Goodbye Normal Jeans

A novel by Danny

Chapter 12

When pa and me seen Kevin’s truck sittin’ there halfway between the house and the barn and the odd way that Doc Wilson’s car was parked we both thought the worst. But I learned a long time ago that sometimes the first things we see ain’t really right. Like lookin’ at a pie, you see the crust on top and you might think it is a nice yummy fruit pie but maybe under that crust there is meat or veggies! That’s just how it was for pa and me. We thought we were lookin’ at a nice fruit pie but we couldn’t have been more wrong.

The first thing that jumped into my head was that somethin’ was wrong with ma or the baby. As it turned out, while we were gone Kevin and his new bride, Meggin, had come home not long after pa and I had left for town. Their timin’ couldn’t have been better ‘cause Kathy had accidentally let the pigs loose and the pigs were runnin’ all over the place. Kathy, Kristen, Kyle-Lee, and Kane were runnin’ all over the place tryin’ to round up the pigs again and weren’t havin’ too much luck at it.

When Kevin and Meggin pulled up and seen what was happenin’ they joined the chase as though they hadn’t been gone at all. I expect that their home comin’ was nothin’ like they had been expecting; not that I know what they were expectin’ but I do know what I was expectin’ it to be like and it was nothin’ like that. Not long after Kevin and Meggin arrived Doc Wilson had stopped by to check on ma again but was blindsided by one of the pigs as he was gettin’ out of his car. He was knocked on his backside, bashed his head against his car and was knocked out cold. Everyone was so busy chasin’ the pigs that they didn’t even realize that Doc Wilson was hurt.

Pa’s huntin’ dog Whiskey had seen him fall and bein’ the good dog that she is had ran over to keep him safe from gettin’ attacked or trampled by one of our pigs. She stood beside Doc Wilson and barked but all her barkin’ did was get the pigs to runnin’ scared even more.

Most people think pigs are gentle animals but the exact opposite is true. They bite hard enough to a pair of leather shoes and if you get your hand to close to them when they’re eatin’ they’ll chomp it right off without givin’ you any warning. Given the chance they can run faster then a grown man and I’ve even seen one run right through a sold wood fence without gettin’ hardly a scratch or get slowed down none.

Karen, who had been inside washin’ clothes, had heard Whiskey barkin’ as well as the pigs squealing and everyone shouting so she went to see what the heck was goin’ on. That is when she seen Doc Wilson lying on the ground with Whiskey sitting beside his head and ran out to make sure the Doc was ok.

When pa and I had returned I didn’t see Doc Wilson layin’ on the ground beside his car with Karen and Meggin kneelin’ beside him but I guess pa could see from his side of the truck ‘cause he threw open his door and jumped out of the passenger side even before we had come to a stop.

“Pa!” I screamed as I panicked and jumped on the break peddle with both feet causin’ the truck to skidded to a stop. I threw the shifter into park just as three of the pigs ran in front of me closely followed by Kristen.

Between the excitement of drivin’ pa’s truck and realizin’ that somethin’ was wrong here at home, any awareness of the condition inside of my diaper had been pushed out of my head. However, when I opened the truck door and started to slide off the phone books a confused and remarkable sensation began to take hold of me as my poop smeared backside slid inside my diaper. It felt like I was movin’ but my diaper and pants were stayin’ in place. When my feet hit the gravel driveway I wanted to run to see what was goin’ on but I had a bit of a situation myself that caused me to hesitate. When I had slid off the phone books and out of the truck the sensation I had felt was the poo as it was squeeze out of the back of my diaper like toothpaste from a tube. With my undershirt and button up shirt tucked into my pants my poo was contained but I could feel it against my back and what was worse, I could smell it now too; that meant everyone else could too. It felt unusually heavy and bulky like I’d been holdin’ it in all day. The smell, well that is difficult to describe; it was like no smell that had ever come out of me before or since. It made me gag and I waved my hand in front of my nose in an attempt to get some breathable air into my lungs.

As I took a couple steps toward the house uncertainty grew with every step; I convinced myself that whatever was goin’ on, it didn’t need me involved. I just wanted to sneak into the house and get changed but that didn’t happen. My stink was overwhelmin’ me and I wondered how somethin’ so horrible could come out of me.

I froze in mid stride when I heard someone shout, “Half-Pint, look out!” The next thing I knew I was bein’ dragged across the gravel with my arms clamped around one of the pigs neck and its ear was slapping me in the face

“I got this one!” I bellowed but in fact I wasn’t even slowin’ the dang pig in the least bit.

“Go Little-Pants, go!” Someone cheered.

