3

3

Johnny was a little man, not just in stature, but in mind and in the unspoken measure. None of that bothered him until he hit the eighth grade. Then every guy in the locker room knew his religion and the distance from his stomach to his pee hole. Not to mention that his hormones had only managed to push out one pubic hair.
One hair.
It didn’t even curl. It just dangled awkwardly about an inch above the base of his penis and slightly to the right. It had sprouted next a mole but still seemed lonely. It was way too early for the party. Sometimes, at night Johnny would talk to it and twirl it gently with his index finger trying to cheer it up and keep it company.
One day, five boys that Mother Nature let go first on the Puberty Train, pummeled him mercilessly with red rubber balls on the dodge ball court in gym class and then really let him have it in the shower.
They laughed and pointed at his undeveloped phallus and his solitary pube. They even made up a song about his inverted pee pee. His balls were as big as sun ripened oranges but his stick wasn’t enough to, well, shake a stick at. Thimble sized at best, Johnny’s Johnny quickly sailed from a Junior High wisecrack to a High School legend. Cheeks ripe with red acne and a smelly tooth never mattered much when his nickname was Needle Dick. Not one girl said yes to his invitations to a night at the movies or super melts at Friendly’s. He couldn’t even get a maybe from the midget girl in A.V.
That all ended with graduation.
He didn’t get any poon, but he decided he was taking his show on the road and get shunned by girls from a different state.
He decided to grow a mustache to look older. He stole a bottle of High Karate from his dad and hit the road.
Two days of pavement behind him, he stopped into a place called The Big Red Dog. Nobody asked him for I.D., probably because of his mustache, he thought. He leaned on the sticky bar and ordered a Manhattan. He didn’t know what was in it but it was the only drink he knew. Next thing he remembers, a girl in a wheelchair was tugging on his back pocket. She invited him out to the parking lot to share her Jim Beam. He followed and put his sneaker behind her wheel as she fished through the back seat of an Impala looking for the booze she was baiting him with. She finally found the bottle and held it up like it was Excalibur. She tilted her head back and made like a siphon on that bottle. Her adams apple jumped up and down as she guzzled down the booze, mesmerizing Johnny like a bouncing ball on a karaoke screen. Wiping her chin, she passed the whiskey over to Johnny. He rubbed the rim with his fingers and started to take a sip. As he did, the wheelchair girl unzipped his fly and fumbled around his groin till she grasped his stuff.
Johnny had never felt another persons flesh on his wang before. The shock and warmth of delicate female fingertips erupted him into a gooey mess, just barely outside of his zipper and slightly above her elbow.
Now he was a man.
The mustache really paid off.
He gallantly wheeled the girl back inside and thank her with a Pina Colada. She wasn’t impressed, but he didn’t care. He was off to his next conquest.
Somewhere down the road.

