The Toughest Kid
in the Eighth Grade

by

Cole Parker

colepark@gmail.com

Rudy Fossner was an asshole. He thought he ruled our eighth grade. He behaved like that, too, and as he was bigger than the rest of us, it was fairly easy for him to swing his weight around without being challenged. Most of us just tried to have nothing to do with him, keeping out of his way.

Our school, Warren G. Harding Middle School, was one of two middle schools in our town, both feeding one central high school, where I’d be going in only a few months. I was an 8th grader, along with my sibs. Harding served the nicer part of town and in general was a pretty good school, other than having a few Neanderthals like Rudy. Every class, 6th, 7th and 8th, seemed to have at least one asshole. I took care never to be in their way.

But serving the area where the town’s movers and shakers lived, Harding was not only good academically, it was good financially as well due to affluent parents who wanted their kids to have the best at school. They didn’t mind donating money for that cause; they could afford it.

So, we had a state-of-the-art computer learning center, a large, modern gym with a polished floor and comfortable seats for fans to watch games, and a second gym for school classes with basketball backboards and rims on the sides that retracted but could be folded down so that four games at a time could be played in gym classes. They would be folded up for intramural games that used the entire court. We also had a weight room and wrestling room for kids of that mind, a swimming pool, a music room that was used for the band, the orchestra and the choir. The band and orchestra were outfitted with instruments if some kids needed them—even the outrageous ones, like a tympani, a bassoon or a marimba. They were available for kids who liked to be different. We also had a Home Ec room with several ovens for cooking classes, a Wood and Automotive Shop for budding craftsmen and mechanics; the list continued. I felt fortunate to go to Harding. And I wished Rudy would be sent to live with his own kind at Madison, the other middle school.

Those of you with clever minds might have noticed when I tried to slip something past you a ways back. Did you see it and wonder? I’m referring to when I said I was an 8th grader and then threw in the fact that my sibs were there with me, also 8th graders. Did you notice that? And were you wondering, what’s he on about? How can he have sibs in the same grade he’s in?

Some of you that did catch that probably thought, to solve that riddle, that I was dumb and had been held back, or ahead of the game and had been moved up. Or that I lived in an orphanage and there were several kids my age there and being together in one grade wouldn’t be odd at all, and we considered ourselves brothers and sisters.

Nope. None of that. The truth was, I had a brother and a sister and we were all 14. Yeah—triplets.

We were all different, of course. Different personalities. Me, I was the easy-going, laid-back one. The other two, Ted and Deb, were much different in that respect. They were both highly competitive, sports-centric, assertive teens with aggressive attitudes and take-no-prisoners approaches to life.

An example: if someone knowing nothing about us asked how three kids the same age could be in one class at school, I’d answer with a smile on my face that we were triplets, and thanks for asking! But if he’d ask the same question to Ted or Deb, they’d also say we were triplets, but then end the answer with, ‘So bite me’. That’s who they were. Not me. Maybe my non-combative nature was because I was the youngest of us. By two hours and ten minutes. Ted came first, then Deb, and I seemed almost like an afterthought.

Did that explain my gentle disposition? Who knows? But it does account for my name. They called me Trip.

We were close, the three of us. Not all twins and triplets at our age are. We were. Even with the attitude those two had—meeting the world every day with the urge to come out on top of any challenge they met and hoping there’d be several challenges along the way that would test them—we three loved each other and got along like gangbusters. That’s what my granddad said, like gangbusters, and as he knew everything that was worth knowing, I guess it had to make sense.

I’d asked him once. I did a lot of that, asking questions, a lot more than my sibs did. He said it meant getting along wonderfully with each other, being energetic and high spirited, and having each other’s backs. We were like that, so, once again, Granddad was right.

I let the flow of life carry me along without an aggressive bone in my body. I was friends with everyone, and it was a shock when there was a ripple in the still waters of my life.

But one was splashing me at the moment. It was more than a small ripple, too. It was Rudy.

“Hey! Trip.” Rudy had come up to me in the hall as I was getting a book out of my locker for advanced algebra, my next class. It wasn’t a friendly ‘Hey,’ either. Rudy and I had never spoken to each other before. We ran on different sets of railroad tracks, his leading to trouble, mine heading into a sunny future. Going in distinctly different directions.

I’d never wanted to have anything to do with Rudy, hoped I never would, but not responding to his ‘Hey’ would be the wrong way to behave. Maybe you needed to be an 8th grader to get how important that was.

“Yeah?” I made it as non-engaging as I could. Not that he needed any encouragement.

“You tell that asshole brother of yours not to get involved in my business. You got that?”

That might have been all there was to it, but no. He upped the ante. He poked me—hard—in the chest. Hard enough to hurt.

That was totally unexpected. Shocked me, actually.

I don’t get angry or upset at anyone. Well, I never had. But no one had ever laid a hand, or a finger, on me in an aggressive, confrontational, maybe even a picking-a-fight sort of way before. If you’re mild and easy-going, you don’t tend to provoke finger-poking or any other kind of violent behavior.

The hall was strangely deserted. Nearly time for the bell to ring for the next class to start was probably why. Alone in the hall with Rudy. Not what I wanted.

I looked him in the eyes, having to raise mine to do it. He was large for an 8th grader; I was average. He was almost six feet tall; how much short of that, I didn’t know. I stretched four inches over five feet. All in all, I’d say he was at least a good five or six inches taller than I was. And he probably outweighed me by thirty, maybe even forty pounds.

He was also kind of ugly. Well, thuggish. Brownish hair he never bothered with, acne on his angular face, wide-set eyes that were also brown, with an angry glint in them most of the time. He frequently wore a scowl, as though just the fact he was in school was upsetting his equilibrium.

Me? I thought I was decent looking—not teen-magazine-model good looks, not TV-teen-actor looks, but certainly okay. Brown hair in winter that developed reddish tones in the summer sun. I brushed it and kept it sorta neat, not too neat as that wasn’t the current style. Sort of light-colored, blue-gray eyes and clear skin so far. Some kids got acne as soon as they started puberty. I’d started that process two years ago and so far, so good. I was right where I was supposed to be. I had a standard to compare myself to; two of them, really.

I was keeping up with Ted, and with Deb, too, in my personal development. We all had hair where we hadn’t had it before, and our other growth was as it should be according to what I’d read, both down below for Ted and me, plus up above for Deb. Ted’s voice had broken, mine was at the early stages of doing so. Deb laughed at me as she had at Ted when his was going. Not maliciously. We all had fun at each other’s expense when we could, but harmlessly.

We weren’t a bit shy or modest with each other. We’d bathed together till we were eight and still shared a room now that we were 14. It would have seemed odd, not sleeping in the same room. Uncomfortable. We’d spent nine months in the womb together, and it simply felt right to be together when we could be; our default position was that we belonged together. Our parents had asked if we wanted to split up. A lot of twins and triplets did that, especially when they’d reached their teen years. None of us had wanted to.

That was why I knew when the time came that Ted had stopped wearing pajamas to bed; I’d quickly followed suit. I knew when Deb’s chest had begun to sprout; she’d never hidden it. She knew what Ted and I looked like with and without erections. Share a bedroom and a bathroom and you aren’t modest; then believe me, you know these things. It was no big deal. Not any kind of a deal at all. Part of life, of growing up with very bonded siblings.

I well remember when we had Sex Ed when we were 12. The three of us were in that same class, and the woman was talking about masturbation. Well, she called it masturbation, but a wiseass boy in the back asked, “Do you mean jerking off?” and she’d said yes, and she reminded him to raise his hand if he had a question.

Anyway, at dinner that night—I’ll go into that topic more thoroughly later on—Deb mentioned that class and that topic. Dad—more about him later, too!—asked us if we were doing that yet. Ted told him no, we weren’t, but he said a friend told him about it after class, and a lot more info than the teacher had said. His detailed information, said Ted, sounded like something we, the three of us, should be doing, that we were behind our peers.

That was one of the times we were asked if we’d like private rooms.

Dad had put down his fork and said, “That’s something that’s private. I’m sure you’ll all do it; everyone does. But I don’t want you doing it together. That would add something to it that makes it a different activity and adds a dimension that might end up not being healthy. So yes, do it, but do it alone.”

That’s kinda how dinners went at our house. Nothing was off-limits. By now, nothing was shocking, either. Sex was just part of life; nothing more or less important than what color the new car Mom wanted should be. From an early age, frank discussions of everything were what we were all about.

But we’d listened to Dad, and we had done what he’d said—and alone all by ourselves. We had about the best dad in the world and almost always followed his advice. So we all did as he asked—well, we compared notes and discussed techniques—but the act itself we did alone.

We did see each other naked quite frequently, but there was no sexual component in that. It was just life in our house.

So now I’ll get back to Rudy. He’d poked me. And here I was on my own in the school hallway with him. Was I scared? Yeah, a little. But more angry than scared, which was a surprise as it was an emotion I wasn’t accustomed to. He was looming over me, and I was facing him. I was reminded of the old truism that says it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog that matters. I didn’t know how much fight there was in me. I’d never been tested. I did know there was more in my brother Ted than there was in me. More even in Deb. Those two . . .

I didn’t like being poked, however. It raised my hackles. I hadn’t been aware I had any hackles.

Still meeting his eyes, bending my knees, I slowly set my algebra book on the floor, then stood back up as tall as I could and faced off with him. I didn’t make a fist, I didn’t actually confront him but I did face him. And I said with as even a voice as I could manage, “You may well be the toughest kid in the 8th grade, Rudy, but maybe not, too. Maybe Ted is. Who knows? I’ll tell you something, though. You poke me again, and we’ll find out if you’re tougher than me.”

Rudy’s smile grew broader. I wasn’t smiling at all. My face was hard and my eyes even harder. Steely, steady, meeting his eyes. I’d never felt like this in my life.

While I was meeting his eyes, he was staring at mine just as intensely but with much more venom in his, but then, slowly, his smile disappeared. He must have seen more in my eyes than he expected. He had a choice to make. Just by facing him, I was calling him out. He could swing at me, probably do me some damage, but then he’d be expelled. Or he could shove me hard against the lockers. Or he could poke me again and see what happened. He could tell from my eyes that I was going to respond. Whatever the outcome of that would be, ultimately, he’d be in deep shit. His poke had come first, and if he did anything more, that would be coming second. He’d be in the shit. No doubt who was the instigator.

Messing with another kid physically was an absolute no-no at our school, and it was enforced. We were the good school in the good area of town. We’d heard about fights at Madison.

Not at Harding. That simple poke might not get him expelled, but if it was followed by a second one, or anything else physical, he’d probably be gone.

Would I be in trouble if I fought back? That was far less clear. We had a good principal and vice principal. They’d investigate what had happened, and expulsion wasn’t automatic for defending yourself. If I retaliated when Rudy started it, I’d probably get creamed by him but wouldn’t be in trouble with our school administration. I might be in the hospital but not in detention at school.

