Down With Love

Down With Love

            Ever since the fellatio incident in the locker room, Steve insisted on giving me a ride to and from football practice.  And everyday, like clockwork, some part of his equipment broke.  On Mondays, it was his chin strap.  On Tuesdays, his shoulder pads.  I was especially adept at repairing shoulder pads, as I had created my own at home to give me Linda Evans’ stature.  On Wednesdays, his mouthpiece would rip.  And every Thursday, he would tear his pants…which gave me easy access. 

Fellatio became something I was good at.  Like dancing or cooking French toast.  I owned oral sex and soon realized that when I had Steve’s balls in my mouth, I owned him as well.  I watched his face during the act, scrutinizing it for any signs of pleasure or pain.  I stopped using my teeth the day I drew blood.  Other than that, he was mine.  Our strange yet wondrous relationship lasted until our team was soundly defeated the first round of state playoffs.  Like all good things, even cock sucking has to end.  Then it was back to reality.

            At school, I would get a nod of the head from Steve, but other than that, we did not speak.  Seniors simply did not converse with eighth-graders, no matter how cool the eighth-grader was or how big a loser the senior might be.  The only exception was Anna, a girl in my homeroom.  She was not a classic beauty, really not even that cute.  But she was friendly and smart and very outgoing.  And she put out.  The upper classmen loved her.  She was one of the first girls in my class to date several members of the varsity squad—at once.  I thought she was just a trip.  Every time she had a new “boyfriend”, she would write his name on her Tretorn sneakers.  By the end of our junior-high career, her Tretorns were nothing but graffiti. 

            After football season ended, I was despondent.  Our relationship was over.  I moped around the house and didn’t speak much at school for about two weeks.  I listened to my Barbara Mandrell cassette for the first time in three years, crying through the lyrics.  I knew loving him was wrong, but goddamnit, I didn’t wanna be right.  It was unfair that I was an eighth-grader, and he a senior.  I wanted him and loved him but didn’t want to want him and love him.  So, I did what any other self-hating teen-aged boy who sucked dick would do:  I became born again and got baptized.  I also decided that it was time to ask a girl out.  So I chose Natalie.

            Natalie Glass was my friend David’s cousin.  I spent a good bit of time around the Glasses and was particularly fond of David.  Natalie was a skinny girl, one year behind me in school, with a thin wisp of shoulder-length blonde hair and cute in a tomboy-play-in-the-yard kind of way.  She had the cutest Coca-Cola shirts and once got crabs from her older sister’s bath towel.  Natalie was also a cheerleader, so she had my admiration immediately.  I loved cheerleaders.  The routines, the pyramids, the pleated skirts.  Natalie and I had been friendly for quite some time.  We talked in the hallways at school, at recess, and at lunch.  We talked on the phone about movies, cheerleader routines and how to apply eye shadow without looking like a slut.  So in my mind, she was basically already my girlfriend.  So why not ask her out?  Little did I know, but in Natalie’s mind, she had a girlfriend too.

            My parents were planning a day trip to Tuscaloosa which was about an hour away from Linden.  Tuscaloosa was the closest city with a mall and a movie theater.  My brother, Keith and I were each allowed to take one guest.  Keith chose David’s brother Jimmy, and I usually chose David because, well, I liked looking at his ass.  But this time I chose Natalie.  My parents were thrilled!  Mom encouraged me to call Natalie and ask her out properly.  I was so nervous I wrote my entire spiel down on a piece of paper and memorized it.  I dialed the number.

            RING!!  My stomach hurt.

            RING!!  I farted.

            RING!!  “Hello?”  It was her mother.

            “May I speak to Natalie?”

            Her mother yelled partially into the receiver for Natalie to pick up the phone.

            “Hello?” Natalie cheerfully answered.

            I wanted to throw up.

            “Hey Nat it’s Craig my parents are taking me and Keith to Tuscaloosa next weekend and they said we could each bring somebody to go with us and I was wondering if you wanted to be my date and go to Tuscaloosa next weekend with me and my parents and Keith and Jimmy so do you want to? Go to Tuscaloosa next weekend with me and my parents and Keith and Jimmy?”

            She paused for a second and nervously replied.

            “Hold on.”

            She put down the receiver for maybe fifteen seconds and came back to the line. 

            “I can’t.  My sister is coming home from college that weekend, and I’m gonna spend time with her.  Sorry.  See you tomorrow at school.”

            Oh God!  What had I done?!

            I was devastated and embarrassed and hurt.  And confused.  Why in the hell did she pass up a trip to the movies to spend time with a sister who had inadvertently given her the crabs?

            The next day at school, Natalie wouldn’t even look at me in the hallway, much less speak to me.  We didn’t talk again for two years.  Actually, she spoke to me once the next week but only through Jimmy.  I was waiting at the gym door for my mother who was picking me up following a basketball game.  Natalie was standing close to the door with Jimmy and a nit-witted cheerleader who I despised.  Natalie and the twit were giggling and began to whisper something to Jimmy and point toward me.  Jimmy walked up to me, imitating a robot, and made a circular motion with his index finger, simulating radar honing in on me.

            “FAGGOT ALERT!  FAGGOT ALERT!” he yelled.

            I stood there for a moment, staring at them in disbelief.  I held back the tears until my eyes began to burn.  I went outside and hid behind a school bus so no one would see me cry.  The tears came and would not stop.  When Mom arrived, I could barely catch my breath.  She asked what was wrong.

            “Shut up and drive.”

            The next weekend, my parents, along with Keith and Jimmy, went to Tuscaloosa.  Mom begged me to come, but Dad was non-plussed.  He was already in the car before I finished my declaration of “and I am telling you I’m not going.”  Keith waved goodbye from the car as Mom looked at me forlornly.  Jimmy stuck his little tongue out at me, and if I could have gotten to it with a pair of scissors, he would have been able to lick his own colon.

            I cried as I watched their car drive away.  I cursed Jimmy, Natalie, the word ‘faggot’.  I paraded around the house railing at the world, just like Jane Wyman on “Falcon Crest.”  I was so angry!  I wanted to do something that normal thirteen-year old boys would have done.  I wanted to climb a tree, kick a dog, shoot a cat.  Maybe beat up a small kid. 

            Instead, I went to my room and tried on a set of Mom’s Lee Press-On Nails.