No Legs ‘Til 18
Written By Scott Langer
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
Scott Langer on Smashwords
Copyright 2009 Scott Langer
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Contact the Author at: Scott.Langer11@gmail.com
A little bit about the book.
No Legs 'Til 18 chronicles a boy's strange and unnerving experiences as he journeys through adolescence. Drawing from interconnected vignettes, the author recreates his frantic youth as he describes critical events, while reflecting on peer influence, relationships and his sexuality. Wrought with humor and heartache, No Legs 'Til 18 is a poignant look into the life of “just another” teenager in America’s suburbs.
Introduction
Oh Hello
“My life is a book.”
But so is his! And so is hers!
“They totally should make a movie about my life.”
Everyone’s dramarama-dingdongs make you think those thoughts. But the bio-pic about a nobody doesn’t draw interest! Hold on, HEY NOW… if you actually happen to make decisions based on what moves the plot along or by what compels your non-existent audience, then you are dedicated and lovely. Couldn’t it be that we’re all just trying to come of age, and it’s those firsts that erase our innocence? Kiss or the car? Laid or paid? A cigarette, some suds? Could be anything for any of us. Growing up: there is a beginning because you know when it’s over. In other words, my sexual relationships helped shape who I am and what I am not.
What shaped you from ages thirteen to eighteen?
Chapter 1
Eddie Sisterhands
Summer-Fall 2003, Age 17
The summer before my senior year I went to a slew of concerts, all preppy white rockers I am now too ashamed to claim to have seen so many times. HOWEVER…however…however, every good-looking girl in my entire town went to these same concerts and got incredibly drunk in the parking lot. By golly, there was a terribly great chance of getting with someone completely out of your realm. The type of girl that you’d normally have so little chance of getting with that you’d fuck her while she was puking, maybe on you, but hopefully that would never be the case. New personal lows could be reached. They WILL be reached. There’s no use self-loathing for doing something morally and ethically questionable (who decides what’s moral and ethical anyway?) because there’s always tomorrow, and tomorrow you could always get caught hooking up with your girlfriend’s sister.
Christy Maurier was Hogman’s sister’s good friend. Hogman is my best friend, but I’ll come back to that later. I’d been seeing her at their house from the time we were young. She was two grades younger than me and, at the time, that always seemed like an enormous gap. When she was finishing elementary school I was finishing middle school. When I was starting high school, she was starting middle school. Our relationship had never really been anything more than just her and her friends trying to annoy Hogman and me. But now she was of age! Well, sort of. I mean, I was seventeen, she was fifteen, and the senior/sophomore dating dynamic wasn’t too hard to comprehend. She was just starting to become a sexual being and I was already there, plus the guys in her grade had barely hit puberty yet.
The summer before senior year, I remember being in Kacie’s (Hogman’s sister) room and looking at pictures she had taken with her friends. And in each picture I was drawn to the innocence and beauty of one Christy Maurier. She was 5’2” about 115 pounds, piercing green eyes, delicate round breasts, a cute and compact butt, and this chaotic yet controlled hair that reminded me of a lion’s mane. Strange, but true sports stories. Just a term I like saying after any random statement. Try it! Christy had such milky sun-scared skin and this preppy look where she would wear pearls and mini skirts with a polo or some kind of Abercrombie action. It just worked; hot preppy white girls are just too hard for me to pass up.
Asinine observations: She was bubbly, loud, but let’s say vivacious! Her guy friends all really liked and respected her. Christy was always asking me if I knew any “fucked up” movies. I told her I knew a few, but didn’t really share many. Christy liked Party Monster, a film about club kids, Michael Alig and James St. James. She wanted me to take her to the film about female serial killer Eileen Wurnos; I did not! I refused! Type up a list of things you refuse to do in Jokerman font and hand it to someone. It’s mildly fun.
Christy liked getting me gifts. She got me Radiohead’s Ok Computer on vinyl. Impressive. Christy liked holding hands and feeling like she was important to me. I still enjoy holding hands. She always talked about me and was proud I was in her life. She was supportive, a great listener, but also dramatic and had been a doormat before. Christy easily got jealous. Her parents got divorced at an early age and her dad paid for everything in cash. He was a white-collar criminal who tried to be flashy and would spoil his daughters. Technically he bought me the vinyl because Christy didn’t have much money and that fucking sucked.
While in Kacie’s room I declared with conviction, “I am taking that girl to homecoming!” Homecoming was the perfect time to go out on a limb and just ask any random floozy to go with you. The previous two years I had gone with Sophie; she just complained the whole time about how sick she felt. I was looking to go with someone who was a lot less maintenance. Weeks later, after making the proclamation to the nation of my intentions, I was told John Mayer was coming into town!!! OMG he is like sucha dream box! He actually is a talented blues guitarist, but pays the bills with songs like “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” I guess that’s ok, but not really.
The morning before the concert I looked into the mirror and saw that I looked like a bag of shit, smelled like raw onions, and had the kind of pimple on the side of my nose that if popped, blood and white puss would come shooting out. I was having a hard time convincing myself that this would be a successful endeavor, where I would be able to prey on tasty vixens with tender vittles. Looking in the mirror, “Hey, hey, hey-nay-hey, all you have to do is shave, shower, and make your nasty pimple just look like a small cut on your nose.” It’s ok to talk to yourself. After forty-five minutes later, which included a masturbation session, I was ready to unload all of the books from of my bag and fill it up with booze. I put in a combination of Busch Lite cans and Bud light long necks, also some Jack Daniels in an empty bottled-water bottle. Everyone called my bag Sally. Sally had grown a reputation for going everywhere fully stocked. Minutes later Sally and I were to be picked up by one of my degenerate drinking friends to go to the concert. The concert started at about nine P.M, but we usually arrived around three-thirty P.M to tailgate/pre-game all afternoon in the parking lot next to the outdoor amphitheatre. Sorry this is taking so long to set-up, shit with Christy always does. As my brother always tells me when I’m being impatient, “Relax, have a cream soda,” but sometimes he says “have a pretzel.” Either/or is fine.
