Tempered Petulance

The Fitzcarol boys were beautiful. Sean, the younger of the two by a year, had a silver head of hair with specks of auburn. Even though he turned 14 this year, the silver seemed O.K. and a fit for his face. His older brother Kevin had a thinner face with darker hair, but both young men held eyes that captured your attention with a deep green clarity one usually only finds in contacts these days. The oldest Fitzcarol, Chris was out of place. Twenty-one with dark stringy hair, and much bigger-boned then Sean and Kevin, he was quiet, but not shy by any means. He was at the ready all the time with a smile and all three boys were rarely apart when we went out and made trouble-- and we were always in trouble. It was trouble that we thrived on, and on this hot, humid August afternoon, my trouble began the minute I decided to urinate all over Chris.

Our day began at the Fitzcarol house throwing a football around and playing our favorite game, “tackle and smash your friend into the ground.” A fun game for sure and as I was by far the skinniest of the gang, and Chris the largest, we were all surprised when I grabbed Chris, threw him into the dirt and he had trouble getting up. The worst part for me was that his brothers were laughing their asses off at him, and at the same time Ward Krull and the Brabb Twins showed up to join in the spectacle. Chris was actually hurt pretty bad, something about his back, and as he tried to stand and walk it off, the smallest of the twins came over and asked if he wanted some help. Chris smiled and told him to fuck-off and we all broke about again. I knew I had payback coming even though it wasn’t intentional, it’s just the way the rules are.

After Chris recovered we convened to Sean’s garage and began drinking beer and bringing the laughter and jokes to a new level. Around 2 o’clock we thought it only right to take our drunk-asses to the lake for a swim and dive off the old docks and pole. The pole was a remnant of a bygone era on Lake St.Clair where ships would dock just a ways out and dinghy onto shore. The old wooden docks were gone but the sunken poles sat just a few inches below the waterline covered in bright green seaweed and a moss that covered everything in this freshwater environment. The pole was a 40 foot tall iron dowel that jutted up from the basement of the lake, leaning at an extreme angle with a rickety ladder attached. Almost daily we would swim the 40 yards in waist deep water to this old dock and port, climb the pole, and jubilantly jump to our near-death. At 17 years of age death is not an option, but dancing with it is a right of passage, especially in this pre-iPod / YouTube era where home-bound distractions were few and far between.

Most paybacks between boys are measured and appropriate to the rules of teen-engagement. Yet the payback from Chris came to me violently and surprised us all. As we biked from the Fitzcarol’s garage to the pole, Chris biked right next to me seemingly out of nowhere with a busted piece of a cyclone fence in his hand. Before I had a chance to take in what was about to happen, he jammed to fence rod into the spokes of my front bike tire and I instantly flipped end over end onto the street. My arms at the inner elbows hooked the handle bars providing a little resistance, but when my shoulders and face hit the side of a gravel-riddled curb it was all over.

I slid on my face and right shoulder along the curb onto grass and mud. The bike flipped up and bounced a couple times as I did the slide along the ground. I lay there settled and waiting for the hurt. Surprisingly little pain came, but as the guys biked back to the crash landing I rolled over to see their faces waiting in anticipation for a lot of blood and tears. I was almost as disappointed as the guys when I slowly stood up and realized that all I had as a badge of honor was what appeared like a rug burn on the side of my neck.

Everyone started yelling and calling Chris names for his asshole move, and I gave him a swift push and a squeaky “loser” yelp and went to see my bike to check for damage control. The front tire was whacked out with half the spokes hanging limpidly off the rim – useless. I threw the bike on the front lawn near where my face was just at, hopped on the back of Sean’s bike and we proceeded to the lake.

The ill-conceived act of terror from Chris now had once again, a need to be righted, and it was expected that I redeliver another measured response. I thought of this on the way to the pole, but little came to mind. As we approached the lake I could see the pole reaching into the air, I turned my attention and excitement of the jumps ahead, and one thing I became certain of was after drinking four cheap cans of Stroh’s beer I needed to take a piss pretty bad.

