Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 07:10:52 +0100
From: ben erikson <benhere23@hotmail.com>
Subject: My Summer with Carl: Episode 2

Growing Up in England: My Summer with Carl

A story by Ben Ericson

Episode 2: How we learn - June-August 1976


I was learning more about Carl the more I hung about his house that Summer.
I was learning more about a whole bunch of things. That's what kid's are
supposed to do, isn't it? Learn? During the time I knew him there were only
ever two moments of real tension between us - that's if you discount the
bedwetting incident, which he took really well on the whole. Both other
times were way before that, quite early on in our relationship. That's how
I looked upon it now - a relationship. Definitely.

Potential crisis number one occurred about three weeks after our paths
first crossed. I had wheedled my way into Carl's life and generously made
room for him in my own. He gave me crisps and Cherry Cola; I gave him
red-lipped smiles and burps and little-boy farts. He gave me guitar lessons
and the run of his garden; I gave him broken strings and smashed-up flower
pots. He gave me, eventually, a peek into his basement workshop and garage
studio; I gave him my awestruck kid-brother act. It was clearly a
relationship with a great deal of give and take.

I felt bold enough one particularly hot afternoon to sneak into the
basement whilst Carl worked there sanding the seat of a fine looking pine
stool he had put together. All the doors were open, it was that kind of
hot.  What's a boy supposed to do? Wait to be invited? Carl's back was
turned.  He was bent slightly at his task, wearing only a pair of old
running shorts, same as I was. I could somehow tell the level of his
absorbtion by the way his shoulders hunched. Of course, I should have
slipped away. At most have made some vaguely witty (and, therefore,
forgivable) and artistic statement, silently moving his mug of nearly cold
tea onto the floor and backing away unseen, leaving him to puzzle as to how
he came to leave it there in such a dumb place. So what did I do? I reached
out with my two sticky hands, picked up the electric power-drill from just
beyond the innocent mug of tea and, raising it like a comic-book
machine-gun, pow-pow-powed at Carl's back. I made the appropriate noises
with my mouth but they were instantly blown away as I pulled the trigger
and the drill started up. How was I to know it was loaded? Like I said, I
was learning something every day.

I dropped it right away and it hit the floor, the bit turning on angrily a
few seconds more. Carl had spun round with, I think, real fright, maybe
just real anger. He was onto me in a second.

"Fucking hell, Ben! Fuck's sake!"

I'd heard him swear like this once before when demonstrating in the garden
the correct way to use a hammer. But that had been in fun. Half in
fun. This definitely wasn't. I had gone into a state of shock and just
stood there looking at the drill. He lifted me clean off the ground,
holding me under the armpits, swung me round and propelled me through the
open door.

"Don't you ever, ever, ever, ever, ever do that again. You hear me?"

Each "ever" was marked by a smack to my backside. Five "evers". Five
smacks. His voice started loud and got louder. His smacks started hard and
got harder. He didn't have the chance to say anything else as I bolted from
his grip and ran headlong for home. I didn't dare come around again for
three whole days. I sulked about my house. I lay on my bed reading comics
off and on, crying off and on.

A tentative reconciliation was achieved (Carl never nurtured a grudge for
long. That's something else I learned, a good lesson; don't hold grudges.),
and I soon saw a certain potential in the situation, in the terms of our
new understanding. My devotions grew and I was at pains not to take too
many liberties now that I had been given a second chance. Within a week of
the "machine-gunning", I was more comfortable than ever and more surely
installed in Carl's affections as well as in his living room. I let him
teach me backgammon, a game in which I had no interest whatsoever. He was
even so good as to allow me back to the basement where he gave me
instruction in the basic do's and don'ts of power-tool management. I was
not in the least concerned that it was mostly the don'ts he concentrated
on.

I had taken to sitting in the early afternoons in the slightly run-down
wooden extension that had been added to the back of his house some years
before. There wasn't much to do there except read comics and sip Cherry
Cola and play darts, lying back on the moulding bean-bags that were the
only furniture. Its' main advantage was a large window reached by a short
flight of wooden stairs. Easily big enough for a small boy to slip through,
it had never, to my knowledge had glass installed and was insecurely
boarded up with a flimsy sheet of polythene which flapped open at the
merest breeze. I got into the habit of sneaking up the stairs and easing
myself through the gap when I knew for sure that Carl was elsewhere. I
could sometimes gain entry to the main house this way through a connecting
door which really should have been kept locked but hardly ever was.

It was towards the end of June and my Dad was back briefly from his
travels. I had, naturally, to submit to the usual family outings that
marked these rare occasions but tried as much as possible to lie low. Carl
seemed more than usually pre-occupied at the time and was away himself for
most of one week. Everything was locked up then, I can tell you.

