Chapter 5

Next thing I knew, it was Thursday morning, and I hadn’t peed in the bed, so I hoped that was a sign it might be a good day. Of course, I was feeling pretty tired, because I hadn’t slept much during the night and all, but that was okay with me, because at least I didn’t pee in the bed.

     I got up and got ready for school, and went down to the paper box and got the newspaper, then came back in the house and fixed myself some cinnamon toast and chocolate milk, and then sat down to eat real quick while I read the ball scores.

     But just as I was sitting down, here comes Mom into the kitchen. She didn’t say good morning or anything, she just picked up the 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses and handed it to me. I didn’t even try to argue about wanting to read the newspaper instead, or anything, I just took the book from her and opened it up to Thursday, June 5, and started reading it out loud to her:

This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.—Matt. 24:14

This remarkable prophecy has been largely fulfilled, and is still in course of fulfillment, not by Christendom with all her earthly kings, wars and political squabbles, but by true believers in Almighty God and in the heavenly kingdom of his Messiah. We know who it was that fulfilled the inspired prophecies in the sacred Hebrew Scriptures as respects the promised Messiah. We know that this one was the greatest advocate of God’s Messianic kingdom ever on earth. This Messiah is “Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” (Matt. 1:1)  His kingdom is heavenly and is able to break the power of Satan the Devil, who is a disobedient heavenly angel, the prince of demon angels. It is our privilege to let mankind, who are pitiful victims of the Devil and his demons, know that through Jehovah’s kingdom they can get lasting liberation. Are you doing your part?

     As soon as I got finished reading the daily text, I was sure Mom was gonna jump right in on me about when was I gonna get baptized and when was I gonna start doing my part in preaching the good news of the kingdom to all the inhabited earth. And sure enough, as soon as I closed the book and put it down on the table, she looked at me like she was about to say something. But then out of nowhere the sound of the school bus coming up the hill got me off the hook. I didn’t wait around a second longer, either. I jumped up from the table and grabbed my school books and ran out the door and down the driveway.

     When I got on the bus, I sat down and looked at Danny.

     He said, “0 for four,” and started smiling real big, and then opened his mouth like there was more coming.

     I said, “Don’t even say it.”

     He said, “What?  Say what?”

     I said, “You know what. I know what you’re thinking, so don’t even bother saying it.”

     “Okay, okay,” he said.

     I pulled a ten dollar bill out of my pocket and handed it to him, trying to make sure nobody saw me doing it. Freddie was sitting way back on the back of the bus, as usual, so I knew he couldn’t see it.

     Danny said, “What’s this for?”

     I said, “For the James Taylor tape. You know, you’re gonna get it for me tonight, remember?  For Ginny’s birthday?”

     He said, “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Okay.”

     We don’t usually talk very much on the way to school in the mornings, like I told you before, but I just had to tell Danny about the twenty-four baseballs that Grandpa gave me, and that I’d give him a few of them, which he really seemed to appreciate.

     “Come on down after school today,” he said, “and we’ll try one of them out. Nothing feels better than throwing a big slow curve with a brand new baseball. Nothing. They just seem to break and break forever.”

     But I told him I couldn’t come down today, or for the whole next week, because of that fight me and Freddie had yesterday after school, the one where I called him a bastard, which got me grounded for a week.

     He said, “Does that mean you can’t go with us to the park on Sunday?”

     I said, “I don’t know. I was afraid to ask Mom about that when she grounded me. Just have to wait and see. I don’t know.”

     That’s about all we said the rest of the way to school.

     Nothing unusual happened before homeroom. I stood around out in the hallway shooting the crap with Wallace and Wendall, like always. And then they got into this big shoving match, like always. This time it was about what Wallace wrote in Wendall’s annual the day before, which was something like, “To Wendall, who’ll spend all summer jerking off over this picture,”  which he wrote on page 100, right across the top of that sexy picture of Miss Hiller that took up the whole page. Anyway, Wendall left his annual laying around his house that night, and his little eight year old sister picked it up and was looking at it, and she read what was written on Miss Hiller’s picture, and she took it and showed it to Wendall’s mom and asked her what did “jerking off” mean. And of course Wendall’s mom went ape shit about it. So Wendall came back to school that next day and was threatening to kill Wallace, as usual. I don’t blame Wendall for being pissed off about it, really. But Wallace thought it was pretty damn funny. It’s always something with those two, they’re best friends and all, but they can’t get along for five seconds.

     I was just glad Wallace didn’t write anything about jerking off on Miss Hiller’s picture in my annual, because I was planning on getting Miss Hiller to sign it there herself. All Wallace wrote in mine was something like, “You’re okay. Try to grow some over the summer so you’ll be a great baseball participater. Your friend, C. Wallace Davis.”

     Actually, Wallace and Wendall were about the only ones who had signed my annual, besides Ginny and a couple of my teachers. There wasn’t exactly a long line of people wanting to sign it, or begging me to sign theirs, either. Which was fine by me, like I said before, because mostly people just write useless crap in them anyway, so why bother. But I was gonna be good and sure to get Miss Hiller to sign mine before the year was over, I just hadn’t found the right time to ask her yet. I was really hoping she’d write something cool for me, too, instead of the same old lame stuff most teachers write. Teachers are even worse than kids when it comes to thinking of something original to say. They mostly just write “good luck” or something. Like, my Science teacher wrote, “May the very best come to Warren, W. W. Tweedy.”  And my Algebra teacher wrote, “Enjoyed having you in class. Good Luck, Nancy Thompson.”  And my Typing teacher wrote, “Warren, I have enjoyed having you in typing class!  You are a good worker!  Have a nice summer!  Gayle Kelsey.”

     When I got to first period that morning, Miss Hiller was already in there sitting at her desk, so while she was waiting for everybody to come in so she could call the roll and all, I went up to ask her about Grandpa Hollins coming in the next day to talk to the class, and to see if she would sign my annual.

     I told her all about Grandpa Hollins coming down from Pittsburgh the night before to see us, and how he’d seen my Slaughterhouse-Five book and read a few pages of it, and then told me he’d actually been on one of the planes that dropped the bombs on Dresden, and how I’d asked him if he would consider coming in and talking to our class about it on Friday morning, and how he said he was planning on leaving early Friday morning, but he’d put off leaving for a little while if she wanted him to come in.

     Well, Miss Hiller seemed pretty thrilled when I told her all that. And she said it was a great idea for Grandpa to come in and talk to us. She kept smiling and smiling and thanking me for coming up with the idea, over and over, like it was the best thing anybody had ever thought of before, which made me feel pretty good, let me tell you.

     The whole time I was standing there talking to her, I had my annual in my hand, and I was just getting ready to hand it to her and ask her if she’d sign it for me, when I got interrupted by the stupid intercom hanging on the wall behind her desk.

     Somebody down in the office starting saying, “MISS HILLER?  MISS HILLER?” over the intercom.

     Miss Hiller said, “Yes?”

     And the voice from the intercom said, “MISS HILLER, IS THERE A WARREN GRUBBER IN YOUR CLASS THIS PERIOD?”

     Miss Hiller said, “Yes, there is. He’s standing right here.”

     “WILL YOU EXCUSE WARREN GRUBBER FOR THE REST OF THE PERIOD AND SEND HIM DOWN TO THE GUIDANCE OFFICES, PLEASE. THANK YOU.”

     “Certainly,” Miss Hiller said back to the intercom, “Thank you.”

     Then she turned to me and said, “I guess that’s it for you this period, huh. Oh, yes, please, by all means, have your grandfather come in tomorrow, I’d be so grateful if he would. I’m sure the whole class would enjoy it. Okay?”

     I said, “Okay. See ya tomorrow.”

     I grabbed up my books and headed on down to the guidance offices. When I got there I had to sit on the bench outside their offices, and wait and wait and wait for one of them to call me in. Mr. Higgins was in one office and Mrs. Erskine was in the other. I was hoping like hell that Mrs. Erskine would be the one to call me in, mainly because Mr. Higgins was the one that Freddie had witnessed to the other day, and given the Truth book to and all, like I told you about before, and Mom had been after me to witness to Mr. Higgins, too, if he called me in, which I definitely didn’t feel like doing, of course. The other reason I was hoping for Mrs. Erskine is because she’s not bad looking, really. She’s not nearly as hot as Miss Hiller, but she ain’t bad, and she ain’t real old or anything, either.

