Skipped Parts: A Heartbreaking, Wild, and Raunchy Comedy (21 page)

He walked into the kitchen and grunted.

I pointed to the coffeepot.

“What was in the pill she passed out?” Hank asked.

“Valium, sort of a tranquilizer-sleeping pill.”

He poured a cup, put in cream, and stirred with a Bic pen. “Caused me trouble.”

I had to pee so I knocked on the bathroom door and went in. Maurey was behind the shower curtain where I couldn’t see anything but a blur.

“Don’t you knock?” she asked.

“I knocked.”

“Knock louder.” The shower went off and Maurey’s hand reached out for a towel. The problem was that I still peed a mainstream with a 90-degree-angle shooter, which I’d adapted to by holding my left hand off to the side there. The pee ran down my fingers into the toilet, I washed my hands well before leaving the can, and no one was the wiser. Only Maurey was the wiser when she stepped from the shower, toweled armpits to thighs, and caught me peeing into my hand.

“You’re pissing on yourself.”

“No, I’m not. I’m shy and hiding dick from you.”

“You’re pissing into your palm.”

“Don’t be a squirrel, Maurey.”

“The kid who catches his own pee calls me a squirrel?”

Lydia pushed through the door in the same wraparound towel getup as Maurey. She had creases on her face and exhausted-looking hair.

Maurey wanted to tell the world. “Sam pees in his hand.”

“All men piss on themselves and shit on women. Get out, both of you.”

“It’s my turn.”

“Out.”

Didn’t take a lot of brains to connect last night’s crash, Hank’s Band-Aid, and Lydia’s mood. Maurey and I went to our room and shut the door.

She unwrapped the towel and sat on the edge of the bed with her head bent over, drying her hair. “Lydia’s unhappy about something.”

“We better eat breakfast at the White Deck.”

I couldn’t get over how completely nonmodest she was about being naked in front of me. She wasn’t flirty or shy or anything—like we’d been raised since birth getting dressed together. Guys in a locker room are more body-spooked than Maurey was around me.

I sat in the typing chair watching her. Her rib cage was a lot lighter than mine. The smallpox vaccination bump on her arm was smaller. She twisted the towel around her head in a maneuver males can’t do and looked at me. “What are you staring at?”

“You don’t look pregnant.”

Maurey stood up facing the mirror. From my chair, I saw her real front and her front in the mirror. Pushmi and Pullyu seemed to be staring at her behind, like when the eyes in a painting follow you around.

Maurey reached out and touched her womb area in the mirror. “My boobs hurt, my feet are swollen, I’m nauseous and pee all the time, my mom had an abortion yesterday.”

“That’s true.”

So I took a cold shower and we escaped to the White Deck. We left an ugly silence in the kitchen. Hank stared at the floor and sipped coffee. Lydia stared at Hank and smoked cigarettes. Maurey and I could no more have stayed in that house than we could have taken back yesterday.

***

First thing, right off, the instant Dot walked up to the table, Maurey blabbed, “Sam pees in his hand.”

How would she feel if I said, “Maurey’s got a shaved thing.”

Dot did the usual spontaneous gale of laughter. “Jimmy does too. He’s like a garden hose with a nail hole on one side and a drip off the bottom.”

“I don’t drip off the bottom.”

“Good for you, Sam.”

Maurey wanted embarrassment and wasn’t getting any. “Peeing on yourself is nothing to be proud of.”

There’s not an actress in the world who could fake Dot’s laugh. If someone made a 45 of her laughing I’d buy it and play it every morning.

“All men pee on themselves,” Dot said. “That’s why toilets have the sandwich seat that they lift and never put down. Gives them a bigger target.”

She poured us coffee and we went to work with the sugar and cream. A fly landed on top of the sugar dispenser and Maurey tried catching it and missed. “My dad doesn’t pee on himself.”

“They all do,” I said, even though I hadn’t known up until Dot said so. I never watched anyone urinate. “Even John Wayne pees on his fingers.”

“John Wayne never peed on himself.”

I tried to remember John Wayne movies while the fly made another attack on the sugar. It crawled up under the flap and down into the glass a little. Maurey grabbed the dispenser and shook it hard. We watched the fly buzz around above his sea of sugar, totally disoriented. I went into an empathetic fantasy where I was the fly who only wanted sugar, but when I got it someone trapped me in glass and shook me to smithereens.

“John Wayne doesn’t pee at all,” Dot said. She didn’t seem disturbed by the fly in her sugar shaker.

Maurey thumped it down. “Everyone pees.”

