by Alan Sitomer
“Oh my goodness, what are the neighbors going to think?”
Those were the first words out of my mother’s mouth when I got home. She didn’t ask how I was feeling. She didn’t care if I was injured. She didn’t want to know if I had suffered any permanent psychological trauma from having the most moronic kid in school tell the whole world my corncob was only the size of a crayon. All she cared about was one thing: “What are the neighbors going to think?”
Turns out, our school had an official policy against boners. And as my mother was notified when she came to pick me up, I had committed a violation of the Student’s Code of Conduct item 84BLV.17: the “no parading of erections” clause in the student handbook that no one ever reads.
“No parading of erections? Hmmft,” said my grandpa Ralph, wearing blue pajama pants and a white T-shirt with browning pit stains. “When I was a kid, we were so broke we couldn’t afford rulers, so our math teachers encouraged the boys to get pipes in our pants so that we’d at least have a way of drawing straight lines.”
“Not helpful, Grandpa,” my mom said in response. “This mister is in big trouble. Big trouble.”
Mom stared angrily. I looked down.
Just then, my younger sister, Hillary, stormed through the front door.
“I hate you, Bobby!” she shouted as she slammed down her backpack. Hill was in seventh grade; I was in eighth. “I hate you even more than I used to hate you. I mean, do you realize that everyone’s teasing me and making fun? You’ve ruined my life! Again!”
“Oh, honey,” said my mother, trying to comfort her. Hill had been through a lot this past year with her accident and all, and she absolutely hated being in seventh grade. “I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”
“Oh yeah?” Hill replied. “The Spanish kids are calling me ‘Lil’ Hermana Ding-dong.’”
It took a moment for my mother to do the translation. Suddenly, her deep anger shifted to deep concern.
About what the neighbors would think, of course. To the left lived the Barkers. My mother wouldn’t be too concerned about them, because their son Eddie once put a Fourth of July firecracker up their dog’s butt and now they have to walk a pet that has no hair on its rear end. When Petey goes poo, it’s like watching an alien spit out a Tootsie Roll. Not pretty at all.
But the Holstons, on the other hand—the neighbors on the other side—my mother was absolutely cuckoo about being better than them. She’d gone bonkers with the whole idea of it.
When the Holstons got a new car, we needed a new car. When the Holstons had their front lawn relandscaped, we had to have our front lawn relandscaped. When the Holstons got a pool, we needed to get a pool.
And when we didn’t get a pool because we couldn’t afford a pool, my mother decided to make her children better than their children. That was seven months ago. In the time since, my sister has been enrolled in ballet class, science academy and some junior lawyers of tomorrow organization. Me, I was bought a cello, a physicist starter set and a kit on human genomes.
Using the physicist materials, I accidentally set fire to the cello while my sister twirled the wrong way every eight minutes back at ballet class. Let’s just say that none of my mom’s plans to make her kids into supergeniuses worked out too well. And the Holstons still had their pool. Now this.
“Can we move?” Hill asked.
“Yeah, can we?” I added. Leaving town seemed like a great idea. “I can be packed in an hour.”
“Shut up, Bobby,” Hill snapped. “If we move, you’re not coming. You’ve already destroyed enough of my existence in this lifetime.” Hill turned back to our mother. “Please, Mom? I mean, they had to take Mrs. Mank out on a stretcher and all the kids are telling their parents she was attacked by Bobby Connor’s puny baby boner. It’s like some sort of tongue twister they’re chanting around school.” My sister started to imitate our school’s new theme song. “Bobby Connor’s Puny Baby Boner. Bobby Connor’s Puny Baby Boner. Bobby Connor’s Puny Baby Boner! Try saying that three times fast.”
I paused and thought about it.
“She’s right,” I said to my mother, who stared blankly off into space. “We have to move.”
“Shut your face, Bobby!” Hill yelled again.
My mother sat worriedly in a chair.
“Oh my goodness,” she said, more to herself than to any of us. “My goodness.”