     I was sitting there waiting and waiting, and after a while Mrs. Erskine’s door popped open and she came through it, and I jumped up off the bench ready to zip right in there. But she didn’t call my name or anything, she just walked right past me like she didn’t even see me standing there, and she went over to a coffee pot that was sitting on a little table out there in the waiting area, and started fixing herself a cup of coffee. She was wearing a kinda short tight skirt and was bending over trying to get at a pack of sugar or something that was on the very bottom shelf under the coffee pot, and I sat back down on the bench there behind her, trying to see what all I could see with her bending over like that, with her skirt riding up her ass little by little as she kept bending over more and more, trying to reach whatever it was she was trying to reach. To tell you the truth, seeing her bent over like that kinda gave me a hardon, which made me feel a little guilty, because I figured she wouldn’t be bending over like that if she knew the view I was getting.

     Well, she finally reached the sugar pack or whatever it was she was reaching for, and she stood back up and pulled her skirt back down to where it was, and started fixing her coffee. Then she turned around real quick, and that’s when she must have seen me for the first time, because she said “Oh!” and acted real surprised to see me sitting there, and a little embarrassed, too. Then she just kinda smiled and said, “Hi.”

     I was fixing to say hi back to her, but just then Mr. Higgins opened his door and looked out at me and said, “Warren Grubber?”  And I said yes sir, and he said, “Good. In here.”

     I went in to Mr. Higgins’s office and sat down in a chair against the wall, across from his desk. He said, “Okay, let’s take a quick look at your records and see what we got here.”  He started looking at some papers he took from a folder that had my name printed on the top of it in big capital letters. He didn’t say anything for a while, he just sat there reading over my records. So I started looking around his office, which wasn’t real big or anything, but it wasn’t what you’d call real small, either. He had a bunch of college posters hanging on all the walls, and there were lots of books and magazines and folders and papers and crap, stacked up and scattered around everywhere, on top of his desk and in the floor and over on some book shelves, all over the place.

     That’s when I saw the copy of the Truth book, the one Freddie had brought in and given to him a day or so before. It was laying under a pile of papers on his desk, almost covered up. But the corner of it was sticking out far enough so I could tell it was the Truth book. I can spot a Truth book a mile away.

     Well, like I said before, Mom had told me to be sure to witness to Mr. Higgins, if I got the chance to, the way Freddie did, because that’s the way most people come into the Truth, after they’ve been witnessed to over and over a bunch of times by different people. And I’d told Mom I would, if I got the chance, but I knew all along that I wouldn’t. I was sitting there, waiting for Mr. Higgins to finish reading over my school records, looking at that Truth book peeking out from under the pile of papers, and all I could think about was the daily text that Mom made me read out loud to her that morning, which was about witnessing to all the inhabited earth before the end comes, and the last sentence of the text started running through my head, over and over:  Are you doing your part?  Are you doing your part?  Are YOU doing YOUR part? 

     Finally, Mr. Higgins looked up and said, “Okay, everything in here looks pretty good. Your grades don’t look too bad. Could be better. But not bad.”

     Then he reached across his desk and handed me a sheet of paper that had a list of all the classes I could sign up for, for next year.

     “Okay,” he said, “let’s start with what we know. You gotta take English next year, and you gotta take P.E., that’s a given. And you gotta have either a History or Geography.”

     Right away I said, “Geography.”  I wanted that instead of History because Danny took Geography this year, and he told me Mr. Seely, the guy that teaches it, is really easy and never gives you any homework, and you don’t have to study much in there, and you get to cut-up a lot in his class. So that sounded a lot better to me than History with Mrs. Rhineholt, who I’d heard was just the opposite. I’d heard she was a bigger Nazi than my old eighth-grade Math teacher, Miss Schull.

     Mr. Higgins said, “Good, good. We’re halfway there. Now, let’s talk about electives. First, you ought to think about what your plans are for the future, ‘cause if you’re planning on college, you need to take certain classes to prepare yourself, like Biology and Chemistry, and a foreign language, definitely, like French or Spanish or Latin, and a higher Math, like Geometry or Trig. What d’ya think?”

     I said, “About what?”

     “About, are you planning to go to college or not.”

     I said, “No.”

     “Why is that?”  He looked back at one of the sheets from my folder. “I’m looking at your records here, and I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t be college material. All you’d have to do is maybe work a little harder, bring your grades up a little bit, take the right classes, join some clubs, get involved. Wouldn’t take much. I don’t see a problem with you getting into a college, if you start planning now and work at it for the next few years. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?  What’s the problem?”

     I wanted to say something like, well, Mr. Higgins, you know, sir, Armageddon is coming in October, you see, and what that means is, me and you and Miss Hiller and Ginny Milner and Danny Riley and Wallace Davis and Wendall Dalton and Pete Rose and James Taylor and the Doobie Brothers and my father and my grandfather and my Uncle Virgil and all the rest of my uncles and cousins and every other worldly person who isn’t a Jehovah’s Witness is gonna get blown all to hell and destroyed, for forever and ever, so I don’t think worrying about what stupid science class I should take next year or what stupid foreign language class I should take next year or what stupid math class I should be taking next year so I can be sure and get myself into Harvard or Yale or Oxford or Central Virginia Community College or somewhere is really worth worrying about. In fact, as far as my future is concerned, I think it’s a little too late to worry about much of anything. My ass is grass and it has been for a long time.

     Of course I couldn’t say any of that to Mr. Higgins. What I did say was, “Uh, I just don’t think I’ll be able to.”

     “Well, why do you say that?  Is it the money?  You think your parents won’t be able to afford it?  Is that it?  Maybe you and your parents don’t realize it, but there’s always lots of scholarships available for kids that deserve them, and there’s always student loans, you know, which you don’t have to start paying back until after you graduate from college. Hey, that’s how I got through. Still paying on them babies, too. So for right now I wouldn’t even worry about the money part, if I were you, if that’s what’s holding you back. Is that what you think is holding you back, the money part?”

     “No.”

     “Well, it has to be something.”

     “I’m just not gonna go, that’s all.”

     Mr. Higgins looked at me a long time like I was crazy or something. Then he said, “Okay. Fine. Whatever. Look on your sheet there and pick three electives for next year and we’ll be done here.”

     I looked down at the sheet. I honestly didn’t care what I signed up for, beings I was only gonna have to go to them classes for about a month or so anyway, because Armageddon was gonna be on October the 2nd or 3rd, I couldn’t remember which day exactly. So what difference did it make what classes I took?

     I said, “Art II.”

     “Okay.”

     “Wood Shop.”

     “Okay.”

     “And, uh, uh, Study Hall.”

     “Okay.”  He checked them off as I called them out. “I guess that’ll do it then,” he said.

     He started putting all the papers back into my little folder. But then all of a sudden he stopped and looked up at me like something had just dawned on him right out of the blue or something.

     “Tell me something,” he said, “are you any kin to that other Grubber kid, what’s his name, uh, Freddie?  Yeah, that’s it. You any kin to Freddie Grubber?”

     “He’s my older brother,” I said, even though I didn’t want to.

     Mr. Higgins said, “Oh.”  Then he started scrambling around in the papers on top of his desk, like he was looking for something, which I guess it was the Truth book he was looking for, because when he uncovered it, he picked it up and stepped over to the window behind his desk.

     He stood there with his back to me, looking out the window for a minute or so, like he was thinking hard about something really important, and then he started thumbing through the Truth book, but not really looking at it or anything, just kinda flipping the pages back and forth. Finally, he turned around and said to me in a real fatherly sounding serious kinda voice, “Warren, how about doing me a little favor. How about taking some time this summer and thinking a little bit about your future. Your real future. And when school starts back up next fall, we can always get you into some of those other classes I mentioned, we can always switch your schedule around. It won’t be too late, you know.”

     Soon as he said all that, he pitched that Truth book across the room, and it landed in the trash can on the other side of his desk, right in front of where I was sitting.

     “Do that. Okay, son?” he said.

     I said, “Okay.”

