Chapter 22 Manic Monday
Adam:
Which do you prefer? Mustang? Or Matt?
What a coincidence! I recently started watching “All My Children” too! I grab a sandwich in the cafeteria and race back to my room to watch it. I hope Haley and Mateo get married.
Speaking of TV, are you planning to watch the O.J. Simpson trial?
I’ve never met a graphic artist but am sure you’ll be a great one. Do you have a favorite one? Can you send me a sample of your own art?
I had to look up “auburgine” in the dictionary. Your favorite color is eggplant? Like the vegetable? So, purple to the rest of us? Is there any particular reason why you like auburgine/eggplant/purple?
Okay, I gotta get to soccer practice. I’d love it if you could come to one of my games. I’d show you what a striker does.
Matt
Monday, September 18, 1995
Matt would never forget the moment his life went to shit. It would henceforth be divided into the Before Man Panties (BMP) era versus After Man Panties (AMP) one.
The last few minutes of his happy BMP life were spent in the locker room—about forty-three hours after he’d cum in Todd’s ass for the second time, which still put a smile on his face just thinking about it.
The day had started normally enough. Breakfast. Classes. Chapel. Eating a sandwich while watching AMC for the second time. Matt had never intentionally watched a soap opera until now but planned to make it a daily habit if that was what it took to share Adam’s world.
So, there Matt sat, kitting out for practice, same as everyone else.
He was lacing his shoes, watching Caleb wrestle the Kraken into a jock strap, enjoying the show, secretly rooting for the Kraken.
Hoping it would borrow a trick from its Pufferfish cousins and swell up, as in pop a boner. A guy could dream, couldn’t he?
Elsewhere, guys were talking about Cal Ripken’s recent feat of surpassing Lou Gehrig’s record of 2,130 consecutive games. And girls. Always talking about girls.
Coach stormed into the room. Banged open the door, a sort of acoustic exclamation mark accompanying his entrance.
“Caleb, put that thing away!” Coach barked. “Play with it on your own time! Everyone, gather ‘round!”
Matt and his teammates shuffled into a fidgety semicircle. This did not bode well.
“One of you is in deep dookie,” Coach snarled. If they’d been on the field, he would have said “shit.” He held a small, plastic bag in one hand.
He tossed the bag’s contents onto the floor. “Have a gander at what I found this morning. In this room.”
A pair of men’s black, thong underwear and a lone fishnet stocking landed on the cracked linoleum.
Skidded into a crumpled pile. Matt didn’t know it yet, but that was the BMP/AMP demarcation, like the whole B.C.
versus A.D. concept in reverse, where a baby’s birth hit reset on the whole counting years thing.
Where, hey, at least if you lived in the A.D.
part you had a smidgeon of a chance of spending your eternity in Heaven, assuming you managed to get yourself born in a Christian country and managed to get yourself saved, which was tricky considering everyone disagreed on what exactly that entailed.
That was still better than the alternative, the whole “drew the short straw” and got born in those B.C. years—whole millennia actually, in which case you were just shit-out-of-luck salvation-wise. Socrates? Buddha? Shit-out-of-luck.
Matt knew shit-out-of-luck. It came in the form of thong underwear and a fishnet stocking. These were Todd’s! Matt stared at them in disbelief. How was this even possible? He was certain he and Todd had policed the room before leaving. Hadn’t they?
“Only fags wear man panties like those,” said Roger, pointing to the thong underwear.
Several guys snickered.
Matt winced. A few weeks earlier Roger had used that word. Fag. Matt had heard the word myriad times over the years, but few people had mastered its elocution as well as Roger, sneering it, spitting out the “g” like rancid meat.
“Not my panties, Coach,” said one of the seniors.
“Not mine either,” echoed several voices.
Coach held up a hand to silence them. “Do I look like Prince Charming to you? Do you think I’m gonna hold out these man panties like a glass slipper, and watch you all slither your junk in them so I can figure out which of you is Cinderella?”
“I’m not interested in denials,” Coach growled. “What I need is for the responsible party to come forward and own this.”
No one moved.
“Do I need to remind you where we are?” Coach asked.
“The God-fearing people who donate their hard-earned dollars to keep the lights on at this school don’t cotton to free love!
They don’t want to hear about slinky underthings littering the locker room!
Hell, Caleb, they’d take offense to that sideshow you were performing earlier! ”
Coach paused, stared hard at his players.
“In case you’re having trouble connecting the dots, gentlemen, this particular combination of slinky underthings—man panties plus women’s stocking—adds up to hanky-panky.
