also had me go there sometimes to get her a sixpack of Tab, if she ran out before she was able to go to the A and P to get groceries. She would always let me “keep the change”, which could be enough for a couple comics or a sci-fi paperback at the Blue Front, or saved for a new Avalon Hill wargame.

For breakfast there, sometimes I’d have pancakes, which David ALWAYS had, but usually I’d have scrambled eggs, bacon and toast like dad did. When I was a little kid I never liked eggs, because they started out all gooey and runny when you put them in the pan to cook. I still didn’t like fried or soft-boiled eggs, with that yucky yellow yoke part, but I guess now, when they were scrambled and all really cooked and mixed together and chewy they were okay. And I LOVED that really tasty taste of bacon, and also buttered toast, especially when I didn’t have to butter it myself, because I could never butter it the way they did in restaurants.

When we got there this morning, like when we used to go there for lunch, dad put a quarter in the jukebox on the counter and we each got to pick out two songs.

I let David go first, because that’s what big kids let little kids usually do. He still LOVED the Beatles, so he chose “We Can Work It Out” and then “Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby”, because he got TWO Beatles songs for that one pick. Those last two were on that new Beatles album, “Revolver”, which we hadn’t gotten yet, but I’d heard over at Frankie’s house. It was really DIFFERENT than other Beatles albums, with weird sounding songs about strange stuff that Frankie said the Beatles wrote taking drugs, and it hardly had any girlfriend problem songs at all.

I picked “You Can’t Hurry Love”, because I liked all the Supremes and Vandellas songs and then “Sunny”, because I thought that one was super cool, and something, as an older kid now, I should like.

Dad looked at all the songs and couldn’t figure out what to pick, until he saw “Cherish”, and remembered that he liked it. He said he couldn’t figure out another one, and he asked David and me for help. I looked at David, who suggested “See You in September”, which totally made sense, because it kind of sounded like those barbershop songs that dad liked, with lots of harmony, and it was kind of sad and sappy, which dad seemed to like too. David was starting to get pretty good at figuring out stuff like that, though I guess I was too when I was eight like him.

“We Can Work It Out” WAS yet another Beatles girlfriend problems song…

Try to see it my way
Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?
While you see it your way
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone
We can work it out

But it wasn’t just another one of their “you do bad stuff to me so why do I still love you” type songs. It was more “thoughtful”, a word some grownups used but most kids didn’t. I DID like the idea of being thoughtful.

And the two Beatle songs from that new “Revolver” album, “Yellow Submarine” and “Eleanor Rigby”, were not about girlfriends at all, but stories, like from a book or a movie. And “Yellow Submarine” was even kind of a kids song.

My song choices were actually about girlfriends. I guess I was wondering about that more now that I was going to junior high and was becoming an older kid. But not girlfriend PROBLEMS, but being THOUGHTFUL maybe, and finding the PERFECT girlfriend…

Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain
Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain
Now the dark days are done and the bright days are here
My Sunny one shines so sincere
Sunny one so true, I love you

Hearing the song words I suddenly thought about that girl in my Homeroom, what was her name? Rose. She HAD smiled at me a couple times in class, and she DID kind of make me less worried about everything, at least for maybe a minute, though I’d never talked to her, because Myrna had made friends with her and I tried to stay away from Myrna because of the pencils thing last year, figuring she still hated me.

But I also liked hearing the voices of older girls, that kind of like my old babysitter Margie, sounded like they knew what they were talking about…

I need love, love to ease my mind
I need to find, find someone to call mine
But mama said you can’t hurry love
No you just have to wait
She said love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take

I wondered if I had a girlfriend, maybe that perfect girlfriend, it would ease MY mind. But I’d have to be willing to do that “give and take” part and “work it out”.

When the jukebox finally got to playing dad’s choices, and I heard those words in the “Cherish” song, it always made me think of mom and dad and the divorce…

Perish is the word that more than applies
To the hope in my heart each time I realize
That I am not gonna be the one to share your dreams

I glanced at dad while they were singing those words and he looked kind of sad too, but just for a moment before he looked worried and then looked like he was trying to look happy again.

After we finished lunch he took us home. I didn’t want to go, not because I wanted to be with dad some more, but going home meant I had to do my homework and practice my saxophone, at least for a little while, so I could be ready for school tomorrow, which was a “T” day with Band.