     Meeting with Mr. Higgins like that took up all of my first period, so I didn’t get to go back for my daily dose of Miss Hiller, or get the chance to ask her if she’d sign my annual, like I wanted to. But at least I’d gotten the okay for Grandpa Hollins to come in the next day and talk to the class, so I was pretty happy about that, because Miss Hiller seemed so excited about it.

     And then for a while there, some other good stuff started happening, right in a row, that made me think the whole day might turn out okay. Like for one thing, when I went to second period Typing, Miss Kelsey handed us back a big project we’d done the week before, and I got an A on it, which surprised the hell out of me. It was the first A I’d ever gotten on a project in her class. That might not seem like a big deal to anybody else, but I usually only get C’s or B’s in that class. I’ll tell you something, typing can be a lot harder than you might think, because Miss Kelsey expects everything to be just perfect when you hand in a typing project, and that’s hard to do, especially when you’re typing on one of them old rickety typewriters we have to type on. They’re not electric or anything.

     And then about the same thing happened in Algebra, which is third period, except it was even better. In there, we got back a big test we’d taken a week or so ago, and I made an A on that one, too. But the really great thing about it was, it made my average for the nine weeks work out to be an A, and that meant I wouldn’t have to take the Algebra exam the next week. You see, some teacher’s don’t make you take the final exam if your average is an A, and Mrs. Thompson is one of those teachers. I was really happy about that. I do pretty good in Algebra, but I definitely didn’t want to take the exam, if I could get out of it.

     And then in fifth period things got even better. Mr. Michaels told everybody he was gonna let our current projects count as our exam grades, so all we had to do was be finished with them by the end of the exam period, which was the next Tuesday. Well, that wasn’t gonna be a problem for me, because to tell the truth, I was already finished up with that Mark Twain drawing I was doing, more or less. Really, for the last week or so I’d only been scratching out a line or two on it, here and there, while I spent most of the period talking to Ginny, and she was doing about the same thing with her James Taylor drawing. So it looked like we’d both come out real good in Art.

     Ginny and I were working along on our drawings in fifth period, but mainly we were just talking, and I was telling her all about Grandpa Hollins showing up the night before, and about the baseballs he gave me, and how he was gonna be coming to school the next day and talking to my English class, during first period, and all that.

     Ginny said, “Oh, hey, that reminds me. I saw you this morning at the end of first period, coming out of Mr. Higgins’s office.”

     I said, “Yeah?  I was in there signing up for my next year’s classes. How’d you see me in there, I didn’t see you?”

     She said, “I’d just gone into Mrs. Erskine’s office. I was sitting down and she was closing the door behind me, and I turned and looked and just before she closed the door I saw you coming out of Higgins’s door.”

     “Oh. I wish I’d seen you, but I didn’t.”

     “You were looking the other way,” she said. “Hey, did you sign up for Art II next year?  I did.”

     I said, “I sure did.”

     “So did I!  That’s great!  We’ll probably be in the same class again!  I hope!”

     When it got to be close to the end of the period, Mr. Michaels told everybody to start cleaning up and putting their stuff away. So I put the lid back on Ginny’s ink bottle and was getting ready to take it back to the supply closet for her, like I always do everyday. But just as I was gonna stand up and go back there, Ginny grabbed me by the arm and whispered, “Wait a minute.”

     I said, “What?”

     She said, “Just wait a minute, okay?”

     I didn’t know what she was getting at, but I sat back down and waited, like she wanted me to, while everybody else was taking their stuff back to the closet.

     Ginny kept looking at her watch, and watching everybody going back and forth, putting their stuff away. Then after a few minutes or so she whispered, “Okay. Now.”

     I couldn’t figure out why she was acting so funny all of a sudden, so I just got up and went to the back of the room and walked into the little supply closet and set the ink bottle up on the shelf where it always goes, with the rest of the ink bottles. And when I was turning around to go back out again, I didn’t know it, but Ginny was standing there behind me, and I bumped right into her.

     Before I could say excuse me or anything, she put a finger up to her lips and went, “Shhhhh,” real soft like. Then she took my hands and put them up on her shoulders, and she put her arms around my waist, and she leaned forward and kissed me. But it wasn’t like the little kiss she gave me the day before out in the hallway, which had been just a quick peck on the cheek, really. No-sir-ree. This one was a big wet juicy one right on the lips, just like in a movie or on TV or something. And then, about halfway through it, she did something that was really wild, she stuck her tongue in my mouth and started moving it around back and forth up against my tongue!  She was giving me a French kiss!  Man, I couldn’t believe it!

     It lasted at least fifteen seconds, and right at the end of it the bell rang. So Ginny stepped back and gave me that great big beautiful I’m-the-happiest-girl-in-the-whole-wide-world smile of hers, and she turned and looked back at me over her shoulder and said, “Don’t forget to call me tonight, okay Footboy?”  Then she was gone.

     Well, after getting a kiss like that, you better believe my head was kinda swimming around and around, going crazy, and other parts of me were going crazy, too, and I ran into a couple of shelves and bumped into the door trying to get out of the closet there. Luckily I didn’t knock anything over or break anything. When I finally did make it out of the closet, Ginny was gone already. So I grabbed up my books and stuff and headed out for sixth period gym class. And I’ll tell you something, man, I was feeling sky-high, believe you me. Not only had I just gotten my first real kiss, but it’d been a French kiss, no less. All I could think about on the way to gym class was Ginny’s tongue and how strange and warm and wonderful it felt, and that smile on her face, and how my lips were still buzzing, and what a day this was turning out to be.

     I hate to even go into what happened next, but I guess I have to. When I got down to the gym, I went into the locker room and started putting on my gym suit, getting ready for softball. I was standing there in front of my locker, with my left foot up on the bench there, tying my tennis shoe, when all of a sudden Lamar Jackson came blowing into the locker room like a damn freight train or something, and he stormed by me and gave me a big stiff-armed shove from the side, as he was going by, without saying anything or even looking at me.

     I lost my balance of course, and I fell all the way over to my right, over against George Sutton, whose gym locker is a couple of lockers down from mine, on the same row. George is an okay guy most of the time, really. He’s a pretty big guy and looks a lot older than he actually is and he has a mustache and sideburns already and he’s always pretty quiet. He never says much to anybody. Anyway, when I fell over into him like that, my chin landed right on his knee, which caused me to bite down on the tip of my tongue real hard, and caused him to push me back in the other direction real hard, just as a reflex I guess. And he yelled, “Get the hell off me, Grubworm.” 

     When he pushed me back in the other direction like that, I fell back face first into my locker door, which was standing open because I hadn’t finished putting my regular clothes away yet. And my mouth hit the edge of the locker door, and it kinda split both of my lips open a little bit, right down the middle of my mouth, and it started bleeding right much. My lips didn’t hurt all that bad, but they were bleeding pretty good, and I could feel them already starting to swell up a little bit, too. My tongue was another story. It hurt like a sonofabitch where I bit it, and I could tell it was bleeding pretty good, too.

     At first, I just kinda stood there, holding my hand up against my mouth, pulling it away and spitting blood on the floor every fifteen or twenty seconds or so. George looked over at me and said, “Why you gotta be such a big pussy all the time, Grubbie?  Jesus Christ.”  Then he slammed his locker shut and walked on out of the locker room.

     I felt a little woozy, so I sat down on the bench there in front of my locker for a little while and closed my eyes, so I wouldn’t see the blood, even though I could taste it. I didn’t cry or anything. The bleeding stopped after a few minutes or so. That’s something about me, I never bleed too much, whenever I get hurt. My blood usually clots up pretty fast. That’s one good thing, I guess, since seeing blood has a tendency to make me pass out and all, like I told you before. After a few more minutes, I felt like I was gonna be okay, so I pulled my tee shirt up and wiped the blood off my mouth, and then went on outside and played softball for the rest of the period. But I didn’t get any hits.

     When I got on the bus that afternoon and sat down beside Danny, he looked over at me and saw how my mouth was busted up and still kinda crusted with up blood and all, and how both of my lips were swollen up pretty good. He said, “Good lord, what the hell happened to you?”

     I just shook my head and said, “I accwadenwy whan ina guy, pwaying sawbwaw.”  

     He said, “WHAT?”

