This is the continued story of Simon’s Journal.
I would highly recommend you read the first volume of this story, Thirteen Days
before you begin this novel.
The following narrative is nearly a complete work of
fiction.
Any similarity to actual individuals living or dead is completely
unintentional.
If reading a coming of age story about boys wearing diapers and exploring their
awakening sexuality is offensive or illegal in your area, then might I suggest
you go read War and Peace or something equally stimulating.
Simon's Journal
Volume II
Thirteen
Nights – After the Crusade
Written by
Danny
Author of Thirteen Days
Part 1 – Wednesday, March
03, 2004 – He no nuts, he cwazy!
I don’t know
what’s wrong with me this morning. I woke up about twenty minutes past nine
this morning, went, and had some breakfast before Mom brought me to my room and
changed me out of my wet diaper.
However, before she had even finished putting me into a dry diaper I
fell back to sleep and slept until just before lunchtime. Heck, I’ve nearly
slept my day away!
So now it’s a
few minutes past noon, Mom’s making me a fried baloney and cheese sandwich for
lunch and I’m sitting here at the kitchen table writing in my electronic
journal that Aunt Catharine gave me for my birthday. I had a lot to write about from yesterday,
and I only just caught up on that. I
think after lunch I’m going to go check my email and see if I have anything new
from anyone. Maybe Lowell might have
sent me the next chapter to his story too.
I really doubt he’s had the time to record it all and get it emailed to
me, but I sure hope so.
Lunch was
good. I had a nice talk with Mom before
she left again to go help Aunt Catharine.
As it turns out, she wasn’t mad about me wearing the Pamper’s diaper at
all. Actually, she sort of teased me that I looked so darn cute in it and
wished she’d have taken a picture of me before she changed me. I was so
relieved that she wasn’t mad that I let her torment me. Believe me, I was sure embarrassed. She told me that the reason she got upset was
that she doesn’t think that I should be letting just anyone see me naked. She
said it just isn’t proper.
Dad’s back
too. He had to go to the office for
about an hour this morning but now he’s back in his office, here at the house,
and is working away. He did sit down and have lunch with Mom and me, though we
were both nearly done with ours when he came dragging in the backdoor. Dad has the sniffles today and I think he
might be getting a cold so I’m going to keep my distance from him for a few
days!
After seeing Mom
off and retiring to my room, I sat down at my computer to check my email but
decided I wasn’t in the mood. I just
don’t know what’s got into me today. I really don’t feel like doing much of
anything. Maybe I have that cabin fever stuff that Mom’s always talking about
in the winter months. I started to
wonder if Dad would let me get dressed and go outside for a while, so I decided
to venture out and ask him.
Sure enough, I
found Dad working away at his desk. When
I asked him if I could go outside for a while, he said I could as long as I . .
. “Stay close to the house and don’t do anything that will hurt those ribs,” he
had said.
He’s going to
come in and change me into a dry diaper too before I get all my warm clothes
and stuff on. He just has to finish
something first. I think in the
meantime, I’m going to get everything out and put it on my chair. I was doing
just that when he came walking into my room.
“You know! I
think playing outside is a good idea.
Maybe the wind will blow some of the stink off you!” he said as he
entered my room.
“I don’t stink!”
I protested and Dad only laughed.
“When you come
back in, I think you better plan on taking a bath since you didn’t take one
this morning.” He said as he helped me lay down on my bed.
Dad pulled off
my sweat pants, exposing my very wet diaper.
“Humm, I thought your mother had said that you were supposed to tell us
when you were wet so we could get you changed and out of the wet diaper?” he
asked while pulling at one of the tapes.
“I didn’t even
know I was wet!” I said in my own defense.
However, I’m not sure he believed me, but I swear I didn’t have any
idea!
Dad had me out
of my wet diaper and into a dry one in almost no time at all. He also stuck around to help me get dressed,
put my shoes on and tied them for me then helped me with my coat, hat, and
gloves. Of course, he had to be a
comedian and pull my hat down over my eyes before putting it on me right.
Once outside, I
felt like I was a little over dressed as the weather wasn’t as cold as it has
been recently. I walked up and down our
front sidewalk a few times and then went and sat on our porch swing for a
while. I’d been outside maybe a total of
twenty minutes, when a police cruiser went by and I seen that it was one of the
officers I’d seen in Principle Freeman’s office that day when Mr. Freeman had
Peter and his gang lined up, giving them the third degree. I waved back as he drove on by. I felt kind of good knowing that they were
still keeping an eye on me and my home, even though Peter and the rest were
long gone!
I started
feeling bored again and decided I’d go walk to the top of our street. When I
finally did get to the top, I still felt pretty darned good and was hardly
winded so I figured, “Well I came this far, I might as well turn around and
walk to the other end.” And that’s just
what I did.
I was passing
the second to the last house on the right, near the bottom of the hill, when I
spotted a rusted-out and primer-covered mini-van sitting in the driveway. I remember thinking that it looked really out
of place in our neighborhood, but since I didn’t know the people that lived in
that house, I figured that maybe they had a teenaged son that was fixing it up
or something.
Then I noticed
this really rough looking man sitting in the driver’s seat, eating french
fries. I was polite and waved, mostly
because we’d made eye contact, but I continued walking to the end of the street
and didn’t give him a second thought.
Okay, in
retrospect that would have been a good time for me to turn-tail and head back
home, but did I do that? Nooooo! I had
to continue on my walk to the end of our street. When I was walking past the
rusty van on my way back up our street, I heard the garage door across the
street opening. A car pulled out fro and I watched as the lady in that car
drove away, up our street. When it was
out of site, I heard someone behind me call my name.
“Simon?”
I spun around so
fast I think I made my brain spin inside my skull. It was that same ruff
looking man I’d seen sitting in the van, eating french fries, except now he was
out of the van, looking right at me. He
was tall. Very tall and thin. I barely came up to the mid-point of his
thighs and those arms of his; they looked like tree branches. His hair was shaggy and oily, and he had a
blob of ketchup on the corner of his mouth.
He was smiling, probably to make me feel less threatened, but honestly,
to me it was like looking into the mouth of some sort of beast that still had a
bit of blood on it’s lips from it’s last victim! The sudden surprise at seeing the size of
him, and allowing myself to wonder how he could know my name, caused me delays
what I should have been doing, which was running. Funny thing is, at first I couldn’t talk or
move.
“Hello Simon!”
He took a couple steps toward me. Which
for me would have been great leaps.
“Say something
you idiot!” I thought to myself.
“You okay
there?” he asked, still coming closer. I
could feel my heart pounding against my plastic body armor. All I could think about was all those missing
children on the news and that I was about to be one myself.
He wasn’t any
more than three feet away from me when I saw his fingers flex as if about to
stretch out and seize me. I let out a
scream that gouged through the late winter air like a scooper through a tub of
ice cream.
I was a block
away from the man even before I knew my feet were carrying me away as fast as I
could run. The biggest problem was that I was running away from my home and
everyone I knew, but I wasn’t thinking where I was going, but where I wasn’t
at, and that was in the back of that van!
