Storiesonline.net ------- The Challenge by Openbook Copyright© 2008 by Openbook ------- Description: The 29th story in the Caddymaster series. Jackie finds himself faced with an ethical dilemma. Will he give in to his worst side, or will he somehow manage to rise above temptations and do what he knows he should? Codes: mf teen cons non-con reluc inc bro sis het ------- ------- Chapter 1 It was late in the summer of 1956. I was fourteen years old, and still spending all my summer day's caddying out at Shennecossett Country Club. Dan Noonan was someone I'd known for most of my life. We weren't exactly friends, but we weren't enemies either. He was a few months older than me. Red haired and freckle faced, with a fair complexion and a ready smile. He had three sisters, two older than him, and Kathleen, who was a year or so younger. Dan's father worked as a fisherman, and his mom worked in an insurance office over in New London. Like our family, the Noonan's lived in the projects. Dan did some caddying too, but mostly he made his money by mowing the lawns and cleaning the windows for the rich people who lived in other parts of Groton. One of the reasons Dan didn't spend all his days out caddying at the golf course was because he had to watch his kid sister at least two or three days a week. Kathleen could go with him when he was out mowing lawns and cleaning windows, but she wasn't able to be with him while he was caddying. Late in August, right after I came home from the golf course, Dan approached me, wanting to know if I'd be interested in helping him out with a new work project he was trying to get started with his cousin, Frank Leahy. "I only have Monday's off, Dan. The rest of the time, I'm out carrying bags on the course. What would I be doing?" "Frank has his driver's license now, and my pop says we can use his truck whenever he's out on the boat. We've been getting jobs cleaning out basements and cellars, hauling away people's trash to the dump. A lot of people have stuff they want to get rid of, and they'll pay us to take it away for them. Mr. Penny, over at the dump, he pays us for some of the things we bring him too. I still have my regular lawn and window accounts to take care of though, and there isn't enough time to do them and still be able to do the dump hauling business too. Plus, there's Katie. My father says she still needs to be watched on my days, and I can't take her with us in the truck. You could help me out on Mondays, Jackie." "You want me to baby sit your sister?" "Naw. Katie helps me with the window cleaning business. She does all the low stuff, and I do anything too high up for her to get at. She won't get on a ladder. I pay her just like she was a regular employee. You can do my mowing jobs and help her out with the high stuff on the windows. That way, someone would be keeping an eye out with her, and I could still work with Frank on this other thing." "How much would you pay me?" "I'd give you six bucks a day, and you get to keep any tips they give you for the mowing. For the windows, you and Katie would both have to split the tips." I wasn't making anything on Mondays, because the golf course was closed on that day every week. They needed to close it so the grounds keepers could fix it up after all the weekend golfers had finished playing their rounds. I was saving up for a car, so an extra six bucks or so a week sounded pretty good to me. The problem I had was with having to look after Dan's sister. Kathleen Noonan went to a special school that was run by the Catholic Diocese for kids who were slow learners. She looked normal and everything, but she had been born retarded. You couldn't tell right away, not when you first met her, but after being around her for a little while, it was pretty easy to see that she had something wrong with her brain. She acted like a little kid who hadn't grown up yet. She was almost the same age as my sister Joan, but she mostly played in the neighborhood with all the younger kids, the eight and nine year old's. She looked kind of like all the other Noonan's, red hair, freckles and fair complexion. All the other Noonan kids were at least normal when it came to having regular brains and doing well in school. "I don't think I'd be good at watching out for Kathleen. I don't know much about looking after people like her." "What's that supposed to mean, Jackie? Katie doesn't need anything special. All you have to do is keep an eye out to make sure nobody tries to bother her. She knows how to do what she needs to do. You just make sure she gets to where she's supposed to be, and then see that she has everything she needs to get the job done. Help her to get her buckets filled with water, and make sure she has her window scrapers, vinegar, and plenty of old newspapers." That was another thing about all the Noonan's. In spite of them having sent Kathleen to a special school, they pretty much wouldn't admit there was anything the matter with her. Never mind the fact that most thirteen year old girls didn't have someone watching out for them every minute of the day like she did. "How about if I just cut the lawns for you on Monday's then? You can get someone else to watch out for your sister." "Why don't you help me out here, Jackie? Summer's almost over anyways. This new thing, we can do it on weekends, even after school starts up again. Watch her for one day and see if she causes you any problems or not. Most of the time, she doesn't need any help from anyone. She gets nervous though if someone she knows isn't around where she can see them." "Okay, I'll try it on Monday. Six bucks plus tips. How many lawns do you have for next Monday?" "Three lawns, and only two window cleaning jobs. One of the lawn jobs is a big one, but we're doing their windows on Monday too, so you'll be right there with Katie for about three hours. You'll see, she isn't any trouble for you at all." This was on a Thursday that we had this conversation. By Sunday night, I'd pretty much forgotten that I'd made the commitment to Dan. When he came over to our place and knocked on the screen door, it all came back to me in a hurry. I got up from where I'd been sitting in the living room and answered his knock. "Hey, Dan. We still all set for tomorrow?" Dan was up on the stair stoop, and when I opened the screen door I noticed Kathleen standing at the bottom of the steps. "Hi Kathleen, how you doing?" I didn't really know her that well. I'd known her all her life, but we hadn't ever hung around together. She used to play Kick the Can with the other neighborhood kids, but she was always one of the first ones caught. She wasn't very good at hiding, and didn't run very fast either. I could see her face blushing when I said hi to her. "Jackie, I was wondering if you'd mind coming over to our house to speak with my parents? They want to make sure you're all right to be working with Katie and me." Dan was trying to be diplomatic, but I could tell he'd probably just sprung his new idea on his parents, and they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be trying to take advantage of their daughter. I had lived with my own parents all my life, and I already knew how embarrassing they both could be. I already knew Mr. Noonan a little bit, but I didn't remember ever meeting Dan's mother before. My parents weren't social butterflies. They took a lot of getting used to, and my Dad's temper and volatility often made all our neighbors want to keep their distance. "Now?" "If you wouldn't mind. My father is leaving at three in the morning, and he wants to make sure you're okay with all of this. It shouldn't take too long, please?" I looked down at Kathleen before answering. She was staring at my face, with both her arms crossed at her chest. It looked like she was trying to hide her breasts from me. I didn't think she had any. I hadn't noticed her in awhile. Her arms folded like that just drew my attention to her chest, and I could see that she had grown some boobs. They weren't very big, not like Joan's, but there was definitely some chest development going on there. While I was looking at her, she looked like she was pinching herself, right on her boob, with her thumb and index finger. I turned back to Dan to tell him I'd go with him, but he was looking down at his sister too. "Katie, remember what mama told you about doing that?" As soon as Dan spoke, Kathleen stopped pinching herself and unfolded her hands before turning away from her brother and me. "Sorry, Jackie. Sometimes she does things like that. It doesn't mean anything." Hearing what he was telling me, Kathleen turned back around and called her brother a bad name. "Danny's a 'shit face'." I didn't know how I was supposed to react at that. I'd gotten into plenty of arguments with my brother and sisters, and we'd ended up calling each other names too, but not one like that. Usually it was either 'bastard' or 'son of a bitch' we'd call each other. 