Tag Archives: When the Captain Came Calling

February 5, 2019 · 11:15 am

When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 5

Canto Five – Everyone is Naked Under Their Clothes

The night was typical. Six nasty old hens pecked Valerie’s hands as she searched under them for eggs. The last one of those took a girl-fist to the side of the head. That, of course, didn’t faze the stupid hen. Chickens apparently have their brains hidden safely in their butts. But chores always came to an end. Mom was always sympathetic about chicken-stupidity-caused peck marks, and rubbed salve on them, visible wound or not. Then it was time to finish any homework needed, and up to bed. And Val always slept naked under the quilts and comforters. She slept well because… well, because naked was good when you were asleep.

Morning came, as mornings do, with a stupid rooster crowing the sun up. Of course, if hens are stupid, roosters, having the additional mental handicap of being male, were stupid times ten. No, stupid times twenty. Beau the rooster always got it wrong. The sun was never actually up until at least a half hour after the stupid rooster claimed it was up. Chicken pot pie. As Valerie pried her eyes open, she imagined chicken pot pie cooking on Mom’s stove. Beau-flavored chicken pot pie.

When she got to the bathroom, Daddy Kyle was already in there shaving. No problem. Once again Valerie marched in naked as the day she was born, though with considerably more hair on her head. She went straight to the shower, grabbed the shampoo off the shelf, and twisted the water on to just the right level of warm she always used. Warm, soapy water all over your body… piles of foamy shampoo in your longish hair… it was a little like Eden must have felt to Eve. And Eve liked being naked too… at least, until the mistake with the snake. Of course, Eden had to end when the water began to grow cold. Even in the summertime the well could put out near freezing levels of cold once the water heater was drained.

Kyle looked at her when she stepped out and grabbed a towel.

“No hot water left for me again, huh, Princess?”

“Sorry, Daddy. I need a good hot shower in the mornings.”

“Shouldn’t you put on a robe or something, dearest? You come in here every morning completely naked. You are getting too old for that.”

“Old? Too old for what?”

“When a girl reaches a certain age, she starts to change. When that happens, well…”

“But, Daddy, you are used to seeing me naked. You changed my diapers while Mommy and I were still in the hospital after I was born.”

“I know… I know… And it isn’t that there is anything wrong happening. It’s just…”

“You can’t be getting shy. I’ve seen you naked too… a lot.”

Kyle’s face reddened. He was apparently trying hard to stutter on.

“When a girl reaches a certain age… well, she…”

“Yeah, she changes. I know Dad. Mom told me what to expect. But honestly, I don’t even really have boob bumps yet. I look like a little boy when I’m naked… except I don’t have one of those water hoses to pee with.”

She was standing with the towel in her hand, looking at him while she was completely bare and being mildly amused by his extreme discomfort. He finally sat down on the closed cover of the commode, completely defeated. She decided to push things a little. She dropped the towel and went to sit on his knee even though she was a little damp around the edges and quite sincerely still naked.

“Princess…”

“I love you too, Daddy.”

“No… I mean, yes, I love you… but this is not a good thing for a big girl to be doing. I worry you are getting so used to being naked around a man like me… even though I’m your Daddy… and one day… when boys, um… get curious… the way boys are… and, well…”

“If that’s what worries you, Daddy, no boy besides you has ever seen me naked. And I won’t let a yucky thing like that happen… until the time is right.”

“Okay, but promise me the time is not right until you are thirty.”

“Daaaad! You know everyone is actually naked under their clothes. Everyone has a body… so no one should be ashamed of it.” Surely he recognized that bit of wisdom. After all, it is what he’d said to her on the subject more than once.

“Okay. I trust you and believe in you. But develop a little modesty maybe? Put on a robe when you come in here. Or wait till I’m done.”

“Don’t you like me like this?”

“I love you. But you are getting to an age where you being naked like this around me… well… begins to get… um, uncomfortable. And your little wet behind is making my pants wet. I have work to do today, and now my pants have a wet spot shaped like your butt.”

“Oh, Daddy!” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He put an arm around her shoulders and gave a squeeze.

