Boy Minus Girl

by Richard Uhlig

  “I need some more J.D. first,” she says.

  “More” turns out to be about five big swigs for her, and two timid ones for me.

  As we sit, I carefully place my arm across the back of the bench. She turns and looks at me expectantly. But I never asked Uncle Ray what to do once I have a girl “in position,” and I haven’t gotten that far in The Seductive Man. Sweat breaks out on my forehead and palms.

  “You know, when you really compare them,” I say in a quivering voice, “The Addams Family was a much wittier show than The Munsters.”

  Regina looks at me as if I am singing the Soviet national anthem. “We gonna make out or what?”

  “Of course,” I say brightly.

  She closes her eyes. My heart pounds in my ears as I stare at her glistening pink lips. How will I know if I press them too hard? What if I am bad at this? Will she tell everyone? Once, I overheard Stephanie Sanderson at school tell some girls about how Jared Clark kissed like a lizard. Can I somehow get out of this?

  She cracks one eyelid and gives me a “what’s the holdup?” look.

  Time to act. A deep breath. Lean forward. I ram my lips into hers.

  “Ouch!” She pulls back and rubs her mouth.

  “Sorry.”

  “God, Eckhardt, haven’t you ever done this before?” “Of course. Yes. Definitely.”

  She sighs and closes her eyes again. This time I move in slowly. Wow. Her lips are surprisingly soft and moist, and her face smells of baby powder and hamburgers. I am kissing her and it is good, a turn-on. Her mouth, it opens a little bit. And my heart flutters. Now she has placed her tongue on top of mine, which lies beneath hers like a dead eel. Now what? In an attempt to cover all bases, I race my tongue around her mouth like an out-of-control power hose. I whip the sides of her mouth, and get scraped by the sharpness of her teeth.

  Regina makes a choking sound, and I suddenly find myself licking air.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “What? You—you don’t care for my, um, technique?”

  “Geez. Here, why don’t you just sit back and let me.”

  Eyes closed, she ever-so-gently places her lips on mine. Feeling her soft tongue stroking mine—it is a-mazing. My skin tingles, and I fear I’m going to explode in my jeans. Me, Lester Scott Eckhardt, is French-kissing a girl! And right here in Harker Park! Not twenty feet from where Dad used to take me to ride the kiddy train! Right where I had my fifth-birthday party!

  All through junior high, at school dances, Howard and I would sit by the wall and make fart noises with our armpits and jump folding chairs with the other rejects while the “studs” made out with girls on the dance floor. Now I am a stud! Legit. I will no longer gawk at couples and wonder what it feels like to make out. I know. Uncle Ray is a genius!

  Mom will be furious if I marry the daughter of the “loose” woman who runs Burger In A Box. Well, Mom will just have to live with it. I’m not giving this up for her, or anyone.

  Still kissing, I boldly drape my left arm around her shoulder and gently pull her to me. I place my right hand under her blouse and feel the soft, warm skin of her belly. Hmm . . . a bit flabby but, still, what the hell, it’s a girl’s stomach. I slowly run my hand up until I feel the swell of her right one. Oh yes. I start to shove my fingers under the stiff fabric of the bra. Rrrr-rrrar—some sort of car is approaching but who cares? My digits inch around and—oh my God! am I grazing a nipple?

  Suddenly Regina jerks back and looks over my shoulder. I turn and see a banana-yellow muscle car come to an abrupt stop on the street.

  “Who’s—?” I start to ask, but Regina pulls me to her and places her mouth determinedly on mine. She just can’t get enough.

  “Reggie, you whore!”

  A tall, angry guy in boots and shoulder-length hair storms out of the car.

  “You know this guy?” I ask.

  “Yep. He’s my boyfriend.”

  My heart leaps into my throat. “Your boyfriend?” My first inclination is: Must bolt! He thunders toward us.

  “Go away, Tadpole!” Regina shouts.

  TAD is embroidered on his oil-stained coveralls. He’s one of the mechanics at Jim’s Standard Service Station. He looms over us, his Yosemite Sam mustache quivering with fury.

  Meaty, greasy hands on hips, he asks, “What’re you doing with this faggot?”

