Friday, April 11, 2008

House of Hammonds

One year our teacher wanted us to work on a project in groups of three. Although I may have been fun to play with on the playground, nobody wanted to group with me on this project, because I was so lazy with school work. Larry and Brian tried to get away with doing the project as a couple….umm….I mean a pair.

The teacher was adamant about having us work in groups of three so she stuck me with those two. Or she stuck those two with me, either way, we were now a threesome. It did work out well in one respect. The three of us lived close to each other so we could easily get together after school to work on that project.

One night after school the three of us were at Larry’s house. We were in his living room for the first little while. We watched the beginning of Star Wars with this crazy VCR he had. It was the first VCR I had ever seen. It had this slot that you would feed these big square plastic disks into. The machine would take a while to load the contents of the disk into memory and then you could eject the disk and watch the movie. This was before VHS and Beta.

I’ve tried to find a machine like that on the History of the VCR website, but I can’t find anything that looks like the one I remember him having. I’m curious to know what that was.

We eventually turned the movie off and went upstairs to his bedroom to work on our project. Brain and Larry wanted this to be their show. Those two didn’t want me grouping with them and they basically told me to sit there and not get in the way. They promised me some easy bit part, which was okay with me.

Their grand plan for this project was to reenact a scene from the John Travolta musical Greece.

Gay

Larry and Brian both sat cross legged facing each other. Larry had his back to the bedpost at the foot of his bed and he was facing the door of his room. Brian was facing toward Larry’s bed. I was lying on the floor off to the side, facing more in Larry’s direction. These two were reading from this Greece lyrics book. They were looking into each other’s eyes and singing to each other. I’m biting my lip as these two are having a moment.

That’s when Larry’s sister Karen walked into the room. Karen was Larry's younger sister and she went to Vista Heights with us. When Karen walked in, she started to be a pest the way all little sisters can be when they want attention.

“What are you guys doing? Can I play? Can I watch? I want to watch. Can I?”

Larry and Brian just ignored the poor girl, which I thought was rude. Karen was always nice to me. She said hi. I said hi back. We talked for a bit. I sure wasn’t into those two guys and their John Travolta love affair.

It wasn’t long though before Karen wanted to get her big brother’s attention again. She began to pester and when she wasn’t getting his attention she began flashing us. At first she just lifted her top, which is nothing for a girl her age. When that didn’t work she started to show off her bottom. She had my attention. Larry and Brain still wouldn’t even look.

Next she started flashing the other side. I’m all out gawking. Those two just kept singing to each other and reading from this lyrics book. Finally Karen stripped completely naked, got up on Larry’s bed and started jumping up and down like it was a trampoline.

I can understand Larry not being interested. This was his sister after all. To a point I could understand Brian not watching, because he was trying to be polite. But these two were so lost in each other’s eyes they seemed oblivious to what she was doing. I had to pinch myself to keep it together.

Then Larry said he needed to get another book and he would be right back. He stood up, walked out of his room and went downstairs.

Finally! With brother gone I thought Brian and I could be guys for a minute. Karen is still jumping up and down on Larry’s bed stark naked, but Brian wouldn’t take his eyes off that John Travolta book!

That’s when I reached out with my hand and started to knock on Brian’s head like it was a door.

“Are you home?”

He pushed my hand away and said, “Stop that! Yes, I can see!”

“But you’re not looking”

That’s when Brian gave me a tongue lashing. He said something about how I was only encouraging her by watching.

“Oh, I see. So what you’re saying is that if I keep watching her, she’ll keep doing this. But, if I close my eyes for a second, or look away, she’ll get dressed and leave.”

“Yes!”

“I see.”

[Long Pause]

“So just to clarify, what you’re saying is that I should not be giving her my full undivided attention. Is that right?”

That’s when Brian said, “M. You’re such an ass!”

That may have been true of me at times, but I had never seen a stripper before. Considering I was only 6 or 7, I was rather entertained.

Then Larry came back into his room.

I could understand Larry pretending that his sister wasn’t naked and jumping on his bed when he was sitting down, because he had his back to his bed and couldn’t really see. You would think the sound of bed springs breaking right beside his ear may have tipped him off that something going on. His sister’s clothes lay on the floor beside him.

But now Larry was walking back into his room. He could not avoid seeing her. She was right in front of him. I thought he would say something to her, but he didn’t. He walked over to his spot. He turned around. He sat down cross legged facing Brain and opened this new book like nothing was happening.

Then Brian made some comment to Larry about how I was gawking at his sister.

