"The Miracle"
by
Timothy Stillman
(with thanks to all my friends who finally taught me the true meaning of hello)
He felt dreamy, creamy and drifty. Masturbation always did that for him. He was 10, his name was Paddy, and he lay naked on his bed, door firmly locked, window shades as firmly closed. He had his jeans, socks and shoes off. He wore only his football jersey, knit style, number 33 on it in big block yellow letters. Not really his of course. He was a skinny breakable runt. It was his brother's, but Big Bro was of to college, Joe, and so Paddy didn't have to wonder whether he was being too loud, jacking, in the house, his parents at work, but Joe there waiting to embarrass the hell out of him at the most embarrassing time.
So free and alone and stroking his four and one half incher, and comfortably and mildly sweaty from the day at school, he rubbed himself, and loved to lie with his legs half off the bottom of the bed, the chenille bedspread feeling nice and comfy in the cool air Autumn house. He had been so happy all day long. He had been happy to come home and do this, and he tickled his little balls in pleasure. He stroked his tummy and rubbed his crotch and put his hands to his face and sucked in the aroma of boy, because that was what he was, and he would never be anything else.
It had been a lovely jack, and he was on his second go round, he was 10 after all, and though he had not learned to shoot like all the other boys his age lied about, he was pretty sure, in the locker room after gym, he still had lots of fun at it. He had seen Joe shoot a couple of times, and once Joe missed the Kleenex and shot all over his bed, Joe's bed that is, and did he have some fun explaining that to Mom, Joe did, while Paddy stood to the side and did not laugh, cause Joe would clobber him if he laughed. He didn't even laugh in secret. Just inside, which was okay. Nobody, Paddy was learning, would know what was going on inside you, no matter how smart they thought they were, cause they really weren't as smart as they thought.
And the miracle had helped, indeed, it had saved his life in big capital letters, it explained everything, but everything, and he stroked his circumcised penis that had a little bluish band round it right under the top of the tiny mushroom shaped head, and he felt if a penis could laugh, it would laugh right now, cause the all of him was happy, and he was happy he had so many friends, and he was happy that he got practical jokes played on him, and took `em like a man, though he wasn't a man, and he was happy that he got "the business" from the other boys who were stronger and tougher than he, because they just laughed at him, and that was all, and it didn't hurt anymore, because of the miracle.
And Paddy came and his whole body went into a whoosh of unload and his whole body streamed like a creek up in the mountains on an autumn day, that God had sneezed mightily on, and he wiggled his thin legs and he pretended someone had something or other, he hadn't decided what, just yet, up him. And his body was full of letters now that, as he stroked the meshed football jersey, said "hello." And he was a boy of hellos, he had finally figured it out today, in the totality of it, and he lay in blue sky and he lay in soft marshmallows and the wind was friendly and sweet and said October is running out and Halloween is coming close, and isn't it delicious what the hellos will be this time?
And he pushed his penis between his legs, still hard. He pushed his penis against his balls. And he pushed his dick head, he had heard Timmy use that phrase, first time Paddy had heard it, directly at him, then others used it for him and for other boys and teachers and stuff, but Paddy didn't mind, he let them, but it had been given personally to him, and since he liked it, he took it home with him and kept it with him like a little puppy..
..so they called him dick head and he pressed his dick head to each of his legs, touching the slit of it to each leg and he lay there with his heart beating out a nice tympana, and he felt sweaty a little bit more, and he felt the hellos in his body just go happily running up and down like little kids, certainly littler than he, climbing up to swings and swinging their feet high to the sky, and sliding down slides of immense length and daring turns and curves and you ain't seen nothin' yet. And if he was alone, Paddy had decided, this morning at ten forty five while Mr. Roberts was droning on about math and some such, then it was because he had friends, and friends always said hello, because they meant it, and gave a care if you were in this world or not....how dumb he had been not to figure this out already...
...and he loved being naked like this, in this crowd of himself mirrors. He loved imagining Matty or Stew seeing him like this and they would say hello and they would mean it, because of course they had already said hello before, and they had always meant it, and it didn't matter if they said hello now, because in a little while he would say hello to them, and they would be friends like they had always been friends ever since they had said hello to him.
