It was nearly a year later before I came into contact with balloons again. It was the occasion of our local fire company's street carnival which was held about the middle of June each year. During and since the war they did not have any balloons for prizes at any of the stands because balloons just weren't available. The carnival ran three nights, Thursday through Saturday. It was the last week of school for the summer and I couldn't wait for Thursday night to roll around so I could check to see if this year they might have my favorite toys. The carnival was held along a section of a street that was blocked off to traffic about four blocks from my home. After supper Thursday night I ran the entire distance hoping that this year they would have balloon prizes at the penny pitch stand since there had been balloons at the carnival in the neighboring town the previous year.

As I zeroed in on the stand where they generally gave out balloons as prizes my heart sank. I didn't see any of the brightly colored toys hanging from the light wires that crisscrossed between the corners of the stand. However, as I got closer I saw something even better. They had Mickey Mouse balloons. Not the usual round head with two round ears kind; but a complete Mickey with an additional elliptical balloon body section imprinted with his trademark shorts with the big buttons. The neck of the balloon was pushed through a heavy cardboard base that was cut out and imprinted with Mickey's shoes. The balloon was a good 32 inches high and probably about 11 inches across the head and body section. A number of the balloons were sitting on their cardboard feet in a corner of the penny pitch stand. The fireman had fashioned a corral like structure to keep the evening breezes from scattering and blowing the balloons over.

I thought that these had to be awfully expensive balloons to be giving away at the penny pitch stand. At this stand, which was 16 feet square, they would have a water filled wash tub with shallow saucers floating about. If you could get your penny to land and stay in one of the saucers you would win a balloon. They normally gave away balloons at these stands for prizes because the normal twelve inch round ones were relatively cheap. It wasn't all that easy, however, to get a penny to land and stay in the saucers, especially for kids who couldn't reach very far into the stand over the side rails. This year, because of what they probably had to pay for the printed sculptured balloons, they were making you get two pennies in the saucers to win one. This easily more than doubled their penny intake per balloon given away.

Even though I was early, the stand was crowded with adults trying to win balloons for their kids. In addition there were several older teens who were there with their girlfriends. There were also three older boys, fifteen or sixteen, I surmised tossing away their allowance. There was no room for me to get in to play except at the corners, which made it a lot harder because you had to toss the penny much further, so I just hung around and waited.

After about five minutes or so the three boys had each managed to win themselves a balloon each. They walked away from the stand a bit self conscious because of the fact that boys their age don't usually like to be seen with balloons; and here they were walking around with the big Mickey balloons at a fairly crowded street carnival. They didn't seem to know what to do with them. They were holding them by the cardboard feet and using them to swat each other. I figured the balloons weren't going to last very long and I wished I had the nerve to go ask them to give them to me if they were just going to bust them. At this point they had gotten to the edge of the carnival area. There they set the three balloons side by side on the sidewalk. Then they each took a step backward and simultaneously kicked each of the balloons. The toes of their shoes dug into Mickey's big buttoned shorts, the main section of the balloon, and the three balloons burst simultaneously with a thunderous bang. The cardboard feet with the rubber remains of most of Mickey sailed out about ten feet in front of them. Everyone turned to see what had happened as the boys raced away from their sudden un expected attention. Oh how I would have loved to go over and grab that torn rubber. It was out of the question; however. There were too many people milling around. Seeing the boys so casually busting their balloons had my little 'dickey' all nice and firm in short order.

Finally one of the fireman running the stand noticed that I wanted to play and he made a couple of people move aside so I could toss my pennies from the center of one of the sides. I had him give me 100 pennies for my dollar and I started tossing away. I went through about 80 pennies before I got the first one in. In no time at all I went through the first 100 I had him give me an additional 100. Then I finally got a second penny in. The man asked me what color balloon I wanted and I said "green" my favorite color. He picked a green one from the dozen or so in the corner and put it aside.

I had just about finished the second hundred pennies when I got the first in for a second balloon. When I held out a third dollar to get more pennies he said that he would not let me waste any more of my money. Instead he handed me a second green balloon along with the first one I had won and told me to go home. I would have loved to have gotten a few more, but I couldn't afford it, since it was obvious that I wasn't overly skilled at tossing pennies in floating saucers. In any case, the balloons were so big that the two of them, one under each arm, was about all I could manage to safely carry.

