“Of course you can. Do you want more water?” Maurey shook her head no. She hadn’t touched what I got her the first time.
“Are you back to stay?” I asked.
She looked at the floor. “I don’t know anything, Sam. Please let me sleep before you ask another question.”
“I won’t ask any more questions.”
She patted my knee. “Thanks, pal.”
“Do you want a Valium?”
“No.”
The extent of life’s changes didn’t take any king-hell long time in coming down. Eight-thirty a.m., when Maurey and I swept through the front doors of GroVont Junior High, we were met with the same low-key tact they would have used on Martians. Their eyes were like dogs seeing an elephant for the first time.
“I feel like Lee Harvey Oswald,” Maurey said.
“Which one is our Jack Ruby?”
The silence was too loud to handle. I wanted to tap dance or yell “
“It’s like we have the ultimate cooties,” Maurey said fairly quietly.
“If I touched LaNell she would scream.” LaNell and LaDell stood next to the girl’s room, staring as if we were on TV; they could see us but we couldn’t see them.
I was torn between intimidated and cocky. I mean, their eyes showed scorn and outrage at what I’d done, I think, but every kid in school also knew I’d seen a girl naked. That was their dream and now they knew I’d done it. No one could ever accuse me of virginity again. “You’d think nobody in the seventh grade ever got pregnant.”
Maurey lifted her chin in what I took as a pride move. “They can’t bother me.”
“Right.”
“Let’s go to class.”
“You think they hate us or envy us?”
“You and I are beyond their comprehension.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Florence Talbot was so angry her ears were white. When Maurey and I walked past, she slammed her locker—sounded like a bomb—and stepped right behind us. Like stupid sheep, the others fell in behind Florence. I could hear her breathing in my ear and everyone else’s shuffling loafers, tennis shoes, and cowboy boots. We must have looked like a damn parade.
Chuckette was the only one waiting in homeroom. We’re talking pitiful. You’d think God himself stole her charm bracelet. Puffed eyes, mouth a red gash, she hadn’t even ratted and sprayed her hair; looked like a nest on top her head. I felt bad for her. Chuckette had been raised in a certain way: boyfriends loved girlfriends, kids who respected each other didn’t touch below the neck, motherhood is the highest deal and unmarried motherhood the lowest, and life—make that Maurey and I— had blasted all that moral theory to hell.
I avoided her, but Maurey walked over to her desk and said, “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”
Chuckette wouldn’t raise her head. From my seat, all I could see were tears dripping off her weak chin.
Stebbins had long ago quit trying to teach us anything. The last couple of months of school, he sat behind his desk reading from whatever book I fed him. Seemed to me the underachiever types would learn more from hearing a story than discussing one they hadn’t read. Some of the kids even listened. After
Because it was the last week of school, the last two days actually since classes ended Tuesday, I’d put Howard Stebbins onto
Normally you’d think unwed pregnancy would be one of those deals where everyone talks behind your back, but, to your face, ignorance reigns. Florence Talbot wasn’t normal. Howard Stebbins read about three paragraphs into
“Is it immoral to knock someone up in junior high?”
Howard looked up from his book.
Florence went on in her razor-cut voice. “I think people who have illegitimate sex should hide at home in shame.”
Maurey said, “Go fuck yourself, Florence.”
One of the Smith twins gasped, but after that we went into a could-have-heard-a-pin-drop situation. Howard ran his hand over his forehead, wishy-washy written all over his face. He couldn’t very well let a student get away with saying fuck in class, nor could he ignore Florence’s shame crack, but he wasn’t in much of a position for public confrontations. Rock Springs hung over his head like rotten meat.
Howard looked back down at his book and read, “He might have been Vergil summoned in the middle of the night to go to Dante, or better, Raphael, awakened by a blast of God’s light to fly to the side of Tobias.”
Florence’s voice was a screech. “Maurey said a whore word.”
I said, “Shut up, Florence.”
Chuckette sobbed and ran from the room.
“Now look what you did,” LaNell said.
Teddy spit but missed the Maxwell House can and came dangerously close to my sneaker.
Stebbins read, “The only dark spot in the room was Nelson’s pallet, underneath the shadow of the window.”
LaDell stood up. “I better go see about Charlotte.” She faced me. “Her poor heart’s broken, there’s no telling what she might do.”
A girl named Jenny that I hadn’t spoken four words to all year burst into tears.
Stebbins read, “Nelson was hunched over on his side, his knees under his chin and his heels under his bottom.”
“I can’t stay in a room beside white trash,” Florence said. “The stench hurts my stomach.”
Maurey repeated, “Go fuck yourself.”
Florence and LaNell and some more who just wanted to skip class left. The rest of us stared at the floor, listening to Jenny whimper. I wanted to see Maurey’s face, to see if she was unhappy or mad or what. Lydia had been coaching her on this moment all along. Attitudes were worked out weeks in advance, to the point where “Go fuck yourself” might turn into Maurey’s theme for the next three months.
Stebbins read, “His new suit and hat were in the boxes that they had been sent in and these were on the floor at the foot of the pallet where he could get his hands on them as soon as he woke up.”
“Coach,” I said. “Nobody cares.”
Howard Stebbins stopped reading and looked glass-eyed down at the book. There was nothing he could say. The glory should have been his. He could be the one standing up for his principles, announcing to the town, “We copulated and we are not ashamed.” Instead, he was the coward wimp, robbed even of his righteous indignation.
What was left of the class sat there doing a bump-on-a-log routine. Sometimes late at night, I’d wondered what would happen when word spread. Down South, the Klan might visit. In Faulkner or
