~ Twenty-Seventh Encounter ~
If I remember right, it was about a week and a half after we returned to school that Mark came running up to me while I was shoveling snow off the front sidewalk.
“Max, you’re not going to believe this!” Mark said, gasping and panting for air. It was actually kind of cool, I mean, seeing him breathing so hard because his breath was creating puffs of frozen air that sort of just hung there in front of his face and then slowly vanished.
“Dude, are you going to die? Cause if you are, can you do it over there where I haven’t shoveled yet.” I joked.
“No, listen!” Mark said, placing a hand on my shoulder to steady himself. Apparently, Mark had run all the way to my house and was seriously out of breath.
“I found out the name of that kid!” He said between huffs.
“What kid?” I asked.
Mark tried to flick my ear but missed. “Hello! The one that played the Baby New Year?!” he said slowly.
I’m so glad he didn’t make contact with my ear because my ears were nearly frozen, and it probably would have shattered.
“Oh man! I nearly forgot!” I said punching him in the arm for nearly flicking my ear. “And stop hitting me or I’ll put icicles in your diaper!”
He hit me in the arm back, “Stop hitting and listen!” he said, sounding serious and backed up so that I couldn’t hit him back.
“Okay, what’s his name?” I asked, leaning on the snow shovel as I pulled off my stocking cap to wipe the sweat from my brow.
“Mike Rabur.” Mark said and then added, “I talked to him for a while after practice while we waited for our parents to come pick us up. He’s really cool and get this, they just moved right before Christmas.”
“Where to?” I asked.
“They live like three blocks over, on Pepper-Ann Court.” Mark said in such a way that made it sound like he’d just revealed a national secret or something even more sacred.
I started to say something else but Mark stepped toward me again and spoke before I could say anything. “Max, you are going to flip out when I tell you that he’s having a huge birthday party, and he invited everyone at the dojo to come.”
“Really? So are you going?” I asked.
“Dude, we’re both going!” He said as though I’d missed out on part of the conversation.
“What do you mean? I’m not in your Judo class.” I said.
“No, I asked him if it was cool for me to bring a friend and he said, ‘The more the better!’ so you get to come too!”
“When?” I asked, now sounding like Mark.
“One week from this Friday.” Mark answered, “So, you in?”
“Do you wear diapers?” I said, purposefully loud, which earned me another punch, but with my winter coat on, I couldn’t hardly feel it.
As you might understand, going to a birthday party for someone you don’t know is kind of like going on a blind date. Not that I’ve ever been on a blind date. Anyway, my first priority was to get a gift for a boy I didn’t know anything about. In the end, I decided that you can’t go wrong with money and my dad even helped me to get a Visa Gift Card that comes in a cool little box. I only had twenty-six dollars and some change saved up, so I had to get a loan from The Bank of Dad. I thought a gift card of only twenty-six bucks would be pretty lame, so I got enough from dad to get a fifty dollar Gift Card. Yeah, a present could have cost me a lot less, but I honestly couldn’t think of a single thing to buy for him.
My next problem was, what to wear. I settled for nice blue jeans, a crisp white button up shirt and I polished up my good shoes. Oh, and I also put on some Bling. My brother let me wear his gold choker which, on me, was more like a dangling chain. My brother helped me put it on and he just had to make a comment about how scrawny he thought I was.
“Do you really think I’m scrawny?” I asked, self-consciously.
To which my brother popped me upside the head and told me not to be dumb. I guess that was his way of saying that I wasn’t scrawny?
I also have this awesome watch that I got for Christmas, it’s gold and silver colored with a cool light brown band. What I like most about it is, the face glows in the dark so you can see what time it is at night.
My brother can be pretty cool sometimes. Like besides loaning me his gold choker, he also followed me into the bathroom and helped me to get my hair looking good. Some say girls spend a lot of time on their hair, but my brother would give them a run for their money. He got the front of my hair to stand up using some hair gel and believe it or not, I even let him trim around my ears a little.
Mark’s mom gave us a ride over to Mike’s house, which turned out to be the old Swanton place. If you scare easily, then you might want to skip this next part.
