Grouper's Laws

by D. Philip Miller

  Blondie knew she wanted him to comfort her. Why couldn’t she understand it wasn’t his place. Besides, he didn’t know how to comfort a grown-up. He was only a kid.

  When they returned to their cul-de-sac, Mr. Potter was puttering in his front yard in an old sweatshirt. Blondie tried to read the faded lettering on the back to see if it was prison issue. Potter didn’t look their way as they shot up the driveway.

  “That Mack Potter isn’t very neighborly,” his mom complained

  Mack? The psychopath had a first name? How did his mom know? He wondered if he should tell her he was a killer. He decided it would only frighten her to no purpose. They weren’t about to move.

  Blondie expected to find his father parked in front of the television watching the college football game of the week, but the family room was quiet. Blondie followed his mom into the kitchen, where they found him banging away on a typewriter.

  “Francis, what are you doing?” his mom asked.

  He muttered something under his breath.

  “You’re not doing something for that silly military organization you joined, are you?”

  His face got red.

  “It’s not silly. Besides, I’m the new secretary.”

  Blondie tried to remember the name. The military order of something or other. A bunch of ex-officers who met once a month to debate America’s military strategy. Blondie thought it was hokey, especially if the other members were like his dad — soldiers who’d never fired a gun in anger.

  “So, what are you doing,” his mother repeated.

  “Writing the president.”

  His mom rolled her eyes.

  “And what are you telling him?”

  “That we should get out of Vietnam.”

  Blondie’d never heard of the place. He could tell his mother hadn’t either.

  “Well, I’m sure President Kennedy has plenty of advisors already.”

  His dad kept typing without looking up.

  Much later — after supper and after Blondie had nearly gnawed off his index finger from boredom — his mom opened his door to invite him to church the next day. He didn’t know why she bothered. He hadn’t gone to church for three years, ever since he’d been kicked out of Sunday School for supposedly questioning the virgin birth of the Christ child. All he’d said was, “Yeah, sure.” That was the first time he’d realized there were other people as serious about religion as his dad.

  But hey, he’d given God a chance. He’d prayed to him for years before giving up. When he’d asked for a train set one Christmas, he hadn’t gotten one. When he’d prayed for snotty Marilyn Goetz’s family to move and take her with them, they’d stayed put. He could think of plenty of other prayers that hadn’t been answered, like ones for darker hair, bigger muscles, and a car of his own. One of his religious instructors had suggested he wasn’t approaching God in the proper spirit. Another had told him God answered prayers in mysterious ways. He considered that a cop-out. Blondie wanted Him to reply in obvious and immediate ways.

  He wasn’t prepared to give up on God entirely, though. Everyone deserved a second chance. That was why, when the last light in the house had gone out, he clasped his hands together.

  “God, there’s this girl …. ” he began.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Spalding’s gap-toothed grin arced across Blondie’s consciousness like a rim view of the Grand Canyon as she droned on about sines and cosines, secants and tangents. So what if trigonometry had helped Renaissance sailors circumnavigate the globe. Were any of them going to set off in three-masters to find new lands? Why couldn’t they study something useful, like how to act cool or how to get girls?

  Blondie noticed Rudy Tilly across the room, his lips tracing every syllable, his brain cells struggling with her pretzel logic. Grouper, several desks away, showed no signs of listening to Spalding at all. His eyes were targeted a foot or two above her head. A serene smile hung from his nose.

  Spalding twisted a strand of her coarse dishwater hair and grinned in his direction.

  “Walter,” she asked in an amiable tone, “would you please explain the sine of an angle in the context of a circle?”

  His inner-tube lips barely moved as he replied.

  “The sine of an angle increases to one from zero to 90 degrees, decreases to zero from 90 degrees to 180 degrees, decreases to minus one from 180 degrees to 270 degrees, then increases to zero from 270 degrees to 360 degrees.”

  Blondie was impressed. The guy was a human computer.

