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kindness from anybody. We were a joke but people were careful not to laugh
in front of us. It was as if we had grown up too soon and we were bored with
being children. We had no respect for our elders. We were like tigers with
the mange. One of the Jewish fellows, Sam Feidman, had a black beard and had
to shave every morning. By noon his chin was almost black. And he had a mass
of black hair all over his chest and he smelled terrible under the arms.
Another guy looked like Jack Dempsey. Another guy, Peter Mangalore, had a
cock 10 inches long, soft. And when we got in the shower, I found out I had
the biggest balls of anybody.
"Hey! Look at that guy's balls, will ya?"
"Holy shit! Not much cock but look at those balls! "
"Holy shit!"
I don't know what it was about us but we had something, and we felt it.
You could see it in the way we walked and talked. We didn't talk much, we
just inferred, and that's what got everybody mad, the way we took
things for granted.
The 7th grade team would play touch football after school against the
8th and 9th graders. It was no match. We beat them easy, we knocked them
down, we did it with style, almost without effort. In touch football most
teams passed on every play, but our team worked in lots of runs. Then we
could set up the blocking and our guys would go for the other guys and knock
them down. It was just an excuse to be violent, we didn't give a damn about
the runner. The other side was always glad when we called a pass play.
The girls stayed after school and watched us. Some of them were already
going out with high school guys, they didn't want to mess with jr. high
school punks, but they stayed to watch the 7th graders. We were known. The
girls stayed after class and watched us and marveled. I wasn't on the team
but I stood on the sidelines and sneaked smokes, feeling like a coach or
something. We're all going to get fucked, we thought, watching the girls.
But most of us only masturbated.
Masturbation. I remember how I learned about it. One morning Eddie
scratched on my bedroom window.
"What is it?" I asked Eddie.
He held up a test tube and it had something white in the bottom of it.
"What's that?"
"Come," said Eddie, "it's my come."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, all you do is spit on your hand and begin rubbing your cock, it
feels good and pretty soon this white juice shoots out of the end of your
cock. That stuff is called 'come."'
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Eddie walked off with his test tube. I thought about it awhile and then
I decided to try it. My cock got hard and it felt real good, it felt better
and better, and I kept going and it felt like nothing I had ever felt
before. Then juice spurted out of the head of my cock. After that I did it
every now and then. It got better if you imagined you were doing it with a
girl while you whacked-off.
One day I was standing on the sidelines watching our team kick the shit
out of some other team. I was sneaking a smoke and watching. There was a
girl on either side of me. As our guys broke out of a huddle I saw the gym
coach, Curly Wagner, walking toward me. I ditched the smoke and clapped my
hands.
"Let's dump 'em on their butts, gang!"
Wagner walked up to me. He just stood there staring at me. I had
developed an evil look on my face.
"I'm going to get all you guys!" Wagner said. "Especially you!"
I turned my head and glanced at him, casually, then turned my head
away. Wagner stood there looking at me. Then he walked off.
I felt good about that. I liked being picked out as one of the bad
guys. I liked to feel bad. Anybody could be a good guy, that didn't take
guts. Dillinger had guts. Ma Barker was a great woman teaching those guys
how to operate a submachine gun. I didn't want to be like my father. He only
pretended to be bad. When you're bad you didn't pretend, it was just there.
I liked being bad. Trying to be good made me sick.
The girl next to me said, "You don't have to take that from Wagner. Are
you afraid of him?"
I turned and looked at her. I stared at her a long time, motionless.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked.
I looked away from her, spit on the ground, and walked off. I slowly
walked the length of the field, exited through the rear gate and began
walking home.
Wagner always wore a grey sweatshirt and grey sweatpants. He had a
little pot belly. Something was continually bothering him. His only
advantage was his age. He would try to bluff us but that was working less
and less. There was always somebody pushing me who had no right to push.
Wagner and my father. My father and Wagner. What did they want? Why was I in
their way?
One day, just like in grammar school, like with David, a boy
attached himself to me. He was small and thin and had almost no hair on top
of his head. The guys called him Baldy. His real name was Eli LaCrosse. I
liked his real name, but I didn't like him. He just glued himself to me. He
was so pitiful that I couldn't tell him to get lost. He was like a mongrel
dog, starved and kicked. Yet it didn't make me feel good going around with
him. But since I knew that mongrel dog feeling, I let him hang around. He
used a cuss word in almost every sentence, at least one cuss word, but it
was all fake, he wasn't tough, he was scared. I wasn't scared but I was
confused so maybe we were a good pair.
I walked him back to his place after school every day. He was living
with his mother, his father and his grandfather. They had a little house
across from a small park. I liked the area, it had great shade trees, and
since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to
the sun, darkness to light.
During our walks home Baldy had told me about his father. He had been a
doctor, a successful surgeon, but he had lost his license because he was a
drunk. One day I met Baldy's father. He was sitting in a chair under a tree,
just sitting there.
"Dad," he said, "this is Henry."
"Hello, Henry."
It reminded me of when I had seen my grandfather for the first time,
standing on the steps of his house. Only Baldy's father had black hair and a
black beard, but his eyes were the same -- brilliant and glowing, so
strange. And here was Baldy, the son, and he didn't glow at all.
"Come on," Baldy said, "follow me."
We went down into a cellar, under the house. It was dark and damp and
we stood awhile until our eyes grew used to the gloom. Then I could see a
number of barrels.
"These barrels are full of different kinds of wine," Baldy said.
"Each barrel has a spigot. Want to try some?"
"No."
"Go ahead, just try a god-damned sip."
"What for?"
"You think you're a god-damned man or what?"
"I'm tough," I said.
"Then take a fucking sample."
Here was little Baldy, daring me. No problem. I walked up to a barrel,
ducked my head down.
"Turn the god-damned spigot! Open your god-damned mouth!"
"Are there any spiders around here?"
"Go on! Go on, god damn it!"
I put my mouth under the spigot and opened it. A smelly liquid trickled
out and into my mouth. I spit it out.
"Don't be chicken! Swallow it, what the shit!"
I opened the spigot and I opened my mouth. The smelly liquid entered
and I swallowed it. I turned off the spigot and stood there. I thought I was
going to puke.
"Now, you drink some," I said to Baldy.
"Sure," he said, "I ain't fucking afraid!"
He got down under a barrel and took a good swallow. A little punk like
that wasn't going to outdo me. I got under another barrel, opened it and
took a swallow. I stood up. I was beginning to feel good.
"Hey, Baldy," I said, "I like this stuff."
"Well, shit, try some more."
I tried some more. It was tasting better. I was feeling better.
"This stuff belongs to your father, Baldy. I shouldn't drink it all."
"He doesn't care. He's stopped drinking."
Never had I felt so good. It was better than masturbating. I went from
barrel to barrel. It was magic. Why hadn't someone told me? With this, life
was great, a man was perfect, nothing could touch him.
I stood up straight and looked at Baldy.
"Where's your mother? I'm going to fuck your mother!"
"I'll kill you, you bastard, you stay away from my mother!"
"You know I can whip you, Baldy."
"Yes."
"All right, I'll leave your mother alone."
"Let's go then, Henry."
"One more drink . . ."
I went to a barrel and took a long one. Then we went up the cellar
stairway. When we were out, Baldy's father was still sitting in his chair.
"You boys been in the wine cellar, eh?"
"Yes," said Baldy.
"Starting a little early, aren't you?"
We didn't answer. We walked over to the boulevard and Baldy and I went
into a store which sold chewing gum. We bought several packs of it and stuck
it into our mouths. He was worried about his mother finding out. I wasn't
worried about anything. We sat on a park bench and chewed the gum and I
thought, well, now I have found something, I have found something that is
going to help me, for a long long time to come. The park grass looked
greener, the park benches looked better and the flowers were trying harder.
Maybe that stuff wasn't good for surgeons but anybody who wanted to be a
surgeon, there was something wrong with them in the first place.
At Mt. Justin, biology class was neat. We had Mr. Stanhope for our
teacher. He was an old guy about 55 and we pretty much dominated him. Lilly
Fischman was in the class and she was really developed. Her breasts were
enormous and she had a marvelous behind which she wiggled while walking in
her high-heeled shoes. She was great, she talked to all the guys and rubbed
up against them while she talked.
Every day in biology class it was the same. We never learned any
biology, Mr. Stanhope would talk for about ten minutes and then Lilly would
say, "Oh, Mr. Stanhope, let's have a show!"
"No!"
"Oh, Mr. Stanhope!"
She would walk up to his desk, bend over him sweetly and whisper
something.
"Oh, well, all right . . ." he'd say.
And then Lilly would begin singing and wiggling. She always opened up
with "The Lullaby of Broadway" and then she went into her other numbers. She
was great, she was hot, she was burning up, and we were too. She was like a
grown woman, putting it to Stanhope, putting it to us. It was wonderful. Old
Stanhope would sit there blubbering and slobbering. We'd laugh at Stanhope
and cheer Lilly on. It lasted until one day the principal, Mr. Lacefield,
came running in.
"What's going on here?"
Stanhope just sat there unable to speak.
"This class is dismissed!" Lacefield screamed.
As we filed out, Lacefield said, "And you, Miss Fischman,
will report to my office!"
Of course, after that we never studied our homework, and that was all
right until the day Mr. Stanhope gave us our first examination.
"Shit," said Peter Mangalore out loud, "what are we going to do?"
Peter was the guy with the 10-incher, soft.
