One
hot summer night when I was 7 years old, I pulled the most hilarious stunt
imaginable on my 5-year-old brother, Charlie. As dusk was approaching, I was
perched in front of our black-and-white Zenith® when I heard Charlie calling my
name: “JIM-mee! JIM-mee!” he shouted.
Recognizing the urgency in his voice I shut off the TV and hurried to hide in
brother Bill’s closet where Charlie would never find me. I left the closet’s
sliding door partway open to create a more inconspicuous hiding place (who
would be foolish enough to hide in a closet and not completely shut the door?).
And so I could hear Charlie shouting my name. And so it wouldn’t be too dark in
there.
“Jimmy! Where ARE you, Jimmy?” he cried as he made his way from room to room
calling me. I kept perfectly still, barely breathing, and he kept calling my
name, over and over and over for what seemed like a very long time. And every
time he called my name I had to cover my mouth with my hand to suppress a wave
of laughter.
Finally, it got quiet and I decided Charlie had had enough, so I snuck out of
the closet and drifted nonchalantly out into the backyard to celebrate the
tremendous success of my epic practical joke. But Mom was alone in the yard.
“Anybody looking for me?” I asked, the picture of innocence.
Mom raised one eyebrow and looked up from her copy of Good Housekeeping®,
eyeing me suspiciously. “Your brother was looking for you for I don’t know HOW long,”
she said. Her response added immeasurably to my glee, and tried to force the
silent laugh-buzz in my belly up through my esophagus and out my throat.
“Phillip Cavelle took him up to the park for a swim. Charlie was looking for
you so you could go with them.” Mom’s explanation hit me like a solid jab to
the gut.
My head began to spin and it was suddenly difficult to breathe. Why?
Because Phillip had taken my naïve, little brother, who had done his level
best to share his good fortune with me, for a night swim up at Gage Park.
“But you gotta be SIXTEEN to get into night swim,” I whined with an idiotic
grin fixed on my crestfallen face. “Charlie's only FIVE!”
“Well,” Mom said, “Phillip said he knows the lifeguard.”
One moment I’d been floating up in the heavens. The next minute I’d come
crashing down to earth. Little did I know I was about to be hurled down into
hell.
“Which way did they go? Maybe I can catch them!” I pleaded.
“You'll never catch them,” Mom said. “They went in Phillip’s new car.”
“In the TRIUMPH®?!” I wailed, reeling from the right-cross that followed the
gut-punch.
My five-year-old brother was in Phillip Cavelle’s brand-new convertible at that
very moment, racing down the streets of Chicago to a 16-and-over night-swim.
Could it possibly get any worse?
In a word, yes.
“When will they be back?” I asked through my thickening throat.
Then Mom delivered the knockout uppercut which felt like it had started from
her shoe-tops: “Not for a while. When they’re done swimming they’re going to
Gertie’s.” (Gertie’s was the premiere homemade ice cream parlor on the
Southwest Side – maybe in the world.)
“Phillip took Charlie night swimming … in the Triumph … and then they’re going
to Gertie’s.” I said, trying to fathom why oh why my God had forsaken me.
“Your brother tried to find you, but God only knows where you were and what you
were doing.”
Maybe Mom was on to something. Maybe only God knew I’d been hiding in that
closet. And maybe The Man Upstairs had decided to teach me a lesson sooner than
later, to be sure I’d make the connection. Maybe God had wanted me to think I
had hit a home run, and then while I was doing my showboat slow-trot around the
bases, Our Lord and Savior revealed that I had actually hit into a triple play.
An unassisted triple-play. At least that’s what it felt like. And looking back,
I guess I’d gotten exactly what I’d deserved. And come to think of it, I guess
Charlie did, too.
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