My Funny Valentine

My Funny Valentine

                “Patti Pritchett is a slut!”

                I was pissed.  And Liz wasn’t helping.

                “She’s not that bad.”

                “Liz, she kissed your boyfriend!”

                “I know.  I wrote her a letter and called her a whore.  So she apologized.”

                “So now she’s your best friend?”

                “No, but we’re cheerleaders so we have to get along.  Or she’ll manage to accidentally throw me off the pyramid.  Besides, why are you so worked up about Patti Pritchett?”

                I couldn’t tell Liz that it had nothing to do with the fact that Patti and Liz’s boyfriend Joe were recently caught in a liplock behind the bleachers in our gym.  Or that I hated Patti’s peroxide-blonde hair with a too-tight perm.  Or that I loathed her purple eye shadow.  Nope.  My reasons for hating the school slut were far more insidious.  Just days before, Steve and I were riding around after school, and I opened his glove compartment looking for gum.  I found a note from Patti that she slipped in his locker. Basically, it was a standing offer to fuck him at the car wash.  I was livid.  They had gone steady the previous year until Patti cheated on Steve with the school mascot.  And since we were the Longhorns, she basically cheated on Steve with a bull. 

            “Look, I ain’t going there again.  Why?  Are you jealous?” he teased.

            “No!”

            “Well then forget about Patti.”

            I still had my doubts but decided to drop the subject anyway.

            “Patti who?”

Besides, Valentine’s Day was coming up.

            Since our first date in his car, Steve let his guard down and started letting me hang around him and his friends.  I was over the moon.  An eighth-grader being allowed to hang out with seniors was something the other kids in my class could only dream of.  On weekends, we usually hung out with Joe and Liz and even went to the Dairy Queen with them.  Hanging out at the Dairy Queen on weekends was the only thing to do in Linden, Alabama.  Steve even got into the habit of ordering for me without having to ask what I wanted.  Chicken fingers with extra tartar sauce.  I was falling for him…hard.  Yet I still couldn’t wrap my brain around it.  I didn’t want to be gay, I knew that.  So what the hell was going on? 

                I’m not sure what all the other kids in my school thought.  Here was the star of the school.  Our best athlete, gorgeous and built.  And he was hanging out with the sissy of the school.  Our class clown, built like a stick.  I didn’t care.  I knew that Steve liked me, and I liked him.  One night, Steve and I slipped away from the Dairy Queen by ourselves and rode back to Sally’s Hill to make out.  After he sucked me off, we lit a cigarette.

                “You know Valentine’s Day is coming up?”

                I was stunned.  Speechless.  I never dreamed he’d even broach the subject of Valentine’s Day. 

                “I…um….yeah….sure.  Why?”

                “Last year, I hung out with Patti on Valentine’s Day, but this year I want to hang out with you.  It’s on a school night, but we could still ride around for a while.”

                Stunned and elated.  I was the happiest kid in town.

                “I have Follies practice, but I could ask to rehearse first.  Can you pick me up at the gym?”

                The Spring Follies was my school’s annual talent showcase.  Auditions were the week before, and I got a solo.  So rehearsals were twice a week until the show later in the spring.

                “That sounds perfect.” 

                And with those words, he leaned over and kissed me right on the mouth. 

                The following weekend was unusually warm for the first of February.  So everyone had a rush of spring fever.  Liz and I went with Steve and Joe to some pasture with all kinds of trails and ponds and hills.  Several other older kids from school were there too.   There were four-wheelers, three-wheelers, motor bikes, dirt bikes.  It was a veritable playground of deathtraps.  Steve and I were on a four-wheeler, and I was holding on to his waist for dear life until fat Sonny Barkley yelled at us.

                “Steve has a girlfriend!”

                With that, Steve stopped the four-wheeler, grabbed a handful of mud, and threw it in Sonny’s face.  I beamed.  Steve got back on the four-wheeler and looked at me and grinned.

                “Dickhead.  But you should probably hold on to the safety bars on the back.”

                Oh well.

                Hours later, after almost hitting a tree and crashing into Joe and Liz, we got bored of everyone and slipped over to the next pasture which was owned by Patti’s dad.

                “We can’t go over here!  Old Man Pritchett will shoot us!”

                “Don’t worry about it.  He loves me,” Steve offered.

                “Does he know his daughter is a car wash madam?”

                We headed over to the clearing, and Steve pulled out a small blanket that he had tucked away in the cooler tied on the back of the four-wheeler. 

                “It’s warm outside.  Let’s get nekkid!” he exclaimed.

                I was a little cautious, but before I could protest, Steve had completely disrobed and was standing there in the sunshine, hard as a rock. 

                “Let’s wrassle,” he said with a mischievous smirk on his face.

                “Alright, but don’t mess up my hair.”

                And with that, I got undressed and slowly walked over to Steve.  He immediately grabbed me and started kissing me hard on the mouth.  We fell on the blanket, rolling around, making out, giggling.  My brother watched wrestling on TV, but it never looked like this.  We were perched on the top of a very steep hill that overlooked a lovely pond, and more than once we came dangerously close to swimming in it.  But we were so hot and bothered, neither one of us cared.  Steve was panting and sweating, almost breathless.

