CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
August something-or-other, 1996.
Summer days all kind of blur together in a lazy haze. But that one day, whenever it was, was different. Not hugely different, just different enough.
I think it sent out those ripple effects Ceepak warned me about.
It was almost the end of August, during “Back to School Savings Time.” The TV was already running that Staples commercial about the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” The old Christmas song plays in the background while a happy dad pilots his shopping cart up and down the aisles, chucking in paper and notebooks and pens and all the supplies his sad little children need before they head back to school.
What we did to George Weese that day was really no big deal. Honest. It was just one of those stupid things bored kids do, especially kids who are fifteen and sixteen. When you're that age, you never realize that some of what you do is pretty awful. I was, basically, a teenage boy trying to figure out how to become a man-I mean, besides the obvious hormone and hair stuff.
I wanted to be my own man, not just somebody's son.
My friends and I hung out on Oak Beach almost every day. We lived in our own little world. We all had summer jobs and, like the song says, “Money got made, money got spent.” We laughed and listened to music and cruised the boardwalk and chased girls we didn't even know. We were trying hard to be cool and we thought we were.
George Weese was not.
Weese was the opposite of cool. He was a loser. A dork. He was the Wheezer.
“He sits behind me in home room,” Mook told us. “I swear, that big nose of his? It's stuffed with boogers. He wheezes when he breathes because the air can't make it past the booger boulders.”
I remember when Weese stumbled up the beach toward our spot that day. He wasn't coming to visit us. He was just passing through.
“Here he comes!” Mook goofed. “Can you hear him?” Then Mook did this funny bit where he sounded like a donkey trapped inside Darth Vader's helmet, all raspy and asthmatic, rattling a “hee” and a “haw” with every breath. Mook cracked us up.
Weese was tall and gangly, with a farmer's tan on his forearms-the rest of his skin was basically the same goose-pimply white as raw chicken. He was one of those guys who always squinted but never thought about buying clip-ons or wearing a baseball cap to shield his eyes. And he couldn't seem to coordinate his knees with his ankles. His big floppy feet kept sliding sideways in the sand, and when he'd stumble, his glasses would slip and he'd have to push them back up the bridge of his humongous nose. Mook was right: you could hear the air whistling and wheezing and whining through his nostrils every time he breathed in or out.
To make matters worse, that day George Weese was wearing these white swim trunks with an elastic navy blue belt looped through the waistband. He looked ridiculous, like he was wearing underpants or a kitchen trash can liner with a blue plastic tie-cord.
“Nice undies, Wheezer,” Mook said when Weese came close to the plot of sand we had claimed as our own that day.
It was about four P.M. I remember Jess got off duty at three, I finished at the Pancake Palace around two, everybody was done working for the day, and the six of us were basically chilling, swilling sodas, wondering what we wanted to do until it was time to head home.
Mook, our self-appointed cruise director, decided what we'd do first: we'd have some fun with a wimp named Wheezer.
He blocked Weese's path up the beach.
When Weese tried to step around him, Mook moved sideways, got in his way again.
“Where you going, Wheezer?”
Weese didn't say anything. Some girls two blankets over started to giggle. Mook loved it.
“Oops. I think they can see your weenie, Wheezy.”
Weese looked down at his swimsuit. The white polyester fabric was thin, almost transparent.
“It's a teeny weenie,” Mook boomed. “More like a gherkin. One of those teeny-weeny itty-bitty pickles.”
Jess laughed. I did, too.
“You been jerkin’ your gherkin, Wheezer?” Mook was on a roll.
“That's against beach rules.” Jess stood up, dusted some sand off his red swim trunks. “Gherkin jerkin’ is strictly prohibited on all public beaches.”
“Yeah,” I added. “It says so on all the signs. Right after ‘no glass bottles’ comes ‘no weenie whacking.’ ”
Mook laughed at my new spin on his joke and we slapped each other a high-five. Jess knocked knuckles with us. I felt great. We were guys. Tough guys, topping each other, saying shit that was funnier than hell.
Becca and Olivia giggled and tried not to be obvious while they stared at Weese's crotch. Poor guy. His swim trunks weren't just white-they were two seasons too old. Extremely tight.
“You can totally see his pecker,” Becca said while she pointed. “Totally!”
Olivia slapped Becca's hand down.
“Stop!” But Olivia was laughing.
“It's a teeny-weeny jelly-beanie.” Becca sang it. Olivia lost it.
Katie shocked us all. She had no brothers, and I think this was, you know, an eye-opening experience for her, so to speak. She kept staring at the nubby lump located between Weese's legs.
“It sort of looks like a mouse,” she said in this small, astonished voice.
“Yeah,” Mook snorted. “Like Minnie Mouse!”
Katie didn't laugh.
Everybody else, however, hooted. Katie, I remember now, sort of covered her mouth, like she was horrified by what she had just let slip out and wished she could take it back.
The other girls wouldn't let her.
“Minnie Mouse!” Becca hollered. She and Olivia rolled backwards, kicking their feet, squealing and howling.
Katie flung some sand at them. “Come on you guys,” she said. “Knock it off. Don't tease Weese.”
“Knock it off?” said Mook. “Never!” Then he raised his hand like he was some kind of king making a speech to his soldiers. “No retreat! No surrender!”
Jess raised his arm, I raised mine. We were the Three Goofeteers. All for one, one for all.
“No retreat! No surrender!”
Weese just stood there taking it. I remember his face went pink like the sunburned patches on the tops of his shoulders.
“Like Minnie Mouse!” Becca gasped again when she finally caught her breath.
Weese backed up. Looked around. Saw that all the kids on Oak Beach were staring at him. Guys stopped tossing Nerf balls and leered like ringside drunks at a boxing match waiting for the knockout punch and wishing they could be the ones to land it.
The girls up and down the sand? Most were sitting up on their towels, leaning forward, arching their backs, laughing into cupped hands. I noticed some were looking my way. Sizing me up. Liking what they saw. I remember feeling extremely manly that day.
The adults? I don't think there were any adults on that stretch of sand. No little kids, either. I guess that's why we hung out there. Oak Beach was Teen Town. We had our own rules, our own laws, our own music-the same station, WAVY, blasting out of every boom box.
“Hey, Wheezer?” Mook said, shaking the grape soda bottle in his fist. “Think fast!”
Mook released his thumb, let the foam fly, sprayed Weese right in the crotch.
“Uh-oh!” Mook screamed. “Looks like Wheezer just got his period! Anybody have a Kotex he can borrow?”
