Growing up, I was a relatively well-behaved child. My grades were above average, I didn't talk back to my parents, and I was always where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there. I had a lot of friends, in middle school especially, but even that didn't keep me from occasionally finding myself bored and in need of some sort of excitement. Imagine my delight then, when my step-brother Roddy pulled me aside one day to speak in the utmost private secrecy.
"I found something. But you can't tell anyone."
Immediately, regardless of what it was that he had to show me, I knew that my day was going to be better. After checking to be absolutely sure we were alone, Roddy finally looked me in the eye and said,
"I found my dad's porn."
Oh man, excellent, okay. At the age of twelve, the idea of porn was almost completely foreign to me. All I knew was that it was something I wasn't supposed to see, and that somehow it was possibly sexual. However, our interest in it was not sexual in nature at all - instead, it was just a matter of morbid curiosity. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how we might actually get to watch the taboo VHS that had made its way into our possession. There was only one VCR in the house, and it was in the living room - and with my mother almost constantly home, there was no obvious way to make our way in there without being seen. And so, we knew what had to be done. All we could do was wait.
A few days later, my mother started rounding all of us up, prepping us for a trip to the grocery store. Instantly, Roddy and I knew that this was our chance.
"Mom! No, you know what. You go to the store. We're gonna stay here and... do a surprise for you. We can't tell you what it is, it's a surprise. But just go, we'll be fine."
Eventually, after much whining and begging and pleading, she reluctantly agreed to let us stay home, but with one stipulation - we would have to look after our younger sisters. You would think this might have put a snag in our plan, but no. We were determined. At first, we attempted to get the girls to go upstairs and play - in our minds, twelve was a perfectly acceptable age to be watching hardcore porn, but ten and eight year olds must certainly avert their eyes. However, the fact that we had a devious plan in place must have been apparent, because our sisters refused to leave.
"No! We want to stay in here! We want to hang out with you guys! We want to watch TV! Wehh wehh wehhhhh."
Okay fine. At that point, knowing that we did not have all the time in the world, we bit the bullet and decided to just watch the tape. We directed our sisters to look away, thinking somehow that if we were to get caught we could at least say, "Listen, obviously we told them not to watch the porn." And then, with little pomp or circumstance, it began.
I do not remember the specifics of the video. I cannot tell you how many people did what to who and where or for what reason. What I do remember is just so much hysterical laughing from Roddy and our sisters and myself. What could easily have been the most awkward experience of my life had instantly transformed itself into one of the most hilarious. We rolled around on the ground, laughing until we could not breathe, and finally the time came to shut the video off. Roddy stopped the tape, and made a valiant effort to eject it - only to be met with an unfortunate, squealing, crunch of a sound. A moment of panic struck us all, but then suddenly everyone was MacGyver. Screwdrivers, pens, unbent clothes hangers, my littlest sister's tiny fingers - if it would fit inside the VCR door, we tried using it to dislodge the ancient, terrible beast of a video. We worked on freeing that thing for what seemed like days, but nothing we did seemed to work. Eventually, we realized that time was running out, and that we would have to admit defeat. So we put all screwdrivers, pens, and unbent clothes hangers back in place, shut the television off, and made a pact that stated that none of us would ever admit to having watched the porn. A feeling of relief washed over us all, as we realized that we might possibly get away with our afternoon's adventure. But then we remembered...
"We're gonna stay here and... do a surprise for you. We can't tell you what it is, it's a surprise.... a surprise.... surpriseeeeee........"
Dear Christ, we'd promised my mother a surprise. Well, what could we do? We'd spent all of our spare time trying to pry the dead, lifeless VHS carcass out of the jaws of the cruel, cruel VCR. My mother was bound to be home at any moment, and we'd not even considered what the bullshit surprise might be. There was no time left to craft some adorable art project, no time to write a sweet story or do the laundry or clean our bedrooms. And then it hit us - the toy closet in the living room was a disaster, one of my mother's biggest pet peeves. Perhaps we could make an effort to tidy that up before she got back. So we all dove in - pulled everything out of the closet and into the living room, and then piled it all back in, in a slightly-neater yet still-not-neat-at-all fashion. And with perfect timing - as we replaced the last of the boxes and slid the closet door closed, my mother walked in the back door. She called out for us, "Guys?" and in the most guilty of all manners, we ran as a group of five from the living room to the kitchen.
"So, let's hear it. What was the surprise?" my mother asked knowingly, certain that we'd had some sort of trick up our sleeve.
We reluctantly led her to the living room closet and said,
"Look. We organized it."
She looked at it, looked us all over, and just said,
"Mhm."
She knew that something had gone on in her absence, something that was not the shittiest closet organization known to man. And we all knew that it was only a matter of time before she figured out what it was.
Later, we restated our solidarity and commitment to the cause, swearing to never admit that we'd watched the video. But then, time went by. The tensest hours of the day ended with no confrontation. Days went by, no word or mention of anything. We went from feeling at ease to having completely forgotten that the incident had occurred in the first place.
Until one day, my mother cornered me and went straight into a lecture about how sex in real life is not at all like the sex you see in porn. I'd been blindsided! I'd had no time to prepare, no opportunity even to deny that we'd watched the tape. She'd caught me unawares - on my own, without the camaraderie of my siblings to get me through. All I could do was listen as she explained to me that sex is a beautiful thing and porn is disgusting and please do not form my view of relations on the one tape that I may or may not have seen.
And then she was done. No accusations. No groundings. No chastising.
But she did tell me we weren't fooling anyone with that closet.
