Ham On Rye

by Charles Bukowski

  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 GODDAMNED 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.

  24

  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."

  "N
o 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.

  "THUMP, THUMP THUMP…"

  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…"

  "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…"

  "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…"

  "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…"

  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.

  "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…"

  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 c
hair, 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.. ."