I was in the attic of that giant house again, but there was still a stairway over in the corner going up to what was another attic above the one I was in. As I climbed the stairs and looked around this new attic above the one I’d been in, there was yet another wood staircase going up, but how could that be because from the outside the house didn’t look tall enough to have so many attics above each other. What if there was no top? Could that be possible? Should I stop trying to see what was at the top of every new staircase?

I decided to go up this one more staircase. As I walked up the bare wood steps and my head got high enough to look around, I couldn’t see another staircase, but I saw dad crouched in a corner crying. He looked like he was my age, but I knew it was dad somehow. He didn’t look at me but spoke.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. I woke up, and I was shocked to see dad, regular grownup dad, looking at me in bed from the doorway of my room with a worried look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, because it felt like something was.

“Nothing”, he said, shaking his head quickly, “Hey Cloob, before you head off to school and I head off to work, I wanted to say that I hope you have a really great day.” I nodded and sat up in bed. David of course was already up and probably downstairs. Dad went down the hall and back into the office and I could hear him banging on the typewriter as I let my bare feet down on the carpet and stood up.

I closed the door to my room and as I took off my pajamas and put on my regular clothes, I thought about that dream I was having before I woke up. I had had that dream about that big house with all those attics several times now, but this was the first time I had gotten to the top. And that part with dad as a kid crying was really weird and scary.

Out the big window in our room, the house next door, Wells Street and the park across from it were all shiny with overnight rain. Though the sky was gray with clouds it didn’t look like it was raining now.

I ran downstairs, as I always did, and David was in the kitchen eating a bowl of cheerios. Mom was there cleaning the counter, but she looked really worried. Even worse, she looked like she was trying not to look worried, and when she saw me she just said “morning Cooper”, but no more. She almost never used my regular name like that.

But all I was thinking about was school, and being in Mrs Herman’s sixth-grade class with Billy, Gil and Teddy, instead of Miss Bailey’s with Mike, Arthur and Andy. It had been two weeks now since school started, but I was still thinking about it. At least Stuart was in my class and his best friend Frankie. Abby and Beth were in Miss Bailey’s class so I guess I wouldn’t be able to borrow Abby’s notes, if I needed to, because she probably would have different ones being in a different class. But their friend Myrna, who most of the boys didn’t like, was in my class.

I poured and ate a quick bowl of Cheerios, grabbed my jacket and went out the front door into the cool wet morning with my math book because we had had math homework last night. I saw that the kids in my school were playing soccer this morning, even though it rained overnight. Mike said that they’d even play in their raincoats in the rain, but I couldn’t see yet if he was playing goal, because our sixth grade side of the fields were on the other side. The ground I walked on was wet, and muddy in the parts that didn’t have grass.

It looked like there were maybe forty kids playing, and when I got to the goalposts on the side closest to my house, I could see Mike playing goal at one of the goalposts across the field, and Billy at the other one. One of the fifth grade boys saw me on their side of the field by their goalposts.

“Watch out”, he said, “Looks like there’s a sixth grade spy back here on our side.” Some other kids on his team turned to look at me and nodded that they saw me back behind their goalposts. I was one of the big six grade kids at school, which felt kind of neat. And it also felt neat that these fifth grade kids knew I was.

“Yeah”, I said back to him, “Watch out for me!” And then I smiled and laughed through my nose. Since I was a year younger than all the kids in my sixth grade class because I skipped kindergarten, I was actually the same age as these fifth grade kids, but they didn’t know that. All they knew is that I was sixth and they were only fifth.

Lots of kids were into spies and secret agents now because of the James Bond movies and the “Man from Uncle” TV show. And there was even that new comedy secret agent show “Get Smart” that was on Saturday night, and was pretty silly but pretty funny too. I specially liked that “cone of silence” thing, where they lowered those two clear bubbles over their heads so no one could hear them, but then they couldn’t hear each other either.

I liked it that even though it had rained overnight and the ground was muddy where there was no grass, a bunch of kids had come out with their balls, plus the ones Coach Bing I guess put out for us to use. I liked it that no grownups were in charge of us and that we figured it all out by ourselves, maybe with a little help from Coach Bing, but he wasn’t in charge of us either. I could see that a lot of kids had muddy sneakers. I wondered if Mrs Herman and the other sixth, fifth and fourth grade teachers would get mad if, after the bell rang, all us kids came into class with muddy shoes.

I ran across the field trying to avoid the other kids and the muddy parts of the field. I saw Stuart and Frankie to my right, heading down the edge of the field with a ball between them. Todd and Grant were in the middle of the field closing in on a group of younger kids with a couple other balls. I could see Mike in the goal closest to me, with Andy, Cal, and Herbie playing defense out in front of him. Billy was farther off by the other goal, yelling at Gil and Teddy, who I guess were trying to help him.

Whenever Mike stopped a shot he would roll the ball in front of him and take a couple steps toward it and kick it so hard up in the air toward the other team’s goal that sometimes he would actually score if the guy playing goal on their side wasn’t watching. The fourth and fifth graders on the other team would just be amazed at his kicks.

Mike saw me and waved me towards him. Billy saw me too and called out to me.

“It’s THE COOP”, he said, “Get over here to goal number one and man the battlements!” I looked at Mike, guarding “goal number two” I guess, who had heard Billy say that.