'Shit face' was a new one on me. It wasn't the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from a girl either, especially not a thirteen year old girl. "I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap when we get home, Katie. Do you remember what I told you about using those words?" Dan seemed upset, but not too surprised by what she'd said to him. For some reason, I got the idea that Kathleen had done things like this before. Maybe it was part of her being retarded? I didn't know. I remember thinking that my father would have washed out Joan's mouth with soap too, if she'd ever dared say that in front of him. "Maybe this isn't a good time for us to go talk to your folks Dan. Kathleen might be upset now, and I wouldn't want to make things worse." "Jackie, don't worry about that. Katie has been doing things like this a lot lately. The Nuns all say its only a phase she's going through right now. She doesn't like people bossing her around, so she acts out when she gets mad about things. My parents won't let you do this if you don't come see them tonight." "That's okay. I wasn't all that sure about trying this anyway. Maybe you can stay with Kathleen tomorrow, and I can work with Frank instead?" "We have a deal, Jackie. You said you'd give this a try." "I have to go pee pee, Danny. We need to get home now." Kathleen was pressing the open palm of her hand between her legs. Her dress was bunched up in front from the way her hand was. Little kids did things like that, not thirteen year old girls. All kinds of thoughts were running through my head about how embarrassing having a sister like Kathleen had to be for Dan, and for his other two sisters. I turned back to Dan and told him he needed to look after his sister. When I was finished telling him that, I opened up the screen door and went back inside our house. Not more than two seconds after I went inside, I heard footsteps on my porch, and Kathleen came right into our house and headed straight for our bathroom. She was lucky that the bathroom was empty, because only a second after she shut the door, I could hear her peeing. When she came out, a minute or two later, her face was beet red with embarrassment, and she hurried past me out of the house and down the stairs. "Jackie, please come with me to talk to my parents?" My father had gotten up out of his overstuffed chair and was heading towards me with his newspaper in his hand. The last thing I wanted to do was try to explain to him what was going on. I turned myself and went back outside again. "Pop, I'm going over to Dan's house to see about a job I'm supposed to do with him tomorrow. I won't be long." "Who was that girl, Yutch?" My father was about five feet from the screen door when he asked me that question. "That was Kathleen Noonan, Dan's little sister. I told her she could use the bathroom. I'll be back in an hour, okay?" My father came up to the screen door and looked Dan over before saying anything to me. "Everything's okay, Yutch? You aren't getting into any trouble, are you?" "It isn't anything like that, pop. I'm going to be mowing some lawns for Dan tomorrow, and he needs to tell me where to go and show me where everything is. Tomorrow he's doing some different work with his cousin. I'm just helping him out for a day. Nothing that's going to cause anyone any problems." "See that you're back here before ten, Yutch." My father kept himself framed in the doorway, watching as Dan and I hurried away, trying to catch up with Kathleen, who was striding purposefully towards her own house. "Your father scares me, Jackie. Is Yutch your real name? I thought it was John?" "He scares me too, Dan. No, for some reason he calls me that name. I don't know why. I think he likes the way it sounds. I used to think he did it because he couldn't remember my real name, but his name is John too. I'm a junior. I don't know why he calls me that, he just does." "My father says your father might be crazy." Dan said that without thinking about it first. I could tell this because of the face he made once he realized what he'd just said. "He might be. He was in the war. He went to Korea too. Sometimes, I wonder about him too. He isn't like other people's fathers. He gets in lots of fights, and he doesn't care about what anyone else thinks. If I told him about what your father said, he'd go over to your house and beat your father to a pulp." "My father is pretty tough too." "I saw my father beat up four guys at once. He's killed lots of people too, in the war. If you want to find out how tough your father is, I'll tell my father what you said about your dad saying he might be crazy." I watched Dan's face as he processed the opportunity I was offering him. Hell, I knew my father was crazy. After all the things I'd heard about, and the things I'd actually watched him do, I'd have to be crazy myself, not to know that. I tried to keep a mental separation between myself and my father, to not let myself get swallowed up by him and by all the things he was capable of doing. On the other hand, he was my father, and I knew I owed him a certain amount of loyalty. If Dan's dad wanted to talk about my father, then he'd have to take the chance that my father would learn about what he was going around saying to people. Mr. Noonan wasn't going to be very happy if my father ever learned he'd told anyone that he might be crazy. "He's really killed people?" "He probably did. Sometimes my father tells these stories that get a little confusing. He likes to embellish, that's what my mother says. I've talked to lots of guys he works with though, and guys he was in the war with. They all tell those same kind of stories about him. They all act like they're afraid of him too. I do know he's really tough. He beats people up a lot. You remember Jimmy Kelper? His father thought he was pretty tough, and my pop put him in the hospital with one punch. Broke his jaw in two places. After he got out of the hospital, they packed up everything they had and moved over to Mystic." We walked the rest of the way to the Noonan house without any more talking. When we got there, I realized I was very nervous for some reason. Inside, Mr. and Mrs. Noonan were waiting for us at the kitchen table. Their living room and kitchen looked a lot like ours did. Shanty Irish chic is what my father referred to it as. Fancy lace curtains in the windows and chipped dinnerware on the table. The furniture was cheap and utilitarian. The TV set was on display from the time you walked in the front door, and there were religious pictures on the wall, with little bric a brac nic nacs on all the available surfaces in the living room. Most of it was souvenir junk just like my mother had collected over the years. They even had some of the same little porcelain figurines my house had. Dan introduced me to his parents. Kathleen had come in before we got there, and she was off somewhere else, probably hiding in her room from Dan. "Well, Jackie, Dan has been telling us that you've agreed to help him out some with his various enterprises. Is this correct?" Mr. Noonan was the one asking me the question. He was sitting down when he asked me, but I'd stood next to him in the recent past. I knew he was about five foot ten or so, and on the thin side. I also knew he liked to drink, and that he did his drinking at home. My father drank too, a lot. He did his drinking wherever he happened to be. After hearing what Dan had told me about Mr. Noonan saying my father might be crazy, I was measuring him against my father for size and weight. My father was six feet two and a half and weighed about two twenty five. Mr. Noonan would be pushing it if he weighed more than one sixty five. He looked very fit, but more on the smaller side when it came to body build. He looked in his mid thirties or so, like my own father. I quickly decided that I'd be willing to give Dan five to one that my father could whip his. Ten to one if it came down to having to lay those kinds of odds to get him to make a bet. "I told him I'd try it for tomorrow. I don't know about after that. Maybe when school starts up too, if he still needs someone to help him." "We're mostly concerned about what will be happening with Kathleen, without Dan being there to look after her. Have you given any thought to that, then?" "Only what Dan said to me, that she'll be doing windows, and I need to make sure she has everything she'd need to get the work done. I'm supposed to help her with the high windows, the ones that she can't reach by herself." "You know that Kathleen doesn't have half the sense God gives an intelligent goose?" Mrs. Noonan's face flinched when her husband made that statement. So far, other than nodding to me when Dan had made the introduction, she hadn't made any sounds or other movements. I wasn't sure how he expected me to reply to what he'd said. I was still thinking about what he'd been saying about my father. "Dan told me she wouldn't cause me any problems that I'd have to watch out for." "You have a younger sister, Jackie, do you not?" "Joanie. She's a year younger than me. I have a younger brother, Ray, and my older sister, Annie, too." "How would you feel about it, if someone were to come along and take advantage of Joan?" "I'd feel bad, but not as bad as the person who did it would feel after my father got through with him." "Well, I'm happy to hear that, because I'd feel exactly like your father would if anything like that happened to my precious little girl. Do you understand me?" "I think so. You want to make sure I don't try anything funny with Kathleen." "Of course, but that's only part of it. Dan has told me that you will watch over Kathleen the same way he does. To keep anyone else from doing harm to her too. Is that also what you understood?" This time I could see Dan looking at me and trying his hardest to will me to answer his father in the affirmative. I knew that my father was like this too. Very over protective of his daughters, and worried that someone would come along and try to take advantage of their innocence. "I won't let anyone else harm her while I'm with her either. I'll keep an eye on her, and try to make sure nothing bad happens. I would do that anyway, just because she's Dan's sister." "This is good to hear, Jackie. Her mother and me, we don't have to worry about a thing then?" "Just about Kathleen herself, and what she might decide to do on her own. I won't bother her, and I won't let anyone else bother her." "She's a good girl. An innocent girl. We're going to be entrusting her to your care. See that you don't let us down." I nodded to him, and then told both of them good night. Dan showed me out, even walking with me out past the green area where his house gave way to the next in line. There were about sixty buildings in the project. Each building was two living units, joined together in the middle, like a duplex. "I'll come get you at around eight, Jackie. Don't worry about what my pop said. Katie isn't going to be any problem for you. You'll see tomorrow. She's a good worker, and you should both be done before three o'clock." I just nodded and turned away to walk the two hundred yards or so back to my home. Dan turned back himself and walked back to his house. I'd traveled about halfway back when I heard a sound off to my left. "Pssst! Jackie." I stopped and turned my head, not recognizing the voice. When I saw it was Kathleen Noonan standing beside a tree, hidden from view, it really shocked me. I was sure that she was in her own bedroom back at her house. I walked over to where I'd be close enough for the two of us to talk without needing to make so much noise. "What are you doing here, Kathleen?" "I like Katie better. Did he tell you it was okay for you to work with me tomorrow?" "Your father? Yes, he said it was all right." "Good. I'm not stupid like you think I am." I didn't know where that was coming from. I hadn't spoken more than fifty words to her in her entire life. I'd never talked