I read in the Spokane paper the other day where Steven S., age 29, got busted for something or other and was released on bail. That got me to wondering if here was related to the kid we all called Stevie Shithead that went through Highland Elementary so many years ago. His real name wasn’t Shithead, of course, but rather was a Slavic name that was all but unpronounceable to western tongues. It had a bunch of S’s and C’s and Z’s and no vowels except for twoY’s, and anyway you looked at it the nearest sound that you could make out of all those letters was simply Shithead, and like Shel Silverstein’s Boy Named Sue he was born into a world of trouble.

The guy in the paper must have been a cousin or something. It would have been impossible for the boy I knew to have fathered a son, and even if he had adopted one I doubt that he would have saddled a kid with the same name that caused him to lose his balls. If I remember right the family moved away right after Stevie got castrated and there hadn’t been anything else about him the papers. I finally got up and rummaged around through my old crap and found the class pictures from those years.

There wasn’t anything remarkable about Stevie’s appearance; he was just another elementary school boy. His fifth grade picture revealed a happy, smiling boy maybe a little smaller than his peers, but by the eighth grade he had matured into a typical teenager with a sullen, almost leering expression and a right hand with a middle finger slightly extended to flip the camera a very subtle bird, which was all the rage for class pictures in those years. I couldn’t recall anything physically special about the boy. I had seen all of the kids naked in the locker rooms during those years, and quite a few of them naked participating in unauthorized activities as well, but this kid had not seemed any different than the hundreds of other prepubescent little guys or strutting adolescents that I had recalled from my years as a custodian at Highland.

I considered Stevie to be a good kid. From my point of view there are three categories of kids. Good kids, Okay kids, and Rotten Little Bastards. Most of the fifth and sixth graders were good kids. They were polite and picked up their own litter. By the time they got into the seventh and eighth grade most of them were downgraded to being just okay. They would occasionally make fun of my missing arm or glass eye and were a little casual about using the litter baskets for their candy wrappers. A few turned into the rotten little bastards who wrote on the restroom walls, kicked holes in the plaster, and carved their names into the desks. As far as I’m concerned there is a special place in hell for them.

Stevie had probably been referred to as Shithead for most of his life, so by the time he got to the eighth grade I would have thought that he would have simply ignored the nickname, but something happened during lunch one day to make me realize that it was still a sore subject with him.

“Hey, Shithead, you going to drink your milk?” Paul asked him, “If not, how about giving it to me.

I was standing by the end of the serving counter at the time, but I still heard it all clearly. The Kamikaze that cost me may arm and eye, and also one nut, hadn’t affected my hearing at all. It was and still is extremely good.

“ Bite me, Buttfuck,” Stevie answered with uncharacteristic profanity. “I told you to never call me that again.

“So what are you going to do about it, Shithead?” Paul challenged.

“I’m going to make the next person that calls me that suck my cock.” Stevie wasn’t smiling now.

“How are you going to do that?” Paul inquired. “ There’s no way in hell that I’d ever suck a guy’s dick.”

“It’s all a matter of how you ask,” Stevie answered.

“Yeah? Well I think you’re full of shit, Shithead,” Paul replied.

“Okay, asshole. Met me in the alleyway at five-thirty, unless you’re chicken. One-arm and the teachers leave at five,” he said, pointing at me, “and the night janitors don’t show up until seven. You’ll be begging for it before then.”

Paul was suddenly a little less cocky than he had been a few minutes ago, but he had been fairly and properly challenged to a duel and now there was no way he could back down without ruining his reputation. Besides, whatever the outcome of the fight he wouldn’t have to suck Stevie’s dick. He’d heard rumors that a certain girl might do it but guys simply didn’t do that to each other. The worst that could happen would be that he’d get his ass kicked, but that would be the end of hostilities and he and Stevie could go back to being friends.

“You’re on, Shithead,” Paul said, accepting the dare.

The alleyway was a favorite place for students to settle their differences. It had a dogleg leading to a dead end that can’t be seen unless you just happen to know a rather secret spot, as I do. The kids usually post a lookout at the open end and then go ahead with whatever mischief they have planned. I have witnessed several dozen fights take place there, and also some rather bizarre contests, and even a few copulations, both straight and gay over the years. I have personally cleaned up hundreds of cigarette butts, a lesser number of condoms, and later on even the residue of hard drug usage. I could have walked in and broke up those shenanigans but I had a hands-off policy on things that weren’t any of my business. I never liked to miss a good fight though, so I was secreted away in my hiding place when the kids showed up.

Stevie showed up first, accompanied by another boy, and they passed the time pitching pennies at a chalk line. Paul arrived at the last minute in company of two of his buddies. They ground rules for the duel were quickly established; all is fair, no help from the spectators.

“Last chance, Paul, take it back,” Stevie said while stripping off his tee shit. He was willing accept an apology and let the incident slide.

“Shithead.” Paul’s one-word answer sealed it, and he also removed his shirt. A bloody nose or a black eye was expected and could be explained, but a torn shirt could spark a parental inquiry. Paul then balanced himself on the balls of his feet and clenched his fists, awaiting the charge that was sure to come.

Stevie ignored his opponent and continued undressing until he was wearing only his jockey shorts. He then started in on a series of shadowboxing exercises obviously designed to intimidate the other boy. Paul hesitated for a moment, as if unsure about this new development, before shedding his own pants. The boys now faced each other as equals, the only difference being that Paul retained his tennis shoes in addition to his baggy skivvies. At this stage I didn’t have a clue which boy would win. Both were slight of build; smooth hairless chests and bellies devoid of the heavy muscles of older teens, both still beardless with only leg and pit hair announcing their approach to manhood.