***

I’d practiced my saxophone downstairs in the living room for about a half hour and was now up in the study working on my other homework. It was set theory problems for Math, writing up a science experiment I had to turn in, and then writing a book report on the “Phantom Toolbooth”. I mean, I thought set theory, the experiment, and the book were all pretty neat when we did them at school, but working on them at home, all by myself, just felt like hard work and I was tired, and not wanting to have to go to school again in the morning.

I heard a knock on the open study door. I figured it must be mom because David would have just come right in, so I asked, “Who IS it?”, the way she always did when I knocked on her bedroom door.

“Ha, ha”, she said, “It’s the lady from down the hall.” I scooched my chair around so I could look at her while I was still sitting.

“Sorry to bother you”, she said, “You look like you’re doing homework.” I nodded.

“Your mother doesn’t ask for much these days”, she said, “But I’m wondering if, when you finish your homework, you’d come in and sit in the rocking chair while I attempt to pay the bills?”

I’d been in her room before when she paid the bills, and it wasn’t something I really LIKED doing, because mom would always tell me stuff that I really didn’t want to hear about dad, or not having enough money, or something else she was worrying about. But I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, or us, if she DIDN’T pay the bills, so I figured I better do that. So I nodded, though I couldn’t go so far as to say something like “sure mom, I’d be happy to”.

So I spent another hour working on and almost finishing my “Phantom Tollbooth” book report, and figured I’d finish it and write up my science report and math problems later. I mean, the set theory math problems I even kind of liked doing, at least normally when I wasn’t tired like I was today.

Her bedroom door was open and she had the TV on watching some old movie. I knew it was old by the way they dressed and the funny way they were talking, not like regular people, even regular grownups. She was sitting on her bed with her back against a pillow against the wall, wearing her big dark blue “MICHIGAN” sweatshirt with the yellow letters, light brown pajama pants, and bare feet. Her knees were pulled up by her shoulders with her arms wrapped around them.

“Hey Coolie”, she said, “Thanks for coming in. It just gets harder each month to face all these bills all by myself, I just want to jump out of my skin!” I don’t know if I’d ever heard someone say they wanted to jump out of their skin before, that didn’t sound good.

“Did you get your homework done?” she asked.

“Most of it”, I said, sitting down in the wood rocking chair, “At least the hardest part. The other stuff I can finish later.” She nodded, like that made sense.

“What’s the hardest part?” she asked, reaching for her yellow pad and the stack of letters on top of it from her dresser by the head of her bed while turning her head to look at me. She put the letters on the bed in front of her and rested the yellow pad against her thighs.

“A book report”, I said, “It’s due tomorrow.” She looked up at me and slowly shook her head back and forth.

“I never liked doing book reports”, she said, reaching for a pencil on the dresser, “Seemed like they were only so the teacher knew you actually read the damn book.” I nodded, I didn’t like doing them either. Mom liked to swear more these days, though she didn’t usually do it with other grownups unless it was just Maryjane or one of her other women friends.

As I sat in the chair and rocked back and forth a little, the TV was just to my right, and though I couldn’t really see the screen, I could still hear the voices of two guys talking about where to set up the “game” to make money. I looked at the TV.

“Why don’t you turn down the sound, Coolie”, she said, pointing at the TV, “They have the musical ‘Guys and Dolls’ on. Your dad and I went to see it at the State Theater when it first came out. It was the first time we’d gone out to see a movie since you were born. We went to a late show after we put you to bed, and I don’t even remember the woman’s name who lived in the downstairs apartment and was nice enough to come up and just sit in our apartment in case you woke up.”

Mom laughed through her nose shaking her head and said, “The movie seemed so hip and up-to-date then, and of course it has Frank Sinatra. Now it seems SO passe.” I nodded. I liked that I already knew what “passe” meant. It meant like old-fashioned and out of date, not cool anymore.

She took a deep breath and blew the air out and said, “Okay, here we go”, and she closed her eyes and took a couple deep breaths, puffed her cheeks and blew the air out of her mouth again. She finally opened her eyes and took the bunch of envelopes and rested them against her thighs.

“So it’s the same old routine each month”, she said, “I’ve been doing this since before you were born, since your dad and I got together. It used to be a challenge, making due with so little while we had you and your brother and built a better future. But since last August…” And it was like she couldn’t say the rest of the words, and tears filled the bottom parts of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She reached over to her dresser and pulled a kleenex out of the box and dabbed her eyes.

