Apple Pie High (and Low)

The worst whuppin I ever got as a boy was when I took all the apples outta the apple pie. I guess I was about 7 years old, and my mother had made one of her awesome pies for after dinner and left it on the counter to cool. Now, one thing the Wilson men loved after a dinner was some homemade apple pie. Apple pie, some Breyer's vanilla, fucking a. As the pie cooled my brother and were goofing around, doing whatever, and I caught a whiff of that damn pie.

Now, one thing that was strange is that this was a weekday night – usually apple pie was reserved for Sunday Dinner. I don’t know what the occasion was, but the thing was sitting there, waiting for when my dad came home so we could have dinner. Usually when the pie was cooling, it was during Sunday Dinner, so my nose was locked in on all the roast chicken and homemade rolls glory it could stand. But with the pie being the only thing in the kitchen to play speedbag with my olfactory nerve, I was helpless. I walked up to the pie on the counter. “Hello, pie!” I looked around, nobody else was there and of course I thought you know, if I just take one little piece of apple, oozing it’s brown sugar goodness, nobody will notice, right? I'll just take a tiny taste which will tide me over. I found a tiny crevice in the crust which I knew was my “in.”

I’ve always been a bumbling, clumsy oaf. Even at my smallest in my youth, I had a tendency to just barrel through things (as I do now, to an even greater extent.) I was never one for the “subtle touch.” But fishing out a piece of apple from this pie jesus christ, I became part ninja, part neurosurgeon. Ninjasurgeon. Two fingers working juuuuuuuusts so, sliding that piece of apple out not even touching the crust, which remained unsullied to the naked eye. Slurping down my prize I was looking at the pie and noticed that now there was a slight indention (if you knew where to look, of course.) So of course my next thought is well, sliding out another piece will be even easier.

Fast forward about 3 minutes and I’m looking at an apple pie with no apples. Crust hovering over nothing but air. My face is covered in a glaze of baked apples, and I am a pig in shit. And I am so high on apple drippings and sugar that I find myself saying you know…the crust still looks great, so maybe if I don’t say anything nobody will notice. Like you know, maybe my Mom will cut into it, find no apples and shrug "hmm, whaddya know, i forgot to put the apples in. Sorry guys!" Seemed so plausible, at the time. I walked away from the scene of the crime and in a way that only a 7 year old thinks thought that maybe, just maybe I was gonna get away with it. Hmm.

Dinner was a struggle. I realized that I was gonna hafta eat as much as I normally would so as not to arouse suspicion…but I also had about a pound of apples and sugar in my guts. For the only time in my life, the meat and potatoes when down like thumbtacks that night, my friends.

So now dinner’s over and my Dad and brother are like “bring on the pie!!!”, almost cheering out loud as my mother brings it to the table. I, of course, have to pretend to join in “alriiiight, pie!!” My first line of genius? I actually looked up and asked what kind of pie it was. G E N I U S!! “Apple” my mother said, which was met with an overdose of pretend glee from myself. Then the knife is lowered to the pipe, there are three plates being held in the air awaiting a piece of pie, the knife hits the crust and presses down and … pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft.

I can still see the look of shock on my mother’s face. And, looking around, on my dad and brother’s faces. I, of course, had to keep acting. “Alllrright, apple pie!! YES!!!” waving my plate around in my mother's face as if I thought a piece of pie would actually appear.

Needless to say within about 4 seconds everyone knew what had happened. As I have stated before, while my mother handled my daily beatings, my father would beat me if my act had qualified for what I might call “The Super Bowl of Beatings” – like in real football it happened once a year and I was left black and blue. And as I could quickly tell by the rage in my father’s face as he jumped up and whipped off his belt in one motion, picking out all the apples from his apple pie definitely qualified. "Hall of Fame beating on the way", I thought.

A normal whuppin usually entailed an orderly march to the bedroom, where I would lean over the bed and receive my lashings. This being such an egregious act on my part (breaking my Dad's typewriter was one thing, but his apple pie???? ooooh, shiiiiiiit), there was no time to be spent on formalities and I found myself facing the refrigerator, bracing myself for my beating. Hell started raining down upon my ass and I was like geez, this is gonna suck.

Now if you recall, I had by now eaten a whole apple pie as well as a whole dinner. As I got my ass beat a frightening thought started creeping in...ohoh…all those apples are coming back up. I thought about breaking away and running outside to puke, but I knew if I tried to run from my beating they would find my body in the wood paneling decades later. WHACK!! WHACK!! The leather sailed into my ass again and again. And of course at this point I start to think you know what…if I puke during a beating, maybe my Dad will feel so bad, think that he had hurt me so much I threw up, that maybe I’d never get another whupping!!! YES! The next time the apples started coming back up I did not hold them down, and next thing you know I am spraying against the refrigerator door like a cannon. Yeesh. The outburst stunned my Dad, who stood frozen with the belt high in the air looking at his own son’s insides sprayed against the door. I’ve done it, I thought, I’m a genius!!! No more whuppings ever, no matter what!! I did it!!!!!!!!

In an act of malevolant science, the apples had remained for the most part whole. So of course now as he’s looking at them my Dad is actually reminded of what I had done to his pie. Hell hath no fury like a man without his pie.

WHACK!! WHACK!! WHACK!!!