Candy

For uses of this story and seeing how I do not have permission to use their name, I will refer to her as Candy. And like candy, or rather the candy wrapper she had a more or less a reputation and depending on who you were was seen in two different lights and was treated as such by most of those who knew her.

I met Candy through her brother, she was 13 and I was 14 then. She was a very pretty girl and had a smile that was truly genuine and only enhanced the attraction I felt for her. The day I first met her I remember her brother referring to her as a whore, I did not think much of this, I just thought it was typical sibling rivalry and was related to being the same thing as being called a bitch, so I dropped it at that and I never asked him why he called her a whore. As time passed we got close as friends and along with her brother we shared in a lot of things teenagers often indulge themselves in. She was the kind of female friend that you could actually wrestle with without it turning into a groping session and could tell jokes and hang in with anyone and keep up without any trouble.

She became special to me, because despite all the rumors and accusations being spread I did not see these things in her, I just saw her as my friend. She was bright, witty, intelligent and she stood by me without question of whether I was right or wrong and never turned her back on me for any reason. She was the kind I could sit up all night with, nothing being said, just watching the night pass listening to music and feel good by just being with her. At times we would talk for hours about nothing and about everything. If we saw each other on the street and we were with other friends we would usually excuse ourselves from them and end up spending time together, usually to go get a hamburger and fries and share a large soft drink and talk about school or people we knew. To me I could not have asked for a better friend, companion or confidant, I could tell her anything and it never went any further than her, no matter who or what it was about.

For some reason Candy felt that to be accepted in certain circles she needed to be friendlier than was necessary and and at times found herself the object of more than just one's attention and would be treated less than the wonderful person that I saw in her. We never talked about why she did these things, what it was that she felt about herself to let something like this happen to her or why she would put herself in such a position that would cause harm to her. She had her reasons and I felt that when she was ready to tell me she would tell me. I guess she never felt I would understand why or maybe it just wasn't important to her because for whatever reason there was she knew I would not think any less of her. We had an unspoken understanding about each other, we did not judge, we accepted and looked beyond that and just simply enjoyed the time we had when we were together. It was in those moments we could forget everything and be friends.

She always called me Woody, never Ron, Ronnie or Ronald, her name for me was Woody and it was her way to show her affection as a friend for me. If anyone else ever called me that she would be quick to correct them and let them know under no certain circumstances that she was the only one who had the right to call me that and once said would usually end with, "He's going with me. Let's go Woody." As if that phrase was her exclamation point to the subject.

I remember one evening I was sitting on our front porch watching the cars going by a few blocks down oh highway 75 oblivious to the car coming down the street we lived on, when all of a sudden I heard that familiar, "WOODY" screamed from the passenger window. Looking around there she was hanging half way out of the window waving both arms with a smile that seemed to stop time and in that moment she permanently placed that vision of her in my memories. The car screeched to a stop and Candy called the rest of the way out of the window, hit the ground running up to me and sitting in my lap gave me a big hug. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that they were going to the drive in and invited me along. I looked out to the car, two guys in the front seat and three in the back, so I told her that I couldn't go and to have fun. I guess she saw the disappointment in my eyes, she walked out to the car and told them she could not go, that will have to go without her. They left mad, cursing and calling her names, she just smiled and turned around, came back to the porch and sit beside me. We were not saying much if anything at all when she started talking.

"Woody do you like me?"
"Yes, of course I do."
"No, I don't mean in that way, do you like me?"
"I don't know what you mean Candy."
"I mean, if I didn't have a reputation, would you like me?"
"What reputation?"
"Dammit Woody, you know what I am talking about."
"No Candy I don't know what you are talking about. If you mean would I like you as more than a friend if you did not have a reputation, is that what you are asking?"
"Exactly."
"I don't see you as having a reputation, I never have."
"Yeah I know that. So why haven't you ever tried anything?"
"Do I need to? Is that the only way I can show you how I feel?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" What is that supposed to mean?"
"I mean maybe that is the only way I know you do."
"That I do what?"
"Like me for more than just a friend."
"Candy we do everything together, we are always with each other, we drop plans with others to be together, we talk about everything, so I don't know how else to show you how I feel."
"I know you have done it with other girls Woody."
"Then you don't know anything, because I haven't."
"So are you afraid to, is that what it is?"
"No not afraid Candy, just don't know how, okay?"
"You've kissed girls haven't you?"
"Yes, of course I have kissed girls, but that is not the same as what you are talking about."
"Yeah, you're right, it isn't."

She placed her hand on my knee and laid her head on my shoulder and started humming. Something she had done a hundred times before.