"You'll never have to work for a living," said the guy who looked like
Jack Dempsey. "This is our problem."
"Maybe we ought to burn the school down," said Red Kirkpatrick.
"Shit," said a guy from the back of the room, "every time I get an 'F'
my father pulls out one of my fingernails."
We all looked at our examination sheets. I thought about my
father. Then I thought about Lilly Fischman. Lilly Fischman, I thought,
you are a whore, an evil woman, wiggling your body in front of us and
singing like that, you will send us all to hell. Stanhope was watching us.
"Why isn't anybody writing? Why isn't anybody answering the questions?
Does everybody have a pencil?"
"Yeah, yeah, we all got pencils," one of the guys said. Lilly sat up in
front, right by Mr. Stanhope's desk. We saw her open her biology textbook
and look up the answer to the first question. That was it. We all opened up
our textbooks. Stanhope just sat there and watched us. He didn't know what
to do. He began to sputter. He sat there a good five minutes, then he jumped
up. He ran back and forth up and down the center aisle of the room.
"What are you people doing? Close those textbooks! Close those
textbooks!"
As he ran by, the students would close their books only to open them
again when he had run past.
Baldy was in the seat next to mine, laughing. "He's an asshole!
Oh, what an old asshole!"
I felt a little sorry for Stanhope but it was either him or me.
Stanhope stood behind his desk and screamed, "All textbooks must be
closed or I will flunk the entire class!"
Then Lilly Fischman stood up. She pulled her skirt up and yanked at
one of her silk stockings. She adjusted the garter, we saw white flesh. Then
she pulled at and adjusted the other stocking. Such a sight we had never
seen, nor had Stanhope ever seen anything like it. Lilly sat down and we all
finished the exam with our textbooks open. Stanhope sat behind his desk,
utterly defeated.
Another guy we jerked around was Pop Farnsworth. It began the first day
in Machine Shop. He said, "Here we learn by doing. We will begin right now.
You will each take an engine apart and put it back together, until it is in
working order, during the semester. There are charts on the wall and I will
answer your questions. You will also be shown movies about how an engine
works. But right now please begin to dismantle your engines. The tools are
on your workshelf."
"Hey, Pop, how about the movies first?" some guy asked.
"I said, 'Begin your project!"'
I don't know where they got all those engines. They were greasy and
black and rusted. They looked really dismal.
"Fuck," said some guy, "this one is a hunk of clogged shit."
We stood over our engines. Most of the guys reached for monkey
wrenches. Red Kirkpatrick took a screwdriver and scraped it slowly along the
top of his engine carefully creating a black ribbon of grease two feet long.
"Come on, Pop, how about a movie? We just got out of gym, our asses are
dragging! Wagner had us doing the hop, skip and jump like a bunch of frogs!"
"Begin your assignment as requested!"
We started in. It was senseless. It was worse than Music Appreciation.
Some clanking of tools could be heard and some heavy breathing.
"FUCK!" hollered Harry Henderson, "I'VE JUST SKINNED MY WHOLE GOD-
DAMNED KNUCKLE! THIS IS NOTHING BUT FUCKING WHITE SLAVERY!"
He wrapped a handkerchief tenderly around his right hand and watched
the blood soak through. "Shit," he said.
The rest of us kept trying. "I'd rather stick my head up an elephant's
cunt," said Red Kirkpatrick.
Jack Dempsey threw his wrench to the floor. "I quit," he said,
"do anything you want to me, I quit. Kill me. Cut my balls off. I
quit."
He walked over and leaned against a wall. He folded his arms and looked
down at his shoes.
The situation seemed truly terrible. There weren't any girls. When you
looked out the back door of the shop you could see the open schoolyard, all
that sunlight and empty space out there where there was nothing to do. And
here we were bent over stupid engines that weren't even attached to cars,
they were useless. Just stupid steel. It was dumb and it was hard. We needed
mercy. Our lives were dumb enough. Something had to save us. We'd heard Pop
was a soft touch but it didn't seem true. He was a giant son-of-a-bitch with
a beer gut, dressed in his greasy outfit, and with hair hanging down in his
eyes and grease on his chin.
Arnie Whitechapel threw down his wrench and walked up to Mr.
Farnsworth. Arnie had a big grin on his face. "Hey, Pop, what the fuck?"
"Get back to your engine, Whitechapel!"
"Ah, come on. Pop, what the shit!"
Arnie was a couple of years older than the rest of us. He had spent a
few years in some boys' correctional school. But even though he was older
than we were, he was smaller. He had very black hair slicked back with
vaseline. He would stand in front of the mirror in the men's crapper
squeezing his pimples. He talked dirty to the girls and carried Sheik
rubbers in his pockets.
"I got a good one for you. Pop!"
"Yeah? Get back to your engine, Whitechapel."
"It's a good one, Pop."
We stood there and watched as Arnie began to tell Pop a dirty joke.
Their heads were close together. Then the joke was over, Pop began laughing.
That big body was doubled over, he was holding his gut. "Holy shit! Oh my
god, holy shit!" he laughed. Then he stopped. "O.K., Arnie, back to your
machine!"
"No, wait, Pop, I got another one!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, listen . . ."
We all left our machines and walked over. We circled them, listening as
Arnie told the next joke. When it was over Pop doubled up. "Holy shit, oh
lord, holy shit!"
"Then there's another one, Pop. This guy is driving his car in the
desert. He notices this guy jumping along the road. He's naked and his hands
and feet arc tied with rope. The guy stops his car and asks the guy, 'Hey,
buddy, what's the matter?' And the guy tells him, 'Well, I was driving along
and I saw this bastard hitch-hiking so I stopped and the son-of-a-bitch
pulls a gun on me, takes my clothes away and then ties me up. Then the dirty
son-of-a-bitch reams me in the ass!' 'Oh yeah?' says the guy getting out of
his car. 'Yeah, that's what that dirty son-of-a-bitch did!' says the man.
'Well,' says the guy unzipping his fly, 1 guess this just isn't your lucky
day!"'
Pop began laughing, he doubled over. "Oh, no! Oh, NO! OH . . . HOLY . .
. SHIT, CHRIST . . . HOLY SHIT . . . !"
He finally stopped.
"God damn," he said quietly, "oh my lord . . ."
"How about a movie, Pop?"
"Oh well, all right."
Somebody closed the back door and Pop pulled out a dirty white screen.
He started the projector. It was a lousy movie but it beat working on those
engines. The gas was ignited by the spark plugs and the explosion hit the
cylinder head and the head was thrust down and that turned the crankshaft
and the valves opened and closed and the cylinder heads kept going up and
down and the crankshaft turned some more. Not very interesting, but it was
cool in there and you could lean back in your chair and think about what you
wanted to think about. You didn't have to bust your knuckles on dumb steel.
We never did get those engines taken apart let alone put back together
again and I don't know how many times we saw that same movie. Whitechapel's
jokes kept coming and we all laughed our heads off even though most of the
jokes were pretty terrible, except to Pop Farnsworth who kept doubling over
and laughing,
"Holy shit! Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!"
He was an O.K. guy. We all liked him.
Our English teacher, Miss Gredis, was the absolute best. She was a
blonde with a long sharp nose. Her nose wasn't much good but you didn't
notice it when you looked at the rest of her. She wore tight dresses and low
v-necks, black high-heeled shoes and silk stockings. She was snake-like with
long beautiful legs. She only sat behind her desk when she took roll call.
She kept one desk vacant at the front of the room and after roll call she
would come down and sit on that desk top, facing us. Miss Gredis sat perched
there with her legs crossed and her skirt pulled high. Never had we seen
such ankles, such legs, such thighs. Well, there was Lilly Fischman, but
Lilly was a girl-woman while Miss Gredis was in full bloom. And we got to
gaze upon her for a full hour each day. There wasn't a boy in that class who
wasn't sad when the bell rang ending the English period. We'd talk about
her.
"Do you think she wants to be fucked?"
"No, I think she's just teasing us. She knows she's driving us crazy,
that's all she needs, that's all she wants."
"I know where she lives. I'm going over there some night."
"You wouldn't have the balls!"
"Yeah? Yeah? I'll fuck the shit out of her! She's asking for it!"
"A guy I know in the 8th grade said he went over there one night."
"Yeah? What happened?"
"She came to the door in a nightgown, her tits were practically hanging
out. The guy said he had forgotten the next day's homework and wondered what
it was. She asked him in."
"No shit?"
"Yeah. Nothing happened. She made him some tea, told him about the
homework and he left."
"If I had of gotten in, that would have been it!"
"Yeah? What would you have done?"
"First I would have corn-holed her, then I would have eaten her pussy,
then I would fuck her between the tits and then I would force her to give me
a blow job."
"No kidding, dreamer boy. You ever been laid?"
"Fuck yes, I've been laid. Several times."
"How was it?"
"Lousy."
"Couldn't come, hub?"
"I came all over the place, I thought I'd never stop."
"Came all over the palm of your hand, hub?"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Ha, ha!"
"All over your hand, hub?"
"Fuck you guys!"
"I don't think any of us has been laid," said one of the guys. There
was silence.
"That's shit. I was laid when I was seven years old."
"That's nothing. I was laid when I was four."
"Sure, Red. Lay it on good!"
"I got this little girl under the house."
"You got a hard?"
"Sure."
"You came?"
"I think so. Something squirted out."
"Sure. You pissed in her cunt, Red."
"Balls!"
"What was her name?"
"Betty Ann."
"Fuck," said the guy who claimed to have gotten laid when he was seven.