“Maybe the boy just likes math,” Grandpa Ralph said, coming to my defense. “Like he really likes math. So much so that long division arouses his pickle?”
I gave Grandpa Ralph a “What the heck are you talkin’ about” look. He smiled at me with crooked teeth and popped a purple jelly bean into his mouth.
“Just wait till your father comes home,” my mom said. “Just wait, young man.”
And sure enough, as if she had my dad on a string, a moment later his car pulled into the driveway. I gulped as my father, brown shoes, striped tie, white shirt, tan jacket over his shoulder, walked through the front door.
“So, what’s up?” he said.
“Bobby was,” answered Gramps. “But not very high.”
“Huh?”
My dad scanned the room, clearly sensing the tension.
“Let’s put it this way,” Grandpa Ralph said. “Pork is on the dinner menu, and from what I hear, there ain’t very much of it.”
“Not helpful, Gramps,” Mom said, shooting her father-in-law a look. Grandpa Ralph grinned at me and popped another jelly bean in his mouth. This time, green.
“We have a situation, Phillip,” Mom announced, and then she kinda nodded in my direction.
Dad slowly turned. “Okay, what’d you do, Bobby?”
“Nothin’,” I said.
“Nothing other than ruin my life,” Hill added. “Again!”
“I didn’t ruin your life,” I said. “Last year wasn’t my fault.”
“‘Last year wasn’t my fault,’” she mocked in a high-pitched voice. “‘I’m just innocent little Bobby, who only thinks about himself and never does anything wrong.’”
“Shut up, Hill,” I said. “It wasn’t my fault you missed all that school.”
“‘It wasn’t my fault,’” Hill repeated.
“Stop it! The two of you,” Mom ordered. She turned to Dad and explained. “Bobby paraded an erection in math class, which caused his teacher to fall and get sent to the hospital.”
“He did what?” Dad exclaimed.
“He paraded an erection,” Mom repeated.
My father struggled to fully understand what had happened.
“You hit your teacher with your penis?” he asked me.
“Phillip!” Mom snapped.
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Well, don’t use the P-word.”
“Why not? You used the E-word.”
“The E-word is not the same as the P-word.”
“It is too. The P-word and the E-word are the same thing,” Dad said. “Now if I used an X-word or a double X-word, I could understand why you might have a problem, but the P-word, like the E-word, is perfectly acceptable.”
“What the F-word are you two talking about?” asked Grandpa Ralph.
Mom turned. “Not helping, Gramps.”
My grandfather grinned, popped a yellow jelly bean into his chompers and gave me a wink.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, ya know!”
The house fell quiet at my outburst.
“Excuse me?” Mom said.
“I said . . . I didn’t do it on purpose. It just, well, happened.”
Mom started to nod her head. Slowly up, then slowly down. “Uh-huh,” she said.
Compared to this, I was sure that having to walk a dog with no butt hair wasn’t looking so bad to her after all.
“Can I be excused?” I asked in a low voice.
“I don’t know, can you?” Mom said.
“Aw, let him go,” Gramps piped in. “Maybe he needs to masturbate.”
“I don’t need to mas
turbate,” I answered. For years I’d suspected that Gramps had some kind of mental disease or a steel plate in his head or a brain tumor. I mean, there had to be some sort of medical explanation for his loony behavior.
“No need to be ashamed, son,” Gramps said. “All boys choke the chicken.”
“Eww!” Hill looked at me like I was some kind of freak.
“You know, when I was a kid, we didn’t have video games. This was my joystick right here,” Gramps said, pointing to his pecker. “I used to play my skin flute till there were calluses on my hands.”
“Okay,” Hill said to no one in particular. “I’m officially running away.”
“I say let the boy tug his pug if he needs to,” said Gramps. “It’s healthy, like vegetables.”
“When is Grandpa Ralph going home?” I asked my parents.
“A few more days,” Gramps replied, casually popping another jelly bean into his mouth. “A few more days.”