     “I he’wa bwaw pwasa fwirse bwaseman, kep wowwing dwowna wighfwiel wine. Bwywa twime awighfwiewer gowit, I was wowwnin swecwon bwase, bwut I wan smwack dwab wighina shworswop, who was swandin ina way.”

     Man, Danny got a big laugh out of that, that I sounded retarded or something, because of my swollen lips and busted tongue. It’s bad enough when you gotta tell somebody a made up lie about something, but it’s even worse when you sound like a retard telling it.

     I closed my eyes and sank down as deep into the bus seat as far as I could and wished the world would leave me alone for a little while.

     He kept on laughing, but then he stopped all of a sudden, I guess because I wasn’t acting like I thought it was funny, too. I was just sitting there with my head down, holding one hand over my eyes and the other hand over my mouth. I wasn’t crying, though. I just wanted to rest a little bit. I felt real tired all of a sudden. Then I realized it was because I’d stayed up most of the last night, trying to keep myself awake so I wouldn’t pee in the bed.

     Finally Danny said something like, “Jesus, Warren. Shit’s always happening to you, ain’t it.”

     I didn’t look up. I said, “Shouwa bwen a twippwa, bwu was onwee a dwubwa. Fwukin shworswop.”

     We didn’t talk any more the rest of the way home.

     When I got off the bus the first thing I noticed was Grandpa’s car in the driveway, and Dad’s car was sitting right beside it, which was unusual, because usually Dad was gone to work by the time I got home from school. Then the second thing I noticed was when I went into the house. I could tell right away that Mom was pretty mad about something or another, because she had on her Mad Face.

     Well, you can bet I know better than to say anything to Mom when she’s wearing her Mad Face, because half the time it’s something stupid I’ve done and she’s just found out about it that’s caused her to put it on in the first place. So I know just to stay clear when I see that look on her face, which is exactly what I was planning on doing. But then stupid Freddie walked in and asked her what was up, and I thought to myself, uh oh, here it comes, you better high tail it out of here before all hell breaks loose. But it wasn’t me that caused it this time, believe it or not. As soon as Freddie asked her what was up, she started going off about how Grandpa out of the blue last night decided to buy Dad a pool table, which was the last thing she needed sitting down in the basement, she said, just something else to attract all the drunks up to the house every weekend. So anyway, Grandpa and Dad got up first thing that morning and went into town and bought a pool table and had it delivered, and then Dad called the Foundry and told them he was gonna take the rest of the week off as vacation time, and now they’d both been downstairs all day drinking and smoking and shooting pool and carrying on and raising a ruckus like they were in some beerhall somewhere.

     When Mom finished telling all that to Freddie, she looked over at me and saw what kind of shape my mouth was in, with my lips all busted and swollen up and all, and she asked me what happened. So I told her the same lie about running into the shortstop that I told Danny on the school bus, but I left off the fwukin shworswop part, of course. I was still having trouble getting my words to come out plain enough to understand, so it took her a while to figure out everything I was trying to say. But after she’d heard it all, she told me I ought to be more careful and watch out where I was running, next time, and to go put some ice on my mouth, to try to take the swelling down some.  

     Well, since she was acting at least halfway concerned about me and my busted mouth, and maybe feeling a little bit sorry for me, I figured it’d be a good time to tell her how tired I was and that I didn’t feel so hot, and ask her if it was alright if I stayed home and didn’t go to the Kingdom Hall that night. So I asked her.

     “No-sir-ree,” she said. “You are not getting out of going to the Kingdom Hall tonight, just because your mouth is swollen up a little bit, and just so you can stay home and play pool with your Dad and Grandpa. Don’t try to pull a trick like that on me, young man, no way. Besides, you know good and well you’ve got a talk to give tonight. Remember?  Don’t think I’ve forgotten about it, either, because I haven’t.”

     “A tawk?”  I said. “I can’t gib a tawk sowden wike dis.”

     She said, “Oh yes you can. You can and you will. You ain’t getting out of it, so don’t even try.”

     “Buh I sownd wike I’m weetwarded or somfin. Can’t Fweedie gib it fwor me?”

     “Hey, I don’t give number two talks anymore,” Freddie said. “I only give number five talks. I’m not giving it for you, so forget it.”

     Mom said, “That’s right, Warren. You’re gonna give it, and that’s that. Got it?”

     “Buh Mwom, I swounda wike I bween twu a dwenwist and had haf my tweef pwud, and got my mwouf pwumpd fwul wof nwobacaine or somfin. Pweeze, dwon mwak me gwo two da Hawl twanite. Pweeeeeze!”

     Mom was just standing there with her arms folded across her chest. She said, “Are you through?  I hope you’re through, because I’m tired of listening to it. You are giving that talk tonight and that’s final and you better just get used to it.”

     “Bwu Mwom—“

     “That’s final, Warren, so you better just shut up about it. I don’t want to hear another word. Not another word.”

     Well, I could tell there wasn’t any use to argue about it anymore, it wouldn’t do me any good, I was gonna lose, like always. Mom always wins, no matter what I say. So I decided to just give up, and go downstairs for a few minutes to check out Dad’s new pool table, and to give Grandpa the news that it was okay for him to come to school the next day and talk to my English class about the time he helped bomb Dresden.

     They were both kinda drunk down there, shooting pool, and of course they laughed at the way I was talking and how I looked with my busted mouth and all, and I had to go through the shortstop lie for them, too, which made them laugh even harder. That was a real hoot for them.

     Then Grandpa wanted me to shoot a game of pool with him, but I told him I couldn’t because I was feeling real tired and I had a bunch of homework to get done before I went to the Kingdom Hall, which was partly a lie, because I didn’t really have any homework. The truth was I just wanted to go upstairs and lay down and take a quick nap or something, if only for five minutes. But Grandpa kept on and on for me to play just one quick game, and kept saying how he was gonna make me into a slick pool hustler, just like he was when he was a kid, and on and on, so finally I had to say okay and play him a game, just to make him happy, and he beat me, because I’m a lousy pool player, because I’ve only played about twice before in my whole life,  and I’m too damn short to even reach across the table for half the shots.

     It was a really nice pool table, though. Dad seemed pretty proud of it. He was real careful not to flick his cigarette ashes on it, even though he was pretty drunk.

     I went back upstairs and fell asleep on my bed, and the next thing I knew Mom was yelling at me to get up and make myself a sandwich for supper, because it was getting late, and there wasn’t much time left before we had to leave for the Hall. So I got up and fixed myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and ate it. And then I washed up all the dishes in the kitchen sink, without being told to, which there wasn’t that many because we’d only had sandwiches for supper again, like I just said. And after that I had to go get ready for the meeting.

     I washed up and put on my good white shirt and this red bow tie that I have, which is the tie I always wear when I give a talk, for some reason. I’d never really noticed it before, but after I put it on, I realized it looked kinda stupid, really, like it was the sort of bow tie a clown might wear, actually. I mean, it was a pretty big bow tie to start with, and it looked even bigger on me, because of how small I am and all. So I started looking around in the closet for another tie to put on, but I couldn’t find any except for some of Freddie’s, but I didn’t dare try to wear one of those, because he’d have some kind of shit fit or something if I did. He doesn’t like me to touch any of his stuff.

    But to tell you the truth, it didn’t really matter much if I wore a clown’s bow tie or not, I was still gonna look like a clown, when you got right down to it. Everything about me was clownish. My damn hair was still looking pretty stupid, no matter how much I tried to make it look right, by combing it to one side, or slicking it down, or whatever, because of the way Mom had chopped off my bangs. There really wasn’t that much up there to even comb to one side or slick down or do anything else to, for that matter. It looked like somebody had put a bowl on my head and cut all the way around it, which is practically what Mom had done.

     And if my hair didn’t make me look bad enough, there was all the red spots on my face, where old pimples had been popped, and where new ones were starting to come in. My bumps looked like they were getting better the day before, but now they just seemed to be getting worse, for some reason.

     And if my hair and my pimples put together weren’t bad enough, there was also the fact that I still couldn’t halfway talk right, what with my busted tongue and fat lips, which were still pretty swollen even after I’d put a bunch of ice on them. I sounded like that stupid kid in the Fat Albert cartoon, the one that’s always coming up to Fat Albert and saying, “Heyba, Fatba Albertba, howba boutba weba beba goingba playba someba basketba ballba.”  And Fat Albert always says something back to him like, “Hey, Hey, Hey, we’re on the way, that’s what I say.”

