Shawn's Law (2 page)

“Mum?”

Then disaster struck. Not apocalypse proportions, but just your everyday oh-man-that-just-ruined-everything disaster. My foot slid on something and flew out from under me. I was racing too hard to find my balance, and ended up falling on my butt, coming down on the edge of a step with a yelp of pain. I slithered down a few more steps before coming to a halt on my back, staring up in shock at the blue sky.

“Oh, holy fuu… udge bars.”

It was a small thing, but I made it a habit not to use the “F-word” ever since I’d accidently taught it to my niece when she was only two. The “Sh-word” was also out, so I now used words like
fudge
and
sugar
and
darn
for expletives. It wasn’t easy. My days usually need a lot of expletives.

I turned my head slightly, thanked God that my neck still worked, and caught sight of something white in my peripheral vision. My head was resting on something and I yanked it from beneath me and tried to focus.

Ugh. Bras, briefs, panties, and lingerie. I’d skidded on the latest Target underwear catalog. Perfect.

“Are you okay?”

A masculine voice had me jumping in fright, and I quickly tried to roll over and sit up. Tried being the operative word. My body wouldn’t allow me. I yelped in pain. Back, butt, head—you name it, it was hurting. Amputation probably hurt less. I just hoped I wouldn’t vomit with the pain.

“Oh, man. You’ve hurt yourself. It was a pretty specky fall, but you aren’t meant to hurt yourself at the end.”

I looked up into the beautiful blue eyes of the man who was leaning over me. I let my head fall back on the concrete with a thunk as I groaned again.

“Please, God,” I whispered to myself. “Please do not let it be that I humiliated myself in front of Hippy-Hotpants.” A masculine chuckle sounded above me and I knew that God was on holiday. Not only had I just made an arse of myself in front of the man I was crushing on, but he’d also heard me call him by a stupid nickname. I allowed my eyelids to fall closed and winced. “My mother always told me that girls in garters and girdles would get me into trouble one day.”

That chuckle came again from above me. “Garters and girdles?” he asked, obviously confused, which I hated to admit happened to a lot of people who tried to hold a conversation with me. I held up the catalog to show him. His smile was stunning as he realized what I was muttering about. Unfortunately I had the feeling that he was laughing at me, not with me. “I think your mother is getting into enough trouble of her own,” said the man of my dreams.

“Mum?” My eyes flew open, but my back refused to cooperate with the command to sit up. I thrashed around like a turtle on his shell. A stunning look, I’m sure. You should try it one day. “You can see my mum? I lost her. Where is she? Is she all right?”

The sunlight was shining through Hippy-Hotpants’s hair, creating a halo around his head where he was standing next to me. His skin was a golden tan and he had a gorgeous, wide smile. I watched as he looked over his left shoulder. “Yeah, I can see your mum. I think the whole street can see your mum. I think the whole street can see more of your mum than they really wanted to see.”

I clenched my jaw and grimaced. “Oh, fuu-udge.” My mother’s continuing decline was sometimes horrifying, sometimes embarrassing. Her latest trick was removing her clothes when we had guests. I really didn’t want to know but had to ask. “What’s she doing?”

Hippy-Hotpants was still watching my mother. “Hmm. Dancing. Under the sprinkler. Naked.” He ignored my groan and smiled down at me. “It looks like great fun. Tell me, do you do it too?”

“What?” I was shocked. What sort of a person did he think I was? “Of course not. My mother has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t always remember what’s polite.”

“Oh. That’s a pity.” He was still smiling at me, which distracted me greatly until my scrambled brain caught up.

What? Hang on. Did he mean it was a pity that my mother had Alzheimer’s? Or a pity that I didn’t run naked through the sprinklers?

Before I could ask, one of his dogs came over to investigate the reason I was lying down in the middle of the day. He sniffed my crotch, which made me jump and rush to push him away, protecting my family jewels. While my hands were otherwise occupied, the sneaky bugger took the chance to give me a big, wet, slobbery kiss. On my mouth.

“Ugh. Don’t do that to a person,” I complained as Hippy-Hotpants laughed and pulled the dog away.

“Sorry. He thinks you’re injured and that kisses will make you better.”

I wiped at my face. “I
am
injured but they’re not the type of kisses I like.”
Wait, that didn’t quite come out right.

“Me neither, man. C’mon. I’ll help you up. You should rescue your mum before she gets too wrinkly from all that water.” He stuck out his hand, and I immediately grabbed it, gritting my teeth against the pain as he hauled me to my feet. It only hurt a little. Like having your arm cut off. With a bread knife. I gasped and clung to him for a moment to find my balance. He was standing on the step below me, which meant he was now only a little taller than me. I didn’t get any tall genes from my parents.

With regret, I dropped his hand and looked over to find that my mother was indeed dancing through the sprinkler. Bare-arsed naked. I sighed in exasperation and thanked the heavens that the trees and bushes protected her from most of the neighborhood and their gossiping eyes. It must’ve been divine intervention that made me put that fence up and plant all those bushes. “Crap. Oh, well.” I shrugged philosophically and tried to smile bravely through my humiliation. “I guess I should get her some soap and then I won’t need to force her into the shower tonight.”

Hippy-Hotpants scratched at his cheek, still watching my mother and her commune with nature. “Soap dries your skin. You shouldn’t use it.”

“Excellent. Sounds good to me. No soap it is.” I went to walk back up the steps, but stopped and turned toward him. “Thanks for your help. Can you do me a favor? Just watch her for thirty seconds while I fetch a towel? With my luck, she’ll be halfway down the road if I leave.”

I received another blinding smile for his agreement, so I creaked up the path with only a small moan. I grabbed a towel and raced back, hoping to start up a conversation with the man once my mother was politely covered. Unfortunately for me, by the time I got back, Hippy-Hotpants had retreated to the street with his two dogs. He saw me, smiled, and waved.