About three and a half year ago, our small town was rocked by a triple murder. No kidding, it was in all the papers and on every local TV and radio station for weeks. Over the years, there have been countless rumors about what happened, but the truth is, Mr. Swanton, who used to own the Handy-Mart, caught his wife in bed with another man. In a fit of anger, Mr. Swanton killed, not only his wife and her lover, but he also killed their two teenaged daughters and their dog before killing himself. Don’t ask me why he killed his kids and that collie because no one will ever know why he did that. I’m sure you are wondering how I know the truth. My dad is a lawyer. Anyway, most everyone in town believes that the ghosts of the Swanton family still haunt their old home, including yours’ truly, and since the murder, the house had remained for sale with no prospects to buy it. Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, would you want to live in a house where four people and a dog died in it? I know I wouldn’t!
As we pulled up in front of the old Swanton place, Mark’s mom made a funny sound out of her nose and I secretively punched Mark in the arm for not telling me that the party was in a haunted house.
“What was that for?” Mark griped as he rubbed the sore spot.
“Did you leave out a small bit of the story?” I said to him.
“What?” He griped again, “How was I supposed to know that it was this house?”
Without saying a single word to us, Mark’s mom let us out of the car and drove away, leaving the two of us standing on the concrete driveway apron of the haunted house.
It turned out to be a seriously awesome party once Mark and I got over our initial fears of the house. Before moving in, Mr. and Mrs. Rabur had the entire house redone inside and out. It looked marvelous and was so modern looking. They had gone all out for the party too. Every main room of the house was decorated with streamers and the living room had been cleared so that everyone could dance. Oh yeah, and Mike’s dad is a professional DJ. He works for WKEG radio, ‘The best of the 80’s, 90’s and Today!’ as well as running his own DJ business.
While Mark and I stood at the end of the drive way gapping at the house, Mike had opened the front door to let us in.
“Hey, don’t you know that it’s winter?” Mike called out to us.
I looked toward the front door and saw him. With just a quick glance, I was unmistakably sure that he was the same boy I’d seen in the hospital that one day with his broken leg and collar bones. Except, he’d had time to heal and he looked quite a bit more dressed up then the two previous times I’d seen him. Of course those two times, he’d been wearing nothing more than a diaper.
Mark and I made our way to the front door where Mike greeted us by shaking our hands and taking our coats. As I was slipping off my coat, I noticed that Mike was looking at me with an odd trance like expression.
In an explosion of people, the three of us were swept off into the house and the festivities, which were already in full swing. Before I knew it, I was in the living room dancing to some crazy techno music with some blonde haired girl I didn’t know. When the song ended, the girl thanked me for the dance and vanished into the crowd.
I spent the next fifteen minutes fighting my way through the crowd of people while looking for Mark. I found him standing near the kitchen, talking with two other guys and some girl who I later learned were all from his Judo class.
From about halfway across the room, I tried shouting for him over the music, “Mark!”
He couldn’t hear me, so I had to make my way through the throngs of people which took another five minutes. I was finding it difficult to believe that all these people were in the same Judo class.
Finally, I reached Mark and pulled him away from his friends so that I could have two seconds alone with him.
“Dude, this is crazy-insane!” he shouted into my ear so that I could hear him over the loud music.
“Who are all these people?” I asked.
He smiled, shrugged and put it simply, “Who cares!”
“Can you believe that someone Mike’s age would have parents that would throw him a party like this?” I shouted back to Mark.
“You are just about gullible! You do know that don’t you?” Mark said while flicking my chin.
Of course, I had to ask what he meant by that, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mark pointed at the DJ, who I thought was his father. He said, “That’s not his dad.”
“It’s not? Well who is it then?” was my next question.
“Who knows, but he’s great isn’t he?” Mark shouted as he started to dance next to me.
“Wait. Is this even a birthday party?” I asked, thinking that I was starting to get a clue.
“Of course, it’s Mike’s thirteenth birthday.” Mark said while raising his hands over his head and bee-bopping in place.
I finally had enough. I grabbed mark by the front of his shirt, pushed him backward and pinned him to the wall.
“What the heck, Max?!” Mark said, but I didn’t actually hear him, I just read his lips.
“Stop screwing with me Mark. Out with it or so help me.” I shouted right next to his ear so that there was no chance he couldn’t hear me.
“Take it easy Max! You’re acting like there’s something illegal going on here.” Mark said, “It’s just a party. Don’t you wish you could have thrown a party like this when you turned thirteen?”
“Are his parents even here?” I asked.