Rudy wasn’t sure what to do. That was clear. He wanted to hit me. Wanted to badly. But he hesitated, then didn’t. What he did instead was say, “You tell your asshole brother what I said.” Then he glared at me hard for another couple of seconds before simply walking away.

I stood watching him. I felt shaky. Was that fear—or adrenalin? I’d read that after a scary event, one often had a reaction to all the adrenalin washing through him that the event had caused. Since there was no way of knowing what was causing my jitters, I decided to call it adrenalin. Less to be embarrassed about that way.

- 0 -

We had dinner as a family each night. Usually, families that do this do so as a mandate from the mother. Not so with us. My dad wanted us all together. He was an unusual man in that he was much more sensitive to the people around him than most. It had seemed to me in the short time I’d walked this earth that most men used their jobs to explain who they were. They identified themselves that way to the extent that it seemed that mentioning their job when meeting each other was something like a kid with his security blanket. They knew who they were and needed to fit the person they were meeting into some sort of hierarchy and did so based on their job.

I need to explain how dinner went that night after my poking, but explaining my dad first might help with context. My English teacher is always going on about context. I’ve yet to figure out why, but if he can do it, so can I.

Anyway, my dad put people first, ahead of job, even ahead of profit. Other men had to do that, too, obviously, but I didn’t know any of them. All my friends’ dads were workaholics. They preferred being at work than being part of their families’ lives. Maybe I had a skewed view of this because we lived in an affluent neighborhood and the fathers of the kids I knew were all big shots. None of those men were around much for their kids. I didn’t know if they liked or didn’t like not being around their kids; I just knew they rarely were.

My dad was rich, too, even if he never called it that, but he had time for us. He told us he’d give up the job in an instant if it meant he couldn’t be a major part of our lives. I believed him. Having all of us together for dinner every night was just part of that.

He’d become rich the old-fashioned way: he’d worked hard and been smart; he’d met challenges head on while looking for opportunities. Being a people person had helped, too; he was really good at getting people to like him and follow his lead. He told me I had some of that charisma, too, but I didn’t see it.

He knew the three of us were super close, but he treated us as individuals. He took the time to be with each of us alone, just him and one of us, talking or doing things he knew the kid he was with liked. He did some of that almost every day. He wanted to know us and be with us. What dad does that?

He did.

What he’d done when he was young and anything but rich was get a job after high school rather than go to college. Academics were never his thing. He had several jobs, trying them out, seeing where he fit. The one he found he liked best was working in a fitness center. No surprise there, because those places were running over with people and needed employees who liked to work with those people.

He found he loved everything about the fitness center. He saw right away that there were two types of employees doing the work he wanted to do: the fitness trainers who taught group classes, and the personal trainers who worked one-on-one with their clients. He decided what he wanted was that latter job as he could get to know the individual person better that way. Also, he learned that that work paid more than the class work did. He set his sights on becoming a personal trainer.

He found that he needed state certification to work professionally as a personal trainer and that his local community college had a fitness-training program that led to a certificate. He enrolled and earned his certificate at night while working during the day. He could then do both fitness training and personal training, but he loved the personal stuff, getting to know his clients and catering to their unique needs. As time passed, more and more of his work and income came from personal clients.

As I said, people liked him, and it wasn’t long before he had little time for running the group classes. He discovered that he could earn more money by going independent, giving his clients full service at their own homes, or renting a space from the fitness center where he was known and liked.

He had plans, and they didn’t include being a personal trainer all his life. Not that he didn’t love that job. He did, but it was just a stepping stone on the way to more something more lucrative. Also, he wanted more out of life than his job. What he wanted was a family, and to obtain that, he first needed a wife.

The large majority of his clients were women, and most of those were in their late twenties, early thirties, the very same age he was. He had the opportunity to get to know a slew of women on a very personal level. No, not in a sexual way! At least not that he told us about. But he saw the cheerful ones and the morose ones, the smart ones and the duller ones, the beauties and the plain ones, the complainers and the ones who smiled as they went through their exercise routines.

He spoke to them and listened to how they responded, and in doing that, formed a knowledge of their intelligence, their life’s aim, and the compatibility they had with him. He liked women as much as he liked men, and they all liked him.

Dad was working his personal clients and filling in at the fitness center when they were shorthanded. He became very good friends with the owner, and it wasn’t long before he was able to buy into the business. He was making good money, saving what he could, and being part owner of the center fit right in with his plans for the future.

The wife and family were more important than business success, but he was shooting for both. He found the perfect woman, and she thought she’d found the perfect man. And maybe she had! I thought so. Anyway, they married. Mom, well, the woman who’d become a mom, had met Dad at the center, and now that she was his wife, she got a job there. She did what he did, working with customers at the center, but soon realized she wanted more than to be running fitness classes and wiping sweat off equipment. She went back to school, got a degree in accounting with a minor in finance, and then came back to the fitness center and quite soon had become its business manager.

To cut to the chase, and before you lose the thread of this entirely, eventually Dad bought the center when the original owner wanted to retire. Dad immediately made some changes, expanded the center and updated its appearance and equipment, put in a room just for teens, and all that plus his personality and word of mouth brought in more customers. They brought in more money. Dad eventually bought another fitness center across town, and that place took off as well. The money rolled in, and soon, Dad decided my mom-to-be should now drop the to-be label and become the real thing. He was ready to have kids. So was she.

As often happens when young people put their mind to something, she soon became pregnant. Dad decided they needed a bigger house because he was planning on more kids than the one she was carrying. So, with nine months to make it happen, he bought some land and had a house built to his specifications.

Then came the shock. Triplets. Mom had triplets—the best of them being me, of course—and was told she shouldn’t have any more. Dad agreed; he loved her and said they already had a decent-sized family.

They were deliriously happy. Dad had handpicked and hand-trained managers running both centers. He still visited both every day, but was with us whenever he wasn’t working, and he wasn’t working most of every day. Mom was responsible for handling the money the business generated, and she was gone more than Dad was. She loved us but wasn’t involved with us nearly to the degree Dad was. She was now a businesswoman—and a strong one.

Which brings us, finally, to the day of the poking, the day of me facing Rudy down and the dinner our family had after that.

It was with the family, of course. Almost all our dinners included the entire family. We did have an outlier with us that night, a frequent dinner guest. I guess I’d better introduce him.

His name was Smoot. Odd name? Yes? Odd person, too. Well, someone else will have to make that observation. I can’t because Smoot was my best friend outside my family, so I was prejudiced.

Smoot was our age and went to school with us. He was something of an oddball. He had irregular features, giving him a slightly dorky look, but you could get used to it pretty quickly if you looked deeper than his facial features. They were a sharp nose, slightly mismatched eyes—one hazel green and other hazel brown—and upper teeth that jutted out. Only slightly. Not buck-toothed, but pushing a bit. He was gangly and awkward, but what young teen boy doesn’t have some of that in him?

I liked him because he was funny, smart and, well, maybe because he liked me. Because he depended on me, too, but more of that in a moment. It’s easy to become a good friend if the kid likes you, hasn’t a mean bone in his body and makes you laugh. Besides, we both needed a best friend, and after I met Smoot, we had each other.

He was a fairly regular occupant at our dinner table because, well, he didn’t have a happy home life. His dad wasn’t there, and his mother drank. If he didn’t spend a lot of time with us, he’d probably have been even skinnier than he was. Mom and Dad loved kids, and they set a place for him every night. More often than not, he was there.

One thing about Smoot—well, a couple of things. One, his name. His first name was Buttercup. Yeah, hippie mother long after hippies weren’t the thing any longer, hippie name for the baby. The father was unknown. His mother, the hippie, believed in free love back then; still did, I’m sorry to say. So did all the men who were happy with her peculiar and unconventional outlook on life. When Smoot was born, his mother, hippie to the core, thought Buttercup was the perfect name for her son. Her name was Dora Simmons, and she could have given him the Simmons surname, but the nurse, a hard-ass if there ever was one who ran the home where unmoneyed women went for birthing services, said a boy should have his father’s last name and was quite insistent upon it. Dora wasn’t sure who the dad was but thought it may have been Elias Smoot. So that was the surname she hung on the baby, who became, unfortunately—due to Dora’s hippie proclivities—Buttercup Smoot.

You might think I’m making this up, but I’m not. Anyway, we all called him Smoot because that’s what he called himself. You could hardly blame him. Looking like he did, and with a name like Buttercup? Smoot felt he had a better chance in life if he abandoned that first name. He only answered to Smoot. I’d gotten used to that. And if he liked it, well, so did I.

At school, he didn’t answer to anything but Smoot. He told all the teachers he only had one name, that it was Smoot, and that’s what they should use. It’s not easy for a boy in kindergarten wearing hand-me-down shorts and a ragged tee shirt to tell the teacher anything and then insist on it. Telling one what name he was to be called generally was ignored; they went by the name on the stick-on name tag all the five-year-olds had the first few days at school. But it was difficult to ignore Smoot. At that age he was persistent and intractable, and she ended up calling him what he wanted her to call him in order to keep the peace and save time. So did every other teacher he came in contact with as he moved through the trials of academia.

And the second thing about Smoot? It was that he was in awe of my family. When eating with us, he’d sit at the table and almost never speak but just shift his eyes around as one of us was talking. That was a lot of eye-shifting because we all spoke at the table.

Dad was the instigator of that. Not in a bad way; not that he demanded it. It’s just that from the time we could talk, he’d brought conversation to the table, kept it lively and always positive and complimented us when we spoke up. He wanted to know what we’d done all day, how we felt about everything, about the decisions we’d made, why we made them, and never was there a bit of criticism. There was delight on his face, learning about us. And almost by kinetic momentum, we ended up in a competition to talk about our days, then even our thoughts and plans and worries . . . just everything.

That was what Smoot saw at the table. We had a large house and the dining room fit it perfectly with an oversized table that seated twelve and could be extended to fit eighteen. We were only five—six when Smoot was there—and we all ate at one end of the table. That would have put Dad at the end and Mom on one side, which would have made the setting analogous to a monarchy with Dad the king. No way would he allow that so, instead he put Mom next to him on the side of the table and three of us on the other, across from them. This created an anarchy, a society without a leading authority, exactly the ideal Dad wanted.

When Smoot was there, the empty spot next to Mom was filled randomly by one of us four so there’d be three people on each side. We all had a turn to sit there if we made it for ourselves. It was no big deal. Smoot sat there as often or as infrequently as any of the others of us.

We told Dad, and everyone at the table, everything about our days, and there was no holding back, no shame, no embarrassment. He thought the sun rose and set with us and we couldn’t do anything wrong. And I think because of that love, and because we knew we’d be discussing it in detail, we didn’t do anything wrong.

But Smoot found it incredibly amazing that we’d share what we did and our innermost thoughts. He never told his mother anything. He’d told me not a single kid he knew did what we did. That’s why his eyes roamed back and forth, watching us discuss our days and even stuff outside our days, just our thoughts and feelings, and finding it hard to believe we did it as openly as we did.

