Chapter 1 - In the Beginning

A Chapter by JSAECH

A story about a very eventful life of a boy from birth through fatherhood.

Chapter 1 �" In the Beginning

It was a Tuesday in April. The year 1978. In a small hospital room a mother was ready to give birth to a boy. These were still the days where the parents were separated during the birthing process in most hospitals, and this one was no different than the rest. The father waited in the waiting room or paced up and down hallway while awaiting the arrival of the baby. Like most hospitals then and now, the hallway was bright, clean, and white. The doors in this area were all closed and very few people moved through the corridors at this time of the evening. The visiting hours had passed and few people were allowed in after those hours were over. The father watched the nurses at the nurse station go on and on about last night’s date and what the coming Friday was going to bring. The father couldn’t take the waiting anymore so he fled outside to have a smoke and ease his anxiety. This was after all, going to be his first child.

There had been thunderstorms earlier but now as dinner time was ending the storms had passed leaving the air outside cool and breezy. This keep the second hand smoke down to a minimum as the father puffed away on the Kool menthol just outside the hospital entrance doors. The father didn’t notice the stares and the over exuberant coughs people gave as they came and went from the hospital. The father’s mind was elsewhere. He also didn’t notice the beautifully landscaped entrance to the hospital except when he started to walk in the flower bed that he had been pacing around. He ended up killing several tulips and then for good measure he picked the one he didn’t step on to bring back to his wife after the baby was born.

The father finished his smoke and armed with his new flower headed back in to continue his wait in the maternity wing of the hospital. As he wound his way down the maze of hallways he changed his mind and headed to the cafeteria. He had not eaten dinner and was hungry. This would be the first time trying the hospital food. He stopped at the buffet styled food area and browsed to see what they had. There was a Salisbury steak that looked very dry, like it had been sitting in the warmer all day. Next to that was spaghetti with meatballs and again it didn’t look very appetizing. Then there was fried catfish that could probably pass for blackened. Being just after dinnertime the salad bar was being disassembled so the choices were limited. After a second pass by the food, the soon to be father got a candy bar and a Coke. The candy bar was a snickers. Something about this particular candy seemed to be more filling than the other options.

So off the father went with his Coke, Snickers, and a flower to continue playing the waiting game. He felt tired though a lot of that was being out drinking the night before and he was still nursing a hangover even this late in the day. Instead of the soda he should have been thinking water as the beverage of choice. As he walked he started humming Night Fever by the Bee Gees. This seemed to be the most popular song of the moment and he was feeling the groove and he shimmied his way through the hospital corridors, past the nurse’s station around a corner almost running into the janitor as he mopped the already sparkling clean floor and into the waiting room.

As soon as he sat down the nurse walked in and said congratulations Mr. Smith, it is a boy. The father quickly got up to move to the door and head down the hall when the nurse giggled at him and said that his wife was recovering and the baby was being tested then cleaned and then put in the nursery. “How long will that take,” Mr. Smith asked and the nurse replied possibly a couple of hours depending on the wife and the baby. “We will come and get you when it’s time,” the nurse added. So the father plopped back down in the chair and started eating his Snickers and reading the local newspaper on the chair next to him.

After another hour of waiting the father decided to check in with the nurse’s station again. As he walked through the door he saw the same janitor, and it looked like he was still mopping the same spot. As he approached the nurse’s station he sensed something was wrong. It was too quiet, as every other time he passed the station he heard lots of jibber jabber going on. When he arrived he found the station completely empty. As he stood there pondering he heard lots of commotion and almost got run over by several doctors as they ran towards the room his wife was in. So he hastily moved to the room to try and get an understanding of what was happening. When he got there he realized his wife was no longer in that room as there was a nurse who was down on the floor bleeding from her nose. As he turned to walk away he could hear her say she slipped on the floor.

While heading back to the waiting room another nurse called his name and asked if he would like to see his newborn son. He nodded his acceptance to the idea and she led him to the viewing area. He saw the boy there in the little mobile cart behind the glass, which was covered with all kinds of smudges and prints (finger, nose, and what looked like lips). The boy was sleeping and the nurse turned to leave but stopped short turned around and asked the father “have you named him yet?” The father said “no, but I have a name picked out. I think we will name him Brian Scott Smith.” She smiled and said that sounded sweet. She left and the father went back to looking at his son.

