Myrtle Beach

“You’re fucked!”

My friend Shaun is standing beside me in the weight room, and we are both staring at ourselves in the large mirror on the wall.  Behind us are all sorts of weight equipment, benches and treadmills.  Shaun is pumping 40-pound weights while I am struggling with 20 pounds, wondering why I am not using my normal 15s.

“You are totally and royally fucked,” Shaun says with an added “umph,” lifting one of the barbells to his chest.  Shaun is a little wisp of a guy who I used to run with back in our thirties.  Later in our sixties we met at the same gym by chance and he has been advising me on my running ever since.

“I know.  I know.”  I say. Yes, I know this all the way down to the pit of my stomach.  For the past year I have been preparing for the New York City Marathon, the second in my goal of running the six major marathons of the world, but I am struggling with the realities of what is about to unfold.  Now Shaun knows it too.

 

In truth, the New York City Marathon is self-inflicted torture of physical fatigue and psychological madness: twenty-six miles across an ocean of mean streets, dirty brick buildings, metal bridges and anonymous residential high rises showcasing a city I don’t even like just to get to an island called Central Park where I’ll probably get mugged soon after crossing the finish line.  It dawned on me at the gym that this feat represents nothing more than a fleeting dream for dotting fools and fading dandies, especially now, especially here, especially me. 

To be clear, I ran twenty-two miles a few weeks back in preparing for the marathon, but later failed miserably in my attempt to run twenty-four.  My excuse: the day was too hot, my feet hurt too much, and, to be honest, I just wasn’t into it mentally, not after spending the weekend with my wife and friends at Myrtle Beach.  Now, this week is the race itself.  There’s no way.  I am fucked.

Still, the feeling, like a gleam of excitement inside me, has begun.  Like I know.  I know.  Someone once said to me, life is composed of exciting moments; well, if that is the case, a new memory is gurgling within.  When my wife Karen and I were driving home from the beach, I first felt it bubble inside me: a tinge of anxiousness – the thrill of the unknown, I guess – that or was it a rumbling of debauchery?  

I look to Shaun and manage a slight smile in the mirror holding the weights at my side. Shaun, with his sandy blonde hair and muscled arms is laughing at me.  “You fool, what are you thinking?” he asks.

“I’m fucked.” I reply, lifting my weights.  “I fucked up.”   

Here’s the situation.  Over the weekend, my wife Karen and I went with some friends to Myrtle Beach to enjoy their company and to celebrate, in part, our 27^th wedding anniversary.  This is a good thing.  I want to keep my wife happy and we like our friends, except one or two.  The bad thing is I used the occasion to become a wanton fiend.  I wholeheartedly ate everything crappy I could find and I topped it off by drinking way too much throughout the weekend and getting way too drunk Saturday night and didn’t once workout in the exercise room while staying at our ocean side hotel nor take the opportunity to run along the beach.  Not once did I get my act together, as someone in training would do, in spite of the deadline looming ahead, the trial by fire, the burning sea of New York City.

At one point my wife looked at me in horror when she realized I drank a bottle of wine by myself in a restaurant that Saturday night; she grabbed my arm when I went to order a second bottle; it was like I had returned, once again, to haunt her and our friends with my crazy antics, like she knew I would find myself, once more, sleeping against a hotel toilet for comfort later that night.  Lost was the sixty-one year-old marathon-training, devoted husband and stable friend, gone was the amateur athlete entered in a serious and significant marathon that easily could kill him if he wasn’t ready, negated was the tedious summer of steady recovery from a tear in my upper hamstring tendon.  Yes, on Sunday, when I returned home from the beach, the anxious thrill of the approaching marathon bubbled up from the pit of my stomach, but so too a massive headache throbbed against my eyes and six pounds of additional gluttony sagged over my belt. 

“Everyone I know,” Shaun says, pausing in his routine to be sure he has my attention.  

I look over in the mirror at Shaun and nod my head.  

Shaun is telling me his same old story so I lift the heavy barbell in my left hand as if to say, okay, okay, I’m with you, keep going, and Shaun continues, “I mean everyone, all of my friends, everyone – everyone who has run a marathon after the age of sixty has had a heart attack." he says finally.  "I mean everyone.“

Shaun has told me this before.  I nod my head in agreement.  Shaun must be in his early fifties.  I wonder how many friends he has, like me, who are in their sixties.  I am barely in my sixties and none of my friends, other than Shaun, have had heart attacks.  Of course, my wife would say, given I have managed to alienate all of my friends, and other than Shaun, who I bump into now and again, and a few other buddies I see at the gym, though I don’t know their names, technically I don’t have any friends at all.  She would point out that comparing myself to other old guys in the weight room is not a good barometer of heart attacks, and no one in the weight room from what I can see has the letter “A” tattooed on their chests.     

