Dancing Barefoot (2 page)

I stand in the kitchen making dinner, and listen through the open window to my stepkids
playing whiffle ball in our front yard. They're actually playing nicely together, not being
overly competitive. It's a rarity these days, and I enjoy hearing them have fun together. It
takes me back to simpler, happier times.

Nolan stands over a patch of dirt which represents home plate, while Ryan hurls the ball
toward him.

Ryan always tries to throw the ball too hard (and usually has trouble finding the strike
zone,) so Nolan just sits there, letting the ball bounce off the house behind him.

Nolan comes in for a drink of water and I tell him, “It sounds like you guys are having a
great time out there. Tell you what: you keep up this good attitude and I'll come out and play
with you.”

Nolan does a little hop and says, “COOL!” before he runs back outside. I hear him tell
Ryan, “Wil says he'll come play with us!”

They're both excited to play with me . . . that's cool. I've been really busy these past
few weeks, finishing up my first book,
Just A Geek
, so I haven't been
able to spend very much time with my family, at all. The kids are getting to that age where
they want to hang out one minute, and the next minute I'm so incredibly uncool they can't even
stand to be in the same room as me. Hearing the genuine excitement in their voices makes my
heart swell.

Dinner is really easy tonight: It's a curried-tofu-with-rice dish. I put the rice into the
rice cooker, cut the tofu into cubes and put them in the pan. I dump a bunch of curry over
them, ask Anne to keep an eye on the stove, and race out to play.

I'm a 30 year-old stepfather, and I'm racing through my “chores” to go play outside. I
smile.

When I get there, one of Ryan's friends (who is also named Ryan) has come over to play, so
we immediately separate into teams: Nolan and me against the Ryans.

Nolan steps back up to the plate and Ryan proceeds to walk him. He then walks me, then
Nolan again and we quickly load the bases with ghost runners. The sun is rapidly sinking into
the mountains to the west and the ball is getting hard to see, so I suggest that we call the
game so the Ryans can have a few at-bats. Nolan agrees. We send our ghost runners back down to
Triple-A, and take our outfield positions on the grass and in the street.

Nolan pitches a few balls to Ryan, but it's really too dark to play any longer. Like every
other time we've had to call a game on account of darkness, I resolve to install lights over
our front lawn so we can play at night, local building codes and my wife's desire for a normal
suburban house be damned.

We've been having fun, though, and like the only child who finally has someone to play
with, I don't want to go back inside – back to being a grown up – so I suggest that we play
hide and seek.

They all excitedly agree and I'm “It.”

We quickly define the boundaries and “Safe.” I close my eyes and count to 100 by
fives.

As the numbers fall from my mouth, the world slows and I hear my own voice, 21 years
distant, calling out the same numbers. I'm nine years-old, head buried in my arms as I stand
at the light pole on our street which was “Safe.” Boston plays on my parent's Technics
turntable, while my dad cooks fish on the Webber Kettle in the back yard. I can smell the
smoke as it drifts over the house and hangs in our yard in the still summer evening.

5 . . . 10 . . . 15 . . . 20 . . . 25 . . . 30 . . .

I'm ten years old and I run like crazy, trying to evade Joey Carnes. It is summer, hot and
smoggy. My lungs burn with each breath.

35 . . . 40 . . . 45 . . . 50 . . . 55 . . . 60 . . .

I'm 11 years old and I can hear the stomp, stomp, stomp of my feet hitting the ground as I
look for a hiding place. It's springtime and the grass is cool and damp beneath me.

65 . . . 70 . . . 75 . . . 80 . . . 85 . . . 90 . . .

I'm 12 years old, crouched down behind the side gate, my arm just barely touching the arm
of the girl I have a crush on as we hide together. While we listen to the kid counting, I try
and fail to screw up the courage to hold her hand. In middle school, she'll break my heart
over and over again.

95 . . . 100! Ready or not, here I come!

I open my eyes and I'm back on my street. The kids are well hidden. Lost in my memories, I
didn't think to listen for their footfalls, so I have no idea where they may be.

I walk slowly around a hedge and see Ryan begin to run across the street, toward “Safe.” I
run at him, hoping to cut him off, but he's too fast for me. During my pursuit of him, his
friend has made it to “Safe,” leaving only Nolan undiscovered.

I walk down our street, toward our neighbor's house. I see Nolan racing across the front
yard next door. I give chase and we both run straight through the heavy spray of several Rain
Bird sprinklers. Nolan runs very, very fast, but ends up going Out Of Bounds. We return to
“Safe,” laughing, wiping the water from our faces.

Nolan is “It” and begins to count. I run across the street, and hide behind a tree. When I
was a kid, I never hid behind trees, preferring cars and fences, with their clever ways to
spot an approaching “It” . . . but I know that if I stand still in the October darkness, he'll
never see me. I'm wearing a black “Ataris” T-shirt and long olive shorts . . . I'm practically
invisible.

Nolan finishes his count and the chase is on. It is several tries before he catches
someone, but his attitude never sours. We are all having a great time playing together, being
kids.

Finally, I am just too wiped out to play any more and I head back inside. Anne asks me to
drive Ryan's friend home, and on the way to the car, Ryan's friend tells him, “Your house is
so much fun! You're really lucky that your stepdad plays with you.”

Ryan agrees, but warns him that we don't always play like that . . . Ryan tells him that
I've been writing a lot, so I spend a lot of time at my desk. It's the first time in months
that I've played with them like that, he says.