He never joined in. He was invited to, but he merely blushed and looked down, and Dad hated making a kid uncomfortable and didn’t force the issue.

I probably should mention here something else about those dinners. Yeah, I know, the poking; you want to know what I told them about that. ‘Talk about the poking, what came next, for God’s sake. I’m hanging by my thumbs here!’ Well, hold your horses! Yes, I hear you. And I’ll get there! Soon! Jeez! Background has a place in these things. Get to know the characters, all that sort of thing.

Anyway, as I was saying, those dinners. Well, Mom was quite busy seeing to the books, managing the money the fitness centers were taking in, and to a degree, overseeing the operation of both centers. She had a staff of two for the accounting part of her duties and was herself out seeing how things were going every day. She told Dad she could cook dinner as well, or he could, but instead, he hired a cook. She made the dinners for us. And lunches and breakfasts, too. She was a live-in. We had more rooms in that house than we could fill. She was a good woman and an excellent cook.

And she made it much easier on Mom to enjoy our dinners rather than having been exhausted after a full day’s work and then having to spend more time in the kitchen.

Okay, I think we’re ready to hear about the after-poking dinner. Unless I should . . . no, you’ve been patient enough. Here goes.

We didn’t take turns talking. You might imagine Ted would go first, Deb would follow and then it would be my turn. But our relative ages didn’t make any difference in our family. We were each treated as if we were the oldest, and as if we were the youngest, too, and each as if he/she was the most special. So after Dad had loaded all our plates and I’d taken my first bite, I spoke up to grab the moment.

“I almost was in a fight today,” I said, and Dad’s eyes opened wide.

“Tell me about it,” he said, breathlessly, but needlessly, too, as I was about to do so anyway. But this was typical of him: he liked to be vicariously involved in whatever situation we’d been in.

I took a second bite to up the excitement of the moment, but not a third or the sibs might jump in and steal the stage. “Rudy Fossner is an asshole, as you’ve heard said before. Well, he confronted me today at my locker. Poked me in the chest—hard. Told me to tell Ted not to mess with him or his affairs. Intimidating as all get out.”

“The son of a bitch!” That was Ted; he was looking at me. “I’ll show him what messing with you will get him!”

“I will, too. No one messes with you.” Deb wasn’t going to let Ted steal the show.

“I’ll leave a little of him left for you, then.” Ted raised his hand, and Deb high-fived him.

“What did you do?” Dad asked. That’s what he was interested in.

Smoot’s eyes were going back and forth so fast, I was afraid they might fall out.

“I stood up to him! I couldn’t believe I did, but I did. I started out scared but then got angry. Scared and angry at the same time. I’d never been physically challenged before. Scary for sure!”

“How’d you stand up to him? Especially if you were scared?” Dad was relentless. He wanted to be right there with me when it was going down. Feel what I’d felt.

“I faced him, letting my anger keep me from shaking, and I told him he might be the toughest kid in our grade, but maybe Ted was.” I stopped, suddenly embarrassed, then turned to Deb. “I should have included you! I’m sorry.”

“And then . . .” Dad again.

“And then I told him if he ever poked me again, we’d sure find out if he was tougher than I was. Or not.”

“You didn’t!” Ted couldn’t believe it. Well, I hadn’t really believed I’d done it at the time, so this was no surprise. Deb was looking at me wondering who I was. And Smoot? I’d known him for several years. I was pretty good at reading his eyes. There was wonder in them now, but another emotion as well.

“I did. I stared at Rudy, and he . . . well, he wanted to hit me or something; he really wanted to. But he hesitated, then just repeated that I was to tell Ted not to mess with him, and then he just walked away.”

Deb said, “Way to go, Trip! But, well, now you’ve got me wondering.”

“What?” Dad asked. He still hadn’t taken a bite of dinner. Mom always tut-tutted that it made no sense for him to fill his plate while filling ours because by the time he started eating it, it was room temperature. She had a point.

Deb was now on a different train of thought. “Who is the toughest kid in our grade?”

“That’s easy,” Ted chuckled. “I am.”

I knew that wouldn’t be the end of that. No way Deb would concede that. Of course she didn’t; an argument proceeded. Dad wanted to know more about how I felt during the encounter, Mom wanted everyone to eat, being motherly for once, and Ted and Deb were going at it, being themselves and competing, friendly but not giving an inch. Deb wanted Ted to know she was his equal or better; that needed to be determined and wasn’t something to be conceded without some personal involvement of the hurting kind. At some point . . . That was for the future, but I thought it would eventually happen.

Dad was talking to me. Smoot? He was eating dinner like he hadn’t eaten in a week while forking up the food without even looking down at the plate. I knew for a fact he had eaten this week. He had, yesterday, at our house. I think Mom liked him there to make the sides of the table balanced. Just like the assets and debits plus equity columns in her books. Accountants appreciate balance.

But that argument between Deb and Ted was the beginning. It was the start of how we came to determine who was the toughest kid in our 8th grade.

Which is, after all, what this is all about.

- 0 -

Smoot was tying his shoe, and I was waiting for him. It always took him longer to get dressed than anyone else. Well, certainly than me. Just another of his quirks. It was the next day after that dinner, and we were in the locker room at my fitness center. Hey, if my dad owned it, then I was sort of heir presumptive, wasn’t I? Not counting Ted and Deb for the moment. They weren’t here in the locker room, and I was.

I always had been more of a dreamer than doer. I subordinated my desires into altruism, being happiest when helping others attain their dreams. I think I was a little like Dad in this. I was much less egocentric than my sibs. So, when I talk about not counting Ted and Deb, when I say I was the most special of us three, that was me making stuff up for effect, taking a stab at being funny, not who I really was. I did think my sense of humor was one of my assets; not that this was all that hysterical.

Anyway, Smoot was tying his shoe, coming close to making us late, and then we were hurrying to the teens’ room at the center. A meeting was about to start. I had no idea how many people would be there but we’d made it known at school that some of us in the 8th grade thought it would be a good idea to see who was the toughest. Toughest Kid in the 8th Grade. Somehow, it seemed like it should be capitalized, like a monument or a VIP or something more substantial than a lower-case title would suggest.

A lot of our classmates were as excited about doing this as my sibs.

Invites to a preliminary meeting about how we were going to go about determining our toughest were posted all over the school. A lot of flyers were made because we knew school admin people would be tearing them down when they saw them. The invites asked that anyone interested in finding out who might be the toughest 8th grader should show up at the fitness center to work out how this was to be determined. The flyers specified 8th graders only!

You’d think the meeting could be done at school, but the principal was entirely against this. We four—Smoot tended to follow us around—went to see him and told him what we were doing. We didn’t get very far. This sounded like fighting to him, and fighting had no place at our school. So he put the kibosh on it.

But that didn’t even begin to stop us; well, not stop Ted and Deb. I really didn’t care about this. Being nice was my game. Getting along. No drama. Certainly no physical brouhahas. It was not the same for my sibs. Their deal was competition. They thought determining who of us was the toughest would be a great adventure. Each of them thought they were the top dog, of course.

But we needed to figure out how we could find out who was toughest. We needed a consensus on how to accomplish that. So, all 8th graders interested in this contest were asked to be at the meeting.

Ted was a natural leader. So was Deb. When Smoot and I walked into the meeting room, there were more kids there than I expected. And Deb wasn’t the only girl!

I probably should mention here something about the teens’ room at the center. Yeah, I know, another diversion, and I apologize, but some may be wondering just why there was a teens’ room in a fitness center, what it looked like, all that sort of thing.

Adding that room had more of a purpose than just making teens happy. That was part of it for sure, but Dad was also a keen businessman. He didn’t get rich by being stupid. He added the room—two rooms as there were two centers—as a way to get more teens into his fitness centers. He knew if teens came to hang there, liked going there, they’d eventually want to work out when they saw other teens doing that—follow the leader being a favorite and consuming teen activity—so his memberships would increase and the rooms would pay for themselves. And as the teens moved into their adult years, many, hopefully, would remain members.

For this to work, the rooms had to be enticing for teens. What would that mean? Easy: all he had to do was ask the teens who were already members of the center what would draw other teens in. They told him, and he acted. What we ended up with were large rooms broken into defined areas separated by low walls; the entire place could be seen from any place in the room, but there was a feeling of separation for different types of activities. One section had comfortable chairs and sofas in conversational settings. Another had video games and arcade games that cost a dime to play. There were some physical games in one area that would attract kids that had a caged basketball shooting arcade set-up and a speed punching bag and a chin-up bar, a small area with mats on the floor if anyone wanted to get down and dirty, wrestling, and also a few other activities to test their strength and agility. There were tables for playing cards or board games in another area. There were carrels set up with computers if kids wanted to do their homework there. The rooms were open after school till dinnertime and for four hours each Saturday.

The biggest draw was the old-fashioned soda fountain that served drinks and ice cream creations at rock-bottom prices. The fountain served two purposes. The main one was the confections available there for low prices that teens could afford; that place was a real magnet for teens. It did a great business. It was the second reason that was a bit sneaky.

To run the fountain, Dad hired a young man in his mid-twenties who was gregarious and engaging and had a great rapport with teenagers. What was sneaky was, he was the one adult who was available to supervise the place and see the rules were followed. And without rules, such a room could and probably would descend into chaos. Teenagers, you know.

Dad had been very wise. He’d added the room first at our local center, the one we sibs joined. He found a young man to work there that the teens would take to. The man had a characteristic I’d found in a few of my teachers. He had the ability to get the teens to like him as an adult friend and confidante, one who knew their names and would give advice when solicited and always had a supportive nature and listened to their woes. He became a trusted friend, and the teens he dealt with found they didn’t want to disappoint him. Breaking the rules would have done that.

His name was Stuart Commons. He was a graduate student in adolescent psychology and loved getting personal experience with the teens who came to the center. He was 6-feet, 2-inches tall, good looking, and had quickly become a fixture at the center.

The rules for the room weren’t overbearing. They weren’t in place to discourage attendance. They were in place so the room would remain welcoming and fun for everyone. And they were simple: no one under 12 was allowed in, nor anyone over 19. No rambunctious shenanigans. No music other than what was provided by the room itself. No hassling or bullying. Clean up your own mess when leaving. And then the most controversial one: no cell phones were permitted. That edict was in place because Dad wanted the teens talking to each other, not having their eyes glued to their phones. The room was a communal place, and cell phones divided and separated people.

The soda jerk—Stuart called himself that—made it a point to be liked, to be almost like an older brother, a nice one. He kidded with everyone after getting to know them and learning everyone’s name. He made being in charge an almost invisible part of his job, the lowest of low key. His job was necessary: without supervision there was no way cell phones could be banned, and the room would be less friendly. In the few cases where supervision was necessary, Stuart would give a private warning, then ban the user from the room on their second failure to follow the rules.

No one wanted to be banned. The rules were followed.

Back to business. We had a lot of young teens with us for the first meeting, around 20 in all, only 8th graders, but the room was big enough to hold them. Kids from other schools used the room every day, but we had the door shut and locked with a note on it saying a private meeting was in session; it listed when the door would open again.

