Issue 11.1 Fall 2015

11.1 cover image

 

 

 

The "Naked" Truth

 

Roger Jenisch

 

 

 


“Alright drop your drawers,” he said to me.
          

I looked back extremely nervously and started to slide my underwear off. I can’t believe this is happening. I heard stories, but I didn’t think it would happen… to ME. So many emotions were going through me because I didn’t know what to expect. This is the story of my first ti….wait this probably is not the best way to start this story. See you probably thought…I was….you know…about to…never mind.
           

Let us take a step back, so to say. It was freshmen year of high school and I was exactly the little chubby twerp you would have expected me to be. My voice was higher than a thermometer on a summer day, I weighed one hundred and three pounds, and my lack of muscularity would put anyone to shame. Maybe, just maybe there was a way to fix it. I was made a promise by a close friend’s older brother, Nathan. Join wrestling he said, it will be fun he said.
        

 “Your man boobs will be no longer,” He told me as we goofed around wrestling in their basement.
        

 I could see myself sitting there, superimposing my baby face at the time onto the buffest bodies I could think of...yea, that would be me in no time. And really, what could be better?   It was something to do, it was good exercise, and my friends were doing it, I'm sure it will be fun.
           

Hmm….What the fuck was I thinking? Before this I did theater, I had no right joining something like wrestling, I fit in less than Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Justin Bieber concert. It was about the first minute of my first practice that I knew this was not the right place for me, but I was made a promise by my friend so I stuck to it. I was going to practice every day and even had fun on occasion. Practices were tough; we lifted weights, wrestled, and finished off with stairs or running. My ass was being kicked into shape and I was learning discipline. We trained every day of the week and on the weekends we had tournaments. Even when we weren’t in practice, we had to monitor our bodies as well. People ate healthy, watched their calories, and some barely ate at all. You had to monitor your weight because in wrestling there are weight classes to make the match ups as fair as possible. I'm proud to say I wasn’t in the lowest weight class, but the second to lowest. Surprisingly there were a few kids under one hundred pounds. I guess that can be counted as an accomplishment. Hooray for me!
          

I remember one practice the most because the varsity team was at a tournament elsewhere, so we used their room for practice. The wrestling coaches took a bag of ice and put it over the thermostat in the room so that it would always think it was cold. This would trick the thing into blasting heat all practice long. The tables were flipped; the temp was actually higher than my voice this time. It was hell, and just as hot. The lack of fresh air made breathing ridiculously hard and my pre-pubescent, chubby, and out of shape body could not hold up. I was fragile.
          

Our coach at the time, Coach Tom, was the epitome of a wrestling coach, always chewing his gum loud enough to hear it a mile away, his tough man demeanor, and his bald head shining brighter than the Buddha’s belly. He never liked me anyway, probably because I wasn’t cut out for this whole wrestling thing. I approached the coach who was much taller than me.

 

 

          
“I’m not feeling too hot,” I said.

 

 “Hmm,” he mumbled back.

 

The classic “hm” that leaves you sitting there rethinking your whole life, and that’s all he had for me? It’s the kind of “hm” that makes you question why you came up to him in the first place and makes you feel like an idiot within seconds.
          

 

 

What seems to be the problem?” He fired back after a few seconds of awkward silence.
         

“Oh you know? This room is 90 degrees, I’m a freshman boy going through one of the most important stages of growth and I’m starving myself to keep weight…oh yea and you’re a douche. I’m…just…not…feeling…too…hot,” I responded as it felt like a rock was sliding down my throat and I could barely muster the words.
         

“Hmm…” He responds, once again
       

“hmm?…Hmm?…HMM?  You son of a bitch, you did it again, you got nothing else to say to me? All you can come up with is hm…oh well excuse me…I guess I’m not worth more than two letters, hey did you here that everybody? My whole life is worth two letters. Do…you…think…I…could…maybe…take…a…break?
          

“Yea I guess.”
         

“You guess? You guess? Oh hey everybody, now he guesses…what a genius!  Um…Thanks.”

 

Although not the word any “Man” would want to describe him as, I was fragile and at least I got out of practice that day.
        

A few tournaments went by and I wasn’t very good at all but I still continued with wrestling. All the hard work led up to this final tournament, it was our big tournament that we hosted at our school and had eight other schools come to compete. I woke up that morning one hundred and four pounds. That wasn’t going to fly; I needed to be one hundred and three to make it into this tournament. I got to practice at six and the weigh in was at nine. I skipped breakfast because there was no room for food right now. I remember going in my full warm-ups, the sweatshirt and sweatpants, so as to sweat more. I didn’t want to let down the team that I did not give a shit about. The second I got there I hit the elliptical and pushed myself as hard as I could. I was Drenched in sweat, you would think there was a pool in our school and I had jumped in with my clothes on. The clock was moving faster than I expected and I was not sure if I was going to make weight.  
        

 It was time for weigh in, the uncomfortable moment where you get in your boxers in front of everyone else at the tournament, plus your coach, and the tournament regulator to get an official weight. A few schools got weighed and now we were up. I am one of the first in line to get weighed. Coach Tom’s head shined especially bright today, like he took himself into an auto body shop and got the full treatment. I stepped onto the scale and my heart beat as the little zeroes spun on the scales digital readout. What was merely seconds felt like forever, I looked down and there it was: 103.2 pounds. I looked up, back down, up, down, and up again. Dammit! I wasn’t going to be able to compete in the tournament; I failed the team and my coach.  You know it’s weird; I hate the sport, but felt some sort of loyalty towards the team. I wonder why that is? Maybe it’s because no matter the hatred towards the team, I spent a lot of time working out and dedicating my life at that time towards wrestling. In a way I let myself down, I set a goal but was not able to finish.
          

“Drop your drawers”, Coach Tom said.
         

“Wait…what…you want me…to…you know…right here?”  I returned, lost for my words.  
I looked back and the eight other schools now looked like the army of Sparta behind me. You know in movies when they use that really cheesy green screen effect to make it look like there are a ton of people….that, but real! It just made me more nervous and I felt a little more weight on my shoulders now because I had to process the whole situation.
          

“Don’t worry dude its decent size, and it’s a little cold in here, everyone will understand,” I told myself in an over the top voice.
          

Then the other shoulder had something to say, “Who the fuck are you kidding, you’re a freshman boy who hasn't gone through puberty yet, this is high school the most judgmental place in the world, and oh yea…I don’t know if you realized…it’s cold in here…have fun with that.”
           

This is just a dream come true, me naked, and a whole audience to watch.  I heard the stories of this happening to people, but those were merely legends, I would never have to get naked in front of hundreds of other people I don’t know. Some people weighed in naked on purpose just to intimidate the other team, but shit, who the hell was I going to intimidate?  The legends are real, I stepped off the scale slid my underwear off, clasped my hands on “the goods”, and stepped back on. 102.9 pounds, I made weight, and one of the most awkward times of my life. I think my dignity died that day, may it rest in peace, and I never felt so awkward in my life. In reality it wasn’t that bad, I was a freshman, and penises are awkward. I ended the season with a strong finish, and a very, and I mean very, hard earned 0-7 record, never planning on returning to the team. I retired my singlet, and you know what, it wasn’t all that bad. After all the long practices, work outs, dieting, weigh ins, annoying coaches, and early morning tournaments, I learned a valuable lesson…fuck Wrestling!

 

 

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