Six Soccer Socks

Chapter 1
Six Soccer Socks

The silence was nothing short of astonishing. Even though the door that stood between him and the warehouse was thick enough to stop a bullet Bill still reasoned that he should be able to hear something of the activity that took place on the other side. He knew that when he stepped back out onto the floor his ears would once again be assaulted by the constant honking of forklift horns, the rusty interminable droning of outdated machinery and the haggard shouts of the men that struggled to be heard over the clamor. It wasn’t as though Joe could make the noise disappear through sheer force of will - it was more like a man in his presence had no choice but to give the foreman every last bit of his attention, to the point where outside distractions became so irrelevant as to be non-existent. Anyone unlucky enough to find themselves the subject of Joe’s attention could do nothing but squirm in the gaze of his hard-set emerald eyes and pray that his scrutiny soon be turned elsewhere.

Though he had worked with Joe for over seven years his defenses against those eyes were only marginally better than those of the other men on the floor, the best of whom could meet his gaze for just a few seconds before forcing themselves to turn away. Standing firm before Joe was a skill he had forced himself to learn - after all, a floor supervisor that can’t so much as meet his foreman’s eyes couldn’t expect to last long in that position. And while Bill was the only man on the floor who could stare Joe down, doing so made his chest tighten and his skin grow prickly with sweat, a thoroughly unpleasant sensation that flared up once more when Joe set his papers down on his desk, fixed his gaze on Bill, and spoke.

“Not good enough.”

Bill swallowed and opened his palms in a plea for understanding.

“I don’t know what more you want from them, Joe.” He said, his voice quavering. “The floor hasn’t run this efficiently in twenty years. These guys’re already working sixty-hour weeks and you’re paying them so little that half of them are picking up extra shifts on top of that. I’m amazed they’re even working as hard as they are what with how tired they must be.”

“They can do better.” Joe said, his voice ice and his face stone. “I would have killed for the pay and hours these men are getting when I was first starting out.”

Bill felt his muscles tighten.

“Some of us have lives outside of this job, Joe.”

Joe narrowed his eyes and in doing so drained every bit of fight from Bill’s spirit. A long, horrible moment passed before he pushed the report back to his floor manager, turning his attention towards the paperwork Bill had interrupted.

“That’s not my problem.” He said, not looking up from his desk. “Tell them to they need to shape up or ship out. That’s all.”

It was a few seconds before Bill could force himself to move, taking the report from Joe’s desk with a trembling hand and exiting the office on legs that threatened to give out at any moment. The office was filled with the commotion of the warehouse for a moment and then fell silent again when Bill closed the door behind him, completely still save for the scratching of Joe’s pen as he filled out the paperwork with a steady hand and unblinking eyes. The quiet was short-lived, though, as only a few moments passed before the foreman’s work was interrupted by the piercing ring of his phone, which he answered without so much as breaking his pen’s stride.

“Warehouse.”

The line was silent.

“Warehouse.”

Nothing. Joe muttered a curse under his breath and was about to hang up when a small scratch, like the sound of a needle being put to a record, came over the wire. The foreman sighed, put down his pen, and rubbed his temple with callused fingertips.

“Whoever this is, I don’t have time for prank calls. Hang up now and I won’t get the police involved - ”

“Give me a one!”

“One!”

“Give me a two!”

“Two!”

“Give me a three!”

“Three!”

“Four!”

“Four!”

“Five!”

“Five!”

“Give me a - !”

“Six soccer socks sitting on the shelf! Six soccer socks get up by themselves! Six soccer socks walking down the hall! Six soccer socks, walking tall!”

Joe cocked his head back and stared at the earphone as though it had spit Swahili at him. He would have known how to deal with the situation it had been some punk kid on the other end of the line, looking to get a couple laughs by distracting a man from his job. But what was he supposed to say to a recording of a bunch of kids singing about soccer socks? He was about to shout into the receiver in attempt to make himself heard over the ridiculously cheerful tune when the bridge ended and the singing started anew.

“Six soccer socks walking down the stairs! Six soccer socks walking in pairs! Six soccer socks, sure look neat! Six soccer socks, stepping to the beat!”

