The Box - 14. Chapter 14

September 23, 1942

I just got back from visiting my grandparents and I had to write all this down before I forget it. During our fight I guess I banged Jim up more than I thought, enough to break his nose, and he finally told Uncle Jack that I was the one who did it. According to my mother, Uncle Jack then called my grandfather and bitched about me, and then my grandfather called my mom, who bitched about Jim. The end result of all this bitching was this big meeting at my grandparents’ house.

I went over there after dinner, at 8:00pm as prescribed. My grandfather is like that: always has to do everything according to a schedule. I thought it was only going to be Jim and me, but when I got there, I found Uncle Jack there too. That really snapped me, because it was now two to one, but then again, Jim never was into fighting fair. He stood there next to his dad with this smarmy look on his face, like I was in big trouble, and I couldn’t help but think of what an idiot he is. I just said hello and followed my grandfather into his study. It was a big, ominous looking room, with dark paneled walls and maroon leather chairs. I sat to my grandfather’s left, while my uncle and Jim sat on his right.

“Is your mother joining us?” my grandfather asked me in his cool, steely tone, the one he always had.

“I don’t think she knew she was invited. She told me you just wanted to meet with Jim and me,” I said, looking at my uncle.

“You can call her if you want to,” my uncle said, almost with a sneer. I could tell he was nervous about that. I mean, I know they loved each other, but my mom didn’t think twice about laying into anyone who pissed her off, including my uncle and her parents.

“I can take care of myself,” I told him, being as rude as I could without ticking off my grandfather. It was a bonus that I got to slam Jim at the same time by suggesting that he couldn’t, that he had to have his father here to help defend him.

“You may be able to take care of yourself, but you certainly can’t seem to control yourself,” my uncle said. “You broke Jim’s nose.”

“Were you injured?” my grandfather asked. He turned to me as he said this, his movement smooth and precise, like you see a ship’s gun turret do when it’s rotating.

“No, but my hands were a little sore afterward,” I said, and gave Jim a really smug look that really fried him.

“What possessed you to start a fight with your cousin?” my grandfather asked, maintaining his cool.

“He and two of his friends were picking on a friend of mine,” I told him simply. “The guy is my friend, and those weren’t fair odds anyway.”

“So friends are more important to you than family?” Uncle Jack asked me belligerently.

“In some cases, like this one, yeah, I think they can be,” I told him. My uncle got this really pleased look on his face, because he was sure that I knew that this focus on family was very important to the Cramptons. I was waiting for my grandfather’s wrath, but he turned away from me and toward Jim, as if he were training his guns on a new target.

“Why were you picking on Steve’s friend?” my grandfather asked Jim.

“I didn’t know he was Steve’s friend,” he said nervously. My grandfather scared the crap out of him.

“Why would you be picking on anyone?” he demanded.

“That is hardly the issue here,” my uncle said nervously.

“I don’t recall asking you a single question yet,” my grandfather said to him coldly. That shut him up. He turned his attention back to Jim, who said nothing.

“The guy they were picking on is Nathan Hayes. Everyone knows Aaron’s my best friend, and Nathan is his younger brother. Aaron joined the Marines and went off to fight the Japs, so as soon as he’s gone, Jim and his friends decide to pick on the guy’s little brother. That’s not just wrong, it’s un-American.” Jim and my uncle got fire in their eyes at that, but my grandfather just looked at me, his steely blue eyes, as cold as ice, willing me to go on. “When the coach broke up our fight, he said that we were supposed to watch out for the little brothers of our guys that go off to fight. I think he’s right, especially in this case, when the guy’s a friend of mine.”

“As your uncle said, you appear to place a lot of priority on friendships,” my grandfather said. He was such a crafty fucker, trying to probe into my brain like this.

“I do,” I told him firmly. “If I didn’t, I’d have friends like Jim’s friends. Friends that saw him getting his butt kicked and instead of pulling me off, they just watched until they got chased off by the coach.”

“If they would have, Nathan would have joined in too,” Jim snapped.

“So they were afraid of odds like that, of three on two?” I demanded. “Next time you buy some friends, you should buy stronger ones.”

“You have absolutely no respect for this family,” my uncle snapped. I watched my grandfather lean back, as if to watch the battle evolve. He was like God, having set all the wheels in motion, and now he was going to just enjoy the game.

“No, you and Jim are the ones who have no respect for this family,” I said to him rudely. They were really making me mad, and I felt myself losing control, giving in to the anger. “You make us all look like idiots in this city.”