  Spalding beamed at him for a moment. Just before she looked away, Grouper winked at her.

  After class, Blondie invited Rudy to his house to review the day’s trig lesson. He was pleased by Rudy’s ready acceptance.

  Miss Darlington was in the hall talking to Mr. Bearzinsky when he arrived at Civics class. As he passed, he heard the Bear refer to her as “Sandra.” That startled him; he never thought of teachers as having first names. When she entered the classroom, Miss Darlington was smiling.

  Sandra, huh, or was it Sandy to those who knew her better? Blondie found himself repeating her name. He wondered if he was developing a crush on her. Nah, he was in love with Tammy or whatever you called it when you felt like he did about someone you’d never even talked to.

  Miss Darlington began the class by asking how many of them had heard of a place called Vietnam. Blondie jerked to attention. That was the place his dad had been writing about. Only one kid raised his hand.

  “What do you know about it?” she asked him.

  He told her his dad had mentioned it as a place threatened by the communists, that’s all. She seemed impressed he knew that much.

  “Our government has been keeping its involvement in Vietnam pretty much a secret,” she said. “There are already hundreds of U.S. military personnel there as advisors. I’m afraid we’re going to wind up in a war.”

  Blondie was sure she was wrong. Why would the United States fight about some place no one had ever heard of? Still, he knew America had to draw the line against communism where it made sense. The reds were a bunch of nuts willing to risk the destruction of the planet for their goofy ideas. For once, his classmates agreed. Freddy Benson summarized their mood: “We oughtta just nuke them all and get it over with.”

  At lunch, Blondie spied Shakes sitting with Feller and Brick. Blondie felt confident enough of his status to head their way. Shakes was sucking milk into his straw and blowing it into his mashed potatoes. Feller eyed him disdainfully while Brick stared at the wall. Blondie couldn’t figure him at all, but then he’d always been mystified — and intimidated — by silent types, especially if they had muscles. Brick did. Nonetheless, he felt compelled to say something to him — weren’t they part of the same gang? — so he asked him how he thought Fenton would fare in Friday night’s football game.

  “Fuck the game,” Brick said.

  “Brick used to be on the team,” Feller explained. “That was before he pissed in the coach’s shoes.”

  “Why’d he do that?” Blondie asked Feller, as if Brick weren’t there.

  “He didn’t like him.”

  A thin smile creased Brick’s face.

  Blondie felt the cafeteria bench shift as Grouper’s soft bulk settled next to him. Dispatch appeared on the opposite side of the table. He plopped down with a scowl on his face.

  “What’s the matter, Dispatch?” Feller asked him, “you get shot down again?”

  “Girls are fucked up,” he groused.

  Blondie was gratified to know someone else suffered over females.

  “Who this time?”

  “Susan Conner.”

  “Didn’t you go out with her last weekend?” Feller asked.

  “My second time, too.”

  “Jesus, Dispatch, that’s almost going steady for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So?”

  “So she won’t go out with me again.”

  Br
ick looked at Dispatch impatiently.

  “The question is, ‘Did you get any?’” he said to him.

  “Almost.”

  Brick snorted.

  “Fess up, Dispatch,” Feller said, “What happened?”

  “We were making out like crazy, but when I tried to get my hands in her pants, she got mad. She told me her priest said sex before marriage was wrong.”

  “Damned Catholics,” Brick muttered, now sympathetic.

  “F-fucking m-mackerel snappers,” Shakes added.

  “It’s not that we’re prejudiced,” Feller said to Blondie. “As far as we’re concerned, people can believe any stupid thing they want. It’s just that Catholic girls won’t put out.”

  “Why don’t you try Protestant girls then?”

  “Where’s the challenge?”

  Someone was nuts here, Blondie thought, and it wasn’t him.

  “Besides, most of the good-looking girls are Catholic,” Feller added.

  “I even bought her dinner,” Dispatch continued to carp. “That should be worth something.”

  Grouper fastened his bulging eyes on him.

