TOASTED CRACKERS
BY
Bobb B Tucker
THREE FLORIDA CRACKER BOYS START THE DAY WITH ONE HELL OF A LICKING
Copyright (c) 2005 by Bobb B. Tucker. All rights reserved. No part of this
work may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the author/copyright owner.
FOREWORD
Bobby-Joe Rattigan was fourteen years old and lived with his parents and kid
brother, Stevie, on Chokoloskee Island, a fishing community on south Florida's
Gulf Coast. The island connected by bridge to the mainland at Everglades City.
Bobby-Joe had just completed eighth grade at Everglades Combined Junior/Senior
High School. Sometimes on weekends, he and his brother helped their dad, Capt.
Mike Rattigan, owner and skipper of a 45-foot diesel-powered lobster and stone
crab boat that plied the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Ten Thousand
Islands.
In truth, Bobby-Joe was not without his dark side. He and his best boyhood
pal, Buddy Mulaney, sometimes stole cigarettes from Mrs. Garcia, the Cuban lady
who cleaned the Rattigan's house, and smoked them in the woods behind the
Community Center. The pair was also adept at shoplifting candy from the general
store in Everglades City.
Bobby-Joe's and Buddy's nicotine habits were nipped in the bud at the annual
Fourth of July picnic when Bobby-Joe's twelve-year-old brother caught them
behind the playground gazebo with Marlboros dangling from their mouths. Buddy
was spending the week with the Rattigans while his parents attended a funeral in
Jacksonville. Like little brothers everywhere, Stevie tattled to Capt. Mike, who
drove the culprits home and sat them on a sofa in the front parlor. "Where did
you guys get the cigarettes?" he demanded. "Nobody in this household smokes, so
they sure as hell didn't come from here."
"Aw, Skipper," Bobby-Joe said, "sometimes Mrs. Garcia leaves her pack lying
around and we help ourselves to one or two. It's no big deal."
"In other words you stole them?"
Bobby-Joe squirmed under his dad's withering gaze. "Yes, sir," he said
shamefacedly.
When Bobby-Joe's mother arrived home with Stevie in tow, the younger boy
said, "I think it's disgusting that Bobby-Joe and Buddy were smoking at the
picnic, Skipper. Are you gonna beat them? Can I watch? Please?"
"Hush, Steven," the father said with inarguable finality. "We don't resort
to corporal punishment in this household. I promised Buddy's parents that if he
gets into trouble while he's here, his discipline will be handled the same as
yours or Bobby-Joe's. It will teach them both a lesson to be restricted for a
month and assigned to clean and paint the church basement."
The culprits exchanged anxious glances. "But, Daddy," Bobby-Joe protested,
"if you put us on restriction, we won't be able to go to the Boy Scout Jamboree
in Orlando next month."
"You should have thought of that before you stole the cigarettes," Capt.
Mike retorted. "It will help your spiritual growth to spend summer vacation
painting and cleaning your church's basement."
Buddy raised his hand as tentatively as a schoolboy asking permission to use
the toilet. "Skipper," he asked, "Ain't there some other punishment you can
give us?"
The skipper paused to consider. "Well," he said, "there's always the
electric chair at Florida State Prison. I'll call the warden in the morning and
make appointments for you guys."
"Aw, c'm'on, Skipper," Buddy parried, "they don't give kids the chair for
stealing and smoking cigarettes. Do you remember the last time a carnival came
to Everglades City?"
"The one that set up in the vacant lot next to the fire station?"
"Yes, sir. The carnival owner gave free ride tickets to boys who cut class
to help raise tents and put up booths. I played hooky that day, but the
attendance officer caught me and called Pa."
"I don't guess your father was any too pleased about that," Capt. Mike said.
Buddy's dad was a lieutenant with the Collier County Sheriff's Department.
"No, sir, Pa was gonna put me on restriction, but that would've meant I'd
miss my class trip to Disney World."
