Not Losing Sleep Over Sleep Overs

The sound a tennis ball makes when it strikes the side of a Volkswagen Bus is memorable. Ever throw a tennis shoe at the side of an empty steel barrel with a lid? Like that.

While my brother and I and my friend G never spent much time throwing tennis shoes at steel barrels (never, as I recall) we were pros at hitting cars with tennis balls and living to tell about it.

Pops had baskets full of old tennis balls he collected at the courts and never really did much with. I suppose they were for our dog, Samson, but he was a monster German Shepherd purebred who took guarding things way more seriously than retrieving things. So he jawed through one every now and then while on guard duty in the yard, but that was it.

Pops was gone more than he was home, so I think he forgot about his tennis ball collection’s count between trips. He just kept adding to it as he returned from flying planes and playing tennis in Hotel tennis courts. His luggage was always full of neatly ironed shirts and tennis balls. Even I used to think it odd when he’d open up his leather travel bag on the bed and out would tumble all these white Wilson fuzzy balls onto the floor.

Pops was a very organized neat-freak of a man, but he had “collection” issues, which Steve and I exploited.

About 2/3rds of the tennis balls we threw we found the next day. We always went back out collecting and we always came home with tennis balls. Sometimes, I’m sure, we found tennis balls from previous outings that had sat under a juniper bush all week. I’m sure neighborhood dogs found some of these fuzzy balls and took them proudly home.

Imagine, some California mutt bringing home a tennis ball that had graced the courts of Paris?

While Pops was out of town flying, and Mum was either sleeping or working (due to odd nursing scheduling and hours) the G and Steve and I would find ourselves looking for light mischief to amuse away the evenings.

We always found it, and the funny thing I always think about now looking back on those days, is that we never got caught. Ever.

I never got in trouble once for any of the shenanigans we got up to. The lady who opened her door to find a full-of-water garbage can leaning precariously against it never caught us. The builders behind us where we trampled in their sheetrock ceiling never caught us. The church we constantly broke into so we could play helper’s tag never caught us. The cops never caught us on our motorcycles...

I guess you could say I got away Scott-free my entire youth, and it is a wonder I never went for the big crimes, the ones with all the marbles. I mean, I never got caught doing anything. I was blessed, I had PDL in buckets, I could have been a contender!

But I almost got my ass beat in, once. Almost.

G and Steve and I were hidden in my own yard, tennis ball ready. We had been beaning cars for a good hour already, and were about to call it a night. We heard it coming, though, the low pooti pooti of a Volkswagen, and we hoped it was a van. It came up the hill and made the turn at the corner and was going to pass right in front of my house. It was just shifting into third as it neared us and we had ourselves a beauty. It was a pure white Volkswagen bus, circa 1965. Big flimsy hollow door. Sheet metal roof expanse. We unloaded on it, tennis ball after tennis ball. We threw high and then medium high and then medium and then right at the spot where the van was guessed to be as it traveled. We were pretty good. Tennis balls rained down on the van, hitting the roof boing!, the door boing! and bouncing- dribbling sort of- underneath bubabubabubabuba...

Beautiful.

I think we had about seven direct hits. Damn, what a way to end the evening.

This van stopped. Of course it did. They always did. They would stop, look out their windows, see nothing, cuss and swear and flip off the night and then drive off. They always did. Who wants to get out and track down unseen assailants in an unfamiliar part of your neighborhood in the dark over a tennis ball?

Five college-aged dudes, that’s who.

Oh shit. The bus pulled over and parked. A bunch a maniac dudes who were pissed hopped out. Steve and I and G were hidden in our juniper bushes and were shitting ourselves. These guys had no clue as to the direction of the origin of the attack, but they had the energy and the anger to scour the bushes on both sides of the road. They were in our neighbor’s yards, lifting up branches, beating around the bushes, cussing at the “mother fuckers” they were going to kill. Steve was not as well hidden as G and I were. G and I had the carefully crafted hole in the middle of our massive junipers filled. Steve was frantically trying to find shelter from the storm, but he knew- and we knew- that our junipers had but the one totally safe haven.

Shit. Steve snuck back and shot into our garage. We had a ping pong table folded up and standing against one wall. Steve slipped behind this, just as the maniacs were coming up our driveway, now sure our front yard was the source of the bombardment.

They beat at our juniper bushes. They cussed and carried on about killing the “mother fuckers” who threw the “goddamn” tennis balls. Spittle was flying and tempers were flared like Roman candles with the end pinched down with pliers (a reference for other miscreants).

G and I knew we were safe. You couldn’t see us in the daylight, unless you knew just how to make the meandering crawl. But Steve?

Three of these angry dudes went into our garage. They were standing a few feet away from my skinny and scared older brother. One of them started kicking at our empty garbage cans and making a hell of a racket. One of them kicked the ping pong table with a silly side kick and then a light went on across the street. Our neighbor decided to poke his fragile little head out of his door and yell meekly out to the night outside.

“What’s going on? I’ve called the police. You should go if you don’t want trouble.”

That settled it. A few more angry kicks to our garbage cans and one more to the ping pong table and the dudes all converged on the bus and got in and drove off. Steve came out from behind the ping pong table and threw a tennis ball at them, missing them, but you KNOW they saw it bouncing ahead of them in their headlights...

Mum was sound asleep in the house this night, and never knew.