This is a fictional story that covers the past 100 years with teens discovering their sexuality fifty years apart. An old journal left behind by the first teen leads the second teen on journey to fill in the missing blanks. Please note there are some references to racism that are strictly for purposes of building the story line, no offense is intended I just wanted to show how narrow-minded people used to be. I am not trying to start any political discussions, please enjoy it for the story that it is.
It was the end of April in 1972, I would be finishing my 8th grade year of school the next month. Finally, I would be in high school in the fall. I just had to last four more years in the awful town of Westburg, Tennessee, then I could get the hell out of here. Westburg was just like a lot of other towns in the hills of Tennessee, one main street, a post office and three bars. There were around 1500 people and the nearest “city” was an hour away. Of course, we had a grocery store, a gas station, hardware store and even a small clothing store, so we could at least get necessities. More than half of the people living in Westburg worked at the Thornhill Mill, which took wood chips from sawmills in the area and turned them onto pulp that would be processed into paper. If you didn’t work at the mill, you worked at a business that somehow was dependent upon the mill for survival. My family was no exception, my dad was the head accountant, he had started at the mill in 1960 as a clerk and had worked his way up to department head. My mom was a housewife, just like most every other woman in town.
We lived about a mile outside of town on Mulberry Road, there were about 5 other homes that were spaced about a quarter mile apart in the area. Our house was at the end of the road just before it turned into a path that only area farmers would drive on to get to their fields. We had a typical country house with a large front porch complete with a swing and a couple rocking chairs. Inside was a large eat in kitchen that led to a dining room and a living room. The second floor had three bedrooms and a bathroom, nothing fancy, but was very practical and served our family needs.
Outside the house was a single car garage, that housed my mom’s white station wagon with woodgrain sides, dad’s sedan sat outside when he was home. Behind the house was a large garden area where we grew fruit and vegetables for canning every summer. There was a large grove of trees behind the garden that served as playground for me and my older brother, Steve, as we grew up. We would spend hours playing in the trees letting our imaginations run wild and go on all types of adventures. We would play cowboys, cops and robbers and we even found an old log to turn into a pirate ship. Steve was now a junior in high school and I was 13, so our adventures had come to an end, although I would still go out in the trees for hikes and to just find a spot to sit and read a good book. Steve was a good student, but he was a better athlete, he had already lettered in football, basketball and track before he was a junior. His favorite was basketball, which made my dad very happy. Dad had been a good basketball player in his high school days, he was sure that Steve was the best player ever and knew that every college in three states would be lining up to get him to play for them. Steve would just tell dad not to get his hopes up, and dad would go into one of rants, saying work hard and practice so that you can get out of this town. Steve had confided in me that he could care less about playing basketball in college, he would rather just concentrate on his studies to get out of Westburg. I was nowhere near as athletic as Steve, and I always felt that dad thought his only chance to live out his playing sports beyond high school fantasy was going to have to go through Steve.
On night as we were all sitting down for supper, dad was in one of his, I hate my job and this town, moods. I just stayed quiet and tried to stay out of his way so that I didn’t aggravate him any further. Steve either didn’t pick up on dad’s mood or didn’t care and he started talking about getting a summer job so that he could buy a car.
I thought dad would choke on his food, “hell no! You need to practice basketball this summer, I talked to your coach, and he told me that he would have the gym open all summer for those who wanted practice.”
Steve said, “but dad, a few of the other…”
Dad cut him off, “I don’t care what the others are doing, I want you to concentrate on your game, I hear there are a lot of college recruiters that are going to smaller schools this year to look for players.”
Steve just sighed.
Mom quicky changed the subject, “Mike, how was your day at school?”
Dad just pushed his plate away, lit up a cigarette and opened the newspaper in front of his face.
I said, “it was good, we are studying civil rights this chapter and our teacher told us that Franklin Thornhill, the founder of mill where my dad worked, was one of the first businessmen that worked to integrate his mill back in the 20’s.”
Mom said, “well that is great Mike.”
Dad just grunted, “Old man Thornhill didn’t give a damn about integration, he just needed more help at the mill. He bought six old run down houses, slapped a coat of paint on them and then drove to Memphis and Nashville. He found the worst part of town and told the unemployed blacks that he had a job for them, and he would even provide a place for them to live. Once he got them to move here, he paid them about half what he paid everyone else and generously deducted their rent from their paychecks. They barely had enough pay left to feed their families.”
I said, “but our teacher showed us a newspaper article that showed the mill getting an award back in 1962 for having one of the first integrated businesses in Tennessee?”
Dad snarled, “that was Jr’s doing, he had a buddy that wrote for the paper, and he convinced him to do a fluff piece to make the Thornhills look good. Hell, they were still paying all the black employees half of what they paid everyone else. Thornhills don’t do anything to help anybody but themselves.”
I just quit talking about it and helped mom clear the table, I knew better than to rile up dad anymore than I already had.
I was getting excited for the school year to end, we were down to our last week of classes. I walked home alone that afternoon, Steve usually walked with me, but he had a friend that just got his first car, and he and couple other friends were going for a drive. As I walked up our driveway, I saw dad was already home from work, I came in the door and saw mom sitting at the kitchen table crying and dad beside her with his hands over his face. Mom saw me and cried even harder as she started to hug me.
I asked, “mom, dad, what is wrong?”
Dad said, “Mike, your brother was in a car accident, the car rolled into a ditch, and he was pinned and well, he didn’t make it.”
I looked to mom, “Steve is dead?”
Mom sobbed louder as she shook her head yes.
The next week was a blur, I was excused from classes, people were stopping by the house and then the funeral. Mom and dad were just numb, they just sat and stared not saying or doing anything. After the funeral dad went back to work and I tried to stay out of his way and not say anything to upset him. Mom was just going through the motions, she would do her housework, and cook our meals, but she quit doing anything that she had previously enjoyed.
