Chris Cannon 01
With a family like mine, you know I’ve met some of my kids in odd ways. Even I would never have expected that the oddest meeting, and the one that would be one of the most important in my life, would be from someone answering an ad. Yet, I don’t know how I would have managed to stay sane and handle all these kids, if not for a boy who wanted to play cards.
It was January of 1999, and a lot of people were excited because it was the last year of the millennium. I was also excited, but by something a bit more immediate. I’d just changed the sign at the front of our parking lot, which now read:
Learn to Play the
POKEMON CARD GAME
Saturday 30 Jan $10 Registration
Register 11am- 12noon Play 12noon - ?
Free Cards Prizes
For five years, I’d been dreaming about something like the Pokemon CCG (collectible-card game). It looked good, was easy to play, and appealed to younger players. I hate to sound like a pusher, but it was the gateway I’d been wanting for those who felt Magic was too complex. Not that there’d not been other CCGs since Magic, but they were either too adult, too complex, or badly put together. This one was going to have mass appeal. Of course, if I knew how crazy Pokemon would be in six months, I would probably have been trembling from fear, not excitement; but I was spared that horror for the time.
I don’t remember exactly what time I’d changed the sign. I do remember that it was about 3:35, not long after school had let out, that a boy came almost literally bouncing through the door, followed by a woman who looked somewhere between amused by and tired of the boy’s excitement.
It seemed the boy had reached the counter in about two leaps, and I had to smile at his enthusiasm, as he asked, "Do y’all have those Pokemon cards now?"
"Yes, we do. You know Pokemon?"
"Yeah, Mom records the show every day, so I can watch it when I get home. Is the game good?"
"I think it is." Even as I spoke, I pulled out the starter set I’d opened and showed him the cards and gave him an explanation of the basics of the game. His mom stood by tolerantly for a moment, then began to wander around, exploring the rest of our store. While the boy was studying the cards, I studied him.
He had brown hair, darker than mine, that hung in bangs over his forehead and dark brown eyes that were absolutely beautiful—the kind you felt you could get lost in if you weren’t careful. He was fairly pale skinned, but it was still clear, and there was something about the tone that made you think he’d tan, rather than burn. His features were nothing special, but they fit together well, and he was pleasant to look at. He was about 4’11" and maybe 90 pounds—about average for a kid who’d just turned 12 (it was only later that I found out he was 3 months past 13).
After we’d talked for a few minutes, his mom came back. "Are you expecting this thing on Saturday to last an hour or…?" She let it trail off.
"It depends on how many people come, but I’m expecting four hours to be more likely. Possibly a bit longer. At noon, I’ll be teaching the kids how to play, then we’ll pair off and everyone will get a few games."
"I don’t know, Chris. I have stuff I have to do Saturday…." She turned back to me. "Would I have to stay with him?"
"No, Ma’am. I’ll be with the kids pretty much the entire time, so they’ll be supervised. You could drop him off before noon and pick him up that evening."
"That’s your whole allowance for the week. Are you sure this is what you want to do?"
He was very, extremely, and most excitedly sure it was.
Chris was there Saturday morning, had a great time, met several other boys with whom he seemed to really hit it off, and did pretty well in the tournament. We had enough interest that I started running Pokemon tournaments every other Saturday at the same time. Chris was there the next time, and he came in after school a couple of times, looking for other kids with whom he could play or trade. When no one else was around, I’d take a break and play a couple of games with him.
I think it must have been about a month after I first met him that Chris had come up on a Friday night. He’d tried to build a new deck and wanted help polishing it. Back then, I worked at least part of every other weekend. At that time, it was just me, Steve - 17, my little brother Aaron - 13, and Tommy - 10. Corey was also 10, but he and Barry, who was only 23 months or so, lived with Cathy and I had visitation. The weekends they weren’t with me, Steve would watch the younger boys while I was at work. Steve was happy since he still had every other weekend free, and I paid him extra for sitting his younger brothers (well - brother and uncle).
That night, I think Chris had come in about 6 PM. I took a break and we looked at his new deck, made a few adjustments, then played a bit more. A bit after 7, some other kids came in, so I went back to work.
