CIRCLE THE WAGONS AND HONOR YOUR PARTNER
We moved to Florida, into a cinderblock house on a dead-end street in a neighborhood that was nobody’s first choice. I went to a neighborhood kid’s house and his family saved money on trash service by throwing the trash bags in their fenced-in backyard, which was enormous and full of black bags. They didn’t go back there anymore.
I started fourth grade in the middle of the year, after winter break, and all the other kids were like “who the hell is this?” The teacher came in and she instantly reminded me of Whoopi Goldberg, really sassy and cracking jokes. She addressed the class and the first thing she said was “Did you see in the newspaper that somebody working at McDonald’s blew their nose in a cheeseburger and served it to the police?! Now that is gross. I think they went to jail. Would you eat that?” I could not believe this was the teacher, but it got our attention. I was used to prim schoolmarm-types in central Connecticut.
She started passing out a vocabulary quiz and gave one to me, at which I quietly protested because it was my first day in school, and she leaned in and said “Don’t worry, it won’t count, just give it a shot.” After lunch she announced “Okay everybody, I graded your quiz at lunch and y’all did NOT do good! Do you know what? Where is that new boy? Come up here” and she made me join her at the front of the class, which was horrifying. “Have you ever seen this boy before? No? So he didn’t have a chance to study for this quiz like you all did? Tell me then how did he get the best grade in this whole class on his first day?” and thereby sealed my death warrant.
When I was in class everything was under control, but during lunch and recess and I had to watch my back. This shrimpy kid who looked like Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley would quietly get down on all fours behind me, and his partner in crime Luke would give me a brisk shove so I would fall backwards over Squiggy. Luke had been held back two years and was ahead of the rest hormonally. He had a whisper of a mustache and long, greasy, curly hair, which he frequently squeegeed with a pocket comb. He was the youngest of four brothers and they would all lift weights in their car-port and blast hair metal outside their rundown house after school. You weren’t going to catch me anywhere near there. Luke already had muscles in 4th grade, chewed tobacco, cursed, and was like a little southern man. I was still solidly a kid.
They made us square dance to an ancient long-playing record with a fiddle player calling the dances. Coach Robinson, a stoic, statuesque black man with a whistle, would silently set up a portable turntable outdoors on the cement basketball court, then rally us to choose dance partners. They had an established kickball-like method for choosing, and of course I got picked last being the new kid, along with a girl with homemade clothes and hair that looked like Raggedy Ann who clearly was familiar with being picked last on square dance day. She was visibly embarrassed and practically apologized to me that I was stuck dancing with her. I didn’t care, and we danced like hell and loved it. It somewhat backfired when everybody teased us all week for being hot-and-heavy until I freaked out and said a bunch of regrettable stuff to disown her.
One day just after weekly square dancing, some kids were sitting on outdoor bleachers waiting to get called in to class. A girl named Cindy looked like Lita Ford, with long straight blonde hair and a tween metal look, and it was her birthday. People were writing birthday messages all over her acid-wash jeans with a sharpie. My mom would go insane if I did that. Cindy was in a different class and I didn’t really know her, but I wanted to sign her jeans and she let me. While I was busy dorkily writing “Happy Birthday, Sincerely, Gabe Fowler,” Luke came up behind me and said “Get the hell away from my girl.” I acted like it was no big deal, finished writing, and said “Oh I didn’t know you guys were together.” He shoved me out of the way and wrote LUKE WUZ HERE on her inner thigh, with an arrow pointing to her privates. “My dad is gonna kill me for that,” she said.
“Hell yes, we’re together!” Luke said. “The other day when her mom wasn’t home, we did the nasty in every room of her house. Isn’t that right, Cindy?” She nodded yes and looked at him with puppy-dog eyes. “You keep that rubber? We even tied off the rubber so she could keep it forever.”
“Next you have to do it in every room of your house” I said to Luke, trying to be cool.
“Nuh-uh, I won’t go over there” Cindy said.
“Yeah she don’t want to come over anymore after my dad killed them cats.”
I just sat there hoping I could get back to class without him kicking my ass.
“My brother brought a cat home and my pops said get rid of it. Well he didn’t get rid of it, and it had a litter of babies, so my dad took the babies and buried them up to their necks in the yard and ran them over with the lawnmower.”
My heart went in my throat and I thought this cannot be true.