Unknown Violation

It was dark outside, Dale was just 8 years old and in the second grade. A slightly troubled young man, he was sometimes a happy child.  He was already learning to appear happy even when he wasnt. Dale and his sister sat for hours making mud pies, building roads with his toy trucks, playing school.

He had just started school for that year and felt like the big brother that had to show sis what school was like.  Him and Lori spent entire evenings in the back yard with these activities because the more time they spent out of the house, the less trouble they got in to inside of the house.

Usually.

Dale and his sister Lori got along pretty good most of the time. The usual brother and sister problems occasionally popped up. Little tiffs here and there but still just as close as a brother and sister can ever be.  They always stood by each other when threatened by the neighborhood bullies.  They would comfort one another when ever they were punished.

In those days, Dale and Lori took their baths in the kitchen sink.  They lived in an old two story house that lacked on plumbing. Their father Ron was working on it though. The kitchen sink water worked. The bath tub and toilet downstairs in the basement hadn't been installed yet but at least they had a tub now.  Water was supplied by a cistern out back and the toilet currently in use was actually an old out house two seater located within the garage behind the house.  Dale and Lori never could understand why there were two seats in there.  They only knew that the garage had a wooden floor and when they needed to use the toilet, they had to stomp on the wooden floor as they walked in order to scare the rats away.

Lori fell asleep early.  It had been a pretty exciting day.  Dale was parking his bicycle out front by his usual "tree" parking spot when he noticed that the rock where he usually parked his front tire had a head.

Yes, the biggest turtle he had ever seen was in front of him all along.  He was an avid hunter of box turtles.  He loved finding them, he loved feeding them and generally loved having them around.  This turtle was much different.

It's shell was flatter than usual with lots of pointy bumps on the back of it.  It's head was rather large and it's mouth was open and rather formidable looking.  Dale called out to his mom who immediately freaked out and got Uncle Barry next door to come and get it.

Uncle Barry did just that.  Uncle Barry also loved turtles and this was his specialty and also his favorite.  A big mud turtle (snapper) was soon to become soup.

The baby sitter, a close family member had arrived during the ruckous as Dales parents were going out for the night.  Darkness was beginning to fall and the day was winding down.

Dale and Lori's parents had left and Fran (the babysitter) was making sure that Dale was getting his bath in the kitchen sink.

Dale was enjoying his bath.  Sure he fussed when it was time to
wash off the day's filth, but he liked it because whenever he grabbed the faucet and the light switch at the same time (yes, the light switch was located over the sink),  it would shock him, and that tickled.

Fran came in after checkin on Lori and retrieved Dale out of his make-shift tub.  She got him to stand up and rinsed him off ever so gingerly.  Pouring cup after cup of nice, warm water, Dale watched as the soap suds slithered down his body into the water. Fran poured ever so slowly over his genitals as he became erect.

Dale didn't know why he became erect, he only knew that he enjoyed the feeling of the warm water pouring over him and the warm and secure feeling he felt as she held him and caressed him.

Fran gently wrapped the towel around Dale's little body and carried him across the floor next to the table.  The table was one of those old oval shaped tables with a marble design laminated onto it's surface and a silver metal trim around the edge.  It also had a crack that ran across the middle of the table as he enjoyed it whenever his mom and dad added the center leaf  whenever they had company.

Fran sat Dale down on another towel she had lain in the floor so that he could lay down on the towel without touching any of the floor.  She went to the refrigerator and removed a plate with a leftover hambone on it wrapped in tin foil and sat it on the table.

Fran was telling Dale the story about Hansel and Gretal as she picked up the ham bone and started rubbing it with her hands, gently stroking up and down.  She knelt down to Dale, took his hands and began rubbing Dale's hands all over the ham bone with her.

Her hands left the hambone and she began rubbing Dale's chest, then around his nipples and softly up and down his torso.  He enjoyed the sensations although he had no clue why all of this felt funny to him.  Maybe strange, he was only eight years old and in those days, kids knew nothing and were protected from knowing about such things as sexual overtones or other things.

Dale's mom always told him, "When taking a bath you was down as far as possible, then you wash up as far as possible. Then you was possible."  He knew within his mind that there was something special about "possible," he just didn't know what that was.

Fran eventually worked her way down to possible and stayed there a while before removing her blue jeans.  She straddled over self over possible and began rocking.  He didn't know what it was about.  She rocked for a short time and then got up and reclothed.

Fran walked over to the sink and ran a fresh sink of water where she gingerly bathed him again as she sang "The itsy-bitsy spider ... "

Dale was thirty nine years old before he ever told anyone what had happened to him.  He'll no doubt be spending the next thirty nine still trying to forget it ever happened.  Through the years, he subconsciously believed that getting excited was in some way of doing something wrong.  He wasn't sure why, he just felt that since "possible" was something you don't mention to anyone, then "possible" must have been something really bad.  Since Fran enjoyed rubbing ham all over it, it must have been rubbed there to hide the shame. Although he was too young to understand what had happened, he knew it wasn't right and locked it away.

Still no closure, still no retribution, he spends most of his life avoiding confrontation and has had a life always trying to acquire that which has avoided him for so long, true self confidence.