"You know something Woody?"
"No, tell me."
"You're my best friend."
"Thank you Candy. You're mine too, always have been since we got to know each other."
"Woody do you ever think about me?"
"Yeah I do."
"What do you think when you do?"
"I just think."
"About what?"
"You."
"Come on Woody, please tell me."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know."
"Is it important that you know?"
"Yeah Woody, it is."
"Okay. I just wish people would stop saying the things they do and see who I see. I wish sometimes that you wouldn't do what you do because even as your friend it hurts Candy. I want you to see who I see and know that it hurts people that really care about you."
"I don't care what they say about me, it doesn't bother me at all."
"Does it matter to you how it makes me feel?"
"Sometimes."
"What do you mean, sometimes?"
"Sometimes Woody when I think about it, I wonder what you are thinking. I wonder if you are thinking about me too."
"I see. Do you wonder how it hurts me?"
"I try not to think about that."
"So you do think about it?"
"Sometimes. Can friends love each other Woody?"
"I think you should love your friends."
"But can they?"
"In what way? I'm not following what you are saying."
"Okay, I'll tell you. Me and you been friends for over two years, sometimes I feel we are closer than you and my brother are and there are things that you and I only talk about. I mean we share everything, right?"
"Yeah we do share everything, a lot more than I do with your brother or with anyone else as a matter of fact."
"Yeah, that's what I thought to. So if we share that much, that means we trust each other doesn't it?"
"Stands to reason, yeah."
"And when you can trust someone that much and you don't have to worry then you must love them, right?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right Candy."
"I think about you a lot Woody. I wish sometimes that things were different."
"Different how?"
"You know, that we were different."
"Then you wouldn't be you."
"What do you mean?"
"That I don't care about your past or what you have done, that is something I don't think about. Who you are now and when we met, that is what I care about."
"My brother ever talk to you about me?"
"No, was he supposed to?"
"Would have told me if he did?"
"Maybe. Depends on what he told me."
"But he hasn't told you, has he?"
"No Candy he hasn't."
"My dad raped me when I was ten, that is why my brother and I live with my grandmother. Woody he would wait for my mom to go to work at night and make my brother go to bed, then he would start messing with me. I hate him Woody."
"Candy you don't need to tell me."
"Yes I do."
"Why?"
"Because you are the only one I trust and I have never talked about it before."
"Is that why you do what you do now?"
"I don't know, maybe."
"Do you like it?"
"No I don't, I don't like it at all."
"Then why do it if you don't like it?"
"Because that was all he said I was good for."

I could feel her tears soaking through my tee shirt and she was trembling. I put my arm around her and pulled her closer to me. Soon she broke out into sobs, she couldn't catch her breath and her trembling was getting worse.

"He lied Candy. You are worth much more than he told you. You know I look forward to seeing you every day. Sometimes can't wait to see you. I never felt that way about someone I knew."
"Do you think anyone will ever love me Woody? You think they will be like you and see me like you said?"
"I love you Candy."
"I know you do Woody."
"It's getting cold."
"A little, yeah."
"Let me go get my jacket."

I returned with my jacket, Candy was still crying as I wrapped it around her shoulders and then sit next to her again.

"Put your arm back around me Woody."

We sat there all night, watched the sun break the eastern horizon, heard the morning birds singing and said nothing.

"Come on, I'll walk you home."

My dad moved us down to Richardson, Texas that following year and I would hitchhike as often as I could the seventy miles north on Hwy 75 to go and see her. Soon thought with school and meeting new friends we drifted apart and we lost contact. Then after I had married Linda I had run into a mutual friend of mine and Candy's one day in Dallas. I asked her if she ever heard from Candy. She told me the last she had heard that Candy had moved here to Dallas and she was working as a prostitute and that she worked the bars on the east side. I asked about Candy's brother and she told me that he had been shot in the back and the bullet had lodged in his spine. He was paralyzed from the waist down and living in his grandparent's home. She said she went back occasionally and visited him and that a few times Candy had dropped by to give him money and check on him. She said that at some point the conversation would turn back to when we were teenagers and she would mention that she missed me.

I did finally see her again. It was at our mutual friend's apartment. She was sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed upstairs and squeezing the icing out of a tube of one of those premixed cake decorators. A new born baby laid on the bed next to her. She looked up at me and threw the tube down then gathered the covers about her to hide herself. I lowered my head, tears welling up in my eyes I turned and started walking back down the stairs.

"Woody!"
"Yeah Candy?"
"What happened Woody?"

Tears started streaming down my cheeks as I walked out the front door, closing it behind me. I tried to shove the picture of seeing her there out of my head, wanting to replace it so much with that night she was hanging out of the car window yelling my name and waving. That smile that lit up my world, those twinkling mischievous eyes that behind them was a beautiful and wonderful person. That Candy that meant so much to me then. I still miss her at times and as I have said before, she had her reasons and I should have never questioned or seen her any different then than I had always seen her before. My friend. I did something to her that she would have never done to me, I turned my back on her and walked away.

Later...

The dialogue, though not verbatim in this post is factual and this is a page out of my life that I have kept in me and not talked about. I have not heard from or seen her since that day I walked out the door. Her brother is now deceased and even though I have tried to locate her to apologize for that day, I have had no luck.


