Ch. 5-A Self-Made Dilemma

Author's Note: Sorry for those of you who were expecting a bit more action by now, but I felt that this loooong chapter was needed to set a tone for things to come, so to speak.

The lyrics that Wilt is singing in this chapter, by the way, are from the R&B classic, Hang On In There, Baby, written and recorded by Johnny Bristol, 1974. Writing from Wilt's perspective is so much fun, since it brings back memories of my own!

Eleven-fifteen. The glowing red numerals from the clock on the small bedside table seemed to taunt the owner of the single eye capable of viewing them, as he lay wide-awake on the floor underneath the room's lower bunk. Eleven-SIXTEEN. Wilt sighed. He'd done his best to avoid actually looking at those glowing red numerals, since it has always been his experience that the more aware of the time he was whenever he was having trouble sleeping, the harder it became to actually fall asleep, and the faster time seemed to go by. It wasn't often, fortunately, that Wilt HAD trouble falling asleep, not anymore, anyway. Not unless something unpleasant was on his mind, and that, as it turned out, was the case tonight. In the bed above him, the cause of that trouble snored soundly, completely unaware of the anxiety-ridden situation underneath that bed. NO, Wilt chastised himself mentally, You can't blame Bloo for being Bloo! You had the option of turning away, and keeping your mouth shut, but you screwed up! You let a two-foot-tall blue blob get to you, and look where it got you! NOW just how do you plan on getting yourself out of THIS mess, hmm?

How, indeed? Wilt furiously avoided looking at the darned clock again, knowing that doing so would only add to the problem. He had to help Frankie with breakfast in the morning, and he needed sleep, but his dilemma kept nagging at him. He rolled over on his side, so he'd be facing away from the clock, and closed his one real eye.

He totally failed to fall asleep. Trying not to groan out loud enough to wake any of his three roommates, ESPECIALLY not Bloo, whom he knew would probably derive great satisfaction from knowing what tribulations his little bet was causing the other party in the wager, Wilt rolled over again. How long had it been since he last looked at the clock? Five minutes? He opened his eye.

Twelve-eleven! It was all Wilt could do to keep from actually saying a word that he DEFINITELY didn't want the others to hear him say. MAN, has THAT much time passed already? I have to get up at six-that's enough sleep, right? Riiiiiggtttt….

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Six-twenty-five. The glowing green numerals on the clock seemed to be trying to say something rather important to Frankie Foster, though it took nearly 10 more additional minutes for her brain to register exactly what they had tried to say. "OH, SHOOT!" yelled the red-head out loud, to no one in particular, as she practically bolted upright and lunged across the small space that separated her bed from the alarm clock. Grabbing the offending piece of electronics in her hand, she glowered at it in disbelief. Surely she'd remembered to set the alarm, hadn't she? One look told her that, NO, the alarm had not been switched on, therefore it stood to reason that it had not gone off and awaked her at six-o'clock, to make breakfast! All that mess the night before, with her friends challenging her to go on a blind date by actually using one of those stupid internet dating sites must have left her mind a bit scrambled. "Mr. H. is gonna SOOOO chew me out!" she groaned out loud to herself, as she hastily struggled to fight off the last remnants of sleep and pull on some clothes. "Man, I just hope that everyone ELSE decides to sleep in this morning so they don't notice that breakfast is a bit late!" What a dumb idea, thinking you can find Mr. Right through one of those dating sites! Only desperate losers go on sites like that! I can just hear it now, "Oh, sorry, Mr. Herriman; I sorta overslept because, you see, my friends talked me into going on this internet dating site and filling out all this information so I can hook up with some OTHER loser who can't find a date any other way and…WHAT? You don't care? I can't have a night off for another YEAR? NO WAY!"

"Alright, gotta make toast, gotta make coffee, gotta pour the juice…gotta…gotta FIND MY DARN SHOES…Whoa, just calm down, Frankie-calm DOWN! You know the shoes have gotta be in this room, somewhere!" Frankie tried to reason with herself, glad that there was no one in outside in the hallway to hear to talking to herself like a crazy woman. She took a deep breath, looking around, sighing with relief as her eyes fell on first one sneaker, underneath her bed, then the other, over near the door. "Man, I musta been brain-fried when I got in last night!" The one consolation her mind could find, though, was that Wilt was most likely up and already starting to prepare breakfast himself, after what was surely(for him)a nice, long night of peaceful rest, so she knew she could at least look forward to his jokes and sense of humor to start off the morning the right way, and hopefully Mr. Herriman wouldn't notice that she'd showed up a bit later than usual.