My chest hurt as
it had when I’d ran the mile for my school, back before my ribs were all busted
up by Peter. While still running, I
turned to see if he was following me. Complete and utter terror enveloped me
within its dark embrace when I saw the van turning off my street and coming my
way. I had no idea where I was running to.
I wasn’t thinking. I was just
running for all I was worth. My lungs
were on fire, my ribs hurt worst than ever before, but I couldn’t stop. Thankfully, my legs felt strong, fueled with
the high octane of fear. I didn’t look back again. I just kept running; running past trees, past
parked cars, and houses that all seemed to blur as I sped past them. Thankfully, my brain didn’t have to keep
telling my feet to keep running like it had in the race. They already knew and were pounding the cold
concrete sidewalk, making a very similar sound to when I’d run the mile, only
this time faster and louder. “Thump –
Thump – Thump – Thump – Thump – Thump”.
I reached the end of the street I’d been running down. I’d no idea which one it was and without
stopping, I crossed to the other side and continued sprinting down another
street. While I was crossing the street,
I managed to glance over my shoulder and saw the van was still speeding toward
me. I don’t know where it came from, but I suddenly felt like I had rockets
strapped to my shoes. Though I was
crying hard and screaming, I was still able to run harder and faster than I’d
ever run in the race.
I turned another
corner; saw the van was right behind me, and cut into someone’s yard. I jumped over a chain link fence without even
touching it and sprinted through their backyard. I lost track of how many yards I cut through,
and how many fences I’d hurdled. I think
it was the third, or maybe the fourth fence I leaped over, when it started to
suddenly get cold and a fine misting rain began to fall. This rain must have been either warmer or
colder than the ground, because a fog began to rise; curling around my legs
like snakes made of smoke each time I brought one of my feet down. I continued running in the rain. It wasn’t until I tried to jump the last
fence that I stopped running. Not by
choice, but by the fence itself. I’d
come to a wooden fence that was higher than the chain link fences. It was one of those wooden privacy
fences. As I reached the fence, I took a
leaping step, grabbed hold of the top of its fence boards, and began to hoist
myself over. With my damaged ribs there would have been only one way I could
have gotten over the fence, had I not had speed and momentum on my side.
I threw my feet
out to the left, swung them up over the fence, and was sure I’d cleared the
tops of the boards. I’m confident that
if someone was looking out there window at that very second, they would have
been astonished at my physical abilities and may even wonder if I might have
some special ability to defy gravity itself.
However, if they continued watching, only one single second longer, they
would see just how ungraceful I really was, and that gravity was very much
against me!
As I started to
push my body weight forward and prepare for my dismount, the hem of my pant leg
somehow snagged on something. Maybe on a
nail, I don’t know. However, I do know
that with just that slight tugging action, it threw my entire dismount into
complete chaos. My right leg became a
mid-air anchor and the pivot point for the rest of my body, causing my head to
race toward the awaiting frozen earth.
I guess the only
good thing I can say about the entire episode is that I didn’t make the crash
landing I was anticipating. Because my
pant leg was caught on the far side of the fence, my body hung there, my head
about an inch from the ground. My heart was still racing, blood was pooling in
my head, my arms were thrashing about, trying to support my body, and free
myself from this hanging trap I’d leapt into.
It seemed like I’d hung there for several minutes, but in reality it was
probably more like several seconds. I
reached up and with my thumb and released the button to my pants. That was all that was needed and I fell right
out of my pants, landing on my head as the rest of my body crumbled on top of
me. Had it not been for my body armor,
I’m sure I would have probably sent one or more of my broken ribs into my
lungs, puncturing one or both them. I was laying face down and realized that
the earth beneath me was not as frozen as I’d imagined it to be. Actually, it
was quite muddy and the rain, though light, wasn’t helping matters at all.
I lifted my face
slowly from the mud, thinking how stupid I was and how much the top of my head
hurt. I brought my left arm to my face and wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my
coat. When I opened my eyes again, I couldn’t figure out right away what I was
looking at. I think it took me a good five or six seconds to realize I was
looking at the front paws of a dog.
Without daring
to so much as breathe, my eyes rose up past it’s legs, and past it’s chest to
it’s neck. There was a silver choker
chain around it. My eyes continued up to
it’s yellow exposed teeth. A single low growl gurgled from the dogs throat and
the next thing I knew I was up and running so hard that my knees were nearly
coming up to my chest as they pumped like a machine. I reached the far end of
the yard, leapt over the wooden fence again, this time clearing it easily. However, my landing on the other side left a
lot to be desired. I came right down on
two trashcans. With an ear-piercing cry, I yelled out as my ankle, the same one
I’d injured before, hit the grown sideways and buckled under my weight. I fell
to my hands and knees, unable to see because of the pain. Something else happened while I was in
midair. For a split second with a only my right hand in contact with the top of
the fence, and the rest of my body seeming to be hung in the air, time stopped
long enough for me to see that I didn’t have my shoes on anymore.
“Where the heck
are my shoes?” I thought. “They must have come off when I fell out of my
pants.”
Now remember,
all that happened in only a split second. As my foot hit the ground and my
ankle gave way, I honestly don’t remember what I said. I know I was screaming and knowing my temper,
I was probably cussing like a drunken sailor, but no one could have heard me
over that dog’s barking on the other side of the fence.
After the run-in
with that dog, the first thing I did in this yard was to quickly scan it to be
sure I hadn’t jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the equally proverbial
fire, but thankfully, I saw no animals.
With the racket I made crashing into the garbage cans, and the barking
dog, as well as my own cries of pain, I expected whoever owned the house and
the back yard I was in would have come to a window or opened their backdoor to
see what was going on. However, since no
one did appear, I guessed that no one was home. Very shortly afterward, I would
learn differently!
Unable to walk,
I crawled on my hands and bare knees across the wet and very cold lawn while
still sobbing. I reached the gate, reached up, flipped open the latch, and
swung it open before I pulled myself through.
Using the gate and the corner of the house for support, I managed to get
myself to my muddy, sock covered feet. There was no way I could run anymore and
I had serious doubts about walking too. I looked down and my entire front was
covered in mud. The palms of my hands
looked scraped, but it was my ankle that was hurting so bad that it was nearly
blinding me. My bare legs, where not
covered in mud and grass, were turning blue from the cold. I think that is when it hit me that I was,
outside, in a diaper, with no pants on.
“I’m having a
nightmare! That’s it! I’m dreaming! All of this is just a dream and I’m still
at home, in my bed dreaming!” I said aloud, trying to convince myself that it
was true.
“Okay, how do
you wake yourself up when you’re having a nightmare?” I asked myself, “How do
they do it on TV?” I asked and then answered myself in the same breath, “A PINCH!”
I reached up and
pinched my cheeks with both hands as hard as I could, “Holy fudge!” I
cried. Except I didn’t say fudge. “Okay that doesn’t prove anything! I’m still
dreaming . . . this has got to be a dream!” I said.
