Spanking Shakespeare

by Wizner, Jake

  “I’ll see you guys later,” I say, standing and pushing away from the table. “I’ve got some work to do.”

  “Bye,” Neil says without looking up. He has pulled out his special notebook and is showing a speechless Katie his “daily log.”

  I don’t know what I’m doing, but I find myself taking a circuitous route so I can walk past Charlotte’s table. As I get there, I pause, and in that moment she looks up at me and quickly closes her notebook.

  I offer an embarrassed smile. “Are you working on your memoir?” I ask.

  She shifts uncomfortably. “No. I mean, maybe. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll use any of this.”

  I nod, because this makes perfect sense. “Who do you have for writing seminar?”

  “Mr. Parke.” She puts her notebook in her bag.

  “Really? Me too. What do you think of him?”

  “I’m not sure,” she says. Then, after a moment, “He talks about his testicles a lot.”

  I laugh. “Usually just the left one.” It occurs to me that this is probably the longest conversation I have ever had with Charlotte White. For all I know, it’s the longest conversation anyone has ever had with Charlotte White.

  “I actually have to go,” she says. “I’m way behind on my memoir and the quarter ends next week.”

  She gets up, and as she begins to walk away, I ask her what she was writing about.

  She shakes her head. “It’s kind of personal.”

  Of course it’s personal. Otherwise I wouldn’t be so curious. “Sorry,” I say.

  “Maybe if I knew you better…”

  I tell her I understand.

  She starts to walk away and then turns back. “How’s your memoir going?”

  “Pretty good. I’m up to the part where my parents sent me away to a camp straight out of Lord of the Flies.”

  She smiles and walks off.

  Mr. Parke says memoir is not just about the events in our lives, but also what those events reveal about who we are. He says that every story we tell should have an under-story, and everything we write should serve to illuminate the themes in our lives. When I started on this chapter of my memoir, he asked me to think about what it was really about. Is it my parents’ inexplicably poor judgment? Is it my unexpected and ultimately humiliating sexual awakening? Is it my earliest memories of my own insignificance?

  I was six years old when my parents first sent me to camp, and the themes of my life were beginning to come into sharper focus.

  THE TIME MY PARENTS SENT ME TO A CAMP STRAIGHT OUT OF LORD OF THE FLIES

  I have no idea how my parents selected Camp Greenwood for my inaugural camp experience, but it is hard to imagine they had any prior knowledge of the workings of that horrible place.

  At Camp Greenwood everyone had a military rank, and, predictably enough, distinctions were based on age. First graders were privates, second graders corporals, third graders sergeants, and so on up the ladder to eighth-grade generals. Although not officially stated in camp literature, it was understood that the higher your rank, the more power you had, and so life was not good for those of us at the bottom of the to tempole.

  Every afternoon the counselors would gather the whole camp together to gamble. The way it worked was this: the counselors would divide themselves into two teams and compete against each other in some sport. The campers had to bet on which team would win. We would signal our choices by sitting in one of the two designated spectator areas. If we were lucky enough to choose the winning team, we would form a long line, by rank, and receive candy. If we were on the losing side, we would be summarily dismissed to get ready for the next activity. The biggest problem with the system—aside from the fact that the counselors, not the kids, were playing; aside from the fact that some kids were getting candy and others were getting nothing; aside from the fact that kids were betting on adults—was the fact that no matter who won or who lost, the older kids always ended up with the candy anyway. It was called the tribute system, and it ensured that high-ranking officials on the losing side would not feel resentment toward low-ranking officials on the winning side and end up inflicting some form of corporal punishment.

  The bathrooms, I quickly learned, were places to avoid at all costs. Older boys routinely peed in the sinks, overstuffed the toilets, and drew disturbing pictures on the walls. On one occasion, before I understood how things worked at Camp Greenwood, I sat down in a stall only to be plunged into pitch-darkness as a group of boys turned off the lights and ran away laughing. Too frightened to move, too frightened to scream, I sat there for what seemed like an eternity until my counselor realized I was missing and came looking for me. “Got caught with your pants down,” he said, laughing. “You’ll learn.”

  And I did learn. I learned that the lake and the pool were the best places in the camp to urinate, and I came to savor the moment each day when I could just let myself go and feel the warmth of my urine spread around me. I never thought about the fact that many of my fellow campers were probably doing the same thing, but it would explain why the counselors never went in the water themselves and why they often referred to the pool as the toilet bowl.

  It was in the camp swimming pool that I made a truly remarkable discovery. I was standing in the water with my stomach pressed up against the side when I began to feel a tingling sensation. I adjusted myself a little and the feeling became more intense. Ten more minutes of experimentation, and I hit on something that made me gasp and push away from the wall.

  So began my first love affair, and as the summer wound down, all the indignities and injustices of camp life faded away, and I lived each day in feverish anticipation of my time in the pool.

