Birthday Season

by John Fried


For my best friend Kevin Johnson’s thirteenth birthday his father ordered pizzas, a case of Coke, and then handed out Playboy magazines. I got the Halloween issue. On the cover, a woman in nothing but a tall, black, pointed hat straddled a broom, her body twisted and arched so that you couldn’t see anything except the side of her breast fading into an inky black background. A few of my friends opened their magazines, casually paging through as if they were reading Highlights. I froze. My few experiences with dirty magazines had been private and quiet, in the bathroom with my foot jammed against the door or at the bottom of the closet, turning pages by flashlight. Never a public event.

“Check this out,” Sam Schoenfein said, holding the centerfold of his “Girls of the Big Ten” issue for everyone to see. A woman stood in an end zone stretching to catch a ball suspended above her. Other than thick strokes of black glare guard under each eye and a pair of cleats, she was naked, and apparently thrilled to be so. “Touchdown,” Sam said. Everyone laughed. Everyone except Kevin, the birthday boy, who stared at his dad.

“What?” Mr. Johnson said. “I thought you’d like it.”

Mr. Johnson owned some kind of trucking company and he normally resembled a truck himself — large and sturdy, wide eyes like headlights — but that day, he seemed defeated. Kevin looked at the cover of his Playboy. A woman wearing a red fur vest sat in Santa Claus’ lap as he read from the “naughty list.” He tossed the magazine across the floor before walking out of the room. His dad followed. It took about two seconds before everyone was flipping frantically.

Kevin’s parents had separated earlier that month and his dad had recently moved out. “They keep telling me it’s not my fault,” he told me. The week before, his mom had taken Sam, Dave, me, and Kevin out for his birthday to see Friday the 13th: Part Three in 3D, an R-rated movie my parents would never have let me see. Mrs. Johnson bought the tickets, loaded us with popcorn, soda, and candy and then made us wait while she smoked cigarettes before the movie began. When the movie started, she took a seat behind us and I could see tears trailing under her cardboard 3D glasses. “It’s like they’ve freaking lost it.” Kevin said. “Happy fucking birthday to me.”

“That sucks,” I said, although part of me was a little jealous. I knew divorce wasn’t a good thing, but so many kids’ parents were splitting up at my school that it began to seem normal, almost cool. I couldn’t help but see an upside: two of everything — Christmases, birthdays, vacations. It sounded like a sweet deal.

“I can’t believe my dad handed out Playboys,” Kevin said. “What a joke.”

“I don’t know. Playboys beat a loot bag any day of the week.”

The fall was birthday season at my school, one party after the other from early September through November. Up to that year, the parties had been similar — tickets to baseball game, touch football in the park, video games at someone’s house, maybe a movie if there was something worth seeing. You ate pizza and ice cream cake until you felt sick and then got a bag of toys or candy to take home when the party was done.

That year, the parties had changed. Many of the birthdays had been organized around trips to museums, fancy dinners, or Broadway shows, as if parents were trying to tell us we weren’t little boys anymore. The results were disastrous. In September, Brian Slosher’s father took a large group of us to the Japanese steakhouse Benihana. Within fifteen minutes, one table had started a drooling contest to see whose spit sizzled the longest on the grill. Josh Fox’s mom had brought a bunch of boys to see Phantom of the Opera and someone started chucking M&Ms from the balcony on people in the orchestra.

My birthday was at the end of October. I’d always done the same thing: bowling. I loved the rituals of bowling, rubbing chalk between my palms, letting my hand hover above the air blower, slipping my feet into shoes often still warm from the person before me, even the etiquette of letting the bowler in the lane next to me go first, although I was often too excited to wait. I wasn’t a particularly artful bowler; I threw the ball straight, without the seductive spin or curve and I still hadn’t mastered the graceful leg swing at the end of the throw. I had graduated from six and eight pound balls — “ladies’ balls,” my dad would say with a smirk — to the coal-black ten pounder. There was something thrilling about the sound of the ball rolling down the lane, fading away from me. Once I threw it, I would always stand at the edge of the lane, twisting and gyrating, urging the ball in a particular direction with my body, as if my movement might help it catch another pin. I envied those people that could just send the ball soaring down the lane and then walk away, confident of a strike. I needed to watch until everything settled because I was never sure I knew what was going to happen.

