Chapter 22 Lockers
Lockers
Inside the men’s locker room, I flip a light switch. The fluorescents come on. One of them is running out of juice, so it flickers on and off.
There are rows and rows of long, dark green lockers. Most of them have combination locks on them. And we discover that the ones without locks are completely empty, except for the occasional piece of trash or wadded up towel.
Our teeth and our bodies continue to rattle. Why does it still feel so damn cold?
“These locks look cheap as hell,” observes Oscar.
He spots a plastic yellow “CAUTION WET FLOOR” sign to his right. He grabs it and smashes one end of it repeatedly against a lock until it breaks open. He smirks. He obliterates two more locks. He’s stronger than I thought.
We open the three lockers. There aren’t any “regular” clothes in here. Just stuff like swim trunks, tank tops, and flip-flops. So they will have to do for now.
Oscar starts to strip off his clothes right in front of me. He’s not shy about it at all.
At school, my locker and his locker are in different rows, so I never see how he takes off his clothes. He’s way on the other side of the locker room with Victor and a bunch of other guys.
He’s so casual about it now, getting naked, like it’s no big deal. I guess it isn’t.
He removes his T-shirt. I’ve seen his nicely defined chest, his stomach, his abs, before, because it’s not unusual for guys at school to attend track practice with their shirts off when it’s really hot out.
And I’ve been in Oscar’s bedroom when he’s changing shirts.
But under this light, and with the drops of water clinging to his smooth, light-brown skin, I can’t seem to take my eyes off of him.
I’m fascinated by the contours of his arms, the shape his biceps and triceps make, his toned chest, his hard nipples, the trail of black hair that runs from the bottom of his belly button (innie) down into his wet jeans.
I snap out of it and take off my own shirt.
Oscar pulls down his jeans and underwear at the same time, and his thick cock just flops out, pointing to the floor beneath him. He’s uncircumcised, the head of his penis poking proudly out of the foreskin.
Oscar catches me looking at him. We make eye contact. We hold each other’s gaze. The expression on his face is blank. I don’t know if he’s mad, freaked out, confused, or . . . what?
He says to me, “What, bro?”
I immediately look away. One of my regular anxiety attacks begins to bubble up. An image flashes in my mind: Oscar making a fist and socking me in the jaw and proceeding to beat the shit out of me.
But he then says, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I trim my pubes and the hair on my balls. Victor makes fun of me about it all the time. Now you gonna tease me and shit too?”
I nervously say, “Uh, no, no, it’s fine.”
“Whatever, bro, Victor’s got a bush looking like an jungle. If that’s what Blanca wants now, it’s fine. But I’m telling you, dude, it’s better like this. Plus, if you got less pubes sticking out, it makes your dick look bigger.”
I have no idea how I allow this to come out of my mouth, but I all of a sudden blurt out, “Your cock’s already huge.”
Oscar furrows his brow in confusion. “What?”
I clear my throat. “Um, I trim too. I trim too.”
“Oh, never mind. I thought you said something else.”
Oscar turns away from me to face the locker in front of him. The motion is sudden, almost forceful.
I turn away too and continue to undress. I realize I’ve never been alone with another boy, this close, this naked, before. Thank God we’re both fresh out of a pool and so cold. I can feel my dick wanting to get erect, but it physically can’t right now. Praise Jesus.
With the wet clothes off of me, I finally start to feel warm.
Oscar grabs a towel and dries himself off. I do the same.
He slips on a pair of dark blue swim trunks and adjusts his dick inside them. He then puts on a tank top with some kind of beach scene printed on it. He slides into brown flip-flops. I put on the same kind of clothes too.
We both look like we’re ready for a day at the beach. How the hell are we going to be inconspicuous?
“The janitor probably locked the gate,” I say. “But there must be a side door or something that leads outside, like an emergency exit.”
We gather our wet clothes into our arms and start moving to the far end of the locker room.
“You use an electric shaver?” Oscar asks.
“Huh?”
