The Gift

I have power over women.

This power has been with me since birth it’s presence almost tangible. A spiritualist could see my powers in my aura, hovering over me in great blue clouds of ectoplasm, pulsing and flowing.

My power is unquestionably supernatural.

I am able, with my mere presence, to scare women away.

I could clear a stage at a gentleman’s club just by walking in the door. Simply showing my face in a window at the local college has forced young women to stretch their little short shirts out of shape trying to cover their bare bellies. I have even been able to shut down red light districts for several months just by spending the night in a hotel. Cops are after me all the time to come and stay in their cities.

It can be a real pain. If, for instance, I find myself say…in a line at the soda machine; invariably, I will be standing behind a lady and I will have nothing on my mind more sinister than whether I will have a diet cola or citrus. The lady will become uneasy – she won’t really know why, and may not even know I’m there yet – she will then glance around looking for the cause of her unease. Spotting me, she will automatically pull her shirt top closed as if I may be trying to take a peek.  Next, she will give me a curt glance and a partial smile as if trying to assure herself that I’m not dangerous. She will then begin digging in her purse as if looking for money for the machine, sigh in exasperation and  walk off, shaking her head as if to say, “Silly me, I’m late for a meeting”. Her pace, though designed to show indifference, will be similar in speed to the canter of a horse.

The first time I ever noticed my power was when I was in junior high school. Any attention from girls in the days before then was unwelcome anyway and did not really register.

One day after we had finished music class and as I was pulling out my history book,  I looked across the room and saw Pam Proudbottom. I had seen her thousands of times before, we had been in the same class for six years, but for the first time, I actually – Whew! – saw her. She was gorgeous! My eyes were drawn to her tawny hair and smooth skin. I saw that she had a pale beauty mark on the side of her cheek that ran all of the way to the corners of her soft full lips.

I noticed, for the first time, that she held her head at a slight angle and that her pert nose fixed her glasses onto her face in a way that added an innocence to her already perfect beauty.

I was dumbfounded by the transmogrification that had transpired nearly right before my very eyes, and my heart thudded in my chest when she turned those clear blue eyes in my direction. I felt as if our souls had merged into one swirling mass when our gazes met and I managed to smile lightly and wave at her. At that moment I knew that there was love at first sight, I was later to be amazed at how short lived some facts of knowledge can be.

Pam mouthed something to me that I couldn’t quite make out and I smiled and shrugged coyly, I can’t say for sure whether I batted my eyes at her, but wouldn’t be surprised if I had. She smiled in return, wrote something on a scrap of paper, folded it and handed it off to the kid sitting next to her, my name printed neatly on the front.

I watched nervously as the note was passed hand to hand across the classroom. Mr. Wenger, our teacher, was notorious for snatching notes and reading them in front of the class and I was concerned that he may turn around at any moment.

Clarence Grubb, the class bully, opened it when it got to him and I fully expected him to keep it out of meanness, because as far as I knew, Clarence had never really bothered to learn how to read. He opened it, snorted out loud, and wadded it in half before passing it along. That was a relief, because Clarence was the only seventeen year old in the sixth grade, and if he had kept it, that would have been that with no further discussion from me.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the cherished note made it to me and, with feverish intensity, I pulled it open to read:

Quit staring at me you creep!

Creep? It said Creep! Where was the love, the tender moment? Apparently,  Clarence Grubb had learned to read when I wasn’t looking. Seeing the look on my face, he let out a guffaw that got him thrown out of class by Mr. Wenger. I couldn’t even enjoy watching Grubb get tossed, because my face was burning and I had buried my head in my book, but not before risking one more glance Pam’s way. She was saying something to the girl behind her who shivered in response. That was the first time I came to the knowledge of my gift. It wasn’t, however, to be the last.

Fast forward one year. I am now in the eighth grade and have been invited to the event of the year, Chet Slidemore's fourteenth birthday party. I arrive with a plastic water pistol and a twelve pack of Nutty - O bars under wrap as a gift for Chet. There are twelve of us, both boys and girls, and we are left alone in Chet's garage to amuse ourselves. After listening to music for a while, Chet opens the door to the house, looks inside and, seeing the coast is clear, gathers us around and conspiratorially tells us that we are going to play spin – the – bottle. This idea is met with great enthusiasm by all present and we quickly form a circle. The third person to spin is a girl named Melanie Bond. Melanie is a skinny little girl of fourteen who has braces. Melanie is no real beauty and everyone is wondering who is going to get stuck kissing her. It's no great shock when the bottle stops and is pointing straight at me. I close my eyes and pucker up to pay my dues... the very next thing I remember is waking up in the back of an ambulance while some guy in a uniform is asking me how many fingers he's holding up. My vision is so blurred that he may as well ask me to decipher a stone tablet written in cuneiform.

I was told later that as soon as I closed my eyes and puckered my dry quivering lips, Melanie had been overcome by my powers and had grabbed the bottle by the neck and had smashed me right between the eyes with it. They said that she then ran out of the door and down Chet's lane, all the way to the road and out of sight, screaming the whole way. To the best of my knowledge, she hasn't been seen since.  That was the time that I consider to be the peak of my powers' ability, and I refer to it as my “Apex Phase”. It has since lost momentum and leveled off.

In high school my best friend was a kid named Lonnie Brightwell. Lonnie had a power over women too, but his would manifest in the opposite way that mine would; Lonnie could attract women. Lonnie would like to challenge me to power contests and I could beat him hands down at any time. He would get frustrated as he would work his charm at a school dance, only to have me walk up and, with nothing more than a wink, have the object of his affection go into a swirling shock that would send her fleeing down the hall and to the bathroom.

Once, after Lonnie got his drivers license, he called me in a panic.

