Chapter 7: Colby’s Note
Some of the girls called her Coldy behind her back…
Colby’s Note
Chapter 7 of Sex in the 7th Grade
Colby and Freddie went to all the junior high dances that winter. Like most of the other eighth grade girls, they didn’t have boyfriends. So they danced with nobody and everybody at the same time, some hundred girls and a few adventurous boys, all shapes and sizes, swirling turning bumping and occasionally snaking into a long line to bunny-hop as their parents had done twenty years before.
Except for the last dance, most boys just stood around the rim of the small gym. There was a narrow balcony where parents and supervising teachers could keep an eye on things. Couples stayed away from school dances. Steadies as they were called in those days preferred private parties or if the weather wasn’t too cold and it wasn’t deer season, they’d group together, take flashlights and hike into the woods surrounding Mountainview where they would break into deer camps, drink booze and keep warm by kindling fires in the wood stoves.
A handful of the eighth grade girls dated high school boys with cars. These steadies went parking — petting or “necking” they called it — in secluded spots along the old highway that ran north toward Canada.
But at the junior high dances the only time kids got close was the last dance, always a slow one with the lights dimmed and the strobe light flicking. Even bashful boys sometimes danced that last dance. For it was then that most every girl would put both of her arms around a boy’s neck and let him slide his hands down low on her back.
Not when Greg Hartmann was supervising. If he saw a girl dancing too close he would telephone her parents to tell them that their daughter was headed for trouble and they’d better keep an eye on her. That he would do for “the good health of the school,” as he put it.
Mrs. Frucnagle was the kids’ favorite chaperone — and she liked the job, you could see it in her eyes, when the kids danced that last dance. Her husband always found her more in the mood when she came home from those junior high dances.
One night a tall eighth grade boy asked Colby if she would save him the last dance. It was the first time he’d ever asked a girl to dance. He had been thinking about asking Colby since seventh grade. She said yes, but right then her dad arrived to take her home. She wouldn’t have danced close anyway. She wasn’t afraid. Colby just didn’t have the desire. Some of the girls called her Coldy behind her back, but it wouldn’t have bothered her even if they had said it to her face. She knew what she wanted, or didn’t want.
Colby was a slender girl with green eyes, sandy hair and a warm smile. Popular with classmates and teachers, and along with getting straight A’s and being secretary of the student council, she was always looking out for some of the less fortunate kids at school, especially those who were the butt of name-calling and sometimes physical abuse.
Take Molly Longston, for example, an eighth grade girl who had two large moles under her chin with hair growing from one of them. Kids called her “Moley.” One time a boy left an old razor and an empty can of shaving cream in Molly’s locker with a note saying USE THIS U HAIRIE FREAK. (Molly’s mother wouldn’t let her cut the hairs. There was a belief in those days that if you cut facial hair a lot more would grow back in its place.) At lunch Colby would sit at Molly’s table. Just being there made the others lay off. Colby had talked with the guidance counselor, Mr. Blanchard, in hopes that he would do something to help Molly, but Blanchard, given his “hind legs theory,” thought it best that kids like Molly stand up for themselves.
Blanchard worried more about Colby than he did about the kids she was worried about. She had a future in front of her. She was college material. It irked Blanchard that she spent so much time looking out for others. Blanchard stood for academic excellence, and dismissed anything and everything that got in the way.
• • •
Late that winter, out of nowhere Freddie got a steady, a ninth grader, and, by April, Colby and her best friend hardly even talked, except during lunch and recess. After school and on weekends Freddie was tied up with her beau.
Colby didn’t say much, but she couldn’t wait for June and the end of school and the eighth grade class trip when she’d have at least one whole day with her old friend.
• • •
On the Tuesday before the Friday of the class trip, Colby Kautz walked into study hall and found a slip of paper on her desk with a printed message: COLBY A NOTE INSIDE FOR U.
