A Work of Art
Not a journal
Second Entry
My dad smiled at me at breakfast on our first day of school this year. Toby had already finished and was out the door. He’d be at the bus pickup spot early; there was a chance there’d be some new girls this year, and he wanted to have a head start with them. Mom had already left, too. She liked to be in her classroom before any kids showed up. This meant I got to be alone with Dad at breakfast each day. I loved that. I had no secrets from him, and he was helpful instead of judgmental. I think the reason many teenagers don’t talk to their parents is because all they get from them is criticism, second guessing and very little praise or support. That was not my dad.
Now, we weren’t talking. I was eating pop tarts and drinking milk. He was reading something he got in the mail and eating toast and drinking black coffee. Whatever it was he was reading, he was getting a kick out of it.
“What’s so funny?” I asked after watching him while he read. He’d been doing some chuckling, and I didn’t like being left out.
He kept reading for another couple of seconds, then looked over the top of the paper he was reading. The envelope it had come in was on the table, and I could see the school’s logo on the envelope: Livingston High School - Home of the Golden Eagles.
“You’re going to love gym this year,” he said and then broke out into more than a chuckle.
“Why? What’s that you’re reading? What’s going on?”
He folded the paper, then unfolded it and took a pen out of his pocket. He held the paper without letting me see what it was, signed it and put it in the envelope that had come enclosed with the letter; he sealed that and set it on the table. Then he looked up at me again.
“Probably best if I let you find out for yourself. It’ll all be explained.” He smiled at me and then, for some enigmatic reason, winked before laughing again.
That’s all I got out of him, and I’d forgotten all about it when I reported for a first-day school assembly. It was just for us freshman boys, which was unusual; girls always attended with us, but today, the school seemed to be practicing segregation of both sexes and grades for this assembly.
We were making the usual racket until Principal Hayes climbed onto the stage accompanied by the school nurse and the gym teacher, Coach Taylor, and another man I didn’t recognize. The principal was the one who spoke to us after quieting us down. I knew Principal Hayes because she’d been introduced to us last year at a middle-school assembly.
After an introductory welcome, she introduced the man I didn’t know as Lyndon Marks. He was the new school superintendent for the district, and she said he’d have a message for us we’d find very interesting.
He was a short, rotund man with thinning hair and a wrinkled face. He looked very old to me, probably in his late 60s. He beat around the bush awhile before he got to the point. “Boys, we’re going to do some new and different things this year, things I’ve been waiting for the chance to initiate. There have been meetings over the summer of the district administration, and decisions have been made that will affect all of you. We’re quite excited about these changes, and we hope you will be, too.
“You’ll probably like some of what has been decided and not be too sure about some. I’m here today to tell you how things will be, and I hope you’ll all give the things you’re not sure about a chance. First, I’ll tell you what most of you will like.
“In the past, high-school gym classes were comprised of the boys whose schedules fit the time of day they were available for gym. The academic course schedules were made up first, then gym classes formed around those. We’ve heard complaints for years about more physically mature, larger, and/or rougher and more aggressive boys taking advantage of the smaller and less physically strong boys in gym classes. The fact is that smaller boys were not getting what they were supposed to from gym classes. It also meant they frequently hated that class. I know this because I was that sort of boy and that was how I felt.
“We’ve decided the traditional way isn’t beneficial for a large portion of your population, and so, beginning this year, we’ve worked it out so the rougher, more athletic boys can be together in their own gym classes, and the other boys who aren’t as rough and not as athletic will be in their own gym classes. That means this latter group will have much happier experiences and may actually learn to like some of the activities they’ll be involved in because they’ll be with others just like themselves. Just one example so this is clear: if big kids are mixed with smaller ones and playing basketball, the big kids tend to hog the ball, and they’re the ones under the boards rebounding and fighting for position; the rest of you just tend to stand outside the action and watch. We want to fix that, and our new way of scheduling should enable us to do that.”
He stopped to watch our reactions. There weren’t many. I don’t think we were sure just how this was supposed to work. Who was going to determine which boys fit which descriptions? Sure, the coaches knew the sophs and juniors and the seniors who were still taking gym. But what about us freshmen? And would there be a stigma attached to the boys in the ‘softer’ classes? How could that be avoided?