to anyone else about her either. I'd observed her playing with her playmates several times, but only because she was so much bigger than the people she played with. I really had no idea of the extent of her handicap. I knew she went to a special school, and I'd heard that she was retarded to the degree that she was as developed, mentally, as an eight or nine year old. My sister, Annie had been friends with Kathleen's oldest sister, Meaghan, a few years before, and I remembered Annie and my mother discussing Kathleen's condition while working on putting dinner together. Back in those days, families protected that kind of information much more closely than they seem to do today. Not all nine year old's had the same abilities though. In some ways, what I'd observed in the past hour with Kathleen's behavior had pointed to someone who was less than nine years old, mentally. "I never said you were stupid, Katie. I don't know you well enough to have formed an opinion about how smart you might be." "I'm a little bit slow when it comes to learning new things, but I'm not stupid about stuff I already know." I was getting ready to leave. This was an uncomfortable meeting for me to be having. It was made even more uncomfortable when she started playing with the left nipple of her small breasts again. How do you not look at something like that when it's being done right in front of you? "Why are you touching yourself like that?" "It feels good." Katie kept on doing it too. I thought me asking her about it would make her stop. "I wish you'd stop doing that. It isn't nice doing something like that when you're out in public." "No one but you can see me." She was smiling at me as she said it. If anything, she was pinching herself even harder as I watched her. "I've got to get back home. Are you going to be okay if I just leave you here? Do you want me to walk you back to your house?" "Do you want me to show you what Danny likes to do to me? It was supposed to be a secret, but I'll show you anyway if you want me to." "You better go home, Katie. You'll get in a lot of trouble if your family finds out that you've snuck out." "I'll let you do what he does to me. It's a lot of fun, you'll like it." I turned and walked quickly away from her. What was going on here? I swear to you, at the moment I turned away from her and headed back to my house, I had no intentions at all of ever having anything sexual to do with Kathleen Noonan. I hadn't been raised by my mother to take advantage of people who couldn't take care of themselves. Even my father would have paused before doing something like that. Oh, he'd have eventually decided to pursue it, but not before he'd at least paused long enough to think about what doing something like that would mean if he were later discovered. There were some things you just didn't do, and molesting a thirteen year old retarded girl was one of those things. Even if the whole thing was her idea, and even if you were already sure that someone else had already taken advantage of her before you. By the time I got back to my own house, I was very worried about how any of this was going to turn out. I wanted to stay away from all of it. I already had my own ways of getting sexual experience with girls. I didn't need to take advantage of Katie. I'd been a little upset with Dan Noonan after what he'd said about his father saying my father was crazy. If Dan was doing things with Katie though, he was crazier than my own father ever was. If he thought he could somehow get me involved in any of what was going on, then he really was nuts. It was difficult for me to get to sleep that night. I had Katie's statements and actions running through my mind. I knew that what I'd already learned was enough to cause me lots of problems. Dan didn't seem like the sort of person who would do what Katie was claiming he'd done. Not to his own sister. The way she had acted around me though, I'd have to say she was deliberately trying to be provocative. Guys aren't like girls. They don't get counseled by their mothers and sisters and told what to watch out for, or how to be strong in the face of temptation. I had no experience with telling girls no. What guy has that kind of experience? In one sense, guys were pretty well defenseless back then, especially when it came to dealing with an aggressive female. I was. Even a thirteen year old with a recognized impaired intellect. Until this point in my life, I'd either been the aggressor, or else the recipient of the welcome sexual gifts coming from older, more experienced, girls. All of this was about to be changed. Over the next two weeks, I was going to have my own baptism by fire. I was going to be put to the challenge. By the end of it, I'd learn a lot more about myself. Only some of what I learned was favorable, but I remembered all of it, the favorable, and the not so good. In the process, I learned a lot about myself, and about my family. ------- Chapter 2 I was already sitting in the kitchen half an hour before Dan was due to come by to get me. My mother was up too. She had gotten up to make my father's breakfast and to pack him his lunch. She had stayed up after he left, trying to get things organized for breakfast for my brother and sisters, after everyone else got up later in the morning. We were both talking quietly about Kathleen Noonan. I'd mentioned to her that I'd be working on lawns and doing windows for Dan Noonan, and watching out for his sister too. I told her about the conversation I'd had with Dan's father. I also told her that Kathleen seemed to be acting inappropriately around Dan and me, telling her about the nipple pinching business. "Jackie, you have to be very careful about appearances in these kinds of situations. That poor girl. You need to understand that she isn't able to think things through for herself. You have to resist any temptation you might have to take advantage of her." "I don't have any temptations like that, Ma. I just was wishing that I didn't have to watch out for her. If I was planning on doing anything with her, would I be sitting here telling you about what had already happened?" "You're becoming a man now, Jackie. Men have a tendency to not think about the consequences for their actions. They act without giving much thought to how much harm can come from what they're doing. I hope you wouldn't do anything to bring shame down on our family." I was going to tell her not to worry, to assure her that I'd never do anything like that, but Dan picked that time to start climbing the porch stairs. I got up instead, crossing over to the door to go outside with him. We walked over to the truck and I said hello to Dan's cousin. Frank Leahy was about seventeen years old. He had real dark hair, kind of like mine, and was darker skinned than both his cousins. He was the same age as my cousin, Billy, but the two of them definitely ran in different social circles. Kathleen was sitting in the truck bed. She smiled at me and gave me a wave with her hand. We drove about two miles to the main job for the day. It was a big house over by the golf course. It was a single story house, but it was big. The front lawn was at least a hundred feet wide and about another hundred and fifty feet long. There was a driveway going all the way up, but that just meant there was a lot more edging that needed to get done. I helped Dan unload the truck bed and he and I went off to get the water buckets filled for Kathleen. Frank Leahy just sat in the truck, not even offering to give us a hand with anything. Dan had an old milk box that he set up for Kathleen's use. She wouldn't climb ladders, but she didn't mind standing on the overturned milk crate to help her get higher up on the windows. I watched as both Dan and Kathleen demonstrated how they cleaned the windows. They used a vinegar solution with old newspapers to clean off any stains on the window, then used a rubber scraper with clean water to finish the job off. I was impressed with how clean this got the outside part of the windows. Dan told me that they didn't do inside windows, only outside. Dan took me over to his lawn mower and watched as I filed a new edge on the mower blades. Once he was satisfied that I really knew my way around his lawn care equipment, he and Frank left. He told me that they'd be back at around eleven thirty or twelve, saying that this should give us plenty of time to get things done before they gave us a ride over to the next job. I wasn't so sure. I'd never mowed and edged such a large lawn before. There were about fifteen trees on the front lawn too, and they'd all need special care when it came to edging and working around the roots at the bottom. Right after Dan and his cousin left, I got busy with the mower. I kept one eye out for Kathleen as I proceeded. She appeared to be working just like she was supposed to. I'd see her progressing from one window to the next until she was already over at the one farthest from the side of the lawn where I was doing my mowing. A little bit later, when I looked over to see how she was doing, she had disappeared from my view. I decided to take a little break to go check up on her, to make sure that she was all right. I found her on the far side of the house, leaning back against the building while sitting down on the milk crate. The top buttons on her jeans were opened up, and her hand was inside her undies as she played with herself. Her other hand was at her breast, pinching and pulling at her nipple. Her eyes were closed tight and all scrunched up as she strummed her fingers inside her panties. She was absolutely oblivious to anything other than the pleasure she was giving herself. As quickly as I could manage it, I turned myself around, heading back the same way I had come, hurrying back to my mower. I hadn't paused to try to get a better look at what she was doing. All I wanted to do was finish up this job and leave there. I hadn't found anything exciting about what she was obviously doing. Instead, I felt a wave of anxiety and worry. This girl was a lot different than any other girls I'd ever been exposed to. She seemed oversexed to me. I wanted to make sure I had finished up all the mowing and edging by the time Dan got back. When that happened, I was going to tell him that I couldn't do this for him anymore. Things would have been fine if it hadn't been for his sister, but I knew she was heading for big trouble, and I didn't want to let myself get caught