AcmeShorts

'To initiate guys into our soccer club, the first eleven would all piss into a bucket, throw one cleat into it for each guy trying out, and then the new guys would bob for a cleat one at a time. The year I bobbed in the piss there were sixteen of us trying out for the team and I called shotgun on going first because I don't like spit. You know how when you bobbed for apples when you were a kid, and the bucket-water gets all spitty after the third or fourth kid? Basically it's the same thing here. It seemed wise at the time.

Three of us met up in the basement of one of our houses the night before, we were going to practise bobbing in piss in a smaller bucket. We wanted to look tough in front of the older guys and we figured if we were used to it, we could grab our cleat and toss out a great line though our clenched teeth. We came up with stuff like, 'Hey, which one of you has the clap?' and 'Someone jerked-off in there, forget about it, I think I got all', we thought we were hilarious.

Robbie, my best friend, said after he went he was going to get in the back of the line and go twice; we loved it. We knew for sure those guys would hear our tough-guy talk, see our flexed jaws and for sure would think we were stone killers. We never got around to practising with live piss but after talking about it all night we figured we were good to go.

Real early the morning before the tryout was the real thing. All sixteen of us lined up single file along the bench facing the line of the first eleven who were squirming from holding it all morning. The bucket was steaming from the cold as they passed it from hand to hand and they all took a good squirt right in front of us.

Next it was our turn. We stuck our open mouths and shut eyes in the bucket one guy at a time and we all pulled out a cleat with our teeth just like we were supposed to. Every one of us puked our guts up after, nobody said anything tough-guy, and Robbie never got back in line like he said. Still, we felt pretty damn hard after that, and later we confirmed that we didn't want to waste our good material on the guys on our own team, save it for the enemy. The bunch of us that made the team that year stayed tight long after that, me and Robbie even had lunch pretty regular up until last spring when he retired.

So here's the thing - I got a note from Robbie's daughter, Katelyn, a mass email, says Robbie passed away. Says he had a heart attack or something, I didn't get much past the first few sentences, I couldn't do it, scared to know. But it brought me right back that day staring down into that bucket full of piss and cleats. So I get up and leave my office, tell my girl to hold my calls for a while. Next thing I know, I'm here in the mens' room with my face in an unflushed urinal tasting piss on my lips for the second time in my life. I'm crying for my good pal Robbie and I still have my dripping dick in my hand, all I can think about is us bobbing for those cleats in that hot bucket of piss in the cold. Yeah, I guess that's right about when you walked in.'