Memorizing You (4 page)

On one particular day there was a guy sitting on the bench I’d not seen before. A new face. He was just another one of those joes like me. Ordinary enough to pass by on the street without a glance. Short blond hair, a lithe but not consequential torso, but with the most extraordinary muscular legs. They looked disproportionate to his body. Thighs that looked impossible to squeeze into his training shorts.

I would watch part of the practice, but inevitably my gaze would drift back to him. He seemed uncomfortable; like he didn’t want to be there. Distracted enough to look almost everywhere but the field. He either wanted to be in the game very badly, or to not be there at all. I could only guess by his body language.

There was a scuffle among two of the players that brought the coach in to intercede. Macho yelling from all sides for a few moments before the shrill bleat of whistle pierced the noise and brought it all to quiet. The hoarse voice of the coach began the reprimand as I returned my attention to the guy on the bench. He stared at me. Straight at me. There was no one else around. I was the only person seated on the bleachers. His hand raised from his lap in a small wave. I made a small, indecisive wave back and then sat there in the strangeness of the moment. I had no clue what just happened or why.

The ride home on the bus that day was a blur. I stared out the window. I wasn’t even aware that Bob had sat down across from me until he turned the page of a book he was reading. He wore a white button shirt exposing his freckled arms, and a pair of too-tight green pants. When he sat they bunched up in the crotch making it look like he had an erection. I didn’t know I was staring—my mind was elsewhere—until he snapped his book shut. I looked up and saw his expression of disgust that bore down only on me as he picked himself up from the seat and moved to another some rows behind me.

“Faggot!” he said under his breath. Just loud enough for me.

My head dropped into my palms in embarrassment. I was mortified. I’d never be able to ride on that bus again. I’d catch a later one or always be treated to a look of contempt. I kicked myself the rest of the day for the indiscretion. I mowed two lawns in the Sherwood subdivision and then went to the track in Meramec Park for a run at dusk. I sat there afterward until night fell, thinking. How was I to live a life like this? How could anyone live a life like this? To be someone that others despised. Burying feelings.

I cried. Couldn’t help it. It felt like the thing to do. Self-pity or not. I felt helpless. I crawled in bed Saturday y fes that night without eating. No appetite. No fantasies. No dreams. Just misery. How could I be living a life I didn’t want? How could I be something no one would want to be? It’s not something I would have picked. I would change it if I could. But I knew I couldn’t.

There are so many types of sorrow. Sorrow for a loss. Sorrow for a tragedy. Sorrow for the way things are. Sorrow for the ways things could have been. But the worse sorrow is for what can never be. My heart cried, filled with that particular sorrow. Wanting to love and knowing I’d never be allowed to do so.

There were a number of weeks I lived with this melancholy clinging to me like a wet, wool coat. I don’t think I smiled once. I had no desire to talk to anyone. I worked. I ran. I slept. I tried not to dream. The world was colorless.

More than anything I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be able to answer my dad’s question and see him smile. I wanted to be accepted. What to do? What to do?

Decisions like I made that night don’t come easily. I fought myself the grand fight. To force myself to be something other than I was. To make a choice that was against everything I knew to be true to be myself. I was going to be straight. Get a girlfriend. Be like the rest of the world. I would recondition myself.

I started just like I had when I was younger. I would sneak my mom’s Spiegel catalog and thumb through the pages of men in underwear. And even though you couldn’t really see anything—they made sure there were no unsightly bulges in those days—they were a good jumping-off point for a masturbatory session. However, this time I turned to the women’s underwear section. I thumbed through all four pages displaying women in various bras and underwear. I stared and stared. I tried playing with myself as I stared. Nothing happened. I thumbed back to the men’s underwear section.

The first page gave me an instant erection. I grabbed onto it and thumbed back to the women’s section. It died in my hands.

“What do I have to do?” I sat in the corner by the toilet with the catalog. Depression came on me in waves. “I don’t know how to do this!”

I opened the catalog again and stared at the picture of women in their underwear. Nothing. I flipped the pages back and forth. Why wouldn’t it happen? W USA, Inc.