Somehow, I was
able to totter down the side of the house and stopped alongside a bush using
its limbs to steady myself. I was at the end of a dead-end street; one that I’d
never been on before, and I knew I was very much lost. When I stopped moving, I felt the familiar
pressure inside of me that told me that I needed to poop. I knew that it was probably just my nerves,
coupled with my fear, that were making my insides react in such a manner. I clamped my butt cheeks together and tried
not to think about it.
Then to my
dismay and sheer horror, I saw the same rusty van turn slowly onto the street.
It was far enough away that though I could see it, I figured the driver
couldn’t see me. Suddenly something noticeably bizarre was growing within my
mind. No longer was I scared of being captured, kidnapped or who knows what; my
only fear now was having someone see me ‘outside’,
wearing nothing but a diaper. Okay, so, I wasn’t just wearing a diaper; but in
my panicked state, that’s exactly what my brain was telling me.
Quickly, I
scanned each of the three houses at the end of the cul-de-sac. Every last one
of them was dark inside. Not even a
porch light was on except for the house I was standing next to; the one who’s
bush was partially hiding me from the view of the driver of the van. Hanging over the front door was a single
glowing yellow porch light. The kind of
front porch light you see on just about any home in any American suburb. Moreover, for the first time, I realized just
how plain the house looked too. It was painted white, though it was cracked and
peeling in places. Though different, it was very much like every other house on
the street or in our town. The bushes looked to have not been tended to for
several years and had been allowed to grow wild. The flowerbed was really more of a mound of
black dirt with dead weeds laying all over it. Nothing remarkable or memorable
about the house, right? Well, I was
about to learn different! The saying,
‘Never judge a book by its cover’ comes to mind while I sit here writing all
this now.
Hopping on one
foot, I got around the bush, up onto the front porch, which thankfully was only
a single step above ground level. My plan was to pound on the front door and
scream for help. I reached the door and somehow it seemed out of place on this
house. It seemed bigger than a normal
house’s front door too. It was a solid
wood door, stained dark with one of those old-fashioned iron doorknockers in
the middle of it, with the name ‘Peterson’ on it. I lifted my
fist to pound on the door. However, with
just a single hit, it swung open.
Okay, even I
know you do not go into someone’s house without being invited, and you
definitely do not go into a stranger’s house under any circumstances. Even if that homeowner invites you! That is just common sense right? Well, I didn’t bother to reason out the pros
and cons. When the door swung open, I
threw my body inside and slammed the door closed again; praying the man in the
van didn’t see me dive into the house.
I was still
crying and breathing hard between my sobs. Moreover, my heart felt like it was
about to explode inside my plastic armor at any second. Standing on one foot
and holding the door closed with both hands, I panted and tried to get myself
to stop sobbing like a baby. While attempting this, my brain started to
function again. The abrupt realization
of where I was hit me.
I closed my eyes
and in a sort of prayer, I mumbled; “Please let all this just be a bad dream!”
With my eyes
still shut, I spun myself around, put my back to the door, and still muttering
softly said, “Maybe he didn’t see me!
Maybe he’ll just turn around and go away! I’m safe here . . .” and as if
I was willing him away, “I’m not here! You have to go look elsewhere! Far away!
Just go far away!”
Ultimately,
giving into the fact that I couldn’t keep my eyes closed forever, I opened
first one, then the other. To say I was
astonished by what I saw would be an understatement. Every inch of wall, I mean
every last inch of wall space was covered with row after row of books; books of
every shape and size. There were even books stacked on tables. Books were stacked from the floor to the
ceiling as if they were pillars holding up the floor above them.
There were no
lamps or light fixtures anywhere that I could see. The only light in the room came from a
roaring fire within the fireplace. I’d passed a window on my way to the front
door. Though it was raining, there still
should have been light poring into the room, but from the inside, I saw that
the window was covered with heavy, faded, green velvet curtains. The hem of which, was frayed and tattered as
if it had been chewed on by mice over many years.
Next to the
fireplace were two empty, tired looking arm chairs with a single, round spindly
table between them, and what looked to be an oddly shaped and equally empty
fishbowl atop the table. One of the
chairs appeared to be missing one of its back legs, and a stack of books was
being used in its absence.
My ankle beckoned
my attention away from the room for only a single moment as a sharp pain shot
up through my leg. I rubbed at my naked, mud covered, thigh to symbolically
sooth my ankle.
Again, I began
to peer around the room. To my right was
a darkened staircase that danced with the eerie glow of reds and oranges from
the fire. The staircase went up three
steps to a landing, turned, and vanished up into darkness. On the landing was a
tarnished brass bird’s perch sitting atop a stack of books. The perch appeared
to be performing a precarious balancing act with a large, stuffed gray owl with
glowing eyes and wings spread, making it look ferocious and threatening.
It was hard to
take my eyes off the stuffed owl. It
looked so real. Almost as if it had
somehow been suddenly frozen in time and might come back to life at any
second. After a moment, I was able to
break the spell it had over me and looked down to my left side where there was
a small table that looked like it was under great strain with the mound of books
that were pilled on top of it. My eyes landed on the title of one of the books.
‘An Explorer’s Handbook to the Universe and Beyond’ and beside it was, ‘A
Beginners Guide to Dragon Breading.’ Yet
another. ‘Frozen Time – How to Live
Forever and Still Be Happy’.
I swallowed hard
and in an almost inaudible tone, hoping and praying no one would hear or
respond, I said, “Hello?”
Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw something move out from under one of the chairs. For a
second, maybe two, I nearly panicked and thought about taking my chances with
the man in the van, but I realized it was just an Old Persian cat. It's fur looked as if it hadn't been brushed
in years.
The cat slowly,
as if not trusting me, and why should it, made it’s way to the middle of the room. It stopped, sat down, and turning it’s head
toward me until I could see the glow of its brown eyes, gave out a small low,
“Reeeoow”.
From beyond the
books, behind a dusty curtain, came a voice that made me think of rotting
apples lying on the ground under an old apple tree beneath an October sky. “Be still Vera, I know he’s there.”
A wrinkled hand
pulled the curtain aside and out shuffled an old man; ‘Old?’ ancient was more
like it! His withered brown skin reminded me of dehydrated mushrooms. His shoulder length hair hung from his head
in clumps of greasy, grey locks, almost like a once-shimmering veil that had
long since needed thrown out, while the very top of his head was completely
void of any hair at all. Although he was
taller than me by a couple feet at least, he probably weighed less. Yet for some reason, maybe it was the eyes
that gleamed like two protruding white pearls below his brisling brow, he
seemed very, very, powerful.
Shuffling his
feet across the wooden floor, he moved himself around a stack of books that
didn’t quite reach the ceiling and came to stand directly in front of me.
Without looking
directly at me, “Why are you here?” he asked.
His breath smelled of milk that had long since gone bad.
I quivered, “I
was uh . . .”
The old man
shook his head the way a dog might shake the water from its fir, only much
slower. “Young man, no one ever comes
into my home!” His breath made it seem
that his words were being forced into me, “Get to the point! What do you need?”
