Presently Untitled story

[sparkmaster]

I never thought I would be posting here, but here it is. This is the first time I have ever written anything fictional, so constructive criticism is welcome. The first few chapters won't contain much diaper related content, nor will diapers be a focus of the story. The story will be much more then just the standard TB/DL stuff.

For backround, this is not a true story. This is partially inspired by a dream I had a few nights ago. It sounds crazy, but it was one of those really vivid, long dreams. I don't know where I'm going with this story, or even if I'm going to continue it past this post. Again, suggestions are welcome. Even the title isn't set in stone. With that, on to the story.

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Introduction-

Hello. Welcome to my life. Or rather, the previous 4 years of it.

Wait, back up. Lets start off a little slower. My name is Bradley Thomas Jackson. You can call me Brad. I live with my brother, Alex, and my parents in scenic and oh so sunny (yeah right) Grafton, North Dakota (pop. 4500, give or take). In a month, I’m off to the US Air Force Academy. But that’s for another time. I figure this would be a good time to tell my story. It’s a story of… well, many things. It’s a story of friendship, hardship, leadership, and cardboard ships. But mainly, it just about me, my family, and a little itty bitty town in the middle of nowhere.

Chapter 1- HST 204: Early Jacksonian History

We aren’t originally from North Dakota. We’re actually Michiganders. My father and mother met at Michigan State University in the mid 80s. That’s a funny story, actually. My mother dropped a dumbbell on my father’s foot in the gym their sophomore year. Mom drove dad to the health center for x-rays, and I suppose it just took off from there.

They were married their senior year of undergrad. My mother graduated with a BS in nursing, my father with a degree in public policy. Mom got a job at a hospital, my father with the East Lansing city government.

I was born June, 25th, 1990, at 3:19AM. Every year, during my birthday, my mother reminds me of the 26 hours she spend in painful labor (jokingly, of course). I was my mother’s dream, as she would say. A healthy 7 pounds, 10 ounces, no limbs missing, brain intact, no wings. Normal.

My brother, Alexander Porter Jackson, was born 2 years later. Again, a healthy, normal child. I would claim, in a brotherly, loving way that his brain wasn’t all there at birth, but that’s just the way close brothers are.

When I was 4 (and Alex 2), Dad went back to school to get his Masters in Public Policy. Unfortunately, MSU didn’t offer a masters program. He had to go to that other school-which-shall-not-be-named in Ann Arbor. At the time, Mom was only working part time at the hospital, just enough to pay the bills on top of Dad’s city salary.

Mom was forced to be both the primary caregiver and breadwinner. It really was tough on her mentally. We were never in any financial trouble, with Dad’s grants and loans, and the good money Mom made being an ER nurse, but mentally it was very taxing on her. In her family (and to a lesser extent in my Father’s), the family units were very close. I mean, closer then the normal family. Her being away from us was not what she wanted. She accepted it as a way of long term social mobility, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.


But I digress. The reason you’re reading is because of Diapers, right? I mean, why else would I be posting this on this website? Sorry to burst your bubble, but there isn’t that much to say that you haven’t heard before. I wasn’t potty trained when my mother went back to work. She just never bothered to. Both Alex and I had to do a bit of a crash course in not making a mess of our pants before we could go to daycare/preschool. We had lots of failures during our training, but we eventually adapted. We learned to keep our pants dry and our undies clean.

That time wasn’t just traumatic for Mom. It was traumatic for Alex and me too. We were entering a whole new world. If that’s not traumatic enough, we had one parent go to work full time, and another go back to school full time. We had built a very close family unit, and all of a sudden the fabric of our lives were torn right out from underneath us. We all struggled to make the transition. And, just like potty training, we adapted.

As both my brother and I grew, we did all the standard boy things. Mom and Dad were big on exercise and sport. Dad played varsity Hockey, and Mom did almost every intramural MSU offered. They pushed us, very gently and subtly, towards excelling in sports. Both Alex and I played Little League baseball and YMCA basketball. And we were fairly good at it. I was no Alex Rodriguez, but I was at least a Johnny Damon.

