boys

by

rudy and the rocks

Medion DIGITAL CAMERAIn first or second grade Rudy found himself in a pickle. He did something wrong, something the teacher didn’t approve of. She handed him a sealed note addressed ‘To the Parents of…’ and told him to take it home, that he needed to have one or both his parents read and sign it. And, well, in his town, a sealed letter from the teacher always meant You are in trouble mister! news.

Rudy panicked, was scared of the spanking that was sure to happen once his mom read what he had done. He knew that his dad was at work so it would be his mom that would handle the situation. Her way.

A classmate, a wee boy about the same small height as Rudy, noticed the fear building up in his eyes, so he recommended that Rudy defuse the situation with just three rocks.

“Three rocks?” Rudy questioned.

“Only three,” the friend responded. “And you must find those three rocks right here, on the school grounds, right now. You cannot pick them up on your way home.”

Rudy ran off to collect the average sized rocks, not much bigger than large pebbles.

“Got ’em,” he claimed, holding out his hand, displaying the carefully-selected-similar-looking gray rocks.

“Good. Now what you do is… when you are walking home toss one rock behind you, and don’t look back. Never look back,” his peer stated.

“So, I just throw the rocks over my shoulder?”

“Yes, but you must throw them one at a time, not all at once. And, you must throw them with an equal distance between each toss.”

“Okay,” Rudy felt slightly confused, and must have shown it on his face.

“Once you leave this spot and are a short distance away throw the first rock behind you, wait until you have walked a little then throw the second rock, and then the third rock gets tossed at an equal distance compared to the first two. Understand?”

Rudy shook his head up and down. “And you are sure I will not get a spanking when I get home?”

“Yep,” the boy confidently stated.

Rudy made it home, successfully tossing the rocks at an equal distance, and never once did he look behind him to see where they landed. He nervously handed his mom the letter, whereby she simply smiled, and let him pass without a word.

by

rudy and the belt

IMG_2614Something happened at dinner, some kind of confrontation. Maybe it was something he did, maybe it was his brother, or maybe his mom was in a bad mood because of something that happened to her during the day. But, it didn’t matter the reason  because all Rudy knew was he was in big trouble.

He left the table, said he was going to go to the room downstairs, had to get out of there, away from the negativity. His mom didn’t let it go that easy. She grabbed a belt and followed him down the stairs, down to where the guests stayed and where she did the laundry.

His mom wrapped the belt tightly around her wrist, around her hand, leaving just enough leather to whip him. Rudy surprised her by grabbing the belt and yanking it away from her, saying he wasn’t going to take spankings anymore. That he was beyond too old for such discipline. That didn’t stop his angry mother. She grabbed a piece of wood, determined to make a point. But, that too, he pried from her hands. And then he walked away, walked back upstairs, up into his own room, and locked the door. And out of anger, he smashed some glass, breaking apart the bottom half of an otherwise functional slated glass window.

He could hear his mom on the phone, the phone right next to his bedroom, calling his dad, telling him how awful Rudy was behaving, how out of control he was. Rudy’s dad listened to his wife, told her he’d be right home, that he just needed to say goodnight to the client he was having dinner with.

He heard his dad approach, and opened his bedroom door when asked to do so. Rudy’s dad asked him what was going on, what happened. Rudy began by apologizing for breaking the window, but then he told his dad he didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t know what his mom was so mad about, and that in no way, no how was he going to let his mom spank him with a belt. “I am 15 years old,” Rudy told his dad. “Enough is enough.” His dad wasn’t angry. Didn’t try to dispute Rudy. He simply listened, then nodded. Then his dad walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.