When I was in high school, I had an obsession with being
naked. If you ask my wife, that
obsession has really never gone away, but it was worse in high school. I liked the freedom of it, but I also liked
the excitement and adventure that came with the stigma that being naked is
taboo and unacceptable in polite society.
It’s not like I went to nude beaches or flashed people on the
sidewalk. I was more of a secret
exhibitionist.
I liked to go sans clothes when there was a chance people
might “catch” me, but also when that chance was small. For example, I started by walking around the
house naked after everyone had gone to bed.
This graduated into venturing out into the backyard naked and doing what
I liked to call “moon bathing.” I have
also driven naked from my friend’s house back to my house, but it was early in
the morning and there were no cars out.
But it was like with any drug, with each successful “hit” I had to up my
game to something more daring and bold.
The epitome came one night when I decided to streak down my
entire street. My street had the
distinction of being different from every other street in the city in one
regard. It had a line of trees down the
middle of the road that split the street into two parts. So, one night right around supper time, I
headed out to the middle of the street naked and hid behind a tree. When nobody seemed to be raising the alarm, I
darted to the next tree, and then the next.
With every tree, I gained more and more confidence, until I started to
take the trees in twos and threes. Finally, I was running buck naked down the
street without stopping.
It was exhilarating and exciting in a way that I could never
describe to you. The air was cool against
my skin, which shone a pale, bluish-white in the full moon. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins,
even as my legs were pumping down the street.
The leaves and dirt were soft under my bare feet. I have never felt more alive and free. That is until a car turned onto my street,
and I found myself fully-exposed in their headlights.
I quickly darted behind a tree and hoped that they hadn’t
seen me, but I was not to be so lucky.
In fact, the car slowed down and inched past me in an interminable crawl. It was only after it was a little ways past
my hiding place that I saw that it wasn’t just a car, but a police car. As the police made their way to the next
turnaround to u-turn and come back, I dashed across the street into someone’s
yard and hid in the bushes. The police
shone their search light on every tree and into several yards, but I was too
well-hidden. After a few passes, they
gave up and continued on down the road in the direction they were originally
headed.
Even after they were gone, I waited several tense moments
before deciding that this had to be one of the stupidest ideas I had ever come
up with. With a lot less excitement and
with the adrenaline pumping through my body for a completely different reason,
I slowly made my way back home, taking cover behind every single tree along the
road. As I dressed again in the
backyard, I decided that I probably should cool it on the naked adventures for
a while. I would pick them up again
later in life, but nothing so bold and daring as streaking down the street and
hiding from the police.
