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?”

Wonderful Guy

Wonderful Guy

            It was unusually cold on this particular night in January.  I was in my bedroom putting the final touches on my first audition for the Spring Follies, an annual talent showcase at my school.  The song was “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis, but I was having a hard time hitting all the notes.  Before my nuts dropped, I was a soaring soprano.  Now, it sounded like someone was swinging a bag of cats.  A knock at my door interrupted the bridge.

            “WHAT?” I shouted over the music.

            It was my mother.

            “You’ve got a phone call.”

            I hardly ever got phone calls, and when I did, they were from kids in my class asking when homework was due.  I stormed out of my room and down the hall, furious at the interruption.  I impatiently picked up the phone.

            “HELLO?!”

            “Hey you.  You sound pissed off.”

            Jesus Christ!  It was Steve Avery!  The last time I was alone with him was before Christmas at Liz’s house.  He promised to take me riding around over the Christmas break.  Since my parents were too cheap to buy an answering machine, I made sure someone was at our house the entire two weeks of Christmas vacation.  I waited by the phone each night but got no calls from Steve.  But now.  Here he was.  A senior.  Calling an eighth grader.  I managed to stammer out a “Hey.”

            “I haven’t seen you around school since we got back,” he said.

            And that was true.  For a school with only three hallways, it was relatively easy to get lost in.  After I fell asleep on him at Liz’s and he left without waking me, I was sure that I drooled on him in my sleep or worse—I must have farted.  So I avoided him at all costs during our first two weeks back in the new year.  I knew his schedule so I planned my hallway routes accordingly.  Since he was in mostly remedial classes for football players, it was easy to navigate around him.

            “Um, yeah.  I’ve been busy,” I clumsily replied.

            “I’m really sorry about not taking you on that ride over the break.  I’m not sure if you heard, but my grandmother died right before Christmas.  So we were kinda busy with all that.”

            Death always comes at the most inconvenient times.

“Oh.  I’m real sorry.”

“But I had a lot of fun with you at Liz’s last month.  How was your Christmas?”

“It was good,” I lied.

            Christmas sucked.  It was the first year I didn’t get anything fun.  I got clothes, the one Swatch watch I didn’t want, and a bulky instant camera that was recalled two weeks later.

            “I told you that night I’d like to take you riding around sometime.  How about tonight?” he asked.

            I almost keeled over. 

            “I’ll have to ask my mother.”

            FUCK!  Why’d I say that?  He suggested I tell her that I was invited to a party at one of the football player’s houses so it wouldn’t look suspicious.  Little did he know that me getting invited to anything remotely cool looked suspicious.  I instructed Steve to hold the line, and I bounded toward the living room.

            “Mom, that’s Steve Avery on the phone reminding me about a party for the football team tonight at Kevin Johnson’s house.  He offered to give me a lift, so can I—“

            “Of course you can go!”

            Mom was tickled that I was invited to go somewhere.  Doubly so that it involved boys.  She thought I spent too much time with Liz playing with her jewelry.  I’m sure she figured that the football players would be a better influence on me than Liz and her sparkly CZ’s.  And since Steve Avery was known all over town, Mom had an extra spring in her step.  She didn’t need to know I was blowing him.

            I arranged for Steve to pick me up within the hour and immediately started primping and arguing with my mother.  She wanted to cook something.  I yelled at her to stop making a fuss.  She wanted to drive me.  I told her to shut up.  She suggested that I wear my Lee jeans.  But my Guess jeans made my ass look fuller.  So I told her to mind her business.  I stood in front of the mirror and practiced my smile until Mom forced me to sit down and eat a hamburger.  I scarfed it down, then sprayed on too much Obsession and walked out the door to wait on the porch.  It was bitterly cold, but I didn’t care.  This was going to be my first date, and I was going out with the star of the football team. The best looking guy in school.  Every girl would have killed to be in my position.  They would have gotten to wear heels and makeup, but I didn’t care.