“Ho-honest
s-s-sir I-I-I . . .” I was stuttering so bad that I could hardly understand
myself, and I was sure the old man must think I’m some kind of thief or
something.
He arched one
eyebrow and squinted his other eye tightly shut. Sounding disappointed, he said,
“Well you are here.” Then raising his
voice to an unassailable echelon, “Now what do you need?”
The manner of
his voice made it crystal clear to me that I’d better ‘NEED’ something.
I glanced around frantically, “I-I-I d-don’t s-s-s-see a-a-nything b-b-but
books!”
The old man’s
expression remained unchanged as he asked, “How much money do you have?”
“I-I-I . . .” I
continued to stutter.
Coming even
closer to me, and still not looking directly at me, he said, “Nothing is ever
free! Everything in life costs!”
Putting a single
finger to his chin, he tapped it twice.
Speaking now as if he were talking to himself, he said, “Yes that’s it
indeed! Everything costs!”
He turned his
head slightly so that his one opened eye was looking right into the middle of
my two eyes, “But the question you must ask yourself is...” he took a short,
shallow breath, “Are you willing to pay the price, no matter the cost?”
I knew I didn’t
have even a stinking penny, but still I thrust my hands into the pockets of my
coat and acted as if I was fishing around for some money. Yet, to my surprise, I found a crumpled
dollar bill. Lunch money I had perhaps
forgotten about. On the other hand,
maybe it was one of the bills from the robbery that I’d missed when I’d taken
the rest out of my pocket to hide.
I suppose it
doesn’t really matter where it came from. I held my hand out flat with the
crumpled dollar wadded in the center of my palm, “J-J-Just th-th-th-this
d-dollar b-but I d-d-don’t th-th-think.” I stuttered
Snatching it away
from me, the old man snapped, “That will be fine!”
“Stand still!”
he barked. Grabbing my head, he pried
open my eye. The same one that only a
few days ago had been gnarled and swollen thanks to a lucky blow by my brother.
It was like
looking into the sun, the old man’s silvery-white eye seemed to peer all the
way into my soul. I was so scared, so
exasperated, that my bladder released its contents into my diaper. Maybe it was because of the old man’s close
proximity that I knew it happened this time, but I was still helpless to stop
it. I felt my face, ears, and neck
burning with embarrassment. “Surely he
knows?” I thought.
The old man
suddenly released me and just stood there.
I was sure then that he knew.
“Quiet!” he
yelled, though I had not uttered so much as a peep.
I stood as if
carved from a slab of stone. The old man continued to stare at me for another
minute, then closed his other eye and bent his head forward, almost as if he
were listening for something. After a
moment, he opened his eyes and said, “Hmmm, wait here.” Then he turned and disappeared back behind
the curtain in which he’d emerged from only minutes before.
I felt as if my
feet had been frozen to the floor. When
I looked down at them, I was horrified to find a puddle around my feet. “What the?” I thought, “But I have on a
diaper! How could I have peed on the floor?” I was screaming inside my own
head. I wanted to run and hide, but my
fear was so immense that I couldn’t have moved; couldn’t have run away if I’d
tried.
After what
seemed like hours, the old man reappeared carrying what looked to be a small
box wrapped in a shiny red silk scarf.
“Here!” he said, as if ordering me to take what he was carrying. Extending the item to me, “Take this! It’s what you came here to get!”
My fingers
trembled as I held out my hands to accept the crimson package. The old man
leaned even closer, staring directly into my eyes, and speaking in a low hiss
that made me feel as if a cold wind was running down my spine. He said, “For Setekh’s sake,” drawing out the
word ‘sake’, “be careful!”
Then he dropped
the box, still wrapped in the red silk scarf, into my waiting fingers. It was heavier than I’d expected, and since I
was still standing on one foot, I had to quickly draw it in close to my chest
to keep from toppling over onto the old man.
He was now looking at the item he’d just given me and appeared to be
sad. Sad like a parent might be that is
saying goodbye to a child they know they may never see again.
With his eyes
momentarily off me, I looked around wildly and through a thin slit, where the
heavy curtain that covered the front window met the wall, I could see that it
had begun to get dark outside.
“Now get out of
my house!” He snapped, “You’re dripping mud and water all over my floor!” the
old man said, as he turned away and started toward the fireplace.
“Mud and water?
Yes, it had been raining, it was just rain!” I could have cheered and inside I
was.
“Take the side
door.” He said gesturing to his left, “It will get you home, more quickly!” He
began to laugh.
I spotted the
small door under the staircase. “Why didn’t I notice it before?” I took a single step toward it before realizing that I
still had a problem. My pants were still
hanging from the fence in the neighbor’s yard, and there was no way I was going
to be able to get past that man-eating dog.
With my ankle there was no way I could ever hope to get over the wooden
privacy fence again anyway. Those two
other times I’d had speed and momentum on my side, now I had neither.
I looked down at my stark
naked legs. My diaper seemed to glow
like a beacon in the firelight. “How
could he not have noticed I wasn’t wearing pants and only had on a diaper? How?”
I thought to myself.
The idea of having to go
back outside with no pants and my diaper in full view of anyone and everyone
just didn’t appeal to me at all. Still only speaking inside my head, I asked
myself, “Now what am I going to do?”
I stood still for a moment,
pondering the question. Finally,
gathering my courage I stepped toward the man who’d now settled himself in one
of the tired-looking chairs. His cat
too, had jumped up, and was making itself comfortable on the old man’s lap
while still keeping its eyes on me as if it knew the old man wasn’t watching
me, so it had to. I felt embarrassed to
even have a cat see me in my diaper!
“Mind your own
business!” Is what I wanted to say to
the cat, but I didn’t as I felt myself blushing.
I limped another chair
toward the man, “Uh, S-sir? I-I n-need
t-to t-talk t-to you.”
With the flick of his wrist,
as if trying to brush away an annoying insect, “Go away!”
Frustration caused my voice
to rise several notes, making me sound even more childlike, “B-but I n-need
your help!”
“Go away! I’ve helped you
enough!” The old man turned his face away and that darn cat lifted his head and
hissed at me.
“B-but I d-d-d-don’t have
any p-p-pants!” I finally shouted.
Shouting back the old man
said, “That’s hardly my fault!”
I felt myself getting ready
to cry and struggled to keep control of my emotions, “W-well how w-will I
g-g-g-g-get home?”
“Walk!” He was nearly worked
up to a full rage, but was still not looking at me.
Throwing my hands into the
air and then dropping them at my side I said, sounding very defeated, “I can’t do
that!”
The old man finally turned
his face back toward me. Raising a
finger, he said, “Young man, if you do not leave my house soon, I will show you
how disobedient children were dealt with when I was a boy!” The hair on the back of his cat began to stand
on end as the man puffed himself up with anger.
“Now go!”
The man’s rage caused me to
stagger backward several steps. Thoughts were flying around in my head like a
swarm of bullets, “I’m nearly naked! How
can I go home? On the other hand, how
can I stay here?” In the time that it
took me to take a deep breath and let it out again, I thought it over and
considered how much trouble I was in already.