Mike shook his head slowly, pointed his finger in Billy’s direction, “He needs you way more than I do”, and then more quietly so Billy couldn’t hear too, “I think if he just kept his mouth closed and focused on watching where the balls are he’d do much better!”

Some fifth grade kid to my right had one of the balls and kicked it hard and through the top corner of Mike’s goalposts. Mike laughed through his nose and said, “I make my point.” Then he looked out and saw the kid who had kicked it and nodded his head.

“Hey Mason!” Mike called out to him, “Nice one!”, then pointing a finger at him, “But I’ll get your next one!” That Mason kid smiled and ran back to a couple of his friends on their side of the field and said “I finally scored one on Mike!”

“Allright!” yelled out one of his friends, “The sixth graders are not invincible, we can beat them! What’s that make the score?” Mason shook his head and raised and lowered his shoulders.

“I don’t know”, he said.

I ran to put my book against a tree behind Mike’s goal so it wouldn’t get wet and no one would kick or step on it by accident, then ran over to Billy’s goalposts and Gil was there too. Teddy was way over on the far side of the goalposts, saw me and started waving his hands and yelling, “I got the right, you take the middle, Gil’s got the left!”

Some really young looking, probably fourth grade kid kicked a ball by Billy through the goal. “Billy, Billy, Billy”, Teddy said, “I think that was a fourth grader. Oh the shame of it!”

“Lucky shot”, said Billy, then he looked at me, “We need the Coop out in the middle.” I nodded, liking being called a nickname like that.

“I’m on it”, I said, running towards them.

Some fifth grader pointed at me. “That Coop guy’s in the middle”, he said to the guys around him, “Better go to the right now.” I thought it was really neat that even fifth graders were saying my name, me one of the “top dog” sixth graders. We were like Greek gods to the fourth and fifth graders, the kinds of gods we were reading about in class. I ran around and played, trying to act like a Greek god, though not sure which one, but at the same time trying to avoid the mud but still getting some on my sneakers.

Finally the second bell rang. Those of us that brought books or notebooks to school, went to get them. A lot of the younger kids ran to the school doors so they wouldn’t be late for class, but us Greek god sixth graders just walked, since we had done this many times and knew that we could make it to class just before last bell. The kids in my class didn’t go in the main front doors, going around instead to the right side, through the doors there and up those stairs, since our classroom was right on the end on the third floor right by that staircase. The school grownups had put rubber matts on the floor at the bottom of the staircase so we could try to scrape some of the mud off our shoes before we walked into class.

When we all noisily walked into our classroom all at the same time Mrs Herman blew air out of her mouth and shook her head slowly, looking at all our muddy shoes plus a couple kids with muddy knees, hands and elbows. The girls and the rest of the boys were already in their seats looking at us, some giggling.

“Didn’t you boys see the rubber matts we put at the base of the stairs to clean off your shoes?” our teacher asked.

We all nodded as we went to sit at our desks. Billy grinned and said to her, “You should see all the disgusting mud we scraped off down there.”

“So you boys play rain or shine?” she asked. Billy nodded. Last night had been the first rain since school started.

“Yes ma’am”, he said. Billy sometimes used that “ma’am” word when he was saying yes or no to the teacher or another grownup, but none of the other kids did. But Billy was Billy, and some of the boys and even a few of the girls chuckled a little bit, and Billy heard that and looked around at everyone else and did a big grin.

Billy and Gil were in my class again this year. Mike, Arthur, Andy and Teddy were in the other sixth grade class. Stuart and Frankie were in my class too, and the two of them, besides always liking to sing the words “walk on by” from Dione Warwick’s song, were also doing words to each other from Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. One would sing “nowhere to run” and then the other would sing back “nowhere to hide”, specially when something they didn’t like happened at school, like homework they didn’t like, or something Myrna or Martin did.

The boys and girls in class were like separate “teams”, and Myrna was always in charge of that girls team, at least that’s what a lot of the boys thought. She wasn’t super pretty, like Beth was, or a super good student, like Beth and Abby were, who this year were in the other sixth grade class. But she seemed to know all the other girls and knew all the things that were going on, even with the boys. And she would always raise her hand in class and tell Mrs Herman when she thought something wasn’t fair, or tell one of the boys that he shouldn’t tease one of the girls anymore. I think the boys mostly teased girls when they liked them, because boys and girls didn’t really do regular talking with each other, either in class or outside of it.

Who was in charge of the boys “team” in class, no one was sure. Billy of course thought he was, but it seemed like other boys thought either me or Frankie should be. I thought it was kind of neat that some of the other boys thought that I should be, though I never would say that I was, or that I even wanted to be. Billy and I were still friends, and he still thought I was part of his “Billy Boyds” group with Gil, and with Teddy who was in the other class.

But all the boys in Mike’s group, like Andy and Arthur, and in Stuart and Frankie’s group, like Todd and Grant, knew that I wasn’t. Grant was the only kid in class that was black, and he was also the best pitcher on the “Michigan Tube Benders” Little League team. I hadn’t played on that team last summer because I got “recruited” to be on the “Huron Valley Bank” team by Mike and Stuart, even though, because of breaking my collarbone, I only played for the first inning of the first game.