The Dugout

The Dugout


There was this place called The Dugout. I don’t know how it got that name. It wasn’t dug out of anything nor did it resemble a dugout one might find on a baseball field. It was just a small dirt circle encased by trees. It was twenty feet down the hill from Route 6 and didn’t seem to be anyone’s property. The path linking it to the road was obvious to everyone that knew it was there, but somehow it hid itself from every parent, cop or Neighborhood Watch Nazi.
I had seen some older kids go in there now and then. I often stopped my bike at the entrance and strained to decipher the muffled words trickling through the leaves. I never made out anything but murmurs, coughs and laughter.
Sometimes everything would go silent. Then, suddenly I would hear a rush of snapping twigs and rustling leaves. The Big Kids were coming out. I pedaled off as fast as I could, even standing up to get the most out of my twelve year old legs. I don’t think they ever knew I was trying to eavesdrop on them.
One day everything changed.
It was a summer day, not too hot, shortly after Highland Elementary had paroled us for three months. It must have been a Saturday because I had just finished delivering The Register; it had a Saturday but no Sunday, like my other two routes. I turned the corner, aimed my front tire into the hill and started pumping my legs. I had barely gained momentum, when I looked up and saw Chase come around the top of the hill and disappear into The Dugout.
What The Fuck?
I was shocked.
I know Chase was cooler than me. He was friends with some of the older kids. He always knew what to say if we came across them shoplifting at The Notch or when we had to give up our spot down at The Pond. I just never thought he would go into The Dugout.
I pushed my bike up the hill as fast as I could.
I reached the opening and hesitated for just a second, then pushed my bike into the archway that split open the forest.
Twenty five feet stretched into a mile.
Nobody was happy to see me when I pushed back on the coaster break and slid into the circle. I smiled at Chase. He wasn’t even looking at me.
“What the fuck are you doing in here, you piece of shit?”
It was the oldest kid there and ruler of the realm, Bob Keuhl. He wasn’t very tall but my prepubescent frame dwarfed under his cleft chin and bowl hair cut. He was just a flat out asshole. He could be. He was 3 years older than me and my friends and nobody was going to stand up to him.
“I saw all you guys duck in here.” I replied.
“So, nobody invited you.”
I pulled a bunch of saliva from the insides of my cheeks and creased my tongue to collect it into a ball. I spat a glob three inches from his left foot. Bob glared at me, and then yanked the handle bars of his bike up over his head as he pushed down on the pedals. He let his spinning back tire kiss the ground and shoot some dirt and pebbles at me.
“OOOOOOWWWWW, I’m scared.” I smiled back at him.
“Fuck you.”
“No….Fuck You.”
Another older guy named Kevin, pulled a soft pack of Marlboroughs out of his fanny pack at gave everyone a cigarette. He hesitated briefly when he got to me. I held out my hand and he flipped one onto my prostrate palm. The small cylinder rolled back and forth between the fleshy mound of my thumb and the under-knuckles of right hand. I waited for it to stop then flipped the dark yellow end between my lips. Kevin flicked the tip of his yellow Bic into flame and everyone bowed their head forward. One by one, each cigarette was lit and its owner puffed a few times to make sure it was lit, and then they pulled back from the circle and sucked the smoldering head into a brilliant cherry red.
Then it was my turn.
I felt the wind stop. Everyone looked at me. I looked at Chase but he looked away. Bob stared down at me and started laughing. “What’s wrong Mormon Boy? Is your Magic Underwear protecting you from that cigarette?”
Nothing pisses me off more than ignorance.
Well, maybe being laughed at by ignorant assholes.
I pierced my lips and pulled a small cloud of smoke into my mouth. I held it there for a moment then pushed it out. I repeated this and started to feel cool.
“Why don’t you fucking inhale pussy?” Bob barked at me.
“I am.”
“No you’re not you dipshit. Pull the fucking shit into your lungs. Don’t waste our cigarettes,”
I sucked a little harder on the filter and tried to inhale. As soon as the first particle of smoke hit my lungs, I could feel my mistake. It burned. My knees buckled and I hit the ground doggy style. I couldn’t stop my diaphragm from juggling my lungs. A stream of drool stretched from my bottom lip down to the exposed root I was hanging onto. I felt all the pain. I felt all the shame.
Bob and Kevin were laughing hysterically. They kept calling me every variation of female genetalia they could think of.
I rose to my feet.
I took another drag.
I fought back the urge to cough, my stomach rippling like just poked jello. I winced and I weaved, but I didn’t cough. I even let the gray exhale stream out from my nose.
I clamped my lips around my smoke and got on my bike.
“See ya dickweeds!” I said and pedaled back to the street.
As soon as I was out of the Dugout, I relaxed my jaw and let my cigarette fall to the pavement. I started to down the hill, but backtracked and picked up my smoke. I didn’t want them to know I didn’t finish it.

DA !