Dot reached over and with her thumb held open the top flap. We watched the fly walk around inside, waiting for him to stumble on the escape door. I couldn’t figure where the fly came from in the first place. It was twenty degrees outside. He—or his ancestors—must have spent the whole winter in the White Deck.

Dot said, “John Wayne’s made I bet fifty movies, and have you ever seen him take a leak once?”

The fly found the hole and escaped. I felt like I’d survived a trauma. “I never saw anyone in a movie take a leak.”

“Don’t you wish life was like the movies,” Maurey said.

She ordered cinnamon toast and I had pancakes. Cinnamon toast and coffee wasn’t the thing for our future child, but we hadn’t reached the stage where I could nag, “Think about the baby, dear.”

When Dot brought out the plates, she raised an eyebrow and looked at Maurey. “Well?”

“No.”

Dot’s face lit like the sun. “You didn’t go through with it?”

“No.”

“I’m so happy.”

Maurey sprinkled extra sugar on her toast. “You never told me you’d be happy if I chickened out.”

Dot slid into the booth next to me and patted my hand. “Honey, ever’one says, ‘Do what you think best, it’s your body,’ but they’re all pulling for you to keep the baby, they’re pleased when you do.”

“Why is that?”

“That’s the way the world is. Life is neater than anything else.”

For all her grins and giggles, Dot was a deep thinker too.
Life is neater than anything else
. I could hardly wait to find some paper and write that down.

“So, are you going to keep the baby?” Dot asked.

Funny how virtual strangers can ask about things that would be personal coming from loved ones. Maurey wouldn’t give me an answer to that question, but to Dot she shrugged both shoulders and said, “I guess so.”

Made me happy. “Yippee.”

Maurey swung in the booth. “You’re happy I’m going through with it?”

“Sure, I’m ready to be a father.”

“Sam, you’ll turn fourteen after it’s born.”

“I’m ready.”

“And you’ve never lived in a small town. Things are liable to get ugly around here come summer.”

Dot nodded in agreement.

“I don’t care.”

“If my boyfriend doesn’t break your legs, my dad probably will.”

I paused a moment on that one. “You still have a boyfriend?”

“Whose jacket am I wearing?”

“You could give it back?”

“No.”

We zipped into intense eye lock until Dot got nervous and slid from the booth. “I’ll leave you young parents to yourselves.”

“What about me?” I asked.

“We’re friends.”

Caspar attended the Culver Military Academy way back in the Dark Ages. He rode in the Black Horse Troop and he learned all about leadership. I don’t have much use for leadership qualities. Caspar talks about Culver with the same gleam as Mr. March the barber on World War II.

“The friendships last a lifetime,” he said.

I never saw any of his Culver pals around the manor house.

“It’ll make a man out of you. If Lydia had gone there she wouldn’t be the mess she is today.”

“She’d be a man?”

“She wouldn’t be immoral.”

There’s something odd about being eight, nine years old and being told three times a week your mom is immoral.

“Don’t you want to ride ponies with your comrades? Culver has the finest fencing program in the nation.”

“Do they play baseball?”

He buried himself in the
Atlanta Constitution
. From behind the pages, he said, “You’re going to end up like her.”

I didn’t want to end up like Lydia or Caspar either one. I wanted to end up like Willie Mays.

***

Sunday night a consideration kept me awake after Maurey snuggled up with her bear and went under. The next morning I would leave the joys of impending parenthood and return to the seventh grade and Howard Stebbins. English first period wouldn’t be so bad; at least my clothes stayed on throughout the entire class. The locker room before and after PE was the vulnerable point. If he caught me in nothing but a jock strap I’d be easy pickings for whatever stance he chose to take. The stance thing worried me. Stebbins and I had never given a holy hoot for each other, only now we had something in common—Buddy Pierce. I’d fucked his daughter, Stebbins fucked his wife. Not just fucked, we’d run rampant through the household impregnating every hole in sight. If he found out, Buddy would be understandably pissed to the point of blood flowing. The man
enjoyed
castration.

This gave Howard and me a common danger and people with a common danger tend to slide into an us-against-the-enemy deal.

I didn’t want that. Stebbins was the coach; he was the enemy. Loyalty to Maurey called for despising the thing Howard had done to Buddy while ignoring the fact I’d done almost the same thing. I’d never thought of humping his daughter as doing something to the man. I’d been doing it to her, or, more truthfully, she’d been doing it to me. But, Sunday night, as I lay in bed listening to Maurey sleep, I started checking the deal out from Buddy’s point of view.