"Mine was named Betty Ann too."
"That whore," said Red.
One tine Spring day we were sitting in English class and Miss Gredis
was sitting on the front desk facing us. She had her skirt pulled especially
high, it was terrifying, beautiful, wondrous and dirty. Such legs, such
thighs, we were very close to the magic. It was unbelievable. Baldy sat in
the seat across the aisle from me. He reached over and began poking me on
the leg with his finger:
"She's breaking all the records!" he whispered. "Look!
Look!"
"My God," I said, "shut up or she'll pull her skirt down!"
Baldy pulled his hand back and I waited. We hadn't spooked Miss Gredis.
Her skirt remained as high as ever. It was truly a day to remember. There
wasn't a boy in class without a hard-on and Miss Gredis went on talking. I'm
sure that none of the boys heard a word she was saying. The girls, though,
turned and glanced at each other as if to say, this bitch is going too far.
Miss Gredis couldn't go too far. It was almost as if there weren't even a
cunt up there but something much better. Those legs. The sun came through
the window and poured in on those legs and thighs, the sun played on that
warm silk pulled so tightly. The skirt was so high, pulled hack, we
all prayed for a glimpse of panty, a glimpse of something, Jesus
Christ, it was like the world ending and beginning and ending again, it was
everything real and unreal, the sun, the thighs, and the silk, so smooth, so
warm, so alluring. The whole room throbbed. Eyesight blurred and returned
and Miss Gredis went on sitting there as if nothing was happening and she
kept talking as if everything was normal. That's what made it so good and so
terrible: the fact that she pretended that it wasn't happening. I looked
down at my desk top for a moment and saw the grain in the wood heightened as
if each pattern was a pool of whirling liquid. Then I quickly looked back at
the legs and thighs, angered with myself that I had looked away for a
moment, and perhaps missed something.
Then the sound began: "Thump, thump, thump, thump . . ."
Richard Waite. He sat in a seat in the back. He had huge ears and thick
lips, the lips were swollen and monstrous and he had a very large head. His
eyes were almost without color, they didn't reflect interest or
intelligence. He had large feet and his mouth always hung open. When he
spoke the words came out one by one, halting, with long pauses in between.
He wasn't even a sissy. Nobody ever spoke to him. Nobody knew what he was
doing there in our school. He gave the impression that something important
was missing from his makeup. He wore clean clothing, but his shirt was
always out in the back, one or two buttons were gone on his shirt or on his
pants. Richard Waite. He lived somewhere and he came to school every day.
"Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump . . ."
Richard Waite was jerking-off, a salute to Miss Gredis' thighs and
legs. He had finally weakened. Perhaps he didn't understand society's ways.
Now we all heard him. Miss Gredis heard him. The girls heard him. We all
knew what he was doing. He was so fucking dumb he didn't even have sense
enough to keep it quiet. And he was becoming more and more excited. The
thumps grew louder. His closed fist was hitting the underside of his desk
top.
We looked at Miss Gredis. What would she do? She hesitated. She glanced
about the class. She smiled, as composed as ever, and then she continued
speaking:
"I believe that the English language is the most expressive and
contagious form of communication. To begin with, we should be thankful that
we have this unique gift of a great language. And if we abuse it we are only
abusing ourselves. So let us listen, heed, acknowledge our heritage, and yet
explore and take risks with language . . ."
"We must forget England and their use of our common tongue. Even though
English usage is fine, our own American language contains many deep wells of
unexplored resources. These resources, as yet, remain untapped. Given the
proper moment and the proper writers, there will one day be a literary
explosion . . ."
Yes, Richard Waite was one of the few we never talked to. Actually, we
were afraid of him. He wasn't somebody you could beat the shit out of, that
would never make anybody feel better. You just wanted to get as far away
from him as possible, you didn't want to look at him, you didn't want to
look at those big lips, that big unfolding mouth like the mouth of a bruised
frog. You shunned him because you couldn't defeat Richard Waite.
We waited and waited while Miss Gredis talked on about English versus
American culture. We waited, while Richard Waite went on and on. Richard's
fist banged against the underside of his desk top and the little girls
glanced at each other and the guys were thinking, why is this asshole in
this class with us? He's going to spoil everything. One asshole and Miss
Gredis will pull her skirt down forever.
And then it stopped. Richard sat there. He was finished. We sneaked
glances at him. He looked the same. Was his sperm laying in his lap or was
it in his hand? The bell rang. English class was over.
After that, there was more of the same. Richard Waite thumped it often
while we listened to Miss Gredis sitting on that front desk with her legs
crossed high. We boys accepted the situation. After a while we even were
amused. The girls accepted it but they didn't like it, especially Lilly
Fischman who was almost forgotten.
Besides Richard Waite, there was another problem for me in that class:
Harry Walden. Harry Walden was pretty, the girls thought, and he had long
golden curls and wore strange, delicate clothing. He looked like an 18th
century fop, lots of strange colors, dark green, dark blue, I don't know
where the hell his parents found his clothes. And he always sat very still
and listened attentively. Like he understood everything. The girls said,
"He's a genius." He didn't look like anything to me. What I couldn't
understand was that the tough guys didn't mess with him. It bothered me. How
could he get off so easy? I found him one day in the hall. I stopped him.
"You don't look like shit to me," I said. "How come everybody thinks
you're hot shit?"
Walden glanced over to his right and when I turned my head to look in
that direction, he slid around me as if I were something from the sewer and
then a moment later he was in his seat in the class.
Almost every day it was Miss Gredis showing it all and Richard thumping
away and this guy Walden sitting there saying nothing and acting like he
believed he was a genius. I got sick of it.
I asked some of the other guys, "Listen, do you really think Harry
Walden is a genius? He just sits around in his pretty clothes and doesn't
say anything. What does that prove? We could all do that."
They didn't answer me. I couldn't understand their feelings about this
fucking guy. And it got worse. Word got out that Harry Walden was going to
see Miss Gredis every night, that he was her favorite pupil, and that they
were making love. It made me sick. I could just imagine him getting out of
his delicate green and blue outfit, folding it across a chair, then climbing
out of his orange satin shorts and sliding under the sheets where Miss
Gredis cuddled his curly golden head on her shoulder and fondled it and
other things as well.
It was whispered about by the girls who always seemed to know
everything. And even though the girls didn't particularly like Miss Gredis,
they thought the situation was all right, that it was reasonable because
Harry Walden was such a delicate genius and needed all the sympathy he could
get. I caught Harry Walden in the hall one more time.
"I'll kick your ass, you son-of-a-bitch, you don't fool me!"
Harry Walden looked at me. Then he looked over my shoulder and pointed
and said, "What's that over there?"
I looked around. When I looked back he was gone. He was sitting in the
class safely surrounded by all the girls who thought he was a genius and who
loved him.
There was more and more whispering about Harry Walden going over to
Miss Gredis' house at night and some days Harry wouldn't even be in class.
Those were the best days for me because I only had to deal with the thumping
and not the golden curls and the adoration for that kind of stuff by all the
little girls with their skirts and sweaters and starched gingham dresses.
When Harry wasn't there the little girls would whisper, "He's just too
sensitive... "
And Red Kirkpatrick would say, "She's fucking him to death."
One afternoon I walked into class and Harry Walden's seat was empty. I
figured he was just fucking-off as usual. Then the word drifted from desk to
desk. I was always the last to know anything. It finally got to me: Harry
Walden had committed suicide. The night before. Miss Gredis didn't know yet.
I looked over at his seat. He'd never sit there again. All those colorful
clothes shot to hell. Miss Gredis finished roll call. She came and sat on
the front desk, crossed her legs high. She had on a lighter shade of silk
hose than ever before. Her skirt was hiked way back to her thighs.
"Our American culture," she said, "is destined for greatness. The
English language, now so limited and structured, will be reinvented and
improved upon. Our writers will use what I like to think of, in my mind, as
Americanese . . ."
Miss Gredis' stockings were almost skin-colored. It was as if she were
not wearing stockings at all, it was as if she were naked there in front of
us, but since she wasn't and only appeared to be, that made it better than
ever.
"More and more we will discover our own truths and our own way of
speaking, and this new voice will be uncluttered by old histories, old
mores, old dead and useless dreams . . ."
"Thump, thump, thump . . ."
25
Curly Wagner picked out Morris Moscowitz. It was after school and eight
or ten of us guys had heard about it and we walked out behind the gym to
watch. Wagner laid down the rules, "We fight until somebody hollers quit."
"0. K. with me," said Morris. Morris was a tall thin guy, he was a
little bit dumb and he never said much or bothered anybody.
Wagner looked over at me. "And after I finish with this guy, I'm taking
you on!"
"Me, coach?"
"Yeah, you, Chinaski."
I sneered at him.
"I'm going to get some god-damned respect from you guys if I have to
whip all of you one by one!"
Wagner was cocky. He was always working out on the parallel bars or
tumbling on the mat or taking laps around the track. He swaggered when he
walked but he still had his pot belly. He liked to stand and stare at a guy
for a long time like he was shit. I didn't know what was bothering him. We
worried him. I believe he thought we were fucking all the girls like crazy
and he didn't like to think about that.
They squared off. Wagner had some good moves. He bobbed, he weaved, he
shuffled his feet, he moved in and out, and he made little hissing sounds.
He was impressive. He caught Moscowitz with three straight left jabs.
