I had an awkward childhood. My parents moved a couple of times and I never really found friends who were interesting or found me interesting. For a couple of years I was signed up to play little league football (Not that faggy soccer crap) but there was a rule that every kid needed to play at least 5 minutes per game. I was one of those kids that they would throw in at the last 5 minutes when we were losing big, or 5 minutes before halftime when we where winning. I sucked. I used to sit alone on the bench and make explosion sounds when there was a tackle.
My pre-teen years were not kind either. During 6th grade at East Middle, I had a full blown case of crater face acne and a little bit of a weight problem. I could hide my budding man breasts beneath a shrunken E.L.O concert jersey, but the pimples were out there like Christians at a Pride Rally. But the worst part of my pre-teens was my parents decision to schedule my circumcision. I know, most guys have had this done at birth. Hell, even my brothers had their crowns cut when they were born. My parents could never explain why they never had it done for me. I guess life just got in the way and they never got around to it.
So anyways, right around the start of November during the sixth grade, I was circumcised. God Damn it hurt. The first day back to school, I felt as if I was wearing underpants made from shards of glass. Every young girl wearing a short skirt or tight sweater brought throbbing fiery bolts of pain to my loins as my pubescent wang tried to stand erect. The physical pain soon subsided, but the real damage had been done. Sexuality and pain had become intertwined and to this day, I can't look at women in cheer leading outfits or Jordache Jeans without wincing.
Between my explosive acne and the idea that even the smallest erection would bring about searing pain, I found the better half sixth and seventh grade would be best spent as far away from girls as I could get. I think, for almost two years, I spent every lunch hour in the library reading old Life magazines.
Life moved slowly forward and my self imposed shell began to dissolve. High school allowed me to have a fresh start. Sure, there would be people (girls) who remembered me from middle school, but there would be MORE girls who didn't know me. Also, I looked different. The summer before tenth grade, I had taken on a strict exercise program that consisted of riding my twelve speed bike alone all day, up to 18 miles a day, for six days a week. My complete lack of friends had helped me slough off pounds of baby fat and postpone the full growth of my man boobs until my late thirties. Except for my acne, I thought I looked pretty good.
Tenth grade came and went. I was just so damn shy. I can't even remember speaking to a girl during that first year of high school. I did a lot of staring and dropping pencils during class so I could bend down and pick them up to see if I could look up any skirts. The nearest I came to speaking to a girl was the time in algebra class when out of the blue a girl I was looking at called me freak and demanded that I stop looking at her. I spent three months in the school library during lunch because of that episode. Tenth grade was a wash and eleventh grade, I felt, would be my break out year.
Indeed, with the influx of new tenth graders (girls who knew nothing of my awkward past), the new year was brimming with possibilities. Adding to the mix was my parent's gift to me of a $100 1971 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. I may have had disfiguring facial acne, but I had wheels and girls liked guys with cars, right? More importantly, girls liked guys who could drive them home in a snow storm from school in a car heated with a growling 472 horsepower V8 engine.
Even today, when cool autumn nights turn to chilly winter darkness, the warmth from my car's heater ignites dreams of my youth.
