A perfect Replica |
Chesley Osborn |
an excerpt from the memoir "Big Chet, or Little Chet?"
I found out about porn in the 7th grade, after my friend with internet access asked me if I knew what a “Dildo” was. His name was Federico and he was a
new kid from Argentina, "a place where girls wear thongs on the beach" he whispered in my ear during Silent Sustained Reading. I would have guessed a
second generation Pokeémon, but the way he pronounced “d i l d o” with shifty eyes, implied that it was a piece of contraband we could not get away with while playing at the lunch table. This was a private vocabulary word, something to file away with the slingshot and sports illustrated swimsuit edition stashed behind the entire Harry Potter collection on my bookshelf.
I went over his house to do a book report onThe Outsiders by SE Hinton. We deciphered Ponyboy's recital of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost, as his mom spread cream cheese on Ritz Crackers for her studious little angels. After we concluded that Ponyboy's innocence was unfairly spoiled by the turf war between the Greasers and Soc's, we tiptoed to his family’s computer room. The two minute clip he clicked on was titled "Maxxx Payne" with 3 X's like you see on the bottle of a drunkard in a cartoon. The video opened on a girl standing in bathroom, looking calm like me and Federico weren’t staring at her as his mom made snacks downstairs. I immediately thought of the camera man, and thought it was so strange he was in there with her, but she acted as if no one in the world was around. She removed her bra like it was no big deal, and I suddenly became extremely conscious of the heat coming from my face. She slipped off her underwear, and hopped into the shower, and began to wash her boobs with soap when me and Federico heard tiny footsteps coming up the stairs. We froze for a second and then Federico forcibly shut off the computer monitor. His 3 year old brother, Nico, came barging into
the computer room wearing his Bob the Builder work helmet. Federico screamed:
"MAAAMM, Nico nos molesta. ¡Tenemos trabajo escolar!"
And I heard his mom scream back: " Nico, Venga! Spongebob este en la tele!"
As soon as we couldn't hear Nico's little feet on the stairs, Federico turned the computer back on and now there was an additional naked girl in the shower
with the one we already knew. Suds were everywhere. They rubbed there huge boobs together. Federico's 13 year old hand, sweated on the computer mouse. My stomach was sending me signals I did not know how to interpret. It felt inherently wrong and disgusting but I would not look away. I kept on thinking to myself: this should be disgusting, I should be grossed out. But something's wrong and I am guilty. My parents would hate me if they knew I liked watching this right now. There's no way I can ever tell them. How am I ever going to hug Nana again?
I wish there was some way to stash memories behind the entire Harry Potter Collection on my bookshelf, but "Maxxx Payne" wasn't something I could hide and forget about. For the rest of the 7th grade, what me and Federico learned in books and poems seemed superfluous after what we learned on his family computer. This was our own secret that had no place in the realm of our parents and teachers. Or so we thought.
For the next couple of weeks, I avoided all eye contact with my mom's and sister's bras. I couldn't handle the fact that they had the same biological functions of the girls in the videos me and Federico watched after homework. Over some goldfish, I tried to see if Federico shared any of these complicated feelings:
"Hey Fede, I think those videos make my mind sick"
"What the p o r n ones, you don’t like em’?"
"No, it's not that, it's just... is that normal? I mean, is it alright to watch those?"
"It’s the most normal thing there is dip shit, how do you think you were born?"
Theoretically, I knew how I was born. When I graduated from a tiger cub to a bear cub in The Scouts my father came down to my room, to discuss a chapter on ‘hygiene’. True to his form, he took an innocent chapter on how to use a deodorant stick and went Hike Mode on me.
“Blood rushes to the male’s penis and it becomes erect”
“What’s erect?”
“Firm, so that he can he gently inserts it into a women’s vagina and release Semen, a white liquid, that then fertilizes with the female egg and makes a baby that grows in her stomach until 9 months later when it comes out of her vagina.”
“Okay”.
These scientific terms felt strange in my mouth, but my dad’s confidence and ease in explaining the terms made things manageable. Everything was abstract. It was like seriously reading a Biology book with my dad that I would normally giggle about with my friends. But after hanging out with Federico, any theoretical knowledge of my genesis was buffered away to something much more…practical.