Stories posted here are the exclusive property of the Smiling Pig. No other use or reproduction of the content contained here is permissible without written prior consent.

Caught in the Act

Now I know that we all have either been caught in an act that we found a little embarrassing, well maybe more than a little or have caught someone in the act that left you both embarrassed and it seems that first one is the one you will always remember.

My parents had finished off their evening with a couple of drinks to "relax" as we are told by our parents so often as we grew up and as dad was exiting the living room and making his way down the hall he reminded us, "I don't want to hear any arguing, TV off by 11pm and in bed, don't let me have to come back and remind you." and with that he shut his bed room door behind him. This is where the sibling pecking order took place. My youngest brother made a diving leap for my dad's chair and said "Dibs.", he had marked his spot for the evening. I had been sitting on the end of the sofa when my next oldest brother decided that we wanted to stretch out on the sofa and basically demanded that I relinquish my spot so he could lay down. "Nah, I don't really feel like it, its comfortable here." I replied. "You didn't say dibs." he returned. Now any idiot knows in the rules of dibs that you do not have to claim a spot that you are already occupying, so I reminded him that he was an idiot. With that he sat at the opposite end on the sofa and little by little started sliding into a prone position staring at me the whole time with the stupid idiotic look only an older brother could display. After a few minutes I felt his toe just slightly touching me and I told him to move his foot and he said that three quarters of the sofa was his and if I did not like him touching me I could move. "Screw you." I said to him at the same time giving him the universal symbol for it. So on it went for an hour, with him changing positions often to either hold his face inches from mine staring at me or by almost touching me with his finger, close enough to be irritating, but not breaching that invisible boundary as to which part of the sofa was mine. When he wanted to be an irritating pain in the ass, my older brother was quite adept at it. After about an hour of his juvenile display I got tired of it and decided that if he was going to ruin the movie for me I was going to do likewise, but in order to do so I would have to take my younger brother down too. I looked over at him and said, "Damn I am tired, I guess it is time we went to bed." "You go and I get the sofa." he answered. "Wanna make a bet on that?" I said smiling and off down the hall I went.

Stopping in front of my parent's bed room door I heard sounds coming from inside and I hesitated for a moment before putting my hand on the door knob, I know that I should have knocked and announced myself, but this was my parent's room what could possibly be going on besides sleep. Well I soon found out, as I opened the door I believe I caught my parents in a some what of a compromising position, I did not realize that they had a contortionist act that they practiced for after they went to bed and I further assumed they were naked because the clothes wouldn't get tangled up in these various positions they were trying. But I knew that this isn't something that a dad teaches his son, but then again I never realized that they posed for the Kama Sutra either. At that point in my life I did not know what I found more terrifying, what my eyes were glued to at that moment or the horror movie on TV, I decided quickly that the horror movie definitely ranked second to this. I do not know if it was the stream of light coming from the hall and lighting them up like a spotlight on a stage or if it was the sickening groan that came from me, either way the next thing I heard and saw was my dad yelling at me while he threw his house shoe, "Don't you know how to knock?" At which point I quickly closed the door and walked back into the living room. "Dad wants to talk to you." I informed my older brother.

Another time I can remember was when I was with my best friend in junior high. We had decided to go to this in town lake and do some swimming at night off the pier and to see who else would show up through out the course of the evening. I guess we had been there for over two hours diving off the pier and swimming around the pilings when we noticed a group of cars at the far end of the small lake. I looked over at him and he said, "You see all those guys standing in line at that one car?" "Yeah, why? Just some girl they got drunk and high and she a little friendly tonight." I replied thinking about who it might be. "Wanna go over?" he asked and without replying I jumped off the pier and started towards the line in a little quicker pace than he did. I got there right before him and two more had filed in behind me before he had his place in the line and one by one they would enter the back of the car and exit a few moments later with sweat on their foreheads and a smile on their face. When my turn finally came, I too mimicked the ones before me and climbed into the back seat of the 1957 Chevy Belaire. Well I came out about as fast as I went in with my friend saying, You finished already? Didn't take you very long." "I don't really feel like it to tonight." I returned, my back to him as I was walking off. "You are a wimp Wood." he yelled out and then asked, "Who is it?" "Your sister." I replied still walking away from him. "Yeah, my sister, your momma." He yelled laughing at me. I sat down on a park bench and waited, watching silently as the two in front of him finished their business and then watched him with his pants and underwear around his ankles crawl into the back of the car. I smiled. I don't think he was in there under two seconds when he came flying out of the back seat, his pants still around his ankles but looking a lot less excited than before he went in, he was spinning around and looking from side to side as if he was wanting to find someone to take his anger out on, it didn't take him very long until he spotted me sitting at the picnic table smiling. He ran over to me screaming so loud I couldn't understand a word he was saying, his eyes were bulging and he was spitting when he talked, oh he looked a sight with his pants still around his ankles. "Why didn't you tell me that was my sister asshole?" he screamed at me. "Uh, I believe I did when you asked me who it was. You ready to go home now?"

