HOLD YOUR BREATH By David Arment

Every Saturday morning, we would gather behind Mr. Barth’s shed. It was at the end of an alley at the edge of town and we would meet there under the tree. Normally, there were four of us boys, but sometimes Johnny had to bring his little brother because his mom didn’t want to look after him.

His brother would have to endure our objections to his presence. He would stand in the shade of the tree, his arms straight down, artificially stiff. He’d look at the ground and frown. It was a practiced look, like maybe he stood in front of the full length mirror in the bathroom and practiced looking pitiful. 

He knew it would be over soon. A short amount of “razzing” and then he would be able to play most all day with the big boys.

Later in life, he became a mortician. The practice of looking sad, standing with your arms pointed straight at the ground came to be useful. He was a good kid, but it was our job to give the younger boys a hard time, and we took that duty seriously.

We would all go from the barn down the road and into the countryside. We were a scramble of arms and legs; of whoops and hollers. We climbed through or under fences, jumped ditches, and always ended up at a creek or a pond where we would harass the wildlife or build a dam, or float sticks, or climb trees. Sometimes we got really wet and hoped to be dry by the time we walked home.

One day Mark brought a BB gun to our band of scalawags. None of us had ever owned a BB gun. This gun was brand new. We all got to shoot it. I hit a frog. A big one in the pond. I thought I’d killed it and everyone whooped and hollered like I’d killed a bad guy on the TV Western, but he was just stunned and hopped away. I was secretly relieved.

We asked if it was Mark’s birthday. It wasn’t.

We tried to puzzle it out. Not your birthday… It obviously wasn’t Christmas, and he hadn’t graduated college, or anything.

He finally told us that he held his breath in order to get the gun. Which meant absolutely nothing to any of us. What did breathing have to do with anything?

As best as I could figure at the time, based upon the information provided, Mark had held his breath, passed out and was rewarded with a BB gun. He’d seen it at the hardware store.

Our hardware store had everything. It, of course, had

“Hardware,” although I didn’t know what that meant then and I don’t know what it means now. And I heard they had sewing notions. I didn’t know what sewing notions were then and I don’t know what they are now. And with all that other stuff they had a selection of non-lethal firearms. Which of course technically weren’t firearms cause there was no fire… just arms.

After asking for a BB gun one Friday after school before his dad got home from the bank, he got a firm “no”. But apparently a firm “no” wasn’t firm and Mark knew it.

He held his breath until he “passed out”. 

He had to explain to us, that if you held your breath long enough then your brain was starved for air and it would quit working, and your brain would no longer send messages to the rest of your body and you would “pass out” until the air got back to your brain.

We studied on that for a while. While we did, the frogs were safe. The only one not pondering the situation was Johnny’s little brother who was not encumbered with the deliberations at hand. He was twirling in circles and very much intrigued with the dust clouds that resulted.

Mark told us that after he regained his awkwardness, his mom called his dad on the phone. His dad was busy at the bank, counting money, or looking after the safe or something and couldn’t be bothered, and told her to "take care of it" or words to that effect. So his mom drove him to the hardware store and bought him the gun under the condition and stern promise that he never hold his breath and starve his brain of air again.

Of course, when he said he would do that he told us he had his fingers crossed behind his back, which as we all know, voids any promise being made.

Mark’s mom wore white gloves all the time (Maybe you don’t need to know this, but maybe it will be helpful.). Even when it wasn’t cold outside she would wear these white gloves. Sometimes she had them in one hand or the other and on occasion they would rest over the purse she carried in the crook of her arm. It was odd and distracting. These white gloves were never dirty. 

I asked my mom about this white glove thing.

I guess you need to know that my mom was what was called a Missouri Hillbilly. This isn’t what I ever called her but what she called herself on occasion. She didn’t say it as a matter of pride or of embarrassment but it was just said as a matter of fact so that whomever she was speaking to would understand whatever it was that needed explaining.

