clays

Clay's First Seat Warming

Let me begin by saying that I am one lucky dad.  I am, and I know it. My son Clay, just eleven years old this past October, is a wonderful little fella. He's good-natured, a happy kid most of the time, takes responsibility for his schoolwork and doesn't buck and rear about chores at home. He treats his mother with respect, a helluva lot more than most kids you see today, and he's daddy¹s little helper in almost anything I do. Yep, he is one sweet kid, and I love him a lot.

That's why I'm writing this story down, to let other fathers out there know that even if you're lucky enough to have a down-to-earth, good boy like my Clay, you will occasionally - even if it kills you - have to face a moment when you have to do your duty as a father.

Personally, I grew up without a dad around, so I didn't have much of a model to guide me when I became a father, but I did have experience in the world and a pretty damn good understanding of human beings. Over the years I¹ve observed that all people have different levels at which they respond. There is the concrete-operational level and there is the abstract-reasoning level.   Most of the time, because human beings have so much learned behavior, you can apply abstract reasoning to solve a problem.   But because we are, after all, animals, we have a good share of non-learned instinctive behavior.   It comes out in little acts of cruelty or jealousy, through passion and sometimes acts of violence.   Those behaviors don't always respond to abstract-reasoning they most rely on stimulus-response training.   You touch a hot stove you get burned. You pull the cat's tail you get scratched.   You purposely disobey your daddy you get your backside spanked. It's as simple, and as complicated as that.

Because Clay was such a bright little tyke, I could almost always apply reason to any problem, instead of a hairbrush to the seat of his pants. But there came a day when Clay needed to test systems to see if I would stand strong at that concrete-operational level, and I had to give him the concrete assurance that I could be as sturdy, for him, as the Rocky Mountains, even if it cut me to the quick.

It was the eve of Thanksgiving and my wife was running herself ragged in the kitchen getting ready for a slew of family to descend on us for the holiday. We don't have an enormous house, but it's big enough to handle my wife's parents and my brother Louis, his wife Susan and their son, Hal.

Clay was as frisky as a squirrel, because he and his cousin Hal were close in age (Hal was twelve), and the two of them got along terrifically well.   They sometimes ran around like young colts, and made a helluva racket, but they were good boys and we could always chase them outside if the din rose beyond a tolerable adult level. It gave my brother and me a lot of pleasure to watch our boys pal around, because we had been close growing up.

Clay had made a banner to hang in the dining room that said: 'HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO OUR WONDERFUL FAMILY'. He had decorated it with little pictures of Pilgrims, Turkeys and Indians (uh....Native Americans). The kid had used up a whole role of scotch tape mounting it, and I had to make him take off his sneakers before he stood on his mother's chair getting it up, but it was a nice sign and made me proud of my little boy. I mussed his hair when he got off the chair and he said to me, "How do ya like it daddy?"

"I think it¹s great, bud," I said.

Clay lit up like the Rockefeller Christmas tree and said, "I'm gonna get some streamers left over from my birthday party and hang them up too". He started to dart out of the room, but i caught him up in my arms and swung him back around.

"Hold on, champ, hold on," I said laughing and swinging Clay up onto my back.   "You'd better get your tail into the kitchen and ask your mother before you start tacking too many things up in here."

"Okay, daddy" he said.   I swung him down and gave him a little spank on the bottom to scoot him along to his mother.

A few moments later, just as I was checking my stock of liquor, Clay came racing back in, "She said it's okay, dad, so I'm gonna get the streamers."

I laughed at his incredibly energy, "Okay! Okay!" I said. What a kid!

By the time Clay had turned the dining room into an orange and brown circus tent, the doorbell was ringing and family was arriving.

My brother had volunteered to pick up my wife¹s parents at the airport, so they all arrived in an excited group, piling out of my brothers Cherokee.

Certainly, one of the best parts of a family holiday is the initial greetings.   Louis and I hugged and shook hands till our arms ached. Clay and Hal were shy of each other for about one half a second and then took off like bullets to do whatever little boys do to deal with their boundless energy.

Eventually, when eveyone had run out of introductory steam, I herded the family into the house (it was chilly outside anyway) and began making drinks. My wife, her mother and Susan disappeared into the kitchen, and Louis my father-in-law and I wound up in the living room in front of the t.v. seat just the way we did every year.