“I hope we can start getting some better habits going, Princess. We don’t want to get your mom mad or anything.” Valerie hopped off his damp lap and padded over to retrieve the towel. She wrapped it around herself and then gave him one more grin before she barefooted it out of the bathroom and toward her waiting school clothes. You never knew anything for certain. Maybe one day she would just have to go to school naked… to show Daddy that… well, okay… maybe not to school.

When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 4

Canto Four – Machine Shed Blues

Valerie was thinking about chores when she wandered out to the machine shed. She hadn’t gone into the house yet for a reason. Feed the chickens and check for eggs. Put fresh water in the water bottles. God, she hated Mr. Boofoo chickens! …Err… un-cool chickens. The ones that were going to peck at her for checking their nests were all Mrs. But the other part fit. Lingering outside meant she didn’t have to march out to the chicken house immediately. She’d get it done… just not yet.

As she wandered into the machine shed, she saw her Daddy there, leaning up against the combine. The engine housing was up and various parts were laid out on the white concrete floor in a very careful rainbow of different size pieces, bolts, and screws. Kyle was leaning up against the combine with a paper in his hands. He stared at it with red eyes. Had he been crying or something? It looked like a bill, this paper that seemed to be making him sad. Then, he suddenly wadded the thing up into a ball and pitched it across the shed. It plinked off the corrugated tin wall and banked directly into the empty barrel there. Two points! But it did not make him happy. Then he noticed Val was watching him.

“Oh, hi, Princess. You are looking lovely tonight.” His face was happier by a mile and a quarter, but the redness of his eyes still showed.

“Is something wrong, Daddy?”

“Of course not. You haven’t done your chicken chores, though, huh?”

“Well, not yet… I will go in a minute. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Oh? What about?”

That was the thing. What about? She didn’t really have a what about. She just sensed that she needed to talk to him.

“You know how everyone thinks Pidney Breslow is going to be a great football player this year?”

“Yeah. The big goof is just a freshman and he’s already made the varsity team. What about him?”

She had to say something fast… but that usually meant saying something stupid because she couldn’t think fast.

“Do you think he would make a good boyfriend for me?”

“You are ten, Princess. He’s fifteen or sixteen, isn’t he?”

“I’m eleven. Mom is younger than you are.”

“Only by two years. Not as big a deal.”

“You don’t like Pidney?”

“I like him fine. But you are ten. Any boy who thinks he’s going to be your boyfriend will have to get past two bear traps, some electric fencing, and my shotgun loaded with rock salt.”

“Why rock salt?”

“It won’t kill him, but it will sting like hell.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, don’t Pidney and that girl Mary Phillips already have a thing going on? They are always together.”

“They are best friends. They live next door to each other. More like brother and sister.”

Kyle laughed. “Pid’s a red-blooded American boy. They may say friends to each other, but when they are alone together, well… Dagwood Phillips needs to have some rock salt in his shotgun for that.”

“Nobody’s gonna shoot Pidney are they? I mean, I think I am in love with him.” There may have been a look of terror on Valerie’s face at that point. She really wasn’t sure.

“No, Princess. No one is really going to shoot him. It’s just a joke that fathers say whenever they are thinking about their daughters and young men. Besides, I never figured I’d have to shoot Pid anyway. I always reckoned it was more likely to be somebody like that Murphy brat.”

“You’d shoot Danny?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that one.

Kyle laughed. He walked over to his daughter, put his big greasy hand on her neck and gently pulled her face up next to his heart.

“I love you, Princess. I would never intentionally do something to break your heart. But I will do everything I can to protect your heart from being broken. Just try not to like the boys I might have to shoot for something, okay?”

He said that last with a laugh that told her he loved her and was only playing with her. Daddy was her real handsome Prince.

When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 3

Canto Three –Discovery Doesn’t Happen Without Risk

Leaving the Ghost House, Valerie waited until Conrad Doble had left. She didn’t like old King Leer looking at her. She would’ve been happier if Pidney had stayed around a bit longer. Not only could he protect her, but she really liked looking at Pidney’s broad shoulders and cute behind. But Pidney left when Mary left. She didn’t have to worry for too long though about being alone with Conrad. He left shortly after Pid and Mary. Danny Murphy and Ray Zeffer were both still there.

