Shaving by William Walsh

Wax Williams didn't get any hair between his legs until the summer before ninth grade started. His first instinct was to shave it off. He knew that his father shaved his face every day and that his mother shaved her legs and under her arms. He figured they both also shaved between their legs. He didn't know for sure if they did, but he knew that he shouldn't ask.

The first time he shaved himself, he used his father's menthol shaving cream, which stung him in a cold way. His testicles tightened up and ached. He shaved quickly, eyes tearing, hands shaking. He nicked himself twice.

One week later, when his hair had come back in and an itchy rash had appeared, he shaved again, this time using the beauty soap his mother kept in a little plastic box in the bathroom vanity. It was easier going the second time, but he stopped shaving and wiped the soap off without rinsing when his penis became hard as he pinched the head lightly to reach a spot he was trying to shave underneath.

He knew what was happening. Erection. He knew that it was also called a hard on. He had them when he woke up in the morning. He'd read that this was normal in the second to last chapter of his eighth grade health book, even though his class never officially got that far in the book and had been instructed not to read past the chapters that had been assigned. Originally Wax's class was supposed to cover the whole book, but after the textbooks had been reviewed by the School Board, there was a vote against including sex education in the eighth grade curriculum. Ms. Boynkin, Wax's health teacher, would pass the books out at the beginning of each class and collect them before the bell rang to end class. These books could not be taken home. She would circle the classroom as the students read, making sure that nobody looked beyond the day's lesson. The trick was to read forward during one of the open book tests. You could flip through the pages quickly then, undetected, and get an eyeful of the nude charcoal sketches in the final chapters. But you couldn't look for too long. You had to flip back to where you were supposed to be.

Wax shaved about once a week for the rest of the summer. One night he said to his father, "I shave now."

His father looked closely at Wax's chin and rubbed the back of his hand on his cheek.

"Sandpaper," he said, before turning back to his newspaper.

Wax had expected his father to understand the larger implication of his shaving. But he had seemed oblivious. It was possible that his father was avoiding the subject.

----

Wax knew that beginning in high school you had to start showering after gym. It was school policy. A letter of notification came from the High School in the middle of the summer. Mrs. Williams read part of the letter aloud at the supper table in an angry voice.

"As proper hygiene is imperative to the overall health of every student at Ampersand High School, students will be required to shower following Physical Education. Each boy/girl is to bring his/her own soap and a clean, dry towel. They will be afforded ample time to properly shower before the start of their next class. Thank you for your cooperation with this policy."

She handed the letter to Mr. Williams who quickly re-read the letter to himself then looked at the list of things each student had to have for Physical Education.

"I don't like it," Mrs. Williams said. "I think these boys just misbehave in situations like this. It's unnecessary."

Mrs. Williams said Wax should cover himself in front of the other boys and make sure that he didn't look at the other boys and that if there was any horseplay in the shower he was to step out of the shower and dress for class. If this got him into trouble, she would go straight down to the school and stand up for him.

A week before classes started, Wax decided that he would begin shaving everyday so he wouldn't be stubbly. He was thinking about having to shower with all the other boys after gym class. He figured that if he had stubble, someone would say something about it. He didn’t want any stubble.

He was scheduled to take Physical Education Fourth Period every Wednesday and Friday. His mother packed his gym bag for him with a new bar of soap in a plastic sandwich bag and a new white towel that she had bought when they went shopping for school clothes. She also packed his gym uniform, white shorts and a reversible shirt in the Ampersand colors, green and gold. The idea was that you could turn the shirt inside out when teams were divided up, though in basketball, which is all they would ever played in Gym, Coach Dunkin always made the teams Shirts vs. Skins.

Wax was also supposed to have an athletic supporter (it was on the boys' list), but Mrs. Williams had crossed it off in the store without buying one. When he asked her about it later on at home, she told that she would not buy an athletic supporter for him. "You don't need one," she said. "They're disgusting and filthy, and I'll be the one who has to wash it."

Wax didn’t ask her about it again because he knew she was still upset about the showering policy. She kept asking Wax if he was nervous about having to shower with the other boys. "Are you afraid?" she asked.

He told her, honestly, that he wasn't. He had seen a movie once about kids away at summer camp who all had to shower together at the same time. The movie made it look like fun, the way the stalls were low enough so you could see the head of the boy next-door. He also thought of how the army doctors on M*A*S*H showered together but in separate stalls.