Moscowitz just stood there with his hands at his sides. He didn't know
anything about boxing. Then Wagner cracked Moscowitz with a right to the
jaw. "Shit!" said Morris and he threw a roundhouse right which Wagner
ducked. Wagner countered with a right and left to Moscowitz' face. Morris
had a bloody nose. "Shit!" he said and then he started swinging. And
landing. You could hear the shots, they cracked against Wagner's head.
Wagner tried to counter but his punches just didn't have the force and the
fury of Moscowitz'.
"Holy shit! Get him, Morrie!"
Moscowitz was a puncher. He dug a left to that pot belly. Wagner gasped
and dropped. He fell to both knees. His face was cut and bleeding. His chin
was on his chest and he looked sick.
"I quit," Wagner said.
We left him there behind the building and we followed Morris Moscowitz
out of there. He was our new hero.
"Shit, Morrie, you ought to turn pro!"
"Naw, I'm only thirteen years old."
We walked over behind the machine shop and stood around the steps.
Somebody lit up some cigarettes and we passed them around.
"What has that man got against us?" asked Morrie.
"Hell, Morrie, don't you know? He's jealous. He thinks we're fucking
all the chicks!"
"Why, I've never even kissed a girl."
"No shit, Morrie?"
"No shit."
"You ought to try dry-fucking, Morrie, it's great!"
Then we saw Wagner walking past. He was working on his face with his
handkerchief.
"Hey, coach," yelled one of the guys, "how about a rematch?"
He stood and looked at us. "You boys put out those cigarettes!"
"Ah, no, coach, we like to smoke!"
"Come on over here, coach, and make us put out our cigarettes!"
"Yeah, come on, coach!"
Wagner stood looking at us. "I'm not done with you yet! I'll get every
one of you, one way or the other!"
"How ya gonna do that, coach? Your talents seem limited."
"Yeah, coach, how ya gonna do it?"
He walked off the field to his car. I felt a little sorry for him. When
a guy was that nasty he should be able to back it up.
"I guess he doesn't think there'll be a virgin on the grounds by the
time we graduate," said one of the guys.
"I think," said another guy, "that somebody jacked-off into his ear and
he has come for brains."
We left after that. It had been a fairly good day.
My mother went to her low-paying job each morning and my father, who
didn't have a job, left each morning too. Although most of the neighbors
were unemployed he didn't want them to think he was jobless. So he got into
his car each morning at the same time and drove off as if he were going to
work. Then in the evening he would return at exactly the same time. It was
good for me because I had the place to myself. They locked the house but I
knew how to get in. I would unhook the screen door with a piece of
cardboard. They locked the porch door with a key from the inside. I slid a
newspaper under the door and poked the key out. Then I pulled the newspaper
from under the door and the key came with it. I would unlock the door and go
in. When I left I would hook the screen door, lock the back porch door from
the inside, leaving the key in. Then I would leave through the front door,
putting the latch on lock.
I liked being alone. One day I was playing one of my games. There was a
clock on the mantle with a second hand and I held contests to see how long I
could hold my breath. Each time I did it I exceeded my own record. I went
through much agony but I was proud each time I added some seconds to my
record. This day I added a full five seconds and I was standing getting my
breath back when I walked to the front window. It was a large window covered
by red drapes. There was a crack between the drapes and I looked out. Jesus
Christ! Our window was directly across from the front porch of the
Andersons' house. Mrs. Anderson was sitting on the steps, and I could look
right up her dress. She was about 23 and had marvelously shaped legs. I
could see almost all the way up her dress. Then I remember my father's army
binoculars. They were on the top shelf of his closet. I ran and got them,
ran back, crouched down and adjusted them to Mrs. Anderson's legs. It took
me right up there! And it was different from looking at Miss Gredis' legs:
you didn't have to pretend you weren't looking. You could concentrate. And I
did. I was right there. I was red hot. Jesus Christ, what legs, what flanks!
And each time she moved, it was unbearable and unbelievable.
I got down on my knees and I held the binoculars with one hand and
pulled my cock out with the other. I spit in my palm and began. For a moment
I thought I saw a flash of panties. I was about to come. I stopped. I kept
looking with the binocs and then I started rubbing again. When I was about
to come I stopped again. Then I waited and began rubbing again. This time I
knew I wouldn't be able to stop. She was right there. I was looking right up
her! It was like fucking. I came. I spurted all over the hardwood floor in
front of the window. It was white and thick. I got up and went to the
bathroom and got some toilet paper, came back and wiped it up. I took it
back to the toilet and flushed it away.
Mrs. Anderson came and sat on those steps almost every day and each
time she did I got the binocs and whacked-off.
If Mr. Anderson ever finds out about this, I thought, he'll kill me . .
.
My parents went to the movies every Wednesday night. The theatre had
drawings for money and they wanted to win some money. It was on a Wednesday
night that I discovered something. The Pirozzis lived in the house south of
ours. Our driveway ran along the north side of their house and there was a
window which looked into their front room. The window was veiled by a thin
curtain. There was a wall which became an arch over the front of our
driveway and there were bushes all about. When I got between that wall and
the window, in among all those bushes, nobody could see me from the street,
especially at night.
I crawled in there. It was great, better than I expected. Mrs. Pirozzi
was sitting on the couch reading a newspaper. Her legs were crossed, and in
an easy chair across the room, Mr. Pirozzi was reading a newspaper. Mrs.
Pirozzi was not as young as Miss Gredis or Mrs. Anderson, but she had good
legs and she had on high heels and almost every time she turned a page of
her newspaper, she'd cross her legs and her skirt would climb higher and I
would see more.
If my parents come home from the movie and catch me here, I thought,
then my life is over. But it's worth it. It's worth the risk.
I stayed very quiet behind the window and stared at Mrs. Pirozzi's
legs. They had a large collie, Jeff, who was asleep in front of the door. I
had looked at Miss Gredis' legs that day in English class, then I had
whacked-off to Mrs. Anderson's legs, and now - there was more. Why
didn't Mr. Pirozzi look at Mrs. Pirozzi's legs? He just kept reading his
newspaper. It was obvious that Mrs. Pirozzi was trying to tease him because
her skirt kept climbing higher and higher. Then she turned a page and
crossed her legs very fast and her skirt flipped back exposing her
pure white thighs. She was just like buttermilk! Unbelievable! She
was best of all!
Then from the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Pirozzi's legs move.
He stood up very quickly and moved toward the front door. I started
running, crashing through the bushes. I heard him open his front door. I was
down the driveway and into our backyard and behind the garage. I stood a
moment, listening. Then I climbed the back fence, over the vines and on over
into the next backyard. I ran through that yard and up the driveway and I
began dog-trotting south down the street like a guy practicing for track.
There was nobody behind me but I kept trotting. If he knows it was me, if he
tells my father, I'm dead. But maybe he just let the dog out to take a shit?
I trotted down to West Adams Boulevard and sat on a streetcar bench. I sat
there five minutes or so, then I walked back home. When I got there, my
parents weren't back yet. I went inside, undressed, turned out the lights
and waited for morning . . .
Another Wednesday night Baldy and I were taking our usual short cut
between two apartment houses. We were on our way to his father's wine cellar
when Baldy stopped at a window. The shade was almost down but not quite.
Baldy stopped, bent, and peeked inside. He waved me over.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"Look!"
There was a man and a woman in bed, naked. There was just a bedsheet
partly over them. The man was trying to kiss the woman and she was pushing
him away.
"God damn it, let me have it, Marie!"
"No!"
"But I'm hot, please."
"Take your god-damned hands off me!"
"But, Marie, I love you!"
"You and your fucking love . . ."
"Marie, please. "
"Will you shut up?"
The man turned toward the wall. The woman picked up a magazine, bunched
a pillow behind her head, and began reading it.
Baldy and I walked away from the window,
"Jesus," said Baldy, "that made me sick!"
"I thought we were going to see something," I said. When we got to the
wine cellar Baldy's old man had put a big padlock on the cellar door.
We tried that window again and again but we never actually
saw anything happen. It was always the same.
"Marie, it's been a long time. We're living together, you know.
We're married!"
"Big fucking deal!"
"Just this once, Marie, and I won't bother you again, I won't
bother you for a long time, I promise!"
"Shut up! You make me sick!"
Baldy and I walked away.
"Shit," I said.
"Shit," he said.
"I don't think he's got a cock," I said.
"He might as well not have," said Baldy. We stopped going back there.
Wagner wasn't done with us. I was standing in the yard during gym class
when he walked up to me.
"What are you doing, Chinaski?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
I didn't answer.
"How come you're not in any of the games?"
"Shit. That's kid stuff."
"I'm putting you on garbage detail until further notice."
"What for? What's the charge?"
"Loitering. 50 demerits."
The kids had to work off their demerits on garbage detail. If you had
more than ten demerits and didn't work them off, you couldn't graduate. I
didn't care whether I graduated or not. That was their problem. I could just
stay around getting older and older and bigger and bigger. I'd get all the
girls.
"50 demerits?" I asked. "Is that all you're going to give me? How about
a hundred?"
"O.K., one hundred. You got 'em."
Wagner swaggered off. Peter Mangalore had 500 demerits. Now I was in
second place, and gaining . . .
The first garbage detail was during the last thirty minutes of lunch.
The next day I was carrying a garbage can with Peter Mangalore. It was
simple. We each had a stick with a sharp nail on the end of it. We picked up
papers with the stick and stuck them into the can. The girls watched us as
we walked by. They knew we were bad. Peter looked bored and I looked
like I didn't give a damn. The girls knew we were bad.