            After about twenty minutes, Steve’s car wheeled around the corner and pulled up to my driveway.  He honked, and I sprinted across the yard, the frozen blades of grass snapping under the weight of my prance.  His car was some kind of early-80’s Grand Prix model.  It was black with pleather upholstery and thick shag carpet.  The seats were huge, and the interior smelled like the football locker room and Polo cologne.  It was warm.  I got in, and he looked around to see if anyone was watching out the windows.  He gave me a kiss on the mouth, and I grinned.  He then opened the car door and spit violently.

            “You taste like onions!”

            OH GOD!  I forgot to brush my teeth after dinner.  In a nervous high-pitched yelp, I promised I’d be right back.

            “I just ate a hamburger!”

            He laughed and pulled a bottle of mouthwash out of his glove compartment.  Oh, he was smooth.

            “Rinse,” he instructed.  “I can’t kiss on an onion all night.” 

            We stopped at the Jr. Food Mart, and Steve bought a six-pack of beer with his fake I.D.  I smirked.  While the other kids were at home watching “The Golden Girls” and “Facts of Life”, I was riding around with an eighteen-year old, sipping cans of Budweiser.  We drove around in the country for awhile, and he even pulled me over so I was sitting in the middle.  Right next to him. We talked about everything from school to home life to his future plans. We pulled up at the end of Sally’s Hill Road which was haunted by Sally herself, a victim of decapitation in a horrible horse-drawn buggy accident over one hundred years before.  More importantly, it was a deserted dirt road that was popular among teenagers who liked to drink, smoke, and make out. 

            “You don’t think anyone will see us?” I asked.

            “Naw.  I’ll pull into this clearing.  Nobody ever comes back here.”

            He pulled off the dirt road and into a clearing in the woods.  My science teacher had just warned about the perils of making out in a parked car with the engine running.  Apparently teenage pregnancy wasn’t as pressing an issue as dying from carbon monoxide poisoning while sucking face in the backseat of a Volkswagon Jetta.  At any rate I asked if we could crack the windows.

            “You’re too funny,” he grinned.  Then, seriously, he added, “You won’t tell anybody about all this, will you?”

            “Hell no!” I exclaimed.  “I don’t want anybody to find out either.  Everybody will make fun of us.”        

            “I know.   People around here are so fucking stupid.”

            “Speaking of stupid, are you still dating that slut?”  I asked.  Steve had gone out with our head cheerleader, Patti.  Who was a slut.

            “Nope.  Never again.  Fucking her was like fucking a glass of water.  She couldn’t carry on a conversation.  And she couldn’t suck dick to save her life.  Not like you.”

            Then, there it was.  His tongue coming straight for my mouth.  SHIT!  I always heard about French kissing, but I never knew that two guys could do it.  What was I supposed to do with his tongue?!  What if it tasted bad?!  What if I got AIDS?!  He kissed me…for thirty minutes.  Only stopping to swig Budweiser.  I didn’t get AIDS, it didn’t taste bad, and I figured out with a quickness what to do with it.  I never knew this kind of intensity before.  It scared the absolute hell out of me, but I was exhilarated.

            “You have the softest lips,” he whispered.  “Do you know what a blow job feels like?”

            “Um, no.”

            “Let’s go back here, and I’ll show you.”

            We moved to the backseat, but for this I was ready.  I had been practicing with my pillow how to embrace a guy and where to position my arms while lying on my back.  And he soon showed me just what a blow job felt like.  After all those months of blowing him, he never once offered to reciprocate.  Until now.  I felt like my whole body was about to explode.  If this was what a blow job felt like, no wonder he couldn’t keep his cock away from my mouth.  After several more minutes of this wondrous thing called fellatio, we were sitting in the front seat again, drinking a beer and sharing a cigarette.  We sat there holding hands, taking turns dragging off a Salem Menthol, and looking straight ahead.  Finally, he spoke.

            “That was fucking great.  Wanna do it again next--?”

