by John Irving
'He's suckin' his thumb,' said Harold Swallow.
'Let him go,' the quarterback said, and Chester Pulaski's painful complexion blossomed, momentarily, in the flashlight; he dragged the dormant Firestone from the net. After a slight pounding sound, of flesh on flesh, we heard the awakened Firestone trot away.
'Now look who's left,' said Chipper Dove.
'A man had a heart attack,' Franny said. 'We really are going to the infirmary for the ambulance.'
'You're not going there now,' said Dove. 'Hey, kid,' he said to me, holding a flashlight on my face. 'You know what I want you to do, kid?'
'No,' I said. And someone kicked me through the net.
'What I want you to do, kid,' Chipper Dove said, 'is stay right here, in our giant spider web, until one of the spiders tells you you can go. You understand?'
'No,' I said, and someone kicked me again, a little harder.
'Be smart,' Franny said to me.
'That's right,' said Lenny Metz. 'Be smart.'
'And you know what I want you to do, Franny?' said Chipper Dove, but Franny didn't respond. 'I want you to show me that place, again,' he said. That place where we can be alone. Remember?'
I tried to crawl closer to Franny, but someone was tightening the net around me.
'She stays with me!' I yelled. 'Franny stays with me.'
I was down on my hip, then, with the net growing tighter and someone was kneeling on my back.
'Leave him alone,' Franny said. 'I'll show you the place.'
'Just stay here and don't move, Franny,' I said, but she let Lenny Metz pull her out from under the net. 'Remember what you said, Franny!' I cried to her. 'Remember -- about the first time?'
'It probably isn't true,' she said, dully. 'It probably isn't anything.'
Then she must have made a break for it, because I heard a scuffle in the dark, and Lenny Metz cried out, 'Nuff! Son of a bitch, you bitch!' And there was that familiar sound of pounding -- flesh on flesh again -- and I heard Franny say, 'All right! All right! You bastard.'
'Lenny and Chester are going to help you show me the place, Franny,' Chipper Dove said. 'Okay?'
'You turd in a birdbath,' Franny said. 'You rat's asshole,' she said, but I heard flesh on flesh again, and Franny said, 'Okay! Okay.'
It was Harold Swallow who was kneeling on my back. If the net hadn't been all tangled around me, I might have been a match for him, but I couldn't move.
'We'll be back for you, Harold!' Chipper Dove called.
'Hang in there, Harold!' said Chester Pulaski.
'You'll get your turn, Harold!' said Lenny Metz, and they all laughed.
'I don't want no turn,' said Harold Swallow. 'I don't want no trouble,' he said. But they were gone, Franny occasionally cursing -- but farther and farther away from me.
'You're going to get in trouble, Harold,' I said. 'You know what they're going to do to her.'
'I don't want to know,' he said. 'I don't get in no trouble. I come to this shit-ass school to get outa trouble.'
'Well, you're in trouble now, Harold,' I said. "They're going to rape her, Harold.'
'That happens,' said Harold Swallow. 'But not to me.' I struggled briefly under the net, but it was easy for him to keep me pinned down. 'I don't like to fight, either,' he said.
'They think you're a crazy nigger,' I told him. That's what they think you are. That's why they're with her and you're here, Harold. But it's the same trouble,' I told him. 'You're in the same trouble they're in.'
'They never get in no trouble,' Harold said. 'Nobody ever tells.'
'Franny will tell,' I said, but I felt the candy corn pressed against my face, and into the damp ground. It was another Halloween to remember, for sure, and I felt as weak and small as I'd ever felt -- on every Dairy Halloween I could recall, scared to death by bigger, always bigger kids, stuffing my head in my trick-or-treat bag and rattling it until all I heard was cellophane, and then the bag bursting around my ears.
'What did they look like?' Father would always ask us.
But every year they looked like ghosts, gorillas, skeletons, and worse, of course; it was a night for disguises, and nobody ever was caught. Not for tying Frank to the fire escape of the biggest dorm, where he wet his pants; no one ever caught anyone for that. Not for the three pounds of cold, wet pasta someone threw on Franny and me, crying, 'Live eels! Run for your lives!' And we lay writhing on the dark sidewalk, the spaghetti sticking to us, beating each other and screaming.
'They're going to rape my sister, Harold!' I said. 'You got to help her.'
'I can't help nobody,' Harold said.
