Stanhope was watching us.
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Why isn’t anybody writing? Why isn’t anybody answering the ques-tions? Does everybody have a pencil?” “Yeah, yeah, we all got pencils,” one of the guys said. Lilly sat up in front, right by Mr. Stanhope’s desk. We saw her open herbiology textbook and look up the answer to the first question. That was it.We all opened up our textbooks. Stanhope just sat there and watched us.He didn’t know what to do. He began to sputter. He sat there a good fiveminutes, then he jumped up. He ran back and forth up and down the centeraisle of the room. “What are you people doing? Close those textbooks! Close those text-books!” As he ran by, the students would close their books only to open themagain when he had run past. Baldy was in the seat next to mine, laughing. “He’s an asshole! Oh, whatan old asshole!” I felt a little sorry for Stanhope but it was either him or me. Stanhopestood behind his desk and screamed, “All textbooks must 98 be closed or I will flunk the entire class!” Then Lilly Fischman stood up. She pulled her skirt up and yanked atone of her silk stockings. She adjusted the garter, we saw white flesh. Thenshe pulled at and adjusted the other stocking. Such a sight we had neverseen, nor had Stanhope ever seen anything like it. Lilly sat down and weall finished the exam with our textbooks open. Stanhope sat behind hisdesk, utterly defeated. Another guy we jerked around was Pop Farnsworth. It began the firstday in Machine Shop. He said, “Here we learn by doing. We will beginright now. You will each take an engine apart and put it back together,until it is in working order, during the semester. There are charts on thewall and I will answer your questions. You will also be shown moviesabout how an engine works. But right now please begin to dismantle yourengines. The tools are on your workshelf.” “Hey, Pop, how about the movies first?” some guy asked. “T said, ‘Begin your project!’” I don’t know where they got all those engines. They were greasy andblack and rusted. They looked really dismal. “Fuck,” said some guy, “this one is a hunk of clogged shit.” We stood over our engines. Most of the guys reached for monkeywrenches. Red Kirkpatrick took a screwdriver and scraped it slowly alongthe top of his engine carefully creating a black ribbon of grease two feetlong. “Come on, Pop, how about a movie? We just got out of gym, our assesare dragging! Wagner had us doing the hop, skip and jump like a bunchof frogs!” “Begin your assignment as requested!” We started in. It was senseless. It was worse than Music Appreciation.Some clanking of tools could be heard and some heavy breathing. “FUCK!” hollered Harry Henderson, “I’VE JUST SKINNED MY WHOLEGOD-DAMNED KNUCKLE! THIS IS NOTHING BUT FUCKING WHITESLAVERY!” He wrapped a handkerchief tenderly around his right hand and watchedthe blood soak through. “Shit,” he said. 99 The rest of us kept trying. “I’d rather stick my head up an elephant’scunt,” said Red Kirkpatrick. Jack Dempsey threw his wrench to the floor. “I quit,” he said, “do any-thing you want to me, I quit. Kill me. Cut my balls off. I quit.” He walked over and leaned against a wall. He folded his arms and lookeddown at his shoes. The situation seemed truly terrible. There weren’t any girls. When youlooked out the back door of the shop you could see the open schoolyard,all that sunlight and empty space out there where there was nothing to do.And here we were bent over stupid engines that weren’t even attached tocars, they were useless. Just stupid steel. It was dumb and it was hard. Weneeded mercy. Our lives were dumb enough. Something had to save us.We'd heard Pop was a soft touch but it didn’t seem true. He was a giantson-of-a-bitch with a beer gut, dressed in his greasy outfit, and with hairhanging down in his eyes and grease on his chin. Arnie Whitechapel threw down his wrench and walked up to Mr.Farnsworth. Arnie had a big grin on his face. “Hey, Pop, what the fuck?” “Get back to your engine, Whitechapel!” “Ah, come on, Pop, what the shit!” Arnie was a couple of years older than the rest of us. He had spent a fewyears in some boys’ correctional school. But even though he was older thanwe were, he was smaller. He had very black hair slicked back with vaseline.He would stand in front of the mirror in the men’s crapper squeezing hispimples. He talked dirty to the girls and carried Sheik rubbers in hispockets. “T got a good one for you, Pop!” “Yeah? Get back to your engine, Whitechapel.” “It’s a good one, Pop.” We stood there and watched as Arnie began to tell Pop a dirty joke. Theirheads were close together. Then the joke was over. Pop began laughing.That big body was doubled over, he was holding his gut. “Holy shit! Ohmy god, holy shit!” he laughed. Then he stopped. “O.K., Arnie, back toyour machine!” “No, wait, Pop, I got another one “Yeah?” “Yeah, listen...” 17 100 We all left our machines and walked over. We circled them, listening asArnie told the next joke. When it was over Pop doubled up. “Holy shit, ohlord, holy shit!” “Then there’s another one, Pop. This guy is driving his car in the desert.He notices this guy jumping along the road. He’s naked and his hands andfeet are tied with rope. The guy stops his car and asks the guy, ‘Hey, buddy,what's the matter?’ And the guy tells him, ‘Well, I was driving along andI saw this bastard hitch-hiking so I stopped and the son-of-a-bitch pulls agun on me, takes my clothes away and then ties me up. Then the dirty son-of-a-bitch reams me in the ass!’ ‘Oh yeah?’ says the guy getting out of hiscar. ‘Yeah, that’s what that dirty son-of-a-bitch did!’ says the man. ‘Well,’says the guy unzipping his fly, ‘I guess this just isn’t your lucky day!” Pop began laughing, he doubled over. “Oh, no! Oh, NO!OH...HOLY...SHIT, CHRIST...HOLY SHIT...!”
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