One time I chickened out from jumping off the high dive. As I climbed down, I caught the eye of a boy wearing black trunks with red thunderbolts on his thighs. He was treading water in the deep end with two other boys, both with long faces and shaved heads.
As I walked to the locker room I watched the girls doing backstrokes in the water. I showered quickly. When the hot water touched me I wanted to cry, and I stayed very still for nearly a minute, trying to look straight into the shower head, letting the water pour into my half squinted eyes. Just as I was about to leave the shower the other boys started streaming into the locker room, laughing and kicking. Some brought their towels into the shower, but nobody took off their swimming trunks. I had, because I was planning on getting out before they came in, but I must have lost track of time. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't decide whether to play it cool, stay in the shower, hope no one said anything, or run like a fool to my unlocked locker and wrap my towel around my waist. Before I could do anything, the boy in the thunderbolt shorts, shaved head and rubbery looking skinny boy abs and all 5' 8'' of him whipped my testicles with his towel twisted up like a rat tail. I nearly screamed, and fell onto the ground., banging my knee and bruising my cheekbone. The water poured into my mouth. He loomed over me, looking down, a dead smile on his face and shit in his eyes. His lips looked very chapped. I cupped my sack and moaned, trying to put pressure on it to subdue the thick, nauseating pain.
“What the hell did you do?” a smaller boy said, high pitched and cracking in fright, his hands balled up and elbows crooked.
“Aw, he's okay. Hey, you guys don't have to tell anyone I did it. It was an accident, anyway, right?, didja see? I didn't even mean to touch him. He got in the way sorta, didn'tja see?.
From the floor of the pool, I retched, choking on hot, chlorinated water.
“You don't even gotta tell anyone it happened I mean I know I wouldn't wanna. Ouch I'm sorry, that musta hurt man. Hey, you okay?”
He bent down. I looked up, straight up his thunderbolts.
“Why aren'tcha wearing any trunks, man?”
I looked up at his face with my red rimmed eyes, bloodshot and drying out. When I saw the regret in his eyes, the tenderness, I started crying again, although I had never quite stopped so I was only crying harder. My lip curled and I let out a sob.
Everything smelled like chlorine and wet dog. A few of the smaller boys, and one bigger boy clustered around the vending machines that they weren't allowed to buy from, gazing at the candy.
“I would buy the famous amos. I love famous amoses.”
“Yeah, famous amoses are so good!”
I stood out of the way, still rubbing my hair with my towel, watching for the girls to start leaving the locker room. They always took longer than us. The first one to come out was a black girl, well only half black, but with the most beautiful long hair. One time in our kindergarten class I had traded her a small toy skateboard for a kiss, but it was all wrong, her standing a head above me and leaving like she was in a hurry as soon as her lips touched mine. Next was a tall latina girl, thin and with already oily skin. All of the other girls, all white girls, came out soon after. Some of them were pointing and laughing at me. I wondered if someone had told them yet what had happened in the shower room. As we waited to get on the school bus, I stood away from the crowd, shifting from foot to foot, trying not to show my discomfort. My testicles had swollen and darkened. I took frequent breaks to walk to the water fountain around the corner to check on them. My penis was engorged with blood, and had taken on a red hue that made me think of boiled hotdog. When I poked it, it tingled in a very satisfying way, and I couldn't stop rubbing it through my pants on the bus ride back to school.