“You wouldn’t mind if we walked you home, huh, Val?” asked Danny.

She looked out the cellar doorway where Conrad had just disappeared. “It would be kinda good to have two guys around when I have to go back home and that creepazoid is around somewhere.”

“We promised Pidney a long time ago that we would look out for you,” said Ray.

“I don’t really know you very well, Ray. Why do you wanna help me?”

“We are like second cousins or something,” said Ray. “Grandma says there are connections between the Zeffers and the Clarkes. Back a couple of generations maybe.”

“Besides,” said Danny, “You may only be ten years old, but you are so beautiful. We’d do anything for you just because of that.”

“That’s kinda sexist, ain’t it? You know my mom and I are both feminists, right?”

“Maybe,” said Ray, shoving Danny for having been so stupid. “But it is entirely true.”

She looked at him then… really studied him for a moment. Ray Zeffer, tall and thin, was nice to look at too. He had big brown eyes like a deer… Bambi’s eyes. Those eyes could look soulfully through you like x-ray eyes. He could see Valerie’s heart inside her ribcage. She shivered ever so slightly because of those big Bambi eyes. But those eyes were sad. Something about the way those eyes looked at you told you that something deeply sad and soul-searing had touched Ray. She was fairly sure his mother hadn’t been killed by hunters though.

“Let’s go then. If you walk me to the north edge of town, that will be good enough.”

“You skated in all the way from the farm?” asked Danny.

“Walked to town,” she answered. “You can’t use the board on the gravel roads. It is only two miles.”

“That’s still a long way,” said Ray. “But if you don’t mind, we’ll walk you all the way home.”

“I don’t mind. You are both very sweet to do it.”

*****
The walk along the gravel roads had been pleasant. The rocks and sand crunched under your sneakers in a way that was reassuring. Your feet were firmly on the earth when you walked on the gravel. No danger of floating away into some dream world. And the sound the gravel made could warn you of oncoming cars both ahead of you, and behind. Stalking King Leers too. They couldn’t sneak up on you without being heard.

“That farm place there is where I live with Daddy and Momma,” said Valerie. She looked at Ray.

“We know where you live,” said Danny. “We all three have lived in this town all our lives.”

“Oh, yeah, I know that,” said Val sheepishly. She didn’t want to be awkward in front of Ray.

“It’s a nice farm,” said Ray. “Your dad must work hard with so many acres to till.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty busy in the spring, summer, and fall. He should be in the fields now picking corn, unless he’s finished all the corn that survived the hail in August.”

“I’d be in the fields now, too,” said Ray sadly, “except my dad passed away two years ago. We just rent our land out now, Mom and me.”

Val knew about Ray’s father. He had passed away in the Summer of ’82 from a heart attack while driving his tractor in a field down by Dows, Iowa. Maybe that’s why Ray looked so sad all the time.

“Do you miss it?” asked Danny. “The field work, I mean?”

“Not really. Being a farmer is a hard job. It’s like you are never done working.”

“Danny wouldn’t know,” said Valerie with a mocking grin. “His dad works in an office in Belle City. He counts beans or something.”

“He’s an accountant,” said Danny frowning fiercely. “Bean-counter is a nick-name for an accountant. He doesn’t actually count beans!”

“What does he really count, then?” asked Ray.

“Payrolls and prices and ledgers and stuff… I think,” said Danny. “But I have done field work! You know I walked beans the past two summers, Val! You walked ‘em too!”

“Ack! I hate walking up and down the rows with a hoe, pulling button weeds and chopping rogue corn!” said Ray.

“I like it,” said Valerie laughing. “I pretend some of the weeds are people I don’t like or who have made fun of me. I grab ‘em by the throat and yank their little fat heads off, or I chop them in two with the hoe. Besides, walking beans is how I got to see Danny naked last summer.”

Danny was seriously blushing now. If Val hadn’t killed him with embarrassment before, this was sure to do the job now.

“Tell me about it,” said Ray with a chuckle.

