Julie Williams lived across the street from my childhood home in Tucson. She was a bit older than me, tall with flaming red hair and perfectly placed freckles. Her brother was my worst enemy.
Sean Williams was the scary older brother of most nightmares. One chilly winter afternoon while Julie and I were playing in her backyard, Sean snuck up behind us with the garden hose and pinned us to the back fence. If we moved, he’d spray us in the face with the hose. This went on for what seemed like hours until Julie’s mom came home and caught him holding us hostage.
He was the typical bully. I couldn’t get by him without being punched, tripped or assaulted in some way. Julie was used to it, and upon entering her house would run to her room and lock the door behind her. Since her mom worked late hours, Julie was often locked away from her brother, laying low and staying safe. Every now and then I’d forget about the horrible big brother and go trotting across the street only to find him sitting in the carport with a BB gun.
One time my mother made me a new outfit. It was a little white cropped top and a pair of blue culottes (remember those?). By 1980s standards I was a superstar. I put on my new outfit and ran across the street to show my friend Julie. I knocked on her front door and stood there in my blue culottes. I was so proud. The front door flew open violently and Sean stepped out, just far enough to shove me in the bush just outside their front door.
As I fell into the bush my culottes caught on a branch and ripped. I heard him laugh and then slam the door shut. I removed myself from the bush and held my torn culottes together as I walked back across the street in tears.
This sort of torture went on for many years until I think he lost interest. Things got better, and on occasion, we could play with little to no interference from the terrible big brother. Which leads me to the gerbil story.
One afternoon my sister and I were playing at Julie’s house. Julie had many gerbils in several plastic cages. I suspect they belonged to her brother. There were brown ones, black ones and white ones with black spots. We were little girls and completely fascinated by all things furry and small, and we were thrilled when Julie’s brother said we could take some home. He started shoving gerbils into an empty cage. He stuffed in some shavings and gave them some of the little green pellets.
One of us must have said we needed to ask our mom because the thing I remember most is my mom saying (or yelling), “There is no way we’re bringing glorified rats into her house!” She yelled it a few times.
What my sister and I heard was “just take the gerbils and hide them under your bed.” So that’s what we did. We took a plastic cage with an undetermined number of gerbils and stuffed them under our shared full-sized bed. The pink dust ruffle and the various toys hid their existence from everyone but the cat.
My memory is fuzzy as to the number of days the gerbils lived under our bed, but I do remember when my mom found the empty cage. Rage doesn’t seem like an angry enough word to describe my mom at that moment.
There are questions that persist to this day. Did the cat get to the gerbils in the cage? Did the gerbils escape and become victim to the cat? Were the glorified rats, in fact, alive and well in the house somewhere?
I don’t remember the last time I played with Julie Williams. Eventually she and her family moved away, never to be seen or heard from again.
I think of them often. I credit Julie for my love of perfectly placed freckles. And I credit Sean, who knew, all the way back in the 1980s, that culottes were not cool and that he was doing me a favor. Too bad he had to shove me in a bush to prove it.
Cassina Farley can be contacted at cassinaandzachfarley@msn.com