            “YEP!”  I couldn’t contain my excitement.

            “It’s late.  I better get you home,” he said.

            “Okay.  Call me next week,” I whispered, channeling my best Marilyn Monroe.

            Fifteen minutes later, he kissed me good night.  He drove away and left me standing at my driveway in the freezing cold, pondering life, romance, and why my mother puts onions in everything.

Will He Like Me?

Will He Like Me?

            Liz, my neighbor and friend since kindergarten, had a new boyfriend.

 Liz was the first friend I ever had.  As a little girl, she was a tomboy with long stringy hair, skinny legs, and knobble knees.  Throughout our friendship, she taught me the lyrics to “Harper Valley PTA”, shot me with a BB gun, broke the sad but true news about Santa Claus, and told me what a twat looked like.  She lived up the street from us with her parents, her grandmother, and her loser older brother.  Their yard was a junkyard, literally.  The shell of an old Volkswagon sat out front.  A rusted dune buggy was falling apart out back.  There was a dilapidated playhouse full of wasps and dirt dobbers that sat next to a rotten wood swing set.  Grass did not grow in their yard.  Only weeds, rocks, and dirt. 

            Her parents were quite stern but generally nice to me, even though her mother made me eat brussels sprouts.  Her brother graduated high school in the seventies but never went to college.  He bounced around from job to job, wife to wife, woman to woman, bottle to bottle.  He was a hot mess.  Every time I was over there, no matter what time of day, he was sitting on the couch drinking a beer.  Most of the time, shirtless with his fat belly sagging below his belt.  Her grandmother was ancient.  She was a tiny frail creature, and they yelled at the poor thing all the time.  MeeMaw was in everybody’s business, and they never were shy about telling her to shut the fuck up.  She would usually shut the fuck up and sit there, scratching her face nervously until the skin peeled off.  Liz’s mom would then take her to the doctor, and the cycle would continue.  I never saw that woman in anything but a housecoat and slippers.  She was always murmuring under her breath and looked like she needed to shave.  In truth, she creeped me out, but I identified with her in a strange way.  Surrounded by people, she still seemed sad and lonely.

            The day they dug their swimming pool was the most thrilling day in our young lives.  I started to spend even more time at Liz’s house after the pool was finished, and whenever Mom would tell me that I couldn’t go swimming, Liz would simply push me into the pool.  Easy.  I was forced to go swimming.  Liz constantly got into trouble, whether it be shooting me with a BB gun—“What did she think you were?  A bird?” Mom angrily asked—or the day her mom caught us under a picnic table in the yard.  We were sitting “Indian style” facing each other.  Liz already ran through her repertoire of dirty jokes and was preparing to show me, through the magic of hand puppets what a vagina looked like.  Until her mom walked outside and overheard her.  Liz was forced to go and pick off a switch from a tree so her dad could whip her ass with it.  We always managed to find the flimsiest switches which pissed him off even more.

            Liz blossomed from a skinny little tomboy to a beautiful teenager—outgoing, popular, and a cheerleader!  I unequivocally adored her.  And she never acted like she didn’t know me.  After she turned sixteen, she had her first steady boyfriend.  His name was Joe.  He didn’t play football, but he was quite popular.  His best friend was one Steve Avery.  One Saturday evening in early December, Liz called me to come over and watch scary movies.

            “Mama and Daddy are taking MeeMaw to see my aunt and uncle, and they’re spending the night.  Come stay with me,” she instructed.

            I was ecstatic.  I was in eighth grade, and Liz was a sophomore.  Besides riding with her to school everyday, there had become too little interaction between us, and I missed her.  I hurriedly agreed.

            “Joe is coming over, and he’s bringing Steve Avery.”

            My heart palpitated.

            “My parents don’t want me alone in the house with boys.”

            “Well, I’m a boy,” I protested.

            “You don’t count,” she replied, a little too nonchalantly.  I didn’t care.  I was about to spend an entire evening with Steve Avery whom I hadn’t gotten to blow since October.

