So it was at the Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy End-of-Year Mixed-Gender Mixer that Robby casually and bravely walked up to the new girl, Shann Collins, and announced to her:
“My friend Austin Szerba is shy. That’s him over there. He is good-looking, don’t you think? He’s also a nice guy, he writes poetry, he’s a really fantastic dancer. He would like very much if you would agree to dance with him.”
And everything, confusing as it was, worked out beautifully for me and Shann and Robby after that.
DOORS THAT GO SOMEWHERE;
DOORS THAT GO NOWHERE
“OKAY. SO, BASICALLY this house is, like, infested with demons or something,” Shann told us.
Demonic infestations have a way of making guys feel not so horny.
“It’s in the Ealing Registry of Historical Homes,” I pointed out.
“People died here.”
“You should get that kind of air freshener shit that you plug into outlets so it masks the scent of death and decay with springtime potpourri,” Robby offered.
“Look at this,” she said. “There are doors that go nowhere, and I swear I heard something ticking and rattling inside my wall a moment ago.”
Shann used words like moment.
She wasn’t from Ealing.
One of the walls in her creaky room had two doors set into it. The wall itself was kind of creepy. It had wallpaper with flowers that seemed to float like stemless clones between wide red stripes. If I pictured a room where I was going to murder someone, aside from the instruments of torture and shit like that, it would have this wallpaper. If I was on death row, awaiting electrocution, I’d be wearing pajamas with the same pattern on them.
Shann went to the door on the left and pulled it open.
When she opened it, there was only the jamb and frame of the door, and then a wall of bricks behind it.
“See?”
I could only imagine what was on the other side of the bricks.
Robby, naturally, felt compelled to say something less than comforting.
“I suggest you don’t liberate whatever’s imprisoned back there,” he said.
Shann was getting angry. I knew I should intervene, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Nowadays, people spend a lot of money for distressed bricks like those,” I said.
It was probably for the best that Shann wasn’t paying attention to me.
“And look at this,” she said.
When she opened the second door, a long, narrow stairway extended down into darkness on the other side. The chasm was at least twenty feet deep, but it dead-ended at another distressed brick wall, and there were no other doorways leading off in any direction that I could see.
“What can you expect from a house this old?” I asked.
It was a good question.
Ghosts and shit like that, was what I was thinking, though. You wouldn’t expect miniature ponies and trained talking peacocks that dispensed Sugar Babies and gumballs from their asses, would you?
“I don’t want to stay in this room by myself,” Shann said.
And that made me very horny again.
I also wanted candy.
Shann, obviously stressed, looked at Robby, then at me.
“I need to talk to you, Austin,” she said, and motioned for me to go with her down the candyless staircase of death and decay.
Robby took the hint. “Uh. I need to go to the bathroom. Maybe Pulse-O-Matic® my teeth. Or take a shower. Or something.”
He made a tentative, weight-shifting creak onto one leg and I followed Shann behind door number two.
We sat beside each other on the staircase.
Our bare legs touched.
Shann had a perfect body, a Friday-after-school body that was mostly visible because she was barefoot, and wore tight, cuffed shorts with a cantaloupe-colored halter top. A boy could go insane, I thought, just being this close to Shann’s uncovered shoulders, wheat hair, and heavy breasts.
This staircase to nothing was a fitting dungeon for constantly erupting, real-dynamo sixteen-year-old boys like me.
“Why is Robby wearing your clothes, and what happened to you and him?”
While we sat there, three important things struck me about Shann: First, I realized that, like most girls I knew, Shann could ask questions in machine-gun bursts that peppered the male brain with entirely unrelated projectiles of interrogation. Second, it was often unstated, but clear by her tone, that Shann was jealous of Robby, possibly to the point of being a little curious about my sexuality. I know, maybe that was also my confusion, as well. Because, third, what was most troubling to me, was that despite all the fantasies, all the intricately structured if/then scenarios I concocted involving Shann Collins and me, whenever an opportunity to take action presented itself—like being alone with her in a nearly sealed dungeon—I became timid and restrained.
I couldn’t understand it at all.
History chews up sexually uncertain boys, and spits us out as recycled, generic greeting cards for lonely old men.
Dr. Grady McKeon was a lonely old man. I can only conclude he must have also at one time been a sexually confused, unexplainably horny teenage boy who erupted all over everything at the least opportune times. He was twenty-five years old, and well on his way to building an empire of profits when his younger brother, Johnny, was born. I once heard a tobacco-chewing hog farmer say that, in Iowa, folks liked to spread out their children like dog shit on a dance floor.
Dr. Grady McKeon would be Shann’s stepuncle, if there is such a thing, and if he weren’t dead. He was the last person to live in the historic McKeon house. He died when his private jet went down in the Gulf of Mexico. Its engines choked to death on ash from Mount Huacamochtli, the same erupting volcano in Guatemala that Robert Brees Sr. was filming a documentary on. And it also happened the same year Robby Brees and I smoked our first cigarette, danced together, and I fell in love with Shannon Collins.
