Grouper's Laws

by D. Philip Miller

  “Where do you live?” she asked him.

  “Heritage Acres.”

  “Phyllis lives up that way somewhere. Maybe she could give you a ride home.”

  “She’s on the staff?”

  Blondie hadn’t realized that.

  “Why yes, she’s the events editor. Next year, when she’s a senior, she’ll be the managing editor.”

  “Well, I don’t know …. ”

  Even for Tammy, riding around with Phyllis might be pushing things. Blondie weighed the pros and cons. On the con side, Phyllis was unwholesome in appearance, if not personality. On the pro side, she was Tammy’s friend.

  “Do you want me to ask her?” Miss Darlington asked.

  Blondie pondered the idea for few more seconds, then acquiesced. School would be out in less than five months one way or the other.

  The next day, Miss Darlington told him Phyllis had said it would be okay for him to ride home with her as long as he didn’t smoke.

  “She said what?” Blondie exclaimed indignantly.

  Miss Darlington looked at him in surprise.

  “You don’t smoke, do you?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then there’s no problem.”

  Miss Darlington didn’t understand. Phyllis was too ugly to be setting conditions.

  Blondie felt like a dork the first afternoon he met with the newspaper staff. Everyone had a job but him.

  One guy looked familiar. He was almost as tall as Blondie, with dark curly hair and glasses. Blondie remembered seeing him at a couple football games. He’d been carrying a camera with a flash. He seemed a bit nerdy, but friendly.

  Blondie introduced himself to the boy.

  “I’m Neil Golden,” he said, holding out his hand.

  A Jew. Blondie hadn’t known many Jews.

  “What do you do on the paper?” Blondie asked him.

  “Sports and photography.”

  “You cover sports?”

  Blondie’s respect for him went up.

  “Like golf?”

  “No. It’s the same time as baseball. So I cover baseball.”

  “Who covers golf?”

  “No one right now.”

  “I’m thinking of going out for the team.”

  “That’s great. If you make it, you can cover golf.”

  “Me?”

  “Why not? Do you have an assignment?”

  “No. But wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?”

  Golden laughed.

  “What do you think this is, the New York Times?”

  Blondie couldn’t believe it. If he made the golf team — which sounded like a snap — he could report on his own matches. Headlines popped into his brain: “Blondie Saves Match with Ace on Last Hole,” “Blondie Rally Sinks Baltimore School,” “Blondie’s Balls Consistently Closest to Hole.” Well, maybe that last one wouldn’t work. But what a chance to be a self-made hero.

  He was in high spirits when the hour ended, high enough to approach Phyllis.

  “Hi, I’m Blondie Reimer,” he said to her.

  She looked at him as if she didn’t understand.

  “You’re supposed to give me a ride home.”

  “Oh, you’re the one. You ride my bus.”

  Christ, she didn’t even know him by name! He’d been answering half the frigging questions in journalism class for a week — and riding the same bus for five months — and she hadn’t bothered to find out who he was! How could she help him with Tammy if she was that fucking oblivious?

  He walked behind her to her car, noticing every unbecoming thing about her all over again — her tangled hair, her big thighs, her dorky clothes. She stopped at her car, a lime-green 1960 Corvair, and turned to him.

  “Hold my books while I get my key out.”

  Blondie tightened his fists. What was he, her doorman? He forced himself to keep cool. She was his ride home and she was Tammy’s friend.

  Halfway to his house, she asked, “Didn’t I see you dancing with Tammy at a CYO dance last fall?”

  Blondie’s heart jumped, but he kept his cool.

  “Tammy, who’s that?”

  “I could’ve sworn you were dancing with her. She’s real pretty. Dark hair, nice complexion.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember. She’s a cheerleader.”

  Phyllis went back to watching the road. Tell me more about her, Blondie urged without speaking.

  “Do you have an assignment?” she said as she turned into his development.

  “Yeah. I think so. Sports.”

  “With Neil. Good. He’s a good writer. He can help you out.”

  What? Did she think he couldn’t write? And what about Tammy? God, he couldn’t just bring her up himself.

