Shaun Dawson (00:07)
Hello and welcome back to Raising Men. I'm your host, Sean Dawson. And earlier this week I had the pleasure of getting to talk to Dr. Randolph Schiffer about his book Bedtime Stories That Will Terrify Children. It was an interesting discussion about how like actually kind of experiencing fear in a controlled environment is really, really, really healthy for young men.

Shaun Dawson (00:36)
And he has a book that helps make that happen. And so for today's little shorter episode, I thought that I would read one of those stories for you guys. And so that's what we'll do here today.

Shaun Dawson (00:51)
The story that I want to focus on is called Dog.

Shaun Dawson (00:55)
And so we'll just jump right into it.

Shaun Dawson (00:57)
It was in the time of year when wind turns cool and the leaves display colors of orange and red. But father began the stories. He came into our room that first night after Randy and I had been put to bed in our bunk beds. He carried with him a red candle in a pewter holder, the story candle, as we would come to call it. He sat himself down in the center of the round.

Shaun Dawson (01:27)
Yarn rug and set the candle down in front of him. Its yellow light drew dark lines across his face, and he looked in a way we had not seen before. He waited, and after a while the stories began. Telling the stories would last one year.

Shaun Dawson (01:48)
It was on a night such as this when the noises first came, said Father, as he began the first story. It was the season of the year when days grow short, then shorter, then so short that children begin to wonder whether it might never end, and the light of day itself would disappear, he said. Earlier that day in the playroom, with the yellow carpet and the basement in the cedar house in the forest, there had been omens, warnings, and

Shaun Dawson (02:16)
That naw that all might not be right. The winds came from the north that day, from unknown faraway lands of snow and ice, bringing with them streaking sheets of rain that slashed against the high playroom windows. The windows were so high neither of the boys playing there was tall enough to see out of them. With the winds came sounds, morning sounds.

Shaun Dawson (02:46)
rooms and sighs as of spirits lost and doomed forever to ride the currents of the winds, searching for something they could never find. It's only the wind, said Gail, the childminder. She hitched the boys up one at a time, so that they were close to the dark windows, close enough that they could peer into the darkness and touch one small pale hand.

Shaun Dawson (03:15)
Against their cold glass. I should say here, if you haven't already guessed, that although Randy and I were being told the stories, we were also in them. Others from our lives at that time were also in them, making it difficult from time to time to distinguish what was real from what was not.

Shaun Dawson (03:34)
You can always tail tell when Gail was close by because her heart made an audible tick tick tick tock tock tock sound, continued the father. She'd been born with a heart that could not properly talk, so the doctors gave her a better mechanism. It was better than it was, but it still wouldn't go tick tock, tick tock. After that, Gail could not do the kinds of jobs that most grown ups do. Instead,

Shaun Dawson (04:02)
She came each day and made the two boys, Randy and Brenton, her job. She looked after Candy, their big tan colored dog with a long black nose. Now, in the yellow playroom, Gail knelt down beside the two boys and put her arms around them. The spirit noises of the winds will pass, she said, and all was better with the boys. But Candy slunk away and crawled into the colored.

Shaun Dawson (04:31)
Plastic doghouse in the far corner of the playroom. Once inside, she turned herself around as dogs do, so all anyone saw was her long black nose sticking out the front. The father briefly paused the story here, and after a time continued, he did that very often. That night, after bedtime, the two boys lay awake in their bunk beds.

Shaun Dawson (04:59)
They listened to the sounds that houses make in the night, he said. They heard the sounds of the parents coming home, of Gail taking her departure, of the parents going up the carpeted stairs to their bedroom, down the hallway. At first all was quiet, but then there were other sounds, whirrings and clickings. The sounds electrical appliances make. There were also creaks and twists.

Shaun Dawson (05:28)
The sounds wooden boards bound up within the walls make complaining, perhaps of the years and the weight they must bear. But then came a sound unlike the others, said the father. It came from someplace deep within the house. Downstairs, perhaps, at the doorway, or maybe even outside. It was crying out, high pitched and mournful.