I wouldn’t say I was in any of the groups, but they all wanted me to be, so I guess I was kind of in all of them. Of all the kids I knew in my grade I liked Mike the most, so maybe you might say he was my best friend. But he didn’t like ME the most, because he seemed to like everybody the same amount, which was maybe why I liked him so much. I mean if he were in my class, he would definitely be in charge of the boys, though he might not want to be. He was kind of like Ricky was, a kid that I wanted to be more like than I really was.

Then there were the other boys in class, like Duncan, Martin and Dickie, and the rest of them. I couldn’t remember all of their names but they all knew mine. Billy, Frankie and Stuart, and maybe Todd were considered the “cool” kids, so since I was friends with all of them, I guess I was one of the “cool” kids too. Billy liked to call me “The Coop” sometimes and Stuart would call me the “C-man”.

Duncan was really smart, but he wasn’t into sports. He said he was into “horticulture” and “entomology”, which was collecting dead bugs. Billy said “horticulture” was collecting “horts”, but he was just being silly. Duncan only really talked when the teacher, or someone else asked him a question. He really didn’t want to be in any of the groups, and none of the kids I talked to or did things with talked or did stuff with him.

Martin was kind of fat, didn’t say much and seemed worried all the time, and some of the boys I knew in class made fun of him, like Billy, Gil and Frankie. Even the boys I knew that didn’t tease him still didn’t talk to him, I guess because they didn’t want to be teased by the boys that teased him. I guess that’s why I didn’t talk to him either, because I wanted to make sure the other cool guys always liked me.

Dickie was a new kid. His mom and older brother moved here from Kentucky, but his dad had died in a car crash, before they moved here. He was pretty shy, but I would talk to him sometimes when I saw him in the park.

I didn’t know very much about the girls in class, because the two girls I knew the most in my grade, Abby and Beth, were in the other sixth grade class this year. Their friend Myrna was in my class, and she was definitely the “top dog” of the girls. She would raise her hand in class a lot to answer our teacher’s questions or ask her own questions or tell the teacher things she didn’t like or she thought were bad for her or the other girls. Most of the other girls were always around her, wanting to hear what she was saying and telling her what they were thinking.

There was this girl Josie who I had done a science experiment with last week in class, because Mrs Herman decided who our experiment “partners” were. But any time she and I talked to each other about the experiment we were doing and maybe started to like what we were talking about, I’d get worried that the other boys would think I actually liked her, like she might be my girlfriend. I’d seen Billy, Gil, Stuart and Frankie all tease other boys after they saw them talking to a girl, even if they were talking about school stuff or even nothing. And I think Josie was worried about the same thing with the other girls, specially Myrna, who knew about everything that was going on in class.

There was this girl, Stella, who I had seen a couple times during the summer at the Blue Front when we were both buying comic books, before we were in class together. She would buy the Veronica and Betty ones, but also Wonder Woman. If we were both standing next to each other looking at the same shelf for comics she would say “hi” to me and then I would say “hi” back. Once she even asked me if Mad Magazine was really funny and I said it was, at least sometimes. Frankie said her dad owned a restaurant in Ann Arbor but he couldn’t remember the name of it.

Then there was also this girl Alice who had long black hair that stuck out really far from her head and wore clothes that were really different than the other girls wore. She wore these big floppy shirts that didn’t have buttons in the front but were covered with pictures of flowers, polkadots or strange shapes. She wore skirts like most of the other girls, but hers were really long and went down to her feet. Billy and Gil said she was a “witch” and could cast a spell or even a “curse” on you if you made her mad. I’d seen her in front of her house on Lincoln doing gardening stuff in the front yard like mom liked to do. And once, when I was up in the study in our house looking out the window and mom was in the front yard gardening, I saw Alice walk up to mom and ask her something and mom was showing her how to cut branches off the bushes, that “pruning” stuff mom had shown me a few times. Stuart said her mom and dad were “beatniks”, which were people he said who wore strange clothes, listened to jazz music, and snapped their fingers instead of clapping after someone played a song they liked.

Then there was this girl Kate in my class that lived at the other end of my street. She never raised her hand or talked to anyone really, not even the other girls. And once a week this man came into our class and talked to Mrs Herman out in the hall and then they came back in and Kate left class with that man and didn’t come back until later. Billy said she was an “ax murderer” and had to meet with her “headshrinker” once a week. I didn’t know what that was, and I wasn’t going to ask Billy, but I asked Mike and Arthur one day after class and Mike said a “headshrinker” was a “psychiatrist”, who helped people with “mental problems”. One time right after school when I was out on the sidewalk talking to Abby’s brother Steve in front of their house, Kate came walking home from school but when she saw him and me in front of her on the same sidewalk, she crossed the street to walk by us on the other side.

And then there was Mrs Herman, our new teacher. She was kind of like my third grade teacher, Mrs Rodney, because she was older and talked to us more like we were regular people and not “children”. But she wasn’t super strict like Mrs Rodney and she let us talk more in class than Mrs Rodney did. And she wasn’t like an “android”, like some of my friends said our fifth grade teacher Miss Kennedy was, worrying about us all the time and trying to be in charge of us, telling us everything we had to do, and never looking happy or sad. I think my favorite teacher was still Miss Zimmerman, my first grade teacher, because she seemed more like an older kid than a real grownup. If we could somehow just have older kids do all the jobs that grownups did, like be teachers and coaches, everything would be much easier and better at school.

