What Happened (Part 6)

 

Now in those days all of us boys slept together on one queen-sized bed in the back bedroom, while Mom and Pop had the master bedroom up front.  Not much later on we switched rooms, as it was quieter for Pop to sleep in the back in the daytime between his driving runs.  But at the time we were in the back bedroom, and that’s where we had our dressers and bed and all the serious business of our life; in the room next door, the “guest room,” were kept all our toys and books and spare furniture like the old crib that we had all used and that was called "Lambie” because of the picture on the back.

So one night Pop was out on the road and Mom came in to sleep with us.  I don’t think it was because we were particularly scared, or Mom particularly lonely; it was just good company for us all.  As usual there was jockeying for position and “covers” as we called the various sheets, blankets, and bedspreads. Mom of course got the middle of the bed.  That night I drew the dreaded “edge,” feared because of the possibility of the Hoofer under the bed reaching up and snatching you away. I also had the “raggedy” blanket, a thin patchwork cover that Omi had made and given to the family.  There were probably songs, talk, and stories (Mom loved to tell us stories) before we all settled down to sleep. It was another superstition to not be the last one awake; often you were kept awake longer than the others by that very fear. But one by one we dropped off.  And sometime in the night I woke up, and had to go.

Now, this happened sometime after my solo voyage to the kitchen. It would be hard to say how much time; when you’re little a week can be an eternity, and a year unimaginable. Enough time to have absorbed a few monster movies, perhaps, and to be worried about stories like: “There was a the man who took kids who would not take their naps away to the dump in a burlap bag, there to barbecue his naughty prize on a pile of burning trash.”  This tale was conflated with an actual Peeping Tom who plagued our neighborhood for a while and added to our anxiety.  The upshot was that I was even less sure of my courage than I had been when I was younger.

What was I to do? I couldn’t reach over to Mom in the middle.  Mike had already expressed anger before (in no uncertain terms) when asked to escort me.  Little brothers seemed then to be of little help, and shameful to use.  I hit upon the only plan that offered any hope: camouflage and invisibility.  Covering myself completely with the raggedy blanket, I slipped off the mattress, oozed down to the floor, and began to creep past the foot of the bed, heading for the bedroom door and the hall beyond.

Progress was slow and cautious, because for the plan to work, of course my body had to be totally covered, head and all.  I felt my way along as quietly as I could and used memory and touch to tell me where I was.  I kept my shoulder brushing the bed on my left; when it ended I turned right until I bumped into the doorframe.  Once over the metal doorsill I was in the hallway, with the spare room yawning cavernously to my left.  I didn’t want to think about that and I scuttled on.  I faced an even greater crisis of nerves when I accidentally set the hall phone cord swinging over my head and knew I was just in front of the living room door; who knew what was going on in the dark in the bigger part of the house.  But I went on at last, driven by urinary desperation.  When I finally felt the bathroom doorway to my right I turned in and reaching only my hand out from under the covers, I walked my fingers up the wall till I found the light switch.

Light and safety achieved for the moment, but not security; I quickly and quietly shut the door, popped the lock down, and totally shed my ragged armor.  A quick tinkle, a flush, a hurried wash up, and a drink from our Donald-Duck-and-Nephews tooth brush cup later, and it was time to face the dark again.  Return missions were always easier, to some degree.  They were shorter, and ended with you being back where you were supposed to be, safe in bed with the others.  But there was also added tension.  Childhood drama demanded that this was the part of the story when something happens: “…and he had almost made it when all of a sudden—.”  I threw the raggedy blanket over myself again, covering up head to toe, determined to walk back blind again but upright, since it would be faster. I turned off the light, opened the door as stealthily as I could, and headed out down the hall.  Then...something did happen.

Mom, awakened and alerted by the noisy plumbing, had come to investigate. A woman alone with little kids, a neighborhood menace abroad, she was determined to protect her brood, even if in the darkness and anxiety of the moment she had apparently not counted them and did not realize that one was out of pew—or out to poo, as it were.  Standing in the bedroom door, peering out into the dim hallway, she was confronted with a dark, shapeless, shuffling blob coming right towards her.  So she did what anyone in her position would do.  She screamed.

Under my blanket, blind, terrified, I screamed.  Mom screamed again at the noise.  My brothers, awake and panicked behind her, screamed at our screams. I screamed. She screamed. We all screamed, again and again.  In memory, the screaming seems to go on for about five minutes, but surely it couldn’t have been that long. Mom flicked on the light, I flipped off the blanket and ran to her. Fear dissolved into incredulity, brief anger, relief, and finally laughter.  It was a while before we all settled down to bed again.  The next day the incident had solidified into a hilarious story, recalled with merriment for years to come.  But it was unnerving for a little boy to glimpse, even for an instant, the fear of a parent.