Chapter 5: The Straw
But once all the kids and teachers were in that monkey house, Hartmann had little time to watch the primates without clothes.
Three eighth-grade boys huddled along the right field foul-line. The tallest boy was skinny, long face peppered with pimples. Kids called him “Skinny” to his face, but “Horse-face” behind his back. We’ll just call him “Skinny.”
Skinny had his arms draped over the shoulders of two classmates: one was called Mouse — who was small with the ears of a mouse; but they also called him “Mighty Mouse” because he had more muscle and strength for his size than any other kid at the junior high. The third boy we’ll call “the third boy” — average in size and appearance, if anyone at the age of thirteen can be called such a thing.
As they talked, they were looking at the big green dumpster that sat open-mouthed, with bad breath, on the edge of the teachers’ parking lot next to the side door used only by the custodian and the cooks.
“Guys, it’s gotta be this week. Next week’s too late,” said Skinny, “Gotta throw ’em in there Friday recess. Our field trip’s Thursday. Gotta throw ’em in there Friday.”
“Yeah,” Mouse agreed, “they’ll empty that sucker on Monday. So’s gotta be this week — while it’s stinkin’ ripe. Friday’s the day.”
The third boy was rubbing his hands. “Just like last year.”
Skinny took a little pad from his back pocket, “Okay, let’s make a list of some 7th grade losers. We’ll pick two of ’em from the list.”
“Billy Small,” Mouse pointed at the pad. “Put him down. Put him down.”
“Hold your horses,” Skinny scolded, as he jabbed the point of his pencil into Mouse’s ribs. “First things first. We need to list five or six, and then we’ll choose the two suckers.”
“Yeah,” the third boy said, “but I agree with Mouse on Billy Small — he’s been asking for it. We’ll have to stuff ’em in there before Rick stops us.”
Rick was the paunchy, middle-age, pipe-smoking custodian, who preferred watching girls and reporting on kids’ bad behavior for detention, to pushing a broom or emptying a wastebasket. Rick had a tiny office under the stairs to the basement where kids went to badger him, and where he sometimes would lock himself in to look at magazines and masturbate.
“Okay,” Skinny said, “we’ll do Billy Small — you now happy, Mouse? Now give me some more names.” Skinny pushed the eraser-end of his pencil in his mouth, against his teeth and gum, then lunged at the third boy to wipe it off on the his shirt, but he jumped out of the way.
The trio next scanned a group of 7th grade boys standing at the far end of the playground. “Harry Lemire,” Skinny said. “He’s a jerk-off. I’m putting him down,” adding, “he’ll be easy to catch.”
“Yeah, Lemire’s a good one,” Mouse laughed. “I could pick that sucker up myself. Remember how last year they tried to catch me?”
“You’re full of shit, Mouse,” Skinny scowled, “nobody wanted to get you.”
“Yes they did,” Mouse insisted, “I hid over there, right behind that shed.” Mouse pointed to a small equipment shed at the far end of the playground.
“You lie like a fuckin’ rug, Mouse.”
“He ain’t lying,” the third boy said, “I saw him run behind that shed.” Then the third boy changed the subject, “I wish we could do girls. I’d — ”
“Forget it,” the tall boy cut him off. “You really want to do a girl in the dumpster? How ‘bout Doris Beagle?”
“You’ll get spaghetti sauce on your dick,” Mouse said. They all laughed. “Look, there she is,” Mouse gestured toward a solitary girl standing next to the cafeteria door.
“Beagle’s a dog,” Skinny said. They all barked, “Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!”
Pretending not to hear them, Doris took a lipstick from her pocketbook and began applying it. With big cheeks and big sad eyes Doris did resemble a dog, more St. Bernard than beagle.
Boys had been barking at Doris since kindergarten, but it no longer bothered her, because during seventh grade she had matured considerably, and boys were now giving her attention for reasons that had nothing to do with the cheeks on her face. Doris liked getting that kind of attention. What‘s more, she was going steady with a junior from the high school who drove a cool car. Kids said they were “doing it.”
“Bell’s gonna ring. Come on. Who’s another?”
The third boy pointed, “That wise-ass over there, in the red shirt — what’s his name?”
“I don’t know, something Italian,” Mouse said, “like the name of a spaghetti sauce or something. Let’s do him.”
“Ragu,” Skinny mumbled as he wrote on his pad.
After listing a couple more kids, they deliberated and finally decided on Harry Lamire to go along with Billy Small, to be put in the dumpster on Friday. They then talked about the when, where, and who would go after whom; and they agreed that Skinny would find one more 8th grader — could even be a strong girl — to help lift their heists into the dumpster.
Standing next to the cafeteria window where he always stood during recess, Rick, the custodian, chewed on his pipe, glancing at the three boys. A 7th grade boy, Donnie Flynn, stood next to him. Donnie Flynn looked enough like him to be his son.
Some kids called Donnie “a fag.” They made fun of the way “Fag Flynn” walked, slightly ding-toed. Several male teachers also talked about Donnie as “a gay.”
