Superman at Thirteen

As we finished our seventh-grade year at Chestnut Hill Academy, Davis Miller was about to become our hero, the boy we all wanted to be. His popularity and fame started with the odd rallying cry from our small class: “Davis Miller doesn’t have any you-know-whats.” Well, for the record, none of us had any prominent you-know-whats either, but it didn’t matter; none of us were having our testicles surgically lowered over the summer the way Davis was, and that made us feel superior. At least for a little while.

I must confess that how we learned that he was going to have his testicles lowered is still a mystery to me, but in the summer of 1950, it happened. And when we began our eighth-grade year, all twenty of us were overwhelmed by what we found: Davis Miller was a man. More than a man, an instant he-man. He had grown at least half a foot, had a deep voice, and his dark beard was heavy enough to have to shave every day.

But it was more than his voice and beard that made him a he-man. It was the defined musculature of his body and the black, curly hair that covered it. And in the locker room, Davis looked more like a teacher than one of us. His you-know-whats hung down, not at all like ours. Ours looked like small peaches tucked up underneath our other you-know-what that stuck out like the stub of a pink crayon rather than hanging down the way Davis’ did.

But enough of that. Davis had also become a dominant athletic force simply because he was so much bigger, stronger, and faster than the rest of us. And with all those muscles and dark hair on his body, he was a scary-looking adversary to boot. His crowning achievement came at the annual field day that pitted the boys who were Light Blues against those of us who were Dark Blues. Davis won all of the events he entered with such ease that it was comical. Traditionally, Blue and Blue Day’s last event was the tug of war, and Davis almost single-handedly pulled the Light Blues halfway across the playing field before victory was declared, and all of us awestruck Dark Blues mobbed our newfound hero.

What’s more, his newfound masculinity led to the most impressive social behavior. On the next to last day of school, he gained even more stature when he told us that the previous weekend he’d “gone all the way,” not once, but seven times with the eighteen-year-old girl who up until that point had been his babysitter. Incredibly, he’d lost his virginity at thirteen, something that was unheard of in those days, and that one fact made all of us go home and examine our crayons and peaches pretty carefully, wondering when our day might come. I remember being envious, but for some reason, a bit intimidated, too.

The following Fall, I was packed off to boarding school and lost track of Davis for the better part of fifteen years, time enough for us both to graduate from high school and college, serve in the military, and get married. Then, at a Blue and Blue reunion, a man no taller than five-eight, slight of build with a dark beard, receding hairline, and wire-rim glasses approached me and said I might not remember him, that his name was Davis Miller.

We were delighted to see one another and had a lot of catching up to do. I told him I thought he would be at least six feet-two and weigh over two hundred pounds. He told me he thought I would be a freckled-faced five-foot, three-inch kid. We both laughed at how different things were now than they once had been or once had seemed.

What I didn’t tell Davis was that I was glad it was he who had his you-know-whats surgically lowered, not me; that, as confusing as it was at times, I enjoyed growing into a man’s body at pretty much the same pace as the rest of our class; and that, when I finally experienced my first long, passionate kiss well after Davis had told us how it was done, I enjoyed it all the more for waiting.