Alter Boys

by Chuck Stepanek

  “Hey Jimmy, look at the slut! He thinks he’s a girl!” A miniature pirate hampered by a black plastic eye-patch stumbled over. The eye-patch was part of the costume but it was also conveniently cosmetic, hiding the shiner delivered by Jimmy Cotner senior when the Vikings lost in overtime on Sunday. Jimmy Cotner moved in and he did laugh, both at the androgyny and the use of the forbidden term. “No, he’s not a slut” Jimmy offered. He searched for the word. “He’s a cunt!” This got both of the terrors to laughing and Georgie second guessing his choice of costumes.

  Soon the mob was upon him. Jimmy and Randy or Andy worked the crowd taking great delight in teaching these new vocabulary words to their peers. The others were far too sheltered to offer their own vernacular contributions, but they greedily adopted and applied the ones as instructed. Amazing what a group of six year olds can pick up from the playground, daycare or the Cotner’s and Bushnell’s of the world.

  The bashing was interrupted only when Ms. Hymen announced that it was time to pass out the treats. She had been busy in the small adjoining room wondering just what the hell she was to do with the garish pastries that had been dropped off by that disgusting nose-picking woman. All of the other parents had provided wrapped candy and it was an easy task to drop one into each treat bag. But these gooey messes? She looked at the tray and again saw in her mind the uncouth woman extracting green globs of snot from her nostrils. “Stop it!” she hissed to herself. If she thought any more about the possible extra ingredients baked in these little pies-- “Just stop!” She grabbed up the mess determinedly and took it out to the classroom. There she parked it on the coloring table for the class to self serve.

  “Ewwww! What are those!” Came from Wendy the good witch. Georgie recognized them and grateful for the deflection said: “Kolache. My mom made them.”

  From Jimmy Cotner: “Uggg! Look at the snot pies!”

  At this Lily Hymen smothered a shriek and fled the room. She had heard plenty during her 10 years of teaching in room 1k but by god if Jimmy Cotner hadn’t nailed it. She leaned against the wall and laughed through her hands for a good minute. Twice she tried to regain her composure but the shrill voice of Jimmy “Uggg! Look at the snot pies!” rolled through her head and brought her back to uncontrollable brays of laughter.

  “Okay, okay, gotta catch my breath. God knows what they’re doing in there with the snot pies.” Again she collapsed.

  Eventually, visibly flushed, and with a big shit-eating grin on her face, Lily Hymen reentered the room with a double armful of treat bags. At this the children rushed her but she repelled the assault by lifting the bags high out of reach and declaring that the treats would only be passed out once all of the class was seated in their circle.

  Compliance was instantaneous.

  Control was further maintained by having each child come up individually to show off their costume and retrieve their treat bag. You maintained order by starting with the quiet kids and keeping the troublemakers for last.

  Georgie of course was among the first.

  “Here’s your treat bag, now tell the class what you are.” Georgie froze, he had already been mortified and was not about to endure any more humiliation. He didn’t even want his treat bag. He just wanted out of here and out of his dress.

  Andy or Randy Bushnell almost let his mouth betray him by calling out ‘he’s a slut!’ But Andy or Randy realized at the last moment that his own treat bag was on the line and wisely held his tongue.

  Ms. Hymen had 2 dozen kids to go through and limited patience, but in a moment of clarity she realized that the boy had been silenced because the others had made fun of his moms snot pies. (Careful now, careful! Reel it in!) And good God what an awful costume the kid was wearing. It was the worst looking Scottish Kilt she had ever seen. Obviously moms costume making was on par with her cooking and hygiene.

  The boy stood mute, the class grew restless, the snot pies lay untouched. “Well of course, it’s a kilt. Now take your seat and let’s meet our next character.”

  ‘Kilt.’ It sounded like cunt, girl and slut all rolled into one. The word stung harder than all of those delivered by his classmates. This word had been delivered by the woman he had come to love; the woman whose pink treasures filled his secret daydreams.

