In Chapter One, known as Cody, a troubled boy with a hard past is introduced. Chapter One details a fight Cody gets into with his best friend after a bike race home from school. The boy's father, and Cody's guardian, hear the commotion and decide parental action is necessary. This is the second part of that story.

Yes, this story deals with child discipline, which may be a controversial topic for some readers. And, I deliberately wrote it in graphic detail. For storyline purposes.

Read the story and you will see why.

Reviewers:

I am much more interested in reviews that point out errors and weaknesses in my story

and answer:

1 - Was the story realistic? If not, why?
2 - Did the story draw you into the action? If not, why?

Than I am about how many stars you slap on the story.




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Cody was fuming when he stormed through the front door of the house. He immediatly marched up the pile-carpeted, circular stairway and flung open his bedroom door. In doing so, he banged the brass doorknob on the back side of the door loudly against the wall behind it. The act did not knock a hole into the wall, but it chipped a piece of plaster off the wall. The chip fell harmlessly onto the floor behind the door.

Cody snatched a white, cotton, bath towel off the wolf-imprinted spread covering his bed. He unceremoniously tossed the towel into the square, black, plastic clothesbasket sitting in the far corner of his bedroom. He had left the towel laying on his bed that morning when he flew out of the house like a tornado. He cut being late for school again razor close.

He was in trouble and knew his guardian would soon properly handle the situation. Cody did not like that feeling. Being paddled was nothing new to Cody. He had been ever since he could remember. Except, they were not exactly paddlings. They were a whole lot worse than that. At least, for the last five years they were.

Cody never knew his mother. Evelyn Margaret Madison had not taken her husband's last name. All she cared about was the Wacky Weed Parties that the East Los Angeles Playground was famous for. Everybody getting high as a kite, soaring the stratosphere, and staying there.

Alcohol flowed freely at these events as well. And, all that mattered to the participants was the psychedelic world of the hard drugs, featuring meth, crack, heroine, and cocaine. Completely absorbed in this lifestyle, she abandoned Cody shortly after his Pediatrician, Doctor Robert Lamfort, swatted his newborn bottom and declared him alive.

If that is what you could call life with his father. Baker Acted on three separate occasions, and committed to the City of Angels Mental Institute in Antelope Valley, south of Los Angeles, on two others, Earl Anthony Schroder was a Certified Fruit Cake.

He was not much more than the sperm donor from the previous generation of Cody's family tree. It was a well known fact he never wanted to be burdened with the "Product of an Ill-Begotten One Night Fling" as he commonly referred to Cody.

Not only did Earl Anthony Schroder not want his progeny, he made no bones about his staunch feelings. He constantly told Cody how utterly worthless a life form the boy was. The physical, and emotional, abuse he doled out to Cody, almost on a daily basis, left their marks and bruises behind. However, it was the sexual abuse that scarred him inside, to the point he had no attachment to his father. For the last 1,825 days, and counting, Cody had wanted to be dead much more than he desired to keep breathing air.

Then, six weeks ago, Earl Anthony Schroder died drunk in a fatal, single vehicle, crash on Ventura Highway when he smashed head-on into an embankment at 93 miles an hour. Informed of his father's dramatic demise, Cody did not care. All he knew was some telephone calls had been made and now he was in the custody of his guardian.

Cody heard his bedroom door open. He watched his guardian enter the room, slowly walk across the floor, and seat himself at the foot of the bed. He nodded his head, and Cody knew what that meant. He was to immediately extract the thin wooden paddle from off the top of the five-drawer mahogany dresser it lay on and deliver the implement to his guardian.

The boy wondered if being paddled by his guardian was going to be more of the same type of beating he received from his father. The paddle in hand, Cody took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He turned to face his guardian. It was only six short steps and he was tensely standing beside him. Cody flipped the paddle around in his outstretched right hand so the handle was facing his guardian. It would not be very long now.

His guardian looked up at Cody with a stern expression on his Southern-California, sun-tanned, face and grasped the paddle tightly in his right hand. Cody would not try to talk his way out of what he had coming. He decided it was better to just get the ordeal over with.

Cody felt his guardian reach up and take hold of his wrist.

"Get down here where you belong, Little Man," his guardian instructed him to do, as he pulled Cody over, and positioned him across his knee.

The palms of Cody's small hands rested flat on the floor on the far side of his guardian's knee. The toes of his sneakers barely reached the floor on the other side. His guardian placed his hand in the middle of Cody's back to balance the boy. He laid the blade of the paddle down on the seat of Cody's bluejeans. Trying to be brave, Cody held his position as best he could.

"Now, Little Man, explain to me why you started that fight with Matt when you got home from school today," his guardian wanted to know in a surprisingly calm demeanor.

Cody briefly hesitated. The first stinging bite was taken out of his backside, but the boy did not cry out. The second one soon followed.

"I am waiting for an answer, Little Man," his guardian reminded Cody applying the third swat. This one more firmly than the first two.

Cody winced but he did not yelp. "I don't know," was all he told his guardian. And, he really did not have a good explanation for what he had done.

"You don't know?" his guardian asked him with the fourth application.

Cody could feel the swats getting firmer with each number.

"No, Sir," Cody managed to say.

"Well, I know precisely what to do about it, Little Man!" his guardian told him, "And, I am going to!"

Five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten were applied and Cody squirmed more with each bitter sting. Although his tail end was barking loudly, and howling like a coyote, he did not allow himself the luxury of crying. However, somewhere deep inside him strange, unexplained, feelings arose. Cody did not know what to make of them. He had never felt anything like them before in his life. So, he decided to keep them to himself.

The paddling completed, Cody's guardian stood him upright on his feet and said, "No more fighting, Little Man. It will not be tolerated. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

With tears welling up in his sparkling blue eyes, Cody promised his guardian he would not fight with Matt any more. Then, with those strange feelings still strong, he did something he had never done when his father beat him. He apologized for his misbehavior.

His guardian hugged Cody tightly, and he really did not know what to make of that. It was the first time in Cody's whole life that he had ever been hugged by anyone.

Then, Cody shivered as if he was freezing cold. There were those strange, unexplained feelings popping up inside him again. He did not understand what they were, but they made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Cody's guardian handed him the paddle and told him, "Go put your paddle back on top of your dresser where it belongs. Then, Little Man, I want you to go over and sit down at your desk. And, I want you to think real hard about how you are to properly behave in this house from now on. When you figure that out then you can come downstairs."

Cody took the paddle from his guardian. Slowly he strolled over and laid it down on top of his dresser under his guardian's watchful eye. Completing the task, Cody made his way to the black Aeron chair standing by his oak writing desk. He pulled it out so he could sit down on the foam cushion on its seat. He watched his guardian stand up. While he was in quiet contemplation Cody knew there was to be no playing with anything. Not his toy soldiers that always won the war. Not his train set. And especially not his video games or his computer. Nothing.

As Cody tenderly sat down, uncomfortably on sore haunches, his guardian left his bedroom.

(Stay tuned. This story is just getting heated up. Like the seat of Cody's bluejeans were. We will return after this short station break.)