Chapter 6

Well, somewhere in there I must have fallen asleep. I was trying to stay awake, like I said, but every now and then I’d close my eyes for a couple of minutes, but just to rest them a little, not because I wanted to go to sleep or anything. I must have rested them one time too many, because they never came back open until the next morning, Friday morning.

     I don’t know how long I’d been asleep, but it was long enough for me to pee in the bed. I woke up laying in piss. Pissing is what woke me up, I think. I looked at my watch and it was only about five minutes before I had to get up anyway, so I went ahead and got up. If I was lucky I might be able to get my sheets downstairs and into the washer before anybody else got up and saw what I was up to.

     I jumped up and pulled the sheets off my bed and went running with them to the basement, quiet as I could. Dad and Grandpa were still passed out down there, over on Dad’s side of the basement, over where his pool table and couch and lounge chair and refrigerator are. The washing machine and clothes dryer are on Mom’s side of the basement. I threw my pissy sheets into the washer and started it up and hoped it wouldn’t make too much noise, so nobody would notice it was running. Once it fills itself up with water and gets to churning, it really isn’t all that noisy.

     Well, while I was down there, I figured I’d better try and stir Grandpa up a little bit, to see if he was gonna be in any shape to get up and go down to the school, to talk to my English class. So I went over to Dad’s side of the basement. Grandpa was still spread out there on the couch, snoring away. I touched him on the shoulder and kinda halfway whispered, “Grandpa? Grandpa?” a couple of times, but nothing happened, he went right on sleeping. I didn’t want to be too loud, because I didn’t want to wake Dad up or anything.

     I waited a minute or so and tried it again, “Grandpa? Grandpa!” and shook his arm a little bit.

     He stirred some that time.

     “Grandpa!” I said again.

     He grunted, “Huh,” but he didn’t open his eyes.

     I leaned over next to his ear and said, “Grandpa, are you gonna make it down to my school this morning?  To talk to my English class?  About Dresden?  Remember?  Grandpa?”  I was still kinda whispering.

     He went, “Huh,” again, but he still didn’t open his eyes or anything.

     Then I shook him pretty hard, one real quick shake, and said a little bit louder, “Grandpa!  It’s Friday morning, you gotta get up, remember?  Grandpa, please. Jesus!”

     I don’t know, but I musta been getting too loud, because then Dad started stirring a little bit, over in his lounge chair. Then all of a sudden he raised his head up and looked all around, like he was trying to figure out what all the fuss was about. When he saw it was me standing there, he said, “Warren!  What the hell are you doing?  Get outta here and leave your grandpa alone. Get!”

     Well, I figured it won’t no use in getting Dad all riled up at me, so I did what he said and gave up on waking Grandpa. I turned around and went on back up the steps. It looked like Freddie was gonna be right after all.

     I got dressed and ready for school, and went down to the end of the driveway and got the newspaper out of the paper box, and came back in and fixed my cinnamon toast and chocolate milk, and was sitting down at the kitchen table to read the ball scores, just like I always do. And just like she always does half the time, Mom came bopping in there, just in time to mess up my plans. She picked up the 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses off the counter and set it down in front of me, right on top of my newspaper there.

     She said, “I’m waiting.”

     So I picked it up and turned to the daily text for Friday, June 6 and started reading out loud:

A man of faithful acts will get many blessings.—Prov. 28:20.

You may think that nothing of really great consequence has happened in your life. Judging by the world’s standards of success, probably you have not accomplished anything really great. But to whose standards have you been trying to attain?  If you have been building a record to please Jehovah, it will not be quickly forgotten by Him. Stop and think. How do others view you?  What is your reputation among your associates?  Do they observe that you are one who strictly keeps his word?  Do you have the reputation of one who pays his debts and who follows the policy of being prompt about everything?  Perhaps it is a matter of being regular in Kingdom service and at meetings of worship. These may seem to be little things, but they could lead others to view you as someone faithful. Now, if others have noticed the way you have been conducting your life, has not your heavenly Father also seen it and will he not give you many blessings therefor?

     Well, one good thing, the swelling in my mouth had gone down right much and my tongue felt a lot better than it did the night before, so when I was reading that text, at least I sounded more like the normal me, instead of that stupid kid from Fat Albert. My mouth was still busted up a little, but it wasn’t swollen up as bad as it had been. I was sure glad of that.

     When I finished reading the daily text, all Mom could say was, “Sounds like the message to you from today’s text is, you better start giving Jehovah something a little better to notice you by than what you’ve been giving him lately. Especially after that stunt you pulled last night. Wouldn’t you agree?”

     I didn’t say anything, and she must not have been expecting an answer or anything, because then she said, “Now, hurry up and finish your breakfast and go on outside and wait for your bus. It’ll be here in a few minutes.” 

     Then she grabbed the newspaper up from in front of me and took it back with her into the living room, with a cup of coffee. Her saying all that I guess was her way of reminding me she hadn’t forgotten what all she’d said on the way home from the Kingdom Hall the night before, after I’d made her look bad her in front of the congregation with my talk, about how I was gonna have to start making a lot of changes in my attitude and all that stuff. I guess I was supposed to be thinking about all that all day, at school, like I didn’t have anything else to think about.

     Well, when the school bus came, I got on and sat down up front beside Danny, same as always. Soon as I sat down, he handed me a brown paper bag.

     I said, “What’s this?”  I opened it up and peeked inside, and there was a present in there, wrapped up with a little bow on it and everything. Then I suddenly remembered about the James Taylor tape, for Ginny’s birthday, and all that.

     “Oh,” I said, “thanks, Danny.”

     “Yeah. Got my mom to wrap it for you.”

     “Great. Thanks.”

     “Sure thing. I put it in the bag so nobody’d tell what it was.”

     “Thanks.”

     “Yep, old Dan-O really comes through for you again, huh?  Not like your man Mister 0-for-six-washed-up-and-over-the-hill-Peter-Edward-Rose, last night.”

     “0 for six?  You’re kidding!”

     “Nope. And neither was Bob Gibson.” 

     “Damn. This’ll kill his average. 0 for six. Shit.”