  Georgie reclaimed his seat and clutched his treat bag like a security blanket. He wrestled with the confusion. The other children had made fun of him; that he had come to expect. But Ms. Hymen’s reaction had been a complete surprise

  Then and there Georgie decided that he would speak of it no more.

  He peeked into his treat bag and discovered the most amazing jumble of shapes and colors. A fruity/chocolaty aroma wafted from the bag and permeated his nostrils while his mother’s voice: “It will rot your teeth out!” permeated his head.

  Around him the other children were greedily extracting the prime pieces from their loot. Ms. Hymen had been clear about waiting until everyone had their bag. But like every year before, that bit of instruction had lasted until the halfway point before some little Jack Horner stuck in his thumb and pulled out a packet of candy corn. The rustling of cellophane may as well have been a dinner bell. The free-for-all ensued and the final introduction of goblins and ghosts was expedited in deference to oral gratification.

  Georgie admired his treat bag but did not partake. For one, there was the voice of his mother: “It will rot your teeth out!” Two, it was such a wonderful collection of pleasures. If he ate it, that would diminish it. Instead he would keep it and treasure it; stocking it away to fill just a small part of the immense void within.

  He hitched his dress up and sat Indian style; the cherished treat bag filling the diamond shaped space created by his legs.

  3

  The shriek came earlier than usual. Either mommy was becoming more adept at thanking St. Christopher for the safe journey home or the discovery on the table was more alarming than ever. Either way it was a 1:30 siren that ripped Georgie's attention from the tube.

  “And look at this! All of this…crap!” The throttled neck of the treat bag was hoisted high in accusation. “Temptation, gluttony, coveting thy neighbor’s…just how much of this did you eat Georgie Porgie girl?”

  Georgie shifted in his dress. He had not changed when he arrived home; had not seen the need to. “None.” he replied honestly.

  Spitting: “Thou shall not bear false witness! Georgie Porgie in purgatory! A lie! I know a lie!” She looked in the sack. And where is my kolache? I don’t see my kolache in here…blessed Jesus…did you eat the kolache?”

  Georgie anguished over how to respond. Miss Hymen had not put the kolache in the sacks but out on a table. The other kids called them snot pies. Several of the kolaches had been augmented by stubs of Crayola and chalk to resemble cemetery tombstones.

  He responded the best way he could. He lied. “I ate it.”

  If not vindicated, mommy seemed at least placated. “Well there! She paused and then amended. “And I hope you found it better than this sugary crap!”

  Georgie did not respond. He had done two things in the last minute: Given mommy a truthful answer that brought him shame, and told a lie that had placated her. He was intrigued by the favorable results of the lie.

  “And we’re taking care of the rest of this…Gabriel blew his trumpet…right now!” She headed toward the garbage and Georgie froze. “Rot your teeth out!...baptized by fire…sugary crap…and a crown of thorns!”

  Thwock. The treat bag thumped to the bottom of the wastebasket.

  Georgie was devastated. The shapes and colors and smells that he intended to savor; not to eat, no never, just to look at and cherish, were now at the bottom of the garbage can.

  “You’ll thank me…redemption lies within…you would have gotten sick!”

  Georgie didn’t think he would have gotten sick. But he felt sick now. The eclectic collection of candies would have made wonderful scenery and landmarks for the daily drives of his plastic cars. At night he could have
bundled into bed with his treat bag, carefully examining and reexamining each curious piece with his fingers, eyes and nose.

  He ached over the loss. The void inside him screaming for acknowledgement.

  The candy gone he looked down at his tartan skirt. “Slut! Cunt! Kilt!” the sting of the words from his classmates and even his teacher, once abated by the candy, now returned to sting and sting again. The dress that he once wore proudly now felt as conspicuous as a vomit on a wedding cake.

