Legion of Lawndale Heroes v1

5.1 - Keeping Things Hidden

LLH 5.1 - Keeping Things Hidden

Charles Ruttheimer the Third applied a fresh bandage his head. He had been required to wear the adhesive bandage to cover the areas and the doctor said that "there would only be minimal scarring".

Oh, how he could chuckle at that! Oh, if his mother only knew even half of the truth!

The rainstorm would be over and there would be school the next day. His mother sat downstairs, reading a book, unaware of her errant son and the burden of problems that he carried. The bank closed its doors early to avoid potential hurricane force rain and his mother had a rare day off.

It had come back. He had tried to get rid of it, but it had come back.

There was not much he could do. He avoided the Internet. He avoided James Bond, all incarnations, even the movies like "A View to a Kill". He avoided what minimal contact he had with his few friends.

The phone began ringing. Chuck took a look at the caller ID.

It was Tweet. Don Calveldt, a sophomore, who everyone called "Tweet". Trust Tweet to annoy me. Damn rainstorm.

"Hello?"

<"Chuck? How'thit going?">

"Fine." He didn't want to deal with Don's speech impediment and perpetual skeeziness. "What's up?"

<"Lithen...my couthinth are in town and I wath wanting to know if you had "The Beth of Aleth De Renthy" on tape. I know you have everything tho I figured I'd athk. Maybe I could do thomething for you. If I had any good tapeth to trade...!">

"Uh...sorry, Don, old bean. My tape collection, sadly, is no more."

<"Jethuth! All that porn? What the hell happenth!?">

Chuck sighed. Ever have the power to shape your body into whatever you wanted to? Any appendage, any sex, any organ, any length, anything, anytime? If I told you what I've been doing over the last few weeks in this bedroom, you'd shit a brick. Porn got boring. Porn got dangerous . I was going to porn myself to death!!!

"Uh...Mom found the porn collection."

<"Shthe torched it?"> It sounded as if Tweet's flag would fly at half mast, and the sound of a bugler playing 'Taps' could probably be heard over the line.

No, Tweet. I torched it. All my seventies, eighties, nineties, oughts, my collection of Swank, all my online files, mpegs, jpegs, gif files, porn sites, all flushed down the proverbial commode. Hard to believe Chuck Ruttheimer would do such a thing, huh? "Yeah."