He waited and, when there wasn’t any disturbance, continued. “Now, this is the part that you may wonder a little about—and some of you will certainly be concerned about—but it’s been thoroughly discussed and decided. It’s been kicked around by a lot of people who are knowledgeable in a number of areas, and I think it’s best if I offer you some justification before telling you just how it’ll affect you. There are two things I need to discuss with you.
“First, we’ve been approached by a university doing research in which our school has been asked to participate. It will be a nation-wide study, and we’ll be paid to be part of it. Schools always need money, and this will be quite beneficial for us. So that’s one reason to join in what should prove to be an interesting project. It ties in very nicely as well with the second item I need to tell you about.”
He hesitated. I suddenly got the feeling that what he was going to say next might not be something I’d want to jump up and celebrate.
“Many educators support what we’re going to do here this year. They agree with me that it will be very psychologically useful for those of you who participate. At your age, many of you conflate nudity with sex. That is an adolescent perception, and we feel it will be advantageous to you to learn that perception is inaccurate.
“You should be able to be nude with other boys and in various situations and not feel any sexual tension. For some reason, probably associated with the politically correct movement in this country, modesty in young males has become the norm in recent years. Historically, that wasn’t the case. I’m old enough to have been in the generation of boys that wasn’t taught it was wrong to be naked with other boys. In fact, when we had swimming classes, we never wore bathing suits, even if there were girls in the pool with us.”
Now that caused some noise! Could this be true? This was beyond our comprehension. It wasn’t how things worked. This couldn’t be real. He waited while the clamor got louder. He was smiling at us. He must have realized how incomprehensible such a statement was.
He finally held up his hand, and we quieted. “Well, that was back then. We’re going to be progressive this year, but not that progressive. We do wish to eradicate some of the unnecessary modesty that’s been instilled in you boys. So we will have naked swimming in our pool. And we will have naked communal showers where you’ll be encouraged not to wear anything like what often happens these days, with boys wearing bathing suits or underwear.”
Before there was another uproar, he rushed on. “Your generation and the one preceding yours were both brought up with much more concern about male modesty than previous generations, and we think that’s harmful to your psyches. We think that attitude curtails some of the freedoms and joie de vive boys had in the past. We hope to allow you to have a different opinion, to lose the thought that you must hide your bodies from the world.
“We want you to understand that communal nudity for teen boys—in the past few decades discouraged in our society—was not historically restrained and such restraint will no longer be the policy of this school.
“It’s been suggested that, with the explosion of popular media, stories about child molestation have become so widespread that communal fears have been raised. People have been brought to think that boys being molested by pedophiles is currently at an all-time high. Yet numbers show that this problem is no more prevalent in our society now than it has been in past generations. But the reporting of it has made it seem so and has resulted in making parents think that boys’ bodies must be covered because, if seen, those boys become a target for the uncontrollable, irresistible urges of the sex addicts who supposedly fill our streets. Humbug!
“Nudity in many situations was normal for boys in the decades before that. As late as the middle of the 20th century, at many high schools boys and girls swam together, with the girls in bathing suits and the boys naked; this was a common practice. I, in fact, was one of those boys. And after a few moments of initial embarrassment, it became no big deal. However, with the passage of years, that attitude changed, and boys were made to feel as modest as girls. The tide is changing now, moving back toward traditional attitudes. We wish to be part of that change. Many sociologists feel as a society, we’ve taken modesty to unhealthy psychological levels. For centuries, boys coming into and moving through the period of sexual maturity were comfortable with nudity in groups. We think that’s healthy, and we want to be part of the vanguard of institutions looking to change current mores. We’ll be taking small steps in that direction, and you’ll all be part of this.”
More clamor as we had to interact with our neighbors in the audience. This was huge!
“So, how will this work?” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise, quieting us as we all wanted to know exactly that. “Remember, there are two things involved. Firstly: all of you with sanctioning parents will be part of a study of adolescent boys. You will be part of a research project, and it will include some structured nudity on your part. Secondly, in gym classes you’ll be naked during swimming and afterward in the showers. Just so you know, there won’t be any girls in either of those places. I know—some of you will be disappointed to hear that.” He grinned at us.
He stopped to let the hall quiet entirely. When it became still, before he could continue, a voice called out: “This research project. What part of it requires us to be naked?”