  “Have you ever considered treating a girl with respect?” he asked.

  Dispatch looked at Grouper as if he thought Grouper was putting him on.

  “Na-a-ah.”

  They talked so casually about sex. Were they all getting it? That possibility made him uneasy. It also bothered him that they talked so crudely about girls. Where was the romance?

  Blondie followed Grouper from the cafeteria.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Grouper nodded.

  “What is it between you and Spalding? You seem to be the only one in class she likes.”

  “Perhaps that’s because I’m the only one who treats her as the least bit attractive. Every woman likes a little flirtation.”

  Blondie stopped his next step in mid-stride. Coming straight toward them was Tammy. She was wearing a checked pink blouse and blue skirt and she was alone.

  Grouper, off in his own world, ambled ahead. Now he was alone too.

  “Hello,” he surprised himself by saying to Tammy when she passed.

  She seemed startled, then looked at him as if he’d materialized from the linoleum.

  “Hello,” she murmured.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  Then she was gone.

  Yes? Had he said yes? Why had he said yes? That was stupid. She was going to think he was stupid. He was stupid. Had her voice sounded like wind chimes? Blondie was sure it had. Hadn’t it?

  Grouper leaned against the wall, waiting for him. A bemused smile was on his face.

  Blondie was happy to see Rudy that evening. He seemed like a genuinely good guy. Besides, he had standing at school. However, helping him turned out to be more work than Blondie had anticipated. He was surprised at how dense Rudy was when it came to understanding basic concepts. He thought the class president would have more going for him in the smarts department.

  The next day before class, Dispatch marched up to Blondie in his self-absorbed fashion and handed him a small envelope. Inside was a wedding announcement from the parents of a Mary Jo Flaherty announcing the imminent marriage of their daughter to a Paul Poindexter. Most of the announcement — dated April 13, 1957 — had been crossed out and replaced with the following words: “You are formally invited to a B and F Club Sortie on the evening of Friday, September 29, 1961.” There was no signature — only the words “Appointments Secretary.”

  When Blondie looked up, Dispatch was gone. Sortie. There was that word again.

  “What does it mean?” Blondie asked Shakes a little later in the hallway. “What do you do on a sortie?”

  “Well, there’s n-no s-set thing,” he answered. “But w-we almost always get dr-drunk.”

  “Is that all?” Blondie asked him.

  “If th-things don’t d-develop.”

  What things? Blondie felt his cool slipping.

  “We’re g-going to start at the g-game,” Shakes said.

  Oh yeah, the game. Blondie had forgotten. He hadn’t been to a football game yet. At the least, he’d get to see Tammy strutting her stuff in front of the stand. He was still thinking of her when he took his seat in chemistry class.

  A get-to-work glare from Farber focused Blondie’s mind on the task at hand, which was the making of hydrochloric acid. He asked the class to form up in their assigned teams. Seconds later, Feller appeared at his side.

  He poured salt into a beaker of sulfuric acid. The mixture steamed slightly.

  “Did you get my invitation?” he asked Blondie.

  “You’re the club appointments secretary?”

  “Sure. President and treasurer too.”

  “What does Brick do?”

  “Brick doesn’t do anything.”

  “Then why do you call it the B and F Club?”

  “Brick said he wouldn’t join unless I used his initial too.”

  “How’d this club get started?”

  “It was sort of a revolutionary process. We all kind of revolved into each other’s spheres of influence and then the gravity of our massed personalities pulled us into a synergistic bond.”

  “What?”

  “That’s physics. Grouper calls it the law of attraction of dis-synchronous bodies. You know, misfits.”

  Blondie was astounded.

  “You openly admit you’re misfits?”

  “I don’t admit I’m a misfit,” Feller answered placidly. “I’ll grant the others are.”

  “And the others agree?”

  “Of course not. None of them has enough insight — or honesty — to realize he’s a misfit — except Grouper, of course. But he doesn’t consider the term derogatory. Of course, I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t think you were an exception.”

