My upper body wasn't strong enough. I wasn't flexible enough. Due to a problem in my hip area, I was nowhere near quick or fast enough. I had recurring headaches that required Garvey to drain my sinuses on a regular basis. And now I had developed occasional toothache-like pain in my knees which Garvey said could be alleviated with regular massage and (you guessed it) more "treatment". I hadn't even made it to adolescence and I was a physical wreck.
The diagnosis of my knee problems was particularly interesting. Tired of continually failing to measure up to expectations, I had finally decided to confide to Garvey that I had been experiencing this pain in my knees. That much was true. He seemed to view it as another reason I wasn't more mobile on the court. I saw it as an excuse. Maybe if I had a legitimate reason for not playing up to his expectations, Garvey would ease up on me. I was tired of not making the grade.
He took me into the lockerroom and sat opposite me. Taking one leg in his hands he proceeded to push and prod at the areas in and around my knee. "Does this hurt?", he asked. "How about this?" I winced and pulled away in response, all the while nodding my head and answering "yes" in short pain-filled gasps. Then he began hitting my knees with the side of his hand in short little chops. He started with an area just above my knee and continued on down until he was mid-shin. With each chop I groaned and yelped in pain. By the time he had moved on to the other leg, Garvey was already telling me bits and pieces of what he thought the problem was and what could be done to fix it. Maybe I had something called shin splints, he said. Maybe I was just experiencing growing pains. Although painful, neither condition was all that serious. The answer for either was the same. My knees needed regular massage with Atomic Balm and "treatment".
What makes this all so poignant is that while I did truly have this pain in my knees, it was more of an internal thing. Like a toothache, my knees would throb and hum with a discomfort that would continue for an hour or two before subsiding. Banging, whacking, prodding or chopping at my knees didn't bother me unless the blow itself was sufficient to cause pain. My knees weren't tender. They just hurt. Nonetheless, every time Garvey looked up at me, I feigned what I believed was the appropriate response. And when I looked into his eyes, I was glad that I didn't notice any signs that he was aware of my attempt at deception. In hindsight, I don't know that his prognosis was any more legitimate than my reactions to his chops. In my youthful short-sightedness I had just given him another reason for me to need more "treatment". If he thought I was faking it, it didn't show or seem to matter to him. "Treatment" was what mattered. And conveniently, though oddly, enough, while the massaging of my knees could be done in the conventional fashion, it could also be incorporated into our bedroom sessions without even deviating from the current regimen.
As last detailed, my "treatment" sessions now consisted of me lying naked, face to face, atop Garvey who would be clad in only briefs, a matching white Jockey brand t-shirt, and dark dress socks, although lately the briefs had come off. We would start with me rotating my hips laterally in an oval pattern. Garvey explained that the rubbing of my knees into the mattress as I moved my mid-section constituted more than ample massage and thereby we could kill two (three, four...) birds with one stone. At first he even went so far as to apply Atomic Balm to my knees before I climbed on top of him. Previously, I mentioned that he had since instructed me, in the course of these therapies, to open my mouth and placing my mouth over his, to rotate my tongue inside his mouth. Until this particular day, this was the point to which this portion of our sessions had progressed. Normally, I would continue in this fashion until he said we were through. Today that changed.
Not long into this episode, Garvey took my hand and pushing it downward, instructed me to gently cup his testicles. Applying ever so light pressure, I was to coddle and tenderly roll his balls in my hand, all the while maintaining the rotating of my hips and the sloppy mouth-to mouth tongue-ing. I withdrew my hand at the touch of his scratchy, wiry pubic hair as it rubbed against my fingers, palm, wrist and forearm. I had never felt pubic hair and, at this time, still had none of my own. He told me to go ahead, and again instructed me as to what he wanted me to do. I just did it. By increments this was getting more and more bizarre. The feel of his pubic hair unhinged me, and touching his scrotum and cupping his testicles was enough to... was too much. A million thoughts were racing through my mind at the same time. Things that had been building inside me were screaming indecipherable messages to me . What were they? Images, senses, touches, smells, tastes, thoughts, feelings, questions, words, phrases... All rushing to the forefront demanding simultaneous attention. Too much data. Too much going on with no reference or place in which to sort it out. But something had changed. Although I couldn't put words to it yet because they weren't in my experience dictionary, something had turned. My feelings of avoidance and uncomfortability around Garvey, were evolving towards repulsion and revulsion. Something nameless but visceral.
My actions were mechanical and unnatural. Trying to focus on one activity, with all these colliding thoughts, perceptions, and conflicting feelings, caused me to forget and interrupt one of the other things I was supposed to be doing. My mind was obviously beyond overload. (His beard grating against my face. The smell of his cologne or after shave. The drool flowing out of my mouth and onto his face. His flaky, patchy skin against me. Escape. What is going on here? The wiry pubic hair. What am I doing here? Keep moving your hips. His scrotum and testicles. The sweat. The heat. When can I stop? The sheet against my back. When can I stop? Where is his penis? Uuuugghhh!) I could not control my thoughts. In addition, I had a terribly difficult time bending and contorting my body to comply with his wishes. Garvey would remind me of what I was doing wrong and tell me to keep up the correct activity. What a strange set of positions and seemingly unrelated tasks I was being asked to perform. I didn't get it. But it was supposed to make me heat up. Get my mucous flowing to aid in draining my problem sinuses. Unlock my hips. Massage my knees. Make me a better basketball player. I continued to perform as best as I could, all the while hoping for the end. An end.
Frankly, I was so focused on what was happening to me and how I was feeling that I had never really thought about what Garvey's stake was. Why did he do this? What did Garvey get out of it? And honestly, at this point, I wouldn't have understood the answer. This was all very circus-like, freak show weird to my young mind, and I had nothing with which to compare it. I was a naive schoolboy. I didn't feel that I had anyone with whom I could talk about it even if I knew what to say. My teammates were increasingly treating me like an outsider, or at least I felt that way, the more they picked up on whatever they sensed was going on with Garvey. I was afraid to tell a teacher because I wasn't that close to any of them, and Garvey was a co-worker of theirs, afterall, wasn't he? He was held (and unbelievably still is) in such high esteem. I should have trusted my parents, but I was afraid what my dad would do. And I did not want to live with the aftermath. Besides, I was still trying to figure out what was going on let alone whether it was wrong. This latest activity had started me finally leaning in that direction but I wasn't sure. About anything. Only my stomach, my gut, knew the truth. And I was starting to listen. Looking for words to unlock and define perceptions. Words to encapsulate feelings. But what if I was wrong? Now I had to think. There was more to my reluctance to participate in Garvey's "treatment" than I understood. Something unspoken was deeply troubling me. The truth was somewhere between my stomach and my brain. My stomach knew. My brain needed to learn something real about the physical nature of sex to put the two together. I was in the initial stages of moving towards a coherent picture and this last encounter had given me a strong push.
Listen. For a young kid, this is way too complex of a situation. The levels of involvement and the degrees of manipulation would drive an adult crazy. As a young boy, I was sad, afraid, and confused by Garvey and our interaction. Very confused. I was becoming more and more quiet. Moody. Withdrawn. Prone to quick bursts of anger that were not my nature. Things were going in directions that before mere months ago I was unaware existed. And now that they were being thrust in my face I was doing my best to make sense of them. But I felt alone. Betrayed and alone. And terribly confused.
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