I was scrolling through Facebook the other day, and I saw something that surprised me. I saw that many of my former high school classmates were saying that Gary Mertz passed away at the age of fifty-four. He was survived by his wife, three kids, and two grandchildren. While I felt bad for his family and their loss, I was actually a little happy that he was gone. You see Gary was my bully, from first grade to twelfth, he constantly tortured me, punched me, and made fun of me. However, one of his attempts to fully humiliate me backfired and ended up making me very popular with the girls at my school. For that, I’ll be eternally grateful.
While reading all the posts my mind started drifting back to September of 1985, the start of my junior year. That was a tough time for me, my parents got divorced, my best friend moved from Livonia Michigan to Boise Idaho, and I never felt more alone. Even worse, I had just turned sixteen, and my mom forced me to get a job. I didn’t get a cool job at a restaurant or a clothing store, I was a stock boy at K-Mart, the bottom rung of retail jobs.
Honestly, the job wasn’t that bad, since it was close to my house I could walk there, but to be clear the only reason I worked there was that I didn’t have a car. While my mom and dad would let me use their respective cars, they didn’t think I was responsible to own one. While Laurie, my older sister, who back then was one of the least responsible people I knew got a brand new Toyota Celica for her sweet sixteen. It wasn’t fair, but as my mom always said, “Life isn’t fair.”
You know what else wasn’t fair, was that I didn’t have a girlfriend. It’s not like I wasn’t attractive, because I was. During the summer before my junior year, I finally shed my baby fat, got some muscle tone, and thought I stood a chance with the ladies during the first week of school. But everyone still saw me, Tom Mitchell, as a pudgy kid, not as the slim six foot quasi Adonis that I believed myself to be. Instead, my sex life consisted of jerking off several times a day to the porn mags I had hidden in my closet.
The main reason I didn’t have a girlfriend was that I lacked confidence. Whenever I tried talking to a member of the opposite sex I started shaking and the stupidest things came out of my mouth. With so many hot girls at school, my cock was constantly hard. It was so hard that I had to buy baggier pants to hide my constant erection. Back then I was embarrassed by having a constant boner, I didn’t want anyone making fun of me for having one. It never occurred to me that every sixteen-year-old boy in my class was going through the same thing, the only difference between me and them was that some of them were fucking, including Gary Mertz.
His hatred for me escalated on Saturday, September 22nd 1985. He came into K-Mart at one in the afternoon with two goals in mind, tormenting me while getting carts and buying a case of beer. I should have left well enough alone, but his hurtful words and insults triggered me, so I walked into the store, and told the head cashier that he was only sixteen while he was in line holding a case of Meisterbrau. After they refused him service he just glared at me like a viper stalking his prey. I knew that when he eventually struck I would probably be in a world of pain.
For two weeks I waited for his retaliation. To avoid him I stayed home sick for a few days, and when I was in school I made sure to always be around large groups of people, especially when entering and leaving the one class we had together, Public Speaking during fifth period. I hated that class for two reasons: I hated public speaking, and our teacher Ms. Stalling was a drop-dead gorgeous thirty-year-old woman. Her long curly dyed blonde hair, and petite 5’3 smoking hot body always had my cock at full attention. That’s why on days when I had to speak in front of the class I wore my baggiest sweatpants to school. Which is what I wore on Wednesday, October Ninth because I was giving a speech on the influence of The Kinks in popular music.
As I stood in the front of the room shaking nervously as stuttered words came out of my mouth, I was relieved to see that Gary wasn’t in class. I thought that he would use this moment to heckle and make fun of me while I read off my notecards. Instead, he did something worse. He ran into class as I was discussing their hit single, “Come Dancing” and pulled down my sweats and boxers revealing my hard throbbing cock. I stood there paralyzed by fear as I could hear Gary laughing hysterically, as everyone looked at my junk. Within seconds I came to my senses, pulled up my underwear and sweats, before running out of the class in embarrassment.
I hid in the janitor's closet for the remaining hour of school. I didn’t want to show my face during sixth period. I knew that by now everyone in the school knew what Gary did to me, and were probably cracking jokes at my expense. As I sat between the mops and buckets I was formulating plans on how to convince my mom to let me stay home for the rest of the week.
Thirty minutes after the last bell rang, Dave, the school janitor, returned to his “office” laughing hysterically when he saw me. “You are the talk of the school.” he said gleefully, “You might as well drop out, change your name and move somewhere no one knows you.”
If the day couldn't get any worse it started storming as I walked out of the school. With no raincoat or umbrella, the barrage of raindrops was hitting me like a ton of baby missiles. As I was walking toward Farmington Road a red Pontiac Fiero pulled up next to me. The driver rolled the window down revealing themselves to be Ms. Stalling. She smiled at me as she said, “Get in, I’ll give you a ride home.
As I climbed into her car she asked, “Are you okay?”
I didn’t say a word.
“You might be happy to know that Gary got indefinitely suspended,” she said.
“Is he getting expelled?” I asked.
“Tomorrow the principal is going to talk to his parents and your mom before making a final decision,” she said.