     Then Danny started busting out laughing, and I could tell he was shitting me about the whole thing.

     “Alright, you bastard, what did he really do?  Tell me.”

      “Relax. They didn’t even play last night. Jesus.”

     “Wheew. Thank God. You really had me going. I didn’t get to see the paper this morning.”

     When I got to school and was getting off the bus, I took that brown bag with Ginny’s present in it and stuck it between a couple of books, and carried it that way, mainly so Freddie wouldn’t see it and ask me what it was or anything. Of course, he was all the way on the back of the bus and I was up front with Danny, and I always go running in the other direction when we get to school, so he’d probably never notice it, anyway. But I didn’t want to take any chances.

     Soon as I got inside the building, I went and put Ginny’s present in my locker, then I went up to where me and Wallace and Wendall always hang out in the hall, and waited around with them for the homeroom bell to ring. Of course they gave me a hard time about my mouth being busted and all, but I ignored them. To tell you the truth, I had a bunch of other things on my mind, like what was I gonna say to Ginny if she came and hung around a little while and waited with me for homeroom bell, and what was I gonna say to Miss Hiller in first period, with Grandpa being a no show and all. And there was the usual other stuff I had to worry about all the time every morning, mainly whether or not Lamar Jackson was gonna come down the hall looking for trouble. Jesus, I couldn’t let my guard down for one second.

     Well, Ginny never came around, and Lamar never came around, and Wallace and Wendall were occupied in one of their usual shoving matches, so that left me worrying about the Grandpa and Miss Hiller thing. I thought about it all through homeroom, and I figured I’d just tell her that he had to leave for Florida last night, unexpectedly, earlier than he’d planned to. Then I’d say something like, “He told me to tell you he was really sorry, too, that he was really looking forward to it, but then some kind of emergency or something came up.”  I was sure Miss Hiller would buy that, because she’s so nice and all.

     After homeroom was over, I went on to first period English and sat down and waited for class to start. All the other kids came in and sat down and were waiting too, and then Miss Hiller came in and said good morning and smiled at everybody, and looked over at me sitting there in front of her desk and gave me an extra special smile, and it really made me sorry that I was gonna have to go up there and lie my ass off to her about Grandpa leaving early and all. But I guess that was gonna be better than telling her the truth, that he was actually still halfway drunk, sleeping it off in my basement, on my Dad’s couch.

     Miss Hiller sat down on the front edge of her desk like she always does and called the roll, and after she finished with that, she got up and went around to the other side of her desk and started getting some papers ready for class to begin and all. That’s when I stood up and stepped over to where she was, so I could lean in real close and tell her my lie, before she actually got around to announcing to the class that Grandpa was gonna be there.

     She looked up at me and smiled real big again and said, “Good morning, Warren. I’m so excited about your grandfather coming in today, I’m sure we’ll all enjoy it, and I’m so looking forward to—“

     “Uh, Miss Hiller,” I said, “my grandpa is, uh, well, he’s, uh...he’s—“

     Then all of a sudden there was a couple of knocks at the door and it opened up and Grandpa stuck his head through it and said in his real loud grandpa voice, “Excuse me, I’m sorry. Is this Warren Grubber’s English class?  The lady at the front office told me this might be the room—Oh, hey Warren, I found it!”

     Miss Hiller jumped up and said, “Yes, yes it is, Mr. Grubber, please come in, we’re so happy to have you join us. I’m Miss Hiller, Warren’s teacher.”

     Grandpa shook her hand and said, “Very nice to meet you, Miss Hiller, but the name is Hollins, Frederick Hollins. I’m Warren’s maternal grandfather.”

     “Oh, I’m sorry, I—“

     “Quite all right, ma’am, quite all right.”  I could tell by the way Grandpa was looking at her, he was already as in love with her as I was. I noticed he kinda did a double take when she first stood up and went over to greet him at the door. You couldn’t blame him any though, because she looked pretty hot that morning, as usual. She had her hair pulled back and she was wearing a kinda plain black skirt and a white blouse, but for some reason they looked really good on her. Of course, everything looked good on Miss Hiller, always. And she smelled really really nice, like always.

     Grandpa came in and sat down in a chair beside Miss Hiller’s desk, and she announced to the class that he was my grandfather, and he was gonna be telling us about Dresden and World War II, and all that. Then she talked a little bit about Slaughterhouse-Five, I think mainly to fill him in on what all we already knew about the bombing of Dresden and all, and then she said, “Okay, Mr. Hollins, I’ll turn it over to you now.”

     Then Grandpa stood up in front of the class and started talking, and the cool thing is, he sounded like he was used to doing that kind of thing, like he stood up in front of a bunch of people and talked about Dresden or something all the time. I mean, he didn’t seem nervous or anything, not like I am when I’m giving a Bible reading at the Kingdom Hall. I tell you, I was pretty impressed and proud, especially since I knew he’d been up half the night shooting pool and getting drunk. But you’d have never known it by looking at him up there in front of the class. He looked like he’d slept like a baby all night. And for some reason he seemed a lot taller to me than usual. I sat there wondering why I was so short, when I have such a tall grandpa.

     Anyway, like I was saying, Grandpa got to talking about World War II and all, about how he joined the Air Force, and how they trained him to be a tail-gunner in a bomber plane, and what that was all about, being a tail-gunner, I mean, and about the other guys in the plane, and what their jobs were. And he talked about being stationed in England, and some of the scary missions they flew on, where they had to fly across the English Channel over into France or Germany and drop their bombs, then high-tail it on back to England, the whole time being shot at by guns on the ground, and sometimes being chased by German fighter planes.

     The whole time he was talking, most everybody seemed to be paying attention and were pretty interested in what he was saying and all. Everybody except Lamar Jackson. He was sitting way in the back where he usually sits, and every so often he’d start coughing real loud or clear his throat or something. And you could tell he was doing it on purpose, too, the way he was doing it. A couple of times, Miss Hiller turned and give him one of her serious looks, and when she did that he’d stop for a while. But he’d just do it again a few minutes later.