up in it. I was finished mowing and edging before eleven o'clock. By then, Kathleen had finished up the front and back windows and one side. I checked all the windows she'd finished before giving her a hand with the last side of the house. I'd do the vinegar and newspaper cleaning and then, Kathleen would use the rubber scraper and clean water to finish things off. By the time Dan and Frank showed up, at eleven thirty, we were all finished, and all our equipment was stacked up and ready to be loaded back on the truck. Kathleen and I did the loading while Dan went to check over the job we'd done. Frank stayed behind the wheel of the truck, obviously not thinking he should be out giving us a hand. After Dan finished checking up on us, he went to the front of the house and rang the doorbell. An old man came out and he and Dan made a circuit of the property before returning to the front door and both going inside the house. A minute later Dan came out, smiling. He and I both got in the cab of the truck and started driving over to the next mowing job. I knew that this was a small lawn job, and that the other three would be returning to Dan's house for lunch while I did the work. "Three dollar tip for the lawn, Jackie. You and Katie split another three for the window cleaning." "She should get the whole three for that, Dan. I only helped her a little bit, at the end. She did all the rest." I was damn happy to get a three buck tip for cutting the grass. I also wanted to try to be fair. I could see that Dan was very pleased by what I'd said. "All right, if you're sure? Katie will be real happy getting to keep all the tip money herself. She does a good job too, doesn't she?" "I only checked on her once before I finished up and came over to help her. When I checked on her, she seemed to be enjoying herself, so I just left her to it." "This next job is very small. Front and back should only take about an hour. We'll go eat and come back to get you at about quarter 'til one. The last mowing job is close to the last window job. It isn't very big either, but the lady who owns the house is very particular about the edging around her little flower garden. I usually use shears on it. If you do a real good job, she usually gives a two dollar tip. She likes it if you rake up inside the garden too. She sees fresh rake marks around her flowers, that almost guarantees she'll be happy with the job you did. This job you're going to do now, don't try to do too much with it. He never even comes out to check, and we get a buck tip either way." I did the math in my head. Six bucks for doing the mowing, and another six dollars in tips. That was damn good money for a fourteen year old in 1956. My earlier decision to just quit after that first day needed to be given more thought. When they dropped me off at the second house, Dan got out to help me unload the lawn tools. Frank and Kathleen stayed where they were. When we were bringing tools up to the yard and were about twenty yards from the truck, Dan asked me about Kathleen. "Did Katie do anything to act up over at that last job, Jackie? The reason I'm asking is because she has that look she sometimes gets when she's been up to something." "She was fine. The only thing I noticed was she did that thing she does, that touching herself thing? She doesn't seem to care too much about who sees her doing that." "She has this self control problem. Did you tell her to stop it?" "No. I turned around and went back to my mowing. Even talking to you about it is making me pretty uncomfortable. I think your family is going to have big problems with her if she keeps on doing things like that out in public. Sooner or later, someone is going to see her doing that and try to take advantage of her." "We know. We watch her as close as we can, but you can't watch her all the time. Last night, she snuck out of her room. She was gone for at least two hours." "I saw her when I was going back home. She asked me if your dad said it was okay for me to work with her today. She was pinching herself then too. She also said she wanted to show me what you like to do to her. I didn't let her." Dan's face got very red when I said that last part. Normally, I wouldn't have told him about what his sister had said. I guess I felt bad for him, and wanted to give him a little warning. It had to be tough trying to take care of a sister who was acting like Kathleen did. That didn't mean he should do things with her though. Maybe, if he knew she was telling people things about what they did, he'd quit doing them. That's what I hoped when I told him what she'd said. "It isn't what you're thinking, Jackie. There is a little game we play, whenever I need to get Katie calmed back down again. She has a much higher than normal sex drive. A lot of the slow people seem to have that. Sex is a basic need, and Katie is going through puberty now. For her, it has hit harder than it does with other thirteen year old girls. She doesn't know how to hide it yet. Really, she doesn't even know that it should be hidden. All she knows is that it feels good to her. All I'm doing is hugging her, and holding both her arms so she stops doing what she shouldn't be doing. After I do that for a few minutes, she gets calm again. It's all very innocent. I wouldn't ever do anything to hurt her." After Dan left, I thought about what he'd said. He sure had seemed sincere in what he was telling me. Maybe I'd just jumped to the wrong conclusion earlier. Whenever I'd seen him with his sister, he'd looked like he loved her and was trying his best to take care of her. The idea that I would be giving up an extra twelve dollars a week might have had something to do with getting me to lean more towards Dan's side of things than I might have otherwise. I finished up the lawn job in about forty minutes. I spent the time I was waiting for Dan to get back using the shears to trim some of the grass in and around the thick boulder wall he had all along the right side of the property. I had almost finished when the truck pulled up to get me. Rather than go over and help Dan with loading up the lawn tools, I finished up that last little area I still had left. I had just gotten finished when this old man came striding out of the house, heading straight for me. He didn't look happy at all. I didn't know what I might have done wrong. "I'm not paying any extra for what you just did. I didn't ask you to do that work." "I didn't expect you to. I had a little time before Dan came back to get me, and I wanted to see if I could make that wall look a little better. That's a pretty nice wall." "My father and I built that wall before your own father was born. Didn't use any mortar to hold it together either. Every stone was made to fit. All natural like. Don't see many walls like that anymore. Every stone came from right here on our property too." "I think it looks better now that it's trimmed up a little. Makes it seem higher too. You might want to get some weed spray and put it in some of the cracks where things are growing. It would kill off that moss and make the whole thing look nicer." "Do you know how to do that? How much would it run me if you were to do that?" "You'd have to ask Dan those questions. I don't think it would cost too much though. He could probably get the whole thing done for you the next time he comes out to mow your lawn. I'm just helping him out a little today." The old guy went over to speak with Dan, and then the two of them went up to the house. Five minutes later, Dan came out holding a check in his hand. Again, he was smiling. "Five dollar tip, Jackie. Most I ever got from him was a buck. He told me he'd pay an extra twenty bucks next time if you came by and did what you said to his wall when you cut his grass. What did you tell him you'd do?" "I just suggested he should get some weed killer and spray where things are growing inside his wall." "What is this weed killer?" "I don't know. That's what my father calls it. He brings it home from the sub base. He puts it in a mosquito sprayer and sprays it around the base of our house. Whatever he sprays it on, it's dead in a day or two. He calls it weed killer. It's some kind of liquid chemical. I can get some from him if you want me to." We drove out to the last mowing job and they dropped me off again. Dan took Kathleen a few houses over and helped her get started on the windows there. From where I was, I could see her working. It didn't take long to cut the grass at this new place, and I took my shears out to do a careful edging around her garden. I also decided to square up the edges, because that hadn't been done in awhile. After I was done, I raked out the interior of the flower garden and cleaned around each of the flower beds. When I got done, I took all the lawn tools out to the side of the road and went over to see if Kathleen needed any help. She had already finished by the time I got there. "Dan said I get to keep all the tip money from that first house. He told me you said that was fair." "You did almost all the work by yourself. I didn't have to do very much. This time you got it all done before I even got here. Good work." "I'm good at doing things once I know what to do. When Dan was trying to teach me, it didn't go that good at first. Now I'm faster. Aren't you even going to check the work I did?" "I don't see why I should. You've done more windows than I ever have. Dan will probably check it when he gets back. He checks my stuff too." "I saw you looking at me over at the other house. When I was tingling my winkie." Kathleen had this open grin on her face. It seemed to please her that she'd known I'd seen her playing with herself. "I saw you were taking a break and didn't want to disturb you." "I was thinking about you when I was doing that. It makes it better if you think about someone. Do you think I'm pretty?" She seemed so vulnerable when she asked me that question. I didn't know what to tell her. Red hair, skinny, freckles, fair Irish complexion. She wasn't the best looking girl I'd ever seen. Compared to my sister, Joan, she wasn't good looking at all. She was generic Irish looking. She'd never be a beauty, but she wouldn't ever be bad looking either. Average looking, maybe a little above that. "It's hard for me to tell, because every time I see you, you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. Kind of hard to pay attention to a girl's face when she's doing those things with her fingers. Most