  Why does everyone think I’m gay?

  She points at him. “Leave me alone, Tadpole! Go back to your slut!”

  Wow. Who knew monosyllabic Regina could be such a foulmouthed pit bull? I clear my throat and say in my calmest, smoothest voice, “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding—”

  Tadpole clinches my collar in his fist, pulls me to my feet, and shakes me. “If you touched my woman, I’ll kill you.”

  Hard to breathe.

  Dear Jesus . . . I’m sorry! Forgive me! Help me!

  A panic-flash: will I end up like Uncle Ray?

  “Put him down!” Regina screams, and yanks on me.

  He continues to shake me violently. “You ain’t never gonna tell me what to do, y’cheatin’ bitch!”

  “I’m not the cheater!” she screams. “I know what you and Rhonda did last night!”

  He whirls to her and I feel his grip loosen a little. “What’d she tell you?”

  “That she gave you a hand job!”

  “That two-faced ho!”

  So . . . so this is the real deal: I’m a mere pawn in Regina’s vengeance game. She doesn’t dig me any more than Charity does. Still, I was used to make another guy jealous. That’s progress, right?

  “Why don’t I, uh, leave you two alone to discuss this . . . ,” I say as he hurls me to the ground, knocking the air from my chest. White dots float in front of my eyes and the earth pitches.

  “I was drunk,” I hear him plead. “I don’t love Rhonda. She’s a whore. I love you, Reggie. You gotta believe that.”

  I slowly sit up and refill my lungs.

  “You love me?” she says.

  “ ’Course I do, baby,” he says. “You know I do.”

  Aw. As the stars start to fade, and the ground stabilizes and my breathing normalizes, I watch as Regina and her Tadpole walk arm in arm to his muscle car.

  “C’mon,” he says as he grabs her ass. “Let’s get wasted.”

  They pile in (he even opens the passenger door for her!) and thunder off.

  My moment with Regina Fallers has passed. I am now a seasoned kisser. I’ve been used. But in a good way.

  Seduction Tip Number 9:

  The French Connection

  The Seductive Man knows to keep his tongue narrow and pointed, not wide and level, when kissing. Cover your mouth with an empty shot glass. Imagining the glass is the inside of her mouth, slowly poke out your tongue as far as it will go without touching the sides. If you do touch, withdraw your tongue and start over. Make a point with the tip of your tongue and try to go beyond where you touched before. Practice this twice daily.

  “I still can’t believe she’s a lesbo,” says Howard, shaking his head.

  “Keep your voice down,” I snap. “God!”

  We’re in the locker room, in gym class, suiting up with the other guys.

  Howard leans in and whispers, “Do you think if we’re real nice to her, maybe buy her a hot fudge sundae or something, she’ll tell us all the juicy details of her lesbian sex-capades?”

  “God, that would be great. But I don’t think she’ll go for that, How.”

  “Okay. But maybe she could give us some advice on what girls look for. I mean, not only does she have experience being with girls, she is a girl. She knows the territory inside out.”

  Wearing only my jockstrap and white knee-high tube socks, I bend over to retrieve my shorts from the locker, when I feel a sudden, painful tug. What the—I’ve been lifted off the floor, my jock slicing into my nuts. Craphead Brett—who else?—is holding me up by the elastic band.

  “Hey, look, girlth!” Brett hollers
, dangling me in the air. “A piñata for cockthuckerth!”

  “Put him down!” Howard shouts.

  “Put me down!”

  “Whatever you thay, Leth-bian.”

  My knees hit the wet tiled floor, hard, and it feels as if both kneecaps have shattered. Brett laughs, gives me a little kick in the side with his sneaker, then starts to walk away. Like a wobbly but determined newborn colt, I painfully pull myself to my feet and say, “My name is Les.”

  Brett turns and snarls, “Yeah, Leth-bian.”

  “No, just Les . . . Brat.”

  The locker room falls silent. Curling my fingers, I feel adrenaline pulsing through me, my heart pounding in my ears.

  Brett strikes a pansy pose, thrusting out his hips, and says in a high-pitched voice, “Well, ya thure look like an ugly puthy-eater to me.”

  “And you look as retarded as your little brother.”

