Sounds Like a Story Coming On

“It’s what we do to thieves”, He said calmly, nonchalantly in fact. “We just drop them down the hole, into the box.” He stared down at me. I don’t think I had wet myself, but I think I was getting very close. In fact, probably closer than I had thought. From the time I had been grabbed by the massive hands, which had certainly been frightening enough, I was then trooped through the crowd, succumbing to their stares, and raising my guilt and remorse significantly. However, now, standing at the stall from which I had stolen the one dollar toy windmill, facing the owner of that item, the idea of getting the police involved was rapidly appealing to me. I knew too well even at this early age, that regardless of the dealings of the police, law and courts, I would of course ultimately be thrown to my father’s actions and decisions.

I wanted to suggest this to my captors. Not so much as to appeal to their better nature, which I seriously doubted either possessed, but to appeal to their obvious preference for cruel and inhuman punishment which I’m sure my father appeared to understand. So long as my father, and they, never met. I had a distinct feeling, he didn’t need any further suggestions of what form a punishment should take. They appeared to have dealt with offenders such as myself before. They appeared to have gotten rid of such offenders, as myself before. They appeared very calm about the entire procedure. But really? If they had, why had we not heard about it? Even as children we heard of dangerous places to go, places our mother said “never to walk (alone or not). And the time that such events seem to happen.

Have you ever noticed as you were growing up how our parents tended to establish time frames of events. It was as if certain things could only happen at certain times. “Make sure you are home by 9pm.” I recall hearing my older sister instructed. Why? What happened after 9pm? What difference would it make if she wasn’t home by 9:15pm? Many years later, I recall my mother making a comment about her own youth and her come-back comment was, ‘What could you possibly do after 9pm, that you couldn’t do before?” (let’s not go down that particular track shall we?) Sure, we had heard stories (Not just from our mother, - ‘cover your ears children’ as she also used to say). I also heard plans, from my sister. Some were wished and hoped for, as any young person does. Some, I am sure, happened. But, those that didn’t, well, those that didn’t happen before 9pm, may have, for one of my sisters at least, sometimes happened after 9pm. That’s what having a bedroom at the front of the house could achieve. Or at least, that’s what access to a bedroom window at the front of the house could allow after all. When daughters went to bed (cough, cough) And then, when boyfriends drove by?

(Continued tomorrow)