Ft. Worth was blatantly jealous. He said, “Kid’ll get more than frostbite from all the heat you got going.”
“Keep your pants zipped, Jack,” Dot said. She called everyone Jack when they bothered her.
“If I go outside and turn blue-faced will you rub me?”
“You couldn’t handle it if I did.”
This got a snicker rippling up the counter. Dot was the queen at sliding around flirty rednecks without doing severe damage to their king-hell egos. I never saw her lose a tip by saying no.
Ft. Worth pointed at me with his stub finger. “His little girlfriend’s not gonna like you warming his face on your tits.”
Girlfriend? My stomach went queasy. So the town knew about Saturday practice sessions with Maurey. My first thought was that she would stop doing it and I’d never get laid again. I’d lose her. But the second thought was, hell, I deserve some credit here. This would make my junior high reputation, for good or bad, and Maurey would quit sooner or later anyway. Girls liked a guy with know-how. They’d be lined up for orgasms. My third thought was Buddy’s going to kill me.
Fourth, fifth, and on down the line thoughts don’t matter squat though because the whole process was based on a false assumption.
Dot took her hands away and picked up the coffeepot. “Sam’s too good for Charlotte Morris, anyway. He needs a woman like me, someone who’ll do him better than to bite his tongue.”
I said, “Charlotte Morris?” but the good-old-gang was laughing at Dot’s sauciness and no one heard me. Doesn’t take much to entertain guys who wear caps indoors.
Lasco didn’t laugh. Maybe he only spoke Armenian or whatever language it is that sheepherders speak. His mouth made chewing motions even when there wasn’t anything in it, and he tilted his cup so coffee dribbled down the side and ran off the bottom into his saucer. Then he lifted the saucer and, with a disgusting sound, sucked in his coffee.
There’s some scientific principle why when you try to pour a little liquid from a cup it dribbles off the bottom instead of the lip. I learned just enough in school to know these things had a cause, but not enough to know what it was.
What’s strange in a small town is how you can have a rich, creative sex life with one girl for several months and keep it a secret from everyone, then you go in a closet and kiss someone you don’t give a flying hoot about, and suddenly you’re the town talk.
I got to Stebbins’s class late, just as he was having everyone open
Stebbins talked on about animal symbolism—wild dogs, dolphins, cormorants. I didn’t see it. The girl fought animals or ate them. Where’s the symbolism in fighting and eating?
Stebbins walked up and down the aisles as he called on people. At one point he stopped next to my desk and stood as close to me as he could get. Florence was explaining about wild dogs in Alabama—Lord knows what it had to do with me and my life—while Stebbins hulked above, breathing on my head. I finally looked over to Chuckette and she smiled real sweet. So did LaNell Smith.
When the hall bell rang, I made a beeline for the boy’s room and hid out in a stall full of graffiti, waiting for the next class. Wyoming kids were like the apex of innocence back then. Someone had actually taken the time and energy to carve Gol durn in the door.
I came out of the John to find Maurey bent over the knee-high water fountain. When she stood up, her lips shone from the water and a single drop held on to the edge of her mouth. She was beautiful.
“So you slipped it to chunky Chuckette,” she said.
“I kissed her. Wasn’t that the point of the game—to go in the closet and kiss.”
“Not that kind of kiss. She’s saying you got downright passionate.”
“You taught me how to kiss. I only know one way.”
“Sure, Sam. You just better not ever hurt her. She’s a friend of mine.”
“How could I hurt Chuckette?”
Maurey undid the top button on my shirt. “Didn’t your mother tell you only squirrels button it to the top? I better not talk to you in the halls anymore, Chuck wouldn’t like it. If Mom’ll let me put, I’ll come by tonight after
How, all of a sudden, could Chuckette control who talked to me in the hall? I was like the African explorer who said “Pardon me” to the chief’s daughter and suddenly found himself choosing between marriage and having his chest ripped out. We’re talking unfair situation.
At lunch—fish sticks and congealed carrots—I sat across from Rodney Cannelioski. He stood up and left, muttering something along the lines of godless hordes. He should have been the one to choose favorite books of the Bible with her. They could have chapter-versed themselves into a fundamentalist orgy.
A tray slid into view and I looked up to see Chuckette Morris’s face. In institutional cafeteria light, she wasn’t nearly as passable as she’d been in the closet. Her face was flat, like here’s her semi-normal head only the front part has been mushed into shape by a dinner plate and all the features kind of stuck in wherever they would fit. She had these tiny bangs about the length of fingernails.
Her voice wasn’t so bad, maybe I could spend our time together with my eyes closed.
“What were you talking to Maurey Pierce about?” she asked.
I arranged my fish sticks into the shape of a baseball diamond. “When was that?”
“Florence Talbot saw you guys talking after Stebbins’s class. You shouldn’t talk to other girls.”
I came so close to telling her that Maurey and I had been talking about fucking our eyes out after
“She was saying how much fun she had at your party the other night. She especially liked the fondue.”
Chuckette’s face lit up. It’s just too easy to make some people feel good. “My mom got the recipe from the back page of
“It was best with the crackers.”
“Sharon liked it that way too. We’re doubling with Maurey and Dothan to a movie in Jackson Saturday after next. Be sure and bring enough money to pay my way and buy a Black Whip. I like Black Whips. You should know that about me since we’re going steady.”
I had to get out of this quick. “Who says we’re going steady?”
She looked at me suspiciously. “Everyone. They all know what you did to me at the party.”
“Do I get some say in this deal?”
“You wouldn’t come into GroVont and put your tongue in just any girl’s mouth, would you? Maybe that’s how they do things back East, but in Teton County we’re moral.”
“I thought I was supposed to kiss you in the closet.”
“That reminds me, you’re supposed to give me your jacket.”
Now I was riled. Thirty degrees below zero and this little moon-face wants my coat because I pity-kissed her. I said the most self-righteous thing I could come up with at the moment.
“What?”
“It’ll be a letter jacket in the ninth grade, but we’ll make do for right now.”
I set down my fork. “Charlotte, there is no way I’m giving you my coat.”
Tears leapt into her eyes. She wasn’t so pitifully helpless after all. “Ever’one’ll think you took advantage of me if you don’t give me something to seal our love. They’ll say I’m cheap.” Her lower lip went atremble.
“Jesus,” I said.
“Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“How about a scarf? My grandfather gave me this scarf.” Actually I shoplifted it at Sears when I found out we were moving West. “It belonged to my grandmother. Is a scarf good enough?”
She stopped crying like turning off a faucet. “Let me see it.”
I handed her the thing. It was green and about a yard long. I figured I could survive the walk home without it.
