Alter Boys (18 page)

He ached over the loss.  The void inside him screaming for acknowledgement.

The candy gone he looked down at his tartan skirt.  “Slut!  Cunt!  Kilt!” the sting of the words from his classmates and even his teacher, once abated by the candy, now returned to sting and sting again.  The dress that he once wore proudly now felt as conspicuous as a vomit on a wedding cake.

Changing his clothes would mean having to leave the TV.  He wrestled with the dilemma.  He could wait until the next series of commercials (so as not to miss them) and then could go change quickly during the ‘talking part’ of As the World Turns.

The candy was gone, the dress would be gone, and the words would be gone.  But when he came back, TV would still be there.  That, and his unresolved issue of gender.

Part 3

Greaser

Chapter I

1

Greaser started high school in the fall of 1974.  At the age of 14 (almost 15!) Greaser had all that mattered to slimy teenage boys.  He had TV.  What more could you want?  He had TV and the most pathetic set of social skills.

Greaser had plodded through grammar and middle school unremarkably; a kid who never said a word, either in class or out, unless prompted by a teacher or classmate.  When the teachers prompted, he always had the right intellectual answer.  On the rare occasion he was prompted by classmates, the social answer came out stilted and awkward.

He had no friends, other than a few older or younger social misfits who would gravitate to him briefly until someone of their own age became a better match.  But he was not a lonely boy.  He attended school during the day; watched TV at night.  

He became an easy mark.  When assigned group projects, his classmates immediately turned on him to write the paper/do the project/recite the report.  Any member of the group could have done it, many even better.  But they knew Greaser didn’t have the savvy to protest the assignment and that by luring him with even the slightest bit of faux recognition they could easily sell him on the job.  

And it was because of these intellectual contributions to the collective that he was mercifully left alone.  The middle school bullies could beat on the stupid kids, there were plenty of them
smart-mouthing off to go around.  Why risk pounding on the guy that was writing the paper for your science team?

But then came high school.  And things changed.  Oh God how they changed.  Puberty.  New smells, new growth and massive secretions of natural body oils.  Sadly, Greaser was oblivious to the latter.

Glancing down the main hall of Elmwood high school you couldn’t miss the awkward geek in checkered pants and a striped shirt.  (An unmatched set that he wore
daily
because
he didn’t have enough common sense to change his clothes or even remove them for bed).  “I heard that he whacks off at night and just leaves it in his underwear.”  Dee
Schuster
once shared with her friend Jodi.  “Ewww!  Gross!” Jodi intoned, disgusted with the visual image and not at all concerned with how
Dee
had come about such information.

Behind the geek is a foursome of upperclassmen, each in turn taking quick strides and then sliding to within a few inches.  “Look out for the oil slick!”  Doug Hennesy barks.  “Too late.  I’m trapped in the spill!”  Varsity quarterback Brad Anderson wallows on the floor like a duck drenched in 40 weight. 

Greaser is oblivious.  He has no idea whatsoever that the antics are aimed at him or about him.  It’s just some game that the older kids are playing in the hall.  The breadth of his world, his whole life for that matter, is simply to move from his last class to his locker and on to his next class…Algebra.  And after school; home to watch TV.

At first, by name alone, algebra was a scary proposition for the incoming freshmen.  A course with such a sophisticated name conjures up images of F’s and D-’s.  That may have been the case had the class been taught by anyone other than Mrs. Bernadette. 

Helen Bernadette had been teaching Elmwood mathematics for forty-some years.  She was as unqualified to teach as a turd is to
eat.  Consequently, her lessons were hopelessly fundamental and she had never succeeded in leading a class even a quarter of the way through the textbook during a semester.  If that had ever occurred, she would have been hard pressed to keep the class engaged.  All of the material past page 80 was beyond her understanding.

Additionally, she wore a hearing aid that she was constantly tweaking. 
A
favorite classroom pastime was to approach her desk and silently mouth the words of a question.  Tweak-tweak up.  “…PAGE 24 IT SAYS X EQUALS…”  Tweak-tweak down.  Again silently mouthing the words.  Tweak-tweak up.  “…IS THAT THE RIGHT ANSWER?”

Mrs. B would nod, yes of course that’s the right answer, mark it as correct, give yourself an A. 

And that was algebra; far too easy and not anywhere near educational.