It seemed like a lot of the stuff in sixth grade was going to be pretty much the same as it had been in fifth grade. The boys would have gym class every other day with Mr Bing, and the days the girls had gym, the boys would go to the library. We had the same SRA reading program, and I was wondering if I could get to the very top color, though Mrs Herman wasn’t so strict about passing a special test before you could go to the next level. She also said that we’d have to do lots of writing, book reports, and longer reports like we did in fifth grade, but that we’d do some of them working with another kid in the class. I was already thinking of all the short easy books I could read from the school library so I could try to read more books than anyone else, specially because Beth and Abby weren’t in my class this year. We had a different math book, but it looked like it had the same kind of stuff in it that we did in the fifth grade math book.

But there were things that were different. In history we weren’t learning about our country, but about the “ancient world” and the history of other countries. I knew something about all that already from mom reading me and David the “Child’s History of the World”, so I figured I could be really smart about that in class and it would be easy for me to do good on the tests. And like Mrs Rodney, our teacher really liked us to do singing together, and we were already learning this song about peanuts that Mrs Herman said we were going to sing in the auditorium at an assembly…

Peanuts, they’re nice and hot
Peanuts, I sell a lot

If you’re looking for bananas don’t be blue
Peanuts in a little bag are calling you

Big jumbos, big double ones
Come try them, freshly roasted today
Come buy them, freshly toasted today

If an apple keeps the doctor from your door
Peanuts ought to keep him from you ever more

The other new thing was playing instruments. If we wanted to, we got to choose an instrument we wanted to learn how to play. The school had some of them – flutes, clarinets, saxophones, oboes, french horns, cornets, trombones, violins, cellos and drums – or your mom and dad could get you one at a music store.

Stuart said he wanted to play the saxophone, because he thought it was really cool, since most of the “instrumental solos” in the motown songs he liked so much were saxophones, like in “Nowhere to Run”. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to play, but what he said about how “cool” the saxophone was, made me decide to learn to play it too. I also liked doing stuff with Stuart, and this was something we could do together and then talk about, even when we weren’t doing it.

We went to the special music class twice a week in the library. There were also three girls in the class playing clarinet, including Beth and Abby, and two other girls playing flute, and Duncan playing oboe. We were in the “woodwinds” class, which seemed kind of strange, but the music teacher said that even though saxophones and clarinets were made out of metal, they were considered “woodwinds” because you had to blow on a wood “reed” to make the sound, and flutes were because they used to be made out of wood.

We had already done two classes but it was really hard. You had to put the “mouthpiece” part with the “reed” between your lips and push your lips down on it in a funny way and then blow, and it made your mouth shiver and it sounded really bad, though the teacher said if we kept practicing it would sound better.

There were four other music classes for different kinds of instruments. One for the “brass” ones, like cornets, trombones and French horns. One for “strings”, like regular violins and those giant violins. One for drums, and the other for pianos. Pretty much every kid in my class or the other sixth grade class signed up to learn some kind of instrument. Even Martin signed up to play piano.

***

In gym class that day, Mr Bing said that, besides working on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness stuff, we were going to do “team sports”. So he decided who were the four “captains” and each captain picked their team from all the other boys. All the boys from Mrs Herman’s class and the other class, Miss Hubbel’s, were in the same gym class. I got to be one of the captains, along with Mike, Teddy, and Andy, but I was the one that had to pick last. Mr Bing said that even though I picked last for the “first round”, I’d pick first for the “second round”, so I’d get two picks in a row.

Mike got to pick first, and he picked Stuart, instead of Arthur who was always part of Mike’s group. I guess because Mike and Stuart had played all summer on the “Huron Valley Bank” Little League team and become good friends, and because Stuart was really good at baseball and soccer and probably other sports too, where Arthur didn’t play sports a lot. I could tell Arthur thought Mike would pick him, but he didn’t.

Then it was Andy’s turn, and he didn’t pick Arthur either, but picked Todd, who was super good at sports too. Teddy picked Billy, even though he wasn’t very good, I figured because Billy would be really mad at him if he didn’t. So I picked Arthur and I think he was happy that he got picked on the first “round”, even if not by his main friends Andy and Mike.

So I got to pick first for the second round. It was interesting that Gil wanted me to pick him, but I picked Frankie, but then Teddy picked next and took Gil, so at least the “Billy Boyds” were all on the same team. Todd told Andy to pick Grant so he did, and Mike picked Johnny from his class that I didn’t know very well but had seen in the park.

For the third round Mike and Andy picked other kids from their class, Jack and Johnny. Teddy picked Cal, who was friends with Teddy, but not part of the “Billy Boyds”. The only kids left from my class that I knew were not very good at sports, but luckily I’d picked Frankie who knew all the boys in the other class and he told me to pick Herbie and Ben, which I did.

So for the fourth round, after I picked Ben, Teddy picked Dickie from our class. For their fourth and fifth picks, Andy and Mike picked kids from their class I didn’t know, which just left Duncan and Martin, who everybody knew were going to be last because they didn’t do sports at all. Teddy picked Duncan and I got Martin, who walked slowly to the back of the line of my team members behind me.

So Mr Bing said we would have these teams for a few weeks and then he would pick different captains who would pick new teams. He said we should pick a team name, and Arthur said our team should be “Zale’s Zombies”.

