Tim Sandlin - Skipped Parts

“Maurey?”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

I turned on the lights and opened the window so she could crawl in, which was awkward on account of her growing belly. Maurey’s hair was one tangled mess, her jeans caked with mud.

“Why not knock at the door?”

“You might of thought I was Daddy and been scared.”

“I was scared.”

Scooting over my desk, she got mud in the typewriter. Her eyes were puffy red. Red and blue makes an odd combination.

“Can I sleep on your couch tonight?” Maurey asked.

“You can sleep in the bed, I’ll take the couch.”

“I need some water. My mouth tastes like dead stuff.”

When I came back from the kitchen with her glass of water, Maurey hadn’t moved. She just stood there with her hands at her sides, her shoulders slumped. I’d never seen Maurey with poor posture.

I handed her the water. “How did it go?”

“He said I’m a slut and a whore. He’s ashamed to have me for a daughter.” I think she’d put a lot of stock in Buddy being understanding. Everyone thinks love changes attitudes, but it doesn’t.

“You just surprised him is all. I mean he’s a father and he’s real old, you can’t expect instant faith. He’ll think about it awhile and come around.”

Maurey collapsed into my desk chair. “No, he won’t. Daddy has morals and I don’t.”

I wanted to touch her, but I couldn’t. “What have you been doing since you talked to him?”

She blinked three or four times. “Can I sleep on your couch tonight or not?”

“Of course you can. Do you want more water?” Maurey shook her head no. She hadn’t touched what I got her the first time.

“Are you back to stay?” I asked.

She looked at the floor. “I don’t know anything, Sam. Please let me sleep before you ask another question.”

“I won’t ask any more questions.”

She patted my knee. “Thanks, pal.”

“Do you want a Valium?”

“No.”

The extent of life’s changes didn’t take any king-hell long time in coming down. Eight-thirty a.m., when Maurey and I swept through the front doors of GroVont Junior High, we were met with the same low-key tact they would have used on Martians. Their eyes were like dogs seeing an elephant for the first time.

“I feel like Lee Harvey Oswald,” Maurey said.

“Which one is our Jack Ruby?”

The silence was too loud to handle. I wanted to tap dance or yell “ Fire ” or something, anything to get a reaction from the twin lines of kids backed up against their lockers.

“It’s like we have the ultimate cooties,” Maurey said fairly quietly.

“If I touched LaNell she would scream.” LaNell and LaDell stood next to the girl’s room, staring as if we were on TV; they could see us but we couldn’t see them.

I was torn between intimidated and cocky. I mean, their eyes showed scorn and outrage at what I’d done, I think, but every kid in school also knew I’d seen a girl naked. That was their dream and now they knew I’d done it. No one could ever accuse me of virginity again. “You’d think nobody in the seventh grade ever got pregnant.”

Maurey lifted her chin in what I took as a pride move. “They can’t bother me.”

“Right.”

“Let’s go to class.”

“You think they hate us or envy us?”

“You and I are beyond their comprehension.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Florence Talbot was so angry her ears were white. When Maurey and I walked past, she slammed her locker—sounded like a bomb—and stepped right behind us. Like stupid sheep, the others fell in behind Florence. I could hear her breathing in my ear and everyone else’s shuffling loafers, tennis shoes, and cowboy boots. We must have looked like a damn parade.

Chuckette was the only one waiting in homeroom. We’re talking pitiful. You’d think God himself stole her charm bracelet. Puffed eyes, mouth a red gash, she hadn’t even ratted and sprayed her hair; looked like a nest on top her head. I felt bad for her. Chuckette had been raised in a certain way: boyfriends loved girlfriends, kids who respected each other didn’t touch below the neck, motherhood is the highest deal and unmarried motherhood the lowest, and life—make that Maurey and I— had blasted all that moral theory to hell.

I avoided her, but Maurey walked over to her desk and said, “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

Chuckette wouldn’t raise her head. From my seat, all I could see were tears dripping off her weak chin.

Stebbins had long ago quit trying to teach us anything. The last couple of months of school, he sat behind his desk reading from whatever book I fed him. Seemed to me the underachiever types would learn more from hearing a story than discussing one they hadn’t read. Some of the kids even listened. After Tortilla Flat , Teddy went to the Jackson library, checked out Cannery Row , and read it on his own time. Nothing like that ever happened in seventh-grade English before.

Because it was the last week of school, the last two days actually since classes ended Tuesday, I’d put Howard Stebbins onto The Artificial Nigger by Flannery O’Connor—might as well hit them with something spiffy at the end. I made him change it to The Artificial Afro-American .

Normally you’d think unwed pregnancy would be one of those deals where everyone talks behind your back, but, to your face, ignorance reigns. Florence Talbot wasn’t normal. Howard Stebbins read about three paragraphs into The Artificial Afro-American when she interrupted.

“Is it immoral to knock someone up in junior high?”

Howard looked up from his book.

Florence went on in her razor-cut voice. “I think people who have illegitimate sex should hide at home in shame.”

Maurey said, “Go fuck yourself, Florence.”

One of the Smith twins gasped, but after that we went into a could-have-heard-a-pin-drop situation. Howard ran his hand over his forehead, wishy-washy written all over his face. He couldn’t very well let a student get away with saying fuck in class, nor could he ignore Florence’s shame crack, but he wasn’t in much of a position for public confrontations. Rock Springs hung over his head like rotten meat.

Howard looked back down at his book and read, “He might have been Vergil summoned in the middle of the night to go to Dante, or better, Raphael, awakened by a blast of God’s light to fly to the side of Tobias.”

Florence’s voice was a screech. “Maurey said a whore word.”

I said, “Shut up, Florence.”

Chuckette sobbed and ran from the room.

“Now look what you did,” LaNell said.

Teddy spit but missed the Maxwell House can and came dangerously close to my sneaker.

Stebbins read, “The only dark spot in the room was Nelson’s pallet, underneath the shadow of the window.”

LaDell stood up. “I better go see about Charlotte.” She faced me. “Her poor heart’s broken, there’s no telling what she might do.”

A girl named Jenny that I hadn’t spoken four words to all year burst into tears.

Stebbins read, “Nelson was hunched over on his side, his knees under his chin and his heels under his bottom.”

“I can’t stay in a room beside white trash,” Florence said. “The stench hurts my stomach.”

Maurey repeated, “Go fuck yourself.”

Florence and LaNell and some more who just wanted to skip class left. The rest of us stared at the floor, listening to Jenny whimper. I wanted to see Maurey’s face, to see if she was unhappy or mad or what. Lydia had been coaching her on this moment all along. Attitudes were worked out weeks in advance, to the point where “Go fuck yourself” might turn into Maurey’s theme for the next three months.