Okay, so now I had shot-gunned about six beers and was routinely throwing them at my friend’s faces when I finished before them, kind of a “fuck you, I don’t like you, but we do drink together!” I took some rips of Jack and then meandered around, talking to all of the people from my town, pretending to be excited to see them; actually, some I WAS excited to see. “You were in my A.P. U.S. History class. I love you!” Sometmes you have to be able to pretend. Whoa there, this loud, drunken mess, glimmering with beauty and dripping with a want for a sexual encounter with an older boy was suddenly in my sight. Perhaps. I entered stage left to save the day. I quacked at Christy and her friends with a belligerent charm and said, “I’m taking YOU to Homecoming!” Christy responded by beeping, “OMG, hehehe really? This is so great!” To myself, “Fuck, she is taking me so serious, what the fuck did I get myself into, I couldn’t be a bigger jackass/dumbass/deadbeat.” Also, I could not stop thinking about how young she looked.
Words started bizarrely rolling off my tongue with suaveness. I told her how cute she was and all those medleys. I sat down on a lonesome lawn chair and she plopped on my lap. We ferociously made out; the kind of drunken make-out you think doesn’t exist, where everyone was watching and saying, “Uhh holy shit!” as burgers and beer fell out of their mouths. We have a face eating competition for five-minutes until her friends “rescue her.” I actually enjoyed the kiss despite the thousand people that came up to me afterwards to ask what the fuck had just happened. As she was being pulled away from me, she vowed to see me in the concert, so I was happy about that. Inside the concert we continued to make out like we would never see each other again; much, much to the dismay of our peers.
The next week I was incredibly embarrassed because I had not embraced my liking of younger women just yet. The week before school started was captain's practice for all sports. I was the captain of the soccer team, made varsity as a frosh and was coming off an all-everything year, so yes; I did think I was a big shit. The boys and girls teams liked to incorporate activities together. The underclassmen boys did push-ups on girls with syrup and a balloon on their bellies until it popped. The underclassmen girls had to write dirty love poems and ask a designated senior captain to marry them; mostly all stuff derived from Dazed and Confused. The goddamn senior girls wanted to make me feel like a shithead, so they paired me up with Christy. I just laughed and enjoyed my hamburger.
When school started I still hadn’t really talked to Christy since our drunken make-out at John Mayer and was trying to forget about the whole thing, but here comes more new school courting; she Instant Messaged me! Kacie gave her my screen name. That sentence sums up in many people’s eyes why our generation is fucked. Screen name, what? I like Instant Messaging sooo shhh, tech-nahhl-ohh-gee. I apologized for avoiding her and asked her if she wanted to do something Friday night. She typed like eighty-five smiley faces or whatever and replied with a jubilant, “Yes!”
Friday night came around and I picked her up at this weird, old-people and middle school infested festival called September Fest. There was typically food from local businesses and a band playing bad covers of Fleetwood Mac songs. Christy got into my ‘96 black Jeep Cherokee Sport and looked to have the biggest, brightest smile I had ever seen. Her mouth was really big, and I realized she looked like a young Cheryl Hines from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jesus her teeth were white, a bit freaky in the dark blue night. On the drive home we held hands as I prayed to Satan my parents weren't home.
Right turn into my driveway. I pressed the clicker that automatically opened my electrical garage. How posh. I noticed that my car would be the ONLY car in the garage. Mom and dad were probably at September Fest “cuttin’ some rug.” Christy, still holding my hand tightly, followed me into the depths of hell where I planned on doing whatever it is I do in my basement, on my couch, with girls. I sat down on the couch and she quickly sat on my lap, put her arm around me and started to play with my hair. We gently kissed, much sweeter and with more tenderness than at the concert. There was tongue there, but mostly to quietly caress each other’s tongues with our tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues. Okay, I don’t think I am going to ever say that word again. Don’t call me a liar though if it happens to come up again.
Twenty-minutes later we momentarily stopped kissing and the first thing she beeped was memorable and strange, stooopid too. “Delicious,” and I pretended to not hear anything. She continued by saying she had wanted to make out with me again really badly since John Mayer. True stories. Not embellishing, “You are so fucking cute,” which I truly felt, I mean she just told me that kissing me was delicious and then I needed to take her shirt off. I became a member of the Creep City All-Stars. How do you become a member you ask? You take a girl’s shirt off to find that they don’t really have a bra on, but more of a cotton shirt shaped like a bra. Well, what the fuck, why not take it off? It’s much easier than most bras, just over the head! Had I become an entirely new person? Was I “older dude who picked up younger chicks in his car and hooks up with them and seems a lot cooler to younger girls than he really is,” guy? Whatever, at least I wasn’t an internet stalker or working for an insurance company.
