Ham On Rye

24

Our English teacher, Miss Gredis, was the absolute best. She was a blonde with a long sharp nose. Her nose wasn't much good but you didn't notice it when you looked at the rest of her. She wore tight dresses and low v-necks, black high-heeled shoes and silk stockings. She was snake-like with long beautiful legs. She only sat behind her desk when she took roll call. She kept one desk vacant at the front of the room and after roll call she would come down and sit on that desk top, facing us. Miss Gredis sat perched there with her legs crossed and her skirt pulled high. Never had we seen such ankles, such legs, such thighs. Well, there was Lilly Fischman, but Lilly was a girl-woman while Miss Gredis was in full bloom. And we got to gaze upon her for a full hour each day. There wasn't a boy in that class who wasn't sad when the bell rang ending the English period. We'd talk about her.

"Do you think she wants to be fucked?"

"No, I think she's just teasing us. She knows she's driving us crazy, that's all she needs, that's all she wants."

"I know where she lives. I'm going over there some night."

"You wouldn't have the balls!"

"Yeah? Yeah? I'll fuck the shit out of her! She's asking for it!"

"A guy I know in the 8th grade said he went over there one night."

"Yeah? What happened?"

"She came to the door in a nightgown, her tits were practically hanging out. The guy said he had forgotten the next day's homework and wondered what it was. She asked him in."

"No shit?"

"Yeah. Nothing happened. She made him some tea, told him about the homework and he left."

"If I had of gotten in, that would have been it!"

"Yeah? What would you have done?"

"First I would have corn-holed her, then I would have eaten her pussy, then I would fuck her between the tits and then I would force her to give me a blow job."

"No kidding, dreamer boy. You ever been laid?"

"Fuck yes, I've been laid. Several times."

"How was it?"

"Lousy."

"Couldn't come, hub?"

"I came all over the place, I thought I'd never stop."

"Came all over the palm of your hand, hub?"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha!"

"All over your hand, hub?"

"Fuck you guys!"

"I don't think any of us has been laid," said one of the guys. There was silence.

"That's shit. I was laid when I was seven years old."

"That's nothing. I was laid when I was four."

"Sure, Red. Lay it on good!"

"I got this little girl under the house."

"You got a hard?"

"Sure."

"You came?"

"I think so. Something squirted out."

"Sure. You pissed in her cunt, Red."

"Balls!"

"What was her name?"

"Betty Ann."

"Fuck," said the guy who claimed to have gotten laid when he was seven. "Mine was named Betty Ann too."

"That whore," said Red.

One tine Spring day we were sitting in English class and Miss Gredis was sitting on the front desk facing us. She had her skirt pulled especially high, it was terrifying, beautiful, wondrous and dirty. Such legs, such thighs, we were very close to the magic. It was unbelievable. Baldy sat in the seat across the aisle from me. He reached over and began poking me on the leg with his finger:

" She's breaking all the records!" he whispered. "Look! Look!"

"My God," I said, "shut up or she'll pull her skirt down!"

Baldy pulled his hand back and I waited. We hadn't spooked Miss Gredis. Her skirt remained as high as ever. It was truly a day to remember. There wasn't a boy in class without a hard-on and Miss Gredis went on talking. I'm sure that none of the boys heard a word she was saying. The girls, though, turned and glanced at each other as if to say, this bitch is going too far. Miss Gredis couldn't go too far. It was almost as if there weren't even a cunt up there but something much better. Those legs. The sun came through the window and poured in on those legs and thighs, the sun played on that warm silk pulled so tightly. The skirt was so high, pulled hack, we all prayed for a glimpse of panty, a glimpse of something, Jesus Christ, it was like the world ending and beginning and ending again, it was everything real and unreal, the sun, the thighs, and the silk, so smooth, so warm, so alluring. The whole room throbbed. Eyesight blurred and returned and Miss Gredis went on sitting there as if nothing was happening and she kept talking as if everything was normal. That's what made it so good and so terrible: the fact that she pretended that it wasn't happening. I looked down at my desk top for a moment and saw the grain in the wood heightened as if each pattern was a pool of whirling liquid. Then I quickly looked back at the legs and thighs, angered with myself that I had looked away for a moment, and perhaps missed something.

Then the sound began: "Thump, thump, thump, thump.. ."

Richard Waite. He sat in a seat in the back. He had huge ears and thick lips, the lips were swollen and monstrous and he had a very large head. His eyes were almost without color, they didn't reflect interest or intelligence. He had large feet and his mouth always hung open. When he spoke the words came out one by one, halting, with long pauses in between. He wasn't even a sissy. Nobody ever spoke to him. Nobody knew what he was doing there in our school. He gave the impression that something important was missing from his makeup. He wore clean clothing, but his shirt was always out in the back, one or two buttons were gone on his shirt or on his pants. Richard Waite. He lived somewhere and he came to school every day.

"Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…"

Richard Waite was jerking-off, a salute to Miss Gredis' thighs and legs. He had finally weakened. Perhaps he didn't understand society's ways. Now we all heard him. Miss Gredis heard him. The girls heard him. We all knew what he was doing. He was so fucking dumb he didn't even have sense enough to keep it quiet. And he was becoming more and more excited. The thumps grew louder. His closed fist was hitting the underside of his desk top.