“Dad had said to stay close to the house, didn’t he?” I supposed that being half-naked when I got home
wasn’t going to make that much difference.
However, when I reached the
small door under the staircase I could not force myself to open it. The idea
that had almost made sense thirty seconds ago, now seemed insane. I tried to convince myself, “It was Wednesday
afternoon, everyone should be in school or at work, and hardly anyone would be
home at this time of day. Besides, the stripped-down fact was, there was
nothing else I could do. I had to make a
run for it, so to speak.
At last, my hand obeyed my
brain's orders. I reached out, opened the door, and slipped through. Immediately, I felt that everyone in our town
was looking at me. Even the trees seemed
to have eyes, yet the world was strangely silent. I shivered at the feel of the cold March air
against my bare legs and then I began to notice where I was.
“I-I kn-n-now w-w-where I-I
am at!” I said aloud to no one but myself.
To my
astonishment, I found myself in the alley.
The one that ran behind the Colonial Barber Shop and once I made my way
to the other end of the alley, I would only be about six blocks away from home.
For a moment,
the thought that I might still be dreaming came back to me, but I literally
shook it out of my head and I looked up into the sky. It had stopped raining . . . mostly, but I
could still see nothing but dark gray overhead.
There were no stars and no moon.
“Is it night?” I asked aloud, and feeling the twinge in my bowels again
I started walking for home.
While I was
walking down the alley, I began to remove the red silk scarf from around the
object the old man had given me and found that it wasn’t a box as I first
thought, but a book.
That was when I
noted, “Simon, you are such an idiot! You are surrounded by hundreds and
hundreds of books . . . what else would a senile old man give you?”
As I was
examining the book, I could see that it was indeed, very old. It had a brown leather cover; the corners and
edges of which were heavily worn. There
was nothing on the front or back cover, but on the spine of the book it looked
like there was, at one time, lettering that had long since vanished.
I flipped open the book and could detect the faint but lingering smell of dead fish. “I thought old books were supposed to smell musty, not like rotting fish!” I said.
The pages of the
book were yellowed and brittle, and on the very first page was the title of the
book,
Be Ye Crimp
or Grommet
A Survivors Guide
However, there
was no author’s name anywhere that I could find, and the title page looked to
have been wrote by hand instead of printed as books are now. I carefully flipped through the pages and
found that the entire book had been written in the same manor. There were also
many hand drawn pictures of ships, sailors, boats, and diagrams throughout the
book, with words I’d never heard of before and couldn’t pronounce.
Looking back to
the front of the book at the title, I said aloud, “What the heck are Crimps and
Grommets?”
I had been
walking down the alley, probing the book, and wondering what made that nutty
old man think that I needed this particular book. I was lost in the pages that talked about a
group of sailors called a ‘Press Gang’ who would seek out and “recruit” for
their ship, using violence and intimidation.
My thoughts were all over the place and I didn’t see a pothole that was
right in my path until it was too late. I’d been limping along and just
happened to step right into the pothole.
It was filled with icy-cold mud water that saturated my sock instantly
and bit at my skin.
“Oh that’s just
beautiful!” I scolded the pothole as I pulled my foot back out.
“Yeah, it’s
official,” I looked up to the gray heavens and shouted, “THIS DAY SUCKS!”
I shook my
soaking wet, sock-covered foot, causing water to splash everywhere, I don’t know why, but I carefully re-wrapped
the book with the red silk scarf, slipped the book into the pocket of my coat,
and snapped the flap closed; locking it safely inside.
So, with a cold
foot, a soggy sock, my ankle throbbing, and covered in mud from head to toe, I
made my way to the end of the alley.
However, when I reached the end
of the alley, I suddenly felt exposed again.
At least in the alley I felt that I had some places I could hide should
I see or hear someone coming. I flipped my hood up over my head to offer some
safe feeling that I might not be recognized.
Once the fright of being out
in the open had passed again, I started to enjoy my walk despite my physical
state. The chill in the air, and the
sheer craziness of walking across town with my diaper right out there for
everyone to see, made me wildly alert. I
felt opened to the world, delighted by every sight and sound my greedy senses
could absorb.
By taking to the
lesser-traveled streets, which meant I had to walk four extra blocks, I managed
to remain unseen until I reached Enting Street. I was just passing a small,
well maintained grey brick house when I saw a tired looking woman standing at a
window, holding a can of Pepsi, and gazing out with her eyelids at half
mast. When she saw me, it looked as if
someone had plugged in her curlers. Her
eyelids shot up, her jaw dropped down, and Pepsi flew in all directions. I only caught a glimpse of her again as she
strained to see who I was, but I was gone, trying not to let my laughter slow
me down; though I really was moving at a racing snails pace.
The closer I got
to my home, the brighter the sky seemed to get.
Like the gray mass overhead was thinning and allowing shafts of light to
filter through. Sure, it was cold and wet,
and not one of Mother Natures better days.
Of course, having a wet sock and being covered in mud wasn’t helping to
keep me warm or improve my opinion of her handy-work today. Though I was enjoying the briskness, I was
also feeling glad that I was nearly home again.
The closer to
home I got, the stronger my belief was that I was going to have another run-in
with that rusted-out, primer-painted mini-van.
I expected it to come flying around every street corner I approached.
I made the last
turn that would take me to my street and came to a screeching halt. Where my
street dumped out onto
However, instead
of trying to get through that cluster of men in blue, I decided to go up Mike
and Tater’s street, then cut over and come down my street to my house. Okay, I
knew I was taking a big risk by going past Tater’s home, but it was better than
getting near that pervert and his van again, even with all those cops around!
Though I made up
my mind in what direction I was going to go, I decided to take a moment to rest
before tackling the hill. I was standing and leaning against a large tree that
looked to be sleeping. No leaves, no gentle swaying in the breeze as it most
certainly would be in the spring and summer months. With my head tilted all the
way back, I looked up at the damp bark and wondered what the tree would say if
it could talk. While admiring the
majesty of such a quiet, yet living specimen, a single snowflake drifted down
through the vacated branches and landed just above my right eye. I wiped it away, glanced back to the police
cars flashing their red and blue lights against all the houses, and noticed a
small group of people off in the distance.
They were so far away that I could never have identified, them but I
could tell that they looked out of place, and I’m not sure why I felt that way
then or now.
There were quite
a few housewives, and a couple of househusbands standing around gossiping and
whatnot; but that group? I squinted to
try to count them, “Four? No five?” I said aloud.
“There are six!
You’re missing the little guy by that tree!” a familiar voice said. I spun
around fast. Forgetting about my injured
foot, I put my weight down on it. Before
I knew what happened, I was on my butt, looking up into the grinning face of
Runt.
“RUNT!” I
shouted. He stuck a finger to his lips.
“Ya want to keep
it down? I’m not exactly the most popular guy in this town right now!” he said,
extending a hand and helping me up again.
I stood against, and held onto, the side of the tree while I lifted my
sore foot up from the ground.