Her breasts were little round mounds of trash. I mean that in the sweetest way possible. I call lots of things trash or garbage that I love! Even my penis. Sometimes I refer to it as my “garbage penis” if it isn’t acting the way I want it to. Or dumpster dick. Whatever you prefer. Anyway…I knew that if she touched my privates that I would have to date her/make her my second girlfriend eventually. But I wanted her to because then she would be presented with a situation where she totally did not know what to do. Isn’t it a turn-on when any stupid yahoo you wanna do asks a lot of questions or say things like “Show me”? I decided to politely guide her hand to the right area of my Levis. She slowly massaged over my pants and I said something Samuel L. Jackson might say in this situation, “Cause and effect motherfucker!!!” Then there was a gun blast through my basement windows. No, I didn’t say that, but she rubbed me and an erection soon followed. Maybe I should have said that! Christy slowly unzipped my pants and looked at me with her asteroid eyes, before taking my belt off and getting on her knees. She knew what I wanted but truly didn’t know what to do. “I’ve never done this before what do I do?” I nearly cried, such sweet words. I said well blahhhhhhhhhh lalalala lodddy doo a lou. Hey you, no you, it was a pretty bad blow job, even though I definitely got a large amount of pleasure from it. There were too many moments where her teeth were making some incidental/accidental contact with shaft and head. Neither of them cared for that kind of treatment. Afterwards, I drove her home and we listened to Radiohead’s album The Bends. That song “Fake Plastic Trees” is a great song at the end of a night because it sounds sweet and makes girls think you’re the sensitive-sophisticated type, which I am. Before she got out of the car, we kissed and I told her that I wanted to take her to the movies next weekend. She instantly said “Yes!” and now we had a second date planned and I already had gotten head. I win, I always win. I also fingered her, but didn’t really want to describe that. Sweetly shaped and tight, also shaved, but that’s only because I told her my preference for this on instant messenger.
Next weekend I figured I would take her to the new Woody Allen Film playing at the Bloomfield Theatre in a primarily black community where I assumed people did not frequent his films. Woody’s new film Anything Else was getting less than stellar reviews and so I thought black community, poorly reviewed film, matinee, by god we’ll have the whole theatre to ourselves. I bought my new girly her ticket, I’m a man! Christy wanted some Sour Patch Kids and an iced cola, so I got those too. We walked into the theatre to see one old couple sitting in the middle of the theatre, so we decided to sit in the last row on the far right.
Before the movie/film/flicker/background noise came on we were already making out. Oh, those young horny kids from the ‘burbs. Periodically throughout the movie I checked out of the corner of my eye to see what was going on, while still kissing Christy. Jason Biggs was embarrassing in the Woody Allen role, and Christina Ricci needed to be punished (sexually). My eyes are almost always open during kissing, closing them feels feminine, makes me feel uneasy, but not because it’s feminine but because paranoia-paranoia, it always sets in. Imagine not seeing someone about to stab you because you were making out with your eyes closed? “Paranoid Android,” - awesome song. She kept on trying to give me a hand job, but I could not cream my pants, no more dried cum on my upper thighs. Too many bad memories of that! I’m scarred! I let her rub me until hard, then made her stop, let him rest and put her hand there again to start it all over. This may sound like blue balling, but call it conditioning. I fucking swear it will help your endurance, dawg!
After the movie, I dropped her off and we decided that we would hang out again during the week. And we became an item of sorts, much to the chagrin of her friends, my friends and everyone’s mother, literally.
“What does that boy want with her!?!”
“Ohhh I’ll tell you what he wants. Its sex!” Teens have sex, they cum, fuck and suck, they drink, they smoke, they pop pills, and maybe Robo trip. Imagine that!
French, this girl in my grade was having one of her famous shit shows on Friday, and I wanted to go, but was not sure if I should bring Christy. Her sister, Jeanne, was in my grade and I didn’t think she really wanted me to bring her. Sure enough, Christy told me that Jeanne did not want her to go, but she still wanted me to go and have a good time. French lived on the complete other side of town near tobacco fields that Frederick Douglass worked on. I’m sadly serious. She was the type of person that threw parties and always regretted it as soon as people started showing up.
I got Hogman to D.D for me, and Mike also made an appearance. Mike did not drink, but he did like to eat a lot of salty snacks flavored with artificial cheese at parties to keep himself occupied while trying to confuse people. I hate to think about how most flavors for foods I like are made by chemists and not chefs. I love chefs! So does Hogman. They picked me up around eight, by ten I was full-on fucked up drunk. A lot of strange things were happening!
1) I walked up stairs in a room to find my West Point bound buddy Donald ass naked wagging his dick at me with a girl naked in the bed next to him. I turned out of the room real fast, only to fall down half the stairs. The girl had no face; at least it looked unfinished. “No Face” was a friend of French’s and after Donald she ended up getting with another one of my drinking pals, Jackie Poppit. I thought I was gonna puke, so
2) I went downstairs and watched Mike and Hogman watch hockey, riveting. I was bored and needed more excitement than seeing Donald’s dick or falling down the stairs.
3) I went back upstairs to see what was what.
4) I ran into an equally-intoxicated Jeanne standing by her lonesome. Jeanne was dating this dude whose family owned a creamery, and I played lax with him in middle school. Describing Jeanne would make her sound pretty. She isn’t. She isn't ugly either, just nothing worth blowing a load over. Most people agreed. Poppit always said because of her personality she was like a log of poop. I approached her and asked how she was doing. “I am ok”, and then she asked if I wanted to talk in a room down the hall. I didn’t think anything of it so I slurred, “Sure.” As I recount the details, it is fuzzy how it started, but now we were making out. This part I do know, she put her hand down my pants and began to jerk me off. I followed suit and shoved my hand in her panties. She had some stubble, but overall a similar shape and feel of her sister and my girlfriend’s vagina. I felt like a twisted fuck, but in the darkest corner of my brain I could not help thinking that this would be one of the funniest things that I could do in high school and in the end does it really matter if you cheat on your girlfriend/boyfriend at seventeen? Well it’s mean, but doesn’t matter. I fingered her for about two-minutes before Jeanne’s best friend walked in the door to find my hand down Jeanne’s pants and hers down mine. I retreated to the downstairs laughing. I shuffled over to Jackie Poppit sitting on a chair and I drunkenly jumped on his lap. I put my right index and middle finger up his nostrils and whispered in his ear, “Jeanne Maurier.” He started grunting and making noises like some kind of farm animal; he was so excited he could barely control himself. Within three-minutes from that moment, a total of five-minutes after being caught, Jeanne’s boyfriend was called by her best friend (what an asshole), who then called Christy who then called me. I was in trouble. I felt mean, I’m not a mean guy. At least sober I am not; was not.
