Every Day A Little Death

Every Day A Little Death

            I was a freshman in high school, alone.  Steve Avery had graduated.  Now here I was.  In ninth grade, hormones raging and not another queer in sight.  Seventh and eighth grades were tolerable.  Maybe because of Steve.  But ninth grade?  No way.  I hated everybody and felt like everybody hated me.  I was too skinny, too awkward.  I had too many zits, not enough muscles.  Basically I felt what every other fifteen-year old felt.  But there was something different.  I liked boys and didn’t want to.  I was teased a little for being ‘girly’.  But nothing I couldn’t handle.  I had a few friends but longed to be in the “in crowd” again, like I was when Steve was still at school.  But my classmates that were in this crowd were having sex and drinking.  And I wasn’t. 

            Home life wasn’t much better.  My brother, Keith, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of twelve.  He spent over a week in Children’s Hospital in Birmingham while I stayed with one of my favorite families in Linden, the Glass family.  David was in my class at school and was on the periphery of the ‘in crowd’.  We got along very well though.  Besides, I loved looking at his ass.  He had a younger brother named Jimmy and a little sister named Jessie.  They were all wild as hell.  During the week I spent with them, there were baseball fights, pitchfork fights, car tag fights.  I got flea bites from their army of dogs that marched in and out of the house.  But I loved it.  Then it was home again.

            I fit into the norm of most fifteen-year olds in one aspect.  I was a self-centered brat.  So while my parents and Keith were trying to adjust to his new dietary needs and two insulin shots everyday, I was causing commotion after commotion. 

            “I want to go back to David’s!” I yelled on a daily basis.

            I pitched tantrums over doing chores, I talked back to my mother.  Anything I could do to make them notice me is exactly what I did.  Finally, at the end of his rope, Dad decided to have a “grown-up” talk with me.

            “You’ve got to calm down.  You’re driving your mother and me crazy.  It’s not good for Keith either.  He’s trying to adjust.  We’re all trying to adjust, and you’re not helping any by telling us you’d rather live with David and his family.”

            He was calm.  I was not.

            “I don’t care about any of you!  You all hate me anyway!  You wouldn’t even notice if I was gone!”

            “Shut up.  You know that’s not true.  You’re just being a spoiled little shit ass.”

            I buried my face in my pillow just to piss him off.

            “Look at me.”

            I didn’t budge.

            “Look at me goddamnit!”

            I slowly looked up.  And thought I saw a tear.

            “You don’t know what it’s like—and I hope you never know—but you don’t know what it’s like to have your son look at you in a hospital bed and ask if he’s gonna die.  Now you straighten yourself up and at least pretend that you like us.”

            And he walked out of my room.  I buried my face in my pillow again.  Not to piss him off.  But so they wouldn’t hear me cry from shame and embarrassment.  And for my brother.

            So I took my dad’s advice.  I straightened up.  As much as a self-centered fifteen-year old brat could.  The school’s annual talent showcase was coming up.  I performed in it the year before, so I auditioned again and won a solo.  Even school was beginning to look up.  Until one Friday afternoon in Mrs. Wood’s biology class.

            In some circles, Mrs. Wood could be considered eccentric.  In most circles, she could be considered certifiable.  She told stories about everything.  How she read a book about freeing one’s spirit and how she freed her spirit from her entire body…except her big toe.  How she drowned as a child and came back to life.  How her daughter saved herself for the man she loved and he in turn broke her heart because he screwed a guy.  Nothing was off limits. 

That particular Friday afternoon—Black Friday, she read an article aloud in class from one of Alabama’s newspapers.  It was a scathing expose’ about closeted gay men and how they initiate sex in public places such as restrooms at the mall.  The more she read, the redder my face got.  This was not an article for fifteen-year olds.  Especially not for fifteen-year old boys who liked boys and lived in fear every day of being found out.  According to the article, a gay guy would sit in the restroom stall and tap his foot until someone who was also in on the ‘code’ would tap his foot back.  Then it was off to Fuckland.  There were quotes from closeted gays, experts, psychiatrists.  The entire article seemed to tell us that straight was good, gay was bad.           

