Probation by Tom Mendicino Read Free Book Online

instructions on how to stand, where to hold your elbows and fists, the motion for a circle punch, how to throw a jab, where to find the belly of the bag.
    My arms and shoulders ached for days and my fingers were swollen and bruised. But pain and frustration wouldn’t stop me from mastering the bag. I bought a pair of cheap Everlasts to protect my hands.
    Left, left, left.
    Right, right, right.
    Jab, strike.
    Left, right, left, right.
    Pow, pow, pow.
    I descended into my dungeon every afternoon and punished the bag for every slight and insult, real or imagined, for all the frustrations and humiliations of the day.
    Left, left, left.
    Right, right, right.
    Jab, jab.
    Strike, strike.
    Pow, pow, pow.
    Da-dum-dum-dum.
    Da-dum-dum-dum.
    I knew my old man was standing on my old perch on the steps, watching. I picked up the speed, controlling the bag with a skill that surprised even me, making it sing with a voice it feared had been lost forever.
    Pow, pow, pow.
    Da-dum-dum-dum.
    Da-dum-dum-dum.
    I ended with a flourish, a magnificent punch that rattled the ceiling.
    I dropped my fists and turned to confront him.
    “Good speed,” he said, obviously impressed. “Let me show you how to use your shoulders to get a little more power.”
    I pulled off my gloves and wiped my forehead.
    “No, thanks. I’ll figure it out myself,” I said as I brushed by him on the steps, gloating over this long-awaited opportunity to reject him even though the taste of revenge was far less sweet than I’d always dreamed it would be.

A Short History of Masturbation
    M att, you think I’ve got no willpower. You think I’m weak, unable to resist temptation. It’s nine o’clock in the evening, early, very early. Atlanta’s a big old city with lots of big, horny men on the prowl. It’s hump night and the boys are out there looking to hump. But I’m going to prove you wrong, you sanctimonious son of a bitch. Who knows what I’m passing up just to make a point? I see they’re filming a movie in town, with you-know-who, that big, big star, the one who joined that whacked-out church after they threatened to out him and ruin his career. I’ll bet tonight’s his one opportunity to slip out unnoticed by the Grand Pooh-Bah of the Celestial Congregation and prowl the underbelly of gay Atlanta. I bet I’m his type, that he’d be all over me, begging to be my love slave, promising to please me like I’ve never been pleased before.
    But no. I’m going to lie flat on my back and pound my prick until I squeeze it dry, fantasizing about the best fucking orgasm I’m never going to have.
     
    They kept up the house and the lawn, minded their own business, and that’s all that matters, my father always said. You couldn’t ask for more in neighbors. But when my mother suggested inviting them to a holiday party, he put down his foot with an emphatic no that made it clear the matter wasn’t up for discussion.
    Mr. Marion Wright and Mr. Lesley Sax lived in a Victorian pile that lent dignity and a sense of history to the hapless split levels and ranches surrounding it. Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax had never restored the house since, unlike its contemporaries, it had never fallen into disarray. Rather they had preserved it and tenaciously held on to the original boundaries of a rolling lawn that dwarfed the others in the neighborhood. Mr. Wright’s grandfather had built the house before the turn of the century. Mr. Wright’s mother lived there from the day she was born until the day that God finally took heed of her son’s many shaken-fist curses to the heavens above and struck her dead by inflicting a massive stroke. She claimed to never have slept a night of her life outside that house, insisting that she never even closed her eyes during her six-week honeymoon trip to Europe.
    I remember the day Mrs. Wright was buried. My father threatened to whup my sister Gina and me for screaming and fighting in the backyard. Show a little respect for the dead, he warned.