DJ Gables - My Cousin's Son
In late April 2009, there was a swine flu scare. The Fort Worth ISD closed down to help prevent the threat of it spreading. That wasn’t a problem for us in Bransom, and wouldn't have been for me; except that my cousin, Darren Gables, lived in Fort Worth and he was stuck with no way to care for his two sons for the ten day minimum they were planning to be closed. Which is where I came in. They made the announcement Wednesday on the five o’clock news. Darren was on the phone to me by 5:15.
Darren was probably my favorite cousin. He was certainly the closest, which meant we spent a fair amount of time together. Darren could annoy the heck out of me. He was definitely ADHD, but was good looking. He was a really cute boy and grew into a handsome man, but he was a beautiful teenager. He had blond hair and blue eyes, but he was also really lean, firm, with a nice face, and a nice hang. As he reached puberty, he left a lot of the hyper behind him, and we became better friends.
My relationship with Darren is grist for another time (and believe me, there are many stories to be told between me and him); but, his sons remind me a lot of him. Neither of them are as hyper as he was, but neither is as calm as most of my boys. They both resemble their father a lot. DJ (Darren Jacob Jr) just turned 13. He’s not as skinny as his father was, but he’s still lean enough to make his 5’4" look tall. Kyle will be 11 this summer, and he looks more like Darren that DJ does, but it looks like his hair is going brown, like his moms.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time with Darren’s boys and they call me Uncle Jack. It’s been a while since we spent a lot of time together, because they were busy with a number of things last summer and didn’t get to come visit like they usually do. Darren and I have talked about some behavior problems that DJ’s been having. He warned me, when I agreed to take the boys for this time, that DJ’s behavior has gotten worse since he became a teen, and he’s actually had more spankings in the last six weeks than he had the six months before that.
DJ and Kyle settled in just fine Wednesday night. I put Kyle in with the twins and DJ was sharing with Barry and Noah. They weren’t quite as happy the next morning, when I woke them along with the other kids. They were sitting at the table, Kyle in his briefs, DJ in his boxers, which is how the other boys usually eat breakfast. They became even less happy when I told them that they’d still be doing some studying while the other boys were at school. Of course, that did make the other boys happier. I had both of them doing some reading - some self-directed and some non-fiction I thought might catch their interest, as well as doing some math worksheets, since Darren had said they were both weak in that area. Which isn’t to say that we didn’t sneak in a little fun while the other boys were in school, as well. DJ hated the reading, but didn’t fight too much over it.
I’m not sure that it was DJ’s only problem, but I quickly noticed that he liked to ‘play’ with the younger boys too roughly. I asked him to settle down, I told him to tone it down, and I finally sat down and had a long talk with him, which seemed to get through to him.
Kyle and DJ aren’t into comics and stuff as much as most of my boys are, but they still enjoyed Wolverine Friday night. DJ and Jackson Westlake seemed to really hit it off. Then again, I noticed that Jackson was pretty rough with his little brothers also. Still, they didn’t complain. I’ve noticed that with some boys. My brothers, Matt and Ben, loved wrestling around and rough housing. Jason could take it or leave it, but Mike hated it. That’s what I tried to explain to DJ.
Saturday afternoon, we had a bad thunderstorm. Fortunately, it was after the boys had finished their ball games for the day, though it was bad enough the Sunday games were canceled due to field conditions While there was some break in the storm during the evening, it was steady enough, and the storms were hard enough, that we all stayed in. I was curled up in the living room with my newest book (a collection of Nick Pollotta short stories that I’d somehow missed when it was released last year - Invasion from Uranus). You can imagine that I wasn’t happy when I heard a commotion coming from the playroom. I try to leave the boys to handle their own problems, but when it reaches a certain decibel level, I feel I have to take action.
When I marched in there, I found DJ holding his stomach with one hand and the other in a fist, Bryce was kneeling on the floor next to Kyle, and Johnny was standing between Bryce and DJ with his fists up. Noah and Barry looked like they were ready to get into it themselves.
"WHAT," I thundered, "is going on here?"
Does the word babble mean anything to you? That’s what it was when they all started talking at once, trying to get their own version of the events to me. I finally broke them all up and took them aside, one at a time to find out what happened.
Whatever had been going on had definitely been noisy, and by the time I was pretty sure I had an accurate picture of what had occurred, we had quite a crowd. Troy, Bobby, and Mickey had been in the living room with me, reading. Steven, Daniel, Cal and Cason - our only guest that night, had been upstairs. As a matter of fact, PJ was in his apartment studying, and Charlie was spending the weekend with his mom, but everyone else had been attracted to the noise. Based on the situation as I understood it, I didn’t actually have a problem with that.
I pulled a chair away from the puzzle table, turned it to face the room, took a seat, and called DJ over to me.
"Do you understand that lying always makes things worse?"
He started to answer, but I stopped him. "Yes or no, DJ."
He nodded.
"Then I want you to think about what happened this evening, and what you told me. I’m going to ask you again, and I want to know what really happened in here just now."
"I was just playing with Kyle and Van."
"What have I told you about playing?"