“Come on Max! Get real!” he said and before I could say anything else, some girl in what looked like an old fashioned bathing suit pulled him away to dance. That was when someone bumped into me and spilled red punch all down the front of my white shirt. I don’t even think they knew they had done it, because when I looked up, no one seemed to be paying any attention to me at all.
I fought my way back to where I thought the bathroom would be. I’m not sure what I was going to do once I got there. I knew that my shirt was ruined but still, I had to try to rinse it out some.
There was only one door that I wasn’t able to look into, so I had to assume that it was the bathroom. However, it appeared to be occupied. I stood there and waited five minutes, then ten, then fifteen and still, whoever was in there hadn’t come out. Finally, I knocked on the door, but even down the hallway, the music was too loud to hear if someone said something on the other side of the door. I tried putting my ear against the door and knocking again but still, I heard nothing from inside so I tried the knob and it opened.
However, right at that moment, about ten or more guys came plowing down the hallway. For a panic filled second, I thought they were after me, but they blew past me, knocking me into the bathroom. When I got back to my feet, I quickly closed and locked the door. When I turned around, I saw Mike sitting on the edge of the bathtub and he was crying.
Seconds seemed like minutes as I stood there with one hand on the doorknob I just locked, and the other cupped over my gapping mouth. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Mike was sitting on the edge of the bathtub wearing a dazzling metallic orange button-up shirt and khaki pants. He really looked good except for the painfully obvious wet streak that ran down the inside length of his left pant-leg, all the way to his brown loafer.
I don’t think either of us could believe that the other was there. From the look on Mikes face, I could tell that he had thought he’d locked the bathroom door. I could also tell that he was teetering on the edge of losing it, and what I would do next would either push him over that edge or possibly save him from a life of ridicule and shame.
My hands must have been sweating because my hand slipped off the knob. Having not realized I was doing it, I had been putting some of my weight against the door because when my hand slipped, I nearly fell over again. Quickly, I reached out and caught hold of the other wall to brace myself. That is when Mike appeared to partially snap out of his shame induced coma.
Forgetting about the condition of my shirt and only being concerned about Mike’s connection, I knew that I had to act fast. Without thinking any of it out, I put my hand back on the knob and said to him, “Lock this door behind me and don’t open it for anyone. I’ll be right back. I’ll knock three times, pause and knock twice more. That way you’ll know it is me.”
The door creaked slightly as I slowly opened it enough to look into the hallway to make sure the coast was clear. There were two girls standing at the far end of the hall with their backs to me. They were talking with some guy with green hair. Really, the guy had vividly green hair, which was cut semi-short and twisted into clumpy spikes.
Before I made my way out of the bathroom, I pulled my head back in and looked at Mike. He now had his face in his hands and his entire body was shaking uncontrollably.
“Mike? MIKE!” I whisper shouted to get his attention, but he was completely lost to his emotions. There was nothing else to do but hope that no one else tried to get into the bathroom while I went looking for his room and a dry pair of pants.
I doubt if I was gone more than five minutes, but I’m sure to Mike, it must have felt like a million years. I got lucky, the first bedroom I looked in, I knew right away was Mike’s. On the far wall was a poster of Mike in his full Judo gear. Mark had told me what they call the clothes they wear but I can’t remember right now what he said they were. Mike’s room didn’t look like the room of a teenager. I was expecting posters on all of the walls, clothes scattered all over the floor and well, I guess I was expecting a slightly more mature version of my friend Sean’s room. But Mike’s room was the exact opposite of Sean’s room. It was clean, tidy and best of all; it didn’t reek of stale pee. There was no dresser in Mike’s room, so I had no idea where he kept all his socks, t-shirts and underwear. I did find a pair of pants hanging inside the closet, which is what I had come for.
Upon returning, I tried the knob. Sure enough, it was unlocked. I slipped back in and made sure to relock it. Maybe Mike thought I had gone out to tell everyone about him peeing in his pants because when I returned, he looked utterly shocked at my presence. I thought Mike was going to fall backward into the tub when I showed him the pants I’d brought back with me. They weren’t kakis but they were nearly the same color and no one would know that he’d changed pants.
Mike blinked three times, but didn’t say or do anything.
“Come on! Get your pants off!” I said softly while double checking that I had locked the door.
He opened his mouth and I saw his lips move but not even so much as a squeak came out. Mike didn’t look like a boy who was entering his teen years. As the tears continued to flow from his glassy eyes, I couldn’t help but think how much he reminded me of little Damien.
