Summer of '42

by Herman Raucher

  Benjie backed up, of course. But he didn’t back off his point in the discussion. On that he was still adamant. And he put his hands on his hips and stood there toughly and said, “It is not required.”

  Oscy was curious about why the stubbornness. “How the hell do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “I found a book.”

  Oscy just looked at him, not even breathing. Hermie rolled over and stared at Benjie likewise. Then Oscy looked at Hermie, and Hermie looked at Oscy. Then they both looked at Benjie again. There was a great deal of looking going on. Because, Benjie, of all people, had brought fire to mankind.

  11

  The abandoned chicken coop was perfect. It smelled a bit of days gone by and of former occupants, and its tilting walls were so caked with chicken drippings that very few people found it to be an inviting tourist attraction. The late-afternoon sun was sluicing through the overhead slats, and the three boys were revealed, together with their huge eugenics book. Hermie and Oscy were deeply into the text while Benjie paced about through the crusted chicken turds, keeping an eye on his former friends. Benjie also kept a peeled eye on the three-foot high entranceway to the coop, just in case his mother happened to be in the neighborhood. The neighborhood being an overgrown field covered with falling-down structures. No mother would be caught dead there.

  “If my mother knew I took that book—” Benjie was a low moaner. “It doesn’t belong to me. It doesn’t even belong to my mother. It belongs to the house!”

  There was no response from Oscy and Hermie, who simultaneously had turned both deaf and studious. Hermie hadn’t really cared for the selection of the chicken coop because of his antipathy for chickens. But it had to be better than a cutlet coop so he went along with the choice. He wet his index finger, preparatory to turning the page. Oscy’s grubby hand shot across the page. “Hold it.”

  Hermie withheld turning the page. He waited until enough time had passed for even a moron to read the page. Then he got annoyed. “Oscy…”

  “Kill me, I don’t read as fast as you do.” Oscy took a few more precious moments to read to himself. “Mmmmm. Mmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmm. Okay, turn.” Hermie turned the page and they both leaned in anew in their diligent thirst for knowledge.

  Benjie was a sullen sentinel and an evil prophet. “You guys get your fingerprints on those pages it’s your funeral.”

  Oscy and Hermie kept studying, saying nothing, giving the book their undivided and enraptured attention. Full-color bits and pieces of the female anatomy floated every which way in the form of acetate overlays. It knocked Oscy out as he flipped them about. “Jesus, you can build your own girl!” He then built his own girl, leaving out the intestines. He shuffled about some more overlays and built a girl without a vagina. Then he built one with just a vagina. He laughed insanely, and when he got tired of the many combinations, he turned the page to a full-color photograph of a nude female capriciously spread-eagled to the camera. The caption read: “The Human Female External Genitalia.” And there were slogans all over. Clitoral shaft. Clitoral hood. Clitoral glans. Labium majus. Labium minus. Urethral meatus. Vaginal outlet. Perineum. It was a whole new world, a whole universe of sex. And it was all there for them to see and get crazy over. Oscy prodded Hermie with joyful disbelief. “Hermie, you believe all this stuff?”

  “It’s a medical journal,” said Hermie. “Why would they lie?”

  Oscy’s eyes remained riveted to the nude. “Who do you suppose she is?”

  “I don’t know. Could be anyone.” Hermie was pretty riveted, too.

  “I wonder what her name is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think she looks like a Barbara.”

  “Yeah. Could be a Barbara.”

  “Maybe Alice.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “How do they take pictures like this?”

  “They have special cameras. High speed.”

  “I think I love her.”

  “You can’t even see the face.”

  “You don’t fuck the face, Hermie.”

  “You’re getting carried away.”

  “What drugstores would develop pictures like that? If we brought in pictures like that to be developed, we’d be in reform school.”

  “I guess they develop ’em themselves.” Hermie leaned in closer. “Yeah. I guess that’s what they do.”

  Benjie was hovering over them. “Lemmee see.”

  “Bullshit, Benjie.” Oscy covered the page as if Benjie were trying to copy his answers in a test. “You probably looked at this book a thousand times.”

  “I didn’t.” Then Benjie added hesitantly, “I started to—but I was made very nervous.”

  Oscy taunted him. “How could you be nervous? This is what it’s all about.”