Because of Smoot, I was the last one in. Ted nodded at me. I locked the door, and Ted assumed control. “Okay, glad to see so many of us here. I’m not in charge, just the one getting things going. I think, first off, it would make sense to figure out how we’re going to determine who’s our toughest classmate. Then, we need to set some rules in place. Deb has agreed to write down suggestions. Let’s start with how we want to determine who’s the toughest.”

The room was quiet after that. I didn’t think Ted asked the right question, not one that would encourage follow-up answers. As no one was talking, I filled the void. Hey, I’m no public speaker, but a dead room was a dead room, and that would be no help at all. Kids have short attention spans, and if one walked out, others would follow.

“Maybe we should decide first off, do we want to do this with mental challenges, maybe involving morality, including kindness and helpfulness, or should this be a physical contest that we’re talking about.”

There was a large whiteboard mounted on wheels that was used at the center by the training classes to list what exercises would be done that day and schedules and such. We’d borrowed it and rolled it into the teens’ room. Deb had a felt marker and was ready to write down suggestions as they were called out. For some reason, she didn’t write down anything I’d just said.

But it did get some comments.

“Combat,” a boy shouted. I didn’t see who he was. I had noticed that among the crowd, Rudy was missing. I wasn’t surprised. I thought Ted was right: Rudy was much tougher facing kids he knew wouldn’t fight back. The kids here seemed to be fight-positive.

“Yeah,” another one yelled. I saw who that was. Tommy Craig, who had played on the football team and the basketball team as well. He was big enough that he might be able to win this thing!

No one else said anything else, so Ted said, “Okay, let’s see hands of those who think this should be decided through combat.”

Every hand went up. So much for the nicest kid being considered tough. I hadn’t thought that suggestion would work. I’d been right.

“Okay. Hey, does anyone else want to take over up here, run this?” Ted looked around, hoping for a response.

Silence.

“Well, in that case, I’ll keep going. I think we should have rules. We don’t want anyone going to the hospital, so the combat should in some ways be limited. I think we can all agree to that. We just have to discuss and agree on the limitations. So, let’s set some combat rules. Anyone. Everyone. Call out suggestions.”

Ted looked over the crowd, and one of the boys said, “Uh, I agree, it shouldn’t be anything goes. There should be no scratching, kicking, eye gouging, whatever. Is that okay?”

“Perfect!” Okay, that was me, the peacemaker. I shouldn’t have spoken, I knew that, but I was appalled at the idea of these kids, all of whom I knew, blooding each other. “I’ll expand it. No hitting! Yeah, some of you probably expected to be doing that, but it could cause some real damage. Add no scratching. Also kneeing, hair-pulling—Deb, why aren’t you writing this down?”

“Should I? I mean, we haven’t decided yet.”

“Write them down. We can vote on them.” I guess my being appalled was making me more willing to speak up than usual.

Surprising me, Ted agreed, and Deb started a list: everything I’d said, and then the crowd added a few more: no karate chops and Judo flips, and someone called out biting, and another said head butting.

People were animated now and were speaking up. “What does that leave?” one boy asked.

Another said, “I guess wrestling, mostly. And running at the opponent and bumping them or tackling them.”

“Do we want to exclude boxing entirely? With gloves and all?” That was Deb, of all people. Not that I was all that surprised. She could pack a mean punch. I knew from experience. No, not from her hitting me; I’d seen her hit Ted.

“No boxing.” That was me. “Someone gets a bloody nose, or a ruptured testicle, and we’d be in trouble. Besides, we already eliminated hitting.”

That was followed by more general talk from the group, mostly all together in a massed outpour of voices until Ted stopped it. “Hands for those who agree with the no hitting rule and want to include boxing.

The majority raised hands. Boxing was out.

After that, someone asked, “So wrestling is okay? Hammer locks? What about neck locks? Choking.”

“Add no choking to the list.” Me again. Man, I was getting into this.

Ted asked, “Is everything on the list what we want? That’s it? Stop here? Show of hands.”

“No,” I said before hands had a chance to go up. “I’ve got a couple more. Four, actually. Pinching, poking and slapping. None of those are tough. What tough guy, or girl, would do any of those sissy things? We’re looking for tough, not girly fighting. No offense, Deb.” I gave her a facetious smile.

“What’s the fourth?” Deb asked, her sarcasm ringing loudly. I could see she was running out of room on her board. Or maybe it was writers’ cramp.

“Private parts,” I said, looking away from her and back at the crowd. “I don’t think anyone should be aiming their violence against anyone’s baby-making equipment, no matter how well or not well developed it is. We all need to have a full life after 8th grade.”

I was surprised to hear a chorus of ‘hear hears’ from the crowd. I evidently wasn’t the only one sensitive to the sensitivity of my scrotum.

“Anyone else?” Ted asked, looking askance at me, which I chose not to notice. No one had anything more, and so Ted asked for hands again for what we’d suggested. I think every hand went up. None of us wanted any nasty injuries, and they all agreed with me: we wanted to see who was the toughest, not who could fight the dirtiest. But too, it appeared that everyone in the room wanted to be part of the action.

“Okay, we have the rules.” Ted seemed delighted at the progress we were making.

“There’s more to be decided, though,” I said when the room grew quiet and Ted looked unsure of what came next.

“You want to take over?” Ted asked, a challenge in his voice and a pissed off sound to it.

I smiled; my default position. “You’re doing fine, bro. What’s next?”

“Uh . . .”

He seemed to have lost track of where we were. It wasn’t like me to take over from him, especially when I could see he wasn’t happy at the thought. I quickly decided to defer.

“Deb? You want to take over?”

She liked that idea. She handed the felt pen to Ted and took his place front and center, and then, after a moment of looking at the assemblage, turned to me, a question in her eyes.

It seemed to me that both of them had been enthralled with the idea of a fight of the fittest and hadn’t given the details of such much thought. I had. I hadn’t liked the idea of finding the toughest in our class in the first place, imagining how it might go. Both the fighting itself and the problems we’d have setting it up.

She was looking at me for help, so I said, “We need to decide on a format. Should we pick what pairs are to go at it, probably random picks, like names out of a hat, for one-on-one fights? Or, a possibility, how about letting everyone fight at the same time, a giant melee? See who comes out whole still able to stand?

“Do we want to match same-weight kids against each other or use some other weighting mechanism to keep fights fairer? So there’s that to figure out. Then, too, how do we decide who’s won a fight and who’s lost it? Does a match only end if someone gives up, or is there something the winner has to accomplish to make himself the winner? Will we have referees, and what are their duties? Do we want girls fighting boys or just other girls?”

I was on a roll. “And this one is important: what will the contestants wear? The Greeks all fought nude. I think that’s what we should do, too. No one would have their clothes ruined this way. And we could get a paying audience.”

The meeting sort of fell apart after that. Everyone seemed to take that last thought to heart and had to voice their opinion about it. That was more interesting than the fighting itself. We were 8th graders! Mostly 14. Nudity was up for some serious consideration; a lot of us liked the idea. Of watching at least.

People were knocking on the door, wanting in, and we decided another meeting was needed. Deb called this one quits after asking everyone to give some thought to how this all would work, not mentioning my ideas at all.

- 0 -

We ended up with several more meetings. Details had to be addressed, time and place arranged, whether we needed waivers signed by the participants in case of injury—just few of the many things to be worked out. Just one example. Some guys were really eager for the nude-fighting business; the girls were much less enthusiastic, but a few of the boys were emboldened. We evidently had some nascent exhibitionists among us. We discussed it as a group. The ones who wanted it really wanted it.

I thought it was a bad idea. I’d said it just in jest, mostly to get a rise out of the crowd, which it had done. But in fact doing it? Word would get out, both before and afterwards. I was against the whole idea of the fighting anyway but thought we’d all be in pretty serious trouble if people knew there was a sexual element in the fights, and that naked underaged kids were participating. If some of the guys were nude, how could there not be a sexual edge involved?

But I figured out how to put an end to the whole idea. “Hey,” I said at one of the meetings where this was being discussed. “I just thought of something. We already agreed that we’d allow spectators, that kids watching would help validate whoever is named the toughest. We also said that no adults should be allowed to watch, which I’m sure made the pro-naked crowd happy. What 14-year-old wants their parents to see them only in their skin? With their danglers dangling?”

I posed it as a question and only got yucky reactions in return. “So, okay, being seen by spectators isn’t a problem with nakedness,” I continued. “But there is a problem. It’ll be with our classmates who are spectating. They’ll have their phones. And some of them will video the fights. We can try to ban phones, but without strip searches, we can’t be sure no one has one. And if they do, those videos will be on the internet so quickly you guys won’t have time to dress before the place will be crawling with police. They’ll claim indecent exposure and all that. We’ll have public ridicule, too, if the videos get out unless you guys are better developed than I am. So no, the only answer is, no one fights nude.”

It was agreed. No one could argue that they wanted to be seen in a nude video on the internet, even if in fact they did.

An odd thing was happening at the meetings. We’d started with about twenty-something eager participants. With each meeting, a few less showed up. We were losing fighters as we neared the time of the fight. I was happy with this. A few more meetings and maybe we could call the whole thing off.

As the group grew smaller, one boy in particular more and more began to stick out. He didn’t before because he was easy to lose sight of in the crowd. That was because he was smaller than anyone else there.

His name was Charlie Meyers. He was in 8th grade with the rest of us, but I’d always wondered if he was 14, which almost all of us were. He looked much more like 13 or even 12. And there was something that caught your interest more than just his apparent immaturity.

He was gorgeous. I thought it interesting that I’d heard he insisted on being called Charlie. Not Chuck. Not Charles; only Charlie. But it made sense because it fit him. He was lively and funny and outgoing from the little I’d seen. His appearance was stunning, actually. He was tiny, not yet five feet tall, certainly not more than 60, 65 pounds. Yet he was full of self-confidence. And he was oh-so-cute and just shy enough that his self-consciousness along with his confidence was even more appealing. Shy and outgoing both? Well, I didn’t know him, but that’s how he seemed, the little I’d seen. You wanted to cuddle him, protect him, maybe even more if your mind ran in that direction. His hair was slightly too long but he must have liked it that way as it never seemed to get longer or shorter. It was a reddish-blond color and went well with his complexion, complementing it. His skin was clear, and there was a rosy tint to his cheeks. His lips were redder than on most boys, and his regular features—nose, chin, forehead, ears—were perfect, especially his light-blue eyes and straight white teeth.

I could never figure out why he was with the group wanting to fight to prove their toughness. Charlie wasn’t tough. How could he be? No one that size and weight could be. The thing was, I couldn’t ask him why. I’d never spoken to him, which was odd as he could well have been the only classmate I hadn’t talked to.

Any why was that? That was a little complicated. I’d wanted to but was scared. Of Charlie, you ask? Who could be afraid of him? It wasn’t that! I wasn’t scared of him; I was scared of me.