In our locker room. Which points to one of you idiots.
Someone has to step up. Be a man. Take responsibility.
I’ll talk to the dean. Maybe he’ll settle for a two-game suspension for that player. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise, what?” asked Roger.
“Otherwise, I turn the matter over to the dean. He investigates. This whole team falls under suspicion. We might have to forfeit the rest of the season. I could be fired. Those of you on scholarships could lose them. Is that enough ‘otherwise’ for you, Roger?”
It was certainly enough “otherwise” for Matt. He felt his stomach curdling.
A heavy silence settled over the room. Everyone looked around, trying to spot the guilty party.
Idabel stared at Matt.
Matt hesitated—and not out of cowardice. He was ready to claim ownership of the underwear, which weren’t even his, but that wasn’t the point. He had fucked the guy who’d worn them.
He was willing to face the consequences. The problem was the fishnet stocking. He would be expected to name his accomplice. That was where “no one” and “everyone” became a problem.
No one would believe he had come here alone and pranced around in a thong and fishnet stockings.
No one would believe him if he claimed the mystery woman was a non-student when it was common belief that he was dating Ava.
Everyone would assume the stocking was Ava’s. And everyone knew that the only reason girls wore stockings like those was akin to lighting the Vacancy sign at a motel, i.e. “come and get it boys.”
Matt, the presumed straight male and popular athlete, would probably get away with a two-game suspension.
Ava wouldn’t be so lucky. MCU’s double standard was the stuff of legends.
Ava could be expelled, almost certainly would be.
Presumption of innocence was not a Biblical concept.
Just the opposite: people were born guilty and it went downhill from there to the grave, which was why those B.C. people were shit-out-of-luck.
Matt was trying to puzzle out a workable solution when Roger broke the silence.
“Coach,” he said. “Why not ask the only other person with a key?”
Matt sighed. He’d wondered how long it would take them to reach this point.
He had a key to the building, loaned to him by Coach to expedite the whole clean-the-locker-room-for-a-month punishment.
Sure, the maintenance department probably had a key somewhere, but they hadn’t been spotted in this building for ages.
Hence the always leaking showers, the grimy linoleum floors.
The women’s coach had a key. Fat chance peddling that theory. Besides, it wasn’t Matt’s style to throw people under the bus. That was Roger’s thing.
“Well, Mustang,” Coach said to Matt, “you’re the guy with the key. Do you have anything to tell us?”
“I—” Matt stammered.
“It’s me.” Idabel stepped forward. “I did it. Mustang and I went out for pizza Saturday night. He left his keyring on the table when he went to take a leak. I took the key and then brought my girl here.”
Matt shook his head. Idabel didn’t have a “girl.” He’d nursed a crush for weeks, then watched the girl flirt with another dude at some bowling party. End of story.
“He’s lying, Coach!” Matt said. “I did it! I’m guilty!” He had no clue how he would deal with the accomplice issue. The only thing of which he was certain was that he would not let Idabel pay for his reckless romp with Todd. Correction: romps—plural. Matt had cum twice.
“I call ‘B.S,’” Roger said. He stooped down and scooped up the thong underwear. Held them up for all to see. “These are smalls. 28-30-inch waist. You’re what, Idabel? 36-inch waist?”
Idabel shrugged sheepishly. A sort of anything-for-love shrug.
Matt stared at Idabel. Why was he doing this? Did he really think he could just confess, ride out a two-game suspension, and go on with life? He’d have to name his “girl.”
Roger whirled towards Matt. “These look more your size, pretty boy. You’re a 32-inch waist, am I right?”
Matt was sick of Roger. Wished he’d smashed his face the first time he said “fag.” Disgusted that Roger was polluting Todd’s thong with his tiny hands.
Matt shoved him backwards, causing him to drop the thong. “For someone who claims not to wear man panties, you sure seem to know a lot about them! Are they yours, Roger? I mean they do have a small pouch, and, let’s face it, you don’t exactly have a big package.”
Roger’s eyes blazed pure hate. He balled his fists, squared his shoulders in preparation for a charge.
Matt braced for impact. This was not his first brawl. These things were common enough in locker rooms. Settling scores. Establishing pecking orders.
He knew there would be less than thirty seconds of real fighting before the other players rushed in and separated them.
Half a minute. Enough time for him to execute a one-handed headlock followed by 3-4 quick upper cuts to Roger’s face.
The next time that fucker said “fag” he’d be lisping it through swollen lips.