He nodded. “You’ll be informed. Your parents have already been given project details, and they can fill you in. But, briefly, you’ll be checked whether or not you’ve been circumcised, whether you identify as gay, your body statistics measured, questions asked about sexual activities—those sort of things. We want to compare your generation against past generations. Your parents can fill you in; you can get details from them. Again, it’s up to them whether you participate individually. We hope all of you receive your parents’ approval to be part of this. The more participants we have, the better the science will be, the more accurate the study, plus the amount of funding we get is determined by the size of the group involved. More participants mean more money for the school. That money will be used to make the school an even better place for you.”
Before he could say more, another voice called out. “Who’ll be seeing us naked?”
The superintendent asked the principal to come forward; these were the kinds of questions she should be answering. She came to the lectern and responded. “Mrs. Adams, Nurse Adams, will be in charge and will be helped by an assistant, a nursing student who’s a girl. Coach Taylor will be involved in any nudity in the gym, making sure there are no problems.”
That didn’t go over very well with the boys. They didn’t like the idea of being nude in front of a girl. Before the grumbling got out of hand, Coach Taylor stood up. “Okay, okay, settle down. I have your gym locker numbers to give out, and you need to know what we supply for gym and what you need to purchase. Before you get worked up about this, you need to get with your parents. Any questions they can’t answer will be addressed in other sessions with each individual class tomorrow. No reason to answer a lot of questions now that your parents can answer at home. Okay?” Without waiting for an answer, he read off names and locker numbers, and then talked about gym clothes.
I would have to think about this, but I was annoyed. I couldn’t get it out of my head: the picture of my dad, laughing, then taking out his pen.
-- -- -- --
The uptake of the principal’s announcement played out very quickly. The next day in gym class, Coach Taylor spoke to us before class.
“You guys here at this time today have been selected for this class. Look around. Principal Hayes told you at yesterday’s assembly about dividing gym classes into two types. The best way I know how to describe them, without adding any pejorative labels, is calling this group the fun group, and the other the challenger group. I think that fits. You guys here are here to have fun working up a sweat, perhaps getting stronger, playing games where you’ll be part of the action but where no one’s trying to kill you. You’ll only do what you can and want to do. The challengers will be competing with each other every time out, proving who’s the best at every activity they’re engaged in. They all love the rough-and-tumble part of sports, and they’ll be competing with other kids who like the same thing.
“What we want for you is to get in some exercise, join in with what we’re doing even if you’re not good at it and principally just find out what activities you like doing. I’ve picked activities that’ll be available for you for the rest of your lives, things where you can keep in shape and will enjoy doing.
“Now, show of hands, how many of you have hated gym in the past?”
I raised my hand and so did probably 95% of the rest of us. We all looked around at the hands that were up and ended up grinning at each other.
Coach Taylor was grinning, too. “Okay, the first thing we’re going to do this year is swim. Everyone should know how to swim, and it’s certainly something that’s great exercise that can be part of how you keep in shape all your life. How many of you guys aren’t comfortable in the water? That means can’t swim or swim poorly enough that it’s scary being in the pool? How many of you are frightened to put your head underwater?”
A couple of hands rose, and then, spurred on by the others, a few more. The coach got their names, and then asked how many of us were good swimmers. I raised my hand, and many of the others did, too. So far, I was really liking what I was hearing.
“Okay, then, I’m going to pair the ones who need watching with those of you who can help them. Any volunteers?”
I couldn’t help wondering how many of us were gay. We were basically an unathletic group, and everything I’d read indicated that many gay guys were athletically-challenged. Many weren’t physically aggressive, either; I certainly wasn’t; that was another trait that would be found in this group. So I had to wonder, were any of the non-swimmers gay? And should I volunteer to help based on maybe getting to monitor a gay kid?
Another question. (One thing about me: I seemed to live a life of questions. I always had a few. I think they came from my insecurities.) What leaped out to confront me as I considered raising my hand as a volunteer was: if I asked to be paired with a cute kid, would I be outing myself? Other kids in here probably had the same thought that I did about some of us, maybe many of us being gay. So, would someone be wondering if, since I was volunteering to help with a cute kid, was I gay? I assumed that even the straightest kid alive knew which boys were cute and which weren’t.