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As it turned out, Frankie WAS right about one thing: Wilt WAS already in the kitchen, starting to prepare breakfast. She was absolutely mistaken about him having had a nice, long night of peaceful rest, however. Wilt's night, had in fact, been anything but restful, and he pondered on that fact over his second-no, THIRD, cup of black coffee as he struggled, one-handed, with a twist-tie on a loaf of white bread, wondering just how long it would be before those two hours(WAS it two hours? More like an hour and fifteen minutes, you mean…) of sleep he finally had been able to grab would last before he simply conked out like a worn-out engine. Yeah, old and worn-out…and you think you 'still got it'! The previous night, unable to sleep, Wilt had finally resorted to putting on his headphones and tuning in to that R&B station, "Old Skool 99", which played soft romantic classic Soul hits late at night, the sort of music that had more or less been the soundtrack of his early life, "back in the day", as he liked to put it. It had worked, actually, giving him that precious two-hours(yeah, if that's what you wanna call it) of sleep, before his own internal alarm clock had awakened him, on time, fortunately, to go downstairs and help Frankie with breakfast. He'd been a bit surprised to find the kitchen still dark when he got there, since Frankie was usually there before he was. Still, he had a job to do, and sleepy or not, he couldn't let Frankie down. Surely she'd be down in a few seconds, the thought of her walking through those swinging doors actually helped wake him up a bit, or, was it the coffee? Must be the coffee; yeah, that's it. To further help him to stay awake and at least alert enough that he didn't do something completely stupid, like pour orange juice in the toaster, for instance, Wilt started to sing an old song that he must have been listening to when he finally fell asleep. The thought occurred to him to tell Frankie about his situation, with the bet with Bloo, but should he trouble her with a problem he'd gotten himself into? After all, SHE wasn't the one who made him agree to that bet, was she?

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As Frankie hastily approached the swinging doors to the kitchen, practically holding her breath that Mr. Herriman wouldn't catch her showing up late, she thought, at first, that someone had left a radio on in there. She paused for a second just outside the doors, and it was then that she realized that the singing was a capella; it was not a radio or stereo, but her usual breakfast assistant providing the morning's entertainment. She smiled to herself as she listened to Wilt's singing, musing that he DID actually have a very nice singing voice, though he'd never admit it. As she listened, she became aware that the lyrics of this particular tune were, by what she assumed were Wilt's standards, anyway, a tad…racy.

"Hang on in there, baby

hang on in there, darlin'!

I'm gonna give you more

Than you ever thought possible.

Don't be afraid, baby

We can't help but make it,

'Cause there's true love between us, girl.

So let's touch that cloud that every

Girl dreams of…"

Grinning mischievously, Frankie quietly stepped through the double doors, watching her breakfast helper at the counter performing a little bump and grind to accompany his singing, then spoke up.

"And exactly WHAT cloud would THAT be, Wilt?

Perhaps it was too much coffee, combined with the events of the previous night, but Wilt's reaction was a bit more than even Frankie had anticipated. He spun around abruptly, his eye wide open, and his form colliding rather roughly with the counter top, as though he were going to leap backwards upon it.

"Aagghhh! Oh, MAN, Frankie, you like to have scared the DAYLIGHTS outa me!"

"Sorry," Frankie said, rather meekly; she hadn't really meant to nearly give the guy a heart attack, after all. "I was just listening to you singing, and…"

"Me SINGING? Uh, how long were you listening, exactly?" Wilt questioned, feeling an uncomfortable warmth spreading its way across his face, and glad, for once, that his "default" color was already red! He rubbed at the back of his neck with his hand.

Frankie could barely suppress a giggle, knowing exactly why it would matter to Wilt just how long she'd been listening. "Look, Wilt, it's cool; it's not like I'm gonna report you to the Decency Police or something 'cause you were singing some sexy lyrics! Besides, I gotta admit that you really do have a great singing voice and sounded pretty darn sexy yourself! Ever thought of a professional recording career?"

If Wilt had been able to find a conveniently large enough rock, he would probably have crawled under it at that moment. Having no such large piece of geology, though, he had to settle for a very embarrassed-sounding laugh and averting his gaze.

"No, no…never considered bein' a professional singer. I'm not THAT good, anyways! I was just singin' this song that I used to hear on the radio a lot; you know how you get this one song in your head when you wake up, and it's like, with you all day?"

"Oh, yeah, happens to me all the time. At least yours is a decent tune, though. It really bites to have this stupid ditty from a commercial or something embed itself on your brain for twenty-four hours! Anyway, how's it going?"

Wilt didn't answer for a moment, which was unusual for him, Frankie thought. He was the sort who'd normally answer, "fine, goin' great" to that question even if he was currently under attack by a pack of rabid wolverines, just because he didn't want his troubles to cause anyone else any problems. Instead, he just sighed.