Potential crisis number two took place on June 29th. I remember the date
because it was the day my Dad had left to get back to the Embassy. Didn't I
say? He wasn't the top man or anything, but near enough. Rome,
actually. This time round. Anyway, I had carefully taken two cigarettes out
of one of the many half-empty packets that he invariably left behind after
his visits. They were in the back pocket of my shorts now along with the
box of large matches taken from the kitchen. These would have to be put
back before Mum returned from the village. I had two hours, maybe two and a
half. I rolled myself carefully through the window, removed my contraband
and flopped down onto a beanbag.

It wasn't the first time I'd done this - smoke, I mean - but my hands were
shaking enough for me to need three attempts at lighting the already bent
cigarette hanging from my dry-as-paper lips. The first inhalation sent me
coughing and retching for the window but once I'd blown the smoke out
through my mouth and managed to swallow, I was OK. I hadn't even begun the
second tentative suck when Carl, his voice more edgy than I'd ever heard,
said simply:

"What do you think you're doing?" He'd come in through the connecting door
from his upstairs landing.

Even I could sense that now was not the time to put on a stupid voice and
smartarse back:

"Whaddya think I'm doin'?" So I said nothing, the cigarette poised
uncertainly an inch from my lips.

"Put it out!" I was beginning to realise that I could be in some trouble
here.

"Put it out, now!" He snatched the cigarette which broke clean in two and
dropped to the floorboards. Rubbing it out carefully under his shoe, he
held out his hand.

"And the rest."

I handed over my remaining cigarette and matches.

"I'll need the matches."

"What you need is for your Dad to take your trousers down and put you
across his knee!" He seemed to mean it.

"What you need, Ben, is your head examined!"

He looked at me a long time, just long enough to bring a pricking to my
eyes and then he smiled that dazzling smile of his. I was so happy to see
that smile, I almost wet myself.

"Benji, love, listen! I'm not angry with you. Well, a bit. You shouldn't be
in here for starters and...what do you need the matches for?"

"My mum"

He thought about this a bit.

"It's really bad for you. I mean really, really bad. Not bad like too many
sweets. You know? It kills you, Ben. In the end. For God's sake! Where did
you get them from anyway? You could have burned the house down for God's
sake! I'm not even insured! Playing with bloody matches!"

"I'll need the matches" I said quickly.

"Don't be such a bloody smartarse, Ben. Here's your precious matches." He
threw them at me but I sensed that, true to his word, he was not that angry
and was just trying to soften me up a bit with one of his routines. All
that "not insured" stuff.

"Will you get it?"

"Get what?"

"From your Dad"

"Daddy left this morning". I never called him "Daddy".

"From your Mum then"

"You're not going to tell? Come on. I'll do anything."

There was a long silence. I don't think he wanted to tell on me.

"Don't say that!"

"What?"

"That. "I'll do anything." Just don't say it OK? You shouldn't say that."

"S'true though" I mumbled.

"Cut it out, Ben!"

We seemed to have run out of things to say to each other. Carl sighed very
heavily. He really did seem to be taking it hard.

"You might get what you ask for, that's all. You might get more than you
bargained for, you understand?"

I didn't understand. I wasn't asking for anything except that he not tell
my Mum and if I got that I'd be quite content. Delirious. I'd probably wet
myself for real. I'd rather Carl gave me one. I briefly pictured the drill
as it machine-gunned to the basement floor.

"You could..." I said in the smallest voice I could manage.

"I could what?"

"You know. You give me one. You did before. I'd rather you did, just don't
tell Mum. You could do it now if you like, you could..."

"Stop it Benj!"

There was that silence again.

"It's different. I was angry then. It was...completely different. I can't
just go behind your Mum's back even if you can." That was rich coming from
him.

"Why not?"

"'Cause she's not my Mum, that's why not." He was smiling again. My tactic
changed accordingly. A minute before, I had been trying to persuade Carl to
spank me in return for not telling my Mum about the smokes. Now I saw
clear, blue daylight and went for it.

"Please, Carlie..." I was so choked by the first rush of tears that I
couldn't get any further than that. I was counting on the fact that Carl
was as soft-hearted as I was hard but that he was also smart enough to know
exactly what I was up to. In a moment he was at my side with his arm around
my trembling shoulders. He pulled my little wet face into him and kissed my
hair lightly. He knew the script. He knew I'd let him do this. This at
least.

"You know Benji, love" he said softly, his mouth very close. "Your Daddy
really ought to be sent back on the next plane to tan your little
backside."

I reached up my mouth and brushed a kiss somewhere near his chin. He held
my face in between his two hands and kissed me lightly on the
forehead. Then again, for the first time, on my nose. I didn't exactly wet
myself, but I felt a little spring of urine dribble from my cock and spot
the front of my underpants.

Carl looked at me very lovingly and stroked my cheek once with his finger.

"Never again you understand? Not here anyway. I won't stand for it, OK?"

I nodded. He looked at me some more to make sure I meant it. I think he
thought I did. I thought so too. He gently kissed me on the lips and once
more on the nose. Crisis over.