Good to See the Boys

I'm working on about three hours sleep today and Kim, no doubt is muttering something to herself like, "Too freaking bad, you moron. You did this to yourself, and you'd better not come home this afternoon and try to lay your sorry, lazy ass down on the couch after I've been doing laundry all day and dragging Hunter's tired butt all the way to Scottsdale after you kept him up all freaking night, too." And as usual, she is completely right.
We used to live about half a mile from our current house while this one was being built, nestled in a cozy cul-de-sac. The house we had rented in this cul-de-sac was extraordinarily small for us, but we wanted to get into a house up here before the school year started, so that we wouldn't have to move Hunter in the middle of the year during first grade. We ended up liking the neighbors so much in those first four and a half months, that we actually inquired about purchasing the tiny house that we were living in because we didn't want to move down the street away from our little cocoon. The asking price was about $30,000 more than the larger house we were purchasing, and quite frankly, there was no way in hell we were able to dish out one more dollar than we already were spending, but we really thought long and hard about it.
The day we moved into the rental was probably the best example of why we never wanted to leave. I don't know about each of you, but moving day to me is probably the most inane, frustrating day known to man. There is relentless upheaval, mind-numbing confusion, painful arguing, intense yelling, smashing fingers, aching backs, broken lamps, desks taking 14 foot plunges down staircases, impossibility of setting up utilities, and all the other collaborative BS that goes along with the moving process. It has never been a fun experience. We even hired movers to load up our stuff and drop it off in June of 2003 (109 degrees by the way--Arizona, good idea Josh). The process takes all day, and at the time, we had a soon to be six year old and a 7 month old in tow, kicking and screaming the whole way. We also had to coordinate Hunter's last day of Kindergarten on the same day of the move and Kim got completely lost trying to find the house in a car we borrowed from a friend. All of this, of course was before we owned a cell phone, so she had no way of getting a hold of me and she was panicked.
Eventually, she found her way to our little hamlet in North Phoenix, but being trapped in a car with Lauren for a couple of hours had certainly put the strain on Kim. The moving truck took even longer to get there (I believe that they took a "shortcut" through New Jersey on the way, but they were paid by the hour, so it was to be expected). Eventually, we got to the house, got the truck unloaded and had a house filled with boxes and randomly placed furniture. Exhausted and frustrated, without cable, phone service or internet (practically living in the stone age) we picked up a pizza--couldn't call to have it delivered, tracked down the kid's beds and put together a makeshift sleeping arrangement for both of them to make sure that they got some rest at some point. The sun was setting and I walked out to the garage to get another box of cords to set up the entertainment center.
The garage door was open and I was greeted by a lot of chatter in the street. As I grabbed the box from the back of the Saturn, I looked down the driveway to see about 15 people in the Cul-de-sac playing baseball. There were kids ranging in age from 4 to 13 playing with parents on both teams. Those who weren't playing were sitting on their driveways cheering everybody on, and there was not an empty driveway to be found (well except for ours which was actually filled with players waiting on deck). There was this incredible energy and it was this bizarre Rockwellian scene that just made the rest of my day seem trivial. I went inside to get Kim and had her come out to get the next box with me, and she was equally shocked by what greeted her. We were coming from an apartment complex, where we would occasionally get to meet one of our neighbors and might know their names and the names of their kids, but neither one of us had seen anything like this.
Now if any of you know me well, it is rare that I would be called overly sentimental. My own wife refers to me as an emotionless carbon-based life form, but you can't imagine how cool it was to see so many kids and parents out in the street at 7PM on a hot summer night playing together. We passed out early that night, and the next day, Kim went to Oklahoma with the kids--work was busy, so I was out early and getting back after 7 every night, but for the next 2 weeks, they were all out there in the early evening playing baseball or kickball. I had the chance to briefly introduce myself, and I found out that after 10, when the kids made their way into the house to go to bed, the adults came back out and sat around, sucked down a couple of cold ones and hung out until one or two in the morning busting each others balls and talking crap. Over the entire summer, there was somebody to hang out with, sometimes until dawn and there was somebody for Hunter to play with every night until bedtime. There were four kids in the same grade as Hunter, and we were inundated with social events. Between birthday parties, summer BBQs, Superbowl parties, (and sometimes just rolling the grill, extension cord, cable cord and TV out into the Cul-de-sac for Monday Night Football), there was always something going on.
Kim would hook up Lauren's monitor and bring it out to the garage and crank it up so she could hear the inevitable screams that would soon permeate from her restless slumber. But it was always a neighborhood affair unlike anything I have experienced before. We would have water balloon fights three or four nights a week (with no mercy shown for the smaller kids). We would roll a basketball hoop out to the center of the street and three foot two inch kids would try to drive the lane only to find an overzealous Dad there to reject the ball. It was awesome. Once we did move out in October, we still made our way over to the Cul-de-sac at least a couple of times a week. Hunter and I usually made the trip by ourselves and he would play with the kids and the guys would get together and play poker until the wee hours of the morning.
Over time, however, we have made these trips less and less frequently. Lauren still needs to be in bed by 7:30, so Kim almost never gets to go, and to be perfectly honest, she has had less and less desire to return as time has passed and she has gotten further outside their social circle. We actually stopped going all together about three or four months ago. Hunter and I made one of our random trips to the old hood and saw nobody in the street hanging out. One of my friends was walking out of his garage over to one of the neighbor's houses and asked how we were doing and to come on over--one of the kids was having a birthday party and everybody was in the backyard swimming. Now, had it just been me who heard that, I would have politely excused myself and come back another time. I realize that we were no longer living there and we had grown somewhat apart from the rest of them, and there were lots of parties that we probably were not involved with. The problem was that Hunter was with me and heard that there was a party going on and immediately insisted that we go. It is a practical impossibility to try to explain the awkwardness of this situation to an eight year old.