  Blondie felt flattered.

  “Well, gotta get back to my desk,” Feller announced abruptly. He sauntered away.

  “Wait, where are you going? The experiment’s not over.”

  Blondie realized the class had gone silent. He looked around — right into Farber’s face. His breath smelled bad.

  “How are you doing, Mr. Reimer?”

  Farber’s breath began to smell even worse — like burning rubber.

  “I think your experiment is going awry,” Farber commented acidly.

  When Blondie turned around, the beaker was smoking. Someone had dropped a cork into it. That explained the burning smell.

  Feller winked at him from his seat in the back. He’d set him up! When the class ended, Blondie stormed angrily toward Feller.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  Feller graced him with an almost Christ-like smile.

  “I didn’t really want to. The other guys told me you had to pass some sort of initiation before we took you on a sortie. This one was mild. We made Dispatch ride down Main Street with his head out the window and a Trojan on his nose.”

  Blondie felt somewhat mollified.

  “Don’t be sore,” Feller continued. “I’ve got big plans for you.”

  What plans? Blondie was afraid to ask.

  “Be in front of Rexall’s at 7:30. We’ll pick you up in the P-mobile.”

  Feller chuckled as he walked away.

  P-mobile?

  CHAPTER NINE

  Like a mythic steel beast, the Pussymobile — a shark-finned, two-toned, purple-and-white 1958 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer — roared from the bright tunnel of Friday night Front Street and screeched to a stop in front of Rexall’s. To Blondie, who waited shivering in a light sweater and Levis, its menacing chrome teeth and high-beam eyes served notice to the weak and faint-hearted to step aside. The B and F Club was on the prowl. And he was going to be with them!

  Dispatch, the P-mobile’s owner and keeper, held the steering wheel in a death grip, his eyes fixed straight ahead. Brick sat next to him with Feller riding shotgun. Sha
kes opened the back door for Blondie. As he got in, he could just distinguish Grouper sprawled like a beanbag chair in the shadows of the rear seat.

  Feller explained to Blondie that Dispatch had named his car, first, from an excess of optimism, and second, because it had an electric reclining front seat to snare unsuspecting females.

  “Most of us are of the opinion ‘Pussymobile’ is a misnomer,” Feller went on. “We’re not sure he’s even fingered anyone in here.”

  Dispatch disputed Feller by embarking on a lengthy enumeration of his many conquests.

  “Aw, shut up, Dispatch,” Brick said. “You couldn’t find your dick with both hands.”

  The priority of a sortie, Feller told Blondie, was making a “run.” Blondie understood from his words that a run consisted of finding a place to buy beer. Indeed, they soon wheeled in behind the Fenton Diner, an aluminum slug of a building. Their target was a dingy hole beneath the diner named the Suds Cellar. Blondie didn’t understand how any of them could buy beer, since the drinking age was twenty-one and none of them were even eighteen. He asked Feller.

  “Grouper could probably buy without any identification because he’s ageless,” Feller said, “but Grouper’s a pussy, so Dispatch does it.”

  Blondie examined Dispatch’s face in the skimpy light from the street. He looked to be no more than seventeen. Certainly not twenty-one.

  “Dispatch has a fake ID,” Feller explained. “Besides he’s got balls.”

  He then asked each of them to pitch in a buck to buy a case of beer. Elementary math told Blondie that was four beers each. That was four more than he’d ever drunk in his life, his sole experience with beer to this point being a few sips a G.I. had offered him.

  Feller told Blondie that Pabst Blue Ribbon had been selected as the official beer of the 1961-62 “season.”

  “Last year it was Carling’s, but after a close vote, we decided it was panther piss.”

  “Yeah, p-panther p-piss,” Shakes echoed.

  “Don’t fuck up,” Brick instructed Dispatch as he got out of the car.

  “One t-time, D-dispatch showed the b-bartender his student activity c-card,” Shakes said.