  “Your friend,” Blondie blurted, “what’s her name again?”

  “Who, Tammy?”

  Jesus! How dense could she be?

  “Yeah, her. Are you good friends with her?”

  “Sorta.”

  “Didn’t you get on the bus with her the first day of school?”

  “You remember that?”

  Oh God, what a gaffe. He’d revealed his hand. Now she’d realize how gaga he was for Tammy. He felt his face go scarlet.

  “Once in a while, she spends the night,” Phyllis said. “She’s nice, but a little dull.”

  Had he heard right? This pigtailed scag was calling his dream girl dull? It was an outrage. Blondie bit his lip. When Phyllis pulled into his driveway, he bolted from the car to make sure he didn’t ruin everything right then and there.

  “Goodbye,” Phyllis called after him. Her tone was friendly.

  Blondie rushed into the house, watched from the window until her car was free of their drive, then let out a shriek of rage.

  How could she call Tammy dull? Girls as pretty as Tammy had to be interesting. Phyllis was envious, that was all, Blondie decided, but he wanted to strangle her anyway.

  At lunch the next day, Blondie recounted his ride home to the group.

  “I can’t believe it,” he repeated. “Phyllis is such a dog and she has the nerve to criticize Tammy.”

  Shakes turned toward him and said, “Y-you make m-me s-sick, Blondie.”

  What was eating him?

  “Y-you th-think anyone y-you d-don’t like is a d-dog.”

  “What are you talking about?” Blondie defended himself. “She is a dog. Ask anyone here.”

  Feller tugged at Blondie’s sleeve and whispered to him.

  “Maybe Shakes likes her now that Janine dumped him.”

  Shakes with Phyllis? It was unimaginable. She’d tower over him like a mantis over a fly.

  “I h-heard wh-what you s-said, F-feller, and y-you’re f-full of sh-shit, t-too.”

  Feller took umbrage at that.

  “Y-you all th-think y-you d-deserve queens. W-well, wh-what m-makes you s-so h-hot?”

  Shakes grabbed his dessert bowl — strawberry Jell-O laced with banana bits — dumped it into his mashed potatoes and stalked away.

  “He likes Phyllis?” Blondie asked Feller.

  “I don’t know. What do you think’s bothering him, Grouper?”

  A wry smile bent his mouth.

  “One man’s dog is another man’s queen,” he said.

  Was he talking about Shakes — or himself? Blondie looked down at his plate and Feller shuffled his feet.

  “Fuck girls, anyhow,” Dispatch chimed in. “They’re more trouble than they’re worth. Just when you think you’re gonna get your hand in their pants, they have to go to the restroom or they have a fucking conversation with the Virgin Mary.”

  “Who shot you down this time?” Feller asked him.

  “Linda Lapidus. And I even bought her a nice meal.”

  Shakes didn’t show up for their Saturday sortie. On Monday, he wasn’t in school when classes began.

  “Did you hear about Shakes?” Feller asked Blondie when th
ey met in Farber’s chemistry class.

  “No, what?”

  “He got caught shoplifting at the Bonanza on Saturday.”

  Now why would he do a dumb thing like that, Blondie wondered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  smegma, n. a thick, foul-smelling, cheese-like, sebaceous secretion that collects beneath the foreskin or around the clitoris.

  “Do you think that’s what makes girls smell the way they do?” Feller asked Blondie. They were standing before the huge unabridged dictionary in the school library.

  “I don’t know how girls smell, remember? And how would you? You told me you were a virgin.”

  “I had my finger in Delores a couple times, though.”

  That was news to Blondie. It made him feel even more out of it as far as girls were concerned. His only sexual experience to date had been yanking his crank.

  “And there was a smell?”

  “Yeah. Kinda fishy.”

  Blondie remembered the riddle Brick sometimes asked: “If girls are made of sugar and spice, how come they smell like tuna fish?” Blondie didn’t like to think about that. It wasn’t romantic. He didn’t like to think about most bodily smells or processes and that included bad breath, body odor, menstruation, urination, defecation, and, of course, farting and belching. The thought of billions of people engaging in such activities on a daily basis was enough to gag a maggot. Moreover, it made him fear for the health of the planet.