When I lost my grip I went tumblin’ head over heals before comin’ to a stop flat on my back inside the pig pin lookin’ up at the sky while laughin’ the whole time.

Kane was the first to get to me, “Holy buckets! Are you ok?” He asked soundin’ amazed, ammused and scared all at the same time.

I was still laughin’ when I said, “Now that is what I call fun!”

At the time I had no idea what pig it was that I’d latched onto but Kevin later told me that I’d been blindsided by the biggest pig we got. She’d drug me quite a ways before I lost my grip on her but I must’a scared her enough ‘cause she had run right back into the pig pin. After that, all the pigs followed her in with a bit of persuasion by pa with his cattle prod. Kane and Kristen had helped me to my feet and the three of went over the fence on the far side of the pin ‘cause the pigs were comin’ in from the other end.

By the time all the pigs were back in the pin everyone, Meggin included, were covered in mud, dirt and grass stains. Kevin was the only one that got hurt. He had a fat lip where one of the pigs had head butted him and Kyle-Lee had ripped up the knees of his pants.

To say that I was dirty would be like sayin’ that Mexico has a lot of Mexicans. I was covered head to toe, top to bottom and everywhere else with pig filth! And I sure didn’t smell like a field of daisies that’s for sure but I was just glad that pig pucky helped to mask my own retched stench. I laughed even more when I realized that my left pants pocket was full of gravel and grass.

“Now how do you suppose that happened?” Kane said trusting his hand into my pocket and pulling out a fist full of pebbles.

I don’t think I stopped laughin’ until the lot of us realized that Doc Wilson had been hurt. He’d hit his head good and Pa and Kevin had to carry him into the house where they laid him on the couch. After a while he woke up but he said he had a whopper of a headache and after restin’ up a bit was laughin’ about the whole thing.

I on the other hand wasn’t allowed into the house as I was told to stand beside the front porch along with Kristen who’d slide on her belly through a pile of poo. Kane and Kyle-Lee took turns hosin’ us down while the two of us stripped down, me to my birthday suit and Kristen to her pink underwear.

I allowed Kristen to go up and take a bath first while I hung my clothes on the wash line and allowed Kane and Kyle-Lee to use them as water cannon targets. They both took great delight in repeatedly shootin’ me over and over again as I hung up my dirty clothes.

“Two points if you get him in the head!” Kane sang and Kyle-Lee squirted me in the face.

“Guys! The clothes not me!” I griped.

“Five points if you get him you know where!” Kyle-Lee cheered and Kane shot me right where it counts.

“GUYS STOOOP!” I whined but I didn’t mean it. Heck, I think that even if it was twenty below and ten feet of snow was on the ground, playin’ with the garden hose and squirtin’ each other would still be fun. Yeah of course it was cold but heck, that is what hot chocolate, fireplaces and warm bathes are for right?

Shiverin’ and teeth chatterin’ I left them to their water games and streaked into the house. Karen was comin’ out of the livin’ room and I quickly asked, “Is Doc Wilson ok?”

“It’s just a goose,” she said dismissively.

Kristen and I ran up the stars skippin’ every other one. I let her go take a hot bath first and went to get something to cover myself up with. The first thing I spotted was a pair of Kane’s underwear. I pulled them on, it felt funny since I hadn’t worn underwear in a while now. I didn’t doddle over those feeling too long; I wanted to race back downstairs to check on Doc Wilson for myself and to show ma my new farm license.

“Wow that is a big goose you got!” I said admirin’ the bump on the back of his head. He shot me a crooked smile and closed his eyes as he rested a towel filled with ice against his throbbin’ welt.

Without openin’ his eyes he said to pa, “When you’re ready to slaughter that pig, you’ll let me have first whack at it won’t ya?”

Pa grinned, “You got it! How about next weekend?”

When Doc Wilson was feelin’ up to it, pa insisted that he drive him home. After a little fussin’ Doc Wilson gave in and pa drove the Doc’s car while Kevin followed them with his own truck.

You know, in the Bible it says that everything works out for the good and I guess now I understand that better now. Durin’ the drive back pa and Kevin got to do a load of talking. You should have seen how relieved Meggin was when the two of them came home laughing.

Pa, Kevin and Meggin spent the better part of that evenin’ talkin’ in pa and ma’s room. The rest of us were curious ‘cause we couldn’t hear nothin’ that was goin’ on inside either so we tried to keep busy to keep from goin’ crazy with the not knowing.

