PARTY sputtered to life and hummed along like a well-maintained John Deere pulling a Model 348 square baler. No planes fell from the sky, no sheriff appeared, and swarms of locusts were conspicuously absent. Dean’s mother and father arrived. At first his father stood apart from everyone, hands awkwardly in his pockets, but quickly joined the other adults in conversation. His mother, Billie, spun poodle-skirt pirouettes among the legions of Dean’s relatives. She seemed to have found happiness as a party organizer, thought Dean, while his father and Frenchie’s talked over motorcycles or the Olympics or whatever near-death experience had occurred recently and what injuries were sustained.
His stomach rumbled like a truck full of West Virginia anthracite, but Dean meandered at the edge of the pool, avoiding the buffet table. Given the nasty events of his past thirteen birthdays, he fully expected most of the party guests to break out with explosive diarrhea or for Supertrain to derail and crash through the house, even though the nearest railroad tracks were a mile away. He relaxed in the shallow end of the pool while squadrons of boys backflipped and cannonballed into the water.
The sound of teenage screams and children’s giggles competed with the raised voices of adults to create an unbearable stew of noise. Dean clutched his glasses in one hand and submerged in the chlorine-blue water. His ears filled with liquid, and in the midst of all the chaos, he felt at peace, like a lonely survivor of a torpedoed cruiser in the middle of the Pacific. A glow of hope filled his chest (or was it the need to breathe?) that this birthday would be different. He rose back to the noise of the surface, flicked beads of water from the lenses of his eyeglasses, and slid them on his nose. It was at this point that he saw her.
Surprise requires a confluence of events, what scientists call “a hyper-emotional lack of expectation.” Dean was at that particular lack when he saw the new girl take off her top.
Since the dawn of human society we have known, even subconsciously, that true beauty must be real, natural, and without artifice. Most women will rate the viewing of one of these as the most beautiful in life: a mother holding an infant, a son leaning over his dying father’s bed, or a billionaire on one knee with a diamond big enough to plow furrows. Given enough time and money, scientists will assert that male brains see the world in a different light. These scientists would propose that young Dean Cook had just experienced the third most touching sight for a man: Girl Taking Off Polo Shirt (Method #2 Cross-Arm).
If you bothered them again on their lunch break, these scientists would emphasize that Method #2 must be distinguished from Girl Taking Off Polo Shirt While Trying Not to Smear Her Makeup (Method #3 One Arm At A Time). The subject pulls one arm inside the shirt, then the other, before lifting the material over her head. The males in this study who viewed Method #3 quickly lost interest and returned to a race displayed on a nearby monitor, even though it was Sears Point and from last year.
Dean watched as the girl crossed arms and gripped the sides of her sea-green polo at the bottom hem. With a swift motion, she arched her back and pulled it over her chest and her wavy brown curls, exposing a yellow bikini top. She was tall, tanned, and could have been anywhere from fifteen to twenty.
Dean had little time to consider who she was, because the young lady quickly moved into the second most touching sight for a male: Removing A Denim Miniskirt (Method #1 Flexion). His heart jumped a rapid cha-cha of palpitations, the same phenomenon that a dozen male scientists noted during their exhaustive observations of models hired from the pages of Sports Illustrated.
The girl unfastened the top button of her denim skirt with both hands, unzipped, and bent forward as she stepped out one leg at a time, revealing a modest yellow bikini bottom.
The noise of splashing children around Dean disappeared. His jaw weakened and dropped. He couldn’t feel his legs, although they were obviously still there and kept him from drowning in three feet of water.
The girl turned and smiled at Dean or someone behind him, then a broad, hairy chest blocked her from view. Dean looked up at the red face of a very angry and very muscular male.
He grabbed Dean’s jaw in one large and calloused hand.
“What are you looking at, nosy penguin?”
“Nothing, sir!” said Dean, an ejaculation that was mostly unclear because his lips were being squeezed sideways like a coin purse.
“Are you calling my daughter nothing?”
“Mo shir! Mee’s ... mery mice shir!”
The man squeezed Dean’s jaw harder. “Nice? That’s what you call a pound of ground beef. Are you calling my daughter ground beef?”
