The Magical Festering Wound of Little Chuckie McGillicuddy

       Childhood boredom produces many strange and fanciful adventures, some of which I have mentioned to you before.  When you are young and oblivious to many of the rules, laws, and mores that regulate the lives of much of the world, you are left with an almost completely blank slate.  With no adults around to guide you, scold you, scream at you, or beat you within an inch of your life, one day stretches into an almost endless string of wondrous possibilities, many of which end up teaching you a lesson or two along the way.

       When I was nine years old, I thought I had the whole world almost exactly as I wanted it.  My best friend, Paulie Fitzhugh, lived right next door to me, and we spent all of our free days exploring the vast lakeside territory that began just  few feet from our back doors.  There was much mischief to get into, and with the watchful eyes of our parents obscured by a forest of oak and cedar, we could get away with it all.  You’d be surprised how much damage two young boys with BB guns, hatchets, magnifying glasses, and a hearty helping of imagination can do to large sections of forest.  You’d probably be even more surprised at how much of this went unnoticed.  Such was the life of two latchkey children whose parents decided that work was more important than keeping their kids from becoming savage little monsters. 

       There was only one thing that in my young eyes stood in the way of that summer being the best summer of my life, and that “thing” was Chuckie McGillicuddy.  Approximately one week after the end of my third grade year, the McGillicuddy family moved in about four doors down, and I knew when I first laid eyes upon them that I was in for trouble.  Paulie and I were sitting in the driveway in front of my house throwing crabapples at a neighbor’s cat when the McGillicuddy clan pulled into their driveway in a huge U-Haul truck.  We stared in bemused amazement as the four members of their family climbed out of the truck one by one.  The mother and father were both no taller than five feet apiece, and their height was nearly matched by their girth.  They both had curly red hair and dark freckles on their pale white skin.  The children, a boy and a girl were like carbon copies of their parents, only shrunk to about ½ scale.  Paulie and I looked at each other in disbelief before falling to the ground with laughter at the sight of this gaggle of rotund redheads.  That was our first mistake.

       Hearing our laughter, Mrs. McGillicuddy urged her son, whom she annoyingly referred to as “Little Chuckie,” to go over and meet his new neighbors.

       “Go on, Little Chuckie!” she cried in her nasally voice.  “Go have fun with your new little friends.  They sure seem to be having fun!  But don’t forget your inhaler.”

       Little Chuckie reluctantly walked over to my driveway, obviously scared and desperate to make a good impression.  As Chuckie drew to within 3o feet of us, we could already hear him wheezing.  My first instinct was to pitch a rock in his direction, but just as my arm had drawn back, rock in hand, I paused.  A quick glance at Paulie caused our eyes to meet, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.  Without even speaking, we knew that this boy and his hopeless desperation could be used to our advantage, or at least our entertainment.  With that in mind, we gave him a friendly greeting, and our summer of fun had begun anew.

       As expected, Little Chuckie became our lapdog, following us around with both the admiration and timid uncertainty of a lost puppy.  No matter how ridiculous our requests, we knew that Chuckie would oblige out of his unwavering need for acceptance. 

“Hey, Chuckie, go see if that hornet’s nest is empty.”

“Hey, Chuckie, see if there are any scorpions under that rock.”

“Hey, Chuckie, put this Coke can on your head and see if I can shoot it off with my BB gun.”

“Hey, Chuckie, go steal me some of your dad’s cigarettes.  And grab a couple of beers while you’re at it.”

       Suprisingly, Chuckie completed the majority of these tasks unscathed.  Sure, there was that one incident where we dared him to sit on an ant mound, but we had no idea he was so allergic to ant bites.  He was only in the hospital for one night, and Chuckie never spoke a word of our influence over his actions for fear of being ostracized. 

       Some might say that Little Chuckie was little more to us than a slave, but I am quick to remind those people that Chuckie possessed free will, and we never forced him to do anything.  Anyone with any sense could have seen that Paulie and I were not the type of kids that you should get involved with, so I guess it’s really all his mom’s fault for encouraging him so strongly to be our friends.  That’s who I blame, anyway.