            With each word, I was getting more flushed.  I felt as if everyone in the room was looking straight at me.  Then there was a quote that Mrs. Wood read from one of the ‘experts’ that interviewed several closeted gays.  The quote read something like “gay guys can have sex with women but must think of a man to get it up.”  With that, Mrs. Wood dramatically put the paper on her desk and looked up at the class.  In my mind, she was looking directly at me.

            “And ladies, if that doesn’t make your blood run cold, you are dead!”

            My OCD kicked in.  Was she directing this entire spiel at me?  Was everyone talking about me behind my back?  Did they know about Steve?  I was in a full-on panic attack.  I left school that day still flushed and felt like I had the flu.  I didn’t eat dinner that night.  Instead I adjourned to my room and tried to focus on my upcoming solo for the talent showcase.  But I couldn’t. Her words kept running through my head.  I was doomed to a life of having to think about dick just to stick mine in a vagina.  Doomed to spending my days in restroom stalls at Sears, tapping my foot while waiting for a blow job.

            No.  Absolutely not.  That will not be me.  I’m not gay.  I will never look at another boy that way again.  No more hanging out in the locker room.  No more looking at David’s ass.  None of that.  I will like girls.  Maybe I’ll even go out with fat Shelley who keeps leaving notes in my locker.  I’m not gonna touch her twat, but maybe I’ll just kiss her instead.  I am straight.  From now on.  I am straight.

            My new mantra seemed to work.  Every time I would catch myself daydreaming about boys, I’d pinch my arm or slap my face.  Then I’d start thinking about the cheerleaders.  Football practice was still a challenge.  So was David’s ass.  After practice, I would just get my work done, focusing on the floor the entire time, and then leave.  And whenever I was around David for any length of time, I’m fairly certain he wondered why I kept slapping myself.  For the most part, it was working.  The gay thoughts weren’t as prevalent and were being replaced by straight thoughts.  Soon, I was even able to jack off while thinking about cheerleaders. 

            I went through the remainder of my freshman year with nothing but girls on my mind.  I asked out a few, but they all turned me down.  Not many girls want to date guys who can also give them makeup tips.  The talent showcase was a success, and my rendition of “Splish Splash” wowed the crowd.  Especially when I ripped off my robe, revealing Pepsi-Cola shorts and a tank top.  After school ended for the summer, I worked part-time at a baseball park’s concession stand and part-time as a lifeguard at the Linden Country Club.  I’m not sure whether it was all the guys in their baseball uniforms or their bathing suits.  But whatever the reason, the old feelings started to creep back in.  But this time, I was a little more rational about it.  I figured that I could do both for awhile—girls and boys.  Then quit the boys in college and get serious about marrying a girl.  I had already proven to myself that I could get hard thinking about girls.  Easy.  Now I could masturbate thinking about whomever I chose. 

            And about that time, my grandfather died.  We drove over to Jackson, Mississippi for the week.  All the grandkids were getting on the adults’ nerves, so Dad and my uncle took several of us to watch the local university’s football team practice, where Dad’s best friend was the coach.  After drinking four too many iced teas at Grandma’s house, I needed to go in a bad way.  So I went to the restroom just off the practice field.  I was peeing when I heard the door open and shut behind me.   Of all the other urinals, this older guy walks over and uses the one next to mine.  I looked up at him, startled, and recognized him from the field.  He was one of the assistant coaches, younger than the others, but ancient to me.  So, he was about thirty.  And a looker.

            “How’s it goin’?” he asked.

            “Fine, I guess.”

            He glanced down at my penis which, surprisingly, was becoming erect.  He smiled.  He had dentist-white teeth.  I glanced down at his.  It was monstrous and hard as a rock.  And he was playing with it.  He was thirty years old.  I was fifteen. 

And then he tapped his right foot.

            So that’s what Mrs. Wood was talking about.