Flipping the Coin
CHAPTER 7
RELEASE
In the morning, right after breakfast, my mother came in bringing Orion with her. Fortunately, I was sitting in a chair at the time as Orion immediately jumped up on my lap and began kissing me. Between my giggles I asked her how she got away with bringing Orion. It turned out that Dr. Goodwin had gotten Orion declared my temporary therapy dog.
We talked for a bit about this and that, and then Dr. Goodwin came in. I thanked him for getting Orion into the hospital. He laughed and said, “I was very glad to do it. I wasn’t sure how at first, but I eventually figured it out. But,” he said, “I have some news for you. I think you’ve made good progress and you’re about ready to leave. We’ll keep you another day just to be sure, and when your mother comes in the morning, I’ll give her your release papers and prescriptions and you’ll be free to go.”
I guess I looked a little doubtful, so he asked, “Am I correct that your father is presently in jail and won’t be a threat to any of you?”
My mother said, “That’s right. There’ll be a hearing the day after tomorrow and Mitch will be need there.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be involved in that, but I supposed that the die was now cast, and I had to do it. “Okay,” I said, “I guess that’s the way it has to be.”
That evening, my mother came again with Carl, Roshan, and Orion. Roshan, Orion, and I sat on the bed together while Carl and Mother sat in the chairs. As we talked, Roshan and I both patted Orion, who turned from one of us to the other wagging his tail.
Although my dinner arrived at that point, everybody stayed as we talked. Roshan said that he hoped I would be at his home often, and that his parents assured him I would always be welcome. I wanted to give him a kiss, but because of the presence of Mother and Carl, I had to opt for a hand-squeeze. He squeezed back. When it was time for them to go, Orion left somewhat reluctantly but I assured him I’d see him in the morning. I guess I didn’t eat much of the dinner that night except, of course, the ice cream.
Later, I phoned Roshan and told him I loved him before saying good night. Then I settled down for my last night in the hospital. I lay there in the dark thinking again about a naked Roshan beside me. It didn’t take long to satisfy my needs. Again, I cleaned myself off with a couple of tissues, threw them away, and was soon asleep.
After breakfast In the morning, the doctor came in and sat down to talk with me. First, he said that a condition of my release was that I would see a therapist at least twice a week and more if the therapist thought I needed it. He told me that my mother had agreed to that. She had the name and address of the therapist who lived not too far away for me. “In fact,” he said, “in good weather you could certainly bicycle there. It will mean that you need to miss some school on those days, but I‘ve been in touch with the school’s vice principal and she understands the situation, so there should be no problem.”
Just then my mother came in. The doctor gave her my release papers and prescriptions, and she thanked him for everything he had done.
He said goodbye to me, and I thanked him. Then he left and shortly thereafter an orderly showed up with a wheelchair. I told him that I didn’t really need a wheelchair, but he just laughed and said that he hears that all the time, but hospital insurance required it for all departing patients. My mother went to get the car and the orderly wheeled me down the hallway, where I could stop for a moment and say thank you to the nurses before I left the floor for the last time.
In the lobby, the orderly and I waited for my mother to pull the car up to the curb. This time I didn’t need a cane to get into the car. We drove to our house where I was greeted once again enthusiastically by Orion.
I settled in at home, going to bed early because I was really tired. I had gotten to where I could sleep in a hospital, but somehow, I didn’t get much rest.
The next morning, I dressed and went down to breakfast. Mother had actually made bacon and eggs. We had to leave for the hearing shortly after that. Carl had known I was nervous during breakfast, so he kept telling me I didn’t need to worry. He said there would be no observers, only the judge and a lawyer or two.
“Will Father be there?” I asked anxiously. “I really don’t want to see him.”
“I suppose he has to be,” Carl replied, “but he can’t do anything to us.”
Mother parked the car and we went into the courthouse. From there we were directed to a courtroom where we went in and sat down. The assistant prosecutor showed us where to sit at a table and told us a little about the proceedings. There was a woman seated at another table who I thought might be Father’s lawyer.
Soon, we were told to rise, and the judge came in. He wasn’t wearing a robe and he went to a table in the front, not one of those very tall desks you see in movies. He sat and told us to sit, as Father was brought in through a side door. After that, the two lawyers talked with the judge for a few minutes before Mother was called as a witness. I was very glad I didn’t have to go first. She was very nervous I could see, but she answered the questions clearly and well. Then came Carl’s turn. He said very much what Mother had said but added some details which I didn’t even know he knew.
Then it was my turn. I was shaking as I walked up to the chair beside the judge. The judge turned to me and said, “Just relax, Mitch. You simply need to tell us your story, just as you did with your doctor and the police. Why don’t you tell us in your own way what happened.”
So I did, just the way I’d told it before. When I finished, the judge thanked me and asked if Father’s lawyer had any questions.
My father said he wanted to say something. I thought, Oh, no! He was taken by a deputy to the judge, as the lawyers joined them. My father stood, talking quietly. The judge then said, “The defendant is pleading guilty to abuse of a child and is waving his right to a trial. He will return on Friday, when he will be sentenced.”
And with that, it was suddenly over.
At supper that night, we all wondered why Father did what he did, but none of us had an answer. I noticed that once again Mother had taken some trouble with the meal. I also noticed that the table and floor were clean and there were no dirty dishes in the sink.
School began for me the next morning. Again, I was nervous. As Roshan and I got on the bus, kids who were already sitting there looked at me with curiosity or turned their heads away, so they didn’t have to meet my eyes. Roshan was right. Kids weren’t certain how to deal with me. It was the same when kids got on the bus. Some of them looked at me; others looked away.