We weren't invited to this party, and really there was no reason that we should have been invited. But the fact that Hunter was now aware of it and there were 10 of his friends in the backyard swimming together put me in an impossible situation. We went back to the party and I knew how uncomfortable we made the hosts feel. They are suddenly feeling guilty for not inviting us, I am feeling incredibly guilty for crashing their party and there is no proper way to excuse myself from the situation without devastating Hunter's feelings. I turn around and go back to our house to pick up Hunter's bathing suit and get a birthday card with $10 in it for the birthday girl, return to the scene of the crime and try to leave the card inconspicuously on the gift table (that has already been emptied) and ultimately, the hosts feel even more uncomfortable.
I realized at that moment that we could no longer just pop on by the cul-de-sac. We were still very good friends with everybody there, and all the kids go nuts when Hunter pulls up to play on any given evening, but it is unfair to create situations like this one for everyone involved. Which brings us to yesterday.
While taking down my Christmas lights from the outside of the house yesterday afternoon, one of the guys drives by the house and asks if we are ever coming over again. Over the last two years, they generally play poker every Friday and Saturday night until three AM, and since the party, I haven't even been over once. I asked if they were going to play that night, and he said definitely. Hunter and I went over at 7:30 after Lauren went to bed (she was dying to go as well because she has a huge crush on one of Hunter's friends and plans to marry him someday). Hunter and the kids played ping pong and freeze tag until 11PM (usually Kim calls me by 10 to let me know I am late, but she must have passed out) and I came back to finish my poker game until 2:15. You know, sometimes it is very uncomfortable to try to return to your old social circles. People have changed, their lives go on without you, and you go on without them. There is just something about this group of people that is so genuine--what you see is what you get. They are a crusty bunch of sorry, weaselly bastards who still get angry every time they lose a hand and live for ripping each other to shreds for their various foibles and idiosynchrosies. I am paying dearly for it this morning, but it was nothing short of a perfect hanging out with those losers again. Each of the guys is so completely different from one another, but the dynamic of the group is just fantastic.
Dilf is in his mid twenties, works in the hotel business, is a Mormon (occasionally has a drink or nine when his wife is not around), sucks down Dr. Pepper by the gallon, loves guns and angry music and lives for getting under the skin of everybody else. OMAC is in his late thirties, is a chiropractor, overly competitive, obnoxious drunk, gets pissed every time he loses a hand and is a scratch golfer. Ryan is in his early 20s, is a staunch Republican, still gets high, drinks Coors Light like water and most other alcoholic beverages that are placed in his immediate vicinity, works in construction, likes motorcycles and rebuilding cars, and has no kids. Scott is a computer geek, late thirties, keeper of the "poker book," ex-jock, chain-smoker (he has quit for now), Diet Dr. Pepper drinker, and is overly sensitive when Dilf is mean to him (which always, always, always delights Dilf to no end).
These four guys are the core, and they are probably cumulatively funnier than any four people I have ever been around. There are also the peripheral members of the Cul-de-sac, who are there to provide entertainment for the rest of us only. Most notably is Kong--a 465 lb bohemoth (again--cannot possibly be spelled right, but I hate spell check) who recently went and got that gastro-bypass surgery. This guy is quite possibly the worst poker player on the planet, but still insists upon pointing out tidbits for the rest of us like "I was only three cards away from getting the straight flush." or "I would have had you if the 9 of clubs and the Jack of clubs would have come up on the turn and the river." or "I couldn't pull off that bluff." There is no easier read on any poker table anywhere. It starts with a sheepish grin, then his face turns red, then he starts to convulse (I'm not making this up) uncontrollably when he makes his straight. The grin soon turns into a gaping smile and he will ask questions after every card like "What's the limit?" and "Who is still in?" all the while shaking like that guy who was watching the test for the first atomic bomb. It is classic. Most the time, you can still bluff him out of his flush, which he will stammer about and recount for your pleasure for the rest of the night and most likely the next several weeks as well. "I can't believe I let you bluff me out of that flush. What did you have? Oh yeah, a pair of sevens--that was a great play. Do you remember that hand?" Oh, sweet shrinking Kong, you are merely fodder for my blog. He owes several hundred dollars to various members of the poker group, so there was grave concern that he wouldn't make it back from his surgery and they would have to find his mother to collect his debt. These are the kinds of thoughts that keep these guys up at night
And lastly, there is the Roaming Gnome who bought our old house and is one of those touchy-feely 50-somethings who gives every woman in the cul-de-sac the heebie-jeebies every time he comes out. He is about 5' 2" and likes to go out dancing at bars where one generally wouldn't dance. He keeps trying to get the guys to join him, and shockingly, there have been no takers, though I think it would be an outstanding way to spend the evening, watching this oversized circus midget dancing on a bar as he tries to convince the world of his heterosexual tendencies. Good times for all.
The long and short of it is that there are few people I have met in my life with whom I would rather spend my time. Whether it is an hour visit or an all-night poker bash, I get the opportunity to dish it out and take it with the best of them. The short distance that separates our homes now makes it more of a challenge to be a part of things, but it doesn't minimize the experience. I look at hanging out at the Cul-de-sac as a distraction (like golf) that I should be able to find something better to do with my time. I enjoy the fact that I can share this experience with Hunter most the time. I don't expect that we will ever find another neighborhood quite like this one, but we are extremely fortunate to have ever discovered it in the first place. If anybody out there is looking for a great way to lose $10 in six hours, I can think of no better place to go.