"Alright, tell me what the problem is, and DON'T try to tell me that there isn't one, because I know you better than THAT!"

Wilt signed again, looking around the room as if searching for a way out, before replying, "Oh, really, it's no big deal, Frankie. I really wouldn't want to trouble you because of something dumb that I did." He waved his hand in the air, dismissively.

Frankie looked a tad worried now. "Come on, it can't be so dumb that you can't tell ME about it. At least you'd be getting it off your chest, even if I can't be of much help."

Wilt leaned back against the counter top, facing her, his fingers drumming nervously on the edge of the counter. He started to tell her-maybe she actually could help; after all, Frankie WAS a young woman, and maybe the perspective of a human female was exactly what he needed, but no. His pride wouldn't let him-now just now, anyway. He bit his lip as he tried to think of something to tell her that would take her mind off being concerned for him. He'd made his bed, darn it, and he was just gonna have to sleep in it…sleep…man what I wouldn't do for some of THAT right now! Fortunately, a rather odd coincidence saved him from having to do something that Wilt totally dreaded doing: making up a bald-faced lie to tell Frankie. A glance around to the counter, where he'd been preparing toast just a few minutes earlier, revealed a pot holder than seemed to have gone missing.

"I, uh…I'm sorry, but I seem to have lost theeeeee….uhm, pot-holder I was gonna use to put this, this…rack of toast in the over. Yeah, that's it…can't find the pot-holder. Don't know what happened to the little sucker!" Wilt gave a half-hearted, nervous chuckle.

Frankie didn't buy it, but she also knew from experience that there was no point in pushing Wilt to talk about something he didn't want to discuss. For all his positive character traits-helpfulness, politeness, caring for others, and so on and so forth-Wilt could be one of the most hard-headed individuals on the planet, and he was a master of keeping secrets. So, even though she arched her brow to show her skepticism of his excuse, she leaned around him to pretend to look for the missing pot-holder. It did not take her long to find it, though it was, she had to admit, in a rather odd place-sitting on the flat bread rack, amidst several slices of white bread, ready for the oven. Her skeptical frown morphed into a grin. "So, you were planning on toasting that thing, or what?"

"Huh?" Wilt followed her gaze with his own, and it actually took him a few seconds to spot the errant cloth pot-holder sitting there on the bread rack, innocently pretending to be a slice of enriched white bread. Honestly, he did NOT remember putting it there, and why THERE, of all places…'nother senior moment, I guess. He couldn't help but laugh out loud at why his mind would be so addled as to put the pot-holder on the bread rack, but he got an even bigger laugh imagining what would have happened if it had actually got toasted and wound up on someone's breakfast plate! "Man, I'm glad you spotted that, Frankie! Can you imagine how it would have been if somebody had gotten that thing on their plate, and thought it was a piece of toast?"

"Yeah, especially if it had been Eduardo", Frankie giggled, imagining the chaos THAT would have generated, "he'd cause a scene that would make that beach panic scene in the movie Jaws look tame by comparison!"

Wilt laughed again, glad to have some levity to his day at last, to take his mind off…things, and to keep him awake. Boy, Frankie's mention of that movie sure brought back memories! "I dunno, Frankie, that scene was pretty wild!"

Frankie shook her head as she turned and began getting things from the refrigerator. "You know, I still can't see how that movie freaked people out like it did back then; I mean, that shark looked SOOO fake and cheesy!"

"Sorry," answered Wilt, still glad for an excuse not to have to tell Frankie what a fool he'd made of himself the night before, "BUT, you gotta realize that back then, that was state-of-the art special effects. I mean, they didn't have computers and stuff to make movies like they do now. Besides, if you'da had the chance to go see it a theater-full of scared people, it woulda seemed a whole lot more real! Watchin' on a little tv set, with all the commercials 'n stuff, just isn't the same!"

Frankie placed a large jug of milk on the counter. "Did YOU get to see in theaters, when it came out, I mean?"

"Oh, heck yeah! About 50 times!"

"FIFTY times? You're kidding, right?"

"OK, maybe it was more like, I dunno, twenty. I mean, EVERYBODY went and saw it again and again. It's like we couldn't get enough of being scared, I guess." Wilt grinned broadly, his face lighting up with nostalgia, the bet between him and Bloo-and his dilemma of just how to land a human date within the next three-and-a-half weeks-momentarily buried by memories of a simpler time. "Man, Frankie, you know that part when that guy was underneath the water, examinin' that boat, and that dude's head popped outa that hole…I mean, you KNEW SOMETHIN' was gonna happen, right? 'Cuzz of that music…but I swear, the first time I saw that movie, and that head popped outa that hole underneath that boat, I like to have sh…ssshcreamed. Screamed. Yeah, that's it!"

