She was wearing an inconceivably tight shirt. Her thimble-like nipples stood at attention beneath a white cotton v-neck top. A giant gold cross dangled between her gigantic breasts—the type of tits that no guy could walk by without a double-take. Melons. Water Balloons. Un-fucking-believable. I remember thinking that they’d generate a sweet scent upon touch. Her tight black Cavaricci jeans outlined an unbelievably cute ass. She was about five-foot one or two, but was artificially elevated by red patent leather high heeled shoes. Basically, Maria was a fashion faux pas explosion. But, to my untrained and horny adolescent eye, she was a bombshell. I wanted to fuck her right there on the cold, generic secondary school, vomit-colored tiled floor.
But I felt so lousy, I couldn’t even think of a comeback after she dissed me. Not only had I spent the night dancing with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dum, not only had I eluded contact with every pretty girl there, but to top it all off I was insulted by this stranger, this bitch. I was in the shithouse that night. Totally depressed. Lower than dirt.
I used to get like that sometimes, when things didn’t go my way. It was a nasty routine, and once I sank in, it took days to climb out. I’d think: Things aren’t going my way… things aren’t going my way. And I’d kept thinking about it and thinking about it. Sooner or later, this feeling would diminish and transform into euphoria. Then I’d be happy again. And I’d be like that, maybe, for a few hours, sometimes a few days. And then I’d go and dance with a fat girl, and get insulted by her sexy friend, and almost immediately, it’d start anew.
Since I couldn’t fuck her, perhaps punching Maria in the nose right then and there would have boosted my spirits. She had no right to embarrass me like that. But it wasn’t the embarrassment that pissed me off. The tragic part of it all was that I didn’t even have a comeback. I just stood there like a clown without an act and didn’t say a word while everyone laughed. There’s nothing worse than that feeling of being shit on, and not having the strength to pull it away from your eyes and react whimsically. I’m usually pretty sharp with comebacks. Generally, I can dish it out as well as I can take it. But when I can’t think of something to dish out, well, I guess I become furious. And totally depressed like I was that night.
You’re fly’s open. Those were the only three words Maria said to me at that dance. Depressing, huh? Maria’s group continued to descend the stairs as me and Jeff and his sister pushed our way through the crowd toward the coatroom. Before me and Jeff said goodbye, I asked him for his sister’s phone number. I whipped out my wallet and hastily wrote on my bus pass. When he told his sister later on, she was probably wet with anticipation to see me again. I had spoken less than two words to her that whole night. I knew she liked me, but I certainly didn’t like her.
Fighting these truths off, I smiled boyishly in her direction. God forbid I end the night without some girl’s goddamn phone number.
That’s really all I remember about the dance. Other than “hello,” I didn’t say a word to Maria that night, but I told all my friends that I got a girl’s phone number. I didn’t say it was from Jeff’s sister, though, because I knew they’d all laugh at me since she was so unappealing.
The first guy I told was one of my best friends, Paul. Paul and I had met the summer before high school at this guy Kevin’s eighth grade graduation party. Kevin and Paul had met at some nerd camp the summer before eighth. It was held at this all-boys prep school that specialized in training young guys to become priests. That’s the way those priests are—they get you when you’re young, before you know too much, and brainwash you into thinking you should devote your life to Jesus.
But Kevin and Paul didn’t want to become priests; they just wanted to learn how to speed-read and do some high school-level math even before they graduated from elementary school. I thought it was so pathetic. I made fun of Kevin about it for months before the program even started. I think I called it Geek Camp or something like that. When Kevin introduced me to Paul, I immediately mentioned the Geek Camp and laughed about it. They talked all about how much fun it was, and about how they’d met some great priests there and everything, but I knew it was all baloney. They must have been bullshitting, because there’s no way they could have enjoyed that goddamn camp.
So Paul, like Kevin years before, was pegged as my innocent nerdy friend from the first day I met him. And from that day on I ceaselessly mentioned that priest camp to him and laughed in his face about it. I don’t even know why the poor guy hung around with me, but he did. We kept hanging out throughout high school, and we’re still sort of friends today, though I haven’t seen him in a while.
The point of all this is that I always picked on Paul, just because he was Paul. Picture it: He was a short guy, with connected eyebrows, and two nostrils big enough to snugly fit a can of Coke a piece. It’s difficult to describe.
But aside from all that, I made fun of him because he’d never had a girlfriend. I don’t think he was gay or anything. Oh, he tried like a sonofabitch to get girls, but never to any avail. I didn’t so much make fun of Paul as I did talk about my girlfriends in front of him all the time. And I knew that while Paul approved of my adventures on the surface, deep down inside he was confused as helclass="underline" He wished he was as successful with girls as I was, and yet my stories sickened him. I tacitly ridiculed him for that, too: for consistently resenting me but not having the balls to say so.
Paul was so goddamn insecure and confused that one time he actually made believe he had a girlfriend when he didn’t. It all happened after I told him about Rachel, this girl who whacked me off next to a fire extinguisher in the third floor stairwell. Like always, he looked pretty jealous that day. But the next day he came into school and told my friends and me that he’d met a girl by the bus stop that morning. I was shocked, but happy for the guy. Shit, he’d never even kissed a girl, and he was already a junior in high school. I will never forget the girl’s name, either: Julie Di Benedetto. After a few weeks of dating her, he told us that she broke up with him. Not that she wanted to do it; it’s just that her dad wouldn’t let her date guys until she was sixteen, so she had to do it. I felt so bad for Paul that I almost cried in the cafeteria as he told the story.
Believe it or not, a few days later Paul told us that he met another girl, also at the bus stop on his way home from school. I will never forget her name, either: Joyce McCormick. But after they went out a few times, she broke up with him, too. And for the same reason that Julie Di Benedetto did, because she had a very protective father.
I knew something was up at that point, because he’d dated two girls in just a few weeks and nobody had seen them but him. So I asked Paul what high school Joyce went to and he told me. Little did he know that I didn’t believe him, and that I called up the high school asking if they had a student registered under the name Joyce McCormick. And you know what? They didn’t. Paul had made the whole story up. There was no Joyce and there was no Julie. He just wanted to gain respect and sympathy from his friends, so he lied through his teeth.
Looking back on it now, it’s easy to laugh about it. But in high school me and my friends pretty much never let Paul forget it. Every day at lunch time when we all sat together, we’d crack jokes about it. “Hey, Paul, how’s Julie doing?” Shit like that. Even the last time we spoke, I think I mentioned Julie and Joyce to him. But he still doesn’t know that I got Jeff’s sister’s number at the dance that night. I guess he thinks I got Maria’s number, since she’s the one I eventually went out with. Not that I did anything to change his mind.