“What’s a matter
with your foot? And where in the hell are your pants and shoes Spaz?” He bent
down and was pulling at my sock to look at my ankle.
“That man over
there,” I pointed to the primer painted van, “he was chasing after me and I got
stuck on a fence and then chased by a dog.”
He moved my foot
causing an overload of pain signals to race to my brain, “Ah dang Runt! That
hurts!” I said, moving my foot away from him.
“It don’t look
broke.” He said standing back up.
“No, I can put a
little bit of weight on it.” I was giving him a dirty look for hurting me,
though I know he didn’t mean too.
Runt leaned
against the backside of the tree again so that he wasn’t as exposed to the eyes
of the police, and for the first time, I noticed what he was wearing.
“What-you
wearing?” I asked.
He smiled and
tugged at the lapels of his grey coat, “What this? Ah, it’s nut’n. Just clothes!”
“Yeah, but you
look like you just stepped out of some civil war movie!” I said.
He did, too. All he was missing
was one of those gray, funny-looking hats they also used to wear back then.
I could tell by
his response that he was egging me on a bit, “What? Don’t you like it? I think
it’s grand!” he said while petting it. He reached into an inside pocket and
pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“I didn’t know
you smoked.” I said, moving closer so that I too was leaning against the
tree. While he answered my question, my
bowels again came to life and this time with greater urgency than the previous
times.
“Use to, when I
was your age. Smoked a pack a day, but
stopped when my Dad found out and bounced my head off the side of the garage
for about ten minutes.” He pulled one
from the pack, stuck it in his mouth, and then offered me one.
“No thanks!” I
said, not really paying a lot of attention to what he said, as I had to really
concentrate on holding it in.
I noticed he was
looking at me funny, and I didn’t want him to figure out what was bothering me,
so I asked another question. “Where you
been hiding?”
“Here and
there!” He lit his cigarette. “Mostly
been staying with some good friends.” He
drew in a deep breath of smoke. “Yeah,
that’s the stuff!” he said with an exhale.
He looked at the
cops and all the flashing lights before saying, “Sorry about him.”
“Huh?” I
grunted, as the pain of my bowels was getting worse.
Runt pointed
over to the cop cars and the van, “That was old Tom. He was only supposed to
keep an eye on you, but it’s not a great secret, at least to them that knew
him, that he was a bit of an idiot.” He
took another hit on his cigarette. “Actually that’s being kind, he was a total
ass, but he was big and strong and a hard worker.” Runt sucked on his cigarette
again, “He never could follow directions.” he said, still looking toward the
lights while I was staring right at him.
“Y-you k-knew
him?” my rising fear was not well hidden.
“Ah Spaz! Don’t
you worry ‘bout him. He’s dead now!” Runt said it so casually, you’d think he
was talking about what color to paint a house and not about a man’s death.
“Dead?” I said,
now looking toward the lights myself and biting into my bottom lip to try to
draw my minds' attention away from the cramps inside my diaper. I looked back to the peculiar group I had
spotted before, but they were gone now.
With one last desperate attempt to clench my butt cheeks together, I
finally lost the battle and couldn’t hold it in anymore. With a gush, my bowels completely evacuated
into my diaper. Aside from the sound of
my gasping, I don’t think I made any other sound that would make Runt think I
just pooped my diaper.
Something funny
though, I’d not realized how cold my butt was until I pooped in my diaper. I
could feel the warmth spreading over my bottom, between my legs and even up on
my lower back area.
“Yep!” he sucked
hard on his cigarette before flicking it out into the street. I prayed the smell didn’t escape my
diaper. I couldn’t look at him anymore.
I was so scared he was going to find out what happened if he didn’t already
know. I heard myself repeating over and over inside my head, “Please let me
become invisible! Please let me become invisible!”
Runt continued,
“Listen! There’s still some shi . . . uh sorry, some stuff going on.”
“Oh no, he
knows!” my panic level went off the scale.
“Keep close to
home and don’t go out by yourself anymore.” He said. I continued looking at the flashing red and
blue lights for a few seconds, and noticed that it was snowing now as I waited
for Runt to say something else. When he
didn’t, I turned back to him and he was gone.
“Runt?” I
called, but not too loudly. I looked all
around, but he’d simply vanished like a puff of smoke.
I leaned back
against the tree, rested my head against it’s bark, closed my eyes and
sighed. “I am so dead!” I muttered to
the tree. Then, looking up the hill toward Tater’s house, and feeling about as
low as I could possibly feel, I pushed off from the tree and started across the
street.
Now trying to
walk up-hill was a lot harder than the flat streets I’d just left. As I made my way up the hill on the far side
of the street, I pulled the hood of my coat so that it hid even more of my
face, in hope that if I was seen by anyone, namely Tater, they’d just think
that I was one of a hundred other kids in the neighborhood.”
“Yeah, one of a
hundred other kids in the neighborhood that was out on a cold, wet day for a
walk, in a wet and poopy diaper.” a voice in my head said.
I kept my head
down, eyes on the sidewalk, and tried to concentrate on walking without looking
like I was limping too badly. I was
endeavoring to keep from doing anything that might attract attention to me.
For the most
part, I was doing okay, progressing up the hill at a slow, but steady
pace. I didn’t remove my eyes from the
sidewalk, didn’t attempt to glance at any of the houses, especially not Tater
and Mike’s house! However, it seemed
that with each step I took, the harder it snowed. It wasn’t a blizzard kind of snow, just a
heavy, wet snow. It was too late in the
winter for another blizzard, or so I thought.
I’d reached the
point where I was directly across the street from their house. I still don’t
know why I looked, but I did. Not a
full-on staring as if I was trying to peer through the walls to see who was
inside, but just a quick glance. It
looked dark and empty like no one was home.
Yet, in my minds-eye I could see everything inside, the kitchen, the
living room, Mike’s room with all his models, Tater’s room with all those
trophies, and the basement workout room where Tater and I had worked out
together. I looked again, quickly scanning the front windows for any sign of
life or light, but there was none.
“Why am I
disappointed?” I whispered to myself as I wiped another snowflake from the end
of my nose.
With a silent
sigh, I gave a small shrug and continued walking up the hill, still glancing
over my left shoulder every few steps, just to be sure the house didn’t
suddenly pull itself from it’s foundation and come running up the hill after
me.
“Simon! You’re
being an idiot!” I heard a voice inside my head say.
After I had
pasted three more houses, I stopped looking back and returned to watching the
cracks of the sidewalk vanish beneath my feet. I also noticed that I was
beginning to hobble more the farther I went up the hill. My legs and feet were
long past cold and though my ankle hurt, it wasn’t screaming as it had been
before. The sidewalk was beginning to turn white as the snow accumulated on it.
I stopped again,
lifted my injured foot in the air and tried to rotate my foot. I don’t know
why, I just did it. “Man that hurts!” I grumbled, still talking aloud to no one
but myself.
“Why don’t you
rest against that fire hydrant for a few minutes?” the voice in my head said to
me.