  “I know,” said Benjie. “I think I should see it. Besides, it’s my book.”

  “The hell,” said Oscy. “It belongs to your house. Boy, I wonder who owns that house.” He jabbed Hermie. “Maybe Barbara, eh?” Benjie was pressing in, and Oscy pushed him back. “Go away, kid. You’ll foam at the mouth.”

  Hermie, otherwise known as King Solomon, intervened. “Let him look.”

  “Okay,” said Oscy feeling ornery, “I’ll let him look. But let’s let him look at something in full bloom.” Oscy thumbed ahead a few pages to a photograph of a man and woman in the act of copulation. He then shoved the book to Benjie. “Here you are, Sporty.”

  Benjie studied the photograph for a hundred and fifty years, not moving, not breathing, not even hearing Oscy say, “That’s Barbara and her boyfriend. His name is Big Dick.”

  Finally, years and years later, Benjie spoke, but in a very small voice. “I don’t believe it.”

  Oscy laughed. “They’re doing it, Benjie. That’s it. Full bloom. They’re fuckin’ to beat the band.”

  Again the small voice. “I don’t believe it.”

  Oscy grew suddenly rattled. The intensity and the excitement were getting to him, reaching him where it hurt, in the pants. “Well, you’d better believe it, Benjie, because one day your time is gonna come and you better know what you’re doing!” He was beginning to perspire, and there was a limit to how much his sweat shirt could absorb.

  “I don’t believe it,” Benjie said. “It’s…impossible.”

  Oscy was ranting. “Why is it impossible?”

  “Because…people don’t bend that way.”

  “People bend that way when they have to!”

  Benjie was formulating quiet evaluations. “Especially fat people. Fat people can’t do that.”

  “Fat people do it more than anybody!” Oscy didn’t know what he was saying, but then, he didn’t even know he was screaming.

  “Well, I’ll tell you”—Benjie was oddly calm—“my mother and father never did this.” He tapped his knowledgeable finger upon the photographed page.

  Oscy was ready to punch him out. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s stupid.”

  “How do you think they got you, Benjie—in a box of crackerjacks?”

  Hermie had been silent throughout the exchange. So when he finally spoke, it was with the air of a great sage. “I hate to break the news to you, Benjie, but that’s the way it’s done. And fat has nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, it might even make it easier. Who knows?”

  Benjie flared up, and his eyes glowed red. Confusion reigned in his mind. “You guys better stop teasing me because—it could be dangerous. It really could.”

  Hermie made it a point to remain calm. In heated discussions it was important that at least one party remain calm. “You see, Benjie, if you just look at this picture, well—I guess it does look dumb, but if two people are in love, it’s all supposed to be very…pleasant.”

  Benjie turned his anguish on Hermie. “How do you know? You’ve never done it!”

  Hermie was magnificent in his Biblical patience. “You see, Benjie—”

  “Fuck you with tha
t you see!”

  Hermie didn’t let Benjie’s little outburst deter him. “You see, Benjie, it’s all here in this book. In black and white.” He glanced at the vivid overlays and added, “And in color. That’s why people kiss first. It gives them a chance to get to know each other. Then, once they get to know each other, they fall in love. And once they’re in love—”

  Oscy grabbed the book and screamed insanely. “Foreplay! It’s called foreplay! Everybody takes off their clothes, and they play foreplay! Then he does this!” He was thumbing wildly past various photographs. “And she does this! And he does this! And before you know it, they’re fucking!” He slammed the book closed so hard it sounded like a trench mortar. “Now what could be simpler than that!” Oscy was really going. Benjie was frightened. Hermie was surprised. But Oscy was out of his fucking mind. He paced about the low-roofed chicken coop like Groucho Marx in heat. “Now then, before I saw these photos, I didn’t think it was possible either. But these are photos, Benjie. Pho-to-graphs! These are not drawings! I have seen drawings. These are pho-to-graphs! And goddammit, we’re gonna get in on it!” The tears rose in Benjie’s eyes. Something else rose in Hermie’s jeans. Oscy, their leader, would not fail them. Today foreplay, tomorrow the world.

