The Big Eighties
by Michael de Mare
(C) 1996-2007 Michael de Mare


It was after midnight and neither of us had any business being out. We were only fourteen and our parents thought that we were safely in bed. Julie asked for me to light her cigarette. I fumbled for matches and she just bent her head toward me and lit her cigarette off the cigarette in my mouth. It was a uniquely intimate way of lighting a lady's cigarette. We discussed events at the rowdy roller disco we were on our way back from. The tricky part now was to get into our rooms without getting caught.

"You have my house key," I told her.

"When I get in, I'll grab it and drop it out the window to you." It sounded like a good plan so I agreed.

We reached Julie's house and I waited outside while she quietly unlocked the door, slipped in and, after what seemed like hours, appeared at her window in the attic. She tossed out the key, which I would have caught, if the tree hadn't caught it ten feet above me. I mulled over in my mind what to do about this hitch in the plan and tossed things at the tree to try to shake the key loose. Unfortunately my aim was poor and the keychain was well hooked to the tree.

"Try shaking the branch with something."

"Shhh, you'll wake up my parents."

A light went on in the house.

"I've got to go," she told me, and her light went out.

Fortunately, for me, my parent's station wagon was unlocked so I crept inside and tried to sleep. It was chilly and I was tired. Finally, at the first sign of dawn I knocked on the door and tried to tell my mother that I had gone for a walk and forgotten my keys. For some reason she suspected that this deviated from the truth and eventually got the whole story out of me.

Julie was blonde and skinny and I was happy to sneak out of the house or smoke or do just about anything that she thought was cool. I called her up the next day and discussed what happened. She was cool about it, although I suspect she considered me to be a geek for letting the keys get caught in the tree.

My mother had been reasonably cool about the whole thing, she even gave me money and made me promise to take care of Julie. What it came down to was that she didn't want to tell Julie's mom but felt sort of responsible now that she knew. Julie was serene, my difficulties obviously hadn't fazed her in the slightest. That is the way women are, they get you into trouble and just expect you to get out of it by yourself.

Julie and I made plans for that night, Saturday, and my part in the plans was minimal. I got to hang out with her while she had a good time. We left the usual hour, which is to say, after her parents went to bed and walked about a mile down the suburban streets through a rough part of town to the roller rink.

The roller rink was loud and dark and had some rough looking characters hanging out in front of it. One of these picked me up and leaned me against the wall and gave me a hard time. One of Julie's friends chased him off me and we partied the night away. This time I had my own key.

At the roller rink I ran into a couple of girls I knew from school. "Hi Mike, Jen, it's Mike."

"I'm going to tell the teacher I saw you down here."

"Isn't he cute in that outfit?"

"I'm going to tell the teacher that I saw you smoking at the roller rink in Bergenfield."

I chatted with them for a while and went to look for Julie. Julie was, of course, in the middle of a crowd of guys. I tried to slip in there and talk to her, but to no avail. It would have been pointless anyway since the music was so loud.

Like Julie, I lived in the attic of my house and we were across the street from each other. This was conducive to good neighborly relationships, so I spent much of my time after school on the phone with her. She had her own phone, and loved to talk. I had an extension I had jury rigged up into the attic. I was used to this nice city setup, a sedentary life (except when sneaking out and walking a mile) and my parent's affluence.

Julie's parent's were both doctors, and one of my parents was a computer programmer and the other a lawyer which left plenty of time after school for Julie and I to get into trouble. Julie had taught me all sorts of cool things, such as smoking and I talked with her every chance I got.

Julie went to Catholic school and I went to a private school, so our social activities were strictly after school, although I took her to a school dance once. In general, we had different crowds, but hung out together. Julie's crowd was by far the cooler, at least to a fourteen year old boy. They partied and had fun.

After school on Monday I called Julie up, and invited her over to my attic. She said to come over to hers, so I did. We hung out and talked awhile.

"I stole one of my parents contraceptives," she said.

