“Wha-at, what’d I
do-ooo?”
Josh wailed.
“What’d
you do?” I echoed in shock as I
dragged him down the hall. “Did the aftershock of your little stunt knock your
memory loose or something?”
“Aww, come on, I wasn’t that
bad,” he protested.
I
stopped, nearly unable to speak, I was so blown away. “Okay,” I said finally,
holding up my fingers and thumbs like a goalpost, “let’s just pretend, for the
sake of argument, that one can actually still recognize my file room. Let’s even
imagine briefly, that all the work I’ve done trying to file my memories here in
said subconscious file room has not
been completely disintegrated by a literal bomb
of sound. Even if we threw away the
fact that you could have killed everyone within a mile of my physical body, you are still left with the fact that you
should have never been in there foolin’ around in the first
place! And you wanna tell me you weren’t that bad?”
“Stevie did it, too!”
“Stevie doesn’t live
here!” I said. “Stevie’s lucky he made it back to
Jerry’s subconscious alive, I’m so
mad at you two. And if I were you, I’d be more worried about myself than
somebody I may never see again in life.”
“Alright,
so I’m in trouble,” he groaned.
“Joshua,
my boy,” said I, continuing our trek to Josh’s
room-now-become-juvenile-detention-cell, “if you expand your definition of
trouble to include a series of grueling punishments which are going to last the
rest of your lifetime plus the lifetimes of several senior citizens...then,
yeah, we could effectively say then that you are ‘in trouble’, as you so
lightly put it.”
“What!” he protested. “All you have to
do is recreate the whole room in your mind and it’s
back to normal!”
“It’s
the principle of the thing, Josh!” I
replied. “You can’t just go around breaking rules without suffering the
consequences. Now go to your room.”
“Man,
your rules suck,” muttered Josh
under his breath.
“Excuse
me?” I said, whirling on him.
“Nothin’,” he replied sullenly.
“Oh,
no, I heard you,” I said. “And if you don’t like these rules, then you can get
out!”
“And
go where?” he protested.
“That’s right, and go where? Nowhere, because anywhere you
go, you’ll still be just a little boy who needs to learn some respect and
responsibility!” I grimaced fiercely at him and pointed to the door. “Now you
get your little narrow behind in that room and think about your attitude,
‘cause as long as your living under MY roof, you’ll follow MY rules and LIKE it!”
Josh
could see he’d overstepped his boundaries, so he turned as angrily as he could
without being disrespectful and plopped down on his bed with his arms folded
tightly.
I
slammed his door, then turned to walk back down the
hall. I had only gotten a few steps away before I remembered what I’d said:
“As
long as your living under MY roof, you’ll follow MY
rules and LIKE it!”
No way
I actually said that to a kid!, I thought.
I
ran to my room, looking for a mirror. I had to see the transformation for
myself...
Naomi,
Robin and Chris were still there when I got back to the room, but I ignored
them as I searched. “Okay, what was that all about?” Naomi asked finally.
“Josh
blew up the file room,” I replied briefly, opening drawers on my desk.
“He what?” Naomi
asked.
“Oh,
this I gotta see!” said Christine,
running out.
“Wait
up, I can’t go that fast!” Naomi shouted, waddling hastily after her.
“What
are you doing?” asked Robin.
“Trying
to find a...here we go!” I took my
hand mirror and looked into it. “No, I still look like me.”
“Who
should you be looking like?”
“My
mother,” I replied, moving the mirror away. “Can you believe I just told Josh
the line about living under my roof and following my rules?”
“Yes,”
she said. “I’ve used it often enough with Marcus and the twins. Who knew that
those curses parents placed on their children really worked?”
“Which
one, the “someday you’ll understand” or the one about having a kid just like
us?” I groaned.
“Both,”
smiled Robin. “Look at Joshua and tell me you haven’t had your own childhood
revisited tenfold.”
I
thought a moment, then grinned. “Touche,”
I chuckled. “Oh, well, guess I oughta call Jerry on
this one. Don’t think he’s seen a wreck this big since...”
“Your
car?” asked Robin.
“Yeah,”
I said, rising. “In fact, he might feel better knowing he’s finally been outdone!”
Naomi gave a low whistle as she eyed
the destruction. “Damn,” she said. “This is major.”
