WetLeather Motorcycle Rider Information

As a child, I was for lack of better descriptive terms, precocious. I was also the youngest of four, then the youngest of seven after my mother re-married.

Being the littlest put me in a unique place. I never got in trouble. Oh, sure, trouble happened aplenty. But I wasn’t ever the one blamed for it. Not even when the blame really should have been mine to bear.

A good example of this phenomenon would be the case of whispering under the misguided assumption that we couldn’t be heard by our parents. Most of this whispering went on after ‘lights out’. In fact, pretty much all of the whispering when on after ‘lights out’. If an adult caught the sound of whispering it was always my siblings that bore the brunt of the punishment. That, of course, didn't do much to diminish the whispering.

As is typical in many homes of the day, all of us kids shared the two second floor bedrooms of our turn of the century frame house. The boys had one room, the girls the other. There was a large attic on the third floor.

There were a lot of stairs to get up to that attic. From the ground floor you’d open the door and climb a flight of step to the second floor where our bedrooms were. From the second floor you’d open a door and climb another much longer flight of stairs to the attic. Finally with your last gasp and all of the strength available to a wee starving boy, you’d pull yourself up and stand wobbling at the top of the steps.

If you dared to turn around, you could see all the way down the two flights of steps into the faint blue glow of the television in the living room…way…down…there. It was so far you couldn’t hear the TV, only make out the ghostly plasma playing on the walls.

My mother believed it to be important for her children to get a goods night rest. Towards that goal she set bedtime at a mandatory 8pm on school nights and 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays. If there was something really special on The Wonderful World of Disney the Saturday bedtime might, with suitable pleading, be relaxed to 10pm. Lights out meant an adult would appear at the foot of the steps and with the dreaded ‘click’ – off would go the hall lights and ‘snick’ the door would latch. We were expected to be in our beds and silent at the instant it went dark.

Right, as if that ever happened. We were kids for cryin’ out loud!

Within seconds of the lights blinking off and the door ‘snick’ing shut, one of the older kids would begin to whisper. “Hey, lets…” The games would be on. Boys would sneak into the girls room, and girls would sneak into the boys room. Sometimes we’d sneak down the steps and listen to the adults in the living room.

Common forms of entertainment consisted of whispering ghost stories to scare the crap out of me. Or, whispering gossip about someone being naughty and getting away without punishment for their dire naughtiness. After dark play consisted of the usual stuff that a horde of seven kids under the age of 14 would participate in, nothing really bad.

A benefit of having an attic is that all of the family ‘stuff’ is kept in there. Many evenings are spent sneaking up that long flight of stairs with flashlights painting streaks of light around the room, as we rummage through boxes and chests containing clothing, treasure and sporting goods.

Tonight will be no different.

“Lights out!” calls my mom. Click ‘snick’.

Fourteen ears listen to the sound of my mother as she walks down the steps and into the living room. The silence is palpable. Until my sister Barbara starts to giggle.

“Hey, let’s go up to the attic!” she whispers. “Ok” someone else replies.

Snap, snap, snap, the hall outside my room is bathed in wiggling light from three weak flashlights.

“Shhhhh” comes from the dark corner of the boy’s room. “Shsssshhhhh” floats from the girl’s side.

There’s a rustling sound and a creak. “Sssshhhhhhssssshhhhh” is quietly barked from the hall.

Within minutes we’re all gathered at the top of the attic steps. A short revolutionary giggle outburst is quickly quelled. “Shhushhhh”

I become aware of a 12 year old kid form near me. It’s my brother Tim, with something dark and heavy in his hands. He passes by and into the gloom.

“What’re we going to do with it?” “I dunno” “Sshhhh”

“Hey, let’s roll it down the stairs!” “WHISPER!” “We can get Michael to do it!” “Ok”

“Ssshhhhh”

At my side appears my step-sister Susan. She’s the oldest at 14 and I’m not convinced she won’t rat us out.

To my amazement she’s the one holding the bowling ball. Without a word she places it in my four year old lap. The ball is huge. The ball is black. My fingers can’t find any way of holding it. I’m stuck, sitting on the floor with a million pound bowling ball on my lap. “I can’t get up!” “Shhhhhh” say six voices simultaneously.

The ball is removed from my lap by hands unseen, and I’m pulled to my jammie footed feet.

“C’mon!”

Blissfully unaware of what is about to happen, I walk to the top of the steps unknowingly performing the same type of walk the condemned man takes as he makes his way to the gallows.

“Shhhh” fingers are put to lips.

Looking down there’s nothing. The stairwell is bathed in utter and complete darkness.

“Go on…roll it!” “Just push it!” “C’mon…it’ll be fun.” I’m a bit tentative with my effort. It is a dog-gone million pound bowling ball after all.

Push. Roll. Silence.

“Did you push it?” “yeah!” “SsssHHHHH”

Suddenly, the stillness is shattered by a resounding thunk.

Then another thunk echoes the first. THUNK a thunk, and more ThunK a THUNK a THUNKATHUNKs.

BLAM! That bowling ball simply leapt down those dark stairs. It bounced and flew and shattered its way through the door to the attic.

THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKBLAM!!! CRASH! SPOING! Before the noise has stopped all seven of us have hurtled ourselves into the deepest, darkest recesses of the attic.

The sounds of flashlights clicking off are drowned by the tremendous racket caused by the ball as it continues at full tilt down the stairs and through the inviolate door to the living room. Without touching the wool carpet that dang ball impales itself into the front of the upright piano with a tremendous KROING sound.

Silence replaces cacophony, where mere seconds earlier the house had echoed with the shattering force of a million pound bowling ball descending from the heavens.

“WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?”  the deep voice of my step-father resonates from the main floor. “I don’t know!” my mother says with a slight tremor to her voice.

The anxiety level is rising to new highs in seven throbbing chests.

My mothers “Check on the kids!” is followed instantly by the clumping sounds of my step-fathers feet as he heads up the stairs.

A momentary pause in the proceedings, as a stunned adult attempts to process a scene where doors have huge holes in them where none had existed before and then…then he says “THEY’RE GONE! I’m going to get my gun!”

“shhhh…whisper!”