Chapter Four: The woven path becomes visible

I heard the hesitation on her voice, she sounded almost terrified. She was driving to Springfield Il. with her 13 year old twins we affectionately call “The Chickens”.

I was halfway asleep when she called to ask me: “Do you know the Long brothers?”. Of course I knew the Long Brothers. Kyle and Mark. They lived down the street and around the corner from me. I had met Kyle in High School through a mutual friend. Kyle’s laconic older brother Mark was always around but fairly introverted. Kyle and I shared a love of 80s metal Metallic, Slayer, Iron Maiden etc and of course for playing basketball, although we never really went beyond the level of friendly acquaintences. It was the summer of 1986, and a few of us were at Kyle’s house. His dad had a red Ferrari 308GTB-the model used in Magnum PI- and we were checking it out while jamming to some Metal. We were in the living room when a short woman and her freckle faced daughter with long strawberry blonde hair arrived. I had the same reaction to this girl-she was only a couple years younger than I was- as I had to previous freckle faced long blonde haired girls I had seen in the past. Sweaty hands, cold sweats, racing pulse and urge to throw up. I kept making excuses to go back inside and try to see this girl. She was there to get a haircut- Kyle’s mother was a hairstylist and was friends with this girls mother. The Girl, as you may have surmised, was Stacy. She was extremely self conscious and wanted us out of the house. Her self-consciousness back that day was increased by my presence. She has since told me that her mother kept getting angry at her for ‘acting so peculiarly’ when she had known the Long family her entire life. To be in each others presence - Stacy and the Long brothers would normally be no different than being in front of a sibling. However, she had seen me which had caused her to develop a new kind of shyness never before seen by her mother. We were shooed out of the house by Kyle’s mother and told not to come back until Stacy had her haircut finished. By the times we had returned, the Girl with the freckled face and long strawberry blonde hair had vanished, never to be seen again. I knew I’d never forget that face, but it never occured to me that Kyle’s friend was the same girl I had already ‘seen’ before…..at the Grocery store the day we moved to Champaign, and the neighbor in White Heath after Randy started dating Mary. Plus, she remembered I had my Basketball. We weren’t PLAYING basketball, we were listening to Vinnie Vincent and Yngie Malmsteen….I just took it everywhere I went.

This recollection smacked Stacy in the gut like diving in to an ice cold pool when she was driving to Springfield. She immediately called and the more we spoke of that say, the more memories were able to elicit. Her position at the table, what I was wearing, the music we were playing, yep-she had a sudden flashback to that day remembering my face, my motions and my incessant pestering her when she was sitting at the dining room table. That was the Third time our paths crossed…..