“First of all, I don’t know why your mother didn’t teach you respect for your elders. There is no reason to be rude to me,” my uncle snapped. “You beat your cousin up, everyone knows it, and I’m the one making us look like idiots?”

“You interjected yourself into this discussion, so you are out of line to demand to be treated with kid gloves,” my grandfather said to him calmly, and then he looked to me to give me permission to respond.

“Nathan could kick Jim’s butt with one hand tied behind his back, maybe even with his legs tied together,” I said. “Why do you think he didn’t fight back?”

“Because there were three of them?” my grandfather asked, with an almost amused air.

“No, he knows Jim’s friends wouldn’t back him up in a real fight. The reason is that if he did, Jim would run up to the principal and tell on him, like a little tattle-tale. And then the principal would call you,” I said, glaring at my uncle, “and you would drop everything and come running down to the school to throw your weight around and make sure Nathan got suspended. Then, when Nathan went home, his parents would be so mad his dad would probably beat him up worse than Jim ever could. That’s why.”

“I don’t have to...” my uncle started to say, expressing outrage at the way I’d treated him, but I cut him off.

“Because it was me, you and Jim are sitting here and actually, for once, have to at least answer for the way Jim treats people. If it was Nathan, nothing would have happened to Jim at all. Look at how you handled the thing with my car. He gets drunk and smashes in my car, and what do you do? You go out and buy him a brand new one. What do you think the people in Claremont think when they see that? You make us the laughingstocks of the whole city,” I said. I had to mentally remind myself to keep my voice down. I was so mad I felt my nostrils flaring.

“So I’m supposed to sit here and listen to some 17–year-old lecture me on how to be a parent?” my uncle demanded.

“As a matter of fact, I think you should,” my grandfather said. Then we all stared at him, stunned. With that one sentence, he’d declared a winner. He’d come firmly down on my side.

“So it’s alright for Steve to hurt Jim?” Uncle Jack demanded self-righteously.

“I think that if Jim doesn’t want to get hurt, he should not provoke Steve,” my grandfather told him. As I sat there, I felt as if the whole dynamic had changed. I felt like my grandfather had moved his chair over next to mine, and now it was us against them. But the funniest thing of all was the look on Jim’s face, the look of complete shock.

We all just sat there, staring at each other, and I felt the anger fading. Well, at least my anger was fading. For the first time in a long time, I felt sorry for Jim. He sat there looking like his knees had been capped. I mean, he should know this stuff, he should figure it out, but now that we were all here, it was pretty obvious why he was the way he was. I’d been arguing with his father, not with him. He was just a pawn, and he was just doing what he thought his father wanted him to do, more or less.

My grandfather ended the tense silence by going into lecture mode. “Family is very important, but being part of this family comes with obligations. You act like I don’t hear what goes on around here. I know everything that goes on,” he said. His emphasis on the word ‘everything’ made us all nervous. “Your behavior has made you look like idiots,” he said to my uncle and Jim. “Fortunately, it hasn’t spread to the rest of us. Yet. If it continues, and it spreads, then you will learn that simply being family does not insulate you from dire consequences.” He’d just unloaded a major broadside into Jim and my uncle, and they looked like it.

He turned to me slowly, the gun turret rotating, and I girded myself for what was to come next. “This summer, after you graduate, I’d like you to come work for me.” I watched Jim and my uncle completely lose it; so much that they couldn’t possibly hide it. Crampton men have had their paths pre-ordained for generations. The eldest son traditionally have gone to work for the company, and ultimately have taken over. My grandfather had just revealed the dire consequences he’d referred to: if these two didn’t get their shit together, he was going to consider breaking that cycle, and bringing me into the fold was his big threat. Now they’d really hate me. I didn’t want that, didn’t want to be the focus of all their animosity. No fucking way.

“That’s really flattering,” I told him. “I appreciate the offer. But after I graduate, I’m going to fight.”

“What about college?” my grandfather asked, his tone telling me how important that was to him. Still, he hadn’t blown the idea out of the water, and that was something. It dawned on me that my mother could rant and rave about me going, but there were really only two people who could keep me out of the military after I graduated: either one of my grandfathers.

“I’ll go as soon as the war is over,” I told him.

“But you’ll have to join up as an enlisted man,” my uncle observed, showing us all what a huge snob he was.