Shaun’s my authority on heart attacks.  When I retired from running back in my forties, Shaun went on to climb mountains in Europe.  Not the ones that get all the attention, he told me once, but all of the rest.  The last time he went Euro-mountaineering a few years ago, he came home and had a massive heart attack while doing something stupid like sleeping, or watching tv, or cleaning out his garage.  Now he is an expert on heart attacks, as well as the mountains of Europe, and swears that oils, like peanut butter, olive oil, and caster oil, led to his cardio catastrophe. 

“Everyone but you.” he adds, just to re-emphasize his point and to get me prepared for the road ahead.  “Everyone but you.”

Death awaits me. 

“What I don’t get,” he goes on, “is why the hell were you at Myrtle Beach?”

This speaks volumes about my will power, determination and dedication going down the final stretch.  What the hell was I doing at Myrtle Beach a week before the New York City Marathon?

“I don’t know.”  I smile weakly at Shaun.  “My wife is trying to kill me.”

Why else would she even suggest such an idea for our anniversary?  She knows I have no will power and would use the occasion to escape from reality. 

I don’t even like Myrtle Beach.  My friends from North Carolina all spoke so highly of the resort town, and, it turns out, no matter whom I asked, every one growing up in North Carolina experienced Myrtle Beach as the key destination of their summer childhoods.  Their families never drove to the Outer Banks or other destinations along the North Carolina coast, the small towns dominated by protected nature reserves, open sandy beaches, and single family homes, which, my friends said, were boring as hell, but always to Myrtle Beach with it’s mammoth Ferris wheel and board walk and arcade and tons of fun things to do at night as kids or with their families in the shopping centers surrounding the town.

What I saw was a tiny beach pressed by large hotels and high-rise condominiums, packed tight against each other and dominating the oceanfront.  Myrtle Beach was nothing but a box store for the masses, and I realized we were spending our anniversary being part of the millions in the cookie-cutter hotels overlooking the metallic gray ocean, staring down from our dirty balcony at thousands of fat vacationers stuffed into rickety folding chairs under faded flamingo umbrellas.  Maybe this was my excuse: I was depressed.  The width and breath of huge hotels huddled together against the beach, the endless parking lots backing up the hotels, filling in the empty spaces of the city between the row of high rises and the worn out hopping centers hustling entertainment packaged for the millions, like cesspools stretched out into the South Carolina marshland.

“Fucking Myrtle Beach,” I add, grimacing at Shaun.  “and too much fucking wine.”     

A week from the race and, as Shaun can see from the twitch in my face every time he mentions the words “New York City Marathon,” I am in trouble.  My wife, daughter and I leave in two days to drive to the city and nowhere on our schedule is there time for last-minute training.  It is too late for me to do anything but commiserate with Shaun one last time in the gym on the follies of man, the downfall of good men gone bad, and the prevalence of heart attacks in sixty-year-old marathoners. 

In spite of the fact that I am not nearly in the shape I was in a year ago, heavier by ten to fifteen pounds, conditioning not close to as complete as last fall, slower by more than a minute in my runs, and not nearly as tough as I need to be – in spite of all of this, the marathon will go on and I will be in it, a bobbing head slowly sinking below the surface in an ocean of 55,000 runners.

“Hey, look at it this way,” Shaun says, putting his barbells onto the rack.  He moves to the doorway of the weight room, getting ready to go home.  “If you have a heart attack, New York City has some of the best hospitals in the world.”

Great,” I say, “if the cost of the hospitals are anything like the hotel on Myrtle Beach, I’ll be bankrupt in a week.”

What I don’t say, staring at myself in the mirror, is that, just maybe, this is the real me coming to the marathon party, the actual me finally showing up for the boogaloo-down-Broadway.  Me: the sixty-one-year-old dude who runs weekends and struggles daily to keep his weight down, the good old boy who gives up training every time to wine and dine with family and friends no matter where he is or what lies ahead.  No, I am not the invincible warrior who ran the Chicago Marathon last year at a trim 175 pounds, the Thor-like god who completed the 26.2-mile course more than a half-an-hour faster then when I was in my thirties.  No, in truth, I am the station wagon washout from North Carolina who chose to churn up the surf at Myrtle Beach; I am the sad guy who simply wants to complete the race without sinking like a stone and drowning in wave after wave of humanity for the world to see on national tv. 

