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LAST HURRAH: The Bare Facts

When teaching your son locker-room etiquette, size does matter.
By Tim Rogers |

I was going to tell you that this is a touching story about fatherhood and raising a son, but then I realized the story involves locker-room nudity, and the phrase “touching story” suddenly took on another meaning in my mind, which just goes to show you: I’m really not the right guy for this dad job. No way am I mature enough. Connect Four strategy, how to field a grounder, why smoking cigarettes is bad but having a cigar every so often is okay—these matters I can explain. But when it comes to nakedness, in general, and the abstruse protocol governing the men’s locker room, specifically, I am too susceptible to the sophomoric double-entendre.

But, anyway, the story goes like this. I belong to a gym called the Premier Club. Health club, whatever. And one of The Boy’s favorite father-son activities is paying a weekend visit thereto. I don’t know if it’s simply a function of his being 7 years old or if he’s got a budding case of OCD or what, but in order for a visit to please the gods, it must progress in a precise fashion, following the prescribed steps laid out in the ancient scrolls.

First to the locker room, where the locker is secured. (He has final say.) Then to the basketball court for the shooting of baskets, followed by the one-on-one, during which I am not allowed to dribble behind my back or between my legs because that’s not fair. This lasts for 10 minutes or until The Boy starts crying because I’m crashing the boards like Ben Wallace, refusing to yield even a single rebound. Whichever comes first.

Then to the locker room again for the changing into the swim trunks and the acquisition of the towels, but they must be warm towels, fresh from the dryer. This is crucial.

Next comes the swimming. During this portion, I attempt to do laps while The Boy runs alongside the edge of the pool, periodically leaping onto my back in an attempt to break my spine. Also, the competition to see who can hold his breath the longest. (I always win.)

Finally, the ritual concludes back in the locker room. This is where the weigh-in takes place, and the determination of how many Boys equal one Dad, and the steaming (me), and the dangling of the feet in the whirlpool (him), and the overly long, criminally wasteful shower (him). It is also where we get naked.

That’s the trouble. How do you make sense of this whole business about being undressed? On the one hand, as soon as The Boy drops his trunks, he turns into this neurotically demure monkey, hopping from bench to bench, hunching over to shield himself, clamoring for a towel, going, “Privacy! Privacy!” And I don’t want him to be that kid in the high school locker room who’s so uncomfortable in his own skin and freaked out by nudity that he develops a stutter and gets his soiled underwear yanked up over his shoulders by the older boys because he’s afraid to change out of them after soccer practice. So I do my best to play the role of wise, calm father.

I tell him, “Listen, buddy, no one cares. It’s no big deal. You’re in the men’s locker room. Look around you. Everyone’s naked.”

On the other hand, The Boy shouldn’t be looking at naked guys in the locker room. Because as natural as the naked body is, as interesting as its variations are—fat, short white guys; lanky, silky black guys—you can’t look in the locker room. That’s the rule. Eyes forward. The room is like the shallow end of the pool and you are not to look below the waterline. So I do my best to keep The Boy in line, to keep his curiosity in bounds.

I tell him, “Hey, buddy, pay attention to your own business.”

It’s tricky. Like the other day. We were getting dressed, when a naked black dude sauntered over to the locker next to ours. He was enormous. The size of a vending machine. With a cartoon superhero physique. Truly awesome. And The Boy couldn’t help himself. He locked onto the guy, like he was caught in his gravitational pull. It began to get uncomfortable, until he finally broke out of his trance and turned to me.

In a stage whisper, The Boy said, “Daddy, that man is big.”

Giggling like a schoolboy, I said, “Yes, buddy, he is big.”

The guy obviously heard the exchange, but he never acknowledged it, proving he was a bigger man than I. Nice penis, too.

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