In the small Texas town on the Texas Oklahoma border is where I spent my more informative years, those delicate days of discovery, but in order to experience it, it required that parents be sleeping as you would sneak into a girls window for a little amorous fun. But this required stealth, planning and timing in order to make it work out to ones advantage and the first phase is sneaking out of the house after the city's mandatory age curfew without the knowledge of your parents and living in a house that was over 150 years old you had to know where each and every creaking floor board was at, which banister rail was shaky and when exactly your parents were sound asleep. We lived in a two story house with my parent's bed room downstairs and the stairs and front door next to their bed room door, so it was a tricky maneuver to escape after dark and rendezvous with the object of your desire. Now this caught in the act is two fold and I do not know which embarrassed me the most.

One of my friends was spending the night and earlier that day we had been talking to a couple of girls that lived down the street from each other and talked them into seeing us later that night after curfew. When the appointed time had arrived to jettison ourselves from my bed room, we had decided on using the antenna mast that was outside my rear bed room window and shimmy down it. Sounded good, sounded like a plan and so down we started with him reaching the ground before me. As I started going down the pole I had thought I heard something tapping on a window and I looked up thinking maybe it was my younger brother who may have woke up and wanting to tag along with us, but there was no stupid face grinning looking down at me when I looked up and then there was that tapping again. So I looked at the window directly in front of me only to see my father's face looking with a very disenchanted grimace and I knew the thumbs up he was giving didn't mean do it for the Gipper, rather "get your ass back up that pole and get to bed." Well going a thin galvanized pole is never as easy going down it and slowly I made it back up. Once back in the window I looked down at my friend, "I'll wait for you in the back yard." he whispered. Eventually my dad finally fell back to sleep and down the pole I shimmied again and once hitting the ground I broke out in run to where my friend was waiting for me.

Soon we were winding our way through the maze of alleys, streets void of lighting and skirting along the trees that lined them letting the shadows conceal us as we made our way across town. This too turned out to be an adventure, as we were going along my friend grabbed my arm, "Wood hold on a second." "What is it?" I asked stopping. "Look over there at that open window dude. Their doing it." he whispered, pointing off in the direction his attention was glued to. Sure enough as looked there they were in plain sight, lights on, window open with her riding him like one of those little plastic ponies at the supermarket entrance. Our eyes were glued to the scene and they seemed oblivious to the fact that they had a two person audience taking mental notes. "Damn Wood, look at those knockers on her would you." was my friends first comment. "Be quiet dummy before they hear us." I whispered. That went through one ear and out the other if it even registered at all because the next thing I heard was, "Damn! Crap Wood we need to get closer." and with that they both stopped and looked out the window, then she grabbed the pillow and placed it front of her as he in all of his glory stood up in the middle of the bed screaming and yelling expletives at us that would have made any sailor worth his salt take notes. "Great going idiot, as if hiding behind their bushes in their front yard wasn't close enough. Any closer we would have been in bed with them." I said over my shoulder running down the street.

Next stop was our destination, the mapped out end of our journey and the house was in sight. Anticipation was now the driving force as we made our way across the lawns, eventually arriving to "the window". Tap, tap, tap...waiting, heart beating like a race horse after a long race, palms sweaty and holding our breath. Tap, tap, tap...again waiting. Finally the curtains part, the shade rises and the window is raised, "If you were expecting _ _ _ _ _ _, she is in her mother's room sleeping and you have 5 minutes to clear the yard before I call the police." Busted! We left faster than a shadow in the dark.

On the way home I got to thinking, why not? The night ended the way it started, caught in the act.

Later...

Stories posted here are the exclusive property of the Smiling Pig. No other use or reproduction of the content contained here is permissible without written prior consent.

Only Slightly Disassociated or Slightly Associated Thoughts

A couple of things have been on my mind lately, somewhat related and then again trying to figure out a way of melding the two together has been a conundrum for me, so I will handle them as two different thoughts separate yet in many ways related.

Garnering the Spotlight

We all enjoy attention or as Andy Warhol put it "our fifteen minutes of fame" and it seems that has not really had a direct medium for the general public until the internet came into being. Whereas in the past, those dark days before the internet and the age of enlightenment it offered to those of us considered as ones of the menial class, all we had were newspapers, radio and television and in order to gain our place in the spotlight with the media of yore, you either already had to be known, discovered something that awed the world, have been published or were a serial killer, which at that time would have given that chance to stand in the spotlight of notoriety for ill or good. The internet changed all of that and gave anyone the ability to express their thoughts, their philosophy, their beliefs on morality, their stand on politics, sexual preferences, religion, parenting or just to vent and in doing so brought out the dormant narcissism in a lot of people. It was a venue deigned for them to be able to say, "Hey look at me and screw the others, I am what is important." and I shudder at times at the monster that man created when he unleashed the internet to the world.

