Flash Memoir: Privates

(c) 3/19/2022

Charles wore thick-rimmed glasses that were held onto his head with a large rubber band and a nose clip. To make it easier to wear, he’d said, his mother shaved his hair down to a blonde crew cut reminiscent of the soldiers on the news.  No one else at school wore hair short enough to show even their ears.

Whenever Charles saw me on the playground, he came charging whether I was on the girl’s or the boy’s side, or at the top of the neutral stairwell that led down to the street. No matter how many times I told him to go away he laughed loudly and drew even more attention. Sometimes he handed me a note with hearts drawn all over it. Once he told me that he loved me. When he brought blue bells picked from the school entrance, I scrunched them with my foot on the concrete.

One day, after ripping up another note, waving it in his face and yelling, “Stop it!”, Charles said that he would pull down his pants for me. My friend Stephanie looked shocked. Kanda laughed. I certainly did not want to see his privates, let alone any boy’s privates. I didn’t think he’d go through with it.

And yet, “Sure Charles” I said. “You can pull down your pants for me. But not here on the playground.”

He decided it would be at Roger’s Park after school let out the next day. Roger’s Park started at the bottom as a track with a soccer field in the center. From there it was like a bowl with a steep climb up to the trails through Fir, Hemlock, Maple and the stinky scent of Scotch broom. In the late Spring we girls like to sit off the track, chain daisies together and talk about boys. We never talked about Charles.

Charles raced to find me after school. His forehead glistened with sweat. His voice shook. “Are you ready?” he asked me.

I had forgotten but dutifully turned with Kanda and followed him. My word is my word!

Notice of the event had spread. At least fifty unruly, exuberant students already assembled followed Charles. He stopped walking halfway out on one trail and turned to face the crowd who were now surrounding him. He looked frozen. One hand on a Fir trunk, his other clutched his trousers as boys shouted threatening encouragement. Pinecones were thrown. Small spits of gravel. Charles started to unbuckle his belt.

“I don’t think I can watch,” I said to Kanda. What if I had pushed through and told Charles that I didn’t even want to see his privates? How could I say that amidst a mob?

Charles dropped his trousers. Underneath the standard beige he had on plastic pants that were covered with cartoonish fire trucks.

“Oh no!” I gasped. Nobody wore plastic pants. That was for babies, not for third graders. What was wrong with him?

As I turned to leave Charles was crying, sweat rolling down his forehead into his eyes. Still besieged by the throng, the din captured the attention of college boys jogging in the bowl who, thankfully intervened.

I felt shame and regret that I’d agreed to look at him. I was partly to blame for his humiliation. It was a guilt I didn’t have to face for long. He transferred to another school the  next week and he was soon enough forgotten.