My parents just assumed I wanted another bowling party. “Should I reserve the lanes?” my dad said to me a few days after Kevin’s party.

“I don’t think I want to bowl this year,” I said, which wasn’t the truth. I did want to bowl, but bowling was clearly out. I was supposed to think bigger. My mother and father looked at each other in disbelief.

“What do you want to do?”

I shrugged.

“We could go to a game,” my dad suggested, which in late October meant hockey or pre-season basketball, basically birthday suicide. I might as well have taken my friends to the ballet.

“Maybe a nice dinner?” my mom said with a tone that made it sound like something done at around four-thirty in the afternoon when you’re eighty years old.

“I need to think about it,” I said, but I was dogged by thoughts of bowling, the quiet roar of a ball heading down the lanes echoing in my ears like approaching thunder.

My friend Dave’s birthday was the week after Kevin’s party. Dave, a geeky string bean of a kid, had arranged a day of video games, ice cream cake, and pizza at his house until his mom stepped in at the last minute and changed the plans. Mrs. Birchard had recently remarried and insisted they throw a joint birthday party with her new husband’s daughter, Libby, who was turning thirteen as well. “I know it was Brian’s idea,” Dave told me. Brian was Dave’s stepdad, who rumor had it had been his mother’s psychiatrist. “He’s got this thing about togetherness and sharing.” Brian even scheduled “safe talk time” every Sunday when the whole family was supposed to sit down and talk about whatever was bothering them without fear of someone getting defensive. “Most of the time it’s just him bitching about us not putting our dishes in the dishwasher or leaving lights on around the house,” Dave said. “It’s so gay.”

At Dave’s party, we were substantially outnumbered. He had only invited the four of us while Libby, who went to Chaplin, an all-girls school on the Upper East Side, had apparently invited every girl in her grade. The party was catered; waiters in pressed white shirts and bow ties circulated carrying tray of tiny triangular-shaped sandwiches that tasted like buttered grass. The four of us huddled around a bowl of Doritos, the only recognizable food, until Brian came over, shaking his head.

“Come on guys,” he said. “Mingle. Socialize.”

Sam looked at me, his mouth rimmed with orange dust from the Doritos, and rolled his eyes. Dave turned away. Kevin wiped his hand on his corduroys, picked up a can of Sunkist and then said, to our surprise, “Okay.”

Whether or not we acknowledged it, my friends and I took our cues from Kevin. He had moved to New York City two years ago from California because his dad’s business had expanded to the East Coast. He looked like the television version of a California kid: sun bleached hair, a string of white beads tight around his neck at all times, a dirty rope bracelet on his wrist. He often told us stories about his life in California, learning how to surf, going to beach parties, kissing girls around bonfires, and swimming in the ocean at Christmas. It sounded magical. Kevin carried himself with a confidence that often made me feel as if he understood something about the world we were still just starting to grasp. At Dave’s party, he circled the room and we followed dutifully.

“Hey,” he said to two girls by the window.

“Hey yourself,” one of them said. She was tall with straight brown hair that lay flat on her head and reflected the light outside like sun off a batting helmet.

Kevin asked, “You friends with Libby?”

“Friends?” she said suspiciously. “I think we played together once when we were in second grade. She invited the whole class.”

“I knew it,” Dave said.

Across the room, Brian and Dave’s mom were organizing a game of Jeopardy. “Remember to answer in the form of a question,” Brian instructed loudly.

“What is…” Sam said, patting Dave on the back, “…really, really embarrassing.”

“You’re her brother?” the brown-haired girl asked Dave.

“Stepbrother.”