"Next June, when I'm in seventh grade, I'm going on the Disney World trip,
and I'm gonna ride the Thunder Mountain roller coaster about a hun'ert times,"
Stevie piped up.
"I rode it five times," Buddy said proudly .
"I thought your dad wouldn't let you go."
"At first he wasn't going to, but I called a family council meeting, we
talked it over, and decided on another punishment for me," Buddy replied.
"I hope it deterred further notions of cutting classes," Beverly Rattigan
interjected.
"Yes, ma'am, it sure did. The day after the class trip, Pa took me to his
study and gave me Bayer Ass Burns. That's what he calls it when he pulls down my
pants and takes his police belt to my butt."
"Did'ja cry?" Stevie asked.
Buddy pulled a long face. "I got ten licks on my bare butt with a belt,"
he replied. "Go figure."
"It sounds as if you had a memorable experience, young man," Mrs. Rattigan
posed. "It's too bad you had to learn your lesson the hard way."
The boy shrugged. "It wasn't too bad," he said with a trace of male
bravado. "It hurt to sit for
a couple days afterwards, but then the stripes went away and it was okay."
Beverly Rattigan leaned forward in her chair and asked, "Why are you telling
us this, Buddy?"
"I dunno, ma'am, I guess because I want to go to the Boy Scout Jamboree real
b ad. I've been looking forward to it since Christmas - so has Bobby-Joe."
"If you were offered a choice between missing the Jamboree or going upstairs
with Bobby-Joe to get your pants warmed by Cap't. Rattigan, which would you
choose?"
"Ma'am, if the Skipper says I can't go to the Jamboree, my pa will back him
and I'll have to stay home. But, if Capt. Mike whups me, Pa will thank him for
doing it, it'll be over, and I'll go to Orlando with the troop."
"You have it all figured out, don't you, boy?" Mike Rattigan observed.
"I got ten whacks for playing hooky, Skipper; I ain't cut a single class
since then. I reckon me and Bobby-Joe got about that many coming to us for
stealing cigarettes and smoking."
Bobby-Joe winced. "Are you gonna give us swats, Daddy?" he asked, "I mean,
instead of puttin' us on restriction?"
The skipper stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Okay, he said, "if you want to
go the Scout Jamboree that badly, you guys win. But, I won't have a boy going
to bed with a sore butt, even
if he deserves it; I'll attend to you two first thing in the morning.
Understood?"
"Aye, aye, sir," the culprits chorused.
Beverly Rattigan placed her hand on her husband's knee. "Mike," she said,
"before the boys go to bed, Stevie has something to tell you."
Stevie made a sour face and thrust his lower lip out like a bulldog. "Aw,
Mom," he whined, "I said I'm sorry."
"Get it over with, Steven; tell your father what you did."
"Yes ma'am." The lad had his father's wavy blond hair and ears that looked
like someone had left the doors open on a surplus Army jeep. "Skipper," he
blurted, "I wanted some money to spend at the picnic, so I borrowed a dollar or
two from Mom's purse. I was going to put it back
on allowance day, so it wasn't really stealing."
A tense silence enveloped the room; the lobsterman's lips thinned and
whitened - definitely not a good sign. "A dollar or two?" he asked.
"Okay, it was five dollars."
"You went into your mother's purse, took five dollars that didn't belong to
you, and you have the balls to tell me it wasn't stealing?" Capt. Mike
thundered.
"I didn't think it was, Skipper - not if I paid it back."
"Mike, Steven helped himself to the money," Beverly Rattigan said.
"Bobby-Joe saw it, figured where it had come from, and told me about it. I was
waiting for the right moment to discuss with you how to handle the situation
when Stevie saw the older boys smoking and got even with Bobby-Joe by tattling."
"I see," the skipper replied in a low voice, taut with anger, "so now, it
appears that three Junior Jarheads - not just two -- have appointments with my
strap in the morning."
"I was gonna pay it back, Daddy," Stevie whined. "And I said I'm sorry."
"Old son, you are going to be a whole lot sorrier in the morning when you
are butt-naked and your ass is burning hot," the Skipper predicted.