  “What can we do with a word like this?”

  Feller seemed proud of his discovery. Blondie could empathize. It wasn’t every day you discovered a new sex word.

  “You can spring it on the unsuspecting.” Feller answered his own question.

  “Like whom?” Blondie asked.

  “Like Mary Cherry.”

  “H-mm-m.”

  Making a fool of Mary was appealing. Blondie was sick of her constant sucking up to Mrs. Buckley, as well as her supercilious airs.

  “How would we do it?” he asked Feller.

  “Doesn’t Bucky hand out a sheet of vocabulary words every week?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And doesn’t she ask us to write a short story using each word at least once? Then, doesn’t she ask for volunteers to read their stories? And doesn’t Mary Cherry always volunteer?”

  “All true.”

  “Then it’s simple. We just add a word to the list.”

  “Mary’d never use a word like that,” Blondie argued.

  “What if she believed the definition was something she liked?”

  “Yeah?” Blondie found himself beginning to smile. “Any ideas?”

  “What about ‘the essence of masculinity?’”

  Blondie nodded, but he still didn’t see how Feller was going to pull it off. It was already Tuesday, the day Bucky gave out the vocabulary list. Feller seemed unconcerned. He said he’d take care of it over lunch.

  When Blondie entered Bucky’s class, Feller shot him a satisfied smile. He pulled a sheet of paper from his desk. Somehow, he’d obtained a copy of Bucky’s latest vocabulary list.

  Shakes’ seat was empty for the second day. Blondie wondered where he was. Shoplifting wasn’t a school offense. Anyway, Feller told him Shakes had only swiped a Mad magazine — not exactly a felony. Blondie couldn’t rid himself of the feeling he was somehow responsible for Shakes’ slipup.

  Bucky’s class proceeded as usual. She bombarded the class with a hailstorm of fatuous observations about English literature while Mary Cherry cheered her on. Toward the end of the period, Bucky asked for a volunteer to help distribute the week’s vocabulary list. Mary’s hand shot up, but before Bucky could select her, Feller zipped to the front of the room. He ripped the bundle of lists from Bucky’s hands. No one but Blondie noticed the sheet of paper Feller slipped on top the stack.

  “It’s nice to see you so involved, Paul,” Bucky said to him.

  “I just love words,” he replied.

  Feller put the top sheet on Mary’s desk.

  “I expect something creative on Friday,” Buckley told them.

  In the hall after class, Blondie asked Feller what would happen if Mary looked the word up for herself.

  “She won’t. She’d trust that old goat Buckley with her twat.”

  Shakes returned the next day. He sat down by Blondie in first-period trig without saying a word. A strawberry crescent blemished his cheek — the sign of another beating, Blondie guessed. He felt sorry for him.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Shakes didn’t reply. He just stared straight ahead with a pissed-off expression on his face.

  By the time class was over, Blondie was angry, too. He grabbed Shakes by the arm. Shakes winced and Blondie realized there were more bruises beneath his shirt.

  “What’s eating you, anyway?” Blondie demanded.

  “Y-you probably th-think I d-did it to impress y-you.”

  “To impress me?”

  “All of y-you. Y-you think I j-just d-do th-things to get in t-tight with the gr-group.”

  Shakes was defiant, his face mottled with maroon, a cowlick shooting from his hay-like hair. A riled bantam rooster, Blondie thought.

  “What are you talking about? Why would I think that?”

  Shakes didn’t answer. He set his mouth in a firm line.

  “Well, why did you do it?” Blondie challenged him.

  Shakes’ mouth began to twitch and a look of anguish gripped his face.

  “I d-don’t kn-know.”

  “You don’t know. You mean it was an accident.”

  “No. I w-wanted to t-take the m-magazine.”

  “Didn’t you have the money?”

  “That w-wasn’t the issue.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  They were at the end of the hall. Shakes grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the outside door.

