Tracklist:
Nightshift – The Commodores
Obsession – Animotion
Take On Me – A-ha
1985
Why Dean Hates Pool Parties
Frenchie Davis had the worst personality of any eighth grader––whiny, imperious, and full of quotes from People Magazine––but he was also rich and owned every game console. That meant you did everything in your power to be his friend.
Rich in Reagan-era southern Ohio meant a nice three-bedroom with a swimming pool, cars that were bought new and not from Uncle Joe, and enough money to take a vacation somewhere other than Myrtle Beach. Frenchie had all of that and more. Most importantly for a young Dean Cook, Frenchie received a weekly allowance of such large proportion that all boys in the eighth grade harbored fantasies that his family were fugitive mobsters or Russian spies. Frenchie strode into comic book shops and the video game sections of Sears like a Peer of the British Empire, blonde hair blowing back, spidery arms waving here and there to the boy-shaped minions clustering behind. Dean was a year older but frequently joined the pack. Frenchie had the personality of a six-year-old beauty queen but his shopping expeditions and weekend parties cleared away the boredom that frequently collected in the creeks and valleys along the Ohio River like thick morning fog. On some mornings as he walked through the mist to school, Dean wished that a squadron of bears would gallop down from the pine ridges and besiege his house or that space aliens would land and reveal his true identity as an interstellar explorer, the lost member of a sleeper cell from Proxima Centauri whose memories were locked in his DNA.
Frenchie had slept over at Dean’s the night before. Since the high school sat in the valley only a few corn fields from his house, they walked through the frost-covered grass along the state highway.
“Tomorrow’s your birthday, Dean-o,” Frenchie shouted, as school buses ground gears and zoomed by only feet away. “Let’s have the party at my place!”
“But my mom already––”
Frenchie turned red and threw his backpack across the asphalt, missing the tires of Bus #5 by inches. Dean thought that extremely fortunate, as the backpack contained four brand-new G.I. Joes still in the package, and Frenchie had promised him one of them.
“I don’t care what your mom said or did already!” shouted Frenchie. “It’s going to be ninety degrees tomorrow. How many of your friends have an in-ground pool with diving board and slide? Your birthdays are always depressing and strange, like a funeral where the dead are walking and talking to everyone.”
“My birthdays aren’t like a funeral!”
“Yes, they are. Your whole family sits around wringing their hands, waiting for something horrible like an earthquake or rat poison or the house to fall in. Everyone’s relieved when it finally happens, and they can get busy rounding up the animals or moving to the Red Cross shelter.”
“Fine, we’ll have it at your place. Maybe I’ll have better luck.”
“All of your relatives can come over,” said Frenchie. “It’s not like I’m stealing you away from them. We’re just changing the location. Also, I need the pool cleaned, so it would be great if you and Jerry Lewis can show up ahead of time.”
“That’s not his name.”
“Whatever you say, Dean-o.”
The change of locale for the party confused Dean’s mother, but a phone call to Anais––Frenchie’s mother––cleared everything up. Dean’s mother, Billie, even coordinated the party menu with Anais and which dress she should wear. When his father got home from work he accepted the situation with an exhausted nod. He spent the evening tinkering with his old Indian motorcycle and driving the gravel road to the bottom of the hill and back. Because of his appearance and mannerisms and partly because his father hated the show, Dean always thought of him as a grown-up Fonz from Happy Days. His mother encouraged that illusion with her girlish tendencies and the ability to find brand-new saddle shoes and skirts with poodles, even though it was 1985.
“This ain’t that bad,” said Mike, as he hand-scrubbed the concrete around Frenchie’s pool. “He’ll probably invite some girls. Do you think he’ll invite girls?”
Dean dropped his brush into the bucket of soapy water.
“Hope not.”
“Frenchie does know a lot of girls,” said Mike. “Gots the moneys, gots the honeys.”
“Stop talking like Don Johnson. Frenchie’s thirteen and the only reason the girls like him is because he looks like one. No muscles, no facial hair––no problem.”
“And there it is,” said Mike. “The sulfurous oil of jealousy beading on your skin.”
Dean wiped his forehead. Heat boiled up from a nearby field of dried cornstalks and waved lines through the yellow Mail Pouch letters on a barn.
“I’m not jealous. Let’s change the subject.”
“Is it because of last year’s birthday party? The nurse in the emergency room that made you pull down your shorts?”
“Don’t bring that up again.”
“Be proud that a woman has finally seen you naked. One that’s not a blood relative.”
A patio door squealed and Frenchie stepped outside with a grandiloquent wave of his arms.
“How’s the work, friends?”
“Almost done,” said Mike.
Frenchie shook his head. “Like my father says, almost only counts with lawn darts and small children. Don’t forget, he’s very particular about this pool. He qualified for the Olympics, after all.”
“That was the year he fought Doctor Doom,” said Mike. “Or was it the Red Skull? Probably Red Skull––now that I think of it, yes, Red Skull was the Nazi. To be clear, I’m not saying your father is old, I’m saying he’s an old superhero.”
Frenchie pouted. “Don’t you dare make fun! You’re lucky that I moved you onto the ‘approved for pool’ list. Father is very exacting and doesn’t allow every scrounging teenager who walks out of the holler to swim in it.”
“We know, Frenchie,” said Dean. “Thanks, Frenchie.”
“You’re welcome. Now hurry up and scrub the slide before the guests show up. You don’t want them to get meningitis or warts on their behinds, do you?”
Frenchie returned to the air-conditioned comfort of his house with a whoosh of glass-paneled door.
“Speaking of a wart on the behind, there goes one,” said Mike. “I wish your parents would get a pool.”
“My dad almost drowned when he was a kid. Put two and two together.”
Mike scrubbed the concrete harder. “Your dad almost dies from everything. I think that’s his superpower.”
“Almost dying? Everyone still living has that power, you idiot.”
“No. He gets into scrapes all the time. I’ve never heard anything like it. Remember the chainsaw and the bees? Then the next week rolling the tractor? And a week after that, rolling the tractor while holding a chainsaw and being chased by bees?”
“Could happen to anyone. If everyone’s got a superpower, what’s mine?”
Mike shrugged. “Invisibility. Only to women, though.”
“That’s funny. Maybe you should write that down. Then wad it up tight, throw it off a bridge, and jump after it.”
THE BIRTHDAY