As the song picked up in tempo and the kids belted out the second verse Joe made up his mind to hang up the phone and get on with his day. He didn’t have time to listen to some dopey children’s song, and he certainly didn’t want to encourage whoever called him up and made him deal with this nonsense. But no matter how strongly he chided himself to put the receiver down the man found himself unable to do so, oddly captivated by the charming little ditty and increasingly curious as to how it would continue.

“Six soccer socks, what a stirring sight! Six soccer socks, right left right! Six soccer socks, they begin to march! Six! Soccer socks! Straight! Into! The wash!”

When the song came to an end the line fell silent, nothing but the crackle of dead air coming over the speaker until it was suddenly replaced by the droning finality of the dial tone. It was only then that Joe could snap himself out of the trance the tune had put him under, staring at the receiver in his hand with a confusion so intense that a casual observer could only draw the conclusion that it was the first time the man had ever seen a phone. A long moment passed before Joe softly placed the receiver in its cradle and stared at the device with the kind of suspicion normally reserved for venomous insects.

“Joe?”

The foreman jumped in his seat and looked up to see Bill standing in the doorway, studying him with inquisitive eyes. Joe immediately hid his fluster and shot Bill his most intimidating stare.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that you knock before barging into someone’s office.”

Bill withered a bit but stood his ground.

“I did knock.” He insisted. “I was knocking for a solid minute before I let myself in and found you staring at the phone. Did you get some bad news or something?”

“What? No.” Joe shook his head and waved his hand in dismissal. “Forget about it. What do you want?”

“You asked me to tell you when today’s shipment came in so you could look it over.” Bill said. “Just arrived.”

“…right.” Joe mumbled as he rose to his feet. “Guess I wasn’t expecting it to show up early for once.”

Bill cocked his head.

“What do you mean? It’s already eleven thirty. Shoulda been here fifteen minutes ago.”

Joe opened his mouth to chide Bill for not even being able to get the time right but was stopped when he caught sight of the clock hanging on his wall and of the time it displayed. His brow furrowed in confusion and silence hung in the air for a long moment before Bill gathered up the confidence necessary to speak.

“Joe? Something wrong?”

“You…you were last in here at eleven.”

“Yeah, just about.”

“And now it’s eleven thirty.”

“…Joe, are you sure you’re alright?”

Six soccer socks sitting on the shelf…

He shook his head and headed for the door.

“Yeah.” He muttered as he blew past his puzzled associate. “Just fine.”

As he stepped out of his office every man on the floor looked up and then instantly turned away, risking eye contact just long enough to ensure that the foreman had entered their mist. Any slacking or idle conversation vanished and was immediately replaced by the sort of automaton efficiency they knew he expected of them. The sight of the men falling into line at the mere sight of him put a little smile on Joe’s face and allowed him to move past the strangeness of what had happened in his office. When he had first come to the warehouse seven years ago Joe had endured no small amount of teasing as he was only eighteen and still kind of a lanky kid, a regular twerp who looked completely out of place amongst men whose bodies had been rendered concrete by decades of hard work. But what he lacked in strength he made up for in unmatched will and determination, and when his back and shoulders started filling out he quickly became the best worker the warehouse had to offer.

Joe smirked as he remembered how the jokes that came at his expense slowed to a trickle and then stopped altogether, his co-workers suddenly hesitant to make fun of the young man that could kick their collective asses without breaking a sweat. When the company that owned the warehouse was looking to hire a new foreman they sent a couple of executives from upstate to see if there were any leaders amongst the grunts and misinterpreted the fear that Joe had instilled in his associates as admiration and respect. That, combined with the fact that he worked twice as hard as his closest competitor, landed Joe the foreman job at the unheard-of age of twenty-five, the youngest in the facility’s history by a wide margin. There were still a few old-timers out on the floor that had been around when Joe had started, but he never went out of his way to humiliate them for giving him a hard time. When he looked in their eyes and saw the shame end envy that bubbled just beneath the surface it was clear that he had already won. To take it any further would just be piling on.

Joe reached the docks with Bill trailing a couple of steps behind, taking a clipboard from the truck driver who had brought the shipment to their door. The foreman looked the pudgy, unshaven trucker up and down, shook his head, and began examining the invoice attached to the board.

000025 TELSTAR P90 TOWER 500

000037 TELSTAR 18 INCH MONITOR 1000

000041 TELSTAR LASER JET 4L PRINTER 700

000006 SOCCER SOCKS 6

Joe blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the page again.

