Chapter 6 Lies and more visits
I mentioned earlier that I’d get back to a couple things. It’s time to do that. The things I said we’d get to later were what I’d learned in elementary school, and a girl named Kathy McKinley. They are related.
It was early May in 1949. The outside temperature was maybe seventy-eight degrees, so most of the windows in Central School were wide open. I’d been working on a spit wad for the last ten minutes, and it was just about ready. In my mouth were two whole sheets of that wide lined green paper. The ones with the little wood chips sometimes showing. I had my target picked out, Bobby Berrie. It was perfect. I had nothing against Bobby, but he sat by the window, and there were three rows of empty seats between us and the open window beyond him. If I missed, the spit wad would go out the window. Mrs. Snyder, our first grade teacher, was walking up and down the rows of seats checking our work. Said work being printing the alphabet on one of the afore mentioned sheets of green paper. I waited until she had passed Bobby and leaned down at Danny’s desk. Then I struck.
Even today I can play that scene out in slow motion in my head. It seemed to play that way when it happened. I spat out the spit wad, and rolled it quickly into a ball. With one smooth motion I threw it at Bobby. I knew at once that I’d aimed too high. Then I saw that Mrs. Snyder was straightening back up. I didn’t know geometry then, but I could see what was going to happen. Like I said, things were moving in slow motion.
Mrs. Snyder stood just in time to take the spit wad fill on her upper right cheek. It hit solidly, and with an audible splat. Her glasses, which were linked by a thin gold chain around her neck, were knocked off. The whole side of her face was covered with spit wad. And, since it had been a big spit wad, it spattered, so she had bits of paper on her shoulder and in her hair.
Everyone in the room froze. Slowly, and with what dignity she could muster with a giant spit wad on her face, Mrs. Snyder walked to the front of the room. First she peeled the main mass of the spit wad off of her face. Then she pulled a tissue from a knitted tissue box and dabbed at her cheek. A second tissue was used to clean her glasses, which she then put back on.
During this whole time no one in the class moved or talked. Finally Mrs. Snyder looked up and asked, in a quiet voice that somehow rolled like thunder, “Who threw that thing at me?” There was no reply. Twenty-four didn’t answer because they hadn’t done it. One didn’t answer because he was incapable of speech. My vocal cords were petrified.
Again came that quiet, thundering voice. “I’ll ask one more time. Who threw it?” There was a long pause as she looked at each of us. We sat, small birds mesmerized by a cobra.
Then a very small voice spoke out. “Joe did it. I saw his arm move.” It was Kathy McKinley, and she was pointing at me. Every eye in the room turned to me.
My heart stopped. Mrs. Snyder looked at me, and then at Kathy. Kathy repeated “I saw him. His arm moved.” Mrs. Snyder walked towards me. I wanted to run, but she was between me and the door. I wanted to scream, but my throat was still petrified. All I could do was sit there watching my doom approach.
Mrs. Snyder stopped at my desk. She looked down at me and said, “Did you throw that at me?” She still had bits of spit wad stuck in her hair, and a small bit on her forehead. I couldn’t say a word. She asked again, “Joe, did you throw that at me?”
I had to force the words out. “No Mrs. Snyder.” I was telling the truth, I’d thrown it at Bobby Berrie. She looked at me for what seemed like forever. Kathy tried to talk again, but Mrs. Snyder just raised a hand and Kathy stopped.
She looked at me for a long time. Then she said, “I’ll ask just once more Joe. Did you throw that at me?”
I looked her right in the eyes and said again, “No Mrs. Snyder.” Inside my head a light bulb went off. She didn’t know! And, she had asked the wrong question. I’d like to think that if she had just asked if I’d thrown it, I would have said yes. She didn’t, so I didn’t.
After I answered, Mrs. Snyder looked at me for what seemed a year. Then she turned and walked back to the front of the room. She stood looking at the class. Finally she said, “Well, I want whoever did throw it to think about it very hard tonight, and I expect that person to tell me tomorrow how sorry he is.”
“No way in hell lady.” I’d gotten away with it. I’d also learned a very valuable lesson. You can sometimes lie by telling the truth. The most important thing I learned in elementary school.
I never told anyone I’d been the one who threw the spit wad. I also began to think about what I could do to Kathy McKinley. I knew I’d have to get even, and I would, even if it took years. It has. By our senior year in high school Kathy McKinley was one of the best looking girls in the school. There was a running locker room joke about wanting to Mount McKinley. But not me. I still was looking for a way to pay her back. I still am. “Just you wait Kathy McKinley; someday I’ll find a way. Just you wait.”
Now why did I talk about telling lies? Simple, when Red asked me how the weekend had gone I told her I had my ring back. See, true, but a lie at the same time. Still, I remember thinking I could solve the problem at Thanksgiving, and until then I had Red all to myself.
“Whom the Gods would destroy they first make proud.” I don’t know who said that, but I learned it over and over during the next four years. This was the first time. Rather than having Red all to myself, she informed me Monday that her boyfriend Jack was coming to see her the next weekend. She didn’t know anyone other than me in the men’s dorms, so I agreed to let him stay in my dorm room.
It was a bit surreal. There wasn’t anyone I’d less want around, and he was going to stay with me. Except of course when he was with her.