He said, “Because ‘Z’ is the first letter of your last name and the last letter of the alphabet, and we are the last team, and zombies are VERY COOL, and the LAST thing you’d expect people to do after they are dead and buried is to RISE OUT OF THE GRAVE AND GET THEIR REVENGE ON THE LIVING!” When he said that last part he held his arms out in front of him and staggered around like he was a zombie.

Then he went back to being his regular self and said, “There’s also this British band called ‘The Zombies’, that I’m sure you’ve all heard of”, and looked around at the rest of us on the team, but everybody shook their heads.

“Oh come on”, he said, sounding mad and like the rest of us were pretty stupid, “I’m sure you all know their song, it’s been on the radio forever!” He started to sing…

Well, no one told me about her, the way she lied
Well, no one told me about her, how many people cried

“Oh THAT song”, I said, “I really liked that one but I didn’t know who did it.” Others on the team nodded too. Everybody liked the “Zale’s Zombies” name, even Martin, so I told Coach Bing that was our team name, and he laughed through his nose as he wrote it in his little book with his little pencil.

For today he had us practice our “football skills”, like handing off a football to someone else, throwing and catching the ball and throwing it to someone who was running. He also showed us how to use the belts with the flags stuck on them to play “flag” football, and wanted us to practice grabbing the flag off other boys’ belts.

Andy asked, “So Mr Bing, you’re not going to teach us how to tackle?” and a bunch of the kids in our class laughed. I did too but more pretending to laugh than really laughing because mom had said I should never play tackle football because it was too dangerous. Mr. Bing said you should only play tackle football if you wore the proper equipment and were supervised by grownups who knew what they were doing.

***

So after school that day I was outside the school with a bunch of the boys from my class and the other sixth grade class and we were talking about gym class, and who had the best team. I liked being a team “captain”, like Mike and Andy and Teddy, because it was like we were extra important “big shots”. Then Andy said we should try playing a little tackle football right now.

Arthur said, “What about what Mr Bing said about only playing tackle with the right equipment and adult supervision?”

Andy said, “We don’t need any adult supervision. We play soccer, baseball and basketball every day without any grownups. Why can’t we play regular football? As far as tackling goes, I’m not afraid of it? Are you guys?” This was the first time that I could remember that one of my Burns Park friends did the “are you afraid” thing. He didn’t SAY you’d be a sissy if you didn’t, but I felt like that was what everyone else was thinking.

None of my friends knew that mom had told me I shouldn’t play tackle football, and I really didn’t want them to know. Usually mom or dad weren’t in charge of me, but telling my friends about what mom said would make them think that she was. I should be able to play if I wanted to, because that was a big sport with all the kids and grownups I knew, even mom and dad, since we all were rooting for the Michigan Wolverines team to win the Big Ten again and go to the Rose Bowl. I mean how bad could it be, you just got grabbed and pulled down to the ground, or pulled somebody else down to the ground.

Then Mike agreed and suggested we play in that little clear area of the park right across the street from my house. He said things weren’t as muddy as they were this morning, and that area had pretty good grass. Arthur said he didn’t want to play and he was going to head home, but I wanted to try it.

I got worried that mom might be out in the front yard and see me playing, but what could I say. Andy ran off to his house to get his football and meet the rest of us there. At least as we walked over to that area, I couldn’t see anyone from my family out in the yard and the car was gone, which meant either mom or dad was out somewhere. I didn’t know if David had walked home to our house or had gone over to one of his friend’s houses. But I figured that he wouldn’t tell on me if he saw me playing tackle. Andy returned from his house with a football and threw it to Mike. Whenever there was a group of kids and no grownups and Mike was there, pretty much everybody looked to him to be in charge. So that’s what all the rest of us did.

“What?” Mike asked, looking around at the rest of us, “Why’s everybody looking at me? I’m not in charge. We just need to figure out teams.” I really wanted to be on Mike’s team. I wasn’t sure what it would be like to try and tackle him, because he was so big.

“You should be one of the captains”, Andy said to him. He probably wanted to be on Mike’s team too, it’s just who would be willing to be the other captain against Mike!

“Yeah, okay”, Mike said, nodding slowly, then looking at me, “How ‘bout Coop’s the other captain?”

I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be on Mike’s team, but for him to say that I should be the other captain felt like him saying I was a “top dog” like him. If I said I didn’t want to be the other captain, then I was saying I wasn’t ready to be a “top dog”, but I was, I REALLY was, even more than I had thought. So “damn the torpedoes” I thought, that thing that some grownups said, that I knew was first said by Admiral Farragut when his Union fleet attacked the Confederate coastal fort in Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

“Sounds good”, I said, nodding slowly like Mike had, “So we pick teams?”

“Yeah”, Mike said, looking at me and still nodding slowly like he and I were in charge together, “You pick first”.

“Okay”, I said, looking back at him with as much “I got this under control” as I could pretend to look. My choice was obvious.

“Andy”, I said. There was no way I was going to let Mike and Andy be on the same team, that is if I wasn’t on it too. If I had to tackle Mike, ANDY would have to too!

Mike made a face like he was thinking then picked Stuart, which was who he picked first in gym class today. And then I picked one of my two first picks from class and chose Stuart’s best friend Frankie, and Mike picked Cal. All that was left was Johnny, Billy and Gil. I could tell Gil knew he’d be picked last, and it kind of looked like Billy didn’t want me to pick him so he could be on Mike’s team. But Billy was such a pest.

