When we got upstairs, most of the party had moved outside. I guess Dr. Kent had decided that Henry needed to get wet, and must have throwed him in? Everybody was in the mood to swim, I guess, but I just wanted to float around the pool and think. No such luck. There was some other guy there, too, that I didn’t know. He hadn’t been there before, and he had kinda darker skin, but he wasn’t a black man like Mr. Thomas. He kinda sounded like Canyon, with that accent, when he got excited.

“Bloody plane was delayed 8 hours!” He was complaining to Dad.

His name was Mr. Anwar (so HE said), and he was from Arabia.

“You’ve GOT to be kidding!” I said. Dad swatted my butt. “Sir!” I added. Mr. Anwar smiled at me and patted my head.

OK, to get to it – he was a friend of Dad’s. I guess Dad had connections all over the place? But from the Middle East? What the hell? Is that what they called a “stereo-type”? Then again, he’d met Mr. Frederick, an American, who was on a trip to London and then Dad and Canyon moved here. I guess it was possible? Anyway, Mr. Anwar was nice-looking, like a magazine person in the Sunday clothes ads. Except he wasn’t wearing any clothes just then. He told us he was educated in Britain, and Dad liked that.

He was also looking for a boy.

“Are you sure I can’t have this one, Martin?” He kept asking Dad, who made me stand there and turn around and around for him like I was a model. “Ali’s getting older now, and he’ll have more responsibilities with all the new children. Besides, he’s gotten so tall!”

Ali?

Gimme a break!

I guess I rolled my eyes or something, because Dad smacked my ‘arse’, hard and pointed his finger at my nose. “That’s as common a name there as ‘Jack’ is here,” he told me. I apologized. Still, I wondered what Ali did with children? If Mr. Anwar was anything like the rest of Dad’s friends, it was a safe bet that Ali wasn’t having kids of his own!

“But you’ve got 17,000 wives!” Dad laughed at him.

“I do not!” Mr. Anwar laughed. “I only have 8, and besides, eunuchs are so different from women!”

OK, so he had sex with eunuchs, too? Ali must be a eunuch then, and one that was getting older. I looked over and saw Bobbie and Mickey talking about something, waiting in line for Jeffie to jump off the diving board. He was untied, and I wondered if he’d got loose or been let loose.

Dad was still laughing. “I wanted ONE once,” he said to Mr. Anwar, “And so help me, I can’t imagine why!”

“You seem to have gotten the best deal, my friend?” Mr. Anwar told him, “Twin boys? And without the commitment?”

I guess I sighed too hard.

“And that cost me 12 years,” Dad told him. “A mistake that’s going to be rectified soon enough.”

‘Rectified’? That was a new word. It sounded like ‘rectum’, and I knew what that was! Boy, did I know what THAT was tonight! I didn’t have a plug back in me, yet, and after 3 fuckings, I was feeling kinda … empty.

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Anwar nodded, “You told me. A small miracle you found him!”

I thought so. Now if I could just stay – at least come over every day – that would be great, too. Dad next door wouldn’t be so bad. Hell, Denny only got to see his dad every other weekend.

“You can borrow him, but you can’t buy him,” Dad gave Mr. Anwar a little shove on the arm.

‘Buy him’? This dude wanted to BUY me?

(OK, I didn’t connect all the dots then, but I should have. I guess I was too messed up from the party so far, trying to figure it all out, and didn’t see it.)

“Benny is not for sale at any price,” Dad told him again.

“I see he’s intact, unlike the others. Even his twin brother?” Mr. Anwar said.

“We’re going to have a talk about that,” Dad told him. “Benny’s got this idea in his head tonight that he wants to look just like his brother.”

I know I blushed; my face was hot.

“Come here and let me see you better, boy,” Mr. Anwar told me. I looked at Dad. He nodded.

