Circle Of Friends - Scott

I don’t much care for professional football or basketball. It almost makes me puke just looking at these overpaid, whining, primadonna assholes who are always getting into trouble and then skating out of it with out so much as a slap on the wrist. Most of these guys have been that way since high school where their indiscretions, committed both on and off campus, would have gotten anyone else a severe reprimand or suspension, but being crucial to the game they always skated and no teacher had the balls to flunk out a kid who’s picture would be in the next day’s paper for having made the critical goal. College was the same way, and perhaps the only defense these guys have for breaking the law is that English is a second language to them and they don’t know right from wrong because they can’t even read the rulebook.

I was on both the swimming and track teams in high school, but back then they weren’t considered to be real sports. Football, basketball, and baseball were the only real sports, although wrestling was also considered to be a manly pursuit. Title Nine, which granted equal funding to women’s activities, was years in the future and the newspapers only published scores and statistics on the big three sports events.

I quickly developed a general dislike for the arrogant teenage pricks who were the superstars of these sports, although it may have been that I was just jealous of the ease with which they got dates with the hottest chicks in the school. They would strut around the hallways acting like they were really something special and they always went to the head of the line in the cafeteria. Juniors and seniors were all bad that way but the football and basketball jocks were worse. What made it especially bad was that I was an insignificant, scrawny little freshman who was fair game anyway, and I resented the hell out of having to kiss their asses.

Scott was different. He was not only the best football and basketball player in the school but he was also a genuine nice guy. He was tall, and obviously strong, but he didn’t push his weight around like so many of his teammates and he wasn’t embarrassed to be seen talking to a nobody freshman like me.

I was walking home in the rain a week after school had started when he stopped to offer me a ride. He had a pretty neat ’56 Chevy that was the envy of most of the guys in the school and I felt honored to even be given a ride in it.

“So, how’s it going?” He asked, being friendly even though I’m sure he didn’t even know my name.

“Uh, okay I guess,” I replied, meekly. “I just live up the road a ways, over on Andrews, you can drop me at the Safeway if you like.”

“That’s okay, I’ll take you all the way home. No use getting any wetter than you already are.” He said, looking over at my textbooks. “Who do you have for Algebra, Redding or Hoover?”

“Hoover.” I replied.

“Tough luck. I had him and just about flunked it. I didn’t understand much of what he was saying. Everyone says that Redding is a lot easier.”

“Yeah, that’s the way it is with me. I don’t know if I can hack it or not.” I admitted.

“You might want to try and get a transfer into Mr. Redding’s class,” he suggested. “It won’t hurt to try, and maybe they’ll let you shift.”

I thanked him profoundly when he dropped me off and the next day I took his advise. The improvement was immediate, and for the first time that fall I felt like I could make it. Mrs. Hoover was brilliant at math, but she wasn’t a very good teacher. The really sharp kids did okay in her class but the rest of us were better off with Mr. Redding. He didn’t know as much as Mrs. Hoover but he was a hell of a lot better at teaching what he did know.

A couple of weeks later during PE class I was talking to a couple of girls when Vern, a kid I didn’t even know then, came up behind me, hooked his thumbs in the waistband of my shorts, and yanked both them and my jockstrap down around my knees. The girls didn’t scream, they just giggled as I frantically turned away and tried to get them pulled back up, while my face turned as red as a beet.

I took off after Vern and was in the process of pounding on him when the PE teacher saw us.

“Both of you guys!” He was pissed. “In my office after class! Now get your butts back out there!”

“Okay tough guys, I don’t know the whole story and I don’t want to know it,” he lectured us after class, “but you both know the rules about fighting. Whatever the problem was it’s over with now, so just shake hands with each other and get your butts back in here after school. You each get to run ten laps as punishment.”

I shook hands with Vern, who had the biggest set of balls I had ever seen, and finally had to admit that what he did, while humiliating, was at least a little bit funny. We both went to the locker room after school, dressed down, and headed for the track. Ten laps, or two and a half miles, wasn’t even a decent workout for me but Vern wasn’t used to running and he started struggling after one lap. The PE teacher and the track coach were both timing my laps as I ran around the track.

He made me do two more in addition to the proscribed ten, and then told me to hit the showers while he watched Vern paddle along for another half hour. There were half a dozen guys in the locker room when I got there, all junior and senior football players just about to start practice.

“Haul ass, dweeb,” one of them commanded. “This is a private party.”

I sure as well wasn’t going to leave without my clothes, and I wasn’t about to go home without cleaning up, so I went to the far corner, stripped down and headed for the shower room.

“What do you think we should to do about a freshman who doesn’t listen very well?” One of them asked as I walked by him. He was a senior with a huge and hairy body that was in marked contrast to my own diminutive fourteen-year-old physique.

“Greasing his balls ought to do it!” Another gorilla suggested.

“Yeah, let’s give him a lube job!” The motion was seconded.

