I couldn’t defeat a newborn baby in an arm-wrestling tournament.
“Just pull yourself up,” Mrs. Handler said in an encouraging tone, assuming I was a newcomer to the ways of gravity on this planet.
“And spit on your hands,” said Norman, a future bully who was on this day still about five years away from making my life a living hell.
I looked up the rope and decided that if I could jump up and grab it, at least I’d be off the mat. I sprang up a few feet and gripped the rope. I immediately wrapped my legs around it and hung on. It felt like I had gotten myself pretty high up, but when I looked down, I saw that I was about one foot off the mat. I looked over at my classmates, who were staring at me impassively. My aunt Sue was an Avon lady and she had given my dad a Soap-on-a-Rope for his birthday once. I suddenly knew what the soap felt like.
“Keep going,” Mrs. Handler said politely, although there was already a hint of “Jesus Christ, just climb the goddamn rope already” in her voice.
I peered up and tried to figure out the best way to accomplish this. A couple of kids had done it using nothing but their arms, kicking their legs wildly as they climbed. I knew this wasn’t an option for me and so I fixated on the kids who had taken the teacher’s advice and held the rope tightly between their legs as they pulled themselves up hand over hand. I readjusted myself so that the rope was firmly pinched between my thighs and started to pull my body up. And to my amazement, I was actually getting up the rope. Mrs. Handler is quite a teacher, I thought. I pulled and locked my legs, pulled and locked my legs, pulled and locked my legs.
And then something happened.
All of a sudden, I felt this strange wave coming over me, a powerful sensation that seemed to be building inside my body but I didn’t know from where. It almost seemed to start in my chest and expand outward. I felt it in my butt, in my legs, in my arms . . . but especially in my pants. (These were the days when you wore your school clothes in gym class. I guess this was either because we didn’t sweat at that age or because we
always
smelled bad, so what was the point of making us change into clothes whose job it was to get stunk up anyway?) I stopped climbing and held on to the rope. The feeling was building stronger and stronger. And the weird thing about it was that it felt good. Better than anything I’d ever felt in my life. Suddenly, my body started to pulse and, the next thing I knew, the entire sensation rushed into my groin area and specifically into my—as the girls who lived next door to me used to call it—“thing.” It was a strange, wonderful pounding sensation, a velvety version of the pile driver that almost crushed Bugs Bunny during a Warner Bros. cartoon I had seen about a construction site. Boom boom boom. All my muscles tightened and I was frozen in a blend of ecstasy and utter confusion. Was I having a heart attack? Was this what a stroke was? I had no idea what they were and figured that maybe this was what they felt like. But the biggest thing I remember was that (a) I didn’t care if it was a stroke and (b) I didn’t want it to end. Ever.
“Paul? What are you doing up there? Are you stuck?” Mrs. Handler called up.
“. . . no . . .” was all I could muster. I was now guarding this moment and I wasn’t going to let anything interrupt it. I was afraid that if I moved, it would stop. And I couldn’t move, even if I wanted it to stop.
“Can you go up any higher?”
“I don’t know.” The sensation continued to pound in my privates. My head seemed to fill with fog.
“Well, either keep going or come back down. People are waiting.”
“Uh, okay.” The feeling was starting to subside and so I cautiously began to let myself down. As I slid slowly down the rope, it happened again. This time it hit harder and actually made me gasp. I froze again. Another wave of euphoric muscle contractions swept through my
“Just pull yourself up,” Mrs. Handler said in an encouraging tone, assuming I was a newcomer to the ways of gravity on this planet.
“And spit on your hands,” said Norman, a future bully who was on this day still about five years away from making my life a living hell.
I looked up the rope and decided that if I could jump up and grab it, at least I’d be off the mat. I sprang up a few feet and gripped the rope. I immediately wrapped my legs around it and hung on. It felt like I had gotten myself pretty high up, but when I looked down, I saw that I was about one foot off the mat. I looked over at my classmates, who were staring at me impassively. My aunt Sue was an Avon lady and she had given my dad a Soap-on-a-Rope for his birthday once. I suddenly knew what the soap felt like.
“Keep going,” Mrs. Handler said politely, although there was already a hint of “Jesus Christ, just climb the goddamn rope already” in her voice.
I peered up and tried to figure out the best way to accomplish this. A couple of kids had done it using nothing but their arms, kicking their legs wildly as they climbed. I knew this wasn’t an option for me and so I fixated on the kids who had taken the teacher’s advice and held the rope tightly between their legs as they pulled themselves up hand over hand. I readjusted myself so that the rope was firmly pinched between my thighs and started to pull my body up. And to my amazement, I was actually getting up the rope. Mrs. Handler is quite a teacher, I thought. I pulled and locked my legs, pulled and locked my legs, pulled and locked my legs.
And then something happened.
All of a sudden, I felt this strange wave coming over me, a powerful sensation that seemed to be building inside my body but I didn’t know from where. It almost seemed to start in my chest and expand outward. I felt it in my butt, in my legs, in my arms . . . but especially in my pants. (These were the days when you wore your school clothes in gym class. I guess this was either because we didn’t sweat at that age or because we
always
smelled bad, so what was the point of making us change into clothes whose job it was to get stunk up anyway?) I stopped climbing and held on to the rope. The feeling was building stronger and stronger. And the weird thing about it was that it felt good. Better than anything I’d ever felt in my life. Suddenly, my body started to pulse and, the next thing I knew, the entire sensation rushed into my groin area and specifically into my—as the girls who lived next door to me used to call it—“thing.” It was a strange, wonderful pounding sensation, a velvety version of the pile driver that almost crushed Bugs Bunny during a Warner Bros. cartoon I had seen about a construction site. Boom boom boom. All my muscles tightened and I was frozen in a blend of ecstasy and utter confusion. Was I having a heart attack? Was this what a stroke was? I had no idea what they were and figured that maybe this was what they felt like. But the biggest thing I remember was that (a) I didn’t care if it was a stroke and (b) I didn’t want it to end. Ever.
“Paul? What are you doing up there? Are you stuck?” Mrs. Handler called up.
“. . . no . . .” was all I could muster. I was now guarding this moment and I wasn’t going to let anything interrupt it. I was afraid that if I moved, it would stop. And I couldn’t move, even if I wanted it to stop.
“Can you go up any higher?”
“I don’t know.” The sensation continued to pound in my privates. My head seemed to fill with fog.
“Well, either keep going or come back down. People are waiting.”
“Uh, okay.” The feeling was starting to subside and so I cautiously began to let myself down. As I slid slowly down the rope, it happened again. This time it hit harder and actually made me gasp. I froze again. Another wave of euphoric muscle contractions swept through my
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