I wanted to turn around and get out of there, but I couldn’t. I was afraid if I did anything, he’d hear me and think I was spying on him. Even my heart beating sounded like a drum banging away inside my chest. I just stood there, watching him but trying not to, and thinking of any way to get out of the bathroom.
It isn’t like I’ve never seen a guy with a hard-on before. Sometimes a guy in gym class will get one in the showers, and everyone points and makes fun of him and calls him a fag, but we all know it’s just what happens to guys. We can’t help it. It’s like that thing is just there and it does whatever it wants. It totally is out of our control.
And it’s not like I’ve never jacked off. I’m fifteen years old. Of course I do it. Any guy who says he doesn’t is lying. That would be like having the coolest video game ever and never playing it. No one’s that stupid.
But I’ve never seen someone else doing it. It’s one of those things you don’t really think about other people doing, probably because if you did, every time someone shook your hand you’d be thinking about what else it had been holding on to. You just don’t go there.
Only now I was there, live and in person. Not two feet away from me, Rankin was going at it like he was all alone in his bedroom with the door locked and the stereo on so no one would hear him. I could hear him getting more and more excited, and I knew what was going to happen. I could partly see his face. His eyes were closed, his mouth was sort of open, and he was breathing hard. Then he sort of grimaced, and I knew it was time to get out of there, while he was still riding high and probably wouldn’t notice if a train crashed through the wall of the bathroom.
I waited too long. I was about to turn and get out when he opened his eyes. He looked right at me. At first he just blinked a couple of times, like he thought maybe he was seeing things and needed to clear his head. Then he realized I was real, and he gave me this half smile and nodded, like we were just passing in the hallway. “Hey,” he said.
I nodded back. “Hey,” I said. Hey, like that. What an idiot. Rankin didn’t say anything else, so I turned and left.
I don’t know what I expected him to do. I don’t know what I would do if someone caught me spanking the monkey like that. Probably I’d drop dead. I know I wouldn’t just say, “Hey.”
And now I can’t get the image of Rankin out of my head. That’s the worst part. I keep picturing his hand going up and down and hearing that groaning. I feel like such a queer. I have to stop thinking about it.
Why did I have to go in there? Why did I have to see that? I can’t tell you how much I did not need to see that tonight. Or any night.
Maybe I shouldn’t make such a big deal out of it. It’s not like Rankin seems to care, so why should I? I should just try to forget it ever happened. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to bed and forget about it.
Day 24
You know how Hindus believe that when you die you come back as something or someone else, and that if you screw up the life you have now you come back as something worse until you learn your lesson? Well, if that’s true, then I must have really pissed off God—or whoever—in my last life. Otherwise what happened today would never have happened. It’s even worse than what happened last night.
See, I’d done an okay job of forgetting what I’d seen Rankin doing in the shower. Even at breakfast, while he choked down his oatmeal, I could sort of pretend I’d just dreamed it. Then we had group. And that’s when Cat Poop announced that we were going to do some more pairing off. As soon as he said it, I felt my stomach knot up. I closed my eyes and waited to hear him say I could pair with Sadie or even Juliet.
But of course you know what happened. And it gets even worse, if that’s possible. The exercise we did involved picking questions out of a box. There were all of these strips of paper in there, and each one had a question on it. Things like “What are you most proud of in your life?” and “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?”
We were supposed to pick a question and talk about it with our partner. I really, really hoped I got something easy, like “What is the meaning of life in three words or less?” What I actually got was “What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?”
I know. I swear to God, that was the question. Sometimes I think there’s someone up there just sitting around thinking of ways to make me look like a complete moron. Seriously, I bet there’s an angel—or, more likely, a demon—assigned just to me. And every day it gets up and asks itself what it can do to ruin my life. Well, today it got an A plus.
So Rankin and I pair off. I’m still not really looking at him, just sort of around him. And of course all I can picture is that big hand of his going up and down, and then I’m staring at his crotch remembering what’s there, and eventually the only place I can look is at his face, and when I do I’m surprised to see that he doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed.
Instead, he’s looking at the paper in his hand. He’s looking really hard, like he can’t quite figure out what it says, like it’s written in Japanese or something. He looks and looks and looks, and finally he looks at me and says, “What do you think about when you jerk off?”
I know you think I’m making this up, but I swear I’m not. That’s exactly what he said. I sat there staring at Rankin, sure I’d heard him wrong. Then this big grin spreads across his face, and he starts to laugh.
“Got you,” he said.
I wanted to hit him, I really did. I couldn’t believe he did that. He thought it was hysterical, though. He was grinning his big stupid jock grin from ear to ear and rocking back and forth with laughter.
“Would you shut up!” I said.
Rankin wiped his eyes and quieted down. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you should see the look on your face.”
“What does it really say?” I asked him.
“Why?” he said. “Don’t you want to know the answer to the question I read?”
“Not really,” I told him.
