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Joseph Kross:

the adventures of

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a short story by austin

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Notes: Thank you all for your comments. They inspire me and I really truly, appreciate it. Thank you. Like I said in the forward, there are four chapters to this story. The structure of the plot is much like a hurricane. The first chapter was the first half of the storm. The second chapter was the eye (with the storm clouds still visible, towering and surrounding the calm). This chapter, chapter 3, is the second half of the storm. And it is a dark storm. For that I apologize. I know we all like to read happy stories. But that is not life. However, know that the storm does end. In chapter 4, the storm has passed and Joseph survives. Peace is coming for Joseph, I promise. But first we must weather the hurricane…

 

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********************* CHAPTER 3 *********************

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Morning came quickly. Someone was shaking Joseph and through the haze of sleep, Joseph recognized Meg's voice.

"Time to wake up, Joseph. You're ride is here."

Joseph sat up and looked around, confused. He saw Meg standing next to the bunk bed. Her hair was tangled and messy from sleep and her eyes looked as if they were weighed down by heavy, dark gray bags.

"Officer Leemon is here for you."

"Oh, not him again," groaned Joseph sleepily. He got out of bed, though, and climbed down the ladder. He saw that Caleb's sleeping bag had been rolled up. "Where is Caleb?"

"He was picked up earlier," Meg said.

"Oh," Joseph said, trying not to show disappointment. "He didn't say goodbye."

"Yeah, he did. Emma came in too. You were pretty out of it. But it is the thought that counts, I guess," Meg said. "Now, hurry up and jump in the shower before Leemon get's all agitated."

Joseph didn't want to see Leemon angry, so he hustled out of the room. On his way to the receiving room, which had become his de facto bathroom, Joseph had to pass through the entry way. He almost froze in his tracks when he not only saw Officer Leemon sipping coffee out of a steaming Styrofoam cup, but a strange lady seated at the front desk. But Joseph hurried past, ignoring Leemon's mumbled, "Good morning," and painfully aware of the bulge around his middle and the prominent swishing of the plastic pants.

In the bathroom, Joseph saw, washed and folded neatly on the counter, the clothes he was wearing when he arrived in Seattle. Joseph quickly and unceremoniously stripped out of the diaper and his pajamas. He washed vigorously in the shower, feeling anxious and angry. He was dreading the day, and the next, and the next. And Joseph was angry that as soon as he found something good, it was being taken away from him. The unfairness was painful and Joseph fought back tears of frustration as he let the hot water wash his body. After drying off, Joseph quickly put on his clothes. For some reason they appeared barely recognizable even though he had just worn them two days before.

In the entry way, Meg was waiting with an apple and a banana and a plastic sack with dry cereal in it. "Here is some breakfast for you," she said quietly. She wrapped Joseph in a tight hug and Joseph swore he felt her lightly kiss his hair. Meg pulled back and held him at arms length. "In a strange way, I hope I never see you again. That your grandma's is perfect for you. That she's nice and you never have to move again until you're old enough to live on your own."

Joseph nodded. He didn't like the sound of it, but he knew what Meg said was the best possible way things could turn out. But the thought of not seeing Meg again really pained him. He looked away, feeling both angry and helpless. Meg hugged him again. "But also," she whispered, "I hope I run into you again soon. You're a special boy."

It would have been cheesy and insincere coming from anybody else, but from Meg, Joseph felt truly special. He let a small smile briefly flash on his face. "Thanks for everything," He said softly. "Say goodbye to Steve for me, I guess."

"He's showering, or I'm sure he'd be here to wish you good luck," Meg said.

Joseph took a step back towards the door. "Go home and get some sleep or something," he said, then turned and walked out before he could cry. He heard Officer Leemon follow him out the double doors.

Outside, the snow that had been so pristine, white, and soft the day before had turned into a soggy, slushy, cold, wet, uncomfortable mess. Joseph's shoes and socks were immediately soaked. Continuous loud dripping sounds came from everywhere. The sun was attempting to break through a thin, yet effective cloud layer, and there was no direct shine to lighten the dreariness of the day. A snow plow had come by some time in the night and formed a bank along both sides of the street. Dirt from the street and exhaust from cars had mixed with the snow and the mounds were a putrid brownish black, dotted with gravel that had been spread on the street to increase traction.

"Messy, isn't it," Officer Leemon said as he opened up the door for Joseph.

Joseph just nodded and climbed into the hard plastic bucket seat in the back. Someone had disinfected it since Joseph's accident. Next to him on the seat lay his lone bag. Someone had apparently retrieved it from the airport.

"This is the usual winter in Seattle for you. Wet, gray, and brown. The last two days were an anomaly. But just get through it. By May, it will be beautiful. We've got the best summers anywhere, period. Better than the Bahamas, better than California. Ain't too hot, but it's not cold. Plenty of water for swimming for you youngsters. Lots of parks, beaches, sports, you name it. It's give and take, this life. Nothing is free," Officer Leemon mused as he pulled the police cruiser onto the freeway. "A constant trade off. We pay the rent for seven months of beautiful blue skies with five months of rain. But if you can survive the rain, it's sure one heck of a reward, the summers in Seattle. Wouldn't trade it for nothing."

Officer Leemon didn't mention anything about the ride he had given Joseph two days before. To Joseph it seemed like a lifetime ago and he was glad to let certain aspects of the ride fall to the wayside of history. Leemon continued his pointless banter all the way to Joseph's grandma's house. Joseph hardly listened and Leemon didn't seem to mind. Joseph wondered if he talked like this even when there wasn't anyone else in the car. Probably.

The neighborhood that his grandma lived in was a stark difference to the surroundings of the Temporary Youth Housing Facility. Whereas that district had been acutely derelict, Joseph saw that his grandma's neighborhood was well kept, domestic, and safe. He doubted that there were any shelters for homeless youth here, nor any need. Weirdly enough, though he had no proof, he also felt as if it wasn't as friendly. Joseph supposed this was the opposite impression he was supposed to have. Cleanliness and tidiness and SUVs and new basketball hoops with real nets, two and three door garages, snow figures crafted by happy, innocent, clueless, smiling children (slowly drooping under the assault of the warming temperature), curbside mailboxes, no graffiti in sight, clean parks with no prone homeless figures lying motionless on the benches, no litter, signs on the side of the road warning of playing children, wide roads, strip malls and supermarkets, Starbucks, brown corduroy pants, fleece vests, dogs on leashes with owners dutifully following along (compulsory poop bag in hand), high-end road bikes, hybrid cars, new schools. The space was wide open, yet suffocating. All his life, Joseph had known nothing but poverty and being plunged into this affluent environment was anything but stabilizing. He just didn't get the feeling that anyone would willingly share their sled with him here.