When Mrs. Frucnagle stepped out to post attendance, Colby reached into the desk and found a sealed envelope with her name typed on the outside. Her hands shook as she held it in her lap. Short of breath, her heart was pounding so hard she thought she could see her blouse moving. I’ve got to get out of here, she thought, as she stuffed the envelope into her jeans. She wrote a pass to the girls’ room.
Hot, cold, dizzy as she went into the end stall in the girls’ lavatory, Colby checked the seat and sat without unzipping her jeans. She pulled out the letter, but someone entered the next stall. By the shoes it looked like Donna Duke. Quickly Colby unzipped and lowered her jeans. After Donna flushed and left, she tore open the note. Immediately, by the red squiggly print, she knew it was bad news — the kind of writing kids would use as a disguise.
Colby’s mouth grew dry as she began to read. She tried to swallow. She could not think of anyone who would send her such a note. Who? Who would do this? Who? With a wad of toilet paper she wiped cold sweat from her face, then zipped up her jeans. For a moment she just stood in the stall wondering if she should keep it. Yes. Colby folded and shoved it into her pocket, shredding the envelope in the toilet as it flushed.
Colby wouldn’t look in the mirror as she splashed water on her hands and face.
Back in study she wrote a pass to the nurse’s office. L.C. wasn’t in. But the secretary could see that something was wrong.
“Mrs. Cramer is gone for the day. Do you want me to call your mother?”
Colby nodded. The secretary could see that she was about to cry. “I’ll ask Mr. Blanchard to see about your homework assignments, okay.”
Colby said no, she had all her assignments. The secretary got Mrs. Kautz on the phone. She wasn’t too concerned, and suggested that Colby could walk if she wanted to since it was just a few blocks. That was fine with Colby. For the first time almost ever she wasn’t looking forward to seeing her mother.
• • •
That Sunday afternoon as Cecil Dunn was pouring a second double vodka, the phone rang. It was Mrs. Kautz.
“I’m sorry to bother you at home, Mr. Dunn,” she began, “but Colby’s very upset. You probably know that she left school on Tuesday.”
Cecil didn’t know, but he felt he should. “Yes,” he said, “it’s a shame. So she had to miss the class trip.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Kautz continued. “Would it be possible for Mr. Kautz and me to come see you in the morning?”
“Sure,” Cecil said, thinking how foolish he’d been to say anything about the class trip. “I can see you and Mr. Kautz any time. What’s good for you?”
“Just a minute,” Mrs. Kautz needed to check with her husband. Cecil began to worry about Colby, but then his thoughts turned to Mrs. Kautz. He thought he remembered seeing her. The vodka was working. It was a good feeling. Nothing else mattered.
Mrs. Kautz returned. “How about nine-fifteen?”
“Fine,” Cecil said, “shouldn’t Nurse Cramer be there too?”
“No,” Mrs. Kautz thought it would be best just the three of them.
“Fine. Tomorrow then.”
After putting down the phone Cecil looked for a scrap of paper. Finding none he tore part of a page from the phone book and scribbled “Kautzes, 9:15. Serious.” He left the note where he’d be sure to see it in the morning.
More sober after supper and helping Ada get the kids into bed, Cecil began to worry about the conversation with Mrs. Kautz. Could Colby be pregnant? No, the nurse would have been the first to know. But to miss the class trip… It had to be something serious. Colby was one of three students who had gotten an award for perfect attendance in seventh grade.
After checking on the dogs in the garage, Cecil started up the stairs to bed. It was then that it hit him. Cancer. Cecil started thinking that Colby had cancer.
In bed Ada asked him what the call was about. Nothing serious, he told her, just some parents wanting to set up a meeting. But in the shower the next morning and driving to work, Cecil kept thinking about Colby. And her mother. Something must have happened in school. Had it been cancer that alarmed Colby, she wouldn’t have gone to school in the first place, and L.C. would have known that too since she knew all the doctors in town.