       It was one afternoon that summer that Paulie and I would come to see Little Chuckie as more than a nuisance to bend to our will.  Paulie had awoken me that morning by pounding on my bedroom window, and I could see the mischief shining in his eyes before he even had the chance to speak.  I opened the window and he climbed in, toting a plastic grocery bag full of fun. 

       “Oh, man!” Paulie said.  “You gotta see what I swiped from my brother’s room!  Check this out!”

       Paulie reached his hand into the bag, and out came the most beautiful sight my nine year old eyes had ever beheld.  Paulie gingerly clutched a handful of M-80s, the most dangerous firecracker I had ever heard of.

       “My brother got these in Mexico, and he had a bunch leftover from the Fourth of July!” Paulie said with glee.  Within minutes, I was dressed and ready to go.

       As Paulie and I made our way down the street towards the lake, Little Chuckie emerged from his house as if on cue.  He wheezed his way over to us.

       “Hey, fuckers,” said Chuckie in his usual greeting.  Chuckie thought that swearing made him cool, and he never ceased to come up with new ways to curse at us.  “You dicks wanna come in and check out my new Intellivision video game system?  My dad got it at a garage sale, and it’s way cooler than Atari.”  Paulie and I rolled our eyes.

       “First of all, Chuckie,” I said, “Intellivision is not cooler than Atari.  It’s like ten times less cool.  Second, we don’t want to go into your house.  It always smells like cheese.  Third, we have better things to do this morning.  You go ahead and play your Intellivision, though.  I don’t think you could handle the awesomeness that we’re going to experience today.”

       Chuckie looked dejected for a brief moment, but then he smiled.  “Aw, I was just kidding, prickheads!  Intellivision sucks, everybody knows that.  I’d much rather hang out with you dickholes!”

       Paulie stopped in his tracks and fixed an icy stare on Little Chuckie.  “Okay, you can come, but if you open your fat little mouth about any of this, we’ll make you sit on an ant pile again.”

      “I won’t tell nobody!” Chuckie exclaimed.  “You shiteaters can trust me!  So I can come with you?”

       Paulie and I looked at each other.  “All right,” I said.  “But keep quiet.”

       With Little Chuckie in tow, we headed out into the woods near the lake.  When Paulie produced the first M-80 from the bag, Chuckie’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.  He watched in awed silence as we threw several M-80s into the lake and enjoyed the spray of water and the occasional dead minnow that surfaced in the aftermath.  After a while, the lake got a little old, so we took to blowing up old logs and any other little piece of nature we could find.  I think Chuckie might have peed his pants a little when we dropped an M-80 into a fire ant mound, but he was quick to take cover, and he survived with only a couple of bites on his arms and legs.  It was as Chuckie was studying the remains of the ant mound that Paulie had a grand idea for what to do with the final remaining M-80.

       As Chuckie bent over the mound, his inevitabe ass crack poked out of the top of his tighty whities, presenting an irresistable target for Paulie.  Without a word, Paulie lit the fuse and jammed the firecracker where the sun don’t shine.  A brief look of horror spread across Chuckie’s face, and then came the explosion.

       Chuckie let out a squeal not unlike what I had heard a few years before at my grandpa’s farm when he was slaughtering a pig.  He immediately fell to the ground and went completely limp.  Paulie and I looked at each other with a sense of panic, knowing that we were in deep trouble.  So, we did what any nine year old with any sense of self-preservation would have done: we ran like hell.

       Paulie and I both immediately went home after swearing a blood oath not to tell anyone what had happened.  I’m not sure if it was our blood that we were swearing on, but that wasn’t really important to us at the time.  I stayed near the window for the rest of the day, fully expecting to see Little Chuckie come limping out of the woods to tell on us.  At sundown, there was still no sign of him.