They pulled up next to the house, painted a gray blue that melded nicely with everything else gray and brown around it. Trudging up the driveway, slush splashed out from under Joseph's sneakers. He felt nervous, but at least his pants were dry this time around. After ringing the doorbell, Officer Leemon took a step back. Joseph heard footsteps inside and the door slowly creaked open. A figure stood obscured behind the screen door.

"You must be my grandson," came a scratchy old voice.

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It wasn't that she was mean, it was just that Joseph's grandma wasn't particularly nice, nor entirely present either physically or mentally. She was, without a doubt, the oldest person he had ever seen in real life. They didn't live to be that old down in Calexico. The interior of the house looked to have been forgotten by her and everybody else years before. It wasn't dirty, but everything inside it was old. Joseph felt like he was walking into a museum. Even the magazines which decorated the glass coffee table in the living room were from ten years before.

After a brief and awkward introduction, she had hobbled down rickety old stairs into a musty basement and took him to his room. The air smelled as if it hadn't been freshened or ventilated in decades. The room was burrowed into a forgotten corner of the basement, through a hallway lined with bookshelves packed with old music records and books. A thick layer of dust covered everything in sight and did little to help illuminate the darkness with any sort of brightening reflection of the bare light bulb which hung from a frayed wire outside the door. The door itself was scratched, as if a dog had been trapped outside and pawed at the door, begging to be let in, though why anything or anyone would desire to be inside of that room, Joseph could not fathom. The room was small and the first impression Joseph had when he saw it was brown. Dark wood paneling covered the walls. An ancient portrait of a young boy, faded to sepia and bordered with an oval shaped frame, hung on the wall above a dresser. A bed was in the corner, covered with an old and dirty knit blanket made of beige material. Joseph saw a thin and deflated pillow peaking out from under the blanket. Brown shag carpet covered the ground and as Joseph stepped onto it, he got the feeling that in its long yarn hairs, the carpet was holding trapped secrets, stories of the room's past. He could almost feel it through his feet. A lamp with a light brown shade sat on a small table next to the bed. The only component of the room that wasn't brown was the dark and heavy pea-green curtains that covered what must have been a window, though there was no evidence of such as no light penetrated the stifling dimness of the room from that direction.

His grandma left him to get settled, as she put it, but Joseph, standing in the middle of the brown which was everywhere and closing in fast, knew that was going to be impossible. Putting his bag down on the bed, he took a closer look at the portrait above the dresser. The boy couldn't have been more than five and was staring curiously at the camera, as if he didn't quite know what it was and slightly afraid of what it was going to do to him. He was wearing overalls and underneath a collared shirt which the boy was obviously uncomfortable in. Pulled over well combed hair was a round cap with a small bill. The boy was sitting on a stool in what appeared to be a makeshift studio, perhaps of the traveling variety, with just a heavy wool blanket draped as a background. There was something about the photograph that Joseph didn't like, something creepy. Maybe it was just the fact that it was so old, haunted; like everything else in the house. Joseph wondered if a portrait of himself would one day give the creeps to some other boy in the future.

Joseph turned from the haunting, questioning gaze of the boy and set about unpacking his meager belongings. He'd not had the chance to pack much, not that there were a lot of clothes to bring in the first place. Spreading them out in the different drawers of the dresser, Joseph put away his clothes, first attempting to fold them, though he could tell he wasn't doing a good job. He had always felt alone down in Calexico and it didn't really bother him, but as he folded the last of his three shirts and placed it in a drawer, Joseph felt something stronger and more painful. Joseph felt lonely. The rest of his life stretched out before him in all its disillusioned mediocrity: growing up alone with this ancient relic of a grandma, his only companion the confused and haunted boy on the wall. His skin would fade from its healthy bronze to a pale and translucent white in the dark confines of his basement room. To the neighborhood children, if there were any, he would be the eerie, sunken-eyed boy sometimes seen peeping from behind curtains at the world outside. He was sure his grandma wouldn't even bother to sign him up for school and he'd have to teach himself with the outdated books which lined the dusty bookshelves outside his door. Joseph shivered, truly scared with the dreadfulness of it all.

Venturing upstairs after unpacking his bag, Joseph found his grandma seated in an easy chair in front of a television which was blaring loudly, its volume adjusted for the old woman's failed hearing. The chair was frayed and well-used, a shabby faded green with brown foam stuffing poking out of various sized holes. It looked to Joseph that his grandma rarely, if ever, removed her frail body from the chair's confines. The curtains in the room were drawn, not that there was much light outside, and the air smelled old and medical. On the table next to his grandma lay a startling collection of orange pill bottles, standing white caps on top, towering next to each other like the buildings of a downtown metropolis. The only other piece of furniture in the living room was a white couch and a few potted plants, brown and dry.

"Hi," Joseph said meekly, walking up and standing next to his grandma. She was staring steadily at the glowing television, a talking head from cable news prattling on about war and terror. She didn't seem to hear him.

"Hello," Joseph said again, this time leaning toward her, trying to speak directly to her ear.

She turned and eyed him with her dull, watery eyes. She was wearing wide rimmed, thick-lensed glasses. Every inch of her face was wrinkled, her skin dry and leathery. Brown discolorations that resembled moles, but on a much larger scale, splotched everywhere. She was wearing a pink knit sweater, gray pants, and thick slippers which actually looked rather comfortable. She smiled at him. "Hello Joseph." She turned back to the TV. "Food is in the kitchen if you want anything."

Joseph saw that this was all he was going to get out of her. Despondently, he ventured into the kitchen to see if he could find anything that wasn't moldy or outdated.

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Laying in bed that night, the covers pulled up close to his chin, Joseph tried his best to see into the dark. He was frightened and cold. His small body shivered as odd, ominous noises came from deep inside the house. He felt very small and very alone; lonely. Never being much afraid of the dark in Calexico, Joseph had not seen the use of nightlights and thought them childish. But here in the dark basement of this house, rain pattering outside (mercilessly melting the snow) and creaking emitting from every floorboard, Joseph would have given a lot to have the comforting glow of a nightlight reassure him.