Danny was hesitant, but certainly didn’t want Valerie to tell it. “Well, er… I made a bet with my cousin from Clarion about who could clear out the thistle patch in his row faster. The loser had to do the next two rows stark naked, with the winner holding on to the clothes. I didn’t know anybody could chop thistles that fast.”

“After two rows in the sun with that white skin of his,” said Valerie, “he was red all over… just like a cherry… even in places a person should never be sunburned.”

All three of them laughed about it and Danny didn’t even die of embarrassment. Almost, but not quite.

“We’re here,” said Val at last. “Thank you for walking me home. You are both gentlemen, and very gallant.”

“What does gallant mean?” asked Danny.

“Like a white knight,” said Ray, “protecting the princess from evil.”

“Are we white knights?” asked Danny, looking directly at Val.

“One white knight and one cherry red jester, I think.”

Danny grinned again. Ray laughed. It was good to hear Ray laugh. Some people simply need to laugh more.

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Filed under farming, humor, Iowa, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as novel writing, When the Captain Came Calling

January 15, 2019 · 5:04 pm

When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 2

Canto Two – Bait Worth Biting On

Describing the feeling of entering the Ghost House for the first time would prove quite difficult for Valerie when she tried to do it later on in Miss Bierstadt’s class for an English essay assignment. But at the moment she crawled through the Tunnel of Doom, she would’ve described it as a feeling in her belly like eating a bowl of iced earthworms and trying to find a place to throw up in a jungle full of man-eating plants that smelled an awful lot like marigolds or something. It was that kind of combination of anticipation, bad smells, icky things to see and touch, and the sensory deprivation of entering a candle-lit darkness from the bright September world outside.

“Welcome, Miss Valerie Clarke,” said freshman football hero and huge Polish hunk Pidney Breslow. Valerie was deeply in love with the square-shouldered giant, and sincerely hoped he would be the leader of this Pirate club.

“Hello,” she said, almost timidly.

“You are just in time for the first official meeting of the reforming Norwall Pirates’ Club,” said Mary Philips brightly. Mary had extended the official invitation to Valerie to come here, although Val didn’t really know why. Mary had said that she didn’t want to be the only girl in the club, but why would a girl like Mary want to be in a boys’ club? She had a bad feeling that the high school freshman girl also had her cap set for winning Pidney as a boyfriend. But, plain-looking as Mary was, Val was only mildly concerned.

A quick look around as Danny Murphy crawled in after her revealed the other boys in attendance at the secret meeting. Ray Zeffer, another high school freshman was there. He was kinda handsome in a way, too, but he was always so sad-looking with those big puppy-dog brown eyes of his. He had a neatly combed mess of jet black hair too, which was also attractive. Val could easily learn to like this club.

The other boy, a high school junior, was kinda creepy. His name was Conrad Doble. He was the only one at the meeting who had been a member of the original Norwall Pirates. He was tall and thin, with lank blond hair that hadn’t had a haircut in too long. He had a distinct problem with facial Acne. And he insisted on leering at Valerie, like he wanted to take a bite or two and eat her up. For the first time Val understood why he had the semi-Shakespearian nickname of King Leer.

“You know that re-forming the Pirates is a sucky idea, right?” said Doble, leering at Mary Philips for the moment. “There’s no way to go back to those things. Milt Morgan had all the ideas and told us what to do. Brent Clarke was the leader and made the ideas happen. How are we gonna fight werewolves or undead Chinese wizards without them?”

“You know that those adventures were mostly lies and fairy tales,” Mary said.

“Still, who will be the wizard? And who will be the leader?” Doble glared at Mary accusingly. “I actually saw the werewolf!”

The two older boys, Ray and Pidney looked at each other sheepishly.

“Re-forming the Pirates was my idea,” said Mary. “I think I should be the leader.”

“A girl as leader?” asked Doble. “We only used to let girls in for sex parties.”

“Be careful what you say to Mary, Goon,” said Pidney.

“Or what? You’ll beat me up with your football muscles?”

“No,” said Ray. “The two of us will beat the crap out of you.” The fire flashing in Ray Zeffer’s eyes was even more intimidating than Pidney’s football muscles, and Pidney’s football muscles were seriously huge.