“Very good!” Mr. Anwar told Dad. “And you’ve only had him for 2 weeks?” Dad nodded. Mr. Anwar touched my dick. I started getting hard. He laughed. Then he shook his head and made a ‘tsk tsk’ sound.

“Sir?” I asked. Was something wrong?

“Americans and the circumcisions they do to babies,” Mr. Anwar sighed. “Loose, too much frenulum, not a good cut at all.”

“Yes, Dr. Kent did study the style, and you know that Canyon’s is suitable,” Dad said.

“If a boy is to be cut, he should be cut properly,” Mr. Anwar said. “The circumcision is a sacred thing, not to be trifled with. This is like partial nuclear disarming. What is THAT?”

So I guess he thought I wasn’t circumcised right? Well, he was right, all the other boys there who had dicks had ones that looked different from mine. No tab under the pee-hole, and the place where the color changes way back on the shaft, no close to the front like mine.

“That, or made smooth and beautiful like your friend Kim,” Mr. Anwar added. “A very proper eunuch, fit for any service!” He smiled. “As a true eunuch should be!”

I swallowed, hard. I still had a funny aftertaste in my mouth, too.

“No, Martin, I won’t borrow this one. He is male, and it is wrong for a male to have sexual relations with another male.”

I guess I’d just missed a chance at getting fucked again? He didn’t want me, because I still had balls? Then again, he’d just said a boy should be cut ‘properly’? As in – have his dick cut off, too?

Mr. Anwar was still looking me over. I checked him out, too. He had a big dick, as big as Dad’s, and he was circumcised like Canyon and Henry were – he called it ‘tight with no frenulum.’

“Ali was older, and he did not like it at first, either,” Mr. Anwar was saying, “But he adapted.”

Dad gave me a look. “Benny, you run along and play with the other kids, son,” he told me.

“Yes, sir!”

On my way to the pool, I heard something about “…puberty…500-thousand, drugs and shipping.” I had no clue.

I was wore out by the time the party started breaking up. I guess when you’re as old as Dad, you can only fuck so much in one night. Even the men were yawning when they started gathering up the boys to head home. Henry never even woke up. He just got wrapped up in a beach towel and carried out to his dad’s van. Jeffie, remember, was spending the week, so I wondered who was going to sleep in Dad’s bed with him.

“Are you sure we can’t put you up somewhere, old friend?” Dad was asking Mr. Anwar.

“No offense, Martin, but the boys’ beds aren’t to my liking!” He laughed.

Right then, MY bed sounded pretty darn good.

“I’ll get a hotel room in the city, and be back Monday?” He asked. Dad nodded.

I figured by Monday, I’d be back home – if not in Blanken.

I guess I went to sleep sitting there listening to them, because the next thing I remember was waking up in bed, blindfolded, with music playing. It was one of my new records, but I swore someone was talking to me, too. I was strapped in, too, but there was something different – there wasn’t a plug in me.

I figured someone would smack my butt to get me up, but it didn’t happen. I must have went back to sleep, because when I DID get woke up – with a smack – I was hungry. Real hungry. It must have been later.

“Good morning, sleepy boy,” Dad greeted me. “Are you ready for lunch?”

“Huh?”

“Special weekend, Benny. We don’t do this very often, so I let you sleep in. Besides, I had to see Mr. Thomas and Tyrone off. He said thanks for all your help, too.” Dad hugged me, but didn’t turn me around all the way. My butt still felt funny. Then he laughed. “You leaked a bit, son,” he told me, and made me go get a quick shower before he got Canyon up. I guess Jeffie had slept in his bed, but I didn’t see him just yet.

He was right, there was ‘mess’ down there. I guess I couldn’t hold it all in, and some had leaked back out? Canyon laughed too, but told me not to worry about it. We didn’t have to worry about it, since Dad plugged us both as soon as we were out of the shower.

“So how did you like the party, Benny?” Canyon asked me when we went down to get lunch. Lunch for breakfast. And there was Jeffie, getting it set out. He hugged and kissed us both ‘good morning’.