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Joseph must have gone to sleep at some point, because he awoke with a start. There was no clock in the room so Joseph had no idea of the time. Something felt weird. It was still dark, Joseph had no idea how long he had been asleep. Something was off. Wet, cold, uncomfortable. With a groan, Joseph realized what it was. His bed was wet, the sheets soaked. Joseph lay there for a minute, surrounded by his own cold dampness which, he could feel, had spread far up his shirt and completely soaked his shorts, but did not know what to do. He had wet the bed. Joseph lay still, feeling the discomfort. It disgusted him. He wanted clean sheets but he had no idea where he could find fresh bedding in the house, and he didn't particularly want to search in the darkness of the haunted shadows of the unfamiliar house. So Joseph just lay there, cold, shivering, uncomfortable, and wondering how and why he had actually wet his bed until he drifted back off to restless sleep.

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The sun must have been up, because Joseph could see again, though there wasn't much light in room. Just a dull glow coming from the behind the curtains. He sat up in bed still exhausted, the sheets around him still wet, receiving no incentive to dry from the cold temperature in the room. He rolled out of bed and felt his wet shirt and shorts cling to his skin. He looked down at his pajamas and saw that the wet shorts clung so close to his skin that an outline of his boyhood was clearly visible. Feeling gross, he quickly jogged out of the door and to the bathroom, which was just down the hallway and past the shelves of records and books. Taking off his urine soaked clothes, he turned on the shower and waited naked and shivering for the water to warm, the toes of his bare feet curled in against the cold of the tile floor. It took a long while. Finally, faint wisps of steam curled out from the top curves of the shower curtain. Joseph stepped into the stall and immediately wished he had something to protect his feet. A layer of brown mildew covered the entire floor of the stall and felt slimy with the hot water washing over it. The mildew crept up the wall in a relentless assault of damp decay. The hot water felt so good, but the relief and comfort he sought was denied by the disgusting state of this shower in which he was supposed to clean himself. Joseph was suddenly very angry with his grandma. Who was this woman? Who would let her house deteriorate to such an extent? How could even a woman of her age find repose in its malign archaic-ness?

There was no soap to bath himself with, so after letting the hot water do its best to wash away the accident from the night and rubbing himself down with his hands, Joseph stepped out of the stall, happy to leave behind the mildew, but immediately sorry to not have the warmth of the hot water. It was freezing in the bathroom and Joseph realized he had no means of drying himself off. His urine soaked clothes would do little good. Gingerly grabbing the hem of both shirt and shorts, Joseph dashed dripping and naked as the day he was born down the hallway and back to his room. Slamming the door shut behind him, Joseph deposited the wet clothes on the wet bed and realized it was silly for him to be worried about being seen by his grandma who surely never came downstairs. The excursion the day before to show Joseph his room was most certainly an irregularity. Seeing nothing else to serve as a towel, Joseph grabbed the thick blanket which covered the bed (it was still dry, the sheets taking most of the damage) and wrapped himself in it, hoping it would dry off his body. It smelled fetid and unwashed and Joseph was sure what little good the water had done to clean his body was being erased by this foul excuse for a bed cover.

As dry as he was going to get, Joseph put on his remaining pair of underwear and jeans, slipped on a t-shirt, and went upstairs to find some food to deter the gnawing hunger in his belly.

Joseph found his grandma shuffling around the kitchen in slippers and a bathrobe. She looked at him when he entered and huffed a raspy, "Good morning."

"Good morning," Joseph respectfully replied. He felt he should at least tell his grandma of his accident. "Uh, grandma?" He started.

"Mgmph," came the unintelligible reply as she rummaged around in the fridge.

"I, uh, might have wet the bed," Joseph got out quickly.

His grandma's rummaging paused. "Might have? Did you or did you not wet the bed?" She asked, pulling out a carton of milk and eying it suspiciously.

"Uh, yes, I did."

"Mgmph." She put the milk back in the fridge and instead retrieved a half-empty jar of dill pickles.

Joseph grimaced in disgust, his stomach revolting at the thought of pickles, dill or otherwise, in the morning.

"Well," Joseph's grandma continued, her shaking hands struggling to open the lid, "didn't know I was gettin' a bed wetter."

Joseph wanted to tell her that he wasn't a bed wetter. This was, in fact, the first time he could remember doing such a thing for a very long time. But he kept his mouth shut.

"You're Uncle Robert wet the bed until he was about your age. Maybe it runs in the family." She had gotten the container open and had fished one of the pickles out with her grimy fingers. Joseph watched as she brought the pickle up to her mouth and took a loud, crunching bite. Joseph wanted to look away, but was too fascinated by the spectacle. His grandma was now looking absently out of the window in the kitchen and, chewing steadily, taking in the view of an overgrown backyard. Joseph could see the rain had done an impressive job at melting the snow. Only a few resilient clumps hung dripping from the leaves of the bushes. "I think I still have a plastic cover somewhere. I'll dig it out and you can put it on to save the mattress."

Joseph almost told her not to worry about it, that it wasn't going to happen again, but he was suddenly worried. What if this didn't stop? What if he wet the bed again that night, and again the next? The thought of waking up with that cold, clammy feeling again made him shiver. If only Meg were around, Joseph thought. Then she could diaper him and it wouldn't be an issue at all. It would all be alright.

"Go ahead and wash the sheets and blanket. You'll find the washer and dryer in the basement." Joseph's grandma started on her second pickle. "You can make a bed, can't you?"

Joseph nodded. He felt his cold, emotionless exterior starting to crumble. A lump was building in his throat. All he wanted in that moment was a hug. Someone to comfort him and tell him it would all be alright. That he shouldn’t worry about his childish accident. But his grandma turned and walked into the living room, the jar of pickles still in her hand slightly tipped and dripping pickle juice on the floor. Joseph turned and walked back down the stairs, forgetting about breakfast, and felt a tear slide down his cheeks. Why couldn't Meg be here to take care of him? He choked down a sob, each step into the basement taking him further into the depths of his hopelessness and despair.

As Joseph put the wet sheets and blanket into the washing machine, he saw a stack of towels on a homemade wood shelf high up on the wall near the unfinished basement ceiling. Joseph reached as high as his small eleven year old body would let him, but was short of the goal by a good six inches. Finding a stool next to a dirty wash sink, Joseph dragged it over and stepped up. First, he grabbed a towel with the intention of having a clean one to dry himself off with after his next shower. Then, after holding the towel in his hand for a moment, he realized it reminded him of the diapers Meg had pinned to him just two nights before. They were even white and clean (and appeared to be the only white and clean thing in the entire house). Why couldn't he do something similar himself? It might bring him a degree of the comfort real diapers had provided. Joseph grabbed two more towels, looking over his shoulder as if his grandma might catch him in the act of his unsanctioned borrowing. But no one was there.