I asked Hogman to drive me to Christy’s. In the car Mike couldn’t stop cackling or eating Doritos. Christy storms out of her house hysterically crying, yelling, “How could you! How could you! My sister!” All I could say was, “I am the biggest fucking asshole in the world and I understand if you never want to talk to me again, also I guess homecoming is off too, I’m sorry Christy I really like you, I’m an asshole.” I meant it too, at that moment I realized that I had done irreparable damage, no matter what she said next. Christy calmed down. “No, no, no, I like you too and I still want to go to homecoming.” I have to say I was shocked, but relieved that I would get a second chance.
Later that week her father invited me out to dinner with his two daughters. People act like everything is awkward. People say that word so fucking frequently. OMG so I caught this guy checking me out at the supermarket, awkward. My Mom said I looked pretty today, awkward. Fuck that, ya know what’s awkward? SANDBLASTING YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S SISTER THEN HAVING TO HAVE A MEAL WITH THEM AND THEIR FATHER DAYS LATER!!! Everyone at school was calling me Eddie Sisterhands. Very clever! I actually was pretty impressed. That’s a helluva nickname. I could only imagine Christy’s internal thoughts, but no one said she had to stay with me. She could have told me to go sit on a cactus. Homecoming was approaching, but I’ll have to tell you that later, baby.
Chapter 2
The Beginning
Winter 1999-New Years 2000, Age 13
My seventh grade soccer shorts had seventh grade semen on them. Horrible happenings. These are my boring beginnings. They were hunter green, let’s call them dark green. That Umbros brand. Shiny and shouldn’t be worn without underwear. Also (whisper), DOn’t fall asleep at a sleepover on a bean bag with your hand down your pants. I did this with the Umbros on, tri-accidently.
The unfortunate misstep through inaction (I think this makes it a tri-accident) mentioned above was at Gene Sherman’s house with Hogman and maybe Don T was there too. Embarrassing interrogations soon followed, for months.
We all lived in this new housing development—DOWN WITH SUBURBAN SPRAWL, man. Gene was a friend. Now he is a former friend and thus gets no description. HA-HA, 1-0, me. Don T from Philly was spawned from his Italian, chain-smoking, self-proclaimed handy man father (he did finish his own basement and also planted Christmas trees in his front yard) and mother who tightly grasped onto her long-gone days of being a beauty queen. In fact we constantly reminded Don T that his mother’s nipple was exposed in a framed picture portrait of her in the master bedroom. Oh Donny Don, I will be forever grateful for your powerful performance as Mr. Fuel—the new gas pump attendant in town who wears nothing but boots and spandex. He took the friendly gas station pump attendant’s job because corporate decided to go with a new policy of “sexuality over congeniality.” I made this movie with Hogman, senior year in high school. It took a year. It was 82 minutes! I got a little filmmaker in me, I swear.
Patience problems? Categorically confused? I learned about alliteration in eighth grade English. Settle in because we’re here, we’re here. Thank the Princess for the letters she sent S.W.A.K while you were trying to rescue her.
It was Ari Rattenberg’s Bar Mitzvah and he was becoming a man. However, I’m not sure he had yet become a human. When we carpooled for soccer he would snap-pop his gum; the kind of gum chewing I just don’t tolerate. My ears are sensitive, so are my armpits. There were about five Jewish kids in town, five and a half if you count me. Everyone got invited to all the bar/bat mitzvahs in town, except Hogman who was always absent and uninvited. They were usually marginally fun, I liked when they had someone taking Polaroids that you could put in themed frames. The one that says “WANTED” was sooo funny. I also liked the beach themed frames. I kept the photos of me giving Tristen McHendrick a piggy back, me carrying Karen Sillinger, and Sonya Turner sitting on my lap. I’m a hero.
Ari’s Bar Mitzvah was at the Avon Old Farms hotel, unless I am totally getting this wrong, BUT I DON’T THINK THIS DETAIL IS A STORY CHANGER IF UNTRUE. I didn’t hold onto the invitation. If we had to rate AOF Hotel it would be in between a Ramada and luxury. They would give people gift certificates for brunch that could only be used across the street at their own restaurant. It was “to die for,” according to the locals. I used to get omelets. They always made me ill.
The hotel had ritzy, lush red carpeting, or at least the hotel where this took place had that. My memory is less than magical. No brain, no brain, no brain. I’m stupid---repeat, “You’re stoooooopid.” This time squinch up your face and shake your head from side to side while saying it. Stupid is endearing. I was dressed rather keenly; an orange tie with blue somethings, the kind of somethings that are indigenous to ties. I had khakis on, black shiny shoes to go with my shiny black belt and light blue shirt. Kiera Farmer—why did you move to Kentucky? She was my first “real” kiss and by real I meant I really noticed the kiss. Her tongue was two weeks down my throat. We’ll get to that after I tell you her specialties, but first we must mind frolic. We may even enjoy ourselves.