  12

  The lights in town were kept modified in accordance with the wartime regulations on dimouts. There were two blackout drills on Packett Island that summer, but for the most part, the inhabitants needed only to concern themselves with partial blackouts. Or dimouts. Or, in some places, brownouts. Therefore, the electric sign that served as the marquee of the movie house had bare bulbs, the upper halves of which were painted black. It gave everything a kind of weird look, like walking down the street with a baseball cap over your eyes. Other than that, it was just another thing to get used to. The posters outside told the world that the feature film for the week was Now Voyager, starring Bette Davis and Paul Henreid and featuring Gladys Cooper and John Loder, the last of whom, rumor had it, was going hot and heavy with Hedy Lamarr. The people mingled about in front of the movie house in quiet anticipation of the eight o’clock showing. Most of the adults were women. And most of them towered above Oscy, Hermie, and Benjie, who were ogling.

  Oscy was shamelessly cruising girls. Hermie seemed rather indifferent, choosing to hang back with a wait-and-see attitude. Benjie merely wished he was somewhere else, like Burma. The three of them seemed comparatively small as they pressed in and out of overhanging adults. They seemed even smaller because of the ice-cream cones they carefully juggled so as not to strike the arms, rears, and stomachs of the people up above. Three pinballs on the table of life, that’s what they were. And in their own inimitable way, they were looking for a score.

  Aha, Oscy had found a proper target! He nudged Hermie, who immediately experienced that same sick flicker in his stomach that he always felt when the chips were down. Oscy was pointing through a separation in the crowd at three girls who were chatting and giggling their stupid secrets to one another.

  With a gesture that smacked of military significance, Oscy indicated to his cohorts that they were to wait there for him while he went out to reconnoiter. They nodded their comprehension, and Oscy moved out.

  As it just so happened, the three girls were slightly taller than Oscy. They were also undoubtedly a shade older, as well as a hair more mature. But none of that bothered Oscy, and Hermie marveled at the manner in which Oscy sailed into combat. Oscy picked out the one blonde, who was also the biggest-breasted, and politely tipping his cone, he said, “Good evening.”

  The girls looked at one another, thinking: The nerve of this little squirt. But Oscy was not easily dissuaded. He concentrated his mature dialogue on the big-boobed blonde, whose name, he’d shortly learn, was Miriam. “A fine night for an evening of movies.” It was apparent to Hermie that Oscy’s girl would be Miriam. The other two were for him and Benjie. One was halfway pretty, with the smile of the Pietà. The other was a complete mess. Hermie silently decided on the former. Benjie knew he was destined for the latter.

  Miriam, nobody’s fool, was going to test the little man who stood before her. She straightened her shoulders, and as a result, her breasts almost broke Oscy’s nose. “You old enough to stay up this late?” The girl who was the mess giggled goonily, revealing a set of steel braces that would have rivaled the Brooklyn Bridge. Benjie’s heart jumped, over the side. The other girl, Hermie’s, kept smiling prettily. She was either deaf or stupid.

  Oscy, spurred on by the heroic quality of Miriam’s breasts, ignored her insulting question and kept the witty conversation flowing. “I have with me two charming friends.” Miriam pulled out a handkerchief and wiped Oscy’s face. “You also have ice cream all over your face.” Her friends tittered.

  Oscy immediately reached up and grabbed her hand, pressing the handkerchief to his dilating nostrils. He inhaled deeply and feigned a swoon. “Ah, that perfume. I grow dizzy.” Miriam, taken aback, pulled her hand free, and was pleased to discover that she was somehow on the defensive. Oscy sensed his advantage. “My friends and I would like you three ladies to join us of a movie.”

  “Dutch treat, I suppose,” said Miriam, still testing him.

  “Yes. But we will spring for the refreshments.”

  Miriam huddled with her two friends. Jibber-jabber, flibber-flabber. Then she scanned the crowd while addressing Oscy. “Where are they?”

  Oscy’s finger swung around and came to rest in the direction of Hermie and Benjie. It was like being caught by the prisonyard searchlight just as you were going over the wall. The next thing would be the machine gun. Hermie managed to force out a phony smile while giving Benjie another of the five million nudges he was to receive that summer. “Smile,” said Hermie. “Look older.”