With the washing machine rumbling loudly behind him, Joseph went back to his room and stowed the towels under his bed. Now all he needed was something to act as plastic pants. He found that his breathing had become harder, his body responding to the thought of diapers with excitement. Joseph thought this weird, but pushed the doubt from his mind. Who cares? he asked himself. No one here surely did. No one here would surely notice. He was free and alone and lonely. If so much wrong had been done to him, wasn't he allowed this new-found guilty pleasure? In fact, if he could find some money, why shouldn't he just go to the store and purchase some real diapers? What was to stop him? Excitement was coursing through his veins, so much so that his hands were shaking. He deserved this. The mission to find the comfort that he had experienced those two nights at the Temporary Youth Housing Facility suddenly became a palpable need. What three days ago he would have laughed openly at had now been thrust into his life as the sole attainable means to escape the uncertainty and pain and, now, loneliness. The anger towards his grandma that had surfaced while showering amidst the mildew returned and Joseph resolved to find money somewhere in the wretched house. His grandma owed him that much at least.

Joseph crept up the stairs, each emitting a tired groan in turn as he stealthily made his way up. He could already hear the blast of the television eliminating any need for secrecy but what he was intending to do was so criminal, so horrible, Joseph couldn't help but feel a formidable surge of guilt which washed over him and nearly made him retreat back to his bedroom. As depraved as his life had been to that point, it was always someone else's iniquity which surrounded him and he was a degenerate by default. Joseph had never acted in a way to bring guilt on himself. Sure, there was the trivial childhood transgressions, a lie here and there, copied homework, minor trespass, and even the odd vandalism, but Joseph had never stolen anything. He had never taken anything that was not his own (although it can be argued that any sin is stealing in some sense). But here he was, about to steel, if he could find the money, from a woman he had known less than twenty-four hours. His own grandmother, no less. An old woman of indeterminate prosperity who had taken this strange grandson under her own roof on a moment's notice. But Joseph felt he was owed this crime, that he would be excused if one day he stood in front of the great judge. It was only fair and, clearly, his grandma neither cared for his well-being nor was making any attempt to soften Joseph's unexpected decent into orphanhood (more or less; his parents were as good as dead).

And so he tip-toed from the kitchen, down a shag-carpeted hallway, and into what Joseph safely guessed was his grandma's bedroom. Like every other room in the house, the curtains were drawn. A thick, musty scent betrayed the presence of age, and every object in the room was from a bygone era. A wide king-sized bed with a thick flowered comforter dominated much of the room. Across from where Joseph stood in the doorway was an intricately designed wood dresser with a mirror attached on top. On the top of the dresser lay scattered jewelry, stones now dull but telling of a happier, livelier past. A framed picture of a smiling couple leaned dusty next to the earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Joseph approached the picture and looked at it closely. The man in the photo could have been his father, except that it was black and white and faded. Certainly it was of a grandfather he never knew. The youthful female was only slightly recognizable as the decaying woman now trying her best to become one with the frayed recliner in which she sat. Joseph thought it strange that once his grandma was young. He found it perplexing, with no ability to understand, that one day he would be as old as the hopeful young man in the photo, probably eighty years after that picture was taken, facing the same problems and doubts and hopes that, much like late afternoon shadows, the human species, no matter the era, no matter the technology, have never been able to shake. Yet he knew it would be. He also knew (and even more frightening than the prospect of his twenties) that one day he would be as old as his grandma currently was, if he survived that long. The inevitability of time was, in its resilience and surety, both wonderfully exciting and suffocatingly terrifying. Joseph shivered and the giant question mark of life nearly made him run back down to his room and hide. But he knew there was no reprieve there. In fact, this was why he was thieving in the first place. This unfathomable question mark was at fault. Joseph tore his eyes away from the portrait, the smiling, young, hopeful faces of his grandparents (now mercilessly tattered by time; one decaying in the ground, one decaying in a chair), and began to open drawers with a vigor brought on not by hope, but by fear, of the insatiable need to escape.

Trying to ignore the disgust and discomfort he felt rifling through his grandma's undergarments, Joseph looked for a container where an old woman might hide a stash of money. An old tin, perhaps once the holder of cookies, a wooden box, a safe. But the search yielded nothing, and after the last drawer had been scoured, Joseph had to admit there was no money in the chest of drawers.

Then Joseph saw it, cracked and fading pink: a pig. The obviousness of it was humorous and Joseph felt a smile on his face as he rushed over to the old piggy bank and overturned it, finding a wooden plug in a hole on the bottom. He pulled out the plug and saw inside more quarters than he had ever seen before. He dumped them out on the bed and scooped a giant handful into his pocket, feeling the weight pull the jeans down on his waist. Into the other pocket he deposited as much as his hand could grab. It seemed as if there wasn't even a dent in the pile of quarters on the bed and Joseph was sure, unless his grandma counted the coins regularly, which he doubted, that she would not notice the missing weight. After pouring all but a final small mound back into the piggy bank, Joseph capped the container and put it back in its spot, clearly outlined by the absence of dust where the pig normally stood. Holding the last of the quarters in his hands, Joseph rushed out of the room, down the shag-carpet hallway, through the kitchen, and back down the squeaking and groaning stairs, the television still blaring loudly from the living room.

*********************

A short while later, Joseph was trudging through the slush toward a busy street he could hear in the distance with the hope that a super market would be near. In the pockets of his coat, constantly clinking, were the quarters. Joseph shoved his hands deep in his jean pockets and looked up at the sky as he walked. There were patches of blue sky poking out here and there, but overwhelmingly the sky was filled with deep, darkly textured clouds. The sun occasionally found a pathway through the tangled clouds and appeared on and off again as Joseph walked and the clouds drifted. What had been nearly a foot and a half of snow was now barely a few inches of dirty gray slush. Four distinct lines ran the length of each street where cars had parted the slushy seas. Despite the fact that his shoes and socks were soaked through and the wetness had soaked his jeans from the heel halfway up to his knees, Joseph felt energetic. Not happy, per se, but motivated, driven. He was excited, that was for certain.

