FOREWORD

Bobby-Joe Rattigan was fourteen years old and lived with his parents and kid brother, Stevie, on Chokoloskee Island, a fishing community on south Florida's Gulf Coast. The island connected by bridge to the mainland at Everglades City. Bobby-Joe had just completed eighth grade at Everglades Combined Junior/Senior High School. Sometimes on weekends, he and his brother helped their dad, Capt. Mike Rattigan, owner and skipper of a 45-foot diesel-powered lobster and stone crab boat that plied the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Ten Thousand Islands.



In truth, Bobby-Joe was not without his dark side. He and his best boyhood pal, Buddy Mulaney, sometimes stole cigarettes from Mrs. Garcia, the Cuban lady who cleaned the Rattigan's house, and smoked them in the woods behind the Community Center. The pair was also adept at shoplifting candy from the general store in Everglades City.



Bobby-Joe's and Buddy's nicotine habits were nipped in the bud at the annual Fourth of July picnic when Bobby-Joe's twelve-year-old brother caught them behind the playground gazebo with Marlboros dangling from their mouths. Buddy was spending the week with the Rattigans while his parents attended a funeral in Jacksonville. Like little brothers everywhere, Stevie tattled to Capt. Mike, who drove the culprits home and sat them on a sofa in the front parlor. "Where did you guys get the cigarettes?" he demanded. "Nobody in this household smokes, so they sure as hell didn't come from here."

"Aw, Skipper," Bobby-Joe said, "sometimes Mrs. Garcia leaves her pack lying around and we help ourselves to one or two. It's no big deal."

"In other words you stole them?"

Bobby-Joe squirmed under his dad's withering gaze. "Yes, sir," he said shamefacedly.



When Bobby-Joe's mother arrived home with Stevie in tow, the younger boy said, "I think it's disgusting that Bobby-Joe and Buddy were smoking at the picnic, Skipper. Are you gonna beat them? Can I watch? Please?"



"Hush, Steven," the father said with inarguable finality. "We don't resort to corporal punishment in this household. I promised Buddy's parents that if he gets into trouble while he's here, his discipline will be handled the same as yours or Bobby-Joe's. It will teach them both a lesson to be restricted for a month and assigned to clean and paint the church basement."

The culprits exchanged anxious glances. "But, Daddy," Bobby-Joe protested, "if you put us on restriction, we won't be able to go to the Boy Scout Jamboree in Orlando next month."

"You should have thought of that before you stole the cigarettes," Capt. Mike retorted. "It will help your spiritual growth to spend summer vacation painting and cleaning your church's basement."

Buddy raised his hand as tentatively as a schoolboy asking permission to use the toilet. "Skipper," he asked, "Ain't there some other punishment you can give us?"

The skipper paused to consider. "Well," he said, "there's always the electric chair at Florida State Prison. I'll call the warden in the morning and make appointments for you guys."

"Aw, c'm'on, Skipper," Buddy parried, "they don't give kids the chair for stealing and smoking cigarettes. Do you remember the last time a carnival came to Everglades City?"

"The one that set up in the vacant lot next to the fire station?"



"Yes, sir. The carnival owner gave free ride tickets to boys who cut class to help raise tents and put up booths. I played hooky that day, but the attendance officer caught me and called Pa."

"I don't guess your father was any too pleased about that," Capt. Mike said. Buddy's dad was a lieutenant with the Collier County Sheriff's Department.

"No, sir, Pa was gonna put me on restriction, but that would've meant I'd miss my class trip to Disney World."



"Next June, when I'm in seventh grade, I'm going on the Disney World trip, and I'm gonna ride the Thunder Mountain roller coaster about a hun'ert times," Stevie piped up.

"I rode it five times," Buddy said proudly .

"I thought your dad wouldn't let you go."

"At first he wasn't going to, but I called a family council meeting, we talked it over, and decided on another punishment for me," Buddy replied.

"I hope it deterred further notions of cutting classes," Beverly Rattigan interjected.