I’d watched Charlie a lot, given the chance. I was fascinated by him. By his looks, sure. But I’d seen him interact with other boys in our class, and that’s where my fear came from. Because, with many of them, when he’d smile at them with the somewhat coy and beguiling smile he had, with his self-effacing body language, many of them would bone up. I’d seen it! I’m not making that up! Boys 14 bone up a lot and with little provocation. That was the effect he had on other boys. Especially gay-leaning boys. He could be great as a gay-boy-detector if there was a call for such an animal.

I wasn’t gay, but I was afraid I’d have the same reaction other boys had! Young boys, sex, and boners. They went together like American went with apple pie and the flag. And if I got one, a boner—well, it seemed almost a given that I would—then I might get teased, and I didn’t handle teasing well.

There was more to not having spoken to him than just that, and that was where the complicated part came in. It involved Smoot. But I want to stay writing about Charlie, now that he’s in the spotlight. Smoot can wait.

Charlie was such an intriguing boy for me to wonder about. Why was he willing to fight? How old was he? Why was he in 8th grade if he wasn’t old or big enough? Had he even started puberty yet? His complexion and size and high soprano, whispery voice and kinda-but-perhaps-fake shyness suggested he hadn’t. You’ve noticed that many boys of 11 and 12 are a lot more self-confident before they hit puberty than afterwards, haven’t you?

What I wanted to do was see him naked so I could figure some of these things out. That made me feel a little pervish, yet that wasn’t it at all. I just wanted to know about him and learn without having personal, boner-eliciting contact with him. Maybe because he was so gorgeous or just because this was a mystery to be solved.

You know, 14 is a difficult age. You wonder about things you’ve never considered before. Your relationships are a little different; there are sexual overtones you’ve never dealt with before and you’re not sure what to do about. Living close with my sibs, I knew some stuff and was inured to some stuff. Still, I wondered about Charlie and wanted to know more about him without having to ask him. I couldn’t ask anyone else about him; they’d get the wrong impression.

I knew I couldn’t talk to him because he’d probably smile at me and I couldn’t chance that. But I’d figured that most of my questions about him would be answered if I could just see him naked. It was possible to see other boys in my class naked; I’d seen about half of them that way in the showers in gym. But not Charlie. Different gym classes.

I pondered this for some time, and then I did finally figure out a way to see him after spending too much time on it, maybe even obsessing. Seeing him attending all those fight meetings had doubled my interest in him. I hadn’t seen all that much of him before. Somehow he must have been on a different academic track than I was because he was in only one of my classes. Now I was seeing him often, and that proximity resulted in my not being able to get him out of my mind. It was almost like I had a crush on him, which of course I didn’t, but all that thinking and wondering about him finally was productive because I came up with a way to see him naked. That would certainly put all the questions I had about him to bed and end this silly infatuation.

It was a sneaky, underhanded, duplicitous, self-serving plan. Any righteous 14-year-old would appreciate that. Me included.

I’d learned from school scuttlebutt that swim team tryouts were coming up. I swam. We had a pool and all three of us sibs swam most days. I wasn’t a bit competitive and so wasn’t interested in going out for the swim team and had no reason to sign up. But I was curious from what I’d heard and did check the signup sheet; the grapevine info had been factual: Charlie was trying out. That was silly of him, as silly as joining the fighting group. He wasn’t big or strong enough to compete in either activity. But his name was right there for all to see.

And if he was going to be at the swimming tryout, I would be, too. I knew that after swimming, all boys would shower to get the chlorine off their skin. And they wouldn’t be wearing their Speedos, either, in the showers. All the boys would be given swim team Speedos to wear in the trials so they’d be evenly matched, at least in what they were wearing. But the suits would be collected before the showers, probably just so no one would walk off with theirs. They had an assistant collecting them as we came into the locker room. I thought that reason they gave us kind of weak. Could it be that the swim coach just wanted his boys to get used to being naked with each other, lose some of their modesty? Was this a team bonding thing?

But Charlie was trying out, I was trying out, and I’d finally get all my questions answered.

It occurs to me as I write this that I may be making myself look like a wimp. I wasn’t! I’m not! Just because confrontations aren’t my cup of tea, just because I’ve always valued peace and kindness, that doesn’t mean I’m an 87-pound weakling. Hey, I’m a member of a fitness club. Part of a fitness family. My sibs work out, and I never wanted them to leave me behind. I have the same muscles they do. I just have no interest in using them the same way they’re happy to.

Anyway, while they competed against each other in a take-no-prisoners way, I kept up with them pretty well. They swam every day, trying to beat the other at two, four, eight and 12 laps. I swam too, but didn’t challenge them. That wasn’t me. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t put in the effort. I did, and I swam quite well.

At the tryouts, I had to be careful not to swim too well, not enough to make the team. There were quite a few boys trying out. The 8th grade coach was there, as were two high school coaches wanting to see what would be coming their way next year. It was a competitive atmosphere, and most of the boys were eating it up—nervous, excited, fidgety, not able to stand still.

I was trying out for the 200-meter event. I chose that one after seeing it was what Charlie was swimming. I figured after that test, we’d be dismissed, and he’d be off to the showers. Me too!

That was how it worked. I was careful not to win the event. Charlie came in third, and I was fourth. Right behind his time. If they picked the top three for the team, he was in. I doubt they’d go four deep. Not with all the events they were testing us for.

The coach thanked us and told us to leave our suits in the assistant’s basket just inside the locker room door, then go shower. He’d post a notice of who made the team next week.

Now I was nervous. I followed Charlie into the locker room with five other boys. We all had to stop and take off our Speedos. I was in no hurry, but it seemed no one else was, either, and Charlie was hidden behind the others; he was so tiny it was easy to lose sight of him.

If I delayed too long, it would look funny, so I shrugged out of my swimsuit, dropped it in the basket and walked to my locker. I wasn’t going to go into the showers till the others did. I sat on a bench and waited.

I wasn’t sitting there long, waiting, before I got a shock. My locker was in a straight line from the door to the showers. That wasn’t by chance. That was where I’d wanted to be. And as I sat there, biding my time, here came Charlie.

The shock? He was nude. Completely, totally, beautifully nude. I’d expected he would be, but I hadn’t known he’d look like he did. He did have a towel with him, but it was in his hand and hanging by his side.

I’m afraid I stared. I’d planned this, but even so, it was shocking, seeing it come to fruition like this. Seeing him. He was fantastic. My questions were answered. Yes, he was into puberty. Much the same as me and most of the other 8th graders. I won’t do him the dishonor of describing it all—words wouldn’t suffice—but think of a beautiful boy just several months into the changing that occurs as a boy becomes a man. That’s what I saw walking toward me, as radiant as that proud-as-peaches peacock, coming in my direction, and if you can imagine that, you can imagine the effect it had on me.

I had to pull myself together, stay calm, and somehow I managed it. But it took me much longer than it should have to realize I’d made a bad mistake. I hadn’t given it a thought: I’d laid my towel on the bench next to me, not in my lap where it was desperately needed.

As he neared, he spoke to me and I had to respond.

“Hey, Trip. Good race today. I want to talk to you sometime about this Toughest Kid in the 8th Grade deal. I’ll look you up.” Then, dammit, dammit-dammit-dammit, he smiled at me. That wasn’t all. He smiled at me, then dropped his eyes from mine to lower down.

Son of a bitch! He knew! He knew how he affected boys when he smiled! And here he was, playing with me. No question about it, my body was responding, and he was watching. His smile broadened and turned into a grin.

I had to say something. I couldn’t let him walk away with me acting dumbstruck. So, as I casually moved my towel into a more casual position in my lap, I said, rather innocuously, I hoped, “Hi, Charlie. How’re they hanging?” And I couldn’t help myself. I tried, but couldn’t. I dropped my eyes just like he’d dropped his.

He laughed. Laughed! “You know damn well how they’re hanging. You were looking all the while I was walking over here—and again now. No worries. I’m used to it.” Then he laughed again and walked to the showers, saying to himself, “Yeah. Still got it!”

- 0 -

If you’ve been paying attention, something of an irksome task the way I’m jumping around here, a while back I mentioned why dealing with the Charlie situation was complicated. Then I sort of mentioned Smoot in passing. It was my relationship with Smoot that made my dealings with Charlie complicated.

I’d been friends with Smoot since 4th grade. Even back then, I’d been doing my best to be kind and supportive. I had a protective nature. Smoot was a kid who needed lots of protecting.

He was one of the kids in my 4th grade classroom. Mrs. Schmidt was our teacher. She was okay, but nothing more than that. It was her first year as an elementary school teacher, and she was more than just a bit overwhelmed. She didn’t know how to put a stop to incidental bullying. Smoot was a natural target for the rougher boys in the class.

I didn’t like rough stuff then and still don’t now, but if the teacher wasn’t going to protect a student like Smoot, someone else had to or his life is going to be a torment.

This was the first year Smoot and I had shared a classroom. I knew who he was just to recognize him, but no more than that. Just that he was that peculiar looking kid.

We had recess every day, a time to release pent up energy. Smoot always sat on a bench, not joining in, simply watching the free-for-all sort of action going on the grassy field and paved playground. Seems he’d learned early on that if he joined in, he’d get pushed and knocked down and then made fun of. Many bullies get started and gain their reps in the 4th grade.

I saw this during the first week that we had recess, saw him sitting out, and the next day, I went and sat next to him.

“Hi,” I said. “My name’s Trip. What’s yours?”

He looked at me, and I wasn’t sure he’d answer. There was fear in his eyes. When he did talk, it was in a very soft voice. “I’m Smoot.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard that correctly. Who names their kid Smoot? But I could tell in only the few seconds I’d been with him that he was delicate. Fragile. Frightened. Of me, of all people. So I didn’t say anything else for a moment, then, almost as quietly as he’d spoken, said, “I’ve seen how Rudy and Jackson have been treating you. It isn’t right. I won’t let them do that anymore.”

He didn’t say anything, so I waited a little, then said, “If you want, I can tell Mrs. Schmidt that you’re moving to my table. Only if you want to. We have an empty chair there. Would you like that?”

He was staring at me now. I looked back, only meeting his eyes briefly, but trying to show friendship, even empathy—though I didn’t know that word then—in them. But I saw him nod. An unsure nod.

I spoke to Mrs. Schmidt. I’d found it better to tell her what I was going to do rather than ask her if I could. She dithered when I asked. So I just told her Smoot was moving to my table, and she just smiled and said, “That’s fine.”

Smoot sat with me the rest of the year. He did more than that. He started hanging with me, no matter what I was doing. I told Rudy and Jackson, separately because I’m not stupid, that I’d kick their ass if they messed with Smoot again. Rudy was still my size back in 4th. They didn’t mess, and Smoot started joining me in whatever I was doing at recess.

I got to know Smoot. He had a hard life, hard for a boy of nine. His mother was living on welfare checks, most of which went for liquor. Smoot ended up eating dry cereal for many meals. She also made ends meet by inviting men home if they’d pony up a little for the pleasure. He said he was scared a lot of the time at home. Saw things a boy his age shouldn’t see.