000043 TELSTAR OPTIPLEX SCANNER 250

He stared at the invoice as though it had been written in Sanskrit, baffled as to where that line had come from and where it had gone. No matter how stringently he scanned its text Joe could find no hint of what he had just seen.

Six soccer socks get up by themselves…

“Hey, boss man.”

Joe snapped to attention and saw the trucker regarding him with a wilting look.

“I know it’s a fascinatin’ read, but I got other shipments to make. Today, huh?”

The foreman turned red as he plucked a pen from his pocket, scrawled off a signature, and thrust the clipboard back at the trucker, practically shoving it into his chest before striding away from the scene. A dozen men watched him disappear between two high pillars of stacked merchandise, every one of them too startled by what they had seen to take any joy in Joe’s embarrassment. Bill, for his part, might have been the most confused of anybody, having not seen the man so much as blush since his first year at the warehouse. Though Bill didn’t feel even the slightest need to lend Joe a hand his curiosity as to what had him so worked up was too strong to ignore.

“C’mon now.” Bill called out to the shell-shocked men as he went after Joe. “You’ve got a truck to unload. Get moving.”

Joe, meanwhile, had retreated to the deep recesses of the warehouse, ducking into a little-used storage room rife with clutter and hazy with dust. He brushed off a thigh-high stepladder and took a seat, clasping his hands in front of him and starting at the intricate patterns of filth that adorned the cold concrete floor. It was one thing to have a song stuck in your head - which never happened to him to begin with - but it was quite another to have it seemingly hijack your mind. The time he had lost in his office was disconcerting on its own, but now his work had become affected by…by whatever it was he was dealing with here. It was tempting for him to dismiss the phenomenon as some sort of fluke, as an anomaly within his brain that somehow caused him to be deeply affected by a particular rhythm or melody, a specific set of lyrics that struck deep within his mind. But there was a tiny nagging voice somewhere inside of him that told Joe otherwise, that there was something special about this particular song, that if he were to just spend a little time thinking about it could figure out what made the tune special and then deal with it. With newfound focus, Joe took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

Six soccer socks, walking down the hall…

Joe leapt to his feet and kicked the stepladder across the room.

Six soccer socks, walking tall!

“God damn it!” He shouted, his voice filling the tiny room and droning out the sound of the stepladder breaking against the wall. The foreman put his hands on his hips and cursed beneath his breath, gripped by the frustration that came from being confronted by a problem he didn’t know how to solve. Joe’s brooding was interrupted when he realized that Bill was standing in the doorway, and judging by the expression on his face it seemed as though he feared his fate would be the same as the stepstool’s. The foreman sighed and looked away as Bill took a cautious step inside the room.

“Sorry about that.” Joe mumbled.

Bill froze.

“You’re…sorry?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry for what?”

Joe threw his hands in the air.

“I don’t know. For scaring you, I guess. Look, isn’t it enough that I apologized in the first place? Don’t make me explain myself. ”

“Okay, okay.” Bill backpeddled, holding his hands up in defense. “Apology accepted. Thank you.”

Joe looked up and offered him a small smile that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, which only furthered Bill’s befuddlement. If a blush from Joe was rare his smile may as well have been the Maltese Falcon for how seldom it was seen. Bill’s shock was such that he couldn’t even get his lips to speak any of the thousands of questions buzzing within his brain, and in fact it was Joe who broke the silence by clearing his throat and turning to his associate.

“So, uh…” He began, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s almost noon now, right? What say we go get some lunch?”

If Bill was confused before he was downright floored now. Though he was only a couple years older than Joe and had worked with him since his first day Bill still didn’t know anything about the man, much less consider him a friend. Matter of fact, Joe hadn’t made a single friend at the warehouse in his entire time there and had never shown any interest in obtaining one, so to say that his offer to take Bill out to lunch came out of the blue wouldn’t come anywhere near describing how out of character it was for him to do so. His first instinct was to turn Joe down flat, to not risk falling into whatever trap the foreman had sprung for him and just get on with his day pretending that the proposition had never been made. Bill was convinced no good could come of it - but he was also desperately curious to find out what could shake such a rock-solid man and knew that having lunch with him might be the only best way to do so.