Larry turned to me and made some comment about how I was only encouraging her by watching. So I said to Larry, “If your sister is doing this and it bothers you, why don’t you ask her to stop?”

That’s when Larry told me it didn’t bother him. Then he began to lecture me. He explained that in their household it was a perfectly natural thing for their family members, mother, father, sister and brother to walk around the house naked in full view of each other when it pleased them to do so. He was very serious about that. He then explained that I was not behaving properly by looking.

I thought I was in the twilight zone!

I grew up in a very strict, very Conservative, very prudish household. My view of the world was about as narrow as a strip of dental floss. The concept of alternative lifestyles was foreign to me. For me to be holed up in a bedroom with two gay guys, a nymphomaniac sister bouncing on a bed, in the household of a clothing optional family, was too much. Then to be told that I am the one that’s misbehaving by simply being there and bearing witness to this?

I was like a fish out of water. My poor brain was fried.

It was not as though I could talk about stuff like this with my parents either. I had no relationship with them growing up. If I had mentioned this to my parents my mom would have called in an exorcist and my dad would have tried to beat the memory from my mind. The only people I could count on for guidance was my friends from school.

The next day I took the early bus to school. I was there long before anyone else arrived. Right after I got there, Sammy Maltby showed up. When I saw him I asked why I didn’t see him on the bus. He and I usually took the same bus to school. He mentioned that sometimes his mother would give him a ride to school on the way to work, if he was up early enough.

For Maltby to have arrived early to school that day was perfect! Of all the people I would have wanted to talk to about this, it was him, because if it had to do with sex, or girls, or sex with girls, you had his attention. Any other subject and you would have to worry about him zoning out.

Maltby had this eccentricity where, if you were talking to him about a subject that was boring, he would zone out. One minute you would be talking to him. Then his eyes would drift off to the right side of your head. He would stare off into the distance. His head would cock ever so slightly. His mouth would be slightly agape, and he would be gone into his happy place.

Nothing would bring him back either.

When he zoned out you could run around him in circles, do jumping jacks, snap your fingers inches from his face, but you would get no response. You just had to wait. Two or three minutes later he would shake his head with a blink and look at you. Then he would say, “Did I do it again?”

It was funny when he did that.

As I told him the story of the night before he laughed hysterically. He didn’t zone out this time. He laughed from beginning to end. When I was done explaining I asked him, “Am I the crazy one?”

He couldn’t even answer he was laughing so hard. I had a feeling he was imagining himself in the same situation, his brain frying the same way.

Oh, how I wish Maltby was there instead of Brian that night. I wouldn’t have had to listen to Larry lecture me, because he would have been bound, gagged and locked in a closet. We could have watched Karen put on a show in peace and quiet. I bet we would have had popcorn too.

A little while later Robert Dykeman showed up at school and we filled him in on what happened. He got a good laugh as well. I’m not sure who else heard that story, but eventually we went to class.

About an hour or two into class, the teacher was up at the blackboard teaching a lesson. She was writing on the chalkboard when out of nowhere a burst of laughter came from the back of the room. It was Maltby. He was sitting at the back of the room by himself laughing. He had zoned out and he was thinking about something funny.

He laughed so hard he fell onto the floor on the left side of his chair. There were a few giggles as the kids in the class looked to the back of the room. Our classmates looked on wondering what had gotten into him. Dykeman and I shot each other a look. We knew what he was laughing at.

The teacher at the blackboard stopped writing as she waited for him to stop. He couldn’t stop. He was in his happy place. He just rolled around on the ground laughing. At one point the teacher looked at her watch, wondering when it would end. He was still rolling around laughing. There were big smiles all around. Then Maltby, still laughing, started to feel around for his chair. He couldn’t even see he was laughing so hard. He finally felt his chair and started to pull himself up on it. Then he grabbed a hold of his desk.

As he was pulling himself up, the teacher asked, “Y a-t-il quelque chose de drôle, monsieur Maltby?”

Just then he took a firm grip of his desk. With all his strength he pulled himself up so that all you could see from the front of the room was his head come up over his desk like some kind of hilarious giggling whack-a-mole. Still laughing with tears in his eyes he nodded his head and said, “Oui, Madame.” Then he fell backwards on the floor again.

At this point the class erupted into laughter. The teacher realized she lost control and went to sit at her desk. That was so funny. He laughed so hard that day he pulled a muscle in his stomach that was sore for a long time after. If ever there was an inside joke, to be on the inside of, that was the one.

I still laugh when I think of that.