“Hey!” He said by way of introduction, “I  want you to come out with me and my new girlfriend Gidget, she has her cousin, Stacy, up visiting from Florida and I need someone for her; otherwise Gidget won't go out with me because she is afraid that Stacy will feel like the third wheel.”

“Boy, I don't know about this Lonnie.” I said, “Remember Chet Slidemore's birthday party two years ago? I still can't see certain colors and nothing tastes right yet.  This might be a bad idea.”

“Nonsense!” He said, “Your powers have been slacking off, and I have enough charm for both of us. By the way, that one girl from first period... Ginger! She has been making goo – goo eyes at you lately.”

He was referring to Ginger Babbage, who is in fact, goo – goo eyed and couldn't help but look at everyone that way.

“Ginger can't help that, and she's not all there anyway Lonnie.” I said, “I really think you should ask someone else.”

“I already asked everyone else.” He sounded like he was going to cry. “You’re it... We'll pick you up at six.”

“Ok!” I said, but I had a bad feeling about it.

Saturday night came and I found myself trapped in the back seat of Lonnie’s 1979 International Scout with Gidget’s cousin Stacy. Lonnie had taken us all to a drive in movie and he and Gidget were in the front seat, hunkered down out of sight. This was back in the days when the audio for the movie came from a heavy metal box that was wired into a post. The box had grooves cut into it for the speaker, and there was an angled piece of metal that jutted from the side so that the box could be hung from the car window. Lonnie hadn’t bothered to hang a box on his window, and I spent several minutes getting mine and Stacy’s situated so that we could hear the movie. Stacy sat with her back against the door on her side, arms folded in front. She watched me with unconcealed suspicion while she worked a piece of gum ferociously in between her teeth.

In all fairness, she was a very pretty girl despite the jaw cracking chomps that she was attacking her gum with. She was slender with long brown hair tied in a ponytail with a white ribbon; she was wearing a crisp white blouse, pink pants, and white tennis shoes. She had the soft brown eyes of a little deer.

I smiled as I took my seat and shut my door, having finished the task of setting the speaker just right. Stacy crossed her legs in response; she looked as if she may be preparing to kick. I tried to start some casual conversation.

“So,” I said, “Are you doing okay over there?”

Chomp…chomp…chomp…”I’m fine!”

Smooching sounds were coming from the front seat where Lonnie and Gidget remained out of sight.

“We’ll, I hear you’re from Florida huh?” I tried again.

Chomp…chomp…”Yep!”… Chomp.

The smooching and smacking sounds were intensifying from up front. It reminded me of my Grandma Cecil sucking corn out of her false teeth.

I tried again, “You want some popcorn or a soda?”

“Nope!” Chomp…chomp…

“Oh!”

More smoochy noises came from up front.

“Does your grandma have false teeth?”

Chomp…”Yep!,” Chomp…chomp.

And so it went for most of the duration of the movie, I didn’t bother Stacy, and she watched me like a hawk out of the corner of her eye. Lonnie and Gidget were oblivious and did their utmost best to keep to themselves.

I settled back and watched the movie. It had run smoothly with very little interaction between Stacy and I, when suddenly, everything went berserk.

What happened next is still a little confusing,  but I’ll try to describe it as best I can. I attribute the whole mess to my mysterious powers. As it was explained to me later, by the County Sheriff, It happened like this.

Lonnie or Gidget somehow managed to knock the Scout out of gear and it started rolling backwards. Stacy, sensing movement, thought that I was up to something and snapped out of her reverie to yell at me.

“WHATTAYOUDOING?” She screeched into my ear. The combination of the moving car and the hideous screech brought me upright in my seat, and caused me to fling popcorn into the air. I turned to her to assure her that I was innocent, but simultaneously with my turning, the speaker which had been hanging on my window, ripped free from its wiring due to the force of the car pulling against it, and the window pane, acting as a tension spring, launched the speaker into the car and it smacked me hard behind my left ear.  As I fell, swooning, into Stacy’s frenzied shuddering lap, she panicked thinking that I was attacking her and began beating me in the head with one of her shoes.

Lonnie, sensing that something was wrong, leaped upright, but as he did so, the zipper on his jacket got tangled in one of Gidget’s long silver earring. I must say that the shriek that followed was blood curdling, and I was surprised that Lonnie could scream so loud.  Gidget though fairly quiet herself, had sunk her teeth into his side, and was biting in direct proportion to the amount of pain that she was feeling from her ear; he then attempted to “Box her ears”, but was unable to do so effectively due to her head being locked by the ear to his jacket and her teeth being sunk into his side. The overall appearance, because of the lighting, was that of , what we call in Preble County, a hog killing, and it obviously reinforced Stacy’s belief that a bloody murder had been planned, and in response to that reinforcement, she grimly thudded her hard, well aimed strikes more powerfully into my skull and even took the time to space them evenly between my writhing hands as I attempted, in vain, to block.

We all had a good laugh at the situation after everyone got calmed down… some of us got out of jail… others got out of therapy, and the investigation was over.

After that, I paid my powers the respect that they deserved and didn’t trifle with them. Someone, I decided, could be killed.

Several years later I thought that my powers had deserted me. I met a woman who didn’t appear to be crazy who agreed to marry me. I thought that I was perhaps just a normal man and decided to try to settle into the mundane life of not having any special powers. Then, the day after we delivered our first baby, I walked into the hospital room where she was holding our little girl and I noticed that my wife was surrounded by several nurses a janitor and two orderlies.

All of the nurses suddenly left, muttering to themselves and pulling the tops of their uniform shirts closed, and my wife began to stretch and cover her legs with her little hospital gown as if I may try to take a peek up in there. With a knowing smile, I congratulated myself. My powers, it seemed, had not deserted me after all.