“My mom knows what happened?” I asked as my face turned even redder.
“Yes she does,” Ms. Stalling exclaimed. “Everyone’s been concerned since you disappeared after the incident. I should take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home,” I shouted. “Please take me to my dad’s apartment.”
“Is he home?” she inquired.
“No,” I said. “He’s in Vegas with his girlfriend.”
“Your mom is really worried,” she said as she put her hand on my leg in an attempt to console me.”
“I want to be alone,” I replied.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, “I’ll take you to your dad's, make sure you call your mom, and I’ll talk to her afterwards, deal?”
“Deal,” I replied.
As we drove to my dad’s apartment at 14 Mile and Orchard Lake neither one of us said a word. We just listened to the top 40 sounds of WHYT. Twenty minutes later we drove past the guard house at the entrance of his complex, parked and walked into his bachelor pad. Ms. Stalling walked to the couch, sat down and picked up the phone on the table next to it and sternly said, “Call your mom now.”
I then dialled home, and my mom instantly picked up.
“Where are you?” she frantically screamed.
“I’m at Dad’s,” I replied.
“How did you get there?” she asked in a quiet yell.
“Ms. Stalling saw me walking and gave me a ride here,” I replied.
“Why didn’t you come home?” she screamed.
“I wanted to be alone,” I replied.
“Is she still with you?” she asked in a calmer tone.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Let me talk to her,” my mom insisted.
As I handed her the phone I said, “My mom wants to talk to you.”
While I couldn’t hear what my mom said, I could hear Ms. Stalling say, “He’s okay, just really embarrassed.”
“I wouldn’t come over here, I think he needs to decompress.”
“Yes I’ll stay with him, and when he’s ready I’ll drive him home.”
She then handed the phone back to me. The first thing I heard my mom say was, “Are you okay?”
“Yes, Mom,” I replied.
“Please call me if you need me, “she said, “And don’t forget to eat.”
“I will,” I replied.
“Remember I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” I replied before we both hung up.
“We need to get you out of those wet clothes,” she said. “Does your dad have a washer and dryer?”
“Yes,” I replied.
"Good, go change into some of your dad’s clothes, put yours in the dryer, and then let’s talk," she said. "
"Before I threw my clothes in the dryer, I put on a pair of my dad’s pajama bottoms, a bathrobe and one of his t-shirts. I then walked into the living room and said, "Ms. Stalling, you don’t have to stay here and babysit me."
“You can call me Molly,” she said, “And I promised your mom I’d look after you.”
“Why?” I asked, “I’m not a baby.”
“She’s overly worried,” Molly said.
My mom was definitely a worrier. If I or my sisters had the sniffles, we were off to the doctor. If any of us were sad, she’d take us to a therapist. If we told her we were hungry, she figured we wouldn’t get enough to eat, so she’d make us a feast. When I was in first grade and wanted to walk to school with friends, she followed us in her car to make sure nothing happened. I guess she wanted Ms. Stalling to stay with me to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid.
As I sat down on the couch, she continued to walk around the room, looking at pictures my dad had on his bookshelf. She picked up one of me, my dad, and my two sisters as she said, "Your dad’s cute, but you’re cuter."
I blushed as she said that. No one other than family members or friends of my parents has ever told me that.
“What does your dad do for a living?” she asked.
“He’s a lawyer,” I said, “You’ve probably seen his commercials.”
"Oh my god, that’s why I thought he looked familiar," she said as she started singing. "If you were in an accident today and you need a lawyer who’ll help you get your settlement money in a flash, call 313-Ask-Dash."
“That’s him,” I said. “His real name is Greg, not Dash.”
“It must be cool having a famous dad,” she said.
"Not really," I replied. "According to my mom, He’s known more for that jingle than actually winning cases."
"Is that true?" she asked.
"I don’t think it is," I replied. "If he always lost cases, he wouldn’t be able to afford a Porsche and his lifestyle."
"It’s still cool," she said. "My dad was a teacher."
"Is that why you became a teacher?" I asked as she joined me on the couch.
“Yes,” she replied, “My dad inspired so many of his students and was there for them in their times of need. At the high school he taught at, he was teacher of the year ten years in a row. I want to be just like him.”
“You probably will,” I replied. “You’re a good teacher.”
“Thank you,” she said as she put her hand on my leg. “We’re not here to talk about me, I want to talk about you, and the horrible thing that happened.”
As her hand made contact with my pajama-covered leg, my dick got hard. I grabbed a pillow to hide it.
“You don’t need to do that,” she said as she grabbed the pillow and tossed it onto the floor.
“Why’d you do that?” I screamed.
“For your own good,” she said. “I understand that from your point of view what Gary did was traumatic, and it was. But you need to look at it from a positive vantage.”
“There was nothing positive about it,” I said. “Everyone laughed at me.”
"The only person who was laughing was Gary," she said. "Everyone was looking at your huge penis. No one could take their eyes off of it, including me. Every sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boy in the class was jealous that they didn’t have what you have between their legs, and every sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girl was thinking that their boyfriends were no longer adequate. Tonight, when they play with their pussies, they are going to be fantasizing about you."
