The naked comment slowed him down. He knew I would kick him in the balls if it looked like I would get my ass kicked.
“Why don’t you just agree to give me a ride to school today, since it’s raining?”
Greg knew that Mom would make him take me anyway, so he smirked and said, “Okay.”
I’d just gotten home from my summer of internment the previous Friday. It felt good to fall back into my relationship with Greg. I’d missed him.
Two weeks before summer vacation started, I talked some friends into a party. I’d started to hang out with a wilder crowd and drifted away from my friends. I found an empty house. Actually, I used my mom’s realtor website to find a foreclosure. If they ever found out, she could get into serious trouble. I jimmied the lock on the back door to break in. This house didn’t have any neighbors, which made it perfect for our needs. I turned on the water and power so we’d be comfortable.
I wasn’t sure why, but I was out of control. Here I was in middle school, and I’d broken into a home so my crew could have a party. Just a few months ago, this would have been unthinkable. I had good friends and a stable family life. However, I found myself depressed. When I got stoned and drunk it made me numb so I wouldn’t have to face my inner demons.
There were rumors that mental illness ran on my mom’s side of the family. I sometimes wonder if I might have similar issues. Mom was a great example. She seemed to have no filters. Whatever was on her mind, she’d say. I know it bothered her when she hurt someone’s feelings, but she did make life interesting. When I started to drink, I wasn’t sure if it was because something was wrong, or just normal teenage angst.
On the night in question, one of the girls, Lily Harris, was drunk and passed out. She was a cute little pixie. Because of her size, she had a hard time keeping up when we all started to drink hard, so I wasn’t too concerned when I saw her drooling in a corner. I did check every now and then to make sure no one molested her. There were a few people at the party I didn’t trust. Then one of the girls screamed. I looked over and Lily’s lips were a pale blue. All the color had drained from her face and she looked dead. There was bedlam as teens scattered.
My dad was in charge of Parks and Recreation for our town and had taught my brother and me CPR. The training kicked in. I checked her and found she wasn’t breathing. I detected a pulse so I worked to clear her airway, and found vomit had blocked it. I turned her on her side and slid two fingers into her mouth to clean the worst of it out. I gagged and almost puked on her. I have a hair-trigger gag reflex when I either saw or smelled puke. I breathed through my mouth so I couldn’t smell it. She still wasn’t breathing after I cleared her throat. That meant that she had it in her lungs. I turned her on her side and with the flat of my hand, I beat on her back between her ribs.
“You’re hurting her!” Sharon Riley yelled.
I felt her try to pull me off Lily. After the fifth time I hit her on the back, Lily coughed and I heard her suck in a huge breath. I made sure she was breathing before I rolled her back into my lap. The color returned to her face and her lips went back to being pink. I started to cry and rock her in my arms. Bill Rogers pulled Sharon out the door. He gave me a look that said, ‘Keep your mouth shut!’
When the police arrived, Lily seemed to come to for a moment. The cops decided I was up to no good, so they cuffed me. They had me sit Indian style while the paramedics rushed in. I told them what I’d done to clear her airway, and that she’d stopped breathing. They put an oxygen mask on her, loaded her on a gurney, and rushed her out.
I probably would have gotten out of any trouble but I refused to tell the cops who all had been at the party and how we got in. Luckily, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut. It was my idea and I’d broken into the house. The detective was persuasive when he pointed out that they’d all abandoned Lily and me.
All I thought about was the last image of Lily strapped to the gurney as the ambulance door closed. The ‘what ifs’ about killed me. What if I hadn’t wanted to have a party? What if I’d paid more attention? My mind went in circles with one conclusion: my actions had injured a 14-year-old girl. Hell, Lily might be dead by now.
The good boy in me wanted to tell the police everything. The smart boy, the one in charge of self-preservation, kept me quiet. It wasn’t because I was scared what the other kids would think. It wasn’t even that I was scared of Bill. Truth was... he did scare me. I kept quiet because I knew if all the facts came out, my mom would catch some of the flak. If it were just me, I would have told them.
Since the police didn’t know I was the instigator, they only charged me with underage drinking. I was positive they went light on me once they confirmed I assisted in helping Lily. The district attorney dropped the charges a week later. It turned out Lily was fine. She had a minor case of alcohol poisoning and they kept her in the hospital overnight, mostly for observation. When I learned that, I showed no emotions. Later that night I cried myself to sleep with relief.
Of course, my parents got involved and Mom flipped out. She said I was no longer the son she thought she knew. She wasn’t sure she wanted me to come home. My heart broke; it was the darkest time in my short life. I was sure I would end up out on the streets.
It was obvious I’d ruined every significant relationship in my life. My best friend wouldn’t talk to me. My old friends kept their distance. My new crew was afraid I would rat them out. My family was ready to disown me. At that point, Dad stepped in and decided I would go to my uncle’s farm for the summer. My uncle needed some help, and Dad figured if I was stuck 10 miles from the nearest town I wouldn’t have a chance to get into any further mischief.
What I didn’t know was my Uncle John had a degree in child psychology. I just thought he was a farmer. With a combination of hard work and long talks, I began to pull my life back together. We put in new fences around several pastures. I used a posthole digger for the duration of the summer. At the end of each ten-hour day, I was exhausted. I was sure there were child labor laws, but who was I going to tell? In the first two weeks, I decided he wanted to kill me. I had never been so sore in all my life. Each night I would force myself to eat dinner and shortly thereafter, I would collapse in my bed.
The funny thing was the last week before I came home I’d looked for something in the barn. I found an attachment to the tractor for drilling postholes! When I got my uncle and showed him, he just laughed at me. At the time, I didn’t think it was funny.
Uncle John helped me get back on track. He made me realize I had turned into someone I didn’t really like. He treated me like a new colt. His gentle, assured approach seemed to calm me. I was full of hate and self-loathing. My first reaction was to blame everyone but myself. It took me nearly a week before Uncle John and I said ten words to each other. Suddenly the dam broke and I spent a day crying and telling him everything. Once I realized I didn’t like myself, it was easy to figure out I wanted to change. Uncle John spent the rest of the summer helping me work towards those changes. I was still trying to figure out who I was going to be, but I was now confident I could become a better person. I owed that man my life.
The other good thing was between my growth spurt and my sadistic uncle working me ten hours a day, I had turned all my baby fat into muscle. My body had undergone a transformation. Uncle John called it a metamorphosis. Just as a tadpole transforms into a frog, I was changing. I was no longer a short, slightly pudgy nerd. I was now very lean with a narrow waist, but my chest, shoulders, biceps and thighs had gotten noticeably bigger. A posthole digger works your whole body. My frame had a nice V-shape.
The transformation wasn’t only my outward physical appearance; I had grown a lot emotionally. Uncle John helped give me the tools to cope. I no longer felt the need for alcohol or drugs. He also taught me a lot about personal responsibility. Did I still have a touch of depression now and then? Yes, of course, but Uncle John gave me the tools to get myself out of my funk.