     Jesus, all I needed was one of those big round red noses to stick on my stupid face, and some of those big old floppy shoes that clowns always wear. Then I’d really be War-O, the Midget Clown. But of course at the Kingdom Hall, they’d call me Brother War-O, the Midget Clown.

     I decided to just give up even thinking anymore about how stupid I looked and the way I sounded. Wasn’t much I could do about it, so just forget it. Besides, there wasn’t much time left before we had to go, and I had to start getting my Bible and song book and stuff together. And wouldn’t you know it, I couldn’t find my damn index card, the one that had the introduction and conclusion of my talk written on it. I was looking high and low and still couldn’t find it anywhere, and Mom was starting to yell at me from the living room, “Let’s go, Warren, let’s go, we’re gonna be late,”  and I was turning my room upside down and still couldn’t find that damn card. All I could think of was, man, what else is gonna go wrong tonight?

     I kept looking and looking, and then I finally found it under my bed, stuck in the middle of that old The Time Is At Hand book, right in there with that picture of Sister Flowers, the one of her when she was only about fourteen years old, wearing the dress that showed off how big her boobs already were. That reminded me I still needed to get that book back to the Kingdom Hall library before Mom or Freddie saw it and asked me what I was doing with it, or before Brother Harris realized it was missing, which could probably get me into some trouble, because I really wasn’t supposed to have it. I’d have to worry about that later, though.

     I found my index card in that old book under my bed, and I was sitting there on my bedroom floor, just kinda staring some more at the picture of Sister Flowers when she was a young girl, and Mom and Freddie must have been waiting out in the car, because the next thing I knew Mom was blowing the horn for me to hurry it up and get out there. So I quit staring at that picture of Sister Flowers and I stuck the index card in my New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and grabbed my Singing And Accompanying Yourselves With Music In Your Hearts and ran on out of the house real quick and jumped into the backseat of the car.

     Mom and Freddie were sitting there with the motor running. She didn’t say anything, but she shot me a mean look. She was still wearing her Mad Face. She never puts on her Kingdom Hall Face until we actually get there. I didn’t say anything, either. But I was thinking something, though. I was thinking, well War-O, you might feel like shit tonight, and you might look like a clown and you might sound like a clown, and Mom might be mad at you all the time for a thousand different reasons, but at least you’re gonna give a good talk tonight, in spite of everything, even if you do have to sound like a Fat Albert kid giving it. At least you’re prepared for it. And then maybe for once Mom will be happy with you, and maybe she’ll even be proud of you, because you’re gonna give a good talk, and make a good impression on Brother Gottwald, which is what Mom wants you to do.

     Well, we got to the Kingdom Hall just as the meeting was about to start, so I had just enough time to run up front real quick and hand my Speech Counsel Slip over to Brother Harris, which is what you’re supposed to do on a night when you have a talk, give him your Speech Council Slip before the meeting begins, because he’s the Ministry School Conductor, so he needs your slip to know what to grade you on after you give your talk. I was in such a hurry I forgot to even look at it myself, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to be working on.

     The whole congregation stood up and sang song number 37, “The Power of Kindness,” and Brother Price said the opening prayer. Then Brother Harris welcomed everybody and said a few things as opening comments, and then Brother Hutter got up and started giving talk number one, which I don’t remember what he talked about because I was too busy reading over my index card a bunch of times, trying my best to memorize it, and wasn’t paying that much attention to anything else.

     Pretty soon Brother Hutter was finished with his talk, so I got up and started making my way up to the platform. I was trying to breathe in and out real deep, which is supposed to help steady you when you’re nervous. I always get real nervous when I have to get up in front of the congregation like that, even if it’s just to do a Bible reading. I was hoping my voice didn’t crack too much and that nobody would notice my mouth was all swollen like it was.

     Brother Harris was saying something like, “Thank you Brother Hutter for that fine and informative information. And now, Brothers and Sisters, for our second student talk tonight, we have little Brother Grubber, who’ll be presenting tonight’s Bible reading, which is coming tonight from...let’s see, uh...looks like the 12th chapter of Hebrews...”

     Well, by then I was standing up on the platform behind the podium and microphone there, taking my deep breaths, like I said, waiting for Brother Harris to finish introducing me, so I could get on with my reading and hurry up and get it over with. I couldn’t believe it that Brother Harris was getting my Bible reading all mixed up, so I kinda interrupted him and said, “Scwuuze me, Bwudda Hawwis, bwud I twhink mwy weading is swuppwoseda bwe fwom Mwaffew, nah Hebwews. Mwaffew twenty-fwor, I twhink.”

     Brother Harris looked up at me like I was crazy or something and said, “Huh?”  He looked back down at the Ministry School Schedule he was holding. “No, Brother Grubber, no, I’m afraid not. Says here the assignment is Hebrews 12. Matthew 24 is next week, not this week. This week is Hebrews 12. That’s what it says on my copy of the schedule, anyway. Hebrews 12.”

     Man, I felt like dying, right then and there. I said, “Ohw...I’m sowwie...I mwusta wooked at it wong or swumtin. Mwy fwault. I’m weawie, weawie sowwie. Bwu can I gow ahead and wead Mwaffew tweny-fwor anyway?  Bweins I’m nah weawie pwepwared fwor Hebwews twef?  Isa okay, if I wead Maffew tweny-fwor, instwead, pweeze?”

     “No, no, Brother Grubber, let’s stick with the program the Society has layed out for us, let’s stick with Hebrews chapter 12.”

     “Bwu Bwudda Hawwis, pweeze, I dwidn’t pwepware fwor—“

     “Doesn’t matter, Brother Grubber, doesn’t matter. Just go ahead and read it. Just do what you can. Go ahead.”

     Well, it didn’t really look like there was anything else I could do. So I starting flipping around and around in my Bible, trying to find the book of Hebrews, which seemed to take me forever, but I finally did find it, and started reading it out loud. Man, I was really botching it up, too, because I’d gotten all nervous again and embarrassed by everything, and my voice was trembling and cracking even more than it usually does when I’m giving a talk, and on top of that, most of the words were coming out all funny sounding, because of my swollen lips and hurt tongue and all. The more I read, the more frustrated I got and the more I sounded like I was retarded or tongue-tied or something.  And then I realized a few people were starting to giggle every time one of my words came out sounding particularly funny, or when my voice cracked real bad or something. It was only a few people doing it at first, but then more and more of them got to laughing. The whole thing was a nightmare, let me tell you. That chapter in Hebrews is only twenty-nine verses long, but it seemed like it took me forever to get through it. This is what all I had to read from my New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, this is what it looked like, anyway:

    1 So, then, because we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also put off every weight and the sin that easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 as we look intently at the Chief Agent and Perfecter of our faith, Jesus. For the joy that was set before him he endured a torture stake, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3  Indeed, consider closely the one who has endured such contrary talk by sinners against their own interests, that you may not get tired and give out in your souls.

     4  In carrying on your contest against that sin you have never yet resisted as far as blood, 5  but you have entirely forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons: “My son, do not belittle the discipline from Jehovah, neither give out when you are corrected by him; 6  for whom Jehovah loves he disciplines; in fact, he scourges every one whom he receives as a son.”

     7  It is for discipline you are enduring. God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is he that a father does not discipline?  8  But if you are without the discipline of which all have become partakers, you are really illegitimate children, and not sons. 9  Furthermore, we used to have fathers who were of our flesh to discipline us, and we used to give them respect. Shall we not much more subject ourselves to the Father of our spiritual life and live?  10  For they for a few days used to discipline us according to what seemed good to them, but he does so for our profit that we may partake of his holiness. 11  True, no discipline seems for the present to be joyous, but grievous; yet afterward to those who have been trained by it it yields peaceable fruit, namely righteousness.

     12  Hence straighten up the hands that hang down and the enfeebled knees, 13  and keep making straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather that it may he healed. 14  Pursue peace with all people, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord, 15  carefully watching that no one may be deprived of the undeserved kindness of God; that no poisonous root may spring up and cause trouble and that many may not be defiled by it; 16  that there may be no fornicator nor anyone not appreciating sacred things, like Esau, who in exchange for one meal gave away his rights as first-born. 17  For you know that afterward also when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected, for, although he earnestly sought a change of mind with tears, he found no place for it.

