John: A Life Better Unlived
Here is John, a young man of 16 years. 5 foot 7 and a half inches in height and a generous 185 pounds of weight. His appearance reflects his background, his family having emerged from the slums trying to stay 1 step above the rabble and 1 block out of the ghetto. His hair is short and brown, yet perrenially unkempt because his mother cuts it hurriedly whilst going from her day job to her night job. His plump pimply face is young looking containing 2 brown eyes, a nose conveniently located between them, and adoring bits of food of one kind or another congregating around his mouth. His clothes are ragtag and mismatched except when his mother dresses him to go to church or the relatives. On his hands we can see the signs of his zest for computers: short, pudgy, stubby finger with little nail and permanent Doritos orange no. 5 staining.
His day is mundane. Woken up in the mornings by his mother he rushes off to school where he does alright, well, if he tried he would do alright, well, expect maybe math cause algebra is hard. But he does well in his computer class. He really likes the internet because there is all kinds of stuff out there and sometimes you can find servers you can mess with. His two best friends, Al and Bob are in his computer class and he talks to them on the chat client all through computer class and afterschool too. Usually they are over at Al's house and sometimes at Bob's house. They usually don't invite him over, but at least he can chat with them over the net. Anyway, he is deathly afraid that they might find out that, for reasons known only to John and his mom, her pet name for him is "Scrunchy" amd she calls him that all the time.
His mother wants him to get more exercise and he used to have a dog he would walk at the park close to home but, his dog, a male, started mounting the other dogs that were in the park. Dogs are frisky by nature but the other dog's owners objected because his dog showed a strong preference for mounting other males. After a while it was just too embarrassing to walk his gay dog so he talked his mom into giving it up for adoption.
However, love briefly entered his life last week. Amanda Robbins came up to him at lunch and started talking to him. After a bit she asked him if he wanted to go behind the gym and kiss. He was after all wearing a new shirt. The whole school seemed to be watching as they tried to non-chalantly wander towards the gym. They leaned a shoulder each against the building's wall facing each other. She put her hands on his shoulders. He put his hand on her hip and started to slide his hand towards her buttocks. Their lips puckered and touched. He squeezed with the sliding hand. She jumped and ran. There were suddenly lots of people about and he was feeling hot and flushed and embarrassed. If he hadn't been so pre-occupied, he would have been able to hear Amanda's teary voice crying "Its too gross. And I don't want to be in your stupid club anyway!"
His wants and needs now are satisfied late at night when he is sure mom is asleep. He takes the lingerie section of the Sears catalog into the bathroom with him and spends a blissful five minutes in furtive action. And then he goes to sleep to dream that one day, he will be normal.