Kicker of Dicks

My first years of schooling were spent at a Christian private school. Since that is the only place where even prepubescent six year olds can feel sexually repressed, every day at recess all the boys in my class would chase me around the playground and try to kiss me. With my puffy, orange Troll doll hair and come-hither buck teeth, I really should have done more to cover myself and dissuade them from their assaults. Cursed as I was with my Kebler-elfish good looks, the majority of outdoor recesses were spent in constant fear of the boys simultaneously deciding to drop whatever they were doing and tail me mercilessly to kiss me with their Kool-Aid stained faces.

There was actually a day when I was able to peacefully play with another girl and one of the boys actually walked over and asked me, "Are we all playing Chase today?"

I really wish somebody had told me sooner that it was OPTIONAL. Up to that point I thought my only options were to run like hell or have the weird kid with the lisp stick his tongue in my mouth. When a recess supervisor advised me simply not to run, that it would take the fun out of it, I was pretty convinced she just had a big, stupid face. I hadn't been running when I won the game of Hot Potato at Ben's birthday party and all the boys dogpiled on me and Jacob kissed my face. No, that bitch didn't know shit.

So not yet knowing "Chase" was not mandatory and with the recess lady clearly not on my side, I spent my recesses like a ninja in patent leather Mary Janes. I was ever listening for the stillness that preceded the start of a Chase, ever watchful for the change in a boy's eye that signaled he had me in his sights (a skill that would become much more important and terrifying later in life). And one fateful day, I was able to escape.

Or so I thought for a beautiful, fleeting moment....

Jared was a horrible child. He had a big, wet mouth that always hung open and he smelled like Play-Doh. One time, I hit my head really hard on a rearview mirror because our teacher thought it would be cool to weave a line of over twenty excited children between parked cars. While I stood stunned with stars and tears in my eyes, Jared was pointing and laughing, making all the other kids turn and watch me try not to cry. He was a rotten, cootie-infested sociopath.

Anyway, for some reason there was a recess day where we were permitted to play outside, but only in the parking lot.  I remember the sun had a horrible glare and when it combined with the horrid, neon kaleidoscope of chalk drawings on the pavement it created a suitably eerie climate for what was about to happen.  In fact, all I remember about that recess was the environment and the moment.

That moment.

Somehow a game of Chase had been initiated, and I was apparently very much off my game because icky, sticky Jared had me locked in his arms.  He didn't have his hands buckled in the same clumsy, untrained way most boys usually would have, so I was in a particularly effective bind.  Even though I was wearing a dress and tights, I threw modesty to the wind and worked my knee up through his grip, maxing out his arm-span and breaking his hold.

Feeling very pleased with my clever escape, I allowed myself a smug glimpse over my shoulder as I bolted away from Jared.  And this is a mental picture I will never forget.

Jared's face made a series of expressions that probably took the span of three seconds, but in my mind's eye they play over the course of minutes.  First was the initial look of disappointment and surprise that he had lost his catch; next, a bitter, childish anger that erupted in the ugliest scowl his fat, shiny mouth could muster; then, a light bulb flickered feebly over his stupid head; and then the slow, creeping smirk of the Grinch unfolded on that same face whose stupidity I really can't emphasize enough.

Finally, his face contorted into a scream as his hands flew to the crotch of his pants.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGH!  ELIZABETH KICKED ME IN MY PENIS!"

And that's the last I remember of recess that day.  "Penis" hanging in the air, damning me to embarrassment and the beginning of a life of boys trying to jack it up.  I was always a well-behaved little girl; I was too smart for temper tantrums, too shy to sass off, and too afraid of repercussion to kick anybody in the dick... again.  Unfortunately for my record, I had kicked my brother in the crotch a time or two, but had received such a fearsome lecture that my days of recreational crotch-kicking were over.

This was not the last I would hear of Jared's penis.  He echoed his lie to every ear that could hear, time and time again.  And each time, "penis" got an extra special emphasis.  By speaking of an (imagined) injury, he had written himself a golden ticket to say "penis" in a school where saying "butt" could get you sent to the principal's office for a spanking.  He spent days interrupting all my conversations with other kids by cramming his face in my face, yelling about his penis.  (This would prove to be good preparation for bar culture that I would encounter later in life.)  Sometimes I would try to stammer that I didn't kick him in the penis, but usually I just fought silent tears.  If there is one thing a child learns in Christian school... well, it's that sex is bad, but if there's anything OTHER one thing a child learns in Christian school, it's that SIN will get you thrown straight into Hell.  Everyone thought I was lying about kicking Jared's penis, so every lie was a brick in the pathway to Hell.

At some point in the days-long montage of penis-kicking accusation, I was even pulled out of class to talk to the assistant principal.  She made sure to knock on the door right in the middle of a class so that is was maximally disruptive and every eye in the room would be watching my walk of shame out into the hallway.  And she didn't take me to her office or any other room, just sat me down on the floor in the hallway right outside my classroom.  We sat "Indian style," facing each other, tears silently streaming down my face as she gave me a stern lecture about how "kicking a boy in the crotch" is a very serious thing, and that I should have only done it if I was in real danger.  I would learn years later that Jared's mom had actually claimed to my mom that Jared had seen a doctor for internal penile injuries from my fabled kick, but was of course unable to procure any medical documents as proof.

But my favorite point that has ever been made to me about this story was from a guy friend who, upon hearing this story from me as adults, pointed out Jared's misdirected concern.

"If you had kicked him in the crotch, it's not his dick he would have been hurting over."

Perhaps Jared simply did not have a name for his balls yet.  After all, we were both being schooled in an environment where saying "shut up", "butt", or "sex" were offenses that got you struck by strangers with your parents' full permission. In fact, I'm pretty sure that whole ordeal was how I found out boys had different parts at all!  But it's clear to me that Jared was angry at having been bested and couldn't let that blow to his ego go without punishment.

Of all the kids in my class, Jared really deserved a good, hard kick in the dick. Maybe he knew it and that was how the lie began.  Somewhere deep in his subconscious, long before that fateful day at recess, a voice inside him was telling him that he was asking for it.

Jared... if somehow I embellished this story and I really did kick your penis and caused lasting penile damage, I'm still not sorry. Kicks to the dick are character building.

Tough boots.