“Stepping Into Dad’s Shoes”
Chapter 2
The first thing that Aaron noticed when he woke up was how itchy he was. He had just had a great dream where he had been climbing a mountain. In the dream it was real easy, he just kept climbing without getting tired, and his dad kept lagging behind and slowing him down. He yawned, and everything felt a little funny. The feeling of his sheets was different. The bed was harder, too. He opened his eyes and saw a small table that wasn’t his. Holding an alarm clock that said 10:30. I’m gonna be late for school, he thought suddenly very worried about what dad would say. Then he remembered that he didn’t have to go to school today because…
He had hair on his arms. He made several gasps as he ran his hands over them and a baseball sized muscle that had grown over his arm. It was so large that he didn’t do anything but look at it for a few minutes, before realizing his legs were way down there. He had been sitting up and his feet were far away, down at the edge of the bed. He threw the sheet aside and got out of bed. The floorboards creaked and a loud thump noise he wasn’t used to came out of his landing. He was wearing a loose T-shirt, the thin kind that he didn’t have any of and before he knew it he was walking across his father’s bedroom and opening the door. He licked his lips to ease the dryness and felt stubble. He passed the door and was way up top, as if everything had shrunk immensely. He walked and then ran into the bathroom. His father! His father wasn’t in the bathroom, he realized. It was his reflection.
Aaron waved hello. His father waved hello. His reflection waved hello. There was plenty of light in the bathroom for him to see himself. As tall as the mirror now. He was wearing a blue and white backwards baseball cap, and his hand moved over his fine sheen of stubble. Try as he might, his father was one of those men who always had a shadow of it on his face. He could never get the shade of it off, and it gave him a really cool, GI Joe type of look that Aaron always wished he could have. And now he did. He smiled and the big man smiled, too.
“Wow,” he whispered, in a deep voice. “Did I say that? Wow! Oh my God, dad! DAD!” He stumbled out of the bathroom. “Dad, it happened! It happened, dad! I’m you! DAD!” His voice didn’t crack or screech, but just much louder than he had ever known it to be. Having a voice like this was kind of scary.
He heard some noises from inside and a shriek. Some more noises followed. Aaron’s bedroom door opened. A little boy cracked the door open. And then opened it slowly. The two looked at each other for a moment, Aaron panting heavily in his new big body.
“Dad?”
“Yeah. It’s me, son. Holy shit.”
Jake realized he had gone to sleep in his underwear. He was now looking at his own crotch, close up. “Maybe we better get dressed,” he added.
“Kay, dad.” The man went into the little boy’s bedroom and walked over to the dresser, and got out a pair of pants, which he then tried to get into. He looked helplessly over at his father, who it was still hard to think of as his dad since it looked like himself. “Dad, can I wear some of your clothes?” he asked pitifully.
“Of course! None of your boy clothes is going to fit a grown man’s body, Aaron. Just go into my room and pick out a pair of jeans.”
“THANKS, DAD!” Aaron shouted and thundered past Jake, who was looking up with a helpless look of his own. His son was now gigantic! He followed just to make sure his son didn’t need any help. Aaron was putting on a pair of pants now taller than his whole body. After that Aaron took off the shirt and felt his chest. It was like he was wearing a bunch of clothing now, or like armor or something. Like when you wear something over you in sports, like the games he played last summer. He felt the thin layer of hair on his chest and smiled. Jake wasn’t sure if his son was proud or just excited. “Dad, I’m so big! You’re so big! Look how big I am!” Aaron flexed his new man muscles like a wrestler would. “Wow, dad,” he said one hand still feeling a pec, “I mean when you told me I’d be you I kind of believed it but I thought maybe it was still a game or somethin’.”
“No,” said the little boy that was his father. “It’s all too real. Now just put a shirt on. Here, this one.” He reached up to the bottom of one of his shirts, which was hard to get down, and brought it over to his son, who was looking at his dad with a funny look. “You’re so little. I can’t believe it. This feels so good, dad! I’m sorry you couldn’t reach it. I can do it from now on, I promise!”
All of this was beginning to feel disorientating. Jake always knew that as far as being a physical specimen went, he was at the top of the A list. But looking up at his body and having it tower over him, even the biceps seeming to be mountainous objects, really sent him reeling. His new voice felt so puny, like a girl’s almost. He felt weak, but energetic. At least that was something. He realized he was still wearing pajamas with X-men on them. Pictures of muscled superheroes he didn’t resemble at all, almost mocking him as they smiled with their vain good looks. He went into his son’s room and picked out a shirt with a Disney logo on it and some pants. His son was waiting in the doorway, waiting.
“Hey, dad? What do we do now?”
It was so strange to hear a grown man, even one with his own voice, asking him for directions like this. It was definitely for the best that they were staying out of the public eye this week.
“Well, first up, how bout some breakfast, champ?”
