See, the first naked man I saw stopped his van right in front of our driveway.

"Hey, kid" he’d called, as he leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window. "I’m looking for the public swimming pool."

"You’re on the wrong road," I said, going over to the van. "You got to go back and down Biscayne to Castle Road. This is a dead end."

"You think they’ll mind if I don’t wear a bathing suit?" he said, with his pants zipped open and his thing all big in his hand.

"You’ll have to ask them," I said, which at the time I thought was a cool, un-freaked out thing to say. It was the first thing I’d ever seen, since I don’t have any brothers or cousins or anything and I wouldn’t of minded taking a longer look, but it scared me. I hightailed it back in the house to tell my Mom.

I came into the kitchen opening and closing my mouth like a fish. When I finally stuttered out what had happened, I figured she’d phone the police or something. Like the week before when the same thing happened to Janet Drury and her father and brother chased the car all the way down the street, her father waving a rake around like a sword.

There must have been something going on last summer. There sure were more than enough naked men around. Maybe it was a virus of sorts.

"What are you talking about?" my Mom said. Her hands were sticky with marshmallows from the Rice Krispies squares she was making, and her permed hair frizzed with the heat of effort.

"Some guy! You know, with his thing out," I said.

"Sweet Jesus! You shouldn’t be going near strange men," she said.

I twisted a lost kernel of puffed rice under my foot until it was nothing but dust on the black and white linoleum. The way Mom was looking at me, I felt like I was the one who’d been out there with my God givens bouncing around for the whole world to see.

"Why can’t you stay in the playground and play with the other kids? I blame your aunt for this. The way you run wild in the woods all the time." I couldn’t see any connection between Aunt Shirley, the woods, and this weirdo, so I said nothing. I watched the skin under my mother’s arm flap back and forth as she stirred the thickening goo.