Kick-the-Can is a sore subject for me. I have nothing against the game itself. No, all kids should play it; there should be city leagues. 

But when I dare tap into the shadows of my elementary years, I see a sad sight, a kid, his eyes boiling with tears beneath a hot head of curly brown hair. Scuffed knees top his grass-stained socks, and his shorts are much too short by today’s standards. Once again, head hanging, he drags himself across the summer grass, the endless stretch of connecting neighborhood backyards, in route to the wounded milk jug. It is caved in on one side, where just moments ago a foot had met the plastic with mean force, echoing like a gunshot between the houses and throughout his soul. Again, all his prisoners are free, and his hard work is ruined - an endless, ruthless cycle.

With all the neighbor kids back in hiding, the world is a ghost town. The birds in the trees chirp occassionally to break the twighlight silence only to mock him. Tears in the kid’s eyes smear together the rich summer colors with a liquid worn out sky, as he goes after the confounded milk jug. This time they had booted it clear to Mrs. Moon’s. She’d probably come out and yell at him for setting foot on her grass. 

For two hours now he has been it. Now, two options lay before him: (1) he can retrieve the milk jug, set it back in its place, and go back to work again, collecting his escaped prisoners; or, (2) he can run the risk of being called a baby, quit, and go inside. If I know the kid as well as I think I do, he will choose the latter. 

This is how it was for me growing up. My neighborhood pumped out a brood of mean-spirited kids who shaved and would knock endlessly at my door to get me, a first-grader, to play kick-the-can.

“Come on,” they’d say, “we need only one more player.” Through my screen door, they’d disarm me with pleasantries and warm smiles, insisting we were friends and I’d be well liked - because that’s all I ever wanted, anyway - if I’d just come out and play this once. This time it’d be different. Besides, I’d be selfish not to play, because if I didn’t, mysteriously, no one else could. And, of course, young and naive as I was, I’d play. And two minutes later, I’d be forever it.     

Kick-the-can was a big deal in our neighborhood. I don’t know who invented the game. Perhaps its orgins are from the Deep Depression, when all that anyone owned was an old can. As for us, we prefered an empty milk carton, because it got good hang time. Also, I vaguely remember the older neighbor kids having me stick my nose in it and breathe the carton’s spoiled insides - “Take a whiff,” I can still hear them saying - so there may have been other more sinister reasons why.   

Kick-the-can is not a complex sport. A can is placed in a designated spot, preferably, a nice dirt spot in someone’ s yard, but any agreed upon spot will do.  The person who is it (I’ll call him the ”jailer”) (which usually was me for hours on end) guards the can with his life. Everybody else hides behind houses, cars, bushes, or if they’re a good climber, in a well foliaged tree. The jailer (which, again, was usually me) must round up everyone he sees in hiding and put him in jail.  This is done by calling out the name of the spotted person and where he is hidden, and running like a maniac to jump the can and complete the prison sentence before some jerk kicks the can half way to China. For example: “I see Jason! Jump the can!” Once all have been captured, someone else gets to be it.

Whenever the can is kicked, everyone runs free, hollering and taunting the jailer all the way to their new hiding places. Say twenty kids are playing and nineteen are imprisoned, if the twentieth man kicks the can, everyone is free, the game starts afresh, and the jailer (which was always me) experiences the soul-wrenching feeling of having two hours of his hard labor, not to mention his only chance at freedom, crumble into oblivion, right before his eyes.

Sometimes, if the neighborhood kids were feeling particularly merciless, they’d form a terrible, human kick-the-can train. Appearing suddenly from behind a house or an oversized pine tree, they would rush the can. Of course, the jailer must shout the name of and jump the can for each person he sees. Impossible. Under such conditions, if the fourth of fifth person were unable to make it, the ”caboose” would, and off to Mrs. Moon’s yard I’d go, building up the courage to quit. 

The kick-the-can train was only one of the many strategies used against me. Another good one that particularly irked me involved switching shirts or hats and running behind the house to the opposite corner from where I saw them. They’d emerge about five minutes later after I’d shouted their name: “That was Scott you saw. I’ve been hiding here the whole time. And plus, this is a red shirt, see? It’s different than the blue one you saw. Now, close your eyes and count to fifty while I go hide again.”       

Besides this, we played many more neighborhood games. But whatever the game, they would all end in the same result: me crying and going inside. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it at the ripe old age of 32, that probably was the game. Anyway, my point is, if you’re a counselor and you want to get to the bottom of my psychological problems, kick-the-can is probably a good place to start.

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