A yellow snot bubble ballooned from Stevie's nostril. "Aw, Daddy," he
hiccuped.
'Do you guys have any questions?" There were none. 'Then, go to your room
and hit the rack. You may sleep in tomorrow because you're up late tonight.
But, when you wake up, you're to get out of bed, use the toilet, brush your
teeth, take off your underwear, and wait in your room for me to come in with a
strap and attend to you. Have pleasant dreams, gentlemen." Three unhappy
Cracker boys slunk from the room like convicts heading for the gallows.
BAYER ASS BURNS
The Rattigan brothers and Buddy Mulaney slept late the following morning; when
they awoke, it was past nine o'clock. "Oh, shit," Stevie groaned, "it's
morning. You guys know what's gonna happen, now."
Buddy yawned, stretched, and sat up in bed "Maybe your dad's forgotten about
it," he suggested without much conviction.
"There's a radio on in the kitchen and I smell coffee," Bobby-Joe said.
"He's prob'ly been up for hours; his memory is like an elephant's; believe me,
he ain't forgotten."
Stevie glanced at the Casio Forester on his wrist and said, "We'd better get
up, we don't want the Skipper any more pissed off than he already is." Rather
than pull off his underwear and wait for a hiding in his birthday suit as his
father had instructed, Steven reverted to the behavior of an earlier age by
giving his brother a hefty wallop with a pillow; Bobby-Joe retaliated; boys
being boys, Buddy joined the fray. An adult observer would have deemed a
spontaneous underwear roughhouse bizarre behavior for boys about to be spanked,
but to the boys, an early morning pig-pile came as naturally as waking up with a
hard-on. The tussle-on-the-bed was their way of dealing with the angst of
corporal punishment. Stevie gave his brother a final pillow whack; a seam burst,
a shower of eiderdown swirled about the bedroom to settle like snow on the
floor. "Oh, shit," he said.
"Goddog it, the Skipper's gonna have a cow when he sees the mess you made,
asshole," Bobby-Joe snapped. "Help me clean up before he sees it."
"I've already seen it." Cap't. Mike Rattigan stood framed in the bedroom
door looking like
a man with an unpleasant duty to perform. The culprits sat on the bed, in
states of maximus erectus, wearing the guilty expressions of boys caught
masturbating on the toilet.
"Get the vacuum cleaner and police up these feathers," the lobsterman said
in a voice cool
as ice water. "I want to see assholes, elbows, and shoe soles, so get moving."
"Skipper, we can explain. . . ."
"Save your breath," the skipper snapped. "Your mother is grocery shopping
in Everglades City, so we have the house to ourselves. You guys are to water
your lizards, brush your teeth, police up this room, take off your skivvies, sit
your little nekkid asses on the bed, and wait quietly for me to return. I was
going to let you off with ten smacks each, but I'm rethinking
that in view of your grab-assing."
Stevie gazed up at his dad through limpid blue eyes. "Daddy," he protested,
"We were just havin' fun; I'm sorry about the pillow."
"I'm holding the three of you responsible for that," the lobsterman said.
"Wanton destruction
of property just earned each of you two snaps of the cowhide on top of the ten
you're already slated to get." As Capt. Mike left he said over his shoulder,
"I'll be back in twenty minutes expecting to find a clean room and three naked
junior Jarheads bushy-tailed, and ready to have their backsides toasted." Three
anuses tightened; three penises twitched into humongous anticipation boners.
Capt. Mike came into the boys' bedroom without knocking. They had pulled off
their Jockeys and sat on the bed naked and cocky, trying unsuccessfully to cover
anxiety boners. The skipper carried a Marine Corps garrison belt, which he lay
in plain sight, coiled like a rattlesnake. "All right, get up," he snapped.
