Elizabeth Crane: The History of Great Things

— Okay, I see you trying to make a point here, but way to hit it a little hard, Mom. Can we maybe try again, this time with a smidge of realism?

— Fine.

Summer of 1973. You’re twelve years old. You’re in Iowa for the month of August with your father as per our custody agreement. Like me, he has remarried: a young widow named Jeannie who has three boys, your age and older. Next time you visit you’ll have a new half sister as well. Iowa City is only slightly less exotic to you now than it was a couple of years earlier, when you first visited. But you’re just on the other side of the age where drive-ins with the family and lemonade stands and riding bikes around the neighborhood are endlessly entertaining. The topics in rotation on your daily, hour-long phone conversations with Nina are boys, boys, boys, clothes, books, boys, and boys. Your brothers are close to your own age, about twelve, fourteen, and seventeen, something like that. Possible options for Nina someday. You get along well with all the brothers, though the seventeen-year-old is generally not very interested in you or your brothers, given your youth. He’s interested in girls and getting stoned and if there’s beer he’s interested in that too. Tonight, the fourteen-year-old knows where there’s beer. Your father and Jeannie are at the Bix Fest in Davenport, back in the morning. The fourteen-year-old wasn’t planning to invite the rest of you along, he was just planning to go to a keg party at his bud’s house, but failed to make sure the twelve-year-old hung up the other extension of phone before discussing party details with his friend. Oooh, I’m telling! the twelve-year-old says; the fourteen-year-old hangs up, says Shut it ; the seventeen-year-old enters, says What’s happenin’, little brothers ; he’s probably already stoned. You enter the room mid-discussion. He’s going to a kegger! the twelve-year-old says. You don’t even know what a kegger is, mostly because you mishear this as “kigger,” though it’s clear that whatever this is, he’s not supposed to be going to one. Righteous , the seventeen-year-old says. We’ll all go. I’ll drive. The fourteen-year-old says You guys suck to his brothers. Come on, Bets, you too , the seventeen-year-old says. You don’t want to ask what a kigger is for fear of looking like an idiot, so instead you say you were thinking of just watching Toma. It’s summer, Betsy, it’s a rerun, come on, this will be way more fun.

The four of you spill out of the station wagon at the kegger, which right now is six eighth-grade boys and somebody’s little sister standing around a small back yard listening to rock music on a transistor radio and passing around a dinky bowl of stale Bugles and a bag of Hy-Vee-brand wavy potato chips. Your brothers all know immediately that this party is pretty beat, though the fourteen-year-old might have had a good time with his buds if you guys weren’t there totally ruining that vibe. You, however, feel a little bit like you’re in a movie, or at least an after-school special. In New York, you’re a good girl; your crowd isn’t nerdy, exactly, but you and Nina aren’t exactly hitting the discos at this point either, and so this to you seems as exciting as the TV-movie moments before the cops or the parents bust in and ship everyone off to juvie. A boy with shiny blond hair down to his shoulders hands you a Dixie cup with beer and you accept it happily; you haven’t tasted alcohol yet, but if this is what everyone is making so much fuss about, you’re not sure you’ve been missing anything. There are bits of wax from the lip of the cup floating in the beer, indicating that this paper cup may have been someone else’s first. But you take a hearty sip, try not to make the face that says this is your first time, and it turns out that the sensation that follows is actually A-okay. You’re thirsty, so you gulp half the cup down, not realizing how quickly the booze will act on the popcorn and ice cream you had for dinner; the result turns out to be both enjoyable and instructive in the event of future keggers. You thank the blond boy, notice that he’s wearing a striped T-shirt and bell bottoms, very cool , and that he looks a little bit like that kid from that TV show with the family that you like, that heartthrobby one who’s always on the cover of your Tiger Beat magazines. Do you go to Northwest? blond boy asks. I don’t think I’ve seen you before. No, I’m from New York. No shit! New York City? Uh-huh. That must be so rad , he says. Is this like the most boring thing that’s ever happened to you? No, I’m having a good time. Three waxy cups of beer later, blond boy and you are inside in whoever’s family room this is, on the sofa, watching Toma , and his hand is on your knee and your knee is on fire. In your mind you go from knee on fire to blond boy writing you love letters for the next four years until you graduate from high school and can move to Iowa, to do this forever as Mr. and Mrs. Blond Boy. His name is either Andy or Randy or Brandon; too late to ask again now. Andy or Randy or Brandon leans in to kiss you and now you’re five beers in, which has allowed you to forget that you’re about to have your first kiss just six feet away from your three new brothers. You have no idea right now if this is a good kiss or a bad kiss, it’s just his lips on your lips, but it’s a cute blond boy and he’s kissing you and it’s the greatest thing that ever happened. For a moment you think of stopping him, just so you can go call Nina long-distance, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is maybe not the worst thing that ever happened, but it’s not in any way good.

Technically, it’s already tomorrow when the four of you arrive back at the house to discover Dad and Jeannie’s car in the driveway. Oh, shit , the fourteen-year-old brother says. You file into the house to find Jeannie on the phone with someone’s mother. She takes a big sigh, folds herself in half in relief. Your father looks vaguely dismayed. He doesn’t want to have to tell you that if I got wind of any part of this, I’d hustle him back to court in a second, but he knows it’s true. It’s plain to see that the four of you have been drinking. Everyone to the table , Jeannie says, starts by saying how worried they were, none of you home, how many phone calls they made. The most important thing is that you’re all safe , Fred says. But there are consequences , Jeannie says. The seventeen-year-old is grounded for the rest of the summer; he was in charge, and he should have known better. The fourteen-year-old and the twelve-year-old get no baseball for two weeks; you’re grounded for a week, and no TV and no phone privileges until you get home.

Unable to use the phone, you spend the day writing an epic letter to Nina. The previous night’s romance is still stirring in your center; this could be part beer-hangover, but you don’t recognize it as such, in spite of being grounded. What you mostly feel is deep and true love. You peek into your father’s office to ask for an envelope and a stamp. He’s smiley as always; last night’s events will not be mentioned again until 1996, at which time he will claim he hardly remembers, whether he does or not. Hard to know with Fred, sometimes. Anyway, when you hand him the letter and he sees how thick it is, he says Oh my, this may need extra postage! Not unthrilling to your dad — the postage, that this is something he can give you. He reaches into his desk drawer, where he keeps his mail supplies: envelopes, all denominations of stamps, and his little hand scale. He folds the six-page letter in thirds and stuffs it into the envelope, clips on the scale, gives the pointer a second to find rest. Hmm, looks like it’s just on the line here, so we’ll definitely need to add four cents. Which ones do you want? He opens his folder of stamps. You point to the Robert Indiana LOVE stamps. Nina will like those. She has a poster of that in her room. Excellent choice. You really want to tell him you’re sorry about last night, but you have no idea what to say. So you hug your dad for the stamps like he’s just given you a new puppy, and he knows.