“Uh, it was…great!” I said. OK, I still wasn’t sure about it, I felt really funny, but having my plug back in was taking my mind off it. At least I didn’t feel so empty anymore.

“You should ‘stay fucked’, as Father calls it, for the rest of the day or even 2,” Canyon laughed. So did Jeffie.

“I know I sure feel like it!” Jeffie said.

“You could have warned me!” I told them.

Canyon laughed some more. “I thought I did?”

Well, I guess he did?

“You’re not sure, are you, Brother?” Canyon asked me.

I shook my head. I thought it was like being raped or something, but I hadn’t said ‘no’. And knew I liked it. 2 weeks ago, I’d have called the cops if a stranger had even looked at me!

“Dad and his friends would never do that to a boy they didn’t love,” Canyon told me. “That would ruin it.”

“So it’s not just sex?” I asked him.

“No, Benny,” Dad told me, as he joined us. I wondered who had cleaned up? The party trash was all gone, and we were having leftovers. It was still good. “Is that what you thought? Just a bunch of guys who like little boys?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“At…at first,” I confessed. “B-but no one hurt me, well, a little at first, but I … I liked it,” I said, and I knew my face was red as the cherry drink I was drinking.

“It doesn’t work that way, Benny,” Dad said. “Like your brother said, that would ruin it. A man has no business with a boy, if there’s no love involved.”

“And my daddy loves me!” Jeffie smiled, wolfing his food. I guess living in a dumpster would do that to you?

“Mr. Thomas must love Tyrone too,” I said, and I don’t know why I said it. “I thought he was gonna cry last night.”

“Tyrone will have a better life now,” Dad told me. “Just like Jeffie does. Just like you will, son.”

“But I have to go home tonight!” I cried.

“Benny, you ARE home,” Canyon told me.

“But…but Mom?” I said.

“Is no longer part of the decision,” Dad told me, and in that serious voice of his. “Benjamin, the fact is – you WANT to stay here with us. You LIKE it here with us, and she would never understand it all if you were to let something slip. In fact, it is imperative that you STAY with us. Besides, you’ll be fat and dead of a heart attack by the time you’re 18, the rate she’s going!” Dad laughed.

That made me feel kinda better. But how was he gonna make Mom let me stay? Was there something in that contract we signed that I didn’t know about?

He didn’t say any more about it, either.

We cleaned up lunch, then went outside. We got sunblock put on, and Dad said it was a ‘day off’. Canyon was excited.

“Oh, we’ve not had a day off in so long!” He just grinned. “Whatever shall we do?”

“First, we have a talk,” Dad said.

I knew that was coming.

“Benny decided last night that he’d like to be like you, Canyon. JUST like you,” Dad told my brother.

Canyon just stared at me.

“Really?” He said. “Father, surely you’re not going to just allow him? You made me take a year to think about it!”

“You sorry you did it?” I asked him.

“No,” Canyon told me right off.

“Even though it’s harder to get off, and you can’t get an erection sometimes?” Dad asked him.

“That makes it all the more fun!” Canyon laughed, and he pointed at me. “See? Benny’s hard again, already! He certainly gets hard a lot for not being in puberty, Father?”

Jeffie was laughing too.

My face was hot again.

“That’s not his fault, it’s Lois’s,” Dad sounded mad again. “And even little boys get erections quite a bit,” he added. “IF they have all their bits?”

“Yeah, once I got castrated, I don’t get hard so much,” Jeffie said, nodding and grinning. He was always grinning, happy little shit.

“How old were you?” I asked him.

“6, how come?” Jeffie said.

“6?” I said, “Kinda young?”

“My daddy told me all about it, and I wanted to do it –for him, to make him happy,” Jeffie told me. “’sides, I’ll get shots when I’m 16 or 17 and grow up and be just like Daddy!” He explained it, like he had it all planned out. “And my little stub will grow like his, and then I can do what he does!”