"Wow, what if you get caught"

"They won't miss it"

Unfortunately, I did miss it. After hanging out with her a while discussing this sort of thing I began to get warm and took off my sweatshirt. She commented that it was hot in there and looked ready to shed some clothes herself, when her little sister came up. She yelled at the little one not to come up there. After a while I left.

The next day I called her up to retrieve my sweatshirt. It turned out that she had washed and folded it for me. I was very appreciative of this. She was moving to Kansas City soon and it made me sad.

I had spent summers, or part of summers on my grandmother's dairy farm for a number of years. One day, after getting into a fight at school, being thrown out of math class for a lack of a text book and being scolded by my history teacher for fooling around, I thought it would be neat to move to my grandmother's farm. My parents agreed to this notion and it was decided that at the end of the school year I would move in with her. Since she was also moving on account of the financial failure of her current farm it would be a fresh start for all.

***

Soon the school year ended, and I got caught smoking in the bathroom during finals. It was a grand finale to a great year where I had gotten into fights, learned to smoke and generally had a great time. It was time to move. I packed up all my stuff and Mom drove me to Grandma's. After we arrived one of the first things we did was visit the new farm. The lawn was overgrown, the house was in shambles, the barn hadn't been cleaned and the place generally looked fairly foreboding. I didn't think of it that way, it was my new home.

We went in through the basement, which wasn't locked and went upstairs to examine the house. It clearly needed a lot of work. The basement stairs went up to a little hallway which connected the dining room, kitchen and master bedroom. On the other side of the kitchen was the back kitchen, with a door leading outside. There was a stairway leading down from a trap door in the ceiling and this led upstairs. Since there was a perfectly serviceable stairway by the front door, in between the living room and the dining room, it was decided to permanently shut this trap door.

I had "found" a pack of Grandpa's cigarettes in a carton in his van, but couldn't light one while I was "exploring". I had no matches. Trying to use the lighter in the pickup was risky as I was liable to get caught. I tried it anyway, to no effect, it didn't work. I soon got into the habit of collecting matches.

We explored the new farm. There was a huge back field at the end of a poorly maintained dirt road. I walked up to the top of the field and the view was breathtaking. The valley and hills were out in front of you so close you could reach out and touch a farm, or a forest. The field itself had an old gravel pit in the near corner and a rather steep hill terracing it into two levels. Behind it were tens of thousands of acres of state forest. The rest of the farm was divided into two parts. One was a triangular field across the dirt road the farm was situated on, the rest were fields running along the main highway back down the dirt road the house was on and ending at a hedgerow to a neighbor's corn field. I snuck out to where we had found some raspberries growing and had a cigarette I had surreptitiously "borrowed" from Grandpa. Smoking it made me feel a lot better. But when I got back to the house Grandma smelled it on me.

"Have you been smoking?"

"No, I was just picking some raspberries, see the stains on my hands?"

*smack* She slapped my face so unexpectedly that it took a second before it began to hurt. She told me never to lie to her again.


We started hauling things from the old farm. Pickup load after pickup load, heavy boxes, furniture, farm equipment and the like. Trying not to break any furniture while hauling it up the steep stairs was a challenge, as well as navigating furniture around the house while the women decided where they wanted it. I developed impressive back muscles while doing this, and even lifted a hundred pound stone clock up on top of the china cabinet (a challenge given my short height).

Upstairs there were five bedrooms, one of which was huge and would serve as a living room for my aunt and uncle. Across the stairs from it was a bedroom which would be their bedroom. I was promised the huge attic, which was full of promising electronic junk but got temporary quarters in a bedroom across from the attic stairs.

I spent my first night in the house in a roll of blankets. I had volunteered to camp out there and it was spooky in the 200 year old house which had been vacant for quite some time. The wind made the house creak on it's wooden pegs and heavy winds made it sway. I made it through the night and soon felt reasonably at home.

The first cow we brought on board was a pet cow called "Still" after it's dam "Moonshine." Still had a way of getting through fences and tended to end up on the lawn as often as anywhere else. It didn't take Still long to find some wild onions giving her milk a very strong odor, and flavor.

The dogs and cats drank well that summer.