I decided. It felt very brave, but I decided I’d been hiding who I was way too long and shouldn’t let that fear make my decision for me. I felt like this was something I could do, and if questioned, I knew how to deflect the question. I’d ask how helping a guy learn to be comfortable in the water and maybe not drown right off the bat after getting in the pool made me gay?
I stuck up my hand. This was a huge step for me. I was stepping out of the shadows, way out of my comfort zone. Okay, inching out slowly and hesitantly, but for me, this was a giant step.
Seven kids had raised their hands as non-swimmers. I guessed they’d been concerned about how they looked, not liking the water, as much as I’d been concerned about stepping forward. There were a dozen of us who’d agreed to help out.
Coach Taylor quickly counted, then said there were five of us volunteers who weren’t needed and asked if there were that many of us willing to back out. That happened quickly. I was left among those still standing.
The coach said he’d pair us up, and I could see disaster on the horizon if he did it like teams often were chosen. If he let us pick someone, with either group doing the picking, someone would be picked last. I needn’t have worried. Coach was smarter than that. The more time I spent watching him, the better I thought of him. There was more there than a low-IQ, he-man jock.
He had us give him our names and told us he’d put them in a hat and do a blind drawing of the partnerships; we would be told who we were matched up with tomorrow when we were ready to jump into the pool. Then he said something else.
“Guys, you heard the principal yesterday. We’ve all agreed to try to help you guys get over any body shyness or unnecessary modesty you have. We can do that in gym much easier than other classes. I doubt we can encourage nudity in, say, physics lab, and it doesn’t have much to do with trying to wade through Melville, either. But we can sometimes do it in gym. It’ll happen every day with mandatory showers. Another place we’ll be nude is in the swimming pool. Uh, that was an editorial ‘we’’; I’d get arrested if I got nude with you—and fired—and I like my job and dislike the company I’d be keeping in jail. Anyway, I’m prattling. There’s no need at all for a group of young men of proximate ages to wear bathing suits. So, you won’t. Naked swimming’s our thing this year. I just didn’t want to spring it on you unawares.” He grinned at us. We didn’t grin back. I don’t think any of us were excited by the idea.
-- -- -- --
Coach had told us to bring robes so we could walk to the pool, which meant walking out of the showers, through the locker room and down one of the school corridors without embarrassing anyone we happened to meet—either them or us. That would be carrying this new idea of nudity up to the goal line and then across it. The pool had been a late addition to the school and didn’t directly adjoin the gym or locker room, so this was the only way to get to it. I felt very exposed.
Only a couple of us had remembered our robes or didn’t have one at home to bring, so many of us had to wrap a towel around our middles as we traipsed through the school basically naked. Well, it felt like we were naked. Never had we been so scantily dressed in school. I’d never traversed these halls before shirtless, shoeless, covered in only a thin piece of cloth. I was one of the toweled ones and felt an odd mixture of arousal and fear, bouncing around under that thin, school-provided towel uncontained as I was. However, as all the other kids in school were in class, almost no one was in the hall to witness our semi-erotic parade, so it was racy mostly in our minds.
Coach had us drop our towels and robes on the bleachers that surrounded the pool. We did, and a lot of hands immediately crossed to protect the modesty the school was trying to eliminate in us. There were a couple of boys who didn’t bother. They were either proud of their endowment or exhibitionists or practicing naturists, or perhaps they were too involved at trying to see what the rest of us looked like and simply forgot to cover themselves. I suppose they could just not have felt the modesty the rest of us did, were lacking that gene, or were getting with the school’s program early. I didn’t think I’d ask them why they didn’t mind everyone gawking at their private parts. Seemed to me, doing that would be the equivalent of wearing a sign around my neck proclaiming my budding sexuality.
“Here are the non-swimmer-plus-helper twosomes.” Coach read off the names. He read the non-swimmer first, then the boy partnering with him. When he read out Tanner Joshua, I sat up a little straighter. Out of all the boys being helped, he was by far the cutest, the most adorable—even if it’s a no-no to call a boy my age adorable—and the one who I’d hoped I’d get. Then Coach said Art Hodges, and, well, I went into shock, or some semblance thereof. Things like this never happened to me. To Toby, yeah. But he went out after them; I didn’t. Whoever said that all things come to those who wait didn’t occupy the same world I live in. Here, the strongest and the fastest got the rewards, and people like me got the hindmost. Whatever that is. But the ruling circumstances of my life were: while I waited, the world passed me by.