     Grandpa went on talking about war stuff for a while, and then he said something like, “Well I guess what you really wanted to hear about was the Dresden thing, that’s why I’m here this morning in the first place, because you’ve been reading that Slaughterman-Nine book, or whatever it’s called.”

     Everybody laughed because Grandpa got the name of the book wrong. Grandpa shrugged and kept going.

     “But, actually, there’s really not a whole lot to tell you about that particular mission, the one to Dresden. As I remember it, it was one of the easiest ones we flew, really. And that was due primarily to the fact that my crew went out last. We were supposed to be the first to go, early that morning. But the weather was bad or something, so we were cancelled. That meant the first strike was left up to the Royal Air Force. So them guys went over first, late that night, after the weather cleared, and dropped their loads, which served mainly to start a bunch of fires and mark the targets. And then another wave went through behind them and dropped their loads a few hours later, which is about when the people in Dresden there would have been coming out of hiding and trying to put out all the fires from the first wave. And then my wave came along, the next afternoon, and we dropped our loads on top of the first two.”

     Lamar started coughing again, and Grandpa stopped and waited for him to finish.

     “Of course, being a tail-gunner, I was in the tail-gunner’s nest, facing backwards, so I didn’t see much of anything until we were finished dropping our load, and had swung around and were heading back home. I think we dropped something close to a thousand tons of bombs in our wave. Something like that.

     “And about all I could actually see when we passed over the city was some fires blazing away down there, and a heck of a lot of smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. I remember thinking, there couldn’t be many people left down there, not alive anyway. That Mr. Funnygut guy who wrote that book you’re reading, and anybody else that survived, well, they were just lucky as heck, if you ask me, to live through something like that. Not much comes out of a firestorm, especially one that big. Even when we were about a hundred miles away, heading back to England, I could still see the smoke rising up from Dresden. It wouldn’t surprise me none if somebody said the smoke is still rising up from Dresden, to this very day. I’d believe it.”

     Lamar had another coughing fit.

     “To summarize, the best thing about the Dresden mission, as far as I was concerned, was that we were in and out and nobody got hurt, so to speak, as far as our guys were concerned, anyway. We didn’t attract any enemy fire to speak of, is what I mean, so that made my job pretty easy, not having to fight off enemy aircraft the whole time. I was still pretty glad when we got back to England, though. No matter what, you were always glad when you got home safe, and you just hoped and prayed you’d be that lucky again the next time.

     “So—that’s about all I can tell you about Dresden, not much I’m afraid.”

     Everybody just sat there and didn’t move or anything for a couple of seconds, and then Miss Hiller started clapping, and then everybody else clapped along with her. Grandpa kinda smiled and said thank you.

     Then Miss Hiller asked Grandpa if he’d mind answering any questions we might have, and he said sure, so she asked us if we had any, and at first nobody did, and Grandpa just kinda stood up there in front of the room looking at everybody, waiting. But then one of the guys asked him a question about airplanes, and Grandpa answered it pretty easily, and then one of the girls asked him if he’d read the Slaughterhouse-Five book, and he said no, which was pretty obvious if you ask me, because he’d called it Slaughterman-Nine before, and then the same stupid girl asked him if he’d ever met Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and he said no again, which was also pretty obvious, because he’d called him Mr. Funnygut before. Sometimes people don’t pay attention the way they should.

     Then nobody asked another question for a minute or so, and it was getting to be close to the end of the period, so it looked like Grandpa’s talk was about over.

     Miss Hiller stood up and smiled at Grandpa and said, “Well, Mr. Hollins, we’d all certainly like to thank you for your time this morning, and—“

     But then all of a sudden Lamar Jackson jumped right into the middle of what she was trying to say, with something like, “Hey, man, what I wanna know is, what would you say to the man, if you ever did meet him?  Tell me that.”

     At first, Grandpa looked like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to answer Lamar’s question or not. He turned towards Miss Hiller, and she kinda nodded at him, as if to say go ahead. So he turned back towards the class and said, “Well, I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about anything like that before. I don’t guess there’s really much I could say. Maybe just something like, sorry, but I was just doing my job. What you gotta remember is, he was a soldier, too, just like me. He had his job to do, and I had mine. I’m pretty sure he’d understand.”

     Nobody said anything for another few seconds, then Miss Hiller said, “Very well, then. Again, Mr. Hollins, thank you so much for—“

     Lamar piped up again, “Well, tell me something else, man, how’d it make you feel, flying around up there all safe and sound in that airplane, dropping them bombs on people, then flying away and watching ‘em burn?  That make you feel like you was bad or something.”

     “Lamar,” said Miss Hiller, “I think that’s quite enough.”

     “I’m just asking the man a question, that’s all. Ain’t that what he’s here for?”

     “Lamar,” Miss Hiller said, “I really don’t think—“

     “That’s okay, Miss Hiller,” Grandpa said, “I’ll be glad to answer the question.”  Then he turned towards the class again and said, “Did I feel bad about it?  Is that the question?  Well, as a soldier, you’re trained not to feel much of anything. You’re trained to take orders, and to take orders, and to take some more orders, and then to do your best to carry out those orders. They don’t give you much time to stop and think about how you feel about it. Thinking ain’t your job, doing is your job. If I felt anything about the Dresden mission, it was how glad I was we weren’t drawing enemy fire, and how glad I was to get back alive. That’s how I felt after every mission. Lucky to be alive.”

     Grandpa must have figured that was the end of the questions, because he turned around and sat back down in the chair he’d been sitting in when he first got there. Miss Hiller stood up again, and started to open her mouth like she was about to thank Grandpa all over again for everything. But Lamar wasn’t finished yet.

     “Well, tell me this, man,” Lamar said real loud, “what did it take to fly around and drop them bombs from way up there in the air, dropping ‘em down on people you couldn’t even see, like that?  Don’t seem to me like it’d take much to do something like that. Don’t sound too brave to me.”