  Benjie smiled in an attempt to look older and more dashing, talking sideways to Hermie through his ludicrous grin… “They’re walking this way.”

  “Don’t panic.”

  “I’m sweating.”

  “Don’t sweat.”

  Oscy and the three girls arrived. All the boys were smaller. Especially Benjie, who was digging a hole for himself in the concrete with his Keds. Oscy made the introductions like Grover Whalen. Shit, was he ever grand! “This is Hermie, and this is Benjie. And this is Miriam.”

  Then Miriam introduced her friends. “This is Aggie.” She was the half-pretty, stupid, deaf one. “And this is Gloria.” She was the Wreck of the Hesperus.

  Oscy, very much in control, announced the pairings. “Hermie, you’re with Aggie because you’re both intellectual. Benjie, you’re with Gloria because.”

  “I have to go home.” It was Benjie using his small voice. And before anyone knew it, he had disappeared into the crowd. Gloria was destroyed at Benjie’s bugging out. She buried her face in her hands. A bucket of sand would have been better.

  Miriam immediately transformed herself into Louisa May Alcott. She was not pleased with Benjie’s behavior. She huffed up, and Oscy unconsciously stood on his toes as her breasts puffed out like twin zeppelins. “If Gloria doesn’t go, then neither do we.” She neglected to say “so there.”

  Oscy was not going to let Benjie blow it. Suavely he screamed through the crowd. “Benjeeeeeeeee!!!!!” People turned with surprise because it could have been “Ban-zaiiiiii.” One man in particular was more than slightly annoyed because it was in his armpit that Oscy had delivered his scream. But Benjie was gone, sucked up by the night, finished for the evening. Sent home by the sight of his date. Sic gloria transit.

  Gloria, seeing that Miriam was doing Little Women, then decided to play Tale of Two Cities—Sidney Carton, to be specific. And the words came out lispingly from between her wet braces. For every syllable there was an ounce of spray. “Ith not important that I go.”

  Miriam, the noble fool, would not hear of it. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m not being thilly. I don’t want to go, I thweah.”

  “Well then,” said proud Miriam, “we won’t go.” />
  Oscy gently pulled Miriam aside. He leaned in and addressed her, sotto voce, like Mephisto. “Go without her.”

  “She’s our friend. We stick together.” Miriam was adamant.

  Gloria again bespoke her lisping unselfishness. “Really, Miriam, ith not nethethary that I thee thith movie.”

  Oscy had become an eerie echo. “She don’t want to go.”

  Miriam, steadfast. “Then we don’t want to go.”

  Gloria, again. “Go withouth me.”

  Oscy, nudging Miriam. “She wants you to go without her.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “She does.”

  “She does not.”

  “She left.”

  Miriam spun around and sure enough, Gloria was gone, vanished within the same cloak of night that had claimed Benjie. Aggie remained, unsure of anything, her smile beginning to falter, starting to go out like a candle in the wind. She was afraid to look to see if Hermie had run off like Benjie. Hermie was looking into the sky, waiting for Buck Rogers.

  Oscy had thoroughly secured the initiative, and he didn’t care to lose it. He hooked his arm through Miriam’s. “Let’s get in line. The night is young, and I don’t want to miss the cartoon.”

  Miriam looked at Aggie, hopeful of getting some hint of her opinion on the issue. Aggie shrugged. She had no suggestions. Only smiles. Miles of smiles. Miriam faced up to Oscy, determined to not sell herself cheaply. “We’ll each want a fifteen-cent candy.” She said that from between her twin medicine balls.

  Oscy looked at Hermie, wanting no argument from him. Hermie understood the rules, so he nodded his agreement. The deal was set, and the four of them got on the line that was slowly beginning to form. Miriam and Aggie were ahead, Oscy and Hermie right behind.

  Oscy muttered to Hermie. “That’s the last time I ever do anything for Benjie. The absolute last time.”

  “He’s too young. It’s beyond him.”

  “Son of a bitch almost screwed up the whole operation. That Gloria wasn’t too bad.” Oscy didn’t need Hermie to tell him he was wrong. “She’s merely the ugliest dog in the world.” Then he kind of whispered into the night so that only Hermie could hear, “Run, Benjie. Run. Don’t look back.” Oscy damned near broke himself up with that one.