“All right,” he said. He looked at the paper again and read the right question. “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”
He sighed. “I guess that would be telling my dad that I don’t want to play football anymore.”
“I thought you liked to play football.”
“I do. I just don’t want to play on the team anymore.”
“Why not?” I asked him.
Rankin shook his head. “I just don’t,” he said. “What’s your question say?”
“Just a minute,” I told him. “You can’t say you ‘just don’t want to.’ We’re supposed to talk about this crap. I want to know why you don’t want to be Mr. Big Football Player.”
Rankin put his head down. For a second I thought he was going to tackle me, but he just sat there. When he looked up, I could see he was trying really hard not to cry.
“Do you know what it’s like to have everyone expect you to be the best at something?” he said.
I shook my head. “That’s not a problem for me,” I told him. “I’m not good at anything. Nothing important, anyway.”
“I am,” Rankin said. “I’m good at throwing a ball and catching a ball and knocking people out of the way when they get between me and the ball. That’s what I’m good at.”
“So what’s the problem with that? Everybody loves jocks, right?” I admit I said it kind of sarcastically, because he sounded like such a bonehead and I was still mad at him about what he’d done before.
“Yeah,” Rankin said, snorting. “Everybody loves you. When you win. Then you’re the hero. But when you lose, you’re just the stupid meathead who couldn’t make the play.”
I was having a hard time feeling sorry for the guy. I know that sounds harsh. But I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook for being a jock in the first place. Everybody knows those guys get most of the breaks in school, and it seems to me that if all they have to worry about is playing a dumb game, then they have it pretty easy.
“You know w
hat my father said when I told him I wanted to quit?” Rankin asked me.
“I wasn’t there,” I said. “You’ll have to fill me in.”
“He said if I wasn’t going to play football, I wasn’t his son.”
“He did not,” I said. “Why would he say something so stupid?”
“Because it’s how he feels,” said Rankin. “That’s all he sees me as, a football player. He was a football player. His dad was a football player. His dad was a football player. That’s what the guys in my family are.”
“But you’re his kid,” I said, still not believing him.
“And as far as he’s concerned, his kid plays football.” He laughed. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“Because you get down sometimes,” I said, remembering what he’d said the first time in group.
“Yeah,” said Rankin. “But that’s not the real reason I’m here.”
“Then why’d you say that?” I asked him.
“Come on. Nobody says why they’re really here,” Rankin answered. “Not at first. Nobody wants to be the biggest freak. Didn’t you?”
“Didn’t I what?”
“Lie,” he said.
“It’s kind of hard to when you’ve got these,” I said, showing him my wrists.
“But that doesn’t say why,” he reminded me.
“So we both lied,” I said. “Why are you really here?”
“Because my father wants to know what’s wrong with me.”
“He sent you to the psych ward because you don’t want to play football? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not,” said Rankin. “That’s why I’m here.”
“That’s messed up,” I told him. “Supremely messed up.”
Rankin nodded. “Yeah, it is. So what’s your question?”
I told him. “And I think you know the answer to that one already,” I added, knowing I was probably turning a hundred different shades of red.
“Your wrists,” he said.
I looked at him. Did he really not get it? No, not my wrists, I wanted to say. It was walking in on you pulling your pork.
Rankin either didn’t think that was embarrassing, or he was trying to pretend it never happened. But I don’t think that was it. I think he honestly didn’t think it was a big deal.
I would. Seriously, I’d rather have someone walk in on me cutting my wrists than have them see me doing that. Between you and me, I think Rankin’s priorities are a little screwed up.
Day 25
I told Sadie. About seeing Rankin in the shower. I wasn’t going to, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I thought maybe if I told someone, I’d get it out of my head and into someone else’s. You know, like that movie The Ring, where the characters have to pass along the haunted videotape to someone else so that the ghost girl in the video won’t come out and kill them. They know the girl will kill the person they give the tape to, but they do it anyway because they don’t want to die more than they don’t want to be responsible for someone else dying.
Not that picturing Rankin would kill me, but it was giving me a pretty bad headache. So bad that I couldn’t sleep. I went into the lounge, and there was Sadie. I don’t think she ever sleeps. I think she just watches TV all night.
“It was so weird,” I said after I told her the basics.
“Why?” she asked me.
“What do you mean why?” I asked back. “Because it’s weird.”
“Please,” she said. “Like you don’t do it too.”
I almost said I didn’t, but that would have been an obvious lie. I mean, come on. I bet even the Pope does it.
“But he wasn’t even embarrassed,” I said.
“Is it big?” asked Sadie.
“Is what big?” I said.
“You know,” Sadie said, looking down with her eyes. “It. He’s a big guy. I bet it’s big.”
“I didn’t exactly notice,” I told her.
She grinned. “Yes, you did,” she said.
“I did not!” I protested.