Aaron followed his father downstairs into the kitchen. Brick walls loomed over him like they never had. The house had new dimensions now for Jake. The stairs were higher and he had to avoid falling, being used to a different kind of step. Aaron had the same problem, used to taking bigger strides on them to get up and down. Photos of the two arranged in tasteful arrangements made the situation seem that much more bizarre. Even though he felt he had been prepared for this, it was all a lot scarier for Jake than he had imagined.
Jake walked to the kitchen and looked far up at the cabinet above the stove. He jumped several times but couldn’t reach it.
“Son, could you get the cereal down, I have mini muscles here.”
Aaron walked over and casually flipped the cabinet open. He brought down several boxes and got down bowls from another cabinet, way up top.
This is humiliating, thought Jake. But, well, let him have his fun. Jake proceeded to make coffee and the smell filled the kitchen.
“Man, that coffee sure smells good, dad. Can I have some?”
“Sure. Actually, I think I’ll skip it. I feel more awake than I thought I would.”
They ate breakfast, and Aaron marveled at how hungry he was. He slurped coffee like Jake would. Jake was surprised at how he now couldn’t stand the taste. He had tried some, experimentally and wrinkled his nose at it. It was odd how their senses were seemingly altered by their body switch.
“Hey, dad, what do you want to do today? It’s like we have a vacation.”
The doorbell rang.
Both Jake and Aaron looked at the door in panic. Jake had told everyone he’d be away. Who the hell could it possibly be?
“Should I get it, dad? Do you want me to?”
“Sure, but just…get rid of them, tell them we’re about to go to the lake, that’s what I told everyone.”
“Okay.” Aaron walked to the door, marveling now at how he held his arms, since they were so big, he didn’t feel like just keeping them to the sides, but rather he felt his body naturally would saunter, so as to accompany his large frame.
He opened the door and found a sharply dressed businessman. It was Dad’s friend Jimmy!
“Hey, bud,” the man said, clapping Aaron on the shoulder. He walked in and clipped his cel phone shut. “We have an emergency. The merger is in danger and it has to happen over the next few days or it’s all lost. Get dressed, your vacation is on hold. Jimmy walked in, smoothing his already smooth hair. He was in his late thirties, slightly balding, but thin with good muscles and he wore a dark charcoal gray pinstripe suit. Jake walked into the living room with his eyes bugging out of his head.
“What do you mean?” Jake asked.
“Oh, kid. Sorry, I know you guys were gonna go on a trip, but this is really important, cause if your dad doesn’t come with me we could both LOSE our jobs, so come on, buddy get a move on! Get dressed, come on out, I’ll drive you over so to save time.”
“But…I am dressed.”
Jimmy laughed. “That’s cute, Jake. Move it. Look, Kreiber and Jakobs are at each others throats, we need you right now! The president of MorphCorp Enterprises just had second thoughts, we’ve been talking to his son all morning and some of his CEO’s and everyone is scrambling around just trying to find out what went wrong. So this is A list emergency, we could lose everything. So let’s get a move on!”
“Dad, could I talk to you? DAD?” Jake asked. Aaron looked confused and then finally got it.
“Oh, right. Sure.”
He followed his father, or as Jimmy would see it, his son, into the bedroom.
“Okay. SHIT. Okay. You are going to HAVE to pretend to be me.”
Aaron started wincing and crying. “Dad! I can’t!”
Jake busily started picking out clothes, pulling them down from hangars.
“Take your clothes off and put these on. I’ll put the tie on after you’re done.” His son complied. “Look, you can fake being sick once you’re there. Tell them I’m sick and you were going to cancel your plans to look after me. Tell them you think it’s the flu. I haven’t been sick in years, hopefully it will wash over. Then take a bus home, take the fourteen south. You got that?” His son’s huge head nodded in bewilderment.
“You can do this. You are really smart. All your teachers have said so, one of the smartest kids they’ve ever come across. And not that this is really a time to bring this up, but your IQ test was genius level. I just didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to inflate your ego. Now here,” he swung the tie around Aaron’s neck. “I know you’ve met Daddy’s co-workers, but do you remember their names?” Jake rattled off descriptions and names and made Aaron repeat them.
Jimmy knocked at the door. “Dude, hustle! We need to go yesterday!”
“Okay, kiddo,” said Jake. “It’s showtime. Be back here as soon as you can. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I love you, Aaron. I have faith in you.”
“Okay. I love you too, Dad.”
Aaron walked over to the door, and Jake got vertigo looking up at both his son and colleague, who normally was shorter than him.
“Bye, son. Be good.”
“Okay, dad.” Jake said. “Good luck.”
Aaron smiled a confident smile and Jake just found it too much. It was too much to ask of his son, and despite that smile, that smile that made him look adult, with the five o clock shadow and dashing masculine looks and proportions, there was a totally inexperienced human being inside with absolutely no clue as to how to perform the duty that was being expected of him.
He sat down on the bed as he heard the front door shut and he laid down and covered his head and moaned.
“I wonder if there’s anything good on TV,” he said out loud to no one in particular.