Three frightened boys formed a file so crooked it wouldn't have passed
muster at a Brownie meeting. Capt. Mike shook his head bemusedly. "I believe
this is about the most raggedy-assed bunch of pogues it's ever been my
misfortune to encounter," he muttered. "You guys look like the honor guard at
an old whore's convention." Years earlier, Mike Rattigan had served a hitch in
the Marine Corps and still lapsed into Jarhead vernacular when no women were
about. He sat on the bed and beckoned for his youngest son to approach. "You
might's well be first, Stevie," he said. "Step over here like a good boy."
"I ain't a good boy, Daddy," Stevie muttered, "that's why you're fixing to
take a belt to my butt."
"You lucked in, this time, old son," the skipper retorted, "the garrison
belt is reserved for boys with fuzz around their peckers; your little
peenie-weenie is bald as a frog, so I believe I'll put you over my knee and
redden your little fantail the old-fashioned way."
Stevie mustered his courage. "It don't make no nevermind to me if you whup
me or spank
me, "he said. "I'll turn thirteen in two months, my cock is almost five inches
long, and I had my first wet dream a couple weeks ago, so I'm old enough to
whup, if you wanna do it that way."
Mike Rattigan wondered if one day such an excess of testosterone would get
his son into trouble. "Well excuse me, Mr. Five-Inch-Cock, but I believe most
boys would choose a spanking over a whipping," he said with the merest trace of
a smile.
The towhead thought it over. "I ain't most boys," he muttered.
The lobsterman shrugged and beckoned like a trapdoor spider inviting a
cricket into its lair. "Step up, boy - let's do it," he said. "Face sideways,
bend over my leg, and present your butt."
Stevie swallowed hard; his face was the color of wet pie dough. "I hope
you're enjoying this," he muttered. "I was gonna repay the money from Mom's
purse; you're spanking an innocent kid."
The father stared down his son. "Yeah, right," he said, "Keep dreaming,
mister; you are not leaving this room 'til you've taken twelve swats on your
naked bottom, so settle down and show me there's a set of balls between your
legs."
Stevie's face reddened, his nose began to run, his lower lip thrust out
petulantly. "Goddamnit,
I said I was gonna put the fucking money back," he blurted. Almost before the
words were out, he realized the magnitude of his mistake and he clapped a hand
over his mouth.
Capt. Mike's lips thinned and whitened. After a moment of dead silence, he
said, "Very well, mister, that outburst and your salty language just cost you
two more whacks."
"I'm sorry, Skipper - it slipped out," the boy stammered.
"Being sorry won't save your ass this time, buddy. But, if it's any
consolation, you got your way about one thing - you'll be punished with the belt
rather than my hand, so your brother and Buddy won't see you spanked over my lap
like a ten-year-old."
Stevie knew the damage was irreversible. He made a sullen face and studied
a chameleon searching the windowsill for a tasty bug.
"Did I ever tell you guys that I was raised in an orphanage in West
Virginia?" the lobsterman asked.
Bobby-Joe rolled his eyes. "Daddy, you told me and Stevie about Ste. Mary
Merkin's Orphan Asylum about a trillion times," he said.
"Really? That many? And did I tell you about Brother Bartholomew, the
orphan warden? That man ran his asylum with an iron hand and the stingiest
pignut hick'ry switch in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Saturday night was
spanking night at Ste. Mary Merkin's. Right after supper, the boys who'd pissed
Brother Bartholomew off during the week were summoned to the chapel and made to
take off our pants and underpants and sit on a hardwood church pew praying for
the salvation of our souls. At bedtime, the warden arrived with his switch and
set to work. Boys were made to bend side-by-side over the back of the pew with
our nekkid heinies pokin' up like Moon Pies while Brother Bartholomew moved up
and down the line, giving each of us what for with his hick'ry stick. He
spanked the boys who'd committed Mickey Mouse offences first and saved those of
us guilty of serious misbehavior - masturbating or taking the Lord's name in
vain - until the end so we had to watch four or five spankings before our turns
came."
"Jeez, no wonder you ran away and joined the Marines," Bobby-Joe said.
