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(NB: The author has found that this story works excellently as a performance piece, wherein every nuance (the teeth of that zipper!) is drawn out ad nauseum. The following represents an attempt to capture the gist of this in print form.)
One summer at Silver Bay on Lake George where we vacationed each year, I had to stay an extra day for some reason after my family left. I was assigned the back room of Spruce Mountain Lodge to sleep in that night. This was a quirky corner room with windows hinged at the top, and one pull-cord light in the middle of the ceiling. That ceiling was sloped, which gave the room a cozy, hut-like feeling. One entered the room by stepping up two steps. It was next to the back door, making it easy to get to after late night sojourns.
The room had two beds. The other bed was to be occupied by my adolescent nephew Todd.
After dinner that night, Todd and I discussed our plans for the evening. He knew about my regimen, since I did the same thing every night: at around 9:30 P.M. I would walk down the road to The Hearth, a local tavern, where I would drink burgundy wine and smoke and write. I told Todd that I would not be getting in until around 1:00 A.M. 'Well,' he replied, 'I'll be long in bed and asleep by then - there isn't much for me to do here at night.'
I knew what he was talking about. A precocious fellow, he had little use for what passed for nocturnal adolescent emissions up there:
A: So wadda you wanna do?
B: I dunno. Wadda you wanna do?
A: I dunno. Do you wanna get some beer?
B: I dunno. Do you?
A: I dunno.
B: So wadda you wanna do?
A: I dunno.
Todd was more apt to 'wanna' chat about a Shakespeare play or exuberantly sing all the parts of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. But I knew he wouldn't find any takers.
I noticed it was a dark moonless night as I walked back from The Hearth. Someone had turned off the outside lights at the Lodge, so I had to use my flashlight to locate the back door. I entered the building noiselessly and found my way to the steps at the threshold of our room.
And then the formidableness of what I needed to do hit me. For it seemed that I was going to have to enter that room and then undress and get into bed - all without waking Todd.
How difficult, I wondered, would that be?
It is well known that most adolescents sleep long and deeply. Once they doze off, it is virtually impossible to awaken them. I had known an adolescent who refused to wake up even while a whole series of fireworks exploded in his room. There was also the case of one who was not awakened by a huge meteorite crashing through the roof of her bedroom. But perhaps the most extreme example was the famous Wabash Cannonball express train which, on a track proximate to a house, derailed and went smashing through the house, basically destroying it. By some miracle, an adolescent sleeping in the house was left unharmed - and was still sleeping soundly after the train had passed!
Less well known, however, and far rarer, is the opposite syndrome - that of the ultra-sensitive adolescent. This sort of individual wakes up at the slightest hint of stimuli. A mere sliver of light will bring them to wide-eyed confusion; a pin dropped onto a rug (never mind a floor!) will have them sitting bolt upright.
My instincts told me immediately that my nephew was the ultra-sensitive kind of adolescent.
Thus by definition I could never be too quiet. I decided to pose not waking up Todd as a challenge to myself. In fact, I made it a point of personal honour, and swore an oath thus: 'I regard Todd's sleep as sacrosanct, and I will do whatever it takes to keep him in that sacrosanct state!'
The room was pitch-black; all I knew was that our beds were at right angles to one another, the heads being together. It goes without saying that I could not use my flashlight (that crucial sliver of light!) I felt the foot of Todd's bed, and managed to make my way over to my own. And, standing there beside my bed, I proceeded to begin undressing.
I was wearing a pair of jeans shorts which were held up by one of those military-type web belts. Such belts have brass buckles with a moveable piece of brass to cinch the belt at a desired length. There was also a strip of brass as a decorative feature at the end of the belt.
I loosened the cinch and drew the web belt slowly through the buckle. This was noiseless until I got to the brass tip: I knew this would make a scraping sound (the perfect thing to awaken a sleeping sensitive adolescent!) against the buckle. So I placed my free hand over the whole buckle and then drew the belt through slowly, so that all that was heard was a brief swish, the faintest suggestion of metal against metal.