“Good idea,
thanks!” I spoke to the voice as if it were another person, but when I looked
closer at the hydrant I saw it was glistening with the rain from earlier and
snow was sticking to it as well. Not
wanting to get my backside wet, though it wouldn’t much matter since I had on a
diaper, and the front of me was already wet and covered in mud, I decided not
to sit on it. I guess it was the
principle of the thing.
So, I continued
up to the hill until I reached my turnoff point. Making a left turn and
crossing to the other side of the street, I stopped and looked down the hill
one more time. I couldn’t really see their house from where I was standing, but
I could see their front yard. There was
no change; I sighed, shrugged again, and started to take a step when I thought
I heard something.
“What was that?”
the voice in my head asked.
“How should I
know, but I heard it too!” I answered the voice.
I turned around
and listened but there was nothing, so I said to the voice, “I think we’re both
hearing things.”
“That’s nothing;
you’re also carrying on a conversation with yourself.” The voice in my head
said.
I shook my head
hard, “Come on Simon! Get a hold of yourself!” I gave my face a hard slap with
my right hand and then another with my left hand. “Snap out of it!”
Almost as if the wind were
talking to me now I heard, “Ssssimonnnnnn” It seemed to hang in the air as if
it had come from a great distance.
Finally, I spotted someone
all the way down at the bottom of the hill I’d just climbed. Whoever it was,
they sure looked small, and not because they were so far away. Whoever it was had something in their hand
and was waving it high overhead, “A flag maybe?” I thought.
“Why would they be waving a
flag?” the voice in my head spoke up again.
“Oh shut up you!” I said
giving my head a firm thump.
I heard the small person
call my name again and was sure now that was who’d called before. It wasn’t
until he was halfway up the hill before I realized it was Jasper Hawkins,
Bull’s little brother, and it wasn’t a flag he was waving in the air . . . it
was my pants!
Forgetting momentarily about
my sore ankle, I took a half a step, but stopped when the pain shot all the way
up my leg and into my side. Since I
couldn’t go to him, I waved. A few
seconds later he was in front of me, bent over, hands on knees, and gasping for
air. Without looking up, he stretched
out his right arm to hand me my pants.
Gratefully, and not even thinking
how he ended up with them in the first place, I took them and started putting
them on. I looked at my legs as I was
pulling my pants up. They were nearly
ghostly white from the cold. I’d just
got my pants zipped up, when Jasper leaned back and put his hand on my chest
for support.
Still breathing hard, he
tried to speak, “Dang” gasp, “I been” gasp, “looking ev,” gasp
“rywhere” gasp, “for you!” gasp-pant-gasp. “I seen you” gasp, “go over our fence”
gasp.
While he was talking, I
notice that in his other hand, he was holding my shoes. He saw me looking at them, “Oh here” gasp,
“you go.” He said, handing them to me.
“Your fence?” I said,
looking around for a place to sit while I put my shoes on.
Jasper reached out and took
one of my shoes back away from me, “Here, let me!” he panted as he knelt down
in front of me. “I was by the backdoor,
letting our dog out to go potty when you fell over our fence. I didn’t know it was you until you were
running away again.”
He finished tying my shoe
for me and reached up to take the other one, but he stopped and looked around,
“Man, something stinks around here!”
I could have died at that
instant. Jasper stood up, looked at the bottoms of both of his shoes to be sure
he didn’t step in something. “Man that really sticks!” he said fanning his hand
in front of his face. A plethora of emotions were swimming around inside of me.
I felt humiliated for crapping myself, embarrassed that Jasper could smell it,
and angry to learn that it was his dog that nearly killed me!
He reached for my other shoe
again, but I didn’t let go of it as I timidly asked, “That was your dog? Ah, your backyard?”
“Yeah! But if I’d known you was going to be coming
over our fence, I’d never have let her out!”
He said, still holding onto my shoe.
I was about to ask, “Why do
you have a man-eating dog?” but he asked his question first, “Say, why did you
come flying over our fence anyway?”
I let him have my other
shoe. He helped me get it on and tied it
for me as well. As he stood back up, I
said. “Thanks!”
“That was the funniest thing
I’ve ever seen! Bull saw it too. He fell over one of the dinning room chairs
‘cause he was laughing so hard.” Jasper
was smiling and trying very hard not to laugh right in my face.
I rubbed the top of my head,
“Well, I didn’t think it was very funny!”
“Trust me, it was!” Jasper
accidentally let a laugh escape and quickly said, “Sorry!” but he was looking
like he was about to throw up if he didn’t let it all out soon.
“So why did you come over
our fence like that?” he asked again.
With a very heavy sigh, I
told him about the man in the rusty, primer-colored van, and how he’d chased
me, trying to catch me.
“Oh, is that what all those
police were doing?” he said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.
“Yeah! I guess they caught him!” I said, but I
didn’t tell him about Runt or that Runt had told me that the man was now dead.
“You think he’s the one that
took all them kids on TV?” Jasper asked.
I wrapped my arms around
myself. Funny, when I had no pants or shoes I didn’t feel as cold as I did now
that I was fully dressed again. Maybe it was because I’d stopped moving and the
cold was getting to me.
“You look pretty cold!”
Jasper said.
“I am!” I answered back.
“I can’t believe you walked
all the way here in the snow with no pants and shoes and wearing a diaper!” He
giggled when he said the word diaper.
I felt myself blush which
was good, because it helped to warm my face.
“Hey, I have a secret fort
not too far from here, if you want to go there until you warm up!” Jasper asked.
For several seconds I was
tempted to go with him, but I figured I was already in enough trouble. I'd better not make things worse for
myself. If I had gone with him, he was
sure to find out that I was the one that smelled so bad because I had a load in
my diaper.
“I better get home. My Dad’s going to kill me the way it
is!” I said, pointing in the direction
that I was about to go.
“Yeah, it’s snowing pretty
hard anyway! I should get back home too!
Can I email you?” he asked, which I found somewhat odd.
“Ah, Yeah! Maybe we can chat online later. That is, if I don’t end up grounded from my
computer again!” I kicked at the snow on
the sidewalk.
“Okay and I’m glad that man
didn’t get you too! Oh and sorry my dog
scared you! She’s really nice normally! I think you just scared her!” Jasper
said.
“I scared her?” I thought,
but didn’t say it aloud.
“Okay, I’ll see you online!”
Jasper said. As he turned to go, he
stopped again and said, “Man there must be a pile of dog poop right here
somewhere! Sure does stink!” and then
took off running at full speed back down the hill.
I watched until he was out
of sight, then turned and limped the rest of the way home, all the while
dreading what Dad was going to say and do when he got his hands on me. When I walked in the front door, I fully
expected to be greeted with a flurry of yelling, but that’s not what happened
at all. I stepped in the front door to
find the house was quiet. I was about to go limping across the living room, but
one look down at myself, at the mud that was all over me, and I knew that Mom
would kill me if I tracked mud all over the carpet.
