Chapter 1

"When I'm feelin' blue all I have to do is take a look at you... then I'm not so blue When you're close to me I can feel your heartbeat I can hear you breathing in my ear. Wouldn't you agree baby you and me got a groovy kind of love?"

music & lyrics by Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager © 1966. All rights reserved. Published by Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc. Administered by BMI.

It was the kind of perfect summer day you hope will never end. I floated lazily on a rubber raft in the Gulf of Mexico, oblivious to the noisy splashes and cries of the swimmers and tourists around me. The sky was the most beautiful shade of blue you can imagine, and there wasn't a cloud in sight. A gentle breeze blew in from the East. For all I knew, I was in the middle of the ocean. The smell of salt water was overpowering, and the hot Florida sun was searing, but I didn't care. I had recently turned 13, officially making me a teenager. Life was great.

It was the last Sunday of August, 1968, in St. Petersburg, Florida -- the very last weekend before school started. The public address speakers by the lifeguard stand blasted out The Happenings' "See You in September," a golden oldie from a couple of years before. I hummed along with the music as the waves gently rocked me up and down. The cool seawater sloshed over the raft, soothing my sunburn-ravaged chest and legs.

Just as the last notes of the song faded and the WLCY deejay began his endless chatter, I sensed a sudden premonition. It seemed impossible. Everything was so perfect: the weather was wonderful, and the raft couldn't be more comfortable. But despite the near-summer scene, I knew there was a black cloud on the distant horizon.

I was dreading the first day of school: 9th Grade. Just the thought of it made me wince. For the past few years, I'd been going to an advanced school in town for brainy kids -- "The LaFontaine Institute for Gifted Children." I'd made it up to 7th grade okay, but over the last six months, my grades had started to slide. I just didn't seem to give a damn anymore.

As if to echo my thoughts, the radio began playing a new song -- "Give a Damn," by Spanky & Our Gang. I giggled. It wasn't often you heard that word on the radio, at least not in 1968.

I sighed. Since I was little, I had always been the brain in school. A week after I started elementary, they'd bumped me up to third grade when I was just six. I spent the next four years being tormented and antagonized by most of the other kids, who were always older than I was. At least when I was at the LaFontaine school, I was surrounded by other brainy nerds, most of whom weren't much of a threat to me. But my parents were so furious at my mediocre grades, they'd given me the death sentence: tomorrow, they were making me go back to public school. Dad said if I pulled my grades back up, and proved I could be a disciplined student, they'd consider letting me go back to LaFontaine -- next year.

I felt overcome by a terrible foreboding. I knew most of the kids in high school would be bigger and at least two years older than me. Without the relative sanctity of the private school, now I was getting thrown to the wolves. I'd already had nightmares about how I was going to deal with regular school kids again, for the first time in a long time. But I figured I'd get through it somehow; either my smartass mouth or my fast-thinking brain would keep me out of trouble. I grinned, remembering some of the mischief my friends and I had gotten into the year before. All innocent fun, but Jesus, we sure drove the teachers nuts.

At least Tampa Central High was bound to be easier than the LaFontaine, I thought. No advanced classes, no 20 pages' worth of homework every night. This is gonna be a piece of cake. I grinned to myself and started to carefully roll over on my back. Easy does it, I thought, taking care to not to lose my balance on the raft. I sighed with relief. The cool water felt good on my back, which I knew without looking was already red and sunburned after a day at the beach. My skin would probably be peeling for a week, but I was too happy to care.

Suddenly, without warning, I felt the raft lift up in the air and flip over. Still half asleep, I groggily tried to open up my mouth to yell, but all I got for my efforts was a throat full of salt water.

"Gotcha, fuckwad!"

I floundered, choking and spitting, and grabbed the raft only to see my best friend Schuyler -- "Sky" for short -- who was treading water five feet away, hysterical with laughter.

"You dick!" I screamed.

I tore after him in the surf, while he raced away as fast as he could. He was a decent enough swimmer, but he was no match for me; eight years on local swim teams had given me an edge he couldn't possibly beat. I caught up with him in no time, grabbed him by the neck and yanked him under water as hard as I could. After a few seconds, I pulled him back up to the surface and yelled at him as loud as I could.

"You give, asswipe?"

Sky could only glub, but I could tell he was still almost doubled-over in laughter. I grabbed him again, and pulled him down even deeper, this time locking my muscular legs around him. Ten long seconds passed, while I poked him in the ribs a couple of times, determined to go for victory. He fought me valiantly, but finally nodded in defeat, bubbled up to the surface, then spit out a mouthful of saltwater, still laughing.

"Alright, alright, Wil -- I give!" he said, coughing and sputtering.

I playfully spit a stream of water in his face and laughed maniacally. After pausing to catch his breath, Sky suddenly splashed me right back, which unleashed an immediate and intense tidal wave battle between the two of us. After a few minutes, we finally declared it a draw, and we floated in the water and laughed hysterically.