'Somebody can help,' I said. 'We could run and get somebody. I know you can run, Harold.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'But who's going to help you with those guys?'
Not Howard Tuck, I knew, and by the sound of sirens, which I heard now -- from the campus and the town -- I guessed that Father had figured out the police car enough to use its radio for help. So there would be no authorities available to help Franny, anyway. I started to cry, and Harold Swallow shifted his weight on my shoulder.
It was quiet for a second, between the deep breaths the sirens take, and we heard Franny. Flesh on flesh, I thought -- but it was different now. Franny made a sound that moved Harold Swallow to remember who might help her.
'Junior Jones could handle those guys,' Harold said. 'Junior Jones don't take no shit from nobody.'
'Yes!' I said. 'And he's your friend, isn't he? He likes you better than them, doesn't he?'
'He don't like nobody,' said Harold Swallow, admiringly; but suddenly his weight was off me, and he was pawing at the net, unwinding it from around me. 'Get up off your ass,' he said. 'Junior does like somebody.'
'Who's he like?' I asked.
'He likes everybody's sister,' said Harold Swallow, but this thought did not reassure me.
'What do you mean?' I asked him.
'Get up on your feet!' said Harold Swallow. 'Junior Jones likes everybody's sister -- he told me so, man. He said, "Everybody's sister is a good girl" -- that's just what he said.'
'But what's he mean?' I said, trying to keep up with him, now, because he was the fastest organization of human flesh at the Dairy School. As Coach Bob said, Harold Swallow could fly.
We ran toward the light at the end of the footpath; we ran past where I knew I'd last heard from Franny -- where the ferns were, where Iowa Bob's backfield was taking turns. I stopped there; I wanted to run into the woods there, and find her, but Harold Swallow pulled me along.
'You can't do nothing to those guys, man,' he said. 'We got to get Junior.'
Why Junior Jones would help us, I didn't know. I only thought that I would die before I found out -- trying to keep up with Harold Swallow -- and I thought that if Jones indeed liked 'everybody's sister,' as he apparently claimed, that didn't necessarily mean good news for Franny.
'How does he like everybody's sister?' I panted to Harold Swallow.
'He likes them like he likes his own sister,' Harold Swallow said. 'Man!' he said to me 'Why are you so slow? Junior Jones has got a sister himself, man,' Harold said. 'And some dudes raped her. Shit,' he said. 'I thought everybody knew that!'
'There's a lot you miss, not living in the dorms,' Frank was always saying.
'Did they catch them?' I asked Harold Swallow. 'Did they catch the guys who raped Junior's sister?'
'Shit,' said Harold Swallow. 'Junior caught them! I thought everybody knew that.'
'What'd he do to them?' I asked Harold Swallow, but Harold had beaten me to Junior Jone's dorm. He was flying up the stairwell and I was easily a full flight of stairs behind him.
'Don't ask!' Harold Swallow yelled down to me. 'Shit,' he said. 'Nobody knows what he did to them, man. And nobody asks.'
Where the hell does Junior Jones live? I wondered, passing the third floor and climbing higher, my lungs breaking, Harold Swallow nowhere in sight. But Harold was waiting for me at the landing of the fifth and topmost floor.
&nb
sp; Junior Jones lives in the sky, I thought, but Harold explained to me that most of the black athletes at the Dairy School were quartered on the top floor of this one dorm. 'Where we're out of sight, you know?' Harold asked me. 'Like fucking birdies in the nests in the tippy-tops of the trees, man,' said Harold Swallow. 'That's where the black people get put at this shit-ass school.'
The fifth floor of the dorm was dark and hot. 'Heat rises, don't you know?' said Harold Swallow. 'Welcome to the fuckin' jungle.'
Every light in every room was out, but music was playing and escaping from under the doors; the fifth floor of that dorm was like a tiny street of nightclubs and bars in a city observing blackout conditions; and from the rooms I heard the unmistakable shuffling of feet -- dancing and dancing in the dark.
Harold Swallow pounded on a door.
'What you want?' said the terrifying voice of Junior Jones. 'You want to die?'
'Junior, Junior!' said Harold Swallow, pounding harder.
'You do want to die, don't you?' said Junior Jones, and we heard a series of locks, as if from a jail cell, unlocking the door from inside.
'If some mother wants to die,' said Junior Jones, 'I'll help him.' More locks unlocked; Harold Swallow and I stepped back from the door. 'Which one of you wants to die first?' said Junior Jones. Heat and a saxophone throbbed from his room; he was backlit by a candle burning on his desk, which was draped -- like the coffin of a President -- with the American flag.