She rolled her eyes. “You know you did,” she said. “Guys always look. They have to compare. So, is he bigger than you?”
“You are such a perv,” I said.
“What is it with guys?” she asked me. “Girls always compare.”
“Big deal,” I said. “It’s not as if there’s a lot of difference between . . .” This time it was my turn to look down in the general area of her, you know, girl parts.
“How do you know?” she shot back. “How many of them have you seen?”
“Enough,” I said.
“Like Allie’s?” Sadie asked, surprising me.
I felt myself turning red, which totally made me mad. “All right,” I said. “So I saw it. I guess it was pretty big. Are you happy?”
“Are we talking about Allie or Rankin now?” said Sadie, grinning again.
“I should never have brought this up,” I said.
“Relax,” Sadie said. “Let’s get back to the problem. Why are you so freaked out about this?”
“What if . . .” I started.
“What if what?” asked Sadie when I didn’t finish.
I took a deep breath. “What if he wanted me to see him?” I said.
Sadie laughed. “So what if he did?”
“That’s kind of creepy,” I said.
“Please, it wasn’t like he asked you to help out or something,” she said. “You just wandered in.”
“But he didn’t seem to care that I saw him,” I said.
“Why should he?” Sadie asked. “It’s no big deal. You guys are always walking around with those things sticking out and touching yourselves and whatever. It’s like you’re so proud of them that you have to show them off.”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s like a dog show. Sometimes we even have talent contests.”
Sadie shook her head. “Guys are so fucked up. You get all freaked out about people thinking you’re gay if you look at each other. Girls aren’t so hung up about that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Well,” she said. “Have you ever practiced making out with one of your guy friends?”
“No!” I said.
“See,” said Sadie. “But girls do it all the time.”
“You do?”
“Sure. I’ve made out with lots of my friends. Sometimes more than that.”
“More how?” I asked her.
“You know, a little touching and stuff. No major lesbo action or anything. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, I’d probably do that with the right girl.”
I didn’t know what to say. To be honest, she was freaking me out a little bit.
“I don’t think guys do that kind of stuff,” I said.
She laughed. “You just don’t admit that you do,” she said. “Trust me. Guys do it, too.”
I don’t know about that. I can’t imagine many of the guys at my school playing around with each other during a sleepover. But maybe they do. They sure slap each other’s butts enough in the locker room and on the field. I always thought that was weird, by the way. Guys are so afraid of people thinking they’re queer, but the jocks are practically feeling each other up out there.
I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I changed the subject. Actually, I suggested that we play the dialogue game. I figured that might distract Sadie from the whole sex subject.
It didn’t. As soon as we started playing, I knew I was in trouble. The movie was one of those really bad teen slasher movies. It took place at a summer camp (don’t they all?), where someone was offing all of the counselors for no apparent reason.
The scene we were watching was about two of the counselors, a guy and a girl. For some reason that would only make sense in a bad teen slasher movie, they had decided to go camping in the woods when there were perfectly good cabins right there. They were inside a tent, sort of half in and half out of their sleeping bags, and they were talking. It was perfect for the dialogue
game.
“Let’s do something different,” Sadie suggested. “I’ll be the guy. You be the girl.”
She didn’t wait for me to say okay; she just started in. “Heather, there’s no one in the woods.”
“But I heard something, Sean,” I said as the girl moved her mouth.
Sean put his hand on Heather’s cheek. “It’s just the wind,” Sadie said.
The girl looked like she didn’t believe him. “I’d feel better if I was in your sleeping bag with you,” I said in her voice.
As Sean unzipped his sleeping bag and the girl in the movie slid out of hers, Sadie said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I sleep in the nude.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound like a girl who was surprised. “I wish I’d shaved my legs.”
“That’s okay,” Sadie replied in a low voice. “I like a girl with hairy legs. It turns me on.”
We both laughed. Then I did something I hadn’t planned on. I slid my hand over and put it on top of Sadie’s. My heart was fluttering like a crazy butterfly, and for a second I almost pulled my hand back. But then Sadie folded her fingers around mine. She didn’t say anything or even look at me. It was like she’d expected me to do it.
We sat like that while we kept playing the game.
“You’re so warm,” I said in Heather’s voice.
“That’s because you make me warm,” said Sadie.
“Oh, Sean,” I said. “I feel so safe with you.”
“Safe enough to go all the way?” said Sadie.
I hesitated along with the girl in the movie. When she started moving her lips again I said, “I think so.”
Just at that moment, a knife plunged through the tent wall. The guy and the girl screamed and tried to get away as the killer came at them, but they were tangled in the sleeping bag. The knife came down again and again, and blood went everywhere.
“So much for Heather’s first time,” Sadie said in her normal voice. “She died a virgin. How sad.”
She was still holding my hand. But now that we weren’t playing the game, it felt a little strange. Still, neither of us let go of the other’s hand. I kind of felt like I should say or do something, but I didn’t know what.