First thing at school Cecil tracked down Colby’s teachers, and then L.C., the nurse and finally the guidance councilor Blanchard, to see if anybody knew anything more about Colby. Nurse Cramer said she had called the Kautz home twice that week before, but the mother had been evasive.
Cecil stopped Freddie Foster on her way to first period class. Freddie said she didn’t know what was wrong, and rushed off. Cancer was again on Cecil’s mind. But wait, how could that be, Colby had left in the middle of the school day. Something must have happened during school.
When Cecil saw Mrs. Kautz come through the outer office door followed by her husband, his speculations about Colby were momentarily obscured. Now he remembered. He had seen Mrs. Kautz saying good-bye to Colby one day in front of the school. The image of was seared into his brain. Especially those legs.
Mr. Kautz offered a weak handshake. What kind of a man shakes hands like that, Cecil thought. Only once before in his life had Cecil encountered a man with such a dead fish of a hand, and it was a fellow who was running for office on the reform party ticket. Cecil believed in everything the man stood for, but knew the man didn’t stand a chance to get elected with a handshake like that.
Colby’s mother was indeed lovely, with high cheekbones and brown eyes that seemed sadly inviting. Her hair was sandy brown with all but a few curls pinned in a large soft bun in the back.
Cecil pulled his office curtain across the window to the outer office. Nothing could be done about the KA SLUMP, KA SLUMP, KA SLUMP of the ditto machine as it ran off the morning notices and attendance reports. Why in hell the secretary insisted on keeping that machine right under his window, he could not fathom.
Mrs. Kautz produced the folded note from her purse. “Colby got this Tuesday. She didn’t tell us about it until last Friday morning. We knew there was something wrong since she left school early on Tuesday, but we didn’t really know how bad it was until she said she was too sick for the class trip.”
She handed the note to Cecil and continued talking as read. “She’s still sick. I’ve never seen her this way; she’s hardly eating. She won’t even go down town. She won’t speak with Freddie on the phone. We don’t know if there is anything you can do. But we felt we should talk with you anyway.”
Cecil too had seen that kind of printing before, each letter jagged and twisted. Clear in a distorted way. Every “i” was dotted with a little “o” and all the regular “o’s” were huge, with lines drawn through them — looks like something Scandinavian Cecil thought. The “e’s” were all crossed with straight lines at an angle. There were no give-away swivels or curls of a normal variety. The “g’s” had extra loops. A couple of words were misspelled. “Semen” was spelled “seaman.”
Cecil had seen worse, a lot worse. Worse language anyway. But seldom had such a nice girl, a truly exceptionally sweet kid like Colby, been targeted the way this note targeted her. The squiggly last paragraph said: “I’ll be standing across the hall watching you when you leave study today. I’m tall with brown eyes. I’ll be looking at my watch; that will be the sign. You’ll see me even if you try not to. So you better look. Girls say you’ve never done it. Never even French kiss. But you’re ready, I know you are. Wait til you taste my seaman. Remember I’m tall with brown eyes. I’ll be waiting after class.”
Cecil rubbed his face and shook his head. He said that he would do what he could, but explained that it was tricky because sometimes an investigation like this backfires, and ends up drawing attention. Ignoring the whole thing could be the best cure. But Cecil said they’d begin checking for handwriting samples immediately.
Mr. Kautz hadn’t said a word. This bothered Cecil, who wanted to take the pulse of this man with the weak handshake. But Cecil was also wary, for Mr. Kautz sat on the board of the National Insurance Company. He could give the school a bad name. Well, maybe not in this instance, since his daughter would be brought into it. In any event, Cecil wondered what the man was thinking as he himself questioned how any beautiful woman could be attracted to such a dull man with such a weak hand.
“There’s a good bit of this kind of thing going on everywhere,” Cecil said as he looked directly at Mr. Kautz, “it’s all over the state. And you’d be surprised, at this age a lot of it is done by girls. Not kids like Freddie or Colby,” Cecil was quick to add, “but plenty of others. Usually it’s girls who are jealous. Jealous of girls like Colby who are really popular and good looking….”
