When I was seven, I dared my naïve neighbor, Paul Lumbsten, to stick a pink pencil eraser up his nose.  He not only did so, but had to have it removed at the doctor’s office. It had lodged somewhere up in his sinuses. His mother, a large, tan woman whose house always smelled of Pine, was thereafter understandably reluctant to allow her only child, a shy, small boy, to play with me. I often skipped his house and would play with Barb and Cindy who lived on the other side. Paul came over every day, regardless of what I had done, standing at the screen door on Saturday mornings as I stared at the test pattern awaiting Josie and the Pussycats.  The test pattern looked like a target and was accompanied by a high pitched noise, but to this day I have no idea what was being tested.  Paul stood there at the door, a silent towheaded shadow not much taller than the lower screen. He would never knock. He just stood there on the porch for a long time, hoping to get my attention. Mom used to urge compassion for Paul. She shot me a sideways look as she went to open the door. I held a bowl of Kapn Krunch and couldn’t be bothered. Mom invited him into the kitchen and I had been defeated, as I knew whatever I would do that morning must now include Paul. Sometimes we would walk down to the Stop-n-Go and buy wax lips, candy cigarettes and Paydays. One day sat in the garage and made “rose petal perfume” by putting petals in plastic cups full of water. We sold these at an impromptu yard sale and became disproportionately puffed up with entrepreneurial moxy, bragging at Westview grade school about the hundreds we had made.  “The blob” was one of our favorites. The movie had swept the nation and we had seen it at the drive-in, so we replicated the setup as  best we could in Paul’s basement, zipping ourselves into sleeping bags with flashlights and rolling around making growling monster noises and trying to smash smiling, faux terrified kids. We had Koolade smiles. The day’s flavor was apparent from the lime green mustache, the exaggerated cherry lips, and the grape teeth.  Removing the rose-tinted glasses, a more focused picture emerges. In the winter, Paul made a snow fort. He must’ve awakened early and bundled himself up to enjoy the stillness after a deep December snow. The fort must’ve taken him hours to make. He was still carefully packing and scraping when I came outside. Memory is tricky, and I doubt Paul’s fort was truly as impressive as my mind contends, but Paul was an industrious child. His mother, an author of children’s books and weaver, must’ve looked out her upstairs window, proud of her son who worked so intently on his task. “Hey, Paul!” I yelled, already armed to the teeth.

THWOP! is the sound that a snowball makes when it hits someone in the face, or any other part of the body for that matter. My aim was deadly. Instead of getting to his feet and defending his fort, Paul slumped in the snow on his knees, his mouth an open, soundless abyss, eyes clenched shut before the wailing began. WAAAAH! He screamed. “Hey, Paul!” Another advanced warning like tracer fire – prepare yourself, it meant. My sister and I had built many forts and defended them with military precision, thwarting attempted coups with the dreaded ice ball launcher made from kitchen implements and discarded tools. Paul sat rocking, red-faced, and put up no defense. As a result, I unleashed a barrage of heavily packed snowballs. THWOP, THWOP, THWOP.

“WAAAH! STOP!”  Paul’s crying broke the stillness of the morning. I did an impressive imitation of Paul later for several friends. Why didn’t he defend himself? I was, after all, a sprig of a girl and only a couple of years older than he was. Still, there he sat, bawling, red-faced, covered in snow.  The upstairs window opened and out popped Paul’s mother, all salt and pepper hair and meaty lips. “Stop throwing snowballs right now!” Down went the window.  My hands were heavy in red mittens speckled with ice balls. I want to say I walked away, went inside and drank hot chocolate, or even helped Paul to his feet. The truth, though, is that I trampled his snow fort, kicking down the walls he had so carefully constructed, making his fort into an uneven mess of bumps and piles. “Don’t!” he kept repeating, pulling at my parka with clenched teeth and hands. Oh, but I did.

His mother later came over and talked quietly in the kitchen with my mother over coffee. Paul stopped standing at the screen door on weekends.  None of the neighborhood kids played with him after that. His was a house to be avoided, and he’d look out from behind the front window as we passed on our way to the Davidsons or the Springfields. Take your medicine, Paul.