“Yeah, well… I guess there might be benefits to having girls in the Pirates,” grumbled Doble menacingly.

“So, it’s settled. The Norwall Pirates exist once more,” said Mary with a sparkly smile. “I will be the leader and Pidney will be second in command.”

“Who is the wizard?” growled Doble. “Milt is the hard one to replace.”

“I get that you always thought of Milt Morgan as Merlin and Brent Clarke as his King Arthur,” said Mary, “but do we really need a wizard?”

“Yeah, I think we do,” insisted Doble.

“You know we don’t have to let you be a Pirate this time,” warned Pidney.

“I’m the only real Norwall Pirate here,” said Doble imperially. “You have to have my permission to even do this.”

“It’s all right,” said Mary. “What is it you think we need a wizard for?”

Conrad Doble stood up to his full height and lightly bonked his head on a cellar rafter. After he rubbed his somewhat flattened head of hair, he went over to a nearby cabinet, and removed the right hand door which basically fell out when you touched it. He reached in and brought out a large peanut-butter jar filled with formaldehyde. Floating in it was the severed head of a huge black cat, its dead eyes popped and staring. He placed that on the crate in front of the old couch.

“Gack! What’s that?” asked Pidney.

“The secret mystical symbol of the Pirate leader,” said Mary.

“Smart girl,” said Conrad Doble. “If you know that, then surely you know what a wizard is for.”

“I’m guessing the keeper of secrets,” said Mary.

“The teller of stories!” Valerie blurted out.

“Yes!” said Doble. “Both of those things. But story-teller most of all. That’s what Milt used to do. He told us stories and made us believe in stuff.”

“So, who here is a story-teller?” asked Ray Zeffer.

“Tell us the story of your Uncle Noah,” Pidney said to Mary.

“He is NOT my uncle,” said Mary. “He’s just Dad’s friend. I used to call him uncle when I was little.”

“But that’s the idea, isn’t it?” asked Pidney. “That story you were telling me about your dad’s friend on the freighter in the South Seas? You could tell us that.”

“Maybe. You have to give me time to pull it all together. I think we need to leave that position open for the moment, to give others here a chance to tell a story of their own.” Mary glared in Conrad’s direction for a change.

“Okay,” said Doble. “It’s a deal.”

“Who will be in the club?” asked Pidney.

“I invited everyone here to be a Pirate,” said Mary. “I think all of us need to be here. The Norwall Pirates used to be a group of friends that supported each other and helped each other through hard times. That’s what we all need again. Especially Ray.”

Ray Zeffer blushed and looked off into the darkness of the far corner of the cellar. Valerie wondered why. She decided she would find out… soon.

“Why didn’t you invite Billy Martin?” asked Danny Murphy. “He needs to be a Pirate too.”

“You are right,” said Mary with a smile. “But I didn’t know where to find him or how to get the message to him. Inviting him can be our first club project.”

“Club project? You make it sound all girly!” complained Doble.

“Adventure, then.”

“Yeah, better.”

So it was decided. Valerie Clarke was now the second girl ever to be a Norwall Pirate. She smiled to herself, but when she caught Doble looking at her again, she changed the smile for a frown.

When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 1

Canto One – A Secret Meeting Awaits

Valerie was on her skateboard on Main Street. She was thrashing. It didn’t matter how dangerous Daddy said it could be. She was a thrasher, and she knew how to ride. If he thought he could forbid her from doing it, well, that was just so boofoo! No. She couldn’t use that word. Not after Danny Murphy told her what it actually meant. Yeesh! Okay, un-cool, then.

She was ten. She was wearing her latex biker shorts. You know, the ones Mom forbid her to wear because they were skin tight. But why did it matter so much? It was not like she actually had a butt to show off. She could ride her skateboard naked and no one would really notice. She did an ollie off the edge of the sidewalk and onto the hot pavement. Summer was ending, but the last day of the Labor Day weekend was still hot. Iowa hot. Eighty degrees in the sun with warm, humid air that boiled you right out of your biker shorts sort of hot. But Valerie wasn’t ready to find out if it was true that no one would notice. She needed to keep them on. They were black with a purple slash of color on the sides. Her favorite thing to wear.