“Mo shir! Mery mootiful shir!”
The man leaned in close and Dean smelled malt liquor.
“You keep your disgusting hands off her,” the man whispered. “If you rape her with your eyes again, I’ll rip them out and use your skull as a bowling ball!”
“Mesh shir!”
The man let go of Dean and splashed to the edge of the pool.
Dean rubbed his jaw, then moved to the opposite end of the pool and climbed out. Mike was near the barbecue, chatting it up with Dean’s mother.
“What’s up, Dean?”
His mother smiled. “Having a nice party?”
“I need to talk to Mike for a second.”
“Sure, dear. I’ll check on the cake.”
His mother walked away and Dean huddled with Mike.
“Why is your face red,” asked Mike. “You’re sunburned––that’s your birthday catastrophe, dude!”
“See the girl in the yellow bikini? Her father just threatened to kill me.”
Mike looked around the pool then sucked in his breath. “Dy-no-MITE!”
“Keep it down,” said Dean. “He’s going to kill us both!”
“That is one classy lady,” said Mike. “Let me tell you, I would do some nasty things to her, nasty like a Penthouse letter read out loud in a Bolivian women’s prison at the stroke of midnight.”
“Shut up!”
“Who’s that huge monster next to my future wife,” said Mike. “It’s like Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan had a hairy love child. He’s really red and angry, dude ... he’s looking right at us and doing something with his hands ... is that sign language or something ... wish he’d slow down, I’m always bad at charades ... squeezing something ... now he’s picking up a stick and breaking it. Do you think he means me? I’m pointing at my chest and he’s shaking his head. He’s pointing at you and smiling, dude.”
“Time to go,” said Dean.
“You can’t leave your own birthday party.”
“Watch me.”
Dean grabbed his gym bag from the lawn and ran into the house. He shut the bathroom door behind him and turned the lock.
The thin plywood of the door rattled just as his swim trunks plopped wetly on the floor.
“Someone in here,” he yelled.
The plywood shook like roofing tin in a hurricane. Dean made the wise choice to pull his wet trunks up as the framing cracked around the door and burst inside. The girl’s huge father stood there, jaw clenched and the tendons on his neck standing out.
He pointed a finger. “Listen to me––I am Ludovico Ariosto. I don’t need to know your name, and you only need to know mine. If you say anything or scream like a little baby penguin, I’ll kill you with these hands, hands that were disqualified from the 1980 Ohio amateur weightlifting championships because of little baby penguin judges and their very specific rules on outfits. Now move.”
“Move where?”
“Into the trees behind the house. Don’t look at anything and don’t say anything.”
Dean hoped that someone would notice as the massive Ludovico prodded him across the backyard, but everyone had crowded together in a tight circle full of giggles and shouted questions. Probably Frenchie showing off his latest model airplane or something, thought Dean.
Inside the pine forest, Ludovico twisted Dean’s arm behind his back.
“Hey!”
“Shut up and k
eep going,” said the gruff voice behind him.
Dean went over possible scenarios. All the fighting moves he knew were from television, unfortunately. If he grabbed a fistful of dirt or pine needles from the ground he could perform Shatner #3: Throw Stuff in Eyes. He would just run at that point, because this guy was huge enough to shake off Shatner #2: Rabbit Punch Across Shoulders, or Shatner #1: Knife Hand To Neck.
One fact that might work in his favor was that the forest behind Frenchie’s house was a state forest. Maybe he could escape and find a park ranger.
After five minutes of walking up a steep slope covered in fallen leaves of all the golden, red, and brown shades of autumn, Ludovico’s strong hand pulled Dean to a stop.
“Take off your shorts.”
“I’m not doing it,” said Dean, finding a reservoir of nervous bravery. “You’re sick.”
“Do you think I’m a pervert, you stupid crazy mouse? A pervert would push you to the ground and do whatever he wanted. I’m bad, but not that bad.”
Dean sighed and used one hand to disrobe (Removing Damp Swim Trunks With Shame, Method #2: Bending at Knees).
“Happy?”