"I guess I was tired of being last boy in the spanking line every Saturday
night," Capt. Mike reminisced. "But, looking back, I recollect learning some
important basic lessons lined up with my little nekkid ass freezing in that
drafty old chapel. The more I think about it, the more likely it seems that a
generous dollop of Brother Bartholomew's country discipline is what you guys
need to keep you on the straight and narrow. Per'aps even Stevie will learn to
keep his mouth from flapping at the wrong time."
"I wouldn't bet on it if I was you," Bobby-Joe sidemouthed.
"As you were, Jarheads," Capt. Mike said. "Let's get this over with."
Stevie felt a surge of excitement; he leaned back against the wall and tried
to control his breathing. His anus was tight as a cloistered nun's coosie. His
dad loomed over the terrified boys and asked, "Who's first?"
Bobby-Joe pointed to Buddy; Buddy pointed to Stevie; Stevie pointed to his
brother. "He is," they blurted in unison.
"You guys aren't quite as rambunctious now as you were when you were
roughhousing on the bed, are you?" Capt. Mike posed. The question was followed
by a lengthy silence, broken by Stevie juicily chomping a wad of Fleers Double
Bubble Gum.
Bobby-Joe tugged at his scrotum. Once his balls were hanging to his
satisfaction, he said, "I'm kinda scared, Skipper."
"At Ste. Mary Merkin's, I learned to keep a tight asshole during a hiding,
boys; if you do
that, the rest of you will take care of itself," the skipper said. "That's good
advice for 'most
any situation you'll encounter in this life. Since you guys aren't exactly
falling over one another to be first, I believe the most humane way to attend to
this is to line you up and handle the job assembly-line-style."
"You know best, Skipper." Bobby-Joe said. The lobsterman flicked the
razor-strop against his leg hard enough to make a pop; three boys jumped as if
they'd received electrical shocks to their genitals. "Kneel side-by-side on the
bed, spread your knees, bend at the waist, and make targets of your butts." The
boys assumed spanking positions, each painfully aware that his perineum - that
part of his body between the back of his scrotum and the tip of his spine - was
visible from behind.
"Bobby-Joe and Buddy are getting twelve swats," Capt. Mike continued.
"Stevie - my little Jarhead with the big flapping mouth - has fourteen coming.
Your punishments will be meted
out two swats at a time, gentlemen. I'll pass behind you and apply a sharp snap
to your left buttock, followed, in close order, by one to the right buttock.
Then I'll move on to the next Junior Gyrene and keep repeating the process until
your asses are hot as a sumo wrestler's jockstrap. The first half of your
punishment will be applied by hand; that should get your attention and start the
teardrops flowing. The balance will be laid on with the garrison belt." The
bedroom fell silent, except for the shallow breathing of boys and the cooing of
a mourning dove in a chinaberry tree outside the open window.
"I'm finished talking," the Skipper said. "Unless one of you Junior
Jarheads wants to get something off your chest, we'll get started." Nether
cheeks rimpled; faces twisted into convoluted grimaces of dread and
anticipation. Stevie got it first; his dad rested a hand on his left buttock
and patted it affectionately; a shiver ran the length of the boy's spine. Capt.
Mike's hand was muscular and callused from years of winching crab and lobster
traps from the Gulf of Mexico; he raised it nearly to the ceiling and brought it
down in a blur; it struck with a sound like a cherry bomb goin g off inside a
Theban tomb. A pink wad of bubble gum popped from Stevie's mouth, along with a
whoop of pain and a tablespoonful of slimy green snot. The staccato smack of
the Skipper's hand against the boy's naked rear echoed through the bedroom,
motivating doves outside in the window to flutter off in search of quieter
neighbors. Stevie had resolved to make his dad proud of him by taking his
punishment like a Marine, but with the second snap of the paternal hand on his
naked flesh, he began to cry - the disconsolate drawn-out wails of an orphaned
calf separated from the herd. A lollipop-red welt sprang up on either asscheek
in vivid contrast to the pasty white parts of Stevie's body not normally covered
by
a swim suit.