     Grandpa jumped to his feet. “What did it take?”  You could tell by the way he’d raised his voice that he’d had about enough of Lamar’s questions. “I’ll tell you what it took. It took guts, that’s what. A lot of guts. To do what had to be done. Yeah, some missions like Dresden turned out to be a piece of cake, but you never knew that going in. You never knew what to expect on a mission until you got there and faced it. Some missions we were sent on, we were told before hand they’d be like a Sunday stroll in the park, and come to find out we’d have to turn around and high-tail it back home, we were taking on so much enemy fire. That happened all the time, more often than not. I was on one mission where we practically had the whole plane shot out from under us. It almost disintegrated with us still in it. It was a goddam miracle the pilot got it back across the Channel, it was so shot up. We lost so much altitude, we were only about 100 feet off the water the whole way. We had to crash land on the first airfield we got to. God, that was a terrible day. We lost our radio man, our co-pilot, our navigator, and two of the other gunners. They were guys I’d flown with since training, my best buddies. But all us lucky enough to make it back alive, we knew there was still a war to fight. We all went back up the next day, in another plane, on another mission, just like we were ordered to. We didn’t have any other choice. That’s all we could do.”

     Grandpa paused for a few seconds. “I’m not saying we were courageous or brave or heroes, or anything like that, but we did what we knew we had to do, when we knew we had to do it. And I think that took real guts, more than anything, if I do say so myself.”

     Lamar said, “Yeah, right on, brother. Sho’nuff lotta guuuts.”  But you could tell he meant it in a real smart ass way, the way he said it.

     Well, when Lamar said that, I could see it coming a mile away. Grandpa stood there with his fists clenched at his sides and he got all red in the face and he pressed his lips together real tight and squinched up his eyes, just like Mom does when she’s about to go off at something. He came back at Lamar in an even louder voice, “And I’ll tell you something else, BOY, something you should stop and think about sometime. If it hadn’ta been for all us guys willing to go over there and do our part, whether that meant flying airplanes or dropping bombs or manning guns or landing on beaches and fighting hand to hand, or whatever—what we knew we had to do, the best way we knew how—just maybe your little fat ass might not be sitting in this room right now, asking me all these damn-fool disrespectful questions like this. I never thought I’d see the day—“

     “Who you calling BOY?” Lamar shouted, “I ain’t your BOY, old man!”

     Grandpa opened his mouth to say something else and I could tell he was getting ready to tell Lamar just exactly who he was calling boy, but then the bell rang to signal that first period was over.

     Lamar jumped up and stormed out of the room, glaring at Grandpa the whole way. Everybody else got up and left, too, without saying anything.

     Grandpa stood there a minute, watching everybody leave, and then he shook his head and turned to Miss Hiller and said, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ma’am, and I apologize if I let my temper get the best of me.”

     Poor Miss Hiller looked kinda speechless, like she didn’t know what to say. All she could manage was, “Oh, my.”

     I walked out into the hall with Grandpa. He shook my hand and said, “Well, Warren, I’m off to Florida now. Got some fish to catch. I’ll stop by again to see you on my way back through. I’ll try to bring you back something. Okay?”

     I was still kinda stunned by what all had just happened. About all I could say was, “Yeah, sure, goodbye, Grandpa.” 

     He turned and went walking off down the hall, and I took off running in the other direction. I didn’t want to be late for second period Typing class.

     Well, to be honest with you, I don’t remember all that much what went on in second period Typing class that day, or in third period Algebra, either. All I could think about was what had happened between Grandpa and Lamar Jackson back there in first period. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Part of it was, I felt kinda bad for Miss Hiller, that it had happened in front of her, and in her class and all. And the other part was, I was pretty damn sure Lamar Jackson was gonna do his best to take it out on me, that Grandpa had called him a boy in front of the whole English class like that. I had no doubts about it, I’d probably be a dead man come sixth period gym class. I figured I’d be lucky if I made it back home alive at the end of the day.

     Anyway, second and third period was a blur, like I said, and when I got to the lunch room after third period, Wallace and Wendall were sitting there arguing about something stupid and I just didn’t feel like listening to it, so I got up and left. I didn’t even buy a strawberry ice cream sandwich from Kathy Lendover. My appetite was shot. For some reason, I felt like I had to talk to Miss Hiller. So I headed up to where her classroom is, up on the second floor.

     I walked back and forth past her doorway a few times, peeking in, and I could see her in there all by herself, sitting at her desk. So after about the fourth time, I kinda knocked on the door and went on in.

     She looked up and saw it was me, and she smiled and said, “Oh, hi Warren, come on in.”  I could tell she was eating her lunch and grading papers or doing some other kinda paperwork or something.

     I went over and stood beside her desk. I didn’t say anything at first. She must have thought I was an idiot or something. She kept looking up at me, like she was waiting for me to tell her what I wanted or what I was doing there. I didn’t really know what it was I wanted to say, or why I was even there, but I knew I had to say something, so I just came out with something like, “Uh, Miss Hiller, I just wanted to say, uh, I’m sorry about this morning. About how Grandpa and Lamar Jackson got into it and all, I mean. I don’t think Grandpa meant anything bad by what all he said, honest, he just kinda lost his temper some, that’s all. He’s got a little bit of a temper. My Mom does, too. She gets it from him, I guess. My Dad’s pretty easy going, though.”  Jesus, I guess I was gonna tell her my whole family history.

     Miss Hiller said, “No, I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm. Lamar was just goading him on, for some reason. Lamar brought it upon himself. I don’t know what gets into him, sometimes. He can really be difficult when he wants to be.”

     I said, “Yeah, that’s for sure.”

     Miss Hiller smiled and said, “Well, anyway. I appreciate your coming by and saying those things.”  She reached out and touched me on the arm. “It was very sweet of you, but there’s no apology necessary. I understand completely.” 

     She was so gorgeous sitting there smiling at me.

     “I’m just sorry the period ended the way it did,” she said, “because I didn’t really get the chance to properly thank your grandfather again for coming in. Oh, well. I think most everybody enjoyed listening to his experiences, I know I did. He certainly had a bird’s eye view of Dresden. That was all so fascinating, don’t you think?”

     “Yes, Ma’am,” I said.

     She kept going on about how nice it was for Grandpa to come in like he did, and how interesting it all was, and told me to be sure to thank him again especially for her the next time I saw him, and I promised her I would, soon as he got back from Florida.