My ass was grass! I’d heard some sophomores talking about getting lubed. The locker room had a large tub of thick, greasy antiseptic astringent that was used to protect scrapes and abrasions against becoming infected. It was kept on a shelf in the dressing room along with a jar full of applicator sticks and was self-applied by the athletes as required. It was formulated to be waterproof and once applied it hardened into a crust to further protect the wound. It could be removed with alcohol or another solvent or peeled off, but soap and water wouldn’t touch it.

The victim was held down and the goop was slathered on his cock, balls, and into the crack of his ass. He was then released to remove it as he saw fit. There wasn’t any solvent or alcohol at the school, so by the time the victim got home he had no choice but to peel it off, which took most of the hair with it. Gasoline or some other solvent could be used but that was just about as hard on the genitals and tender skin as peeling it off was.

Four of them had me pinned down after a brief but futile struggle, and with one guy posted at the door as a guard another put a plastic sandwich bag on his hand and reached into the jar and pulled out a big glob of the stuff.

“The end of his cock’s going to light up like Rudolf’s nose when that stuff hits it,” one of the sadists commented. Playing football not only builds character but also keeps kids out of trouble, or so I am told.

“That way it’ll match his asshole,” another agreed.

Despite my struggles the four strong youths managed to get my legs spread and pulled up over my head. The other one was about two inches from my balls with the stinky grease.

“Rub it in real good.” One of my captives suggested.

“Shit!” The guard at the door announced. “Someone’s coming! Fuck, it’s Scott!”

The four guys quickly released me and the other one threw the grease in the trashcan as Scott entered the room. I was so happy to see him that I could have given him a kiss. Anywhere. My attackers knew that Scott wouldn’t tolerate any bullshit like that when he was around, and although he wouldn’t necessarily rat on them he was certainly capable of kicking their asses and wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

I managed to avoid getting caught alone again in the locker room and Scott went on to lead the team to a league championship, the first in over fifteen years for the school. Several college scouts viewed the last game of the season and Scott was assured of a full ride at just about any school he chose.

Basketball was the next major sport in the lineup, and again Scott lead the team to the conference finals. The other team in contention was our cross-town rival, Jefferson. Jefferson had won the basketball championship eight out of the last ten years, and had defeated Union every game for the last twenty, so the final game of the season was going to be a hotly contested battle.

Six men wearing hoods assaulted Scott a week before the crucial game. He put up a valiant struggle but was finally subdued and was summarily stripped naked and forced to the ground. His attackers then took one of Scott’s shoelaces and tied it tightly around his balls before bending one leg back and securing the other end on the lace to his ankle.

“He won’t be so fucking hot in the big game with his nuts crushed, will he?” One of his attackers said with a youthful voice. Four tall youths held him to the ground while another boy, wearing heavy boots, launched himself into the air and landed solidly on Scott’s outstretched………..Knee, which dislocated with an audible pop.

“That’ll fix the asshole,” one of the assailants ventured.

“We should do his balls too. The fucker’s probably queer anyway.”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here before anyone shows up!”

“Are we going to just leave him like that? All tied up, I mean?”

“Fuck yes!” The leader exclaimed. “He can untie himself and holler for help as soon as he comes to. Let’s haul ass!”

The doctors repaired Scott’s rupture and did a remarkable job with his torn-up knee, and he would eventually regain most of his range of motion. The doctors were proud of their efforts and thought they had done an excellent job, but Scott was dejected; ninety-four percent is good, but not good enough for college ball let alone the Pros.

That was in the future, however, and the immediate problem was the upcoming civil war game. That was about the time that the old team spirit kicked in. The chief of police had pledged to uphold the law, but he was also a Union graduate and one of the staunchest members of the alumnae booster club. His discreet investigations revealed that a couple of Jefferson seniors had been bragging about how they had ‘personally guaranteed that Jefferson would win the big game’.

Two days before the big game five tall young men found themselves locked into a small cage in an unused warehouse somewhere in the city.

“An eye for an eye, gentleman.” A masked man whose voice was vaguely familiar lectured them. “You have ruined the future for a very promising young athlete, and now it’s payback time. I could just take you all out and shoot you, or perhaps I could turn you over to the law. That would, of course, knock you all out of the big game, so instead I’m offering an alternative. You are all guilty, but I will accept punishment from only one, and you must decide among yourselves who that will be. The others will be free to play in the big game.”

The only reason that I know this is because a guy who had been watching at a window told me about it years afterwards. The next thing he saw was the police chief pass a small package and a lidless jar into the cell.

“I’ll be back four hours from now and I want one set of balls, including the bag, in the jar. There are first aid supplies in the package and I’m sure at least one of you is smart enough to use them. If you haven’t done it by then I’ll have no other choice but to pick two of you myself. You’ll have no chance of winning the game with two players missing, so do the right thing boys and the rest of you will live happily ever after.”

A happier ending would have put Union victorious in the biggest game of the year, but that was not to be. They were essentially a one-man basketball team and without Scott they fizzled, even with one of Jefferson’s best players in the hospital with an unspecified injury.

Author’s note: The ‘lube job’, exactly as described, was commonly inflicted on smaller or weaker underclassmen in the unsupervised locker rooms of the 1960’s. Cross-town rivalries have always been intense and many pre-game fights result in disabled players.