     18  For you have not approached that which can be felt and which has been set aflame with fire, and a dark cloud and thick darkness and a tempest, 19  and the blare of a trumpet and the voice of words; on hearing which voice the people implored that no word should be added to them. 20  For the command was not bearable to them: “And if a beast touches the mountain, it must be stoned.”  21  Also, the display was so fearsome that Moses said: “I am fearful and trembling.”  22  But you have approached a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels, 23  in general assembly, and the congregation of the first-born who have been enrolled in the heavens, and God the Judge of all, and the spiritual lives of righteous ones who have been made perfect, 24  and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling, which speaks in a better way than Abel’s blood.

     25  See that you do not beg off from him who is speaking. For if they did not escape who begged off from him who was giving divine warning upon the earth, much more shall we not if we turn away from him who speaks from the heavens. 26  At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will set in commotion not only the earth but also the heaven.”  27  Now the expression “Yet once more” signifies the removal of the things being shaken as things that have been made in order that the things not being shaken may remain. 28  Wherefore, seeing that we are to receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us continue to have undeserved kindness, through which we may acceptably render God sacred service with godly fear and awe. 29  For our God is also a consuming fire.

     Well, you can only imagine what it sounded like when I was actually reading it. By the end of it, just about everybody in the whole Kingdom Hall was laughing at me. It was a disaster. When I was finished reading that last sentence, “For our God is also a consuming fire,” I couldn’t think of anything to say for a conclusion, I guess because most of it didn’t make much sense to me as I was reading it, because I was trying so hard not to mess up that I couldn’t really pay much attention to what I was actually reading. So I just looked up at everybody sitting out in the congregation and said, “Uh, sowwie,” and I jumped down from the platform and ran back to my seat as fast as I could. I felt like crying, but I didn’t.

     And the thing was, when I was sitting back there holding my head down and feeling very, very tired, I really was sorry for what I did. I mean, in a way I felt like I had let the congregation down, by mixing up those chapters like that, and for having a busted mouth and for looking like a clown. And I had really let Mom down, too. I was sure I’d never hear the end of it, either, especially from Freddie.

     Anyway, instead of just letting it go at that, and getting on with the meeting, good old Brother Harris decided he was gonna go ahead and grade me on that stupid talk I just gave, the same as he would if it had gone like normal and I hadn’t screwed everything up and made a laughing stock out of myself. I couldn’t believe he’d do that, really. I figured he’d skip over it and start introducing the next speaker for talk number three. But instead, he stood up in front there with the little microphone he keeps at his seat and goes, “Well, let’s see here, Brother Grubber, I see by your Speech Counsel Slip here, you were working tonight, on Confidence & Poise, and Personal Appearance. Well, frankly, for Confidence & Poise, I’m afraid, unfortunately, I’m gonna have to give you a W, for obvious reasons, and ask you to work on that one again, and to try a little harder, and maybe be a little more conscientious in your preparation next time. And, as for Personal Appearance, well, uh, I don’t know, but with a haircut like that, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to give you for Personal Appearance!” 

     Soon as he said that, everybody in the congregation started laughing and snickering again. Then he said, “But your tie was straight. We can commend you on that much, anyway. So I guess I’ll cut you some slack and give you a G on Personal Appearance.  How does that sound?” 

     Well, everybody really let loose laughing at that one. Brother Harris must have thought he was really on a roll or something, because he couldn’t just leave it at that either. He said, “And beings you’re already so prepared for next week’s reading of Matthew 24, shall we look forward to you giving us that reading, as well, next week, Brother Grubber?  Maybe?” 

     Then everybody busted out laughing even louder. They were all turned around in their seats, staring back at me and laughing. Brother Gottwald of all people was laughing the loudest. He sounded like a damn hyena or a donkey or something, he thought it was so damn funny. I looked up and noticed that Mom wasn’t laughing, though. She was about the only one that wasn’t. She was wearing her Mad Face. Then I looked back down real quick. I sat there wondering if she was mad at everybody for laughing at me, or at me for giving everybody something to laugh at in the first place. Probably at me, I figured.

     Well, with everybody turned around and laughing at me like that, I couldn’t help but feel like a real idiot, of course. It seemed like the whole room was closing in on me, and I couldn’t breathe, hardly. I didn’t know what to do. I’ll tell you what I felt like doing. I felt like jumping up and giving everybody the finger and running out the door, right then and there. The weird thing is, I’d never given anybody the finger before, much less the whole Lynchburg Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but that’s what was going through my head to do, for some reason. I didn’t do it, of course. I just closed my eyes and sunk down in my seat as low as I could get. 

     After a little bit, all the laughing died down, and everybody turned back around because a couple of Sisters were making their way up to the platform, getting ready to give the third talk. Brother Harris had finished up with me and started to introduce the topic of the next talk and all, getting on with the meeting. I waited a couple of minutes and then I got up and slipped through the swinging doors at the back of the Hall and into the foyer, like I had to go downstairs to the bathroom or something. But I wasn’t going to the bathroom. I opened the front door of the Kingdom Hall as quiet as I could and walked out.

     I had no idea what I was gonna do once I got outside. Mainly I just needed to get out of there and get some air. I sat down on the front step of the Kingdom Hall and watched cars go up and down the street, and rested a little. I still felt pretty tired. After a little while I figured I’d better do something before Brother Harris or somebody found me sitting out there all by myself and made me come back in to the meeting, so I decided to go sit in the car, where nobody could see me. So that’s what I did.

     I layed down in the back seat of the car and tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t, which I didn’t know why, because I was really tired and wore out. It felt like there was this big knot or something in my stomach, that was making me toss and turn all over the place, keeping me from going to sleep. I layed there for a long time thinking about what all had just happened, wondering why Brother Harris had been so mean to me and why everybody else had laughed at me like they did and everything, instead of them realizing I’d probably just made a honest mistake when I mixed up those Bible chapters and it probably wasn’t really my fault that my mouth was busted and I couldn’t talk right, and letting it go at that.

     And then all of a sudden it hit me. Maybe it all was my fault, maybe it was all meant to happen just like it happened, that it wasn’t just a honest mistake. Maybe Jehovah caused everything to happen like it did, just to teach me a lesson. I mean, I couldn’t remember much of what I’d just read in that chapter of Hebrews, like I said, but I did remember it seemed to say an awful lot of stuff about discipline, about how Jehovah disciplines us, that we should expect it and accept it, because it comes from him. So maybe Jehovah was just disciplining me in a way, by letting me screw up everything like I did, and then having Brother Harris make all his little snide remarks and having the whole congregation laugh at me like they did.

     I layed there and tried to think about it like that for a while. I figured Jehovah could do something like that if he wanted to. But I wondered why he wanted to do it to me. And then all of a sudden out of the blue I remembered the part in that chapter where it was warning the congregation about fornicators springing up around them, which made me think maybe in a way I was actually being used by Jehovah to warn my own congregation, about me!  Because all week long I’d been thinking about Mrs. Harrelson, and what I hoped was gonna happen after I cut her grass on Saturday, and trying to figure out a good way to let her seduce me, which is what Danny said she was gonna try to do, sooner or later, and all week long I’d been hoping it would be sooner, not later. But instead of thinking of ways to avoid having some fornication with Mrs. Harrelson, which is what a real Jehovah’s Witness like Freddie or somebody like that would be doing, I was actually looking forward to it and hoping it was gonna happen and was gonna try to do stuff to help make it happen, and even jerking off in the bathroom while I played the same sexy scene over and over in my mind, where Mrs. Harrelson leads me upstairs to her bedroom and takes off her robe and her bra and her panties and lets me play with her big titties and then shows me how to go about doing everything else to her.

     So fornication was about to spring up in the Lynchburg Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, all because of me, and Jehovah was using me to warn everybody about it, somehow. 

     Man, when I got to looking at it all like that, well, it really made me feel sorry and low down, especially when I started thinking about everything else that went along with it.

     Like me not wanting to go to Brother Gottwald’s special meetings all week.

     And not wanting to sign up for the Eighty Questions meeting.