            I picked out my favorite pair of Guess jeans, my brand new green and white Coca-Cola shirt and my new Asahi sneakers.  High-top Converse shoes and a tie-dyed sweater wouldn’t do for tonight.  I put a heavy splash of Obsession cologne behind each ear.  I wanted the women’s perfume, but Mom didn’t think it a wise idea.  I fastened my new opaque Swatch watch to my bony wrist and headed for the door.

            “Why in the world are you getting so dressed up just to go to Liz’s house?” Mom inquired.

            “She’s having company, and I don’t wanna look like a kid.  Don’t be so nosy!”

            “Don’t you talk like that to me, or you’re not going anywhere!” she yelled.  “And there had better not be any beer!”

            “There’s not!  Geez.  Bye.”

            I practically skipped all the way up the street to Liz’s.  I knocked on the door, and Steve answered.  To my delight, he seemed genuinely pleased to see me. 

            “Hey,” he grinned.

            I nodded nervously, trying to play it cool, but somehow managed a sheepish grin.  I wondered aloud where Liz and Joe were.

            “They went to get beer from Joe’s brother,” he replied.

            Oh well.  What Mom doesn’t know…

            He motioned for me to follow him into the living room where we sat together on the sofa.  Before I could even ask how mid-terms were going to be for him, he softly kissed me on the lips—my first kiss.  It was the most romantic moment of my young life.

            “I wish I could talk to you more at school, but people would start to think stuff,” he offered.  “I liked it a lot when we used to hang out in the locker room.”

            That was because your cock was down my throat.

            “Uh-huh, me too.”

            “Maybe we could hang out more, if you want?”

            My mouth was dry.

            “I mean, I could come pick you up one night, and we could ride around and talk about stuff.  Drink a few beers.  I get so bored in this town.  I don’t have much in common with anybody at school.  They’re all boring with nothing funny to say.  You always cracked me up in the locker room.”

            Before I licked your balls.

            “Thanks,” I croaked.

            “You’re really cool for an eighth grader.”

            I wanted to marry him.  I wanted to throw my arms around him and profess my undying love.  I really wanted to write his name on my shoes.

            “So over Christmas break,” he continued, “I’ll pick you up one night and we’ll ride the back roads and talk.  Cool?”

            I was beside myself with excitement.  And thrilled at the prospect of hanging out with someone besides my brother.

            “That sounds like fun” was all I could mutter before Liz and Joe burst through the door, carrying a case of Budweiser.

            The night played out like a movie.  I was the lead character of course.  And since I wasn’t gay, I thought of myself as Molly Ringwald with Rob Lowe seated beside me.  Except Steve was a lot more muscular than Rob Lowe, and I’m quite sure Molly didn’t have a dick.  We watched five installments of the “Friday the 13^th” series, and the more Budweiser that was consumed, the closer Steve sat to me.  Liz and Joe started making out right around the time Jason was resurrected for the third time, so Steve took advantage of their liplock and put his hand on my leg.  I smiled nervously and kept one eye on the movie and the other eye on Liz. 

            Where in the hell did she learn to French kiss like that?

            After they finally nodded off, Steve pulled a blanket down from the hall closet and covered us with it.  He rubbed my leg, and my head nuzzled perfectly under his arm.  I fell asleep with the smell of his aftershave fresh in my nose.

            I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, feeling like I had socks in my mouth. 

And Steve was gone.

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.

He Touched Me

He Touched Me

            I was fourteen.  I was in a squatting position on a cold cement floor in the equipment area of the football team’s locker room.  It smelled of sweaty jerseys and smelling salts.  It was dimly lit with fluorescent white lights which did nothing for my pasty complexion.  The equipment area was a large closet just off the locker room behind the bleachers of the football field.  My head was pressed against a makeshift shelf made of two-by-fours, and Steve Avery’s dick was ramming in and out of my mouth. 