I told him whenever it got scary, he could come to my house. I told him if he was hungry, he could come then, too. We always would have a room for him if he needed a place to sleep that wasn’t at his own house and food as well. I told my parents about all his problems. I always told my parents everything that was going on. Both Mom and Dad backed me up. Once they met Smoot, they felt bad for him and were happy to help.

My sibs? They were something else. At first, they were very leery, having him around. But they got used to him. The thing was, he couldn’t sleep in our room as Deb didn’t want him seeing her nude, and even Ted wasn’t enthusiastic about that. So, we made one of our seven bedrooms—four of them en suites—Smoot’s room.

Sometimes, when he was feeling really shaky—by now I could read his moods as easily as I could a Little Golden Book—I’d go in and find him sitting on the bed, staring at nothing, almost like he was in a trance. I’d talk to him, and he wouldn’t respond; it seemed like he couldn’t hear me. I learned how to gently get him out of that mood: I got on the bed, too, behind him, then pulled him down on his side, and spooned him, both of us fully clothed. Within a few minutes, I’d feel the tenseness in his body ease, and then, a moment later, he’d be able to talk.

Later on, when he was a little older, I’d sleep with him when I could see he needed that. He seemed to sleep a lot better that way, especially when I’d hold him. He liked me to spoon him. I didn’t mind. We kept our underwear on. It wasn’t a sexual thing.

That cuddling up with him began when he was nine. We were still together as friends by the time we were both 11, going on 12; the sleeping together was more frequent by then. Things got worse at home for him. Dad, when we were alone together, asked me then about our sleeping arrangement then. He waited till we were alone, just us two washing his car.

“Do you think you’re getting a little too old to be sleeping in bed with Smoot?” he asked, rather casually I thought. But then, that was Dad.

It wasn’t like Dad not to say what he meant, though, and this sounded like he was doing just that.

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

“Well, you know. Puberty. New feelings. New urges. Boys experimenting with each other. You’ve had Sex Ed, and we’ve talked about it at the table. I spoke to you before about not jerking off with either of your sibs. Now you’re often sleeping in Smoot’s room. I’m just wondering about it. Not saying it’s wrong if you two are doing something. Just wanting to know what’s going on and your opinion, your feelings about it, what you’re thinking, I guess.”

I was really close with my dad. So close, I liked to tweak him a little when I had the chance, which wasn’t too often. Here was a great opportunity!

“So you’re saying it’s fine if we’re screwing around? You’re giving me your blessing?”

The problem with being as close as we were, he could read me as well as I could him, and he knew from my tone of voice I was playing with him.

He gave me a severe look, then laughed. “Actually, I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to see what you had to say. I guess, if you nailed me down, my opinion would be, at nearly 12, it’s fine to experiment and learn what doing that stuff is like; finding out what you like and how you feel about it. My reservation is, experimenting suggests limited times and perhaps with maybe two or three partners. It doesn’t suggest long-term commitments with one person and doesn’t involve love. Yet multiple partners and quick indifferent incidents, that isn’t what we have here. Here you have one partner, and you’re sleeping with him quite often now. So when does experimenting, if that’s what’s been happening—and I don’t know that it has—become something else, something more, well, serious, consequential.”

I shook my head. “We haven’t done anything, Dad. But . . . in fact, Smoot and I have never even talked about being gay. I think he might be, but he’s never said, and I’ve never asked. I haven’t told you before, but I’m pretty sure he’s got a crush on me. A big one. I see it in his eyes. I see how he acts.”

That was the last of that. Dad didn’t ask again. I guess he trusted my maturity to keep things okay. And Smoot and I stayed together and time passed till we were in 8th grade and the poking and Charlie incidents happened.

After I’d talked at the table about Charlie and all that—by now, it wasn’t embarrassing to talk about boners and turn-ons with my family. We’d been doing it for years now—and Dad was thinking. While he liked us to talk as a family about our lives, our thinking, our feelings, he was a bit more discreet when wanting to discuss something that only pertained to one of us. I could tell by the way he was looking at me he had something to say. So, after dinner, I asked him if we could go into his den. I shut the door when we were both inside.

“You have a question for me.” I made it a statement.

He knew what I meant. “This thing with Charlie that you left hanging, didn’t follow up. I could hear you had mixed feelings about that. I could hear your interest in him. But you didn’t do anything about it.”

He paused then, maybe to get his words right. “Trip, I remember what you told me a couple of years ago about not wanting to hurt Smoot. Now, you had a chance to do something you wanted to do, and you didn’t. Is this thing with Smoot the reason for that? It’s getting a little complicated, huh?”

“Yes! It affected how I acted with Charlie. I wouldn’t let myself get too involved with him. I think he might have wanted to. Or maybe not. I don’t know if he’s gay. I do know he’s got a lot of self-confidence and a great, funny, engaging personality. I think he could be a great friend and keep me laughing. But if I’d done anything with him, it would have hurt Smoot. A lot of people have hurt Smoot. I want to be someone he can count on who won’t do that.”

“Okay. But you need to figure yourself out. You’re 14. Hormones are washing through you. They can affect a lot of judgments. You’ve made being nice, being altruistic, helping people, your thing. But you might spend some time thinking of where you want to go with Smoot. You didn’t say it in words, but you gave me the impression that he may be in love with you. Well . . . look, Trip. Sex has to be on both your minds. Probably since you were 12; certainly you’re thinking about it now.”

I grimaced. “Yeah, though I don’t know how you can remember all those years back what it’s like for us now. As I said then, we hadn’t done anything. We still haven’t. Well, we do get hard. But other than his allowing me to see him in that state, we’ve been very innocent. We haven’t jerked off together, but I’d guess he might like to. But you’re right—at some point, I’m sure the urge will be too strong to resist.”

I got up to leave, and so did he, but he stopped me at the door. “You do know, don’t you, that our love for you is unconditional. If, for instance, you ever considered having a boyfriend, that’d be no problem with me or your mom?”

I didn’t even bother to kid him. Just walked away, letting him stew about that on his own. Maybe he liked playing me, too.

That was where we left it. Dad knew at some point that sexual activity would be occurring in that bedroom. And he didn’t voice any objections. But I understood the message he was sending by talking to me about this. To sum it up, it was only a two-word message: be careful.

- 0 -

Charlie did come up to me the next day. I was coming out from my last class before lunch. Not a bit surprisingly, Smoot was walking next to me on our way to the cafeteria.

Charlie caught up with us and walked with us on my side that Smoot wasn’t on.

“Hey, Trip. Could we talk? At lunch? You and me? Oh, and you too, Smoot.”

I don’t think those two had ever spoken a word before. But we all knew who the other 8th graders were even if we didn’t know them.

Smoot didn’t say anything. Par for the course for him. But he nodded. Probably meant he’d heard and was thankful for not being excluded.

This made me think. Sure, Smoot was with me just about constantly, but that was Smoot’s doing, not mine. I hadn’t given it any thought, but I wondered now how people saw us. Did they think we were a couple? I wasn’t sure I liked it if they thought that. Smoot and I were close, but not a couple, not even gay. At least Smoot hadn’t admitted it. I was pretty sure he was, but our relationship was platonic. I thought the only reason he’d never told me how he felt was the fear that he’d lose me. But what did Charlie think? Now, I realized, I had a way to learn what the general opinion of us was. I’d have to do it when Smoot wasn’t there. He could be easily hurt.

The three of us sat at a table of our own. Charlie started right in. “I need to talk to you about this Toughest Kid in the 8th Grade challenge: the actual fight.” He was talking to me; Smoot wasn’t involved at all in our toughest business. “I got into it mostly so other kids would see me differently. See that I wasn’t just a pretty face—that I had the guts to fight. Still, fighting is scary, and as we’re getting close to it becoming real . . . the guys still in it are all hard core . . . I’m, I’m wanting to back out. Others have, I know. But I still want people to think . . . well, what it comes down to is, I guess . . . you know . . . damn, I didn’t think this would be so hard.”

“What, to drop out? At least half the original group has.”

“Yeah, but then I become a quitter, and it’s more than that. And by quitting I’d be something I don’t want to be. People would think I was chicken. They’d think all kinds of things. Well . . . damn . . . maybe I am but I don’t want them thinking that, and . . . ”

I was quiet and then was surprised, more than surprised, when Smoot spoke, filling the void Charlie had left. He rarely spoke to other people.

“It’s more than that, isn’t it? That’s why it’s hard for you to say what you want to say.”

I looked at Smoot, wrinkling my forehead, not understanding this at all. He never spoke up, getting into a conversation he wasn’t part of. He liked to keep as low a profile as he could. We talked together all the time. I knew how smart he was. Very. But he liked being in the shadows. This was quite atypical of him. He rarely even spoke at the dinner table where he was entirely accepted and safe.

He was staying with us just about all the time now. I had wondered now and then what would happen if he and I should have a falling out; I didn’t know what would become of him if he didn’t have my family, or even me, to lean on—actually to live with. I’d wondered enough that I eventually had asked my dad. He’d told me he’d had that conversation with Smoot privately because he too worried about that. He’d told Smoot there was a place for him at our house just like there was for us triplets. It would be there no matter what.

Charlie turned to look at Smoot, maybe as surprised as I was. Smoot just didn’t talk to people, and certainly not as provocatively as he did just then.

“What do you mean?” Charlie finally asked him. He sounded very tentative, very unsure of himself, not like Charlie, the happy-go-lucky kid who was usually on display.

Smoot shook his head. “I shouldn’t say anything. Much safer if I keep my mouth shut. But I think it’s time to open it for once.”

He turned to look at me for a second with a look on his face I’d never seen before, then back to Charlie. “Trip’s been taking care of me for years. I owe him so much. My sanity for one thing, and my physical safety and security for another. He’s been way more than a friend; he’s been my lifeline. Maybe I can pay him back a little here. That’s the only reason I’m saying anything at all. I owe him so much.”

I started to say something, but he put his hand on my upper leg and squeezed. He didn’t want me stopping him.

“But this is hard for me, too, Charlie. It would be easier if you’d tell me something, but you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. I have a feeling, though. So, I’m just going to go for it. Just going to ask. Charlie, are you gay?”

Charlie looked like someone had hit him in the jaw. He actually pulled back a little.

“No one asks me that!”

“I’m sorry, really. But neither of us will tell anyone how you answer that question. You can trust us absolutely. And answering it will help us all. Please. Are you?”

Charlie looked down for a long moment, then finally raised his eyes. “Well, why not. I have to open up at some point, trust someone. Might as well be with you two. Yes,” he said, his voice unsteady. “I think so. But you can’t tell anyone! If my mom finds out . . . But now you tell me—why do you want to know?”