The fight lasted less than a minute before Paul was pinned to the ground, immobilized, both arms twisted around behind his back and his face pushed into the hard ground. Stevie held him that way for a full minute before suddenly releasing one of the boy’s arms. Before Paul could react Stevie abruptly yanked down Paul’s skivvies and thrust a hand between the boy’s legs and grabbed him by the balls.

“What do you want to do to me?” Stevie questioned his captive, who responded in an unintelligible groan.

“I didn’t hear you,” Stevie announced. I could plainly see the sinews and veins on his wrist bulge slightly as he tightened his grip. This time the reply was a little higher in pitch, but still garbled.

“You want me to crack your nuts?” Stevie asked, increasing the pressure.

“DON”T!” This time the answer was clear.

“You want to suck my cock?” Stevie accented this question with a flick of his wrist, causing his captive to suddenly convulse.

“I take it back! I’m sorry!” This answer was also clear.

“That’s not what I asked,” Stevie reminded him, again using slight pressure to make sure that he was heard. No immediate answer was forthcoming so Stevie gave the contents of his hand a series of pumps, as if priming an outboard motor or inflating a blood pressure cuff. “I’ll bet that hurts, huh?”

They say that if you’ve got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow, and it took less than thirty seconds for Paul’s mind to follow.

“Okay.” The answer was faint, but clear.

“Okay what?” Stevie wasn’t going to let it go quite that easily.

“Okay, I’ll, uh, suck your dick,” Paul meekly announced.

“Say please. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” Another flick of Stevie’s wrist.

“Please let me suck you.” Paul was getting desperate. He must have been aware that he was absolutely powerless and that this could go on all night.

Stevie had made his point, and that should have been the end of it but instead he commanded Paul to spread his arms and legs, and when the other boy complied Stevie reversed his grip, now holding Paul’s scrotum from the front, and ordered him to roll over onto his back. Stevie then maneuvered himself astraddle of Paul’s chest, kneeling on the boy’s arms, right arm behind in firm control of the situation, hand tightly clenched around Paul’s testicles. Stevie then opened the fly on his shorts with his left hand and pulled out his dick and scooted up to where it was just inches from Paul’s mouth. Both boys were about the same; three and a half or four inch long flaccid cocks, both circumcised, and both with dark curly pubic hair adorning their groins. The fact that he wasn’t erect told me that Stevie was a virgin. Any guy who has ever had a blowjob will instinctively get it up at the prospect of getting another one regardless of the sex of the giver.

“Do it, and if you bite me I’ll twist them off.” Stevie commanded, and gave Paul another squeeze that left no doubt about the threat being real.

Paul hesitated long enough to have to endure yet another squeeze before closing his eyes, opening his mouth wide, and taking his adversary’s cock into it.

Stevie immediately released his grip on Paul and jumped to his feet, still flaccid. I was relieved in a way to see that he wasn’t a queer and that this was about humiliation and not sexual gratification. He could easily have made Paul suck him off and swallow it if that had been his intent.

“Anyone else?” He asked the other boys, with his dick still hanging out. “My name is Stevie, got it?”

The school year ended without anyone calling him Shithead again, at least not to his face. He had indeed proved his point. He would be in high school next year and subject to a whole new hierarchy, but for the present he had won the respect of his classmates.

I still thought he was a good kid, and it wasn’t until he was in high school that I started learning otherwise. I got word from the custodial staff at the high school that he was a little bit of a problem. Nothing really major like vandalism or hard drug usage, just a penchant for getting into trouble. That in itself wasn’t surprising; most kids change a great deal during adolescence, but Stevie went from a pretty descent kid to being a real asshole. He didn’t participate in sports but he did work out regularly and he was strong as a bull. The slightest insult, either real or imagined, would result in someone taking a pounding and at least two other boys had the humbling experience of being forced to taste his cock, although according to the custodian that witnessed the fights they didn’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice and bring him to orgasm and swallow his seed. He was even rumored to have beaten up at least one adult who had made the grievous error of mispronouncing his name, and by the end of his sophomore year few people would have anything to do with the angry young man.

Stevie lost his ability to reproduce as well as most of his aggressiveness during his senior year. Joe R., a mouthy little freshman who was probably the class clown, had picked up a homework assignment that Stevie had dropped.

“Hey, is your name Shithead?” Joe said after reading the name. “You dropped this.” His transgression was worsened by the fact that he practically yelled it out, causing the girl Stevie had been talking to and most of the kids to out laughing.

Stevie didn’t blow up right there, instead he let his anger simmer for a couple of days before catching up with Joe. The diminutive little fart was talking to a couple of his buddies near an unlocked storage room when Stevie herded them all inside and proceeded to make Joe suck his cock. This time, according to my buddy Ralph, who was watching, Stevie went all the way and also made the younger boy swallow it. He then punched the hapless kid in the nuts hard enough to make him puke it all back up.

Unfortunately Stevie didn’t know that Joe had four older and much larger siblings, and that they would take offence to his treatment of their younger brother. They caught Stevie alone the night before graduation and stripped him down, stuffed his skivvies in his mouth, and held him spread-eagle on the fifty yard line of the football field. Ralph was cleaning the press box on top of the grandstands that night and used a pair of binoculars to watch. He testified at the ensuing trial that Joe took a pair of small scissors and completely cut away Stevie’s entire scrotal sac before methodically severing each testicle, apparently following instructions being dictated to him by his eldest brother, a Viet Nam vet who was generally regarded as being psycho.

Joe was a minor and pretty much skated while the oldest brother took the rap. I never like the older boy anyway; quite honestly he scared the shit out of me. I felt kind of sorry for Stevie, though. I know from experience that its bad losing one nut, and losing both of them just because of a stupid family name must have been a real bummer for the boy.