By 9:45, the other kids were gone, and I was surprised to see Chris wander down from the game rooms. "Can you play some more?"
"Sorry, guy, but we’re about to close." I realized he’d left his stuff upstairs, so I sent him back to gather everything up. He was a little disappointed, but obedient.
At 10:15, I was sitting in my car with the engine going and Chris next to me. It was cool, but not really cold, and once we were out of the wind, it was comfortable. We sat and talked for a bit, finally moving off the subject of cards and cartoons, and just talking about life in general.
Chris’s mom had had a couple of long-term boyfriends, but the boy had never known his real father, and he hadn’t liked the last couple of guys his mom had hung around with. He could be a pretty good student, but a lot of his classes bored him too much, so he didn’t really try. He loved doing stuff but didn’t like team sports much. Ritalin helped, but it gave him headaches sometimes and made him feel weird, so he didn’t like to take it; but his mom made him.
By 10:30, I put a note up on the door, and we went down the street to Sonic and got the boy a bite to eat. When we drove back to the store, it was nearly ten ’til eleven. He didn’t have a key to his house (he’d had one a couple of times, but kept losing it), so I left a different note on the door and took him home with me.
The boy was yawning almost constantly and Steve was the only one of my boys up, so I took Chris into my office. He stripped down to his Fruit of the Looms, while I made up the couch for him. Like many boys with ADHD, Chris would seem to run full speed all day, but when his batteries went dead, he was ready to crash and crash hard. I think he was asleep before I’d finished spreading the blanket over him.
His mom finally called just before midnight, right as I was getting ready for bed. She claims that she thought we were open until midnight on Friday and Saturday. Since Chris was already in bed and asleep, and since he was going to the tournament the next day, we agreed to allow him to sleep there.
The next morning when I woke the boy for breakfast, he was confused for a minute, then started to get a little nervous until I explained to him that his mom had just been confused about our closing time and had agreed for me to keep him until that evening. With that news, he threw himself off the couch and began to squeeze me, saying, "It’s just like you’re my godfather."
I do a horrible Marlon Brando impersonation, so I just patted his bare back and enjoyed the hug.
It was about a month later when the big change came between us. Tricia had been using me as a babysitter for the boy since he‘d stayed over night; dropping him off after school for a while and leaving him at the store from open to close on Saturdays, but I honestly didn’t mind. He was cute and I enjoyed his company, though he could be a handful at times. I don’t know why she decided I was safe, and I honestly didn’t care. The kid was happy and didn’t seem neglected, so I was happy to have him around. Aaron had even developed an interest in Pokemon, and Chris was getting along with him and Tommy. (Aaron is actually only about 3 weeks older than Chris, but he looked about a year older, though Aaron’s always been a bit on the short side).
It must have been the end of March when it happened. In some ways, things had changed for me quite a bit during that time. In February, Mikell had moved back in with me to stay. In March, I ended up taking custody of Bobby. Still, besides Bobby needing to always be close to me, things weren’t that much different. I couldn’t leave Bobby at home, like I did the other boys, but he’d happily settle down in one of the game rooms or my office and keep himself entertained, as long as I checked in with him every once in a while.
It was about that time that Tricia explained that some of her friends wanted to have a girl’s night out at a new club in Dallas. We’d just started having tournaments every Saturday, and Chris didn’t want to miss, so would I mind his staying over night again? I didn’t mind. Aaron didn’t mind sharing his room. Chris was ecstatic.
I felt that, given Chris’s sometimes erratic behavior and the increasing amount of time that he was spending at the store and now at my home, it was time for us to have a talk. When his mom dropped him off at the store Friday evening, I took Chris to my office and sent Bobby to the arcade to play for a while.
I sat on the couch and motioned for him to sit beside me. He did and I leaned back and dropped my arm around his shoulders. He nestled against my side, obviously loving the contact.
"First of all, Chris, I want to tell you that I really like having you around, and I enjoy your company. However, I don’t enjoy all your behavior."
"You mean like when you had to keep getting on me last week?"
"That’s exactly what I mean, Chris. You’re usually a real good kid, but you don’t always control yourself like you should. We have to work on that."