“Because I think that was why you couldn’t talk to Trip like you wanted to just now. I think you have a crush on him. I can see it. But you didn’t know if he and I were together. I mean as boyfriends. You wanted to know but were stumbling all over yourself. It’s a difficult thing to ask. And I think you wanted to tell him you liked him, but that was hard, too. So I wanted to make things clear for you. To tell you we aren’t. Boyfriends. You also wanted to know if we were gay. I’m not. But it’s not my place to tell you if Trip is. You need to ask him. And look in his eyes as he answers. He lies a lot.”

Smoot made a joke! I’d never heard him do that before. He was always so serious. Now, he gave it away by blushing, but I was too stunned to say anything.

What I felt like was falling off my chair. I’d thought Smoot was gay and in love with me! Now he was saying he was straight, and if so, then he certainly was not in love with me!

He was also suggesting I was gay!

Okay, okay, for a long time I’d been wondering about myself, but I hadn’t let myself go down that road. Then Charlie had come along, and yeah, I already had a crush on him. A stronger, more vivid one than ever before on anyone. I’d had crushes on a lot of boys and a few girls, but I’d been with Smoot and so hadn’t focused on any of them. I thought I’d end up with him if indeed I was gay, but I was in no hurry to even think about it. I wasn’t in love with him. Well, I sorta was, but it was a brotherly sort of love. Love is complicated at 14.

I guess maybe I was really good at not facing up to who I was or what I wanted. Meeting, thinking about, crushing on Charlie had sort of pushed me closer to doing that than I’d ever allowed myself before.

Charlie was looking dumbstruck, too. And before he could ask me what Smoot had told him he should, I spoke up.

“Is that true, Charlie? Do you have a crush on me?”

He didn’t know how to answer, and then, just that quickly, he did. He smiled at me. And nodded.

But that smile! It did it to me again! Damn. Good thing we were sitting down. “I have one on you, too,” I told him. “And I think I’m going to kill Smoot when we get home. Except he’s made it possible for me to face the truth. So maybe I’ll kiss him instead. I’ve never done that, just so you know,” I said, meeting Charlie’s eyes. “And I’m not ready for anyone to know, either. I’m not even ready for me to know.”

Charlie was meeting mine, too. And Smoot started laughing, breaking the tension that was growing.

“What are you doing after school?” I asked Charlie.

“Whatever you are,” he answered, and I think I started falling in love right then.

What I was doing was attending the final meeting of those pretending to be the toughest in our grade at school. That was upon us, as were the fights to come. I was thinking about that with the small piece of my mind that wasn’t consumed with Charlie.

I was also thinking about Charlie, about the process of getting to know him and maybe having a boyfriend, and what fun it would be letting Dad meet him. I could imagine him sitting at that dinner table with us. And about how another of our empty bedrooms wouldn’t be sitting idle when I had my first sleepover-with-boyfriend.

We had a lot to talk about. I was already envisioning Charlie and me being together. But did he want to be out? Did I want that? This was all new to me, even the simple fact of admitting to myself I probably was gay. I was doing that just sitting there, looking at him and that damn smile! And, you know, it felt awfully good. Freeing, somehow. Like the handcuffs had come off.

I could see him thinking, too, and how happy he seemed. This was going to be great.

But that was all coming, all ahead of us. Right now, I had this Toughest Kid in the 8th Grade problem to deal with.

- 0 -

Charlie didn’t come to the final meeting. I told him he didn’t need to drop out in person. Others had simply stopped showing up and he could do the same. Didn’t mean he was chickening out; meant he’d come to his senses. The guys who were really into this were all bigger, all liked the idea of fighting, and that wasn’t who Charlie was any more than it was who I was.

I didn’t have a choice, really. Ted and Deb would never let me live it down if I didn’t compete. I hadn’t signed up at first and they were on me like leaches on Wil Wheaton in Stand by Me. We were all fixtures at the fitness center, did the workout work, were strong and able, and I had the family honor to uphold. That was their thinking. Mine was, I could collapse in the first second or two of my fight and that would be that. But they managed to shame me into signing on.

I had an awakening, an unpleasant one, when I entered that last pre-fight meeting. Guess who was there: Rudy. He saw me come in and I was greeted with a huge smile.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked Ted.

“He came in and said he wanted to be part of this, and if he wasn’t allowed in, he’d tell everyone this wasn’t to determine the toughest 8th grader, just the toughest of the few they’d let compete. He said everyone would know how fake it was. So I let him join.”

He saw my face. “Dammit, Trip, we had to let him in. Had to. Otherwise this is all just a farce. Not only that, and think about this before yelling at me, we have to let him fight you. Better said, we have to let you fight him.”

“Fight me?! You got to be kidding! I’m not fighting him. He’ll kill me!”

“No he won’t.”

“He will!”

“Nope. Because I’m going to show you how to beat him.”

And that’s what he did. He and Deb. They had a plan, and they worked with me, and I started to think maybe I could do this. The fact Rudy couldn’t hit me played a big part in this. All the fights would be fought without what the rules had restricted, enforced by the referee, and that would make a huge difference.

The fights were happening the next day, a Saturday, and would be held at the fitness center. The three of us, plus
Smoot, were there early. Ted told me to loosen up, warm up my muscles, lose my jitters. I did the first two.

I’d swear the entire class had come to watch. The combatants, who’d numbered in the twenties when we started planning the event, had now become only eight. Seven of them were eager to get to it. I was watching Rudy. That wasn’t helping my nerves any.

The eight fighters included me and my sibs, Rudy and Tommy Craig, the class athlete and star football and basketball player; that made five. The other three were two boys I didn’t know at all other than having seen them around—I thought they were in the non-academic classes, shop classes and mechanics—and one other girl.

It had finally been decided, once so many kids had dropped out, that we’d just throw all the names in a hat and draw to determine who fought who, single elimination. That meant four initial fights to involve all eight kids. After those four fights, there’d be four kids left, and after they fought, meaning two more fights and two more winners, there would be two finalists; they’d fight for the title and the designation of The Toughest Kid in the 8th Grade. The first four and second two fights would be that day, the final match the next day, Sunday.

Ted and Deb had worked hard with me Friday night. I was as ready as I’d be for my Saturday fight against Rudy, my second fight of the day. Ted, in charge of the hat holding the eight names, would rig that.

The four winners in the first round on Saturday were, to no one’s surprise, the three of us and Rudy. Ted had beaten Tommy in the best match of the day, the only one that had taken more than a minute. I’d watched Rudy before my fight and seen how he operated in his match. Then I had my fight against one of the boys I didn’t know. I beat him rather easily. He was bigger than I was but wasn’t in shape, and I was. I let him chase me around on the mat till he was breathing heavily, then didn’t dodge when he expected me to, he was off balance, and I took him down pretty easily. He just quit after that. He’d been thinking he’d get by with sheer strength. I think I surprised him.

So the four of us drew from the hat again. Rudy and I drew last. Ted and Deb had drawn first and got each other’s name. That left Rudy’s and mine in the hat. Rudy’s eyes lit up. This was what he’d been hoping for.

We didn’t have a long wait after the first round to go ahead with the second. That was good; I’d just get more heebie-jeebies waiting around. With Ted’s and Deb’s training behind me and their confident encouragement ringing in my ears, I stepped onto the mat.

I’d worked the night before with both my sibs. Smoot had watched. He’d gone back to being Silent Sam when with other people. But somehow, he and I seemed to be even closer now. It may have been because what had been sexual tension between us before was absent now. I was still spooning him when he had bad nights, but there was no doubt now it was just support and succor, and not a prelude to sex. Too, he needed that much less now than earlier.

Ted was more confident I could win than I was, but as I became more comfortable with the moves I was practicing, I got the impression it could work, and that would have to be enough. I didn’t have a problem with bravery. I was brave enough. I just didn’t like fighting much. Thought it an awfully childish way to solve problems.

Deb’s part was much easier. Just timing.

Rudy was still inches taller and pounds heavier than I was, and there was eagerness in his eyes. I’d watched his first fight; he’d run at his opponent, using his superior size as his weapon. He ran into the kid, knocked him down, then fell on him. The kid had yelled, “Give,” the ref—Stuart Commons, the self-named soda jerk—had yelled for Rudy to get off, and that had been that.

I expected Rudy to use the same tactics against me. I was ready.

Stuart signaled for us to begin, and here came Rudy, right at me. I didn’t have to fake my trembling; it was for real. But just as Rudy was about to run into me, when it was too late for him to change course, I jerked to the side and then was behind him. Quick as a flash, I grabbed his shorts, made sure I also had hold of what he was wearing under them as well, in this case a jock so old the elastic hardly had any stretch at all, and yanked them down.

Then it was Deb’s turn to take part, and her timing was perfect.

“Look! He’s got a mini-penis!”

That got the response those two had predicted; Rudy’s hands moved to cover his manhood, his thoughts much more on his modesty than our brawl. I was ready and upright. I gave him as hard a push as I could. He tried to step forward to keep his balance and tripped over the shorts that were around his ankles.

He fell flat onto his stomach. I took that opportunity to drop my weight onto him, landing on my butt on his back, knocking the air out of him. While he was trying to regain his breath, I scooted so I was sitting on his bare butt facing his feet. I reached down, grabbed his shorts, and lifted them while drawing them back toward me. That of course bent his knees as his legs were pulled up.

I let go of his shorts and grabbed his ankles, one hand on each. Then I put my sneakered feet into the backs of his knees, and pulled his legs back, crunching them against my sneakers.

He screamed. I knew how painful this was. Deb had done it to me, gently, the night before, showing me how this worked and how it felt, the tendons and ligaments being stretched in a way nature hadn’t designed them to stretch. Rudy pounded the mat with his hands and yelled, “Stop!” and I did. Stuart had me get off, raised my hand, and I’d beaten Rudy.

He wasn’t a happy camper and got up with murder in his eyes, but then realized the entire crowd was looking at his nakedness, the girls pointing and some of them giggling, and by the time he’d got his shorts back up where they belonged, I was nowhere near him.

Now all I had to do was beat one of my sibs, something I had no interest in doing anyway. No way, I thought, but that was a thing for the next day. Right then, I could relax, and I did.

- 0 -

Ted’s and Deb’s fight was up next. I’d noticed Ted had been sitting down since his fight with Tommy. Now, he stood up to face Deb on the mat, and Stuart said something to him, and Ted shook his head. Stuart shook his right back and motioned for Ted to walk across the mat. Ted growled, but did as he was told, and it was apparent he couldn’t do it without limping badly. Turned out he’d strained his knee in his match with Tommy.

Stuart shook his head, announced to us that Ted was disqualified as unfit, and raised Deb’s arm! Deb had a smile on her face the size of Texas. Ted was scowling. I laughed. I’d rather fight Deb than Ted any day. She knew how to keep things in perspective. In competition, Ted didn’t always have that ability when that win-at-all-costs mentality of his took over.

Anyway, the finale of the challenge would be tomorrow, and I had plans for the rest of the day. I’d spend it with Charlie!