I moved toward Mike and he must not have expected me to do that because that’s when he did fall backward into the tub and hit his head. I helped him back out of the tub and just like a young child who’s hurt himself, Mike again began crying and holding his head.
“Boy, Mike is having a ghastly introduction into his teen years.” I thought to myself as I tried to calm him down. Another thought crept into my mind. Actually, it was a weird thought to have, but never-the-less, my brain did come up with it. “Thirteen, both a young man and yet still a little boy at heart.”
After I checked that Mike’s head wasn’t hurt too badly, I made him stand up, and without asking him for permission, I began to unbutton the front of his pants.
The music out in the house changed to a hard punk rock song that I actually knew. It was by the group ‘OUTL4W’ and it made the walls vibrate from the thundering bass. I could even feel the bass in my chest, or was that the beating of my own heart?
I glanced up at Mike as I began to slide his wet pants down his thighs. He wasn’t looking at me, but instead, he was looking straight up at the ceiling light as thought he was trying to hide his eyes from me and the situation.
When I saw his bright-yellow SpongeBob SquarePants underwear, I almost laughed out loud, but I managed to swallow hard and forced it down into my stomach. His pants were bunched up around his ankles and I had to physically lift his left leg, and then the other to get them completely off of him.
The whole time, Mike continued to stare at the ceiling, so, without any hesitation, I reached back up and pulled down his SpongeBob underwear, exposing his nudity to me. That’s when I saw that, unlike Damien, Mike had already begun puberty. The majority of Mike’s body didn’t show the normal signs of puberty, but beneath his pee soaked underwear was all the evidence that Mike was changing. Actually, I think he had more hair down there then I did however, and this may have been due to him being wet and cold, but his plumbing didn’t seem to be much bigger then Damien’s.
Mike must have wet himself shortly after I found him, because when I took his underwear off of him he was still wet enough that I felt like I should dry him off before helping him put on my pants. There was a white hand towel hanging on the side of the vanity that I used to sop up any lingering traces of pee. However, when the towel made contact with his penis, Mike jumped and squawked like someone had just jabbed him in the ribs. Amazingly, he didn’t take his eyes off that darn ceiling light, not even for a second.
As it turned out, the pants I had retrieved were slightly too small for him. It took some effort, but I managed to get them pulled up his legs and buttoned around his waist however, getting them zipped proved to be a lot more difficult. I made Mike suck in his gut and pull up on the front of his pants while, with one hand, I protected his penis by keeping it away from the zipper, while with my other hand, I tugged the zipper up with all my might.
When I finally had his dry pants on him, I rolled up the wet pair, stuffed them into the vanity behind a stack of towels and instructed Mike, who was using some toilet paper to blow his nose, to retrieve them after the party.
I stood up and faced him. His eyes were red, swollen and still glassy, but he wasn’t crying anymore. His cheeks were tear-stained and he needed to blow his nose again. Otherwise, he was looking much calmer.
I retrieved a rag from under the vanity, soaked it with cold water and washed his face for him. After leaving the rag on his eyes for a minute, they looked much better. With one last blow of his nose, I asked him, “So Birthday boy, are you ready to go back to your party?”
He smiled with just one side of his mouth, nodded and said, “I think so.”
But then, his face became screwed up again, and for a panic filled second, I thought he was going to start crying again, but he didn’t. Instead, he asked me, “Don’t I know you?”
It was my turn to smile and to be cute I said, “The names Bond, James Bond.” But Mike must not have been ready for funny yet because he held that same peculiar expression. “Okay, you got me. I’m not James Bond.” I said, this time taking his hand and shaking it. “I’m Max, Max Riddle.”
But my name didn’t seem to ring a bell for him, so I then said, “I’m friends with Mark from your Judo class.”
That did it. His eyebrows jumped on his forehead. “No you’re not.” He said, “You’re that guy from the hospital.”
“Yeah that was me too.” I said holding my hands up like I was surrendering.
“Yeah, I remember you!” He said pointing at my face, “But you look different without all those red swollen bumps.”
I wish he would have left it at that, but he didn’t.
“You also look so old now.” He said, and then blushed slightly when it dawned on him what he’d just said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like…”
I cut him off, “Ah, don’t worry about it.” I said with a smile.
Absentmindedly, I stroked my own cheek with my free hand while my other hand was still being grasped by Mike.