“I don’t believe this,” Chris said,
sounding more annoyed than awed. “He does all this and where is Daina? Back in her room pretending it never happened.”
“I just can’t believe he did all
this himself,” Naomi added.
“I bet Stevie
helped.” Chris replied.
“Yeah, but still...who’dve thought that Josh could’ve done something so awful,
so enormously hideous, so incredibly...”
“Talented!” gasped Alan, entering
behind Naomi. “Honey, if you’d just told me what you wanted, I’dve...”
“No, sweetie, I didn’t do
this...Josh did!” Naomi replied.
“Daaaaa-mn!”
said Alan quietly. He turned to Chris and added, “Y’know,
your kid bother just might be alla that after all.”
Christine whirled on them both. “Wouldja just shut up?” she snapped. “Josh goes and creates
more destruction in 30 seconds than Hitler did in 8 years and all you do is
brag about it? What is the matter with you people? Does nobody care that I’M
actually NOT in trouble now? Or are you all too busy to even notice anybody
who’s not a bratty 6 year old boy?”
Naomi stammered for a reply, but
Chris threw up a hand to stop her. “Forget it...I’m outta
here.” A door appeared near her and she slammed through it, causing it to
disappear after her.
“Should we go after her?” Alan
asked.
“No...she
needs time alone,” said Naomi. “We’ll catch her when she’s calmed down some.”
Alan gave a respectable pause before
continuing. “Should we go after it?” he asked, with a slight smile.
Naomi grinned back. “Yeah...we need
time alone.”
“Tell me about it after you’ve
calmed down,” Alan replied, attacking her.
They had no sooner started than a
voice called out, “No way y’all are screwing in the middle of the File Room
Holocaust.”
They both stopped to look at each
other, then up at Jerry, who’d spoken, and Daina, who
stood behind him, eyes rolling at the ceiling.
“We’ve never done it in a disaster
area before,” Naomi shrugged.
“At least not since she’s been pregnant,”
added Alan.
“Not this month, anyway,” Naomi
murmured.
“Especially not
this close to the floor.”
“With this vest on,” Naomi added.
“No, hon,
I was wearing this vest, I just wasn’t in this position...”
“Whoa, WAY more than the virgin and
the gay guy needed to know about your personal life,” Daina
said at once.
“Wait, wait, wait...” began Jerry.
“You really wore that vest during sex? Talk about taboos...”
“Jerry...please?”
said Daina, pulling him out.
“I’m surprised she found your penis
in all those pinstripes,” Jerry added as they left, sounding truly confused.
Alan leapt up to follow him, but
Naomi’s giggle stopped him. “Don’t,” she said. “This one you’ll lose.”
“Why?” he demanded defensively.
“Because while you’re out there
trying to prove to some gay toad that your penis is the extra large size we
know it to be, I’ll be in here calming
down.”
Alan looked from her to the
direction Jerry’d gone and back again. “Oh,” he said,
returning to her side.
Back in his room, Josh was fuming.
He’d never been this mad about anything in his life. In fact, he’d never really
gotten more than tremendously annoyed with anyone or anything. After all, life
was usually fair to him, except the times that Daina
or some other adult told him he couldn’t do something or couldn’t understand
something because he was “too little” or “too young”.
Which was
precisely what was bugging him at this very moment. At
least, most of what was bugging him. The other part, he thought to
himself, was that Daina was just being totally
unreasonable about the whole “blowing up the file room” thing.
I mean, jeez, can’t she just remake
the whole thing and be done with it?, he thought
angrily. It’s not like I did it on purpose, it was an accident! And the principle of the thing? Man, I don’t even GO to
school yet!
And if she thinks that just ‘cause
she’s older and bigger, she can make all the rules, well, then she’s
just...she’s just crazy. Man, if I was the older one and she was me, I’d let
her do whatever she wanted as long as she fixed it! Wait a minute...no, I
wouldn’t! I’d make her stay in her room all day long! I wouldn’t let her play
with Jerry or Naomi or anybody! And I’d make her go to bed before she ever even
woke up! Yeah!
Images of Daina
as a little kid and himself as the adult in charge swirled in Josh’s angry
head...and around his head...and around the room...and beyond...