Johnny McKeon never wanted to live in his dead brother’s old house. It took Shann’s mother about four years of badgering to get him to finally break down and take the place out of mothballs.
I held Shann’s hand, and we sat there in the dungeon with our legs pressed together, and I was so frustrated I felt like I could explode. But I concentrated, and methodically went through the entire account of what happened to me and Robby at Grasshopper Jungle. I told her about our plan to climb up onto the roof of the Ealing Mall to get our stuff back.
“I’m coming with you,” she decided.
“Not up on the roof,” I said, so authoritatively my voice lowered an octave.
Sounding father-like to Shann in the echoing darkness of the staircase that led nowhere made me feel horny, demons or not. I scooted closer and put my arm around her so that my fingers relaxed and splayed across the little swath of exposed skin above the waist of her shorts.
“I’ll wait in Robby’s car. I’ll be your lookout.”
“Shann?” I said.
I almost had myself convinced to ask her if didn’t she think it was time we had sex, and the thought made me feel dizzy. I would force myself to no longer have any doubt or confusion, to not wind up recycled by history.
“What?”
“This staircase really is creepy.”
And just as I pushed her firmly against the distressed brick wall and put my open mouth over hers, Robby swung the door wide above us and said, “The moving van’s here.”
CURFEW
WHILE SHANN’S MOM, the movers, and Johnny McKeon worked at unloading and organizing the houseful of furniture they’d shipped over from their old-but-much-newer house, the three of us stole away in Robby’s Ford Explorer on our mission to reclaim our shoes and skateboards.
Friday nights in Ealing, Iowa, rarely got more thrilling than climbing up on the roof of a three-q
uarters abandoned mall, and we were up for the excitement.
On Fridays, my curfew came at midnight, which meant that if I was quiet enough I could stay out until just before my mother served breakfast on Saturday morning.
I had to check in with my dad and mom, so they’d know I was still alive.
I told them I was going out for pizza with Robby and Shann.
It wasn’t a lie; it was an abbreviation.
I was not concerned about going to hell.
Nobody who was born and raised in Ealing, Iowa, was afraid of hell, or Afghanistan, or living at the Del Vista Arms.
Checking in for Robby meant swinging by his two-bedroom deluxe apartment at the Del Vista Arms and asking his mom for five dollars and a fresh pack of cigarettes, while Shann and I waited in the parking lot.
Shann did not smoke.
She was smarter than Robby and me, but she didn’t complain about our habit.
STUPID PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER READ BOOKS
IT TOOK ME a very long time to work up the nerve to kiss Shann Collins, who was the first and only girl I had ever kissed.
There was a possibility that I’d never have kissed her, too, because she was the one who actually initiated the kiss.
It happened nearly one full year after the Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy End-of-Year Mixed-Gender Mixer.
Like Robby explained to her: I was shy.
I was on the conveyor belt toward the paper shredder of history with countless scores of other sexually confused boys.
After the Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy End-of-Year Mixed-Gender Mixer, I tried to get Shann to pay more serious attention to me.
I tried any reasonable method I could think of. I joined the archery club when I found out she was a member, and I offered multiple times to do homework with her. Sadly, nothing seemed to result in serious progress.
At last, all I could do was let Shann Collins know that I would be there for her if she ever needed a friend or a favor. I do not believe I had any ulterior motives in telling her such a thing. Well, to be honest, I probably did.
I’d leave notes for Shann tucked inside her schoolbooks; I would compliment her on her outfit. She laughed at such things. Shann knew it was a ridiculous thing to write, since all the girls at Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy dressed exactly the same way. Still, history will show that patient boys with a sense of humor, who can also dance, tend to have more opportunities to participate in the evolution of the species than boys who give up and mope quietly on the sidelines.
But I began to worry. Rumors were spreading around Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy about me and Robby, even though I never heard anything directly.
Then, in the second semester of eighth grade, I was called in to the headmaster’s office for something I wrote in a book report. Even though the book I read was in Curtis Crane’s library, as well as the Ealing Public Library, apparently nobody other than kids had bothered to read the book until I wrote my report on it.
The book was called The Chocolate War, and the copy I read belonged to my brother, Eric. Mrs. Edith Mitchell, who was the eighth-grade English teacher, assumed the book was about a candy kingdom or something. She probably thought there were magical talking peacocks in the book that shot gumballs and Sugar Babies out of their asses.
But there were teenage boys in the book—Catholic boys—who masturbated.
Boys who attend Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy are not allowed to masturbate.
My father nearly lost his job because I wrote a report on a book that had Catholic boys and masturbation in it.
Pastor Roland Duff, the headmaster at Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy, was very distraught.
He had the school’s only copy of The Chocolate War resting on his desk when I came to his office.
There, he counseled me about masturbation and Catholicism.
