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Joseph Kross:
the
adventures of
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a
short story by
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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
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
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.
*********************
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.
*********************
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.
*********************
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.
*********************
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
"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.
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.