girls wouldn't do those things unless they were somewhere private." "You're just like they are. I wasn't showing anything when I touched myself. I told you it feels good." "They love you, Kathleen. They don't want to see anything bad happen to you. When people can't control themselves, they send them over to the nut house in Norwich. They give you shocks to your brain until you learn to stop doing whatever they don't want you to do. Is that what you want?" "You're just making that up." I could tell she didn't believe me. I didn't know that much about the state mental hospital in Norwich, only what I'd heard from adults over the years. I did know they locked people up for doing things they weren't supposed to be doing. I had heard that they gave these electro shock treatments out there, and that a lot of people ended up staying out there for the rest of their lives. It seemed reasonable that people weren't going to let Kathleen play with herself in public for very long. When Dan got back he loaded up the lawn tools with me and checked out the work that Kathleen and I had done. The woman came out and looked at her garden. I'd made sure to leave deep rake marks around all her flower beds. Dan had been right too, I got a two dollar tip from her. Kathleen only got one dollar from the people where she'd done the windows. I had made sixteen dollars for less than eight hours of my time. Good money. We drove back to our neighborhood and I helped Dan put away all his equipment. I noticed him giving his cousin ten bucks, and then had to listen while Frank whined about how little he'd been paid. As far as I'd seen, all he did was drive the truck. For ten dollars a day, Dan could hire a full grown man to drive him around. Most men would be happy to get out of the truck to help Dan get his things loaded and unloaded too. I thought about my cousin Lenny. I knew he'd like having a real soft job like that on Monday's when the course was closed. I waited until Frank walked away before asking Dan about it. "You know my cousin, Lenny, right?" "Lenny Murphy from out at the golf course? He likes to play Tonk all the time?" "That's him. He has his own driver's licence, and he'd be willing to get out of the truck and help you with any lifting or carrying." "Frank helps when we're taking heavy things on or off the truck. It was just when we were working on the lawn and window business that he didn't help. Frank has this idea that he and I are partners in the other business. I don't want or need a partner. Ten bucks was more than fair for what he does. If you hadn't been standing there, I'd have straightened him out about that. So, how did you like your first day?" "The money was real good, but I'm still worried about having to watch after your sister. Those things she likes to do, they could wind up getting other people in a lot of trouble, not just her." "I'm going to be talking to her about that. I'll tell her you're going to quit helping us if she doesn't stop doing those things." "She had her hand down her panties, Dan. She said she knew I was there and that made it better for her. I don't think she can control herself. She must have stronger urges or something. I've never seen anything like that before. I told her about Norwich hospital, but I don't think she believed me." "She isn't crazy, Jackie. Don't try to scare her. I'll talk to her, I said. She'll stop doing things like that. Can I count on you again for next Monday?" Sixteen dollars was a lot of argument in favor of my continuing. I'd already done what I could to let Dan know about what was going on. He couldn't claim he hadn't known about my worries. He said he could fix things. All I had to do was keep my own nose clean. He had responsibility for all the rest of it. I told him I'd work for him the following Monday. I walked home thinking about how my day had gone. I still thought I should check with Lenny to find out if he'd be interested in driving the truck on Monday if the need ever arose. I wondered how Dan had gotten all his lawn tools from one job to another before he father started letting Frank drive his truck. That next Wednesday, I was coming back from the golf course at about nine o'clock at night. I had cut through the woods just like I normally did. The last thing I expected was to have someone jump out from behind a big maple tree and yell "BOO" at me. When Kathleen did that, I swear I nearly fainted from surprise. I just never expected it. "Did I surprise you, Jackie?" I noticed that Kathleen was wearing a summer dress. Usually, all I'd seen her in were shirts and jeans. Looking back on it now, her waiting there in the woods for me, wearing a dress and all, it should have given me a solid clue as to what her intentions and ambitions might have been. "Jesus! I almost had a heart attack, Kathleen. What are you doing out in the woods so late? I bet you snuck out again." "I told you I like Katie better, Jackie. I have to sneak out. They never let me go out by myself. They treat me like a little baby. You told Dan about what you saw me doing. It got me in a lot of trouble too. Why'd you do that?" "Because you aren't supposed to be doing things like that, and because part of my job was to keep an eye on you for Dan while he couldn't be there to look after you himself." She started pouting. I had two sisters, so I knew this was just a trick they used when they wanted you to change your mind about something. I wasn't going to fall for it. "If you weren't so mean, we could be doing stuff together. I like you, Jackie, but I won't keep on liking you if you act mean to me like you've been doing. Do you like my dress?" She moved away from the tree and started turning in circles really fast. The hem of her dress lifted up and I could tell she didn't have any underwear on beneath it. The thin hairs on top of her pussy were red too. Even in the darkness that was beginning to settle I could see that much. She could see that I had seen her naked butt and pussy, and she laughed happily, letting me know that she knew it too. "I'm leaving Katie. If you keep on doing things like this, you're going to find someone who doesn't mind taking advantage of you. When that happens, you'll end up sorry for having kept at it." I left her there, hurrying off towards my house. She tried keeping pace with me, but wasn't able to do it. She kept calling out my name, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was crying. I didn't stop, and I didn't turn around. I got to my house well before she even managed to make it through the remainder of the woods. I thought it was all over with after that. Not five minutes after I got home, she was climbing up the porch steps and knocking at my door and calling out my name. "Katie, you better go on home now. If you don't, I'm going to go get Dan and you'll really be in trouble then." She stopped after I told her that. I heard her go back down the steps and off into the night. For the next half hour or so, I had to sit through a real grilling from both my parents. I reluctantly told them everything. When I was finished telling them, my father told me to get up. A minute later, he was taking me over to the Noonan's house. His justification for going over there and telling Katie's parents was that he'd like to know about it if something like this was going on with Joanie. "I'll give them the gist of what's been going on, and like as not, they'll nip this shit right in the bud, Yutch. Girls running around half naked in the woods is a sure way to have bad things happen. We might not be able to prevent those things from happening, but we have to try." My father was a pure lecher, and a world class hypocrite too. I was certain he wanted to get another look at Katie, and he probably also wanted to see the look on Katie's parent's faces when he told them what was going on. He also liked to stir up shit, just to watch it all unfold and unravel. I had no choice other than to go along with him. Had I tried to refuse, he'd have shown me the error of my ways. It ended up being one more nightmare that I had to endure at his hands. He did everything but cackle in glee as he described Katie's twirling, and the fact that she had deliberately exposed herself to me. During most of this recital of his, I noticed Dan looking at me with what I could only assume was contempt. I had realized by then that I should have kept my own counsel, and then made it a point to go see Dan to tell him all of this privately. Doing it the way I had ended up causing all Dan's family acute embarrassment, and made me look like some kind of tattletale stooge. I was thoroughly embarrassed by my actions after leaving Katie in the woods. I had been too caught up in trying to make sure that nothing bad ended up landing on my own head. We were walking back home after, and I was feeling very angry at myself for my part in that night's debacle. I was also very upset with my father. I knew he had thoroughly enjoyed himself at the Noonan family's expense. This was one of the many parts of my father's personality that I really despised. He enjoyed bringing trouble down on other people's heads. "This is why I never should tell you anything. You always use stuff like this to amuse yourself." "Don't let that mouth of yours get you into bad trouble, Yutch. I know you're upset about losing out on that job with that Noonan kid, but this was a lot more important. If I didn't go over there and make sure you were out from under with this thing, there's no telling how much trouble you might have ended up getting into. You're better off being all the way out of it, believe me." "You just enjoy making people feel bad. I hate it when you drag me along with you to watch you doing it." I felt the back of his left hand as he reached out to give me a little lesson in minding my tongue with him. As backhand slaps go, it wasn't anywhere near his best effort. Normally, that would have been sufficient warning for me. This wasn't normally though. I'd made a mistake that had resulted in things being made much worse than they ever needed to be. Dan had managed to take care of Katie for a long time without any help from me. I had to learn to keep my mouth shut and think things through before I spoke to anyone about them. "One of these days you're going to hit me like that, and you'll end up flat on your ass with me kicking your damn face in." Even as I said it, I realized what a mistake I was making in doing so. Sure, I'd