                “Can I fuck you?”

                “I…um…how would that work?” was all I could mutter.

                “I’ll show you.”

                And with that, he gently but forcefully tried to ease himself into me.

                I let out a big old girly scream just as we heard a truck engine in the distance.  Steve looked up, sweat dripping off his face.  We were both drenched.

                “FUCK!  It’s Old Man Pritchett!”

                I looked back, and sure enough, there was Old Man Pritchett in his truck making his way toward us. 

                “You gotta hide!” Steve shouted.

                “Where the hell am I supposed to-“

                Before I could finish my sentence, Steve rolled me over to the side and down the hill.  As I was rolling down the hill—naked—with briars ripping at my skin, rocks pelting my bare ass, and a mouth full of mud, I couldn’t help but think:  No wonder teen suicide is on the rise.  These are the best times of our lives??  I landed with a thud at the edge of the pond in the thick marsh.

                I hope to God the snakes are hibernating!

                I could hear some talking at the top of the hill, so I crawled over to a small cluster of bushes so Old Man Pritchett couldn’t see me if he looked down.  I wondered what kind of story Steve was spinning to justify sitting in the middle of a pasture by himself, naked on a blanket.  Then I didn’t care.  And I got angry.  So I slowly dragged my muddy ass up the hill, pulling briars out of my legs the entire way.  Halfway up the hill, I heard the truck pulling away, and then it was quiet again.  Steve came running down the hill toward me, now in his white briefs and hunting boots.

                “Goddamnit, I’m sorry!  Are you okay?”

                “Do I look like I’m ok?”  I was enraged.  “Did you have to throw me down the hill?  Couldn’t I have just hidden behind a fucking tree?  Or…I don’t know…maybe gotten dressed?”

                “We didn’t have time to get dressed, and there was nowhere to hide!  Besides, I didn’t mean for you to go flying down the hill.  Come on up here and let’s get you cleaned up.”

                He picked me up and carried me up the hill.  I was still incensed but flattered by his gallantry.  Which pissed me off even more.  He put me on the four-wheeler and began removing the briars and wiping the mud off with a towel.  Then he started crying.

                “That scared the shit outta me.  I had to tell him that I fell in the mud and was rinsing off in the pond right before he drove up.  Thank God he believed me.  You know how much trouble we’d have gotten into if he would have seen us doing that stuff?  I can’t do that stuff with you no more!”

                “Yes you can!  Just not in an open pasture.  We’ll just keep doing it in the car!”

                “No!  No more.  At all.  And I’m taking Patti out for Valentine’s Day.  Her dad said she misses me.”

                “What?”  I was enraged again.  “She misses anything with two legs and a cock!  And you promised you’d hang out with me on Valentine’s Day!”

                “You’re not a girl!”  Now Steve seemed to be the one who was enraged.  “I need to be with a girl!  Not nekkid with you!”

                “It’s naked!  You moron!”

                Steve grabbed me by the throat and glared at me.  I couldn’t tell whether he was going to hit me or strangle me.  Either way, I just shut my eyes.  He slowly let go.

                “I’m sorry kid.  I gotta take you home.”

The next week at school was uneventful with the exception of the day I raised the American flag out front in the school yard….upside down.  Everyone got a kick out of that one.  Steve barely spoke to me, but I could tell he wanted to.  So I decided to make the move.  I approached him at his locker between classes. 

                “Are you sure you want to go out with Patti?”

                “No.  But I have to.”

                “No you don’t.  Nobody will find out about us.  Don’t worry about it.”

                “I’m going out with Patti.  I’m late for class.  See you around.”

                I watched him walk down the hallway.  I was beyond crushed, and I still couldn’t figure out why.

                Then it was Valentine’s Day.  I had Follies rehearsals that night at the gym and asked to go first.  I ran through the first stanza of “Great Balls of Fire” with the pianist and then sang the entire song with the band.  Our director, Mr. Bozeman, looked non-plussed and disinterested, so I assumed that was a good thing.  Whenever I sucked, he was the first person to shake his head in disgust.  After I finished, I took a seat in the bleachers to watch the others rehearse.  The pay phone by the lunchroom started ringing, and fat Sonny Barkley, a volunteer stage hand, answered it.

                “Craig!  It’s your daddy.  He wants to know if you need a ride home!”

                I was livid.  Incensed at Dad for calling the gym.  And furious at Sonny for announcing it to everyone.  I stormed off to answer it but not before giving Sonny the finger.

                “Dad!  I told you not to call me—“

                “It’s not your Dad.  Come outside,” a familiar voice said.

                I walked outside.  And there was Steve.  Across the parking lot standing against his car.  He motioned me over. 

                “Are you through with rehearsal?”

                “Yep.”

                “Get in.  If you want to.”

                Of course I wanted to.  I was slowly allowing myself to become elated again.

                I got into the car.  There was a Dairy Queen bag on the seat.

                “I got us food.  Let’s go eat.”
                I looked into the bag, and there was my order.  Chicken fingers with extra tartar sauce. 

                “Sally’s Hill?” Steve asked.

                “Sure.  What about Patti?”

                Steve stared at me a moment.  And then grinned.

                “Patti who?”