THE SHIRT OFF MY BACK

By Elwood Weebs

This was back in the fifth grade, when the masochists who ran phys-ed made us swim, when my tits were still bigger than most girls, when my shame was worn on my chest, bared for the world to see, when I tried to get my mom to help me lie my way out of the pool.
She sat at her vanity in bra and panties, painting her face. I walked in, head down, naturally. She looked at me through the mirror, the mascara brush weaving its way through her eyelashes. What I wanted was a note saying I couldn’t swim. It didn’t matter what the reason was – ringworms, asthma, a stomach bug – whatever’d keep me dry.
“I think this is a subject for your dad,” she said, and got back to her makeup. I listened to the plastic clicks of blush and lipstick containers.
“Dad isn’t going to write me the note.”
“That’s between you and Dad. I don’t know about these things.”
My mom hadn’t wanted anything to do with my male body since an incident the year before. An incident that started in the bathtub, with new sensations. I did this thing where I vigorously rubbed the head of my penis against the inside of my thigh. I don’t remember how I stumbled into the action or whether my penis was erect, but I’ll never forget the brush burn all that friction caused.
There was blood.
I gasped at the sting of soap, whimpered when a towel grazed the wound, and ended up in my mother’s room – perceived innocence still intact – caressing my first mangled sign of manhood.
Her terror was immediate. She yelped and covered her eyes, practically hyperventilated a squealing a plea for me to go see my father. I heard her scoff a single sob as I slinked away.
My dad was rational about it. He was in his room (my parents slept separately), laid out on the bed in a pair of tighty whities and smoking a cigarette. He said to come over, let him have a look. I told him it hurt to walk. He smoked that cigarette halfway down while studying my brush burned and bleeding penis, then gave me the only advice he could.
“Put some Vaseline on it,” he said. “Shove your shirt into your pants when you’re
walking. It’ll heal up fast. And whatever you were doing, quit doing it.”
But that wasn’t my first foray into sexual sensations, oh no. That came when my dad planted a tree in our front yard, some sort of oak, and my groin made contact at the perfect angle while I lunged from the ground to the first branch. I can’t say if I was exactly fucking this tree, but I climbed up and down over and over, that’s for sure. The tree got chopped down before it reached full size, so maybe I was fucking it. Maybe my mom saw what her son was doing to that tree and ordered its destruction. I never heard a word about it, but now when I think about it, I’m pretty sure I fucked that tree to death.
My dad didn’t write the note to keep me out of the pool. Instead, he compared his experiences, which of course were worse.
“We had to swim in the nude,” he said.
“Naked?”
“Yep.” He took a drag from his cigarette, a crossword puzzle in his lap, a beer on the table next to him.
“Were the girls naked too?”
“No. It wasn’t co-ed. They swam in their own class.”
“Why’d they make you swim naked?”
“I don’t know, but they did. So, think yourself lucky. All you have to do is take off your shirt. You get to keep your penis in your pants.”
“Were you nervous?”
“About everyone seeing my penis? Yeah, I think so. You look around though, and
everyone else has their penis flopping around. Everyone’s sneaking glances. Checking out who’s got the biggest, who’s got the smallest. Doesn’t much matter. I’ll tell you what I learned though. Listen.” He took a drag from his cigarette, sighed smoke into the air, pointed it at me. “Someone’s always got a smaller penis than you. Remember that.”

Elwood’s the kinda guy who sits on his porch on a sunny day and looks back in nostalgia at the rainy ones.