Seth and Gary, an Introduction
On docks which nestled themselves on the banks of the turbulent Columbia River two young boys scrambled, exploring the fastened boats, often unmonitored by adults. Both these boys were born here in Astoria, Oregon—the first English settlement in the Western United States, at once slated to be the greatest western port city of the, then, unfinished United States of America and the destination for those seeking the NW passage from the east; a passage that would be discovered not to exist. A great fire, and the rise of another city with a more convenient port, would expedite the early zenith and decline of this great city into a perpetual state of mediocrity. The logging and fishing industries were failing to keep their promise of enduring employment opportunities. Along the river, one could almost always spot abandoned, decaying buildings: old shipping yards, canneries and packing plants. This was the playground of Seth (who would enter the first grade at the end of this summer in 1978) and his tag along three-year-old brother.
Seth Reid had silky, golden hair that was beginning to show signs of turning brown in his 6th year of life. His bangs were cut but the rest of his hair was long for a child his age—almost touching his shoulders. Despite this, his young face still somehow suggested he was a boy. He was precocious when independent, though socially he could be quite immature. He was almost kept from entering kindergarten the year before (he wasn’t to turn 5 until November) but his mother, who was determined to get her rambunctious child out of her hair, convinced the school he was ready.
His brother, Gary, was tiny for his age. He always had his ring finger and middle finger inserted in his mouth, twiddling his hair with his other hand when he was not running, climbing or otherwise occupied. (He called this his “two-fers”). His sickly frame deceived those who would concur that he lacked vitality. He kept up with his ever-restless older brother who led them into constant mischief, not being closely watched by any adults. His unassuming presence often deceived people from realizing the bright mind the child possessed.
Their grandmother, a woman of erratic temperament, raised them. She was a sly woman who had a bitterness that lashed out whenever any sort of confusion or inconvenience disrupted her preferred state (which was usually in front of the television watching soap operas). Gary called her grandma. Seth called her Edna. And that was indicative of their relationship. Gary spent a lot of his time close to his grandmother. She treated him much like her poodle, Perky. Gary was only recently getting away from being his grandmother’s lap child. He was beginning to discover the world of his older brother: a constantly changing setting yielding constant adventure. This was, at first, unsettling to their grandmother who seemed to revile her older grandson. But when she found more free time, she allowed it to happen, though she often commented how Seth was leading his younger brother down the wrong paths.
At night, however, the old patterns persisted. Gary went into the bedroom with his grandmother, and Seth was never allowed to enter. Not that he wanted to. He found the woman repulsive. He couldn’t stand the way her room smelled. He hated everything about the woman. So feelings were mutual between them. At night, Seth stayed in his room. He was obsessed with reading and he did everything he could to not attract attention to himself in the house. Edna always assumed he was up to no good.
When Gary was a newborn, and Seth only two years old, they were separated from their father, who was tumbling into an alcoholic oblivion that would last for the rest of his surprisingly long life. Since his return from two tours in Vietnam managing an M60, he was a man who had come apart at the seams and would manage to trudge through life with those seams never being mended. He never called his children, and spent most of his time in and out of jail. If he never made an attempt at anything after the war, it was working the fishing boats though an equal attempt was made at impressing his buddies in the Hell’s Angels.
Their mother, Ruth, worked as a nurse’s assistant in a hospital, and at night, often dating, desperate to find a man to support her. Even when she was around she was absent-minded. After some thought, it would seem that the absent-mindedness was indicative not just of distraction, but part of her personality.
Though she knew the dynamics in their strange family were unfair to her oldest son (and that her youngest child was too coddled and needed to spend more time away from his doting grandma), she felt unable to make things right. It was easier to let things be. Her way of dealing with these problems were to pretend they didn’t exist.
Edna Doyle never had any female friends since the day she was born. In fact, she never even developed any sort of relationship with her sisters. Her whole life up to about 8 years before was centered around the men in her life. At the age of 57 she had already been married four times. Her last divorce was tragic. She had been in a terrible accident. Looking at her during this summer of 1978, you would never have known. But before the accident she possessed the sort of beauty that would have men transfixed and obsessed. Now, she was an ordinary woman that looked a decade older than she was. Because her whole life was centered on men, she was terribly bitter about the accident. She secretly cursed God, but publicly became a pious woman: the piousness was mostly used as a weapon against anyone who was in her way.