"You know Lilly Fischman?" Pete asked as we walked along.
in front of us. It was as if we had grown up too soon and we were bored with
being children. We had no respect for our elders. We were like tigers with
the mange. One of the Jewish fellows, Sam Feidman, had a black beard and had
to shave every morning. By noon his chin was almost black. And he had a mass
of black hair all over his chest and he smelled terrible under the arms.
Another guy looked like Jack Dempsey. Another guy, Peter Mangalore, had a
cock 10 inches long, soft. And when we got in the shower, I found out I had
the biggest balls of anybody.
"Hey! Look at that guy's balls, will ya?"
"Holy shit! Not much cock but look at those balls! "
"Holy shit!"
I don't know what it was about us but we had something, and we felt it.
You could see it in the way we walked and talked. We didn't talk much, we
just inferred, and that's what got everybody mad, the way we took
things for granted.
The 7th grade team would play touch football after school against the
8th and 9th graders. It was no match. We beat them easy, we knocked them
down, we did it with style, almost without effort. In touch football most
teams passed on every play, but our team worked in lots of runs. Then we
could set up the blocking and our guys would go for the other guys and knock
them down. It was just an excuse to be violent, we didn't give a damn about
the runner. The other side was always glad when we called a pass play.
The girls stayed after school and watched us. Some of them were already
going out with high school guys, they didn't want to mess with jr. high
school punks, but they stayed to watch the 7th graders. We were known. The
girls stayed after class and watched us and marveled. I wasn't on the team
but I stood on the sidelines and sneaked smokes, feeling like a coach or
something. We're all going to get fucked, we thought, watching the girls.
But most of us only masturbated.
Masturbation. I remember how I learned about it. One morning Eddie
scratched on my bedroom window.
"What is it?" I asked Eddie.
He held up a test tube and it had something white in the bottom of it.
"What's that?"
"Come," said Eddie, "it's my come."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, all you do is spit on your hand and begin rubbing your cock, it
feels good and pretty soon this white juice shoots out of the end of your
cock. That stuff is called 'come."'
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Eddie walked off with his test tube. I thought about it awhile and then
I decided to try it. My cock got hard and it felt real good, it felt better
and better, and I kept going and it felt like nothing I had ever felt
before. Then juice spurted out of the head of my cock. After that I did it
every now and then. It got better if you imagined you were doing it with a
girl while you whacked-off.
One day I was standing on the sidelines watching our team kick the shit
out of some other team. I was sneaking a smoke and watching. There was a
girl on either side of me. As our guys broke out of a huddle I saw the gym
coach, Curly Wagner, walking toward me. I ditched the smoke and clapped my
hands.
"Let's dump 'em on their butts, gang!"
Wagner walked up to me. He just stood there staring at me. I had
developed an evil look on my face.
"I'm going to get all you guys!" Wagner said. "Especially you!"
I turned my head and glanced at him, casually, then turned my head
away. Wagner stood there looking at me. Then he walked off.
I felt good about that. I liked being picked out as one of the bad
guys. I liked to feel bad. Anybody could be a good guy, that didn't take
guts. Dillinger had guts. Ma Barker was a great woman teaching those guys
how to operate a submachine gun. I didn't want to be like my father. He only
pretended to be bad. When you're bad you didn't pretend, it was just there.
I liked being bad. Trying to be good made me sick.
The girl next to me said, "You don't have to take that from Wagner. Are
you afraid of him?"
I turned and looked at her. I stared at her a long time, motionless.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked.
I looked away from her, spit on the ground, and walked off. I slowly
walked the length of the field, exited through the rear gate and began
walking home.
Wagner always wore a grey sweatshirt and grey sweatpants. He had a
little pot belly. Something was continually bothering him. His only
advantage was his age. He would try to bluff us but that was working less
and less. There was always somebody pushing me who had no right to push.
Wagner and my father. My father and Wagner. What did they want? Why was I in
their way?
One day, just like in grammar school, like with David, a boy
attached himself to me. He was small and thin and had almost no hair on top
of his head. The guys called him Baldy. His real name was Eli LaCrosse. I
liked his real name, but I didn't like him. He just glued himself to me. He
was so pitiful that I couldn't tell him to get lost. He was like a mongrel
dog, starved and kicked. Yet it didn't make me feel good going around with
him. But since I knew that mongrel dog feeling, I let him hang around. He
used a cuss word in almost every sentence, at least one cuss word, but it
was all fake, he wasn't tough, he was scared. I wasn't scared but I was
confused so maybe we were a good pair.
I walked him back to his place after school every day. He was living
with his mother, his father and his grandfather. They had a little house
across from a small park. I liked the area, it had great shade trees, and
since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to
the sun, darkness to light.
During our walks home Baldy had told me about his father. He had been a
doctor, a successful surgeon, but he had lost his license because he was a
drunk. One day I met Baldy's father. He was sitting in a chair under a tree,
just sitting there.
"Dad," he said, "this is Henry."
"Hello, Henry."
It reminded me of when I had seen my grandfather for the first time,
standing on the steps of his house. Only Baldy's father had black hair and a
black beard, but his eyes were the same -- brilliant and glowing, so
strange. And here was Baldy, the son, and he didn't glow at all.
"Come on," Baldy said, "follow me."
We went down into a cellar, under the house. It was dark and damp and
we stood awhile until our eyes grew used to the gloom. Then I could see a
number of barrels.
"These barrels are full of different kinds of wine," Baldy said.
"Each barrel has a spigot. Want to try some?"
"No."
"Go ahead, just try a god-damned sip."
"What for?"
"You think you're a god-damned man or what?"
"I'm tough," I said.
"Then take a fucking sample."
Here was little Baldy, daring me. No problem. I walked up to a barrel,
ducked my head down.
"Turn the god-damned spigot! Open your god-damned mouth!"
"Are there any spiders around here?"
"Go on! Go on, god damn it!"
I put my mouth under the spigot and opened it. A smelly liquid trickled
out and into my mouth. I spit it out.
"Don't be chicken! Swallow it, what the shit!"
I opened the spigot and I opened my mouth. The smelly liquid entered
and I swallowed it. I turned off the spigot and stood there. I thought I was
going to puke.
"Now, you drink some," I said to Baldy.
"Sure," he said, "I ain't fucking afraid!"
He got down under a barrel and took a good swallow. A little punk like
that wasn't going to outdo me. I got under another barrel, opened it and
took a swallow. I stood up. I was beginning to feel good.
"Hey, Baldy," I said, "I like this stuff."
"Well, shit, try some more."
I tried some more. It was tasting better. I was feeling better.
"This stuff belongs to your father, Baldy. I shouldn't drink it all."
"He doesn't care. He's stopped drinking."
Never had I felt so good. It was better than masturbating. I went from
barrel to barrel. It was magic. Why hadn't someone told me? With this, life
was great, a man was perfect, nothing could touch him.
I stood up straight and looked at Baldy.
"Where's your mother? I'm going to fuck your mother!"
"I'll kill you, you bastard, you stay away from my mother!"
"You know I can whip you, Baldy."
"Yes."
"All right, I'll leave your mother alone."
"Let's go then, Henry."
"One more drink . . ."
I went to a barrel and took a long one. Then we went up the cellar
stairway. When we were out, Baldy's father was still sitting in his chair.
"You boys been in the wine cellar, eh?"
"Yes," said Baldy.
"Starting a little early, aren't you?"
We didn't answer. We walked over to the boulevard and Baldy and I went
into a store which sold chewing gum. We bought several packs of it and stuck
it into our mouths. He was worried about his mother finding out. I wasn't
worried about anything. We sat on a park bench and chewed the gum and I
thought, well, now I have found something, I have found something that is
going to help me, for a long long time to come. The park grass looked
greener, the park benches looked better and the flowers were trying harder.
Maybe that stuff wasn't good for surgeons but anybody who wanted to be a
surgeon, there was something wrong with them in the first place.
At Mt. Justin, biology class was neat. We had Mr. Stanhope for our
teacher. He was an old guy about 55 and we pretty much dominated him. Lilly
Fischman was in the class and she was really developed. Her breasts were
enormous and she had a marvelous behind which she wiggled while walking in
her high-heeled shoes. She was great, she talked to all the guys and rubbed
up against them while she talked.
Every day in biology class it was the same. We never learned any
biology, Mr. Stanhope would talk for about ten minutes and then Lilly would
say, "Oh, Mr. Stanhope, let's have a show!"
"No!"
"Oh, Mr. Stanhope!"
She would walk up to his desk, bend over him sweetly and whisper
something.
"Oh, well, all right . . ." he'd say.
And then Lilly would begin singing and wiggling. She always opened up
with "The Lullaby of Broadway" and then she went into her other numbers. She
was great, she was hot, she was burning up, and we were too. She was like a
grown woman, putting it to Stanhope, putting it to us. It was wonderful. Old
Stanhope would sit there blubbering and slobbering. We'd laugh at Stanhope
and cheer Lilly on. It lasted until one day the principal, Mr. Lacefield,
came running in.
"What's going on here?"
Stanhope just sat there unable to speak.
"This class is dismissed!" Lacefield screamed.
As we filed out, Lacefield said, "And you, Miss Fischman,
will report to my office!"
Of course, after that we never studied our homework, and that was all
right until the day Mr. Stanhope gave us our first examination.
"Shit," said Peter Mangalore out loud, "what are we going to do?"
Peter was the guy with the 10-incher, soft.
"You'll never have to work for a living," said the guy who looked like
Jack Dempsey. "This is our problem."