At the actual “mitzvah” I sat at a table with other teens/pre-teens that I did not know. I made some chitty chew and elicited a hard “haha” from one girl in particular. She never knew what I was talking about. Are you the girl that laughs at everything because you are nervous or don’t know how to respond? Good luck with that. The laughing lady was Kiera. She was thin, relatively tall for her age. Her head: larger than it should have been. Her ass: smaller than it should have been. I parted my hair down the middle and had clear braces. Kiera was Mormon and, I heard, seldom allowed to do anything. Raise your hand if you know a Mormon slut. Kiera was not a slut, but THE MORMON SLUT EXISTS. She had dirty blonde hair that reached her shoulders and fair skin with a pinkish hue. I think she had braces too. I cannot describe a thirteen-year-old girl anymore. She was an all right looking middle schooler, but no one banged down her door to de-bra her, if that even happened in our middle school outside of a select few. SIDENOTE! Chad McCrowchers totally did finger Karen Sillinger in seventh grade! He preached to a small audience on the bus about how he snuck into her bedroom every night to do so. “Her pussy smells like fish, man.” That’s kind of like orchids, Chad. More disparaging remarks to ingest with your applesauce--Karen stuffed her bra and used crayons to make her nipples look hard. Sorry Kiera, for straying to talk about Chad and Karen.
I needed to get the fuck away from that paragraph. It was too engaging; YOU even had to raise your hand. My hair was meticulously parted, my tie still tightly tied, I was having trouble breathing, and asthma induced by pollen is unlikely indoors. It was because I had a massive erection resulting from Kiera Farmer holding my hand, leading me to a secluded part of the hotel. “Oh look, a nook!” Pettin’ in the park? Pettin’ in the dark? BAD BOYS AND GIRLS. Kiera’s back was in sight of potential spies. No more banter because her tongue was really down my throat, and my eyes slipped back into my brain. Her tongue was highly active in my mouth, like it was searching for its missing child in a cave. My tongue was terrified. I thought this was supposed to be a lot more enjoyable. It was shitty and there really were spies! Kiera got so into it, I just wanted it to end, but was convinced this was something I was supposed to be doing. It had to be done. “Is this what people do?” Always strive TO BE HIP, CONTEMPORARY AND CURRENT, or just be a kitschy bitch. Maybe I didn’t allow myself to enjoy the experience because of the peeping Toms and Theresas. My eyes were open and when Kiera had finally opened hers, she noticed how wide-eyed I was. Uhhh and she caught me looking.
We pecked one more time like lovers do, she grabbed my hand and we made our way back to the Bar Mitzvah. We separated and all of the girls ran up to her giggling, asking idiotic questions, I presume. The guys pretty much just made fun of me, “You really think she’s hot, dude?” That’s what it’s all about at thirteen: 1. Be as good looking as possible, “Wash your hair once every three weeks, once every three weeks!” and 2. Have great skin and teeth. I felt like telling them to go choke on a ham bone, but not my Jewish friends because that’s entirely too ironic. I hope I used the word “ironic” correctly.
What certainly sucked was how I ended up being the “boyfriend” of this girl just because we made out. I don’t know how it happened, but next thing I knew I was making out with her on a ski lift in Vermont when Gene, Don T, Hogman and I went skiing there for a weekend over winter break. She happened to be there. We also made out in front of everyone at a school play put on at the high school. Cinderelly Cinderelly, SHOVE YOUR TONGUE DOWN MY THROAT.
Kiera’s parents never let her out of the house, so they wanted me to come over and meet them and I refused. Don T called Kiera “The Whale.” She was really skinny, I didn’t understand. Hogman didn’t either, but he really liked the nickname and made a point of saying it until I really thought it meant something. Hogman, you’re a son-of –a-bitch for that and I want you to know it. However, Hogman did have the right to rag on me once in a while because he usually got the brunt of it from everyone and from every angle, angel too.
The conversations on the phone with Kiera were getting horrendous. I considered taking my friend Bobby from New York’s advice—he read bible passages on the phone to this girl until she finally dumped him. Fancy biblesmithery. Kiera had just got done telling me she bought me boxers at the Gap, how she loves youth group, and I told her that I didn’t want to go out or make out anymore. She moved to Kentucky a couple of months later and I never talked to her again. How dramatic.
It was my first New Years of significance. This predated the bar mitzvah, but your first kiss should come before your first tits, so we’ll pretend that’s how it went. We were in Don T’s recently finished basement. Don T’s dad attempted to throw a big New Years party to show it off. No one came, except my parents, Kevin Carter’s mom who still breast-fed him and Don T’s mom’s friend Laurie, who still thought that she was a babe. The saddest sight was the number of unused champagne glasses. Mr. Don T was distraught. After all he did prepare the mosty most food in the whole wide world, and he got all that booze too. There was only one thing left for him to do. Get soaking wet with intoxication and dance on the rotating dance floor he constructed. Ohhhhh yeah and he did this with Karen Sillinger’s panty hose around his neck. I don’t feel uncomfortable often, I did here. Thanks dad, for never doing shit like that. Mom, you too. The relatively low adult supervision allowed for those roughly ten teenies to breathe.
I got the call, I got the invite and although it was old news at this point, I was still part of something exclusive. I was allowed to feel Vicky Romero’s boobs in this strange side room in Don T’s basement. It was right when Being John Malkovich came out, so I couldn’t stop thinking about doors being portals. The other guys in the portal with me exclaimed, “This is awesome!” I tried to maintain a level of suaveness and a “no big deal” kind of attitude. After three quick gropes of her left breast, “Whoa, those are squishy, nice, thanks Vicky.” I then realized I had just thanked her. She musta felt like she rendered services. What she did do though, is forced us to remember this moment. When I got out of the portal every guy who had been in there was gleeful and those who hadn’t been in there were in obvious misery. I am sure Hogman was in this group, at least he should have been. Charlie Brown isn’t allowed to feel breasts when everyone else is.
