The phone only rang once before I heard Bill Killian, Damien’s grandfather, answer.

“Hello Bill.” I said, “This is Max.”

“Oh, hello Max. I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now. We’ve got a bit of a family emergency here.” Bill said.

“Yeah, I bet it has something to do with Damien?” I said and then listened.

For all of two seconds, there was complete silence on the line before Bill asked, “Is he there?”

“Yes sir, but…” I paused because I didn’t know how to say that Damien had turned up only wearing shoes and a sheet. “Uh, he came to my door asking for candy but the thing is…” I paused again.

I heard Bill saying something but he sounded far away, so I had to assume that he’d either pulled the phone away from his mouth or he was covering the receiver with his hand.

“He’s still there with you now right?” Bill asked.

“Yes sir but… well, he wasn’t wearing any clothes.” I said quickly.

“I’ll be right over.” Bill said and hung up the phone.

My head was spinning and I stood there next to the phone for several seconds before I realized that Damien wasn’t making any more noises. Thinking he might have escaped I ran back to my room, only to find the chair was still in place.

“Damien?” I called out.

There wasn’t a response.

“Damien, are you ok in there?” I asked and put my ear to the closet door. I could hear Damien sobbing heavily from inside.

I was about to remove the chair to let him out when the doorbell rang.

“Holy cow that was fast!” I thought to myself.

Sure enough, it was Bill at the door along with Damien’s mother. I knew it was her because I’d met her when she had brought Damien to see me when I was in the hospital. She looked just as bad now as she had then.

I let them both in right away. Bill didn’t look like himself either. I’d never seen Bill looking like he did and I’m not sure how to describe his countenance. He seemed like a bomb that could go off at the slightest jostle. He looked around the room and started to ask where Damien was but stopped when he looked at me. “Max you’re bleeding!” he said while pointing at my shirt.

Of course, I couldn’t see the wound because I had on my shirt, but that didn’t matter because I could see the blood that had seeped through the fabric. I reached up, touched my shoulder and then looked at my hand. “Well, that little…” I fumed, “He broke the skin!”

“He bit you?” Damien’s mother asked shrilly and I remember thinking that she sounded drunk or high. “Damien James Foster, you come here this instant!” Damien’s mother shouted.

“Not going to work!” I said to her, “He was freaking out and trying to run out of the house with nothing on again. So, I put him in my closet.”

“You locked my son in a closet!” she asked, rounding upon me with snakelike eyes as if what I had done was a bad thing.

“Oh, I’m the bad guy here?” I snapped back at her. I know I should be respectful of my elders, but from the little I know about her, Damien’s mother isn’t exactly a good person, let alone a good mother.

“Lisa!” Bill said, addressing Damien’s mother in an authoritative voice, “I’m only going to tell you this once more. If you don’t calm yourself down, I am going to call the police myself.”

Okay, I’ve known Bill a long time and never, and I do mean NEVER, have I seen or heard him sound so angry in all those years. The veins were popping out of his neck and forehead like raging, pulsating rivers. Heck, he even scared me. Obviously, something was going on, something bigger than the immediate picture.

Bill turned back to me and calmly said, “Max, thank you for calling us and for keeping the boy here with you. Why don’t you go get that cleaned up and I’ll go talk with Damien.”

I nodded my agreement and showed him where my room was. When Damien’s mother tried to follow Bill into my room he turned to her and said, “Don’t you think it is better if you wait in the living room?”

“But he’s my son!” she said, sounding like she was about to become unhinged. Even so, she didn’t go in with him and I’m glad because I really didn’t want that skank in my bedroom.

Instead of going to the bathroom to care for my bleeding shoulder, I went to my mom and dad’s bedroom and called dad’s cell phone.

“Hello?” I heard dad answer.

“Dad? Can you come home right away?” I asked.

“Why? What’s wrong Max? Are you alright? Is it your head again?” he said sounding concerned.

I proceeded to give him the short version of what was happening and he said that he and mom were only about five minutes from the house; they got here in less than two.