But our passion was Hockey. My father didn’t push us into hockey specifically, but we naturally gravitated to his old sport. We both learned to skate when we were still in diapers. I can’t speak for my brother, but I just felt (and still feel) completely free when I was on the ice. I don’t mean to sound like a jackass, but I could do things that other people couldn’t do. I was always one of the best players on whatever team I was on. I felt almost invincible on the ice. And it just came naturally to me. To this day I still can’t explain why I do what I do on the ice. I can just get in the “zone” and stay there for the game.

My brother was much the same. Except he liked to hit people. A lot. He was the most intimidating defenseman GLAHA had ever seen. Hell, I still think those coaches have nightmares of Alex destroying the opposing offense. We were a scary tandem. We were good. I mean, we were damned good. Our play complemented each other so well. I hate to act like a complete asshole, but I can’t help but tell the truth to you, the loyal reader.

Dad graduated from grad school with honors 2 years after he started, in 1996. It was really nice having him back in the family, so to speak. Work stayed at work, unlike during grad school where he would come home at 8:00 and study for two or three hours afterward. It was so nice to be a family again. It was so nice to have my mother there to pick us up from school and help us with our homework. It was so nice to toss around a football with dad in the back yard. It was so nice to sit down every night and eat together. Truly happy times for me.

I mentioned school up there. As you know, after preschool comes Kindergarten and then Grade School. Along with fitness, my parents stressed academics as well. Mom was really good at helping us with our science and math homework, and dad was the spelling master. Sometimes there were long nights at the kitchen table when Alex or I just didn’t get something. Luckily, those nights were few and far between. We were both good students. We always got pluses and check-pluses. If we ever had a check-minus, we were in for it.

Discipline was…complicated in our house. We were never bad kids, so we were never punished much. Sure, we would occasionally get a spanking for something, or (as we got older) we would get grounded for lying or something, but we never killed anyone or lit anything on fire.

Actually, scratch that, Alex did light Dad’s martini on fire when he was in 3rd grade. But aside from the occasional bout of pyromania, we were ideal kids. Looking back on it, I bet my parents were somewhat nervous that we didn’t try to push the envelope or see what we could get away with. I was just very comfortable with my position and my family. There was no stress, no tension, no fear. Home and family was a place to get away from the stresses of work and school.

My father had a good career, my mother had plenty of time to both work and take care of the kids. Both Alex and I were excelling in school and sports. It was almost the ideal life.

Except for one, tiny thing. And I bet you can guess what it is. Yup, the old nemesis of children everywhere. Bedwetting. Both Alex and I wet the bed constantly when we were in Michigan. Scarcely a night went by when we didn’t wet. It wasn’t by any means unexpected. My mother wet the bed until she was 8 and my father until he was 12. The Perfect Storm of genetics, as my pediatrician explained it.

It was never made a big deal of in the Jackson household. Since we never stopped wetting the bed after potty training, it was easy for night diapering to continue. Heck, I didn’t know it wasn’t normal for kids to wet the bed until the conversation somehow came up during lunch in 2nd grade. I have no idea how the topic came up, but at the time I thought all kids wet the bed, and all were diapered at night. It was a bit of a revelation for me. Being that sleepovers were becoming the social function of choice for my colleagues, the whole topic of bedwetting gnawed at me. I liked my friends, and I had a lot of them, and I wanted to keep them. But even my 2nd grade skills of perception told me that public bedwetting and high social standing didn’t go well together.

Pull-ups became the answer. I had seen them on TV occasionally, but I didn’t think they were for bedwetters. My mother bought a package and, lo and behold, they worked. I wore them to at least three dozen sleepovers during the time when they were cool. And I never got caught. I think it was more luck than any particular skill of mine to keep cool, but the results were still great.

I think this success contributed both to my attitude about bedwetting and my social

Eventually, I transitioned from regular diapers to Goodnites. I didn’t have much of a choice. By the time I put on my first goodnites in 3rd Grade, size 6 was getting awfully small. I know it seems like I’m being pretty vague when it comes to my early diapering details, but it was as regular and routine as eating dinner for me. It simply wasn’t noteworthy in my long term memory.

Bedwetting, and my success in hiding it, influenced my social development, I think. Humor me while I play amateur psychologist here. Hiding my bedwetting so successfully during those formative years made me a bit…cavalier about it. I never let bedwetting define me, or even affect me beyond the physical donning of the diaper every night. Bedwetting was never the defining factor in my social or home life it seemed to be for so many other people. I can’t really explain it, but it seems to me that being a bedwetter and having a supportive family contributed to my social development in a really positive way.