'We need your help, Junior,' said Harold Swallow.
'You sure do,' said Junior Jones.
'They've got my sister,' I said to him. They've got Franny,' I said. 'And they're raping her.'
Junior Jones seized me by my armpits and hoisted me up to him, face to face; he leaned me, gently, against the wall. My feet felt a foot or two off the floor; I didn't struggle.
'Did you say rape, man?' he asked.
'Yeah, rape, rape!' said Harold Swallow, darting around us like a bee. They're raping his sister, man. They really are.'
'Your sister?' Junior asked me, letting me slide to the floor against the wall.
'My sister Franny,' I said, and for a moment I feared he would say, again, 'She's just another white girl, to me.' But he didn't say anything; he was crying -- his big face as shiny and wet as the shield of a warrior left out in the rain.
'Please?' I said to him. 'We have to hurry.' But Junior Jones started shaking his head, his tears spraying Harold Swallow and me.
'We're not gonna be in time,' Junior said. 'No way are we going to be in time.'
There's three of them,' said Harold Swallow. 'Three times takes time.' And I felt sick -- I felt like Halloween, again and again, with a bellyful of junk and trash.
'And I know which three of them, don't I?' said Junior Jones. I noticed he was getting dressed: I hadn't noticed he'd been naked. He pulled on a baggy grey pair of sweat pants, he pulled on his high-topped white basketball shoes over his huge bare feet. He put on a baseball cap, with the visor turned backwards; that was all he was going to wear, apparently, because he stood in the fifth-floor hall of the dorm and shouted suddenly. 'Black Arm of the Law!' he said. Doors opened. 'Lion hunt!' Jones yelled. The black athletes, quarantined on the top floor, peered out at him. 'Get your shit together,' said Junior Jones.
'Lion hunt!' cried Harold Swallow, flying up and down the hall. 'Get your shit together! Black Arm of the Law!'
It was then that it occurred to me that I didn't know any black students at the Dairy School who weren't athletes -- of course: our shit-ass school wouldn't take them if they couldn't be of some use.
'What's a lion hunt?' I asked Junior Jones.
'Your sister's a good girl,' Jones said. 'I know she is. Everybody's own sister is a good girl,' he said, and I agreed with him, of course, and Harold Swallow bumped my arm and said, 'You see, man? Everybody's sister is a good girl.'
And we flew down the stairwell with remarkable silence, considering how many of us there were. Harold Swallow led us, waiting impatiently on every landing. Junior Jones was surprisngly quick for his size. On the second-floor landing we encountered two white students coming home from somewhere; they saw the black athletes descending the stairs and fled down the hall on their floor. 'Lion hunt!' they cried. 'Fucking Black Arm of the Law!'
Not a door opened; two lights went out. And then we were outside in the Halloween night, heading for the woods and the place just off the footpath that I would recognize and remember all my life. There's not a day when I couldn't locate those ferns, where Franny and I were first and always alone.
'Franny,' I cried out, but there was no answer. I led Jones and Harold Swallow into the woods; behind us, the black athletes fanned out along the footpath and entered the woods all up and down the path -- shaking the trees, kicking the dead leaves, some of them humming a little tune, all of them (I suddenly noticed) wearing those baseball caps turned backwards, all of them bare-chested; two of them wore catchers' masks. The sound they made coming through the woods was like the whirring of a large rotary blade cutting through a field. Flashlights blinked, and like a swarm of large fireflies we came upon the ferns where Lenny Metz, his pants still off, held my sister's head pinched between his knees. Metz was kneeling on Franny's arms, stretched over her head, while Chester Pulaski -- who no doubt, had been third in line -- was finishing his turn.
Chipper Dove was gone; he had been first, of course. And like the careful quarterback he was, he hadn't held the ball too long.
'Of course I knew what he was going to do,' Franny told me, much later. 'I was prepared for him, I'd even imagined it -- with him. I always knew it would be him -- the first time -- somehow. But I never thought he'd let the others even see me with him. I even told him that they didn't have to force me, that I'd let him. But when he left me with them -- I wasn't prepared for that at all. I never even imagined that.'
It seemed to my sister that she'd been made to pay disproportionately for her mischief with the lights in the Hotel New Hampshire and her inadvertent contribution to Howard Tuck's departure from our world. 'Boy, are you ever made to pay for a little fun,' Franny said.