She had recently made a male friend down the hall of the subsidized housing development they lived in (mostly filled with students at the local community college). He was a character straight out of the TV show, Dallas, which she obsessively watched. He wore a large cowboy hat, had an effected Texan accent, recited lots of strange colloquialisms and possessed lots of eccentric habits; his name, as if chosen for some sort of sick irony was Whig. Edna thought this man should be the one that Ruth would marry. She was sure he was rich (overlooking, of course, that he was living in the same low cost apartment complex). When asked what he did for a living, he simply stated, “Business!” He hired Ruth to help him organize his bills and various other items claiming that his dyslexia prevented him from doing such, “Jus cain’t do without ma secretaries!”
He came over one day for dinner. This was one of the first times they had all sat down at the dinner table together so formally. As the salad was being passed around Whig proclaimed, “I DON’ WANT NONE OF THAT DRIED UP OLD BREAD!”
Everyone looked at him, and scanned the table to see what he was referring to.
Edna started guffawing and snorting which, checked in a matter of seconds, turned upward into a higher pitched schoolgirl laugh, or some poor facsimile of such.
She took the croutons from the table, still laughing, and brought back a bottle of thousand-island salad dressing. Besides the salad (which was not often made for dinner) they were having roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, and string beans.
“I have to go to potty,” Seth suddenly announced when they were all half way through dinner.
“Potty!? Boy it is time ya started to talking like a man. You don’t say potty. You say, ‘May I please be excused, I need ta see a man about a horse.’
Seth and Gary both started laughing.
“Hey!” he shouted with a serious look on his face, “I’m serious. It’s jus’ a sayin’ but it’s more polite and it certainly ain’t sissy talk like I just heard come pouring out o’ yo mouth.”
“ok can I see a horse now”
“MAY I PLEASE BE EXCUSED…” he motioned Seth to mimic him.
“May I please excused”
“Good enough…TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A HORSE”
“To see a man…and…a horse.”
“And don’t mumble it boy…TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A HORSE”
“To see a man about a horse.”
“Yes,” he sat back as if he were already man of the house. “Yes, ya may.”
As Seth got up to head to the bathroom, Edna’s eyes followed Seth with the contempt she so often had. Something quickly changed her face, she had suddenly had some sort of idea. She looked at Ruth and then to Whig and whispered something in Whig’s ear, “NAW. Ya gotta be kiddin’ me. I’ll set ‘im straight.”
He got up walking toward the bathroom, looking like a rooster more than a human. His gait was so pronounced and contrived that he was beginning to nauseate even Ruth, who agreed with her mother when she went on about how great he was, but internally found him repulsive and annoying. There was something so forged about him. His walk was one of the things that made this a transparent fact.
Whig busted the door open on Seth who was sitting on the toilet seat.
“What’s this? Are you making cookies or lemonade?”
“I’m peeing”
“NO YOU AIN’T!” He turned around, looked at everyone at the dinner table, with an all-knowing look in his face, turned back to Seth.
“You piddle yet?”
“No.”
“OK, get up. Pull yer pants up.”
Against his better judgment he did what he was told. Whig went into the bathroom, smirked at Edna (Ruth was now just looking away, preoccupied), and shut the door.
Seth felt really uncomfortable. Whig wore a ton of cheap cologne. And men, especially men like this, generally repulsed Seth.
“Son, ya living with a bunch of ladies. ‘cept ya brother but I’ll set ‘im right too. You gonna embarrass yaself. Ya peeing like a girl. Guess ya daddy isn’t round ta show ya. But this is how it’s done. First ya whip out ya pecker,” He undid his buckle, opened his pants, and pulled out his penis. Seth didn’t want to look. The experience was so awkward and he felt incredibly uneasy; he didn’t look.
“Look, jus a minute. See what I’m doin?”
The child took a quick look only after Whig shouted, “HEY, PAY ATTENTION”.
What he saw terrified him. Out of a hairy mass of curly black hair Whig held the ugliest thing he had ever seen. Only fear, and the fact this ugly thing was between him and the door, kept him from running away as fast as he could.