I got to do a lot of the moving, loading boxes and equipment and furniture into the pickup at the old farm and unloading it at our new home. It was hard work and intolerably hot most of the time, but it had to be done. Meanwhile an uncle of mine who was assisting with the moving started mowing the fields to put up hay. To get the lawn down to a reasonable level, he ran the hay mower over it. This left several windrows of hay on the lawn which my cousins and I had to pick up with hayforks in the hot sun and haul over to the pasture for the cows to eat. This was backbreaking sweaty work which did not seem to have an end in sight, and when it was over I called my mother, took the phone to the top of the basement stairs, closed the basement door and cried to her that I wanted to go home.

I did not get much sympathy. She pointed out that I had agreed to live there and that I had wanted to move there, in fact. She said it was too late to change my mind and to just get along the best that I could.

Soon there was hay to put up. Putting up hay in a Quonset hut barn is not a chore to be relished. It was about 120 degrees in the haymow and the fifty pound bales of hay had to be dragged to the back of the haymow and then tossed up to the person stacking them. Hayseed gets all over you, even in your underwear mixing with your sweat and making you itch while your arms and back get sore and tired from the work of putting up wagonload after wagonload with very short breaks, if any, in between.

One day, as I was working on the fence line by the main highway, a couple of girls, one blond, one brunette, bicycled by. One screamed when she saw me holding the machete which I was using to chop down the weeds which short out the electric fence. They were our neighbors and presumably the ones we had (temporarily) a party line with. I thought of the brunette as I talked on the phone to Julie for the last time. Julie was about to move to Kansas City and wasn't nearly as excited about her move as I had been about mine. My excitement had waned a bit after I discovered that shoveling out the drops full of cow manure and putting up hay were part of the deal, but I didn't let on to her. I couldn't wait for school to start so that I could meet these young ladies.

With the arrival of the cows, we had to start milking more then just Still every morning and night. I learned to milk cows. We didn't have a pipeline so the machine pulled the milk into a pail which had to be carried (a good cow makes forty or more pounds of milk) to a dumping station where it is poured in and pumped to the bulk tank which keeps it cool and homogenized. I soon learned that milking cows was not nearly as much fun as it looked.

As things settled down, a routine developed. I worked on farm chores, mostly putting up hay during the day and helped with milking the cows at night.


***

I had never gone to a public school before. When we went in to enroll the guidance councilor tsked over my spotty, at best, academic record and came to the conclusion that I would never amount to anything. As the start of school approached, I became anxious for it to start. I anticipated meeting people my age, especially girls, and started dreaming about it.

The first day of school I trotted down to the end of the dirt road, about a quarter mile, wearing a denim jacket and carrying a new backpack to be picked up by the school bus. It stopped, I got in, sat down, and a blonde girl named Kelly came up to me.

"What grade are you in?"

I was surprised by the question but answered, "tenth."
She went back to where she had been sitting with her sister and whispered loudly, "He's too old."

The bus trip took an hour, but I didn't really get to know anybody, as my natural shyness got the better of me. At last the bus stopped at school, only three and a half miles away and we piled out. I was soon assigned a locker and a schedule. Since my class, the "big" class, only had twenty people, we had one homeroom.

I soon met a girl named Dawn. Her blonde hair was shoulder length, she had an adequate bust and her boyfriend was the only one in class with a mustache. She teased him that I was her new boyfriend now and started showing me around.

At lunchtime she brought me off campus up to a feedmill which was in town. There I bought cigarettes with my lunch money. We went into a little hollow of trees and sat on a couple of rocks and smoked and talked. She was from California and it showed. She wanted to know if I was a narc and was soon satisfied that I wasn't.

When someone bummed a cigarette off of her she had one upside down in her pack, I was surprised.

"Don't take my lucky," she said.

"Huh?" I replied.

"My lucky cigarette, when you open a pack you turn a cigarette over for luck."

I agreed that I understood and started turning cigarettes over in my own packs of cigarettes in the future.

She put her arm around me and hugged me and it felt so right.