So, I was wondering, did that mean finding a boy in a dumpster, talking him into getting castrated, and then tying him up for fun to fuck him? I didn’t say it though. Heck, for all I knew, it would hurt Jeffie’s feelings, and I didn’t want that.

“What was that Mr. Anwar said about being circumcised?” I had to ask, so I could change the subject. “Did I make him mad, Dad?”

“No, son,” Dad told me. “It’s just that routine circumcision of baby boys in this country isn’t what his culture does. They wait until the boy is older – a rite of passage. And they do it differently.”

“They cut more off?” I asked.

Dad nodded, and showed me his erection. It looked like Mr. Anwar’s. Like everyone else’s…well, except Joe, and he didn’t have a head on his dick. Neither did his boy, but it made them both happy.

“A cut like this removes thousands of nerves, son,” Dad told me, “And reduces sensation. It takes longer to achieve climax, but it’s better that way. Or so we’re told. Remember, I didn’t have an orgasm with my penis until I was in college, and I was circumcised when I was younger than you. My father saw to that.”

“How, sir?” I had to know. I mean, HOW did you keep a boy who wasn’t a eunuch from jacking off? I know I would have, if I could whenever I wanted to. I wanted to, but half the time, I couldn’t. Maybe that why I’d liked getting fucked so much?

“A very snug, escape-proof chastity device,” Dad told me, “Much like the tube you had for one night.” He laughed again. I blushed again.

“Father, won’t Benny have to wear one of those, if he’s not castrated?” Canyon asked.

“Well…yes,” Dad kinda fudged, and my mouth dropped open. “We’re a bit ahead in the talk, though.”

”Sorry, sir,” Canyon said.

“You should get the tip snipped off,” Jeffie suggested.

“But then it’s about impossible to get off, ain’t it?” I asked.

“I need LOTSA help,” Jeffie grinned. “It takes a long, LONG time!”

“Oh.”

“Castration is a very serious thing, Benjamin,” Dad told me. “Like I told you last night. If you want to become a man, you will have to take shots. You will stay more boyish, like Bobbie and Mickey, for longer. You have to work out hard, to keep from getting soft and fat, like Canyon does. But you do that now, so that’s not a problem. But you can never have children, Benjamin. Once your balls have been cut off, they are gone forever. You cannot sew them back on later. What you are doing, in having yourself castrated, is submitting to another person’s will for at least the next five or six years. You will not experience puberty, as if you’d stayed on the drugs that your mother,” he sorta spit out that word, “was giving you. Drugs wear off. Surgery is forever.”

“I know, sir, but I get hard all the time, and it’s kinda embarrassing? Like last night, in front of Mr. Anwar?” I said.

“That was humiliating, wasn’t it?” Dad said, and I nodded.

“He didn’t like me,” I said, and I didn’t know why, but I wanted him to like me. I was used to not being liked, or paid attention to, but all of Dad’s friends weren’t like that – except him.

“Oh, he likes you, son,” Dad told me. “He never met a boy he didn’t like!”

“Oh!”

“He just thinks you need a trim!” Jeffie laughed, and Dad smacked his butt, hard. SLAP! Jeffie squealed. Knowing him, he liked it. Canyon rolled his eyes.

“Jeffery, if you do not mind yourself, I will have to punish you, day off or not!” Dad warned him.

“Yes, sir,” Jeffie sighed.

“Why don’t you all run around in the sunshine, kick a ball or something?” Dad suggested. “I have some things to do.” He got up and went in, but he came back out and tossed me my old baseball.

“Sneaky,” was all he said, with a wink.

I gulped.

“Sir?” I said, and followed him back into the kitchen.

Then that damn smoke alarm blinked at me again.

“Dad, WHEN are you gonna put a battery in that thing?” I said, but the more I looked at it, the less irritated I got. It was a kinda pretty red light.

