Chapter 17: Sylvia ... Gloria ... Jezebel?

Sylvia had a mild concussion, a broken left arm and an evil gleam in her eye. Sylvia already had a 'reputation' because she had watched a circle jerk. Things would have been fine if she'd kept her mouth shut but she told her best friend who immediately told all her friends that Sylvia had no morals because she watched.

Sylvia was a pervert. I didn't know what that meant.

The boys were harassed for the rest of their lives because they touched an erection that wasn't their own. Doing their own would be bad enough but EVERYBODY knew males had unrequited Lusts in their hearts. Touching someone else's dick made them 'homosexual.' I didn't know what that meant, either.

Good Christian Women were above all that. Right. It didn't seem to bother good christian women to ruin reputations with a word. I think the people who really KNEW who were the good and who were the bad were the people who owned the only liquor store in town. For a supposedly moral town they sure had a lot of empty boxes in the alley behind the store every week.

Sylvia's mother said Sylvia couldn't come to the phone because of the broken arm and the headaches resulting from the fall down the stairs. My sister asked if she could visit. Grace hung up the phone and split. "David? C'mon."

Ricky, Gloria and Sylvia lived on the far side of my block and it was quicker to go 'overland' than take the sidewalk. Besides, we'd have to go out our backdoor and down the drive instead of going through daddy's waiting room. Since we had to go out the back anyway we cut through the Catholic school yard, past the Metcalfs, the Gillsons and the rent house to get to Ricky's side door.

You never knew for sure who was living in the rent house ... the occupants changed a lot. Once it was a bunch of really pretty women ... the Sheriff made them move.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, my home town wasn't all that moral, but it was a great place to raise kids.

Grace went up stairs to 'cheer Sylvia up' ... gossip ... and I went to the playroom in the basement to visit Ricky and Mike.

Ricky had 5 big boxes of American Bricks and we built all kinds of houses and forts with them. Then we'd shoot at them with marbles to see who's things lasted the longest. Mine always did.

There's something going on here ... I'm just trying to remember. It's hard to be a kid and an inventor adult. I know what I made that I sold to the government but I'm just a kid now ... it's going to be hard to get to do it again. It's confusing, things have changed from the first time I went through.

Mike's dad was a chemist and had concocted a couple of highly dangerous but immensely profitable insecticides. He had a little lab outside of town where he mixed up his stuff. He must have sold a lot of it because he used chemicals by the 55 gallon drum.

Anyway, the last go round I got him to let me experiment at his lab one summer and that's when I made my discovery.

You see, Mike's house always needed painting ... even a month after it was painted it looked ratty again. Last time I invented a paint that stuck... 6 months after painting Mike's house it looked like new ... three years after it still looked freshly painted.

I didn't think much of it until Bob's dad tried to use the new police radar gun on it.

Bob's dad was the Deputy police chief. There was a party at Mikes house and Bob's cop dad, he was pretty drunk, decided he wanted to know how fast the house was moving. He stumbled out to the car and got the new city radar gun.