Designer Jeans

“The damn fag is in the bathroom playing with himself,” announced my stepfather to the entire family as they sat around eating deer meat with mashed potatoes for dinner yet again, one warm summer night back in ’82.

“Get your ass out here and eat,” he shouted as I tried to shove my extremity into my Lee jeans.

‘Barron’, the name I gave my penis, was growing by leaps and bounds. My constant pampering had made it red and sore. It was difficult twisting it to a forty-five degree angle to fit inside the highly fashionable pair of pants.

I threw down the Sears catalog, found my place at the table, bowed my head to pray and pretended like I was doing my early Christmas shopping.

Bob, my stepfather, took the lock off the bathroom door weeks ago and it all started to add up.

Oh well, I won’t be doing it in there anymore, I thought as my mind searched for new exciting placing to escape a life of abuse.

My brothers, all five of them giggled but didn’t laugh, for the older ones were much more addicted than I.

“Why the hell were you peeking in at him?” mom asked, “Why don’t you just stop messin’ with him and leave him alone?” she asked.

It was the first time in my mother’s second marriage that she stood up to him. But the bruises, welts and crooked nose from hard slaps across my face had already taken their toll.

My little half-brother Bobby, who was only six years old went to take a pee after dinner.

He came into the living room and asked if he could get a new pair of underwear, like the ones I was going to order from the Sears catalogue.

I turned and suggested that he first get jeans like mine, because with Bob as his real father, he would likely wear JC Penny Plain Pockets for the rest of his life.