[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]found that The Shire Plantation was no longer visible because the trees
they had planted had grown so high around it. ) Scott and Kevin began to
take great pride in the lush gardens they were creating. Sometimes,
Kevin thought that the place must be blessed. He noticed one day when he
was approaching The Shire by a winding road high above it that the
peculiar conformation of timbers on the roof made a perfect giant cross.
It seemed fitting. The casual attitude of the tomato farm allowed
workers to pick produce naked. Scott, of course, had grown up in a
family that embraced nudity and Kevin had no problem at all with it.
The young women who lived in the big house and picked tomatoes or
whatever else was in season had slender and perfect bodies too, and they
didn't balk at working without clothes. Shut off from roads and the
stares of tourists by thick foliage, the pickers moved gracefully
through the fields with little more on than the bandannas they tied
around their heads. Their nakedness wasn't so much sexual as it was
free. "We called them the Earth Girls, " Kevin said. "They were
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vegetarians, they didn't shave their legs or under their arms, and their
potlucks were always organic. They liked to come over to our porch,
though, because we had the best sunset view. They taught us how to make
perfect pizza dough with their bread starter. We made pizza out of
everything even cauliflower pizza." In truth, Kevin and Scott were
living more of a hedonistic existence than the serene life of the
Hobbits they chose to emulate. They were far more prideful and obsessed
with their bodies. They attached rings to the telephone poles in back of
the house and spent hours doing gymnastics, building their biceps until
they had the definition of competitive body builders.
"We were show-offs, " Kevin remembered. "When the Earth Girls called us
for dinner, we did handstands out of our chairs." The pictures they took
of their finely honed bodies remain, Scott Scurlock, naked, lifting
himself with only his hands gripping the arms of a spindly looking
wooden chair, his legs straight out in front of him, and an insouciant,
faint smile on his face to prove to the camera that it took so little
effort. Thunderbolt and Light foot craved a certain amount of excitement,
and they sought out adventures that were not that different from their
early days in Reston when they raided the pie trucks and the milkmen. It
didn't matter that they had been thirteen then, and now they were
twenty-one. They were grown men, bigger and far stronger than in the
early days, but they were still full of mischief. One afternoon, they
were driving the landscaping truck when they spotted a sign that read
"Catholic Banana Farm." They looked at each other and grinned, mouthing
"Catholic Banana Farm? " They had to investigate.
The next moonlit night, they drove through the massive and unguarded
gate, and found acres and acres of ripe bananas. Cutting them would not
do permanent damage, the plants left behind would regenerate. The
temptation was too great. They worked all night, hacking off banana
stalks as tall as they were, and loading them into the truck. "We had
enough bananas for everyone we knew, " Kevin Meyers remembered. "Maybe
too many.
We'd show up for the nightly potlucks each holding a stalk of them, and
people began to groan when they saw us. It was worse than the acorn
squashes." It seemed that the more adventures they had, the more Kevin
accepted Scott as his "brother."
"I loved him. He was the brother I'd been looking for. He always had
time for me, and he never minded my being around. He always called me
Bubba." Although neither Kevin nor Scott recognized it, they were living
out a magical time in their lives, one that could never be replaced once
it was gone. One day melted into the next. They went to movies, and
almost always preferred the films that were full of myth, swashbuckle,
and romance.
They played chess and sang and strummed duets on their guitars. The two
of them liked to impress guests by playing "Blackbird" as a duet.
Two decades later, Scott could still pick up his guitar and play
"Blackbird" flawlessly. It was a haunting song, the words those of a man
longing for his freedom. It was odd that Scott so identified with the
lyrics, he had, perhaps, more freedom than almost any man alive.
Kevin felt some faint sense of urgency, he knew where he was headedhis
life would be devoted to his painting. It might be five years or even ten
before he could realize his ambitions, but he had no doubt in the world
that he would be an artist. For the moment, he fixed up a studio in the
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basement of The Shire House.
Scott was less focused. He knew his dad expected him to get his
four-year degree and find a well respected career, but he felt no
particular time pressure about going to college. He was a prodigious
reader and very intelligent. He had always been good at science, and he
thought that one day he would become a doctor.
Scott made a pretty good living with Hawaii Plant Life, although he
would have preferred to have made it as a model. He had a display on the
wall at the Shire Plantation with photographs of himself taken at
modeling jobs. He still greeted women at the airport from time to time.
His friend Marge Violette asked him once if he minded kissing the older
women, and he shook his head and grinned. "Scott had no sense of age
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