“Well, does he have to sleep in my room? He snores and farts,” I said.
“You, mister, are in no position to be complaining. I mean, think of the shame you have brought on this family,” Mom said. “Phillip, say something to your son.”
“What do you want me to say, Ilene? I mean, I still don’t understand how he knocked his teacher over with his P-word. How big is this thing?”
“Rumor is, not very,” Gramps answered.
“Not helping, Gramps,” Mom said, trying not to flip out. She smoothed out her red blouse and made sure the green charm she wore on her gold necklace was in the exact center of her chest. Fixing her necklace was kind of a nervous habit of hers. “You are not helping at all.”
Just then, the phone rang. Mom answered, happy to end the current conversation.
“Hello? Yes, Mr. Hildge . . .”
It was my school. Everyone got silent.
“Yes, I see . . . ,” she said.
Mom listened some more.
“Uh-huh . . . uh-huh.”
We all waited for information.
“I see. . . . Okay. . . . But you know he . . .” She stopped. “But he . . . but . . .”
My mother then listened for what felt like forever to me. What was going on? I wondered.
“Okay,” Mom finally said. “I see. . . . Thank you for calling.”
She hung up and looked around. All of us—my dad, my sister, Gramps—waited for the news.
“The charges have been elevated from parading to flaunting.”
“Huh?” Dad asked. “What’s that mean?”
“It means,” my mother answered, shooting laser beams at me, “Bobby is being expelled.”
“Expelled?” I gasped.
“For a boner?” exclaimed Gramps.
I couldn’t believe it.
“For a stiffy?” Gramps continued. “For sporting a little wood with the ol’ bologna bomb? For letting the Eiffel Tower shine some light on the city of Paris? For—”
“We get your point, Gramps,” Mom said. “We get your point.”
Gramps smiled mischievously. He seemed to greatly enjoy getting on my mother’s last nerve. Me, I was more concerned with the phone call.
Apparently, parading was a misdemeanor. Flaunting was a felony.
“Ah, that school’s crazy,” Gramps added, tossing another jelly bean into his mouth. “If they throw every boy who’s got a stiff salami in their trousers out of class, it’ll be an all-girls school before the weekend. That ruling won’t stick.”
My feet felt like they were glued to the ground. I just stood there in shock. Despite what Gramps said, I was being bounced out of middle school.
My crime: erection-itis.
4
My dad works as an insurance claims adjuster. That means he considers himself a master negotiator. People smash up their cars, and instead of giving them five hundred bucks for their bumper my father will work ’em down to two-fifty. Frankly, he’s outta control. It started last summer when he took some kind of become-a-millionaire-deal-maker seminar. Everything he’s done since then in all aspects of his life has become a negotiation. Like, if I want a cheeseburger with fries, he’ll say, “You can have a burger with cheese or a burger with fries, but you cannot have a burger with cheese and fries. Make your play.”
I swear, that conference knocked a screw loose. It’s gotten so bad around my house that for Valentine’s Day he told my mom she could have either a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates, but he was not giving her both a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates.
“Make your play, Ilene.”
From February fourteenth through February eighteenth Dad slept on the couch.
Anyway, that’s how I avoided being expelled from school. My dad “negotiated” my return.
“Tell us how you did it, dear,” Mom said, smiling. My mother was so tickled by my dad’s deal-making triumph, she decided to cook his favorite dinner, Salisbury steak.
“The key to negotiation,” Dad said as he proudly swirled a piece of brown meat in a glop of gravy, “is that you always need to know what the other person wants.”
“You are so smart, honey,” Mom said, putting more au gratin potatoes on his white plate.
“But they had me in a tight place on this one. I mean, they knew what I wanted. I wanted my son to be able to return to school. The key was figuring out what they wanted.”
“And what did they want, dear?” Mom asked with a gleam in her eyes.
“Well, basically, they wanted to hear me admit my kid was a freak. A sick, depraved oddball. A disillusioned juvenile delinquent with highly deficient mental capabilities.”