“Billy”, I said. His shoulders slumped. Tough titties, Billy, I thought. I had heard some boys say that when there were no grownups or girls around. I could never actually say it, but I could THINK it. If I have to tackle Mike, you do too. Mike took Johnny, leaving Gil.

“We take Gil”, said Billy, pretending like we were so lucky that we could still pick him. Gil wrinkled his nose, probably thinking that Billy was making fun of him, which he probably was. He was picked last as he often was.

“That’s fine”, said Mike, “You guys have an extra guy. And let’s skip the kickoff stuff.”

Mike pointed at the trees around us and said, “How about our goal line is between these two trees and yours is those two down there. You guys start on whatever you consider the 20 yard line down there. So what ya think? Short field. No first downs. Four plays and if no touchdown, ball goes to the other team?”

“Sounds good”, I said immediately, again like I had all this under control, then thought of another rule to add, “Just three eligible receivers and only one rusher after three seconds.” I peeked over at my house across the street and still no one in the front yard, which was good. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if mom or dad came out to work in the yard.

“Yeah”, said Mike, “Makes sense.”

So we started playing. Both Billy and Andy wanted to be quarterback, so I suggested they take turns every other play, and everyone else thought that was a good plan. That was good for me because even though I liked being quarterback, and I was the team captain, I might get tackled a lot if I was. Even though Gil wanted to play, I don’t think he wanted to get tackled, so he said he would hike the ball and block for the quarterback.

Billy quarterbacked the first play and Frankie and I were the pass receivers with Andy a kind of halfback, with Gil of course hiking and blocking. In our huddle Billy used our last names like it was a real game. He talked fiercely, but also quietly so the other team couldn’t hear, “Okay Lane, line up on the left and go deep to the right. Zale, line up on the right and come across. Bonham, you’re my safety valve on the left. Gil, you block.” Gil wrinkled his nose.

“Hey”, Gil said, “I should be ‘Smith’!” Billy nodded, but you could tell he wasn’t really thinking about that.

So when Billy said “hike” Gil tossed the ball back to him. Johnny was the rusher on the other side counting to three before crossing the line after Billy with Gil trying to block him. Billy “rolled out” to the right and threw a long pass to Frankie, who was being covered by Stuart, but it went over his head incomplete.

Now it was Andy’s turn at quarterback and we tried a run where we all blocked for him to run behind us. We all lined up close together to the left of Gil, and then when Andy said hike we all crashed into the guys on Mike’s team, except for Mike who was laying back. Cal was across from me and I put up my forearms and put out my elbows like I saw guys do blocking in the real football games and he and I crashed into each other. It felt good to bang against him, “hold my ground”, both of us being tough with each other but in a having fun kind of way, not an angry one. Andy ran by us but Mike was there to grab him and they both fell to the ground. At least we gained some yards on that one, but we had a long way to go.

On the next play Billy wanted to try another pass, but ended up running instead, and was pretty fast and got pretty far down the little field before Stuart pushed him down. And on our last play, I actually caught a pass from Andy but then Mike wrapped his arms around me and we fell to the ground, him first, me mostly landing on him instead of the harder ground, short of the goal line. For the first time in my life I’d actually been TACKLED, and it wasn’t so bad! We both got up and brushed the grass off our elbows and knees.

“Nice catch”, he said, smiling.

“Nice tackle”, I said back.

Since no touchdown by us, it was their turn. Mike was their quarterback, which was good because as long as he passed the ball to someone else on his team, we didn’t have to tackle him, being bigger than all of the rest of us. But on their third play, he was going to pass but decided to run instead. He came toward us running toward the sideline where Andy was, me to Andy’s left. He and I had Mike kind of cornered by the sideline. Mike pretended like he was going to run toward Andy but then suddenly ran to his right and crashed into me, I think before he even really saw me there. I grabbed him around the waist and felt his knee bang against my chest and we both tumbled to the ground. I landed hard on my rear end and then my back as Mike’s big body fell on top of me.

For a moment I couldn’t breath in and I lay on the ground trying to suck air into my lungs. Mike got up, looked at me, smiled, and offered his hand to help me up, like just another play, just another tackle.

He saw me struggling to take a breath and said, “Nice tackle. You just got the wind knocked out of you, you’ll be okay in a second.”

“Yeah”, I managed to grunt out as I started to be able to breathe again. I took his hand and he helped me get up and then he looked at me more carefully.

“You okay?” he asked.

It’s not like my body was hurting bad, but I couldn’t feel anything, until my rear end and left shoulder started to ache. The rest of the kids playing started to gather round and I knew if everyone was going to still think I was a good team captain that I had to “shake it off”, as dad would say.

“Yeah”, I said, “I’m fine. You’re not the easiest guy in the world to tackle!” I figured that was true even though I’d never really tackled anyone else.

“Probably not”, Mike said, laughing.

“Definitely not”, I said, doing my best to laugh though my back ached some when I did. All the other guys started to laugh too.

“What is it?” Mike asked, “Fourth down?”

We played for a while longer. I was tackled a couple more times and had to tackle a couple other people, but luckily not Mike again. His team got a couple touchdowns. My team finally got one when Andy threw a nice long pass that Billy actually caught. When he got to the end zone he made a show of things, holding both hands way up over his head, one with the ball, and starting to dance around.

“The fans go wild”, he said, “As Boyd glides across the goal line for his team’s first score!”

