My father grabbed my arm at the shoulder, and literally pulled/marched me over to the house next door. This was embarrassing, almost like being pulled by the ear, but I realized that complaining would have just made matters worse--only saying "Ow" during some of the forceful pulls on my arm. He rang the doorbell and the kid next door answered, only a year younger than me and seeing us, she called her father to the door.
"I...I'm rreall sssorry about ssshhooting the..the wwinndow." I was not a stutterer normally, but I sure was stuttering then. "I ppproommisse th..that it wwill nnnever happen a. again, and th. that I am gonna be pppunnished for wh..what I did."
The neighbor seemed almost sorry for me as he told me that the only reason that it had bothered him so much as to call my father was that I could have put someone's eye out. I then realized just how much I did deserve my fate, and repeated my apology. I couldn't hold it any longer, and as I was marched to the backyard patio where that washtub waited, I began to sob.
Once we got there, I noticed the rest of the family preparing for the dinner that I would have to forego, inside the kitchen, looking out through the sliding glass door at me with concerned faces. Dad then turned me around so that my back was to the window and pulled me further away from the house. He then called my seventeen year old brother out, and told him to stand in front of me, while he got behind and to the left of me.
I had lowered my crying to just a whimpering as I stood there, waiting for what was to come next as Dad grabbed all five switches out of the cold water and began to give the commands that I dreaded.
"Jonathan, Pull down your pants." OUTSIDE??? All of the neighbors could look out their windows...the victims of my crime, the neighbors on the other side, the people who lived behind us...they could watch me stand there in just my underpants?? What about my dignity???
I felt the sting of five wet switches as they crossed my bare legs just below my knees. I couldn't believe the intensity of the pain as I couldn't help but to do the whipping boy dance.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!" It felt like a hundred bee stings as my legs became warmer. All of a sudden, I forgot about my dignity as more immediate matters came to mind.
"I SAID, 'PULL DOWN YOUR PANTS!!!'"
Blubbering again, I un buckled the belt of my cut offs, loosened the button and lowered the zipper. Letting go, the denim fell down to my ankles--crumpled on the concrete slab--leaving only my tight Fruit of the Loom briefs over my twitching bubble butt, waiting apprehensively for what would come next. I didn't have to wait long.
"Now your underpants."
"Oh God," I moaned as I lowered my underpants to join the cutoffs on the ground. I didn't care that anyone could see my bare butt and _d_i_c_k_ out their windows--I had much more pressing concerns. I felt my bottom really squirming, the muscles tightening and twitching--realizing that the closest witnesses, my family were watching my buttocks dance.
My older brother was still standing in front of me, both of us wondering why he was there when my father told me to bend over and hold my ankles tightly, "and don't you dare even thing about letting go before I finish with you."
Then, "Robert, Hold your brother's shoulders--push them down so his back is parallel with the ground, and if he lets go of his ankles, you are to push him to the ground." My brother spread his legs and did as he was told, putting additional weight on my shoulders.
"Jonathan, Spread your legs a little farther apart--farther still." I could now feel the skin of my bottom tight over the muscle and bone--no longer able to twitch or squirm.
"Please, Dad," I blubbered, and the real thing hadn't even begun yet. "My bottom is SO COLD," I whined.
Pulling the switches back out of the water, my father prepared to carry out my sentence, "Don't worry, Jonathan, I am going to warm it up for you." He brought the switches down hard--one stroke and five stripes--and I could feel each of the switches do its job as it welted my bottom.
I screamed like a baby--choking and pleading for it to stop, wishing that I had never seen a BB gun, asking God in Heaven to stop the retribution--knowing for sure that my buttocks had to be a bloody pulp. Finally, after laying those five whips across my bottom thirty five times (seven for each BB hole), I was allowed to straighten up. By now, the cheeks were numb as I slowly reached back to make sure that they were still there.
They felt swollen and hard--no longer the smooth rounded boy bottom. I could barely feel the touch of my hands on the hot skin through the numbness that comes when, thankfully during a severe beating, the nerves seem to shut down, minimizing the sting of the final strokes--but not the damage. When I looked down at my hands, they were bloody and sticky from the areas