Turning onto the busy street where cars sped by, splashing slush far up on the sidewalk each time they careened past, Joseph saw a supermarket. A large yellow sign with blue lettering read QFC. Joseph had never seen one before, but it had the appearance of a large grocery store with dozens of cars parked in the parking lot and carts being pushed by hurried patrons. Towering mounds of snow were piled high in several locations throughout the lot and Joseph guessed that the lot had been plowed. There sure were a lot of people there. Joseph felt the first faltering of his confidence. All of the sudden, he was afraid of what people would think. Would the checkout attendant ask him what his purchase was for? In the back of his mind, Joseph knew his worry was unfounded. Sure, people might wonder at someone his age buying diapers, but they wouldn't know him. No one here did. So, really, he had nothing to worry about.

But still, as Joseph entered into the store and, immediately appreciating the lack of wet slush, made his way down the first aisle he saw, his hands were shaking, his heart was pounding, and he was nervous. Very, very nervous. He walked past a mother, a small child loitering near by, and was sure the glance she threw in his direction was accusatory, as if she knew what he was doing there. He turned his eyes down toward the tiled floor and walked quicker. Up and down each aisle he walked, keeping his eye out for packages of diapers. Joseph didn't know why he felt this action was such a bad thing. Why should anyone care if he was buying diapers even if he didn't need them? Why should anyone care if he wore them for fun and enjoyed it? Why was it such a societal taboo? There was a certain shame associated with diapers, Joseph felt it and knew everyone else did too. But why? If anything, it was silly. Just silly. Nothing more. And no one should care about silly things.

Finally, after walking several aisles, Joseph saw he had arrived. Towered high on the shelves were packages of baby diapers. Joseph felt his heart leap and he looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching. An employee was checking prices just further down the aisle, but he was concentrating hard on his task and didn't seem to notice Joseph at all. Still, Joseph wished he'd find something else to do. Joseph looked over the vast array of options and knew most would be too small for him. Didn't they make diapers for older kids? Joseph was about to give up and look elsewhere after all he saw was diapers intended for babies or toddlers when he saw a package labeled Goodnights. Boys about his age were featured on the front, dressed in pajamas and smiling happily. The package said it was underwear for bed wetting. Joseph didn't know his weight, so he grabbed the package of extra larges just to be safe. Joseph glanced quickly back at the worker and saw, much to Joseph's horror, the man curiously looking back at him. Joseph felt blood rush to his face and he quickly turned his back on the employee and hurried down the aisle, the package of diapers held tightly in his hands. They felt squishy and firm at the same time. Joseph could feel each individual diaper tightly packed next to each other. His heart was beating so fast and hard he suddenly was afraid it would tire and stop. Arriving at the check-out, Joseph looked for the checker with the shortest line. Apparently this was a busy day to shop because everywhere shoppers stood waiting next to carts piled high with groceries and antsy children covetously eying the candy displays and their scintillating attraction. Choosing the best line in an array of worsts, Joseph stood, hands shaking, package of diapers in his hand, shoes and socks and pant-legs wet from the slush, and slightly cold as drafts of Seattle winter air blasted past each time the sliding doors of the exit opened. Joseph felt eyes attacking him from every direction, but when he garnered the confidence to look around, he saw no one taking particular notice of him. Though he couldn't shake the feeling that the concentration of the women behind him on the different types of chewing gum was sudden and forced and she'd much rather be looking at the small boy with the thin red wind breaker jacket clutching the package of diapers clearly meant for his wear and use.

Joseph began to wonder why he was putting himself through this torture. A battle raged in his head. One side frustrated and angry that he should be nervous so; so judged. One side just plain scared. And the side that was winning, despite lop-sided odds: the resolve. The proverbial middle finger. Sometimes a great notion to not give up; to fight. And so Joseph stood his ground, shaking and shivering, gusts of cold air, thin red wind breaker jacket, and pant legs, socks, and shoes soggy from his walk in the slush. But he stood. And moved slowly forward in line. And then he was placing the package on the conveyor belt where he could no longer hide it with his body, not that his body was doing a good job of hiding the diapers anyways. But on the black conveyor belt, it was out in the open, moving slowly toward the check-out attendant, a twenty something male, probably a college student, who stood smiling down at Joseph.

"How are you today?"

"Good," Joseph replied. His voice sounded small, high, boyish, and weak. Very much how he felt at that particular moment.

"Just these?" The man, who was quite tall and towered over Joseph, asked as he nonchalantly picked up the diapers, scanned them, and placed them in a waiting plastic bag.

"Yeah," Joseph whispered. He didn't dare glance at the line to see who was watching him. He was sure it was everyone.

"Thirteen ninety-five."

"Huh?" Joseph asked.

"It'll be thirteen ninety-five," the check-out man repeated, still smiling; the smile non-committal, neither denouncing nor supporting.

"Oh," Joseph said, digging into his pockets and dropping two piles of quarters on the counter.

The smile on the attendant wavered. "Do you know how much that is?" He asked, still sounding kind, but Joseph could discern a slight shift.

"No," Joseph replied simply.

An audible groan could be heard from an impatient shopper in line.

The attendant winked at Joseph, "No problem," and he started to split the quarters into stacks of four. It didn't take long actually, and soon there were fourteen piles on the counter and a small pile of left-overs which Joseph scooped back into his pocket. A printing machine whirred and produced a receipt which was stuffed in the plastic bag next to the Goodnights. The attendant handed the bag to Joseph with a nickel and a farewell smile. "Have a good day."

"You too," Joseph mumbled, then without waiting a moment more, he turned and rushed out of the store, through the sliding door (cold air blasting) and back into the slush.

The bag seemed thin and transparent, doing an absolutely shoddy job at hiding the fact that Joseph was carrying diapers. The whole way home, Joseph felt in each passing car curious and accusing eyes. The walk home seemed longer, but finally Joseph burst through the back downstairs door, which he had purposely left open, and rushing into his brown room, dropped the plastic bag on his bed.

He stared at it, finally able to feel excited without the troubling weight of shame (all the more troubling because it was needless and its presence defied reasonable explanation). Joseph glanced toward the old, oval-framed portrait of the boy. The boy was still curiously staring at Joseph, wondering. But Joseph didn't feel like the boy was accusing him of anything. Just curious. As if he might like to try the diapers too. Joseph smiled at the boy, whose expression remained unchanged, and turned back to the bag.