“Benny, I want you to really THINK hard about being cut,” he was telling me, hugging me, touching me, before giving me a long, hard kiss and sending me back out to play with a swat to my butt.

We kicked a red ball around until 4, and I wondered if either Jeffie or Canyon had ever played on a team. I didn’t think so. I did, I wasn’t so good, but I did it to have something to do and least have a coach yell at me. It was attention, even though I got laughed at a lot.

We had our shakes at 4, and I was tired again. Jeffie curled up with me on my mat, and we slept until 6.

I woke up first, and I watched them both sleeping for a little bit. Hell, even asleep, Canyon looked good and in shape. I still looked soft, I thought, and Jeffie was just skinny – even though he ate like a bear. Maybe Joe had to work a lot to be able to pay to feed him? I was thinking about he would look like Kim if he didn’t have that little stub when Dad came in to get us up. When he came in, I got to thinking about what Jeffie had said.

“Dad?” I asked, before he woke them up. “If you don’t want me getting cut like Canyon, that’s OK. But can I at least get…a trim, so I look like you, sir?”

It scared me to ask, OK? I mean, I was asking if I could have my dick cut on – have part of it cut off. It was scary as hell, but I felt…left out, somehow. I thought it would make Dad happy.

And it did.

“Oh, Benny!” He hugged me, “That’s a good idea, son, and I’m proud of you! As for the rest, you can think about it, all right? Once you see how much it’s going to hurt having a little surgery, then you can decide on the big one.” He kissed me again, hard. I gave it back, too.

“But what about Mom, sir?” I had to ask.

“Don’t worry about it, Dr. Kent can always find a reason,” he told me.

He got Canyon and Jeffie up, and we were playing with Jeffie’s Atari game he’d brought over when Dad came back in. (OK, Xbox didn’t exist then, right? Neither did Nintendo.)

“Benny, I have a surprise for you,” Dad told me. “How would you like to know how it feels to not have male genitals?”

I dropped my controller and my little man on TV died.

“HUH?!”

“I used to be a physician’s assistant, remember?” He asked.

I nodded, no idea what he meant.

“I know you don’t like needles, son, so close your eyes – if you want to do this? I can numb it for you, sort of a trial run?” Dad asked me.

Numb? No feeling? I started getting hard again.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Dad said, so I closed my eyes.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“Nerve block,” he told me, and I felt a shot. I flinched, but Canyon and Jeffie held me.

“This is so cool!” Jeffie said.

A few shots later, and I started to tingle. It wasn’t long into the game again and the numbing set in. I stopped playing. It felt like I had nothing down there! I could see it, but when I touched it, I couldn’t feel it. It was like touching someone else!

“Whoa!” I said. “It’s like…dead!”

“How long will that last, Father?” Canyon asked.

Dad shrugged. “No idea, son. I gave him a pretty big shot!” He laughed.

He did, too. The numbness was spreading all through my crotch. I was afraid I might pee on the mat!

“I wonder if this is how Kim feels?” I said.

“I’m sure it’s a lot like it,” Dad nodded. “Now, are leftovers OK for dinner? I think the caterers overdid it.”

We all were OK with that. It was good food!

Still, I was running out of time, and I knew it. I sat there eating with my numb ‘bits’ as Canyon called them, and just wondered. Mom was going to freak over the earrings, I knew. She’d really freak if she knew I’d been fucked up the butt, too. Much less that I liked it, or had given a man a blowjob.

I guessed I was gay.

And I really didn’t care.

If being straight meant having a girlfriend or wife like her, why WOULD I want to be?

The phone rang at about 8:30.

It was her.