****

Take a Magic Bean

Take a magic bean.

Beans have always worked for me.  Take a bean, feel better.  Wasn’t that our motto as teenagers?

This is an exercise in futility, I am afraid – no bean will get me ready for the New York Marathon in November.

Instead I am spending my time reading the book ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King.  

Clearly, avoidance behavior at its finest.

Stephen King, the prolific author of the macabre genre, says he writes 2,000 words a day.  This reflects the discipline he has developed over the years and is what he recommends for aspiring writers. 

Discipline.  This is the key word. 

If one wants to be a professional writer, one has to be, you know, that. 

He says it takes him typically from four to six hours a day to write 2,000 words, and he does this six to seven days a week.

I am told, this is, for those of us who need to visualize these things, ten pages a day, day in, day out. 

Yikes!

I think – since I work full-time and am training for the you-know-what in New York come November – I would be wise to cut back on such a level of commitment.  My goal should be smaller.  I can build my stamina later. 

Five minutes. 

Every morning I should write for five good minutes. 

Five minutes sounds like something I can handle.  Five minutes is do-able.

One page. 

Something, in fact, I can do right now this morning.

Maybe, even, a page-and-a-half.

This way I won’t get overly tired from the mental exertion or be fired for being late for work, and I can save my physical strength for my oh-never-mind.   

Still, we mustn’t forget those beans. 

Magic beans could come in awfully handy with writing too!

Okay then, Stephen King says he goes into a room, the room where he chooses to write, closes the door, and sequesters himself inside (with the blinds drawn) until he produces his ten pages for the day.  Hmmmm….

For me, it would be better if I used my kitchen counter.  Much easier. 

Besides, I like having access to the coffee machine, the refrigerator, the pantry, the bread drawer, the bananas near the knives – much better than being off somewhere in the house with the door closed.  That sounds so secretive...  

In the kitchen, I bet, I can write, say, fifty words easy.  No problem.  Then, I can get up and make myself a piece of toast.   

Fifteen more words and I can refill my coffee cup.

Thirty words and I can look at my face in the downstairs bathroom mirror and practice my visualization exercises: how to smile on the back jacket of my Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

Wait.  What is that thing on my nose?  Where did that come from…

I decide, back at the kitchen counter, doing the math: rather than fifty words, if I write 500 words a day, six days a week, I can generate 3,000 words in one week and, say, 12,000 words in a month. 

This would be… hmmmm, let’s see…

This would be sixty pages in one month!  Wow!

This would be so cool.

Let’s see…

If I actually made an effort to combine these sixty pages of words into real sentences (with meaning!) and, maybe even, sorted the sentences into paragraphs to help categorize my thoughts, it could be even cooler!

In fact, it could be extraordinary! 

How difficult can it be to write 500 words and have them bunched together in short, separate sentences with, say, subjects, verbs and, direct objects?  Like, ah, someone doing something to someone.  Simple!  How tough can this be?

Hmmmm....  I must mull this over – especially while I check the refrigerator.  

I wonder what we are having for dinner tonight?  I need something healthy – I am running a marathon after all.

I need coffee…

Okay, I’m back and focused on writing.  What was it, fifty words?

Wait!  I really should wash the pots and pans from last night.

We had spaghetti for dinner. 

Why is it that I am the one who cleans up afterward?  For that matter, why is it that I never clean up after dinner, but always, always, always wait until the next morning? 

What a mess.

I decide at the sink, I like the concept of discipline in writing.

In truth, I realize in running the hot water, I actually thought about getting myself disciplined long before Stephen King’s book. 

In fact, I know, I’ve lacked discipline all of my life. 

When they handed out the discipline gene, I must have been in the line for magic beans…   

I recall a morning, just like this morning, earlier this year (or was it last year?); it was the morning when I first realized the truth:

I am a lazy writer.

At that time, though, I decided, I needed to think about this some more as I really lacked supporting evidence to justify such an accusation. 

Stop.  Now I've just realized –  

I am a lazy runner too – which is why my training is turning into such a disaster!  

My verdict across the board is ‘guilty’ as charged. 

I am a lazy writer, a lazy runner, and a lazy person! 

Becoming more disciplined is just the kind of punishment I need.  

Like breaking rocks…

Thirty minutes a day of actual writing should be my sentence.

Only now I’ll have to come up with a storyline.

