DAVID V. MATTHEWS

Three boys sit together during lunch, in the cafetorium (combination cafeteria and auditorium) at Center Township Elementary School, Monaca, PA, Wednesday, October 28, 1975:

Douglas: “Here’s a good joke.  So this kid named Johnny goes home and says, he says, uh, ‘Mom!  Mom!  I was walking past the Giant Eagle, just minding my own business,’ he says, ‘just minding my business, when I saw this kid get hit by a car, on the butt!’  Ha ha.  And the kid’s mom, uh, Johnny’s mom?  Yeah, Johnny’s mom says, she says ‘No, Johnny—rectum.’  And Johnny, ha ha. Johnny says ‘Rectum?  It nearly killed him!’  Ha ha ha!”

No one else laughs.

Tommy: “Man, you suck at tellin’ jokes!”

Douglas: “I thought I did a good job.”

Tommy: “Then you’re a fag.  Who cares about all that Giant Eagle stuff?  Get to the point: ‘Mom!  I saw a kid get hit by a car, on the butt!’  No, say ‘ass’ instead—that’s funnier.”

Douglas: “My mom won’t let me swear.”

Tommy: “Then you’ll never be funny.”

Ricky: “Doug-ass.”

Douglas: “Shut up, fatso.”

Ricky: “Say ‘ass,’ Doug-ass.”

Douglas: “Shut up.”

Tommy: “Say ‘ass,’ or you’re a fag and you can’t sit here no more.”

Douglas says nothing.

Tommy: “Say it.  Say ‘ass.’ ”

Ricky: “Say it, fag.”

Tommy: “His mommy won’t let him.”

Ricky: “She’s a fag.”

Douglas, very loudly: “Ass!  Ass!  Ass!  Ass!”  Background conversation stops.  “ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS SHIT!”

Applause and cheers from the other students, including Tommy.  A teacher, Mr. Mullen, walks toward the table.

Mr. Mullen, to the cafetorium: “All right, everyone, knock it off.”  To Douglas: “Could you come with me, young man?”

Douglas, trying not to look frightened: “No!  You’re a FAG!”

Mr. Mullen grabs Douglas by the arm.

Douglas, as the teacher drags him away: “SHIT!  SHIT SHIT SHIT!”

The other students watch them leave the cafetorium.

Tommy: “What a loser.”

Ricky: “Yeah.  He coulda said ‘balls,’ too.”

Copyright © 2019 by David V. Matthews

Hallowe’en Spooktacular Party, at Gary and Elaine Dow’s house in Center Township, PA, Friday, October 31, 1975:

Costumed invitees cram the living room.  A mixtape (to use an anachronistic word) plays on the stereo’s cassette deck; the exceedingly mellow song “Those Summer Nights” by San Jose’s biggest musical artist, Benjamin Plum, nears its chorus as Donna—wearing a headband, peasant blouse, fringed leather vest, bell-bottom jeans, and sandals—spots an uncostumed guy exiting from the kitchen.  Glass in hand, she barges toward him, threading past a princess and a cowboy and a blowdried Dracula, electric guitar creeping along, Plum asserting in a reedy voice that “Those summer nights that brought us passion / Will never, ever go out of fashion.”

“Chuck Roland?” she asks.

“The one and only,” Chuck replies, holding a drink himself.

“I’m Donna Henningsen.  Milo’s mother?”

“Oh.  Right.”

“Tell your son to quit beating him up.”

“Tell your son to quit grabbing my son’s ass.”

“You believe that story?”

“Hey, your son is half Greek, so—”

She tosses the contents of her glass at Chuck, punctuated by the background tune’s somnolent saxophone-and-piano bridge.

“Now look what you made me do—waste a perfectly good whiskey,” she says reprovingly.

“You know,” he says, wiping off his face with his sleeve, “you’re lucky you have a great pair of tits.”

“Thanks.  I’ll tell your wife you said that.  Where is she?”

“At home.  She didn’t feel good.  You ever try a Harvey Wallbanger?”

“A what?”

“A Harvey Wallbanger?  Orange juice, vodka, and some Eyetalian liqueur called Gallyanno?”

“No.”

“You should.  I’m having one now.”  Chuck holds up his glass.

“Hooray.  The next time your brat attacks my son, I’m calling the police.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Plum’s song fades out.  “So I can make you one here, if you want.  A Harvey Wallbanger.”

“Fuck off.”  Another lifeless, piano-heavy track, one Donna’s never heard before, commences.

“Aw, you hurt my feelings.”  He walks away a bit jauntily.

Copyright © 2019 by David V. Matthews

Slumping deep into the least dilapidated chair in the teachers’ lounge during her lunch break that rainy afternoon in late October 1975, having consumed little of the organic hummus sandwich she had packed, Miss Wyant, the subaltern substitute, worried (after futilely attempting to make the Declaration of Independence’s history relevant to three consecutive classes of bored, ahistorical students) that Center Elementary School would opt not to retain her services once the academic year concluded a month before America’s two-hundredth birthday, July 4, 1976, thus providing her with yet another excuse to loathe herself in an atmosphere of rampant celebratory patriotism.

Copyright © 2019 by David V. Matthews