The Slide
The playground slide is a marvelous thing. A shiny tower whose top reaches the clouds and a ladder to take you there. The slide on the playground for the elementary school on the Air Force base in Tachikawa, Japan stood as tall as Mt. Fuji itself. Well, at least it seemed that tall for a fifth grader full of daydreams and adventure. I would doubt that such a monument would be allowed in our ultra safety conscience society, but back in the day the slide was a staple for any thrill seeking school boy.
The idea of that I would wait for the person in front of me to ascend to the heights of heaven before I started my own ascent seemed silly. As soon as the bottom rung was free, I grabbed hold of the rails and planted one foot firmly on the first rung. Of course being in such close quarters, climbing the ladder meant that I kept my face turned to one side. If I looked straight ahead my nose would be squarely into the butt of the person in front of me. I did not want to be high above the playground with my face planted in the backside of the boy in front of me. At that elevation, everyone on the playground, and surrounding districts, would be able to see me. That would bring on a merciless barrage of jeering once class resumed. That was something I did not want, so the pain of craning my neck as far as humanly possible was worth the discomfort.
Arriving at the top, I sat down and pushed my legs out in front of me. I imagined I was in a P-51 Mustang ready to strafe a German supply train puffing along a predetermined route. Just before I started my ascent a voice from behind me said, “You know a man has to ‘F’ a girl to make a baby.” (He actually used the f-word). I had no idea what ‘F’ meant. “That’s not true,” I said, turning my head and jamming my eyes as far to one side as they could go, “God puts the baby in a mom’s belly.” No matter how hard I twisted my neck, I couldn’t see who was spewing forth such lies. I fixed my gaze on the supply train and dove after it, guns blazing.
Coming to the bottom of the slide was always a tricky affair. If the dirt was soft, you could lock your knees and stop. Doing this, however, opened the possibility of having two feet jammed into your lumbar. (fix this. feels awkward)
The best course of action was to use my momentum to catapult myself into a full sprint. This not only looked cool, but it allowed you to turn sharply back to the ladder, often cutting in front of some playground newbie.
Again the ascent up the ladder, again the purveyor of lies was behind me. He kept on with the nonsense of how a man and a woman had to be together to make babies. Once I reached the top and settled in for my next attack position, “Johnny” was already standing above me, both of his knees resting on my shoulders. I gave him a sharp elbow and yelled, “Liar!” thrusting my P-51 into a nosedive headed towards the unsuspecting train.
Question, Razor and Bad Timing
The whole ordeal vanished from my mind without a trace. After all, the weekend had arrived and Saturdays are very busy for a fifth grader living in Japan. I joined some friends to search for puddles in hopes that we could capture tadpoles. When we got bored of tadpole hunting, we would scour the concrete walls that surrounded Japanese factories for lizards or any cool creepy crawly. We always made our way to the train tracks and where we placed pennies on the track and waited for the train to flatten them. The once useless penny was now an even more useless copper disk. Useless to anyone but a fifth grader.
Sunday morning I woke wondering if “Johnny-the-liar” was telling the truth. I decided to ask my dad. I sauntered through the kitchen, then the living room and stood in the doorway of the houses only bathroom. There was my dad, the lower half of his face covered with white fluffy shaving cream. He stared intently at the mirror, his chin jetting forward in a straight line, stretching the skin of his neck as tight as possible. Very deliberately he dragged the single bladed razor from a place just above the collar bone to the very end of his chin, leaving a clean skin colored path amidst the sea of shaving cream. It looked like the parting of the white sea. Those razors were so cool. You could twist the bottom of the handle, and like a budding flower, two little doors would open up revealing a single, double edged Gillette razor. As the razor passed over his jugular I popped the question. “Dad? Do you have to F to have a baby?” To this day I am amazed that he did not slit his throat. “Where did you hear that?” he asked calmly, running the razor under the water checking it for any blood. “On the playground. Some guy said you have to F to have babies, but I told him God puts the baby there.” I don’t remember how my dad responded. I only remember watching him shave, getting bored and leaving.
The Talk
“Want to come with me to get gas?” asked my dad. I thought, why would I want to do that? “Sure.” I said, not wanting to hurt his feelings. We got into the car and off we went to the gas station. We arrived and found a long line of cars. “So, I thought I would tell you how babies are really made.” my dad said in a voice that sounded strained with a hint of feigned nonchalantness. “You see, when a man and a woman love each other and get married.” His voice drifted away. I thought, “Wow. There are a lot of cars here. I wonder why so many people came out to get gas?” Soon the long line of cars evolved into a military convoy, waiting to gas-up for the big offensive schedule for tonight. Slowly we inched forward. As the top navigator, I needed to make sure we had enough fuel to carry out the mission. Soon we would be careening over some sand dunes, with me manning the 50 cal machine gun.
A muffled voice drifted into my consciousness, “Ron, do you understand?” asked my dad, look straight at me. “Yes.” I said looking back at him with my best “I’m totally listening” face. He went on, “then the man plants a seed…” Again, his voice drifted away. Again, the convey loomed over the horizon. “There’s no way the Japanese could defeat this many tanks and half-tracks.”
“Ron? Does that all make sense?” my dad asked in a hopeful tone. I looked him straight in the eyes with the most grateful look I could muster, “Yes it does. I’m glad you told me how things really are.” He got out of the car and I watched as he hitched us to the gas pump. The black dial with white numbers began to spin. The first row spun so fast I could hardly read the numbers. The second dial moved a little slower. “How does the dial know how much gas we are pumping?” The first row came to a halt. Then with each click of the nozzle, the first column of numbers jumped forward. Click. The numbers jumped from 3 to 6. Click. Click. They moved from 7 to 9 then to 0. My dad had inched the dials forward to show a perfect $5.00. A masterful move. He got in back in the car and we moved forward. He turned on the radio. “This is FEN, The Far East Network, and this is the Fifth Dimension.” “Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?” I looked out the passenger side window thinking, “I love the song.” It seems that the invasion was called off, so we headed home.