I played doctor at the age of eleven with a twelve-year old neighbor up the street, but this was heavy stuff.  I couldn’t control the saliva that was running out of my mouth and down my chin.  I could barely breathe, and I saw stars.  His dick was merciless—in and out, in and out.  He was so strong that my hands couldn’t push his solid legs away…not that I was trying very hard.  He was moaning with pleasure while I was suppressing my gag reflex.  His penis seemed to fill my entire mouth all the way down my throat.  It would disappear and then reappear.  I hated it…and I loved it.

            Steve Avery was a senior in high school and a star on and off the football field.  He was the most popular boy in school, a ladies’ man, a real guys’ guy.  Now I knew that he was, literally, a guys’ guy.  Since Linden, Alabama had only two traffic lights, everybody knew everybody.  So I knew of Steve since I was in grade school.  Every boy wanted to be him.  Every girl wanted to marry him.  I wanted both. 

When I entered junior high school, my dad thought it important that I be a member of the football team.  Thought it would help bring out my masculinity, I guess.  Since I threw like a girl, he pulled a few strings with his friend, our football coach.  Just like that, I was sent off to a weeklong camp and when I got home, I was the football team trainer.  Generally, my job was to tape ankles and administer smelling salts to players who passed out in the summer heat.  Specifically, I fashioned a peephole so I could see into the showers, and I planted the smelling salts in the lockers of any players who disrespected me.  Steve Avery never disrespected me.

We both got detention in study hall one afternoon for chewing gum.  Since we were late for football practice, he was forced to give me a ride.  I entertained him by doing impressions of various teachers.  I assume that upped my cool factor, because he offered me a ride to practice everyday thereafter.  While other football players made me carry their equipment and cater to their every whim, Steve always treated me kindly.

            Much to my chagrin, he never showered in the locker room.  I knew because I couldn’t see him through my homemade peephole.  The first time I laid eyes on his stunning body was one night after a performance in the baptismal pool during the summer before my eighth grade year.  I watched him get dressed after both of us were baptized on the same night.  Maybe he was seeking cleanliness for his thoughts of cocksucking as well.  He took his time getting dressed that night.  Almost as if he enjoyed being watched.  Because he knew he was being watched…subtlety was not my thing. 

            And now here we were, months later.  On this chilly fall afternoon at practice, Steve’s helmet broke, and I escorted him to the equipment room to fix it.  After I jabbed the screwdriver into my hand for the third time, Steve took a bandage and nursed my superficial wound.  His face was so intense and strong, and he was so focused on bandaging my hand that I couldn’t pry my eyes away from his gaze.  He caught me several times.  He finally grinned and asked, “What?”

            “Nothing.  You look so serious,” I shakily replied.

            “I am serious.  I’m your doctor.”

            Oh God, he knows about me and Bobby, dog’s best friend.

            “Have you ever played doctor?” he asked.

            “Sure.  But it’s been a long time, and it was with a girl.”

            Steve looked at me knowingly while I fixed my stare on my bandaged hand.  An eternity passed.

            “Playing doctor with boys is a lot more fun,” he teased. 

            With that, he pulled me into the corner of the room and gently pushed me down into a squatting position.  I looked as though I were about to take a dump.  He pulled his shorts down to his ankles, exposing that perfectly hanging dick that I had seen after my baptismal performance.  Except this time, it was erect, standing at attention like our drum major did during the halftime show. 

            “Do you want to taste it?” he asked.

            “Uh.  Yeah.  Sure.”

            I cautiously licked it.

            “Now put your mouth around it,” he instructed.

            I put my lips around the head, and that was it.  His cock played a perverse game of cat and mouse with my tonsils for what seemed like forever.  In actuality, about two minutes later, just as my jaw felt like it was going to become unhinged, I tasted something sweet and salty and bitter all at once.