Dad was Dad.
He was what he was, the sum of all he tried to be and what he was supposed to be, minus all the things he couldn't be.
He was Dad, but he was just a man.
There was a time I hated him. It was a few years in my late teens. I hated him partly for who he was and partly for who I wanted him to be and who he wasn't.
Sandwiched around that time was the adoration only found in the heart of a boy who loves his dad.
Now I look to him for advice on how to live my life. When I was young I looked at him like he was The World
He was Dad.
He was The Man.
He was all I knew to be constant in a world that changed almost daily. I was in a different school every year. I was in a different house more than that. I had a dozen people trying to raise me, grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, girlfriends, stepmoms and and friends of friends. None of them ever even noticed me unless I did something that got me in trouble. I was a ghost to every one.
Nobody saw me.
Except for Dad.
Sometimes I was afraid. He was so big, so loud and so scary. I cried every time I had to ask him for something but tried to choke back my sobs so he would't think I was weak. It must have worked because he always managed to anser my questions and relate it to a real life scenario.
He taught me about life as he was teaching me how to live
He taught me how to tie my shoes. I remember I was tucked between his legs, his knees folded up and towering above my head. He reached down with his giant hands and guided my fingers as we made a knot and tied the rabbit's ears together. I rember doing it until I could do it all by myself and feeling Dad's arms hugging me after I did it, letting me know how proud he was of me.
He taught me how to fry an egg, change a tire, repair the brakes on my car, iron a shirt, balance my check book and many other things.
He was the first person I called when my first marriage was desintergrating. I called him under the guise that I wanted advice, but all I really wanted was just Dad. He gave me some advice, but the best thing he did that day was give me a big hug. I was trying to be the man he taught me to be but at that moment I was a little boy and just needed Daddy! For a couple of seconds Dad let me be his little boy again and hugged me. I felt safe and warm and just knew everything was going to be O.K.
I have a family of my own now.
I know That I I have a great responsibility, escorting my son up to his own gateway of manhood.
I also know that no matter how old I get, I'm still Dad's son and he loves me.