I guess everyone was extra hungry too ‘cause the whole lot of us ate enough for two meals. Karen cooked up a mess of Stew Bake. If’n you don’t know what Stew Bake is, it’s loads of taters, corn, beans, bacon, and whatever other stuff you want to toss into a big fryin’ pan. When it’s almost done you got to pore cornbread batter over the lot of it and shove the whole thing in the stove for a bit. Karen makes it good but ma makes it loads better.

Later, after everyone had gone to bed Kyle-Lee woke me up by pokin’ me in the forehead and asking, “Are you awake?”

“Well I am now!” I grumbled. I’d been havin’ a really nifty dream were I was a secret agent and now I was annoyed that Kyle-Lee had interrupted it.

“I’m hungry,” he said and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“You’re what?” I asked bitterly.

He made a face as if I was the one bein’ bothersome, “Well I don’t know if it is ok to go get a snack or not.” He said.

I rubbed at my eyes, “What are you talkin’ about?”

He pulled my hand impatiently away from my eyes, “What if they are still awake and talking?”

“What—what time is it?” I asked.

It was Kane that answered energetically, “Nearly 1:30!”

“In the morning?” I whined with disbelief.

“Do you think it is ok to go get a snack?” Kane asked.

“Yeah we’re hungry!” Kyle-Lee added.

I was gettin’ really upset now. I mean, that was a really good dream and those two rat-brained buffoons woke me up just to tell me they had a case of the munchies?!

“What are you askin’ me for? It’s not like we’ve never snuck down in the middle of the night!”

I must have been talkin’ louder then I thought because Kyle-Lee pressed his hand against my mouth. Takin’ a page out of Kristen’s book I gave his hand a good chomp. I could tell that it hurt by the way his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He sucked on his bottom lip, pressed his achin’ hand against his thigh and moaned softly.

“Dangit that hurt!” he sniveled.

“Serves you right!” I said softer this time, “Now leave me alone so I can go back to sleep!” I huffed, rolled over and squeezed my eyes tightly closed hopin’ I could continue dreamin’ that same dream. But my brothers weren’t willin’ to let me alone.

“Come with us?” Kyle-Lee pleaded and I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was scared but was tryin’ not to show it.

“Ok but if we get caught I am tellin’ dad that it was your idea!” I said throwin’ off my covers and climbin’ out of bed. My diaper felt a little heavier then it had when I’d gone to bed and I knew I’d already wet in it at least once but wasn’t worried ‘cause I was sure it could take a lot more.

The two of them made me take the lead; they are both such cowards! We crept down the steps and I stopped at the bottom to make sure everyone was indeed in bed; they were. However when I had stopped my stupid brothers kept comin’ down and nearly plowed me over.

“Hey watch it!” I grunted softly.

One of them, I don’t know which, whispered, “It’s so dark!”

“Yeah what were you expecting?” I shot back, “Kevin and Meggin are probably sleepin’ in the other room.”

Back to belly the three of us tiptoed through the dark to the pantry. I knew from experience that if I opened the door too fast that it would squeak so I was careful to open as slowly as possible. Once it was opened I pulled out a jar from the very back of the third shelf from the floor. The third shift is where ma keeps the jars of sweet peaches and I was sure to take it from the back ‘cause those are the freshest ones; plus I figured pa or ma would be less likely to realize that we’d snuck it.

Now typically whenever we sneak a late night snack we’ll smuggle it back up to our room to limit our chances of bein’ caught but for some reason this time we didn’t. Instead the three of us sat down on the kitchen floor knees touchin’ and ate our late night snack under the cover of darkness.

At the time none of us gave any thought to the fact that when we opened the jar it didn’t make that familiar burpin’ sound. It wouldn’t be until days later that we would realize that we hadn’t heard the sound made when the seal is broken between the cannin’ lid and the glass jar.

Without speakin’ we took turns thrustin’ our eager fingers into the jar and pullin’ out a wedge, then quietly slurpin’ it down like a big fat noodle. Once the peaches were gone we took turns sippin’ the juice straight from the jar until we’d drained the very last drop.

Like I said before, we’d done these late night snack raids before and we knew that to keep from havin’ the evidence discovered in the morning we had to take the empty jar back to our room and stash it away were it wouldn’t be found.

I’m not sure what time it was when once again I was awakened but this time it wasn’t my brothers that were waking me up, it was a most perplexin’ feelin’ in the pit of my stomach. It felt like I had two squirrels inside my belly fightin’ for the same acorn. From across the room I heard Kane whimper, “Oooh, I don’t feel so well!”

As I began to move my hands toward my tummy my bottom discharged into my diaper with the force of a hurricane and it sound of a bomb had gone off. I was never so glad to be wearin’ a diaper before and just as I thought I was done a second bomb detonated and I filled my diaper again with hot liquid butt gravy.