Louis had recently taken up the fashionable cigar trend and had brought some premium cigars that he thought he would entice my father-in-law and me with.   I wasn't a smoker, but took a cigar to please my brother and soon the men were all puffing their stogies and acting like big shots.

While we were puffing, laughing and telling bad jokes, Clay and Hal came running down with sparkling eyes.

"Dad, dad," Clay said, running in. "Can Hal and I use the air gun? We'll be really careful, I promise. Please, dad, please."

I took the cigar out of my mouth and shook my head. "Nope, no way.   That gun is out of bounds. Did you take it out to show, Hal, Clay?   Because I told you....."

"No, dad, I just told him about it. Why can't we use it, I know how to use it, you showed me...."

I held up my hand to slow him down, and said, "Look, tomorrow morning, I will personally take you and Hal out and supervise while you shoot at the scarecrow target." This was a straw man that we had bought along with the gun. It had a target painted on its stomach.

Clay was disappointed. "Oh, daddy, why not tonight?"

"Cause everyone's tired, son," I said, "and so am I.   Tomorrow morning we'll do it, that's a promise."

"Ooooh," Clay scuffed his feet.

"I promise," I reiterated hopefully.

"You always say tomorrow" Clay pouted.

"No, I don't, but when I say it, I do it."

"Oh, please Uncle Stu," my nephew Hal chimed in.

"Hey, mister, you stay out of his," his dad said. "I don't want you around any gun unless your Uncle or I are with you."

"Right," I said. I pointed my index finger meaningfully at my son. "No gun till tomorrow. Deal?"

"Oh!"

"Clay!"

"Deal," Clay grumped, and the boys scuffed back upstairs.

When they'd left the room, Louis turned to me and said, "Do you ever spank Clay?"

I knew that this little scene had sponsored that particular question, and I was surprised to find that I didn't feel comfortable with the truth.   "No," I said hesitantly, "I haven't found that necessary."

Louis puffed his cigar and shrugged.

"Why do you ask that," I said, "do you spank Hal?"

"When he needs it," Louis said. "Sometimes Hal pushes the limits, and if he doesn't respond to a warning, I let him have it."

We smoked for a few second, and then I said to Louis, "You think that I should have let Clay have it just before?"

Louis grinned, "Don't you think he was pushing it?"

"Yeah," I said honestly, "a little, but he backed down. I mean, you can't just expect a kid to obey like a robot!"

"No," Louis said, around his cigar, "but don't you get a certain feeling inside that tells you when your Clay has pushed too far.   Isn't there a certain tone of voice, a certain kind of challenge that strikes a response chord in the dad part of your brain."

Inside of myself, I knew exactly what he meant and it was true.   Clay had reached that point in regard to the gun, but I had repressed my urge to be stronger with him. I told myself that a man couldn't always respond to his basic instincts, but I really thought that Louis was right.

My father-in-law put his two bits in with, "It certainly is different from when I was a boy," he said. "My dad kept a razor strop hanging from the back of our front door. If I talked back (another reference to Clay) or didn't do my chores, or got into trouble, my old man sent me to get the strap and he'd give it to me out in the tool shed. That was the official spot where lickings were dished out. My sisters and brother and I took turns standing on each other's back to look in this little dusty window whenever pop was punishing one of us. I don't know why it is, but all kids get excited watching one of their own get a good hiding."

Louis sensed that I was being quiet as all of this entered my mind in a disturbing way and thoughtfully turned the conversation away from spanking. For a few moments we joked around about the boys and the cute things they did and said, and then my brother suddenly got serious and said, "You know, Stu, the boys have been very quiet up there. Do you think that maybe we'd better check and make sure that they aren't messing with that gun."

"Well, I will if you want, but if Clay told me that he won't touch it, he won't," I said defensively.

"I guess I would feel better, Stu. Come on, I'll go up with you."

We left our cigars burning in the living room and headed upstairs. As we got to the top of the landing, we heard the sound of conspiratorial whispering from Clay's bedroom.

"Ssh, wait," my brother said, holding me back from going forward.   He had a grin on his face and clearly thought that they boys were up to some cute devilment that we would enjoy.   The next moment, however, a sharp retort sounded and we both nearly jumped out of our skins.   I was at the door with the speed of panic.

