Chuck asked me to spend the night at his house. I always liked spending the night at Chuck’s house. He had one of those mechanical metal Hockey games where you could slide the players up and down the ice and turn them to shoot. Sliding those metal rods in and out of the game could get mighty loud in a heated match. It was while I was staying at Chuck’s house one night that I dislocated Chan’s kneecap. We were running around outside, playing tag or kick the can when Chan and I ran into each other and fell down.
Getting up he glared at me, “I am going to KICK your ass!!”
It wasn’t so much what he said as how he said it, slowly, with emphasis on the word kick. Chan’s parents had sent him to all types of martial arts classes since he was old enough to walk. The only place my mother ever sent me was to the store, for some milk or a can of stewed tomatoes. In other words I was severely outclassed. Chan walked towards me slowly glaring at me the whole time. I kept backing away looking for something to help me. To my right was an old baseball bat lying on the grass. Reaching down quickly I snatched it up and held it in front of me.
“You know that’s not going to help you.”
Probably true, but it made me feel better about my chances. When Chan stepped in to grab me, with all his weight was on his right leg, I stuck. His kneecap was floating at that moment and all it took was a light tap with the bat to knock it to the side. Chan crumpled to the ground screaming in agony. I threw the bat from me like it was a pit viper. I had no idea that it would be that effective and quite frankly it scared me.
Chuck told me three weeks later that Chan had to have surgery on his knee. He also told chuck that he forgave me and wanted me to come visit him. He’s still waiting.
We were outside playing and Chuck’s mom called us over to the porch. I made you boys a couple of bologna sandwiches and there’s some kool-aid for you too. We ran up the back porch shoving at each other trying to be the first one inside. The back porch was one of those screened in porches; there was a washer and dryer as well as some shelves for cleaning supplies storage. Chuck’s mom also kept some jars out there that she used for canning. It was cool inside his house. His mom had set two plates with bologna sandwiches on them at the table. Next to them were a couple of tall glasses of Kool-aid next to them. They were so cold that water drops were forming on the outsides of the glasses.
“Be right back” I ran down the hallway to Chuck’s bathroom. I really had to go badly. When you’re a kid it seems like you can hold it almost until you pop. When you get that message that your time has come you’d best be moving along. A couple of minutes later I walked back into the kitchen.
Chuck gave me that quizzical look. His Kool-aid was half gone and his plate was already empty. Sitting down I grabbed the Kool-aid and took a big swallow. As I was reaching for the sandwich he asked me, “Did I ever tell you where Mayonnaise comes from?”
“Nope, don’t think so.”
“You know that shelf on the back porch that mom keeps stuff on?”
“Of course.”
“She always keeps a bunch of full mayonnaise jars out there too, but I ain’t ever seen her buy any mayonnaise at the store. When we run out she cleans the jars and puts them on the shelf. Then a couple of days later they’re full again.”
“Bullshit!”
“If I’m lying, I’m dying.”
Taking a bite out of my sandwich I looked up at him.
“OK, so how did they get full again?”
Lowering his voice almost conspiratorially and leaning closer he said, “I snuck down one night, and hid out there in that space between the washer and dryer. After a couple of hours I fell asleep. Then the sound of the screen door squeaking open woke me up. It was pitch black, so I couldn’t see a thing at all. I just heard this sniffling, shuffling sound as something large moved over by the shelves. I could hear the sound of jars being moved around. I knew that this must be the secret to how mom got here mayonnaise. Standing up I turned on my flashlight and shined it where the shelves were. Do you know what I saw?”
“Nope” I said through a mouthful of food.
“This seven foot tall half snake lizard monster. It had a long tail that dragged along behind it. Its body was covered withal of these really nasty oozing pus covered sores. The sores were all red and swollen and white stuff was seeping out of the tops. While I watched it turned away from me and picking up one of mom’s clean jars placed it next to one of those sores. Then it squeezed hard and the white stuff slide out and filled the jar. I was so shocked all I could do was stand there and stare at it. Finally when it was done it turned and for one brief second it looked at me with these eyes that were full of pain and misery. Then it shuffled back out the door and was gone.”
I spit my piece of sandwich into my hand and put it on my plate, “That’s disgusting!!” I said, taking a big drink of Kool-aid to wash down the now sour taste in my mouth.
Standing up Chuck walked over and grabbed my unfinished sandwich and sat back down eating it.
“Sucker!!” oh man, that was classic. Sitting there laughing, Chuck looked pretty pleased with himself. To this day I can still remember as we ran in to get those sandwiches through the back porch. I had glanced over at that shelf. There, on the floor in front of where the jars were, had been a big slimy animal footprint of some kind. Say what you want, from now on I eat all my sandwiches with mustard.