had this fantasy for years about someday growing up and giving my father some payback for all those times he'd hit me just for the hell of it. I wasn't ready yet, not even close to it. It was around ten fifteen in the evening, about a week before Labor Day, and I was absolutely certain I was about to die. I thought about running, but I was too stubborn to give him that satisfaction. "Do you think today's that day, Yutch?" The words came out of his lips as a strangled whisper. I'd heard him use that tone of voice before, and it usually meant someone was going to get himself hurt badly. We were alone, just the two of us, out in the opening between houses. If someone was about to get hurt, then it followed that I must be that someone. This was definitely back off time for me. I thought my best chance would be to hit the ground and try to wrap myself up into a tight ball, hoping to protect all my vital organs from his shoes. What came out of my mouth wasn't what I'd been thinking though. "Hit me again, and you'll find out for damn sure whether it is or not." I didn't see the blow coming. One moment I was standing there looking at him, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my own bed, a wet wash cloth on my forehead, held there by my sister, Annie. Outside my bedroom I could hear my mother screeching at my father, telling him he better let her hands go so she could call the cops to come and arrest his rotten ass. This was a fairly familiar scene at my house during those days. Played out usually after my father had done something physical to one of my mother's other relatives. I'd just been knocked unconscious for the first time in my life. It felt weird, disorienting, but, at the same time, I knew I'd survive the experience, and it hadn't hurt at all when it happened. The residual pain I was then feeling was manageable. Realizing all this, the personal fear level I'd always felt with my father took a sharp dip downward. I had some vague idea about getting up and letting him know that his punch hadn't really hurt me. Annie kept me from getting up. If I couldn't push my way past a girl, I certainly had no business presenting myself as a target for my father right then. I let myself relax and lay back in my bed. The yelling had slowly wound down. I heard the two of them talking for a few minutes, then my father's face appeared in my bedroom doorway. Seeing my eyes open, he got this self satisfied smirk on his face. "Still think this might be the day, Yutch?" He was always especially good at taunting his defeated foes. Placing myself in that category was a flattering improvement in how I looked at myself. I'd been a little boy before, but now, after this, I felt I was much closer to becoming a man. He hadn't just slapped me like a kid this time. I knew it was crazy, but I found myself thoroughly appreciating this change. "Maybe not. That day is coming though, and when it gets here, I'm going to enjoy it every bit as much as you're enjoying this now." The smirk had left his face, only to be replaced by an icy cold glare. "You better learn how to quit running your gums before you really end up with your tit in the wringer, boy." "I won't always be a boy. I'm already almost as tall as you are. When I start to get filled out, you won't be able to have things all your own way anymore." "It takes more than size, Yutch. I've fought guys who were a lot bigger than me. It comes down to having an attitude. You have to be willing to accept anything they throw at you without allowing yourself to ever be beaten. If you don't have that, then you won't ever stand a chance against me." "I still hate what you did tonight over at the Noonan's house. You can beat me to death, and I'd die still hating it. Tonight, I was embarrassed to have you be my father. That's my attitude still, so I guess you didn't accomplish as much by hitting me as you thought you did." I really thought he was going to come into my bedroom and start pounding on me again. I think he might have if Annie and Ray weren't there as witnesses. Instead, he just turned away, shaking his head from side to side. "That mouth of yours is going to be your downfall, Yutch. You just wait and see if it isn't." ------- Chapter 3 I didn't see or hear anything more from Dan Noonan until the following Sunday. I was over at the golf course, waiting for my afternoon loop when Dan came into the caddy shack looking for me. At first, I thought he might have come by to start a fight with me. "Can I talk to you a minute, Jackie?" Dan didn't sound like he was mad at me when he asked me that. I got up from where I'd been reading some comic books and followed him back out of the building. We went over to the shade of a nearby tree. "What do you need, Dan?" "I wanted to find out if you're still planning on helping me out tomorrow?" "You're planning to work on Labor Day?" "I've got people who want me to help them clean and store their outdoor furniture at their summer houses. Don't worry, Katie won't be coming with us. Frank decided he didn't want to work for the money I was going to be paying him. My dad will drive us over to the places where we need to go, but we'll need to walk home from there." "My cousin Lenny can borrow my aunt's car and help us with the work too. He could use the extra money, and he's a good worker." "Would he pick us up and drop us off back home too?" "For ten bucks he would. How much were you planning on giving me for working tomorrow?" "Six dollars, and your share of any tips we get. I'll pay Lenny the ten dollars, but only if he's a good worker. I'm not paying that much for him to just drive us around." "He's out on the course now, but I'll make sure I talk to him before he leaves here. What time do you want him to come get us, eight again?" "I'd like to be over at the beach by eight. Can he come get us at seven thirty?" I arranged with Dan that I'd stop off at his house to confirm everything with him when I got home from the golf course. I waited around for Lenny after I was finished caddying for the day. It was almost eight o'clock before he finished up and was ready to leave. "Lenny, I've got us a little job for tomorrow. You need to borrow Aunt Betty's car though." "What kind of job, Jackie? Tomorrow is a holiday. I was planning on coming back here to look for lost balls." "A ten dollar job. Dan Noonan is helping some of the summer people close up their houses down at the beach. He needs us to help clean up their outside furniture and make it ready to put in storage for the winter. You should do this tomorrow, because if we do a good job, he'll have other work we can do for him later. His cousin was driving him, but he decided to quit." Lenny didn't say anything. I gave him some time to think about it. Lenny was usually very deliberate when it came to deciding things. He trusted me, but not most other people, because he'd been tricked and taken advantage of before. Lenny was about twenty four years old, and he still lived at home with his mother. If you gave him enough time, Lenny could usually figure things out for himself. He hadn't done very well in school, quitting in about the tenth grade, but he wasn't really stupid. He was slow to learn though. Nothing seemed to come easy to him. He was a great caddy, but he was already the oldest caddy on the golf course. Most people stopped caddying when they got through with high school. They went on to bigger and better things. A caddy only had work in the summer. Not Lenny though. He worked every summer. Sometimes, he got some kind of other work in the off season, but he always quit when the golf course opened up in the Spring again. Lenny didn't think caddying had no future. He liked it, and he was always hoping to be made the Caddymaster someday. "I don't know, Jackie. Will you be there to help me if I have any questions about things?" "I'll be right there with you, Lenny. It will be good, you'll see. If we finish up early enough, I'll come back here with you and help you look for golf balls until it gets dark." Lenny didn't like to look bad in front of strangers. He worried because people always assumed that he could understand complicated things with very little explanation. Lenny knew I could figure things out, and he knew that I would be patient with him if it took him some time to figure things out for himself. Lenny looked perfectly normal, and he was, for the most part. His brain didn't work quickly though, and that was why he did poorly in school. By the time he figured something out, the rest of the class had moved on to something else. For him, this was very frustrating. When he went to school, they didn't have classes for slow learners like they do now. You either learned with the rest of the class or you got left behind. Lenny never failed a grade, but he had to work extra hard just to get C's and D's on his report cards. Lenny lost a lot of his confidence when he was a student. Maybe that was what kept him from taking on any new challenges. Lenny showed up at my house a little before seven thirty the next morning. My mother got him a cup of coffee and then she and my father sat down with him to try to catch up with what he and my Aunt Betty had been up to. Everybody in the family liked Lenny. He was always well thought of in the family, a very sweet man, and was always ready to help anyone out at any time. He didn't have much, but what he did have, he'd share it with you if you let him know that you needed his help. Dan showed up at my door at about a quarter til eight, and he had Kathleen with him. From the embarrassed look on his face, I knew he wasn't happy that he had been told to bring her along with him. As soon as my father saw Kathleen, he got an angry look on his face. I was afraid he was going to spout off again, ruining Lenny's and my chance to make some money with Dan. For whatever reason though, for once he held himself in check until after the four of us had left. My mother told me later that she'd had to listen to quite an earful from him about how stupid Mr. and Mrs. Noonan were to keep letting their daughter get into those kinds of dangerous situations. We spent the whole morning and the early afternoon working. Dan always kept Katie close by him, and I kept Lenny close to me too. We did work at four different summer houses. Lenny and I put up two sets of storm windows as well as cleaning off and storing all the outside furniture at three of the houses. Lenny and I made a good team