It gave a much broader stage and a more diversified audience to those who felt like they should be listened to or what they had to say was important. It gave rumor mongers a wider visage to spread malicious gossip based purely on hearsay and personal belief of another person without really knowing if what they were espousing was factual or not, it was just too juicy and delicious to keep to themselves and the world just had to hear about it. It created a very large pond for those who like to throw rocks to see how far the ripples would reach and expand out to others.

I am not saying that seeking attention is wrong, it is basic human nature to want to be noticed and that in itself is harmless if approached in the right manner, not to do so at another's expense. When we seek attention by viciously maligning another for reasons that are really none of our business we have done nothing constructive but to destroy another and cause others to continue our attempt at undermining another's character and who if anyone has that right to do so.

It is Tom Sawyer's tree to hang from, his picket fence to walk to get Polly's attention and I would love to hear Mark Twain's take on how he would view the internet or the fodder it gave him to break out his quill to record another one of his insightful masterpieces of languid wit concerning the human condition and man's desire to be noticed. Not to mention the heyday Freud or Jung would have concerning man's struggle to either cut the umbilical cord or make love to his mother. The possibilities are endless and yet we have not really learned any lessons about what we do or say and how it effects others in our quest for attention.

The internet has created two spotlights and it shines attention on two at the same time, the seeker and the receiver, but those roles can change and the seeker one day will be seen as the receiver and will be placed in that position they have put many before them. The worm has turned so to say, the piper is now seeking payment, retribution is at hand and now that one has found themselves in a very precarious position for now they have realized that they are not without fault and secrets that were kept have managed to find themselves in the hands of another seeking attention and their target is that one who is presently in the spotlight. Like in the old west when a fresh young gunslinger would mosey into town to challenge the one who he has been told is the fastest draw known to man and he just cannot let the chance to challenge him pass by and find out how fast he really is. After all, he is now older, his edge a bit dulled, his senses a little more lax and his reflexes slowed by all the attention and praise he has been getting from his little group of followers and it is time now to replace him and take his place in that limelight.

Nothing wrong with seeking attention, just do it without unjustifiably attacking another and look out for those who come flying in under the radar or at least make sure all your ducks are in a row and you can cover your bases and don't leave your ass hanging out. Don't you just love a blog filled with euphemisms? I think I have used enough to get a little attention, don't you? Oh yeah, one more thought before I go on to the next disassociated thought, make sure someone is not painting a target on your back while you are busy painting one on someone else's back.

Baa Baa

I like to think of myself as an individual, perfectly capable of seeing things for myself and in the process of doing so be able to make my own decisions from those observations. It is how we should all be and we should not let someone else be the one telling us what to see or how to think, but sadly enough there are some either too lazy or weak or both to do that for themselves, so they entrust someone else to do that for them and that to me is a sad thought. People get so misdirected and confused when they start letting themselves be guided by someone who probably does even have the slightest clue of what is going on around them to begin with. It is the blind leading the blind and they might as well be living in a closet with the rest of the skeletons they have stashed away in the dark.

There are some that actually prey on those who cannot or those that refuse to think for themselves and this is where the above disassociated thought is associated. Those that seek attention of a attentive following surround themselves with those they think for, they decide for them what is right and what is wrong, who they should or should not talk to, who is and who isn't at fault and those they think deserve his retribution and chastising. The pied piper syndrome it is called and has roots seated back to childhood by either too many siblings and getting lost among them or over attentive parents telling them how important they are, either the lack of or too much attention. Seeing how their audience is a selective one and one that is for them easily swayed into their ideology and manipulated to think as they think and see what they see. They use them until they have no more use for them, they use them as weapons aiming them towards targets they have decided to destroy. Little Napoleons, egotistical, maniacal, narcissistic, schizophrenic and manic depressive are just a few of the symptoms they display as they gather around them those who see them as some kind of demigod, whose words are like their teachings and their bidding as a tribute them. They castigate those who see through them for what they are, irritating little fleas, piss-ants of life that seem to to be everywhere you wish they weren't.

If one cannot think for themselves, then I would think it would better not to think at all. Just sit there like a proverbial lump on a log and live out life emotionless and do not let someone else tell you what you should be thinking. Do not be led like sheep by someone who really does not care if you ever had a thought of your own or not, because under their guidance if you ever did get a clue they would ostracize you in fear that you would see them for who they truly were, just another sheep herder leading aimless sheep to slaughter.

Later...

Stories posted here are the exclusive property of the Smiling Pig. No other use or reproduction of the content contained here is permissible without written prior consent.

Retribution

We had been going through a long rain spell back in the summer of 1966 and the downpours we had been through had managed to flood the streets, bar ditches over flowing, yards standing several inches of water, creeks over-flowing their banks and lakes running over their spillways. I can still remember what had started out as a normal summer thunderstorm had developed into a two week plus rain spell that at times would produce 3 to 4 inches of rain and hour with sprinkling or misting in between dour pours. These were times boys lived for, the first day after the rains when the sun was out you headed for the creek to see if anything interesting had washed down from up creek, something you could use or at least claim before you father eventually stacked it out near the curb for the trash man to cart, because most likely that treasure you had found was probably washed from out in front of someone else’s home sitting by the curb for disposal after it had been lying in their garage since its last flood rescue.