He's right. Most of the time these days, I have to be a grown up and I can't play very
much.

But for an hour or so tonight, I got to be a kid again, and while I appreciated the
sentiment from Ryan's friend, he didn't quite have it right.

There was a lucky guy out there playing . . . but it wasn't Ryan.

A violent brushfire burned out of control, just a few miles from my house. The air was
thick with smoke, and the sun cast a blood-red pall over the earth. As I walked to my car,
thick snow flurries of ash swirled around me in heavy clumps.

I brushed the gathered ashes off my windshield, and drove to Studio City, where I had an
audition for “John Doe.”

The casting office, which was once a small one-bedroom apartment, is across the street
from the CBS studio. It sits at the top of an impossibly small stairwell which is always
cramped with too many actors. They sit on the steps, the air heavy with the scent of Altoids,
as they silently mouth their lines, and hope that this audition will be “The One.”

I stepped carefully around several other actors on my way to the sign-in sheet. As I
neared the first landing, I was passed by an AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL GIRL (probably reading for
the part of the AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL GIRL.) She wore a red dress. She moved in slow
motion.

As she passed me, I was engulfed in the intoxicating scent of her perfume, and hit full in
the face with a hypernostalgic memory from when I was about 15:

I'm with my best friend Darin. We've just seen a movie in Burbank and we're driving
back to his house in La Crescenta. We could take the freeway and be there in about 15
minutes, but we choose to take a more circuitous surface street route, knowing that it will
allow us to stay out longer, enjoying the perception of freedom that comes with the first
few months of passing one's first driving test.

We're listening to “The Queen is Dead” as we pull through the curves of this
particular street, talking about girls, comics, Nintendo and debating the merits of the
Light and Dark sides of The Force. We stop at a light and a girl pulls up next to us. I look
over, notice that she's insanely hot, and begin to get nervous. At 15, I'm convinced that
any girl I see is a potential trip to at least second base . . . though I haven't even had a
real at bat, yet.

Darin looks over and says, “Hey! That's Misty!”

“What?”

“That's Misty! I know her from school.”

Darin waves to her and we all get out of our cars, leaving them idling in the middle
of the street, in the middle of the night.

Darin introduces us, and I am immediately drawn to her. She is about my height, with
lots of thick blonde hair and bright green eyes that stand out from her face in the La
Crescenta night. She is funny and engaging, and our conversation is easy and effortless. She
is also wearing this amazing perfume, that gives me goosebumps . . . I realize with some
embarrassment that I have been inhaling deeply through my nose while she talks, drinking her
in.

We talk for a long time. Darin and I carefully avoid topics we've been discussing in
the car. Though we are nerds, we know that Cthulhu is just not discussed in the presence of
potential foolin' around.

A few cars pull up behind us, and we wave them around. We stand there, in the middle
of the street, and enjoy the freedom of being away from our parents' ever-watchful eyes,
while we talk to a beautiful girl. From within Darin's car, Morrissey entreats an unknown
driver to “take me out, tonight . . . take me anywhere I don't care I don't care I don't
care . . .”

Eventually, we begin the awkward process of saying goodbye . I try to find the
courage to ask Misty for her phone number.

“So, do you, uh, drive this way a lot?” I ask.

“Not really. I usually take the freeway. I guess I was just meant to run into you
guys tonight,” she says.

“Yeah, that's cool.” I say.

We look at each other.

“So, uh . . .” I lose my nerve.

“Would you like to go out sometime?” She asks.

I try to act nonchalant, but my voice breaks as I reply, “Sure!”

She digs around in her purse.

“Do you have something to write on? I only have this pen,” she says.

I dig through my pockets, but can't find anything.

“Darin, do you have anything to write on?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No, sorry.”

I can't believe this is happening to me. I'm going to lose this chance –
wait!

I reach into the backseat, and pull out my Car Wars Deluxe Edition Box Set. I lift
off the lid, and take out a 3x5 card with a vehicle description on one side.

I hand it to Misty.

“It's, uh, for a game,” I say, embarrassed.

She smiles, and writes her number on the card.

When she puts her pen back into her purse, she takes a bottle of perfume out and
sprays the card.

“So you won't forget me,” she says.

Yeah, like there is any chance of that happening.

We all get back into our cars, and I put the card where there is no chance of it
getting lost: right back into my game box.

Darin and I drive back to his house in an electrified, excited, stunned silence. I
have gotten a phone number from a beautiful blonde, without even asking.

I never got the courage to call her, though I kept the card in that box for years. I don't
know why, really . . . I know I was super geeky, and afraid that she'd want to make out or
something, and I wouldn't know what to do (I should be so lucky) . . . maybe I was content to
sit in the safety of my garage, listening to Oingo Boingo, happily considering what could have
been . . . maybe I was just a lame ass who didn't know what to do when the golden prize landed
in his lap.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the last one.

After my audition, I drove home toward this great ominous cloud of thick grey smoke, and
thought about that night and the months that surrounded it. I looked to my right, at the
bright blue September sky over downtown, and off to my left at the growing cloud of smoke
swirling around the mountains. I felt caught between the two worlds, and wondered whatever
happened to Misty, who signed her name with a heart over the
i
. I thought
about the way her perfume still permeates my Car Wars Deluxe Edition Box Set. I wondered if
she remembers standing in the middle of that road, in the middle of the night, 15 years
ago.