This guilty fascination was pent up in inside me for weeks, until one afternoon I called my Dad’s cell phone to ask if I could have the password to his AOL
account to look up some information on Trench Warfare for my presentation on World War One. He sounded surprisingly hesitant:
“Uhh, how about we go to the Library after I get home from work instead? Why do you want to use the Internet? I mean, you know there’s so much bogus information on the web.”
“Dad. It’s due tomorrow. I’m screwed if I don’t get it right now. I’m not even gonna use Wikipedia”
“Well, okay. I’ll tell you the password, but MAKE SURE you throw it away after you use it.”
“Sure. Thank you so much.”
“So now you have no excuse if you don’t get an A.”
“ha. Whatever you say Dad”
After I closed the window shades, called my mom to make sure she was still at work, and locked my cats in my parents’ room, I punched in his unnecessarily long AOL password. During the tortuously long seven-step connection process, my ears became 10 times more sensitive, and I made impatient circles with my cursor on the screen. “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!” I went right to Google, and began to type “naked girls making out” but before I hit enter I suddenly froze. I didn’t even think about the browsing history! I clicked a tab called Browsing History to see if I could find a way to hide my lusty Google inquiries, but instead I saw a list of all the websites my dad had visited. I scrolled down and saw all his websites for sailing forums, cooking recipes, and scenic hikes of the White Mountains. What I saw next, hit me in the gut. Before I could read past the ‘XXX’ descriptions I X’d myself “GOODBYE” out of his AOL account, threw his password in the trash, and put my head between my knees like my mom taught me to do when I felt faint. At the moment, I remember wishing Federico stayed the fuck in Argentina with all the girls on the beach in thongs. The next thing I felt was dread about this evening. How was I supposed to eat dinner with my mom, Dougie, Leslie, and Him? When I lifted my head, I saw a framed photo of us all smiling except Dougie, whose face is hysterically twisted as if the photograph was torturous. Mom and Leslie stand arm and arm and look absolutely beautiful. My Dad and I stand with our heads leaning at the exact same angle and our hair both parted to the right. If you look at the photo long enough you would think I was
a perfect replica.
new kid from Argentina, "a place where girls wear thongs on the beach" he whispered in my ear during Silent Sustained Reading. I would have guessed a
second generation Pokeémon, but the way he pronounced “d i l d o” with shifty eyes, implied that it was a piece of contraband we could not get away with while playing at the lunch table. This was a private vocabulary word, something to file away with the slingshot and sports illustrated swimsuit edition stashed behind the entire Harry Potter collection on my bookshelf.
I went over his house to do a book report onThe Outsiders by SE Hinton. We deciphered Ponyboy's recital of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost, as his mom spread cream cheese on Ritz Crackers for her studious little angels. After we concluded that Ponyboy's innocence was unfairly spoiled by the turf war between the Greasers and Soc's, we tiptoed to his family’s computer room. The two minute clip he clicked on was titled "Maxxx Payne" with 3 X's like you see on the bottle of a drunkard in a cartoon. The video opened on a girl standing in bathroom, looking calm like me and Federico weren’t staring at her as his mom made snacks downstairs. I immediately thought of the camera man, and thought it was so strange he was in there with her, but she acted as if no one in the world was around. She removed her bra like it was no big deal, and I suddenly became extremely conscious of the heat coming from my face. She slipped off her underwear, and hopped into the shower, and began to wash her boobs with soap when me and Federico heard tiny footsteps coming up the stairs. We froze for a second and then Federico forcibly shut off the computer monitor. His 3 year old brother, Nico, came barging into
the computer room wearing his Bob the Builder work helmet. Federico screamed:
"MAAAMM, Nico nos molesta. ¡Tenemos trabajo escolar!"
And I heard his mom scream back: " Nico, Venga! Spongebob este en la tele!"
