Always a Kicker Read online

  They started to meet on Saturday nights when the downtown businesses were open. In the summer, they would meet in the park where the municipal band would play for an hour or so. Most of the teens went to the Country Kitchen for ice cream or burgers. Sara Jane liked their black raspberry malts while he preferred the rough neck sundaes. Two years flew by at an accelerated speed.

  Zander was becoming a force on the basketball floor. At fifteen he was almost 6’5” and would continue to grow to 6’7” by the end of his junior year. He was being groomed as a center because of the height and his agility. He liked the sport probably because he was good at it. One thing he didn’t like was the rule that everyone had to wear a jock strap. He read in the encyclopedia that the jock strap was invented for a horseracing jockey. He supposed the strap kept their balls from slapping on the saddle during a full gallop but he didn’t see why there was a need to transfer that to basketball. The strap was uncomfortable and most of the guys got some sort of rash from the thing. He bought some white Haines that were smaller than the ones he usually wore and started wearing them with a pair of his regulars over them. At first the rest of the guys made fun of him. By the end of the year the entire team was wearing them. The coaches just gave up on the rule. The smaller guys could easily wear two sizes smaller while the guys with bigger junk could only go one size down. This little invention gave them all more support with much less chafing. Zander thought he was a genius.

  He told Sara Jane about the discovery and she thought it was a hoot.

  She only wanted to know one thing.

  “So do you wear two sizes smaller or only one?”

  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Zander replied.

  “I’ll have to think about that,” Sara Jane said but her eyes twinkled.

  Zander thought she might like it.

  In May, Zander asked Sara Jane to the Tulip Festival in Orange City. Zander marched in the band and his parents were coming to visit his grandparents for the day. Sara Jane worked it out to stay with a friend overnight so they could hang out all Saturday. They did the midway and all the Dutch food stands during the day. That evening Zander got two tickets to the community production of South Pacific and by the end of the show he was hooked on theatre. He was so taken with the show, that he didn’t even think about sex or Sara Jane for over two and a half hours, most likely a new record for him.

  After the show they walked around and found a secluded spot on a bench near the courthouse steps and they talked, kissed, and groped each other until it was time to go. Zander often thought about that night. It was the best night of his life. He just didn’t realize that he would have to swallow such a jagged pill so quickly.

  May went into June and summer was upon them. Stolen minutes in the evening brought them together almost every night. Zander kept thinking about the ball field two years earlier. The metaphor was not lost on him. He had tried to hit his own home run with Sara Jane but the best he could do was slide into third base. Not that it was a bad thing, but Zander wanted his own set of stats and didn’t want to be reminded that Rooster had batted a thousand. It became such a challenge for him to be the best player, that he may have lost sight of the actual game.

  One of their favorite hideaways was in a grove of plumb trees just south of town. It was next to a creek bottom and the owner was a farmer who lived at a few miles away. Sara Jane and Zander would take a blanket in the evening, follow the railroad tracks for a mile or so and spend a few hours in the plumb thickets doing what pubescent youth teeming with sexual desire were driven to do. They would be in various states of undress exploring each other without ever having intercourse. Zander liked feeling her naked breasts on his chest. He considered trying to have oral sex with her but he was inexperienced and felt inadequate so he just thought about it.

  One particular evening Sara Jane seemed to be distracted. There was passion but it was one sided. Zander was frustrated. He sat up and looked out at nothing.

  “What’s wrong?” Sara Jane asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes there is.”

  “You want to know?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t,” she said with just a note of restlessness.

  “You know I want you. I desire you all the time. I think of you every minute of every day but every time we get close, you stop. And tonight you act like I’m not even here. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t go all the way with friends,” she said and looked away.

  “Is that all we are, just friends?”

  “Zander, if we actually make love, it will change everything. I don’t want to lose your friendship because of something stupid like going all the way,” Sara Jane said.

  She put her arms around him but Zander wasn’t finished.

  “I’m willing to take that risk,” he replied.

  “Well, I’m not. Let’s not spoil a good thing,” she said.

  Zander was quiet for a time. Then he made a huge miscalculation.

  “I saw you two years ago at the ball diamond.”

  Sara Jane drew back and just looked at him.

  “I saw you with Rooster in the bleachers.”

  Sara Jane said nothing and dropped her head.

  “So you can have sex with someone like him but you can’t do it with me. Is that the way it is?” Zander said breathlessly.

  Sara Jane’s head was still bowed but Zander could see a tear slowly sliding down the side of her cheek and then onto her leg. Then her shoulders started moving and she was crying. Zander felt terrible but he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to deal with crying especially since he had caused it to happen in the first place.

  Sara Jane raised her head and looked at Zander. He had hurt her.

  “Sara Jane, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he was almost pleading.

  She shook her head like she understood but couldn’t say anything. The twinkle was out of her green eyes. Without a word she got up and looked at Zander once more and then turned her back and ran away.