     Then she just sat there and smiled up at me for the longest kinda time. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but I didn’t want to leave, either. You see, I hate to admit it, but from where I was standing, and from the way she was sitting, I could see right down into her blouse, because it was gapped open just a little bit between the second and third buttons. It wasn’t a low-cut blouse she was wearing or anything like that, it was just the way she was sitting there with her body kinda turned to the side, a little towards me. I could tell she was wearing a white silky looking bra. The whole time I was talking to her I was trying to peek down there between her buttons, as much as I could, without her knowing that’s what I was doing.

     I’d run out of things to say, and I knew I had to either think up something else to say or go on and leave, because she’d probably start thinking I was stupid or something if I just stood there looking at her like that, without saying anything. Then I realized I was carrying my annual, and that I’d never gotten around to asking her to sign it for me, so I held it up towards her and said, “Um, Miss Hiller, would you mind signing my annual, please?”

     “Why, I’d love to,” she said. She reached out and took it from me and opened it up on top of her desk and flipped through the pages a little bit, like she was looking for just the right spot to sign it I guess. And then she leaned forward and started writing away.

     Well, I hate to admit this part too, but when she got to leaning forward like that, writing in my annual, well, then I could really see down into her blouse, through that opening between the second and third buttons, and I mean I could see big-time. Jesus, I could practically see her whole left breast. It was laying there all snuggled up in that silky bra cup, and it was moving up and down, up and down, real slow, every time she breathed in and out. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, it looked so soft and warm. In a way, I felt kinda bad and guilty for looking, but I just couldn’t not look.

     I’ll tell you something, I realized right then and there, I’m tee-totally in love with Miss Hiller and I always will be. I’m goo-goo about Ginny Milner and maybe I’m kinda in love with her, too, in a way, but not in the same way I’m in love with Miss Hiller. I don’t know how to tell you what the difference is, other than to say my heart belongs to Miss Hiller, but that probably doesn’t make much sense. It’s just hard to explain, that’s all. All I know is, if I ever fell into a time warp or got unstuck in time like that Billy Pilgrim guy did in Slaughterhouse-Five, all I’d want to do is come back and re-live again all the time I’ve spent in Miss Hiller’s classroom this year, just so I could sit and smell her perfume, and stare at her legs when she’s perched up on the front of her desk, and listen to her sexy voice say my name during roll call every morning, and stand there like I did that last day, peeking between her buttons, drooling over her heaving breasts while she signed my annual. I wouldn’t mind doing that, over and over, forever and ever, until the end of time.

     Well, when it looked to me like she was about finished writing in my annual, as much as I hated to, I took my eyes away from the opening in her blouse, so she wouldn’t look up all of a sudden and catch me staring at her like that. She finished writing and handed it back to me and said, “I just found out something this morning, I’ll be teaching a couple of tenth grade English classes next year, so hopefully I’ll have you back again as a student. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

     I said, “Yes, Ma’am.”  But it didn’t come out sounding like I was all excited or anything, even though I truly was glad about it. I probably didn’t sound excited because soon as she said it, all I could think about was the fact that there really ain’t gonna be much of a next year, next year. Not after October anyway, because of Armageddon coming and all that.

     Then she got that real concerned look on her face that she sometimes gets with me, and she said, “Warren, I know we’ve talked about this before, but that was a while back, and I’d like to ask you again, is everything alright with you?  Are you doing okay?”  Her voice had gotten all serious. “Every now and then I notice you still seem a little withdrawn, a little distraught—like before. Are you doing okay?”  She touched my arm again.

     “Yes, Ma’am, I’m fine. Honest.”

     “Well, I hope so.”  She smiled at me some more.

     “Um, I gotta go,” I said. I didn’t want to give her the chance to start asking me a bunch of those is everything alright is there anything I can do maybe we should call your parents type of questions like she did that time once before, which I told you about a good ways back. “Thanks for signing my book.”

     “You’re quite welcome. And don’t forget to study for your exam on Monday. But I’m sure you’ll do okay.”

     “Yes, Ma’am,” I said, backing towards the door, “I will. Good-bye.”

     “Bye-bye.”  She waved at me. “See ya Monday morning!”

     That’s the last time I saw Miss Hiller.

     Just about as soon as I walked out of Miss Hiller’s room, the bell for fourth period rang, so I had to hurry off to the other side of the school, to my Earth Science class. I don’t remember much of anything that happened in there that day either, because I still had Lamar Jackson and sixth period gym to worry about, so my mind was busy thinking about all that. And what time I didn’t spend trying to figure out how in the world I was gonna survive sixth period, I spent reading what Miss Hiller had written to me, on her picture in my annual. I read it over and over:

Warren,  it certainly has been a pleasure having you in my class this year. I’d love to have a whole class of students with your qualities!  Keep up the good work. Have a nice summer. See you next year.—Pam Hiller

     I don’t know how many times I read it during fourth period, but it must have been about two million, because the next thing I knew, everybody in Earth Science had jumped up and was heading for the door because the bell had just rung again, which meant I only had one more period to go before I had to face Lamar Jackson.

     But at least I’d get to spend the next to last period of my life with Ginny Milner, in fifth period Art class, which I was about a minute late for, because I’d gone by my locker to pick up my Mark Twain drawing and had gotten about halfway up to the Art room before I’d remembered about Ginny’s birthday present, so I had to turn around real quick and haul ass back to my locker to get it. Mr. Michaels didn’t say anything when I walked in late, because he didn’t even notice. He was busy putting a tape in his tape player. Mr. Michaels is cool, though. He’s the kind of teacher that wouldn’t say anything even if he did notice you were a little bit late.

     I sat down beside Ginny at our little table where we always sit together, and said hi to her, and she smiled at me and said, “Hi, Footboy!  I was beginning to think you weren’t even here today. What’s up?”

     “Nothing. I had to go back to my locker for something,” I said. Then I pulled out the little brown paper bag I was carrying underneath my Mark Twain drawing. I set it in front of her and said, “This!”

     She looked at the bag and said, “What’s that?”