“I’ll see you later.”

Then he turned and walked out of my life.

Shawn

An explanation of Shawn’s Law, the Bennies, and Penthrox.

T
HERE
ARE
very few universal truths that apply to every person on the planet. You may think that gravity is the same for everyone, but you simply have to watch the aerial ski jumping at the Winter Olympics to realize that perhaps gravity doesn’t work the same for every person.

It’s pretty much a law that if you meet a gorgeous guy, he’ll either be gay or taken. Or in my case, he’ll be straight and therefore not the slightest bit interested in me. Any gorgeous guy who shows any interest in me is either drunk or a serial killer. It’s true. I did date one. He was arrested in front of me on our second coffee date.

However, there is a law that doesn’t apply to everyone. Many call it Murphy’s Law. In my family, we call it Shawn’s Law. I’m a regular customer at our local emergency room. I know most of the guys from the auto club breakdown service by name. I’ve also hidden countless spare front door keys in the garden of our house because I’m forever locking myself on the wrong side of the door. I’m not too certain of how many keys are in the garden, because each time I look for one, it’s gone. But each time I dig a hole to plant another seedling, I find one.

For me, Shawn’s Law started early in life. My father allowed me to get a dog on my tenth birthday. Together we went to the local animal shelter, and I looked over all my selections. I finally chose a little black Chihuahua mix that wouldn’t eat too much and didn’t need much exercise. Dad was making me look after the pet all by myself—including buying its food with my rather generous pocket money. I liked my Mars bars too much to want to spend my precious money on too much dog food, so I chose a small dog. The little thing was called Benny since, as a surrendered pet, he came with a name already.

Benny was great. We got along fabulously, and he slept in his own doggie bed in my room for eight months. Then one day I came home from school and found the back gate open and Benny missing. We searched for weeks for the little thing, and I cried myself to sleep for the whole period. Dad offered to buy me another dog, but I wanted Benny.

Finally, after more than two years had passed, Dad and I visited the shelter again. I was determined not to get another dog like Benny, and the little white-haired Maltese cross caught my eye immediately. We loved each other on sight. So Dad filled out the paperwork and handed over the money.

“What’s his name?” I asked the lady.

“Bennie,” she told me.

I froze and started to hand the little fella back, but Dad had already paid. I wasn’t sure if I wanted another Bennie, and Dad told me I could change the name if I wanted, but how cruel was that? So Bennie and I became roommates, and he seemed really happy with me.

Two days later I came home from school and got the shock of my life. Benny was sitting on our front doormat.
Benny.
Not Bennie. Yes. You guessed it. Two days after I replaced him, and after being missing for two years, my dog turned up. Now I had two.

Thankfully they got along fabulously, although Benny never told us where he’d been for two years. He just trotted inside and went straight for his water bowl, then curled up on his bed and went to sleep. Unfortunately for me, that meant I now had to shell out for two lots of dog food, so Mars bars were off the menu for a while.

Maybe that was a good thing, because I had been starting to get a little chubby in my teen years. The daily exercise of walking two dogs helped me slim down a little, which meant that I mostly flew under the radar at high school. I was too boring to bother teasing. I kept to myself, and I think most of my classmates would be hard-pressed to remember I existed.

The whole gay thing wasn’t revealed until after high school. It wasn’t like there were boyfriends hanging around or panting to date me. I actually didn’t have my first kiss until I was nineteen and in university. Coming out to my family was rather anticlimactic. It went something like:

“Mum? Dad? I won’t be home for dinner tonight. I have a date.”

“That’s nice, Shawn. What’s her name?”

“Umm…. Well, you see…
his
name is Eric.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” Thinking about it now, I should’ve known there was something wrong with my mother right then.

Dad butted in with, “So you’re dating another bloke?”

“Umm, yeah,” I muttered, clasping my hands together with nerves.

“So are you two gay or something?” My dad’s tone of voice was bewildered, as if the thought had never crossed his mind before.

“Yeah, Dad. I’m… umm… gay. Is that okay?”

He immediately waved his hand in a dismissing motion. “Oh. That’s fine, as long as I don’t have to go and watch you dance naked in any bloomin’ pride parade.”

I gave him a withering stare. “It’s actually illegal to participate without clothes. The parade is in public, after all. I won’t be dancing anywhere naked.”

“Who’s dancing naked?” My sister, Lisa, came into the room. She’s a year younger than I am and received all the looks in the family. And the social skills.

“Your brother and his boyfriend are dancing naked in the pride parade this year,” Dad told her.

“Cool. Can I do it too?” There was no shock from Lisa, just immediate acceptance. In fact, she was almost dismissive of what was one of the bravest feats in my life to that date.

“No. Not unless you’re gay,” Dad replied. “So are you gay?”

“Of course not. Haven’t you seen my latest man?” Lisa laughed with joy.

“Then you can’t go in the pride parade. Only Shawn can, because he’s the gay one.”

Lisa’s nose wrinkled with disappointment. “Oh, poo. How come Shawn gets all the luck?”

All that stressing over what my family would think about my coming out, and I hardly rated. I guess that was a good thing, though. Some of my gay friends had terrible times.

Dating and I didn’t get along all that well either. Apart from the serial killer I dated twice, there was the guy who forgot to tell me over the course of our twelve-month relationship that he was actually married, the guy who forgot we were dating and tried to hook up with my best friend, the guy who visited the men’s room during our third dinner date, only to return and ask me if I minded wrapping the meal up without dessert because he’d met someone in the toilets he liked better than me and had invited him to his place, and of course the ones who just never called back.

Since I became the full-time carer for my mother, the dates had dried up completely.