Across the asphalt street her wheels and trucks buzzed as she rode to the south side of Main Street. It was a small Iowa farm town. Only maybe four cars were parked there at any one time, and no one was on the street but her. Still, she wished she could burn her way across right in front of someone’s moving pickup truck and scare them into dropping a bale of hay or two. No one marked her passing by in one of the most boring places in the whole Mr. Boofoo Universe. No. The Mr. Un-Cool Universe. She had to remember not to say that other thing anymore. Especially in front of Mom, even if Mom didn’t have a clue what it really meant.

She was headed for the Ghost House on the south eastern edge of town. The Ghost House was the only remaining haunted house in Norwall, Iowa, and it had collapsed in on itself. It was more a pile of broken boards and garbage than a house, but it was the place where she was headed because, unknown to most of the adults in town, the Ghost House still had a functioning cellar, shored up with railroad ties by her cousin Brent Clarke and the rest of the original Norwall Pirates. The Pirates had been a secret club in the 1970’s, a secret that nearly everyone knew at least one thing about. They had been a liars’ club of young boys who supposedly caught a werewolf once and chased an undead Chinese wizard around town. Liars’ club was more than just a local nickname for it. It was more of a literal definition. But she had been called to attend a secret Pirate meeting. A meeting that shouldn’t exist because there had been no Norwall Pirates since they had graduated high school in 1978.

Mom would have a fit if she knew Valerie was headed to the Ghost House. It was the kind of run-down rattle-trap that all mothers worried about. No decent mother worthy of her official Mom-card would stand for a child of theirs going to such a place, especially not Val’s Mom, the Queen of Worrywarts.

She thrashed her way down Whitten Avenue and then around the corner, zigzagging for two blocks, and then passing Ugly Bill’s Junkyard to the huge pile of broken crap that had been described to her as being the actual place.

She came to a stop, kicked up her board and grabbed it, and looked around, not quite as certain now as she pondered a wilderness of junk, thistles, and burdock leaves. Ugly Bill Pixeley had tons of used car parts and wrecked truck parts from which he salvaged the pieces that he, his brother, and his two idiot sons put together as trucks and other vehicles which he then sold at a huge profit. Pixeley was a talented mechanic and a very crafty self-taught engineer.

“You here for the Pirate meeting?” asked Danny Murphy, pulling up on his bicycle.

“Yeah,” she answered, popping her Bazooka Joe bubble gum. “Mary Philips says it ain’t just gonna be for boys anymore.”

“Yeah. I heard that too. And I’m glad you’re gonna be a Pirate,” Danny said with a sly grin. He was a sophisticated man of twelve… well, not really… but he was a boy older than Valerie by an entire school year, though only about five months in age. Older boys being in the club was one of the main attractions for her. “It will be cool to have the most beautiful little girl ever born in Norwall in our club.”

Valerie blushed and dropped her eyes a little bit at that. Her Uncle Dash had always said that about her since she could remember. But it was one thing to hear it from family, and something else to hear it from somebody she rode the school bus with. Some things get around by word of mouth a lot faster and farther than you ever wish they would.

“Do you know how to get inside?” Valerie asked.

“I can show you a secret entrance … for a kiss?” Danny blushed intensely as he proposed the bargain, a truly dark red that can only be achieved by somebody as boney-skinny, white-skinned Irish, and shy of girls as Danny Murphy was.

“Boys who think like that all grow up to be rapists,” Val shot back at him. “That’s what my Aunt Jennifer says, anyway.”

Danny turned an even darker shade of red-violet. Valerie was suddenly feeling guilty, as if she might possibly have caused his head to explode from embarrassment by her cutting remark about his personal urges. She didn’t dislike him. She just didn’t want to kiss him.

“Aw, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’ll show you the Tunnel of Doom.”

Danny pointed to a large concrete drainage tile that had been rolled up against the side of the Ghost House’s foundation. She could see that if you crawled through the tile, you could enter through a large crack in the brick foundation. Spiders and potentially snakes to crawl through. Ughh! But Valerie was no Shrinking Violet. She pushed Danny out of the way and went in.

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Tagged as novel writing, When the Captain Came Calling