balding, thats how old and evil he was. danger, sex. I could feel his
creepy decadence. I looked for it everywhere. I couldnt find it in the
grammar school I went to. he would corrupt her. he would corrupt
me. somewhere in the world there was a Noel Airman waiting to do
some dirty thing to me—IT they called it—that would degrade me. I
would never be able to be with decent people again. I might even go
to Hell. I would be an artist. I would be able to feel. I would know
everything. I ignored the 2nd part of the book where she married
that jerk, none of that for me. keeping kosher indeed.
also that same year. A. F. fell in love with me. he gave me a wooden
snake. I was supposed to scream in horror so I did even though I
quite liked it and later named it Herman, he wouldnt let me play
with the other boys, he grabbed my arms and pulled me out of all the
games, also Joel Christian and Agnes, he was at least 19. they necked
all the time, everywhere, during recess, they expelled him but she got
pregnant anyway.
the next year I went to camp.
with my best friend S.
we were one year too young to be counselors-in-training. it was humiliating. we were above going on hikes and making beaded purses.
Barry Greenberg was a counselor-in-training. he was tall and thin
and had a crew cut that stood up. he wore a bright red shirt that said
SAM’S MEAT MARKET, he worked there after school in the
winter.
we tried to follow him everywhere.
finally we even went bowling to see him. he always hit the pins but
we didnt dare, we always missed and giggled, we wore tight sweaters,
he was pretty bored and above it all.
then we went back to school, desperate for Barry Greenberg, in
love, suffering. Rhett. Noel. Barry Greenberg.
a few months later I slept at her house or she slept at mine, we put
on our pajamas and giggled for hours, we talked about Barry
Greenberg.
then I said, 111 be Barry Greenberg and I climbed on top of her and
I was Barry Greenberg, then she said, 111 be Barry Greenberg and
she climbed on top of me and she was Barry Greenberg, then I was
Barry Greenberg, then she was Barry Greenberg, then I was Barry
Greenberg, then she was Barry Greenberg. I might have been twice
in a row when she got tired, then the light broke and we lay together
drenched in sweat and love of Barry Greenberg, then we went to
school and danced together during recess to “Chantilly Lace” and
invented a new step where I swung her over me and she swung me
over her and we both turned around,
then we met Mary and everything changed.
Mary wasnt like us. we were both brilliant. Mary wasnt. we were
both in fact, according to ourselves, prodigies. Mary wasnt. we were
both Jewish. Mary wasnt. we were both too smart to be popular.
Mary wasnt.
we loved Mary immediately.
Mary was a conservative, that meant that she wore only beige and
blue and certain shades of green and peter pan collars and a circle
pin on the correct side (one side meant virgin, the other meant
whore, typically I never could remember which was which). S. and I
both wore sweaters and dark red neither of which was conservative,
we each wanted Mary to be our best friend,
so S. told Mary lies about me and Mary stopped speaking to me. I
suffered. Rhett. Noel. Mary, then I told Mary lies about S. and Mary
stopped speaking to her.
there was a confrontation. I won. I won Mary, it was strictly
platonic and ethereal. S. had a nervous breakdown and her mother
sent her to school in another city, when she was 15 she had an affair
with a painter, he fucked her and she became a woman, then she
became a Bunny in a Playboy Club, then she disappeared. Once S.
left, Mary seemed kind of dull.
then my best friend was Rona. she was afraid of me because by
then I was angry as well as smart. I wore only black by then, she had
read in Dear Abby that if you had a close friend and she didnt pluck
her eyebrows and they were hairy you should take her aside and tell
her to pluck her eyebrows. Rona and I had never spoken but since
she wanted me to be her friend she took me aside anyway and told
me to pluck my eyebrows. I did. then she was my best friend.
because I wore black and we both emulated Holden Caulfield as
much as possible we went to Ronas house every Wednesday night to
drink her parents booze, they went bowling. Rona had a boyfriend
who had a boyfriend, her boyfriend was tall, handsome, blond,
broad shouldered, and had been in the Navy, she wasnt allowed to
see him because her parents thought he was a creep and too mature
for her. her boyfriends boyfriend was (as we said then) a fag. he said
mean malicious things about everyone we knew and we thought he
was very clever. Ronas boyfriend of course was not a fag since he was
Ronas boyfriend, had been in the Navy, and was tall, handsome,
blond, and broad shouldered, he had even, Rona whispered, made
some girl pregnant and fucked a real whore.
the 4 of us would drink whatever we thought Ronas parents
wouldnt miss (we drank mostly from heavily tinted bottles) and
make lewd remarks to the best of our combined abilities and talk
about the disgusting fact that Rona and I were virgins, it disgusted
all of us but not equally, it particularly disgusted Ronas boyfriend
and her boyfriends boyfriend. they after all did everything, whatever
that was.
the next morning I would go to school wasted, superior, and
dangerous, and shout in the halclass="underline" damn this damn school, an outlaw
I was.
then we met Johnny, he was a real outlaw, he had 7 brothers and
sisters and was Catholic and went to a Catholic school, he made his
tuition turning tricks in bars in Philadelphia, and he smoked grass,
and he used morphine, he was our hero.
he came to visit us in school, beer spilled out of his pockets and we
hid him in the girls room and he drank his beer while we smoked the
grass he had brought for us.
once he was in a car crash and went through the windshield and
they took him to the hospital and shot him up with morphine and he
loved it so much that he did it again.
he said that he turned tricks in the bars in Philadelphia to make
his tuition so that he could go to Catholic school even though his
family was poor, he said that in a Catholic school they couldnt touch
his mind or fuck him up. he was our image of purity.
the night we graduated from high school Rona gave a party and
one of our teachers fucked one of our friends and she had a nervous
breakdown when he never called her again, until 2 years later when
he called her. then it got worse because he made her suck his cock all
the time and then would tell her that if she ever did it to anyone else
she would be a disgusting slut,
he didnt call Rona until she got married.
he and I had an even stormier story, before graduation he threatened to turn me in to the FBI for smoking grass and to take me to a hospital to watch junkies scream and vomit and he made a list for