The following is, as they say in the movie ads, based on a true story. The details and the ending have been invented. However, the author's role in the actual event was essentially the same as the narrator's role in the story. Of course, any similarities to any real persons, places, or institutions are coincidental and unintended.
*****
Most of the silly things we did when we were young are inconsequential and are swiftly forgotten. Occasionally, however, you do something in your youth that has major consequences and of which you are reminded repeatedly through your life. I had good reason to be thinking about that recently. My wife and I were in the small upper Midwestern town where we had gone to college for a 35th year reunion. It was an unusually warm fall afternoon. We and a few other people were standing behind the building that once housed the dairy bar which had been the primary hang out for students 35 years before. Quite a few more people were standing in the parking lot in front of the old building waiting.
While I was in high school I had thought myself a very talented football player. The major college football coaches did not share that opinion. My desire to keep playing after college brought me to miniscule Grimson College in Blue Fork, several hours' drive from any reasonably sized city. Grimson had about 1,200 students and roughly 300 faculty and staff. A few hundred other folks lived in Blue Fork. The county was dry, which did keep us students out of the bars. Mostly, students hung out at the dairy bar that was a couple of blocks from campus. On a Friday or Saturday afternoon or evening, there would typically be a hundred or more students in or around the dairy bar. I know that it sounds boring. It was.
During spring of my sophomore year we had an unusual couple of weeks of tee shirt and shorts weather. Spring football practice was over and exams were still a few weeks away. We had time on our hands. We wanted to do something.
My teammate Tim and I were sitting in the small off campus apartment of another teammate discussing what we could do to alleviate our boredom. We wanted some thrills and, being cocky athletes, we also wanted to draw some attention to ourselves.
We had discarded several ideas before Tim said, "We could streak." I don't think that he meant that as a serious suggestion.
Gary, our teammate who leased the apartment, said derisively, "The streaking fad ended years ago."
"Gary, this is Blue Fork," Tim replied, "everything happens here about 30 years later."
You'd be too chicken to take your clothes off and run around," Gary snorted.
"The hell," Tim replied, "I'd do it."
"Where? Out in a field with no one around?" Gary jeered.
"How about the dairy bar?" Tim said.
"When? Three a.m.?" Gary challenged.
"How about 4:30 next Friday afternoon?" Tim replied. Everyone went to the dairy bar late on Friday afternoon.
"No way you'd do that," Gary said dismissively.
"Bet me?" Tim said.
"Sure, I'll take your money," Gary replied. "Twenty bucks says that you will not run naked around the dairy bar next Friday afternoon."
"You're on," Tim said heatedly.
"You doing this by yourself or is some other fool going to join you?" Gary asked.
Tim looked at me and said, "Harry will join me."
Gary laughed. "Harry's too much of a wimp. Besides, he'll never get a date again if the girls in this town see that microscopic dick."
Without even thinking, I replied, "Bullshit. Women love my body."
Gary laughed again. "Yeah. Right."
"What the fuck do you know dickhead?" I replied.
"I'll tell you what," Gary said, "I'll bet you $ 100 that, if you run naked around the dairy bar with Tim, you'll never get another date with any girl in this town before you graduate. But, you've got to pay me $100 if you chicken out and don't run."
Gary knew what buttons to push. "You're on," I said unthinkingly.
As Tim and I walked back to the dorm, Tim said, "Jesus, our big mouths. Now, we've got to streak the dairy bar at 4:30 next Friday afternoon or we owe Gary $ 120."
"No one will be expecting it," I said. "If we really sprint, we'll be through and gone without anyone knowing who it was." That was my second mistake.
"That's how it will have to go," Tim said. "We'll need a getaway car and driver."
"Jeff has a car," I said. "I'll ask him."
I talked to Jeff later that evening. He doubted that we'd go through with the streak, but he agreed to drive us to the dairy bar and be our getaway driver. I told Tim that the next morning.