     “Something I got for you. For your birthday. Happy birthday!”  That was the first time in my whole life I’d ever said happy birthday to somebody.

     She opened the bag and pulled out the little present. “But why’re you giving me this now?  You’re supposed to bring it tomorrow, to the party. I mean, thanks!”  She had that great big beautiful Ginny Milner smile on her face, the one where her little pug nose squinches up and all you can see is freckles and braces.

     “I know, I know, but since today is your birthday, I thought I should give it to you today.”  Of course I knew good and well I was lying my ass off. I knew good and well the real reason was because there was no way in hell I was gonna get to go to her birthday party and swim with her in her pool, even though I’d been promising her all week I was.

     “Oh, okay,” she said. She held the present up and shook it a little, gently. “I think I know what it is. Not what it is is, but what it is is.”  She started laughing. “Do you want me to open it now, or should I wait until tomorrow, at the party?”

     “It’s up to you.”  I was hoping she’d open it right then, so I could see her face when she did.

     At first she pretended like she was gonna put it back in the bag, but then she grabbed it back out real quick. “No way I could wait that long!” she said, and started tearing the bow and wrapping paper away.

      When she got it unwrapped her eyes popped out and she just held it up and stared at it. “J A M E S  T A Y L O R. Wow!  I can’t believe it!  This is wonderful!  Thank you!  Gorilla?  I’ve never heard of this one. I wonder why it’s called Gorilla?  Wow!”

     “It’s brand new. It just came out. I figured you like it.”

     “I’m sure of it!  It’s James Taylor!  He’s the greatest!”  She looked at me and started laughing again, “Now don’t start with me about them scummy old Doobie Brothers, okay?  You know how much I love my Sweet Baby James. Hey, let’s get Mr. Michaels to play it, right now.”

     She got up and took it over to Mr. Michaels and told him about it, and he looked back at me and kinda winked and gave me the Fonzie thumbs-up sign, and then he stopped the tape player and pulled out the tape that was already in there playing, and he stuck in Ginny’s new one. So we all listened to the new James Taylor while we worked away on our art projects. Ginny loved it, of course, which she kept saying to me over and over, and I thought it was okay, too, but it wasn’t the Doobie Brothers. And she kept telling me over and over how sweet I was and how sweet my phone call had been the night before, even though she barely understood anything I was trying to say, except for that one really sweet part, she said. And she reached over and lightly touched where my mouth was busted and said something like, “Oh, poor little baby, just let Ginny kiss it and make it all better!”  She kept saying that a bunch of times and making little kissy noises.

     Jesus, Ginny is so great. It really made me glad I’d gotten her that birthday present, just to see how happy it made her and all, even though buying somebody a birthday present is like the last thing in the world a real Jehovah’s Witness would ever do. Or getting a blood transfusion.

     Somewhere in there we got to talking about the birthday party again, and she asked me if I knew where she lived, and I said no, so she got out a piece of paper and started drawing me a map to her house, so I’d know how to get there and all.

     She said, “You ever been to Concord?”

     “Not really. I don’t think so.”

     “Well, all you gotta do is, when you get to the stop light there as you’re coming into Rustburg, instead of turning right like you’re coming up to the school, you turn left and take Route 24 about five miles, and that takes you right into Concord. And our house is right near the little village you come to. You go here, see, then you turn here, then you turn here, on the left. It’s Rector Road. Can’t miss it. Big yard. Brick house. Pool in the back. But no skinny dipping. Not tomorrow, anyway. Got it?”

     She gave me the map and I put it in my pocket. By then the period was about over and everybody was cleaning up and putting away their art stuff. Mr. Michaels was hanging around the front of the supply closet the whole time, so unfortunately me and Ginny weren’t able to go back there and get in a quick kiss, like we’d done the day before. We kept waiting and waiting for him to move away from back there, but he never did.

     When the bell finally rang, she grabbed her new James Taylor tape out of Mr. Michael’s tape player and we went on outside into the hallway, and stood there just kinda looking at each other for a few seconds. Then she said, “I really wished we coulda made it back to the closet, so I coulda thanked you for the birthday present. And given you a little something to make your lips heal quicker.”  She kissed me on the check and whispered in my ear, “But don’t you worry none, Footboy. I’ll be sure to thank you tomorrow at my party. Real good.”

     Then we said good-bye to each other and she took off down the hall. That’s the last time I saw her, too.

     Well, I figured Lamar Jackson would be waiting for me in the locker room, first thing sixth period, to kill me soon as I walked in. I really didn’t want to, but there wasn’t much else I could do, so I went on into the locker room. He wasn’t in there, which surprised the hell out of me. I wasn’t interested in standing around like a sitting duck, so I pulled my gym suit out of my locker real quick and snuck back into a shower stall, and changed into them behind a shower curtain. That was so Lamar would think I wasn’t around, if he happened to show up while I was in there.

     But for some strange reason, he never showed. I hid back there in the showers for a few more minutes, until it got real quiet out in the locker room and I could tell all the other guys had finished changing into their gym suits and had headed on out to the field. When I thought the coast was clear, I high-tailed it out of the shower room and ran on outside as fast as I could, down to the softball field, which is down behind the school. You have to go down this pretty step bank to get to it. The bank runs all the way around the outfield, past where the fence would be, if we had a fence. But we don’t have a fence, so the rule is, if you hit a ball up onto the bank there, it’s a homerun. Of course, I could never in a million years hit one that far. But some of the guys in my class can. Lamar can.

     I made it down to the field in time to get into the game that was starting up. I looked all over the place, but I still didn’t see Lamar Jackson anywhere, so that was the second lucky thing so far, the first being that he hadn’t been in the locker room either. And believe it or not, there was actually a third lucky thing, which was that for some reason Coach Lankford had come out there that day, and was sitting on the bleachers behind the backstop, to watch us play softball, which was really unusual, because he usually just sends us outside to play while he sits around his little office back behind the gym and reads magazines or something all period. So I figured if Lamar did show up down there on the field before the end of class, at least he wouldn’t be able to kill me right there in the open, not with Coach Lankford looking on. So I was starting to feel a lot better about things, like maybe this might turn out to be my lucky day somehow.