"Maybe we ought to burn the school down," said Red Kirkpatrick.
"Shit," said a guy from the back of the room, "every time I get an 'F'
my father pulls out one of my fingernails."
We all looked at our examination sheets. I thought about my
father. Then I thought about Lilly Fischman. Lilly Fischman, I thought,
you are a whore, an evil woman, wiggling your body in front of us and
singing like that, you will send us all to hell. Stanhope was watching us.
"Why isn't anybody writing? Why isn't anybody answering the questions?
Does everybody have a pencil?"
"Yeah, yeah, we all got pencils," one of the guys said. Lilly sat up in
front, right by Mr. Stanhope's desk. We saw her open her biology textbook
and look up the answer to the first question. That was it. We all opened up
our textbooks. Stanhope just sat there and watched us. He didn't know what
to do. He began to sputter. He sat there a good five minutes, then he jumped
up. He ran back and forth up and down the center aisle of the room.
"What are you people doing? Close those textbooks! Close those
textbooks!"
As he ran by, the students would close their books only to open them
again when he had run past.
Baldy was in the seat next to mine, laughing. "He's an asshole!
Oh, what an old asshole!"
I felt a little sorry for Stanhope but it was either him or me.
Stanhope stood behind his desk and screamed, "All textbooks must be
closed or I will flunk the entire class!"
Then Lilly Fischman stood up. She pulled her skirt up and yanked at
one of her silk stockings. She adjusted the garter, we saw white flesh. Then
she pulled at and adjusted the other stocking. Such a sight we had never
seen, nor had Stanhope ever seen anything like it. Lilly sat down and we all
finished the exam with our textbooks open. Stanhope sat behind his desk,
utterly defeated.
Another guy we jerked around was Pop Farnsworth. It began the first day
in Machine Shop. He said, "Here we learn by doing. We will begin right now.
You will each take an engine apart and put it back together, until it is in
working order, during the semester. There are charts on the wall and I will
answer your questions. You will also be shown movies about how an engine
works. But right now please begin to dismantle your engines. The tools are
on your workshelf."
"Hey, Pop, how about the movies first?" some guy asked.
"I said, 'Begin your project!"'
I don't know where they got all those engines. They were greasy and
black and rusted. They looked really dismal.
"Fuck," said some guy, "this one is a hunk of clogged shit."
We stood over our engines. Most of the guys reached for monkey
wrenches. Red Kirkpatrick took a screwdriver and scraped it slowly along the
top of his engine carefully creating a black ribbon of grease two feet long.
"Come on, Pop, how about a movie? We just got out of gym, our asses are
dragging! Wagner had us doing the hop, skip and jump like a bunch of frogs!"
"Begin your assignment as requested!"
We started in. It was senseless. It was worse than Music Appreciation.
Some clanking of tools could be heard and some heavy breathing.
"FUCK!" hollered Harry Henderson, "I'VE JUST SKINNED MY WHOLE GOD-
DAMNED KNUCKLE! THIS IS NOTHING BUT FUCKING WHITE SLAVERY!"
He wrapped a handkerchief tenderly around his right hand and watched
the blood soak through. "Shit," he said.
The rest of us kept trying. "I'd rather stick my head up an elephant's
cunt," said Red Kirkpatrick.
Jack Dempsey threw his wrench to the floor. "I quit," he said,
"do anything you want to me, I quit. Kill me. Cut my balls off. I
quit."
He walked over and leaned against a wall. He folded his arms and looked
down at his shoes.
The situation seemed truly terrible. There weren't any girls. When you
looked out the back door of the shop you could see the open schoolyard, all
that sunlight and empty space out there where there was nothing to do. And
here we were bent over stupid engines that weren't even attached to cars,
they were useless. Just stupid steel. It was dumb and it was hard. We needed
mercy. Our lives were dumb enough. Something had to save us. We'd heard Pop
was a soft touch but it didn't seem true. He was a giant son-of-a-bitch with
a beer gut, dressed in his greasy outfit, and with hair hanging down in his
eyes and grease on his chin.
Arnie Whitechapel threw down his wrench and walked up to Mr.
Farnsworth. Arnie had a big grin on his face. "Hey, Pop, what the fuck?"
"Get back to your engine, Whitechapel!"
"Ah, come on. Pop, what the shit!"
Arnie was a couple of years older than the rest of us. He had spent a
few years in some boys' correctional school. But even though he was older
than we were, he was smaller. He had very black hair slicked back with
vaseline. He would stand in front of the mirror in the men's crapper
squeezing his pimples. He talked dirty to the girls and carried Sheik
rubbers in his pockets.
"I got a good one for you. Pop!"
"Yeah? Get back to your engine, Whitechapel."
"It's a good one, Pop."
We stood there and watched as Arnie began to tell Pop a dirty joke.
Their heads were close together. Then the joke was over, Pop began laughing.
That big body was doubled over, he was holding his gut. "Holy shit! Oh my
god, holy shit!" he laughed. Then he stopped. "O.K., Arnie, back to your
machine!"
"No, wait, Pop, I got another one!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, listen . . ."
We all left our machines and walked over. We circled them, listening as
Arnie told the next joke. When it was over Pop doubled up. "Holy shit, oh
lord, holy shit!"
"Then there's another one, Pop. This guy is driving his car in the
desert. He notices this guy jumping along the road. He's naked and his hands
and feet arc tied with rope. The guy stops his car and asks the guy, 'Hey,
buddy, what's the matter?' And the guy tells him, 'Well, I was driving along
and I saw this bastard hitch-hiking so I stopped and the son-of-a-bitch
pulls a gun on me, takes my clothes away and then ties me up. Then the dirty
son-of-a-bitch reams me in the ass!' 'Oh yeah?' says the guy getting out of
his car. 'Yeah, that's what that dirty son-of-a-bitch did!' says the man.
'Well,' says the guy unzipping his fly, 1 guess this just isn't your lucky
day!"'
Pop began laughing, he doubled over. "Oh, no! Oh, NO! OH . . . HOLY . .
. SHIT, CHRIST . . . HOLY SHIT . . . !"
He finally stopped.
"God damn," he said quietly, "oh my lord . . ."
"How about a movie, Pop?"
"Oh well, all right."
Somebody closed the back door and Pop pulled out a dirty white screen.
He started the projector. It was a lousy movie but it beat working on those
engines. The gas was ignited by the spark plugs and the explosion hit the
cylinder head and the head was thrust down and that turned the crankshaft
and the valves opened and closed and the cylinder heads kept going up and
down and the crankshaft turned some more. Not very interesting, but it was
cool in there and you could lean back in your chair and think about what you
wanted to think about. You didn't have to bust your knuckles on dumb steel.
We never did get those engines taken apart let alone put back together
again and I don't know how many times we saw that same movie. Whitechapel's
jokes kept coming and we all laughed our heads off even though most of the
jokes were pretty terrible, except to Pop Farnsworth who kept doubling over
and laughing,
"Holy shit! Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!"
He was an O.K. guy. We all liked him.
Our English teacher, Miss Gredis, was the absolute best. She was a
blonde with a long sharp nose. Her nose wasn't much good but you didn't
notice it when you looked at the rest of her. She wore tight dresses and low
v-necks, black high-heeled shoes and silk stockings. She was snake-like with
long beautiful legs. She only sat behind her desk when she took roll call.
She kept one desk vacant at the front of the room and after roll call she
would come down and sit on that desk top, facing us. Miss Gredis sat perched
there with her legs crossed and her skirt pulled high. Never had we seen
such ankles, such legs, such thighs. Well, there was Lilly Fischman, but
Lilly was a girl-woman while Miss Gredis was in full bloom. And we got to
gaze upon her for a full hour each day. There wasn't a boy in that class who
wasn't sad when the bell rang ending the English period. We'd talk about
her.
"Do you think she wants to be fucked?"
"No, I think she's just teasing us. She knows she's driving us crazy,
that's all she needs, that's all she wants."
"I know where she lives. I'm going over there some night."
"You wouldn't have the balls!"
"Yeah? Yeah? I'll fuck the shit out of her! She's asking for it!"
"A guy I know in the 8th grade said he went over there one night."
"Yeah? What happened?"
"She came to the door in a nightgown, her tits were practically hanging
out. The guy said he had forgotten the next day's homework and wondered what
it was. She asked him in."
"No shit?"
"Yeah. Nothing happened. She made him some tea, told him about the
homework and he left."
"If I had of gotten in, that would have been it!"
"Yeah? What would you have done?"
"First I would have corn-holed her, then I would have eaten her pussy,
then I would fuck her between the tits and then I would force her to give me
a blow job."
"No kidding, dreamer boy. You ever been laid?"
"Fuck yes, I've been laid. Several times."
"How was it?"
"Lousy."
"Couldn't come, hub?"
"I came all over the place, I thought I'd never stop."
"Came all over the palm of your hand, hub?"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Ha, ha!"
"All over your hand, hub?"
"Fuck you guys!"
"I don't think any of us has been laid," said one of the guys. There
was silence.
"That's shit. I was laid when I was seven years old."
"That's nothing. I was laid when I was four."
"Sure, Red. Lay it on good!"
"I got this little girl under the house."
"You got a hard?"
"Sure."
"You came?"
"I think so. Something squirted out."
"Sure. You pissed in her cunt, Red."
"Balls!"
"What was her name?"
"Betty Ann."
"Fuck," said the guy who claimed to have gotten laid when he was seven.
"Mine was named Betty Ann too."
