Tim Sandlin - Skipped Parts

Stebbins walked up and down the aisles as he called on people. At one point he stopped next to my desk and stood as close to me as he could get. Florence was explaining about wild dogs in Alabama—Lord knows what it had to do with me and my life—while Stebbins hulked above, breathing on my head. I finally looked over to Chuckette and she smiled real sweet. So did LaNell Smith.

When the hall bell rang, I made a beeline for the boy’s room and hid out in a stall full of graffiti, waiting for the next class. Wyoming kids were like the apex of innocence back then. Someone had actually taken the time and energy to carve Gol durn in the door.

I came out of the John to find Maurey bent over the knee-high water fountain. When she stood up, her lips shone from the water and a single drop held on to the edge of her mouth. She was beautiful.

“So you slipped it to chunky Chuckette,” she said.

“I kissed her. Wasn’t that the point of the game—to go in the closet and kiss.”

“Not that kind of kiss. She’s saying you got downright passionate.”

“You taught me how to kiss. I only know one way.”

“Sure, Sam. You just better not ever hurt her. She’s a friend of mine.”

“How could I hurt Chuckette?”

Maurey undid the top button on my shirt. “Didn’t your mother tell you only squirrels button it to the top? I better not talk to you in the halls anymore, Chuck wouldn’t like it. If Mom’ll let me put, I’ll come by tonight after Dick Van Dyke .”

How, all of a sudden, could Chuckette control who talked to me in the hall? I was like the African explorer who said “Pardon me” to the chief’s daughter and suddenly found himself choosing between marriage and having his chest ripped out. We’re talking unfair situation.

At lunch—fish sticks and congealed carrots—I sat across from Rodney Cannelioski. He stood up and left, muttering something along the lines of godless hordes. He should have been the one to choose favorite books of the Bible with her. They could have chapter-versed themselves into a fundamentalist orgy.

A tray slid into view and I looked up to see Chuckette Morris’s face. In institutional cafeteria light, she wasn’t nearly as passable as she’d been in the closet. Her face was flat, like here’s her semi-normal head only the front part has been mushed into shape by a dinner plate and all the features kind of stuck in wherever they would fit. She had these tiny bangs about the length of fingernails.

Her voice wasn’t so bad, maybe I could spend our time together with my eyes closed.

“What were you talking to Maurey Pierce about?” she asked.

I arranged my fish sticks into the shape of a baseball diamond. “When was that?”

“Florence Talbot saw you guys talking after Stebbins’s class. You shouldn’t talk to other girls.”

I came so close to telling her that Maurey and I had been talking about fucking our eyes out after Dick Van Dyke tonight. So close. I could have nipped several months of trouble bang in the bud.

“She was saying how much fun she had at your party the other night. She especially liked the fondue.”

Chuckette’s face lit up. It’s just too easy to make some people feel good. “My mom got the recipe from the back page of TV Guide. ”

“It was best with the crackers.”

“Sharon liked it that way too. We’re doubling with Maurey and Dothan to a movie in Jackson Saturday after next. Be sure and bring enough money to pay my way and buy a Black Whip. I like Black Whips. You should know that about me since we’re going steady.”

I had to get out of this quick. “Who says we’re going steady?”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Everyone. They all know what you did to me at the party.”

“Do I get some say in this deal?”

“You wouldn’t come into GroVont and put your tongue in just any girl’s mouth, would you? Maybe that’s how they do things back East, but in Teton County we’re moral.”

“I thought I was supposed to kiss you in the closet.”

“That reminds me, you’re supposed to give me your jacket.”

Now I was riled. Thirty degrees below zero and this little moon-face wants my coat because I pity-kissed her. I said the most self-righteous thing I could come up with at the moment.

“What?”

“It’ll be a letter jacket in the ninth grade, but we’ll make do for right now.”

I set down my fork. “Charlotte, there is no way I’m giving you my coat.”

Tears leapt into her eyes. She wasn’t so pitifully helpless after all. “Ever’one’ll think you took advantage of me if you don’t give me something to seal our love. They’ll say I’m cheap.” Her lower lip went atremble.

“Jesus,” I said.

“Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“How about a scarf? My grandfather gave me this scarf.” Actually I shoplifted it at Sears when I found out we were moving West. “It belonged to my grandmother. Is a scarf good enough?”

She stopped crying like turning off a faucet. “Let me see it.”

I handed her the thing. It was green and about a yard long. I figured I could survive the walk home without it.

Chuckette stuffed the scarf in her purse. “It’ll do, I guess. You’ll have to buy me a gold chain for our anniversary.”

“Our anniversary?”

Across the cafeteria, I saw Maurey carrying her tray over to a table of ninth-graders. She had on Dothan’s jacket.

“And another thing,” Chuckette said. “All touching stays above the neck until we’re engaged.”

When I came home, Hank’s truck was parked in the yard, which I took as a good sign. Lydia’s the kind of person who when she’s not happy she doesn’t want anyone around her happy either. She can be real uncomfortable to live with when she sets her mind on it. A bitch.

Otis hopped across the road and dropped a red ball at my feet, then gazed up at me with those melted chocolate eyes that only a dog can pull off. Thirty below or not, I had to throw the damn thing.

Otis was really fast, when you consider his missing part. The problem—there’s always a problem—was the ball was rubber and he’d slobbered on it and the slobber froze to my mitten, so throwing didn’t work out well. The ball had a tendency to stick for an instant, then wobble off about ten feet the wrong way. Otis would pounce on it with his front feet and drool some more before getting a good grip.

I finally launched a fairly good throw way up and toward the house. Otis took off like a shaky shot, timing his leap so as to be most impressive. Just as he jumped, the rubber ball hit the wall and shattered into a zillion pieces.

Made me feel like cold crap. Otis hopped around looking for his toy, actually stepping on the shards of frozen rubber. You’d think I’d destroyed his best pal. Maybe I did, hell, dogs can’t tell toys from friends.

Inside, the toilet paper rolls were gone from Les’s nose and the door to Lydia’s room was closed, so I figured we were into a make-up scene. They really did like each other. It’s a shame when people who like each other aren’t on speaking terms. Goes against the natural order.

I sang “Surfer Joe” which was big on KOMA that week, so they’d know the kid was home from school and to keep it down. Cute couple or not, I wasn’t in the mood for moans and screams from my own mother. I fed Alice, popped open a Dr Pepper and dug out some peanut butter cookies, and wandered into the living room.

The thing with Chuckette bothered me, but the thing with Maurey bothered me more. This jacket deal was some kind of a localized social ritual indicating romantic commitment. An anthropologist could go to town on these northern rural types. Maybe in the early days when a warm coat was a matter of survival, giving a woman your jacket was the ultimate love gesture. Anyhow, Maurey was wearing Dothan’s tan-and-dirt letter jacket with the gv on the right breast—definitely a sign of bad news.