       The next morning, there was a knock on my door.  As I peeked out of the curtains, I saw Mr. McGillicuddy waiting on the front porch.  I just knew that he was going to get me in trouble.  I’m sure Chuckie had made his way back home and tattled on us, and now his dad was here to talk to my parents.  I slowly opened the front door, knowing that this wouldn’t be good.

       “Hey, kid,”  Mr. McGillicuddy croaked angrily.  “Is Little Chuckie over here?”

       “No, sir,” I replied.  “I haven’t seen him.”

       “Well, that little fucker didn’t come home for dinner last night, so we figured he was probably staying with one of you little bastards.”  I could now see where Little Chuckie got his penchant for swearing.  “If you see that little butt nugget, tell him to get his chunky ass home, you hear me?  Thanks, asshole.” 

       Mr. McGillicuddy turned and waddled away, little beads of sweat collecting on every inch of exposed skin on his body.  I remember thinking at the time, “Who talks like that to a nine year old?”

       I immediately ran next door to Paulie’s house.  I fully expected the door to open on Paulie and Chuckie sitting in the living room playing Atari as Little Chuckie sat on a bag of ice.  Instead, I was greeted by only Paulie.

       As I relayed the message from Chuckie’s dad, I saw Paulie’s eyes open wider.  “You mean he’s not with you?  I figured you let him stay the night at your house to keep him quiet!”

       At that point, Paulie and I realized how much trouble we were in.  We decided to pack some medical supplies and head back out to the woods, hoping maybe Chuckie was just too embarrassed to come home.

       As we drew near to where we had left Chuckie, we were horrified to see him still laying in the same spot that he had fallen yesterday.  Neither Paulie or I had ever buried anything bigger than a parakeet, so we knew this wouldn’t be easy.  Just as I was about to turn around for a shovel, Chuckie’s head turned, his eyes red and stained with a night’s worth of tears.

       “Hey, fuckasses!  How could you just leave me out here, you gaywads?  I can’t even stand up! You gotta help me, douche lickers!”

       “Listen, Chuckie,” I said, “We’re gonna help you out, but you gotta promise not to say anything about this to your folks.”

       “The hell I won’t!”  Chuckie screamed.  “You ball-eaters are gonna go to jail!”

       Paulie and I looked at each other with dread.  It was going to be hard to keep this kid quiet, but we were sure that once we got him treated and on his feet, we could convince him to keep his trap shut.  We had a whole reserve of Twinkies and Ding Dongs in my backpack to entice him with.  After all, he hadn’t eaten in more than 24 hours.

       Unfortunately for Chuckie, Paulie and I at nine years old were far from trained EMTs, and the only knowledge we had of medicine came from whatever we could plumb from the depths of our movie and television knowledge.  As we looked at Little Chuckie’s bulbous ass, we knew we were in for trouble.  There was a large, round black spot right at the top of his butt crack, and in the center was an open wound that was oozing blood and puss.  If this had happened to one of us, I’m sure Little Chuckie would have been quick to point out how we had blown ourselves a new asshole.  He didn’t seem to think it was very funny when I said it, though.

       I watched as Paulie emptied his bag of all the medical supplies he had pilfered from the medicine cabinet in his mom’s bathroom.  Out came various ointments and bandages, none of which either of us had any idea how to use.  Then, curiously, Paulie pulled out the last item, a cylindrical container of Morton’s table salt.

       “What’s that for?”  I asked.

       “I remember something from a TV show or something about rubbing salt in someone’s wounds.  I think that’s supposed to help them heal.”

       I vaguely remembered hearing that phrase before, so I shrugged and told Paulie to proceed.  Paulie dumped a handful of salt into his hand and brought it towards Little Chuckie’s ass.  Just as he was inches from the wound, Paulie paused.  He looked sternly at Chuckie and said, “If you ever tell anyone that I touched your butt, I’ll kill you!”

       “Just hurry up, you penis head!”  Chuckie shouted.