“You look different too, I mean without your casts and wheelchair.” Of course, I also wanted to say that he looked different without his diaper, but I think that might have been pushing it too far.
Before the moment could become uncomfortable again, I stepped to the side, clicked the lock in the middle of the doorknob and pushed Mike out into the hallway.
Mike kind of tensed up for a second, but I rubbed his shoulders, leaned down next to his ear and said, “Relax, it’s a jamming party! Just go have fun! Oh, and Happy Birthday!”
He looked over his shoulder, smiled and started walking but stopped and turned to face me.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re shirt! It’s a mess!” he said.
I looked down at my own shirt. “Oh, yeah. I totally forgot that someone spilled their punch on me.”
Mike took my hand and lead me back down the hall, past his bedroom door and into what I could only assume was his parents room.
“Are your parents here tonight?” I asked as we stepped into the room.
“They are down in the basement.” He said as he released his grip on my hand and crossed to the wall of mirrored closet doors.
“What are they doing in the basement?” I asked.
“Hanging out.” He said while opening one of the doors and suddenly vanishing inside the closet.
He reemerged a moment later holding a white button up shirt.
“Whoa, is that your dad’s?” I asked, “I can’t wear your dad’s clothes.”
“It’s okay, he can’t wear it anymore. He got too fat for the clothes in this side of the closet.” He said as he handed me the shirt.
I looked at my own stained shirt, then the shirt in my hand before beginning my little strip show in front of Mike.
“Wow, that’s a nice necklace!” Mike commented.
“Oh, thanks. It’s actually my older brother’s but he let me wear it for the party.” I said, letting my shirt fall to the floor.
“Is that his watch too?” Mike asked.
I chuckled at the way Mike was trying to make small talk. “Nah, I got this for Christmas.”
I put on his father’s shirt, which was too big for me. But after I tucked it in and rolled the sleeves up, it didn’t look quite as big.
Now that the two of us were presentable again, we made our way back out into the crowd where he was swallowed up by the throngs of people. Unfortunately, I didn’t see him again for the remainder of the evening. Actually, I had also lost track of Mark and I made a mental note that when I found him, I would thank him for dragging me to this kick butt party. Of course, I never did tell Mark what happened between Mike and me in the bathroom. That’s one secret that will forever remain locked away within the vast recesses of my mind.
The party was still going strong when it was time for Mark and me to leave. I had hoped that Mike would return with our coats, but he didn’t. Instead, that same guy with the green spiky hair brought us our coats.
“Hey man, thanks for coming to my lil’ bro’s party.” He said sounding like one of those stoner guys you’ll find in just about every teen movie.
“Mike’s your brother?” Mark asked, and I was glad he had asked it so that I didn’t have too.
“Yeah, most of the time he’s a real turd, but I guess he deserves to celebrate turning thirteen in a big way. Don’t you?” he asked while scanning the crowd.
“Yeah, this is one heck of a party.” I said.
Then he looked right me. I had completely forgotten that I was wearing their dad’s shirt, so when he said to me, “Oh, hey man, you that dude what helped my lil’ bro tonight?” I think I may have blushed a little, as I shyly smiled and nodded.
He held up his knuckles for me to bump, which I did.
“Righteous! Mike told me about it.” He said, wanting to bump fists again. “Names Ryan, and thanks for being so totally cool about it all, dude. Oh yeah, I’ll make sure you get your shirt back.”
I tugged on his father shirt that I was wearing, “Yeah and I’ll do the same.”
“Nah, man, you keep that. My old man won’t ever miss it.” Ryan said as he handed me my coat.
“Thanks again for coming,” Ryan started to say, “and well, for everything you did for the little turd.”
This time, I held my knuckles up for him to bump and when he did, he once again relied, “Righteous!”
Mark’s mom was already waiting in the car at the end of the driveway. As we drove back to my house, Mark and I didn’t have a chance to talk because his mom was asking us all about the house, what it looked like inside, if we saw any ghosts, and dumb stuff like that. I don’t think she was serious about the ghost stuff but, it was kind of funny to think that even with everything that had happened inside the house, I’d totally forgotten that the place was supposedly haunted. I couldn’t help wondering if I had remembered at the time, if I would have gone back into Mike’s room and his parents’ bedroom. Yeah, I probably would have gone, but I probably would have been a lot more apprehensive, at least more than I had been at the time.