“Sure.” He heard himself say. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

------

Bill hadn’t expected that Joe would suddenly open up and let him in on the darkest details of his personal life just because the two of them were having lunch - but, at the same time, he had hoped the foreman had it in mind to eventually say something. Since Bill accepted Joe’s offer there hadn’t been a single word shared between the two, the brief walk to the diner across the street shared in complete silence. It wasn’t until the waitress came around to pour them some coffee and take their orders that either one of the spoke, each man opting for a cheeseburger and fries, the only two items the establishment could be reasonably expected not to botch. Once she had taken her leave of them Bill looked across the table to see Joe staring out the window with such focus that one would think he was gazing upon something more interesting than a half-full parking lot. He had hoped that Joe would be the one to initiate the conversation but it was becoming increasingly obvious that unless he spoke up there was a good chance that the entire meal would be conducted in silence.

“So, uh…” He began, “Is there anything in particular you wanted to talk about?”

Even though he asked the question at point blank range Joe’s complete lack of reaction had Bill convinced that he hadn’t been heard. He was about to repeat himself when Joe suddenly fixed his eyes on Bill, his associate unable to prevent himself from squirming a little under the intensity of his gaze.

“Bill, you…you’ve got kids, right?” He asked in a small voice. “I’ve heard you talking about them on the floor.”

“Yeah.” Bill brightened. “Two boys, three and five.”

Something resembling relief crossed Joe’s face.

“So, you’d be familiar with kids’ songs, right? I’m sure your boys have their favorites.”

“Well…sure.” Bill said, furrowing his brow in thought. “Caleb - my three-year-old - has been singing Alouette practically nonstop since he heard it for the first time a couple weeks ago, though I’m pretty sure he only likes it because he thinks the words are gibberish. I tried to explain to him that it was just French but he’s a little too young to understand the concept, haha. Aaron just learned Do Your Ears Hang Low in Kindergarten and he’s even memorized a little dance routine to go along with it. He does this one thing, just too damn cute for words - ”

“What else?” Joe interrupted, his voice sharp. “Do they know any others?”

Bill straightened up and met his boss’ eyes.

“Why do you want to know, Joe?”

Six soccer socks walking down the stairs…

Joe grimaced and shook his head.

“Well, you see, my, uh, nephew…he’s about the same age as your boys…” He said, averting his gaze as he crafted a child from whole cloth, “When I visited him the other day he was singing this one song and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”

“Oh yeah?” Bill smiled. “What’s the little guy’s name?”

“…Howie.”

“How did the song go?”

Six soccer socks, walking in pairs…

“Ah…” Joe grimaced and tapped the side of his head, as though trying to knock water from his ears. “I couldn’t really do it justice, but I think it was called Six Soccer Socks. Does that sound familiar?”

Bill frowned in concentration as the foreman leaned forward, trying his best to hide just how important the answer was to him and failing miserably at doing so.

“Nope.” Bill shrugged. “Can’t say that it does.”

Joe sat shock still for a moment before slumping back in the booth, his eyes closed as he ran his hands over his face. Bill winced and leaned forward, speaking to the man in a near whisper.

“Joe, if you don’t mind my asking…why all the questions? With all due respect, most of the time it seems like you don’t give a damn about anything but work and now you’re asking me about kids’ songs. What gives?”

The foreman opened his eyes and regarded Bill with as much contempt as he could muster. He was an instant away from telling his associate to mind his own goddamn business and storming out of the restaurant when he was stopped by the sound of laughter ringing out from across the room. Joe looked over and saw a small boy sitting at a table with his father, the child absolutely delighted by the simple sleight-of-hand the man performed for him. Bill looked over his shoulder to see what Joe was looking at before turning back and offering his foreman a cheek-splitting grin.

“Ah, so that’s it.” He mused. “You’re thinking about having one of your own, huh? I didn’t even realize you were seeing anybody.”

Joe kept his gaze locked on the boy, watching with wonder at the unabashed joy he took from something as simple as lunch with his dad.

Six soccer socks, sure look neat…

“They can be a handful, lemme tell ya.” Bill chuckled as he sipped his coffee. “Especially if you have a boy. But it’s absolutely worth it. Just being around them can make you feel like a kid again.”

Six soccer socks, stepping to the beat!