Say, wait, Stephen King says he doesn’t like having a plot.  He simply puts characters into situations and let’s them go wherever it takes them.

Whew!  This works for me.

Most of my essays are plot-less and all of my characters, namely me, are in “situations” all the time.

Just like with this piece. 

And I'm not sure where it is taking me, either. 

In fact, working my way out of this predicament (and the one about to unfold in a month, like an impending disaster) is precisely why magic beans could come in so handy.   

Suddenly, I feel as one with Stephen King.  I am all warm and fuzzy inside.  Maybe I too can get published. 

Opps.  Wait a minute...  .

Okay, back again. 

I think the other thing is not to stop. 

I mean in terms of writing.  

“In running,” my old coach says, “the key is not to stop!”  

Only, Coach, when I write an actual paragraph, I feel like celebrating. 

I have to get serious.  

Tomorrow I get serious.  

My 500-word enterprise will begin tomorrow, and I’ll focus on a more compelling narrative too. 

Today is simply practice.  Getting the feel of what it means to be disciplined.

  

Maybe I need to move my writing to a less “addictive” place. The garage?

But NO, here I sit at my kitchen counter, disciplining myself to write, write, write…

And, that means: focus, focus, focus….

Say, wait a minute, I haven’t actually read the ‘focus’ chapter and Stephen King may have some insight on that too. 

Jeez, this writing business is harder than it seems.  

Maybe I should go running, or, rather, take a magic bean.

****

Kiss

She averts her face,
Looking away,

Like she is suffering

And the touch

Of their lips

Would pass years of
Lies and neglect and

Unsavory thoughts

Between them.

When they kiss,

It is as light as

Eye lashes in the wind.

That’s the issue:

To her, a kiss is a glance

Caught in sin;

To him, it is venom

Passing through skin.

My Family Story #12: Branded

Charles Edgar Giles, Jr.

If I was willing to play baseball or football, Charley could be a wonderful older brother.  The two of us would ride our bikes for miles to other farms in the area for pick-up games, and, though he was always third or fourth in the lineup or he was picked to play quarterback or the primary running back, I swung ninth and stayed deep, deep, deep in the outfield or I was the scrawny lineman at the far, far end of the line.  In pick-up games, though, Charley never let me be the last one chosen, and he always called me to be on his team before it became too embarrassing.  I loved him for that and hated to let him down, frequently playing against older kids who often knocked the crap out of me or tramped me into a pulp, and, god forbid, a ball would be hit to the outfield in my direction.  Still, better to be with Charley and wear the accolades of victory or the scars of defeat than be alone with him on a Saturday morning in our bedroom and suffer the punishment for turning him down and being such a wimp.

Charley was good in all sports; he had a natural affinity for baseball, loved contact sports like football, and would play basketball by himself for what seemed like hours.  I would wonder, watching him, how anyone could throw a ball at a basket over and over?  And not just that, but with no backstop, he would throw the ball, then chase it down, throw the ball, then chase it down, again and again and again.  I would stand at the window in the house and watch him out on the gravel driveway where Daddy had put up a basketball hoop for him.  How could anyone find satisfaction in that?  Or baseball, Charley had a tree he would hit over and over practicing his swing.  Over and over he would hit the tree, over and over.  My sister Allison and I, playing in the garden, shuddered as the repeated thud against the tree reverberating through the fields and woods, the house itself seemed to shake with each hit until Mother would come out and tell him to leave the poor tree alone.  Sometimes he would have me to pitch to him, or tell me to run after his fly balls.  I hated pitching to Charley who invariably would chase me down and beat me up for throwing stupid balls he couldn’t hit and wasting time searching for balls I should have caught. 

In my defense, I was left-handed and was given Charley’s old hand-me-down, right-hander’s glove.  To throw and catch, I would catch the ball with the glove in my left hand, toss the glove, and throw it back with my left hand to Charley.  With him watching, rarely did things go smoothly.  Sometimes I dropped the ball and threw the glove.  Daddy finally bought me a left-handed glove so I wouldn’t get beat up catching balls with Charley, but that only helped a little as I rarely returned the ball to the person to whom I was aiming.  Often Charley would be off and running in any one of a number of different directions to catch my missiles to him, which, in turn, also infuriated him.  Soon he was running at me and I was running for my life.  Daddy didn’t know how to teach me to bat left-handed, so I learned right-handed.  That was okay, as I missed the ball most of the time anyway.  