            My mouth was full of a warm sticky liquid.  Just a month earlier, I was spending the night with my classmate William, and he taught me how to masturbate with a warm washcloth.  It was the first time that I had climaxed although nothing came out.  But William shot a huge load, so I got to see first-hand what spunk looked like.  So, at that moment, in the equipment room, my mouth was full of Steve Avery’s spunk.  It didn’t taste good, but it didn’t taste bad either.

            “Do you want to spit?”

            That was rhetorical since I couldn’t help but to spit it out all over the floor.  Steve muttered something under his breath, asked if I was okay, and then left me with a bandaged hand in the cold and smelly equipment room to clean his spunk off the stained cement floor.

            I didn’t mind.  I was in love.

The Right to Shoes

                                                                 The Right to Shoes

            I always thought it ironic that my mother spent most of her days trying to keep me out of women’s clothes, and then the first time we went shoe-shopping after I started junior high, she forced me to buy a pair of women’s sneakers.  My parents yelled at and berated me to the point of exasperation—theirs not mine—over my fondness for women’s apparel. Whether it was a high-heeled boot or a flared skirt, I spent my preteen years sashaying around the house clutching a clutch.  I adored women’s fashion, but I cross-dressed to exact my revenge on my parents for one of their most criminal of flaws.  They were cheap.  A childhood friend of mine always asked bearers of his birthday gifts how much his special day had put them back.  I overheard my mother playfully ask his mother, “Is Kevin Jewish?”  Naturally, I assumed that all Jewish people were cheap so I secretly began to question why my parents attended a Baptist church. No matter the occasion, my parents could always find the off-brand.  When Coca-Cola shirts were the rave, my mother bought the Dr. Pepper equivalent because it was “more durable.”

            “Bargain brands never go out of style,” she assured me.

            My younger brother and I wanted a puppy and a trampoline throughout our childhood.  We were thrilled when we woke up one cold Christmas morning to find just that. A puppy and a trampoline. Our neighbors gave us the puppy because it had the mange.  My parents skimped on the trampoline and did not buy the protective pads.  Two weeks later, the dog was dead and the trampoline was given away after my brother straddled the bar and sang falsetto for three days.  On car trips, Dad thought it would waste gas to stop. So when Mom would relieve his driving duties, they would swap places while the car was moving.  At 60 miles per hour on the interstate. Dad stopped that little trick after he paid $125 to the city of Tupelo, Mississippi for reckless driving.

            I was about to start junior high, and I desperately wanted the new Nike sneaker. White leather with a red stripe. I convulsed when Mom agreed to buy them for me. She took me to the local clothing store that had all of the cool brands. Andy, our salesman, was a loud obnoxious senior at my school. He brought two sizes of the Nike sneaker over for me to try on. When Mom saw the price tag, it was her turn to convulse.

            “Can we see the women’s shoe?” she not-so-innocently asked.

            I thought it was neat that my mom wanted the shoe identical to mine. While Andy the Loud went to fetch the shoes, Mom explained that women’s sneakers were cheaper than men’s and since I wasn’t in children’s sizes anymore, she wanted me to try them on. Again, convulsions.

“MAMA!!”

I couldn’t believe the depths that she had sunk. And to make me try them on in front of our school’s equivalent to Liz Smith?  It was all too much. She instructed me not to make a scene, so I tried on the shoes, red-faced and wanting to sink into the linoleum. For the first time in my life, I did not want to wear women’s shoes. But I did. I wore the women’s Nike for nine months until, finally, my foot grew. In reality, I stuffed wads of tissue in the toes of my shoes, but what the parental units didn’t know sure didn’t hurt them.

            Luckily, I grew out of my cross-dressing tendencies. Save for one Halloween when I was Mrs. Doubtfire, I haven’t dressed in drag since age twelve. My parents, however, are still cheap. I planned a trip to the theatre for their first trip to New York a few years ago.

            “There are so many exciting new plays this season, Mom,” I relayed to her over the phone.        She paused. She thought. She calculated.

            “The new plays are all so expensive.  Have you seen “The Phantom of the Opera”?”

            Oy.  If I were Jewish, I would plats.