The secretary tapped on the inner office door. “What is it,” Cecil snapped, cracking open the door. “I’m in a meeting.”
“It’s Rose,” the secretary persisted, “Mr. Hartmann sent her down for chewing gum. Second time this week.”
“Tell her I’ll see her later,” Cecil was irritated over the interruption and irritated that Hartmann made such a big god damn issue of gum-chewing. He sat back in his seat and again spoke directly to Mr. Kautz. “I talked with a principal from Concord the other day who told me that their school had to make a rule prohibiting kids from carrying pens, crayons, or markers. So much graffiti. The teachers there assigned each student a pencil at the beginning of each class and made them turn it in at the end. Anyone caught with a pen was suspended.”
After telling this story Cecil wondered why he had told it. “Anyway,” he said, “about this note,” he waved the note but forgot what he was about to say. “Anyway, look, everyone likes Colby, everybody, as I’m sure you know.”
“Not quite everybody it appears,” Mrs. Kautz interjected in a cool tone.
“Of course, you’re right, Cecil continued, but I’d still be willing to bet that it’s a girl who’s jealous of Colby. The best thing, I think, would be for Colby to come back to school and act like nothing happened.”
Mrs. Kautz shook her head sadly. “I don’t know if she can.”
Then Mr. Kautz finally spoke. “Are you saying there isn’t anything you can do about this filthy note or the pervert who sent it?”
“No, of course not,” Cecil was growing angry at this man with the weak hands. How could Colby have such a fine mother and such a jerk for a father? “I just think it’s best if we don’t make too much of it. If we do, if we run up the red flag and the word gets out about this note, things could get worse for Colby. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Obviously the youngster who wrote this note has problems,” Mrs. Kautz spoke quietly as she got up to put on her jacket. “What if you do find out who wrote it?”
“If we do,” Cecil said as he stood up, suddenly distracted by the woman’s perfume, “we’ll get that kid some professional help. We’ll also call in the parents. Right now, though, I think we should lay low. Have Nurse Cramer talk with Colby and get her back to school.”
The parents agreed.
Cecil hoped for some encouragement as he took Mrs. Kautz’s hand, but she was at best polite, if not abrupt. The same dead fish of a handshake from the man was of at least some satisfaction. As they left the office, Cecil grabbed a Kleenex from the counter and pretended to blow his nose as he watched Mrs. Kautz walk down the corridor.
Then he turned to the secretary, “Where’s Rose?”
“Left,” she shrugged without looking up.
With the nasty note in hand Cecil went immediately to Mr. Jenk’s room where he motioned the Language Arts teacher to step into the corridor.
Like a squirrel with a large nut in its hands, Jenks moved his fingers and eyes over the note. As he got toward the end, he ran his finger under each line. This little man always swelled with importance when he was called upon for detective work.
Typically, his first comment was sarcastic. He pointed to the spelling of “seaman.” “Must have been a sailor on leave from the Portsmouth Navy Yard,” he quipped. “Some horny bastard!” Then Jenks’s face turned serious. “If you want my opinion,” he clipped his words and folded the paper, “I’d say it’s a girl. Probably jealous of Colby. Yep! Ten to one it’s a girl. Who knows? Maybe not. I’ll get into my files.” Jenks jerked open the classroom door and glared at two girls talking in the back row. “Got some beauties in this year’s eighth grade. Never seen anything like it.” Jenks folded the letter and slid it into his sport coat pocket. ”It’s a girl. Bet your sweet pippy.”
But this was destined to be a case that Jenks could not crack. He studied every letter and word of the note alongside the two hundred essays that had been collected the first week of school in September all entitled “The Most Exciting Thing that Happened to Me over the Summer,” essays that the Language Arts Department required of every student every year. In addition, Jenks scanned a fat folder full of dirty notes that had been turned in at the Principal’s office over the past two years. Still, not a clue.
