The Franklin Files

CHAPTER VIII
MORE SYMPTOMS


     I couldn't remember anything that had happened the night before after that moment when I was bent down tying my shoes. The next thing I remembered was the next morning.

     That next morning, I also can't tell you where Scott's dad was; apparently in his room, is what I remember, and didn't come out.

     Scott wouldn't move off his bed watching the baseball game or whatever it was on TV, and his dad wouldn't come out of his room, that's why I was the one who had to respond to the knock at the door.

     There was still about another three to four weeks of summer left before school started up again in the Fall.

     Unfortunately, I can't remember really anything that happened between the sleepover and the beginning of school. I know I continued to play with Scott, but apparently have no memory of anything we did or anything.

     When School started, that all changed. All of a sudden, I have crystal clear memories, full of my normal detail, and memories that were no longer disconnected or dissociated.

     If Scott was drugging me, he apparently stopped doing that when school started, or near that point.

     As a matter of fact, for a long time, I confused some memories that happened at the beginning of the school year, with memories that happened when Scott and I first met, and that's because, finally, I was remembering time I spent with Scott that wasn't being "blacked out" or distorted.

     So, really, starting in the next chapter, I'm going to start telling you what I remember, once school re-started, and Scott and I began the fifth grade and there's a lot that I remember.

     But before I get into that. I just want to describe some other things that began happening immediately after this sleepover.

     Even though I couldn't remember anything that happened that night, I was changed; something changed about me.

     I became very timid, and a very frightened kid. I was already kind of timid, but now it was ten times worse.

     I also became afraid of Scott's dad. I knew I was afraid of him, but I didn't know why.

     After the sleepover, I began to experience strange compulsions that had never happened to me before.

     One of them, was the compulsion to cut myself, or what is called these days among youth as "cutting".

     I used to take razer blades and cut the tips of my fingers. That's how it all started.

     My mom caught me doing this once, and she freaked out about it. I couldn't explain why I did it. It was just a compulsion, you know?
 
     I became very introverted at this point, and I started daydreaming a lot.

     I was already a bit of a daydreamer, but now it worse; much worse. 

     I had experimented with burning leaves and stuff like that, when I first met Scott, but now the compulsion to start fires became very strong with me.

     I started burning leaves again, and that is all I would do. I never caused any damage to property and I wasn't trying to nor was I trying to hurt anyone, and I never did, but the compulsion to start fires started to become an obsession.

     I told you before that I had this compulsion to have a book of matches in my pocket, during the time I spent with Scott before the sleepover, and that seemed to satisfy me, but now I wanted to use the matches and set a pile of leaves on fire.

     For some reason, starting the fire seemed to squelch something inside me; I don't know what-- frozen emotion or something. I really don't know.

     I also started experiencing sexual compulsions, and they involved things that I would do when I was alone with myself, but it went way beyond masturbation, that's all I will say about that. I was ten years old, and I suddenly developed some strange sexual compulsions, and different things that I was doing to my body that I don't think was normal. Like just for an example, piercing my private parts with a needle. OK, that's all I'm going to say about that.

     Getting back to the night of the sleepover. the next day after my dad picked me up and took me home, I found out my mother had made a phone call over to Scott's house sometime during the evening, and I was somewhat questioned about this.

     My mother indicated to me that she called and Scott's dad answered the phone but said that he couldn't put me on the phone because I wasn't there; that he didn't know where Scott or I was, but that he would look for us and he'd call her back when he found us.

     My mother indicated that Scott's dad never did call her back, but she was questioning me about it now.

     I assumed at the time, that the phone call must have happened when Scott and I had gone across the street to the school and gone streaking.

     This was something that I definitely didn't want my parent's to know about. It wasn't even my idea, and it wasn't something that I would have done, and I would have felt deeply deeply embarrassed for them to discover that I had gone running around naked in public.

     So, when I was confronted about this, I simply said that I couldn't remember. This wasn't really a lie, because I really couldn't remember, but I could remember the streaking incident, and I played dumb because I didn't want my parent's to find out about that.

      I don't know if I told my parent's that I couldn't remember anything else that happened that night. I think I probably didn't because I was so afraid of them finding out what Scott and I had done running around naked.

     Now, later, as an adult, I suspect that the reason why Scott had me do this was for this very reason, to give me a good reason not to want to talk about that night, so that my parents wouldn't discover that I actually had a black out as to everything that happened after that.

     I will add one more thing, and that is that my mother told me that is was her intuition that Scott's dad was lying to her, and she told me that she didn't like that man and didn't trust him, and she would not ever approve of another sleepover because of that.

     My mother felt that Scott's dad was a bit irresponsible, that at the very least he should have phoned her back when Scott and I got back to the house which I was told he never did.

     As an adult, I have reason to believe that that phone call that my mother made, did NOT occur when Scott and I were streaking. That that phone call came in later on, while I was in a black out.

     But more about that later.