I stood quiet for a second,
trying to think how I could get to the back of the house without risking making
a mess. I thought about stripping myself
down right there at the door, but two things stopped me. The fact that I could only strip as far as my
diaper because it was filled with poop, and secondly, even if I did strip to my
diaper, my legs, feet, and diaper, were still covered in mud. Resigned to needing help, I decided to
announce my homecoming.
“Dad?” I called out, but there was no response.
“Dad, I’m home!” I called again and listened for any noise at
all.
I could see the glow of
light coming from around the corner where Dad’s home office, was so I knew he
must be here. Plus, he’d never leave me
home alone. Then the thought occurred to
me that maybe he was down at the bottom of our hill, watching the police bag up
that man that had chased me. Maybe he
thought the man had captured me after all.
“Daaaad!!!” I
screamed, and he finally emerged from
his office.
When he saw me, he got the
oddest look on his face, as if he was seeing a ghost or something.
I was so relieved to see him
walk around the corner, “Oh there you are! I thought you . . . ah weren’t
here!” I switched what I was going to say at the last second.
Dad just continued to look
at me with that odd expression. He
didn’t look mad or angry, more like he was surprised to see me.
“What?” I said not sure what
his look meant.
Pointing toward the back of
the house, he said, “I thought you already came in.”
I shook my head ever so
slightly, but didn’t speak.
“But I thought you came in
when it started snowing?” he said, still with that same expression.
I shook my head again and
said, “I just now came in.”
“I thought you were in your
closet. I was even in there talking to you!” he said, pointing toward my room
again.
I pointed to the front door
that was still standing open. “I came in, just now!”
He scratched his head, “Well
I’ll be! I thought you were mad about something again and that’s why you didn’t
answer me!” He smiled and started toward me.
“You were really outside all this time?” he asked. I was so relieved that he wasn’t mad, but I
was still a little afraid he was going to get mad!
Finally, noticing the mud he
asked, “What happened to you?”
In the space of just a
single second, the entire episode from the moment I stepped outside our front
door to the point where I stepped back into our house all played out in my
mind. I was about to tell him everything, about the tall man, the van, the dog,
the old man with the cat and books, about seeing and talking to Runt, about
Jasper bringing my pants and shoes, and everything else but for some reason, I
didn’t. I only shrugged and said, “I fell down!”
“It looks like you fell down
about twenty times!” he said, holding his hands out and acting as if he didn’t
want to touch me. “Wow, Simon! You are a
mess! I’ve never understood how you can get so dirty.”
I looked down at myself
again and noticed the stark contrast between my muddy coat and my clean pants.
Dad noticed too.
“How’d you managed to get so
muddy on top? Where you walking on your hands?” and he gave me a half smile.
Sometimes, when you don’t
have a good excuse, the best thing to do is just keep your mouth shut. So, that’s just what I did. I sealed my lips
together and shrugged again.
“Well, lets get you out of
those wet and muddy things, and into the tub before your mother comes home and
sees you.” Dad said, finally kneeling
before me and helping me with my coat.
“Oh boy! Did you have
another accident?” he said covering his nose and mouth.
I don’t know why, but I
started to cry. I didn’t want too, it just started and I couldn’t stop.
“It’s okay Simon! You don’t
have to cry. We’ll get you all cleaned up again.” Dad said, while taking off my
coat. He continued to strip me down and
when he took off my pants, he said, “How’d you get your legs and diaper all
muddy but not your pants?” Then he said, “No wait! I don’t want to know!” I glanced up to see
him to see he was still smiling.
Once he had me down to just
my diaper, he picked me up, carried me to his bathroom, and deposited me into
the bathtub. He took off my diaper. Boy, the smell was strong enough to take down
a bull-elephant! He turned on the water
and left me to rinse while he took my diaper to the trash, and took my wet and
muddy things to the laundry room.
When he returned, he helped
me out of my body armor, which somehow I’d gotten mud into, way up underneath
it.
“Had I known you were going
to be playing in some mud hole I would have just clad you in a trash bag before
sending you out to play!” Dad said, as he used his hand to remove the mud from
my skin.
“Can you turn around and
bend over for me so we can get your backside clean?” he asked and I obeyed. I
used the wall to brace myself and bent over, allowing the water to run over my
back and bottom. The warm water felt so
good as it flowed down through my crack. Dad reached in with the washcloth and
scrubbed that area clean for me.
“Did you have your pants off
out there?” he asked. “Your knees are
all scratched up!” He noticed the palms
of my hands. “I guess you did fall
down.” He said as they too where all skinned up.
“What did you do with your
gloves?” he asked.
“My gloves?” I thought. I’d
not even realized I’d lost them. In fact, I had forgot that I’d even been
wearing them when I left the house. I tried to think when the last time I
remembered having them on, was but I couldn’t think of when that was.
“I-I-I don’t know.” I
answered truthfully.
He was carefully washing my
chest and stomach and reached up to hold my right arm to help steady me. He took hold right at my elbow, and a pain
shot through my arm.
“Ouch!” I said and jerked my
arm away from him.
“What? Did you hurt your
elbow too?” Dad asked, and then added,
“I thought I heard someone telling you to take it easy before you went
outside.”
“Actually you said not to do
anything that hurt my ribs, and I didn’t hurt them at all.” I said without
thinking.
“Yeah, but you managed to
hurt the rest of your body!” Dad said
playfully spanking my bottom.
When Dad washed my hair it
hurt a lot too, but I didn’t let on. I
could tell he wasn’t too happy that I’d come home so banged up and I was still
expecting him to say something, or punish me somehow. Also, I still kept wanting to tell him about
everything that happened, but at the same time, I didn’t. That doesn’t make sense, but that is how I
was feeling.
When Dad was satisfied that
I was once again squeaky clean, he helped me out of the tub and dried me off
thoroughly before taking my armor and washing it out in the tub too.
While he was cleaning my
armor, he left me standing beside him with the towel rapped around me like a
cloak. Just to see that everything was still okay I tried to move my upper body
a little and felt little twitches of pain, which I counted as a good
thing. Little twitches are better than
stabbing pain!
Dad handed me my two pieces
of armor and then picked me up and carried me to my bathroom where he had me
sit on the toilet while he sprayed some liquid Band-Aid on my hands and
knees. Boy it stung like fire, but Dad
didn’t have any sympathy for my whining.
“It burns! It burns!” I
cried.
“That means it’s working.”
Dad said.
A few seconds later, the
burning subsided, and all pain faded away.
Dad was reaching around me to swoop me up in his arms again when the
phone rang.
“Think you can get to your
room without this?” he pointed to my armor.
“Dad! I’m not paralyzed!” I complained.
“Just be careful! I’ll be
right in.” He ran to get the phone and I made my way back to my room, sat down
on the side of my bed, and waited for him to return.
Next Installment:
Chapter 4 – Part 2 – Wednesday, March 03, 2004 –
The Riddle Stone
** For the latest news on how each installment is coming along as well as answers to questions asked by other readers and so much more, visit me at www.talkhard.5u.com. As always, your thoughts matter to me very, very much, so please send any comments, questions, suggestions, or criticism to me at: [email protected] and I promise that I will reply personally to everyone that takes the time to write to me! **