Shaun Dawson (05:56)
A whining protest against the terrible sadness of this life. The two boys lay eyes open in the dark, not speaking, just listening. And then the sound stopped. Silence came over the darkened house and the story, and also over the candle flickered bedroom in which the father told us the story. The two boys

Shaun Dawson (06:24)
continued the father, when he was ready. Remembered what Gail had told them in the playroom with the yellow carpet, about the passing of the wind. They thought, like the noise of the wind, that these noises would pass, but then the noises came again. Short screams came now, urgent callings out for help, perhaps, or for something worse. Clawing sounds and scratchings emanated.

Shaun Dawson (06:52)
From the hallway outside their bedroom and from somewhere down the carpeted staircase to the great white door. The door that had never yet been opened by a child's hand stood tall and strong, defending the entrance to the cedar house in the forest.

Shaun Dawson (07:11)
From the upper bunk, Brenton spoke. Did you hear that, Randy? No answer from below. It's downstairs, outside the white door, said Brenton. It's outside. It wants in.

Shaun Dawson (07:26)
In the lower bunk, Randy slowly pulled the puff cover up and over his small blonde head, leaving only a single opening big enough for just one eye to peer out. All he could see in the gray back, black uncolors of the night was the open doorway of their bedroom that led out to the hallway and the place where the carpeted stairs descended to the tile floor below. Now came a throatier sound from the

Shaun Dawson (07:55)
Somewhere in the dark night hallway of the Cedar House, continued the father. It was a growly sound, the sound of an animal of a certain size, an animal hungry, an animal angry, an animal wanting in. Brenton was in the top bunk, appropriately enough, because he was seven, and Randy was five. Fine and dandy this had been, in Brenton's view, until now. At that moment,

Shaun Dawson (08:21)
He would have given one of his best things from his special things wooden box to have been younger and in the bottom bunk, but he wasn't. He was two years older than Randy. He was the big brother. It was up to him to do something. I'm going to the parents for help, said Brenton, after a short while to a silent room. Once he said the words, he had no choice. He had to do it. So, brave footed in his cloth zippered pajamas,

Shaun Dawson (08:51)
Brenton climbed down the four pine board ladder steps from the upper bunk to the wooden floor of the bedroom. The floor's pine boards felt cold even against his PJ's footy feet. He turned and faced the open doorway and out beyond.

Shaun Dawson (09:11)
The long, long hallway to the parents' large bedroom. He paused, standing in the dark. It seemed like such a long way to go. He looked back up the four ladder steps to the warmth and safety of the upper bunk once he'd come. But when you're seven years old, you can't go back. He stepped forward across the yarn circle rug in the center of the room, to the open bedroom door, then out, bravely.

Shaun Dawson (09:40)
Randy went down the hallway, walking the gauntlet to the parents' bedroom. In the lower bunk Randy watched one eyed, and waited. Time passed, said the father.

Shaun Dawson (09:53)
And it was even in the candlelit bedroom where father was telling the story.

Shaun Dawson (09:57)
Then he went on.

Shaun Dawson (09:58)
Randy saw with his one eye many things, all shadowy shapes, drifting in darkness, unreal, or so he told himself. But then after a time, there in the bedroom doorway was something that did not drift. A hunched over figure? Perhaps not. If it were a real figure, thought Randy, he would it would move. Randy closed his one eye and opened it. He looked. The figure moved. It came and

Shaun Dawson (10:28)
Into the bedroom.

Shaun Dawson (10:29)
The hunchy figure reached the circle rug in the center of the room where it slowed, stumbled, stopped. It slumped itself down into the circle rug, and there it lay. It sobbed most horribly, then Randy knew. It was Brenton.

Shaun Dawson (10:47)
Go back to bed, sobbed Brenton from the rug. Go to sleep, moaned Brenton. That's all the parents said, he exclaimed as he wept and muttered to himself, still a heap on the rug. Nothing more. He wept, and he lay still. Here, the father paused the telling of the story, which was something he did and would do more as the year of stories went on.

Shaun Dawson (11:10)
I can't tell you what it was the changed Randy, he said, when he continued. Courage is a strange thing, he said. His voice sounded as if he were talking more to himself than to the boys.

Shaun Dawson (11:24)
The loss of courage is as common as its resurrection, he said.

