"I got a good one for you. Pop!"
"Yeah? Get back to your engine, Whitechapel."
"It's a good one, Pop."
We stood there and watched as Arnie began to tell Pop a dirty joke. Their heads were close together. Then the joke was over, Pop began laughing. That big body was doubled over, he was holding his gut. "Holy shit! Oh my god, holy shit!" he laughed. Then he stopped. "O.K., Arnie, back to your machine!"
"No, wait, Pop, I got another one!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, listen…"
We all left our machines and walked over. We circled them, listening as Arnie told the next joke. When it was over Pop doubled up. "Holy shit, oh lord, holy shit!"
"Then there's another one, Pop. This guy is driving his car in the desert. He notices this guy jumping along the road. He's naked and his hands and feet arc tied with rope. The guy stops his car and asks the guy, 'Hey, buddy, what's the matter?' And the guy tells him, 'Well, I was driving along and I saw this bastard hitch-hiking so I stopped and the son-of-a-bitch pulls a gun on me, takes my clothes away and then ties me up. Then the dirty son-of-a-bitch reams me in the ass!' 'Oh yeah?' says the guy getting out of his car. 'Yeah, that's what that dirty son-of-a-bitch did!' says the man. 'Well,' says the guy unzipping his fly, 1 guess this just isn't your lucky day!"'
Pop began laughing, he doubled over. "Oh, no! Oh, NO! OH… HOLY.. . SHIT, CHRIST… HOLY SHIT…!"
He finally stopped.
"God damn," he said quietly, "oh my lord…"
"How about a movie, Pop?"
"Oh well, all right."
Somebody closed the back door and Pop pulled out a dirty white screen. He started the projector. It was a lousy movie but it beat working on those engines. The gas was ignited by the spark plugs and the explosion hit the cylinder head and the head was thrust down and that turned the crankshaft and the valves opened and closed and the cylinder heads kept going up and down and the crankshaft turned some more. Not very interesting, but it was cool in there and you could lean back in your chair and think about what you wanted to think about. You didn't have to bust your knuckles on dumb steel.
We never did get those engines taken apart let alone put back together again and I don't know how many times we saw that same movie. Whitechapel's jokes kept coming and we all laughed our heads off even though most of the jokes were pretty terrible, except to Pop Farnsworth who kept doubling over and laughing,
"Holy shit! Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!"
He was an O.K. guy. We all liked him.
24
Our English teacher, Miss Gredis, was the absolute best. She was a blonde with a long sharp nose. Her nose wasn't much good but you didn't notice it when you looked at the rest of her. She wore tight dresses and low v-necks, black high-heeled shoes and silk stockings. She was snake-like with long beautiful legs. She only sat behind her desk when she took roll call. She kept one desk vacant at the front of the room and after roll call she would come down and sit on that desk top, facing us. Miss Gredis sat perched there with her legs crossed and her skirt pulled high. Never had we seen such ankles, such legs, such thighs. Well, there was Lilly Fischman, but Lilly was a girl-woman while Miss Gredis was in full bloom. And we got to gaze upon her for a full hour each day. There wasn't a boy in that class who wasn't sad when the bell rang ending the English period. We'd talk about her.
"Do you think she wants to be fucked?"
"No, I think she's just teasing us. She knows she's driving us crazy, that's all she needs, that's all she wants."
"I know where she lives. I'm going over there some night."
"You wouldn't have the balls!"
"Yeah? Yeah? I'll fuck the shit out of her! She's asking for it!"
"A guy I know in the 8th grade said he went over there one night."
"Yeah? What happened?"
"She came to the door in a nightgown, her tits were practically hanging out. The guy said he had forgotten the next day's homework and wondered what it was. She asked him in."
"No shit?"
"Yeah. Nothing happened. She made him some tea, told him about the homework and he left."
"If I had of gotten in, that would have been it!"
"Yeah? What would you have done?"
"First I would have corn-holed her, then I would have eaten her pussy, then I would fuck her between the tits and then I would force her to give me a blow job."
"No kidding, dreamer boy. You ever been laid?"
"Fuck yes, I've been laid. Several times."
"How was it?"
"Lousy."
"Couldn't come, hub?"
"I came all over the place, I thought I'd never stop."
"Came all over the palm of your hand, hub?"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Ha, ha!"
"All over your hand, hub?"
"Fuck you guys!"
"I don't think any of us has been laid," said one of the guys. There was silence.
"That's shit. I was laid when I was seven years old."
"That's nothing. I was laid when I was four."
"Sure, Red. Lay it on good!"
"I got this little girl under the house."
"You got a hard?"
"Sure."
"You came?"
"I think so. Something squirted out."
"Sure. You pissed in her cunt, Red."
"Balls!"
"What was her name?"
"Betty Ann."
"Fuck," said the guy who claimed to have gotten laid when he was seven. "Mine was named Betty Ann too."
"That whore," said Red.
One tine Spring day we were sitting in English class and Miss Gredis was sitting on the front desk facing us. She had her skirt pulled especially high, it was terrifying, beautiful, wondrous and dirty. Such legs, such thighs, we were very close to the magic. It was unbelievable. Baldy sat in the seat across the aisle from me. He reached over and began poking me on the leg with his finger:
" She's breaking all the records!" he whispered. "Look! Look!"
"My God," I said, "shut up or she'll pull her skirt down!"
Baldy pulled his hand back and I waited. We hadn't spooked Miss Gredis. Her skirt remained as high as ever. It was truly a day to remember. There wasn't a boy in class without a hard-on and Miss Gredis went on talking. I'm sure that none of the boys heard a word she was saying. The girls, though, turned and glanced at each other as if to say, this bitch is going too far. Miss Gredis couldn't go too far. It was almost as if there weren't even a cunt up there but something much better. Those legs. The sun came through the window and poured in on those legs and thighs, the sun played on that warm silk pulled so tightly. The skirt was so high, pulled hack, we all prayed for a glimpse of panty, a glimpse of something, Jesus Christ, it was like the world ending and beginning and ending again, it was everything real and unreal, the sun, the thighs, and the silk, so smooth, so warm, so alluring. The whole room throbbed. Eyesight blurred and returned and Miss Gredis went on sitting there as if nothing was happening and she kept talking as if everything was normal. That's what made it so good and so terrible: the fact that she pretended that it wasn't happening. I looked down at my desk top for a moment and saw the grain in the wood heightened as if each pattern was a pool of whirling liquid. Then I quickly looked back at the legs and thighs, angered with myself that I had looked away for a moment, and perhaps missed something.