The other girl, who had red hair sculpted into a wave over her forehead, perked up. “Is it true that Libby’s dad was your mom’s shrink?”

Dave nodded.

“That’s so sick,” she said. She wore a frilly skirt and a tight pink tee shirt that showed off her substantial chest and drew all our gazes like an eclipse we weren’t supposed to stare at.

“At least she knew him well,” the straight-haired girl said. “My dad left my mom for a sales girl he met at Barney’s.”

Kevin introduced us. The brown-haired girl’s name was Jenny. The busty girl was Abby. A lengthy silence followed, during which Jenny stared out the window and Abby crossed her arms, hiding the goods. I figured this was a sign that our conversation had ended and that we could reestablish our position around the Doritos, but Kevin reached into his pockets and pulled out a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes. His mother’s brand. “Anybody want to smoke?”

The six of us huddled on the slate-gray steps of the stairwell, clouds of smoke hanging in the air around us. Kevin and I had smoked cigarettes a few times behind the school and in the park, but we didn’t really know what we were doing. This Jenny girl was a pro. She tried to teach us how to blow smoke rings. “You’ve got to make your mouth into an O,” she said, “and then push out with your tongue. Like this.”

She curled her lips into a small O, twitched her mouth, and a luminous white ring of smoke rolled out, holding its shape briefly before dissolving into the air.

“What’d you do? I don’t get it,” Sam said, looking at us and then trying again himself. Kevin bobbed his head, but nothing came out. I tried and ended up doubled over coughing. Jenny blew another perfect ring.

“I bet I know who taught you that,” Abby said knowingly and smiled. Jenny ignored her. Kevin finished his cigarette and butted it out on the side of the stairs, sending a stream of tiny embers spilled down the airshaft.

“Dude!” Dave said. “You’re going to burn down my building!”

“Relax,” Kevin said. “It’s out.”

Abby shifted on her step as if she couldn’t get quite comfortable. “Who has a birthday party like this anymore? I thought someone was going to suggest we play pin the tail on the donkey.”

“Don’t get me started,” Dave said.

“I like your necklace,” Jenny said to Kevin, who was lighting another cigarette.

I was focused on blowing a ring, but all I could produce were shapeless clouds of smoke. Finally, on the edge of coughing, I jutted out my jaw and a weak, tiny circle emerged, the ghost of ring. “Check it out! Look!” I said, pointing to where it was, but the door to the stairwell swung open and blew away my smoke ring. It was Brian. “What’s going on out here?” He waved his hand in front of his face. “Are you smoking?”

Kevin confessed to bringing the cigarettes. Brian called all of our parents. We waited in their bedroom until Dave’s mom came in and told us to go home. I got a lecture from my mom and dad about smoking, which was tough to sell, given that they had both smoked for years. They grounded me for a week.

When my grounding ended, Kevin and I went shopping for Sam’s birthday present. Sam was the only one of my friends having a bar mitzvah, which didn’t mean much to me except that I had to bring a bigger gift and wear my suit and uncomfortable shoes. The party was still a few weeks away, but Kevin and I hadn’t hung out much since he started going back and forth between his parents’ apartments. We got on a bus headed downtown and sat in the back.

“What are we going to do for your birthday?” Kevin asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Let me guess — bowling.”

I didn’t know if he was making fun of me or could just see through me. He dropped it and we rode in silence until we got into midtown. “I’ve got to go talk to a lawyer tomorrow,” he said, staring out the window. Outside, people in midtown were spilling out the front doors of office buildings. Rush hour. “I think he’s going to ask me who I want to live with.”

“You have to choose?”

Kevin shrugged and closed his eyes, letting his head lean against the back of the bus. I tried to think of who I would pick if I had to decide between my mother and father. My father and I were interested in more of the same things like baseball and bowling, but my mother took care of me when I was sick and she could cook, which seemed critical on a day-to-day basis. I’d only seen my dad flip burgers on a grill in the summer, which might mean tough times when winter arrived. Either choice seemed unsatisfactory, a kind of trick question, like deciding if you’d rather be deaf or blind, but knowing that giving up either one meant losing too much.