I fell asleep in math class. This fact soon became obvious to the teacher who woke me up just to ask me what the answer to a problem was. I answered it and went back to sleep. Fortunately this teacher had a sense of humor about such things.

After school I helped my Uncle Keith milk the cows every night. He had a generally bad attitude on life and loved to share it. His thing was the Army. He was convinced that if only he had been old enough to be drafted during Vietnam, his life would have been heaven. He got kicked by a cow and uttered a long list of not terribly creative profanities. I was not shocked, I was used to it from him.

After milking, I went up to the house and talked about my first day of school at length with everybody. I was so excited, it was incredible. After a long summer of hard work and lack of people my age it was a treat to go back to school.

That weekend I bicycled six miles up to Dawn's house, well, I bicycled part way and someone gave me a ride the rest of the way. I enjoyed hanging out with her and generally had a good time. Her boyfriend was not there, but some of her friends and relatives were.

"There was an ax murderer in Paines Hollow."

I doubted this, but she was too cute to argue with. Besides, she knew the area and I didn't. As we sat in her living room and chatted I felt extraordinarily lucky. Mike, who had given me a ride and Chris, her cousin were there, and it was a generally sociable house.

As my Uncle and I put up firewood I thought about her. Putting up firewood had a fun part and a boring part. The fun part was going out in the woods and finding a tree to cut down. When we had felled it, my Uncle would cut it up with a chain saw as I loaded the cut pieces into the spreader attached to the back of the tractor. Then I would get to drive the tractor to the back of the house. The boring part was unloading the spreader. I loaded the cut pieces of firewood onto a wooden wheelbarrel without sides or a back and wheeled it into the basement where we stacked it around the furnace.

Having hit it off with a girl right at the beginning of the school year made me feel good, and I didn't mind helping with the chores at night, although I neglected my homework. This was not new for me, I had always found it easier to think up excuses about my homework then to do it.
On the school bus Monday morning I got on at the beginning of the school bus route. Since the bus started at the end of the dirt road we lived on and then went by it again fifteen minutes later, this meant I was early. As we drove up the road we picked up Sherry and Kelly, our neighbors.

"This is the wethead look." Sherry was wearing a bright purple cape.

"I need my sunglasses" I exclaimed.

Kelly was busy with something in one of the seats. "Excuse me, I need to stuff my bra" she said and stuck her tongue out at me. The bus trip was long so we entertained ourselves. I stared out the window at the scenery as we went by it.

"Oh! Look, deer" Sherry exclaimed, as we went by a doe with a fawn standing in a field by the road. I gazed at them and said nothing. Sherry came back and sat next to me.

"Where are you from"

"New Jersey"

"Oh"

That was enough information for her. She didn't quiz me any further. I thought she was awfully cute but didn't say anything. My shyness was showing through again.

When we got to school the first bell rang. We rushed to our homerooms and sat down. I raised my hand and asked to be excused to the boy's room.

In the boy's room, I pulled a cigarette from where I had them hidden in my socks, opened up the window all the way and lit up. As I puffed quickly, almost frantically on the cigarette the door started to open. I jumped out the window, and hid under the window sill until I heard the urinal flush and the door close. After that I climbed back in, closed the window and went back to homeroom.

After school, while we were waiting for the bus, Sherry came up to me and asked me for a cigarette. The she asked me for a couple more. She broke the cigarettes in half and stomped them on the ground. "They are bad for you."

"That is twenty five cents of cigarettes you destroyed."

"Sorry"

She obviously found my smoking habit unattractive, but it was a lot easier to start then it was to stop. Besides, smoking annoyed the grownups, that was a good enough reason, to me, to keep on smoking.

On the way home Sherry hopped in the seat next to me, reached in the back of my pants, grabbed my underwear and pulled as hard as she could. I complained, but she said that picking on me showed that she liked me. Then she hopped into another seat and talked with her friend.
The trip home was shorter then the trip to school, but was still long. Some younger kids started making trouble in the back of the bus and Sherry chased them to the front of the bus. As we drove on the bus emptied out until it was my stop, just before Sherry and Kelly's stop.