Charley and Daddy had a lot more in common, than Daddy did with me, though we shared a love of reading and theater: plays from community theater to plays on tv, like Peter Pan with Mary Martin, to musicals on the living room hi-fi, like Oklahoma. I loved Daddy’s enjoyment in watching a musical, explaining the nuances of a song, telling us a good story, sharing with us a magical moment on television.  He loved to laugh, and it was something we all shared with him.

Charley, though, shared his enthusiasm for the Pittsburgh Pirates, for golf and the incredible performance of Arnold Palmer, and later, Jack Nicholas who suffered in popularity at our house because he was not from Western Pennsylvania.  Charley and Daddy went to the U.S. Open in Boston one year and left me at home.  Another year they went to the Indianapolis 500 and, once again, I stayed behind.  Sports – the exploits of the players, their stats in the newspaper, the games broadcast on the radio – was something they shared alone and was unique to them.  I never entered that world with them, and often found myself watching them from the side, from the window.

It’s just that, unfortunately, Daddy wasn’t around much, and it felt like Charley took out his frustration on me.  I knew, though, it had to be more than that.  If we were watching tv, I would be punched in the stomach for no reason, or I would be hit in the face with a throw pillow, or suddenly jumped upon and pummeled.  If I was walking near him, I would be shoved, or tripped, or smacked, or kicked in the butt.  If I was in the pool at the Country Club, I would be dunked and held down until I was sure I was going to drown.  If we were at the library, he would hit me over the head with a book, or kick my shin under the table, or cuffed across the head as he walked by. 

There was nowhere I could go get away from him.  I learned always to be aware of where he was in my presence and would try to put as much distance between us as possible, to never find myself next to him, to stay further back when we were walking, to never sit beside him in a restaurant, to never be in front of him in going to church, to never challenge him by looking at him, or saying something back he might take as a personal affront.  Surely, if he couldn’t punish me when the infraction occurred, there was always Saturday mornings when we were relegated back to our bedroom to clean up our room and take the sheets off of our beds.  Punishment waited for me whether I had done something wrong or not.  Charley was the judge and the dispenser of justice and knew no mercy; and me, being three years younger, of a slighter build, less competitive in my disposition, I was guilty as charged.     

Holly didn’t take his guff though.  Many a time, when my mother wasn’t around, Charley would start a fight, challenging her, and they would wrestle on the floor.  When they were younger, Holly invariably ended up on top of him, pinning him down, unless, of course, he could get me to join him.  Holly holding Charley down infuriated him and led to another match and another and another until, as he grew older, she no longer could dominate him.  Charley never could stand being the second oldest child in our family, especially to a girl, but his being three years younger than Holly, really made a difference.  Holly who also was involved in sports, worked on the farm, rode horses and skied actively could and would take him on and had the disposition to carry it through.  She was the oldest and the most senior of the “four G’s,” and would never give up her leadership to him.

One time, when Holly was babysitting us, she decided to play a new game with us.  As she often did when she was babysitting, she held court in her bedroom playing music from her record player while we sat around on her bed.  She was the teenager, and usually a lot of fun – but you never knew, she could be cruel and dangerous too.  At one point, Holly came up with the idea of pressing a wire coat hanger against the light bulb in the blue plastic lamp next to her bed.  She had opened the hanger and made a strange circle-like configuration with the wire.  When it was red-hot she had Charley and me hold Allison down while she pretended to brand her, bringing the hot wire down to her nightie, listening to Allison screaming to get away.  We knew she would let Allison go, but we weren’t sure when.  That was the scary part, and when she pulled the hanger back and we let Allison go free, we all laughed as Allison cried.  Next Charley and Holly were onto me, and soon I was held down by Charley and Allison as, once again, Holly lowered the vivid, red-hot wire to my chest.  This time she had opened my pajama top and really was going to do it.  I knew her.  She could be so mean.  I struggled violently against Charley and Allison’s hold, but with Charley, in particular, there was no getting away from his grip.

“Do it.” He said to Holly, and, with his encouragement, she brought the wire down almost to my chest before pausing. 

“Holly, Holly, please,” I screamed and screamed, “I’ll do anything.  Anything.  Don’t.  Don’t.  I’ll tell.  I’ll tell.”

“Do it, do it, do it!”  Charley kept saying over and over, excited about what the pain would do to me.  “I’ll do it.  Let me do it!”

“If I let you up, you are my slave,” she said ignoring Charley, staring at me.  “You will do anything I ask.  Anything.”