He looked down at himself and wished he could cum, even on the bedspread, even if it did make Mom yell like it did when Joe came on his own bedspread, because it would mean he was doing it right, he was getting the right stuff, like in the movie title, into him, but now it seemed as though the hellos were coming out of his dick head, he giggled and said the phrase, which always made him giggle, it was such a nice present those nice boys had given to him, and he looked at his penis still hard and held it, coral pink, with the pink fingers of his left hand, and looked so hard at it, that he could almost see white cloud smoke signals coming from it, forming into the word hello in the center of the air.
And he lay back and smiled goofily. And he lay back and smiled happily. And he knew he was loved because Mom loved him and he got neat phrases at school kids gave him without making him pay for it, and he took them home and they warmed him up when he went to sleep, and he knew somewhere along the way, as he turned over on his tummy and rubbed his tear drop shaped butt cheeks and then in the crack itself, delicious giggle inserted here, that words and people and things and seasons and days and nights and comic books and horror movies and videos and music from MTV and downloaded into IPods all meant various things at the same time, and the thing to do was to pick on one thing--not like he was made to feel warm and friendly, for it was nice of them to notice him; some kids never got noticed at all, and that saddened him tremendously..
...and history and math and science and all his studies, you hang onto one thing in the particular portion you are reading hearing watching and that becomes the center pole like in a big top circus that holds everything up, while the lady in the white costume of sequins and heaven rides around standing on bright white glittery gold horses, and clowns do their laughs, and lion tamers tame lions in cages, in the middle of all those roars and whip cracks, right there in front of your eyes, there was no faking that, and it was real and it was fun and that was how Paddy was learning to see life...
...why he bet he was the only boy in the whole of Neblish, NE. who had hellos coming out of his dick head, giggle, and the hellos were like this: H E L L O S--right up to the ceiling... ...and sometimes they went across the room in happy little puffs like from the smoke stack of a toy train HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO and straight out the opened window to comfort boys unluckier than he....he hoped they had their tickets punched when the letters arrived...it was a neat balancing act and Paddy was just learning the ropes of that himself....
...and they meant what they said when they didn't mean what they said at all, because that had always been the trestle bending unexpectedly in Paddy's mind and he would fall off it trip and fall badly down the mountain side of his brain and if you've never fallen down the mountain side of your brain, don't scoff at it, it hurts like hell...at least it used to be that way..
...but hell was a curse word that got your mouth washed out with soap, who was the sicko who devised that punishment? Paddy often wondered, when he was getting his mouth washed out with soap always for his own good of course though it just made him sick and throw up and his mom held his head when he did but she wouldn't stop doing the thing that was for his own good, and if hell was a curse word and had to be capitalized to boot, HELL must have something sacred to it, like HEAVEN did, and the Devil must be deserving of the same ardor as God, they must all be the same?...you would think so anyway, it's really the only way to look at it.
But if one thing meant the same, and different things meant the same, then one thing could mean the utter opposite and that could change your whole line of thinking, and Paddy reviewed all he had learned, IS THIS GOIN' TO BE ON THE TEST?, he laughed, as someone in class always was a stupe and said that, and the answer was always yes numskull and everybody would laugh and Paddy would realize it was he who had said it, and he would laugh too, cause laughter meant crying, and he knew that now so he laughed a lot, he laughed a real whole lot and it was true, laughter made him feel good and he didn't feel like not laughing though sometimes it gave him a headache.
And he stroked his little bluish almost not there nipples. And he rocked himself on his tummy as though he was a rocking horse and he felt his dick move up and down and that was nice and made him feel really really sexxxxxyyyyyyy. He wished he could be naked all the time. He wished he didn't have to go into the living room to make the calls. He wished he had a cell phone. But his parents worked till late at night and there would be no way anyone would catch him making the calls, and besides it was giggly again to do something like this, which was just saying hello, like his friends said hello to him, and became his forever friends that way. Oh maybe they wouldn't come to see him this Saturday and watch cartoons, or maybe they wouldn't go ice skating with him some winter weekend, or maybe they would not call him up and ask how were tricks?, or maybe they would not speak to him in school, but by not doing these things, by never doing these things, they did these things.