With that, the two of them nearly fell over with laughter, and were still laughing when a familiar Spanish-accented voice cut in.

"Who's head popped out of what hole, Senior Wilt?"

Both Frankie and Wilt turned around to face Eduardo, standing by the swinging doors, his own head cocked to one side in curiosity, rather like a really big and odd-looking puppy dog. Before Wilt could reply, though, Frankie did, and it was not in a way that, to Wilt, was going to help the situation at all!

"Oh, Ed…that guy that got eaten by the shark. HIS head popped outa the…HoMFFF!"

Before Frankie could even finish her sentence, before she could react in any way at all to the sudden movement from behind in her direction, a large, warm red hand had plastered itself firmly across her much of her lower face, covering her mouth, as she felt a pair of even-warmer lips brush against her left ear and breath caress her cheek, sending an unexpected sensation, rather like an electric shock, but much more pleasant, through her startled body. For an instant, Eduardo simply ceased to exist, as her mind tried to cope with this completely unexpected turn of events.

A low, silky masculine voice, with a slightly warning tone, purred in her left ear, "Ix-nay on the ark-shay alk-tay, OW-NAY…O-Kay?" Her brain struggling to remember her "Pig Latin" from her childhood and sort out what she'd just been told, her gaze shifted up to Wilt's single eye, barely more than a centimeter from hers, then followed his gaze as it shifted from her…to Eduardo, who was standing by the doors, his own face having grown pale, an expression of absolute horror gripping it.

"You mean there is SHARKS? Here at Foster's? And they bite somebody's HEAD off?" Ed's voice went up at least an octave with every question.

"Oh, NO, Ed…there are NO sharks at Fosters! No sharks here at all-isn't that right, Frankie?" the voice next to Frankie's ear spoke up loudly and urgently.

"Uhmmff..uhn..UHHHMMFFF…!"

"Oh, SORRY!" Wilt had not realized that he still had his hand covering Frankie's mouth. He quickly removed it, grinning sheepishly at her while trying to stand tall and look as reassuring as possible to his terrified friend. Frankie took a deep breath, still shaken by the powerful sensation that she'd just experienced, and trying to make some sense of it while thinking up something to say to Eduardo that would hopefully forestall one of his panic attacks.

"Uh, oh…right, no sharks at Foster's, Ed! Everyone is perfectly safe from…sharks…here! I can personally guarantee that no one will be eaten by a shark while at Foster's!"

Frankie might as well have been talking to the refrigerator.

Ed looked even more ashen than before, grabbing his head in his front hooves in a manner that Wilt knew was a sure precursor of all all-out, patented Eduardo panic attack, as he moaned, "!Ay caramba! El tiburon is gonna eat us all UP! I must go warn the others, before they all gets their heads bit off by el tiburon!" With a characteristic yell of pure panic, Eduardo turned and bolted out of the kitchen through the double doors, and Wilt and Frankie could both hear the resulting excitement as he made his way, like the proverbial bull in the China shop, though the dining area, where many of the home's residents had already gathered for breakfast. A rather uncomfortable silence built between the two of them, finally broken by Wilt.

"Uh, look, Frankie…I'm sorry about grabbing you like that, I uh…"

"Don't worry, Wilt. I'm the one who should be apologizing here, since I'm the one who forgot all about Ed and his little 'hang-ups'. Sorry, I really didn't mean to scare him."

"Oh, no, Frankie, don't apologize. It wasn't your fault, really. We were just cuttin' up a bit and it slipped out; I totally understand!" Wilt laughed a bit, and tried to force a smile.

Frankie attempted to match the smile, knowing that she'd still been at fault, and should have known better. "Yeah, I guess he'll be alright, once he calms down and realizes that there really AREN'T any sharks at Foster's! Besides, I'm sure he'll forget all it by bedtime, knowing Eduardo, right?"

"Yeah, I hope so. But look, I guess I need to go find him, and try to talk some sense into him, you know…help calm him down before he knocks down a wall or somethin'." Wilt looked down at the floor for a second, then back at Frankie, "Sorry, but I hope you'll understand. Is that OK?"

"Sure, no problem, Wilt. You do what you gotta do, and I can handle breakfast."

With that, Wilt strode out of the kitchen, to go in search of his terrified friend/roommate. Great, he thought as he pushed his way through the swinging doors, NOW I've got TWO reasons why I won't be getting any sleep…for a second night in a ROW!