“Put the shorts over your head,” said Ludovico.
“The what?”
“Just do it. I don’t have all day.”
Dean picked up his swim trunks covered with brown pine needles and slipped it over his head, effectively blindfolding himself.
“Keep walking,” said Ludovico, still holding Dean’s arm behind his back.
Dean quickly lost all sense of direction. He walked for what felt like hours, but was probably only another thirty minutes, twisting and turning through the forest, over painfully dead branches and rocks, up and over the crest of ridges.
“My daughter is the most precious thing in the world to me,” said Ludovico as he pushed Dean through the sharp brambles.
“I understand, sir.”
“You understand nothing!” shouted Ludovico. “She’s the first daughter in my family for seven generations! My wife had three boys before her. All the time chasing them through the house, listening to their yelling, breaking my toes on their guns and rocket launchers left on the floor. It makes me as sick as a dog. I see the families with their girls learning how to sew, playing nice with each other, wearing beautiful dresses. That is the family I want!”
“Yes, sir.”
“So when disgusting little penguins like you swarm around my beautiful daughter with your mouths open, it makes me want to kill something. Usually, it is that person looking at my daughter. And here we are.”
Dean smelled water and his bare feet squished in mud. The sunlight blinded him as Ludovico pulled the shorts off his head. The pair stood at the edge of a small pond surrounded by pine trees.
“You have one minute,” said Ludovico. “Before I drown you like a little baby aardvark.”
Dean held his hands over his naked crotch. “Why not just smack me around a bit and let me go? I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Learned what lesson? My daughter will never forget how you raped her with your eyes. What’s even more important, I will never forget it. Also, hitting leaves a mark.”
“You’ll probably still go to jail, you know that,” said Dean, shivering.
Ludovico shrugged his broad and hairy shoulders. “Always a sixth time for everything. Fifty-nine, fifty-eight ...”
After a dozen steps, Dean found that covering his crotch slowed him down, so he let go and sprinted across a clearing and into a copse of red-leafed maples that eventually led to a deep ravine in the forest. He splashed through a brook and climbed slick rocks as the ravine ascended to a ridge. At the top Dean followed an old logging road along the top of the ridge for at least a mile, stopping every few minutes to catch his breath. He neither saw nor heard any sign of pursuit from Ludovico, and began to be more concerned about finding his way out of the state forest and back to civilization. Without any clothing he’d freeze during the night and decided the embarrassment of being found naked ranked lower than the embarrassment of being found naked and dead.
After following a logging road that descended in curves from the high ridge, Dean saw a cabin through the branches of the autumn trees. Built of rough-hewn logs with white material filling the chinks, the building was too small to hold more than one bedroom.
“Must be a hunter’s cabin,” whispered Dean to himself, instantly disturbed that he was starting to whisper to himself.
No vehicles were parked nearby, not even a 4-wheeler, although a ring of campfire stones lay in front of the cabin and chains for stringing up deer dangled from a nearby oak tree.
Dean looked in the windows and saw a pair of empty beds. He tapped one finger on the glass and listened. Nothing. He tapped louder. Still nothing.
The weather-beaten front door didn’t budge, but Dean found a tiny window at the back of the cabin. Not wearing a scrap of clothing was an advantage as he squeezed through and tumbled into a small bathroom.
He opened the bathroom door with a creak. “Hello?”
Squirrel and raccoon skins covered the rough logs of the walls, and deer antlers hung from the low rafters. A clear plastic jug sat in one corner. Dean drank eagerly from it, then coughed and spit as the liquid burned his throat.
“That’s either gasoline or the worst moonshine in the world,” he said to himself.
Black footlockers sat at the end of each bed, secured by padlocks. The rest of the cabin was bare of even a scrap of fabric that Dean could use to cover himself, not even curtains that he could fashion lederhosen out of, Maria-von-Trapp-style, and he wasn’t about to wear a dead squirrel.
In the bathroom he found a plunger with a wooden handle, and after much effort, managed to pry open the first trunk and bypass the lock. Inside lay piles of brightly patterned women’s clothing.
The second trunk was full of odd-looking plastic bits and pieces, a few wigs, and a blonde, inflatable mannequin.