I—an out-of-stater—had lain lengthwise on his little girl and slid my dick into her body. I induced orgasm in a thirteen-year-old.

Which would piss the cowboy off the most—daughter or wife? That was the crucial question that would tell whether I had power over Howard Stebbins or he had it over me.

All I knew about the cowboy code came from the movies where no Western people had sex except when the Apaches raped women, and Indians always killed the women they came in. John Wayne would kick butt if someone humped his daughter or wife. Daughters would be worse because of the innocence factor, although—lucky me—John Wayne’s code didn’t allow beating the holy crap out of a little boy.

Another bottom line was that if Maurey had the baby we were a sure bet to get caught anyway. Howard still had a shot at the clean getaway, which meant from a blackmail point of view I had his ass.

Maurey laughed in her sleep. I liked that. Sleeping next to someone was kind of neat.

Right then, I adopted my attitude. Lydia would be my model. Whenever Caspar caught her with her pants in the wrong spot, she whipped herself into self-righteous rage.

“It’s your fault. I wouldn’t have sucked that carbon salesman if you hadn’t been such a bad parent.”

***

Tomorrow, I’d walk up to Howard Stebbins before English class and say, “Coach, I am justified and you’re dog poop,” and play it by ear from there.

“I am God’s gift to horses,” John Wayne said.

“Yes sir, but I accidentally squirted into your daughter and now she’s pregnant.”

John Wayne squinched up his left eye and looked at Sam Callahan. They were both the same height, only Sam Callahan had better posture.

“That’s okay by me,” John Wayne said. “The gene pool needs more cowboys.”

Of course I didn’t walk up to Howard Stebbins and say, “I am justified.” There’s probably not a kid in Wyoming who has ever said “I am justified.”

Instead, I sat at my desk four rows behind Maurey and watched the back of her head while Stebbins droned on about
Ivanhoe
.
Ivanhoe
for Chrissake. The tale of a very polite knight who had to choose between fair Rowena and the brave, deserving Rebecca. He chose Rowena because Rebecca was Jewish. This guy is supposed to be my role model?

Stebbins stood square-shouldered and cleft-jawed against the blackboard, in the same white shirt with the skinny tie he’d worn to school Friday, just as if the weekend hadn’t happened. No abortion clinic across from the Dairy Queen, no runaway girl sleeping in my bed; the world had turned upside down and nothing had changed.

“What do you think inspired the Age of Chivalry?” he asked.

“They sound like a bunch of cowboys,” Florence Talbot said.

“They controlled women by making them sacred objects,” Maurey said.

Stebbins glanced her way for the first time, then went back to Florence. “Why do you think knights were like cowboys?”

Florence’s hair was different. She had what looked like a comma plastered to each cheekbone with a point sprayed down the back of her neck. “They both ride horses.”

“They believe in the Lord,” Chuckette said.

Next to me, Teddy spit tobacco juice into his Maxwell House can,

I have this theory that Sir Walter Scott’s books screwed up the South more than
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
. All those mint julep–swilling gentlemen confused the spiritual butt rape of other races and sexes with gallantry.

Stebbins slid his eyes across me to ask Kim Schmidt a question concerning fairness. I put on my Hank-face and stared at him. That’s how I knew I had the king-hell seducer of housewives. I could look at him and he couldn’t look at me.

In Mrs. Hinchman’s citizenship class we learned how the responsible person votes. Rodney Cannelioski and Kim Schmidt ran for president. LaDell Smith wanted to but Mrs. Hinchman said no girls. Rodney and Kim gave speeches in which Kim promised better school lunches and Rodney said he would introduce every man, woman, and child in America to God. Kim won 26 to 2.

Chuckette gave me crap in the cafeteria. “You didn’t call this weekend.”

That seemed evident, so I concentrated on my mulligan stew. In mulligan stew everything is mashed up together; you can’t avoid the gross stuff.

“I don’t know why I go steady with you. You’re supposed to call me at least once a day.”

Maurey was sitting over at the ninth-grade table, where some kid had his eyelids turned inside out and a mouthful of milk so when he talked the milk dribbled off his face and made him look like an idiot. Maurey’s face lit in delighted disgust and she laughed. I couldn’t believe a soon-to-be-mother would fall for the inside-out-eyelids trick.

“Sharon’s boyfriend Byron calls her house a dozen times a day and lets the phone ring once, then hangs up, just to let her know he still loves her.”

“I bet Sharon’s parents enjoy that.”

“You have to start telling me you love me more often or my attention will wander. A woman should never be taken for granted.”