Beyond my bullcrap psychobabble, I was always a charismatic person in grade and middle school. I always wanted everyone to like me. Not just the people in the “cool kids” social group, but everyone. From the geeks to the goths, I wanted to be liked, and I wanted to like them. I was always the one to reach out to the new kid. I was always the one to partner up with the lonely kid when we were dissecting sheep lungs. My mother always taught me to treat others as they deserved to be treated. I don’t know, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. Call me a softie, but seeing people miserable didn’t make me feel very good.

So time went by, as it does. Dad got a promotion, I broke my arm, Alex broke his collarbone, Mom broke her nail. We continued with Hockey. He hit, I got hit. It was a happy time, a simple time. Grade school passed on into history. Life continued as it had for the past years. It was great. I couldn’t have asked for any more then what I had been given.

Everything was on track to continue forever as it had been. Until that one fateful day in March.

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Again, comments welcome. If you love it, tell me. If you hate it, tell me. If you want me to commit seppuku for dishonoring the forum with such trash...keep that to yourself.

[The Sun]

Dude, why have I not seen you on the forum? You're cool.

Anyway, I like it. I really do. God knows I do not read ANY and I mean any of the stories in this place. It is not because I do not like to read, heavens no, I am an English major, it is more of the content. As I said though, I did read this for some reason, just was bored; and I am extremely glad I was bored. You have a cool way of capturing attention. See this part:

"My brother was much the same. Except he liked to hit people. A lot. He was the most intimidating defenseman GLAHA had ever seen. Hell, I still think those coaches have nightmares of Alex destroying the opposing offense. We were a scary tandem. We were good. I mean, we were damned good. Our play complemented each other so well."

That. See where you use fragments, or partly use? That is what I call a 'capturing style,' keep that up; it works for you.

Anyway, I don't promise I will read more, but it was fun. You have some grammatical errors, but I was not reading to scan so I will not tell you the one or two I remember. If you do need help, I am still here for two weeks before I leave, so PM me before than and I can help you edit or something. Not that you need it, but, I always offer.

Nevertheless, thanks for filling my boredom

FullMetal

[gamebaby]

that was intresting. and theres allways somthing difrent about some one so dont worry bout borring any one. .

[sparkmaster]

Thanks guys. This is seriously the first time I've ever written something not for school, so your comments are much appreciated.

I have no idea when the next chaper will be up. It might be tomarrow, it might be next week. I still don't have anything but a rough plot in my mind, so forgive me if the next few chapters sound cliche.

Suggestions are still welcome, via PM or thread.

[sparkmaster]

Chapter 2- Cheapshot

Authors Note: I have never played hockey, and information regarding such was gleaned from the GLAHA website, Wikipedia, and personal spectator experience. Scheduling for youth games as put forth is at best an educated guess.

I was pissed. I was really pissed. Pissed at the world, pissed at the evil Canadian man that invented the wrenched game of Hockey, and most of all pissed at my little brother. I stormed through the door, absolutely fuming. I admit I can get a wee bit hot headed, but this was beyond normal post-loss stress. This was personal. I was wronged on what I considered a deeply personal level. And, go figure, my rage and anger caused by the one person I could not hope to get away from, Alex.

I ran up stairs and slammed my hockey bag down by my bed. Consciously, I knew my rage was pointless and self destructive, but reason seldom calms young, unreasonable people.

I did a lazy version of the fosbury flop onto my bed. The physical stress of the game, the mental stress of the day and the misdirected rage were absolutely draining on my 13 year old mind. I didn’t even hear Alex ascending the stairs to our shared room. I vaguely recalled hearing Dad telling Alex to give me some cool off time before entering the room, but Alex knew me better then that. When you share a room for a decade, you get to know your roommate pretty well. Being brothers made it even easier. He knew to confront the problem head on rather then giving me time to stew. Someone once told me that anger held inside was like eating a bad taco from the stand down the street. The sooner you get the taco/anger out of you, the better. And he knew to get that taco out before the refried rage caused a big problem.

