The Boy with the baby's arm.

When I went to university in 1992 I had a few part time jobs to top up my student loans.

One of those jobs was on the transport ambulances for the local authority in west London; this involved going to children and elderly persons’ homes and collecting children and elderly people to take them to and from schools and dining or social clubs.

I had only been doing the job a few weeks when my route and driver was changed, this wasn’t uncommon.
I had a driver, a man called Ernie, my job was to care for the children or elderly people his was purely to drive. Ernie and I went off to do our first collection which was from a residential care home for disabled children. We went in to reception and signed in and ascertained which children we were going to collect that day; it was usually the same children but sometimes illness or other things varied the children that were collected. Today it was only Carl that was to be taken to his day school. Ernie sighed at this news and nudged me. Before I had time to ask why a carer walked into the reception and asked me to follow her to collect Carl; it wasn’t Ernie’s job to attend to the children he just had to drive the ambulance and assist with the loading and unloading of them.

Anyway, off I went to collect Carl with the carer leading the way. She knocked on a door and opened it and directed me to go in the room. She then walked off down the corridor leaving me alone in Carl’s room. I was standing looking around to see where Carl was when I heard a female voice shouting from what I assumed was the bathroom,

“Be with you in a mo’….” The female voice assured me. I saw a face in a mirror on the wall of the bathroom; the carer had seen me walk into the room in the mirror.

I then saw in the mirror and heard the carer say to Carl,
“Come on you have to go now….Carl, Carl….you have to go to school now, there’s a good boy. That’s it. Good boy, pull them up”

I couldn’t see Carl at that time.
Carl then walked into the room he had a shirt on and was in his underpants, he was about 14 or 15 years old. Carl had one of those crash hats on that disabled people of that time often wore. He moved unsteadily on his feet, his body and arms were twisted and distorted by his disability.

“Hello.” He said as he stumbled into the room.

I said “Hello” back.
“Are you taking me?”

Carl asked as he awkwardly tried to pull on his trousers and button his shirt at the same time. The carer then came into the bedroom from the bathroom and helped Carl get dressed. He was making a mess of his shirt buttons and had put one sock on inside out by this time. As the carer helped Carl re-do the buttons on his shirt she said to me,

“Hello there, I’m Rachel. Carl has been a bit excited today so you’ll have to watch him.”

“Okay.” I replied. I didn’t really know the significance of the remark but felt it must be important for her to mention it. Perhaps it was medication related. I didn’t want to look like a fool so I just said,
“Okay, I’ll keep an eye on him.” I said just to reinforce that I had heard what she had said and to give the illusion I knew what she meant. I really should have just asked just what she meant. I was to learn that later on in the morning.
Carl kept giggling and trying to tickle Rachel. She remonstrated with him,

“Carl! Stop it. Carl! Stop it….”
Carl chuckled and kept trying to tickle Rachel. Carl was now dressed, if somewhat dishevelled. It was the best that Rachel could do with Carl squirming and constantly trying to tickle her.

Rachel then pulled out a folded wheelchair from behind a chair pulled it open and Carl turned and sat in it. This is where I took over. I stood commandingly behind the chair while Rachel fastened the chair straps around Carl’s waist. He tried to tickle her as she was placing the straps; she pushed his hands away at each attempt and said,

“Carl, I’ve told you; now stop that….”

It wasn’t said with any spite or malice but with a smile in her voice: the tone of someone that was trying to be assertive and really not winning.
I wheeled Carl down the corridor towards the ambulance, he was squirming around and laughing and saying “Hello” to all the staff as we passed them. The receptionist looked up and said,
“Bye bye Carl, see you later.”
He attempted a wave and laughed.

“Oh, hello” she said to me, “Rachel says he is a bit excited today so watch where you put him in the ambulance.”
“Okay.” I replied, still not fully understanding the significance of him being ‘excited’.

Ernie just said,
 “Okay, we’ll keep an eye on him.”

I knew in reality that it was me that was charged with keeping an eye on Carl and all the other children, Ernie if he was like all the other drivers I had worked with would just watch and not join in with the care of the children.