We got off the bus at 34th Street and went to Crosby’s, a sporting goods store in Madison Square Garden. My mom gave me ten dollars to spend so I bought Sam a pair of Yankee sweatbands and a yoyo with Yankee announcer Phil Rizutto shouting “Holy cow!” whenever it went up and down. At the bus stop on our way home, Kevin asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with Jenny and Abby, the girls from Dave’s party. I was surprised to hear that he had talked to them.

“What movie are you going to see?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, as if the question was stupid.

A bus arrived, crowded with people. We got on and squeezed our way through until we were jammed in the middle. Kevin held on to a bar and I held on to Kevin. “I think Abby likes you,” he added. I knew he was making it up, but I was highly susceptible. I had only ever kissed two girls; one playing spin the bottle at a school dance and the other time during my one trip to summer camp. I couldn’t argue with opportunity.

“Sure,” I said, as the bus lurched forward.

We met the girls at his dad’s apartment on Sunday. Abby was cuter than I remembered, her hair tied in a ponytail, freckles covering her cheeks, and a giant Bonnie Belle lip gloss dangling around her neck, but I couldn’t stop staring at Jenny. She had her hair loose and was wearing a zip-up pink sweater over a Star Wars tee shirt with Chewbacca on it. We couldn’t pick a movie, so we decided just to hang out, which made me nervous. At least at a movie, I wouldn’t have to make conversation. The four of us played Pac-Man on Kevin’s Atari for a while, girls against boys, in couples, and so on. When that got old, Jenny suggested we play suck and blow. I looked at Kevin, confused.

“You guys know suck and blow, right?” Jenny said. She explained that the object of the game was to pass a playing card around with your lips, sucking hard to keep it on your mouth until you passed it to the next person. It wasn’t kissing, but you couldn’t get much closer.

“What happens if it falls?” I asked.

“Then you have to tell us a secret.” We went into Kevin’s room to play. “I’ll start,” Jenny said. To my surprise, Jenny turned to me, raising the nine of diamonds to her lips, drawing air in quickly. She tilted her head and cupped my face with one hand. Up close, I could smell the shampoo in her hair. Strawberry. She opened her eyes wide, signaling that she was going to let go and then put her hand on my knee, bracing herself, sending a blot of electricity through me. I pulled away and the card drifted to the floor.

“Secret!” Abby shouted in delight.

I didn’t have many secrets, and certainly not the kind I wanted to share, but my older brother and sister had enough for all of us so I borrowed one of theirs. “I sometimes drink stuff out of my parents’ liquor cabinet and replace it with water.”

“You never told me that,” Kevin said.

“Then it wouldn’t be a secret,” I said. The girls smiled, seemingly impressed.

It was my turn. I brought the card to my lips and started to suck, which sounded like a basketball with a slow leak. Abby grabbed me and pushed her face toward mine so fast our heads knocked. When I pulled back, I was surprised to see the card fastened to her lips, her eyes wide with delight. She waved Kevin over quickly. Kevin pressed his mouth against the card and they rocked back and forth, as Kevin tried to position himself. Abby grunted some kind of instructions but Kevin couldn’t figure out what to do and started to laugh. The card popped out of Abby’s mouth.

“All right,” Jenny said eagerly. “What’s your secret?”

Kevin didn’t say anything at first. He turned the card in his fingers as if holding it one particular way would make all the difference. “I’m moving back to California.”

“That’s a secret?” Abby said. It was news to me. I wondered if moving was part of his discussion with the lawyer.

“Nobody knows,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I just decided. I’m not telling anyone. I’m just going.”

“You can’t just go,” I said.

“Why not?”

I could think of a number of reasons why not. Getting there, for starters, but he looked at me in a way that told me that this wasn’t the time to argue.

“I want to go to California,” Jenny said.