Now a brief note on my feelings for Red. Did I love her? Well, maybe, but I wasn’t ready to make any commitments. I enjoyed her company almost to the exclusion of anyone else. I knew she had replaced Ruth as the main girl in my life. However, that still didn’t mean I loved her, since I thought I’d loved Ruth and yet, within ten days of leaving her I was dating Red. That made me doubt I’d really loved Ruth in the first place. Besides, I still did have feelings for Ruth, and was still writing to her a couple times a week. Please note that Red was in much the same situation. Anyway, Jack was coming, and there wasn’t anything I could do about that.
Red and I spent all our spare time together, until Friday when Jack arrived. For most of the week we just avoided talking about him, or Ruth. Our kissing sessions, the last fifteen minutes or so before she had to be in her room, left me at with my head spinning as I walked back to my dorm.
Jack arrived sometime Friday morning. I met him after Chapel. When I walked up to Red and Jack, he had his arm around her, and she was holding his other hand. I felt a sharp stab of jealousy, which surprised me. Red had a class, so I took Jack to my room to get settled in.
I have no idea what we talked about. I do remember there was a deck of cards on the table, and I started shuffling them. I did a fan shuffle and Jack asked me how I’d done it. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to teach him how.
I walked with him to my next class, and left when Red came out of her class. He got back to the room about fifteen minutes after girl’s dorm hours ended. Again I felt that pang of jealousy. My roommates, and Jack and I, stayed up a couple hours talking and playing cards. Poker I think. I was worried that Walt would say the wrong thing, but other than a vague hint, which I’m sure Jack missed, he didn’t.
The next day Jack left early to have breakfast with Red. It was the first weekend we hadn’t done laundry together. (Well, other than the weekend I’d gone home.) I was in the room trying to do some studying when, about 4:30, Jack came in. He wanted to shower and change clothes, since he was taking Red to a restaurant at 5:30. He was ready in ten minutes, so we had some time to talk before he had to go.
We talked about our girlfriends, his Red and my Ruth. He asked if I had a picture of Ruth, and I pulled out my wallet to show him. Even now, looking back forty-seven years, I’m not sure if I did it on purpose or not. When I opened my wallet, Red’s picture was the first he saw. I said, “I guess you know her.” and turned the flap to Ruth’s picture.
He seemed a bit taken aback, but smiled and said Ruth was cute. We talked a little more, and he left. I went out that night with Bob and Walt. Jack was already in bed when we got back.
The next morning he packed his stuff, said thanks, and was gone. I’ve never seen him since. Red called about 2:00 and we spent the rest of the day together. She didn’t talk about what she and Jack had done over the weekend, except to tell me he’d tried to show her a fan shuffle, and ended up throwing cards all over the table.
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Redhead’s comments - I’m not going to comment on everything Joe writes about, but I will write briefly about two or three things. I think I’ll skip the part about telling lies, though the way Joe tells the story is funny. In truth, I may have been the Kathy McKinley of my first grade. I was always willing to tell on others. Somewhere I learned the same lesson as Joe, since I knew how to use the truth to achieve a lie too.
I guess I had the same problem with Jack’s visit that Joe had with Ruth’s. That is, I fully intended to tell him about Joe, but somehow the moment never seemed to be right. After all, he had traveled 1000 miles to see me. Like Joe and Ruth, there were several times I was on the edge of telling Jack about Joe, but I didn’t. Instead I let him take me to an expensive restaurant and pay for a dinner, which cost a week of his allowance.
I don't know if I told Jack I loved him, but we did have a couple of rather intense necking sessions. However on Sunday Jack was oddly quiet. We skipped chapel and ate together at a restaurant just off campus. I could tell Jack wanted to ask me something, but I didn't pry and he didn't ask. I now know, of course, he wanted to ask me about Joe. That, I think was the big difference between Ruth's visit and Jack's. Joe met and talked to Jack, I didn't even see Ruth. I suspect if I had, she would have figured out what was going on. Jack just wasn't that perceptive, but he did have a feeling that there was something I wasn't telling him. That may even be another kind of lie, just not saying anything even though you know something should be said.
Jack left about noon and I sat for over an hour thinking about how complicated my life had become with Jack, Joe, and Steve. The result of the thinking was that I decided Joe was the one I wanted. I would not go out with Steve again, and I would tell Jack about Joe when I went home for Christmas. Then I called Joe.
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I think it was great, it kept me hooked the whole time, it was very well written.
A total joy to read.
I admit it- I haven’t read your preceeding chapters-but I hope you’ll take to my thoughts any way- I liked the introduction of the telling the slanted truth- to hide a lie. The character sketch in that part was excellent. The teacher, Mrs. Snyder, is enough of a school marm to summon up dread in any reader. I do likethe descriptions ofthe wad of spit stuck on her face, and her slowly wiping it off. It works.
The last part seemed not to fit so smoothly with the first- the last few pages discuccing the problems with the relationships lacked characterization- so that’’s why I say it doesn’t work- there’e nothing for the reader to focus on- you could have the character doing something here- and not just ruminating.
Nice read though.
I was confused by Jack, Joe and Steve. i guess i needed a little refresher on who the characters are. Over all nice writing. But i would like to know a litle bit about what Joe and Steve, talked about while in the dorm. I need to see this piece more personalized. I mean the kissing is nice but more dialog between Joe and Red. Make them come alive for me. Perhaps you are getting started. I will reserve more comments until i see more of the story develop. I am enjoying it. I love a love story and a triangle. Keep me posted. Sandi
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