A deep emptiness welled in Joe’s chest as his eyesight went blurry, clouded by tears that threatened to burst free at any moment. But even through clouded vision he could see that Bill had seen his dismay and was looking at him the way one would a sniveling child lost in the rain. It was a sight that made the foreman leap to his feet and make a beeline for the door, nearly knocking over their unsuspecting waitress as he did so.

“Joe! What’s the matter?” Bill called out after the foreman as he dashed outside, racing back to the warehouse and leaving his associate to simply watch him go and wonder what in God’s name was going on.

-----

Joe ducked into his office, closed his door, and fell back against it, sliding into a sitting position against the thick heavy wood as his chest heaved and a stray tear dribbled down his cheek. The man wiped his eyes and pulled at his short-cropped hair with both hands, taking in deep, ragged breaths until he could compose himself enough to form a coherent thought. Frankly, he was terrified by the response he had from witnessing the sheer happiness the boy and his father had been sharing. Bad enough that the men on the floor had seen him lose his cool when he took in the delivery…but that was nothing compared to what would happen if Bill let them know that he was this close to crying. Crying, for God’s sake! Joe had run the warehouse through pure fear, and if that disappeared there’s no telling what would happen to him.

“What the fuck am I gonna do?” He muttered as he buried his head in his knees. Something about that song - that maddening song - was corrupting him from the inside out. There had to be a reason it was having this deep of an effect on him, some sort of connection he had to it that he had long since forgotten. The foreman hung his hands over his knees and stared straight ahead. He knew that there was only one person left that he could ask about this, and as much as it pained him to do so, it had become crystal clear that the alternative was a slow descent into unretractable madness. With a heavy sigh, he pulled himself to his feet, staggered across the room, and picked up the phone. With every number he pressed the dread that boiled in his stomach only grew richer and more tumultuous, to the point where he felt on the verge of vomiting as the call went through. By the third ring it had become too much to bear and Joe was an instant from hanging up the phone when a sweet, soft voice came over the speaker.

“Hello?”

Joe winced and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Hi…mom.”

The silence on the other end lasted only for a moment before being shattered by the ear-splitting cry of an overjoyed mother. Joe reared back from the speakerphone for fear of a punctured eardrum and when he cautiously leaned back it was to hear his mother speak with such speed and such giddiness that her words bordered on nonsense.

“…oh honey it’s so good to hear from you it seems like ages since we last spoke and I get worried with you living out there all by yourself! How’s the job? Are you seeing anybody? Are you coming down for Thanksgiving this year? You really should come, everybody’s going to be here - ”

“Mom.”

“…your Aunt Susan and Uncle Carl are going to bring all your little cousins - Joey, they’re just adorable - and I know that they’d love to play with you…”

“Mom.”

“…and Julie - Frank’s daughter, you remember her - is going to bring her friend from college, and I think that she’d be just perfect for you - ”

“Mom!”

The line fell silent and Joe could actually hear the hurt creeping over the line. He exhaled and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry for raising my voice, mom.” He said in as calm a tone as he could manage. “But I called because I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Well, sure, honey.” The woman replied, her tone as sweet as molasses. “You know you can ask me anything.”

“Did I…” Joe swallowed. “Did I have a favorite song when I was a kid?”

“Oh, of course, of course!” The woman laughed. “The first one you learned was Wheels on the Bus, that was when you just started pre-school, and Joey, my heart just melted when you would sing it for me. You were so proud at knowing all the words and you still had that adorable little lisp so every time you said ‘round’ it sounded like ‘wound’. Isn’t that funny? Then it was You Are My Sunshine, and after that it was Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, which you would sing faster and faster until you just fell to the ground and giggled your little head off - ”

“What about ‘Six Soccer Socks’?” Joe interrupted, his patience at its limit. “Does that sound familiar?”

The line went silent. Joe was near overcome with despair when his mother’s voice suddenly bubbled up through the earphone.

“Oh my goodness.” She giggled. “Oh, sweetheart. How could I have forgotten? That was your absolute favorite, dear. You were in Kindergarten when you heard it for the first time and the teacher actually called me up to complain that she and the other kids couldn’t get any peace because you wouldn’t stop singing it.”

Joe’s eyes widened as a cold numbness developed in the pit of his stomach.

Six soccer socks, what a stirring sight!

It was getting louder.

“You just about drove me crazy with that song, Joey. I tried to get you to give it a rest but when you told me that you were practicing so that you could sing it for your father came home from his business trip I just couldn’t tell you no.”