when carrying things. Lenny was pretty strong at that time, and he was a very willing worker. We were fed sandwiches at two of the places where we were helping out, and all of them brought drinks out for us. Katie and Dan worked inside some of the houses, covering up furniture with blankets and sheets. All four of us worked together at the last house, cleaning and storing the outside furniture. We must have done pretty good jobs too, because Dan gave me twelve dollars for my share. I found out that he gave Lenny twelve dollars too, plus another two dollars for the car. Lenny seemed very satisfied with the money he was given. Katie kept her distance from me. I could tell that she was upset over what I'd done. I assumed that she had gotten into trouble because of what I had told my parents, and what my father had later said to her parents. I tried not to let her being upset with me bother anything. All I wanted was to do the work, and then get paid for it. After Lenny dropped off the Noonan's, he and I drove over to the golf course. It was after six already, but we spent another hour and a half looking for lost golf balls. We didn't do as well as we'd hoped, but we did find a few good ones. Lenny figured the balls we found were worth about a dollar to us and offered me fifty cents for my share. I took it gladly, figuring he'd have to wait until April to turn those balls into cash again. Lenny and I worked for Dan several more times on weekends, right up until around Christmas time. Several times, Katie went to work with us as well. Nothing much happened out of the ordinary when she was there. Dan always made a point of keeping a close watch on her when she was with us out working. I had gone over to Lenny's house after one of these work days, and was walking back home at around eight at night when I was once again accosted by Katie. This time she stood right out in the open path, in plain sight, obviously waiting for me. She was dressed in the same jeans, heavy coat and boy's shirt she'd worn while we were out working earlier in the day. I stopped about ten feet short of where she was standing. "Katie, did you sneak out of the house again?" "Where's that other boy?" "Lenny? He isn't a boy, Katie, he's twenty four years old." "Where is he? Dan said you were going with him somewhere after you dropped us off." "He went home. Did you come out here expecting to see him too?" "He was in your house again when we came over this morning." "Yes, but he lives in his own house, not ours. That's where he is now." "Is it far from here?" "Over a mile from here. It would be dark before you could walk there. You should forget about Lenny and go on back home." "Lenny is nice. He isn't like you at all." "He has a girlfriend already, Katie. A woman girlfriend." I was trying to figure out a good way to push past her and head as quickly as I could over to my house. I was afraid she'd just follow me like the last time, and then I'd have to risk another confrontation with my father. I sure didn't want to risk that. "Are you going back home now? You can see Lenny isn't with me. If you leave now, I promise I won't tell your parents that you came out to meet me in the woods again." "I've seen you in the woods with all those other girls." "When?" "Before, with those three new girls. I saw your brother with them too. How come you didn't make them go home too?" I knew she was talking about the Gordon sisters and their cousin. They'd moved into the house connecting with ours over the summer. Ray and I were both chasing after them, but Ray was doing better with them than I was. I was hoping to change that, but I had a lot less free time than Ray did. Now that caddying season was over and winter was well started, I expected to begin making progress with the older sister, Shannon. She was playing hard to get, but there was something about her that appealed to me much more than the other two. "Because they're older, and because they don't have a brother who is a friend of mine." "Dan has stopped doing things with me because he said I told you about it. You weren't supposed to say anything about what I told you." "He told me what he did. It wasn't anything bad, just some hugging to get you calmed down." "Hah. It wasn't just hugging. He used to rub me with his peter. On my crack. Now he doesn't do that any more. That isn't just hugging." My first reaction was to be angry at Dan for his having lied to me. My second reaction was to be worried that she might be capable of making that kind of story up. If so, she could easily lie again and tell people I'd done that to her too. If a girl said you did something to her, people would automatically believe her. It wouldn't matter how much you tried to deny it. "You better just turn around and go back home now, Katie. If you don't, I'm going back over to your house and I'll tell your parents what you just told me." "I'll say you're lying. You can't prove we did that." "Go home, Katie. Go home now, and I'll forget what you told me." Surprisingly, she did turn around after I said that. I watched her walking back towards her home. In bed that night, I couldn't get the thought of her doing things with her brother out of my mind. It was fascinating to me, like a train wreck. From the way she had spoken about what Dan did to her, I had to believe she was telling me the truth. I could picture the two of them in my mind's eye. It excited my senses, but, at the same time, it went against almost everything I'd ever been taught. Dan was violating the trust of his whole family. I was ashamed of some of the thoughts I was having about Katie. I knew I'd have to sneak off to another parish on the following Saturday afternoon to make my confession. I believed in the sanctity of the confessional, but I wasn't one hundred percent certain that our parish priests wouldn't drop broad hints to my mother if they had something really bad to report on. Why take a chance? So many new things had been happening that I put Dan and Katie out of my thoughts. I was so busy with school and my own social situations that I didn't have any time to spare to give any more thought to Katie and what she'd said to me. Dan didn't approach me after that about doing any more work for him, and I didn't see Katie around very much in the winter anyway. It was early in April before the rumors started circulating about Katie being pregnant. Our whole family had experienced several upheavals since right before school had started back up again. My father had gotten caught fooling around with LaVerne Gordon, and the repercussions from that had fueled the neighborhood gossips until well past Christmas. By the time I started hearing anything about Katie Noonan, I was just relieved that all the gossiping and tongue clucking wasn't about what was taking place with our family anymore. The first real trouble started when Mr. Noonan made some comment that got back to my Aunt Margaret. Supposedly, he had said something about suspecting that I was the one responsible for Katie's pregnancy. The wife of the man he'd supposedly made the comment to had spoken with my aunt, and she ran straight to my mother to tell her the news. By the time I got home from school that afternoon, everyone in our neighborhood already believed I was the one who had taken advantage of poor Kathleen Noonan. When I walked in my house, my mother and aunt were sitting at the kitchen table glaring at me. "Jackie, if you know what's good for you, you'll tell me the truth about what you've been up to with that Noonan girl. If your father gets wind of what people are saying about this, you won't have a chance to tell your side of it." "If he even has a side, Kathryn." My aunt Margaret wasn't one who ever gave anyone the benefit of the doubt, not unless that someone was her own son, Billy. She and I didn't get along too well. She was always complaining about everything, and she'd get kids in trouble just for the hell of it. She and my mother were very close though, and my mother was usually willing to listen to whatever Margaret told her. I had heard the rumors that Katie was pregnant too. I hadn't heard anything about Mr. Noonan telling people that I was involved with it though. "I haven't been up to anything with her, Ma, honest. I heard some rumors about how she might be pregnant, but I've never done anything with her. I haven't even seen her around since I stopped working with her brother." "Jackie, you know how your father is. He isn't going to just ask you about this. If you have anything to tell us, you'd be a lot better off telling me, before he gets home tonight. I won't be able to protect you from him if you don't." I was getting angry, and also starting to panic a little bit. I knew I hadn't done anything, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to get belted around some by my father. He'd hit me for a lot less reason than being suspicious that I'd gotten a retarded girl pregnant. "Ma, I didn't do anything to Katie. I've never done anything with her at all. I wouldn't ever do anything like that." "Go to your room, Jackie. Do your homework before he gets home. Think about what you're going to tell him. If you lie to him, nothing can protect you. I won't raise a finger to help you either, not if you took advantage of that poor girl." I looked at my mother, and then over at my aunt. Neither of them looked like they believed my denial. In part, I thought it was because of the many transgressions my father had been guilty of during all the years he and my mother had been together. Whenever my mother told me I was just like my father, I knew that wasn't a compliment she was giving, it was an accusation. I went to my bedroom, surprised to see that Ray, my brother, had gotten home before me. He had a sickly grin plastered on his face. I could also tell he was unsettled. Ray hated to be around my parents when they were angry. Either of them. He was glad it wasn't him that was in trouble, but he also knew that my troubles had a way of somehow getting splashed all over him too. My father might have invented the concepts of collateral damage and friendly fire. I saw him in a bar fight once when he hurt three or four people trying to make it past them to get to the guy he was really angry with. He believed people should get out of his way if they saw him trying to get at someone. If they didn't, it certainly wasn't his fault if they ended up getting hurt. I had been in my room for about an hour