The Pretty Pirate

It was the sixth grade championship. All seemed lost when we were down to our last out, even with Jimmy up. He bounced a double out into right field and then it was Keri McFarland's turn. Keri was the kind of girl who would rather be doing anything else but playing a competitive sport. The political correctness of boy-girl-boy-girl order in the kickball line up didn’t make her feel liberated, it just interfered with her ability to gossip about how cute the guys were when they got all red-faced, sweaty and heated up about such a silly sport as kickball.
The other team knew this, and the taunts came bouncing in. Faint at first, they just kept increasing in amplitude and anger. I heard Heath Pollard, that little shit, call her McFartland a couple of times and then call her Gobbler.
I cringed when I heard that.
No, check that, my blood started to boil. I wanted to kick Heath's ass. I was pretty small back then, compared to everyone else, but I was a scrapper, and I was mad as hell.
You see, anyone calling Keri “Gobbler” was my fault.
I came up with the name four years prior, when girls still seemed yucky and you wanted nothing to do with them.
Well, a lot of eight year old boys didn’t, anyway.
By that point though, I didn’t mind them.
There was this bunch of girls who prowled the grammar school playground known as The Kissers. The Kissers were a group of girls that would let the boys do all of their “boy stuff” for most of recess. They would wait for that moment when the teachers weren’t watching and swarm down on the group, each girl picking out a boy to kiss. Then they would each kiss him and run away.
If a boy saw them coming for us, he would just yell “KISSERS!” and everyone would run away.
Scattering like the rabbits from hawks, we would all fend for ourselves and each find our own escape hole. If you got picked off, it was just nature. The first couple of times it happened, Keri got me. I figured it was because I was right in the middle of stuff (revise for precise lang.) and couldn’t get away. Then I realized they hunted in packs and she was the Queen. They all funneled me back to her. They were like lionesses on the hunt.
I was a fast little guy and soon learned how to avoid the lioness.
That was, until I had a crush on this little brunette named Katie Gardner.
She wasn’t a Kisser when it first started, but she became one and I definitely took notice.
I would run away only to meet her behind the library so she could catch me.
It was a perfect plan until one day we were caught.
Just as Katie Gardner laid a kiss on me I heard some boy yell “Bobby Ferguson let himself be kissed! Bobby Ferguson let himself be kissed!” (Too long, not believable as a chant. Maybe “Bobby Ferguson wanted it!”?)
My first reaction was angry embarrassment and I started to run after that kid to kick his ass, but then I got a grip on myself. I reached back and grabbed Katie’s hand. We walked up to the line hand in hand, and everybody was OOOOOOHHHing and AAAHHHHHing at us.
It didn’t matter. We walked together with pride.
A few hours later, when we had been dismissed for the day, I left with the rest of the walkers that were going my way. It was a group of about 25 kids ranging from kindergarten to 6th grade.
Out of nowhere Keri came up to me and pushed me. She was much bigger than me in those days. Her shadow even weighed more than I did. I craned my neck and looked up into her green eyes flared wide with fury.
She was mad at me for kissing Katie.
I rose to my feet, dusted the dirt from the ass of my school pants and tried to shake off the embarrassment of being pushed down by a girl. She spread her yap scary-wide as she yelled at me, “Why did you kiss Katie?”
I just blurted out that she looked like a turkey and I hated her gobbler (or “You look like a turkey and I hate your gobbler!!!” for more impact). I flicked my index finger and it snapped against its intended target. The excess flesh spanning from her chin to her larynx rippled like stale Jell-O, sending shockwaves of humiliation surging through her body. The waves crashed in crimson against her skin and emblazoned her in burning red.
A couple of older kids busted out laughing and started making turkey sounds. Time froze for a moment when our two panicking glances collided and we held onto each other with a stare. The black of her pupil swelled open and pulled me in. I entered her mind and I tasted that all-too-familiar bitterness of ridicule. I withdrew in shame, peeling my eyes from her panicked glare.
I ran one way and she ran the other.
I cursed my mind and my tongue for being quicker than my better judgment. With every step, I replayed the incident in my mind, hoping that the ending would be different. It never changed. Curse words mingled almost audibly into every exhale and peppered my breathing with swears. I kept my head down, fixated on the sidewalk. The spaces between each block of concrete flickered by like the last of the celluloid as it passes through the projector.
My father remarried later that year and I moved to a different town, only to move back a year and a half later when he divorced. (What grade?)
Keri wasn’t a Kisser any more and I wasn’t a little kid. We became friends, but not the kind that everyone could notice. We both knew our reasons...
Everyone started screaming.
I snapped my focus back onto the game. I saw Keri running to first, as the red ball floated over the stubby arms of Heath. It was just a little dribbler, but she kicked it into a spot where nobody was. Now Keri was on first and Jimmy was on third.
I bent over, arching my head up so my chin was perpendicular to the asphalt, and focused in on the release. Faster than I could describe, my eyes picked up the red rotation of the ball as it skimmed down the black tar and sent the correct geometric calculation to my leg. I took two and a half steps and my right foot sent that rubber ball flying further than anyone on that playground had ever seen a ball kicked. The ball left the schoolyard entirely, clearing the wooden palisade fence of the yard bordering left field. I jogged around the spray-painted bases, smiling as everyone was still looking at where the ball went. I soaked up the triumph.
When I crossed home plate there were twenty-five kids and two teachers in the chaos. I pushed myself through it and found Keri.
She was with two of her friends and they all turned to look at me as I ran right up to her. She was unaffected by themoment.
I grabbed her hand.
“You’re not going to kiss me!” she said, laughing.
I echoed her laugh and pulled her closer with a hug.
I kissed her like I was Hollywood. I was old style black and white. I was the rogue with a giant heart, the pretty pirate that promised a life filled with passion.
I was Errol Flynn.
That moment, so simple and innocent, always seems to creep up on me when I least expect it. I shrug off the heavy here-and-now daydream into a smile.