Weathering the Storms Box Set

Chapter 3-2

Was there a bottle of antipsychotic meds in the drawer right beside me still? I couldn’t help but wonder if attending a war reenactment had been a really bad idea. If anyone had asked—and people often did, namely Shelby, Rip, and my therapist—I would have sworn to them I had my s**t together. The past several minutes, the past several hours, had me questioning whether that was true, though.

“It is,” I declared. “Other than talking to myself sometimes, and whatever is happening here, I am doing just fine.” I kept the last sentence in my head just to prove it.

With a belly flop to the bottom of the bed, I hung off the end for further evidence, knowing I would look down and see a blank page that would reaffirm my sanity.

I’m here.

It was written twice, just like I’d seen before.

“s**t. Okay. You’re tired. I’m tired. We’re not going to pile on by speaking to myself in the third person.” Damn it! I’d said all that out loud. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, I figured. “You’re here?” I asked the journal.

Yes.

“How?”

I don’t know.

“Because I brought the diary here?”

Probably.

The words came. It was just like texting, only without a device and with someone who was born and had died a hundred and thirty years before texting was invented, a dozen or so years before Bell had even said those famous words, “Watson, come here; I want you.” No biggie.

“So, I’m not just imagining things? Making all of this up in my head?”

If you are, then so am I.

Wow. Okay. I was convinced. This was really happening. What further evidence did I need? I pinched my naked ass, just in case.

Once again, “Ow.”

Yup, wide awake. I knew what day of the week it was, who was president, unfortunately, and my name, address, and phone number. Those were the questions the TV doctors always asked on Grey’s Anatomy, to make sure someone didn’t have brain damage. Never mind the fact I didn’t recall hitting my head on anything. There was probably an online sanity checker I could take, probably on f*******:. But since the Russians hacked that site, my four f*******: friends and I had stopped taking those quizzes as a precaution. Rip, Shelby, Mom, and Aunt Rita all agreed.

I was stalling. Forget in for a pound. I was in for a ton, if that was even a thing, there was no turning back, so I stared down at the page and asked the big question. “Are you a ghost, Jefferson?”

So it would appear to be.

“Holy s**t!” I rubbed my eyes again. I shook my head, like Wilbur did when we walked in the rain. The last six words were still there.

Jefferson didn’t ruminate on every sentence. He answered right away, got right to the point. Then again, he’d had a hundred and some years to get used to being a ghost. I was only two or three minutes in when it came to conversing with one.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you died, and that I brought you here.”

The location doesn’t trouble me. This is where you live?

“Yes. Had I known company was coming, I would have tidied up.”

My room was immaculate, except for the clothes I’d just stripped off and the journal on the floor. The bedspread and pillows were mussed, because of my flailing around and writhing in naked fright and uncertainty, but not too badly. At least I hadn’t turned into a pea soup vomiting rotating fountain, like in The Exorcist. That would have been hell to clean. It was just one of those things people said when company came. “Sorry the place is such a mess.” It had been a while since I’d had a man in my bedroom. Jefferson probably didn’t care.

I was doing it again, going off on a five-minute tangent to avoid what still felt like a mind f**k. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Welcome to my home, Jefferson.”

It certainly is different than that old Tennessee house.

“Okay. So, I assume you can hear me.”

Yes.

“And…and see me?”

I can.

“Oh, for f**k’s sake!” I struggled with the bedspread, trying to cover my love handles and private parts, then got up and put on a fresh pair of boxer briefs before finally settling on the floor with the diary in my lap.

Your nakedness did not offend me.

“Good to know. I’m bashful, I guess. Plus, hearing and seeing is one thing. If you can feel through the diary, laying it on top of my exposed co—di—pe—in my lap would have felt inappropriate. I should put on a shirt.”

Your body looks healthy.

“Healthy? Um…thank you?”

What more of a compliment would someone desire? It’s very appealing to not look sickly and too thin.

“Well, nowadays, there’s supposedly no such thing as ‘too thin,’ and I haven’t really kept up my manscaping lately.”

What is ‘manscaping?’

“Oh.” I had to chuckle again. “Hair removal. Shaving.”

Your beard is very becoming.

It was more scruff than a beard. Still, I said, “Thank you. Manscaping is more about removing the hair from the chest and…lower regions.”

Forgive me my boldness in saying so, but that doesn’t make a lick of sense. Why on Earth would a man shave the hair off his body? What better way to prove a man is a man than by the hair on his chest or elsewhere? As a boy, I recall waiting for the day I would have some. I certainly never dreamt of removing it.

“Well, we do some odd things here in the twenty-first century in the name of attractiveness. Though, I recently read chest hair is back in for 2018, so…” I wondered if I should bring up waxing, plastic surgery, and bleaching.

That is the year you live in?

“Yes, 2018. And in 2018, it’s rather impolite to entertain company in my underwear, no matter how much hair I have.” I didn’t get up, though, but rather got more comfortable, with my back against the foot of the bed.