Joseph pulled out the package of diapers. Indents were visible where his fingers had dug into the thin packaging. With shaking hands, he ripped open the package and pulled out one of the pull-ups. The first thing he thought was that they were very thin. Much thinner than the cloth pull-ups he had worn at the shelter. They were also decorated with cheesy colorful prints of bikes and other boyish things. Joseph thought it was ridiculous that the package advertised that the bed-wetting pants were "like real underwear." They didn't remotely resemble real underwear. Which was fine with Joseph.

He undid the laces on his shoes and took them off. After peeling off his wet socks, Joseph undid the button on his jeans and pulled them down so that he was standing in just his underpants and t-shirt. He looked toward the door, wondering if he should lock himself in the bathroom, but even downstairs he could hear the television blaring and Joseph knew he did not have to worry about his grandma walking in. So he stepped out of his underpants and picked up the folded Goodnight diaper on the bed. He pulled it open and found the hushed rustling sound it made sent an excited shiver through his body. Stepping carefully through the leg holes, Joseph pulled the diaper up his legs and snugly around his middle. He could feel the absorbent material cupping his boyhood and holding securely to his bottom. He was staring intently at his diapered middle, waiting. He waited a moment longer, then with a sigh, sat down on the edge of his bed. There had been no rush of relief. No magical reprieve from his loneliness. No sudden shot of comfort. No bliss. No happiness. All of that buildup. All of that nervousness and shame. For nothing. Joseph looked forlornly down at where the pull-up bulged out around his boyhood. The front of his shirt hung down and covered the top of the Goodnight, so all he could see was the material between his legs. The blue bikes printed on cheap, white material. Joseph doubted if it was even waterproof. Probably didn't even work. And it was so thin. While it did feel better than normal underwear, it was nowhere near as thick as the diapers Meg had put on him at the shelter. Still, Joseph admitted to himself, it was better than nothing. Joseph suddenly had the desire to be near someone else with the diapers on. The thought of knowing he had a diaper on and no one else would be the wiser gave Joseph another jolt of excitement. He stood up, excited that he might be able to find a way to discover the relief he expected a diaper to bring. Joseph pulled his jeans back on over the Goodnight and walked out of the room.

As he climbed the stairs to the kitchen, Joseph felt the diaper around his middle. The feeling was nice and Joseph decided that he might like the Goodnights at least a little bit. Even if it wasn't everything he had been expecting, it was still nice and the thought of his grandma not knowing anything about it made Joseph smile as he walked through the kitchen and into the living room.

"Hi grandma," Joseph said loudly as he took a seat on the white couch. It looked as if his grandma had not moved all day. The jar of dill pickles sat nearly empty on a side table next to her chair.

She looked over at him then turned back toward the TV without saying anything, only mildly interested that he had joined her.

Joseph looked down at his middle and swore he could see the outline of the pull-up through his jeans. Barely, but it was there. Joseph wiggled around a little, trying to get comfortable on the couch, and again felt the Goodnight snugly holding to his crotch. The jeans were pressing in on the diaper, making it even snugger. And Joseph smiled, looking back at his grandma watching the TV. It was absurd, what he was doing, but it was exciting. And Joseph found suddenly that he had to pee. He didn't even think twice about it, but immediately let his bladder go and felt the warm urine spread out in the diaper, hot and nice. Then up a little, around his boyhood, and as he kept peeing, down the warmness spread, trickling in between his crack and up his bottom. It almost tickled and Joseph's smile broadened. His grandma was oblivious, staring glassy eyed at the glowing TV screen. Joseph could feel the diaper expanding and growing thicker.

Joseph finished emptying his bladder and was pleasantly surprised to find, as far as he could tell, none had leaked out of the confines of the protective pull-up. Joseph sat for a while on the couch, just enjoying the feeling between his legs and absently watching the television, though he made no effort to process what was going on in the tube. It still wasn't as good as he had hoped, but then again, what was it he was hoping for anyways? Wasn't what he had good enough? It was better than nothing. And besides, it felt like a victory, albeit a small one, that he was able to go and buy the diapers despite his nervousness and shame. It made him feel a little more confident. For now, this would just have to do, and Joseph felt that it made an unbearable loneliness just a little more sufferable.

*********************

About the time that Joseph was scrounging for food in the kitchen, trying to scrape something together for dinner, lightning started to crash outside. Joseph had changed out of the wet Goodnight earlier and had put on a fresh one. The novelty hadn't worn off and Joseph was enjoying immensely the forbidden act he was committing.

The lightning, however, took away Joseph's new found equilibrium. Joseph didn't like storms. They scared him. There had been some wicked ones in the desert of Calexico and nothing else made Joseph quite as scared. Not even the scorpions in his sleeping bag. Joseph wasn't sure why electrical storms frightened him so. Maybe it was just the fact that there wasn't a dang thing one could do about it. You were at the mercy of electrical charges and no amount of running or hiding was going to make you entirely safe. Lightning, when Joseph watched it spike across the hazy Southern California night sky, looked to the boy like God's fingers, poking down out of heaven and snuffing out wayward trees and houses and the odd human or animal (a few cows had bought it due to direct lightning strike a couple of years back just outside of Calexico. This was all the proof Joseph needed of the danger of God’s untamed fingers). And Joseph thought if God were to snuff out a boy, he just might be that boy. His luck would seem to indicate that, yes, God might just fancy shocking a boy such as Joseph, and every lightning storm Joseph waited for God's finger to poke him to his death. But so far, it hadn't occurred. As the lightning flashed and cracked outside, though, Joseph was pretty sure this was it. All that had gone wrong in the last month, especially the last week, it sure as heck seemed like this just might be it. The lights flickered and the TV momentarily was silent.

"Joseph!" his grandma called, her voice scratchy and old, "Come look at this."

Joseph hurried worriedly into the living room, feeling the Goodnight between his legs. Joseph's grandma was standing by the window, her body leaned over, protesting this act of rising. "Come look at this," she repeated.

Joseph went and stood next to her. Lightning flashed again, close by, and Joseph jumped visibly.

"Transformers are blowing," his grandma breathed. "We're gonna lose power."

"What are transformers?" Joseph asked, fear making his voice higher, shakier.

"Don't really know, 'cept they're on power lines and when they blow we lose power."

"How do you know they're blowing?" Joseph asked, staring so intently out the window that he didn't realize how close he was getting and he softly hit his forehead on the glass.

"Just watch. Look out over the houses."

So Joseph did. He watched the tops of the houses. It was really blowing now and the trees outside of the window were bending and waving, frantically dancing to the whims of the wind. Joseph could hear whistling as the wind rushed by the house. The lights flickered again and then Joseph saw a brilliant flash. Like lightening, but coming from the ground.