  Zander had the misconception that sharing the Rooster information would gain him access to Sara Jane that been previously denied. This mishap turned out to be a misfortune he didn’t know how to correct.

  The following week was Sara Jane’s birthday. He had already bought her gift. He had gone to Sioux City with his father to pick up some appliances and had him stop at a record store and he got the latest Beatle album called Rubber Soul. He had heard a few of the songs on the radio and he thought they were spectacular. He got some butcher paper and wrapped it as best he could. He would wait until the following Friday which was her birthday to give her the present. Maybe if he stayed away until then, she could forgive him. He didn’t know what else to do.

  On Friday he got up his courage and walked to Sara Jane’s house. He knocked on the door and her mother answered, called for Sara Jane and told him she would be right down and then closed the door and let him stand on the outside of the door on the front steps.

  After five minutes, he sat on the steps and looked out toward the street. He wondered if Sara Jane would even come to the door. Another five minutes and the door opened and out she came. He looked up at her with his hangdog eyes and she just smiled down at him. Then she sat right next to him and they both looked out toward the street.

  “Happy birthday Sara Jane,” was all Zander could say. He gave her the package.

  She was elated. “You remembered!”

  “I could never forget your birthday. I just wasn’t sure you’d even want to see me,” he said pathetically.

  She looked at him for an uncomfortably long time. Zander thought it must have been at least ten minutes.

  “We are never going to mention it again,” she said forcefully.

  He shook his head in affirmation. She was something. Just when he thought he had destroyed his relationship, she drew him right back into it. He was relieved but totally confused.

  Jane looked at the butcher paper cover
ed gift.

  “Can I open it?”

  “Sure, it’s your birthday,” he said.

  Sara Jane ripped off the paper and looked at the album. Then she screamed.

  “Rubber Soul! I wanted this record since it came out! Zander, this is the best gift ever,” she yelled and then gave him a peck on the cheek.

  “I’m going to put this on the stereo right now and listen to it ten times.”

  With that she was up and in the house. The door went shut and Zander found himself sitting on the step alone. He heard the record start playing and he heard her mother yell to turn it down. Zander smiled to himself because no one else was there and he got up and walked home. This had turned out better than he had hoped but he didn’t understand it and he supposed it would take a long time to understand what goes on in the mind of a woman. He would have no idea that this would be the second to the last time he would ever see Sara Jane again.

  *****

  Marty had gone back to base thinking his relationship with Sara Jane was over. He had what he needed and she would be a distraction if he kept up with the letter writing. The letters stopped for six months and then they sent him to Viet Nam. Marty was a natural as a point man. He would lead his unit through the rice looking for cong. At first it was an exciting life for him because after all, he was The Rooster.

  After a time, Marty grew tired of being the human sacrifice. It was only luck that kept him from becoming a fatality like so many of the others in his unit. He tried to make some sense of what they were doing but nothing seemed at all rational about what was going on in this part of the world. He hated the heat and humidity. He hated the people. It was about six months into his tour that he began to write Sara Jane again.

  The letters went back and forth for another six months. Then the inevitable happened. His early morning patrol found themselves in crossfire between two machine guns. The entire unit was decimated. Marty took a round right through the fleshy part of his left leg. He fell into about a foot of water with another dead marine falling on top of him. He was able to keep his head above the water line but he couldn’t move. He stayed that way for about an hour until two choppers took out the machine gun nests. He knew he couldn’t lose consciousness or he would slip into the water and drown. Another forty-five minutes went by until he heard the sound of the trucks coming to find them. Only then did he start to relax.

  Marty was the only one to make it out alive. The rest of his unit was dead. He had lost a lot of blood. The MASH unit fixed him up as best they could and put him on a plane for Hawaii for more surgery. The metal fragments had ripped up his ACL pretty good. After a series of reconstructive surgeries, the doctors told him that he would be all right and he would have a limp on his left side for a while but with rehab he would soon be as good as new. He knew that meant he would be shipped back to Nam to finish his duty. It was at that time he decided not to go back.

  After two weeks, he started feeling better and would take walks down the hospital corridors. The process was slow but he was getting stronger each day. He had called the café where Jane worked and left a message to call him at the number he left. They had talked frequently after that. During that time Marty had convinced her to go away with him. It had been Marty’s plan from the beginning but he needed her to be on board. It was all so very exciting for Sara Jane. Hormones running high and a sense of adventure she had never before experienced. The plan was laid out and the timeline set. It was complex and he was relying on Sara Jane to do the research but with careful planning and the right information, this whole thing could work without a hitch. He would call her from Omaha to set everything in motion. She just needed to be at the phone in the café and be ready to move.