“Come along,” Kevin said and smiled. He put the card to his mouth and turned to Jenny. She moved closer to him and put her lips against the card. Pretty soon, the card fell to the floor but the two of them stayed together, their eyes closed. Abby and I got up and went into the living room.

“Her last boyfriend was in high school,” she said. I didn’t say anything. I was starting to doubt that she liked me. We started playing Pac-Man again. “I like Miss Pac-Man better,” she added.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and Kevin’s dad walked in. A woman followed behind him. She wasn’t nearly as old as Mr. Johnson. “Marty,” he said to me. “I didn’t know you guys would be here.” He looked at Abby. “Hello, I’m Kevin’s dad.”

“Hi,” Abby said, pulling the cap off her Bonnie Belle lip gloss and spreading a thick layer across her mouth.

“Where is Kevin?”

Kevin walked in from his bedroom, Jenny following behind.

“Big man,” his dad said.

Kevin looked at the woman behind his dad and said, “Who are you?”

“This is Gina. I’ve been meaning to introduce you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Gina said. She dug her hands in her pockets, and then looked at Kevin’s dad as if waiting for him to say or do something.

“And who’s this?” his dad said, extending his hand to Jenny.

“Just a friend,” Kevin said.

“I didn’t know you guys were coming over,” his father said. “You should have told me. I could order Chinese or something.”

“That’s okay,” Jenny said, looking at Abby and nodding. “We should go.”

The girls left. Kevin and I retreated to his room and sat on the floor, flicking suck-and-blow cards into the garbage can until I had to go home.

The weeks leading to Sam’s bar mitzvah were a frenzy of freakish birthday parties. Lunch at the Russian Tea Room. A trip to the New York Stock Exchange. Chamber music at Lincoln Center. A gallery opening in Soho. One movie, but it was a boring foreign film about homeless children in Brazil. Kevin had been invited to all of the parties but hadn’t gone to any since Dave’s. I barely saw him outside of school because he was hanging out with Jenny and going back and forth between his parents’ apartments.

Everyone came to Sam’s party. Temple Rodolph Sholom was packed with people, a sea of suits, dresses, and yarmulkes. Dave was sitting near the front with his mom, Brian and Libby. I could see Kevin and his mom sitting on one side of the room; his dad sat on the other side with Gina. Through a sea of heads I saw Jenny and Abby near the front. Sam had asked Kevin to invite them because we went to an all-boys school and it looked cooler to have a few girls at your party.

The service went on forever. I spent most of it adjusting the yarmulke on top of my head as the rabbi went on about responsibility and faith and becoming a man. Even from the back I could see the sweat pouring down Sam’s face as he hacked his way through Hebrew.

After the ceremony, we headed downtown. Sam’s parents had rented out a ballroom in Tavern on the Green, and even in fall, it looked like some kind of magical winter palace, with white Christmas lights coiled around arms of bare trees, the glass walls reflecting rows of white candles. Tables with linens were arranged neatly around a dance floor, bars stationed at every corner. When we walked in, the parents headed to get drinks while kids raced to get tables as far away as possible from the adults. Jenny and Abby came to sit with us. Sam stole a couple bottles of champagne and we passed them under the table, filling and refilling small paper cups from the bathroom. We all kept watch, making sure no parents snuck up on us.

“Who’s that with your dad?” Sam asked Kevin.

“Some woman.”

“Dude, she’s hot,” Sam said.

The deejay started playing music and people slowly filled the dance floor. I kept my distance from my parents who were in the middle of the dance floor, my dad pretending to reel in my mom like a fish on a line.

“Do you want to dance?” Jenny asked Kevin.

“I don’t dance,” he said, his eyes fixed on his dad dancing with Gina. His mom was on the other side of the room talking to Dave’s parents.

“You’ll dance with me, Marty,” Jenny said, pulling me onto the dance floor. I hated dancing most of the time, but I couldn’t say no to Jenny.