"There!" his grandma burst. "You see that?"

"Yeah," Joseph whispered. The lights went off and for a moment Joseph thought they were gone for good, but they flickered back to life. Another flash, then another, and pretty soon, flashes were lighting up the night sky from all over the expanse of houses Joseph could see and beyond. "Wow," he breathed, truly amazed.

"Kinda pretty, ain't it? If it didn't mean we were about to be cold as ice, I'd actually enjoy this show," Joseph's grandma said softly, almost reverently.

Then, in an instant, it was dark and Joseph new that was the last of the light they were going to see that night. He just knew it. They stood, Joseph, Goodnights under his jeans, and his grandma, in dirty gray pants, body gnarled and leaned over like the trees outside. They stood in the dark, looking out of the window at the flashes of exploding transformers and flashes of lightning and the twisting trees. The whistling grew louder in the absence of the incessant television and the temperature in the house began to fall.

"Gonna get cold tonight," his grandma said. "Yep, pretty cold."

After a while watching the storm's performance, not more than a handful of words passed between grandmother and grandson. Joseph had wet in his Goodnight, standing right next to her, and the thrill combined with his fear of the lightning was a pinnacle in his emotive history. But before long, the warm urine cooled and as the temperature in the house continued to ruthlessly drop, Joseph started shivering uncontrollably.

His grandma retrieved some candles and holders from a closet and in their flickering light Joseph and his grandma shared stale bread and dill pickles. Joseph was so hungry by that point that the dinner, if one could call it that, was actually good. They hardly spoke, but as they sat at the dusty dining room table (Joseph doubted she had used it in years), Joseph actually felt somewhat close to her. Like the shared experience of the power outage and pickles and stale bread was creating a bond.

As Joseph was finishing his second pickle, washing it down with a glass of water, a particularly loud clap of thunder shook the house and in the sudden wave of fear that gripped the boy's body, he felt his bladder scream to be released. Having not had to pee a moment before, Joseph was caught off guard and, perhaps his subconscious was aware of his diapered state, felt himself wetting in the Goodnight. He knew he had already used them once and he doubted the thin pull-ups would handle the extra liquid, but try as he might, he could not stop the flow. Thunder crashed again and a transformer blew with a sharp bang and Joseph closed his eyes tight, scared and trying to tell himself it was all OK. But then he felt a warm trickle running down his leg and he knew the diaper was leaking and he was wetting his pants. But still he could not stop the flow and his pants became wetter and he was reminded of sitting in the police car and he was scared. His grandma crunched into a pickle, quite unaware. Joseph wondered at her ability to be emotionally vacant at all times, regardless of the sudden addition of a grandson to her life, the lack of nourishing food, the crashing lightning, the lack of electricity. Her face: stony; her eyes: glassy. Just the steady chewing. Years of hard living had apparently dulled her ability to respond. Joseph knew people said the same about him. Always distant, rarely smiling, frowning or crying. But right now, his emotions were overflowing and his pants were wet and the diaper, soaked and expanded, actually feeling good. How weird to have a good feeling down there when he was so scared and lost. His bladder finished emptying and by then his pants were very wet and he knew the chair was most likely ruined. The candle danced in the currents of the room and its light shimmered. Joseph looked at his grandma and the candle light flickered in her glassy eyes. She looked ghostly and suddenly that connection Joseph had felt at the beginning of dinner disappeared and his grandma was an apparition with her vacant, dead eyes. Joseph was suddenly as scared of her as the lightning. He had to get away, down to his room. Away from this storm and away from her.

"I'm g-going to bed," Joseph stammered, reaching out for one of the candle holders and threading his finger through the thin round handle.

The pickle crunched and the glassy eyes lazily looked up at Joseph. "OK."

Joseph wondered if she was alright. She didn't look healthy, but maybe that was just the candlelight. He decided that he was too afraid to care. Picking up the candle, Joseph stood up and felt the diaper sag between his legs, protesting the liquid weight, held in place only by his wet pants which were clinging to his legs. Cold and shivering, he shuffled out of the room, glancing back at his grandma to see if she had noticed the soaked condition of his clothes, but she was still staring glassily at the candle, her vacant eyes flickering. The stairs creaked as Joseph made his way carefully down the stairs. The candle shown dimly on the walls. Shadows elongated and danced and reached out to grab Joseph as he walked past. The sound of the howling wind was deafening and the house groaned with each gust.

In the room the young boy stared down from his oval frame, curiously eying Joseph's bulging diapered middle and wet pants. The wood paneling that lined the walls seemed to absorb the light of the candle, not reflect it. The room was dark and shadowy and that boy wouldn't stop staring at Joseph. Joseph wanted to rip the picture off the wall, smash that questioning, curious stare.

But instead he turned his back on the curious boy and set about removing his wet pants. The Goodnight fell immediately to the floor and had it not landed on the soft cushion of the carpet thick with memories, Joseph was sure it would have made a splat. Standing wet and cold, Joseph's shivering became worse. He grabbed one of the towels he had stowed earlier and with shaking hands dried himself off.

The candle flame, jittery and excited, would not hold still. Joseph knew the only way to escape this nightmare was to fall asleep. Morning was the most efficient fixer. The best doctor. The most accomplished psychiatrist. The tide that, as the sun ascended each new day, rose up, washing away and smoothing the beach of life, erasing the footprints and refuse from the day before. It would need to be a strong tide to fix this disaster, Joseph knew.

Because it was the only form of comfort he could think of, Joseph slipped on another Goodnight over a boyhood and bottom that was becoming rank with stale urine. To fight the cold, Joseph put on his dry pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and his thin, red windbreaker jacket. Then, setting the candle on the bedside table and making sure anything flammable was far away from it, Joseph curled up beneath the sheets and dirty brown blanket. He drew his knees in as far as he could and wrapped his arms around his small, shivering body. He could feel the pull-up between his legs, but it offered little peace. Joseph desperately wanted the peace of sleep, but images of his glassy eyed grandma, wandering around zombie like and moaning, flashed every time Joseph closed his eyes. Then he'd open them and see, curiously staring down, the eyes of the oval framed young boy, sepia and ancient. And Joseph would close his eyes again, and hear the groaning and creaking of the house and it would sound as if someone or something was right outside his door. So he'd open eyes again and see the eyes of the little boy, curious and staring. The candle continued to burn down, hot wax spilling over the side and collecting, solidifying in artistic mass reminiscent of Gaudi. Then the feeling of the diaper, a moment's comfort, then shivering and reality. Finally, sleep, though restless, came to Joseph.