“I’m sorry”, she said, starting to sob, “I didn’t want to cry in front of you like this.” She pushed the kleenex into her eyes and kind of cried through her nose with short bursts of air coming out.

I didn’t know what to do. I mean I’d heard her cry sometimes, alone in her room, in the evening or in the middle of the night, and she had tears in her eyes a couple times when she was telling us sad stuff. But I couldn’t remember her doing it in front of me like this, just her and me. No one ever cried right in front of me. Most of my friends were boys, and they weren’t supposed to cry and they didn’t. I mean, dad looked sad sometimes, but the only time I remember him even getting tears in his eyes was when Ted Williams hit that homerun at the Tigers game we went to with Molly and her dad. So it wasn’t fair, what was I supposed to do?

I’d seen women and girls cry on TV shows a lot, and their husband or dad would give them a hug and maybe pat them on the shoulder and say something like “It’s okay” or “It’ll be okay”.

Since I didn’t know what to do, I suddenly felt like just a stupid little kid, and then I was even feeling mad at her for making me feel that way. I had to say something, so I said, “Don’t cry, mom”, and then, “It’ll be okay.”

Mom’s eyes looked deep into mine, and I couldn’t remember her ever looking at me that way, like we were the only two people in the world somehow. “Will it?” she asked.

HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION? “It’ll be okay” was just what you were supposed to say when someone cried, to be nice.

“I just can’t keep living like this”, she said, still looking at me but now in a more regular way. I’d heard her say that before, talking on the phone late at night when she was yelling at dad on the phone. I didn’t like when she said stuff like that because I wasn’t sure if she really meant it and maybe wanted to commit suicide or something. I mean if mom and dad getting divorced was really bad, THAT would be a hundred times worse.

“Okay”, she said, not to me so much as herself, and then took the letter opener from the top of her dresser and slit each envelope open. She pulled the folded piece or pieces of paper out of each envelope, unfolded and looked at them. There was always the bill part, which was either attached to the bottom of a bigger piece of paper or was a separate piece, maybe smaller. Some of the envelopes had another envelope inside them that you used to send them what you were paying them. She laid the stuff in each envelope on a separate spot in a line on her bed. A couple of the bills went in another line next to it.

She pointed at the first longer line of bills and said, “These have to be paid in full right away”, and then pointed at the two in the other row and said, “These maybe can wait, or I can pay just part of for now.” I thought about set theory from Math, and that these were two disjoint sets.

She took her yellow pad and put it on her lap, put her yellow pencil between her teeth, and started to look again at each bill and then write stuff on her pad, a couple words and then a dollar amount on each line. “So we add up all the have-to-pay bills and then subtract the total from our bank balance”, she said, “That’s what we have left to pay towards this second group of bills and to live on for the next month.”

When she’d done the adding and subtracting, she stared at the number and put her hand on her forehead and shook her head slowly, so I guess it wasn’t a very good number. “Well”, she said, “We’ll make it work.” She looked at me and said, “We may be featuring more peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and Roberts Spaghetti for dinner, and when it gets cold and we’re running the heater, it’ll be very tight.” That stuff that mom called “Roberts Spaghetti”, was what she and dad used to make for dinner when they didn’t have a lot of money for groceries. They’d cook macaroni noodles and heat up a can of stewed tomatoes and then mix the two together.

I watched her as she wrote checks and put them in the envelopes that came with the bills, and for each one stick her tongue out and run the top of the back part of the envelope before she sealed it.

“Can’t you ask dad for more money?” I asked, because I knew that mom got a check each month from dad for “child support”, the words I saw written in the note part of a check sitting on her dresser when mom was out at the grocery store and I’d gone into her room to watch TV.

“That’s the LAST thing in the world I want to do”, she said, “I had to do that for our Cape Cod trip and it was humiliating. And your father…” she stopped, because she knew that I didn’t like her to call him that and said instead, “Your dad, even though his job at the Language Center pays better than his professor salary at Eastern, he still has his own apartment now, so that’s more rent and utilities.” That all made sense, including the being humiliated part, which I worried about each day at school.

I couldn’t just sit there and look at her and say nothing, that would be weird, and I wanted to say something helpful and maybe even try to make her laugh.

“I LIKE peanut butter sandwiches”, I said, “Though I don’t know about that Roberts Spaghetti stuff!” I at least got her to laugh through her nose.