THE BUNK BED EPOSIDE

There is a light mist outside this morning. My dogs neither one like rain. They go out willingly in the snow but are very adverse to rain, I put "I" out. I slip back in. She hovers at the front door as if I have put her into a torture chamber. She bounces up looking in the window of the screen door, her long ears standing out from her head. Please her eyes plead. I let her in. She runs for the safety of the bed. My neighbors are grateful for the rain. No loud barking this morning.

I have written before about the little house on 9th street. Three of the rooms was what you called a shotgun house. Front room, bedroom, kitchen. Off the bedroom was a small hall, bathroom and a door to another bedroom, where my Mom and Dad slept. My older sister and I shared the bedroom, Bud had a cot in the kitchen, Brenda when she was young a small bed in the folks room. My older sister moved to Maryland for eighteen months, While she was gone Mom bought a old set of Army bunk beds, they were wooden and not nearly as tall as bunk beds today. They were a ugly color. But Mom was happy to find them. They had been cheap and gave two separate beds. Something good for a packed house. My sister moved back home, she was nineteen, myself fourteen. I was immediately moved upstairs, the top bunk and she given the bottom. I didn't mind.

But she came home nervous, but Geri was always sort of nervous. I learned at a very young age sharing a bed with her, DO not touch her while she sleeps. The results can be dangerous. For the one touching that is. She experienced a very bad trauma when we were young. Something that left a terrible memory in her mind that would stay forever . When I was about three or four, she slept next to the window. A man took off the screen and was trying tp pull her through the window. Her screams woke me, Mom and Dad heard the screams and came running. The man ran knocking over a potted plant in his haste to get away. But I am sure it left a great fear in her and she never sleeps really deep, even after all these years.

Back to the Bunk bed night. We were fast asleep, I being on the top bunk awoke to being kicked straight up in the air. She had her feet against the bottom of the mattress, shoving upwards as hard as she could. And screaming as loud as she could. "The man," she was screaming. My heart almost came out of my chest. A man, there was a man in the house. I fell, literally off the top bunk. My sheet tangled around me. She was yelling, "He has my arm". I grabbed for her arm. Thinking any minute someone was going to get me from behind."Geri", I gasped, "Are you okay?" She whacked me across the face. I slid out of her reach and staggered to my feet. She came out of bed. Her sheets wrapped around her as if it was a toga. I started yelling and reached for her again. She hit me again and this time I went down. I figured it was time to get away from her before she hurt me. I started crawling for the hall. Towards Mom and Dad's bedroom. They had started towards us and what they saw when they got to the door was Geri flinging her arms, the sheet wrapped around her yelling. I on my hands and knees crawling, they of course thought the worst. Bud in the meantime awoke during all the commotion and heard Geri and the words a man and run outside with something in his hands. To get the bad man. There was no man.

After it was all said and done. The story was put together. I in my sleep had knocked my sheet over the side of the bed. It touched Geri's arm. Geri in her sleep thought a man had hold of her. She was fighting him in her sleep. Her knees together she was kicking the man, which was the bottom of the my mattress. I waking up with a jolt thought someone had her. And the circus started at that point.

We laugh her and I when we talk about it. What a shock it must have been for our folks to see me crawling on the floor, Geri standing there screaming. So funny now. Poor Mom and Dad, they had to get up at five in the morning. This was about two, so I am sure it was a good hour before everything got settled down enough to go back to bed. There are days I would give the world just to go back for one more day of those crazy times on 9th street.