01 - Every Story Must Begin

And so should this one. Imagine a small suburban town with small 3 bedroom ranch houses and two-car avenues going from one end of the town to the other. The city is Reynoldsburg, Ohio and the year was 1979. Bryan and Billy Barrett lived on the far end of Huber, near the city swimming pool. Their backyard opened out into Huber Park and once Memorial Day came around, Bryan and Billy would hop on their Huffy Black Thunders with yellow five-spoked plastic wheels and travel throughout Reynoldsburg's back streets.

I'd just learned to ride a bike that spring and was still a little unsure of myself. I coasted my BMX bike down Retton Road on the long, sloping hill leading into Huber Park. I stopped awkwardly, nearly wrecking, but quickly found my balance and turned right at the intersection with Haft Drive. From there, I headed up Haft to the Barrett's house, which was a short way from the intersection.

As I arrived at their house, I dropped my bike in their front yard and banged on the aluminum frame of the front door. Bryan's older brother Billy answered the door and invited me into their house. Bryan had taken his bike down to the barber shop for a haircut and would be back in half an hour or so.

Billy and I hung around a lot in grade school because of my friendship with Bryan. We had become good friends in the summer between elementary school and middle school. Bryan and I would hang out with Billy and his friends, who were all a couple of years older than we were, so we tagged along whenever possible.

Billy collected stamps and coins, which was a weird hobby, considering he played Youth Football in the Autumn and Youth Baseball in the Spring. It just didn't seem like something that would interest him. He pulled out a few photo albums and I flipped through them. He pointed out first issues, internaional stamps, blocks of four stamps, unused booklets, and first day covers. All in all, it seemed pretty boring to me, but I guess Billy probably thought the same about Bryan's comic book collection, too.

After a short while, Billy offered me a glass of Kool-aid and chips and we played ColecoVision in the living room while we waited for Bryan. It wasn't long after we started playing that the front door banged and Bryan joined us in the living room.

"Hey nice cut, Bryan."

I was lying. It was the haircut every boy in the midwest had in 1980: the bowl cut. It didn't matter. What mattered was where we were going next: the City Pool.

We all jumped on our bikes and headed for the Pool, cutting through Huber Park. Along the way, Billy saw some magazines stuffed a pile of bushes. It seemed kind of odd that he saw them, seeing as they were tucked carefully into a hole and wrapped in a small black trash bag.

When Billy pulled the magazines out of their rain cover, there they were in all their glory: Oui, Penthouse, Horse, Playboy.

Needless to say, we never made it to the Pool. Instead, we rode back to the Barret's house and flipped through nudie mags. The only thing I remember is a girl in painting shorts and a painter hat and a denim shirt unbuttoned and tied around the waist. The male painter was helping her paint whilegroping her and lathering her up in white and blue paint.

Beyond that, I cnnot remember much. I was 10. I just remembered that it was something I liked.

We returned the plastic bag to its original hidey-hole and I went home. This would not be the last time we'd dig around the bushes in Huber Park.