"Yes, ma'am, it sure did. The day after the class trip, Pa took me to his study and gave me Bayer Ass Burns. That's what he calls it when he pulls down my pants and takes his police belt to my butt."

"Did'ja cry?" Stevie asked.



Buddy pulled a long face. "I got ten licks on my bare butt with a belt," he replied. "Go figure."

"It sounds as if you had a memorable experience, young man," Mrs. Rattigan posed. "It's too bad you had to learn your lesson the hard way."

The boy shrugged. "It wasn't too bad," he said with a trace of male bravado. "It hurt to sit for

a couple days afterwards, but then the stripes went away and it was okay."

Beverly Rattigan leaned forward in her chair and asked, "Why are you telling us this, Buddy?"

"I dunno, ma'am, I guess because I want to go to the Boy Scout Jamboree real b ad. I've been looking forward to it since Christmas - so has Bobby-Joe."

"If you were offered a choice between missing the Jamboree or going upstairs with Bobby-Joe to get your pants warmed by Cap't. Rattigan, which would you choose?"

"Ma'am, if the Skipper says I can't go to the Jamboree, my pa will back him and I'll have to stay home. But, if Capt. Mike whups me, Pa will thank him for doing it, it'll be over, and I'll go to Orlando with the troop."



"You have it all figured out, don't you, boy?" Mike Rattigan observed.

"I got ten whacks for playing hooky, Skipper; I ain't cut a single class since then. I reckon me and Bobby-Joe got about that many coming to us for stealing cigarettes and smoking."



Bobby-Joe winced. "Are you gonna give us swats, Daddy?" he asked, "I mean, instead of puttin' us on restriction?"

The skipper stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Okay, he said, "if you want to go the Scout Jamboree that badly, you guys win. But, I won't have a boy going to bed with a sore butt, even

if he deserves it; I'll attend to you two first thing in the morning. Understood?"

"Aye, aye, sir," the culprits chorused.

Beverly Rattigan placed her hand on her husband's knee. "Mike," she said, "before the boys go to bed, Stevie has something to tell you."



Stevie made a sour face and thrust his lower lip out like a bulldog. "Aw, Mom," he whined, "I said I'm sorry."

"Get it over with, Steven; tell your father what you did."

"Yes ma'am." The lad had his father's wavy blond hair and ears that looked like someone had left the doors open on a surplus Army jeep. "Skipper," he blurted, "I wanted some money to spend at the picnic, so I borrowed a dollar or two from Mom's purse. I was going to put it back

on allowance day, so it wasn't really stealing."



A tense silence enveloped the room; the lobsterman's lips thinned and whitened - definitely not a good sign. "A dollar or two?" he asked.

"Okay, it was five dollars."



"You went into your mother's purse, took five dollars that didn't belong to you, and you have the balls to tell me it wasn't stealing?" Capt. Mike thundered.

"I didn't think it was, Skipper - not if I paid it back."

"Mike, Steven helped himself to the money," Beverly Rattigan said. "Bobby-Joe saw it, figured where it had come from, and told me about it. I was waiting for the right moment to discuss with you how to handle the situation when Stevie saw the older boys smoking and got even with Bobby-Joe by tattling."



"I see," the skipper replied in a low voice, taut with anger, "so now, it appears that three Junior Jarheads - not just two - have appointments with my strap in the morning."

"I was gonna pay it back, Daddy," Stevie whined. "And I said I'm sorry."

"Old son, you are going to be a whole lot sorrier in the morning when you are butt-naked and your ass is burning hot," the Skipper predicted.

A yellow snot bubble ballooned from Stevie's nostril. "Aw, Daddy," he hiccuped.

'Do you guys have any questions?" There were none. 'Then, go to your room and hit the rack. You may sleep in tomorrow because you're up late tonight. But, when you wake up, you're to get out of bed, use the toilet, brush your teeth, take off your underwear, and wait in your room for me to come in with a strap and attend to you. Have pleasant dreams, gentlemen." Three unhappy Cracker boys slunk from the room like convicts heading for the gallows.