As bad as her hearing was, her eyesight had to be worse.  Spitballs, erasers, paper airplanes and anything else that could go airborne was and did. 

One morning Bill Denker’s #2 pencil was intended for
Grant
Dohmeier’s
noggin two rows over.  Unfortunately Greaser lifted his head at the most inopportune time and the missile lodged in the back of his hair.

“Abort!  Abort!  Oil pressure is rising!  Chemical spill!  Eject the pilot!”  Bill Denker
’
s adlibbed SOS brought hoots of appreciation from those on his side of the room who had been following the fusillade. 

“Air assault terminated.  Begin operation hair assault!  Deploy flotation devices!”

Miniature life-preserver
spit wads
bombarded the back of Greaser
’
s head, bounced off, and lay uselessly on the floor.  “Oil
and water don’t mix!”  Sergeant Denker trumpeted.  “Increase firepower!” 

The soldiers under his command complied with increased laughter and velocity.  Finally, a wad of wide-margin ruled Scripto stuck firmly in Greaser
’
s hair.

“Life raft deployed!  Commence pilot extraction!” 

At this,
Grant
Dohmeier
, the original intended target, controlled his braying long enough to reach over and pluck the number two pencil from Greaser
’
s hair.  He held it squeamishly by the pink eraser end and gave it two hard shakes like a nurse resetting a mercury thermometer. 

“Pilot extracted!  Proceed with decontamination!” 

“Decontaminate it yourself ya morphadite!” 
Dohmeier
flung the pencil back in the general direction of its owner.  The throw went awry and the pencil clattered against the far wall.  “Nice shot
Dohmeie
r,” The sergeant commended.  “You’ve got a great arm!  So what happened to the rest of your body?”

Grant
Dohmeier
dismissed the dis by redirecting the blame.  “What dija ‘xpect.  The thing was covered with grease.  Thanks a lot Greaser!”

“
Dohmei
er gets greased by the Greaser.”  Sergeant Denker turned to his unit.  “Chemical weapons specialist Greaser is credited with the kill!”

The bell rang, and the pencil was left behind.  The moniker followed.

As he had done for the past decade, Greaser disregarded the antics of his classmates.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to participate, in fact he longed for acceptance.  The problem was he didn’t know
how
to fit in. 

Instead he had sat quietly and blightly endured the onslaught.  He knew that he couldn’t turn to the Denker
’
s and
Dohmeier’
s of the world and say anything.  And what if he did.  Would he say ‘stop it?’  That would merely open up a conversation that he was ill equipped to engage in.  The Denker or
Dohmeier
would nimbly shoot back, “what, you gonna make me?  You and whose army?”  To this he would have no answer.  His communication acumen was limited to single word responses when called on in class, or one-sided orations when instructed to deliver a recitation.  Those were controlled situations that required no give-and-take.  A communication style that had been molded by his affinity for television.

One speaking, one listening.  Easy, plain and simple.             

He exited algebra class, the scripto floatation device still lodged in his gooey scalp.  Sergeant Denker was waiting for him in the hallway, unconcerned about the three minute window to make it to the next battlefield. 

“Greaser!  You’re to be commended for your valor in the trenches!”  The accolade was bombastic even by high school hallway standards.  “Collateral damage was high – a number two surface to air missile.  But that
can be replaced.”  He grabbed G
reaser
’
s own pencil and performed an exaggerated routine as if juggling a wet noodle.  “Sabotage!  Chemical warfare!  Boiling oil poured from the turrets!”  He threw the pencil back at Greaser and hurried down the hallway shouting:  “Decontamination!  Greaser alert!”

There were some two dozen students (including several upperclassmen) who observed part or all of this show.  By the end of the day there would be 200 who would make the same claim.  They had all been there when Greaser got labeled.  

It was also the end of the day when the floatation device happened to fall out.  Bronwyn Poe had the unenviable assignment of being seated behind Greaser in Geography class.  She had finally become somewhat acclimated to having that
gross dripping head in front of her day after day, but this afternoon was almost too much.  The weirdo had a paper wad sticking in his hair.  And either it had been there a long time or maybe it was the volume of grease, but the edges of the paper had actually turned color where the oil had been absorbed. 

Aghast, Bronwyn sucked in a sharp breath.  Two thoughts went through her mind.  Turn to her friend Dee
Schuster
and point out the atrocity, or, kindly and discretely inform Greaser that he had something sticking in his hair.