I have long been enamored with cul de sacs. There are those among us, I know, (the cul de sac detractors) who see them as nothing short of abhorrent: the absolute nadir of suburban “planning.” To me they are magical, mystical places of camaraderie and community. For several brief, shining years (from kindergarten to 3rd grade) I lived at the end of one myself in a picturesque red house. (Coincidentally bought many, many years later by my childhood friend Mark “Butch” Johnson. The house was no longer red and the interior had been so transformed I truly wouldn’t have recognized it had I not known where I was.)
I have terrific memories of seemingly endless ad hoc baseball games with constantly shifting line-ups and scores approaching triple digits, spontaneous outbreaks of neighborhood-wide games of “kick the can” where everyone from the “babies” to the teenagers joined and playing SPUD so late in the evening you could barely see the ball in the dying light.
The further I’m removed from daily life in Minneapolis the more quaint that city seems when I return. And the quaintest of the quaint is the gorgeous, tree-lined block of Red Cedar Lane that ends in a cul de sac.
I don’t think I took a single bike ride with Anna that didn’t include a detour to the cul de sac at the end of Red Cedar Lane, no matter which way we were headed. It was where we checked out our remote control cars, where we took our stomp rockets, where we played street hockey, roller-bladed, trick-or-treated—where we did everything, in fact, but actually live.
When the kids who actually live on the cul de sac were younger there were frequent kickball games. Will was a toddler at the time and Anna was yet to be born, but that didn’t stop me from wandering up there to join the game.
The following story actually happened, essentially as it’s told. I performed it as part of my one-man show “Come See My Show and I’ll Buy You a Beer” in the summer of 2003 at the Minnesota Fringe Festival and again at the Minnesota State Fair in August 2005. That’s why the names have been changed, but all of you know who you are.
One last semi-related note: as further evidence of the it’s a small world/one degree of separation magical community of cul de sacs, the kids’ babysitter Isabel lived at the end of Red Cedar Lane. She moved to Manhattan a year before we did. She baby-sat the kids in Minneapolis, she baby-sits them now. In fact, when I had to fly back to Minnesota to oversee the movers and Jen had a simultaneous business trip to San Francisco, she stayed with the kids. The first morning I was there I saw her mom Georgiana walking the dog. She, too, is moving away. We commiserated on the whole horrible process of moving and laughed about the fact that her daughter was watching my kids while we were both up to our necks in boxes.
Georgiana lived there for decades.
We lived on Upton a seemingly miniscule dozen years.
That cul de sac, however, will be a part of me forever.
* * *
“The Infamous Kickball Story”
OK, so there’s this asphalt cul de sac a block and half from my house, which brings up the primary point I’d like to make this afternoon:
Never trust someone who grew up in a cul de sac.
And I think I can safely say that because I grew up in one myself.
––OR DID I?––
Listen carefully. Cul de sac. It means ‘blind bag’ en Français. And if you’ve ever met someone who grew up in a “blind bag,” you know what I’m talking about.
Who’s the very first one to take his ball and go home? Whose A-number one defense is, “It was like that when I found it?” And who is the most likely kid to break the neighbor’s window, hand you the baseball bat and be half-way down the block, fleeing the scene of the crime, before the shards of the broken glass have even finished raining down?
I’ll be you dollars to donuts (except for that Krispy Kreme kind) it can only be the kid who grew up in the cul de sac.
I submit for your perusal, to further underscore the point, a brief anecdote from my childhood involving one Don Tanvas, my very best friend in fourth grade, and typical cul de sac dweller.
It was a stormy afternoon, cool and damp and clammy. The middle of July. Well into summer vacation. And we were in Don Tanvas’ basement, the carpeted half in back, playing bumper pool and listening to Paper Lace—“The Night Chicago Died”—over and over and over.
Well, after I beat him five times––I’m not afraid to admit I was quite the bumper pool shark--––Don Tanvas dragged out the board games. Monopoly, of course. And quickly chose The Car.
[Now, just one other quick side note: It’s always a guy like Don Tanvas––and I mean that in the literal sense, because it seems to break down quite clearly right along gender lines––it’s always a guy like Don Tanvas who insists on picking The Car––never, ever The Top Hat and certainly not The Thimble. And these are the very same guys who always accuse Miss Scarlet because they think she’s a total babe and how titillating it is to imagine this hot little sexpot whacking Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe in the drawing room. And these are the very same guys who--––when playing Operation––try to extract the you know what and then twitter like little school girls whenever the buzzer goes off and the fat guy’s nose lights up. And these are the very same guys who guy to Fringe Festival shows just to get a free beer!]