Dad was pissed. “I’ll send him over when you get in, Lois. Just use a cigarette lighter, then! Don’t blame me, you’re the one who had the lights shut off! Be grateful I had Bob wire your AC into my outlet, so at least the house is cool by now! It’s over 90F out, if you didn’t know! What? Fine! When I see the lamp in the window, I’ll send him. No, he’s fine, thanks for asking! You COULD have called sooner. What? And you’re stupid enough to believe Scott Simonson? The kid who framed Benny over the window incident? Haven’t you learned by now that that kid is a lying mooch? Fine, but he’s used to bedtime at 9. I’ll have him get a bath, then. What? Hell NO, I don’t expect you to return the favor. Canyon isn't spending a MINUTE under YOUR roof!”

He threw the phone.

“Benny, let’s go get a bath, son,” He told me.

Canyon and Jeffie just started clearing up the dishes. We went downstairs. I knew Scott was asleep in the little side room, but I didn’t think about him. Asshole. Maybe Mr. Anwar would buy him? Good riddance.

“Nahhh,” I muttered, “He’s too old.”

So I guessed this was it – no more baths with my brother, no more enemas, no more butt plug, and probably no more sex. I was thinking about a little gray room at Blanken with a hard mattress behind a locked door.

When Dad gave me the soap and salt mix part, I started crying before he even hooked up the water hose.

“Son, what is it? Did the nozzle hurt you?” He gasped.

“No,” I cried. “Daddy, please don’t make me go back there! I…I wanna stay here!”

He turned the water on.

“Benny, do you trust Daddy?” He asked me.

I nodded.

He kissed me.

He rubbed my belly and just let the water run. I was filling up. I looked pregnant. It was beginning to hurt some, and I said so. He stopped it – just shy of 1.7. He said he was proud of me.

When I was clean, the bath was ready. More of that nice-smelling bubble bath. He carried me to the tub, and got in with me. When he lowered me down, I felt his dick behind me.

“Dad, please do it,” I asked him. “One more time?”

He slid me down onto him, easy. It went in easier than the first time.

Then he just sat there and held me, kissing my neck, telling me how much he loved me. He moved me just a little bit, but it made me burn inside like I had to pee. I couldn’t feel my own bits, and it was wild! I started moving, since it did NO good to touch myself. I couldn’t feel a thing – except for his dick in me.

‘If this is how Kim feels, no wonder he cut it off!’ I thought.

I don’t know when Jeffie and Canyon showed up, but Canyon gave Jeffie his and then did his own. Dad was still rocking me on his dick when they got in. Dad was washing me off all over, and then putting shampoo that smelled funny in my hair.

OK, I still didn’t wanna be smooth like Kim or Tyrone, but damn, it felt wild! All I cared about was getting off, and I knew only Dad could get me there. When he did, I thought I’d died. I guess I yelled, feeling nothing in front, and hot stuff shooting up inside me. He let me sit there until he got soft and slid out.

Canyon and Jeffie laughed at me, but it was different. It was a good laugh. Then Canyon was crying, wanting to know if I could come over when Mom was at work.

“You boys have to learn to trust your father,” Dad said, and when we were dry, I was surprised he put my plug back in me. “No one else needs to know that’s there,” he told me.

Once we were dried off, I asked if I could tuck Canyon in. He was still crying, and now Jeffie was too. Dad told us to wait a minute, went upstairs, then came back with the repaired phone handset. He also was wearing shorts, and threw us each a pair.

Something was wrong.

The phone rang.

Mom was home.

Oh. I guessed they were going to walk me home? That was nice.

“Yes, Lois. Light that oil lamp, wave it in the window, and I’ll send him over through the back yard. Oh, and Lois?” He paused, “Turn it up so I can see it?”

Dad smiled at me.

“Any minute now, son,” he said, and then there was a very, very, loud noise. The whole house shook, and things fell off the shelves. A little bench on rollers came rolling out of the shadows. It was creepy.

We all stumbled, and something broke upstairs. The lights all went out, then came back up when a generator or something, a battery, kicked in. It hurt my ears it was so loud, and I thought it might be a tornado from a sudden night storm!

I yelled.

But Dad was grinning like the cat that just ate the bird!