I’d never once told Chuckette I loved her. “Did you vote for Rodney Cannelioski?”

“We’re doubling again with Maurey and Dothan Talbot Saturday night. Bring more money this time.”

I poked a fork at my stew. “Wouldn’t you rather have a better lunch than meet Jesus?”

“I already know Jesus.”

“Then you should have voted for lunch.”

As Maurey stood up to carry her tray to the dump window, Dothan reached out and slapped her on the bottom, right in a spot I wasn’t allowed to touch. I looked at Chuckette’s face and realized I was sleeping with the prettiest girl in school and going steady with the ugliest.

“I love it when you gaze at me like that,” Chuckette said.

“Oh.”

“Sam, you can be so charming when you try.”

***

Stebbins didn’t show up for sixth-period PE. A few slows slid around the gym floor in their socks, heaving a basketball at the backboard, calling each other “douche bag.” Douche bag was the in insult of the winter, but I doubt if a one of them knew what a douche bag was. I only knew because I took a drink out of Lydia’s once and she yelled at me.

The rest of us slouched in the bleachers playing dot-to-dot pencil games and finger football. Dothan Talbot passed around three black-and-white postcards of naked women. I wasn’t impressed. I’d seen both Maurey and Lydia naked and these women were dogs compared to mine. Their breasts hung like baseballs in the toe of a sweat sock and their bellies pooched. The one straddling a bicycle had hickies from her navel to her fuzz.

“Be like sticking your prick in a milking machine with that slut,” Dothan said. “Wouldn’t stop till you gave two quarts.”

I bet he got that from his dad. Rodney Cannelioski went bug-eyed holding the picture of the woman on the bicycle in both hands. A trance situation.

“How’d you like to pork that, Roddy?” Dothan asked.

Rodney flushed out. “Degrading. This is an abomination against the sacredness of Eve.”

Everyone started chanting, “Abomination, abomination,” and pushing at Rodney.

Dothan stood up. “Let’s take his pants off and see if he’s stiff.”

A couple of guys jumped on Rodney, he screamed, and I left.

***

Howard Stebbins sat at his desk in homeroom, his eyes scrunched up in concentration over a paperback. From the door, I watched as he licked a finger and turned the page. The tendency was to feel sorry for him—the sports hero who had lost his glory at nineteen. Now, ten years later, he’s stuck in a meaningless town with a plain wife and three foreheadless rats for children. Small-town adultery is nothing more than boredom and timing. In his position, I’d have probably screwed Annabel. What else was there to do in winter?

But the situation called for toughness. Look at the jerk through Lydia’s eyes. If I walked in with a heart full of pity he’d have me comparing birth-control methods and talking baseball. Never talk baseball with someone you’re supposed to hate.

“This,” I said to myself, “is the man who once said I was too slow to be a nigger.”

He shut the book—Zane Grey,
Wanderer of the Wasteland
— and looked up.

“They’re depantsing Rodney in the gym,” I said.

Stebbins blinked twice and it came to me that he was at a higher emotional peak over this event than I was.

“New rules,” I said.

His eyes were sheeplike, so I stared at that king-hell cleft running up his chin.

“First, no more forcing me out for sports I don’t want. I deserve an A in English and you are to give it to me.”

He blinked again. The abortion had made him speechless.

“No more licks on Dothan Talbot for not cutting his hair.”

“I thought you and Dothan are enemies. He’s Maurey’s boyfriend.”

“The licks are making him a hero.”

“I hadn’t realized that.”

“You hadn’t realized a lot. Number three, no more Saturday bridge club. It upsets my friend Maurey.”

Stebbins went back to blinking and looking resigned. I’d expected some sort of resistance, maybe a counterthreat. This was too much like cutting off Otis’s leg.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“We’re done with
Ivanhoe
. He’s a bad influence. Starting tomorrow you read the class
Tortilla Flat
by John Steinbeck.”

“I don’t know where I can lay my hands on a copy,” he said.

“I’ll find one.” I pointed to
Wanderer of the Wasteland
. “In the meantime, try that. Teddy’ll love it.”

Stebbins turned the book over twice in his hands. “She went through with it. After you took Maurey away, I tried to stop her. I offered to leave my family.”

He looked as if he might cry, which was the last thing I could deal with at the moment. Living with Lydia makes you susceptible to vulnerability. I’d reached enough-is-enough. “They’ll push Rodney out in the snow with no pants,” I said.

Stebbins raised his head. “Maybe I should save him.”

“Maybe you should.”