An illicit substance

I heard the L.T.D. whizz up Fairhills Drive. Mom and Dad were on their way to church for a choral rehearsal. Heather was at band practice. Lucy was spending the evening with her boyfriend, Bob Smith.

I lifted the mattress a little bit at a time, panting like a dog. But I don’t think our little spaniel ever panted in quite this way.

There they were, my precious pile of pictures. Very neatly torn from Mom’s Time magazines, her Newsweeks, and Dad’s U.S. Business Weekly issues. And my very own favorite, those back pages from the comics I’d buy from the drug store. Every week, every month.

I never once read Time Magazine, Newsweek, or U.S. Business Weekly. I never once even looked at a comic. But I collected pages from them like they were irreplaceable stamps from the Austria-Hungarian Empire, fine silver pieces from the Romanov Dynasty, the crown jewels of the British Royal Family.

I took the stack from under the bed, darting my eyes to the bedroom window, looking out, making sure no green ‘74 Ford L.T.D. was headed back to the house. I placed the stack on the pillow, pulled the sheet and bedspread back, smoothed out the mattress sheet.

One page at a time, I lay them out on the bed in three rows, six columns – my favorite eighteen. There was the bodybuilder with the tidal wave biceps and Superman shoulders. There was Tom Selleck, shirt open halfway down his chest, advertising a cigarette. There was the hairy-chested man in a Speedo with the layered haircut, holding up an isometric resistance machine. All my favorites, laid out one at a time.

I looked out the window, no car – good, five minutes had passed, safe to proceed. I took off my shirt, my sneakers, my white socks with the dual red stripes on top, my Levis. I folded them neatly and placed them on my red chair, and then – down to my underwear, I took off the Hanes. I climbed onto the bed, sat on my knees, looked at my pictures …

I heard the door downstairs slam shut, my mother’s familiar rapid steps racing to the bottom of the stairs. I dove down, grabbed the bed covers, arranged myself on top of all my precious pictures, the blanket up to my chin –

“Get up out of that bed, Johnny Williams, you’re coming to church with us now,” my mother said. “Father Don will have a word with you about those water balloons.”