We went upstairs.

All the pictures had fell off the east wall, and the glass was broke out of all of them. The patio doors were blown out, glass everywhere, and all the downstairs windows were either busted or cracked. Then I saw the light.

Orange.

Something outside was on fire!

“Canyon, get boots and shorts on. Benny, you too. Jeffie, call the fire department! Canyon, north hose, bring it! Benny, you and me, patio hose! NOW, BOYS!”

“SIR?” I yelled, and when we stepped outside, the heat hit me.

My house was on fire!

More like this – my house wasn’t there anymore!

“Benny, hose – go to the Smith’s, start soaking their wall with their hosetap!”

I ran to do that.

The heat was unbelievable, so I ran around the front door and out, down the road, and got the Smiths’ hose going. I had to spray myself to keep cool. Dad and Canyon were soaking the side of their house, too.

The roof of my house was somewhere in the back yard, near the lilac hedge. The walls had fell over and burnt through already, and it was a good thing Dad had a big lot! If we’d been as close as the houses on the next street over, all 3 houses would be on fire!

It didn’t hit me until the fire department showed up, and a cop grabbed me.

“Joe!” I shouted at him, pointing to the burning pile that was my house.

WAS my house.

“Benny!” Joe hugged me, picking me up and running for the car with me, “Benny, was Lois in there?”

“Yes, sir!”

Then I lost it.

I just lost it.

All I remember was Joe holding me in the front seat of his car – red and blue lights – AC running. I was so hot. It felt good. Old Mrs. Smith, bringing coffee and cake, and cold milk for me.

“God bless Bob, and all the plans he made for remodeling that house,” Joe said, but I don’t remember it. I should have known, since the Smiths’ house had its whole wall facing mine blown in.

I should have known.

Mr. Smith brought Kitty, who hid between my feet in the floorboard. The Smiths were in an ambulance, with Mrs. Smith bitching the whole time!

My house was gone.

Mom had been in it.

Light the lamp, Dad had told her.

The power was off.

Bob had been fiddling with the AC – and the gas main that one day I met Bobbie.

Gas.

Oil lamp.

Cigarette lighter.

Death by Virginia Slims!

POOF!

Bye, bye, Mom.

Bye, bye, Mrs. Swanson’s TV dinners.

Bye, bye, needles.

Burn, mother fucker, burn.

It was awful, but when I finally stopped crying and clinging to Joe, the fire department had it under control. Canyon’s house was fine. So was the Smith’s, minus one wall and all the windows. The rest of the neighbors had lost windows, too.

My garage door was across the road in the Browns’ yard.

Mom’s car, and the rental car, were both burned up metal shells.

Another cop was there then.

“Joe, Mr. Poore says he knows you? And what the hell kinda water pump has that guy got?!”

I laughed.

I was crying, but I laughed.

I just stared at the other cop car’s lights – red and blue, flashing, so pretty…round and round…strobing emergency taillights, red and white…

I guess I fell asleep.

“Canyon?”

Someone kissed me.

“Canyon, you OK?”

“He’s in shock.”

“No, he’s just asleep!”

“CANYON!” Mrs. Smith yelled in my ear. “WAKE UP!”

I jerked awake.

“There,” she said, “Told you!” She looked happy, though? “I finally got to meet the new neighbor boy!”

God love Mrs. Smith, she had cookies and milk, her house was shot on one end, and she was bringing us treats!

But she thought I was Canyon?

“Now you see why I use total electric,” Dad was telling the fire chief. “Gas explodes!”

I remembered Bob and Bobbie.

Bobbie raising up from behind the AC – scrawny, gangly Bobbie – with a piece of thin plastic tubing in his hand.

I looked at the smoldering pile that used to be my house.

‘Plastic melts’, I thought.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

“Sir, I hate to ask,” the chief of police was asking, and he nodded at Joe, who had put his coat over me and was still holding me around the shoulders while he munched a donut, turning my back to the sight. The Chief was talking to Dad.