We started dancing, or at least something like it. I stepped side to side and balled my hands up in front of me like a boxer in a fight. Jenny bounced, swinging her head around. “Abby likes you, you know,” she said.

I nodded, unconvinced. Abby hadn’t even acknowledged me at the party. I focused on my moves. I was a weak dancer in general but the addition of champagne made me feel even more uncertain. The song hit a slow part and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself so I slowed my gestures to a glacial pace, trying to imitate a man walking in space.

Jenny asked, “Has Kevin said anything to you about me?”

He hadn’t, but I knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “I think he likes you,” I said. The song picked up again. Jenny smiled broadly. At that moment I felt like I alone knew how to make her happy.

When the song ended, we went back to our table and kept drinking small cups of champagne. Sam, Dave, and I started flicking butter pats onto the glass ceiling. The hostess came around and told us to stop unless we wanted to leave.

“It’s my party,” Sam said. “I’m a man today.”

“So act like one,” she said, and walked off.

A few minutes later, Kevin’s dad walked over with Gina.

“Hey fellas. Congratulations, Sam,” his father said.

“Kevin,” Gina said. “Would you like to dance with me?”

“I don’t dance,” Kevin said.

Sam stood quickly. “I do.”

Gina looked at Kevin’s father, smiled, and then led Sam to the dance floor.

“You all right, Kev?” His dad put his hand on Kevin’s arm.

Kevin didn’t answer. He turned to Abby, his expression determined. “Let’s dance,” he said, taking her by the hand and leading her from the table. Jenny sunk in her seat. Kevin’s dad left. I kept drinking.

When the song ended, Sam came back, beaming. “What a woman,” he said. Abby and Kevin moved to a window seat by themselves, which clearly upset Jenny. The waiter arrived carrying plates of food.

“I’m starving,” Sam said. “I almost fainted out there.”

Dave poked the food on his plate. Some kind of fish. “I don’t think it’s cooked.”

“It’s poached salmon,” the waiter said. “It’s meant to be served cold.”

“Screw that,” Sam said and left the table. A few minutes later he came back with a smile on his face. Dave asked what had happened.

“You’ll see,” Sam said. Kevin was still talking to Abby by the window. Jenny turned to me. “Why is your friend being such a jerk?”

I had to say something. “They’re probably talking about you,” I said, but she looked distressed, her eyes welling with tears. I looked over at Kevin and Abby. They were kissing. Jenny ran for the bathroom. Abby must have seen her because she followed quickly behind Jenny.

“Dude,” Sam said when Kevin returned to the table. “What’s up?”

“I thought you were with Jenny,” Dave added.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound angry.

“Whatever,” Kevin said, slouching in his seat. “I guess we’re divorced,” he added and everyone laughed, even me.

Twenty minutes later, Jenny and Abby hadn’t emerged from the bathroom, but a pizza guy had arrived with four pizzas for Sam. Across the room, I could hear a woman shouting and I figured it was the hostess complaining to Sam’s dad, but it was Kevin’s mom. She was yelling at his dad, pointing toward Gina. She was gesturing wildly, out of control. My parents stood between them like referees.

“Look at them,” Kevin said. “They can’t even be in the same room.” He stood up. “I’m getting out of here.”

Just then the music stopped and the waiters rolled out a giant birthday cake. “Is it an ice cream cake?” Dave asked Sam.

“No, it’s some black forest thing my mom picked out,” Sam said. “I don’t have a clue what it is. Maybe it’s made of trees.”

I turned back to Kevin, but he was already gone.

“I cannot believe he brought that woman,” my mom said in the taxi on the way home.

“Well, they are getting divorced,” my dad said, which didn’t seem to satisfy my mother.

I asked, “Are you guys getting divorced?”

“Why would you say that?” my mom said.

“I don’t know,” I said. The happy buzz of champagne had become spins.

“We’re not,” my dad said.

“Just checking,” I said.