He looked stricken for a minute, then looked rebellious for a second, but finally answered. "It’s only playing if they want to do it to. Otherwise it’s picking," he repeated, almost verbatim, what we’d discussed a couple of days ago.
"So, let me ask one more time; were you playing, or were you picking?"
"I was picking," he admitted so quietly I could barely hear him. "But," he continued more loudly, "Bryce hit me."
"You were picking on your little brother and his little brother; he was defending them, which is what you SHOULD do, instead of trying to hurt and embarrass them."
He opened his mouth, but I kept going over him. "And don’t even start complaining about the other boys. They might not always get along, but they watch out for each other. They should have come and got me, instead of threatening you," I said, causing all three of the older boys to look sheepish and Noah actually reached behind him to cover his bottom, "but, I’m not going to blame them for looking out for the younger kids, when they’re all younger than the person who was doing the picking. Understand me?"
He nodded, now looking for other arguments in the carpet.
"Get your shirt off, DJ."
"My shirt?" he asked, but began to take it off when I just stared at him. He stood there with it in his hand, and I just nodded towards the puzzle table behind me. He tossed it over there and watched it fall. He continued staring at it for a minute, then finally looked back at me when I cleared my throat.
"Take a step up, then put your hands on your head."
He obeyed me, at least until I reached forward and grabbed the button on his fly.
"Don’t," he cried, jerking away from me.
"What was the last thing I said to you, when we had that little talk about the difference between picking and playing?"
"That the next time I picked on somebody, you’d spank me…" he said, almost too quiet to hear.
"Then you step forward right now and you stay there."
"But the guys…"
"What? You mean you’re embarrassed to get your bottom bared and spanked in front of the other boys?"
He nodded.
"You weren’t worried about how embarrassed the little guys would be when you were picking on them. You weren’t worried about how embarrassed they’d be to have someone bigger than them hurting them and making them feel weak and bad. Now, I’m not real worried about you getting embarrassed during your punishment. So, get over here NOW."
He jumped at the last word, but still didn’t come closer.
"I’m going to count three, Darren Jacob, and if you aren’t in front of me with your hands on your head, I’ll get up and get you, and then we’ll have a repeat performance later."
With reluctance seeping from every pore in his body, DJ stepped back up to me. His hands slowly rose above him and came to rest on his head. I studied him for a minute. I could see the waistband of his boxers peaking above his jeans. He really wasn’t filling out much yet. Unlike his dad at the same age, he had a bit of a waist, and his stomach and chest were flat and hard, but he had no real definition. No hair, either. I’d seen him with a woody once or twice, so I knew he was pretty well hung, so I was surprised there wasn’t at least a little under his arms.
He stood quietly with his hands above his head, but he was nearly trembling with the anticipation, and I felt it was rude to keep him waiting. I reached out again. He quivered when my hands took his pants and began to unfasten them.
His jeans went down easily. He resisted stepping out of them, but only for as long as it took me to reach up and slap his thigh, just below the leg of his boxers. With his pants off, we repeated the process with his boxers. I enjoyed taking them down. I’d not seen him bare since he was 11, and he’d developed quite a bit since then. Of course, he wasn’t very happy right then, but he was still nice to look at. He wasn’t nearly adult size yet, and the skin hadn’t darkened either, but he did have a thin line of darkish blond hair that was not quite long enough to be curly yet.
His hands quivered as his bottom was exposed. I know he was in seventh grade, so he must be taking showers after gym class, yet he was still so shy. Probably because the other boys weren’t getting undressed and the other boys weren’t about to get spanked.
I took DJ over my lap and adjusted to him. He tensed up as I rested my hand across his bottom cheeks, but began to relax as the first swat didn’t land. The tension in the other boys rose as the wait went on a second, two, several. The situation reversed again when I spoke.
"Barry, would you get me Red, please?"
"Wait! NO! No paddle. You didn’t say a paddle."
DJ started struggling and I had to take a firm hold on his waist, then work my right leg free to catch his legs under it. I held him jacked over my lap while Barry nearly ran to get the paddle.
DJ tried a little more until he realized he wasn’t getting away from me, then he collapsed. I guess he didn’t notice when Barry handed me the paddle, but he became panicky again when he felt the wood come to rest against his bottom. It was only a second, just an instinct to try to escape what he knew was coming, and he quickly settled down again.
I hate having a boy, especially one already past five foot, over one leg like that, but DJ had already proven he wasn’t going to be stoic about this, so I kept him there and began the spanking.
DJ wasn’t huge for a 13-year old, but he wasn’t small either, a little taller than Noah and Barry, but also a little leaner. I lined the paddle up across his bottom, centered right on the crack, then took a minute to measure it. Like Noah and Barry, DJ was the perfect size for a three-down pattern.
One, two, three swats down the center, then four down the left cheek, and four more down the right. Three more down the center, then a couple on each side. One on the inside of the upper left leg, then one on the same place on the right. Another on the upper left leg, but on the outside, then back on the right leg. Four more swats on the same places, but just a bit lower down.