Buddy was next. He was terrified of the Skipper's spanking hand. He knelt
between the Rattigan boys, buttocks lewdly upthrust, ass-skin tautened by the
degrading buttocks-up position Capt. Mike made the boys assume. Disregarding
the Skipper's instructions to not look back,
he sneaked a peek through the inverted V of his thighs - past his danging
donnagher. The Skipper towered over him wearing a vaguely jocular expression;
the boy couldn't have known that his testicles were being mentally likened to a
pair of ball bearings in a Red Man tobacco sack. Even before he was hit, a
teardrop welled up, spilled over long sooty lashes, and tumbled erratically down
his cheek to hang glistening on the point of his chin. Buddy was aware of the
Skipper's hand resting on his freckly ass; it felt warm, hard, very powerful,
and very businesslike. He allowed himself to relax a bit, lulled by the
knowledge that however painful the experience might be, the hand on his ass was
there to dispense justice - Cracker style. "Relax, old son," the Skipper said.
"You deserve this; cooperate with it."
Buddy craned over his shoulder, gave a resigned nod of consent, and croaked,
"Go ahead -- do it." Only when he could no longer feel the Skipper's horny
hand did he realize that the hand was poised four-feet above Ground Zero and
would make landfall on his grinning pink bottom in half-a-nanosecond. Once it
fell, a full two seconds elapsed before he reacted to it. Then it occurred to
him that the deafening CRACK he'd heard had been a strong male hard hand
slapping a tender, young male buttock full-strength, and the unpleasant
sensation in the buttock left no doubt in his mind that the spanking was
underway.
Buddy's body stiffened; hairs on his nape stood out like fence pickets;a
rose-red weal, the size of a man's palm, popped up on his fanny. Adding insult
to injury, he expelled dry-fart that more resembled an emanation from an
Arkansas drayhorse then a human boy. "Gawdamn, Gyrene, do
you have a frog in your ass?" the Skipper growled.
"I couldn't help it, sir - that really hurt!" Buddy blurted through clenched
teeth..
"Relax, old son; we've barely started."
"I'll try, sir! The Skipper's hand snapped down on the culprit's bum a
second time with the sound of a stick snapping. Buddy yelped and craned up at
the lobsterman with beseeching gray eyes, but Capt. Mike had already moved on to
the next boy.
Bobby-Joe was going on fifteen; he'd inherited sticky-up red hair and
freckles from his mother's side of the family. He was lanky and tall for his
age, but already his young body was showing signs of filling out.
"How are you holding up?" the lobsterman asked his elder son.
Bobby-Joe favored his father with a shy, lopsided smile. "I'm okay, Dad,"
he said, "but, I kinda wish this was over; I ain't too hot on gettin' whupped
with my weenie waggin'."
Capt. Mike tousled his son's shaggy hair and said, "You're lucky your
mother isn't home to
see you, boy."
"Yes, sir - you got that right." In truth, not only was Bobby-Joe
reconciled to a spanking, but he found the prospect of getting one deliciously
erotic. Several of his junior high school buddies had regular encounters with
their father's belts; more than once the Rattigan brothers observed belt hickies
on the fannies of local Cracker boys while skinny-dipping in the Turner River.
On such occasions, he invariably pressed the boy for details of his run-in with
paternal justice. It wasn't long before Bobby-Joe became the boy other boys
consulted when they wanted to know how their buddies were punished at home.
Danny Prosser got it on the bare back with a hazel switch which he had to cut
and soak in brine 'til it was supple and stingy; Josh Macauley was spanked with
a belt at bedtime - usually through his pajamas pants, and he wasn't allowed to
wear underpants. Jon Hayley still got it bare-ass with a hairbrush, although he
was going
on sixteen. And so it went.
Truth to tell, if Capt. Mike had changed his mind and called off the
spanking, Bobby-Joe would have felt cheated. He'd worked hard for a reddening,
and felt he'd earned it fair and square.
"Brace yourself, mister."
"Wait a second, please, Daddy," the boy pleaded, "I ain't ready."