  I was too young to be self-conscious, and I was too enraptured to be discreet. One day I actually yelped in pleasure, and a group of older boys stopped what they were doing. “Look,” one yelled, “he’s humping the wall!”

  Most of the kids in the pool were too young to be interested, but this group surrounded me and began to cheer me on.

  “Do it again,” one of them said.

  “Yeah, show us how you hump the wall.”

  And all of them began to thrust their hips back and forth and make moaning sounds.

  It felt weird and scary being surrounded by all these older boys, and I looked around for someone to rescue me.

  “You know what would make it feel even better?” one of the boys said, and before I knew what was happening, two of them were holding my arms while a third pulled off my bathing suit.

  “Stop!” I screamed, kicking and writhing and contorting my six-year-old body in an effort to get free.

  “Look at how tiny it is,” one of the boys said. “I dare anyone to touch it.”

  And then a lifeguard was there, saying to leave the kid alone and giving me back my bathing suit and telling me to calm down and saying it was all just in fun. He took me out of the pool and gave me some candy, and when I had stopped crying, he told me to go back in the water and this time to make sure that I kept my bathing suit on. But the pool would never be the same. I spent the final few days of camp staring longingly at my spot on the wall and wondering whether I would ever find such happiness again.

  Toward the end of the summer there was talk that the camp was facing a lawsuit, and my parents started asking me a lot of questions about our day-to-day activities. I did not understand exactly what it was all about, but I gathered it had something to do with a popular activity the counselors had invented for the younger campers called the Coma Game.

  Earlier in the summer, my counselor explained to us what it meant to be in a coma—no moving, no sound, basically being dead. What we had to do was to imitate someone in a coma, and the person who could do the best imitation for the longest amount of time would be the winner. Usually while we played, our counselor would wander off with the warning that he was watching us from a secret hiding place. If he was in a playful mood, he might come around and make funny noises, and we would have to struggle against lau
ghter because people in comas never laughed.

  The problem came when Sammy Levy’s grandfather went into an actual coma. Apparently Sammy had started making farting noises when he visited his grandfather in the hospital, and then asked his mother if Grandpa could come with him to camp to show everybody how good he was at the Coma Game.

  My parents seemed more amused than upset by the things I told them, and although they never sent me back to Camp Greenwood, the Coma Game became a staple in our household until I was old enough to realize how sick and twisted grown-ups really are.

  NOVEMBER

  When I get my first report card, there are no real surprises: Bs in history and Latin, B-minuses in science and math, a B-plus in American literature, and an A in Mr. Parke’s writing seminar.

  When my parents see my report card, they just shake their heads.

  “I don’t understand why someone as smart as you is getting Bs and B-minuses,” my dad says.

  I shrug. “Most of my classes are boring.”

  “Do you even care about getting into a good college?” my mom asks.

  “I got an A in my writing class.”

  My mother gives me an exasperated look. “Good colleges expect you to be getting As in all your classes.”

  “Well maybe I won’t go to a good college then,” I say. “Maybe I’ll just stay home and torture you instead.”

  “The hell you will.” My father walks into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of scotch.

  My mother frowns. “Are you drinking already? It’s only five o’clock.”

  “Are you nagging already?” my father calls back. “It’s only my first drink.”

  I walk to my room as they start their pre-dinner ritual.

  My report card is not such a big deal. I mean I don’t expect to get into an Ivy League school, and I know I’ll get in somewhere. My parents are making me apply to a ridiculous number of colleges, twenty-three at last count, and I figure I have a realistic shot at about half of them.

  They’re crazy, my parents, and it’s gotten worse with this whole college thing. We’ve been to visit almost every school in the Northeast, and my mom is constantly nagging me to start on my applications, which aren’t due until the end of December.

  I’ve actually finished a draft of an essay, though I’d never send it to a college admissions committee. Mr. Parke asked us to write something that would stand out from the thousands of essays the admissions people would be reading. He told us we were not allowed to write about any of our academic successes, describe any of our extracurricular accomplishments, discuss any of the people who have inspired us, or tell any stories about responsibility, independence, friendship, or discovering our true selves. So I wrote about my family.

  I know that what I have written pushes boundaries and will make my parents hysterical if I show it to them. I know that my parents are already tense about my college prospects and that reading my essay will send them completely off their rockers. I know that the best course of action is to keep what I have written hidden in my folder until I turn it in to Mr. Parke tomorrow. But I just can’t resist.

  I stand in the doorway to the living room and watch my father trying to read the newspaper. He is pretending not to notice that my mother is very deliberately vacuuming the floor around his chair.

  “I wrote a first draft of my college essay,” I say.

  My mother snaps off the vacuum and looks up. “Really? That’s wonderful.” She puts her hand on my father’s shoulder. “Did you hear that, David?”

  My father puts down the paper. “Atta boy.”

  “May I read it?” Mom asks.

  I shrug. “It’s still kind of rough.”

  “That’s okay,” Mom says. “Now we have plenty of time to work on it.”