Shaun Dawson (11:28)
Anyway, just here, as Randy boldly moved the puff cover aside, using one pudgy arm, he rotated his flanneled feet so that they hung down from the lower bunk, almost touching the wooden floor. He budged himself down to stand on the floor and stepped forward to the open doorway of the bedroom. As he passed over the circle rug, one footy clad foot stepped on Brendan's backside.

Shaun Dawson (11:56)
From the darkened doorway, he turned and called to Brenton. Get off the wug! And then Randy disappeared down the darkened hallway. In the upstairs hallway, when he reached the carpeted stairway leading down to the great white door, Randy stopped. The steps were big, they were high. He'd never before gone down them alone. Whatever it was that was outside the great white door was quiet now. Randy waited there. At the top,

Shaun Dawson (12:24)
Of the carpeted stairs. Then, from behind, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned. It was Brenton. Come on, Randy, said Brenton. Let's go down these steps together. And so they went, two boys, side by side and step by step, one step at a time, because that was the only way Randy could do it. At the bottom of the carpeted steps, a cold tiled landing took them to the great white door.

Shaun Dawson (12:55)
Maybe there's nothing out there, said Brenton, very softly, standing with Randy at the towering.

Shaun Dawson (13:01)
Now suddenly the massive door began to shake. The most horrible, agonized shrieking came from just outside the door. A soprano yipping, full of rage and hunger, a sound that only some large, desperate beast might make. Within its wooden frameboards the door shook in and out. The door had a great, shiny metal lover handle. Grown ups knew how to turn it of the shaking and the growling. Brenton now.

Shaun Dawson (13:31)
Took no heed. He stepped forward. He placed his hands on the cold metal door handle. Just then, the beast hurtled itself with all its might against the white door's heavy wooden slats, forcing Brenton to release his hold on the handle and landing him in a heap on the cold tiled floor. There he lay and did not move.

Shaun Dawson (13:50)
The ghastly screaming and shaking of the door continued. Randy stepped forward, short as he was, reached up, and grasped the tiny bronze metal handle with both pudgy hands. Like on the play bars of the Wimpole Street School the two boys attended, Randy now hung free, feet dangling, swaying from the metal handle. Turn me, he said. Brenton did. He took hold of Randy's legs and swayed him back.

Shaun Dawson (14:20)
First left, then right, the white door shook. The growls outside growled. Randy swung. Then of a sudden, click, the door opened. The mighty white door swayed inward, and once started, it could not be stopped. Randy let go of the handle and both boys tumbled. As the motion of the door slid them back across the tiles to the lowest step of the stairs.

Shaun Dawson (14:48)
Icy night winds now stormed into the cedar house, sweeping over the tiled entryway and swirling the two boys where they lay. Moist and soggy leaves mushed over them, sticking to and sliming their white faces. And there it was, with leaves, a huge furry monster entered the house, paws flailing, frantic and wild, growling and tearing, knocking one boy this way, the other that.

Shaun Dawson (15:18)
Randy flattened himself beneath the protruding edge of the lowest step. Brenton tried to roll away, but the beast had him in his sharp, clawed paws. The animal instinctively stood over him, held him fast within its beastly legs, and drooled. Brenton closed his eyes. Whatever was coming, he was ready, and then it came. The beast drew its large, slushy chung, slushy tongue across Brenton's small, pale face.

Shaun Dawson (15:48)
making a slurping sound as he did. The animal's broad tail thumped against Brenton's body. Finally, Brenton opened his eyes. Candy, he said. Furry and smiley and woofy, Candy now bounced where Randy lay beneath the step, and joyfully slobbered as her tail thumped him. It's Candy, Randy, said Brenton, where he lay upon the tiles. She must have gotten locked out.

Shaun Dawson (16:18)
From upstairs now came the father's mighty voice. Close that door and go back to bed and be quiet, or I'm gonna call the colonel. On footy feet, Brenton and Randy stood up. Together. They swung the door back against the nighttime woods. It clicked. Candy stood next to them, tail wagging. Let's take Candy to the kitchen, said Brendan, and get

Shaun Dawson (16:44)
her a biscuit.

Shaun Dawson (16:47)
This is raising men, and you are a great parent.