OK. So–––– I, of course, chose The Iron, having always been quite comfortable with the gender identity to which I’ve been assigned. And things are going just great. I’ve got Baltic and two of the railroads, eight hundred dollars in cash, I’ve won the Beauty Contest, and I own Marvin Gardens, Kentucky and Ventnor.
I am kicking ass.
And then suddenly, Bam! It happens. Don Tanvas lands on Free Parking.
Well, if you learn nothing else about me, please remember this: I’m a stickler for the rules. I don’t believe in ghost gunners, four-foul-outs or do-overs. If a game is at all worth playing, it’s worth playing correctly. Fairly. By the rules.
By the rules as they were written and/or amended by whichever governing body maintains jurisdiction over the game as it is supposed to be played in both professional and amateur ranks. That’s just the way I am.
I’m competitive, but fair.
And so I emphatically told Don Tanvas that in the Parker Brothers board game known as Monopoly there is clearly NO cash bonus for landing on Free Parking.
“Granted,” I conceded, “it’s an enduring––and perhaps endearing––perennial urban myth, but a contrivance nonetheless. There is nothing in the rules, at least as they are published, that specifies such payments, bonuses or awards. ‘Free Parking’ is simply that––a free place to park your car. Or Thimble or Top Hat, or….”
And he gave me the first in a series looks that quite clearly communicated his complete and total displeasure with everything I’d just iterated.
“Oh, sure,” I politely continued, “it’s a common––perhaps prevailing––extension of the rules as they are practiced by children all over the world, North America in particular, BUT––how can I simply explain this?––the ‘cash bonus rule’ as it is commonly understood is a thoroughly fictitious, thoroughly fabricated, quaint, folksy, homespun, completely non-binding rule.
“In short, it doesn’t exist.”
And the aforementioned Don Tanvas balled up even tighter the sweaty fist of his right hand, perfumed, as I would later recall, with the rank yet slightly appealing, sharp metallic tang of rusty monkey bars and socked me in the mouth, clutching tightly all the while the two hundred and fifty-five dollars in fines and other cash monies I’m sure he has yet to relinquish even to this day.
Donald Roger Tanvas. Flouter––(not flaunter, I looked it up to make sure)––flouter of the rules and typical cul de sac dweller.
Trust me, it’s important.
See: as I said a few moments ago, there’s this asphalt cul de sac a block and a half from my house. (It’s the mis en scene of my story.)
And the kids play kickball there.
And of these cul de sac dwellers who gather nightly for kickball, the most notorious of the bunch is a trio of raven-haired sisters whom we’ll call Brenda, Becky and Bridget––ages seven, nine and eleven.
Well, Becky is the middle sister (with all the requisite emotional baggage such birth order implies) and she’s always one of the captains.
The captain who always picks first.
And, since I am in fact an adult grown male of the species, I’m always stuck on the team with all the little kids who couldn’t kick the ball out of the infield if it were served on a silver platter. (Which, in the minds of some, begs the rather obvious question, “Who in hell would serve ‘kickball’ on a silver platter?” Certainly not Sherlock Holmes. Unless perhaps it was roasted, topped with mashed potatoes and baked in a pastry shell.)
BUT, I fear I may have digressed.
Back to little Becky and her gang of hooligan kickball friends. Hooligan kickball thugs who rig the game every night by stacking the teams in their favor, bending the rules to their will––“No bunting, I called it!”––and repeatedly kicking the ball well up over the heads of their five and six year old foes who stare in awestruck amazement as kick after kick after kick sails up into the ether before landing several zip codes away.
I exaggerate, of course, to underscore the point.
BUT, until you’ve stood in my shoes, eaten by mosquitoes in the dead brown grass of right center or baking in the hot humid sunshine on the asphalt pitcher’s mound––NOT TO EVEN MENTION--––been charged with the lonely task of guarding the line at third in the shadow the electrical pole that buzzes when it rains like a swarm of manic cicadas, I’d ask you not to judge me.
You don’t know what I’ve been through.
You can’t even imagine what it’s like to be held hostage by little Becky Miller and her fiendish kickball pals as they bat––or rather kick––around and around the order, in a merciless and unrelenting, seemingly eternal two-out rally
Which wouldn’t even be so bad if it weren’t typically the top of the first.
Becky having insisted, of course, that her team get first ups.
Such is the competitive nature of Rebecca Sue Ann Miller.
Yes, you heard me correctly, the child has two middle names. Yet another of her dubious traits. On top of cul de sac dweller and being the middle child (with all the requisite emotional baggage such birth order implies).
But, I fear once again I’ve digressed.