  Changing his clothes would mean having to leave the TV. He wrestled with the dilemma. He could wait until the next series of commercials (so as not to miss them) and then could go change quickly during the ‘talking part’ of As the World Turns.

  The candy was gone, the dress would be gone, and the words would be gone. But when he came back, TV would still be there. That, and his unresolved issue of gender.

  Part 3

  Greaser

  Chapter I

  1

  Greaser started high school in the fall of 1974. At the age of 14 (almost 15!) Greaser had all that mattered to slimy teenage boys. He had TV. What more could you want? He had TV and the most pathetic set of social skills.

  Greaser had plodded through grammar and middle school unremarkably; a kid who never said a word, either in class or out, unless prompted by a teacher or classmate. When the teachers prompted, he always had the right intellectual answer. On the rare occasion he was prompted by classmates, the social answer came out stilted and awkward.

  He had no friends, other than a few older or younger social misfits who would gravitate to him briefly until someone of their own age became a better match. But he was not a lonely boy. He attended school during the day; watched TV at night.

  He became an easy mark. When assigned group projects, his classmates immediately turned on him to write the paper/do the project/recite the report. Any member of the group could have done it, many even better. But they knew Greaser didn’t have the savvy to protest the assignment and that by luring him with even the slightest bit of faux recognition they could easily sell him on the job.

  And it was because of these intellectual contributions to the collective that he was mercifully left alone. The middle school bullies could beat on the stupid kids, there were plenty of them smart-mouthing off to go around. Why risk pounding on the guy that was writing the paper for your science team?

  But then came high school. And things changed. Oh God how they changed. Puberty. New smells, new growth and massive secretions of natural body oils. Sadly, Greaser was oblivious to the latter.

  Glancing down the main hall of Elmwood high school you couldn’t miss the awkward geek in checkered pants and a striped shirt. (An unmatched set that he wore daily because he didn’t have enough common sense to change his clothes or even remove them for bed). “I heard that he whacks off at night and just leaves it in his underwear.” Dee Schuster once shared with her friend Jodi. “Ewww! Gross!” Jodi intoned, disgusted with the visual image and not at all concerned with how Dee had come about such information.

  Behind the geek is a foursome of upperclassmen, each in turn taking quick strides and then sliding to within a few inches. “Look out for the oil slick!” Doug Hennesy barks. “Too late. I’m trapped in the spill!” Varsity quarterback Brad Anderson wallows on the floor like a duck drenched in 40 weight.

  Greaser is oblivious. He has no idea whatsoever that the antics are aimed at him or about him. It’s just some game that the older kids are playing in the hall. The breadth of his world, his whole life for that matter, is simply to move from his last class to his locker and on to his next class…Algebra. And after school; home to watch TV.

  At first, by name alone, algebra was a scary proposition for the incoming freshmen. A course with such a sophisticated name conjures up images of F’s and D-’s. That may have been the case had the class been taught by anyone other than Mrs. Bernadette.

  Helen Bernadette had been teaching Elmwood mathematics for forty-some years. She was as unqualified to teach as a turd is to eat. Consequently, her lessons were hopelessly fundamental and she had never succeeded in leading a class even a quarter of the way through the textbook during a semester. If that had ever occurred, she would have been hard pressed to keep the class engaged. All of the material past page 80 was beyond her understanding.

  Additionally, she wore a hearing aid that she was constantly tweaking. A favorite classroom pastime was to approach her desk and silently mouth the words of a question. Tweak-tweak up. “…PAGE 24 IT SAYS X EQUALS…” Tweak-tweak down. Again silently mouthing the words. Tweak-tweak up. “…IS THAT THE RIGHT ANSWER?”

  Mrs. B would nod, yes of course that’s the right answer, mark it as correct, give yourself an A.

  And that was algebra; far too easy and not anywhere near educational.

  As bad as her hearing was, her eyesight had to be worse. Spitballs, erasers, paper airplanes and anything else that could go airborne was and did.