I started spending more time in the tress out back, just to stay out of their way, and it helped me cope with losing my brother. I was walking down the road one day when two of my classmates, Murph and Bug, came toward me. Murph was Greg Murphy and Bug was Joe Collins, we started calling him Bug in the second grade after someone dared him to eat a bug at recess, and he did.
Murph said, “hey Mike, what are you doing?”
“Just going for a walk, what are you guys doing?”
Bug said, “we are going to Walters Pond to go swimming, you want to come along?”
I said, “sure, that sounds fun.”
Walters Pond was a large pond that all the locals would go swimming in or fish, nobody ever knew who owned it, we just all used it. We got to the pond, kicked off our shoes and pulled off our shirts, we were all wearing cut off jeans and we dove into the pond. We swam for about an hour, then we crawled out of the water and sat on a rock in the sun to dry off. We were trying to decide if we should go for another swim when I suggested that we go exploring instead. We headed up further into the trees, as we got about halfway between the pond and my house we came across an area that looked like an old house foundation. There was just a row of bricks in the shape of a small house, and they seemed to be charred, as if the house had burned down years ago. Just as we were about to continue our walk, I looked to the trees about 100 yards to the rear of the old house foundation.
I said, “hey guys, look over there.”
Bug said, “what is it?”
Murph said, “come on, it looks like an old shed, let’s check it out.”
We walked up to the shed, it looked like it had been sitting vacant for fifty years. The windows were all broken out, the door had fallen off of the hinges and we could see a few holes in the roof. We walked into the shed, there were a couple of old wooden crates and what appeared to be a few old empty tin cans thrown into one of the corners. We looked around and decided that the shed would make a cool clubhouse. We cleaned up a bit and made plans to come back in the morning with some supplies to fix the shed up a bit.
We all showed up the next day, Bug had a bag full of old blankets and pillows, Murph had scraps of wood and a hammer and nails, I had bag of snacks and chips and a couple old lawn chairs that my dad had thrown into a trash pile. I had snuck into my brother’s room and grabbed his transistor radio, I knew he wouldn’t mind, but if my parents caught me, they would be pissed. They had not touched anything in Steve’s room since he died, I even saw mom just sitting in the room crying from time to time.
We went to work, one of us had brought an old broom, and we used the wood scraps to patch the roof and rehang the door. We swept up the floor and set up the chairs and covered them with the blankets and pillows. We sat back and were enjoying our accomplishment when Murph said, “I have the finishing touch for our clubhouse,” as he pulled out another bag.
He opened it up to reveal about ten Playboy magazines, Bug said, “cool, give me one of those.”
Murph handed a few magazines each to Bug and me, as we all started to turn the pages, wide eyed. After a few minutes, I looked at Murph, who’s eyes were stuck on the pages in front of him as he was rubbing his crotch, I turned to Bug who was doing the same thing.
Murph said, “I don’t know about you guys, but these pictures are really turning me on.” We all agreed.
“Well then since it’s just us guys, it would ok if we jerked off a little then.” Before Bug or I answered, Murph stood up and pulled his shorts off. Murph was by far the best looking of the three of us, he had already started to develop more than I had and was the most athletic one of us. I my eyes went straight to his fully erect dick standing proud out of his bush, above a pair of plum sized balls tight against the base of his six-inch cock. My dick was only about half hard looking at the naked women in the Playboys, but it sprang to full attention when I got my first look at Murph standing there in all his glory. My mind raced as Murph sat back in his chair jacking his dick and resumed reading his playboy.
I turned to look at Bug, who was still staring at Murph. Bug was actually a goofy looking kid, he was tall for his age, had big ears the stuck straight out and bright red hair. We had all taken our shirts off when we started to work that morning and Bug was so skinny that you could count very one of his ribs, and when walked, he just plodded along on two of the biggest feet I have ever seen. I know his folks had to take him to the city to buy shoes since the local store didn’t have his size. As I was watching him look at Murph, he turned to me and said, “what the hell.”
He stood up and pulled his shorts down and my mouth hit the floor. Once his pants were down and he stood back I saw his dick for the first time. Damn, that thing had to be nine or ten inches long, as big around as a one of those long d-cell flashlights and he had two low hanging, egg sized balls. Bug grabbed on to his cock and started stroking with both hands, they only covered about half of his monster. Murph looked up from his magazine and said, “holy shit Bug, that thing is obscene, how do you keep that in your pants?”
Bug just blushed “well, I don’t know, I’m sorry I just..”
Murph interrupted, “no need to be embarrassed Bug, hell you should move to Hollywood and do porn movies.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of Bug’s cock as my shorts became so tight that I decided to join my friends and pulled my shorts off and started to jerk myself. I was your typical book worm type, I wore glasses and I wasn’t as skinny as Bug, but I wasn’t as developed as Murph. I only had about half as much hair around my crotch as Murph and was about the same girth and length. We all settled back down and went back to our magazines and jacking off, I however was not as interested in the girls on the pages as I was in my buddies’ dicks bouncing back and forth. After we finished and had started to get dressed, we heard a car go by on the road and decided we needed to get home as it would soon be supper time. I told Bug and Murph to go ahead as my house was closer than theirs, I said, “I will find a place to hide these magazines.”
They headed out the door as I wrapped the Playboys in a bag and started to look for a hiding place. I found a loose floorboard and pried one end up as I was pushing the bag under the floor, I noticed another bag already in the space. I pulled it out and looked in the bag. Inside I found an old black and composition notebook and well-worn pencil. I opened the cover and on the first page was written:
Personal Journal of Walter Hankins - May 15, 1922