“Possibly,” my grandfather said. What did that mean? Holy shit. What had I done? What kind of strings was he going to start pulling? I put that thought aside. “In any event, nothing that any of you has said surprised me. I am hoping that any clarity that came from this conversation will have come to the rest of you.” We all just stared at him as he stood up, dismissing us.

We stood up too, then. My uncle looked pissed, really pissed, but Jim didn’t. He looked really lost. I don’t know what made me do it, but I walked over to him and held out my hand, inviting him to shake it. He looked at me, totally shocked, and then he slowly reached up and took my hand, shaking it like we’d learned, with a firm but not massive grip. He smiled a little at me, and I smiled a little back. For the first time in a long time, I felt like we were OK with each other.

Of course my mother was waiting anxiously for me to get home. She made me sit down and tell her everything. Well, I tried to tell her everything, but it was hard because she kept stopping me with interruptions.

“Jack was there?!” she demanded. “He was there with Jim? Why didn’t they tell me? I can’t believe they led you into that dragon’s lair alone.”

I smiled at her. “It’s OK Mom. It worked out alright. You trained me well.” She was about to say more, but the phone rang. It was my grandfather, so she had to take a break to talk to him. I came up here to jot all this down. I know she’ll come up and talk to me when her conversation is finished.

September 24, 1942

My mom came up and talked to me last night, but by the time she was done I didn’t really have the energy to write any more, so I figured that when I started writing again, I’d pick it up from there. She basically came up all smiles, telling me that my grandfather raved about what an impressive young man I was and how proud she was of me. It was one of those uplifting but emotional scenes. I’m making it sound like it didn’t really mean anything to me, which is wrong, it did. Praise from my mom is swell because she’s so important to me, but praise from my grandfather is as rare as one of his smiles.

“Your grandfather said he asked you to come work for him this summer,” she’d said, probing.

“Yeah, and that was really nice of him, but I told him I was joining up to go fight,” I said, putting it out there to let her know that this wasn’t a negotiable deal, me joining the military.

“That’s quite an opportunity you’re giving up,” she’d said cautiously.

“Mom, I’m not doing that. I told you I’m joining up, and I am. Period.” I saw the resigned look of sadness in her eyes and felt guilty. I know she loves me, and that she’s scared shitless about me getting killed. I know how that feels. I feel the same way about Aaron. “Besides, if I went to work for the company, it would really snap Uncle Jack’s cap, and I don’t want him to hate me.”

She nodded. “Taking over the company is almost a birthright for the oldest son.” When she talked about ‘the company’, it was always Crampton Construction. “Jack and Jim are tempting Daddy to break with that tradition.”

“Well that’s their problem,” I told her dismissively. “If they’re still idiots by the time I’m done with college, then I’ll think about it.” That seemed to placate her, at least enough to leave me alone.

Alright, so now I’ve written all about this big conversation, this big confrontation in my family, when that’s not really what I want to write about at all. I’ve had a weird few days since last Friday. And those weird days have been built around three people: Nathan, Barbie, and Jim.

Nathan comes first. I write his name down here and I find myself smiling. He’s a really swell guy. I knew that before, but my friendship with Aaron always seemed to overpower everything else. Now that Aaron is gone, I was actually letting myself get to know him better, and I was enjoying that a lot. Maybe too much.

We goofed around together last Saturday and it was still warm enough to go swimming. That almost turned out to be a bad idea when I saw him in his swim trunks. They were really tight, and he almost looked as sexy in them as he would if he weren’t wearing anything. We splashed around in the pool for a while, and then grabbed a couple of chaise lounges on the side of the pool to just relax in the sun. Fucking winter will be here soon enough, so I’m trying to enjoy the weather while it lasts.

Being around Nathan was so peaceful. He isn’t like any other friend I’ve ever had. We didn’t have to talk or chatter or shit. We could just be there and say nothing. I guess I’ve been so upset over Aaron leaving, and so keyed up after my fight with Jim, that I didn’t really realize how stressed I was. But lying there in the sun with him, man, I just felt like with every breath, every exhale, a whole bunch of my nervousness went away. I was so relaxed I could have dozed off, but he fell asleep first, and that gave me a chance to really look at him. There’s no way I could let sleep make me miss that opportunity.

He looks like Aaron, his face does, but the rest of his body is nothing like Aaron’s. It was so easy to compare the two, especially since I know Aaron’s body as well as my own. Nathan’s chin is a little more pronounced, and that gives him more classic looks than Aaron. Aaron is tall, with long arms and legs, and a long, thick muscular torso. When Aaron would lie down, though, his muscles were hidden by this soft layer of fat and skin. It made his whole body seem smooth and inviting. It was the kind of body you could sink into.