“On your balls. You gotta use the right kind of blade attachment, or you can nick your sac, and that shit stings.”
“Oh,” I nod. “Yeah, I know.”
We approach a door that looks like the kind that opens from the inside (it has a bar you push), but can be locked on the outside. This probably will take us out of this sports complex.
But then I remember: “The laptop.”
Oscar nods.
A few seconds later, we’re walking by the swimming pool and moving to the garbage can by the back gate.
We look inside the garbage can. It’s completely empty.
“What the hell?” Oscar says.
“The janitor,” I say. “The janitor must’ve emptied it into his cart before leaving.”
“He couldn’t have gotten far,” says Oscar. “He’s an old man.”
I nod in agreement. We’ve got to get my brother’s laptop.
We rush back into the locker room and out the far door, which spills us outside onto campus.
Some students sit on the grass, talking with each other or studying alone. Some walk by, casually heading somewhere.
We see no signs of the janitor, no signs of anyone over the age of twenty-five.
“Where’d he go?” asks Oscar.
We keep looking all around us, attempting to will the janitor into existence, trying to make him magically appear out of thin air.
Then, like a prayer answered, I think I see the janitor, pushing his cart into another building. I start running.
“Where you going?” asks Oscar.
“I see him.”
Soon, both Oscar and I are inside the building. We see the janitor park his cart outside a classroom in the middle of the long hallway.
“I can just run and grab it,” says Oscar. “That old man ain’t gonna outrun me.”
“No. If he sees you, he’ll call the police or security or something, and they might send more than one cop after us this time.” I pull on Oscar’s arm to position us in the corner, near a drinking fountain. “Let’s just wait and watch a second. Observe his routine.”
The janitor unlocks the classroom door, extends just half of his body inside, grabs the small trash can by the door, pulls it out into the hall, and dumps the contents in the larger container on the cart. He puts the can back and locks up. He heads to the next classroom.
I don’t trust Oscar’s ability to improvise on the fly, so I say, “So at the next classroom, I’m gonna divert his attention and stall him, while you try to dig the laptop out. I’ll make sure he doesn’t turn around and see you. Got it?”
“Got it, bro.”
As the janitor slides his key into the doorknob of the next classroom, I approach him. “Excuse me, sir. I think I left my phone in this classroom. Can I take a look? Can you help me look?”
The old man is curious about my outfit. “You going to the beach, or are you coming from there?”
“Going. I wanna find my phone before I take off.”
“I used to go to the beach a lot when I was younger, about your age.” The old man keeps standing by the cart as he continues talking.
“Not much of a swimmer, but I didn’t go there to swim.
I went there to girl-watch. Nothing like a girl in a bikini back then.
It’s the same way now, I suppose, but I’m much too old to be going to the beach like I used to.
Hell, I can barely make it out of bed most days.
Aching bones. Wish I would’ve taken better care of myself. Take that piece of advice.”
The old man laughs a hearty laugh.
Oscar is near the classroom door opposite this one. He’s inching closer to the cart, closer to us.
I discreetly gesture towards Oscar, telling him not to approach, to stay back. He complies.
Without taking his eyes off of me, the old man reaches into the garbage container on his cart and pulls out my brother’s laptop which is still dusted with cocaine.
“I also got into a lot of trouble when I was younger,” says the janitor. “Thing is, though, I was pretty good at not getting caught. Seems like me and you have a lot in common.”
The old man holds the laptop out towards Oscar.
Both Oscar and I are frozen. Neither of us know what’s going on, what to do.
Eyes still on me and not on Oscar, the old man waves the laptop up and down and says, presumably to Oscar, “Take it.”
Oscar looks at me for permission. Confused, I nod. Oscar grabs hold of the laptop.
“Be on your way, boys,” says the old man. “And be careful. Next time you might not meet someone who hates cops as much as I do.”
He then unlocks the classroom door and reaches for the trash can inside.
Oscar and I start backing away from the cart, as the old man continues to do his job.
“Thanks,” I say.
The old man ignores us.
We run out of the building.