A couple hours later the father’s mother showed up. She was happy to have a grandchild. The grandmother detested the mother however, and she didn’t approve of the relationship at all. The grandmother was hell bent on doing everything she could to break it up and today was no different. When she found out what the couple had wanted to name the baby she threw a big fit. Her biggest complaint was that his initials would be B.S.S. The grandmother was convinced that once the baby started school people in the school would immediately start calling him Bull S**t Smith. So she did what any crazy and deranged grandmother would do, she threw a fit in front of everyone calling the father unspeakable names until he agreed to change the name. That is how the boy ended up being named John Scott Smith.

Over the next nine months the boy grew. The parents, well, they grew too, but in different ways. The mom already had a son prior to marrying the father. A fact that was not lost on the grandmother who was still actively trying to sabotage the relationship at every opportunity she had. The brother was happy to have a sibling, though over the first nine months John really didn’t do much that was exciting besides spitting up all over the parents and occasionally the brother. The brother found this event quite humorous when it was not happening to him to the parent’s dismay. The father at this point was an alcoholic and the mother was a con artist who was scamming everyone around her, including her husband.

The father had a routine that seldom varied. He would get up early, shower, and shave then eat a bowl of cereal, usually raisin bran. He would then head off to work, about a 45 minute drive. He would go to work and spend between nine and ten hours on the job as a maintenance technician on equipment that sorts mail. This was a very individualized with little to no support for him other than by telephone. After work the father would drive 40 minutes towards home but just before he got there he would stop at a bar just a few miles from the house. There he would spend his evening drinking and smoking. After several hours there he would arrive just in time to stumble to the kids rooms to tuck them in. This was the daily routine for the father over the first four years of John’s life.

The mother went through several jobs during this time. They ranged from pretending to be a nurse at a doctor’s office and at one point an elderly care center, where she was fired for stealing from the patients. There were administrative positions and secretary positions. The mother was not good at keeping a job because she would find creative ways to be fired. These could include stealing from patients, employees, or customers to having inappropriate relations with coworkers to even bullying coworkers. Then, of course, there were more normal reasons like absenteeism or just poor performance. The father was company loyal and worked for one company until they closed and then moved to a new job and worked for that second company the rest of his working career. The inability for the mother to keep a job is what drove a wedge between the father and mother and started them down the road to divorce.

To help save the relationship the parents decided it would be a good idea to bring another child into the world. This helped for a few minutes but, like in almost all other situations where parents think adding another child to the family will help solve the relationship problems, it only made matters worse. They really could not afford the two kids they had and now they bring another baby which will just drain the resources more. Along came the sister even though it was a bad idea. The late nights, crying baby, doctor visits, and daycare took its toll on the parents and the boys. Not long after the sister was born the fights between the parents started to grow in frequency and intensity. They were small at first but they continued to grow in intensity, especially after one came home from drinking or the other came home with pilfered goods.

The fights between the father and mother became epic. The kids were witnesses to this on most occasions. It was not uncommon for the kids to get in the way of the argument and get sent to their rooms. John and the brother ended up in their room quite often during these fights. It is unwise to leave two boys at any age alone in a room for any period of time. The brother was an instigator even if he didn’t know it at the time. He did not like being placed in his room as punishment, he liked freedom, and he especially didn’t want to be there with John. Not that John was a bad kid to have around, quite the opposite in fact, but because John wanted to follow the rules and be good while the brother liked to break the rules. The sister seemed to always be sleeping or crying so she was not around for the boys to play with most of the time at this point in their lives.

At the age of four John had woken up from his nap early and heard his parents fighting. John didn’t understand what they were fighting about just that he couldn’t sleep. So instead of sleeping, his stomach said, “I’m hungry,” so John decided to get up and ask for a snack even though he wasn’t supposed to get up yet from his nap. As soon as Jon put his foot down on the floor a needle, which his brother had been playing with the day before, pierced his foot and went in so deep it was poking out both sides of his foot. Of course he immediately started crying and moved to the door and out of the room to find his parents. They were yelling so loud they did not hear John until he was standing right next to them. At that point the parents finally noticed their son was crying and in distress. John showed them the needle in his foot and the father picked him up and carried him to the bathroom and quickly pulled the needle out and put pressure on the wound with a damp cloth. The entire time the parents argued and even got in a couple yells at John for playing with and stepping on the needle. After all that drama John didn’t get a snack but was sent back to bed while the parents kept fighting.