before my father got home from the submarine base. When he bellowed out my name and told me to get my ass in the kitchen, I looked over at Ray and shrugged my shoulders at him. He looked as nervous as I felt. I came out of my bedroom and saw Joan and Annie staring at me from inside their bedroom. When I got to the kitchen, it was only my mother and father sitting at the kitchen table. Aunt Margaret had apparently gone home already. I was happy about that. "You didn't take that advice I gave you earlier, did you Yutch?" I looked at my father. He looked excited, but not angry. He actually looked like he was enjoying having someone else being on the hot seat besides himself. That was another strange thing about my father. He really liked sitting back and watching drama unfold around him. He'd agitate to get things stirred up, hoping to foment more controversy, to make whatever he was witnessing end up being even more dramatic than it would normally be. "I never touched Katie, Pop. Anybody who says I did is a liar." "So you say? Her father says different. He says you're the one who put that cookie in her oven. Are you man enough to go tell him he's a liar to his face?" I noticed how shiny his eyes were when he asked me this. "If he says it was me, he's wrong, and I'll tell him so." "If you're lying to me, you'll wish you'd never been born. You hear me, Yutch?" I nodded that I heard and understood him. He stood up, hitching up his belt and uniform pants as he did so. He was in his khaki uniform pants but he'd already taken off his shirt and uniform jacket. He pointed his hand at the door, silently telling me we were going out. It was Spring, but it was still a little cold out. Neither of us wore a jacket when we went out the door. The walk to the Nonnan's was made in silence. My father had already said all he needed to say to me. Now, he'd go with me and watch how I handled myself. When we got there, I was expecting to go up their porch steps and knock on the door. I felt my father's hand grab at the back of my arm before I reached their front porch. "Noonan, get your ass out here. My boy wants a word with you." That was all he said as he yelled out his instructions. I didn't turn around to look at him. I already knew he'd have a big smile on his face. This was exactly the kind of situation he most enjoyed. Mr. Noonan opened his door and looked out at my father and me. He didn't look happy to see either of us. "What do you want, coming here and yelling at me like this? Hasn't that boy of yours already done enough damage to my family?" "He came here because he has something he wants to say to you. Go ahead, Yutch, tell him what you told your mother and me." My father released my arm and stepped back, away from me. "Mr. Noonan, my aunt heard from somebody that you were saying that it was me that got Kathleen pregnant. That isn't true. I never did anything to her like that." "Of course you'd just lie about it. That's what I'd expect you to do. Why would Katie say it was you if it wasn't?" Mr. Noonan was coming down the steps slowly as he talked to me. There was real menace in his words as he spat them out at me. Maybe he thought I'd be intimidated by this. I don't know. If my father hadn't been right there, preventing me from retreating, I might have responded differently to Mr. Noonan. As it was, it was easier for me to stand right where I was and face him rather than to try to go backwards, especially with my father standing between me and whatever shelter I might have considered running to. I'd rather have faced Mr. Noonan, whatever he might end up doing to me, than try to explain why I ran later to my father. "I'm not lying. Go get Dan and Katie and ask them again, right here in front of me. You'll see." "They aren't here. They both went over to Old Saybrook to visit with my brother for a few days. I know what they'd say if they were here though, and it would be that you took advantage of my precious Katie. We're not asking anything of you other than needing for you to admit that you did it. There isn't anything more we'd want from you." "I didn't touch her. If she says I did, or if Dan says it, they're both lying." "You're a lying coward, boy. If you're willing to make such a mess, you should own up to it at least." "If I'd done anything, I'd admit it. If you really want to know who took advantage of Katie, you should ask your own son. He knows." By then, Mr. Noonan was at the bottom of the steps and racing right for me. Before he could reach me though, my father slipped right in front of me and grabbed Mr. Noonan in a bear hug, lifting him right off his feet as he did so. I saw my father whispering something in his ear as he physically carried him back to the steps he'd just left. Mr. Noonan screamed out three or four words in a strangled voice. "No!" was one of the words. I think the others were "You can't, and "Don't". My father kept whispering to him. It seemed like he was trying to calm and comfort the man. He certainly wasn't making any effort to do him any physical harm. It surprised me to see my father taking this unexpected role. I was also very surprised when Mr. Noonan seemed to break down and start crying. He and my father stayed like they were, except my father had lowered Mr. Noonan so that his feet once again touched the ground. They stayed like that by the porch for another fifteen minutes. The whole time my father was talking very softly to Mr. Noonan. I saw Mr. Noonan nodding his head up and down, and then my father took both his arms away and stepped back away from him. My father said something else, and then the two men shook hands and my father turned his back on Mr. Noonan and walked away from him. "Let's go home, Yutch. We've done all we can do here tonight." I was surprised when he put his arm around me and started moving me back in the direction of home. This wasn't how I'd imagined the night would turn out. "What did you tell him?" My father laughed when I asked him that. We were already halfway home before I managed to get my question out. His whole demeanor had me off balance. "I told him that I was certain you were being honest when you said you hadn't harmed his daughter. I told him if it turns out that I'm wrong about that, I'll kill you myself, to save him the trouble of having to do it." "I didn't do anything to her." "I know that. I knew it when your mother told me what people were saying, and what you told her. If it was Billy they were talking about, or even Ray Ray, I'd have been worried. I wasn't too worried about you doing this though, not after you swore that you hadn't. You never lie about important stuff. Still, it was important that we went over there to see him and told him ourselves that you weren't involved. He'll find out soon enough who was involved, and I don't think he'll be too happy when he does know for sure. Something like that is certain to tear their family apart." Listening to my father talking calmly and rationally like that was a whole new experience for me. He'd always been a loose cannon, an emotional firestorm easily set ablaze. He seemed to welcome emotional chaos. Where others tried to defuse these kinds of situations, he'd always before tried to make them worse. Not this time though, and I wondered why not. My first thought was that it might have been him that made Katie pregnant. If that was true, then it would explain why he'd want to let all the excitement die down. He'd go to jail for sure if people found out he'd done something like that to an underage retarded girl. If my mother didn't kill him herself when she found out about it. When we got back to our house, my father made the announcement that we had spoken with Mr. Noonan and I was no longer under any cloud of suspicion. My mother and both my sisters seemed to accept what my father had declared. All of them seemed relieved that the accusation had been proven false. A month later, Dan Noonan fell off his father's fishing boat and drowned. Katie had her baby, a girl, and gave her up for adoption right after. About three months after Katie had her baby, Mr. Noonan got really drunk and shot himself in the head with a pistol. He didn't die right away, but he never recovered consciousness, and he later died in the hospital. It was about three or four days after he shot himself. Katie grew up and got married. She had three more children, all boys, and she named them after her brother, Dan, her father, and Cousin Lenny. I suppose it was possible that Lenny might have done something with Katie. That last time she found me in the woods, she had seemed more interested in Lenny than in me. My father and I spoke about these things a few times over the years. His theory was that Mr. Noonan took Dan out with him and threw him overboard, allowing him to drown. He said that was what he'd have done if he were in Mr. Noonan's place. He said Mr. Noonan probably couldn't live with the guilt of having done that to his son, and that was why he shot himself. After that time when all this happened, I started having a little different idea about how my father operated. I'd seen him step in and help out plenty of people before. These were the same people that he might have fought and beaten up as well. I was beginning to see that there might actually be a little bit of method in his madness, some kind of convoluted code of behavior that he adhered to. I felt like he'd tried his best to protect me, to help me steer clear of the potential problems with Katie and the other Noonans. At the same time, he'd sat back and allowed the situation to unfold. If I had blundered into doing something with Katie, I have little doubt that he'd have come down on me with both feet. He had tested me, and, for once, I hadn't been found wanting. It is impossible to know what really happened, or who was responsible for Katie getting pregnant. I'm glad it wasn't me that had a sister like Katie. I know Dan loved his sister. He, more than anyone else, looked after her for his parents. She tempted me, and I'd only known her for a short time. With more exposure to her, I might have succumbed to temptation. The whole thing was such a tragic waste. Dan too was a victim of circumstance. With his ambition and drive, I'm sure he would have been successful in life, had it not been for what happened. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2008-01-23 Last Modified: 2008-02-12 / 01:26:03 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------