Ain't no cure for the summertime blues

Summer holidays when I was at school meant many things. It meant no school, obviously, it meant long, long, long hot dry days, stretching out to two, three, four days in a row of temperatures that would literally cook you alive. As was the cycle of weather where I grew up, these long hot spells would, almost without exception, be brought to an end by spectacular summer storms. Heralded by towering black clouds stretching high into the stratosphere, tumbling ominously across the bleached blue summer sky. As they engulfed the sun itself, distant flashes of pure white light in the darkened sky, with their sound waves trailing lazily behind, them announced the approach of a storm. We would count between the light and the sound to see how close the storm was: Flash! One cat and dog. Two cat and dog. Three cat and dog. Fou... BOOM Rumble Rumble Rumble...

When all became dark, and the ragged spikes of lightning fissured the sky, followed by peals of thunder like a nuclear detonations overhead, then the rain would start. The first drops would hit the ground with an audible "splat"; huge, cool handfuls of water, and steam would rise from the baking ground where they landed. It was apocalyptic, and primally exciting. Dogs would bark in defiance, or hide under houses, and cats were not to be seen at all after the first stampede of thunder galloped across the blackening sky. Instincts that serve well when evolving in a jungle full of creatures much larger than oneself may yet give the appearance of cowardice at the onset of a thunderstorm. Babies and toddlers crying and hiding, children braving the fear to dance in the falling drops, adults opening all the doors and windows to bring in the change.

I remember once, swimming all day in a friends pool on a hot, dry day at the end of a week of hot, dry days when just such a storm rolled in. Though it was a school vacation, it was late in the summer, and most of our parents had returned to work. It was pretty unusual where I grew up for anyone to have a parent who didn't have a job, so there were many, many houses with no adult supervison during business hours. It was in one of these, that happened to have an inground pool and spa, where I found myself, and some friends stranded by the storm. Our flimsy swimming togs were reasonably dry, and most of us had little to put on in the way of real clothes. So we did what any young teens would have done who were looking for the excuse to do so. We huddled together under blankets to "keep warm".

Being that there were at least eight people there, it was probably sheer coincidence that there were an even number of boys and girls present, and yet, that is the hand fate had dealt us. Or it was some careful planning by one of the girls who wanted to "get with" one of my friends. I never gave it much thought before. Of course, none of the boys wished to share a blanket with another, so we managed to split ourselves amicably into mixed pairs to share our assorted rugs. I only vaguely remember the girl with which I shared an afternoon under a blanket in that storm. She was the friend or maybe even the cousin of one of the other girls there, who was "in town" for the summer holidays, her parents staying at the house of the girl I knew.

She was cute enough I guess, straw blonde hair, freckly face, kind of bean polish in shape, even though she was at least a year older than me. I wasn't particularly attracted to her, I know that. But being a thirteen year old boy, I don't think that really entered into anything much. It wasn't long before the lightning faded into the distance, and the rain set in, apparently for the night, even though it was still only mid afternoon, it was unfeasibly dark, and a cold wind had blown up. We were plainly not going to swim again, "We might get wet" one of my friends obligingly joked. So we opted for videos in the louge. Under blankets.

As every good teenage tough guy knows, when you are sharing a blanket with a girl in her bathing suit, the best thing to do is watch a horror movie. And this is just what we did. I believe "The Evil Dead" was what we put on. A scratchy VHS pirated copy of an R rated movie that someone's brother had lent to him so we could see it. I have to admit, it was pretty scary. Not that any of us boys would have let on. And to watch it now, it's actually hilarious, though still could give me a fright in the right circumstances, I'll bet.

The best thing about watching horror movies with girls is, they get scared. When they get scared, they hold on, tight. The aim of the game is to get them to hold on tight to you, and I suppose, try to cop a feel when they press themselves up against you. As the movie worked its way toward the inevitable attack of the living dead, the girl I was snuggled up with some how had worked her way right up close to me, and I was sitting in an awkward fashion to accomodate her holding on to me in the scarier moments of suspense and bad latex. She had worked her way around so that one of her legs was underneath me, and her other knee was just resting between my thighs. I had an arm around her shoulders, taking my cue from the more officially "going" couples, who had been at least pashing since New Year's Eve.

I looked over and saw that two of them had lost interest in the movie altogether, and were engaged in apparently checking each others gums with their tongues for signs of early erupting wisdom teeth. I looked at the girl next to me, and saw that she was still forcing herself to watch the movie. The square jawed main character had just managed to calm everyone down, and was being pleaded with by a girl he had apparently mistakenly chained in the cellar of the old log cabin. I was just working up to pulling in for the pash, and as I rolled forward to give myself better access to her mouth, the girl in the cellar screamed and turned into a living corpse. The girl in the beanbag screamed and jerked her uppermost knee swiftly into the slightly tenty area between my legs. The boy with two testicles in his throat screamed and turned into a quivering glob of trifle on the carpet.

The front door opened, and the parents were home. The rain had stopped, and the sun had returned for a last ditch effort. I decided the best thing was to head out to the pool for another swim. The chlorine would at least be an excuse for the tears in my eyes and there's no better way to hide a bruised... ego, than under water.