"Get ready, goddamnit."
"Yes, sir." Capt. Mike would have been nonplussed if he'd realized his
son's foot-dragging wasn't because Bobby-Joe was garnering his courage, but
because the boy was on an adrenaline and testosterone rush and wanted to prolong
his first spanking. The kid genuinely enjoyed the camaraderie of being punished
naked with two other boys, and he enjoyed the bittersweet bonding with his dad.
He relished the roiling of his testicles, the granitic hardness of his penis,
and the anticipatory tingle in his buttocks. Even Stevie's plaintive wails
turned him on, although he suspected that he, Stevie and Buddy would be wailing
in three-part harmony before the second hand on the big Seth Thomas clock on the
wall finished it's sweep. "Okay, Daddy, I'm ready," he said with a boy's
eagerness to please. He jackknifed his body more sharply, further stretching
his ass-skin to enhance the sting of his father's hand. "Go ahead, sir."
The lobsterman's hand descended on his son's quivering buttock with the
brittle snap of river ice breaking up in the spring. Bobby-Joe's eyes widened
in amazement; he'd had no idea his bottom was so tender that a single pop of his
dad's hand would feel like a branding iron pressing against it. He let out
falsetto yelp - half whistle, half squeal -- the sound of a prairie dog warning
its colony of danger. The second wallop landed an instant after the first.
Fighting back tears, the boy craned over his shoulder and blurted, "Ow, Skipper
- that hurt!"
Paying Bobby-Joe no further heed, the Skipper turned his attention back to
Stevie; with nary a pause between boys, he began the morning's second round of
spanks; one resounding smack to the left buttock - one to the right. By the
fifth round, the boys were crying so lustily that Stevie's collection of leaden
toy soldiers, which he kept on an antique etagere borrowed from his mother,
rattled and jiggled. Three-inch-tall Erwin Rommel tap-dancing on his shelf was
a whimsical sight, indeed.
Then, the hand-spanking was over; Capt. Mike allowed his sons and Buddy
Mulaney one carefully timed minute to rub, holler, and blow through their teeth
before he picked up the Marine Corps belt and ordered them to reassume the
spanking position for the principal punishment. The three were past caring that
the bottoms were candy-apple red, their penises
in states of maximus erectus, or that some areas of the pubescent anatomies they
presented for punishment wouldn't be seen again 'til after they'd graduated from
high school and were undergoing physical exams for induction into the armed
services.
Sawney Bean, the neighborhood's eleven-year-old newspaper boy, skidded his
bike to a halt in the Rattigans' driveway, gawked in awe at the boys' half-open
bedroom window, and clapped his hands over his spatulate ears to muffle the
ruction of Bobby-Joe, Stevie and Buddy being disciplined with Capt. Mike's
garrison belt. He must have had a guilty conscience, because he spun the bike
about and pedaled off down the street as fast as his Schwinn would go.
ADDENDUM:
TOASTED CRACKERS is a fictionalized account of an event that took place
fifteen years ago. A fictionalized account is an account in which names and
locations have been changed and dialogue has been recreated.
The character identified as Buddy Mulaney graduated from high school and
went on to obtain a teaching degree. He currently teaches high school English
in the Florida Panhandle.
Capt. Mike Rattigan mortgaged his house to buy a second lobster boat. His
eldest son, Bobby-Joe, passed the Coast Guard Motor Vessel Operator's test and
is skipper of that boat.
Stevie Rattigan, the "Little Jarhead With the Big Flapping Mouth," joined
the Navy, rather than the Marine Corps, after his high school graduation. On 12
October, 2000, he was killed aboard the USS Cole (DDG-67) in Aden, Yemen,
during a terrorist attack on his ship.
An illustrated version of Toasted Crackers is available from the author, who
can be contacted by e-mail at Prydwyn@AOL.com. The account will be sent by You
Send It, and will be in WPD (WordPerfect Document) format only.
Review This Story || Email Author: Bobb B. Tucker