So anyway, my next older brother and his fishing friend decided to go to the creek and seine for bait, minnows, crayfish, small perch and the large earthworms that are dislodged from the eroding shore, but he had lost his seine in a trade with another friend of his, so his next inspiration was to use non other’s than our dad’s seine. Now normally if you asked dad he would have said yes and upon accepting that responsibility of the, “If you loose it you have three options, 1. Find it before you come home. 2. Replace it before you get home or number 3. Don’t bother coming home if you can’t do one of the two before. Are we agreed?” Then after letting that go in one ear and out the other agreeing to anything asked of you, you took off running for the creek. He failed to talk to dad about borrowing it and agreeing to the usually ironclad stipulations that went along with it and decided to run on down to the creek as if he did not need permission. I never gave it another thought and went on about my business and at that moment was several houses down where a friend of mine was out in his front yard eating a popsicle and if rhyme stood to reason then there should be more where that came from and so I headed that way, again not giving another thought about the borrowed seine.

About three hours later and two popsicles my younger brother came down to get me, “Dad wants to talk to you and he said now, not to wait.” He had informed me and I could tell by the tone of his voice that there was a reason dad wanted to talk to me so I started retracing my steps and I could not think of a thing I had done that he would want to “talk” to me about. Without worry I headed for him, secure in the fact that I knew I had not done anything to have him upset or mad at me. Well I should have thought more realistically and let history be proof that he never calls you just to talk to you, he always has his reasons and it was never found to be in a benevolent nature, quite the opposite, oh there was someone who would give and receive and it was usually the one he was wanting to talk to and the one he was talking to was going to give up something whether they wanted to or not and be receiving his just punishment in the process. The closer I got to some, the more my feet would slow down and as I was crossing our next door neighbor’s yard my feet were virtually dragging. Each step becoming more and more labored, it felt as if you were in a chain gang and you had the heaviest iron ball.

Before long I walked through the door and my next oldest brother was standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of milk, “Dad’s out in the garage waiting for you.” In the garage and waiting, this was beginning to diminish my innocence in anything I cannot think that I had done to warrant a garage session with him. I could see him waiting, leaning against his work bench, elbow of one arm resting on the surface and in his other hand his belt and staring down with all the authority a father’s glare could muster. My heart was pounding in my chest as I placed my hand on the door knob, palms sweaty and they slipped on the knob when I had lost my grip, all my strength sapped out of me with just the thought of hearing, “This is only to teach you a lesson, don’t think I enjoy it.” The belt would meet flesh on the last word and the whole time you would be receiving he would be telling you why you were being punished and what you were going to be doing with all your free time for the next several weeks to come. These are times I would wish for miracles, anything would have done, a hurricane, a tornado, lightning storm or even mom yelling out the back door that the stove was on fire and she couldn’t put it out, anything short of the second coming would have been welcome at that point. “Open it, its not locked” came from the other side of the door. “Please” I prayed silently, “Just one small disaster to divert his attention for the next ten years or so.” Yes there was a disaster waiting to happen and it was not the answer I had prayed for that I was sure of. It was dimly lit in the garage with the only light coming through was through the four small panes of glass at the top of the garage door and it lit my dad up from the waist up like in one of those old 1950 B horror movies. His free arm was dropped to his side so I could not tell if he was holding the belt or not. My knees were weak now and trying to buckle on me as I slowly drew near him. “Know why you are here?” I heard him ask. Immediately my mind went into motion, thinking, thinking and thinking, then it hit me. “You know dad if I had done something I was aware that I had done and that you were going to use your belt on me; I don’t think I would have come straight home when I was told to. I mean, I never have before when I knew I was in trouble, I would always take my time hoping you would get tired of waiting and if I had done something I would have come in making excuses why I did or did not do it, so I am stumped.” I thought I could have set him back long enough for this to sink in and then let him chew on it a while before I tried to get him to swallow it. Staring down at me he shook his head, “None of that made sense, just like the stunt you pulled today” Again my mind started retracing my steps of that day and I still could not think of anything that would have put me in such dilemma, I was baffled. “Dad you’re going to have to tell me because I can’t think of a thing I have done wrong.” Hoping playing dumb might play on his pity and think to himself, “Poor kid, he is so stupid he doesn’t even realize when he has done something wrong.” Didn’t work, he never believed in stupidity as an excuse. “What did you do today?” staring a hole through me as he glared down at me. I went through my day with him, minute by minute detail hoping to lull him to sleep with my in depth oration recounting my personal dealings for the day. “You didn’t go down to the creek with my seine today?” he asked as if I had left it out on purpose. “Nope, no creek today.” I answered looking back at him with a sigh of relief knowing that it wasn’t me he really needed to talk to. “You sure?” he rebutted. Now one thing that we held to between me and my brothers was that we do not snitch on each other, we just get even later, but throwing them under the bus to save your ass was perfectly permissible, but only if you had plans that you did not want to be restricted from doing and my older brother had a camping trip coming up so I kept to see the underside of the bus on this one. “No dad I didn’t go to the creek today, I was down the street all day.” If he would have only looked on the front of my purple and red stained tee shirt he would have seen those were the only stains on my clothes, no mud or grass stains anywhere on me. “That is not what I was told.” He would continue and even though you knew who threw you under the bus, there was nothing you could really so about at this point, if I would have told him the truth this late in the game and given my older brother up, I would not be believed and I would have been in deeper trouble because I didn’t choke him up right away and I wasted his time. “I don’t remember going.” I whispered hanging my head down so I didn’t have to look at him. “Go find it.” was all he said.