Now, though, this was amazing. Tanner! He was blond and shy and cute as the devil with blue eyes and a bashful smile when he felt brave enough. He was smaller than I was, and I wasn’t very large myself. Like me, he was thin, and now, wearing nothing at all, he looked thinner than when he was dressed. I couldn’t see down below because he was one of the ones with his hands minding his precious parts protectively, and it looked like those hands wouldn’t be coming off for love or money, and I wondered how I was supposed to get him to swim without the assistance of hands or arms.
But Tanner Joshua! I didn’t know him, only what I’d seen from afar, but I had spent a fair amount of time looking at him. I couldn’t help it. He was gorgeous. And I liked his demure personality as well. I thought we might become really good friends and how wonderful that would be.
I did have another thought, though. Being around him nude, holding him in the water, being so close we’d be rubbing against each other, there was no way I’d stay in check. I mean soft. Even now, just having that thought, I was having a serious problem, and only the fact Coach was still reading off his partnership list and I didn’t have to walk over to meet Tanner was my saving grace. But it was a short list and was done about the time I realized how big a problem I was having and that it would be exacerbated by having to stand up.
“You fourteen guys all get with your partners. I’ll give you a minute or two to introduce yourselves if you don’t already know your partner, and then we’ll get in the pool. The rest of you, go ahead and jump in.”
Damn! It wasn’t enough time. You know, when you try to control that part of you from doing what it does, what it was doing just then, sometimes that just makes it worse. I was looking around and saw Tanner moving in my direction. He must have known who I was; nothing surprising there; I think I knew the names of all the kids who were freshmen. But he was heading toward me, and if he walk up to face me and I didn’t stand up, how rude was he going to think I was? What could I do? There was no hiding my condition. Certainly not with that way-too-thin towel I’d grabbed and thrown over my lap.
Tanner, not even wearing a towel and not making my problem any easier because of that, came up next to me where I was sitting on the bleachers. I had my towel covering my protruding part, and my hands were on top of it. My inconvenience was standing proudly up against and over my belly button, which was where my hands were clasped. I didn’t dare look down to see how well everything was covered. I didn’t want to draw his eyes down there.
I’d had an entire ten seconds while he was joining me to figure out how to play this. The only thing I could think of was to tell him the truth. Sort of. He’d either understand or run away screaming.
“Hi, Tanner,” I said, smiling, when he reached me.
“Hi,” he said. “I prefer TJ; Tanner’s too, uh, I don’t know, but I like TJ better.” He smiled that famous bashful smile at me. Well, it should be famous. It was that beautiful. Made me want to stand up and hug him, except I couldn’t stand up without disaster falling all over me.
“And you know I’m Art, though everyone calls me Artie. I need to explain why I’m not standing up to greet you. It’s horribly embarrassing.”
He was looking into my eyes, but when I said that, his eyes dropped. He knew what embarrassed boys our age as well as I did.
He looked back up and was grinning.
“It happens, you know?” I continued. “Walking here through the halls was when it started. You know how that felt, like walking through school naked. It felt like that to me then, and I was shooting up while trying to control it, and then we got here and everyone stripped off, and, well, you know, you just can’t do anything about it once it gets started and you wish you were anywhere but where other people can see.”
I didn’t say anything about the main reason I was so hard. That he’d caused it. There was no need for that. None.
“I know,” he said, and blushed. “But we have to get in the pool or Coach Taylor will come get us.”
I shuddered. “Only one way for me to get in,” I said. “If you stand on the edge of the pool now, it’ll shield me at least a little. After I’m in, I’ll move to the steps at the shallow end and meet you there.
He said, “Okay,” and moved to the pool’s edge.
The bleachers began only about ten feet from the pool. Everyone was getting in or was already in the water. I stood up with the towel still in place, didn’t see anyone looking my way, stepped down onto the deck, dropped the towel, took three quick steps directly toward TJ, then jumped past him into the water, twisting as I did so that my back was to both the pool and its occupants and only TJ could see my front. All of it. If he was looking. Which he was.