“Yes, yes, anything, Holly, anything,” I wailed, hating the predicament I was in, knowing Charley wasn’t going to save me, hoping Holly would not give Charley the hot wire.  I could see Allison wanting to let up on her grip, but she wasn’t going to go against Holly and Charley.  

“Okay, let him go,” she said.  I absolutely hated this game, and I knew Allison did too, but we couldn’t leave Holly’s room.

Suddenly Holly was grabbing Charley and yelling for Allison and me to help her hold him down.  Charley was surprised by how quickly Holly had turned on him, and as he struggled to break her grip, we jumped on his arms, holding onto him for dear life. 

“You have been mean to me for the last time,” she said to Charley when the hanger was red-hot ready.

Charley was furious and frustrated that he couldn’t break our grip.  With Holly’s body on him and Allison and I holding down his arms, there was nothing he could do. But he refused to scream and beg to be let go, like Allison and I had done.  He refused to play the game.

“Will you be my slave?” Holly asked him as she brought the hot and contorted wire to his face, holding one end with a towel to keep from burning her fingers.  “Will you be my slave?”

“No, never.” Charley shouted at her, panting with the exertion of twisting and turning his chest, trying to get up, trying to get free.  “I hate you, and I’ll kill you if you touch me.  Let me go.  Let me go.”

“Charley, tell me.” Holly hissed; she too was getting angry that he wasn’t playing the game.  “Tell me you will do what I say from now on.”

“Never, never,” Charley panted, twisting his head back and forth, looking at Allison and me, “ I’ll kill you both if you don’t let me up.  I swear, I’ll kill you all.”

Charley threatening Allison and me was a significant change in the game.  I knew Allison and I did not wanted to face Charley’s wrath, even if Holly was with us and often she was not.  We started to let up, but Holly screamed,

“Don’t you let him go!”

She turned to Charley, “This is your last chance.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he said, growling in frustration, turning his attention directly to her.  Now it was between the two of them; Holly and Charley one more time; Allison and I spectators to their endless fights. 

“Oh wouldn’t I,” Holly responded. “Watch me!” she said and pressed the red-hot wire hanger down directly onto his chest.

Charley screamed and Allison and I jumped away, shocked that Holly had gone through with it.  Charley, screaming in pain, leaped from the bed and ran out of the room.  I ran after him as he raced up the hallway, crying, holding his pajama top against his chest.  He ran into the bathroom and slammed the bathroom door, locking it behind him.

“Charley, Charley,” I cried against the door. 

“Charley, are you all right.  Are you all right?”  Allison was beside me.  She was worried too. 

We could hear his loud cries in the bathroom, but he wouldn’t talk to us.  I turned and looked at Allison: what would happen to us now?  What would Charley do to us?  How would he punish us?  Maybe we should tell…” 

“Don’t you dare say a word to Mother,” Holly shouted at us from her doorway, almost like she was reading our thoughts.  “I swear I will brand the both of you if you say a word.” 

 It was too much.  Charley was going to kill us, and now Holly was threatening to kill us too.  Mother surely would kill us if she ever found out.

Charley refused to come out of the bathroom.  I could hear him sobbing, as Allison and I walked away not know what else to do.  We went back down the hallway, but didn’t go into Holly’s room.  Not this time.  The game was over.  I went to my bed and tried to go to sleep.  Later, I heard Charley come in the room and go over to his bed.

“I am sorry,” I whispered.  Charley didn’t say a word, but I could hear him moaning in pain.  “Charley, I am so sorry.”

It was a horrible night, as he whimpered for hours in his bed on the other side of our desks, but he never told on Holly or us, and Mother never knew about the incident.  The following Saturday, when Mother sent us back to our bedroom to change our sheets and straighten our room, Charley pounded on me, once more, and in screaming in pain, in hollering for Mother to get him to stop, there was a side of me that was glad.   

****

Mother didn’t take Charley’s guff either, though she had no desire to brand him into submission.  Still, with a metal fly swatter or a plastic waffle ball bat, she would go after him and get him to listen to her.  At times it was crazy, and at times we would be horrified by their struggles, but she was bound and determined that he would listen to her, that he would stop beating up on me, and that he would do the chores she had given him.  With our father in Pittsburgh or on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Charley felt that her authority could be challenged and made it clear he was willing to question hers, as well as anyone else’s, all through his elementary, junior high, and high school years – until he encountered the ultimate authority, when a judge gave him a choice the summer after high school: go to jail or join the marines.  Of course, that began Charley’s marine story, which, given we were in the height of the Vietnam War, was a tale to be told unto itself!  But that’s many years later and way ahead in this story.

****