The Man with the Water-Hose
Many people have told me that I should write my stories down as I have a lot of them and most of them are very colorful and funny. I have often thought the same as I love reading and writing, mostly poems on the latter, but I have never actually thought that I could be an author as it can be an arduous affair I should think. But this should be my start then as far as writing any sort of book or story, I guess you can think of this as more a collection of short stories than anything, but it shall be my start into this unknown realm. Before I start into the harrowing adventures, untimely mishaps and hilarious escapades of my (and siblings) youth, let me start by giving you my brief “history” as you will. I was born Zachary Tyler Goodman on August 3, 1995 in Claremore, Oklahoma to Sabrinna Jean Marshall and Wendyl Lee Goodman. From what I have been told of my “unrememberable years”, we lived in Oklahoma for three years with my two older brothers, Blake, who was four years older than I and Joshua, who was a little less than a year and a half my senior. After a while my mom divorced, remarried my step-father, Alan Brent Wymore and moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where my younger sister, Bailey Breanna Wymore was born and where in most of these adventures take place. Growing up, I was not your “typical” boy, sure I loved to play outside, sleep with my hot wheels cars and do all manners of crazy things but I was more “peculiar” than the other boys even to this day. When I learned to read, my first book was about sharks as I recall, I did not know how much I would enjoy those little black characters set against a white paper page, it was like a whole new universe for me. I do believe that to enjoy reading, especially as much as I do, a person must have a good imagination or reading will just be very monotonous and boring. But as a child, and adult, my imagination was/is very good and my mind was able to weave all the things I was reading into fantastic images, making it feel like I was in the book myself. I would very literally read for hours and hours if I was left alone, many nights you could find me in my bed with the covers pulled up and a little flashlight on reading into the wee hours of the morning. My brothers on the other hand did not enjoy books or reading and would much rather be playing with toys, be outside or tormenting us younger children in some fashion or another. So finally, we almost get to the good parts of this book or whatever might have you this conglomeration of short stories is, but first there are a few more things that I must add. These stories will be in the most chronological order that I can remember them in. Second, some of these extend into my early adulthood. Third, some of the actual facts may not be completely right as I must remember them as best as I can from many years ago. I entirely hope that whoever reads these short stories has a jolly time and maybe laughs like I did while writing these memories.
PART ONE
The Man with the Water-Hose
Growing up in the suburbs of Kansas City was as good a way to grow up as for any child. Anything you ever needed within a few minutes drive, everything you could ever want. We lived in a nice neighborhood where nothing really crazy ever happened, well except that time my mom caught my Aunts husband hooking up our trailer to his truck in our driveway… except it wasn’t my Uncle… And looked more like someone that could’ve been named Dale and drove a Semi. Anyway, that’s a story for later, although if you have ever ridden in a car with my mom as she chases a trailer stealer past McDonald’s you will quickly learn that the “Oh #%$& Handles” are located to the top right and top left respectively. Where were we, oh yes, so my childhood, pretty normal. Stuff like that though we’re not the times that tormented me as a child, nay, it was my two older siblings who knew how much of a scaredy-cat I was and decided early on that they would capitalize on that.
I must add a little context to this story before we go any farther. First, at this time in my life, my brothers and myself all lived in the basement of the house. Don’t worry, it was carpeted, heated and cooled (we weren’t savages). Any-who, down there we were below ground level and being as such there were no traditional windows, more like half moon shaped holes cut out of the ground right against the house that had plastic covers over them. You could see the plastic covers on the “window wells” from inside the basement as there were 5 rectangular panes of glass that you could look through.
So, at this time I believe I was 6, could’ve been 7 or maybe 8…? Not completely relevant but just know at this age my brothers had already taught me to be scared of everything. I remember it being 8:00 and all of us were in our beds when I started to hear sounds from above the window well plastic covers as if it was raining on them. Which was somewhat weird being that it wasn’t supposed to rain that night. I remember my oldest brother laying in his bed and sitting up looking right at me, asking me in a quiet voice, do you hear that? Have you seen the size of my ears? Of course I hear it, I can hear the worms crawling through the dirt outside through the wall and you ask me if I can hear that noise right outside the “window”. Yea, is what I whispered back, you know there’s a guy out there right now, was his reply. That right there was enough for me… HOW ABOUT NO.. even to this day I don’t do none of that real life spooky dookie, billy bong baloney. I started to get up to head to my moms bed but as I slid a foot out from under the covers he said again, you know he can hear you move around, and he will come and get you. So now I’m beyond scared and he knows it so he keeps whispering to me, you know what that noise is right? Stupidly I shook my head no…. He tells me, that noise is the man outside spraying the window well with the water hose.
That was the last straw, your telling me that there is some freaky man outside who is spraying the damn widow well with our own water hose.
Naw, that’s it, me and He-Man are out. I grabbed my stuffed bear and jumped out of bed and ran to the basement stairs when this water hose wielding man grabbed my arm, and held me back. Only it wasn’t the freak from outside it was my brother just keeping me from going upstairs. Didn’t matter, I was already in tears just thing about what he was going to do to me with that water hose.
My brother told me to shut up and to sit on the stairs after I realized it was him. So there we sat, till we started to hear the floorboards up above us start creaking, that man was in our house and we could hear him walking around, trying to find us… It was over a few seconds after that…..
My dad walked down the stairs and said, get your butts back in bed, making all this damn noise down here when people are trying to sleep.
Disclaimer: later found out there was no man outside utilizing our water hose, it was just raining…. How was I supposed to know that, I was a kid, I didn’t ever watch the weather report.