After dinner, Deb told me we had to talk. We went into the den, and she closed the door. “I don’t want to fight you,” she said. “I’d probably hurt you. I like roughhousing and you hate it. You’d hold back and I wouldn’t. So I had a thought. The rules don’t state the fight has to be physical. I was thinking, we could have a war of words. If we set it up in advance, it could even be fun and the crowd would love it.”

“Whata ya mean?”

“Well, I’m thinking we announce it’s going to be a war of words, and we’ll draw a card to see who goes first. What we’ll do then is insult each other with things we know about them that no one else does.

“The insults will get more and more embarrassing, and then I whisper what I’m going to say next in your ear, you look shocked, but then you whisper in my ear, I do a double-take, and then one of us quits, and the other is declared the winner.”

“So, who’ll that be? You have this all worked out. Do I win, or you? Like you’d let me beat you!” I scoffed.

“Actually, that’s not my plan. What I’m thinking is, the thing we whisper will be really embarrassing, something we do not want to be made public, something that one of us probably would rather quit than have become common knowledge. We’ll save what that is for tomorrow for shock value during the fight. I expect you to quit rather than let me say what I whisper to you. Right now, we have to rehearse the other insults.”

I thought about that, and decided this was a great way out for me, because fighting Deb for real just was beyond the pale. And, conveniently, I did know something about her I was quite sure kids at school didn’t know. Terribly embarrassing for a 14-year-old girl. And, try as I could, I didn’t see what she could say about me. I jerked off, but she did, too, and so did everyone in the 8th grade, so there was no real embarrassment there. I slept in bed holding Smoot when he needed it, but would she really embarrass Smoot that way? It would hurt him more than me. And I was doing it out of kindness. Not embarrassing at all for me. I guess she could lie and say we were battling with words rather than physically because I was too chicken to face off against her, but the crowd had already seen me fight Rudy, and he was ten times as scary to fight as she was. So that wouldn’t work.

Thinking about that, realizing she didn’t have anything but bluff, I ended up agreeing. She stuck out her hand and I shook it. Then we settled down and worked out our opening insults.

The next day, the teens’ room was crowded to overflowing. Still only teens, but more than just 8th graders. I thought maybe the nudity I’d subjected Rudy to yesterday had become known, and there was hope for more of the same today, maybe involving a girl, a very pretty girl. Or, much more likely, the ones who’d been there for the first time yesterday had told others about the teens’ room, about the soda fountain, and kids wanted to see for themselves. I thought I should get some sort of promotional fee from my dad for all the new business we’d get.

Ted had sort of taken charge in the meetings and was thinking this challenge was his to run, so he wanted to announce what we’d be doing today. That was fine with me. I never liked speaking in front of crowds. I’d be nervous enough once we started. Not having to talk ahead of the action was perfect. Deb didn’t seem to mind either.

Ten quieted the crowd, told them how the challenge would play itself out today, that it would be a war of words, and he—or she—who couldn’t take any more would drop out and the other declared the winner and The Toughest Kid in the 8th Grade. Then he introduced the competitors: Deb and me.

We’d decided to do it standing. Sitting would make us look feeble. Ted put both our names in the hat and offered it to either of us. Deb reached in and pulled out a name: she’d go first.

Ted limped off the mat and Deb took her first shot.

“Trip had his first sleepover at a friend’s house when he was eight. In the middle of the night he got scared and started crying and his friend’s mother had to get up and drive him home.”

Ted waved his hands encouraging the audience and said, “Boooo!” The crowd got the idea, and they all booed me as well. This hadn’t been part of the contest! It made it much worse! I hadn’t realized how hurtful it was to be booed by a crowd, but it did hurt, even if the boos were coerced and not authentic. I couldn’t help myself, feeling it. I looked down, trying not to show anything. But I had to pull myself together; it was my turn.

“When Deb was six, she wanted to be just like her brothers and decided to pee standing up like we did. Except it didn’t work very well, her pee was hitting mostly the floor rather than the toilet, and she got excited and moved around, ending up spraying all over the bathroom.”

The boos were stifled this time because everyone was laughing so hard. How Deb managed not to blush, I didn’t know.

Her turn. “Okay. Uh, there aren’t any adults in here, are there? Oh yeah, Stuart. Could you step outside for a moment. This isn’t for adult ears.”

I knew what she was going to say. I’d vetoed it, and she’d laughed at me. But I could handle it, and maybe even get some empathy from the crowd.

When Stuart was gone, she looked at me, grinned, and said, “When Trip was just learning how to jerk off, he wasn’t getting the hang of it. He was frustrated and I took pity on him and showed him how. He was so happy he thanked me afterward and offered to help me. No way!”

The crowd roared. They loved this. I wanted to hide in the corner but had to stand up straight and take it like a man. When the crowd finally had stopped snickering and looking at me with their eyes full of, well, something probably involving sex, I had to stand up straight, look invincible, and throw one back at Deb.

“When Deb was seven, she got a neighbor boy to play doctors with her. They both got undressed for their exams. The boy looked at her and said, “Hey, you got a part missing. You don’t have a pee-pee!” Then he laughed at her, pulled up his pants and ran away, and Deb just stood there and started crying.”

Deb looked like that didn’t faze her at all. She just went ahead with her next one. It sure had bothered her last night. But now? Nothing showed at all.

“Four years ago, when they were giving COVID shots in school, Trip faked being sick so he could miss that day. Why? Because at 10, he still cried every time he got a shot.”

More boos. They were good-natured, I could tell that, but it was still a mass of boos. The crowd was much more behind her than me. Her zingers were better than mine. I didn’t have much practice at teasing or criticizing other people, so I’d not done a good job coming up with mine. Not my forte. I hoped my next one would resonate but guessed it probably wouldn’t.

“Last year, when the family went camping, Ted caught a small garter snake and put it in Deb’s sleeping bag. Deb is terrified of snakes. She got in her bag, screamed, jumped out and ran out of the tent. She totally forgot she was naked; she always sleeps naked, and everyone in the campground, hearing the shrieks came out to see what was what. They got an eyeful all right!”

There were more laughs. How come I got booed and she got laughter? Anyway, it was time for the last one, the whispered one that if we didn’t want said, we had to quit.

She spoke in my ear first. She whispered, “I’m going to tell them that you’re gay and have a crush on Charlie.” Then she backed off and smirked at me.

I shook my head, which was a bad thing to do because what she said left me light-headed. And sort of sick. I even had trouble murmuring in her ear, “I’ll tell them that you have breast asymmetry and use a padded bra so no one will know.”

She took a step back and looked at me with an expression I’d never seen her have before. Kinda the one I was looking at her with. Awe was in there somewhere, and the question: ‘do I know him at all?’

Up to her now. I wasn’t saying a word. I watched, waited, and then she said, “I’m out! You win.”

Ted stepped forward and raised my arm and gave Deb a fake sad look. They’d competed at everything since they were five and he wasn’t about to give an inch now.

Of course, if it were important, they’d have each other’s back in an instant and fight for him/her to the death. But just everyday competitions? He could gloat, just as she would if he lost.

So, I was now officially The Toughest Kid in the 8th grade. I had to wear a pin for a week that said just that. It was silly, really, because in a real fight with hitting and kicking and hurting and pain, I might be the least-tough kid in any grade in our middle school.

I didn’t like wearing the pin, but it had been in the rules. I was a rule follower. But there was nothing against wearing two pins, and so that’s what I did. My second pin read; ‘And my sister’s tougher than I am.’

Deb asked me that evening when she wasn’t feeling quite as pissed as she was earlier, if I’d have actually said what I’d whispered.

I shook my head. “No, but I felt safe to threaten to.”

“Why? I could have said what I going to say.”

“No, you wouldn’t. That’s why I didn’t have to give up. You weren’t sure whether I’d say that about you, and I was one hundred percent sure that you’d never say that about me. There was no way you’d do that. You knew how much that would hurt me, and you just wouldn’t do that. You’d have been hurt, too, by that secret I had, but you’d have gotten over it quickly. Breast asymmetry in teens is very common. Probably half the girls in school share that. Most of you will grow out of it. But you outing me, and Charlie, as well? That would have been life-changing for me, maybe for him, too, and you knew that. I’m not nearly as outgoing as you and Ted. In my own way I’m a little shy. I don’t have a passel of friends like you do. But you know me as well as I know you. You know that about me. I was very safe, very sure you’d never announce that.”

- E P I L O G U E -

I had my first sleepover with Charlie a week later. Dad just smiled at me. Mom frowned, but I think it was for show. I think it’s in the parental rulebook that it’s normal not to want your kid to even think about sex till he is in his 40s. They both knew Charlie and I’d be having sex. Hell, everyone knew that, and don’t think my sibs weren’t overloading me with teasing. Some of their quips were quite original and funny.

Both parents had taken to Charlie just as I’d expected they would. He was simply a great kid, polite, friendly, self-effacing, self-confident and pure fun. He saw quickly that nothing was off-limits with my parents, nothing was embarrassing, saw how they grabbed life, all of it with both hands and loved it as it was, and Charlie fit into that perfectly.

The surprise for me was Smoot. Once Charlie and I were together, Smoot told me he’d be sleeping alone now, even though I only got sleepovers with Charlie about once every three weeks or a month; he wasn’t out to his parents, and more frequent sleepovers at my house might get them thinking. Smoot was old enough to get by on his own now, he told me, and if his mood soured, I’d still be there to talk him down. And he was less moody now. Charlie was part of that.

The two became great friends. Charlie was smart enough to be gentle with Smoot. And Smoot was eager to have another close friend other than me. Charlie was very popular at school, and by hanging with him, Smoot met more people and opened up. Slowly, tentatively, but he was doing it. He was learning to trust people and himself. Big, big change.

I know, 14 is a little old for sleepovers, but I’d never had any when I was younger, other than the one Deb so kindly announced to the world. I’d been looking after Smoot, and that had restricted me in many ways. Now, I had Charlie, and man, was that different.

We connected on so many levels. And I was ecstatic, knowing that in only a few minutes he’d be in my bed. Well, in the bed in one of the unoccupied rooms.

Even at the table, my sibs couldn’t stop teasing about what was about to happen that night. They kept it down enough to keep Mom from jumping all over them. The teasing was more subtle innuendo than bold statements, but I knew what they meant, and probably everyone else did, too. Dad kept changing the subject. Somehow, we got the meal eaten.

Then I yawned, Ted and Deb laughed, and I said it had been a long day and I guessed we should head up. It was 7:30! But I wasn’t waiting any longer.

I asked Charlie how he slept, and he said, “Soundly.” So I did what I had to do: I tackled him, we moved to the bed, and started kissing, something I’d never done. Nor had he.

We did a lot of things we’d never done that night. And a lot we’d never done remained undone. Saved for later. We were 14 and had all the time in the world.

Eighth grade had been wonderful for me. I’d proved myself in a couple of ways where I’d not been sure I had the stuff. I’d gotten a boyfriend after accepting I was gay. I’d helped Smoot long enough so that now he could do fine on his own. I was still tight with my two sibs. I didn’t know what high school would bring, but my attitude now was: bring it on!

THE END

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