As the clock struck midnight a mysterious someone had grabbed a bottle of champagne and ran with it outside. Everyone ran after him/her and in the street we all began to take swigs of the champagne to celebrate something. I don’t remember if I did, I was thinking of Vicky’s tits. There’s that word again, sorry Kelly O, I know you hate that word. Saying tits, breasts, boobs is still better than saying stinky sprinkles in all the right places, or is it? Vicky, you opened the portal of body parts. Now I have to think of different ways to describe them. I’ll try not to be crude, but no promises or purple prose. The boring beginnings are over. Clap your hands three times and yell “Suck me,” regardless of where you are. Of course do it after you read this sentence, stupid.
Chapter 3
Jamie Don’t Blame Me
Fall 2000, Age 14
Fornicating fourteen-year olds are not that common in white, middle class suburbia, but hand jobs and finger-banging happen with certain regularity. When I was thirteen I got jerked off in the woods behind Super Stop and Shop. There isn’t much to tell. My friend Sarah brought her fifteen-year old friend from dance class to the movies that night because they were having a sleepover. I sat next to her in the theatre during some Freddie Prinze Jr. movie where he was again playing a senior in high school at the calculated age of twenty-eight. We bonded making mocking remarks and by the end of the movie we were holding hands. After the movie was over, we told Sarah that we were going for a walk, but really just meant to go be silly somewhere. Needed somewhere acceptable and out of sight. The woods behind the supermarket were the only place we could find. We made out initially, but I was more interested in her fifteen-year old breasts, much bigger than the girl’s in my grade for sure! She liked my fondling, so she unzipped my pants and gave me a number five with fries and a shake until I came into a handful of leaves. SOOOOO in theory that meant I would have gotten similar treatment at age fourteen, but hopefully in the comfort of my own home.
I had just made the varsity soccer team. Send me a fruit basket. I didn’t think it was a big deal, I thought that was expected of me and didn’t realize that older girls would want my ball sack because of such excellent achievements. Pardon my accolades, all of them. I first realized the power of being the only freshman to make varsity soccer when I went to my first concert. Counting Crows was playing with Live at the Meadows Music theatre, an outdoor venue notorious for underage drinking and debauchery in the parking lot. Shout out to the Expo center and Jai Alai. This was my first time there and I was incredibly nervous, desperately trying to fit in and be a “cool guy.” I had no idea what that consisted of at this point. However, I did notice that what seemed “cool” on this occasion called for hitting nitrous balloons, chugging and chasing, smoking pot, cigarettes and cigars, dipping and dripping, popping. I kept my hands in my pockets like an old man searching for a dime to get a shoeshine circa 1900’s. I didn’t need a ten-cent shine for my 10-dollar shoes, I just didn’t know where to put my hands. All of the guys on the soccer team were trying to get me to drink, something I did not do yet. One reason I didn’t want to start drinking quite yet was that I had seen an incredibly sexy Alex Deren in eighth grade turn into a busted mess before ninth grade had even started. It didn’t help that I saw her downing wine in class then puking at lunch. Oh, yes, I was talking about power! I just got more respect and attention than any of the other froshies.
Hey-hey a second, it wasn’t all that sweet actually; I was getting a lot of unwanted attention from girls best kept in a cage. Sure, the sexy senior girls knew my name and would say, “Heyyy, Soccer Stud,” but the ones trying to get in my knickers honestly looked like they got hit in the face with a bag of oranges, and they were fat too; slightly shallow, definitely degrading. I remember standing there with all the other kids from my school enjoying the virtuosic (hah) concert performances. This concert was the first of about twelve shows I went to consecutively at this venue that was either Dave Matthews Band or Counting Crows. I knew every lyric to every song, oh, how I loved both of them so “muchy moo.” In retrospect, I was familiar, but not a fan. I just repeated the lyrics like some kind of freak-o.
About halfway into the concert, a senior girl stood in front of me and started rubbing my genitals over my blue, cargo khakis that I had gotten in eighth grade at this store called Bob’s. I noticed that from behind she looked decent. She was about 5’4” with an athletic but not feminine frame. And then there was the look back. Her wretched, pimple infested face was slightly protected by the absence of light and her long brown hair. I kept thinking of all the innocent things I would rather have been doing at that moment. Why can’t I just be trading baseball cards, having a stick fight, or be clogging up the slide right now? I tried to shimmy away but she kept following me and now people were starting to notice what was going on. I relented with the hope that she would leave me alone, but instead she persisted and it resulted in me getting an unwanted hand job at my first concert. .
She began by undoing my thinning brown belt that I had since fifth grade, I loved that belt. She put her hand down my pants and slowly, but expertly started stroking my penis. I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel good physically, but mentally and visually I wanted to puke. Minutes later I had cum all over my legs and pants. Ladies, pretend that these things happen to you, come on and be an idiot for an instant, for me. All I remember from my first concert is Live playing “lightening crashes” as it drizzled and creaming my Bob’s blue khakis. Yes, now I remember, they were made by Union Bay, quality pants I tell you, BUT WHY AREN”T THEY SEMEN RESISTANT? I guess they were leaving it up to Dockers to invent those. I’m a soccer stud! Get me some clean fucking pants, someone, please. I couldn’t wait until school started. Maybe hot girls would give me hand jobs, but probably not.
School started a few days after the concert. I couldn't focus on school and during practice the seniors were maliciously slide tackling me in scrimmages, so I spit in one of their faces. That went over well. A week later I was named the starting center midfielder, and I fucking hated center midfield. It’s all the running and defensive responsibilities; shhh don’t tell anyone. I was a striker, not a center midfielder! Quality strikers can be prima donnas. We also have neato cleats. Scoring made me smile! Too much enthusiasm can kill you. I nearly got a hard-on when they would say over the PA: “Starting at center midfield, freshman,” followed by me, my name. I lost my erection quickly when I realized that when freshman start, everyone including your teammates want to castrate you. I was too brash and confident to give a shit. All I cared about was if my new status would get me sexual benefits before I started humping couches; walls too.