       With that, Paulie slapped the handful of salt right onto Chuckie’s open wound.  Immediately, Chuckie let out a piercing squeal that nearly shattered my eardrums, and he carried it out for what seemed like forever.

       “Owwwwww!!!”  Chuckie screamed.  “It hurts!!!”

       “Be still!” Paulie said.  “I’ve gotta rub it in!”

       Paulie rubbed the salt onto Little Chuckie’s ass, and with each movement of Paulie’s hand, Chuckie’s squeals got louder and louder.  Finally, Paulie had had enough.

       “Jesus, would you shut up already?” Paulie screamed.  “I’m gonna go deaf here!  Damn, I wish I had some ear plugs!”

       Just as he completed that sentence, Paulie froze, and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.  He quickly reached up to both ears, and within moments, he had fished out two ear plugs!  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I looked down at Little Chuckie’s ass, then grabbed the salt and started rubbing it in.

       Over Little Chuckie’s howling, I said, “I wish I had $100!”

       No sooner had the words left my lips than I was holding a crisp new $100 bill in my left hand!  Paulie looked at me with a mixture of awe and excitement.  Could it be that Chuckie’s festering butt wound was our proverbial golden goose?  We each made several more wishes, accompanied by more handfuls of salt rubbed directly into Little Chuckie’s injury, and one by one, they were granted: I had a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, a brand new BMX bike, and a sweet new Nintendo Power Glove, while Paulie received a cool Tony Hawk skateboard, a new bag of M-80s, and a hefty stack of VHS porno movies.

       As the day progressed, we made more and more wishes by rubbing salt on Little Chuckie’s posterior, and each one continued to come true.  After a couple hours of incessant screaming by Little Chuckie, we considered trying it without the salt, but we figured why mess with a proven formula?  As the end of the day drew near, we knew we would have to be home for dinner soon.  Paulie and I spared Little Chuckie some pain while we discussed how to handle the situation.  After raising many important points, we decided on the appropriate course of action.  Pulling my hatchet out of my backpack, I quickly lopped off Little Chuckie’s arms and legs, and we got to work bandaging up the new wounds.

       You may be wondering why Paulie and I chose this solution, and there were two valid reasons.  One, Chuckie would no doubt one day find the strength to stand up and walk out of the woods on his own.  Upon doing so, he would no doubt both tell on us and seek medical treatment, effectively destroying our genie-in-a-bottle and our freedom in one fell swoop.  Two, while Chuckie was not the smartest kid in the world, he would no doubt come to the conclusion that he could rub salt in his own wound while wishing that all of this had never happened, and then Paulie and I would lose everything we had gained.  Makes sense now, doesn’t it?

       For the first couple of summers, Chuckie slept in a tent in the woods, but, as Paulie and I got older, we realized that we could wish into existence a little shack for him to sleep in.  Occasionally, out of good will, we would wish for him to have a TV or an Intellivision, but nothing too fancy.  We didn’t want to spoil him. 

       Surprisingly, Little Chuckie’s parents didn’t seem to miss him very much.  Sure, they put up flyers around town, but the message at the top was less than desperate:

“Have you seen this fat little fucker?  If so, tell him he needs to take out the trash!”

       After a few months, the flyers faded, and the McGillicuddy’s moved on.  Paulie would later reveal to me that he made a wish that the McGillicuddy’s would forget that they ever had a son.  Paulie was always a little smarter than me.

       Meanwhile, several years later, life has been very good to Paulie and I.  At the tender age of 18, Paulie began building the most successful nationwide strip club chain that this country has ever known.  I became the inventor of the flying car, and have made a very comfortable living from doing so, not that I needed the money.  After all, anything I ever need is just a short hike away to a cabin in the woods, where Little Chuckie waits for our daily visits.  It took a while, but Chuckie has accepted his lot in life, and we give him everything he needs to survive.  Overall, he has it pretty good, except for the lack of arms and legs.

        The hardest part has been keeping that wound open for ten years.