I think DJ tried to be brave. After all the squirming, begging, and carrying on, it seemed ridiculous at this point, but he was quiet so far. At least mostly quiet. I could hear him whimpering, but it was obviously through clenched teeth. I guess crying is somehow more unmanly than kicking, begging, and the rest. It didn’t matter, though. When I started again at the top of his crack, repeating the pattern, he gave up and began to cry. As the paddle went down the center again, and again, and again, the crying grew louder and louder. As I moved back to his legs again, he reached his threshold, and I slowed the swats down, using just a little less wrist action and tried to keep him balanced there.
His crying was loud and hard, but not quite all-out bawling. When I started a third pattern at the top of his rear, he went over the edge. I sped back up, but started using almost all wrist, no forearm action, so it was almost all sting. His bottom was almost solid, dark, dry, angry red when he started to bawl, so I didn’t keep it up much longer. One more run down the middle, then I went to work on the sit spots, which were largely ignored during the rest of the spanking. One to the left, then one to the right. Again and a third time. I’m sure DJ thought he’d been crying as hard as he possibly could, but he managed to find a little reserve when those last swats started coming down. He found a lot more when I planted a last four swats on the left one - going from all wrist action, to a little forearm, , to a lot of forearm, to a full swing - then we did the same thing to the right spot.
After the last swat, I changed my normal procedure and let him on his feet. He didn’t stay on them long, because he was dancing from foot to foot, jerking around, rubbing his backside - hard for a second, then not at all when he realized that was just hurting worse, then more softly. He was bobbing around, trying anything to get rid of some of the sting. The boys had come for a show and, after DJ’s repeated behavior, I thought they deserved one, but not too long.
"Stop that, DJ. Get your hands off your bottom and on your head." I gave him a second, and when he didn’t move quick enough, I snapped, "NOW!"
He wasn’t quick about it, but his hands did go to his head. He was still crying hard and loud, and his face was crumpled in pain and weeping. He looked at me, not knowing what to do. "I think you’re ready for the corner, kiddo. Go." I said, pointing. He walked away, giving me the look at his really red rear that the other boys had already been admiring.
"Okay, guys," I said, addressing the rest of the crew, "shows over. Go on back to what you were doing."
Some of the boys wandered off, but others had already been in the room. Since I hadn’t been there, I’m not sure what they’d been doing, but I doubt it involved nearly as many glances at the corner where DJ stood as they were giving it now.
I didn’t make DJ stay in the corner long. As soon as his crying was soft enough that it was hard to hear, I went over the corner, draped my arm around his shoulder, and led him out of the playroom and to my office.
We sat and talked for a while. We talked about why he’d deserved to be punished, why I’d spanked him, and why we’d done it in front of all the other boys like that. He wasn’t happy about it, but I think he understood it. I think he also liked the fact that, once we got to my office, I gave him all the snuggling I would normally have given as soon as the spanking was over. He had to be dramatic about it for a minute, but he did settle himself on my knee and let me hold him against my shoulder as he got the last of the crying finished. We had our talk after that, and I think he really started to realize how much he’d been bothering the other boys when he picked on them. He did do a little more crying, so I think maybe he really had been trying to play. Either way, he seemed to take the lesson.
"So, what do I do now, Uncle Jack. They must hate me," he said, nearly in tears again (his poor eyes were nearly solid red, swollen and puffy).
I can almost guarantee they don’t hate you, DJ. Maybe not for the same reason, but they’ve all been in that position at one time or another. Sooner or later, everybody wants to fit in and doesn’t quite know how. Right now, they probably feel sorry for you. You should use that. Go, apologize to them - not because I’m making you, but because you ARE sorry and you want them to know that - then get your clothes and go get a shower and get ready for bed. Okay?"
"Okay…" he said, with a hint of question in his voice.
I helped him up and he started towards the door, then stopped.
"Are you sure they…"
"Very little is sure, sweetheart; but, I’m sure that if you don’t talk to them now, it’ll just be harder to do it later."
He looked at me for a minute, then nodded and walked away. I gave him a minute and followed. He walked back into the playroom, his hands moving around, as if he wanted to cover himself, but realized there wasn’t much point in it anymore, then looked around - I guess to make sure the right boys were there.
I saw him try to start talking, but he had to stop and clear his throat, then he tried again. I couldn’t hear everything he said, but I guess the boys did. Kyle got up and gave him a hug, then the other boys did. Van and Bryce both said something to him and Bryce laughed, and it looked like DJ giggled a bit. After a few moments more of conversation, DJ stepped away, picked up his clothes, and went to the room he was sharing with Noah and Barry. Everything seemed to be ending okay, so I went back to my book.
Can you imagine my surprise when, about 20 minutes later, my reading was interrupted again.
"Hey, Uncle Jack," DJ quietly said, standing there in his boxers and a tee, with his hair still damp and slicked back to his head, and The Lightning Thief - the book I’d been trying to get him to read for days gripped in his hand. He started to sit next to me, then came right back up when his bottom hit the couch. I suppressed my grin and helped him stretch out, so he was laying on his side, with his head on my leg. I ran my hand across his slick hair, then moved it to rest on his shoulder. He turned a bit to look up at me, smiled, then opened the book.