When I got home mother naturally queried me about the carnival and wondered why I hadn't stayed longer. I showed her the Mickey balloons and said that they were too big to carry around so I brought them home. She immediately wanted to know if I was going to be silly with them. I reminded her that I hadn't done anything with the carnival balloons I had gotten the previous year to get myself sexually aroused. Actually in that instance I didn't have the chance; the sun popped them before I even got any real time to play with them. She said, "All right, if you promise to keep your hands off them and not make yourself silly playing with them you may keep them. If I catch you rubbing yourself with them or otherwise being silly with them I will immediately get rid of them for you. You know that you are twelve years old now and I think you are getting to be a little old to be playing with balloons, don't you?"

I replied, "Yes mom," as I set the two Mickey's on my dresser well away from any direct sunlight.

The following day was the last day of school and we only had a half day session. I ran all the way home half expecting to find my balloons gone. Because of the problems she was having with dad she didn't seem as loving toward me as she had always been, and she was definitely more irritable. The tone of her voice the previous night when we discussed the Mickey balloons led me to suspect my balloons might be in danger. I half expected she might very well change her mind and decide she couldn't trust me not to get myself sexed up with them; and then just decide to finish them off. I rushed home expecting the worst, but to my surprise they were still both sitting on the top of my dresser. Other than the fact that one ear on each was about half its original size because they were slowly loosing air, my balloons were in good shape.

What I didn't expect to see when I walked in the room was the brand new pair of navy blue camp shorts that were laying on my bed. As I picked them up to look them over mom came into the room and ordered me to get out of my school clothes and put the shorts on she had bought for me. I could also tell on her trip downtown that morning to buy the shorts she had made a stop at the liquor store as well. I could tell from her breath and the tone of voice she was using that she had indulged in a few martini's during the course of the morning.

I didn't know what to make of her buying me shorts to wear for the summer. In the post war forties kids much older than five wouldn't be caught dead wearing anything other than long pants, even on sweltering hot days. If she was going to make me wear shorts for the summer I would be the laughing stock of the town and would probably get the tar beat out of me on a daily basis by the other boys. Although short pants were not sexually attractive in any way at this point in my life , I still would have enjoyed the comfort and freedom of movement they provided and would have been more than happy to wear them if it weren't for the social and physical consequences.

I pointed out my concern to mom relative to the likely reaction of the other kids seeing me dressed in 'little boy' pants. She quickly snapped, "Little boys like to play with balloons and since you seem to like toy balloons to play with you must still be a little boy so I think that it's appropriate that you should dress like one. Besides I always liked to see you in shorts and they will be a lot cooler and comfortable to wear in this hot weather."

She stood in the room watching me as I changed. When I was done I sat on the edge of my bed. This was the first time I had had a pair of short pants on since I was eight and we had moved from my birthplace.

No sooner than I had my new shorts on mother grabbed one of the Mickey balloons off the top of my bureau. With the large body section firmly grasped in her right hand she started rubbing the head and ear end on my bare legs and knees. Then she started squishing the ears into my crotch., forcing them between my legs. As she was doing this she roughly commented, "Let's see if balloons still make you silly like they did when you were younger and your father would get you all excited; shall we?"

I fought to control the pleasurable feelings that were flowing over me, but the feel of the balloon massaging my bare legs and crotch area and the smell of the aged rubber soon overcame my ability to control myself and my penis sprang to life. This was the physical signal my mother was looking for. "Ah, I thought so," she snapped. "These damn balloons still make you silly."

She threw the balloon on the floor and stormed out of the room and as it bounced around she said, "I'm going to get you a nice sharp pin and I want you to bust those balloons and get rid of them right now."

At this point I was getting mad myself. I had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to get a couple of lousy balloons for my pleasure and this would be the fourth time she had destroyed them or made me destroy them. In retrospect I knew mom loved me more than anything in the world and she didn't want to see me become trapped in an erotic misplaced fantasy world in my mind which unfortunately had already occurred. In reality I was angry at the booze that was killing the relationship she had with dad and me, not with her. I hopped off the bed and quickly pulled the necks of the balloons loose from the cardboard feet and let the balloons sail around the room as the air discharged. Mom, of course, heard the sound of the deflating balloons and as she walked toward my room with the pin she yelled, "I want those damn balloons destroyed so you can't play with them again."