But then he found out that the showers at Ampersand High School weren't divided into stalls. There was just a wide-open corner of the locker room with eight columns that each had shower nozzles spraying in four different directions. Coach Dunkin turned them all on at once with a large knob that looked like a ship's wheel. You had to huddle around the columns with three other guys and duck your head under the nozzle. The water went down two large rusty drains embedded in the tiled floor.

Some of the boys from third period Gym were still in the showers when Wax entered the locker room. They were all Tenth Graders. Wax could see them through the steam, laughing, pushing each other around. He was surprised that none of them covered themselves like his mother had told him to.

Coach Dunkin was tall and overweight with a sweaty red face and a whistle on a shoestring around his neck. He was sitting on a small table by the showers handing out combination locks from an old laundry basket to Wax's fourth period class. There must have been a hundred locks in the basket, all with a three-number combination taped across the dial.

"What's your name?"

Wax was startled by how loud Coach Dunkin's voice was.

"Wax Williams."

"Your real name, not your nickname."

"That's my real name," Wax said.

Coach Dunkin looked at his clipboard, then looked at Wax.

"Wax Williams," he said, putting a heavy old lock in Wax's hand. "Make sure this combination works before you lock up your clothes."

Wax moved toward a row of lockers. One of the boys on the bench told him to pick an empty locker. Wax sat down next to the boy, but faced the row of lockers on the other side of the bench.

The boy started undressing. He took off his shirt, pants, and underwear, and then stood naked for a moment looking through his gymbag. His back was turned to Wax, but there were other boys who, Wax thought, could probably see the boy from the front.

The idea of taking his clothes off in front of everybody made Wax uncomfortable and anxious. He began thinking of ways to undress that would not leave him exposed to the other boys. He knew he wouldn't have to get out of his underwear because he didn't have a jock strap to change into, but suddenly the idea of just being seen in his underwear made him feel self-conscious and scared. And then there was the shower after gym.

Wax resolved that he wouldn't get caught fumbling through his gymbag with no clothes on. He would have his gym uniform ready to put on before he got out of his clothes, and he wouldn't get out of his shirt and pants at the same time. He would take off his shirt first, put on his gymshirt, then take off his pants and put on his gymshorts.

The boy standing next to him was still naked. He had his gym uniform, towel, soap and jock strap out of his bag, but he wasn't changing. It seemed to Wax that the boy was purposely showing himself to the two boys on the other side of the bench. They both looked away, but they kept taking quick looks at the naked boy every few seconds.

The naked boy turned to face Wax as he stepped into his jock strap. Wax saw that the boy had hair. Wax stood quickly and took a step back and looked into the big shower area. He felt a panic in his throat and worried that he was going to trip on his own feet as he moved toward the shower. He could feel his face was getting hot.

Coach Dunkin blew his whistle, told the boys in the shower to get the lead out. Then he turned the big knob to shut the water down in all the showers.

Wax heard groans from the shower. One of the boys yelled out, "But Coach, my balls are still soapy."

Coach Dunkin laughed and said, "Girls love soapy balls."

The Tenth Graders emerged from the shower then. They were all a lot taller than Wax. He looked at the floor and noticed also that their feet were much bigger than his. He didn't look up; still, he could see that all the boys coming out of the shower had hair. They weren't shaved. Not one of them.

"Coach," Wax said. He tried to say it in the same tone as the boy from the shower who said his balls were soapy, but his voice sounded much smaller and didn't seem to carry in the echoey locker room.

Coach Dunkin didn't take his eyes from his clipboard. Wax worried that the Coach might not have heard him or, worse, that he had decided to ignore him.

"Coach," he said again, louder this time.

Coach Dunkin finally looked up. "I already gave you a lock, didn't I?"

"I don't have an athletic supporter," Wax said.

"Why not?"

"My mother said she wouldn't buy one for me."

"Don't bullshit me, son."

A few of the Tenth Graders started to gather behind and beside Wax, toweling off as they listened to Wax tell Coach Dunkin that his mother had refused to buy a jock strap for him because she didn't want to have to have to wash it.

The Tenth Graders laughed when Wax said that.

"You don't have to wash them," one boy said.

Another boy said. "I didn't wash mine once my whole freshman year."

Coach Dunkin said, "You're excused from Gym for today. But you make sure you have five dollars next class. I'll have a cup and a strap for you. You tell your mother the money's for Glee Club."

"Thank you," Wax said.

Then Coach Dunkin said, "But no singing in the showers."

All the tenth graders laughed, and Wax did too, but he didn't get what was funny.