kids during all those years of junior high and high school, and my grade school friends seemed to have gone by the wayside.
During those wonderful lunchtime minutes, one at a time we took turns bringing each other up to date on our comings and goings, our teachers, our supposed sex lives, on who heard what about what girl the boys in gym class were bragging they had sex with, as well as world news of the day as we saw it. My specific claim to being in this group was being the shortest boy in school. As if being shy wasn’t enough, let’s not forget hating gym, especially as the coaches always made me shower over and over because I wasn’t “wet enough.” And I always sprung what we called a boner while undressing or dressing in the locker room. Of course, years later I came to understand that the perv coaches were just getting off on my young wet, naked body. I hated gym class. Funny, now I do the gym three times a week.
The other boys at our table were Paul Kone who was skinny and pimply and told the best jokes, Albert Hodge whose red, curly hair jutted straight up out of his head. (Everyone always saying his head looked like it was on fire), Lewis Lockman, one of the only Jewish kids in our class but the smartest, and Guido Lanza who thought he was Al Capone, always wearing black shirts and white ties with a belt and suspenders. Last at our table, but of course, not least to this story, was Wayne Limon. Wayne wasn’t from around here; he had a wonderful southern accent and the most beautiful way of talking of anyone I have ever known. Words just flowed from his lips like a musical instrument. He didn’t really belong at our table. He just sat down with us one day and every day after that. Sometimes he and I shared lunches. It seemed both our mothers thought we needed better meals than the school cafeteria could provide and saw to it we were amply provided for. I actually never thought Wayne would ever consider having sex with me, let alone my telling him I lusted after him all those years. Nothing even remotely close to sex was ever spoken of between us except in the context of the lunchroom chatter. One day Wayne brought a photograph someone took that was a double exposure of him getting out of the shower showing his entire naked body, head to toe, and every beautiful thing in between. Needless to say, I would have given my left nut for that photo. I probably still would. I jacked off to the memory of that image for years. He passed it around the table and, of course, when it got to me I didn’t want to relinquish it and we tussled back and forth about it, though I’m sure he didn’t think I wanted it for the purposes I had in mind. I finally relented and gave it back. I think the wheels of our fate started turning that day. From then on he sat directly across from me every day at lunchtime. I didn’t have a clue. They hadn’t invented gaydar yet I don’t think. Yet, every day I imagined him sitting there naked just like in the photo.
Six years pass, we’ve become closer friends, we graduate from high school, double date for the prom, and on the very last day that we will ever see the school, it happens.