I looked down at my erection. Full force. Straight up. Leaking. I grabbed it and went to town staring at the picture of the girl and thinking of Greg. I found a way to make it work. I could do this. I could put that smile on my dad’s face.

CHAPTER THREE

I applied myself to the new task of “becoming straight” like it was a new and bold adventure. I had to find a girlfriend. Someone that I could be comfortable with and who would make Mom and Dad proud when they met her. It shouldn’t be that difficult. I’d had a number of girls who had seemed interested in me from time to time. They lost interest when I showed none. That would be different this time.

And I was excited about the prospect of having my first sexual experience—even if it wasn’t with someone whom I desired. Sex was sex, of course. It didn’t matter. I wanted to shake my virginity as soon as possible. And who knows, I thought, maybe having sex with a girl would get rid of all the other thoughts inside me?

I did something I’d never done before. I took notice of the girls around me. I was surprised how many there actually were. Every class they out-numbered the guys two-to-one. It never dawned on me how odd it would appear to have a guy in school without a girlfriend with the odds factored like that. I went about this with a sense of urgency that I’m certain doesn’t really happen in everyday life. Somehow I think most people fall into the dating process, or chance just provides the environment. But they’d all done it long before me and I was way behind. Most guys I knew had been dating since seventh or eighth grade, taking girls to a show and Steak N’ Shake afterward. I’d never even held hands with anyone and was close to finishing my first year of high school. There were late bloomers, and then there was me. Hell, I didn’t even know how to ask a girl out.

Luckily for me my second period English teacher took care of that troublesome segue by teaming me up with a classmate named Rosemary on a writing project: an essay on science-fiction as a morality tale. I was excited about it for two reasons. I’d recently read three Robert Heinlein books and had already done the research. And second, Rosemary had been one of the few girls who’d expressed interest in me at an earlier time. She was still unattached. She turned in her seat and smiled at me after Miss Chase, our teacher, made the announcement. I returned the smile.

She couldn’t wait to grab me after class to find out when and where we could get together to work on the essay. We could squeeze a few sessions in during our study breaks in the library but I knew I’d have to cut some of my lawn care duties to fit in the study time after school. I could pick them up by working double duty on weekends. Her enthusiasm was almost childish.

Rosemary was a pretty girl. She wasn’t taller than five foot, but she had a nice figure, budding breasts, a clear complexion, and a compelling, sincere smile. Her face was an open book. Her earnestness was without restraint. It was apparent she liked me. A lot. I was both flattered and relieved. I wouldn’t have known the first thing to do to ask a girl to my house. I’d also never experienced someone being infatuated with me.

During our first round of collaboration, after lunch in the library, it was conspicuous Rosemary knew very little about science fiction. Names like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke were met with a stare blanker than an unaddressed envelope. And I don’t know if it was due to nerves or nature, but she was a chatterbox. It was an endless spate of idle talk. Information I would forget as soon as I heard it most of the time. But it was harmless and didn’t bother me. She seemed like such a nice person.

“I wish it had been on romance novels. I love romance.
Jane Eyre
,
Wuthering Heights
. I could go on and on about those,” she said in her buoyant voice. “Science fiction is more for boys; don’t you think?”

“I never really thought if books were meant just for boys or girls. I kind of always thought they were meant for everybody,” I said. “We should give all kinds a chance.”

“You don’t think romance books are just for girls?”

“I’ve read
Wuthering Heights
and I liked it,” was my answer.

She seemed to ponder that for a long moment. “Then I guess I really should read some science-fiction.” She was already looking at the shelves. is killing me.”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

I walked with her to the shelves to help her sort through the selection.

“My sister’s getting married next month and I get to be the maid of honor. I’m so excited!” she babbled onward. “It was so glorious how her fiancé proposed. So romantic. Flowers and champagne. He was on his knees with the ring…just like the prince in the romance novels. And then they danced. They danced all night.”

