A ‘Brief’ History of Timmy, Part III

I had a love affair with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Every child has to have SOMETHING to latch onto in their childhood. Wendi has told me that it was actually her former friend Beth who spawned my interest in them. I had a TMNT shirt that I would wear every Friday. Why? That’s when the school served pizza. Sure, it’s grade school cafeteria pizza, but it’s still pizza. I remember the french bread pizza being very good. I had action figures up the wazoo. I remember sitting in my room running out these elaborate scenarios. (A hint of things to come? Ha ha.) In addition to action figures, I had lots of stuffed animals. I guess you could say I’ve always had an active imagination. I didn’t need friends, or an imaginary friend. I had me. And I was happy with that. I never, ever craved friendship, even when Wendi taunted me.

Wendi was the social one. (In a limited sense. We’re both losers. *laughs*) Wendi was the bad-ass. Wendi got into trouble. Wendi didn’t have good grades. Which made it extremely easy for me to please my parents. When Wendi was a freshman in High School, I was a mere 5th grader. (Our age difference was such that we never EVER saw each other in school. I’m so glad for that.) I was in fifth grade, still into Ninja Turtles and video games and hanging out with myself. Wendi? She was smoking. She was going to parties just to smuggle out alcohol. *laughs* Or so she’s said. She was threatening suicide and otherwise giving my parents hell. She didn’t think much of me, yet. I was just her dorky little brother who annoyed her. Oh yes, whenever she brought friends over, I had to tag along. I was a pest, but relatively harmless.

5th grade passed, and it was time to move on to… MIDDLE SCHOOl. More specially, Chester M. Stephens Mount Olive Middle School. (CMSMOMS) Thank you, Mount Olive. Of course, Mount Olive doesn’t really exist. Flanders exists. Budd Lake exists. Hackettstown exists. MOUNT OLIVE DOES NOT EXIST. Only in the minds of taxpayers does it exist.

By now, the era of the ‘fro’ had begun. I had gotten the idea to start combing my hair back, the little rebel me. As it grew… it started poofing out, and made me look EXTREMELY androgynous. I remember in 7th grade when someone asked me if I was a boy or a girl. Really, it was that hard to tell. I used to hide pencils in my hair and forget I put them there. Simply because I could.

I remember my first day of 6th grade. I went into the wrong classroom. Both classes were Social Studies, so I didn’t know the difference. Eventually, I realized, “Wait, something’s wrong here.” I went back to my homeroom and had that teacher help me find my real classroom. I still remember Mr. Ginsberg telling me, “Let’s start over after today.” Mr. Ginsberg. He was a cool teacher, the type of teacher that gets you interested in material. Can’t remember for the life of me everything we learned, but I can still hear him going, “Now wait a minute, Mr. Ginsberg!” I had Mrs. Ciresa for Science. Princess would later claim that we were in the same class, but I do NOT remember this at all.

(My love of nicknaming my friends hadn’t begun yet, just so you know.)

Things changed. Early in 6th grade, I got glasses. I always thought I’d have perfect eyes forever. Not to be. I was still pretty much happy, but it felt like people were picking on me. Nothing constant, nothing routine. Just randomness. In 7th grade, someone tripped me. I heard someone say, “Have a nice trip!” I don’t forget these things. I remember someone leaving a note in my locker. Brief, but a note. Something about someone in 8th grade liking me? I thought it was a trick, so I disregarded it. I had no interest in girls at the time, anyway.

I also had no sexual knowledge, either. If you had asked me what sexual intercourse was, I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer. I thought a dildo was another name for a penis. “I have a dildo.” “Do you use it?” I had no idea what they were laughing about.

I .. was a boy scout. *shudders* It had it’s moments. I didn’t give a shit about learning stuff, I just wanted to have fun. Summer trips had their moments. Like the one summer after 6th grade. I remember… Someone asked if everybody masturbated. Going along with the trend, I said yes. I didn’t know what the word meant, nor had I even begun masturbating. I remember, the summer after 7th grade, a bunch of us got in a communal shower and um got naked. *laughs* Scott asked if he could pee. We approved. He peed… while rotating in a circle. You just don’t forget things like that.

I remember playing this Apple II game called “Aquatron” in homeroom, 7th grade. Standard shoot`em-up game. I got a high score on that game. Sometimes, I went to the bottom of the screen to outrun everybody. Worked. Then I’d fly back above water and .. kick the shit out of everything. As with all games, the trick was to avoid enemy fire. Just maneuver around everything being fired at you, and otherwise fire at will. Weee.

March of 7th grade was when I discovered my penis. I think I was listening to the Devils on the radio. I was screwing around with this plastic hollow rectangular thing and thought, “Hmm. My wiener could fit in there.” It did. I started rubbing and thought, “That feels good. I should keep doing that.” I kept doing it until I felt that first jolt of orgasm. I froze. “What the fuck was that?” Remember, I didn’t know much about sexuality. I didn’t know what an orgasm was. I just knew it felt good. So. For many evenings to come, I’d sit with my legs off my bed, legs spread, and lather lotion to my nether region and pleasure myself. I quickly discovered the refractory period, much to my dismay. I remember my first attempts at masturbation to be rather… Well. It took at least two years for me to get it right. Maybe another year after that to be able to orgasm on command. Beats me how any girl can learn to give handjobs.

It was in 7th grade that I met Chris Scott. He gets mentioned for a single reason: He’s the guy that told me to part my hair down the middle. For some reason, I the thought never occurred to me. So. I went home and parted it down the middle. And. “Wow. It looks better.” The era of the fro was over. And the era of long hair had begun. My hair was still rather poofy, but I didn’t know how to deal with it. Okay, I did have one way: I started getting it shaved underneath. Thanks, Mom. Wendi DID actually suggest to me that I part it down the middle, earlier, but I never took that suggestion seriously.

Somewhere along the line, Wendi and I started being more friendly towards each other. Not nearly to the way we are now, but a start. I’ve heard that Mom told Wendi that “Someday, he’ll be stronger than you.” Or, I don’t know, maybe Wendi took pity upon me. Maybe she saw a naive boy and wondered how I’d make it through High School. I don’t really know.

8th grade was when I met Justin Silva, who single-handedly taught me the art of being annoying. He annoyed me. He annoyed EVERYBODY. He was a pervert, something I wasn’t. I masturbated, but I didn’t connect it with sexuality. It was something I did in private, but otherwise didn’t think about.