Bad Michael

I spent most of my childhood naked.

Not for the typical reasons like those of other children who could just rip off their Sesame Street clothes and run around in the buff simply because they can get away with it—they are young and cute. I, however, was an unfortunate looking child. I was also mostly nude until the age of 4—far past the cute, naked cut-off. It didn't help that I was also awkward, painfully shy, a momma's boy, and was always sporting rainbow stickers, bracelets, and necklaces (my "pretties" I called them.)

My brother Brett, older than me by 2 years, was quite the opposite. Adorable kid, outgoing, confident, and with lots of friends. But, I guess he didn't have quite enough friends to suit him, so he invented one more—Bad Michael. Bad Michael started out fairly innocent. My parents would discover Brett alone in his room with a box of crayons dumped out onto the floor.

"Brett, pick up your mess and wash your hands for dinner," they'd say.

"But it's not my mess...it's Bad Michael's." And so it began.

This new development of my brother's was amusing and only mildly concerning at first. Lots of kids have imaginary friends—his just happened to be evil.

Well, the scapegoating of Bad Michael continued to grow, rather than dissipate as my parents had hoped. We had two geese in an enclosed pond in our backyard—Myra and Ira. I hated them. They scared me with their loud honking and they were very territorial of their little pen. Bad Michael caught wind of my fear and enjoyed locking me in their pen with them. Inside the house my parents couldn't hear my sobs of distress. Myra and Ira didn't like my intrusions and would chase me around the pond, honking at me and goosing my behind. To hurry things along, Bad Michael would have a handful of bread crumbs at the ready, to douse me with and work the geese up into a frenzy. They loved bread and if mauling a small child was the only way to get it—so be it. To further reward them for their attacks, Bad Michael would feed them some more bread by hand after they had sufficiently gored me.

Brett would lead me back inside the house to present to my parents, sniffling and sobbing. "The geese don't like Josh," Brett would say.

"What happened?! How did he get in?!" they'd demand.

"Bad Michael shut him in."

Now, I don't know what it was like to be a busy parent in the early 80's—whether imaginary friends were considered healthy or something to be stopped immediately, but my parents had already had enough nonsense and decided to tell it to my brother straight.

"Bad Michael isn't real," they said gently.

"He IS real! HE'S REAL!" Brett shouted, and proceeded to throw a tantrum the likes of which had never been seen in our house before.

My parents were taken aback. I was usually the cry-baby, not Brett. He hadn't cried much since he was an infant. It was too much to take and so they back-peddled.

"Well...maybe he is real...but maybe he could be Good Michael instead?" they encouraged.

With sobs fading, "I'll ask him about it."

Despite my brother's pleading with him, Bad Michael continued to be bad. Like Picasso's Blue Period, so began my Nude Period. Bad Michael developed a fondness for tearing my clothes off in the most public of places. As soon as my parents' backs were turned, my clothes came off. And as soon as my clothes came off, I'd go running off—primarily to get away from my psychotic brother. I was also a sucker for anything shiny—my brother merely had to point to something with sparkles and off I'd go in hot pursuit. My bare ass was seen running through malls, parking lots, grocery stores, restaurants, nursing homes, and down any given sidewalk of our small town. The locals began to know me as "the naked kid." My parents were, of course, horrified. At pretty much every family outing, an announcement would be heard over the store PA system or intercom, "Would the owner of a naked boy please come to customer service?" My brother would just topple over with laughter every time.

Some of the more embarrassing moments involved the police. On one of my Bad Michael-induced runs down our busy street, a squad car pulled over and apprehended me. Word had gotten around about "the naked kid" by then, and so they knew exactly where to deliver me. The sight of their 3-year old being delivered to their doorstep naked by the police was enough to make my parents snap. They doled out all sorts of punishments to my poor innocent brother as the unsuspecting emissary of Bad Michael. Spankings were administered, toys were taken away, the television was shut off, friends were exiled, and he was locked in his room for hours. I think this only had the adverse effect of giving him more time to plot with his new demonic playmate.

