In my early days of high school, I became the proud owner of my very first boyfriend. A local drug dealer, who was far older than me, and who struck fear into the hearts of everyone he met. 

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One night, I was walking with my shortest and funniest friend, Ava, to the C.P.L. (otherwise known as the Church Parking Lot). A gorgeous stretch of concrete where the teens of town would go to smoke weed and drink 40s for approximately 15 minutes before the local police arrived and broke the whole thing up. 

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Ava and I were strolling the streets, filled with hope and hot pants gabbing about the boys we loved, that never really gave us the time of day. The walk took longer than anticipated, and I really had to pee. Through experience, I learned holding one's pee is never a good idea, as my brother once ruptured his bladder doing so. It's a fact of life that some are nature pee-ers, and others are not. I, myself, always seem to pee on my socks and thus was looking for a restroom. 

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We took a slight detour through our neighborhood park to see if there was an open bathroom, but the doors were bolted shut. Over the bridge and through the baseball field were two more restrooms. These were less than ideal, not dissimilar to the toilettes you find in jail cells, made entirely of chrome metal and designed without the bourgeois seats that the 7-11 offers. 

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I had no choice but to see if, by some miracle, these doors remained open, but the women's were locked. My urination desperation and the thought of pee socks pushed me to try the men's side, which was to my delight, open. I assumed the maintenance crew had forgotten to lock it was my lucky day. While the stall reeked of primo California bud, it suffixed, and I ran to meet Ava across the field. 

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Before we could exit, a set of eerily identical twins we knew from school stopped us. Twin #1 said, in a voice that was both whisper and shout, “...Um, I think your boyfriend is in there with Angelica Romano,” before Twin #2 cut in with, “We saw them go in earlier”. Dread ran down my body until I was covered in it. Socks and all. 

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Ava, myself, and the twins from The Shining staked out the scene, waiting to watch the horrors unfold. Looking back, I should’ve been impressed. It was a solid amount of stamina for a 16-year-old boy. Finally, the culprits exited the bathroom, and my worst fears were realized. My first boyfriend was having sex with another girl…in a public restroom… that I happened to need as we happened to walk through a park… that was apparently very happening. 

 

The next part is a blur, but I do know that to this day, I’ve never seen someone run as fast as the teenage mistress. She was a regular Usain Bolt. 

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Through tears and nausea, I confronted him. I was crying, he was yelling, or maybe it was me yelling, and him crying, most likely it was both. He kept telling me to hit him as if punching him in the face would make this teenage bathroom-sex scandal ok. I wish I could say I hit him right in the teeth and stood up for myself and for all women everywhere. 

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The reality is that I chose to punch a brick wall. Because really, when someone wrongs you, it is best to take out your anger on yourself and make everything just a little bit worse. 

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Turns out that punching a solid surface, such as brick, severely damages your hand, and it swelled to the size of a Mickey Mouse glove. In the days following, I tried to schedule a showdown between myself and the teenage mistress. However, as she was on the soccer team and I have never been one for cardio, she continued to outrun me. 

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I have never been so glad I didn’t do something. Not only because it was obviously her fault and the anger clearly should have been directed at my so-called boyfriend, but because the teenage mistress, and my boyfriend, ended up getting very severe Staph Infections all over their bodies, proving once and for all that karma is real. 

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As a fu*cked-up men aficionado, my pallet developed early in life. I have always had a snout for sniffing out the unavailable, the inappropriate, and the downright mean men who roam the earth. I have worked to overcome this, yet they still smell like Christmas-scented candles on a cold winter day.

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*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.