Now would be a good time to tell you, the loyal reader, what exactly happened that evening. Alex and I had our first game against each other in a competitive, team atmosphere. In levels below ours, teams were based on a point scale. Being that we were two of the best players in the area, we always got placed on the travelling, competitive team. Now, at the 12-14 level, coaches drafted players based on evaluations during tryouts. We were both selected by different teams.

We both knew what we were getting into when we stepped onto the ice that evening. We had agreed, by unspoken agreement, to not let our relationship effect our play. I expected him to hit me, and he expected me to use every dirty trick in the book to score. As we stood at center ice for the national anthem, our gazes locked upon one another. At the rocket’s red glare, I caught a barely perceptible nod from across the ice. I returned the gesture, as confirmation of our commitment to our teams and ourselves.

The first period was back and forth. No team could gain an upper hand. Alex had me blanketed every time I was in the offensive zone. Likewise, he couldn’t do anything against my teammates or offensively because he had to react to what I was doing. Unfortunately, our goalie was in a bit of a funk, carried over from the last game. By virtue of poor defense and inconsistent goaltending, we were down by a pair of goals when the first period horn sounded.

It was during the 2nd period that we began to get into a grove a bit more. I realized that our experience with each other put me at an advantage, because (being the offensive player) he had to react to me. And since we played each other so much informally over the years, he knew my tendencies. So, hypothetically, all I needed to do was be different. Midway through the 2nd, I hit a sprinting left winger for a beautiful assist on a goal that sliced the deficit in half. I was finally beginning to get my feel for the game, and I was ready to lead my team to victory.

We didn’t get many scoring chances during the rest of the 2nd and early 3rd periods. Their defense was steady, and our offense stagnant. They weren’t doing any better. Any shots they got off were weak and inaccurate, easily stopped by our goaltender. It was a stalemate. And I was on the wrong end of it.

With about two minutes left, we were about done for. They were passing the puck around in our zone, pretty much just running out the clock. I was spent. I was at the end of a long shift sprinting up and down the ice trying to get any sort of offense going. I was ready to call it a day, accept the taunting which was sure to come, and live to skate another day.

And then it happened. They made a poor pass across the zone. It was slow and just seemed to glide along the ice taking its merry time. I saw my chance to force overtime, and save face. I reacted. I sprinted to the puck, gathered it up, and flew down the ice. I had a perfect late game breakaway chance. I knew I had this goalie right where I wanted him. I could see him moving too much reacting to my subtle moves. All I had to do was swing to the left, cut right at the last moment, and put the puck in the net.

That’s what I thought just before I got my legs cut out from under me, and crashed on the ice. The bastard that cut me like that not only messed up my perfect breakaway chance, he also pulled a big hockey no-no. Cutting someone like that with your body is a great way to cause a knee injury. And you never intentionally cause a major injury to another player, especially at this level. To engage in an action such as that is extraordinarily low.

I turned, astonished, angry, and confused, to confront the “player” who had breached one of the few rules of hockey etiquette. Lo and behold, it was Alexander Jackson. My own brother had tried to injure me. My feelings changed instantly. The confusion remained, but anger changed to pain. Mental pain. The idea that my brother would do such a thing, to do something as low and dangerous as that to me, was more hurtful then any blown out knee could be.

I had to put my emotions aside for the moment. The ref had obviously seen the takedown, and had called a penalty. Because I had a clear shot to the goal, rules called for a penalty shot to be given. As I lined up for the shot, my hurt changed back to anger. Had he had so little respect for me? We had agreed to play our best, but cutting like that is far above any beyond reason.

My penalty shot was an udder failure. It banged off the right goalpost. I just could not concentrate. The more I thought about it the more enraged I became. It was a vicious positive feedback cycle that caused be to lose concentration at the worst possible moment, and toss away our chance at overtime. Needless to say, the missed shot didn’t calm me.

When I flopped upon my bed, my anger had not subsided, just transformed into a seething rage that burned inside me. The fact that Alex had refused to explain his actions or even look at me during the long, quiet trip home certainly didn’t help things.

He sat the desk in the corner of our room, facing me. I was still ignoring him, somewhat worried that my anger would cause me to do something stupid.
“Listen”, he began “I’m sorry about what happened on the ice tonight. I slipped. I was trying to trip you up, but would never try to cut you like that. Some son of a bitch tried to do that to me last month, and I nearly beat him stilly.”