I picked up the nearly foot long limp rubber bags and handed them to her. I said, "Since you don't like to hear balloons popping you can get rid of them like you did before."

She gave me a quizzical look as I continued, "Remember how you just filled them with a little air and then burned a hole in the rubber skin with your cigarette." (This is what she had done to the balloons I had brought home from Harry's birthday party 5 years earlier).

I had found this inglorious way of destroying balloons very sexually stimulating; and if they had to go I wanted to get the most erotic stimulation possible out of their demise. She gave me a sadistic grin and said, "I've got a better idea. Let's get rid of them once and for all."

Balloons in hand we went out to the back yard through the kitchen where she stopped to pick up her cigarette lighter. She handed me the balloons saying, "Here, hang your balloons up from the branch over here and I'll show you how to get rid of balloons so there is nothing left to play with." (She knew just playing with the torn rubber from broken balloons could get me aroused).

I snapped off two branches and stuck the balloon necks over the broken ends. Two very limp Mickey's were hanging head and ears down. Mother flicked the lighter to life and applied the flame to one of the ears. The rubber immediately shriveled away from the heat but she quickly raised the lighter in hot pursuit. The flame licked the one ear whereupon the rubber quickly burst into flame and my precious toy was instantly rendered useless. Soon big drops of burning latex started dripping on the ground as the licking flame shot up into the main body of the balloon. She moved the flame over and torched the other ear. By the time the head and ears were gone the heat buildup in the body section caused the remains of the balloon to erupt in a large smoky flare that quickly melted the body section off the neck dropping it to the ground in a flaming mass of green and black goo. On the ground beneath the burning neck section of the balloon was a cauldron of burning bubbling rubber. We watched the smoky orange flames for a minute as the tar like rubber residue was slowly consumed.

Then she applied the lighter flame to the ears of the second balloon and it burned just as fiercely. She seemed to enjoy watching my toys burn and did not seem to notice how excited the scene was getting me or the massive hard on that was creating a bulge in the front of the new shorts she had bought me. We stood and watched for several minutes until the flames flickered out during which time she made it clear that I was not to have any contact with toy rubber balloons ever again.

She made me wear the shorts for the rest of the day. No question they were more comfortable than the long pants I was used to; but the fear of being spotted bare kneed by other kids kept me in the house most of the day even though it was a fairly hot and humid. When dad came home from work he thought I looked great wearing shorts and thought I had made an intelligent choice in asking mom to buy them for me. I complained to dad that mom had bought them on her own; I hadn't asked for them. I didn't mention the reason she had given me for her purchase or what had happened to my balloons. I had never seen my parents quarrel but mentioning what she had done to me, purposely getting me sexually aroused, I was sure would have created a very bad scene between them because she had blamed dad for getting me sexed up with our balloon play several years earlier.

I told my father that although I liked wearing the shorts I was afraid what the other kids would think and do to me. I wasn't overly big or strong and there were a lot of bigger older boys in the neighborhood where we lived; so I told him flat out I was afraid of getting beat up. That was a wrong tack because being afraid of anything is not what a father wants to hear from his son; so instead of his rescinding mom's order he told me I was old enough to start being a man and I was to wear them for the rest of the summer. If any bigger boys tried to beat up I was to run home and he would take care of it with their parents when he got home. His words gave me no assurance whatsoever even though I was a very fleet of foot. I could easily outpace and outdistance any of the other boys in my sixth grade class in school, but it was what the older boys would try to do to me that had me really frightened.

The next morning I went over to a friends house. I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't ride me too much about my little boy's outfit. We headed out to the outskirts of town where there was a large wooded area with a creek where we often spent a lot of our time playing. On the way we ran into a gang of four older boys that were not as tolerant as my buddy regarding my wearing shorts. I ignored their taunts and jeers as we walked briskly by. Then they jumped us. Two of them pinned my buddy on the ground while the other two punched and kicked my bare knees. They soon had my legs bloodied and I was sporting a big shiner. I ran home fighting off tears. When mother saw me she cleaned me up and told me I wouldn't have to wear the shorts any more if I promised not to have any more balloons around the house. I was more than anxious to agree and the shorts were put away with my winter clothes.
Rev. Date 9/02
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