  I lunge and pop him as hard as I can in the nose. My knuckles sting like crazy. The shock barely registers on his face when I fire my left hook at his jaw, a crack that sends him staggering backward into the shower, where he slips on the soapy tiles, his feet shooting out from beneath him. Splat! He lands on his stupid, stupid fat butt. My God. Did I just do that? My hands are throbbing. I gaze down at Brett, his head hanging between his knees as he grips his nose with his grimy sausage fingers.

  Why oh why didn’t I do this before? Thanks, Uncle Ray. Thanks, thanks, thanks.

  And then in my smoothest, manliest voice I utter, “For the last time, my name is Les.”

  A perfect zinger. God, I impress me.

  I turn to face my silent, awestruck audience and give them an “and that, my friends, is how it’s done” nod.

  Then I hear: “Motherfucker!!!”

  I whirl. Brett, all six feet one, 220 pounds of him, rises from the shower floor like Satan’s phoenix. When he charges at me, I scream like a girl and run as if my life depends on it, which it does.

  Dear Jesus . . . help me! I’ll never question You again. Help me, help me, help me!!

  Through the gym, with Brett at my heels, I zip past Coach Turkle, who is rolling out the cart of basketballs. My socks take no traction on the rubberized floor and I nearly lose my balance.

  I hear Coach blow his whistle and shout, “Get back here, you two!”

  I bolt into the hallway and shoot up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Brett growls behind me like a rabid rottweiler. At the top of the stairs I throw open the door to the school auditorium and scramble down the center aisle. On stage the sixth-grade girls’ glee club stands on risers doing vocal warm-ups. It isn’t until they stop singing and stare at me in slack-jawed disbelief that I remember I’m naked save for my jockstrap and socks. A few girls cover their mouths. Mrs. Kohls, the music teacher, drops her baton.

  One girl looks as if she’s about to cry.

  The sound of Brett’s shoes pounding the wood floor behind me penetrates my consciousness. As I round the corner of the front row of seats, I feel his paw clutch my shoulder, but I squirm out of his grip. Soon he is chasing me down the main hallway. Mrs. Fudge, the home ec teacher, steps out of her room, and I narrowly miss slamming into her but fail to miss the stack of papers she is carrying.

  Can’t run forever. Need a weapon fast. The band room. Open and deserted. I hurtle over rows of folding chairs, feverishly looking for a drumstick or trumpet. Behind me Brett is tossing the chairs out of his way as if they are made of pick-up sticks.

  I grip a music stand and spin around, brandishing it like a sword in front of his face.

  “You started this,” I say. “You know you did. I was just defending myself.”

  He clutches the stand and tears it from my grip effortlessly, sending it sailing.

  I snatch the closest object, a cymbal. As Brett fires his fist toward my face, I raise the cymbal clang! —blocking his punch just in time. But he rips the cymbal away. Desperate, I grip a bass drum and heave it onto him—finally knocking him over. I scramble for the hallway. As I sprint past the principal’s-office window, I notice Principal Cheavers looking up from his desk. He seems a bit bewildered, but I guess that’s understandable.

  The school’s front door is fast approaching, and I try to slow down but my socks are too slick on the linoleum floor. I manage to skid into the door with my shoulder, but the release bar smacks into my hip. I am suddenly, painfully tumbling onto the sidewalk outside. Splayed on my back, I look up at the American flag whipping in the wind above me and I’m struck with an idea. I clamber to the flagpole, grab on to it, and pull myself up, clamping my feet together like a three-toed monkey! The metal is hot between my bare legs. By bending my legs and braking with my feet—just like Coach taught me on the rope—I start inch-worming myself up the pole.

  Slam! The door hits the side of the building. Brett has made it outside. Damn it!

  “You’re dead meat, faggot!” Brett yells, looking around.

  I am now right beneath the flag. I look down. At the base of the pole Brett struggles to climb up.

  And from my lofty perch I see dozens of my stunned classmates craning out the windows. A second-floor window flies open and Charity sticks her head out. “Cute tush, Eckhardt!”

  And then—a chorus of cheers breaks out! That’s my girl! Sort of.