“Now, ya take ya pecker, and ya gotta aim. Ya aim right fo’ the goal. And then ya relax a bit and…”
Seth was suddenly startled by the sudden sound of splashing from a thick yellow stream descending down into the toilet. It seemed to go on for a while.
The stream finally started to thin out and sputter a bit until only dripping urine was left, “Then ya gotta shake. BUT!”
Again, Seth was startled.
“NEVVA SHAKE MORE THAN JUS A LITTLE. Jus enough ta keep ya pecker from drippin all over the place. Otherwise, ya spankin tha bologne.”
“Your turn now.”
Seth just stood there frozen, “I don’t have to go now”
“BULL. Whip out ya pecker like I showed ya. Come on, ya with a woman lovin’ man. Don’ be scared. I ain’t gonna do nothin to ya.”
Seth slowly did what he was told.
“Aim ya pecker. Come on,” he pushed the kid up closer to the toilet.
“Now, RELAX.”
Seth was feeling so humiliated and awkward that his eyes started to tear up.
“Oh boy. Shut off the waterworks. Ya sposed to RELAX, not boob all over yourself. Relax. I’m jus showing ya how ta be a man.”
“I can’t relax.”
“Yes ya can. Relax!”
He held his little penis in his hand. It was cold. He felt exposed. He hated that man just looming over him. Why couldn’t he just sit on the toilet and pee like normal? It seemed that he had to do this. This man would not leave him alone. He was hell bent on turning Seth into a man. He was not going to leave that door without a proud face for the ladies. Seth cried a little harder, and a thin stream of urine finally let itself loose and spattered into the toilet and all over the toilet seat.
“Well if that ain’t the most pathetic lookin’ thing. I ain’t never seen a man crying and peeing like that. Stop it boy. Ya disgustin’ me. “
Seth quickly pulled his pants back up. And made like he was going to get around Whig to leave.
“WAIT NOW, YOU AIN’T DONE.”
He motioned toward the toilet handle. Seth flushed the toilet, still crying.
“And one more thing. The ladies hate it when ya leave ya lemonade all over the sitter. So take some toilet paper like this,” he balled up some toilet paper, “and wipe down the seat like this. Then just throw the paper in tha trash.” He stepped down on the foot lever and looked inside, then looked at Seth, “Lady products”. He tossed the toilet paper ball into the trash.
He looked at Seth again and gave him a heavy smack on the back, “Yull get it son. It ain’t so scary. But jus’ don’t boob like that again while ya peeing. That really was the mos pathetic thing I ever saw.”
Seth ran out of the bathroom and into his bedroom. Edna commented, “God that child. He is such a baby.”
“He jus needs a man aroun’. Ya shooda seen him, boobing while he was pissin’. It really was the mos pathetic thing I ever seen.”
Little Gary looked back at the shut door to their bedroom.
“Yer next lil guy,” Whig threatened with pointed finger.
Gary started crying. Edna scooped him up and said, “Now Whig. He’s just a baby. He’ll learn a lot quicker than THAT one in there. But you can’t scare him before he even knows what is going on.”
He gave Gary a side look, “Anotha day then. When you ain’t all waterworks. I don’t think I can watch another boobing man holdin his pecker anyway. Makes me too sad.”
“WHIG!” Edna slapped his arm, smiling. He started laughing and shoving large chunks of meat into his mouth.
“Damn pissin lesson let ma food get cold.”
“I can heat it up for you…” Edna put Gary back down, who ran into the bedroom with Seth.
“Naw, naw, it’s fine.” He continued eating and started telling a story about some kid in high school gym class that was too shy to dress with the other kids, “They turn into faggots, them ones that can’t chum with the boys.” He eyed the bedroom door behind which Seth was fantasizing about his father showing up, and beating up Whig.
“Ya better watch them boys. Jus you women around, they gonna turn into little faggots if they can’t learn how to pee, or go fishing. They need sports. Have them join little league.”
The entire time all this was happening Ruth hardly said anything. She laughed when cued, she protested when Edna protested, but she mostly just ate her food and watched the TV that was on the whole time. Whig made a passing comment when he left that it was rude to have the TV on during dinner. He was only slowly beginning to suspect that Ruth wasn’t flat out in love with him, though he didn’t understand why. A single mother, who needed a father for her children, not falling out flat in love with a guy like him? He consoled himself, “She must be frigid.”