The saddest thing about my teenage sex life is how much I owe to Instant Messaging. You’ll see there, steakums (term of endearment, to you). I didn’t have to do too many initial random calls to girls where I would say, “Oh, gee whiz, I really like you. Would ya wanna hang out sometime with a nice fella like me? Whaddya say!?!” Instead I could methodically plan out exactly what to say, and plus it opened the door for girls to contact me.
Enter the aggressive and over-sexed Jamie Fishell. Within the first couple of weeks of school I got a random Instant Message from her, “Hey Soccer Stud,” she says. People had to stop fucking calling me that, I felt like it was the goddamn 1950’s and I would have to give them my special pin or take them to the malt shop. Side note, I have an obsession with the now non-existent occupation of Soda Jerk. I would see the three-hour film The Best Years of Our Lives just to hear one of the characters say, “I’ll never be nothin’ but a Soda Jerk.”
Ok, ok, ok, I feel a lot better after sharing that with you. I responded to Jamie’s annoying introduction with, “Who is this?” and so we danced. She began by asking me if I knew her friend Lonnie Anca AKA Skanka, and I typed, “Sorta.” Jamie wondered if I was friends with Tanner Corman (not really my friend, but I did buy his N64 with 5 controllers and James Bond: Golden Eye for eighty bucks) and I said, “Yeah…, yeah me and Tanner go way back... we used to go fishing together down by the creek.” Jamie emphatically typed, “Really, really, really? That’s great!” I responded with, “No we didn’t go fishing together and I don’t fish, but we hang out sometimes,” by which I meant never. She asked me if Tanner and I would be interested in hanging with her and Skanka. Excitement. Jamie was a dainty dish and also a sophomore. She had big green eyes, fair skin, skinny, not much of an ass, but wonderfully full, luscious bright red lips. Short, but not too short silky brown hair that she tucked behind her ears. Things were looking up for me, Tanner too. I contacted Tanner via IM and he was in. So was Lonnie. If you’re keeping score at home, no one had spoken one word to each other and we were all hanging out for some kind of paired off sexual tag team. This was my first tag team outside of RCW (my backyard wresting organization created by Hogman, you’ll hear about it later) and I was frightened.
During the week leading up to the big hang out Jamie and I periodically talked online and in school. I noticed her IM profile said, “TCLAJFSL all on the DL!!!” I had no idea what it meant. I gathered those were all of our initials, but the only DL I knew was for sports (disabled list). Jamie didn’t believe me when I told her I didn’t know what “The DL” was. She informed me it was “The Down Low,” and then I figured that this match was not going to be promoted. There will be moments where you too will feel out of touch with A. Popular slang/Culture and B. Humanity. Jamie and I discussed all of the options of where we could go and decided everyone would come over to my house Saturday afternoon.
I forgot I had physical therapy that day. Boy had bumps and back pain. I returned home late to find all three of them waiting in my driveway. I smelled like menthol from the ultrasound and sweat from the exercise. They all went into my basement, while I showered. All of the embarrassing pictures of me were in the basement. Ohhhhh fuck, I hope they didn’t see the picture of me in the local news about how I did a one-week nature program. I was the only one in my grade who signed up and it was more than enough that every time I see my family they would say I, “six, of Larchmont is seen here putting peanut butter on pinecones.” I thought I was screwed, but as soon as I got downstairs Jamie backed me into the wall and started making out with me. Tanner and Lonnie already had taken the couch so Jamie and I continued to make out until we both dropped to the floor. That son-of-a-bitch took my spot. She started to straddle me and put covers over us and continued to kiss me as I searched for an excuse of a movie to put on. I don’t know exactly what it was, but let’s just say it was Karate Kid Part III because that movie rules. Why is the Sensei of Cobra Kai still pissed at a now fat Daniel Larusso who won the all-valley karate tournament a couple years ago? I cannot say. Sorry. Go watch, witch. I put the remote down and realized, “Wow, Jamie Fishell is on top of me and Tanner Corman is on my couch.” Confusion. I took Jamie’s shirt off and played with her boobs for a while, which was all right. They looked unfinished, they needed to fill out but I could tell that in a year they would be rowing their own boat. Jamie commenced (rocket launch) rubbing me over my jeans and quickly took my belt off, pulling it through all of the holes. I hate putting belts back into pants, but what happened next off set my anger. She unbuttoned my pants and gave me my first hand job that wasn’t in the woods or at a concert. She continued to do it until I came in her hand. She proceeded to wipe it off on my carpet. HEY NOW! I still hadn’t even looked over at Tanner and Lonnie. I hope they were having a tasteful time. Next, Jamie took my hand and started to put it down her pants and it was at that moment that I realized I had never fingered a girl before. No clue what to do. I panicked! Oh shit, oh fuck, why had I been selfish all these years? Why hadn’t I learned!?! I pulled my hand away to give myself a second to think and she forcefully put it back there and whispered in my ear, “I’m so wet, finger me.” You businesswoman you. I was introduced to a thick, wet patch of crab grass, typically a sore sight on lawns. I couldn’t find the hole. I didn’t think that there were even girls who still had that much hair down there anyway and it rivaled the amount I had. Together we had an entire economy of hair. At that moment I recalled something Brian Tetross said to me at lax practice two years previous, “Hey man, I popped this girls cherry this afternoon. It’s like the fifth cherry I popped. No big deal.” I needed Tetross’ carnal knowledge but simply having his hand would have sufficed. I kind of just poked around, my index and middle finger quivering in fear.