  My parents are both ruthless when it comes to editing written work, which is why I stopped showing them my writing when I was in eighth grade.

  “You promise to be nice?”

  “No,” my father says.

  “David, stop that.” My mother smiles at me. “Of course we’ll be nice, sweetie.”

  I pretend to reread my essay. “I don’t know,” I say. “There’s some stuff in here you might not like.”

  “It’s a first draft,” my mother says encouragingly. “It’s not supposed to be perfect.”

  I hesitate a bit longer for dramatic effect, then, with a great show of reluctance, hand my paper to my mother, who grabs it and scurries off to her reading chair like a squirrel with a scrap of bread.

  It takes a lot of self-restraint not to laugh as I watch my mother read, especially when she looks up at me with a horrified expression on her face.

  “You can’t write this,” she says when she has finished.

  I try to look insulted. “What do you mean?”

  She thrusts the paper at my father. “Read this, David.”

  My father begins to read, smiles, then laughs out loud.

  “It’s not funny,” my mother says angrily.

  “It’s hysterical,” my father says.

  “I didn’t want to write an essay that would be like everyone else’s,” I say.

  “Well, you certainly can’t send this,” my mother says.

  “It’s just a first draft.”

  My father looks up. “Oh, come on. You don’t seriously think you can get away with this, do you?”

  “You said it was hysterical.”

  “It is, but it’s totally inappropriate.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny at all,” my mother snaps.

  “See, this is why I never show you any of my work,” I say. “All you do is criticize.”

  My mom grabs the essay. “What do you expect when you write something like this?”

  College Essay

  First Draft

  You think I’ve got it easy just because I’m a white, upper-middle-class Jew from New York? You think just because I seem to have had every advantage in life, I don’t understand true hardship? Let me assure you, I know what it means to suffer. I know what it means to feel pain.

  I still have vivid memories of the time my father got my puppy drunk and laughed when she threw up all over the living room floor. Not to be outdone, my mother later blackmailed me into giving the dog away by moving out of the house and refusing to return until the dog was gone. My father forced me to go to a baseball game, where I got smashed in the face by a ball, and my mother sent me off alone to visit my mentally unstable grandmother, who had already been hospitalized for mental illness seventeen times.

  Do I sound like I’m complaining? Let me tell you about a typical dinner in my house. My father is drunk, of course, and my mother is venting her frustration in a passive-aggressive way that is making my father more and more irritated.

  My mother is on a diet, so she has crackers and low-fat cottage cheese on her plate, but she keeps reaching over and taking bites of my father’s food.

  “Here,” my father says, handing her his plate. “Just take it.”

  “Why are you so hostile?” my mother says. “I just wanted a bite.”

  “You’ve been picking at my plate since we sat down. All you ever do is pick, pick, pick.”

  “You have some real anger issues, don’t you?”

  My brother seems to be enjoying this little drama, but it is making me insane. “Enough already,” I say. “Can we please eat dinner in peace for once?”

  “There’s no need to be scared, Shakespeare,” my mother says. “A little conflict is healthy for a relationship. I wish you wouldn’t suppress your feelings so much. Maybe therapy would—”

  “I’m not going to therapy.”

  “It could really help you, Shakespeare.”

  “He needs a lot of help,” my brother says. “You should see how antisocial he is at school.”

  “What the fuck’s your problem?”

  “You see?” my brother says. “Look how much pent-up anger he has.”

  He’s right, you know. I do have a lot of pent-up a
nger. If I don’t get out of my house soon, I’m likely to let all my grievances and resentments build up until they explode in some cataclysmic display of bloodshed and violence.

  College is my only hope.

  “Do you really feel this way?” my mother asks, this time with more concern than anger.

  “It’s a joke. It’s supposed to be funny.”

  My mother seems deeply troubled, and I can’t hold out any longer.

  “I’m just messing with you. This isn’t my real college essay. It’s just an assignment for school.”

  “What?” My mother seems momentarily confused. “What kind of assignment? You turned this in?”

  “You know,” my father says, “I had totally forgotten about getting the dog drunk. That was pretty funny.”

  My mother gives me a stern look. “You can’t joke about these things, Shakespeare. Kids are getting expelled for threatening violence.”

  “My teacher gave me an A,” I lie. “He read it to the class.”

  “He read it to the class? David, did you hear that?” My mother is screaming now. “Oh my God, what are people going to think?”

  “I kinda miss that dog,” my father says.

  My brother enters the room. “What’s going on?” he asks. “Mom, what are you screaming about?”

  “Nothing,” my mother says, regaining her composure. “Go wash up for dinner.”

  We sit down to eat, and my mother asks my father to fix her a stiff drink. I notice she makes a pointed effort not to touch the food on his plate during the meal.

  The next day, Mr. Parke asks for volunteers to share their essays, and I raise my hand. Everyone applauds when I finish reading, and on the way out of class, Celeste asks me if I want to get together after school to give each other feedback on our memoirs.