Excerpt: MW4MW

Former Friend File:
Diaper Boy

It's possible I'm reaching back further than necessary here, but I'd rather be thorough and honest than leave anything out that may explain things to a professional eye.

My first friend (and at this point in my narrative -- 15 months or so old -- I'm using that term strictly to mean "we were put together and expected to play") was always naked except for a diaper. He (or maybe a bald she, come to think of it) and I played well near, if not exactly with, each other maybe a dozen times. Perhaps we had the same babysitter? Maybe our moms were friends and we shared a playpen during coffee visits? I'm not sure and the why of us being together isn't really too important. What IS important is that we were friends and now we're not.

Sometimes Diaper Boy wanted a toy I had in my hands and he would take it from me. THAT'S not why we stopped being friends. Sometimes D.B.'s diaper would sag off his butt (disposables were new and tended to droop at the slightest weight gain) for far too many minutes -- oftentimes leaking a few of its contents -- before the giant mom-face that wasn't my personal mom-face would hover above us and reach down her arms to scoop him up. I overlooked this as well. The episode that shattered the tender friendship has been a part of my memory, and sometimes my dreams, for so long that it began to feel as though it could have been a scene in a movie rather than a true memory from my life. When I was in college and reading a book on dreams, I called my mother long distance (a big deal before cell phones) to ask.

"Hey, Mom --"

"Jackie?"

"Yeah. Mom?"

"I'm about to walk out the door."

"This'll just take a couple minutes. Do you remember when I was a baby and --"

"I only HAVE a couple minutes here, Jack."

"This will just take ONE minute, then. Do you remember when I was a baby and --"

"It's going to take a lot more time than I have if you keep repeating yourself."

"Is dad there?"

My mother scoff-laughed. To the untrained ear, it could have sounded as though she'd just shot a snot rocket across the room, but this particular noise, to be interpreted as "don't get me started on THAT guy and the way he's ruined my life" was as familiar to me as...well...I don't think any noise was as familiar as that one.

I took a breath and tried again. "Mom, when I was a baby I was sometimes in a playpen or maybe a gated corner of a room with another baby who was in a diaper and I just want to know whether you remember if there was ever a thing with a spider?"

"Yes. Is that all you wanted? You held up my day for that?"

"Thanks, Mom. Bye."

Having secured confirmation, I can now say that the reason my very first friend relationship ended was the spider incident. And, even though I realize this amount of build-up puts my tale at risk for anticlimacticism way early in its telling, here's the way I remember it.

I was sitting with my back to the fencing, with my body toward D.B. but my head bowed in concentration at the book or puzzle or stuffed animal in front of me. Even at that very young age, I remember the way that everything seemed to go still. Somehow I knew, before looking up, that it was time to get scared and, in compliance with my gut, I began to whimper even before my head started its upward turn.

D.B. was headed toward me, powered by his distinctive sway-walk, mouth stretched in either a grimace or smile, chin slick with spit. He had something in one raised fist, but I couldn't see what it was. When he was standing just a few inches in front of me, he lowered the fist to right above my bared thigh, pointed the curled fingers downward, and popped opened his hand. I instinctively flinched, but nothing happened. D.B. turned his hand right-side up to inspect it, then quickly flipped it palm down again and started fanning furiously.

That did the trick. The spider that had either been grasping to or slightly smashed onto D.B.'s sweaty palm was now on my chubby leg. I don't think I'd ever encountered a spider before, but I had no problem understanding that this was cause for panic. Instead of screaming, however, I froze. When the spider started inching its way up toward my torso, I watched it in complete terror. When it entered my gappy diaper, my voice finally broke free and I let out one of those screams that even the worst of mothers know demand they must plow down everything in their path in order to reach their child without delay.

I'm not sure of the precise unfolding of events after that point. I know that, eventually, my Pampers were hanging off me in shreds by my own hand (now, of course, I understand that it would've been impossible for my mother to guess that the non-stinky diaper held the problem) and I remember D.B. clapping and laughing.