“Excuse me?” I coughed.
“See, I had to get them to think,” Dad continued, “that you were a pathetic, abnormal, semi-bizarre social outcast so that they’d take the bait.”
“What?” I said.
“It’s true,” Hill said. “Every word.”
“Shut up, Hill!”
“You shut up, Bobby.”
“No, you shut up, Hill.”
“Wow, you really stood up for your son there, huh, Phillip?” Gramps said, interrupting the intelligent conversation I was having with my sister.
“He’s back at school, isn’t he, Pop?” Dad replied sharply.
“Well, ya got me there, Father of the Year.”
“You should talk,” Dad replied.
Those two, my dad and my grandfather, had issues between them that dated back to long before I was born. My grandma, who was on some kind of cruise or something with her friends—and without Gramps, which is why he was here—told me a bunch of times about how those two never got along. Every holiday, birthday party or family event, they’d always argue with each other. Ruined the mood every time.
“What’s this about bait?” I said, going back to the main discussion. Knowing my dad, there had to be some kind of catch to all this.
“Oh, this is the best part.” Dad dunked a piece of biscuit in the steak juice. “So I said to this Mr. Hildge guy, you can either show this child your compassion or you can show him your anger. Make your play.”
My dad paused for effect like he had just spoken the ultimate quotable phrase.
“Make your play,” he repeated, and then he plunked another triumphant chunk of Salisbury steak into his mouth.
“And that’s it?” my mother asked.
“That’s it. They took the bait. Bobby gets to go back to school tomorrow. No harm, no foul. Only one day out of class, just like he had a small fever or something.”
I looked up, skeptical. It seemed too easy.
Dad swallowed his meat and then chugged a gulp of root beer. “All they made me do was sign some silly letter promising that you’d see the school psychologist.”
“A shrink?” Mom asked, suddenly alarmed.
“For his dink?” Grandpa added. I turned to look at him. He grinned.
“When is Gramps going home?” I asked.
“A few more days,” my grandfather answered, even though I wasn
’t talking to him.
Dad burped. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” my father said. He could tell the thought of me seeing a psychologist was very disturbing to Mom. “The school just hired a specialist who is well trained in issues surrounding adolescence and puberty. Bobby will be getting what’s known as correctional erectional therapy.”
“Correctional erectional therapy?” repeated my mother. An even greater look of concern flashed across her face. Everyone in the room could read her forehead as if it were a billboard.
What will the neighbors think?
Mom checked her necklace to make sure that the charm, some kind of red, oval-shaped thing, was perfectly centered. It was jewelry-fiddling time.
“Relax, honey, she’s a professional,” Dad said.
“I’m not going,” I blurted out.
“Oh yes you are,” Dad answered.
“Oh no I’m not,” I said.
“Bobby,” my father told me. “You can either go see this dink shrink and do your correctional erectional therapy like a man, or you can stay home with your grandpa Ralph doing chores until we find a new school to enroll you in. Make your play.”
“No-brainer,” I said. “I’ll take the chores.”
“Okay, chore number one is to go help your grandfather clean out his belly button.”
“Is it the second Thursday of the month already?” Gramps asked, his white hair shooting in all kinds of kooky directions, not having been combed for days. Gramps reached down, lifted his white T-shirt and looked at his stomach. “Sure is,” he answered. “My, how quickly that gunk builds up in there.” He turned to me. “Don’t worry, I’ll just need you to spread my navel while I extract the mucus. The tweezers’ll get most of the creamy ooze out, but I gotta warn you, bring something to cover your nose. It ain’t rosebushes growing down there.”
Gramps offered me a crooked smile. I looked at my dad. He stared back at me like Dirty Harry.
“Make your play, Bobby. Make your play.”
5
School the next morning wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The first person I saw after my mom dropped me off was a girl, a blonde, someone I had never seen before. I expected her to laugh in my face. Instead she said hi.
“Hi,” I responded.