In the following weeks the fighting did not get better. It seemed that the boys would always be in trouble for something or other It was during one of these times that the brother had a brilliant idea on fighting back while being sequestered in their bedroom. The brother had noticed their room had a window and that window opened. He also noticed that almost nothing was nailed down in the room. So the brother thought about the open window and the items not nailed down in the room and realized there was potential for mischief here. The only thing that was required for an item to make it out of the window was for the item not to be nailed down and that it would fit through the window. There were all kinds of items that fit this requirement though some that fit the first requirement (not being nailed down) that did not fit the second requirement, it had to be dimensionally right to fit through the window.

The brother talked John into helping him. They started off small. First the window was opened. Since this was an older home the windows were made of wood with real glass panes filling the center. The entire window casing was also made of wood. So the outside temperature would make the difference between the boys being able to open the window or not. Fortunately, it was still before noon and the heat of the day had not allowed the window to swell yet. The task of opening the widow for two small boys because to the weight or the window, the inefficient design of the windows, or even possibly the peeling white paint that covered the window and the frame could make it nearly impossible to open. Being early and the fact that the boys were working together, they were able to get window opened.

From that point forward the mission was on for the boys. The goal was to get everything from inside the room through the window to the outside. They didn’t have to worry about being quiet as the parents were still yelling and making fools of themselves. So first it was the toys, GI Joe figures went flying, until gravity took over. Legos, bats, balls, games. One after another out, out, out, everything went. Next it was the clothes. One drawer, two drawers, three drawers, out, out, out, all the clothes went. The closet was next. They found more clothes, more toys, and more stuff that met the first two requirements. What was left? Pictures on the wall were left; not anymore, sheets on the bed; gone, pillows… almost gone. John didn’t want his pillow on the ground so he kept that with him. Some things are sacred even at a young age.

When they were at the point where everything that met the first two requirements had been deposited out of the window. The boys sat on the bed and waited for something to happen but nothing did. They waited some more and still nothing happened. So the brother decided to look around the room again and after some careful consideration he found more items that come meet the two requirements. He found that the drawers of the dresser were removable. Once this was discovered out the window they went. The brother then started eyeing the mattresses. Yes a mattress is too big for a window for sure but, if you use your imagination, which the brother had plenty of, you could find that folding the mattress would allow it to meet the second requirement and so you know what happened next…? Yes, out the window the mattresses went. At this point the only things left in the room were pieces of furniture that looked like skeletons of their former glory.

At some point the parents realized what had occurred. When the mother saw the pile outside the window she laughed and laughed. It seemed this mischief was hysterical to her. The dad was not impressed or did he find the situation humorous in the least so he did what he did best, he left to go drink. The boys realized that it takes a lot less time to make a mess than it does to clean it up. The boys worked late into the evening getting everything back into the house after some corporal punishment from the mother and the father. The mattresses were brought into the front door because the parents did not have the imagination needed to get them back through the window. The drawers were brought back in and placed into the dresser skeletons making them look whole again. Then came the clothes, the toys, and the games. After everything was cleaned up there was only time for dinner and then bedtime, no TV for the kids tonight. While you may think the boys learned their lesson for this event you would be wrong. When things got real bad at the house they would go through the same steps and empty out their room again and again. It was a way of fighting back against the evil regime that was controlling their lives.

next chapter

© 2018 JSAECH

Author's Note

Looking for general feedback on the interest of the story

My Review

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Reviews

Lyn Anderson

The story has good bones. A few suggestions -- take what you like and leave the rest -- it would be easier to read with better spacing, and if it were broken up into smaller bits -- fleshing out some of the details of the life along the way (possibly three parts to this intro?)

Lastly, and you are probably not going to like this one, but your writing is over-all strong with the exception of comma usage.
So, you could choose shorter sentences, or you could break them up into restrictive and non-restrictive clauses through the use of commas, and on occasion, semi-colons.
The general idea is that a sentence does not require a comma if it is one complete thought without a break.
However, if there is a pause in thought, and the piece in the middle is a complete sentence in and of itself, use a comma to break it up.

I have written this review using said examples in an effort to clarify. If you wish not to take my advice, then I beg your pardon and I shall slink away... my comma tucked behind me.