Mae

     I was walking out the door of my Grand parent's house when I suddenly stopped and turned my head toward Grandma.  She sat at her kitchen table and I couldn't stop this overwhelming feeling to walk back to her.  "Grandma" I said as I bent down to hug her. "I love you." 

    She was so pale.  My Grandma was so special.  I sensed something was wrong and she said "I love you too Dave."  She smiled as I kissed her on the cheek.  "Are you all right?" I asked.  She assured me that she was fine.  I hugged her again and walked back to the doorway.  I stood there looking back at her for a moment as I thought about what a great Grandma she had been all my life.   Somehow I knew, yet didn't want to know.  That was the last time I would ever see my Grandma alive.

    Again, I expressed my love for her before saying good-bye and heading out the door.  Grandpa was sitting in the shade around back and I was leaving for the evening.  I had spent most of that day helping him with the gardening chores.  I did a lot of that during my summers off of school and a most days after school during growing season.  Sometimes those days were long and very, very hot, and somedays not. 

`    This was the end of one of those days that had seemed so very long, yet in reality was just another day that I was Grandpa's little helper.  My cousins always teased me about it.  They lived right next door to Grandma and Grandpa, but for some reason I was the one who got dropped off that quarter mile or I walked that quarter mile to help Grandpa work in the garden while they sat in the air conditioning or went out and played all evening.  Those days I didn't necessarily hate going down to work with my Grandpa, but there were days that I would have preferred fishing at the lake that I had to pass every time I went to go help him.

    I remember as I shut the door behind me how cold Grandma's skin felt when I kissed her on the cheek.  The weakness in her voice and the far away look she had in her eyes.  I think she knew.  I think I knew also.  I just didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to know.

    I got home shortly after that and petted Dino (my dog) as I walked across the yard onto the porch.  I opened the screen door and went inside.

    I found mom in the living room as she was hanging up the phone.  She asked me if I had helped Grandpa with everything we had to do.  She knew that sometimes Grandpa's patience would get a little thin with me and he would send me home for the day because sometimes I just didn't get what he was talking about.  We had had a good day that day and I told her that everything had went fine that day.

    She asked how me, "how did mom look today?"  I told her that I didn't think she was doing all that well and Mom shook her head and said, "that woman is just gonna sit down there and let herself die."  Grandma had already been in the hospital  several times over the past few months.  I always believed it was just because she couldn't hold her food down.  In those days, it wasn't the kids' place to pry into reasons why the grown-ups did what they did.  Kids were meant to be seen and not heard.

    I nodded in agreement when Mom said that.  Somehow I knew she was right as I expressed my agreement with her.  I think Mom thought I was agreeing with her just because I always had the tendency to agree with the adults about whatever it was they talked about.  I hated confrontations.  I grew up with confrontations going on all around me and I was at the point of life then that I not only wanted to get along with everyone in my family, but I was already in my last year of high school, struggling with becoming an adult, and with becoming accepted.  I always felt like an outcast, even around my own family.

    That night, while laying down I tossed and turned for hours  before I finally went to sleep.  Sometime during the night I heard the Pinto (yeah, we had Ford Pinto's in our family) speeding away from our house as the tires tried to maintain their traction on the gravel.  I thought my Dad was going on an ambulance run in the middle of the night.  We were both members of the volunteer fire department and ambulance service.  Sometimes in the middle of the night when the fire alarm would go out, my Dad and I would both respond.

    I was going back to sleep, he was already gone and when I missed the ride to a call, the only thing I could do was accept the fact that I missed out and go back to bed.

    I was almost asleep when I seen a glow form in the corner of my room.  My heart pounded as I watched and then my Grandma appeared.  I was no longer apprehensive as she said "Everything is going to be fine Dave."  I knew somehow that Grandma was going to be fine as her image started to fade.  "I love you too Dave" she said, as she disappeared.  I felt relieved and rolled over and went back to sleep.

    Mom woke us the next morning for school.  My sister and I got ready for school, and ate breakfast.  Mom always fixed a healthy breakfast for us before school.  Always bacon and eggs, or pancakes, waffles, biscuits and sausage and eggs.  Ahhhh, the good ole breakfast days.  Breakfast was always my favorite meal.

    My sister and I sat on the bus in our usual seats as the bus stopped in front of our cousins' house.  Our cousins got on the bus and sat down.  As the bus went into motion, our cousin Tim told me that Grandma had died during the night.  "You know Grandma's dead dont ya?" he asked me.  Instantly I went into denial.  "Uh uh!" I replied, "I just seen her last night."  There was no way this was true.  "Mom and Dad never told us!"

    I remember Tim teasing us because Mom and Dad never told us that Grandma had died.  Because of that reason alone I just knew that Tim was lying.  Sometimes he did stuff like that just because he was one of the cool kids of the bus.  You know, one of the kids that always sat in the back seat and pretty much controlled the goings on of the bus atmosphere.

    The bus pulled up to school and we unloaded.  I stood outside the doors with my sister while we waited for Tim to disembark.  He stepped off of the bus and we stopped him and asked him if he was joking or for real.  "I'm for real Dave, Grandma died last night."

    My sister and I were crushed.  Why didn't we get told?  We asked Mom later on about that and she explained that she didn't want us going to school upset if they had told us before school.  We found out anyway and not only were we upset about Grandma dying during the night, but we were now feeling betrayed as well.  We were emotionally devastated.  Why?