Nathan’s body is like a rock. He has a long torso and legs that are kind of short. He isn’t a very fast runner. I made a mental note not to ever fight him, safe in the knowledge that I could run twice as fast as him. But the short legs he has are like tree trunks. They’re covered with dark brown hair, and that makes them look so masculine. He was lying there with one arm at his side and the other lifted up over his head, with his forearm draped across his eyes to shield them from the sun. I took in his torso, his abdomen with its thick treasure trail, his chest with its bulging pectoral muscles, and his thick dark brown bush of hair in his arm pit. Even in his sleep, his abdominal muscles bulged through, making his stomach look like a washboard, and there was a really pronounced “V” shape where his muscles aimed, almost like an arrow, at his groin. His body didn’t look soft and inviting at all. It looked hard and tough.

I’d let my eyes move down and focus on his groin. He must have been dreaming, because his dick started to get hard. I could see it outlined clearly in his tight trunks. I watched it expand outward, to the left, as he got harder and harder. I found myself licking my lips and felt like a complete punk, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was so fucking horny, and so lonely, and here, growing in front of me, was one really nice dick. It was about six inches long, as far as I could tell, but that wasn’t the thing that got my attention. It looked like it was really thick. I’d sat there, blatantly staring at it, thinking about how sexy he looked, and how much it would probably hurt to have that big thing jammed in my ass.

He stretched out then, arching his back, in a move that was so attractive I almost blew in my pants, and then rolled over onto his stomach. His back was magnificent. It was so muscular, with all of his bulk narrowing down into his middle, into his cute little ass. And that looked like two mounds of solid stone, pushing out his tight swim trunks. I’d noticed that I was lying there lusting over him with a raging hard on, so I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to think of really gross things to get my dick to go down. We hung out in the sun and in the pool, then got dressed and had dinner with my family. After that we went to Danny’s in my car, and then I took him back to my house. I asked him if he wanted to stay over, but he turned me down. I guess he wanted to get home.

After that, though, I found myself spending more time with him at school. We started eating lunch together, which was pretty swell, especially since we attracted friends we both knew. I think we’re kind of forming this new group of guys that goof around together, and that’s helping me deal with Aaron being gone.

Barbie was pissed off at me on Monday, and tried to really get me mad by ignoring me in the hallways. I felt bad, because I care about her, but I just feel so numb all the time now that Aaron is gone, I find it hard to put anything into our relationship. So I ignored her, and I did a better job of it than she did, because now she’s really mad. She started whining to her friends, who started talking to my friends, trying to find out what I was all mad about. Then my friends started grilling me, trying to find out why I was mad. So I told them I wasn’t mad, I just didn’t need her putting all these demands on my time. They told her friends, who told her, and then she told her friends that she wasn’t asking for a bunch of my time, that she didn’t realize she was such an inconvenience, and she was sorry for being so much trouble. They told my friends, who told me. I guess this is how things work in high school, but it seems so stupid. I mean, there are guys getting killed, I ultimately may be one of them, Aaron may be one of them, but they’re acting like little kids. It just made me more irritated.

Today in school she walked up from behind me and turned, standing right in front of me, forcing me to stop. “What?” I asked.

“I hope it’s not too much trouble to ask you to talk to me for 30 seconds,” she’d snapped. I just stared at her blankly. “What is your problem? One minute we’re together and things are good, the next minute you won’t even talk to me.”

“This has been a tough time for me. I don’t need you going around throwing down ultimatums, demanding that I pay attention to you,” I told her, being as calm as I could.

“A tough time for you? Like there’s nothing going on in my life?” she’d demanded.

And then I was pissed. “My best friend joined the Marines and shipped out. I’m worried about him. I’m worried that he’ll be first off the boat on some beach in the Pacific and someone will cap him, and I’ll never see him again. And to me, that seems a lot more important than how long your hair is or who is pissing you off today.” I didn’t really mean to put as much venom in those words as I did, and I sure didn’t mean to put as much volume into them. I’d looked off to the side as I’d said it and seen Nathan looking at me sadly. It was too much to deal with. I pushed past her and left her there, probably looking pretty fucking stupid, but she deserved it. So now when she sees me she’ll glare at me more than normal. I’m trying not to let it bother me, and that’s surprisingly easy.