Hal was holding the air rifle, Clay was flat on the floor, and one of the windows was now missing a pane.

"Clay!" I yelled, and dashed forward.

Clay got up at once and said, in a shaky voice, "It's okay, dad, I'm okay, it just scared me when the gun went off."

Louis tore the gun from Hal's hand.   "What the hell are you doing?   You two could have killed yourselves."

Of course, when I saw Clay on the floor, that was exactly what I had thought. Now I grabbed Hal by the arms hugged him close to me and then thrust him away and gave him a shake.   "Did you take that gun out of my closet?"

Clay burst into tears, "Y-yes, daddy!"

"Before or after you came downstairs. Tell me, Clay. I'll find out anyway."

"B-b-before," Clay stammered.

"You are in the deepest shit, young man," my brother said to Hal. And without another word, or any concern for our presence. Louis sat on the edge of the bed, took hold of Hal and put him across his knees.

Hal began bawling immediately, but Louis didn't pay any attention he had been frightened, his son had disobeyed, and punishment was going to be meted out.

Clay looked at his uncle and cousin with horror, and then turned to me with a look that could only mean, "You're not thinking of doing that to me, are you?"

The minute I saw the look in Clay¹s eyes, I knew that I was going to give him his very first spanking.   He had lied to me, he had put himself and his cousin in danger, and he had made me feel that my brother had been right, that I had not been doing my duty as a father that I had not been firm enough with my boy and it had lead to a potentiaI tragedy.

I sat on the opposite side of the bed from Louis, who had just succeeded in peeling down Hal's pants and was now dragging at the boy's underpants.

I remember someone at work saying that he spanked his son and daughter and joked about their different levels of sensitivity.   "Girls," he laughed, "come apart if you spank them on their dress or panted, but a boy won't feel it unless he's bare."

"Come here, Clay!" I commanded.

Clay obediently stepped forward, but his lower lip was trembling and the first tear hung at the edge of his eyelid. "Oh, don't spank me daddy, please," he said.

I didn't answer, but just took hold of him, picked him up and placed him in my lap. If I was going to spank him, I saw no reason in prolonging the suspense.   I immediately tugged down Clay's pants, while the modest little guy sobbed out, "Oh, daddy, don't take my pants down."

Then, I took hold of the band of Clay's briefs and pulled them down over his apple round bottom and down to his ankles where his pants were nestled. The boy was trembling on my lap and my heart went out to him. Truthfully, his little bottom looked so cute, that I couldn't bear the thought of tanning it, but Clay had defied me, and I had to teach him a lesson he would never, never forget.

"This will teach you to always tell your daddy the truth and never touch that gun," I said.

"I won't daddy, I won't," Clay sobbed.

But I lifted my hand, opened my palm and smacked him across his bottom sharply. My hand covered almost all of little upraised fanny and a red handprint materialized instantly. Clay yowled and tried to reach back to protect himself, but I pushed his hand away and told him not to do that again.

Then the spanking really got underway.

There was an interesting echo effect in the room. Louis's hand would spank Hal and Hal would wail. My hand would make a loud 'PAMP!' sound on Clay's little behind and he would howl. Two pairs of legs thrashed the air, two pairs of arms waved frantically, and two little heads were turned up with their mouths wide open in howling circles.

Once, in the midst of the spanking, I saw the wailing boys glance at each other with tears running down their miserable faces.   I almost laughed, in the midst of this serious scene of father and son discipline, when the bawling Hal called out to the howling Clay, "Ooo, ooo, don't it hurt, Clay?"

As Louis and I walloped the boys, the door of the room opened and the women, along with my father-in-law (stogies clenched in his teeth) appeared in the doorway.   Actually, I was surprised that they hadn't heard the gun shot earlier.   They stood in a crowded group and gaped at the spectacle of the two howling, bare-bottomed youngsters and the dads whacking away with reddening palms.

I saw my wife look first horrified and then press her hand to her mouth to repress a laugh.   My sister-in-law, stood with her hands on her hips while my mother-in-law got red-faced and fled the scene.

My father-in-law, however, got right into the spirit of the activity. He pushed into the room caught sight of the gun and shot-out window and started supervising.