"Okay," he replied. He looked at me for a second, the silence stretching, and he finally gave in to his curiosity. "How?"
"What’s hanging inside the door to Aaron’s room?"
The seeming non-sequitur only took a second to register with the boy. "You’re gonna spank me?"
"Don’t get ahead of me, Chris. But you obviously know what I’m talking about."
"That paddle," he said, his voice trembling slightly in trepidation.
"That’s right. Has Aaron ever talked to you about how I spank him?"
He nodded.
"And I use the paddle on Aaron when he does something seriously wrong, like breaking the rules or disobeying me. Now, the kinds of things you mostly do, talking too loud, distracting the other kids, not sitting down and keeping quiet when you should… those things don’t deserve a spanking with that paddle. They’re not that serious. But they are things you need to work on."
"I know you don’t like taking that Ritalin, do you?" I paused while he shook his head emphatically. "Remember the first time you spent the night? You were pretty energetic the next day, but I don’t think you were real bad. Would you like to know what I think your problem really is, kiddo?"
He nodded this time, then added ‘yes,’ to let me know he was really interested. After all, I was probably the first adult who’d listened when he said he didn’t like the pills.
"I think that you don’t always recognize when you’re not behaving right. You know how you’re supposed to behave, and I’ve never seen you do anything really bad. The problem is that you get excited and don’t act real good, either." I paused to look at the boy for a moment. "Do you understand what I’m saying?"
Chris looked sheepish and embarrassed, but he didn’t deny it, either.
"So, here’s my idea of how to deal with it. You’re not going to have to take your Ritalin when you’re with me, but I’m going to expect you to behave. Since you have trouble realizing when you aren’t behaving like you should, I’m going to… What’s your middle name?"
"Allen."
"All right. When you’re not behaving like you should, I’m going to call you by your full name. When I say Christopher Allen, that’s your cue that you’re not behaving like you should and that you need to correct your behavior. If I have to call you down three times in one day, or twice for the same thing, I’m going to spank you. Not with the paddle," I added before he could interrupt me. "With my hand."
"Now, I’m not saying that I’ll never paddle you. I just want you to understand that I won’t paddle you for what we’re talking about, but I will if you do something that’s actively naughty, just like I do with Aaron. Understand?"
He nodded.
"Okay, that’s what happens when you don’t behave. When you do behave, I’ll give you a little reward."
"Like what?" he asked, before I could go on.
"It’ll depend, Chris. It depends on how good you are. It depends on how good you’ve been. I’m not talking anything real big. But it’ll be a little something so you know that I know you’ve been good, and to encourage you to keep doing it. Do you trust me to be fair to you?"
"Sure."
"Good. Do you think that sounds like a good way to deal with our problem?"
He really thought about it for a while. I suppose that’s a good thing, because this wasn’t something I was going to force him into, but I did want him to agree with it. After a few moments, he spoke up. "And I don’t have to take the pills, and I only get spanked if I don’t settle down when you tell me?"
This time it was my turn to nod.
"Sounds real good to me."
"Okay, squirt, that just leaves one more thing for us to deal with."
I paused and he looked inquiringly at me.
"I want us to start this tomorrow with a clear slate. I think there are two ways to do that. We can either just say that we’re going to forget everything and start over; or I can give you a little reward for the times you’ve been good before, and a spanking for the times you’ve not been."
I paused for a second to gauge his reaction and watched his eyes go wide before I continued. "I think it would be best if you knew exactly what you were getting into, so I think it’s better you get both right now instead of neither. What do you think?"
"A present and a spanking?"
I nodded and waited for him. And waited. He was twisting and squirming; obviously torn between wanting the present and not wanting a spanking, and just maybe wanting to take the spanking because I said it would be best for him. He started to say something, stopped, looked at me, opened and closed his mouth again, then closed his eyes. He was torn and just couldn’t decide, so I stepped in.
"Christopher. Has it been a while since you’ve had a spanking?"
"Yes, sir. I guess it’s been…" he paused and rested his head back against the couch for a few seconds, then sat back up. "It’s been since last summer, when Mom was dating Jerry. He had to spank me a couple of times." His voice trailed away for a minute while he thought. "Mom never spanks me. She thumps my head sometimes, but she doesn’t really spank me."
