Chopper

I remember that day, a hot August Sunday in 1958, as if it happened yesterday. It is forever burned into my memory-can be replayed in my mind as if it were on video tape. When I close my eyes, I can feel the heat of the summer sun, feel the hot, black earth of Bailey, Texas, beneath my bare feet. I was twelve years-old.

Being twelve should be a magical time for a boy. His body is changing; puberty is beginning to change him into a man, but he still retains his boyish appearance, hasn’t yet become obsessed with girls. It’s a between time-between elementary school and junior high, between being a boy and becoming a man. In some ways, because of what happened that day, I’ll always be twelve.

I was spending the summer with my grandmother and my step-grandfather on their farm outside of Bailey, Texas, which is about fifty miles northeast of Dallas. Bailey wasn’t much of a town. I had come to Bailey from my home town of Gilmer, Texas, a thriving metropolis of 5000. Gilmer put Bailey to shame. Bailey had a Baptist Church, a feed store, and a general store, which had a gas pump. We had to drive to Bonham, if we wanted to go to a movie, or do any serious shopping.

A dirt road from Bailey ran in front of the farm, black dirt which turned to thick mud whenever it rained. My grandpa (my mother’s father had died when she was ten) had a tank installed that collected rain water, which ran off the roof of the house. The tank was connected to a faucet at the kitchen sink. There was no other indoor plumbing. A well approximately twenty feet from the back door of the house provided drinking water. The outhouse was out by the barn. I had to take my baths in a wash tub on the screened-in back porch.

Although I had visited my grandmother many times, it had always been in the company of my mother. That summer, she and my father were in the middle of a messy divorce; they had shipped me off to my grandmother’s to get me out of the way.

I already knew some of the boys that lived on nearby farms. Tommy Crowley, also twelve, lived on the farm to the south of my grandpa’s farm. Zack and Cotton Vaughn were the grandson’s of my step-grandfather. They lived in the house north of ours. Their father farmed my grandpa’s land. Zack was thirteen. Cotton was twelve.

The other boys, having been raised on farms-the principal crops were cotton and corn-had chores each day. I fed my grandma’s chickens, but didn’t have much else to do, so I played around the barn until they finished their chores. Then we would get together, to seek some new adventure.

It was hot that summer. The temperature had exceeded 100 degrees, Fahrenheit, each day for six weeks. The creek had dried to a trickle. The livestock ponds were covered with green scum. About a mile away, old man Schneider had a lake on his farm, which was ideal for swimming, but he had “no trespassing” signs on all his fences. He would set his dogs on us any time he found us on his land.

Sunday was the only day of the week when we could safely swim in his lake. Schneider and his family were German and Lutheran. The only Lutheran church was in Greenville, which was about 35 miles away. They always spent most their Sundays in Greenville, either at church functions, or visiting with their German friends. No one in Bailey cared much for them, nor they, for the people of Bailey. Schneider had lived in Bailey for more than thirty years, but he spoke English poorly. His children were grown-had moved elsewhere to live. He and his wife lived on the farm with two dogs, Chopper and Topper, and a hired hand. If the hired hand was on the farm on Sunday, he was usually drunk; the dogs were tied up.

It was a beautiful little lake, about 150 yards long, 50 to 75 yards wide. There was an old oak tree at one end that hung out over the lake. One of Schneider’s kids must have fixed a rope swing to a limb of the tree because there was still a knotted rope hanging from it, and a platform built across some of the limbs. The lake was located in a pasture next to a large watermelon patch. To get to it from the road, we had to cross Schneider’s fence at the road, walk through a corn field, the watermelon patch, and then cross another fence to the pasture. It was less than 20 yards from the pasture fence to the lake. The lake couldn’t be seen from the road, or from Schneider’s house.

By that fateful day in August, I had been in Bailey for two months. Tommy, Zack, Cotton, and I had spent every Sunday swimming in the lake. We would always go skinny dipping. We were boys; we were twelve; we had no need for swim suits.

We were all into puberty, although the hair above Tommy’s cock was only beginning to get thick. The other boys had introduced me to jerking off. I had never done it before that summer. Sometimes we would have a contest at the lake to see who could shoot his wad first. Zack would always win. Although his cum would shoot almost over his head, mine would shoot no more than a few inches from my cock.

On the previous Sunday we had discovered that the watermelons were ripe. We had eaten one, then had decided to carry some to the tree, where, after hauling them up to the platform, we had thrown them to the rocks below. We had smashed over twenty watermelons on the rocks. It had been great fun, and, was, in some small way, revenge on Schneider for keeping us out of his lake the other days of the week. We returned to the lake the next Sunday.

We swam, jumped off the platform into the lake, and swung from the rope into the water. After our usual circle jerk game-Zack won, of course-we ate a watermelon. Evidence of our youthful indiscretion of the previous week remained on the rocks, invoking the memory of watermelons exploding, of the smooth green watermelons being transformed into jagged pieces of red. We couldn’t-didn’t try to-resist smashing some more.

We had gone back to the patch after carrying one load to the foot of the tree. The other boys were already headed back with their watermelons, but I was looking for a good one to smash. We were naked. When I heard a dog bark, I looked up. Schneider and his two dogs had cleared the edge of the cornfield-had come into view. They were about 100 yards away. I saw Schneider raise his arm, point in our direction. The dogs immediately began running toward us. I yelled at the others.

“It’s Schneider. He’s got the dogs.”

The other boys were already at the fence, but I was, at least, 20 yards away. They scrambled through the fence, ran to the tree. Our clothes were on the platform in the tree.

I ran for the fence, dove under the bottom wire. After gaining my feet, I glanced back. The dogs were gaining fast. Chopper, a large pit bull, was in the lead. My friends were yelling, “Hurry, hurry...run.”

When I jumped for one of the lower limbs, Chopper was right behind me. As I jumped, I pulled up my legs to get them out of his reach, but that left my balls dangling from my ass. They were too tempting a target for Chopper. His jaws closed upon the base of my scrotum. I screamed, let go of the limb, but my friends had already grabbed hold of my arms to pull me onto the platform. As they pulled me up, Chopper fell to the ground, his jaws locked on my scrotum-my balls in his mouth. Something had to give...it was my balls. They, scrotum and all, were torn from my body. Chopper landed on his back with my balls in his mouth. Chopper and Topper were fighting over them when Schneider arrived.

The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital; I must have fainted. I was in surgery for several hours while the doctor did his best to repair the damage done to the cords-to stop the bleeding.

Shortly after I awoke from the surgery, my mom and dad arrived. I thought for a while that their concern for me would get them back together, but there had been too much hurt; my dad had been cheating on my mom. They divorced; I returned to Gilmer to live with my mom.

We sued Schneider; he had to sell his farm. I got enough money to go to college, and to buy a nice car while I was there, but I would have rather kept my balls. In many ways, losing them froze me in time. Often I feel as if I’m yet...that twelve year-old boy.