I have two questions.

“Ask away,” I said.

Is it “twenty eighteen,” or “two thousand eighteen?” Also, those are your undergarments?

“Hmm. People say it both ways.” I smiled as I realized I had. “And, yes.” I plucked at the stretchy fabric of my undershorts. “This is underwear.”

So bold in color. So small.

I’d put on a blue pair of Calvins. I had pink ones and wondered what Jefferson would have thought of those. “Small? You should see my thong collection.” I didn’t really have one but said it just for a laugh.

Might I see it? Whatever it is.

I bit my lip, not from nervousness, but some other feeling that played on my chest, my head, and my d**k. I did own a mesh jock strap and debated whether or not to break it out, or even put it on. “What the heck.”

Up on my knees, I reached for the dresser in front of me, pressing Jefferson into my bulge.

“Oops. Sorry.”

What for?

“Nothing.” I’d moved him up to my chest, so I could pull the drawer open and retrieve what I’d gone in after. “This is it.” I held my black, open-weave jockstrap in the air. Two elastic straps and a mesh pouch was all there was to it. I presented it left, right, up and down, like a pervy show and tell, and then checked the diary for reaction.

That is a thong collection?

“Well, no.” I sat back down. “That is just one item…one pair of underwear I own.”

Ah. As I imagine it on you, I am not certain what goes where, what is front, or what is back. One thing is for certain, though. Undergarments certainly have changed over the years.

I wrote this with a hearty chuckle, just so you know.

“Like 1860s for LOL, huh?”

I don’t understand.

“Yeah. A lot of this is going over my head, too.” I popped up for a second to grab my iPad, so I could look up images of men’s underwear from Jefferson’s time. They were long, made of cotton or wool. “That must have been itchy as hell.”

What is itchy?

“This?” I held up my tablet. “It’s a window to the world, Jefferson. It just showed me your underwear.”

Mine?

“Well, not specifically, but what it looked like back then in general. Anything you want, need, wonder, or question can be offered up right here on this iPad.”

Ask it what I’m doing here, then.

“Why is Jefferson here?” I asked Siri.

She didn’t understand the question, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Google didn’t offer much help, either. The site brought up the third US president and George and Weezy. I could have played “Movin’ On Up” on YouTube, but that wasn’t going to help us out much.

“I guess it doesn’t know everything,” I said sadly.

Who is Calvin?

“Calvin? You knew a Calvin.”

I did. The name written on you is the same. I thought you were Goose.

“Written on me?” I didn’t have a single tattoo. “Written?” I looked down, “Oh,” and had to laugh. “This is very Lorraine and Marty in Back to the Future.”

I don’t understand.

“Of course not. How could you? It’s a reference to a movie from the 80s about time travel. See, Marty goes back thirty years into the past, and he’s wearing a particular brand of underwear, the same brand I have on. His mother sees the name Calvin on the label, and she thinks that’s his name. You should see it…the movie, I mean. I could turn it on. Maybe later.” I took a breath. “Hell, thirty years is nothing, right? Here we are, you and I, talking…or texting. Chatting. We’re chatting with each other from, like, five times that many years.”

So, you’re not Calvin, but your undergarment is? It has a name?

Jefferson was fixated and adorable.

“It’s like a signature, like how Leonardo da Vinci signed the Mona Lisa. This Calvin made my underwear,” I told him.

Ah. That’s very interesting. He’s an artist, then?

“Of sorts, I suppose.”

My mother often made my clothes for me and did a very admirable job. She never signed her name all over the front of my undergarments, though.

My snort of laughter would have been embarrassing had anyone heard it. I covered my mouth when I remembered someone had. “It’s a whole new world, but never mind all that. Tell me about your Calvin.”

I love Calvin.

The words were still coming, still supernaturally appearing. I’d had to turn the page for those three. No scrolling with the touch of a finger. “You do?” I asked.

Yes. But we’re not together. I’m here. I don’t know where he is.

“Oh. That’s terrible. I’m sorry. Tell me about when you fell in love.”

I first fell in love with his eyes, then his smile, and eventually all of him. The very first time I saw him, he captured me and never let me go. When someone looks at you a certain way, you see yourself as they do. Nothing is more wonderful than that, Goose.

I pulled the bedspread down from the bottom of the bed to cover myself. “As long as that someone sees you as something worthy,” I said.

My Calvin has such a sweet soul. He was the caretaker of all of us, always wanting to make sure we ate and were mentally well. I must admit, I spent a great deal of time feeling somewhat unworthy of love, because of how Thomas rejected me so vehemently and violently.

“That was Thomas’s problem, not yours. That kind of brutality is never appropriate.”

Then you know about Thomas?

“Yes, I’ve read every word in this journal. It’s like we’re old friends who lost touch for a while, not strangers. That’s how I feel.”