My sister and her beau...

We had finally settled into our routine of daily life in Washington. I was in high school, my brother in middle school, and my sister in elementary school. Though we were siblings, we all had different lives. I spent time with my friends that didn’t include my brother’s friends and vice versa. My sister was eight years younger than I am, so we were worlds apart especially now that we all had our own bedrooms. I had no idea what she did during her time at home. She spent a lot of time in her room on the second level of the house near my parent’s room.
Little did I know that she was turning into a really freakish kid. At some point, I can’t remember when, she acquired a Charlie McCarthy doll. He was the creepiest little thing I had ever laid eyes on. His little black tuxedo with bow tie, top hat, blood red lips, and a tiny little eye piece over his right eye. He had a string at the back of his head that would open and close his mouth. My sister would sit in her room, pulling that string and uttering words in a voice I had never heard. “I'm going to kill you” she would say in a strange high-pitched voice. Then she would laugh hysterically. I was scared. Was he possessed? Was she possessed? I think I had heard about something like this happening in Amityville New York .
I started locking myself in my bedroom at night. I would imagine her and Charlie lurking through the house in the dead of night checking bedroom doors to see if they were locked. Only I would be safe from the wrath from the evilness of that hideous doll because I was barricaded in my room. Dresser against the door, bells hanging from the top of the door frame. If they managed to get in I would wake up at the tinkling of the bells. I also kept a baseball bat next to my bed. If I caught him peering at me, I knock his hard plastic head off.
I envisioned myself getting up one morning to find my brother bludgeoned in his bed, a little eye piece laying next to him. Hysterically I would run upstairs to my parent's room and find them both suffocated. A little top hat lying between them in the bed. My sister would be in her room rocking Charlie whispering “good boy, oh yes you really are a good boy.”
Everywhere she went, that little, nasty, freakish doll went with her. If we were in the car, I refused to sit by it. I would think that any minute he would turn his hard, ten pound plastic head toward me and wink, as if to tell me I was sure to get mine in the end. “He knows I hate him” I thought to myself. “I'm dead meat.”
At the dinner table, there was Charlie. Watching T.V., there was Charlie. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! I could not stand it! Little did I know there was more than met the eye.
My sister was in love with Charlie. I guess I would have to say he was her first boyfriend. Which in some ways was a good thing. He never sat around in the living room, flipping through channels on the T.V., he never demanded a beer from the fridge. He couldn't drive, so we never worried about him getting my sister into an accident, he never spent six hours in a Home Depot looking at power tools. Of course, in retrospect, none of these things mattered since my sister was only seven, and my parents didn't allow her to date or drink beer. Of course they were oblivious that she already had a live in boyfriend. That certainly would have freaked them out.
See, beyond the weird voices, she was actually learning to kiss with Charlie. I guess those blood red lips were appealing to her. Maybe it was the tuxedo. Regardless, never had two objects, one being human and the other inanimate, had such a love affair. If Charlie's red lipstick wasn't permanent, Heather would have walked around with it smeared all over her face constantly.
“Oh Charlie,” she would say. “I just love your kisses.” I was completely freaked out yet mesmerized. After all she was doing all the work. He just sat there being victimized by a seven year old. I actually started feeling sorry for the poor, ugly, guy.
I would peek into her room and see her straightening his bow tie, and acting as if she was pushing his fake plastic hair to one side. She would look at him adoringly and give him a mighty bear hug. She would get up and swing him around the room like she was practicing a scene from The Sound of Music.
I would stand there with my mouth hanging open. I mean after all, I hadn't even kissed a live person yet. She was getting more action than I was and I was more then half her age. I think I started to feel a little jealous.
Part of me hoped she would get caught in the act. They would have my totally insane sister committed to a full-time psych facility. I would watch them drive off with her sitting in the car. She would have her head turned toward the house, tears running down her face as she left behind her beloved. I was really starting to hope she would get busted. I would feel sorry for her for an instant and after they were out of sight, I'd run up to her room and grab Charlie.
He would be all mine now.

Come on Charlie, I need some kisses...