Near the end of that school year, Mark and I were walking home from school when Mark got a funny look on his face. Not funny as in Ha-Ha, good joke, but funny as in, he was in pain or something. I asked him what was wrong and then saw it. Mark had been wearing GoodNites during the day as well as at night for a while now, but today, his GoodNites had sprung a leak and was running down his pant leg. This was very bad because Mark’s dad is a huge jerk and he hits on Mark all the time for the stupidest stuff. I mean, my parents might spank me or smack my face when I say something really bad. Like the time I spilled a whole bowl of cereal on the dining room floor. Without knowing it, the ‘F’ word came out my mouth. My mom smacked my face so hard that I nearly went down to the floor. I got grounded for a week for that slip of the tongue. However, Mark’s dad would have pulled off his belt and laid into Mark until he made him black and blue. I have never personally witnessed Mark getting beaten, but I have heard about it a couple times as I had been going over to see him and heard it happening as I was walking up the front walk. I ran back home both times and never told Mark I had heard it happen. Mark and I had talked about it several times. It was pretty obvious to me since I always got to see the bruises that he had all over.
With just a look, we both knew what the other was thinking. From that first day when we swapped clothes, Mark and I had always worn each other clothes and when he slept over at my house, he would always wear my clothes and I always wore his when I stayed at his house. So we both knew right away that we needed to swap pants and underwear before Mark could go home, but we were outside and in the open. We both looked around and could not find any place that would be secluded enough. Then Mark had an idea. Without sharing his idea with me, he just said, “Come on!” and took off running.
We ran for three blocks, passing his street on the way before Mark finally slowed down. Then, I realized what he was thinking. There on the corner was the Quick-E-Mart. We went behind the building and had all the privacy we needed. Mark quickly shed his pants and the wet GoodNite, which was dripping as he pulled it off. I too slipped out of my pants and underwear, handing them to him. I took his wet pants and slipped them on. The pee was cold from having run all this way. Once we were both redressed, we started back toward his house, dropping his soaked goodnight in the trash dumpster behind the store before we left. No one was ever the wiser and I was able to rinse out his pants when I got home and I hung them over my desk chair to dry. We swapped our cloths back again the next day after gym class.