     And not wanting to get baptized.

     And not witnessing to Mr. Higgins when I signed up for next year’s classes, like Mom told me to do, and I’d said I would.

     And getting Ginny to be my girlfriend and French kissing her and buying her a birthday present and promising to go to her birthday party.

     And worrying all the time about Tom Johnston being sick and maybe dying, and just generally showing more interest in the Doobie Brothers than in my real Brothers and Sisters at the Kingdom Hall.

     And not wanting to see the whole wicked world and all my worldly friends and worldly relatives in it destroyed at Armageddon in October.

     All those things were wrong and I knew it. So maybe, just maybe, Jehovah was trying to discipline me one last time, for my own good, to get me to shape up or ship out before it was too late. Maybe that’s why Mom got so mad about my haircut not being short enough for her, so she chopped off my bangs, because Jehovah caused her to, to teach me a lesson. And maybe that’s why Lamar Jackson pushed me down in the locker room and I ended up with a busted mouth and all, because Jehovah caused him to, to teach me a lesson, because I’d just been French kissing with Ginny in the Art room storage closet, which I shouldn’ta been doing, of course. And then when I’d gotten the Bible reading mixed up and didn’t do so good giving my talk, which was all my fault because I really didn’t put much effort into it at all because I hated to give talks in the first place, well, maybe Jehovah caused Brother Harris to say all those things he said to me, which made the whole congregation laugh at me, to teach me a lesson.

     Well, I didn’t know if Jehovah had done all that or not, but I guess it was possible, him being God and all. The only thing I did know for sure was, the knot in my stomach was growing and growing and hurting worse and worse and felt like it was about to kill me, the longer I layed there, so I sat back up in the seat, hoping maybe that would make it quit hurting so bad.

     Way up the street there, I saw Ray come out of his barber shop and lock the door behind him and get in his car and drive away. I’d never noticed it before, but there was a phone booth right in front of Ray’s barber shop, and for some reason out of the blue I decided I had to call Ginny. So I got out of the car and started walking up the street to the phone booth. Jesus, my stomach was really hurting bad. I had this really strange feeling, the whole time I was walking up the street towards that phone booth, that I was right about everything, that it really was true that Jehovah had just disciplined me in front of the congregation, that I had sat up exactly when I did and saw Ray leave his barber shop and noticed that phone booth for the first time because that’s exactly what Jehovah wanted to happen. And now what He wanted was for me to get on that phone and call Ginny and tell her the whole truth about myself, that I was a Jehovah’s Witness, that I couldn’t be her boyfriend anymore, that I couldn’t come to her birthday party, that I couldn’t hold hands with her at school or share a locker with her next year, that I couldn’t French kiss her anymore or go skinny dipping with her in her swimming pool, ever. That the world was gonna end in October. That everybody but Jehovah’s Witnesses was gonna be destroyed forever. That I had to get on the ball and get baptized and start doing my part in preaching the Good News of the Kingdom to everybody. That I had just been disciplined big time by Jehovah God in front of the whole Lynchburg Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and telling her all these things was my last hope and my first step in starting to get myself back together and getting my heart set right, to save myself from destruction before it was too late.

     I got up to the phone booth and put in a dime and dialed the number. Cars were going up and down the street and making all kinds of noise, so I could barely here it ringing. Then I heard somebody answer, “Hello?” and I could tell it was Ginny. It felt like someone was sticking a knife in my stomach and twisting it around and round.

     I said, “Hewwo, Ginny, this is Wawwen.”

     She said, “Hello?  Hello?  Who is this?”

     “It’s me. Wawwen.”

     “Who?”

     “WAWwen. WAWwen GWUBba.”

     “Warren?  Warren, is that you?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Hi!  I can barely understand a word you’re saying!  Is something wrong?”

     “No. I’m cawwing fwum a pway fwon, and I bwused mwy mwouf pwaying swofbwaw, so I can bawwie tawk, is aw.”

     “Oh, no, that’s terrible!  You sound terrible!  No, I don’t mean it that way, really, I just mean—“

     “I know. Sokay. I’m sowwie.”

     “Well, I’m glad you called, anyway!  I was hoping you would!”

     “Yeah.”  Another sword went through my belly. “I can’t tawk vewwie wong, though. I just hada tewl you somffin—that I shuda towl you—aweddie—just that—“  Jesus my stomach was hurting. “That—uh—uh...”  I felt like I was gonna pass out.

     “Warren?  Are you okay?”

     “...that I’m...uh...a...uh...jehoba...uh...widd—“

     “That you what?  I can’t understand a word you’re saying, Warren.”

     “That I...uh...wuv...you..is aw.”

     “Oh.”

     “Bwu I gowwa hang up now...sowwie...pweeze don’t bwe mwad.”

     “Warren, of course I’m not mad. You’re so sweet.”

     “I gowwa gow now. I’wl see ya twamawwow, okay?”

     “Okay, sure.”

     “Bwye, then.”

     “Bye bye, Warren!”

     Soon as I hung up something terrible happened. Something hit me right in the pit of my gut, really really hard. It felt like a Lamar Jackson punch or something. I fell down on my hands and knees right there in front of Ray’s shop and puked all over the sidewalk. And that’s not all, either. The whole time I was puking, I was crapping in my pants, too, puking and crapping, all at the same time. Jesus, it was awful. I think it’s about the worse thing that’s ever happened to me. For a minute there I thought I was gonna die. I really did.

     When I finished puking and crapping, I crawled off the sidewalk and around to this little alley in the back of Ray’s barber shop, where nobody could see me from the street. I pulled my pants off and took off my shitty underwear and threw them over into some bushes back there. I’ll tell you one thing, I was just real lucky none of the shit went through my underwear and got on my pants or anything. That would’a really been a mess. I put my pants back on and staggered back on down the street and got into the backseat of the car, and curled up and fell asleep.

     I must have slept straight through the rest of the meeting. I didn’t wake up until I heard some car doors slamming, a couple of cars down the street from where I was laying. I sat up and looked out the window to see what was going on, and I saw people coming out of the Kingdom Hall, so I knew the meetings were over already. I looked at my watch and it was about quarter to ten, so it looked like I’d been asleep out there for close to two hours or so. My stomach felt a little better, but I was still pretty tired.

     Anyway, I figured I could do one of two things, I could try to sneak back into the Kingdom Hall and pretend I’d been in there the whole time, or I could just sit there and wait for everybody to come on out to the car. I was too tired to get out of the car, so I decided to stay put and wait. What the hell. If Mom found out I wasn’t in there the whole time, it didn’t really make much difference, I couldn’t get into any more trouble than I was probably already in, the way I saw it.

     I sat there waiting, and in a little bit, here comes Mom and Freddie down the side walk, both of them helping old Sister Straiter along. Nobody said anything to me when they got into the car. But soon as we dropped Sister Straiter off at her house, Mom lit right into me, like I figured she would.

     She started rattling off this long speech, saying stuff like, “Warren, I’ve never been so embarrassed and humiliated and ashamed in all my life. I can’t believe you’d behave like that in front of the whole congregation. Arguing about the Bible reading with Brother Harris like that. And in front of Brother Gottwald, too!  Making a spectacle of yourself!” 

     She kept going on and on, blah blah blah, what a disgrace, blah blah blah, never been so embarrassed, blah blah blah. Finally she stopped long enough to ask me, “ So what have you got to say for yourself, young man?”

     I didn’t have anything to say for myself. I just sat there in the back seat and didn’t say anything.

     Then she jumped right back into her speech, “And you assured me you were more than prepared for that talk. Hadn’t I been asking you about it all week?  ‘Warren, have you got your talk all ready?  Warren, you gonna be prepared this time?’  ‘Oh, yes Ma’am, nothing to worry about, piece of cake.’  And then look what happens. Well, I should have known better, I should have seen it coming when you came home today and tried to weasel out of going to the meeting tonight, the way you did, pretending to be sick. ‘I don’t feel so good, Mom, I feel so tired and wore out.’  The whole time you knew good and well the real reason you didn’t want to go was because you had that talk to give, and you knew good and well you’d been farting around all week and goofing off doing heavens knows what, instead of getting ready for your talk. So what happened?  Huh?  I’ll tell you what happened, you got caught with your pants down, in front of the whole congregation, that’s what happened. And in front of Brother Gottwald. What have you got to say for yourself?  I want to hear it. And this better be good.”