Principal Cecil Dunn didn’t care if Donnie was one way or another; he was concerned by the amount of time Donnie spent talking with Rick. Rick had been custodian at an elementary school prior to his moving to the junior high, and Dunn suspected he might be a pedophile.
Donnie would occasionally inform Rick about kids who might be stuffing paper in the toilets, or sticking gum in the drinking fountains, or smoking, although there were only a couple of junior high kids who smoked, and they were girls. But, fact was that Donnie was one of the very few students — or staff for that matter — who genuinely liked being around Rick — and the custodian returned the favor.
Today Donnie was alerting Rick about the scheming of the 8th grade boys.
Rick’s first thought was to paint some yellow lines on the asphalt in front of the dumpster; he would then put a note in Principal Dunn’s mailbox, requesting permission to report any kid who violated those yellow warnings. Or, Rick thought, he could instead give the name of the three scheming boys to Fred Blanchard, the guidance counselor. Blanchard often talked with students about misbehavior, but he preferred to let others police the school; he was more “secret-police” than he was “school cop.” If Rick told Blanchard, he’d probably call the boys into his office, give them a warning, and thus disrupt their plan. It’s not that he would care too much about the bulying prank, it’s just that he wouldn’t want Skinny to get in trouble since he played golf with the boy’s father.
Seven-thirty Thursday morning, four buses of 8th graders departed Mountainview Junior High School for the two-hour ride to Beasley’s Wild Animal Farm. It was a cool morning, a rare mid-June frost was reported in the valleys of northern New Hampshire. But with no clouds in the sky, the temperature would soon be climbing toward early summer heat.
There were no incidents on the bus and the lead teacher on the trip, Greg Hartmann, couldn’t have been happier as he watched the youngsters spend the morning hours moving about obediently in their homeroom groups, spending their time and money on the roller coaster, the whip, the bullet, and junk foods and drinks.
By noon there was little left for the kids to do in the amusement area of the “farm.” It was hot, so kids and teachers were seeking some shade. However, the stone building that housed the polar bears was closed for cleaning; and the aviary and reptile houses were of little interest, so it was the monkey house was where they went for their last hour at Beasley’s Wild Animal Farm.
Once inside the monkey house, and shielded from the view of chaperones, Mouse produced his peashooter began firing off the beans he had stored in his pockets for this very purpose. Like many other kids, and some of the adults, too, Mouse was fascinated by the four-hundred-pound silverback gorilla.
“Tom Thumb” was thirty-five years old and as famous as any of the oldest mountain gorillas in captivity in America. But today Tom was sleeping like a dead man on the cement floor of his cage, and although the kids yelled and Mouse managed to hit him with a few pea-beans, but he just brushed them off as if they were flies.
Like most human primates, lead teacher Greg Hartman, was interested in monkeys and gorillas, too: primates without clothes whose eating, sleeping and sexual behavior was open for all to see in their cages.
But once all the kids and teachers were in that monkey house, Hartmann had little time to watch the primates without clothes. Instead he had supervise and manage the sexual and other behaviors of the middle schoolers.
He could see, for example, that several boys, were taking turns bumping and rubbing up against Doris Beagle, who — wearing a skimpy summer dress rather than the jeans worn by most of her classmates, and with no bra, accommodated those boys by letting them feel her body wherever they might.
Hartman knew when he would say, when he had a moment to pull Doris Beagle aside. Why was she asking for trouble with the clothes she was wearing? And in confronting the young woman, he himself would hold her by her arm, and pull her as close as he could, which was quite a lot given the crowded conditions of that monkey house.
It was a different story with Kenny Kowalski and Donna Duke. They were “going steady.” During the bus ride and in homeroom groups earlier in the day, they had been separated, and they were now making up for lost time, rubbing up against each other among the crowd in front of the dozing great gorilla. Hartmann noticed their foreplay, but because Kenny was captain of the 8th grade basketball team, and Donna was one of the cheerleaders, he gave them a long leash. He didn’t notice how, after about ten minutes of their foreplay, Kenny lost control. Kenny had his hand in his pants with a handkerchief to absorb most of it.
At first unnoticed in the corner, a female gorilla, almost the size of “Tom Thumb,” sat seemingly bored on the cement floor of her cage. The sign over her cage said “Debbie.” But while she sat mostly still, Debbie was far from bored; indeed, her heart was thumping fast and hard under her sparce brown chest hair.
You see, Debbie had stood up when she heard the commotion of the kids arriving in the monkey house; and she had lifted herself up a few feet on the bars of her cage, and had seen the soda-cups that some of the kids were carrying. And thus Debbie was well prepared for a performance she had done many times before. Held loosely in her leathery hand she had begun fingering a long plastic straw; and it wasn’t long before two of the 8th grade girls discovered Debbie and saw what she was holding in her hand.
A girl with the half-cup of warm root beer called to her nearby classmates. “Hey, everybody, watch! Come see this!” Act one of the show commenced as Debbie did her part. She put her face and mouth into space between the bars, with her straw firmly and flexibly in her lips.