  “Did your uncle put you up to this?!” Mom screeches as she paces the principal’s office. “Where else would you learn such behavior—”

  “You hit my little boy!” Brett’s mother interrupts, pointing her pudgy finger at me from the chair facing Principal Cheavers’s desk. “He’s getting his nose x-rayed this minute because of you!” With each word her boobs jiggle beneath her Miller High Life T-shirt. Will she spill the beans about my booze run for Uncle Ray? But then she’d be admitting she sold alcohol to a minor.

  “Miss Jenkins,” Mom says, “let me assure you that whatever medical treatment is required, you will not receive a bill.”

  “That’s the least you people can do,” Brett’s mother huffs. She stands, slinging her cracked vinyl purse over her shoulder. “You just better hope I don’t sue your rich asses.” She stamps out, slamming the door behind her.

  Mom glares at me and I hang my head, trying to look contrite. But I’m not really worried. Mom and Dad are too busy—they never get home before six p.m.—to effectively enforce any punishment for very long.

  Principal Cheavers says, “Les, this is the first and I’m sure the last time you’ll do anything like this. Therefore, I’m going to leave the punishment to your folks. . . .”

  “Oh, he’ll be punished,” Mom says. “His father and I will certainly see to that!”

  “Les, why don’t you go on back to class now,” Mr. Cheavers says.

  For the rest of the school day, whenever I pass guys in the hallway, they stop talking and stare at me in an awestruck way—are they fearing me? The girls all whisper and smile. I am a kind of celebrity. It’s a little unsettling, but also more than a little fun.

  Between fourth and fifth periods I’m at my locker when Darlene Kerns, a cute blond eighth grader, sidles up to me. “Hey, Les. Can’t wait to see your magic act Friday night.”

  “Thanks, Darlene.”

  Is Darlene Kerns flirting with me? I’m so thrown I can’t say another word.

  “See you around,” she says, smiling.

  “Um. Yes. Right.”

  Wow!

  At lunchtime I stride into the gym but Coach isn’t there. I find him in his little office/ball-and-bat storage room, sitting at his metal desk reading Sports Illustrated.

  “Hey, Coach, I just want to say that you were so right: rope climbing did save my life.”

  He looks at me, then removes his reading glasses and tosses them on his desk.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing punching Brett?”

  “I was defending myself,” I say, stunned.

  “Don’t you see you’ve let him win,” he says. “He wanted you to stoop to his level, and you did just that
—”

  “But I had no choice. He’s always—”

  “If fifteen years of teaching has taught me one thing, it’s that fighting back only makes these things worse.”

  “So, what was I supposed to do?!” I throw up my hands. “Let him kill me?”

  “First off, you should have said something to me or the other teachers.”

  “Oh yeah, like crying to a teacher would’ve helped.”

  “It does help,” he says flatly.

  “This is Brett Jenkins we’re talking about.”

  He leans in, his eyes intensely focused on mine, and says very emphatically, “Have you seen Brett’s jackhammer of a mother? With his home life you better believe that Brett has reserves of strength and hatred that no ordinary mortal possesses, reserves of strength and anger that are now aimed exclusively at you.”

  My heart stops beating. He’s totally right. Brett will not let this go. He will make me hurt, and hurt bad. The question is how? And when?

  After lunch I’m sitting in the library struggling to write my book report when Charity plops herself down in the seat across from mine and whispers, “I meant it. You really do have a very cute tush.”

  “Obviously not cute enough for you.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I had no idea you were such a man of action.”

  “I’m not really.”

  She picks up The Great Gatsby, the book I’ve been trying to write about. “Oh, I love this book!”

  “Me too. I adore it,” I say cynically.

  “No, I’m serious. It’s my favorite. Poor Gatsby’ll do anything to make Daisy love him. What have you written so far?”

  Before I can protest, she snatches my notebook and is reading it.

  “It’s just a very rough draft,” I say.

  After about a minute she says, “Booger, this doesn’t sound like you read the book.”

  “Shh!” comes from Mrs. Armortrout, our wheelchair-bound librarian.

  “Of course I didn’t read it,” I whisper.

  “But this is a deep story about people who want to love, but can’t.”

  “Then I already know how it ends.”