As soon as we couldn't hear Nico's little feet on the stairs, Federico turned the computer back on and now there was an additional naked girl in the shower
with the one we already knew. Suds were everywhere. They rubbed there huge boobs together. Federico's 13 year old hand, sweated on the computer mouse. My stomach was sending me signals I did not know how to interpret. It felt inherently wrong and disgusting but I would not look away. I kept on thinking to myself: this should be disgusting, I should be grossed out. But something's wrong and I am guilty. My parents would hate me if they knew I liked watching this right now. There's no way I can ever tell them. How am I ever going to hug Nana again?
I wish there was some way to stash memories behind the entire Harry Potter Collection on my bookshelf, but "Maxxx Payne" wasn't something I could hide and forget about. For the rest of the 7th grade, what me and Federico learned in books and poems seemed superfluous after what we learned on his family computer. This was our own secret that had no place in the realm of our parents and teachers. Or so we thought.
For the next couple of weeks, I avoided all eye contact with my mom's and sister's bras. I couldn't handle the fact that they had the same biological functions of the girls in the videos me and Federico watched after homework. Over some goldfish, I tried to see if Federico shared any of these complicated feelings:
"Hey Fede, I think those videos make my mind sick"
"What the p o r n ones, you don’t like em’?"
"No, it's not that, it's just... is that normal? I mean, is it alright to watch those?"
"It’s the most normal thing there is dip shit, how do you think you were born?"
Theoretically, I knew how I was born. When I graduated from a tiger cub to a bear cub in The Scouts my father came down to my room, to discuss a chapter on ‘hygiene’. True to his form, he took an innocent chapter on how to use a deodorant stick and went Hike Mode on me.
“Blood rushes to the male’s penis and it becomes erect”
“What’s erect?”
“Firm, so that he can he gently inserts it into a women’s vagina and release Semen, a white liquid, that then fertilizes with the female egg and makes a baby that grows in her stomach until 9 months later when it comes out of her vagina.”
“Okay”.
These scientific terms felt strange in my mouth, but my dad’s confidence and ease in explaining the terms made things manageable. Everything was abstract. It was like seriously reading a Biology book with my dad that I would normally giggle about with my friends. But after hanging out with Federico, any theoretical knowledge of my genesis was buffered away to something much more…practical.
This guilty fascination was pent up in inside me for weeks, until one afternoon I called my Dad’s cell phone to ask if I could have the password to his AOL
account to look up some information on Trench Warfare for my presentation on World War One. He sounded surprisingly hesitant:
“Uhh, how about we go to the Library after I get home from work instead? Why do you want to use the Internet? I mean, you know there’s so much bogus information on the web.”
“Dad. It’s due tomorrow. I’m screwed if I don’t get it right now. I’m not even gonna use Wikipedia”
“Well, okay. I’ll tell you the password, but MAKE SURE you throw it away after you use it.”
“Sure. Thank you so much.”
“So now you have no excuse if you don’t get an A.”
“ha. Whatever you say Dad”
After I closed the window shades, called my mom to make sure she was still at work, and locked my cats in my parents’ room, I punched in his unnecessarily long AOL password. During the tortuously long seven-step connection process, my ears became 10 times more sensitive, and I made impatient circles with my cursor on the screen. “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!” I went right to Google, and began to type “naked girls making out” but before I hit enter I suddenly froze. I didn’t even think about the browsing history! I clicked a tab called Browsing History to see if I could find a way to hide my lusty Google inquiries, but instead I saw a list of all the websites my dad had visited. I scrolled down and saw all his websites for sailing forums, cooking recipes, and scenic hikes of the White Mountains. What I saw next, hit me in the gut. Before I could read past the ‘XXX’ descriptions I X’d myself “GOODBYE” out of his AOL account, threw his password in the trash, and put my head between my knees like my mom taught me to do when I felt faint. At the moment, I remember wishing Federico stayed the fuck in Argentina with all the girls on the beach in thongs. The next thing I felt was dread about this evening. How was I supposed to eat dinner with my mom, Dougie, Leslie, and Him? When I lifted my head, I saw a framed photo of us all smiling except Dougie, whose face is hysterically twisted as if the photograph was torturous. Mom and Leslie stand arm and arm and look absolutely beautiful. My Dad and I stand with our heads leaning at the exact same angle and our hair both parted to the right. If you look at the photo long enough you would think I was
a perfect replica.
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