fuzzy memories - mugsy

I've mentioned before that my early years of high school and in Jesuit seminary were very closeted and I spent quite a bit of time watching and pining for handsome hairy chested men who were unavailable to me.

Rick "Mugsy" MacDermott was one of these men. A thick, furry, working class Baltimore Irishman living in a religious community with a dozen uptight, neat Missouri valley seminarians, Mugsy took pride in being the fly in the ointment, the turd in the punch bowl. He'd walk down the hall shirtless, bare feet landing hard on the tile floor with a "thwap," balls swinging in his boxers, scratching his ass, farting, and laughing raucously at his own jokes. His torso was long, his waist low, situated firmly on top of thick tree-trunk legs. His chest was naturally muscular and covered with a dark coat of fur leading down to a thick, curly "happy trail." Even when he shaved his big jaw in the morning, he had a gruff by mid-afternoon. Without exaggeration, his bedroom looked like the aftermath of a tornado.

The thing was Mugsy truly was a loveable oaf. His heart was stationed squarely in the right place. He chose work assignments that put him in the heart of people in need, volunteered extra long hours, played guitar at parties (at a time when playing guitar at parties was really cool), and showed up for other peoples projects even if they didn't mean that much to him. His laugh and his warmth were infectious.

So I had a mini crush on him. I had bigger crushes on other guys, but Mugsy's look and personality really drew me in. I had always hoped for a peek at Mugsy in the shower, but it never happened. I do remember, however, many a night sitting on the toilet before bedtime, hearing his bare feet "thwap-thwap" down the hall into the restroom, past my stall and over to the urinals and then the blast of his piss stream. It sounded like it had tremendous power behind it; more than anyone else's I've heard--like a fire hose. I'm surprised it didn't chip the porcelain. And my imagination went wild. I had no other knowledge than that, from which to imagine what was swinging in those boxers whenever he padded down the hall, but that was enough.

Once, during a community meeting Mugsy sat across the coffee table from me with his massive hairy legs up on the table. I was distracted through the whole meeting by the sight, overwhelmed by the feelings I was hiding from everyone (or thought I was hiding from everyone).

But as the meeting ended, I pulled up some courage and made him an offer.

"Mugsy," I said, "you've gotta let me do a drawing your legs."

I was known for my drawing and painting skills, so this was not such an odd request, just one I had not made of Mugsy before. To my surprise he was flattered and happy to oblige.

I got a couple of really nice drawings out of it.

And as for Mugs, from what I hear he's still a Jesuit, teaching high school, while most of the rest of us that were in studies with him have gone off our separate ways. And I still have the drawings of his legs, somewhere in storage.