I looked at her face and the faraway eyes. Her innocence was a radiant halo around her. “It does sound nice.”

“Would you like to go with me?”

She caught me off-guard with the question. “To the wedding, you mean?”

“Yes. To the wedding.”

“You mean…as…sort of a…date?”

Her eyes were lively, her smile contagious. “Yeah. I guess. As sort of a date.”

My mom and dad would be elated to hear me utter those words. Their son had a date to a wedding.

I said, “Sure. I think that would be great.”

That settled, I knew I was going to be writing most of the essay on my own. Rosemary was clueless on the subject. It didn’t matter to me. Fate had provided her to me for another purpose. I was certain of that. At the same time, my small lawn care business was taking off. My referrals in the new area were getting me more jobs. At this rate my income would soon equal half of my dad’s. That wasn’t bad for a freshman in high school. I would soon have to think of ways of expanding it. I had two new prospects in the higher class neighborhood of Sherwood Forest five blocks west of my house. I scheduled the introductory meetings for Saturday and t the entire time.Imyhen would finish up the essay with Rosemary on Sunday. If everything went as I planned I would make more money and lose my virginity all in the same weekend.

I had myself convinced that my plan would work. That all it would take was one experience and my life would be rendered to the conformity the world ordered. I would no longer be called names. I’d no longer feel displaced. My optimism was showing itself in my track times. I was shaving seconds off every event. My legs felt powerful, my movements nimble and sure.

My parents, as I’d surmised, were pleased to hear that I was bringing a girl home to study during the week. They were even more delighted to learn I would be her date at a wedding. I was becoming the All-American boy of which every parent dreamed. The same thing was happening at school. All the jocks who had whispered those names we all knew too well behind my back were now evaluating me with different eyes. Eyes less suspicious and more accepting. It certainly wasn’t because of anything I’d done, but because of the way Rosemary behaved in my presence. There was no mistaking her sentiment. That seemed to be all that was required to annihilate their prejudice. I was, at the time, both saddened and comforted that a label, a mark, had been lifted from me. It felt like a dog, once left outside in the rain, being let inside to the warmth.

I should have been angry. At them. At myself. At the unfairness.

The next day I didn’t even have to hunt for Rosemary. She was waiting for me by my locker at lunchtime with books and notebooks in hand. She chewed a thumbnail, nervously. “David!” She waved when she saw me.

She was at my side in seconds. “Hey!” I greeted her. “What’s up?”

“I thought we could study outside. I love to sit on the bleachers in the sunshine to study. Would that be all right?”

“Sure,” I said. “Bleachers it is.”

It was a beautiful day outside. Clear and pleasant. Cloudless, blue skies. The football team was taking advantage of the weather to practice during their lunch. I kept my head down and eyes focused on our books. I didn’t want my concentration diverted by temptation.

“You said you would explain
The Puppet Masters
to me,” she reminded me as we found a seat at the very top of the stands. And I spent the next forty-five minutes giving her the condensed version of my favorite Robert Heinlein novel. She listened with rapt attention; hanging on to every syllable. Infatuated. Infatuated with me.

I glanced at my watch and saw our lunch hour was almost up. “Do you want to continue the work on this tonight after supper? At my place?”

“Heads up!” someone yelled just as a football plopped itself in Rosemary’s lap. A startled grunt escaped her as it settled on her notepad.

I pivoted as one of the players bounded up the seats toward us. I recognized the muscular legs immediately. It was the player I’d first seen seated on the bench. He smiled in greeting.

“Sorry ‘bout that. An overthrow. A really bad overthrow.” He stuck out his hand for the ball, which Rosemary handed him.

“You need to watch out that for that! Almost lost my stuff!” Rosemary bleated.

He was still looking at me. “Yeah. I’m sorry.” His eyes held unyielding on mine. I was simultaneously transfixed and uncomfortable.

A blush stained my cheeks and I quickly looked back to Rosemary, shuffling through her papers. I heard him turn and leap back down the bleachers to the field. Perspiration popped and trickled down my back in spite of the cool breeze.