***

My uncle joined the National Guard and went away to boot camp. The chore of milking the cows in the evening fell on my shoulders. My second cousin, Jamie, shoveled out the drops where the cows pooped in the daytime thus sparing me from that job. Jamie was always in trouble but told some interesting stories.

He brought two pigs and a couple of horses to the farm. The horses were harness racing horses, and had never been ridden before. One Saturday he told me that one of the horses had been trained to be ridden.

I went out to the pasture where the horse was and Jamie helped me up onto it. The instant I was on, the horse took off and I hung on for dear life. The horse ran around and around the field, under low branches stopping short and putting it's head down, jumping over the creek and generally trying to throw me off.

As the horse ran near the house I somehow managed to jump off of it. It had been quite a ride.

"What do ya think?"

"She's not broken in, she is crazy!"

"I broke her in myself this morning"

"Did not!"

I went into the house. My grandmother was fixing breakfast. For me there were bacon sandwiches and hot coffee. I chowed down on the sandwiches and stretched.

"I don't think Jamie's horse is broken in," I said.

"I watched you ride it out the window, that was some ride."

"What is he planning to do with her?"

"He is going to teach her to be a riding horse and sell her."

I was dubious as to the likely results of this experiment. In general riding horses learn to be ridden when they are young, not after a career of harness racing. Besides, the ride I had just gotten didn't bode well for this horse.

"I wonder who the lucky buyer is going to be."

Jamie came in from working with the horse. "Aunt Mary," that is what he called my grandmother, "I think that horse is getting the idea."

I retorted, "You've got to be kidding!"

"She doesn't know you, she rides nicely for me."

"Yeah sure. She's a genuine Mexican plug." I was proud of that one. I had picked it up from a Mark Twain book.

Jamie sat down at the table, he didn't seem to feel like arguing anymore. A herd of three wheelers went up the road.

"Why don't we get one of those, Grandma?"

"They are expensive, besides they're dangerous."

"But they are so cool, everybody has them."

"They flip over easily if you take a turn wrong."

I thought it would be so cool to have a three wheeler. I could go visit all of my friends without having to try to bicycle all over God's green creation. I didn't like weekends. On weekends I had to help shovel out the drops and put up fire wood and stuff like that. I also missed all the kids at school. That isn't to say I was wild about school either, but I liked socializing.

Later that day it was time to milk the cows. I went down to the barn and started to get ready. I went into the milkhouse, a room in the barn which has sinks and hoses and stuff for the milking equipment. First the bulk tank, a huge stainless steel tank which holds the milk, needed to be washed. A milk truck had come earlier that day and picked up the milk. I turned a five gallon pail upside down to stand on, opened up all the hatches and turned the hose on to lukewarm water.

I hosed down the inside of the tank and then sprayed the water at the far end from the valve to get all the milky water out. Then I turned the hose on to hot water. I ran about four inches of hot water into the bulk tank and shut off the water. I then put in powdered soap and chlorine sanitizer and grabbed a long brush. With the brush I scrubbed down the sides, wetting it with the soapy water on the bottom.

After I had scrubbed the inside, I cleaned the outside too, for aesthetic reasons. Stainless steel looks better when it is nice and shiny. I then let the soapy water out and rinsed the tank with hot water.

I put a filter in to the dumping station. I closed it up and the bulk tank up and went out to let the cows in. I opened a bale of hay in the manger in each of the four sections of the barn and put a piece of hay in front of each stall. I closed the manger gates and opened up the gate and called the cows, "C'bossie, C'bossie, Come bossie!"

The cows didn't come, so I went out to the pasture to herd them into the barn. I flailed my arms and chased them until they started heading towards the barnyard. When they went into the barn they headed into their assigned stalls and started chowing down on the hay that was there.
I slipped up next to each cow and hooked her collar to a chain there so that the cow wouldn't change her mind and try to wander off.