The waters of Lake St.Clair are green and brown. Whether the sun is on or off, its summer or winter, the waters calm or rough, the lake’s colors pretty much stay the same year round. As we all swam towards our destination, the warm water splashed a bit onto our faces and it felt good to get out from the sticky heat to the tepid coolness of the lake. All of us were now in full swim swing, bashing and bantering about this and that with the twang of the Mid-West language ready to climb to the edge of our peril. As I approached the pole I whacked the water with my hands as I passed by Chris, smacking him in the face with a solid flush of the green and brown of the lake water. He delivered a “You Dickhead” to me and I came back immediately with the all powerful “Why, you wanna blow me loser?” Everyone caught this immediately as the quick payback, and started laughing at and chiding Chris! He flushed red, angry again. I could tell he was embarrassed maybe to the point of kicking my ass. I turned not caring, laughing at his anger, egging his fragile ego on with brutal commentary, taking full advantage of the opportunity. The problem now was that this little back-and-forth had escalated and I could see he was determined to beat me.

I reached the ladder of the pole and began climbing. As I left the warmth of the lake water a slight wind from the east cooled me quickly and my bladder came alive. Goose bumps all over me, beer in my bladder, and half-way up that ladder my idea, my moment, my opus if you will -- came to me in a flash of brilliance.

There was no exit at the top of the pole, and now Chris was climbing up trying to catch up to deliver the beating. I reached the top of the pole with my feet on the third rung from the top, turned around facing out towards the guys below and Chris still trying to climb after me. Even today I don’t know how I managed it, but it was perfect. It was fate!

Laughing at the insanity of the idea, I pulled my wrinkled penis out of my swim trunks with my right hand, holding onto the weak and feeble rail of the pole with my left and began stretching it forward in the hopes the pressure in my bladder would reach the tip for a certain delivery --- it worked. The beer/piss came fast and furious and if you know anything about a guy’s anatomy, unlike the girls, once the stream starts, there’s no stopping it. As the wind was blowing from my left and I had my pecker in my right hand, and the target was Chris 30 feet below, I needed some physics to hit the mark. My mind went into action! I could see him climbing one step at a time, but with his new back problems he was slow in coming, and as the pole was at a downward and slanted angle, he was having trouble making it up, being big and all. But this worked perfectly, as only an idea like this could. The rest of the guys were now staring in total disbelief once they realized I was standing atop the pole, facing a dozen million dollar mansions on Lakeshore Drive with my shorts lowered and penis at the ready. When the stream of steamy urine hit the cooler air, they began roaring with molten hot laughter -- backing away simultaneously from the yellow scourge. Chris on the other hand knew nothing of what was happening because his head was down as he tried to pull himself, one rung at a time up the ladder.

With an Einstein accuracy, an audience, and target in sight, I redirected the misguided flow of urine, once again in perfect unison as if the gods had spoken, directly into the prevailing Easterlies appropriating the flow at an arc and angle of roughly 25 degrees, and with the precision of a diamond cutter, this yellowed bow began landing all over Chris as he made his journey north up the ladder to kick my ass.

At first he most likely thought the spray of water was from the lake below splashing off the weeded sides of the iron pole, but looking back on this handsome tragedy, I can see him questioning the temperature of this “lake spray”. I remember with faultless clarity, 25 years later, his slow and methodical raising of his head and his questioning face lifting ever so slightly, asking, “What the..?” I see him raise his perched head further, valiantly fighting the unthinkable, taking in this information as it bangs about his mind and as my salted splash of warmth hits his face repeatedly.

The other meticulous and scientific exactitude of this event was that I was laughing so hard that my shoulders were shaking. With each shake of my laughter the stream would cut-off briefly, then start again with the same beer-laden rage it had begun, so my arc was staggered and stratified accordingly. As Chris lifted his head to literally face the most horrific of possibilities, the landing of my golden symphony came to a resounding crescendo on his now sad and pensive face. The warm spray, the presence of salt in a fresh water lake, and the laughing uproar from the guys below instantaneously came to him with a whap to the head. He was being urinated on. He tilted his face just a hair up and looked into my laughing eyes, and simply let go of the ladder, falling backwards into Lake St.Clair -- all the way down staring at me with eyes of defeat.

Chris hit the water just as I was finishing up my end of things. I quickly tucked my thing back into my swim trunks, leapt outward and away from the top of the ladder, and as I was free falling towards the waters smooth surface, seeing my escape with ease, I knew I had righted the wrong.

I have never seen nor heard from Chris since.