We'd pass the time playing games. Sometimes we played travel sized versions of popular games, like checkers or Connect Four. But usually we played games meant for the road. Spot a license plate from every state. Tap the beat of a song and guess what it is. Find each letter of the alphabet on passing billboards. The rules were developed as we played. Letters could come from road signs but not from bumper stickers. The songs have to be current top 40 hits. The older we got, and the longer the road trip, the more elaborate the rules became.
We'd arrive at our destination, or maybe just an overnight stop along the way. My mom would present us with the individual cereal boxes she brought for our breakfasts, the kind of sugar cereals we would never get at home. We took turns claiming them for ourselves to avoid arguments in the morning. Bill always chose Apple Jacks. I chose Fruit Loops. Or maybe it was the other way around.
We stayed one night at a motel that had a tennis court. It was more grey than green, the paint faded with the years. The net sagged and weeds grew along the sidelines. But for two kids released from the backseat with a few hours of remaining summer sunlight, we could have been at Wimbledon. We had no tennis rackets, so we used what we could find: a stray tennis ball and some paperbacks for paddles. And we invented "book ball."
My brother and I spoke often of book ball, though we never played it again. It was a game known only to us, a memory we shared that is now mine alone. My eyes well with tears as I remember him, just a boy, fair hair shining in the afternoon sun.
