Nintendo Power #28

 

He is caught red-handed by his mom in the back of the Taurus masturbating to pixelated cleavage in one of his video game magazines.

 

If this wasn’t enough, he is sent to his room where he is told to await his father who should be home any second now. When Rubia tells her husband coming through the door, she has considerable trouble phrasng it. Finally she spits it out: he was touching his dinger in the back of my car!

 

When he laughs, she’s angry.

 

You don’t understand young boys, he says.

 

But he needs to be punished, she says.

 

Being caught by you is punishment enough, he insists.

 

That isn’t enough, she counter-insists.

 

So I’ll handle it, ultimately Max gives in.

 

When he enters Reuben’s room, the boy is sitting on his bed reading the wall, mattress bowing at the bottom from the weight.

 

Have you learned your lesson? Maximilian asks.

 

Reuben nods, counting the knots (three, four, five lumps—a nervous tic) in his shoelaces. He’ll do anything so long as he doesn’t have to look the old man in the eye.

 

Don’t get caught again, Maximilian finally says. Closes the door on his way out.

 

Here endeth the lesson. A kindness. The closest to a birds and bees talk Reuben will ever get.