Dean held up a pink feather boa. “Who leaves this in the woods?”
He pawed through the clothing in the first trunk, searching for trousers, shirts, anything vaguely masculine, but unfortunately whoever owned these clothes had a taste for pink and frilly.
Dean rubbed his chin. “Which is more embarrassing––naked, or wearing this junk?”
The least feminine top he could find out of all the outrageous clothing was a white, long-sleeved blouse that passed for a pirate’s shirt if you looked at it sideways in the dark. A navy blue miniskirt covered in white stars seemed the most masculine, reasoned Dean, because it resembled the blue field of the American flag. There were no socks, so to keep his legs warm he pulled on two pairs of navy blue tights. A pair of too-small but sensible black pumps protected his feet.
“American pirate,” he said to the bathroom mirror, and admired himself from the left and right.
A heavy knock rattled the door of the cabin.
“Anyone home?” came Ludovico’s deep voice.
Dean glanced at the tiny window in the bathroom. He could probably squeeze outside but that would make too much noise. No weapons in the cabin, so that left only one option.
“Just a minute,” he said in a high-pitched falsetto.
Maybe he could crack the door and fool this mad Italian for a few seconds. Dean grabbed a blonde wig and a black bra from the second box and ran unsteadily in heels to the bathroom. After stuffing the bra with toilet paper and donning the blouse again, he pulled the blonde wig over his head. After hiding his glasses in a pocket and brushing the fake hair with his fingers in the mirror, something still didn’t seem right.
“Girlfriend, you have got to do better,” he said.
The bathroom drawer held a dozen tubes and tiny jars.
“Hello?” came Ludovico’s voice from outside.
“In a second,” yelled Dean in falsetto.
He dusted his face with beige powder to hide the scratches and covered his mouth with deep red lipstick.
Dean gave
his best “bad-girl” pout at the mirror. “Go get ‘em, tiger,” he whispered.
He unlocked the cabin door and opened it a crack.
“I was just taking a nap. Can I help you?”
Ludovico’s chest and legs were covered in bloody scratches and smeared with mud. His black hair was full of leaves and twigs.
“Sorry to bother you, miss,” he said. “I was lost in the forest while camping. I am wondering ... do you have a phone?”
“No, I don’t.”
“In that case, do you know how I can get to Route 93?”
Dean giggled. “Just walk.”
“I mean, what direction?”
Dean pointed with his chin. “That way.”
“I have just come from there. I can see no houses.”
“How about that way?”
Ludovico squinted at Dean suspiciously. “No, the lake is there. Come now, pretty lady, confess the truth! Something is not right with you. A girl like you all alone ... without a man to protect her?”
“Nothing wrong with that! Nothing at all.”
“I see,” said Ludovico craftily. “You were also on a camping trip and became lost. We are two green beans in a pod, as they say.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Dean. “I’m lost, too.”
Ludovico forced open the door and looked Dean up and down. “In that case, let’s have a bit of fun this evening.”
“My father is very worried about me,” said Dean rapidly. “He will be crazy with grief because his only daughter has wandered away from the campsite.”
Ludovico sighed and looked away. “Ah, the luck. Well, let’s search for the road together. As a father myself, I am honor-bound to protect you.”
Dean followed the giant Italian through the state forest, hiding his face and speaking as little as possible. Spikes of pain shot through his feet from the tight pumps, and he decided to carry them in one hand and walk in his stocking-covered bare feet.
At last Ludovico seemed to know where they were going. As they broke out of the forest and walked over a soft green lawn, he grabbed Dean’s wrist.
“Over here,” said Ludovico. “Come with me.”
Dean heard the murmur of a large group of people. Without his glasses he hadn’t been able to see his surroundings very well, but now realized that the large Italian had been leading him back to the birthday party. Dean pulled and struggled, but Ludovico picked him up easily and carried him to the other side of the house where a huge gathering of Dean’s relatives, friends, and girls stood around a birthday cake.
Ludovico stood in front of the gathering with Dean in his arms and yelled with boisterous exuberance:
“I found the birthday boy!”