Eavesdrop Followup, by Ricky

When my family and I were living in Great Falls, Montana last century, our house had a nice privacy fence around the back yard. On the south side of the house there was shed about 4 ½ feet wide and 5 feet long that fit between the fence and the side of the house. The shed was attached to the house and the fence. The center of the roof was located about 6-inches below and directly under my bedroom window.

The house next door was about 5-feet south of the fence. Their backyard had one sturdy tree in the middle with a decent “tree house” built in the forks of the branches. Among other treasures, the house also contained a family as one would expect. Besides the two parents, two boys lived there. One boy was 8-years old and fighting a battle with leukemia. The other boy was 12-years old at the time of the event I am recounting.

We moved into our house in the month of June when school was out in the city. The two boys came over almost instantly as we were unloading the rental truck. After introductions, the older of the two politely asked if he, his brother, and occasional friends could still sit on the roof of our shed. The boys were in the habit of periodically sitting on the shed’s roof to talk whenever they did not want to go in the tree-house. The previous owners of the house we were moving into had given them permission. I went with them to inspect the shed and found it very sturdy and stout enough to hold several adults let alone two or three or four boys. So, I also gave permission. I also cautioned them to be careful climbing up to the shed and jumping down.

One day, I had come home from working a midnight shift and opened the window located above the bed’s headboard and directly centered on the shed’s roof. I opened the window about 2-inches so the room would have cool fresh air circulating while I slept. Deborah had taken our two children somewhere so I could sleep undisturbed before I needed to go to work again.

After 3-hours, I was awakened by the sound of two boys climbing the fence and sitting down on the roof.

"The time has come," one boy said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

Such was the idle chatter of the two 12-year old boys. They finally ran out of things to talk about and just sat quietly for a bit. One of them said that he was bored and the other agreed and asked his friend what he wanted to do. There was no reply so the boy suggested that they go to the tree-house and “play with our dicks.” The first boy said that he didn’t feel like it. A few minutes later both boys left after deciding to go to the park.

I chose not to follow-up that bit of eavesdropping.

© 17 July 2016

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced. 

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com