After all the cows were fastened in their stalls I filled the grain wheelbarrel from a chute in the ceiling and gave each cow a ration which was marked on a piece of cardboard attached to the wheelbarrel. The cows bullied each other and strained at their chains to eat each other's rations and tried to tip the wheelbarrel over with their heads.

I then took a broom and swept the manger, pushing all the hayseed and grain toward the cows so that they could reach it. I took a break, went into the milkhouse and lit a cigarette. After I finished my cigarette, I wheeled the dump station out to the barn, hooking a hose on hooks strategically placed on the way.

I assembled the milking equipment which consisted of three stainless steel milkpails and two lids with milking attachments, and filled a small pail with hot water. I put some iodine in the water, hooked a small cup with a metal lid with two slits, some paper towels and a plastic gizmo, containing iodine for dipping the teats of the cows onto the pail and carried all the milking equipment and the pail out to the barn.

I washed the first cow on each side of the barn's udders with the hot water, and squirted a little milk from each teat into the metal cup, looking for any signs of lumps, which can indicate disease. I then plugged an assembled milking machine into the vacuum line and attached it to the cows teats. The vacuum pulsated and imitated a calf sucking thus getting the milk out of the cow.

After I finished milking I washed the machines, let out the cows, cleaned up the barn and went up to the house for dinner. I took my boots and some of my dirty clothes off at the top of the basement stairs, I had gone in through the basement and arrived just in time to eat.

For dinner we had steak. We ate steak and other types of beef often since we butchered cows which wouldn't produce and put them in the freezer. Grandma fixed rice and steak and I chowed down hungrily.

***

My thing was computers. This was in great part because my father was a computer man. I spent a lot of my free time reading about them and played with computers every chance I got. In New Jersey I had been lucky enough to get to use a big PDP 11/34 at my father's office with some regularity and I felt comfortable with the machines.

At my new school there was a business room where the business teacher, Mr G taught. In this room were two IBM PC's. I got to know Mr G and played with the PCs.

"What are you doing there?" inquired Mr G.

"I am trying to compile my program."

"Wow, we have a real computer whiz on our hands," he chuckled.

It was after school, and he was being nice enough to let me play with the computer. I was never very much in to athletics, but I was into computers. My goal was to be a computer programmer someday, like my father. I found that other kids tended to respect this, as many had interests of their own, so I didn't worry about being called a nerd.

Pretty soon, Mr G had to lock up the business room and go, and I called for a ride home. Grandma came to pick me up in the old red pickup and as she got there I could see the principal pulling her aside. "Uh oh," I thought to myself, "I'm in trouble."

"Were you smoking up by the feed mill, lunchtime?"

"Yeah, but we are allowed to go up there."

"The principal saw you smoking and told me about it. He acted all high and mighty about it, as if it was any of his business. I told him I got you that way."

Smoking was clearly losing it's purpose. It didn't have the anti-authoritarian gesture to it that it used to. That didn't matter very much, however, I have a defiant side to me, and smoking was an expression of it. I was also hooked on those cancer sticks.

In a way I was lucky, the principal had come off badly to Grandma, which made her tend to support me in spite of her feelings about smoking. She started to allow me to smoke but made comments every chance she got about it. I found this to be enough resistance to persist, but it just wasn't the same as sneaking around.

That Friday there was going to be a school dance. I was going, of course, and couldn't wait. I had always loved school dances, and think that grownups ought to have something like them, where everyone in town gets together to socialize and dance. Some small towns do have socials like that, but very few towns are small enough to fit everyone in a gym, yet are large enough to attract a critical mass.

When I got to the dance, I stood against the wall and watched the other kids dance. I was shy and didn't really know how to join in. Soon I wandered over to the bleachers and sat down. There were other kids on the bleachers and I struck up conversations with them.

"What do you think of this dance?"

"It bites!"

"Why's that?"

"The music isn't cool enough."

The kid was too cool to have fun. So I went and sat next to a girl a year older then me. "Do you want to dance when a slow song comes on?"

"Sure"

Soon enough, a slow song came on so we hopped off the bleachers and danced. I put my hand in the small of her back and pulled her close to me. I could feel her breasts against my chest and we danced through the song.