I was really glad when we finally stopped playing because my body had taken a beating. Luckily my legs, arms and hands still worked okay so I wasn’t limping or looking like I was beat up, but I felt pretty beat up. So that was tackle football, I thought. Coach Bing was right, at least in the part where you should play it wearing the proper equipment. But I was happy that Mike and all the other kids there saw me play and be “tough”, and dad would probably be proud of me too, if he only could know, though I could never tell him, or let mom find out.

I figured I’d take a long hot bath that night to really soak the muscles in my body that all were hurting me now. That was mom’s solution to any ache or pain, or even just feeling tired, taking a “long hot bath”. But it sounded pretty good with my beaten body.

***

Later that afternoon David and I were up in our room listening to records while I played with my new Avalon Hill “Battle of the Bulge” game under my bed and David was drawing comic book stuff at our big table. Mom was downstairs in the kitchen doing stuff, but making a lot more noise than she usually did when she was making dinner or cleaning or whatever else down there. Dad hadn’t been home, but David and I could hear the car pull into the driveway.

Well actually we were listening to just one record, the Beatles new “Help!” album, over and over. We had it on side two at the moment, and we had that arm thing that held records on that silver pole “spindle” thing in the middle way over to the side so when the record player finished playing that side it would start playing it again. It was really neat how that worked, and I think David was the one that figured it out, though I think it was probably by accident.

We got the album at Discount Records right after we got back from Cape Cod and before school started the day after Labor Day. We’d been playing it over and over ever since. We both really liked both sides, but David said he liked the first side more, because it was “faster and more fun”, at least the first two songs. I figured the only reason he liked it more was because “Help!” was his favorite song right now, so he just liked hearing that one over and over.

I liked the first side too, but I liked this second side better, at least a little bit. Of course, the second side had “Ticket to Ride” on it, which was probably MY favorite song right now. It had that neat “der, der der der der” guitar part at the beginning that I liked, kind of like the one at the beginning of that Kinks “Your Really Got Me” song that had been Arthur’s favorite. But when I had told Arthur that, he said no, it was completely different.

I had listened to both sides so many times now that I knew all the words by heart, which was interesting, because when I heard the songs now while I was doing something else, I was always pretending to sing the words in my mind, so they kind of felt like my own words with my own feelings.

You’re making me say that I’ve got nobody but you
But as from today, well, I’ve got somebody that’s new
I ain’t no fool and I don’t take what I don’t want

I really liked singing to myself that “I ain’t no fool” part. That’s the kind of person I wanted to be, one who took charge but never did anything stupid. I hated being stupid.

I don’t know why she’s riding so high
She ought to think twice
She ought to do right by me

I don’t know why that made me think of mom but it did, but could I ever say stuff to her like, “You ought to think twice, you ought to do right by me.” I guess some older boys wanted to be in charge of older girls, specially if they were their girlfriends.

If you don’t treat her right, my friend
You’re gonna find her gone (you’re gonna find her gone)
‘Cause I will treat her right, and then
You’ll be the lonely one (you’re not the only one)

I liked pretending to say, “‘Cause I will treat her right, and then you’ll be the lonely one.” Being that boy that helped a girl and she ended up really liking me.

There were also these music parts between the songs. Arthur said they were from the “soundtrack” of the “Help!” movie, which I hadn’t seen yet but wanted to. Because they had no words I didn’t think about them like the song parts.

While we were listening I had heard dad come in the front door and say “hello”, loud like he usually did. Then I heard mom’s voice say, “Eric, come into the kitchen please”, sounding mad but not really loud like yelling. Then I could just barely hear them talking, but couldn’t figure out their words, until I heard mom’s voice, just loud enough so I could hear what she said.

“Eric… You had SEX with that woman!” she said. I heard dad talking with his sad voice but I couldn’t hear the words.

“What does our relationship mean to you Eric?” she asked, “What does our partnership mean to you? After every GOD DAMN thing I’ve done for you!” as she started to cry. Then more sad words again from dad that I couldn’t understand.

“You… goddamn… traitor…” she yelled, and I heard a kind of a banging noise between the words, “God damn you Eric… you bastard!” Then more banging noise as dad continued in his low sad voice.

Then I could finally hear dad say something. “Jeezus Christ, Liz, your hand!” Mom stopped talking and just cried, really loud. Then all I could hear was mom crying for a few minutes until I heard dad yell up the stairs to us.

“Your mom cut her hand and I need to take her to the emergency room right now”, he yelled, “She’ll be fine, she just needs some stitches!” Mom was still crying really loud.

David and I looked at each other. He looked really worried. I probably did too. I wasn’t sure he had heard or understood all those words that I’d heard mom say. We heard the front door open and now the sound of mom crying outside from the open window by my bed, the car doors opening and closing and then the engine of the car starting and the sound of it backing up, and then speeding off down our street.

“What happened?” David asked. I shook my head slowly. I didn’t really know, but I had an idea that had to do with that “sex with another woman” part, but I wasn’t going to tell that to David. I didn’t want to say it out loud, and I didn’t want David to ask me questions about it. I knew mom was usually right, but she HAD to be wrong this time. Dad wouldn’t do stuff like that.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to what we were doing like we were stupid little kids who didn’t care about or know anything.

“I’m going to go down stairs and check”, I said to David. He nodded.

“Me too”, he said. I guess I was glad I wasn’t going down there by myself.