The first family road trip we had since Bad Michael's inception ended in tears all around. I don't even remember the destination, but I know it was supposed to be somewhere fun—like Story Land or Six Flags. This was long before the days of cell phones or GPS devices. We had a giant fold-out map of New England's major roads and that was it. Bless his heart, my father is a terrible driver. He doesn't pay attention to the road, signs, other cars, what lane he's in, or anything else besides NPR on the radio.

Of course halfway through our trip we were lost on the wrong highway and weren't even sure what state we were in. Suspecting something was amiss, my mother ordered my father to pull over so she could look at the map. As we were pulling over into the breakdown lane, Bad Michael snatched the road map from the backseat compartment and tossed it out the open window. Off it fluttered into a swamp. My parents charged out of the car after it, not realizing how wet and muddy the ground on the roadside was. Seizing his opportunity, Bad Michael undid my seatbelt, tore off my clothes, and shoved me outside onto the highway.

Down the highway I ran, not a care in the world. Shiny cars flew by me, swerving around me and honking like the geese I was so familiar with. I'm not sure what honking at a toddler is supposed to accomplish but it did at least alert my parents who turned around to see me jetting down I-95 with no clothes on. Abandoning their pursuit of the map, they chased me down the interstate, screaming and covered in mud. What onlookers of this family affair must have thought, I can't imagine. Probably, thank God that's not us. When we were safely back in the car and my parents caught their breath, the classic threat actually came to life—they did in fact turn the car around and drive home.

Therapy wasn't as mainstream in the mid 80s as it is today. I don't think it occurred to my parents to seek counseling for the Bad Michael dilemma. Time continued to pass and more stress was put on the family. Bad Michael began issuing demands.

"From now on, Bad Michael's not gonna eat anything unless its the right color," Brett declared one morning. "Today he wants everything green and says I can't eat stuff thats not the right color either."

"Fine," countered Mom, "Don't eat."

And he didn't. He didn't eat for three days until my parents caved in. We can't let him starve, and what's the harm in it really? We'll put food coloring in everything. 


So Bad Michael won again. The entire family had to suffer through red eggs, orange oatmeal, purple toast, yellow meatloaf, and pink potatoes. And, we had to wash it all down with blue milk. We went through food coloring like it was Easter year-round. We also went through babysitters at an unusually high rate. Kim, Stephanie, Mrs. Robins, Loise, and Andrea all lasted no longer than a few days each. Eventually our grandmother was the only one who would agree to watch us when my parents needed a break. Remarkably, Bad Michael never introduced himself to her. I think what finally made Bad Michael disappear was Santa Claus.

"You know Brett, Santa doesn't leave toys for bad boys and girls," Grandma would say from her rocking chair.

"I know Gramma, thats why I've been good this year," He'd say sweetly.

"But I hear you are friends with a bad boy—Bad Michael is it? Well I don't think Santa would be very happy to hear that, would you? I would stop playing with anyone who was naughty before I got a lump of coal in my stocking," she would whisper to him.

Bad Michael kept reappearing for the rest of the year, leading me into the woods naked and leaving me there to come home covered in bug bites and poison ivy, feeding nuts and bolts to the geese, riding his bike in the house, and only eating Dr. Seuss-like food.

On Christmas morning that year, when we ran out to the living room at 5:30 a.m. to check under the tree, Brett had nothing on his side, and my side was full of little trinkets and toys. He checked his stocking to find only a single lump of charcoal, where mine was filled with candy and scratch tickets—my favorite.

Bad Michael was gone before New Years. He vanished as quickly as he had appeared. My brother got his Christmas gifts after all, and we went back to our normal fighting—with no help from his imagination. I can't possibly tell you how good it felt to have Brett punch me in the face instead of Bad Michael. Everything was right with the world again.

To this day, Brett denies the existence of Bad Michael, but we know the truth. Of course, it's best not to press the subject too hard—you never know who is lurking behind those hazel eyes.