  He gave an orderly some money to get him some regular clothes. The orderly came back with a pair of shorts, a flowered shirt and some sandals. They would serve the purpose. The next day he put on the clothes and put his hospital gown over them. He walked down the hallway to the first exit and down the stairs to the street. He shed the hospital gown and left it in the stairwell. He walked a few blocks and was able to hail a cab that took him right to the airport. He bought a ticket to LAX on United with cash. When he landed in Los Angeles, he took a cab to the train station and got on a commuter to San Diego. From there he bought a ticket to Denver on American Airline. From Denver he went to Omaha on Western Airlines always using cash and making sure never to leave a paper trail. He was after all, A.W.O.L. and he was going to make quite sure he would never be found.

  In Omaha, Marty took a cab to the Ford dealership nearest the airport. He bought a new black Mustang for twenty-three hundred in cash. They gave him one of those paper license plates saying the license was applied for and he was on his way. But he had a lot to do before he made that final call to Sara Jane. It was going to be complicated and the timing had to be perfect. His first stop was a farm store in Sioux City. He had quite a list of items and he hoped everything would fit into the trunk of the small car.

  *****

  Part of moving on meant that Zander was to help his father move into a different location after the fire leveled the old building. The local co-op had purchased the defunct Slagle Lumber Yard on the corner of Main Street and Highway 33. It had remained fallow until they could decide what to do with it. It would be a perfect location for their business. Actually it had more storage and a nice area for a showroom. It would serve the purpose until the insurance would rebuild his shop.

  Zander worked hard for the rest of the summer getting the place ready and moving in new stock. It kept his mind and body tired so he could sleep at night. When school started he went out for sports, band, vocal, speech, theatre and whatever else he could find to keep him busy. The two years of high school went by quickly and he enrolled at Northwestern College in Orange City for the fall. He graduated in 1967 and helped usher in “the summer of love”. It proved to be a great summer for Zander. Things were changing. Even in the Midwest where everything seemed to take at least four years to catch up to the coasts. The chicks were starting to come around. There was little talk of “going steady” and more talk of being hip. Every weekend there was a field party somewhere. It was a make out session with anyone available. Kids were getting blitzed and stoned and hoped to avoid the fuzz. Cruising was still the acceptable form of entertainment but now it was a way to meet and plan parties. Bucket seats were the rage until you were with a chick and then they were called birth control seats. It didn’t bother most of the kids. They just moved into the back seat. Every key chain had a church key attached. Beer was the drink of choice and the cans needed an opener. It was before the invention of the pop-top. Life was a blast during that summer.

  Zander had the best Fourth of July of his life. He had made an afternoon date with a local beauty. She was as stacked and as blonde as anyone could be. Gloria was her name and she was a complete airhead. Just the kind of girl Zander liked. He picked her up at 1:00 in the afternoon and they rode around for a while and then decided to join a few more friends at the sand pit south of town. It was a great place to go to drink beer and skinny dip. Someone brought a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and another kid stole some his dad’s Falstaff. Zander had some Schmitt Big Mouths and a large cooler with ice. After the beers were iced down, the clothes came off and everyone was in the water with the girls up to their necks and the guys trying to get them on the beach. A few hours of drinking made the five lose almost all their inhibitions. Zander took a blanket and put it behind his car and told Gloria to come up and get some sun. The two of them were on the blanket stark naked until Zander couldn’t take it anymore. He took her right there. He didn’t care who was watching. As it turned out, the other four couples were doing exactly the same thing.

  A few more hours of swimming naked had Gloria crashing from her beer high. They got dressed and Zander took her home. He had no doubt she had another date later that evening. He had every intention of going home but as he rode through town he saw a group of friends hanging on Main
Street. He stopped and bummed a smoke. Zander didn’t really like to smoke. It hurt his throat but it made him feel older than he appeared so he pretended to be one of the cool heads. A girl named Sheryl came over and started some small talk. She was about Zander’s age and quite good looking.

  “What’s shaking, Zander?”

  “Just me,” he replied.

  “If you want, I could see if I could straighten you out,” she stated simply.

  Zander liked the idea. Off they went back to the sand pit. They found the back seat and by the time the sun went down, they both had done the same. Zander was spent and on the way back to town, Sheryl told him she had to get home. Another date Zander thought. Oh well, he had what he needed. She could do whatever she wanted. He liked this no strings approach to relationships. He was hungry so his next stop was the Dixie Drive-In. He went to the window and ordered a four-piece broasted chicken dinner and a cherry shake. The girl who took his order was the owner’s daughter. He liked to give her a bad time when he ordered. She was a year younger than Zander and her name was Starla. When his order was ready she took it out to him where he was sitting at a picnic table.

  “Hey thanks. You didn’t have to bring this out. I could have come up and got it,” he said.

  “No problem. I just got off work so do you care if I join you?” she replied.

  “That would be great. It’s kind of quiet around town tonight,” he said as he bit into the chicken.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said, “Usually we’re busier than this on the fourth.”

  “I guess when it falls in the middle of the week, people have a hard time getting enough time to do anything special. I haven’t seen much lake traffic going home,” he said. The Iowa Great Lakes were just sixty miles northeast and a destination over the holiday for the four state areas.

  “So do you feel like doing anything?” she asked.