And that’s where Jim comes in. I figured after that big confrontation he’d hate me even more than before, and in the interest of family harmony, I’d resolved to avoid him as much as possible. But he didn’t do that at all. He seemed to be everywhere I was today. I’m trying to ignore him, but he makes me nervous, just being around. I’m not sure what he’s up to. I was storming down the halls after my battle with Barbie, thinking about cutting my last classes, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I was still seething after my argument with Barbie, so when I turned around, I must have had one pissed-off look on my face.

I found myself face to face with Jim. “You OK?” he asked. That kind of shocked me. I mean, he asked it in a really nice, really concerned way.

“I’m fine. I’m just really mad. Dolls just snap my cap,” I told him, letting the adrenaline fade, and the anger with it.

“Don’t I know it,” he said, smiling. “Where are you going?” I was near the parking lot, obviously not on my way to my next class.

“I’m sick of this place. I’m gonna cut school,” I told him.

“Want some company?” he asked with an evil grin. So the two of us took off in his car and ended up in that park that I’d taken Aaron to right before I took him to the train station. That really disturbed me, but I tried to hide it and the longer we were there, the less it bothered me. He pulled out a bottle of whiskey, getting a mischievous grin from me, and we wandered down the path to the river.

We just sat there, talking bullshit, taking alternate swigs of the whiskey, until we were both getting pretty drunk. It was really fun, because we didn’t talk about anything important, we just talked about people at school and how stupid they were.

It started to get late, the time that we were both supposed to be home for dinner. We staggered back up the path, and the exertion seemed to sober us up enough to function in society.

“I’m really sorry for being such a dick,” he said to me as we pulled into the school parking lot.

“Me too,” I told him. “You know, when you’re just being a regular guy, and not Jack Crampton’s son, you’re a lot of fun to goof around with.”

He looked at me like I’d given him some big epiphany, then smiled and nodded. I went to shake his hand and he pulled me into a “man hug”, like Grandfather taught us. “You think we can goof around again sometime?”

“Sure,” I’d told him cheerfully. “Got any plans this weekend?”

“Nope,” he’d told me.

“I’m supposed to do something with Nathan Hayes on Saturday. You want to join us?” I was a little worried about what Nathan would say, but I was still too drunk to worry about it.

“You think he’s OK with that?” Jim asked nervously.

“I don’t know, but it will give you a good chance to make sure he’s not mad at you. You should see his muscles,” I joked. Jim laughed. I came straight home and decided to write all this down, and now I’m going to pass out.

1999

Brad looked at JP, smiling. “What?” JP finally demanded.

“It’s kind of ironic how you’re so much like your grandfather,” he said. I started to get irritated with him. He was pushing all of JP’s buttons, making fun of his cold persona and alluding to his parentage. But it was Brad’s way, and it was a flaw in him I had learned to overlook. He had this tendency to drill down and try to solve a problem, regardless of the pain it caused. He was obviously as curious about what was bothering JP as I was.

“Very funny,” JP snapped.

“I did not know that your father and brother were such assholes,” I told him, changing the subject. “Well, I knew about Jim, but not your father.”

JP looked thoughtful, and we all paid attention, just waiting. When he was like this, when he was thoughtful, we knew that what he said next would be interesting, if not profound. “I think that it was probably like that for both of them. My grandfather was a very domineering man. Steve said so himself, noting that he didn’t let my father do anything to really run the company, just had him there to do his bidding and learn that way.”

“That’s kind of how Greg was,” Robbie said, and then looked at us all nervously. His eyes stopped at me, begging me not to be mad at him for slamming my former partner.

“Yes he was,” I told Robbie supportively. Greg had treated him the same way that the Cramptons were evidently treated.

“But Robbie didn’t go off and screw his niece after Greg died,” Brad observed.

“We are all different Bradley,” JP said, irritated again. “I think that when men like my father and brother are dominated for a long part of their lives, like they both were, when they finally find themselves in charge, it is almost too much freedom.”

“How so?” Robbie asked.

“I think they suddenly feel like they have to break all the rules if only to prove that they’re free from those chains. And while they’re in chains, like you see my father and brother, they become passive-aggressive.” JP paused to collect his thoughts. “Jim was probably really jealous of Steve. He didn’t have a father always putting down expectations for him. He didn’t have his whole life planned out like Jim did. He probably had a lot more freedom.”

“But you and Steve got along pretty well,” Brad observed, probing again.

“Steve was very important to me,” JP said. Then he looked to me, asking me to read more and end this speculation on what was bothering him.