Of Naked Men and Ice Skating · Shrieking Lizzy
We were children of the 1970s, children of divorce and children of an age, not of innocence, but of bravado. While we recognised dangers, we felt impervious to them. Lisa lived in the same apartment complex as Leslie and me. She lived with her divorced mom; we lived with our divorced dad. Inevitably, we became friends of similar circumstances and spent all of our free time together and unsupervised as we engaged in mildly delinquent behaviour. Our dad hated her mom and said she was a ‘ low-life gutter whore without shame or self-respect. Her mom hated our dad and called him an ‘arrogant piece of shit, with a giant stick up his ass’. There were grains of truth to both their assessments, and although our respective parents never made nice with each other, their animosity did nothing to discourage our friendship.
How delicious the freedom to run about unobserved by the eagle-eyes of responsible adults!
One advantage of having divorced parents is their frequent wish to get rid of us. For example, on weekends, when our dad wanted to entertain his girlfriend, and Lisa’s mom desired the company of a suitor, they shuttled the three of us off to the cinema or the roller rink. How delicious the freedom to run about unobserved by the eagle-eyes of responsible adults! Desperados with pocket money, we took full advantage of the sheer anarchy given to us. We tried out swear words and lip gloss. We smoked the menthol cigarettes Lisa stole from her mom. These made us look older and more sophisticated. We flirted clumsily, but shamelessly with young men twice our age. We felt invincible.
One Saturday in August, our dad treated the three of us to an evening of skating at the Valley Ice Rink. The rink was in a small, L-shaped shopping centre, wedged between a laundromat and a men’s clothing outlet. My sister and I skated there often. Ordinarily, sports were not my forte, but I skated with passable competence and even a bit of grace. I looked forward to showing off my skills to Lisa. Athletics came naturally to her, and she outshone me in every sport. But put me on ice skates, and I confidently held my own.
Upon arriving, the first thing we noticed was the scarcity of skaters. Only a family with young children and two pretty figure skaters practising on the ice. Summer weather just didn’t attract people to the rink.
My clean white skates still fit my feet, giving me an air of prestige over Leslie and Lisa with their scuffed and shabby rental skates — such a pity no one was there to see me. Not a single boy was in sight, but we made the most of the evening, holding hands, circling the rink and trying to outdo each other in style and speed. During breaks, we drank hot chocolates and smoked stolen cigarettes, as the maintenance guy resurfaced the ice.
Just before closing, the staff announced all skaters must leave the ice, return all rental skates and proceed to the exit before 10:00 pm. We filed out, expecting to find our dad waiting for us in his car. Alas, no Dad. By that time, the parking lot was almost entirely empty. Ten minutes later, the last of the staff shut off the lights and locked the big double glass doors behind them. Leslie worried. Dad was late. She went to the payphone beside the laundromat and called the house; no answer. We sat on the low wall outside the rink and waited.
As we waited, we looked into the window of the Gay Blade — a men’s clothing shop whose logo featured a moustachioed caricature wielding a fencing foil. On closer inspection, we noticed an adult man standing before a mirror in the centre of the shop. He stood in plain view of us, illuminated by the lights that burned at the back of the shop.
The man undressed — right there — in the middle of the shop! We watched with a mixture of horror and stifled amusement as he stripped naked and stroked his erect penis before a full-length mirror. I had never seen a naked adult man before. Lisa, however, had seen plenty of naked men stumbling out of her mother’s bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom. As our subject continued to masturbate, Lisa ably explained the nuances of men’s bodies. We learned all there was to know about erections and ejaculation, as Lisa provided her expertly objective narration to the shopman’s actions.
Before his show reached its happy ending, my dad pulled up in his ugly blue station wagon. Sitting next to him, pie-eyed and beautiful, was his young girlfriend. We piled into the backseat, burning to tell our story. Yet, something unspoken, but mutually understood, told each of us not to tell what we had seen. We three sat in the back seat, quiet as a tomb, all the way home.
Originally published at https://shriekinglizzy.com on February 5, 2022.