*********************

How long Joseph slept, he was not sure, but he awoke to a racket so momentous he was sure the house was falling apart. The candle had burnt out and the room was as black and sticky as tar. Joseph felt pressure in his bladder and knew he would have to pee soon. It was so dark. Joseph sat up in bed, not able to see the hand he waved just inches from his eyes, and had the overwhelming need to see. He rolled out of bed, tried to take a step but his feet tangled in the dirty brown blanket and Joseph fell hard to the floor, though the hysterical laments of the house and the cushion of the memory ridden carpet swallowed any sound his fall might have made. His knee hurt. He stood up and stumbled in the direction he thought the door was, but ran headlong into the dresser (a sound this time). Anxiety gripped him and Joseph became frantic in the dark. He needed to see. The sounds around him were so much the louder in the absence of his sight. Thunder rolled outside. The floorboards creaked above. Was someone walking around up there? Was his grandma still wondering, glassy eyed and zombie-like? The prospect of seeing the flash of the lightning reflected in her dull eyes was frightening, but the need for a candle was greater.

Joseph found the door and felt his way along the hall, feeling the dust and cobwebs of the albums and books on his fingers. He passed the door of the bathroom and considered going and relieving his bladder (the need to release intensified by the anxiety and fear), but Joseph could not bare the thought of standing and peeing in absolute darkness with the creeping mildew of the shower reaching out its slimy tentacles, wanting nothing more than to wrap its decaying grip around the Joseph and rot the boy right into the floor.

Up the stairs, the socks on his feet not insulated enough to block the cold creeping up from the floor. No street lamps had power, so even upstairs, the big windows let in little light. Just the occasional flash of lightning and the diffused light of the moon, obscured behind a mile of clouds. The trees were bending and the rain was lashing. There was no sign of Joseph's grandma. She wasn't at the table. She wasn't in her chair. Joseph made his way to his grandma's bedroom, only able to make out shapes and vague outlines, his hands outstretched in case he suddenly tripped and fell. The door was open and Joseph walked in. He was again aware of the diaper he was wearing and he wondered if she'd notice. Of course not, he chided himself. A flash of lightning and he saw three things at once. On the dresser, the portrait of a young, smiling couple. In the mirror, a reflection, which made him jump before he realized it was just himself. And finally, in his peripheral vision, he could see his grandma, lying prone on the floor next to the bed. Joseph turned, his eyes wide with fear, now not able to see but an outline without the flash of the lightning, and knelt next to the woman. Lightning flashed again and he saw she was on top of a rug. He also noticed a smell, as if she had soiled her pants, and Joseph knew instinctually that there was no life in the body. A new flash and Joseph so her eyes were open, even more glassy and dull than before, staring vacantly at the side of the bed with its flowered spread. Thunder rolled.

A new sound. A low moaning and Joseph realized that it was coming from himself. He also realized that he was wetting the diaper and didn't know, nor desired to know, how to stop. He stared at his dead grandma, moaning and wetting himself, wanting so much to move, to leave this awful situation, but not know how to move his feet. A trickle of hot liquid down his leg. The Goodnight was leaking. Joseph's only dry pair of pants was going to be wet.

Slowly, after his bladder emptied, the diaper expanded, warm, a large wet spot on the front of his pants, Joseph's trance broke. The moaning subsided and survival instincts kicked in. He realized the facts. He was standing in a dark house with no possibility of light that was cold, old, and moldy, and now, there was a dead person a mere foot from him. Joseph also realized that he needed to get out and quick, before he went entirely crazy and kept moaning and wetting his pants forever. He stumbled out of the room, the diaper heavy between his legs, the front of his wet pants sticking to his thighs. First, he would get his shoes, then he would leave this house forever. Less than two days he had been there and that was far more than enough.

On the dining room table, where he and his now deceased grandma had shared a dinner of pickles and stale bread, Joseph found a half used candle and a book of matches. It seemed to be his first stroke of luck since before he could remember, if one didn't count meeting Meg. Striking a match (usually a difficult task for Joseph, he was surprised to succeed on his first attempt), Joseph lit the candle and was amazed at its luminosity in the dark world that had surrounded him. The storm was still raging as rowdy as ever outside, and the candle, though scary in its own light, made the task of returning to the basement to retrieve his shoes a much easier task for Joseph.

Joseph recognized the shadows, grotesque figures on the wall, from his earlier trip into the basement with just a candle to light his way. They seemed to be welcoming him back to their world with their horrid dance. Joseph hurried past the open door to the bathroom (no tentacles of mildew on the floor yet), down the hallway lined with records and books (the path of his earlier groping clearly etched in the dust and cobwebs), and back into his room (the brown blanket lay twisted on the floor). Setting the candle down on the dresser and trying his best to avoid the curious gaze of the little boy in the portrait on the wall, Joseph put his shoes on as quickly as possible. His shaking hands made tying his shoes nearly impossible, not helped by the loud crashes of thunder that shook the house. Finally they were tied tight and Joseph stood up and, grabbing the candle, bolted for the door. Again, he was reminded of his wet pants and wet pull-up. He knew it was going to be cold outside. Cold and wet. But anything was better than this dungeon with the dead upstairs. Down the hall Joseph ran, the candle moving wildly in his hands provoking the shadows to dance faster and harder, the hysterical gyrations of sinners, the memories of the house. He reached the door and, throwing it open, burst out into the stormy night.

Joseph ran to the street where the heavy rain had flooded the street, the gutters clogged with the leaves of the trees dancing in the wind. He turned and looked at the house, lit by a timely flash of lightning, and felt safe. No more walls. He was free. And cold. And wet. The rain had mysteriously stopped, but the wind still howled and Joseph, looking up, could see clouds moving at breathtaking speeds, rushing over head, as if trying to escape their own wrath. Joseph didn't blame them. He started walking, shivering, hands in his pockets. He could feel the wetness. With his fingers, he could feel the sodden Goodnight. He walked. The red windbreaker jacket pressed against his body by the wind. His hands in his pockets. Eyes down. He walked.

********************* CHAPTER 4 *********************

Joseph made his way back to the dorm room after they all exchanged heartfelt goodnights (their relationship had strengthened, fused by Joseph's open chronicle of his life), leaving Steve and Meg alone once again. Caleb was still sleeping soundly and it did not take long for Joseph to join the surreal land of the unconscious.