In school, there were kids in the corridors who smiled at me and even gave me a tentative, “Hi,” while others seemed to be very busy with their friends.
Some of the teachers appeared to look right through me, but others said they were glad to see me back and hoped I was okay.
Roshan and I sat alone together at lunch. Occasionally in the past, other people had joined us, but not that day.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“Just keep acting normally and they’ll probably adjust eventually,” he said.
I was overwhelmed by the amount of work I had to make up. When I said that to Roshan, he said he’d help me. He suggested that if I couldn’t make up all the work, I could go to summer school. I wasn’t sure I liked that idea, but I did agree that it might be a possibility.
As the days passed, I seemed to spend as much time at Roshan’s home as I did at my own. The first time I spent the night there I asked during lunch if Mrs. Rajavi would teach me how to cook, maybe while Roshan was practicing his cello. She smiled and said she’d be delighted.
When Roshan and I went up to his room, he gave me a belated Christmas present. I hadn’t expected anything, and I told him that I didn’t have anything for him, but he said that he had me to love now and that was plenty.
Inside the wrapping paper was a box. The box was taped shut, so Roshan got some scissors and I sliced through the tape. In the box was a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Entomology. I was astounded. I knew it probably cost a fortune and I knew I could never reciprocate. “Thank you so much, Roshan,” I said, and I hugged him for a long time. “Do you think I should start studying other insects too? I guess I’m probably ready.”
Roshan beamed and said, “Absolutely.”
Later in the afternoon, when Roshan said he really should practice, his mother took me into the kitchen and asked me what I already knew about cooking. “Except for boiling water and frying an egg, not much,” I replied. She smiled and we talked first about measuring, which I had to learn both in our measurement system and in the metric system. For a while I practiced going back and forth from one to the other, guessing how many cups in our system I could get into a liter and things of that sort.
We had a wonderful dinner together, a little bit of which I had helped to cook.
In the evening, Roshan talked with me about what the class had been doing in math while I was gone. “Math was hard enough before,” I said. “Now it’s impossible.”
“Let’s go back to where you left off,” he said, and he began teaching me. As we worked, I realized that to me math had been a series of tricks which I had to learn. Roshan taught me that it wasn’t tricks, it was logic. We started to work on problems, with him asking me questions like what I needed to know, how I might figure something out, and if I could think of more than one way to figure it out. That was very hard for me at first, so we went back to division and the tricks I had learned to do division.
I showed him one and then he suggested, “Okay, let’s go farther back than that. In simplest form what is addition?” He drew me two pictures, one of three fish and one of two fish and asked me, “How many fish are there altogether?”
“Even I can do that,” I said with a smile. “Five.”
“How did you get five? Tell me two ways.”
“Well, I added.” I thought for a minute and then I said, “I could count them.”
“Exactly,” he said. Then he asked, “If I drew you two pictures, one with 279 dogs in it, and another with 318 dogs in it, how could you find the answer?”
“I could add 279 and 318.”
“And if you didn’t know how to do that?” he asked.
I thought a minute and then said, “It’s the same answer. I could count them.”
“So, what is at addition?” he asked.
“Ummm. Putting numbers together.”
“And why would we use the algorithm to put them together?”
“Because it’s faster.”
“Exactly,” he said. “But at its roots, addition is always putting things together. So, what is subtraction?”
Again, I thought for a moment before saying, “Taking things apart.”
“Right. Now, what is multiplication?” He wrote a column of 12 nines. “How would you find the total of those 12 nines?”
“I’d multiply 12×9.”
“Suppose, that you didn’t know what 12×9 was. What would you do?”
“I’d add 9+9+9+9 until I’d added 12 of them. So,” I said, finally catching on, “multiplication is just repeated at addition.”
“Right. So, what do you think division is?”
“Repeated subtraction?”
“Exactly. And I can show you other ways to do that. I can show you multiplication boxes, I can show you factor trees, I can show you how to figure in different bases and lots of other ways to solve problems which you’re not going to find in textbooks. That’s the real weakness of our math education system. Too many math teachers don’t really encourage you to figure things out. They just show you the tricks.
“Well,” he went on, “that’s probably enough brainwork for tonight. We should get to bed so that we can be reasonably rested for working more tomorrow.”
I agreed and we got ready for bed. We both removed our clothes, put them away neatly, and put on pajamas. We went into the bathroom and both of us peed and brushed our teeth.
When we got into bed, my heart pounded as I wondered if anything would happen. We lay once again back to back. In just a few minutes, I heard Roshan whisper, “Turn over.” I did and found myself facing him. There was just enough light to see that he was smiling. He stood up and removed his pajamas, saying, “We don’t need these anymore.” I giggled and removed mine too.
When we were both settled back in bed, I reached over and drew him towards me, my hand rubbing gently on his back. For a few moments we just explored each other’s backs and necks, but we were so ready we couldn’t last long. I took hold of his cock and he took hold of mine and we slowly pumped up and down until we both erupted repeatedly.
After that, we continued to explore each other’s bodies, almost every inch of each other. Soon, we were hard again. Neither of us was at all experienced with sex, but we seemed to just do what came naturally. He moved, and I felt his mouth on my cock. Slowly he licked me and then with his lips he moved up and down. I told him I was going to come, but he just kept moving until I squirted my second load in his mouth. When he lay back, I did the same for him.
“My God, that was wonderful!” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. And we just lay facing each other and holding hands. Finally, he said, “We need to get some sleep. We’ll have plenty of nights ahead of us.”
As I drifted off to sleep, I thought, “Oh, yes. God, I do love this boy.”