Black Eyed Susan, Joseph Devon [the giving tree read aloud .TXT] 📗

because I wanted to. At the beach the entire town was mine at night. Back north I'd be crazy to go wandering around at night and even if I did the only thing I'd have for company would be crickets. But more than anything else there had been this girl. And I had zero control over whether I'd see her again. It kind of got to me. Summer wasn't ever held lightly in my mind again. That was the first of many times that your mother forced me to grow up.

That fall came and I went back to Michigan and the school year went by and summer came and I never really thought about it. I'm not even sure if I was officially asked, I just wound up heading back to New Jersey when school was out. I think my parents thought it was a good enough deal. They were already having some problems and without Nonna there anymore to take care of me I think my cousin's house on the coast seemed like as good a spot as any to stick me for the summer. It certainly wasn't because of any great love between me and my cousin. We weren't really very good friends at that point. I think she saw me as sort of foisted off on her and getting in the way of her summers. Which was a fair enough judgment. But she could have been nicer. It's pretty amazing that she wound up as my Maid of Honor. Time does strange things. Your lovable jack-ass of a father would mention something about magic in here.

You know if you took a group of fifty strangers, had them chat with your father for half an hour then with me for half an hour, then told them that one of us was an English Professor and one of us was head of distribution in the northeast for a large soft drink manufacturing concern, I'm pretty sure all fifty would peg your father as the English Professor and me as the head of distribution. He's honestly so good at what he does that I can almost allow him to claim it's magic except that it'd be nice if he took credit for some of the things he's done with his life. Of course he has this idea that he deserves credit for all sorts of things that he had no control over. Like our first kiss.

She was there the next summer. But I was no longer the beer man. The powers that be had decided that I needed a job so I was now the ice-cream man in the corner ice-cream parlor. Some other guy had an older brother in town that summer so he had an easy pipeline to beer. I wasn't going to try competing with that. I knew it was time to step aside and pass that particular hat along.

But this did cause some problems. Mainly because there was this girl. Being the ice-cream man didn't exactly put me at the center of many conversations. When we'd congregate on the beach I'd be close to the beer man, I'd sit next to him, but I wasn't him, so any talking I did to people had to come from me. Fair enough. This obviously didn't cause any problems with friends and various other girls but with your mother...

She had been sitting in the back of my skull for the entire school year, and while she was back there she must have crossed any number of wires and laid down any amount of powerful voodoo because when I saw her in person again I was unable look at her and speak at the same time. There was too much pressure. Not only had she been in the back of my head all year, but when she first saw me she smiled. A real smile. Just for me. My brain fried instantly and I couldn't get a word out when she was around and we were out with the group. So I got to thinking. All I really needed was a little time alone with her, without her cousin hanging around or any other boys nearby.

Now, I already mentioned that where you chose to congregate for the night could affect things drastically, and that spot was always decided by where the beer was. Your mother never seemed able to understand that. But it's the truth.

So I figured that if I were to control where and when the beer showed up one night I could control the outcome of said night. The right place and the right time and the cops were bound to show up and that was bound to make people scatter. And if it was close enough to your mother's curfew the she wouldn't bother to come back out, she'd just head back to her cousin's house for the night. Your mother never broke curfew. You shouldn't break curfew either. Also, don't drink beer.

Your father claims that he masterminded the whole thing and that he knew when the police would show up and that everyone would run. If you listen to him talk you'd almost believe that he could control something like that. And then he supposedly knew that I would be out back behind my cousin's house. They were on the bay side of the island and it was nice at night to sit on the dock along the water. The bay was much calmer than the ocean. The sound the water makes lapping against the pilings still relaxes me whenever I hear it.

Your father claims that he knew I would be out back behind the house all alone and that he ran from the police in just such a way so that he'd stumble onto me. But that's outrageous. There was absolutely no way he could know something like that. A lot of nights I would just come home and go to bed. It's not like I was out there every night.

Your mother smoked back then. Not a lot, just one at the end of the every night. It was common knowledge if you kept your ears open. She would talk about how much she loved it with the other smokers and then they'd discuss various ways to make sure their parents couldn't smell it on them. One girl, her mother made her come in, wake her up and kiss her goodnight. Supposedly this was to make sure she was safe but we all knew it was so her mother could smell her breath. So the girl would always keep a bottle of mouthwash outside and would rinse her mouth before she went inside. Although you should keep in mind that your parents are always smarter than you are so I'm sure her parents saw right through that.

So I knew your mother would be behind the house because I knew her aunt and uncle's window was in the front of the house and I knew if the beer was at the playground on the bay then everything would fall into place. The only problem was that one kid decided to follow right behind me when the red and blue lights flashed on the sand. Kept right behind me as we snuck along the lagoon from dock to dock behind everyone's house. I figured he would break off at one point and head for his own house but we were getting closer and closer and eventually I had to take drastic measures. So I pushed him into the bay. Then I crept off along the docks and pilings and pretended like I was still running willy-nilly with no plan at all when I happened to stumble onto your mother. I was so nervous to be with her I was shaking and of course at first I couldn't speak.

Also, don't smoke.

He still pretends like he had it all worked out but he was still shaking when he showed up on the dock that night and he was so nervous from having to run from the police that he could barely speak.

Your father was really rattled, but he came and he sat down next to me and he smiled. I've always said that if your father's smile wasn't cute none of this would have happened. But it was cute. Very cute. I had always known that and some part of me was happy that this boy I always sort of liked was sitting next to me. And eventually he stopped shaking and we chatted for a long time and then we kissed. I don't think I need to go into details. I do remember that at one point after our kiss he turned around and lay back against my shoulder and it was very sweet but there was sand everywhere. I remember trying to run my fingers through his hair and brush it out but your father was perpetually covered in sand. That was something I could do nothing about. But that was our first kiss. It was a very proper kiss.

So your mother and I made out for awhile. Making out is fun, you have my blessing to make out all you want. The odd thing was, making out with your mother wasn't the best part, it was when she got tired of all the sand in my hair that kept falling in her face and she forced me to lay down on her lap and she ran her fingers through my hair over and over and over again trying to brush it out. If I had known she was going to do that I would have spent the entire previous day dumping sand into my hair. That was probably the best half hour of my life.

And that was it, really. For the rest of that summer and the summer after your father and I were a beach couple. The funny thing is, it wasn't supposed to be your father. I've never told him this but there was another boy I had been seeing here and there. His name was Frank Doogan. Frankie, he was known as, but he hated that. Frankie and I had kissed for the first time a few weeks before when someone had decided to play spin the bottle, which is a very mature game that you shouldn't play until you're twenty-seven. So Frank Doogan and I had kissed once or twice before your father found me on the dock and if things had progressed from there than Frankie probably would have been my summer boyfriend. I liked your father, mind you, he had that smile, but he hadn't spoken to me all summer and Frankie was nice. Your father got lucky showing up like that.

Did I know about Frankie Doogan? Of course I knew about Frankie Doogan. Why do you think I pushed him into the bay that night?

Of course karma paid me back after your mother broke my heart.

You have to understand this was just a summer thing. You'd spend three months of the year off in this fairytale land where you barely had any responsibilities, you had no tests and no worries about what college you were getting into and none of that mattered. It was just the summer and it was just supposed to be fun. Of course we exchanged numbers at the end of the summer and of course we would talk on the phone every now and then but that was supposed to be it. It was supposed to fade out after that. My real life was back home in Michigan. Your father was just from the beach.

And then I didn't go back to Jersey the next summer and any fool could see that your father and I were very nice together but that it wasn't for real. Naturally your father isn't just any fool. That was when he