“My fear is that when boys read books such as this,” he said, “they will assume there is nothing at all wrong with masturbation, and may, out of curiosity, attempt to masturbate. In fact, Austin, it is true that masturbation has serious harmful effects. It makes boys spiritually and physically weak.”
The headmaster patted his forehead, which was damp, with a handkerchief that had the Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy logo—a black cross surrounded by a bloodred heart—embroidered on its corner. I wondered if they had prepared him in his religious training for giving teenage boys talks about masturbating.
He went on, “In history, entire armies have been defeated because their soldiers masturbated too frequently. It happened to the Italians in Ethiopia.”
When he said the words too frequently, I wondered if there was some number higher than once or twice per day that would get me off the hook to hell and military failure.
In any event, I hoped he was right. I hoped the bad guys in Afghanistan—where my brother, Eric, whose book got me into trouble, was fighting—were also excessive masturbators like the Italians.
Pastor Roland Duff continued, “Masturbation can also turn boys into homosexuals.”
When he said homosexuals, he waved his hands emphatically like he was shaping a big blob of dough into a homosexual so I could see what he was talking about.
That frightened me, and made me feel ashamed and confused.
Then he called my mother into the office and he talked to her about masturbation, too.
Up until that day, I was certain my mother didn’t know there was such a thing as masturbation.
As I stood there, shifting my weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, Pastor Roland Duff told my mother about the Warning Signs of Masturbation, so she could keep a better watch over me.
Then he sent me home with my mother and suspended me from classes for one day.
When I came back to school, Mrs. Edith Mitchell made all the girls leave the classroom while Pastor Roland Duff explained the guidelines for books we boys were not allowed to read at Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy. We were no longer permitted to read any books that had masturbation, Catholics, or penises in them. Pastor Roland Duff gave the entire class of boys the same speech he’d given me about masturbation, weakness, and homosexuality.
Once again, he blamed masturbation for Italy losing wars.
That kind of shit never made it into history books, either.
Sometimes, during his speech, he would remark, “As I was explaining to Austin Szerba . . .”
And he would wave his hands as though he were shaping a doughy Austin Szerba in the air, so all the other boys could see what a boy who wrote a book report about masturbation and Catholics looked like.
Then he led the boys in prayer and excused us so Mrs. Edith Mitchell could have a similar talk with the girls.
Robby and I whispered outside that after all that masturbation talk, a cigarette would be nice.
It was the worst day of my life since Eric left home.
Everyone knew that I was the one to blame for all the trouble about masturbating. At Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy, you couldn’t hear the name Austin Szerba and not think about masturbating.
I didn’t speak in class again for the rest of the year.
Robby thought it was funny and told me I was brave.
Best friends do that kind of stuff.
When the boys were taken out of the room, I wondered if Mrs. Edith Mitchell was telling the girls about Austin Szerba, and how teenage boys masturbate, or if maybe she had found a book with girls who masturbated in it. Thinking about a book like that made me very horny.
The library was quieter and emptier than usual for a long time after that day.
But when the boys came back into the classroom, Shann deftly slipped a note onto my lap beneath our desks. I thought she was going to tease me about masturbating, but the note said this:
Okay, I’ll admit it, Austin Szerba, you have finally won me over. I read The Chocolate War
, too. I love that book. This school is full of shit. Let’s go get a Coke after class and hang out. By the way, I like what you’re wearing today.
I was dressed exactly like every other boy at Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy.
Later that day, Shann Collins and I kissed for the first time.
It happened right after I said to her, “Stupid people should never read books.”
THE DEATH-RAY GUN
AT ONE HOUR before midnight, Shann and I waited inside an old Ford Explorer parked behind the Del Vista Arms. Robby Brees, dressed in a pair of my clean white socks, best Adidas skate shoes, and Titus Andronicus T-shirt, dashed into his apartment to get us more cigarettes and wave, in passing, at his mother.
Events that night were going to set in motion a disaster that would probably wipe out human life on the planet. That night, I was going to say something to Shann I had never said to anyone. I was going to do something I’d never done, and see things I could not understand and never believed existed.
This is history, and it is also the truth.
I sat in the front seat.
Robby refused to chauffeur us around like he was some kind of limo driver, he said, so either Shann or I always had to sit up front with him. This rule increased the degree of difficulty in actually fulfilling my fantasy regarding Shann Collins and Robby’s backseat.
But now, Robby was gone.
“What are you doing?” Shann said as I shimmied my way between the front seats, over the center console where there was still an assortment of cassette tapes that had belonged to Robby’s dad.
I thought what I was doing was obvious enough, so I said, “I’m looking for my death-ray gun.”
“Well, if your ray gun doesn’t look like a pair of Robby’s underwear or socks, it isn’t back here.”
Robby needed to stop accumulating so much laundry this way, but it did keep the floor of his room tidy.
My foot got stuck between the passenger seat and console. My shoe came off. I left it there.