Secret Agent Man

The guitar rings out alone among a few background voices. Rapid strokes of the strings break out splitting the momentary silence. The bass joins in followed by a light drum accompaniment. When Johnny Rivers' voice joins, it is low but crisp and clear, "There's a man who leads a life of danger ..."

It plays in my head as we sneak out the front door of an old rental cape cod house located of all places ... on"old Cape Cod". I'd like to say that Patti Page was singing Old Cape Cod in my head but she wasn't, it was "Secret Agent Man" all the way.

We crossed the yard and turned the corner onto the darkened street. I followed my cousin Susan's lead as we lined up behind a telephone pole watching the object of our attention as they made their way down the street in pale moonlight.

Susan and I were fans of several books. I was never as learned as she was but I had read my fair share of Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. Encyclopedia Brown always solved the mystery that parents couldn't. We didn't have a mystery but there was nothing like looking for one when it is well past your curfew.

The family gathered at Cape Cod on a yearly basis. It seemed like we always went to Cape Cod for summer vacations, somewhere near Bass River on the south side. Far enough away from the hustle and bustle of Hyannis but close enough to get ice cream at Sundae School or dinner at the Wee Packet Inn.

My grandmother, whom someone before me named Nanny, usually ruled the roost with her quiet determination. With her was my mother, older brother Kenny, older sister Jeanne, older cousin Joanie, and older cousin Susan ... you get the picture, I was the youngest.

Joanie and Susan were sisters from Chicago and it always seemed neat to me that they flew in an jet plane to get to the Boston area; how extravagant! I often wondered if I'd ever get to fly in a jet plane and here they were, flying in for a few weeks during the summer every year.

The guitar solo played in my head. I was too young to watch James Bond but "Man from Uncle," "The Prisoner," and "I Spy" were on TV filling my head with how I should be ... a man of action, mystery, and intrigue!

Even so, Susan led the way. She was always smarter than me and would know what to do. We followed two young women staying in the shadow and when the shadow was not available, we pretended to be nonchalant ... though I didn't know what that meant. Susan explained it a few times but I don't think it got through to me. I'm sure that years later, I had a V-8 moment, slam the palm of my hand to my forehead and shout, "Ohhhhhhhhh THAT'S what Susan meant by nonchalant!".

The objects of our observance turned the corner onto route 28 and were quickly out of sight. We panicked and ran to catch up to the corner. Carefully craning our necks around a fence, we saw the two young women approaching a playground. The darkness was well set in as the hour turned to 9pm. They swung on the swings and talked in quiet tones about what, we certainly couldn't hear.

"We should get closer so we can hear!" I exclaimed much too loud. It brought an equally loud, "SHHHH!" from Susan. Thankfully neither of our outbursts were heard by Joanie and Jeanne.

Boys drove up in a car and hung out the window chatting to Jeanne and Joanie. Susan and I felt justified to be there now. What if these boys kidnapped Jeanne and Joanie? At least we could provide the police a description. We memorized the license plate of the car as it drove off without the girls.

Susan and I marched back toward the gray cedar shingle house convincing ourselves that we had protected our older sisters. "If the boys come back with friends, at least we know the license plate number!" I announced.

"You remember it?" Susan asked.

"I thought you memorized it." I responded.

"Me? No, you were going to!" she answered.

"Me? No, it was you. I swear, you said you could remember it!"

"Ok, well, it is gone now but at least we know what the car looked like," she laughed as we crossed the street and hopped the tired wooden fence into our yard.
"It was dark. What kind of car?"
"Plymouth? Chrysler? No, wait ... I think it was a Chevy."

There was a toe that was tapping on the front step of the house. That toe belonged to a very talented musician that I and my fellow grandchildren called "Nanny." Nanny never seemed to run out of patience. That woman of musical talent had an even greater talent for being kind, gentle and sweet. However, she wasn't tapping her toe to the strums of Johnny Rivers singing "Secret Agent Man." She wasn't tapping her toe to Patti Page's "Old Cape Cod" either. She was tapping her toe in frustration that two of her charges were out following around two of her other charges.

"Where have you two been?"

The look on her face was one that I had never seen. That look that occurs when a woman is angry, scared, relieved, frustrated, mad, and worried.

Susan, always quicker than me answered first, "You see," she started, "we were watching out for Joanie and Jeanne. We saw them sneak out and go to the beach."

"Yeah, we were worried about them!" I added.

"Sure, and we followed them," continued Susan, "We followed them down to the playground at the beach and it's a good thing we did! They were almost picked up by some boys!"
"Yeah, it's a good thing we were there!"

Nanny nodded and waited a moment to see if there was any more rope that either Susan or I wanted to put around out necks but we finally fell silent.

"You two didn't tell me where you were going. For that, you are both grounded tomorrow."

"WHAT???" we both exclaimed in unison. "We were protecting Joanie and Jeanne!"

"You didn't tell me where you were going. End of discussion!"

"B-but Jeanne and Joanie talked to boys!" I shouted.

"THEY," she smiled, "they told me where they were going and when they would be home. YOU did not! I had no idea where you were. If you want, I can make it TWO days!"

Nanny was through with us and we decided to take our lumps. Grounded for a whole day meant no beach time. It meant we couldn't go swimming. We couldn't build sand castles. It meant we couldn't hunt for crabs.

No one in the history of our family ever got grounded except for my older brother Kenny. Then again, he was always getting in trouble so that didn't count.

"Secret Agent Man" kept playing in my head as I crawled into a sleeping bag in the kitchen. We'd gotten caught and would pay the price.

The next day, Susan and I took 3 decks of playing cards and built the largest card house ever conceived by the human race. Ok, it wasn't that big but it did use 156 cards and grew to a height of 4 levels.

Surprisingly enough, Susan and I made it through our grounding just fine. We may have even enjoyed that day more than the others. That night we went to the Wee Packet Inn, ate fabulous food, got a spinning top at the end of the meal, and forgot all about our grounding.