I was so inept in the region that she grabbed my hand away from there and just continued to make out with me. All soccer was good for was getting me jerked off a lot. After about an hour more of making out everyone went home, leaving this moron to re-hydrate. It was the last time Jamie and I had hooked up or hung out, but we remained friendly whenever we saw each other in social situations. She thought that I didn’t know what I was doing and she was right. But in my defense, it was way too difficult to sift through her sophisticated security system; all that hair on her.
Chapter 4
Sophie
Summer-Fall 2001, Age 15
I was road trippin’ with my brother Matt from Califraudulent to Connecticut after freshman year of high school. He was making his triumphant return back to the East coast. I was trying to stop self-pitying. Matt is ten years older than me and was always amazing when it came to fixing my state of mind, starting with not allowing me to play any of the miserable acoustic tunes in which I had immersed myself in. One song was Ben Harper’s cover, “Please Bleed” and another was Red House Painters, “Have You Forgotten?” Both of these could make anyone sad or nostalgic. What’s the difference anyways? My friends sucked (except Hogman). I did horrible in school and after Jamie I had numerous awful experiences during freshman year that were directly related to me being an idiot. I religiously got with women I had no interest in. Girls I simply did not care about, girls you simply will not care about, but it was all in order to calm the animal in me. And I knew it would make all the difference once I kissed someone I didn’t detest. On the other hand, maybe I was just being a crappy old shitty.
A Few Forgettables
I had hooked up with Janice Barnes, a junior and unattractive flag girl. I currently am ashamed to have ever frenched a flag girl. I can’t get out of my head how she took her gum and put it in my hand before kissing me. I like when HOT SLUTS (uh, what?) and girls I date do this before they give me oral, but c’mon flag girl, you’re making me sick. The only thing the juniors on my soccer team could say was how disappointed they were in me. I became paranoid, thinking people were always about to ask me a question about it, which to some degree did happen. My policy became denial with a smile.
I had a mini-fling with Kara Stein, whose breasts were enormous and enticing, but her lips were always chapped and she kind of had a belly. Next there was Kelly from Avon, the next town over. She was a sophomore and gave me a hand job at the bowling alley and then again in the car with Don T sitting on the other side of her. My friend Avon Haley was in the front seat with her military father, who was the scariest man alive and also a highly competent jeweler. Both times I went in my pants, the first time I had pretended it was ketchup. After the second skeet I was dropped off at my house soon after and tried to convince myself it was ketchup.
All three of these girls gave me migraines thinking about them all year. Life was rough on the streets, in the ‘burbs, for a guy like me. I don’t know what that means. By the second half of the year I tried to cure my chain of unappealing, unattractive women with the pursuit of a highly desirable girl.
A Little Disappointment
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, she was slowly becoming the hottest girl in our grade. Hogman was friends with her… so I had an in. He liked her, but not enough where he would conceal her number from me or ask me not to pursue her. I called her and we had nothing to talk about, but she told me she really liked the show Survivor 2. I watched and pretended to love it for a couple months so Sophie and I had something to talk about. By the end of the year I thought we were going to hook up. We didn’t, and it made me a sadddd parsnip. What vegetable are you? My brother Brad said, “I’d be a string bean so I’d be lean.” My mother would be a tomato and she doesn’t know why.
The trip with my brother was one of the best times in my life, but also like taking a shit as Tony Soprano says about therapy. Don’t drive cross-country in a wood-paneled Buick station wagon that is constantly over-heating. South Dakota is strange, but “The Badlands” are beautiful. We took lots of pictures. The only pictures of me with a shaved chest exist from this trip. I was incredibly self-conscious about having chest hair at fourteen. Body hair issues just don’t go away.
When I got back I found out that Gene had gotten with Sophie. Apparently Sophie had given Gene a hand job in the wine cellar of Hogman’s basement. I wanted to throw up on him, but did not. Instead I decided to again focus my energy on getting with other girls of lower caliber/confidence until I was ready to pounce. Enter more Avon girls, Rick Franken’s Fourth of July party and Truth or Dare with Veronica and Karen M. before I get back to dealing with and describing Sophie.
Practice Makes Me Yawn
FIRST AND LEAST INTERESTING: The Avon Girls. Again, Avon is a town. There were a few memorable interactions with them over the last year and they continued into the summer. Don T. hooked up with Avon Haley’s friend Heather in the woods during a game of flashlight tag and she got Lyme disease. Hogman had sort of been hanging with Avon Haley, but I am not exactly sure what they did. He was attracted to the trailer park look she had, although she lived in a town home with her military father. Hogman also acknowledged him as the scariest man on the planet. I was romantically linked or known to have liked Avon Laine, whose face looked strikingly similar to Britney Spears at this time.
Once back from my road trip I avoided talking to Sophie. Avoid, avoid, avoid, so I invited Avon Laine over in the afternoon. She asked me how my trip went, and I showed her the pictures instead of talking. She commented that I should keep my chest shaved because I looked hot and ripped. Perhaps, cool. We watched Passions--a daytime soap that she had a liking for. Odd. Holding her hand I couldn’t resist commenting. How many times can you find out who your real father is? She took this shitty soap seriously, leading to self-censorship so I didn’t derail my chances of getting with her. Smart, boy. We began to make out for the first time. I felt her (.)(.) over her shirt as we continued to kiss. In the middle of it all she abruptly stopped to tell me that this was just happening because we were bored on a summer day. I don’t know if I should have been offended, but I wasn’t. I was making out during Passions, and was pretending to be a rich woman’s pool boy. I had achieved ROCKSTAR STATUS. After she left I began to feel better about Sophie.
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