Six soccer socks, right left right!

“I don’t know if you remember, but that was the trip your father didn’t come home from, dear.” The woman continued, her voice suddenly losing its enthusiasm. “Losing him was tough enough but it absolutely broke my heart to see the effect it had on you. My baby became so serious all of a sudden. To be completely honest, I’m amazed that you even waited until you turned eighteen to leave home, Joey. No matter how hard I tried to get you to enjoy your childhood you were determined to grow up as fast as possible. It still makes me sad to think about it.”

Six soccer socks, they begin to march!

The phone slipped from Joe’s hand as his mind was suddenly inundated with a flood of repressed memories, a wave of color and sound so intense that his brain actually stung from overstimulation. In an instant he could recall scenes from his childhood down to the smallest detail. The sheer joy he felt when and his father would construct crude snowmen until they were both soaked to the bone, sharing sheepish, rosy-cheeked smiles as they chattered in front of the fireplace - or the way his chest would burst with pride when he reeled in a flopping smallmouth bass with a little help from his old man - or the sense of utter security and serenity that swaddled him like a family quilt when the two of them would soak in the sunlight of a warm summer afternoon, his head on his father’s chest, drifting off to sleep as his dad gently stroked his soft raven curls.

And still the song pulsed in his skull.

Six!

Joe groaned and fell to his knees, clutching the sides of his head as though he could simply squeeze the song out. It had become his entire consciousness. It drowned out every thought he had even before he could think to think it.

Soccer socks!

The words filled his mouth like saltwater and pushed at the back of his teeth, threatening to burst through at any moment. His mind screamed at him to just let them out and still Joe resisted. His skin broke out in a cold sweat and darkness crept in at the corners of his vision, and somewhere in the back of his mind Joe dimly realized that he was on the verge of suffocation.

Straight!

Joe closed his eyes and slowly parted his trembling lips.

Into!

“The wash!”

The words echoed within the office, shouted with such enthusiasm that Joe could hardly believe he was the one that had spoken them. In an instant the pressure vanished, and all Joe could do was shake his head and laugh in disbelief at the absurdity of what he had just gone through. He had somehow convinced himself that some disaster would befall him if he uttered even a single word of the song, and yet here he stood, completely unscathed. The man leaned on his desk and chuckled. It wasn’t really such a bad song, he reasoned. Kinda catchy, in fact.

“Six soccer socks, sitting on the shelf.” He sang in a voice that started low and sheepish but grew bolder with every word. “Six soccer socks, get up by themselves…”

-----

Bill had wanted to chase after Joe but became locked in a debate with the waitress over the matter of the check. After arguing with her for a few minutes he finally gave up and paid for a lunch he didn’t eat, as much to get away from the old bag as anything else. When he returned to the warehouse he immediately knew that Joe had returned to his office thanks to the men that had gathered near his door, still atwitter at seeing their big bad boss duck into the room with tears in his eyes. Bill snapped at them to get back to work, making sure none of them were so much as in earshot before softly knocking on Joe’s door.

“Joe? You in there?”

Nobody responded - but when Bill leaned in he could barely hear a small voice on the other side. He frowned and put his ear to the door. It almost sounded like…singing. Though he had no desire to catch his boss doing something so embarrassing he figured it was no worse than seeing him get all teary-eyed, and what’s more, he was still determined to figure out just what it was that was affecting Joe so badly. Without any further warning, he took hold of the knob and swung the door open.

“Six soccer socks walking down the stairs! Six soccer socks walking in pairs! Six soccer socks, sure look neat! Six soccer socks, stepping to the beat!”

It took Bill a moment to accept that what he was seeing was not some sort of illusion or hallucination. Standing on Joe’s desk, wearing nothing but a flannel shirt that draped down to his shins, was a small boy of about five years old, giggling and bopping along as he sang a silly song about soccer socks. He hadn’t taken notice of the man that had entered the office, seemingly lost in the blissful little world he had created for himself.

“Six soccer socks, what a stirring sight! Six soccer socks, right left right! Six soccer socks, they begin to march! Six! Soccer socks! Straight! Into! The wash!”