"Well, if you had to think that long whether you wanted to get both or neither, and if it’s been that long since you had a spanking, I guess you probably need one; don’t you?"
The boy stared at me for a moment, like he was in a trance, before he slowly nodded.
"Okay then," I continued, feeling almost like I was in a dream, "hop up."
Chris stood slowly and moved to stand right beside me when I motioned.
"Lift your shirt."
His shirt slowly came up, exposing a flat, smooth belly. I took his hands and lifted them a bit more, so the shirt was all the way up under his arms. He looked startled as I lowered my hands to his fly and began unfastening it.
Glancing up at him as I slid his jeans down his legs, Chris looked pensive—not alarmed or scared so much as unsure. As soon as his jeans were around his ankles, I reached up, grabbed his briefs by the waistband, and slid them down past his knees. He went stiff for one second, then his hands dropped from his shirt and covered his boyhood. "My dingus," he called, even as his hands fell.
I wanted to assure him that it was a very pretty… dingus; he was bigger than a boy, but not as big as a teen. His balls were still boy-sized, but they dangled loosely like an adolescents. His peter was still boyishly short, but thicker. It was an incredibly sweet mix. I thought about telling him to move his hands; but this wasn’t really a punishment spanking, and we could add embarrassment at a future time.
Looking in his eyes, hoping to lessen his embarrassment a bit, I patted my legs. "Over here, Buddy."
He crawled up on the couch, then knelt and lowered himself across my lap. His bottom was round and full, slightly dimpled and firm—a real pleasure. Even as I gave it a brief rub, I hoped for the time I might get to see him completely naked.
He took the spanking well as I cracked my hand down again and again, firmly, but not especially hard. Again and again my hand smacked down and his bottom turned redder and redder. He just lay there, not quite completely still, but quietly, his hands lying on the couch above his head. His feet kicked just a bit, but not wildly. His squirming around my lap became a bit more pronounced as his bottom turned redder, but I kept going, even as my hand started stinging.
"Are you going to cry, Chris?"
"Not unless you draw blood," he replied calmly.
I felt that was clear enough, so I finished up with a flurry of extra sharp spanks to the sit spot and let him up, turning him so he was sitting in my lap.
The boy had taken the spanking well and quietly, but his face was red and soaked with tears.
"Well, I guess I did get through to you, didn’t I?"
He looked and saw me smiling at him, and he grimaced before he smiled back and nodded. I wiped some of the tears away for him, then kissed his cheek. His smile broadened, and he leaned in against my shoulder for a minute, though he was a little too big to fit well. I did notice he didn’t seem concerned by his exposed peter anymore.
"Now, when am I going to spank you like that again?"
"When you have to call me down three times in one day."
"And.…" I coaxed him.
He had to think for a second before he continued, "And if you call me down twice for the same thing."
"That’s right. And will I ever paddle you?"
He nodded, a bit worried now. "Yes, sir."
"When?"
He was quiet for a second and unsure of himself, so I helped him out. "I’ll paddle you if you break any of our rules, or if you disobey me. Okay?"
He nodded again.
"Good. Then we really only have one thing left to do."
"We do?" he asked, sounding a little worried.
"Yeah. The spanking was for the times you’ve acted up when you’ve been with me; but you’ve been good sometimes, too. Why don’t you reach in my pocket there," I said, nodding towards my shirt, "and get your reward."
Back then, packs of Pokemon cards were rare and expensive. The look on his face when he pulled out the two packs of Pokemon cards said that, not only was it worth getting spanked when he couldn’t act right, but that I was a pretty darned good guy.
I had a great beginning with Chris and he really was a good kid. Still, good kid or not, it took a while for him to really come to terms with our little procedure and to learn to police his own behavior, which is to say that he did make a few more trips over my lap. And, even though he was a good kid, he was pretty immature for his age and made the same type of mistakes most boys make at that age and he did get to find out how Aaron’s paddle actually felt, and even how it felt to share a spanking with someone else. But those aren't part of this story, so we'll just have to wait.