from Larry McMurtry, "Eros in Archer County," in In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas (1968)
My own first brush with small-town restrictions on frankness followed almost immediately upon the realization that sex was something worth being frank about. I was eight or nine years old, as I recall, and was climbing a street-sign pole. When I started up the pole I had no purpose in mind but casual exercise, but about the time I got to the top, the flexing activity that pole-climbing involves produced what I learned years later was an orgasm. I had not been expecting anything so delightful to happen at the top of that pole, and I hung for a moment in amazement before sliding down. A lady of my acquaintance happened to be standing nearby, so I hurried over and gave her an ecstatic report on the event. My description was probably rather vague, but I was able to pinpoint the area that felt so good, and that was enough for the lady. "Ssh," she said, looking apprehensively about. "Just don't tell anybody."
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Having just arrived at the place in Graves' Goodbye to a River where he discusses the harsh Calvinism of the original settlers of the region (my forebears, whose fundamentalism still reigns), I thought of McMurtry's essay. My favorite part of this, beyond his deadpan delivery, and the felicitous uses of "pole," is imagining McMurtry--who became a pulitzer prize winning writer--as a kid, randomly and mindlessly clamoring up a stop-sign because, well, that's just fucking tops in Archer City.
Anyway, loyal readers, time for a personal anecdote, banal enough but I think it's kind of funny. My fifth grade year culminated with our first "sex education" class, after which there was a camping trip I went to with about ten other boys from my class. Now, by "sex education" what I mean--and remember, this is 1988, in Rio Vista, Texas, pop. 308--"If you have sex, you will DIE. Immediately. Of AIDS." The halls of my schools were doted with posters drilling this message in, a message that supplemented my religious education, which was "Most likely you will go to hell, but definitely if you have sex." Being the earnest and impressionable person that I was, and maybe am still, these terroristic tactics kept me at odds with my own body well through high school. And perhaps beyond. I'm not so scared of hell, but the image of a wart-ravaged, rotting dick remains a horror that nudges me toward caution. I graduated as one of the only virgins at my high school, seemingly the sole receptacle of the thousands of hours spent demonstrating the social and theological dangers of sex.
After that particular class, which ended elementary school, we received gift bags of deodorant and shampoo and other sundries. (A modern rite-of-passage?) After school, I went with the majority of the boys from my class for a camping trip at the home of a kid named Wayne Keppel. (Of course, the really poor kids, most already in dire need of soaps and deodorants, were excluded by the class bias that children use with particular savagery.) We probably played some type of war/chase game, maybe some football, and possible shot pellet guns at tin cans. Then it was a campfire supper of hot dogs, and then dark. We filed into the big tent. Sitting in a circle, I remember a moment of deep confusion as the other boys discussed, with equal parts pride and mischievousness, "come." I had not yet begun, to quote George Costanza's mother, "treating my body like an amusement park." Dusty McClain, the most popular kid in the class (and no, I'm not making these names up) turned to me and asked, "Can you come?" Bewildered, I said, "Oh, sure," assuming I had missed the destination but knowing my place was too tenuous to risk asking where. Luckily the excitement was pitched to the degree that I didn't have to offer any details about come--or, as I later, and sometimes still do, imagined it being spelled, courtesy of some bathroom wall, "cum." A less savvy kid, the insufferably lame Michael Davis (how did he get invited?) voiced his confusion. As would serve me so well in graduate school, I bluffed through and eventually benefited from someone else's foolish admission of ignorance. Following his taunting, there was instruction; I recall that semen was likened to mayonnaise. A goddamn mind-blower for me.
Some people can learn from books and instruction; others are tactile learners. Being one of the latter, Dusty, inevitably, offered to produce come, right there, for the uninitiated. Hand in pants, and in a moment, a creamy white liquid. He was not our leader for nothing.
Then, someone said--"Hey, that smells funny!" I cannot recall who had charged himself with discerning the authenticity of the come, or more importantly, why he would do so--a bold power play against Dusty? at the risk, however, of getting come in the face--but it was revealed that it smelled a lot like shampoo. Indeed, Dusty had stashed the small bottle in his pants in preparation for his demonstration. (Luckily, there was no group masturbation to follow. Unless, completely traumatized, I have blocked it out.)
Dusty had a little stink on him for his overweening manhood for a while, but it wore off quickly, since he had natural charisma--and a full set up pubes by the beginning of sixth grade.
nice piece.
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i don't remember any of my friends so audacious as to pretend to orgasm in front of all of us, but i do remember conversation about the difference between a "stiffie," a "halfie," and a "meatie."
also, we either need to start a george costanza tag, or an entirely new blog: "www.georgecostanzagallimaufry.blogspot.com."
it's really up to you.
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