  One morning Bill Denker’s #2 pencil was intended for Grant Dohmeier’s noggin two rows over. Unfortunately Greaser lifted his head at the most inopportune time and the missile lodged in the back of his hair.

  “Abort! Abort! Oil pressure is rising! Chemical spill! Eject the pilot!” Bill Denker’s adlibbed SOS brought hoots of appreciation from those on his side of the room who had been following the fusillade.

  “Air assault terminated. Begin operation hair assault! Deploy flotation devices!”

  Miniature life-preserver spit wads bombarded the back of Greaser’s head, bounced off, and lay uselessly on the floor. “Oil and water don’t mix!” Sergeant Denker trumpeted. “Increase firepower!”

  The soldiers under his command complied with increased laughter and velocity. Finally, a wad of wide-margin ruled Scripto stuck firmly in Greaser’s hair.

  “Life raft deployed! Commence pilot extraction!”

  At this, Grant Dohmeier, the original intended target, controlled his braying long enough to reach over and pluck the number two pencil from Greaser’s hair. He held it squeamishly by the pink eraser end and gave it two hard shakes like a nurse resetting a mercury thermometer.

  “Pilot extracted! Proceed with decontamination!”

  “Decontaminate it yourself ya morphadite!” Dohmeier flung the pencil back in the general direction of its owner. The throw went awry and the pencil clattered against the far wall. “Nice shot Dohmeier,” The sergeant commended. “You’ve got a great arm! So what happened to the rest of your body?”

  Grant Dohmeier dismissed the dis by redirecting the blame. “What dija ‘xpect. The thing was covered with grease. Thanks a lot Greaser!”

  “Dohmeier gets greased by the Greaser.” Sergeant Denker turned to his unit. “Chemical weapons specialist Greaser is credited with the kill!”

  The bell rang, and the pencil was left behind. The moniker followed.

  As he had done for the past decade, Greaser disregarded the antics of his classmates. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to participate, in fact he longed for acceptance. The problem was he didn’t know how to fit in.

  Instead he had sat quietly and blightly endured the onslaught. He knew that he couldn’t turn to the Denker’s and Dohmeier’s of the world and say anything. And what if he did. Would he say ‘stop it?’ That would merely open up a conversation that he was ill equipped to engage in. The Denker or Dohmeier would nimbly shoot back, “what, you gonna make me? You and whose army?” To this he would have no answer. His communication acumen was limited to single word responses when called on in class, or one-sided orations when instructed to deliver a recitation. Those were controlled situations that required no give-and-take. A communication style that had been molded by his affinity for television.

  One speaking, one listening. Easy, plain and simple.

  He exited algebra class, the scripto floatation device still lodged in his gooey scalp. Sergeant Denker was waiting for him in the hallway, unconcerned about the three minute window to make it to the next b
attlefield.

  “Greaser! You’re to be commended for your valor in the trenches!” The accolade was bombastic even by high school hallway standards. “Collateral damage was high – a number two surface to air missile. But that can be replaced.” He grabbed Greaser’s own pencil and performed an exaggerated routine as if juggling a wet noodle. “Sabotage! Chemical warfare! Boiling oil poured from the turrets!” He threw the pencil back at Greaser and hurried down the hallway shouting: “Decontamination! Greaser alert!”

  There were some two dozen students (including several upperclassmen) who observed part or all of this show. By the end of the day there would be 200 who would make the same claim. They had all been there when Greaser got labeled.

  It was also the end of the day when the floatation device happened to fall out. Bronwyn Poe had the unenviable assignment of being seated behind Greaser in Geography class. She had finally become somewhat acclimated to having that gross dripping head in front of her day after day, but this afternoon was almost too much. The weirdo had a paper wad sticking in his hair. And either it had been there a long time or maybe it was the volume of grease, but the edges of the paper had actually turned color where the oil had been absorbed.