And it seemed to me that Lenny Metz and Chester Pulaski hardly paid enough for the 'fun' they'd had. Metz released my sister's arms when he first caught sight of Junior Jones; he pulled his pants up and made a break for it -- but he was a running back used to good blocking in front of him and a relatively open field. In the dark woods he could barely see the dark bodies of the humming black athletes, and although he ran with power and with some speed, he struck a tree as big around as his thigh and it broke his collarbone. He was surrounded rather quickly then, and was dragged back to the holy ground in the ferns, where Junior Jones ordered all his clothes stripped off him and had him tied to a lacrosse stick; he was then carried, naked, to the Dean of Men. I learned, later, that the lion hunters always delivered up their prey with a certain flair.
Once they'd caught an exhibitionist who'd been bothering the girls' dorm. They hung him by his ankles to the shower head in the most populated of the girls' bathrooms -- wrapped naked in a transparent shower curtain. Then they called the Dean. 'This is the Black Arm of the Law,' said Junior Jones. 'This is the sheriff of the fucking fifth floor.'
'Yes, Junior, what is it?' the Dean asked.
'There's a male nudist in the females' dorm, first-floor bathroom, on your right,' Jones said. The lion hunters captured him in the act of exhibiting himself.'
Thus Lenny Metz was lugged to the Dean of Men. Chester Pulaski got there ahead of him. 'Lion hunt!' Harold Swallow had screamed in the woods, and when Lenny let go of Franny's arms, Chester Pulaski slipped out of my sister and made a break for it, too. He was completely undressed, however, and on his tender bare feet he trotted slowly between the trees, not striking them. Every twenty yards or so, he was scared to death by the Black Arm of the Law, the black athletes who crept through the woods, swishing the trees, snapping sticks, and humming their tune. It had been Chester Pulaski's first gang bang,
and the jungle ritual had completely coloured the night for him -- he thought the woods were suddenly full of natives! (cannibals! he imagined) -- and he stumbled whimpering and bent over, appropriate to my imagination of Early Man, not quite upright, mostly on all fours, when he arrived at the dormitory apartment of the Dean of Men.
The Dean of Men had not been happy at the Dairy School since the school had admitted women. Before then he'd been Dean of Students -- a prim, fit man with a pipe and a fondness for racquet sports, he had a pert, fit wife of the youthful, cheerleader variety, her age betrayed only by an alarming pouchiness about her eyes; they had no children. The boys,' the Dean of Students liked to say, 'are all my children.'
When the 'girls' arrived, he never felt the same about them and quickly appointed, to assist himself, his wife in the role of Dean of Women. His new title, Dean of Men, pleased him, but he despaired at all the new sorts of trouble his boys got into now that there were girls at Dairy.
'Oh no,' he probably said, when he heard Chester Pulaski clawing at his door. 'I hate Halloween.'
'I'll get it,' his wife said, and the Dean of Women went to open the door. 'I know, I know,' she said, cheerfully, 'trick or treat!'
And there was a naked and cringing Chester Pulaski, the blocking back -- blazing with boils, smelling of sex.
The scream of the Dean of Women was said to have awakened the bottom two floors of the dorm the two deans lived in -- and even Mrs. Butler, the night nurse, who was sleeping at her desk in the infirmary next door. 'I hate Halloween,' she probably said to herself. She went to the infirmary door and saw Junior Jones and Harold Swallow and me; Junior was carrying Franny.
I had helped Franny get dressed in the ferns and Junior Jones had tried to untangle her hair while she cried and cried, and finally he'd said to her, 'You want to walk or ride?' It was a question Father used to ask us children when we were years younger, which meant did we want to walk or did we want to take the car. Junior, of course, meant he would carry her, and that's what Franny wanted -- so he did.
He carried her past the spot in the ferns where Lenny Metz was being lashed to a lacrosse stick and prepared for a different land of travel. Franny cried and cried, and Junior said, 'Hey, you're a good girl, I have very good judgement about that.' But Franny kept crying. 'Hey, listen,' said Junior Jones. 'You know what? When someone touches you and you don't want to be touched, that's not really being touched -- you got to believe me. It's not you they touch when they touch you that way; they don't really get you, you understand. You've still got you inside you. Nobody's touched you -- not really. You're a really good girl, you believe me? You've still got you inside you, you believe that?'