AT PLAY WITH A GIANT AND A GIRL

AT PLAY WITH A GIANT AND A GIRL


We'd only see Hadley
once a year
for a few days
during the summer.

His frail and elderly guardians,
according to my mother,
would have him just long enough
to rearrange their furniture.

The rest of the year he was confined
to a faraway and mysterious orphanage
my parents never explained.

Stoop shouldered and pigeon toed
he walked with a lope and swayed like an elephant
taller than a man with the mind of a three year old,
strong enough to move a piano,
and as jolly as a circus clown
with a bowling ball belly
jiggling like a gallon tub of jelly.

He was fat in the days
when obesity was something
rare like an exotic disease.
There were a couple local boys
who might look a little pudgy
like Spanky in the Little Rascals,
but in 1956 skinny was as common as chrome on a car.

Though odd he looked, we cherished his behemoth company,
one kid even conjectured he might be a benign cousin
of that cannibal giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.

Anyway we'd be huddling and haggling over what to play
"hide and seek" or "red Light" or marbles or "freeze tag."
Then Hadley would thunder from around the corner
sporting a watermelon size grin "hey can I play?"
"Look it, it's Hadley...sure come on."
At that invitation he'd emphatically wave his hands
like he could fly or he took us for passengers
on a choo choo a mile down the track.

When it came to Hadley our favorite game was "back up."
"Okay Hadley you back up and only look at us
and we'll back up the other way while looking at you."
And we'd encourage and watch him walk in reverse
into a lawn barrier and topple on to his ample ass.
And we'd crack up which caused the big oaf
to laugh right back at us laughing at him.

Sally was another character who lived in the end house on our row
until they moved away when I was about seven
and after that the loony Big Luke moved in,
but Luke would figure in another story.

Sally's parents owned a Woody,
a wood paneled station wagon
whose sides had started to splinter.
She was a year older than Mark and me
and very much a precociously wise guy dame.
She and I and Mark and Hadley were playing "find the ball."
We took turns hiding a dog gnarled rubber ball
under a tire or behind a stoop or in a milk box or a hedge.

It was stealthy fun and not too complicated for Hadley.
However, when Sally concealed the ball,
we boys searched every nook and cranny
and couldn't find doodley squat for beans.
Frustrated we were all ready to give up
when I noticed Hadley chuckling and pointing
at Sally's bottom as she leaned over Mark
on his knees searching through a flowerpot.
There was a sphere hanging in her panties.
"Oh yuck! She hid it in her underpants!"
Mark exclaimed "I'm not playing with you anymore. That ball stinks!"
When she reached into her drawers
I was briefly shaken by an inexplicable sensation.
She pulled out and sniffed the object of our derision
and said "it doesn't stink at all."
"Shoot! That ball is full of cooties!"
"I'm never playing with a girl again!"
(Incidentally a vow I forgot eight years later.)
"Yeah! Yuck!"
And Hadley laughed so much his tummy tussled.

Mean while we were out of sight
but not out of ear shot of my mother,
who sensing danger in the sticky air,
summoned me home. At the time
she never made it obvious but
she was on extra high alert
when Hadley was in town.
She worried that our teasing and poking fun
at Hadley's expense might make him snap
and use that raw power to crush the life
out of me or one of my pals.

by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
July 2010