I woke to the sound of my bedroom window rattling. Was someone breaking in? A flash of lightning almost blinded me as it lit my room. I waited several seconds and then the rumble of thunder came rolling in.
Rain began to pelt the window and the wind was starting to gust as a black wall of clouds rolled in blotting out the sun. The weather fit my mood, I felt depressed. It did not help that my head was pounding. I always seemed to get a headache when a cold front came through due to the change in barometric pressure.
I looked at the clock by my bed and the neon-blue numbers said it was 6:59. I knew I had something important to do today but for a moment, I couldn't get the sleepy fog out of my mind. I was not a morning person but something told me I needed to get up. I heard my Mom holler at me and my brother, "Get your butts out of bed, you have school today."
There was another flash of lightning and much quicker rumble. The storm was getting closer. My first day of high school and I was going to get drenched running to the bus.
I heard my older brother get to the bathroom before I did. Great, having him in the house was worse than having a sister. He would hog the bathroom until it was time to go. We shared a bathroom between our two rooms. To heck with it, I had to pee.
When I heard the shower start, I walked into a wall of steam coming out above the shower curtain. My brother Greg jerked the shower curtain back. His dark brown hair was plastered to his head and I saw his blue-grey eyes were communicating my impending doom.
"You flush it and you die."
My evil grin made him nervous. The plumbing in our home was terrible. We live in an old Victorian-style house, circa 1925. Our neighborhood had been the upscale section of town back in the day. Over the years, many of these large homes have gone into disrepair.
In the mid 2000's a revival came when the housing boom occurred. These old Victorians have a lot of square footage and natural wood floors under layers of carpet and padding. It became very profitable to buy and flip these homes. My Mom, being in real estate, saw the potential and talked Dad into buying this one.
For the past ten years, we had been working on this home to bring it back to its former glory. The plumbing was from a renovation in the 1960s. Obviously, they hadn't done a very good job. If you flush the toilet, the shower would go scalding hot.
"What are you going to do for me if I don't?" I challenged my big brother.
"I will make this easy for you. I won't beat your ass!"
Well now ... he thinks he is going to be a tough guy today. I loved pulling his chain but I needed a favor. I was in no mood for the bus. I got a serious look and said, "The last time we wrestled I won. I'm not really all that scared. You will have to make me a better offer."
Since mid-spring, I had hit my growth spurt. I grew a little over six inches and put on thirty pounds. I was now over 6' tall and 185 lbs. My brother was three years older, 5'10", and 175 lbs. On Saturday, I caught him unaware and tackled him from behind. It was a game that we had played since we were little boys.
To our mothers bewilderment we had fallen right back into it when I came home. I had reached for his wrist to try to put him into a submission hold. Luckily, I had grabbed his thumb. As I bent his thumb back, he squealed like a little girl. I held on for dear life knowing if he broke free, I was dead. To my surprise, he surrendered. This was my first clear victory in almost a year. I felt it necessary to gloat.
Greg started to step out of the shower and I decided to try another strategy. "Hang on ... I don't want to have to wrestle you into submission, especially with you all wet and NAKED!" The naked comment slowed him down. He knew I was not beyond kicking him in the balls if I was going to get my ass kicked.
"Why don't you just agree to give me a ride to school today since it's raining?"
Greg knew that Mom would make him take me anyway, so he smirked said, "Okay."
I had just gotten home from my summer of internment the previous Friday. It felt good to be falling back into my relationship with Greg. I had missed him.
Two weeks before summer vacation started, I talked some friends into going drinking. I had started hanging out with a wilder crowd and drifting away from my friends. I found an empty house. Actually, I used my Mom's realtor website to find a foreclosure.
If they ever found out, she could get into serious trouble. I jimmied the lock on the back door to break in. This house didn't have any neighbors, making it perfect for our needs. I turned on the water and power so we would be comfortable.
I'm not sure why, but I was out of control. Here I was in junior high and I broke into a home so that my crew could have a party. Just a few months ago, this would have been unthinkable.
I had good friends and a stable family life.
However, I found myself depressed. Getting stoned and drunk made me numb so I wouldn't have to face my inner demons.
There were rumors that mental illness ran on my Mom's side of the family. I sometimes wonder if I might have similar issues. Mom is a great example. She seems to have no filters. Whatever is on her mind, she says.
I know it bothers her when she hurts someone's feelings, but she does make life interesting, so when I started drinking I was not sure if it was because something was wrong or just normal teenage angst.