  “We’re not supposed to go outside now,” Blondie said.

  “N-not s-supposed to,” Shakes mocked.

  Outside, Blondie waited for Shakes’ explana-tion.

  “I n-never d-do anything,” he said after a few seconds.

  Blondie was bewildered.

  “I w-wanted to d-do s-something d-different.”

  “Shoplifting? That’s different all right,” Blondie said sarcastically.

  “S-something I’d n-never d-done. S-something n-no one w-would expect.”

  “To prove what?”

  “That I w-was s-somebody.”

  Blondie couldn’t make the connection.

  “A r-real p-person,” Shakes went on.

  “Who ever said you weren’t a real person?” Blondie asked.

  “It’s j-just the w-way you all treat m-me. L-like I’m n-not equal.”

  What the hell was Shakes talking about? They treated him like everyone else, didn’t they? Okay, so maybe not quite the same. But what did he expect? He was kinda strange looking and he stuttered. With those deficiencies, he couldn’t expect the same respect as a Feller or a Brick. That was unrealistic — and unreasonable.

  “Your shoplifting didn’t make anything better,” Blondie pointed out to him.

  “N-no. It m-made th-things a l-lot w-worse. My d-dad h-hates m-me. My m-mom d-doesn’t trust m-me. And I c-can’t sh-shop at B-bonanza anymore.”

  Shakes was acting as distressed and disoriented as a hurricane survivor. He was giving Blondie the creeps. Nonetheless, Blondie reached out his arm and put it around Shakes’ shoulder.

  “What the fuck,” Blondie said. “Life goes on, right.”

  Somehow that boosted his spirits.

  “Y-yeah. Wh-what the f-fuck.”

  The whole group was at lunch, including Grouper, who usually ate with Meryl.

  “It’s nice of you to join us,” Feller said with mock graciousness.

  Grouper nodded.

  “Y-you’re n-not b-becoming p-pussywhipped, are y-you?” Shakes asked Grouper. />
  Blondie considered it a positive sign for Shakes to pull someone’s chain. He was coming around.

  “Actually, pussywhipped is a misnomer,” Grouper began, but before he warmed to his subject, Brick interrupted.

  “Didn’t I see you hanging around the hall with a ninth grader?” he asked Dispatch.

  “She adores me. She’ll do anything I ask.”

  “You mean like fuck you?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then what’s the point?”

  “It’s not out of the question,” Dispatch countered.

  And so it went. Another verbal jousting match filled with insults and imprecations. He’d affiliated himself with clowns. They’d never attain the first rank of school cliques. On the other hand, they were the most entertaining bunch he’d ever been with. He couldn’t help feeling a little proud to be one of them. Phyllis didn’t see it the same way.

  “You don’t seem like those bozos you hang around with,” she commented on the way home from the Fentonian layout session that afternoon.

  He knew she meant it as a compliment, so Blondie restrained himself from hanging her by her pigtail. Instead, he asked Phyllis about herself — her family, her likes and dislikes. He wasn’t interested in the slightest, of course, but currying Phyllis’ favor was an essential part of his grand plan to make contact with his darling.

  Anyway, he had the emotional reserves to indulge Phyllis today. That afternoon, he’d received his first story assignment from Miss Darlington. She’d asked him to cover the girls’ field hockey game the following Monday. It wasn’t the Baltimore Colts, but you had to start somewhere.

  “That’s great,” Phyllis said when he told her. “That shows Miss Darlington has confidence in you.”

  Girls were so strange. A week ago, Phyllis had acted as if she couldn’t care less about him.

  “Thanks for the ride,” he said when she let him off.

  “I’m happy to do it,” she said, smiling broadly.

  The next day, Feller gave him a ride in. Blondie asked him if he’d noticed the bruise below Shakes’ eye.

  “Yeah.”

  “What can we do?” Blondie asked.

  “What can anyone do? It’s his dad.”

  “That doesn’t give him a right to beat him, does it?”

  They rode in silence for a while, passing snow-cloaked houses and denuded trees. Winter seemed to last forever.