At the tune’s climax the boy leapt off the desk and into the spinning chair that sat behind it, filling the room to its brim with giddy laughter as he kicked his little feet and whirled around and around. The chair finally came to a stop facing the desk and it was then that he finally noticed Bill standing in the doorway. The boy blushed and immediately brought his knees to his chest, peeking out over them with wide, frightened eyes that took in Bill’s every move with hawklike focus.

“…hey there, buddy.” Bill said, speaking in as comforting a tone as he could manage. He closed the door behind him and took a tenuous step inside the office. When the boy tightened up Bill stopped in his tracks, not wanting to scare the little guy. He tilted his head and smiled.

“My name’s Bill. What’s yours?”

The boy chewed on the tip of his index finger and tugged at the hem of the shirt that covered his small body. Bill looked the boy over and realized that the shirt he pulled at was the same that Joe had been wearing. A crown of shining black curls sat atop his head and two brilliant emerald eyes shone in a round, rosy-cheeked face, remarkably bright and intense, just like…

Bill’s smile broadened.

“I know who you are.” He declared, putting his hands on his hips as though he had solved some great mystery. “You must be Howie! You look just like your uncle Joey.”

The boy let out a small giggle, as though Bill had said something very silly. The man couldn’t help but smile.

“What’s so funny?”

“My name’s Joey.” He said. “I’m not an uncle. Only grown-ups are uncles.”

Even though Bill had two boys of his own he was mystified as to what sort of game the child was playing with him. He was about to ask another question of him when he noticed something sitting at the foot of the desk. The man leaned forward and realized that it was the rest of Joe’s clothing sitting in an unkempt pile, jeans that still contained his boxers and socks draped over his big heavy work boots. When Bill turned back to the boy he could see that the fear creeping into his eyes and recognized it instantly as the terror that small children can be gripped by when they don’t know what’s going on. He grimaced and helplessly looked around the room, searching for a grown man in an office with no room in which to hide one.

“Okay Joe, you got me!” He called out, in hopes that the foreman was hiding within earshot. “Whatever prank you’re pulling, it’s over now! Your nephew’s starting to get scared over here.”

Bill turned back to the child and saw that his eyes had begun to well over with fat shimmering tears. It was a sight that broke the man’s heart in a dozen pieces. In an instant he was at the boy’s side, rubbing his back and telling him that everything was going to be all right.

“I want my mommy and daddy.” The boy whimpered.

“I know you do, buddy.” Bill said. “Tell you what - I’ll call the police and tell them that we need their help. I bet they can find your mommy and daddy. How ‘bout that?”

The boy sniffled and gave Bill a small nod.

“Okay then.” Bill smiled as he reached for the phone. “You just hang tight. You’ll be back with your parents in no time.”

After calling the precinct and describing the situation - at least, as best he could without sounding like a kook - Bill turned back to the boy and saw that he was still disconsolate. After a moment’s thought, he grinned and lowered himself to one knee.

“I really like the song you were singing earlier.” He said. “What’s it called?”

The boy gave him a quick glance before hiding his eyes again.

“Six Soccer Socks.” He mumbled.

“Will you teach me how to sing it?”

The boy looked at Bill and smiled.

When the police arrived the two of them were in the middle of their fifth attempt at a duet, opening the door just as the child erupted in laughter at the goofy voice the man had taken on for the second verse. After explaining the situation once more the cops told him that Bill’s first assumption was probably right, that this was just some prank Joe had pulled that he had taken too far, and that they’d find the boy’s parents as soon as possible. It took a little bit of gentle coaxing for him to convince the child to go with the policemen - he had seemed to grow very fond of Bill in a very short time and didn’t want to be separated from him just yet.

“You’re a good kid.” Bill said as he ruffled the boy’s hair and drew out a sheepish smile. “I’ll have the policemen give me a call when they find out where your parents are. Then I can bring my boys over so we can all play together. Deal?”

“Deal!” The boy chirped.

With that, he allowed himself to be scooped up in the officer’s arms, smiling at Bill over his shoulder and giving him a big wave. The man waved back until the boy was out of sight, then sighed and took a look around the office. Joe would have a lot of explaining to do when he showed up, but Bill was confident that he’d emerge before long. Even he wasn’t heartless enough to leave a kid that sweet twisting in the wind. Bill turned off the light, closed the door, and stepped back into the floor, murmuring a catchy little tune to himself as he headed back to work.

“Six soccer socks, sitting on the shelf…”

 

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