Her actions struck me as motiveless malignity. But whatever it was, it worked. She had me scared. My Gift was in danger.
And yet the Halloween episode — the "shoe-box gambit" as I came to call it — had taught me an important lesson about the erotic. It went something like this: At the pulsing heart of the erotic is mystery. Throw in surprise, too. Mystery and surprise. And fear. They guaranteed that a certain energy would always be available to anyone who had been given the Gift of the erotic. What did it all mean? Hey, I was just a kid, but I think I came to realize that the erotic — Wolf-style, at least — meant that I might live life more "livingly." That is, if Hoagland didn't castrate me first.
But through it all the Gift was growing. It had a secret life, and only Wolf and I knew about it, and that, of course, made me feel terrific, and I continued to feel terrific until a few weeks of November slouched by. November. Some poet has called it the month of the drowned dog. He's right.
November was a month of tension crowned by a mixture of disappointment and hope. Here's what happened. At the suggestion of Mrs. Hoagland, the eighth-grade boys were paraded, once a day, into the auditorium where our emaciated principal would stand before us, tottering as if buffeted by some inner wind, and lecture us. And show us films — films supposedly on the facts of life. Not only that, but on two occasions, the Reverend Finebaum of the First Methodist Church was asked to address us on morality. Chick, of course, just about turned into a pillar of salt at the thought of his father possibly being asked to speak to us. And what was this charade designed to do? Answer: rid us at once of our alleged foul language, purge us summarily of our dirty thoughts, and exorcise forthwith our demons of sexual obsession.
Naturally it didn't work.
About all it accomplished was to give Mrs. Hoagland a month's worth of jollies, make the girls snootier than ever, make Chick's face break out, and provide a new list of words for Mance to look up. I survived by dwelling constantly upon Wolf and the Gift. However, one day even those saving graces appeared to have forsaken me.
Seems like it was the day before Thanksgiving break, Wolf had us practicing for the Christmas program scheduled for three weeks hence. We had been singing our little throats raw in the days preceding, straining to make "Silent Night" sound like… well, like "Silent Night." Starkey was up to something. Before class he passed around this mimeographed poem, a sort of parody, which began, "On the night before Christmas ole Santa was humpin' everything in the house." Starkey had written the entire poem himself and threatened to pound anyone who laughed at it. Starkey the poetaster. Oh, well. I didn't think much about it — just a stupid poem, the kind adolescent boys usually adore — but then Wolf perched herself on her throne and it appeared that Starkey was going to show her a copy of his poem.
He approached her sheepishly. Our motley group collectively held its breath. My heart slowed — maybe even stopped, I'm not sure. What I was sure of was that Wolf would scorn such drivel and such affrontery. A true woman of the erotic would not acknowledge such prurient nonsense.
Wrong.
"My father would love this," she mused.
Starkey's face lit up like the lights on the football field. Then Wolf glanced up at our group and realized we knew the text of the poem. She raised a cautionary finger and smiled.
"Now fellas, no one else must hear of this. I could lose my job. This (she held up the poem) is just between me and all of you. The girls and the other teachers mustn't know a thing about it. Will you promise me that?"
Some of us dully nodded, and then Starkey stepped in front and shook his fist.
"If any of you nerds squeal about this I'll punch a lung out of you. Get me?"
We did.
I couldn't look at Wolf. God, was I disappointed.
Class seemed to last about three days. I was so depressed that I sang "Joy to the World" as if it were a dirge. I never once all the hour let my eyes meet Wolf's. When the bell rang, Mance, who was in such a tizzy I thought he might wet his pants, whispered to Chick and me, "Can you believe this? Geez, can you believe this?"
Chick was of the opinion that Miss Wolf's tenure at Soldier was inexorably doomed — well, he may not have used those exact words.
My friends waited breathlessly for my response to the shocking developments.
"I don't give a damn," I said, the lie scalding my tongue.
We started to split. Basketball practice was scheduled to begin at four o'clock, but Miss Wolf held me back, requesting that I try on one of the new choir robes for the Xmas songfest. As frostily as possible, I agreed to stay. The robes were hanging in the mammoth closet near the door of the room, a multipurpose closet where Mr. Rydel stored janitorial supplies and where Starkey boasted he had made out with numerous girls and Randy Tyburn's mother, a recent divorc6e; he had further hinted of having cornered Wolf there for a passionate exchange or two. You can believe what you like.
In the closet, Wolf switched on the single naked bulb. Then she smiled at me.
"Boys and their dirty poems — so silly, aren't they?"
"Yes, ma'am" stuck in my throat.
I slipped into one of the robes. She stood close to me as she zipped up the front of it. God, she smelled so good.
"It fits okay," I said, straining to be businesslike.
She stepped back, cocked her head to one side, and winked. As she helped me out of the robe she said, "You're not like the others, are you?"
"No, ma'am. I mean… yes, ma'am."
I didn't know what I meant. I hurried from the scene, but I felt better. Yeah, much better. The Gift had not been shattered. Only threatened. I would live to face another December — just had to stay clear of the Hideous Damsel.
Of course, every good story of the erotic should reach a climax. The big moment — make that the Big Moment — occurred the evening of the Christmas program. In passing, I'd like to mention that while Mrs. Hoagland suspected something was up in Wolf's class, she, much to her chagrin, could not ferret it out, a fact which gave me immense pleasure. I believe Wolf secretly delighted in the situation, too.
Anyway, before the program began, Wolf asked me to help her move the piano to the gym, and I obliged, foolishly insisting that I wheel it all by myself. Well, I wrestled that beast to the gym, but it almost turned me into a soprano. With a wink and a playful touch of a long red fingernail to the tip of my nose, Wolf said "thank you," adding a request for me to assist her again afterward. No problem.
As you might expect, our part of the program left something to be desired. Have you ever heard of an entire singing group completely forgetting the lines to the second half of "The First Noel"? Performance amnesia or something. Suffice to say, the Vienna Boys' Choir would receive no serious competition from us. I felt sorry for Miss Wolf. But you know what? Our screw-ups didn't seem to bother her. She appeared to enjoy the evening, going so far as to joke about it as I rolled the piano back to the music room once the program had drawn mercifully to a close.
"I'm real sorry we sang so poorly," I told her as I opened the closet door and began to take off my robe.
"Please don't think a thing about it. I enjoyed working with you fellas."
She had slipped in behind me; I was standing beneath that single naked bulb when I heard the closet door softly close. To be honest, I didn't give a second thought to it because the damned zipper on my robe had stuck halfway down.
"Would you mind unzipping me, Dyson?" Wolf purred.
No problem.
Her robe had a zipper in back, so she turned and lifted her long black hair and, fingers trembling just a bit, I zipped away… and saw a mile of silken bare flesh and felt its warmth radiating outward. I'm afraid I didn't stop unzipping until I nearly reached the bottom of her spine — I guess I kept thinking I would see some article of clothing before then.