In between the time that I had hung up the phone and my parents returning home, I’d gone into the bathroom and got a cold washcloth to put on my shoulder, under my shirt.

As dad and mom were rushing through the front door, a still nude Damien, who was now missing one of his shoes, came running out of my bedroom, past his startled mother and would have made a clean getaway had my father not swooped the boy off the floor with a single arm. I think the fact that he’d been recaptured again, this time by my father, sort of threw him for a loop for several seconds. Those few seconds was all that my father needed to get complete control of the boy.

From past experiences wresting around with my dad, I know that he has ways of completely immobilizing me and my brother without even hurting us. He sort of ties us up, using our own limbs against us. That’s just what he did with Damien. Dad was holding Damien kind of the way adults carry little kids on their hips, but at the same time, he had a hold of both of Damien’s wrists with one hand and had both of Damien’s legs crossed and trapped against his side, so that he couldn’t hit or kick. When Damien made as if he was going to bite my dad, I thought for a split second that dad was going to throw the boy down, but all dad said was, “Do you want to find out what my belt feels like against your backside?” That sure got Damien’s attention!

Let me tell you from personal experience, when my dad raises his voice, people pay attention. There is just something about the way he talks when he is upset or angry that can make your blood run cold. I can also testify that my dad is an expert when it comes to the art of using a belt, and I don’t mean for holding up his pants.

However, what dad seemed to be overlooking was the fact that he was holding a young, mad, NUDE boy tightly to his side. Damien did not bite my father, nor did he kick, hit, scream, shout or say a single word… no, what Damien did next said more than any words could say. He peed on my dad!

“Damien!” Bill shouted while moving across the living room, but my dad put up a hand to stop Bill in his tracks.

“Please! It’s not the first time I’ve had a little boy pee on me,” dad shot me a quick, knowing glance, “and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

I would have loved to have had the ability to stop time right at that instance so that I could ask dad just what he meant by that. Maybe one of these days I will get up the nerve to ask him.

From that point, things started to calm way, way down. Gladys had showed up a few minutes later looking as though she had been doing a lot of crying. Mom had taken me to the bathroom to help bandage my shoulder. Boy, mom was sure mad about Damien biting me, but I told her that it was okay and that I was more worried about Damien because obviously, something was going on with him.

When Momm and I came back out of the bathroom, I saw that Gladys was sitting on the sofa with Damien who was wearing one of my t-shirts, and on the other end of the sofa, Damien’s mother was sitting and crying into her hands. Bill and dad were talking in the kitchen, but when I turned the corner into the kitchen I saw that two police Officers were in there with them.

“Ah, here he is,” dad said motioning for me to come over to them.

“Max, this is Officer Lewis and Officer Clark.” Dad introduced, “This is my son Max, who I was just telling you about.”

I shook the Officer’s hands and tried to keep a straight face, but they perceptibly knew I was holding something back. “What is it?” Officer Clark asked, while still shaking my hand.

“Are you guys really Lewis and Clark?” I chuckled and thankfully they did too. “Yeah we get that a lot.” Officer Lewis said.

I happened to glance up at dad and he didn’t seem to have found it very funny.

I told the officers exactly what happened, from the minute I heard the knock at the door, right up to when I came into the kitchen.

Despite the fact that I insisted that I was fine, they still called for a paramedic to come check my shoulder out, “For the record,” Officer Clark said, trying to reassure me.

While the paramedic swabbed my shoulder with iodine, Officer Lewis talked with Bill and Gladys and his partner, Officer Clark, talked with Damien and his mom.

Okay, I still don’t know what started all of this, but I do know why Damien ran away from his Grandparents. I overheard Gladys telling the police that Damien had an accident while sitting on her brand new couch. Apparently, earlier that day, her new couch had been delivered and a couple hours later, Damien had peed all over it. I guess there was a lot of heated words and shouting done by all, and while his mom was trying to get him into the bathtub, Damien escaped and ran away. Now, why he tried the trick-or-treat bit on me, I’ve no idea at all, but who knows what goes through the mind of a junior psychopath like Damien.