But prends garde: once the belt is out of the buckle, the brass of the cincher would clank against the brass of the buckle - something that couldn't have made the military brass very happy! (I wondered about the advisability of fashioning a belt that would alert enemy scouts every night at bedtime.) So, hand over buckle, I held the cincher immovable.
The snap, I realized, presented a problem all its own. True, its undoing was of the briefest sort, but that isolated metallic POP! could prove to be my undoing in popping up the adolescent sleeping next to me. So I covered the snap with my hands even as I pulled the pants apart, so that all that was heard was a muffled 'plumpf'. ('Boy, that was a snap!' I punned to myself.)
And then, with a sickened heart, I realized that I had a whole zipper to undo -- a metallic zipper. (Why, I wondered, did my pants have to be so damn well-made, with sturdy brass buckles, snaps, and zippers? How I yearned, just that one time, for cheap plastic fasteners - the sort that wear out quickly but which at least do so soundlessly!)
I briefly considered pulling the zipper down with the lightening finality of a decisive ZIP!, as one might yank a band aid off a hairy arm. But then, luckily, I recalled the effect such an action has at climactic moments in various works of literature (cf: 'Peyton Place.')
I realized it would have to be done tooth by agonizing tooth, each brass zipoid in turn carefully and noiselessly coaxed from its brass socket. This little exercise in tooth extraction lasted for some minutes, but was finally accomplished.
I was now able to remove the shorts, which I did while still carefully holding the buckle cincher. Then, quickly and soundlessly, I removed my shirt and briefs and slipped the night shirt on. I trained my ear in Todd's direction but I heard nothing. Therein I concluded that the first phase of my getting ready for bed had been accomplished successfully.
I now had to lie down on the bed.
Like all the other beds there at Silver Bay, my bed had deep-coil springs -- the kind that squeal like a stuck pig when you sit down on them. I realized that I was going to have to sit down slowly -- very slowly -- if the springs were not to squeak. I estimated, in fact, that I would have to extend this simple-if-excruciatingly slow process to five full minutes. Can you imagine the leg muscles needed to be able to sit down with this amount of gradualness? Fortunately I had such leg muscles, thanks to the seven sets of tennis I had played that summer!
But then, just because the bottom is down snuggled amidst those springs, do you think that's the end of the story? Do you imagine that I, sitting there on my self-congratulatory backside, was going to spend the night in that position?
And so, finally, I had to lay my torso down while simultaneously bringing my legs up onto the bed. This too had to be done with muscle-aching slowness. The precise order of operations was as follows: 1) Bring legs up and simultaneously rotate body so that I was perfectly balanced on my coccyx for a few entertaining moments; 2) lay torso down (legs rising higher up in the air) with the same excruciating slowness (those springs!) until head is resting on pillow. (I hoped - prayed? - that I wasn't too high on the bed - that my head wouldn't come down onto Todd's face (that proximity of pillows!)); and finally 3) gradually lower my legs whilst simultaneously extending them out straight onto the bed (those stomach muscles!)
By such a tortured series of steps did I become, finally, supine.
The first thing I did after everything was complete was to listen. Did I hear Todd yawning in wakefulness? I did not.
I had succeeded: I was in my nightshirt lying on my bed, and Todd hadn't awakened. I had met the challenge I had set for myself - my honour was intact. For the first time in a half hour or so my whole body relaxed. I lay back on my pillow and listened for the gentle breathing of my sleeping nephew whose head was proximate to mine.
I didn't hear it. There was no sound of breathing at all.
A panic seized me. Somewhere I had heard of an obscure fatal disorder called A.C.S. or 'Adolescent Choke Syndrome' which I assumed was similar to the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Was Todd a victim of this? If so, it would be ironic indeed after all the care I had taken to not disturb him! I lay there paralyzed in a fit of terror, scarcely breathing myself in my efforts to hear his breathing...
The back door slammed. Someone came clomping up the steps into our room. The cord was yanked and 5000 watts of light flooded the room.
'Oh Hi Uncle Ted. Sorry for waking you - I didn't think you'd be back yet!'
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