"That whore," said Red.
One tine Spring day we were sitting in English class and Miss Gredis
was sitting on the front desk facing us. She had her skirt pulled especially
high, it was terrifying, beautiful, wondrous and dirty. Such legs, such
thighs, we were very close to the magic. It was unbelievable. Baldy sat in
the seat across the aisle from me. He reached over and began poking me on
the leg with his finger:
"She's breaking all the records!" he whispered. "Look!
Look!"
"My God," I said, "shut up or she'll pull her skirt down!"
Baldy pulled his hand back and I waited. We hadn't spooked Miss Gredis.
Her skirt remained as high as ever. It was truly a day to remember. There
wasn't a boy in class without a hard-on and Miss Gredis went on talking. I'm
sure that none of the boys heard a word she was saying. The girls, though,
turned and glanced at each other as if to say, this bitch is going too far.
Miss Gredis couldn't go too far. It was almost as if there weren't even a
cunt up there but something much better. Those legs. The sun came through
the window and poured in on those legs and thighs, the sun played on that
warm silk pulled so tightly. The skirt was so high, pulled hack, we
all prayed for a glimpse of panty, a glimpse of something, Jesus
Christ, it was like the world ending and beginning and ending again, it was
everything real and unreal, the sun, the thighs, and the silk, so smooth, so
warm, so alluring. The whole room throbbed. Eyesight blurred and returned
and Miss Gredis went on sitting there as if nothing was happening and she
kept talking as if everything was normal. That's what made it so good and so
terrible: the fact that she pretended that it wasn't happening. I looked
down at my desk top for a moment and saw the grain in the wood heightened as
if each pattern was a pool of whirling liquid. Then I quickly looked back at
the legs and thighs, angered with myself that I had looked away for a
moment, and perhaps missed something.
Then the sound began: "Thump, thump, thump, thump . . ."
Richard Waite. He sat in a seat in the back. He had huge ears and thick
lips, the lips were swollen and monstrous and he had a very large head. His
eyes were almost without color, they didn't reflect interest or
intelligence. He had large feet and his mouth always hung open. When he
spoke the words came out one by one, halting, with long pauses in between.
He wasn't even a sissy. Nobody ever spoke to him. Nobody knew what he was
doing there in our school. He gave the impression that something important
was missing from his makeup. He wore clean clothing, but his shirt was
always out in the back, one or two buttons were gone on his shirt or on his
pants. Richard Waite. He lived somewhere and he came to school every day.
"Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump . . ."
Richard Waite was jerking-off, a salute to Miss Gredis' thighs and
legs. He had finally weakened. Perhaps he didn't understand society's ways.
Now we all heard him. Miss Gredis heard him. The girls heard him. We all
knew what he was doing. He was so fucking dumb he didn't even have sense
enough to keep it quiet. And he was becoming more and more excited. The
thumps grew louder. His closed fist was hitting the underside of his desk
top.
We looked at Miss Gredis. What would she do? She hesitated. She glanced
about the class. She smiled, as composed as ever, and then she continued
speaking:
"I believe that the English language is the most expressive and
contagious form of communication. To begin with, we should be thankful that
we have this unique gift of a great language. And if we abuse it we are only
abusing ourselves. So let us listen, heed, acknowledge our heritage, and yet
explore and take risks with language . . ."
"We must forget England and their use of our common tongue. Even though
English usage is fine, our own American language contains many deep wells of
unexplored resources. These resources, as yet, remain untapped. Given the
proper moment and the proper writers, there will one day be a literary
explosion . . ."
Yes, Richard Waite was one of the few we never talked to. Actually, we
were afraid of him. He wasn't somebody you could beat the shit out of, that
would never make anybody feel better. You just wanted to get as far away
from him as possible, you didn't want to look at him, you didn't want to
look at those big lips, that big unfolding mouth like the mouth of a bruised
frog. You shunned him because you couldn't defeat Richard Waite.
We waited and waited while Miss Gredis talked on about English versus
American culture. We waited, while Richard Waite went on and on. Richard's
fist banged against the underside of his desk top and the little girls
glanced at each other and the guys were thinking, why is this asshole in
this class with us? He's going to spoil everything. One asshole and Miss
Gredis will pull her skirt down forever.
And then it stopped. Richard sat there. He was finished. We sneaked
glances at him. He looked the same. Was his sperm laying in his lap or was
it in his hand? The bell rang. English class was over.
After that, there was more of the same. Richard Waite thumped it often
while we listened to Miss Gredis sitting on that front desk with her legs
crossed high. We boys accepted the situation. After a while we even were
amused. The girls accepted it but they didn't like it, especially Lilly
Fischman who was almost forgotten.
Besides Richard Waite, there was another problem for me in that class:
Harry Walden. Harry Walden was pretty, the girls thought, and he had long
golden curls and wore strange, delicate clothing. He looked like an 18th
century fop, lots of strange colors, dark green, dark blue, I don't know
where the hell his parents found his clothes. And he always sat very still
and listened attentively. Like he understood everything. The girls said,
"He's a genius." He didn't look like anything to me. What I couldn't
understand was that the tough guys didn't mess with him. It bothered me. How
could he get off so easy? I found him one day in the hall. I stopped him.
"You don't look like shit to me," I said. "How come everybody thinks
you're hot shit?"
Walden glanced over to his right and when I turned my head to look in
that direction, he slid around me as if I were something from the sewer and
then a moment later he was in his seat in the class.
Almost every day it was Miss Gredis showing it all and Richard thumping
away and this guy Walden sitting there saying nothing and acting like he
believed he was a genius. I got sick of it.
I asked some of the other guys, "Listen, do you really think Harry
Walden is a genius? He just sits around in his pretty clothes and doesn't
say anything. What does that prove? We could all do that."
They didn't answer me. I couldn't understand their feelings about this
fucking guy. And it got worse. Word got out that Harry Walden was going to
see Miss Gredis every night, that he was her favorite pupil, and that they
were making love. It made me sick. I could just imagine him getting out of
his delicate green and blue outfit, folding it across a chair, then climbing
out of his orange satin shorts and sliding under the sheets where Miss
Gredis cuddled his curly golden head on her shoulder and fondled it and
other things as well.
It was whispered about by the girls who always seemed to know
everything. And even though the girls didn't particularly like Miss Gredis,
they thought the situation was all right, that it was reasonable because
Harry Walden was such a delicate genius and needed all the sympathy he could
get. I caught Harry Walden in the hall one more time.
"I'll kick your ass, you son-of-a-bitch, you don't fool me!"
Harry Walden looked at me. Then he looked over my shoulder and pointed
and said, "What's that over there?"
I looked around. When I looked back he was gone. He was sitting in the
class safely surrounded by all the girls who thought he was a genius and who
loved him.
There was more and more whispering about Harry Walden going over to
Miss Gredis' house at night and some days Harry wouldn't even be in class.
Those were the best days for me because I only had to deal with the thumping
and not the golden curls and the adoration for that kind of stuff by all the
little girls with their skirts and sweaters and starched gingham dresses.
When Harry wasn't there the little girls would whisper, "He's just too
sensitive... "
And Red Kirkpatrick would say, "She's fucking him to death."
One afternoon I walked into class and Harry Walden's seat was empty. I
figured he was just fucking-off as usual. Then the word drifted from desk to
desk. I was always the last to know anything. It finally got to me: Harry
Walden had committed suicide. The night before. Miss Gredis didn't know yet.
I looked over at his seat. He'd never sit there again. All those colorful
clothes shot to hell. Miss Gredis finished roll call. She came and sat on
the front desk, crossed her legs high. She had on a lighter shade of silk
hose than ever before. Her skirt was hiked way back to her thighs.
"Our American culture," she said, "is destined for greatness. The
English language, now so limited and structured, will be reinvented and
improved upon. Our writers will use what I like to think of, in my mind, as
Americanese . . ."
Miss Gredis' stockings were almost skin-colored. It was as if she were
not wearing stockings at all, it was as if she were naked there in front of
us, but since she wasn't and only appeared to be, that made it better than
ever.
"More and more we will discover our own truths and our own way of
speaking, and this new voice will be uncluttered by old histories, old
mores, old dead and useless dreams . . ."
"Thump, thump, thump . . ."
25
Curly Wagner picked out Morris Moscowitz. It was after school and eight
or ten of us guys had heard about it and we walked out behind the gym to
watch. Wagner laid down the rules, "We fight until somebody hollers quit."
"0. K. with me," said Morris. Morris was a tall thin guy, he was a
little bit dumb and he never said much or bothered anybody.
Wagner looked over at me. "And after I finish with this guy, I'm taking
you on!"
"Me, coach?"
"Yeah, you, Chinaski."
I sneered at him.
"I'm going to get some god-damned respect from you guys if I have to
whip all of you one by one!"
Wagner was cocky. He was always working out on the parallel bars or
tumbling on the mat or taking laps around the track. He swaggered when he
walked but he still had his pot belly. He liked to stand and stare at a guy
for a long time like he was shit. I didn't know what was bothering him. We
worried him. I believe he thought we were fucking all the girls like crazy
and he didn't like to think about that.
They squared off. Wagner had some good moves. He bobbed, he weaved, he
shuffled his feet, he moved in and out, and he made little hissing sounds.
He was impressive. He caught Moscowitz with three straight left jabs.