I walked back to the house, my older brother staring out the screen door, “Where did you lose it at?” I asked him pissed that he did that to me. He looked over my shoulder as my dad exited the garage, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t lose anything.”

So I set out trying to figure out which creek he had went to, there were three in close proximity to where we lived, and then figure out where on the creek he went. I could not find it anywhere and there wasn’t anywhere I didn’t look. I got back home well after dark and as I walked through the door my older brother was sitting in the middle of the living room floor eating a bag of potato chips and drinking a coca cola, my dad was sitting in his chair drinking his glass of ice tea, “Did you find it?” he asked as our eyes met. “No sir.” I said looking over at my brother who was pretending not to be paying attention. I could have given him up then and he would have been in trouble for losing it, for blaming me and for me getting his punishment, but I didn’t give him up, he was mine now and my turn would come. “Go to bed then.” were my instructions. Seeing how I had missed dinner I walked into the kitchen. “I didn’t say get something to eat and then go to bed, I said go to bed.” I heard the clarification of his instructions, so I went to bed to “think” about what I had done and what fate awaited me.

I thought alright, I thought about what I could do to get even with my older brother, what could I do to make things even? It didn’t take me long to figure it out, there was a buzz outside my window, the buzz of a wasp and an epiphany hit me. It was almost a year and a half ago when he had his first serious encounter with wasps, yellow jackets, nasty little things that let you know they were not afraid of anything. It was the morning of his birthday and he had decided to retrieve a wasp’s nest from the rubber tree on the side of the house, the same rubber tree that he had been told to stay out of because of the yellow jacket nest my dad was going to take care of later. Off he went up the tree with a stick he had tied a piece of cloth to and soaked it in gasoline, he had heard the fumes would dupe them and keeps them from stinging him. Now I don’t know who he had got this little tidbit of information from, but I had a feeling it was not from researching that he was informed of this “protection” that would keep him safe. There he was, high up in the rubber tree waving his stick with the gasoline soaked rag tied to the end. It did get them away from the nest alright, just like he was told it would, but it did not give him the protection he was told about. It was like one swarming mass moving from one place to another in a blink. Before I knew it there he was, falling through the branches waving the idiot stick like he was trying to slay a dragon. Thump, bump, crack and a host of other sounds wafted through the air along with a few expletives of his own. He screamed louder than my sister that time a scorpion came out the over flow drain on the tub while she was showering and twice as high a pitch as she had. It was music to me; I mean we have always been told that if we do something we had been warned not to do, then you had no one to blame but yourself. “Get momma! Get momma!” he was yelling as he rolled on the ground. I walked over to the screen front door and yelled through it, “Hey mom come quick.” She ran out the door hearing the screams of my older brother rolling around on the ground under the rubber tree. “Ronald Edward, go get me the hose now!” she barked, so I went and got her the hose and handed it to her, she held it towards my brother as if waiting for something to happen, “You could turn it on too.” I mean she said nothing about turning it on, all she said was get her the hose and I did that, so back I went to turn the faucet on and then ran back as fast as I could as she doused him with water scattering the wasps, he looked pretty sad if I say so myself and was starting to swell pretty fast. Mom got him into the house and stripped him to see how bad he was, there wasn’t a spot on him and I mean not a spot they had not stung him. She called the doctor; these were the days when doctors still made house calls on an emergency basis and before long he arrived and started to tend to my brother. Over 240 places he was stung, the doctor instructed my mother to mix vinegar and baking soda together in a paste and apply this poultice to each sting, as it dried it would pull the poison out and help it fester to remove any stingers left behind. All this happening on his birthday with a big party planned for that afternoon. The doctor even gave him something, a shot in the butt to help the healing and if there was one thing about our family doctor then, he had a shot to heal everything and he did not mind administering them one bit.