My heart was pounding.

Then it almost stopped.

“Were there arrangements on what to do with the Pence boy?” The Chief asked, “That you know of? Joe said he was staying with you and your boy, and that his boy is spending the night?”

Dad was sobbing.

Something had happened to Canyon! That had to be it!

I laughed again. Poor old Mrs. Smith thought I was Canyon!

But then where was he? Where was my brother?

“Canyon!” Dad yelled, and held out his arms – at me.

I ran to him.

What the hell was going on? Was it the light?

In the dim light, the Chief was mumbling: “Oh, God, no! First the Simonson boy, and now this? Mr. Poore, tell me the Pence boy wasn’t…in there?” He whispered, pointing at the ruins.

Dad nodded, hugging me tight in Joe’s big coat, and putting a hand over my mouth.

“I’d…I’d just sent him home not five minutes before. He had a bath, and it was bedtime at 9, you see…” Dad was crying. I didn’t get it.

Then Joe came over.

“Sir, Martin and I are friends? If you can excuse us?” Joe asked.

“Yes, yes…” the Chief nodded. “God, what a mess! Poor little child!”

“Jeffie?” Joe asked.

“Inside,” Dad said, “With Canyon.”

Dad bent down and pulled me closer.

He’d just lied to the chief of police, and I knew why: He’d called me Canyon, and I’d ran to him.

The cops thought I’d been in the house, with Mom!

“D-Dadd-dy?” I cried.

OK, she was my MOM, all right? It doesn’t matter how bad it is, little boys love their moms. That’s just a rule of life, or something. I was mad at her, hated what she did, hated how she treated me, but – I loved her.

She was my Mom.

And now she was toast.

Literally…

Joe walked us in. The firemen were checking out the house for damage to see if we’d have to go to a hotel.

“What the hell is this wall made of?” One asked, and the other guy was carefully picking up all our pictures. Pictures of Canyon – pictures of me.

Pictures of twins.

I was laughing again. They were staring at me. I guess I was all dirty again and smelled like smoke? I could smell something.

“Canyon, isn’t it?” A fireman asked me. “Boy, what you did with that hose was…amazing! You probably saved the Smiths’ house! Say, he’s a little scorched?”

“Yes, brave boy, I’ll put some gel on it. No worse than a sunburn, ehhh, Canyon?” He kissed my cheek.

I just laughed.

I couldn’t stop.

Dad took me down to get another bath. He put gel on me. It was cool, and numbed me some. Joe was taking statements, writing, making it up as he went, he said!

I laughed again.

Dad was rubbing me down in cool gel.

Then I saw the mirror.

It was Canyon looking back at me!

No, it wasn’t…

My hair was red! Dark red. There were some little dots on my face!

Freckles!

Joe smiled and waved an orange felt pen at me.

“Benjamin Daniel Pence died tonight,” Dad then told Joe, who just nodded and made more notes. “You have the dental records and the evidence in place?”

Joe nodded.

“Rest in peace, Benny,” Joe sighed.

Dad kissed me again. My knees went weak. He scooped me up.

“Let’s go put Canyon and Jeffie to bed,” Dad suggested.

“I’ll see you sometime later?” Joe said, and he kissed me too.

“Goodnight, Landen,” he told me.

“Huh?” I gasped. “Who? Landon?”

“L-A-N-D-E-N,” Dad spelled it out.

Then I knew it. “Ronnie T.” – “T-Ron” – “Tyrone.”

Another anagram…with MY name!

He carried me to my room, and Canyon and Jeffie were all over me. Canyon held me for a long time, before Dad said we had to go to bed.

Jeffie had my bed, and Dad made him wear a diaper just in case.

“Landen Jacin Poore, you need to sleep in Daddy’s bed tonight,” Dad told me.

For some reason, that was funny.

I was laughing again.