"Wallop 'em good" he growled.   "Damn fool kids could have killed themselves." He took up a ruler from Clay's desk and stuck it in Louis's hand.

"Here," he said, "this'll save your hand and impress him a lot more." Louis accepted the offering and upped the level of Hal's crying by applying the ruler with vigor.

Then, Clay's grandfather picked up a hairbrush from Clay's bureau, caught my upraised wrist, and screwed it into my fist.   "Here," he said. "let him have it!"

Clay looked over his shoulder at me and his eyes opened wide at the sight of the hairbrush. I couldn't deal with that look and continuing to give my son the punishment he deserved, so I turned his head around and pressed it down as a I went to work with the back of the hairbrush.

"Ooh, ooh, daddy, please," Clay pleaded.   "Ow, oooooooh, it hurts. Stop! Daddy, (sob), stop. Waaaaaaaa!"
I paddled Clay silently for about a minute and then held the hairbrush aloft.

"Are you ever going to disobey me again?" I asked.

Clay sobbed, tears running down his face, "Oooh, no daddy, nooooo!"

"And are you ever going to touch that gun, or anything else like that without permission?"

Clay wept miserably, but he answered quickly, "I promise, daddy."

I looked down at my son's backside it was bright red and looked properly chastised.   I picked Clay off of my lap and stood him in front of me.   He immediately grabbed his backside and did a little dance from one foot to the other. I was aware that Louis had stopped spanking, but I didn't hear anything from that quarter and didn't care. I was concentrating on my son.

"Do you know why daddy had to spank you?" I asked him. I wasn't trying to rub it in but I knew that if the licking was going to have an impact, I had to make sure that Clay was in the right place.

Clay nodded his head.

"Why did I spank you?" I pushed.

"Because of the gun," he whimpered.

"Clay, if you don't express yourself more fully, I am going to put you back across my knee. Do you want me to do that?"

"Noooo!" the boy howled.   Just the idea made him dance more nervously.

"Then tell me why you got a spanking."

"Cause...cause, I lied (sob) and because I took the gun when you said not to. Oooh, dad, my bottom hurts so bad."

"It could hurt a whole lot more," I warned him, "and it will, son, if you ever lie to me or disobey me. You understand?"

"Y-yes, daddy," he said, hanging his head.

Now I heard my brother's voice for the first time. He was saying to Hal, "Now you've got some corner time to think about this whole thing."

Clay and I turned and saw that Louis had put Hal, pants still down around his legs, into a corner of the room - face to the wall. Hal stood there rubbing his bottom and shaking with sobs.

Without hesitation, I put Clay into another corner and said, "You too. You just stay here and think about why you got spanked.   Uncle Louis and I will come back in an hour."

"And there's not to be any talking," Uncle Louis warned, or I know at least one boy who'll get spanking number two."

I didn't think that I needed to add my own comment to that, Clay was bright enough to come to the same conclusion.

"I'm leaving the door open," I said, "and don't you move out of those corners."

"Can I pull my pants back up," Clay said piteously, he didn't even turn his face away from the corner when he spoke. "Good," I thought, "he's appropriately scared."

"No," my brother answered for both of us.  "You two just stay the way you are. It'll help you to think about what's gone on here and what will happen if you don't do just what your dads said."

We left the boys in their corners and went back downstairs. Louis clapped me on the shoulder.

"It's not easy being a father, is it Stu?" he said gently.

"No" I said, "it isn't. But it¹s great to have a brother who can offer some advice from time to time."

Louis laughed and gave me a hug. "Now," I said, "we need to find a way to pass the next hour before we let the kids pick up their britches."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Later that night, long after the boys had been released from captivity and had recovered from their ordeal. I sat on the side of Clay's bed and tucked him in. After I'd given him his hug and kiss, he looked up at me and said brightly, "You know, daddy.   I love you more than summer vacation."

I put my hand on his head and said, "And I love you so more than a million, trillion dollars. Good night, son."

"G'night, daddy."

I walked to the door and closed the light. For a moment, I stood there silently looking down at my son. It wasn't easy being a dad, and sometimes it called for a firmness beyond the loving, but it certainly was worth it when you had a boy like my Clay.

THE END