I heard Kane poundin’ across the floor past my bed headin’ toward the bathroom and I knew he hadn’t made it when I heard him near the door cryin’ quietly to himself.

“Those dang peaches!” I thought to myself, “They must’a been bad!” and in fact they were. In the dark we had no idea that the jar we had opened was filled with peaches that hadn’t sealed properly and had gone bad in the jar. That’s the thing about peaches, unless you can look at them and see that they are brown you’d never know from the taste whether they were spoiled or not.

Kane must have got the door open slightly before soilin’ himself ‘cause I distinctly heard someone in the bathroom. It sounded like someone was repeatedly dumpin’ buckets of water into the toilet from a great height. And then I heard a moan that could have only come from Kyle-Lee. The sound was deep and forceful as if he were tryin’ to lift a ten-ton bolder over his head.

The hallway light came on momentarily blindin’ me and then I could hear Karen askin’ Kyle-Lee, “Are you alright in there?”

“Oh god Karne! Get dad fast!” Kyle-Lee cried out not even tryin’ to quiet his voice.

Kane must have still been standin’ by the door and I thought that because I could hear what sounded like someone blowin’ bubbles in their milk. I figured he was filling his pajama pants the same as I’d done to my diaper.

Those two squirrels were still fightin’ inside my stomach and as I tried to set upright I began to vomit. I don’t mean just a little spit-up; I mean I hurled with the force of a cannon. If my mouth had been closed I honestly believe I would have blown the front of my face off! It was as if someone had connected a hose to a fire hydrant and shoved the other end up my bottom; I wanted to stop but it kept comin’ out of my mouth!

Pore Kane had been closer to me then I thought and received the full brunt of my stomachs contents. I puked so hard and so long that I remember thinkin’ that I was goin’ to suffocate ‘cause I couldn’t breathe. To top it off, the light in our room came on burnin’ my eyes as I continued to spew peach scented evil onto the kneelin’ body of my youngest brother.

The best that I can figure is that as Kane was tryin’ to run for the toilet a stab of belly pain had caused him to double over and fall to his knees. It was only dumb luck that he happened to fall right were I was about to throw-up everythin’ I have ever ate in my entire life.

As my eyes adjusted to the light and the delouse comin’ from my mouth stopped for the moment, I could see Kane bent over on the floor lookin’ like some sort of mutated blob havin’ just been born. Exhausted I fell back against my pillow gaspin’ for air. The sent of peaches in the air was intense as I lay there with sweat porin’ off of me like I’d just come in our of the rain.

The next thing I new pa was leanin’ over me wipin’ my face, neck and chest with a wet rag. I had just enough time to say, “Pa,” before I again vomited this time all over pa, the floor, my bed, my pillow and myself. Between heaves I was able to catch a glimpse of my follow night-time cupboard raiders. Kyle-Lee was sittin’ upright in bed with a bucket between his legs and his head shoved down inside it. Kane was standin’ at the foot of Kyle-Lee’s bed while Karen pulled a pair of my plastic pants up over the thick cloth diaper he was wearing.

The three of us spend the next few days lyin’ in bed sicker then I think any of us have ever been in our lives. Though none of us remember it, we were told that Doc Wilson had come to see us the followin’ mornin’ despite the enormous, throbbin’ goose-egg he had on the back of his head. I don’t even remember him or anythin’ else for over three days. We later found out that all three of us had a very bad case of food poisoning. We had fevers over 104 and we were mostly cared for by Meggin, Karen and Kathy.

I found it odd that neither Kane nor Kyle-Lee seem the least bit upset when they found out that they had been kept in diapers that whole time. Even after our fevers broke we were too weak to get out of bed and yet they didn’t fuss about havin’ Meggin and our sisters changin’ us. Kyle-Lee took longer to recover than Kane and me. His fever didn’t break until late in the fourth day and only yesterday was he able to hold down some water and a little chicken broth.

In our fevered state we had confessed to sneakin’ down and eatin’ the peaches. I mean why wouldn’t we since our room reeked of peaches and still does to this day. Kyle-Lee seems to think that it was good that we confessed when we were so sick ‘cause pa’d never tan us when we were nearly dying. The more I think about that, the more I think Kyle-Lee is right.

Pa had gone through the pantry and found three more jars of bad peaches. Ma seems to think that maybe she got some bad cannin’ lids this time and to be safe she made pa toss out every jar of peaches from this year. You can bet that I won’t be eating peaches again for a very long time... if ever!

To be continued . . .