"Good," Tim said. "I talked to Lisa (Tim's girlfriend). She's working Friday afternoon. She says that there's a storage room in the back of the dairy bar that has a door outside. If we're there at 4:30, she'll let us in. If Jeff parks across the street, we can strip off in the store room, run through the parking lot, hop in Jeff's car, and be gone in seconds."
"It's a plan, I guess," I said. "What does Lisa think about this?"
"She thinks that we'll chicken out too," Tim answered.
"Great," I said sarcastically. "We've got a bet with Gary and pride on the line with your girlfriend. We're boxed into this." At age 20, those things seemed important.
We had made our bet with Gary on Saturday afternoon. On Monday morning, my hopes that we could win the bet surreptitiously were shattered when Terry Huebner sat next to me in "History of Modern Europe." Terry was a sophomore on the women's tennis team. She and I had a couple of classes together every semester and had become reasonably good friends. I knew from having watched her play tennis that Terry had great legs, a really eye-catching tight ass, and seemingly perfectly proportioned tits. Her face, framed by her short blonde hair, got prettier the longer you looked at her. She had deep blue eyes and marvelous dimples when she smiled.
Immediately after Terry say down in class, she turned to me and asked, "Are you and Tim really going to run naked at the dairy bar Friday?"
"Who told you we were going to do that?" I asked.
Terry laughed. "Your buddy Gary Stern is telling everyone that the two of you said that you would and that you'll owe Gary a lot of money if you back out."
"Shit," I said.
"So, it's true." Terry chuckled. "The whole school knows. You guys better go through with it or everyone's going to think that you're both gutless."
I grunted.
Terry giggled. "Tennis practice ends at 4:00 so I can be there to watch. I'm sure that the rest of the team will come too." Terry flashed me one of her 10,000 megawatt smiles.
The word was definitely out. Over the next few days, people I didn't even know stopped me and asked whether I was really going to run naked at the dairy bar. Thursday, as I walked past the girls' dorm, two freshman girls whom I didn't know stopped on their way into the dorm. One girl pointed at me and they both started giggling.
Tim and I talked Thursday night and agreed that we'd painted ourselves into a corner. We had to go through with the streak. I was hoping for really crappy weather the next day. That would force anyone who came to see us inside the dairy bar. We could sprint past outside without anyone seeing much.
That Friday was, of course, a glorious day, warm and sunny. Tim and I rode in Jeff's car. We were wearing tee shirts and shorts we'd "borrowed" from the athletic equipment room and our running shoes. We'd leave the tee shirts and shorts at the dairy bar. They weren't ours so we really didn't care whether we got them back or not. Our real clothes were in Jeff's car.
I almost shit myself as Jeff pulled up across the street from the dairy bar. I had never seen that many people in the parking lot in the two years I'd been in Blue Fork. Worse, I recognized a lot of the people. Terry Huebner was there with the other girls from the tennis team and their coach, Marissa Scalfi. I had seen Coach Scalfi, but didn't know her. She was only a few years older than we were, and was a striking woman with long black hair and olive skin. The rumor was that she'd done some modeling before she decided to coach tennis.
As Jeff stopped his car, Tim said what I was thinking: "Shit. We've got to go through with this."
The people in the parking lot started clapping as Tim and I walked towards the rear of the dairy bar. I heard people calling things like "Take it off" and "Do you think that their dicks will even be big enough to see?"
Tim knocked on a steel door in the back of the dairy bar. Lisa opened the door. Grinning, she said, "Hello boys. Are you going to get naked for me?"
Tim and I went inside. We both just stood there. To say that I had butterflies in my stomach would have been the understatement of the decade.
After a few moments, Lisa said, "Hurry up! Strip off! I've got to get back up front." Lisa moved to the steel door.
With my back to Lisa, I took a deep breath and pulled my tee shirt over my head. I pushed my shorts down and pulled them off over my shoes. Tim did the same.
Lisa said, "Quick, give me your clothes."
We both turned to face Lisa. Undoubtedly, she had seen Tim nude before, but she gave us both a long look. "Not bad, boys," she said with a grin. She pushed open the door and said "get going!"