     I still didn’t have anything to say for myself.

     “Well?  I’m waiting.”

      I just sat there.

     “You better answer me right now, young man, and I mean it, you hear me?  Don’t make me have to stop this car and get out and jerk a knot in your skinny little butt, because I’ll do it, don’t think for a minute I won’t. Now—what have you got to say for your self?”

     I sat there without saying anything for as long as I possibly could have, then I finally said, “Nuffin.”

     “Nothing?  That’s it?  NOTHING?”

     I didn’t say anything.

     “Well, there’s certainly plenty more I can say, that’s for sure. And one thing is, I think it’s about high time we did something about that little attitude of yours, young man. And I think I know just the thing for it, too.” 

     She drove on for a little bit, not saying anything, like she was thinking about what to say next. Then finally she said, “But I’m just too mad and upset and tired to even think about all this right now, much less talk about it. I swear, you’ve turned me into a nervous wreck. I’m up here shaking like a leaf. I need to calm down, before I have a stroke and wreck this car into a tree.” 

     Nobody said anything for the longest time. Then Mom blurted out, “But don’t think I’m gonna let this whole thing drop, no-sir-ree, not this time. I’m just too sick and tired and exasperated to even think straight right now, that’s all. But I’ll deal with you later. And my advice to you is, you better be thinking long and hard about this little episode, your own self. You better be giving it a lot of thought. You hear me?”

     “Yeah.”

     “What did you say?”

     “Yeth, Ma’am.”

     “That’s more like it. Honestly, I don’t know what gets into you sometimes.”

     It was like that the rest of the way home. She kept saying that kinda stuff, I don’t know what gets into you sometimes, I don’t know why you can’t be more like your brother, and stuff like that.

     Freddie never said a word the whole time.

     When we got to the house and walked in the front door, we could tell Dad and Grandpa were right where we left them, downstairs in the basement. Dad had his record player going, playing his old Hank Williams Greatest Hits album full blast, and they were still shooting pool and laughing and carrying on, and singing along with old Hank.

     Mom just shook her head. She looked like she was about to start crying or something, like she had the whole weight of the world on her shoulders or something. I felt kinda sorry for her. I actually felt kinda sorry for all of us.

     She looked at us and said, real low, “You boys go on to bed. It’s getting late.”  Then she went on back to her bedroom and closed the door.

     Well, that sounded okay to me, I was tired as hell and good and ready to go to bed. I ran to the bathroom and washed up real good, and then went on back to the bedroom. Freddie was sitting in there on his bed, waiting for his turn in the bathroom. When I was sure Freddie was in the bathroom, I took my pants off and got some fresh underwear out of my drawer and put them on. I didn’t want Freddie to see that I didn’t have any underwear on under my pants, and get suspicious or something. I didn’t want anybody to find out what happened to the underwear I’d worn to the Kingdom Hall.

     Actually, when I got into bed, I realized I wasn’t all that sleepy, really, I was just tired. You know how you feel when you’re too tired to go to sleep?  When you should be good and sleepy, but you’re not?  That’s how I felt. Maybe I wasn’t sleepy because I’d had that nap in the back of the car. And then I suddenly remembered I didn’t really want to go to sleep anyway, because if I did, I might pee in the bed, and have to carry my pissy sheets downstairs the next morning and throw them in the washing machine, and Grandpa might see me and think I was still just a little baby that pisses in the bed all the time. So I figured I’d try to stay awake again all night, like I did the night before, so I could be good and sure not to pee in the bed. It worked for me the night before, keeping awake like that. I didn’t piss in the bed, at least.

     I propped up my pillows and sat up in bed and grabbed my Slaughterhouse-Five book, because I still needed to read that last chapter in there. Freddie came out of the bathroom and jumped into his bed. He reached up to turn off his light, and I could tell he was looking over at me and trying to see what book I was reading. Then he said in his smirky voice, “Well, I’ll be surprised if Grandpa is in any shape to talk to your English class in the morning, if you’re still counting on that.”

     I didn’t even look up at him or say anything, I just kept on reading. He turned his light off and rolled over in his bed and faced the wall, away from me. He waited a minute or so, then I heard him say, “Iba wouldn’tba getba myba hopesba upba tooba highba, ifba Iba wereba youba.”  Then he busted out laughing.

     I kept on reading and finished that last chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, and I didn’t have anything else to do, so I started over at chapter one and read two or three of the first chapters again, until I got kinda tired of it, then I put it down. Then I picked up my annual and started reading some of the stupid crap in there and looking at all the pictures and stuff again, and I ended up staring at Ginny’s little picture in there for a little while, and that got me to wondering what it was gonna be like when I saw her at school the next day, after the way I’d just out of the blue called her up from that phone booth and told her I loved her and all. I don’t know what made me do that. I didn’t have any idea I was gonna say it until it popped right out of my mouth. She probably thought I was a stupid idiot or something, the way I sounded.

     I turned over a few pages more and stared for about an hour at that big picture of Miss Hiller, and wondered what she was gonna say if Freddie was right, and Grandpa didn’t show up to talk to the class the next morning. She might think I’d been lying about the whole thing all along, that I didn’t even have a grandpa or anything, that I was just a little skinny ass liar trying to impress her or something. Man, that would really make me feel bad, if Miss Hiller thought I was lying to her.

     Well, staring at Miss Hiller’s foxy picture for so long like that got me all horny, of course, so I had to take my annual and get up and sneak in the bathroom real quiet, and jerk off for a while, looking at her picture. Then I got back in bed and was sitting there looking through the annual some more, and I came across a picture of Kathy Lendover that me and Wallace and Wendall must have overlooked before, of her standing at the ice cream counter in the lunch room. It was taken from the side, so you could see all of her standing there, especially her long legs, because she was wearing her short little cheerleader outfit, but she wasn’t bent over into the ice cream case reaching for a strawberry ice cream sandwich or anything, so it wasn’t like you could see her ass in the picture. But I’d seen her bent over like that so many times before that when I closed my eyes I could see it plain as day. So I closed my eyes and looked at her ass some, and it got me all horny again, so I had to get up and go back into the bathroom and jerk off again, this time thinking mainly about Kathy Lendover bending over the ice cream counter with her ass sticking out.

     Well, all in all I guess I ended up doing that about three different times, looking at pictures in my annual, and then getting all horny and running back to the bathroom. First from Miss Hiller’s picture, then from Kathy Lendover’s, and then from Ginny’s. After that I was about all jerked out, for the time being. So I put the annual down and started reading some more of Slaughterhouse-Five. Every now and then I’d get up and go to the bathroom and splash some more cold water on my face and try my best to pee a little bit.

     Then I guess it was somewhere about three in the morning I noticed there wasn’t any more music or laughing or talking or noise coming from downstairs, so I figured Dad and Grandpa must have finally packed it in for the night. I sat there for the longest time, listening out to see if I’d hear anything from downstairs, but I didn’t hear anything. Then for some reason I got to worrying that maybe one of them had left a cigarette burning or something, and if I didn’t go downstairs and check on them, maybe that cigarette would fall onto the floor or roll over into the couch and catch it on fire or something, and then the whole house might burn down. I know it sounds stupid, but I worry about stuff like that all the time. It probably would never happen in a million years, but I worry about it anyway. So I had to get up and go downstairs and check on things.

     Well, Grandpa was passed out on the couch down there, and Dad was passed out too, laying back in his old lounge chair. Grandpa had taken his shoes off, but Dad still had his on. So I pulled Dad’s shoes off for him. Then I got down on the floor and crawled all around and looked under the chair and the couch and everything, but I didn’t find any stray cigarettes burning anywhere. So I guessed everything was gonna be alright, until morning anyway. It turned out to be a waste of time, me doing all that checking, but I felt a lot better after I did it.

     I went back upstairs and threw some more cold water on my face and peed another little trickle and went back and sat up in my bed again. By then it must have been about four oclock in the morning, but I still wasn’t feeling sleepy or anything. So I picked up my annual and started looking at it some more. I wasn’t gonna do any more jerking off, though. My dick was too sore.