So: the mis en scene is the cul de sac, the antagonist is one Becky Miller, the time of day is early evening, time of year, dog days of July and I, quite obviously, am the tragi-comedic hero.
Without all the flaws, of course.
Well, as our little drama begins, one of Becky’s devilish kickball cohorts––heavily recruited, I might add, from several blocks away after a lengthy and emotionally draining off-season negotiation consummated in the eleventh hour with the late-night delivery of two large bags of Twizzlers and a cold 12 pack of Mountain Dew––has just kicked the ball high off a tree in right-center. It then glanced off the back windshield of Mrs. DeYoung’s Chevy Nova, which seemingly turbo-charged it, before it shot on off down the block, where I can only just make it out as a distant yellow speck.
One of my three grade school teammates immediately up and quits after a clear and very concise resignation speech which I’ll now quote now in it’s entirety––“Dude, this totally sucks,”––and of the remaining two, one is sitting down between first and second base, unfazed by all the commotion, trying to pull a wad of bright purple chewing gum from the bottom of her shoe and the other is out in left field weaving a dandelion chain.
I alone must go get the ball.
And as I make my way back from several counties away, I decide to call time-out, gather my remaining troops together and strategize our next play. Becky’s coming up, and this time we’re gonna get her.
I’ve been studying her all summer, I’ve charted her tendencies, and I know with an outside pitch she’ll kick it between the tree and car, onto the Settergren’s driveway.
Yes, the time has come to put all my eggs in one basket and go for broke.
So, I line up my two fielders in the “hot zone” of right center field and tell them both very clearly, “As soon as I pitch the ball, I’m running straight to the outfield. Throw the ball to me. I can get her out.”
I pitch the ball outside and Becky takes the bait. Wham! She kicks it hard, high up over my head, but it stays in front of my fielders, one of whom happens to snag it right on the very first bounce. Ugggh. She throws it to me. And like Willie Mays or Kirby, maybe Torii Hunter, in one smooth, fluid motion, I wheel and fire it home as Becky streaks down the line.
Sssst. The ball skips once, just in front of the mound and hits her in full stride, squarely striking her heel.
Yes! I finally got her out!
Whoooo-hooooo!
Yes!
BUT, as Mr. Malinowski, my high school physics teacher, would hasten to remind us, “An object in motion, tends to stay in motion.” It’s the principle known as inertia, what we commonly call ‘momentum.’ An unbending physical law.
And so, as the bright yellow kickball struck the heel of her front foot, it wedged for the briefest of instants between both of her feet, and Becky Miller’s legs stopped moving. The torso they carried, however, tended to stay in motion.
She hurtled through the air, a full ten or fifteen feet, arcing gracefully, before suddenly slamming down on the heels of her outstretched hands directly on the pink chalk diamond that represented home.
(A run, by the way, that’s disputed, even to this day. Though, needless to say, she was out.)
A pastel pink chalk diamond colored on hard, rough asphalt sprinkled with bits of sharp gravel. A regular shredding machine.
Wham! A screen door slammed shut and the ever attentive Mrs. Miller was at her daughter’s now motionless side before I’d even taken one step, consoling her precious baby whose elbows, hands and knees were glistening brilliant red.
The red of an ambulance siren that, thank God, never had to be summoned.
I felt like a major-league jerk. A complete and total moron. What the hell was I thinking? Jesus, it was only a game. A kickball game at that. Played by little kids. It was just supposed to be fun, not all-out, full-contact war.
Two or three weeks later I “got back on the horse” and sheepishly returned from my self-imposed kickball exile.
Back to the cul de sac.
And the whole thing happened again! In the top of the second inning with two outs and a runner on first when I gunned-down Bridget Miller, the youngest of the three, when she foolishly tried to advance on a blistering one-hop grounder. (A rookie base running error, you really must admit.)
Exactly like her sister, the ball wedged for the briefest of instants between her right foot and left and she hurtled through the air, a full eight or ten or twelve feet––not as far as Becky, but pretty far nonetheless.
Another disastrous, bloody mess.
I’m not kidding about this! I wish I was making it up. But I’m not! This mess actually happened. To me. In my neighborhood.
Which, in the minds of some begs a series of rather obvious questions: Hey, you frickin’ dumb-ass, why don’t just you lighten up? And if you’re gonna play kickball on a hard asphalt cul de sac with a bunch of little kids, why don’t you ‘take it down a notch,’ you overweight, out of shape moron? And how many more innocent children do you feel compelled to maim before you finally learn your lesson, you heartless bastard?
All very excellent questions.
To which I can only respond, summer’s running out and there’s still one sister left.