Normally I would run down the stairs, but I didn’t this time. As I got to the bottom and turned into the sitting room I saw the long thin box of aluminum foil on the carpet. On the metal edge of the box that you used to tear a sheet of foil off with, there was some red liquidy stuff that was also on the box around that spot. But then I saw that there were little red spots all over a couple of the white walls of the sitting room, and there was a big dent in mom’s painting on the wall by the doorway to the kitchen. Dad had said mom had cut herself. Was all this red stuff mom’s blood?

“What’s all that red stuff?” David asked, looking around the sitting room.

“I don’t know”, I said, “Dad said mom cut her hand so maybe it’s her blood.” I had learned last year in fifth grade how people had lots of blood inside their body in their “arteries” that took blood out of your heart to the other parts of your body, and the “veins” that brought it back.

“But how did it get all over the walls?” he asked.

“I don’t know”, I said, still trying to figure it out myself. Dad said mom “cut her hand”, and that sharp metal tearing edge of the aluminum foil box had blood on it, so maybe she cut it on that. But how did all the blood get on the wall?

Something REALLY bad had happened!

So we both just sat there in the sitting room. I felt hungry, it was dinnertime, but it just felt weird to go back to doing stuff, even eating something for dinner, after whatever happened here happened.

Finally David asked, “Do you think mom’s going to die?” I shook my head really fast. How could David even think that!

“No”, I said, sounding mad, “She just cut her hand and needs those stitches that they do at the hospital. Remember when you fell on that metal bar in your friend Al’s backyard and it stabbed you in the arm, and you had to go to the hospital and they gave you stitches?”

“Yeah”, he said, “That was really bad and it hurt A LOT!”

“But you didn’t die, did you?” I asked, still mad.

“No”, he said more quietly, looking down, “I guess I didn’t.”

We sat quietly again for a few minutes, until David said he was hungry. We didn’t try to make dinner stuff, but just ham and cheese sandwiches. I had mine with mustard but David had his plain. Finally the phone rang and I answered. It was dad.

“Hey guys”, he said, “Just wanted to call to let you know that your mom’s going to be fine. She just got a cut between her thumb and forefinger on the blade of the aluminum foil box, and she needed it stitched up. I know it’s dinnertime, so we’ll pick some food up on the way home.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“She uh…”, he said but stopped, like he was trying to figure out what to say, “Well it’s complicated. We’ll tell you more when we’re home. The important thing is that everything’s…” and he stopped talking again, then said, “…that she’s okay, you don’t need to worry. Tell your brother.”

There was so much more I wanted to ask him but I was afraid to. Afraid of what the answers might be.

“Is mom okay?” David asked. I nodded.

“Well they’re letting us go home”, dad said, “We’ll see you in about half an hour, maybe longer if we have to wait a while for food.”

“David and I ate ham and cheese sandwiches”, I said.

“Oh”, he said, “Good for you, okay. Gotta go. We both love you guys!”

“Bye”, I said, and hung up the phone. Dad didn’t usually say that he loved us, that was weird.

***

David and I were back up in our room when we finally heard the car come into the driveway. Mom and dad came inside the house, and we could hear them talking in the living room.

“Oh my god”, mom said, “It’s all over the walls!”

“I’ll clean it up, Liz”, dad said, “Right now.”

Mom said something else more quietly and I couldn’t hear her words. Then we heard her coming up the stairs. She came into the doorway of our room, and held up her right hand and there was a large bandage between her thumb and finger.

“Seven stitches”, she said, “And it hurts like hell. They gave me something for the pain.” Neither David or I said anything, but we both just looked at her.

“I got really mad at your father”, she said, “I was so angry I grabbed the box of aluminum foil and started hitting him with it, and the blade part cut me between my thumb and forefinger. The doctor said I’ll be okay, I didn’t cut any muscles or tendons, so that’s good.”

She took a deep breath in and out and said, “I’m still REALLY upset with him, so we agreed that he’s going to be sleeping in the study.”

“What happened?” David asked. I’m glad he did, because I wanted to ask that but was afraid to.

“Well”, she said, “It’s something between a husband and wife that never should happen, but in this case it did anyway, and your father and I will have to work it out.” Then she looked at both of us and said, “I don’t know what else to tell you guys. It has nothing to do with the two of you. We both love you so very much.”

Hearing her say all that it sounded REALLY bad, because she was calling dad “your father” instead of “your dad”. One part of me wanted to know more but the other part didn’t. The part of me that didn’t, won, because I didn’t say anything, and David didn’t say anything more either.

“I’m a wreck”, she said, “I’m going to take a hot bath and climb into bed. Your father said you two made yourselves dinner, I’m glad you’re learning to take care of yourselves.”

Then she took a big breath in and out again and said, “Good night. We both love you two so much!”

***

It was much later when David and I were under the covers in our beds when we heard dad coming up the stairs. He walked down the hallway and into the bathroom. We heard the toilet flush and then the water running in the bathroom sink, and a few minutes later the bathroom door opened and then we heard the study door shut. He didn’t even say goodnight to us. That was REALLY REALLY bad.

I couldn’t fall asleep. My mind kept thinking about what I heard mom say to dad. Could he really have done that? Had mom done something bad to him first? She WAS the one always getting mad at him and he almost never got mad at her. But no matter how much I kept thinking about it I just couldn’t figure it out. Was I just a stupid little kid after all?