"THUMP, THUMP THUMP…"

We looked at Miss Gredis. What would she do? She hesitated. She glanced about the class. She smiled, as composed as ever, and then she continued speaking:

"I believe that the English language is the most expressive and contagious form of communication. To begin with, we should be thankful that we have this unique gift of a great language. And if we abuse it we are only abusing ourselves. So let us listen, heed, acknowledge our heritage, and yet explore and take risks with language…"

"THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…"

"We must forget England and their use of our common tongue. Even though English usage is fine, our own American language contains many deep wells of unexplored resources. These resources, as yet, remain untapped. Given the proper moment and the proper writers, there will one day be a literary explosion…"

"THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…"

Yes, Richard Waite was one of the few we never talked to. Actually, we were afraid of him. He wasn't somebody you could beat the shit out of, that would never make anybody feel better. You just wanted to get as far away from him as possible, you didn't want to look at him, you didn't want to look at those big lips, that big unfolding mouth like the mouth of a bruised frog. You shunned him because you couldn't defeat Richard Waite.

We waited and waited while Miss Gredis talked on about English versus American culture. We waited, while Richard Waite went on and on. Richard's fist banged against the underside of his desk top and the little girls glanced at each other and the guys were thinking, why is this asshole in this class with us? He's going to spoil everything. One asshole and Miss Gredis will pull her skirt down forever.

"THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…"

And then it stopped. Richard sat there. He was finished. We sneaked glances at him. He looked the same. Was his sperm laying in his lap or was it in his hand? The bell rang. English class was over.

After that, there was more of the same. Richard Waite thumped it often while we listened to Miss Gredis sitting on that front desk with her legs crossed high. We boys accepted the situation. After a while we even were amused. The girls accepted it but they didn't like it, especially Lilly Fischman who was almost forgotten.

Besides Richard Waite, there was another problem for me in that class: Harry Walden. Harry Walden was pretty, the girls thought, and he had long golden curls and wore strange, delicate clothing. He looked like an 18th century fop, lots of strange colors, dark green, dark blue, I don't know where the hell his parents found his clothes. And he always sat very still and listened attentively. Like he understood everything. The girls said, "He's a genius." He didn't look like anything to me. What I couldn't understand was that the tough guys didn't mess with him. It bothered me. How could he get off so easy? I found him one day in the hall. I stopped him.

"You don't look like shit to me," I said. "How come everybody thinks you're hot shit?"

Walden glanced over to his right and when I turned my head to look in that direction, he slid around me as if I were something from the sewer and then a moment later he was in his seat in the class.

Almost every day it was Miss Gredis showing it all and Richard thumping away and this guy Walden sitting there saying nothing and acting like he believed he was a genius. I got sick of it.

I asked some of the other guys, "Listen, do you really think Harry Walden is a genius? He just sits around in his pretty clothes and doesn't say anything. What does that prove? We could all do that."

They didn't answer me. I couldn't understand their feelings about this fucking guy. And it got worse. Word got out that Harry Walden was going to see Miss Gredis every night, that he was her favorite pupil, and that they were making love. It made me sick. I could just imagine him getting out of his delicate green and blue outfit, folding it across a chair, then climbing out of his orange satin shorts and sliding under the sheets where Miss Gredis cuddled his curly golden head on her shoulder and fondled it and other things as well.

It was whispered about by the girls who always seemed to know everything. And even though the girls didn't particularly like Miss Gredis, they thought the situation was all right, that it was reasonable because Harry Walden was such a delicate genius and needed all the sympathy he could get. I caught Harry Walden in the hall one more time.

"I'll kick your ass, you son-of-a-bitch, you don't fool me!"

Harry Walden looked at me. Then he looked over my shoulder and pointed and said, "What's that over there?"

I looked around. When I looked back he was gone. He was sitting in the class safely surrounded by all the girls who thought he was a genius and who loved him.

There was more and more whispering about Harry Walden going over to Miss Gredis' house at night and some days Harry wouldn't even be in class. Those were the best days for me because I only had to deal with the thumping and not the golden curls and the adoration for that kind of stuff by all the little girls with their skirts and sweaters and starched gingham dresses. When Harry wasn't there the little girls would whisper, "He's just too sensitive … "

And Red Kirkpatrick would say, "She's fucking him to death."

One afternoon I walked into class and Harry Walden's seat was empty. I figured he was just fucking-off as usual. Then the word drifted from desk to desk. I was always the last to know anything. It finally got to me: Harry Walden had committed suicide. The night before. Miss Gredis didn't know yet. I looked over at his seat. He'd never sit there again. All those colorful clothes shot to hell. Miss Gredis finished roll call. She came and sat on the front desk, crossed her legs high. She had on a lighter shade of silk hose than ever before. Her skirt was hiked way back to her thighs.

"Our American culture," she said, "is destined for greatness. The English language, now so limited and structured, will be reinvented and improved upon. Our writers will use what I like to think of, in my mind, as Americanese.. ."

Miss Gredis' stockings were almost skin-colored. It was as if she were not wearing stockings at all, it was as if she were naked there in front of us, but since she wasn't and only appeared to be, that made it better than ever.

"More and more we will discover our own truths and our own way of speaking, and this new voice will be uncluttered by old histories, old mores, old dead and useless dreams…"

"Thump, thump, thump…"