This was the kind of relationship my best friend and I'd had for almost as long as either of us could remember. Sky was kind of like the older brother I never had. We'd been through many adventures together, usually with him daring me to do something stupid, and me following, like an idiot. When we were little kids, he once goaded me into throwing a rock through a school window; little did either of us know our teacher was still in the classroom at the time. One Halloween, we covered car windshields with shaving cream, and even once broke into an abandoned house on Bayshore Boulevard. I had my first cigarette with Sky. Last summer, he dared me to jump off the downtown bridge into Tampa Bay, and damned if I didn't do it -- with my clothes on, yet. Little did I know how many people had gotten hurt trying to do it at low tide, but I was stupid and lucky in those days.

Sky's family lived just a couple of blocks down from us on El Prado Street in Tampa. Even though he was a almost two years older than me, we'd been kind of thrust together when I got advanced into third grade in school. Sky was one of the few kids I knew who never seemed to care about our age difference. He actually treated me like an equal during all the years we were together. Even when we both didn't see each other every day, after I started going to the Institute -- "Brainiac school," he called it -- we still hung out occasionally after school and on weekends.

Despite my brains -- my mother and father constantly reminded me that I was supposed to be a genius and hounded me about my grades -- I always let my friend get me in trouble. I honestly didn't know why, and I didn't care. I guess it was just the way it was meant to be: Wil and Sky, Sky and Wil... we were the dynamic duo, just like Batman & Robin on TV.

We grabbed my raft, which was dangerously close to drifting out to sea, and leisurely dog-paddled back to shore, laughing and cursing each other under our breath.

"THERE you boys are!" yelled an angry female voice from the shore. We looked up to see Sky's older sister, Carol, looking reasonably-cool in dark glasses and a tight-fitting bathing suit that left little to the imagination.

"We were ready to call the lifeguards and have them drag you back in!" she yelled. "C'mon, we've gotta go, now. Mom's really pissed!"

"Shaddup, Carol," Sky snapped as we sloshed to shore. "We're here, so just can it." He shot her The Look of Doom.

Sky didn't get along well with his sister, who was already 18. She glared at both of us. I grinned, and her face softened as she laughed, then shook her head. Somehow, Carol always liked me, and I liked her, too. I dunno what it was -- we had some kind of connection, I guess, like the "good vibrations" in the song. I caught myself glancing down at her breasts, which were looking awesome today. I felt a stirring in my bathing suit, which felt tighter than normal.

"I'm sorry, Carol," I said, sincerely. "It's all my fault. Sky was just trying to bring me back in. Tell your mom it wasn't him this time."

She rolled her eyes. She knew neither of us was ever up to any good, especially when we were together,

"Alright, you two," she said, exasperated, "but you better watch out -- one more screw-up, and your beach days are numbered."

She swatted our behinds, and we scooted across the hot sand and across the parking lot, hopping all the way on our burning toes.

Just as we reached the family car, Sky jabbed me in the ribs. "Pssst! Wil!"

"What?" I hissed back.

He gave me a conspiratorial look. "Didja catch the pubes in her suit?" he whispered. I glanced back to his mom and sister, who were trundling back to the car with an ice chest, a folding chair, and a beach umbrella.

"What're you talking about, doofus?" I whispered back, thoroughly confused.

He grinned and pointed down with his eyes. Quizzically, I followed the view just as Carol walked up to our parking space. Sure enough, I could see there were a couple of errant curly light brown hairs visible in the very crotch of her bathing suit. I literally fell down laughing, and Sky grinned like a hyena. He took one look at me, then burst out laughing at the top of his lungs. He wound up on his hands and knees on the pavement right next to me, chortling until tears of laughter rolled down his face.

"What're they laughing about?" asked his Mom, who was wearing a large sun hat. By then, both of us had dissolved into disheveled heaps on the hot asphalt.

Carol frowned. Somehow, she knew she was the butt of a joke, and she didn't like it one bit. "Mother," she wailed, "they've been acting like complete idiots all afternoon!"

Sky's mother rolled her eyes and said patiently, "Carol, they're just boys being boys." She unlocked the doors, and pointed inside, with a no-nonsense look on her face. "We've got to get back home, now, you two. And don't forget, Schuyler -- it's the first day of school tomorrow!"

That did it. Sky and I both winced. He hated it when his mom or dad called him by his real name.

"That's right, Mom," Carol echoed. "Both our little boys are starting High School tomorrow!" She shot Sky a withering smile. Our laughter stopped immediately as the reality of our fate hit us.

That meant that summer was almost officially over. Dejectedly, we scrambled up, brushed the sand off our butts, and crawled in the back seat. Sky slammed the car door shut, and we rode the 25-mile trip over Gandy Bridge back to Tampa in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
 
   

© 2001, John Francis