Moscowitz just stood there with his hands at his sides. He didn't know
anything about boxing. Then Wagner cracked Moscowitz with a right to the
jaw. "Shit!" said Morris and he threw a roundhouse right which Wagner
ducked. Wagner countered with a right and left to Moscowitz' face. Morris
had a bloody nose. "Shit!" he said and then he started swinging. And
landing. You could hear the shots, they cracked against Wagner's head.
Wagner tried to counter but his punches just didn't have the force and the
fury of Moscowitz'.
"Holy shit! Get him, Morrie!"
Moscowitz was a puncher. He dug a left to that pot belly. Wagner gasped
and dropped. He fell to both knees. His face was cut and bleeding. His chin
was on his chest and he looked sick.
"I quit," Wagner said.
We left him there behind the building and we followed Morris Moscowitz
out of there. He was our new hero.
"Shit, Morrie, you ought to turn pro!"
"Naw, I'm only thirteen years old."
We walked over behind the machine shop and stood around the steps.
Somebody lit up some cigarettes and we passed them around.
"What has that man got against us?" asked Morrie.
"Hell, Morrie, don't you know? He's jealous. He thinks we're fucking
all the chicks!"
"Why, I've never even kissed a girl."
"No shit, Morrie?"
"No shit."
"You ought to try dry-fucking, Morrie, it's great!"
Then we saw Wagner walking past. He was working on his face with his
handkerchief.
"Hey, coach," yelled one of the guys, "how about a rematch?"
He stood and looked at us. "You boys put out those cigarettes!"
"Ah, no, coach, we like to smoke!"
"Come on over here, coach, and make us put out our cigarettes!"
"Yeah, come on, coach!"
Wagner stood looking at us. "I'm not done with you yet! I'll get every
one of you, one way or the other!"
"How ya gonna do that, coach? Your talents seem limited."
"Yeah, coach, how ya gonna do it?"
He walked off the field to his car. I felt a little sorry for him. When
a guy was that nasty he should be able to back it up.
"I guess he doesn't think there'll be a virgin on the grounds by the
time we graduate," said one of the guys.
"I think," said another guy, "that somebody jacked-off into his ear and
he has come for brains."
We left after that. It had been a fairly good day.
My mother went to her low-paying job each morning and my father, who
didn't have a job, left each morning too. Although most of the neighbors
were unemployed he didn't want them to think he was jobless. So he got into
his car each morning at the same time and drove off as if he were going to
work. Then in the evening he would return at exactly the same time. It was
good for me because I had the place to myself. They locked the house but I
knew how to get in. I would unhook the screen door with a piece of
cardboard. They locked the porch door with a key from the inside. I slid a
newspaper under the door and poked the key out. Then I pulled the newspaper
from under the door and the key came with it. I would unlock the door and go
in. When I left I would hook the screen door, lock the back porch door from
the inside, leaving the key in. Then I would leave through the front door,
putting the latch on lock.
I liked being alone. One day I was playing one of my games. There was a
clock on the mantle with a second hand and I held contests to see how long I
could hold my breath. Each time I did it I exceeded my own record. I went
through much agony but I was proud each time I added some seconds to my
record. This day I added a full five seconds and I was standing getting my
breath back when I walked to the front window. It was a large window covered
by red drapes. There was a crack between the drapes and I looked out. Jesus
Christ! Our window was directly across from the front porch of the
Andersons' house. Mrs. Anderson was sitting on the steps, and I could look
right up her dress. She was about 23 and had marvelously shaped legs. I
could see almost all the way up her dress. Then I remember my father's army
binoculars. They were on the top shelf of his closet. I ran and got them,
ran back, crouched down and adjusted them to Mrs. Anderson's legs. It took
me right up there! And it was different from looking at Miss Gredis' legs:
you didn't have to pretend you weren't looking. You could concentrate. And I
did. I was right there. I was red hot. Jesus Christ, what legs, what flanks!
And each time she moved, it was unbearable and unbelievable.
I got down on my knees and I held the binoculars with one hand and
pulled my cock out with the other. I spit in my palm and began. For a moment
I thought I saw a flash of panties. I was about to come. I stopped. I kept
looking with the binocs and then I started rubbing again. When I was about
to come I stopped again. Then I waited and began rubbing again. This time I
knew I wouldn't be able to stop. She was right there. I was looking right up
her! It was like fucking. I came. I spurted all over the hardwood floor in
front of the window. It was white and thick. I got up and went to the
bathroom and got some toilet paper, came back and wiped it up. I took it
back to the toilet and flushed it away.
Mrs. Anderson came and sat on those steps almost every day and each
time she did I got the binocs and whacked-off.
If Mr. Anderson ever finds out about this, I thought, he'll kill me . .
.
My parents went to the movies every Wednesday night. The theatre had
drawings for money and they wanted to win some money. It was on a Wednesday
night that I discovered something. The Pirozzis lived in the house south of
ours. Our driveway ran along the north side of their house and there was a
window which looked into their front room. The window was veiled by a thin
curtain. There was a wall which became an arch over the front of our
driveway and there were bushes all about. When I got between that wall and
the window, in among all those bushes, nobody could see me from the street,
especially at night.
I crawled in there. It was great, better than I expected. Mrs. Pirozzi
was sitting on the couch reading a newspaper. Her legs were crossed, and in
an easy chair across the room, Mr. Pirozzi was reading a newspaper. Mrs.
Pirozzi was not as young as Miss Gredis or Mrs. Anderson, but she had good
legs and she had on high heels and almost every time she turned a page of
her newspaper, she'd cross her legs and her skirt would climb higher and I
would see more.
If my parents come home from the movie and catch me here, I thought,
then my life is over. But it's worth it. It's worth the risk.
I stayed very quiet behind the window and stared at Mrs. Pirozzi's
legs. They had a large collie, Jeff, who was asleep in front of the door. I
had looked at Miss Gredis' legs that day in English class, then I had
whacked-off to Mrs. Anderson's legs, and now - there was more. Why
didn't Mr. Pirozzi look at Mrs. Pirozzi's legs? He just kept reading his
newspaper. It was obvious that Mrs. Pirozzi was trying to tease him because
her skirt kept climbing higher and higher. Then she turned a page and
crossed her legs very fast and her skirt flipped back exposing her
pure white thighs. She was just like buttermilk! Unbelievable! She
was best of all!
Then from the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Pirozzi's legs move.
He stood up very quickly and moved toward the front door. I started
running, crashing through the bushes. I heard him open his front door. I was
down the driveway and into our backyard and behind the garage. I stood a
moment, listening. Then I climbed the back fence, over the vines and on over
into the next backyard. I ran through that yard and up the driveway and I
began dog-trotting south down the street like a guy practicing for track.
There was nobody behind me but I kept trotting. If he knows it was me, if he
tells my father, I'm dead. But maybe he just let the dog out to take a shit?
I trotted down to West Adams Boulevard and sat on a streetcar bench. I sat
there five minutes or so, then I walked back home. When I got there, my
parents weren't back yet. I went inside, undressed, turned out the lights
and waited for morning . . .
Another Wednesday night Baldy and I were taking our usual short cut
between two apartment houses. We were on our way to his father's wine cellar
when Baldy stopped at a window. The shade was almost down but not quite.
Baldy stopped, bent, and peeked inside. He waved me over.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"Look!"
There was a man and a woman in bed, naked. There was just a bedsheet
partly over them. The man was trying to kiss the woman and she was pushing
him away.
"God damn it, let me have it, Marie!"
"No!"
"But I'm hot, please."
"Take your god-damned hands off me!"
"But, Marie, I love you!"
"You and your fucking love . . ."
"Marie, please. "
"Will you shut up?"
The man turned toward the wall. The woman picked up a magazine, bunched
a pillow behind her head, and began reading it.
Baldy and I walked away from the window,
"Jesus," said Baldy, "that made me sick!"
"I thought we were going to see something," I said. When we got to the
wine cellar Baldy's old man had put a big padlock on the cellar door.
We tried that window again and again but we never actually
saw anything happen. It was always the same.
"Marie, it's been a long time. We're living together, you know.
We're married!"
"Big fucking deal!"
"Just this once, Marie, and I won't bother you again, I won't
bother you for a long time, I promise!"
"Shut up! You make me sick!"
Baldy and I walked away.
"Shit," I said.
"Shit," he said.
"I don't think he's got a cock," I said.
"He might as well not have," said Baldy. We stopped going back there.
Wagner wasn't done with us. I was standing in the yard during gym class
when he walked up to me.
"What are you doing, Chinaski?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
I didn't answer.
"How come you're not in any of the games?"
"Shit. That's kid stuff."
"I'm putting you on garbage detail until further notice."
"What for? What's the charge?"
"Loitering. 50 demerits."
The kids had to work off their demerits on garbage detail. If you had
more than ten demerits and didn't work them off, you couldn't graduate. I
didn't care whether I graduated or not. That was their problem. I could just
stay around getting older and older and bigger and bigger. I'd get all the
girls.
"50 demerits?" I asked. "Is that all you're going to give me? How about
a hundred?"
"O.K., one hundred. You got 'em."
Wagner swaggered off. Peter Mangalore had 500 demerits. Now I was in
second place, and gaining . . .
The first garbage detail was during the last thirty minutes of lunch.
The next day I was carrying a garbage can with Peter Mangalore. It was
simple. We each had a stick with a sharp nail on the end of it. We picked up
papers with the stick and stuck them into the can. The girls watched us as
we walked by. They knew we were bad. Peter looked bored and I looked
like I didn't give a damn. The girls knew we were bad.
"You know Lilly Fischman?" Pete asked as we walked along.