     Well, we’d been down there playing softball all period long, and everything was going along just fine. I’d made a couple of okay catches in left field, nothing spectacular, and I’d hit a double, too. There was only about five minutes left before we’d have to leave the field and go back up to the locker room and change back into our regular clothes. There’s a warning bell that rings, to let you know it’s time to go back in, but you really have to listen out for it, because it’s way up on the outside wall of the gym. I was standing out in left field, listening out for the warning bell as best I could, and all of a sudden I started hearing something hit the ground back behind me, and then over to my left, and then over to my right, about every fifteen or twenty seconds or so. Then something landed right in front of me, and I looked down and saw it was a rock. And right then I figured out real quick what was going on. I turned around just in time to see Lamar Jackson and a couple of his big soul brother buddies come walking down the side of the bank. They went walking down the left field line, towards the backstop. Lamar wasn’t wearing gym clothes. And the whole time he was walking past me, doing his little stupid up and down strut, he was giving me this real mean look, probably the meanest look he’d ever given me before. You could tell he was all pissed off that he’d come down there looking to get me, but couldn’t when he saw that Coach Lankford was down there, too. And this is what he yelled over to me when he walked by, “Your ass is gonna be mine, white boy. We’ll just see if you got your grandpa’s guts.”  His buddies busted out laughing when he said that. We were all out there in left field, so I don’t think anybody else heard anything.  

     Lamar and his buddies went and stood around the backstop, and the whole time he was standing there, he was still looking out at me in left field. I was out there hoping the warning bell would hurry up and ring, because then I’d have a pretty good head start up the bank and back up to the locker room. Fast as I am, I figured I could get up there and grab my stuff out of my locker and high-tail it before Lamar could catch up with me, slow as he is.

     But it didn’t seem like that damn bell was ever gonna ring.  We had two outs on the team that was batting, and as soon as they made another out, I knew I’d have to go back in to the backstop area, right where Lamar was waiting, and then I wouldn’t be able to get as good a jump on him when the bell finally did get around to ringing.

    The other team had two outs, like I said, and this stupid little white guy named Lenny was batting, whose a pretty lousy ballplayer, all and all, and he already had a couple of strikes on him and everything, and then all of a sudden, right in the middle of his at-bat, Lamar went up to the plate and said something to him.  Then Lamar took the bat away from Lenny, and Lamar stood there like he was a new pinch-hitter or something. Coach Lankford didn’t say nothing. Our stupid pitcher tossed it up there and Lamar took a gigantic swing and smacked a huge towering pop-up, and it looked like it was gonna go about a mile over my head in left field. But I took off instantly and ran and ran like hell back towards the bank and caught up with it and made like the greatest catch of my life. It felt like that Willie Mays catch, when I made it, the one you see pictures of all the time in old baseball books, the one where old Willie’s running with his back to the plate and all you can see is the number 24 on the back of his jersey. Then you see him reaching up and pulling the ball right out of the air, just as it’s coming down over his left shoulder. And then you see him twirling around real fast and heaving the ball back into the infield. That’s exactly how my catch felt.

     I could hear a bunch of the guys hooping and hollering after I made the catch. Of course I acted like it was no big deal, and I started trotting back in, even though I really didn’t want to. But I had to, because I was supposed to be the first up to bat for our team that inning. I saw Lamar standing between first and second base with his pissed off look on his face, like he couldn’t believe I’d caught that ball. I threw the ball in towards the infield and kept running on in. After I’d gone about ten yards or so, all of a sudden I heard the warning bell up on the side of the school building go off, so I made a quick u-turn and started running as fast as I could in the opposite direction, towards the bank behind left field.

     Well, when I’d thrown the ball back into the infield, Lamar must have picked it up, because when I’d just about made it to the top of the bank, I saw something coming at me out of the corner of my eye, and out of instinct I tried to duck down, but I wasn’t quick enough, and that softball came down out of the air and smacked me right up side the head, right on the corner of my right eye. It hit me so hard I fell face forward into the bank. I was kinda dazed for a second or two. I could hear Lamar and a bunch of the other guys laughing and carrying on back down on the field behind me. I tried to get back up to my feet, but I only made it up to my hands and knees. My head was spinning. I saw little white spots floating all over the place. I turned and looked back down at the field, and I saw a blurry Lamar Jackson standing right around second base, jumping up and down and laughing and holding both of his arms straight up in the air, like he was signaling a touch down or something. I’ll tell you, that was one hell of a throw. Lamar is about the only guy in our class that coulda made a throw like that.

     I could feel some blood coming down the side of my face, a little bit. I didn’t know what to do. I had a good mind to go back down that bank and go ahead and have it out right then and there with Lamar and get it over with, but I knew he’d just kill me if I did, and I didn’t have the guts to do something like that anyway. So I did the only thing a little chicken shit like me could do. I kept on climbing up the bank on my hands and knees until I got to the very top, and then I stood up and turned around, and I stuck both of my middle fingers up in the air and yelled out as loud as I could, “HEY LAMAR JACKSON YOU GODDAM SON OF A BITCHING FAT ASSED BLACK MOTHER FUCKING STICK UP YOUR ASS BASTARD BOY!!! GO TO HELL AND FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOU!!!”

     Man, I didn’t even wait around to see the expression on his face when he heard me yell all that. And I didn’t even bother going back to the locker room to get my regular clothes. I didn’t stop off at my other locker, either, not to get my annual or anything else. What I did was run my little ass as fast as I could back up to the school, straight through the gym, all the way down the main hall, out the front door, across the front lawn, and up to the school bus, which was just sitting there waiting for the final bell to ring and everybody to come on out and load up. Mr. Dobbs the bus driver wasn’t even on it yet. I pushed the door open and got on the bus and sunk down as low as possible in one of the seats near the front, and pulled my gym shirt up over my face to wipe away some of the blood there. It seemed like it took forever before all the other kids got on and we finally pulled off. Somewhere in there Danny got on and sat down beside me, but I didn’t sit up and uncover my face until we had pulled out of the school yard and gotten the hell out of Rustburg and were a couple of miles down 501.