Like mom often said to him, when he was blue, and he thought of this as he tickled his penis and rubbed his balls with his hand underneath his warm abdomen and drifted off to restful sleep for a little while, all naked and all boy and with friends to spare, his mother had said, he remembered as he sleepily drifted off, they can't be with you 24 hours a day, they can't be just your friends all the time, you've got to get over being so selfish so much, you've got to get over being the center of the world cause you aren't that except in your own mind, and she would sit on his bed with him at night and well, that was before he learned that laughing meant crying and crying was for the boids, and he was not a little boy anymore.
And now he dreamed that Matty and Stewy were with him on the bed and they were all three naked, and they were playing around and laughing and everybody was giggling hello hello hello hello and the white smoky letters in the air that were now big fat creamy marshmallows spelled out HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO--and they meant it, the letters and his two closest friends in the whole world, except for the boy who gifted him beribboned in a cheery Christmas box the phrase "dick head" which he would wear till he was an old old man, with the greatest of pride, and then the boys squeezed on either side of him and grasped Paddy's penis and they compared sizes, and then Stewy, or maybe it was Matty whispered something like..no not that..it would not fit anymore..he could not stand that anymore..except from himself..cause only Paddy knew what it really meant, and then, forgetting that last part, Paddy woke up and wanked yet again.
And felt good.
Then, courage betoked him, he got up and unlocked the bedroom door, no need to lock it really, and he with some fear looked out the space of the partly opened door and then opened it some more and then stood there naked vulnerable and so small and so confused and so alone but he was not and he would not hear that from himself not ever again and he walked as bravely as he could, feeling slightly silly, to the phone on the other side of the living room, on the stand in front of the full length mirror, and he modeled himself in the mirror and got a hard on and rubbed it and smiled dreamily and kissed each of his shoulders, and took the jersey off, first time he had been completely naked in this ritual since his brother left and before his brother left there had been no ritual at all anyway.
Paddy did not need the phone book. He picked up the phone with his right hand. And with his left hand--teachers had tried to make him right handed, as had his mother, his father had always been somewhere else pretty much all the time--he stroked his penis and looked himself up and down in the mirror, and pressed the buttons on the phone, and talked to Matty first. Then he talked to Stew. Then he called. Jason. Then Terry. Then Larry. And then, for it was Dave who had given him the best phrase present yet, dick head, though he knew there were more happy surprises waiting for him very soon, and his dick throbbed in his hand in purple expectation, he called Dave.
And to each of them, he said in a squeaky little girl voice, not his real voice at all, so they'd never know it was him, though lately he had had to say it fast or they hung up on him--he phoned hello irregularly to them, so far they hadn't picked up on a definite time pattern, but they knew what it was about, the one second they thought about it, as they gave him new phrases as gifts for his kindness in remembering them, before they hung up in their carefree manner, their own ha ha thank you way, because they knew the miracle too, and the miracle was so simple; how patient they had been in teaching it to him in their fashion..
..and he would never be alone again, though he seemed alone, he was not, cause he had friends he could count on, just as soon as he had figured it out, and as he said in the hellos to his friends on the phone, then he raced his naked flanks back to his bedroom and laughed himself silly and masturbated yet again, remembering how smooth he was with that love tap telephonic ritual, though he was sorry they had to pay for the call.
Telling them in effect, I got it, and I will never forget you for it, thank you. He reflected on tonight's remembrances and put his arms round his chest and just felt so good and perfect and loved, and went through each call again, and how he had said it, what they had said, and the end of the call, and pressing the buttons for his next friend, for how warm they all were, and how caring and how considerate. And he, undeservingly so, blushingly so, collecting their thank yous in his brain like beautiful butterflies.
His hellos were said like this: GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE.
Sometime later, feeling the need not to be bare anymore, he dressed and lay on the bed and he laughed himself to sleep. He was in the Big Top again, sitting there with all the other kids looking at the magic sawdust show happening right before his wide eyes. He slept a long time. Then he woke up and got himself something to eat.
Timothy Stillman comewinter@earthlink.net