Missouri Hillbillies spoke English. But their words were all jumbled up sometimes and the words came out like there was chewing gum in a their cheeks. Or a wad of tobacco, (which was ta-bak-er or sometimes just ‘backer, said as one slurred syllable) in their mouth, “wall-er-ing” (which is kind of like rolling, but in a lazy kinda who cares sorta way) around in there.

My mom told me that Mark’s mom was “putin’ on airs.” I didn’t understand what that meant but the way she said it told me that it wasn’t a good thing.

Where were we? Sorry, oh yeah…

As it became late in the day, on the walk back to the barn and the tree at the end of the alley we discussed this concept of “holding your breath” in order to get something you wanted from your parents. It was a bold new concept we had never considered. Pretty much everyone thought it was worth a try.

When I agreed to give it a try, I had my fingers crossed behind my back. No one noticed. I knew it wouldn’t work and I wanted my brain to have all the air it needed.

As the week unfolded the stories began to roll in that the experiment in breath holding was a failure.

When Johnny tried it, it simply didn’t work. His brain was completely okay without air. It apparently told the rest of his body to carry on and he didn’t pass out. So he had to fake it. He fell on the floor and laid there still and motionless. He only slightly opened one eye so he could see what he knew would be the look of panic and pure hopelessness on his mom’s face as she struggled to grasp the depths of the pain her poor boy felt for not getting whatever it was that his heart yearned for, pined for, and or, desperately needed.

But instead, he saw her go upstairs.

He waited on the floor and calculated what the correct amount of time it might ought to take for one’s brain to respond to the reintroduction of air to it. There was no basis for an exact calculation. 

When he got up and went upstairs to his room his mom was laying out his Sunday clothes; white shirt, tie, sports coat, trousers with no holes or stains or anything. His Sunday best was being put in a neat arrangement on his bed.

He asked what she was doing, and she looked a bit surprised.

“Well,” said she, “I was laying out the clothes for your funeral. But I see that you are not dead.

“I called your father and told him you had passed away and he called the preacher to reserve the church for the funeral next Thursday. 

“It’s going to be a lot of trouble to cancel the plans that have been made. Should we cancel everything or do you think you will be living for a while… at least until next Thursday?”

Johnny told his mom that he was going to still be around until Thursday, and that was pretty much the end of that.

Sam’s experience (Sam was the fourth boy who we have yet to talk about, but we are going to talk about him now because he was the fourth boy). Sam’s experience was that whatever it was he asked for was apparently not going to be forthcoming.

Apparently, he realized that you had to announce your intentions in advance of holding your breath until you pass out. So he made his demand. It was rejected without any consideration or due process, or any serious regard whatsoever, which forced him to hold his breath until he passed out.

Sam’s brain also did not much care if it had air or not. It also continued to function as Sam blew up his cheeks with air and held it there. He reported he did get dizzy and his cheeks hurt some.

He, too, had to fake it.

His parents were watching their favorite TV show and he fell down on the floor in front of the TV, but not so as to block their view.

He was able to stay there past his normal bedtime and was able to see the first ten minutes of Johnny Carson of “The Tonight Show”, through the little slits he allowed to have for himself in his eyes.

But at the first commercial break his parents asked if he was finished and he had to go to bed.

Although not a complete success the fact he was able to make it 10 or 15 minutes into Johnny Carson was a good consolation prize. At least I thought so.

When they asked me about my experience, I lied. I said I held my breath, but my brain didn’t care. It was just fine without air. So I just stood there with big, hurting cheeks of air. And I didn’t realize that I could fall down and pretend. So the whole thing kinda’ fizzled out.

What I didn’t report was that I asked my mom if she’d heard of kids holding their breath until they passed out and she said, “If any young’un ah mine did that I’d light his tail feathers on faaar.”

In English that would be: I’d spank my child. It doesn’t mean that she would alight the child with flames on the posterior section of its anatomy.

This eventuality of having my butt on fire also played into my decision making.

Normally right here is where the author would give you "the moral of the story" which is like a lesson that you should learn so as to live a better life and have a warm glow in your heart knowing everyone lived "happily ever after".

But that is "normally" and this ain't that.

Cover photo by Todd Hoover.