The Boys' Club

I remember that last summer in yellow – not a sunny yellow, but the pale yellow of twilight. It’s the yellow of a Nuprin commercial, where the background is mostly black and white. It’s a jaundiced yellow - one that says there is something inescapable looming in the distance.

I was seven and had two friends: my brother and the neighborhood kid that lived down the street, Patrick H. Since my two best friends were boys, we spent many a free afternoon doing boy things outside: played with Matchbox cars, staged massive ninja fights, threw Frisbees, pretended we were perishing in a swamp of boiling hot lava, poured salt on slugs… It never occurred to me that other little girls had girl best friends or how that might be different. The few girl friends I had were not half as exciting as my big brother and Patrick H.

Patrick lived in a small house with his parents and a Dalmatian called Lucky. His attic was haunted – I knew, and feared. Across the street from Pat’s was a three-story white house with fake geese in the yard, the residents of which no one had ever seen. The only evidence that it was inhabited came to us from a window on the top floor which overlooked our yard. Awakened by our hooting and hollering, a hand occasionally emerged from the darkness within to separate the white curtains hanging in the window. The burn of invisible eyes peering down on us from above was enough to provoke a quick retreat to the house, even if the only thing to do was watch the Love Shack video on MTV.

The three of us passed most of the time at our house. This was in part because of Patrick’s haunted attic. It was also due to his proximity to the white house with fake geese which, I swear, moved when you weren’t looking. Since we lived at the end of Dow Street, we also had a paved, open turnaround for a driveway. The turnaround: a vast, deserted track for the Bicycle Grand Prix (training wheels permitted, to my utter relief).

One especially hot summer day, Patrick suggested that we turn the Bicycle Grand Prix into a new game. Patrick was older and towered over both of us so it made sense that he made up the games (although Boiling Hot Lava sprung from my brother’s brilliance). I regarded Patrick with the awe one reserves for celebrities: he was, after all, a middle-schooler and I, a mere mortal in the 3rd grade, armed with over-sized pink glasses and an eye-patch. I remember desperately seeking Patrick’s approval. Mostly, however, I just felt left out from the Boy’s Club of which I was both an Integral Member and Founder.

According to Patrick, Spit Wars went like this: ride as fast as humanly possible without crashing and as soon as your opponents are in view, hawk the biggest loogy imaginable on your opponent. By the end of the game, whoever is wettest loses. I was intrigued – the genius!

The pavement was hot and gummy beneath our bike tires. I gripped the handlebars of my pink Huffy. Its tassels began to sway in the wind as I peddled. My training wheels clicked on the road, then spun in midair on the release. We drove in circles, picking up speed second by whirring second. Now with training wheels barely grazing the ground, the scenery blurred to a frenetic green, the pink smear of my bike tassels horizontal in the wind. I saw Patrick approaching in the distance, eyes focused on me. A duel was coming my way, and fast. I swallowed hard, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. As he drew closer, Patrick’s mouth shaped a round ‘oh’ and the muscles in his neck contracted, head tilting back and then forward again. As if in slow motion, the wet, hot lump that burst from his lips came closer, and closer, growing bigger and bigger with each passing moment, until it finally struck my left cheek with the force of a jet engine – a hit! I cringed from the impact, then zoomed around again, screaming with anticipation.

This went on for what seemed like hours. By twilight, I was a soppy sponge, a yellow-spotted jellyfish, a walking ectoplasm. My Mother must have cried in panic at the creature that replaced me. By far the wettest, I had lost miserably. Disembarking from my steed, the smell of other people’s saliva and the sticky sloshing of my clothes made me queasy. I gingerly shuffled back to the house in the dying sunlight, and tried to keep my clothes from suctioning to my skin. This is what defeat felt like: sticky, smelly… inevitable.

Grasping my pink Huffy bike by my side, I cursed my femaleness. Integral Member and Founder of the Boy’s Club, yes, but equal? Never! The missing ingredient to my Membership, found! I wept mercilessly. The insurmountable problem of gender had finally revealed itself: I was, in fact, a girl.

And I hadn’t enjoyed Spit Wars. Not one bit. I didn’t like being covered in other people’s spit, and I definitely didn’t like losing. I wondered how these boys would fare at girl games. The unfairness of it all made my belly hurt.

I stopped at the steps before our front door and glanced back. The remaining Members of the Boys Club had moved on down the street. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the plastic garden geese in the yard across from Patrick’s house. They had moved – I knew it. No, something else had moved – the curtains in that third story window.

I squinted. Was that a hand? I noticed my heartbeat – it pumped harder now. I stood alone in the twilight, and the being in the darkness had been watching me. I swallowed. I ran the back of my hand across my cheeks to wipe away the streaks from my tears. I pushed the kickstand to the ground, and let the head of the Huffy lean to one side.

With cautious steps, I ventured to the middle of the lawn and stopped, eyes lowered. Could I really do it? I asked myself. Could I look back? What would happen if it saw me looking? Would it kill me?

With great poise, I lifted my chin, my eyes, my spirit, and confronted the being in the darkness. I wondered if she’d forgive me.