On the night in question one of the girls, Lily Anderson, was drunk and passed out. She was a cute little pixie. Because of her size, she had a hard time keeping up when we all started drinking hard, so I wasn't too concerned when I saw her drooling in a corner.
I did check every now and then to make sure no one molested her. There were a few people at the party I didn't trust. Then one of the girls screamed. I looked over and Lily's lips were a pale blue. All the color had drained from her face and she looked dead. There was bedlam as teens scattered.
My Dad is in charge of Parks and Recreations for our town and has taught my brother and I CPR. The training kicked in and I checked her and found she wasn't breathing. I detected a pulse so I worked to clear her airway.
Vomit had blocked her airway. I turned her on her side and slid two fingers into her mouth to clean the worst of it out. I gagged and almost puked on her. I had a hair trigger gag reflex when I see puke. I breathed through my mouth so I didn't smell it and fought the urge to vomit.
She still was not breathing after I cleared her throat. That meant that she had it in her lungs. I turned her on her side, with the flat of my hand. I beat on her back between her ribs.
Sharon Riley yelled at me, "You're hurting her!"
I felt her trying to pull me off Lily. After the fifth time I hit her on the back Lily coughed and I heard her suck in a huge breath. I made sure she was breathing before I rolled her back into my lap. The color returned to her face and her lips went back to being pink.
I started to cry and rock her in my arms. Bill Rogers was dragging Sharon out of the door. He gave me a look and said, 'Keep your mouth shut!'
The police arrived a few minutes later and Lily seemed to come to for a moment. The cops decided I was up to no good so they cuffed me. They had me sit Indian style while the paramedics rushed in.
I told them what I had done to clear her airway, and that she had stopped breathing. They put an oxygen mask on her, loaded her on a gurney and rushed her out.
I probably would have gotten out of any trouble, but I refused to tell the cops who all had been at the party and how we got in. Luckily, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
It was my idea and I had broken into the house. The detective was persuasive when he pointed out that they had all abandoned Lily and me.
All I thought about was the last image of Lily strapped to the gurney as the ambulance door closed. The 'what ifs' were killing me. What if I hadn't wanted to have a party?
What if I had paid more attention? My mind was going in circles with one conclusion. My actions had injured a 15-year-old girl. Hell, Lily might be dead by now.
The good boy in me wanted to tell the police everything. The smart boy, the one in charge of self-preservation, kept me quiet. It wasn't because I was scared what the other kids would think. It wasn't even that I was scared of Bill.
Truth is, he does scare me. I kept quiet because I knew if all the facts came out my Mom would catch some of the flack. If it were just me, I would be telling everything.
Since the police didn't know I was the instigator they only charged me with underage drinking. I'm positive they went light on me once they confirmed I assisted in helping Lily.
The district attorney dropped the charges a week later. It turned out Lily was fine. She had a minor case of alcohol poisoning and they kept her in the hospital overnight, mostly for observation. When I learned that, I showed no emotions. Later that night I cried myself to sleep with relief.
Of course, my parents got involved and Mom flipped out. She said I was no longer the son she thought she knew. She wasn't sure she wanted me coming home. My heart broke. It was the darkest time in my short life. I was sure I was going to be living out on the streets.
It was obvious I ruined every significant relationship in my life. My best friend was not talking to me. My old friends were keeping their distance. My new crew was afraid I was going to rat them out. My family was ready to disown me.
At that point, Dad stepped in and decided I would go to my Uncle's farm for the summer. My Uncle needed some help and Dad figured if I was stuck 10 miles from the nearest town I wouldn't have a chance to get into any further mischief.
What I didn't know was my Uncle John had a degree in child psychology. I just thought he was a farmer. With a combination of hard work and long talks, I began to pull my life back together.
We put in new fences around 65 acres of pasture. I ran the posthole digger for the duration of the summer. At the end of each ten-hour day, I was exhausted.
I was pretty sure there were child labor laws, but who was I going to tell? The first two weeks I decided he was trying to kill me. I had never been so sore in all my life. Each night I would force myself to eat dinner and shortly thereafter, I would collapse in my bed.
The funny thing was the last week before I came home I was looking for something in the barn. I found an attachment to the tractor, for drilling postholes. When I got my uncle and showed him, he just laughed at me. At the time, I didn't think it was funny.
Uncle John helped me get back on track. He made me realize I was turning into someone I didn't really like. He treated me like a new colt. His gentle assured approach seemed to calm me. I was full of hate and self-loathing. My first reaction was to blame everyone but myself.