Later that afternoon my dad arrived home to be at the party, he was the hot dog cook and he would be needed to light the charcoal and cook the hot dogs. Mom failed to call him before he got home to tell him about what had happened to my older brother, so she informed him then, “So I think we should call everyone and tell them it has been canceled.” My dad shook his head; I never liked it when he shook his head at me because I knew it meant that there were consequences to pay. He went into the bed room and looked down at my brother, all swollen, in pain, tears rolling out of his eyes and fear building up. “Mom tells me you were climbing the rubber tree you were told to stay out of.” He looked up at my dad, tears pouring out of his eyes and barely able to talk, “I was just doing it for you.” That never worked with dad either, I knew that from experience and so should this Bozo, but he tried to play it anyway. “Mom thinks we should call off your party and have it another time.” Looking down at my brother and brushing the hair out of his eyes, “But I told her no, not to call it off and go ahead and have the party anyway. You can lay here in bed and listen to it and think about missing it because you couldn’t do as you were told.” I had to turn and smile, my sibling nemesis was in trouble and I did not have to lift a finger to instigate anything. I reminded him several times during the course of the party that he was missing a lot of fun. I had my plan now well formulated as I thought back almost a year and a half ago.

I let several days go by as I served my punishment, doing chores that normally were not mine added to the ones I was required to do and all along he never said anything to me about me taking his punishment, I informed my dad I had almost forgotten about a summer science project we were assigned before school let out. “What are you going to need?” was all he wanted to know, never asked what it was about. “Six one gallon jars with screw on lids is all, I can get the rest from the garage.” Now my younger brother was curious and as he wondered what I would be needing with six one gallon jars with screw on lids he asked, “What is the project?” “Going to measure the life cycles of wasps.” I answered slowly turning my head to smile at my older brother. “Just be careful, you saw what happened to your older brother.” was dad’s only warning.

The next evening dad gave me the jars I had asked for and over the next several days I sought out wasps flying alone and with a large aquarium fish net I started capturing wasps for my summer science project. I collected red wasps, yellow jackets, paper wasps, fruit wasps and anything else that looked like if it stung you it would definitely leave its mark on you. Soon I had them in my jars and I placed them on the dresser in a long row with a clipboard next to them. Every day I would act as if I was taking notes as I went on with my science project charade. Every night I would lie in bed talking a little to my old brother, “So what did the doctor say about your allergies to wasp stings? What did he call it if you got stung again, said something about going into shock, throat swelling, choking? What was that he called it?” Working on him little by little, he knew why I was doing this and he knew he owed me. “Anaphylactic shock stupid.” he snapped back. “No stupid was throwing me under the bus telling dad that I lost his seine. Sure would be a bitch for you if those wasps got out of the jars, wouldn’t it?” then rolling over to go to sleep. I let him stew for over a week and watched him begging dad to have me do something with the wasps in the bedroom. “Just make sure he keeps the tops on tightly.” was his answer. Each night I would repeat basically the same thing to him and then watch him out of the corner of my eye as he stared at the one gallon jars all lined up on the dresser.

One evening while he was taking his bath I took a little rubbing alcohol and soaked several cotton balls with it and dropped them in the yellow jacket’s jar and then tapped the holes over on the lid. I waited until I saw them all drop to the bottom and then with tweezers I took them out one by one and using an exacto knife I relieved them of their stingers and then cut the small ligament under each wing so they could not fly. I placed them back in the jar less the alcohol soaked cotton balls and let them revive. Once my older brother was in bed I sat up in mine and started staring at the jar with the yellow jackets in them as if I spotted something wrong, getting out of bed I walked over to the jar and started tapping on it, “Leave them alone, you’re pissing them off.” my older brother said nervously. “Stop whining, something isn’t right, stop acting like a baby, you would think I let them out.” I said smiling at him as I started taking the lid off the jar. “See?” I said as I spun around pretending to trip over his shoes lying in the floor and the jar flung out in front of me the inhabitants landing on him. He couldn’t utter a word, he was so scared he could not scream, he couldn’t even brush them off, he was frozen with fear and I smiled at him. “Damn, that is a bitch.” is all I said. Finally after turning blue from not being able to catch his breath, it caught and he screamed and screamed until mom and dad both came running in the room and they were just in time to see me saving my older brother from those nasty yellow jackets as I picked them off of him and placed them back in the jar. As I took one from his pillow I whispered, “Don’t choke me up on this or I will tell dad about the seine and who lost it.” He knew the longer dad waited for the truth the one who would pay for it was going to hurt in more ways than one. “I tripped over his shoes he left in the middle of the floor.” I said as I was screwing the lid back on the jar. “If you kept your crap off the floor and where it belonged this wouldn’t have happened. Both of you get to bed now and I don’t want to hear anything out of either of you.” I lay there in the dark and then turned looking across the room at my older brother, “You going to ask mom to change your sheets? I thought that grass snake made you pee.”

The next morning he kept staring at me with that same hateful look I had grown used to seeing, I smiled back and said, “Pee me a river stupid.”

Later…

Some might think this is cruel, but when you have 4 brothers and being next to the youngest, survival was at any cost. No I do not regret what I did.

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