May 18, 2005
Episode IV
The dark side took Jason when he was seven years old. He and Peter were downstairs playing with action figures; their mothers were upstairs having coffee. When Jason’s mom came down to tell him it was time to go he made a show of whining -- “Mom… we just got here… Mom. No. Mom.” -- and when he started to cry everyone looked away in embarrassment. That was just the distraction he needed to snatch Darth Vader and slip him into his jeans pocket.
“Whhho. Chhhh. Whhhho. Chhhh,” Vader wheezed, as Jason followed mom up the stairs.
They were sitting in the car waiting for it to warm up when she busted him.
“Did you steal that Star Wars from Peter?”
“What?”
“That Star Wars doll in your hand. Did you steal it?”
Jason looked down and discovered to his horror that he had unconsciously taken the action figure out of his pocket and was clutching it on his lap.
The car engine clanked and went dead.
“You didn’t steal it?”
“Peter gave it to me.” He pressed his forehead against the window and sighed. He looked over at the house. The snow had been coming down all day, and it covered the Rubenstein’s lawn.
“No he did not. You stole it”
“Did not.”
“You stole it.”
Jason looked down at Vader, then over at his mother.
“Ok Ok Ok fine, I’ll give it back.”
His mother paused, wiping the condensation from the windshield. “Then they’ll know you stole it.”
“Well duh.”
She was staring out the window, mumbling something under her breath. She restarted the engine and worked the pedal with her foot. Without looking at him she said, “Throw it out the window.”
“Huh?”
She turned and grabbed his arm, squeezing hard. “You can either go back in and tell Peter and Illana that you’re a thief. Or you can keep it and be a thief. Or you can throw it out the window.”
Jason rolled down the window with some effort. He took one last look at Vader and then threw him. The dark lord flipped a few times in the air, his plastic cape flapping, his light saber raised in the air above his head, then disappeared into the snow.