BAYER ASS BURNS

The Rattigan brothers and Buddy Mulaney slept late the following morning; when they awoke, it was past nine o'clock. "Oh, shit," Stevie groaned, "it's morning. You guys know what's gonna happen, now."

Buddy yawned, stretched, and sat up in bed "Maybe your dad's forgotten about it," he suggested without much conviction.

"There's a radio on in the kitchen and I smell coffee," Bobby-Joe said. "He's prob'ly been up for hours; his memory is like an elephant's; believe me, he ain't forgotten."

Stevie glanced at the Casio Forester on his wrist and said, "We'd better get up, we don't want the Skipper any more pissed off than he already is." Rather than pull off his underwear and wait for a hiding in his birthday suit as his father had instructed, Steven reverted to the behavior of an earlier age by giving his brother a hefty wallop with a pillow; Bobby-Joe retaliated; boys being boys, Buddy joined the fray. An adult observer would have deemed a spontaneous underwear roughhouse bizarre behavior for boys about to be spanked, but to the boys, an early morning pig-pile came as naturally as waking up with a hard-on. The tussle-on-the-bed was their way of dealing with the angst of corporal punishment. Stevie gave his brother a final pillow whack; a seam burst, a shower of eiderdown swirled about the bedroom to settle like snow on the floor. "Oh, shit," he said.

"Goddog it, the Skipper's gonna have a cow when he sees the mess you made, asshole," Bobby-Joe snapped. "Help me clean up before he sees it."



"I've already seen it." Cap't. Mike Rattigan stood framed in the bedroom door looking like

a man with an unpleasant duty to perform. The culprits sat on the bed, in states of maximus erectus, wearing the guilty expressions of boys caught masturbating on the toilet.

"Get the vacuum cleaner and police up these feathers," the lobsterman said in a voice cool

as ice water. "I want to see assholes, elbows, and shoe soles, so get moving."

"Skipper, we can explain. . . ."

"Save your breath," the skipper snapped. "Your mother is grocery shopping in Everglades City, so we have the house to ourselves. You guys are to water your lizards, brush your teeth, police up this room, take off your skivvies, sit your little nekkid asses on the bed, and wait quietly for me to return. I was going to let you off with ten smacks each, but I'm rethinking

that in view of your grab-assing."

Stevie gazed up at his dad through limpid blue eyes. "Daddy," he protested, "We were just havin' fun; I'm sorry about the pillow."

"I'm holding the three of you responsible for that," the lobsterman said. "Wanton destruction

of property just earned each of you two snaps of the cowhide on top of the ten you're already slated to get." As Capt. Mike left he said over his shoulder, "I'll be back in twenty minutes expecting to find a clean room and three naked junior Jarheads bushy-tailed, and ready to have their backsides toasted." Three anuses tightened; three penises twitched into humongous anticipation boners.



Capt. Mike came into the boys' bedroom without knocking. They had pulled off their Jockeys and sat on the bed naked and cocky, trying unsuccessfully to cover anxiety boners. The skipper carried a Marine Corps garrison belt, which he lay in plain sight, coiled like a rattlesnake. "All right, get up," he snapped.

Three frightened boys formed a file so crooked it wouldn't have passed muster at a Brownie meeting. Capt. Mike shook his head bemusedly. "I believe this is about the most raggedy-assed bunch of pogues it's ever been my misfortune to encounter," he muttered. "You guys look like the honor guard at an old whore's convention." Years earlier, Mike Rattigan had served a hitch in the Marine Corps and still lapsed into Jarhead vernacular when no women were about. He sat on the bed and beckoned for his youngest son to approach. "You might's well be first, Stevie," he said. "Step over here like a good boy."

"I ain't a good boy, Daddy," Stevie muttered, "that's why you're fixing to take a belt to my butt."