Outside, the sun was starting to set. Thick doughy clouds hung low in the sky. Our taxi sped up the West Side Highway, weaving between cars, making me nauseous. I was wedged between my parents, slumped so low down in my seat I couldn’t even see over the divider. The whole world seemed to be pushing down on me.

“We’d better decide what you want to do for your birthday,” my dad said.

“Maybe nothing,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“If he doesn’t want to do anything, don’t press him,” my mom said, putting her hand protectively on my shoulder. That was all it took. I threw up all over the cab divider, all over my pants, all over my uncomfortable shoes.

“Oh my god!” my mother shouted. “Oh my god!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” my dad repeated, and told the driver to take the next exit. He let us off on Riverside Drive and I leaned over the wall to the park, heaving repeatedly, emptying myself of what felt like the whole fall’s worth of birthday dinners and lunches and cakes as my parents debated whether it was the salmon or the pizza that had done me in.

That night, Kevin’s mom called our house. Kevin hadn’t come home and he didn’t go to his dad’s either. “Do you know where he is?” my mom asked me. I thought of California, sunny skies, bonfires, and beaches. I shook my head.

The phone rang again about an hour later. This time I picked it up.

“Don’t tell them it’s me,” Kevin said.

My dad walked in the kitchen. “Hey Dave,” I said into the receiver.

My dad looked at me suspiciously and then left. “Dude, your mom’s been calling. Where are you?”

“I’m downstairs,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m leaving. For California.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’m going. I thought you could come.”

“Don’t be an idiot. I can’t go.”

“C’mon, Marty. Don’t you ditch out on me.”

“I’m not,” I said, and then added, “You’re not to going to California. You’ll never make it.”

“Sure I will,” he said, but even I could hear the doubt in his voice.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, but Kevin didn’t say anything. All I could hear was the whirr of street noise for a second and then he hung up.

The next day, I didn’t see Kevin until lunch. Dave, Sam, and I were sitting talking about the party, about how drunk we all were, how I threw up. Evidently one of Sam’s cousins got caught in a broom closet with a waitress. At least that was the story.

“What are we doing for your birthday?” Sam asked me.

“Yeah. That’s right,” Dave said. “It’s next weekend.”

“Nothing,” I said. “I don’t want to do anything.”

“Don’t be lame,” Kevin said, as he squeezed in next to me. Everyone knew Kevin had tried to run away. All our parents had gotten calls. Still, no one said a word. “It’s your birthday. We all know what you want to do.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “But please. No cold poached salmon.”

The four of us went to East End Lanes the next Saturday with my mom and dad. The alley was crowded with birthday parties and we had to wait for a lane to open up because I hadn’t reserved one in advance. We ate pizza and ice cream cake while we waited. I opened presents. A set of pens in the shape of baseball bats. A New York Mets garbage can. A book on classic baseball blunders. My parents bought me my own bowling ball, a 12-pounder called “The Wizard” that looked like a murky crystal ball, and a pair of two-tone suede bowling shoes.

“Now you can finally turn pro,” Kevin joked.

After nearly an hour, a lane opened. The Wizard was heavier than any ball I had ever used before and more difficult to control. The first few times I sent it straight into the gutter. Soon, though, I started to get a feel for it, how to hold the ball in my palm, when to release it on my follow-through. By the second game, I had even gotten a few strikes. My friends and I cheered, but as much as I tried to get excited, it seemed a bit forced, as if something wasn’t quite the same.

On my last throw, I waited for the kid in the next lane to go. He was younger than me, maybe nine or ten. He hugged the ball against his chest, not even using the finger holes, and then bounced it down the lane. The ball careened off the bumpers and he called after it, yelling, “Strike! Strike!” The ball reached its destination, carving out eight pins. His family and friends exploded with cheers. “Nice shot,” I said as he walked back. It was my turn. I positioned myself carefully along the arrows in the floorboards and went into my motion. The ball eased out of my hand, gliding down the lane, but I knew instantly the throw was off, no chance of a strike. When it reached halfway, I turned and walked away, knowing I couldn’t change what was going to happen.