It took me nearly a week before Uncle John and I said ten words to each other. Suddenly the damn broke and I spent a day crying and telling him everything. Once I realized I didn't like myself it was easy to figure out, I wanted to change. Uncle John spent the rest of the summer helping me work towards those changes. I'm still trying to figure out who I'm going to be, but I'm now confident I can become a better person. I owe that man my life.
The other good thing was between my growth spurt and my sadist Uncle working me ten hours a day, I have turned all my baby fat into muscle. My body had undergone a transformation. Uncle John called it a metamorphosis.
Just as a tadpole transforms into a frog, I was changing. I was no longer a short, slightly pudgy nerd. I was now very lean with a narrow waist, but my chest, shoulders, biceps and thighs had gotten noticeably bigger. Using a post-hole digger works your whole body. My frame had a nice V-shape.
The transformation was not only my outward physical appearance. I did a lot of growing up emotionally. Uncle John helped give me the tools to cope. I no longer felt the need for alcohol or drugs.
He also taught me a lot about personal responsibility. Did I still have a touch of depression now and then? Yes, of course, but Uncle John gave me the tools to get myself out of my funk.
When I got home the thing that helped the most was Greg. He acted as if I never left. We spent Saturday and Sunday just hanging out. This is kind of a big deal. When Greg was dating someone, we rarely saw him.
Dad let me know Greg was seeing Cindy Lewis. She is smoking hot. He was sacrificing time with his girlfriend to be with me. That meant a lot.
I darted back to my room and got dressed. I ran down the stairs two steps at a time and this got my mother to yell at me, "Slowdown in the house!" I slid on the kitchen floor and hopped up on the bar stool at the counter. The sameness of everything was reassuring.
It was almost as if I had been home for the past three months. Mom made me a bowl of my favorite cereal and I dove in. She had sworn I was going to eat them out of house and home. But hey, I'm a growing boy and growing boys eat ... A LOT.
Mom and I had not talked much. She was, I don't know, cordial. It was weird. She was keeping an eye on me, waiting for me to do something stupid. I didn't expect her to fully trust me yet, but we needed to come to an understanding.
The subtle message was if I mess up, it was back to my Uncle John's farm. In the last two days, I caught her watching me with a strange expression, but I was intending to get back into her good graces.
"Where is your brother?" She had a scowl on her face. Mom was not the easiest person to live with. She had a sharp tongue that could shred you.
"He was taking a shower. He should be down in a minute." I needed to clear the air.
"Mom... ?" She just looked at me. "We need to talk."
She got a sad look on her face and it looked like she made a decision. "David, we don't have time right now. Let's talk after dinner."
"Okay Mom, but I want you to know I love you."
She seemed to weigh my words and see if I meant them. "I love you too."
It sounded forced. Before I could overthink the situation, Greg came down the stairs. He grabbed some toast. "Come on, we don't want to be late."
I ran out first and came to a dead stop when I went through the back door. Greg about knocked me down and said, "What the fuck, dork?"
Standing by the car was Tami Glade. Tami and I have been best friends and neighbors since we were five. I wasn't the only one who had grown up over the summer. Tami had breasts. She looked good wearing her usual red Phillies baseball cap with her long silky brown hair sticking out of the back of the cap in a ponytail.
Tami is not a classic beauty because the end of her nose was a little too big, but she had a healthy girl-next-door look. I had never thought of her as sexy until just now.
Seeing her start to develop with a hint of a flare in her hips is a real turn on for a teenage boy. It probably also had to do with being stuck on a farm for the last three months with little female contact.
I was jarred back to reality as I remembered the last time we had talked. About a month before the party Tami had screamed at me that she never wanted to see my 'loser ass' again. She was the last person I expected to see.
Tami was always a tomboy. She loved to play baseball and we had been on the same little league and pony league teams. Tami played second base and I played shortstop.
For a girl, she had a cannon for an arm. She gunned down more than one boy trying to test that arm. She is now 5'8" and with her budding breasts no longer really fit her tomboy image.
When she saw me, her eyes got wide. I saw her face go through several emotions in rapid succession. I could tell she was still mad at me, but the final emotion was relief.
I could see she was going to say something but I never gave her a chance. I rushed up, pulled her into a hug, and choked out, "I am so sorry. I missed you so much."
I felt her relax in my arms and I heard her sob. Tears were running down my face. I had missed my best friend. I looked over at Greg and he had a goofy grin on his face. I did the math and realized that he set this up. I mouthed, "Thank You!"
She leaned back. "When did you get back?"
"Friday..." I was falling into the pools of her brown eyes.
"How come you didn't come see me?"
I gave a little chuckle. "Did you want to see me?"
She at least blushed and shook her head no, as I released her from my embrace.