     Danny took one look at the blood crusted up on the side of my face, and at my right eye, which had turned black and was just about swollen shut, and he said, “Jesus, Warren, what the hell happened to you this time?”

     I just sunk back down in the seat as far as I could go and closed my eyes and covered them over with my left arm and said, “Don’t ask.” 

     Danny could tell I was hurting pretty bad, I guess, because he didn’t bother going into his usual thing of making fun of Pete Rose, or try to get me to talk any about screwing Mrs. Harrelson, or anything. He left me alone.

     I was still feeling pretty lousy when I got home, too. For one thing, my head was splitting wide open with a headache, from having been clobbered with that softball, and from having to listen to all the stupid kids on the school bus screaming and carrying on, the whole way home. I’d kept my eyes shut and tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t, not for all the screaming and all.

     And another thing was, my stomach had started hurting again, just like the day before, like there was still a big knot inside it or something. What I’d wanted to do when I got home was take a bunch of aspirins and then go straight to my room and go to bed and go to sleep and not wake up again until Saturday. But of course as soon as I came in the side door of the house, I heard Mom yell in at me from the living room, to get myself downstairs right away and get my sheets out of the washer and into the dryer and then put them back on my bed.

     So I went on downstairs to get started on that. Dad was down there on his side of the basement shooting pool all by himself. He had his radio on the country music station. I stayed over on Mom’s side, moving my sheets from the washer to the dryer, trying to be as quiet as I could. I didn’t feel like going over there to his side of the basement. I could see there were lots of beer cans sitting all over the place on Dad’s side, so I knew he’d been down there drinking all day.

     When I went back upstairs, that’s when Mom saw the side of my face for the first time, my black eye and all. She asked me what happened, and why I was still wearing my gym clothes and all. I told her I didn’t have time to change, because I’d gotten hit with a softball, which was the truth, kinda. I didn’t tell her the whole truth, about who threw it, or any of that.

     She said, “Didn’t I just tell you yesterday to be more careful and look out where you’re going?”

     “Yes, Ma’am.”

     “Well, why didn’tcha?”

     “I don’t know. It wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help it. It’s just something that happened, that’s all.”

     “Well, it’s just awfully strange how things are always happening to you. Things like that never seem to happen to Freddie, now do they?”

     “No, Ma’am.”

     Then she said, “Well, go put some ice on your eye. Try to take some of the swelling down. Go.”

     I turned around to go back into the kitchen for the ice, and before I’d even gone two steps, Mom blurted out behind me, “And don’t even ask me if you can stay home from the Kingdom Hall tonight, because you can’t. You hear?”

     I got some ice for my eye and then I went and layed down on my bed. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to fall asleep, the way my head was still hurting, and we didn’t have any aspirins in the house. Mom said Dad had gotten up and taken all of them we had, because he had a hangover.

     But I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, Mom was waking me up and telling me to come and fix myself a sandwich, that it was almost time to start getting ready for the Meeting. So I got up and went into the kitchen, but I didn’t eat anything. I just didn’t feel like it. My stomach was still all knotted up. All I did was drink a glass of tea. Then I went and changed into my Meeting clothes and sat on the sofa in the living room with my eyes closed until it was time to go.

     Well, we got to the Kingdom Hall that night a little bit early, which was good, because I’d finally remembered to bring back that The Time Is At Hand book, and I needed to sneak it back down to the Kingdom Hall library. So when I walked into the Kingdom Hall, I went straight down the steps to the basement, to the little library room down there. I opened the library door and went walking right in with that book in my hand, expecting to just toss it into that big box of books where I’d found it in the first place.

     But as soon as I opened the door, I got caught off guard, because Brother Gottwald and Brother Harris were in there. They must have been having some kinda top secret elder conversation or something, because Brother Harris stopped whatever it was he was saying and looked at me like he was pretty pissed that I’d just barged in like that.

     Brother Gottwald must not have recognized me at first, because of my big black eye and all I guess, because the first thing he said was, “Goodness!”  Then he said, “Well, now, if it isn’t little Brother Grubber. And how are you tonight?  I must say, your fat lip looks a little better, but that’s quite a shiner you’re sporting there!”

     About that time Brother Harris must have realized that I was holding that book. Before I could say anything back to Brother Gottwald, Brother Harris said to me, “And what do we have here?”  He reached out like he was gonna jerk the book out of my hand, but I pulled away, so he wasn’t able to grab it, which seemed to piss him off even more, for some reason. He turned all red in the face and said, “I thought I told you last Sunday to put that book right back where you found it. Why didn’t you obey me?”

     “I was just looking at it,” I said.

     Brother Harris said, “And I distinctly remember telling you there was nothing in there for you to see, now didn’t I tell you that?” 

     Brother Gottwald didn’t know what the hell we were talking about. He said, “What is it?  What book have you got there, Warren?”

     “The Time Is At Hand,” I said, holding it up.

     Brother Harris turned to Brother Gottwald and said, “Oh, it’s just one of Pastor Russell’s old books, from his ‘Studies in the Scriptures’ series, that’s all. It’s way out of date. There’s certainly no need for anybody to be reading it, not in this day and time.”  Then he turned back to me and said, “And that’s exactly what I told you Sunday, when I caught you with it in the first place, now didn’t I?”

     Well, I don’t know why, but for some reason all of a sudden I remembered that one page in the first part of the book that Sister Flowers or somebody had underlined in there, the paragraph where Charles T. Russell bragged that this book was gonna prove that the end of the world would be in 1914. So I opened it up to that page and held it open and pointed to it and said, “How come it says here that Armageddon was gonna be in 1914?”  I honestly don’t know why I was asking them a stupid question like that. I mean, it wasn’t a big secret or anything that Charles Russell had screwed up big-time on his dates and stuff. It wasn’t like I was Sherlock Holmes all of a sudden and had just uncovered some big secret the Society was trying to keep hidden from everybody or something.

     Soon as I said it, Brother Harris reached out and snatched it out of my hand real quick, before I could pull it back like I had before. He snapped it shut and held it behind his back and said, “Didn’t I tell you i