I had to smile at him. For most people, this would be just idle boasting. For Alex, it was serious. He seems to enjoy fighting quite a bit. Naturally, fighting is banned in GLAHA, but it didn’t stop him from cold clocking the poor SOB that tried to take a swing at him. I never did get the whole story about what pissed off the kid so much that he tried to start a fight with the biggest 6th grader this side of the Mississippi, but it must have been enough to inhibit his caution. The result wasn’t pretty.

I felt my rage melting away. I mean, I was still pissed at him, and would be for some time, but I have to live with the guy. Its bad policy to hate the guy that sleeps 6 feet from you. The Poles figured that one out in 1939.

I sat up to face him. “I would have scored if you wouldn’t have ‘slipped’ (air quotes here) on that damned ice. I had your goalie by the balls.”

He gave me one of his trademark half laughs. “Sure you would have. And then it would start raining raisins from the rafters and we’d all be sucked into a black hole where we would spend all eternity as spaghetti.”

“And I still would have used my spaghetti stick to shoot the spaghetti puck into the spaghetti net.” I shot back.

He leaped across the gap separating us and tackled me. We did this almost every day. He would try to use his superior strength to pin me, but I was much too quick and proud to be caught by the likes of my little brother. Our brotherly bonding activities were also a good way to bleed our daily stresses in a forceful way.

And it was over. Our feuds were like this. Always short and violent.

After we had spent any reserve of energy, we talked hockey for a few minutes. One of the best ways to improve your play, my father told us once, is to talk with the guy you were playing against. We both learned a lot from playing against each other.

Mom called us down at about 8:30. We took our customary seats on either end of the dining room table, where my parents were already seated.

Long conversation short, he told us we were moving. He had applied for and gotten the job as City Manager for a little community named Grafton in North Dakota. Calling Alex and I shocked would be an understatement. Evidently, Mom and Dad had decided all this without consulting or even informing us. Thinking back on it, it was unreasonable to be asked our opinions on something we would naturally say no to, but it would have been nice to be given fair warning that this may happen.

We were given until the end of June to get our affairs in order, so to speak. As we went back to our room, realization started to sink it. We would be leaving the city and state that we had called home for our entire lives. We would be leaving our friends and comfortable surroundings for some godforsaken place in the middle of North Dakota.

By virtue of google maps, we discovered that Grafton is not in the middle of North Dakota. Rather, it was in the extreme north. We were going to be pretty much Canadian, minus the strange accents and funny hats.

On our calendar, we ticked away the days until our departure. Despite our not wanting it to, the time went quickly. We tried to be with our friends as much as possible in the last months, weeks, and days, but there simply weren’t enough hours in the day. Our final days were spent organizing our stuff for the big move. The big stuff was being moved by one of those pod things, but we still had to go through and toss any excess junk we had acquired over the years. Baby clothes, old magazines, and miscellaneous flatware all met their fate on the plains of EBay. It seemed like we sold off or gave away a literal ton of stuff.

And then the day came. June 21st, 2004. Four days before my 14th Birthday. The pod was packed and away. The car was loaded with valuables, clothes, and other necessities we would need on our trip. It was decided that we would treat the move out there as a bit of a vacation. We would go to Ohio (as much as it repulsed us) to see the Air Force Museum, go down to Tennessee to catch up with Grandparents, and just meander our way to Grafton. We had no real timetable. The pod could be delivered anytime with 12 hours notice, and my parents had already closed on the house. It was going to be just us and the open road.


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Comments welcome etc. Any and all criticism (aside from OMtehG SO BAD!!!11111) is welcome. Suggestions via PM are always looked upon favorably. I'm sort of sleepwalking right now, not sure where exactly I want it to go.

Oh, and sorry for the delay. Really busy here. Thank you for reading my "story".

[HypnoToad]

eh, what'ch you got against the Canadians? Have you seen yourself some Canadian Bacon? It's a great movie and delicious snack, eh?

[NARU]

Isnt Canadian bacon just ham?

[NARU]

Son of a bitch I cant find anything wrong with it.... Good Job!