Jenks told Cecil that the printing looked exactly like some that he had seen in the girls’ basement a few weeks back. He had wanted to take a Polaroid picture of that work to keep in his file, but Rick, the custodian, in a rare moment of efficiency, had actually gotten his scouring pad to it first.
Cecil had seen more smut at Mountainview Junior High than he had seen at any schools in his twenty years in education. Two years ago — Cecil’s first year as principal — he and Rick were the target of a particularly accomplished artist and poet. Rick had spotted it when he was called into the girls’ lavatory to extract a pop sickle from the coin intake of the sanitary napkin machine. It was a very ditty in the Lady of Spain tradition scrawled on the side of that machine along with graphics that depicted Cecil and Rick together like a couple of sexually deranged octopi with multiple heads, mouths, and other appendages performing various obscene acts all in color.
After talking with Jenks, Cecil went Mrs. Frucnagle’s classroom. The room was empty, but Cecil examined the seating charts sitting on the desk. “Oh shit,” he thought as he noted that Rose was assigned to that same seat during the period just before Colby would have been sitting there. Cecil didn’t think for a minute that Rose would have sent that note, but he knew plenty of teachers, especially Hartmann, would be ready to accuse her of the crime. Hartmann knew that Rose was running with a wild bunch of older boys, and for this reason and others he wanted to punish her. Rose hated Hartmann and made no bones about it. For this reason and others, Cecil liked her just as he did many of the other rebellious students.
But wait a minute. Cecil went quickly down the stairs to his office where he thumbed through the last week’s absence slips. Just as he suspected, Rose had been absent on the day the note was planted.
As he went back into his office Cecil had no illusions about finding the filthy-minded author of Colby’s note. What can you do with twelve and thirteen year olds who are so inclined. The truth is that Cecil’s concern was more with several of the faculty members than it was with the handful of smut-smitten kids who so alarmed them.
After all, wasn’t Greg Hartmann, the science teacher and the winningest eighth grade basketball coach of all time, also the man who bragged in the teachers’ room about the videos he had lined up for the weekend — WWBBs! Code language for black bucks and white whores. Three other coaches, two from the high school, were equally excited about getting shit-faced as they put it, watching videos with Greg into the wee hours of Sunday mornings just a few hours before they’d all be sitting in church with their families.
To a man, these teachers were viewed as the models for good behavior by the community at large. Their rules were not made to be broken. Even gum chewing was a sin. Especially gum chewing. Especially on the part of girls.
But then, who was Cecil Dunn himself to be so self-righteous in such matters. Wasn’t he thinking thoughts about Colby’s mother while he was supposed to be solving this crime? Wasn’t he still thinking about Mrs. Kautz as he lay there in bed beside his own wife Ada.
Anyway, Jenks stayed late that day and many days thereafter in his search to find some telltale likeness with other notes in his files. But the most he discovered was that certain words printed on Colby’s note was almost identical to some found on filthy notes that had been saved during a rash of similar obscene notes that had plagued the school two full years before. But nothing from this year, or last. Jenks was stumped. What bothered him most was when he learned that Colby had flushed away the typed envelope. Surely the typeface would have helped him crack the case.
As planned, Nurse Leslie Cramer visited with Colby and convinced her to come back for the last few days of school. Colby had lost weight, and looked bad. She was thin to begin with. But nobody had ever seen her depressed before. L.C. also urged Colby to confide in her best friend, Freddie. But Colby didn’t think she would. Even though she still considered Freddie to be her best friend, she didn’t want to talk about the note any more. She knew that Freddie was one of the only kids in school who had a typewriter and could type, but she refused to let the thought linger. She was sure that Freddie would never try to hurt her like that. Still, she didn’t want to talk with Freddie. They just weren’t close like they used to be.
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