We put Carl’s wheelchair on the hydraulic ramp and put him inside the ambulance. Ernie said we needed to put him in as far forward in the ambulance as we could so that I could keep an eye on him as,
 “He was very excited today.”

I still stupidly nodded and didn’t ask what ‘excited’ meant. We drove off after Carl had been secured in his place and started to collect other children from their homes.

Ernie and I had been collecting children and had been driving around for about an hour when there was excited laughter coming from the children at the back of the ambulance. I glanced back to make sure that nothing was amiss. There seemed to be nothing amiss, just children laughing, so I put my seatbelt back on and settled back.

We stopped at traffic lights alongside a single decker bus which was turning right on a filter. As the bus pulled off to turn right a lady who was sat towards the back of the bus was waving and pointing towards the back of the ambulance. She was clearly trying to attract either Ernie’s or my attention. She waved and pointed towards the back of the ambulance and then bus turned and she was gone.

Ernie was staring forward waiting for the change of lights as he changed gear to move off he laconically intoned,

“You’d better check Carl, David.”

Nothing more, just that blank statement.

I got up and walked along the aisle of the ambulance. The children close to Carl were giggling and pointing at Carl.

Carl had a big grin on his face and was waving around what can only be described as an erect penis the size and length of a baby’s arm.

Carl had a wicked and excited grin on his face.

To paraphrase Jim Morrison ‘A grown man wept.’
That was why the lady on the bus was pointing and waving, this was why the children were excitedly giggling. I had to get him to stop what he was doing, Carl was visibly and enormously, very excited. He had his erect penis poking out of his flies and was in the act of opening the top button of his trousers.

“Carl, don’t do that.” Was all I could limply say to him. I was feeling limp he was very visibly erect.
It seemed like it was almost atavistic or autonomic in that he knew that it gave him some pleasure even if he didn’t know why. The exhibitionism of it also seemed to give him great delight; he was almost like a child that had learned to say ‘Fuck’ and knew that it outraged their parents. I expect those pesky hormones were raging around his 15 year old brain and body.

It was one of those moments that caught me totally unawares. I had not expected an erection incident on a children’s bus, perhaps directed at the children but not onboard with one of my charges.

Ernie shouted back along the aisle from his seat,

“Has he got it out?”
“Oh yes.” I replied glancing back towards the offending member.

Carl was busy waving his erection at anyone that could see it. He giggled and was trying to stand but the restraints kept him in his seat.

Meanwhile I was being thrown around as the ambulance made its way to the next venue. I tried to formulate how to cover the offending member.

“Get some gloves.” Ernie shouted back. He was watching events unfold in the inside rear view mirror.

I wobbled my way to front of the ambulance to get a pair of gloves from the overhead storage locker. They were those flat polythene things that were often supplied with hair dye or suchlike. They didn’t fit my large hands. I toyed with idea of just handling Carl’s penis and attempting to get it back into his trousers. It felt odd thinking about handling his erection; however innocent it was. I decided to wrap the glove around his erection and manipulate it into his underpants and trousers. I have never had such a sizeable problem and I never knew how tricky it could be to do that; especially as I was lurching from side to side as the ambulance turned corners and braked and generally made its merry way to the schools.

 I wrapped a glove around the member and with other hand opened the top button of Carl’s trousers. The ambulance lurched. I lost grip of the penis. Carl giggled and waved it about. He flicked the glove onto the floor. Luckily I had another glove. I went in for a second time. This time I managed to tuck away his penis.

Carl looked down and giggled.

The ambulance reached the school.
We took Carl off the ambulance on the tail lift.

A member of staff was there to greet us.

“Hello Carl.” She said cheerily.

He giggled back.

Ernie just said drolly,

“Carl is a bit excited today.”

“Oh.” She replied and looked at Carl.

“Have you been naughty Carl?”

He just giggled back. She wheeled Carl into the school.

The next day not long after we had picked up Carl from his residence I heard the dreaded words,

“Mister, mister, mister, Carl has got it out again.”