Again, the girl with the root beer sang out, “Hey watch!” beckoning to the others who by then needed no beckoning. She turned to Debbie, and spoke lovingly as she positioned her cup for the animal to insert her straw.
But Debbie pulled her face back. The audience was not yet large enough.
The girl with the cup held our her cup and continued to call to her classmates, who now were gathering around.
A friend said to her, “Why don’t you talk to her — her name’s Debbie.”
The girl held her cup out, “Debbie, Debbie girl, here, come on. You know you’re thirsty.”
Debbie put the straw back to her lips, and slowly leaning forward on her knuckles, to the crowd’s delight, again pushed her face between those bars.
“Slurp!”
The sound was loud enough to echo off the ceiling and walls of the monkey house. More students, and other visitors, including a young Japanese couple pushing a baby carriage, gathered around the cage. Many had trouble seeing Debbie at work, but could hear the “Slurp!” and then the next “Slurp!”as Debbie emptied all the cups that were handed forward to the girl with the closest reach. A few other kids tried to interest Debbie with their offerings, but Debbie would drink.
After their long day at Beasely’s, some of the 8th graders, and all their homeroom teachers, were growing restless. Little did they know that they were speaking a language that Debbie understood well; so before any of them actually started to leave, Debbie hoisted a curtain on her second act — an act that seemed to mesmerize, if not hypnotize all who were there, but for the Japanese visitors, who departed as soon as the second act commenced.
For this part of her performance, Debbie moved to the center of her cage, spread her legs in a squat and began producing a puddle of urine that was soon a small pond.
Many in the crowd lacked a vantage point, and thus depended on exclamations emanating from the front and center of the stage.
“My god, what’s she doing?”
“What?”
“Look.”
“Ew.”
“Look, Debbie’s drinking her own piss!”
“She’s what?”
“She’s drinking the puddle of pee.”
“Yuck!”
“Hey, she’s…”
“This is making me puke!”
“I can’t watch.”
“Stop shoving.”
“Gross.”
“Dirty.”
“Let me see!”
One boy near the front mumbled, “Look at her nigger-lips,” to which another boy said, “Why don’t you shut your fucking lips.”
The primates wearing the clothes continued to shout and banter. Being of superior intelligence and possessing knowledge and imagination millions of years more advanced than that of the gorilla, they were moved to pass judgment.
“She’s really sick.”
“Sick-oh!”
“That girl monkey’s got a mental problem.”
“Psycho!”
A chant stirred, “Psycho!… Psycho!… Psycho!”
Psychotic or not, Debbie knew something that these homo-sapiens did not — something that pertained to their immediate future.
Even Greg Hartmann, lead teacher, with his degrees in science education, his knowledge of basketball, his vigilance for upholding the highest standards of moral behavior, even he was clueless concerning what Debbie knew about the future of her audience.
You see, Debbie cheeks were so abundantly large and loose, that they could hold a great volume of liquid. And because of the way she was squatting, it was near impossible for anyone to see that she wasn’t really drinking her own urine; rather, she was filling her cheeks with the piss she’d made form the children’s soda.
And when Debbie stood up, she turned and moved to that side of her cage closest to the door through which people exit the monkey house. This was the third act in her peformacne for the people. She turned and faced the crowd,pulling herself up the bars to the top of her cage.
Everyone now saw the unnatural bulging of Debbie’s cheeks and neck. Most were oblivious but soon a few of the kids got a shiver of realization that they were trapped and that something bad was about to happen.
Still, everyone watched, and even as many others experienced that same shiver, there was calm, right up to the moment when Debbie unleashed a power-spray, beginning with those nearest the exit door, but swiveling quickly to hit almost everyone gathered there. Meanwhile a bloody ocean of screams commenced as the spray and mist did what spray and mist are designed to do. Few escaped the spray, and even those who did were plagued with a feeling of being dirty and wet.
For safety reasons, the windows of school busses sometimes lower very little or not at all. It was athe long bus-ride home, with no air conditioning, and the late afternoon sun streaming in from the west, baking the buses and all their contents.
Parents who had been waiting at the school that Thursday evening recoiled when they hugged their offspring steeped in the odors of the day.
The following day, Friday, the 15th of June in the Year of the Lord, 1977, not a single seventh grader was thrown into the dumpster at Mountainview Junior High. The plans of Mouse, Skinny and the other boy had fizzled, like a warm soda. Their thirst for a certain kind of fun had been quenched. And Mountainview principal, Cecil Dunn, spent much of his Friday responding to calls from the central office, and parents. He assured them that there had been adequate supervision in the monkey house, and that yes, they had informed the keepers of the animals about the gorilla’s poor behavior.
This monkey is a true monster. In the completeness of his ugliness, he achieved a kind of perverted beauty. Children stopping before the cage are fascinated, men turn away with an air of disgust, and women linger for a moment, trying perhaps to remember which of their male acquaintances the thing in some way resembles.
- Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
Back to table of contents and introduction: Sex in the 7th Grade