Having gotten some courage by dancing with her, I decided to try some fast dancing. I was never very good at it, but it sure beat sitting in the bleachers. I walked over to where some of my friends were dancing and started dancing too, as best as I could.

"You dance funny," a girl said.

"That's how we dance by the city," I lied.

My friends accepted this and we danced for half an hour or so, trying to talk above the music some. It was difficult, as the DJ was loud and most conversations were abandoned almost immediately. I caught Sherry looking at me, and started to head over towards her.

She was dancing with another group of kids, and I tried to stealthily dance over towards her, without getting too far separated from my group. The music changed, and she disappeared into a crowd as I lost my nerve.

Grandma and Jamie came to pick me up from the dance. I told them I had danced with a junior.

"No, you didn't," Jamie teased me.

"I did too, we danced for two songs and I had a great time."

"A junior danced with you! I can't believe it."

"She did."

"I'll be d*mned. Wow, you must really be big man around there."

When we got home I was exhausted. I had milked the cows before the dance, and then all the dancing and excitement pooped me right out. As I crawled up to the attic to go to bed, I made a mental note dance with Sherry at the next dance.

The next night, Saturday, Grandma took me to a roller rink in Herkimer, about twenty miles away. I paid to get in and rented some roller skates.

I made my way into the roller rink, found a bench, took off my shoes, and put on the skates. I rented a locker for a quarter and put my shoes in it for safekeeping. I rolled out onto the floor and started skating. The music was good and I skated around and around until I was exhausted.

I made my way to the snack bar, which was also a designated smoking area. I bought a soda, found a seat and lit up a cigarette. I was at a table full of other kids, so I introduced myself.

"I'm Mike"

"Hiya Mike, where do you live?"

"Out by Starkville, how about you?"

"Mohawk."

The girl at the next table thought I was looking at her. "Stop staring at me."

"I'm not staring at you."

"Are too, I think you like me."

I could feel the loud music in my chest. The kids were friendly and we were all smoking. One of the kids took his lighter and burned his hand with it.

"What did you do that for?"

"Cause I can, can you?"

"Sure I can"

"Then do it."

After I got tired of hanging out at the snack bar I went over by a big screen TV that was set up. They were starting to show videos. I sat down on a boxy thing on the floor and watched. They were pretty cool. Soon I went back to roller skating.

When it got to be about ten thirty I called for a ride home. It would take more then half an hour for the ride to arrive so I hung out some more. A girl came up to me and asked me what my name was. "Mike," I replied, and she said that I was cute.

I wished I hadn't called to go home, but it was too late. I sat and talked with this girl and her friend until it was time for me to go wait outside.

Once outside, I could not go back inside, so I had timed it as best as I could. There were a couple of other kids hanging out outside so I bummed a cigarette off of one of them. After a few minutes outside, I wished I hadn't left. I leaned up against the brick wall and watched each car as it drove by.

At last the pickup arrived and I piled in.

"How did things go tonight?"

"Pretty cool." I didn't like to talk about my social life with the adults too much. They couldn't really understand it, and I didn't like to waste my breath too much with it. The truth was, being the new kid in town was a lot better then it is made out to be. Everybody is interested in something new and different, especially in a little town where nothing ever seemed to change.

***

Monday morning the school bus picked me up. I hadn't been wild about getting out of bed, but with a shower and breakfast under my belt I was ready to face school, or at least the bus.

We picked up Sherry and Kelly, and they were feeling rowdy. Sherry gave me a wedgie and Kelly tied my shoelaces together. It was an eventful trip. The busdriver ignored all of the stuff going on behind him and just drove while Kelly told me she knew that I liked it. With some more coffee I could have coped with it better.

When we arrived at school my underpants were ripped and I had to untie my shoelaces from the bottom of the seat. This made me late to homeroom which got me a warning. If it happened again I would get a detention.

After homeroom I went to social studies class. I sat in the back row and listened without taking notes. As the teacher talked about the American revolution I thought about the girls on the bus. I wondered how I was going to explain my ripped underwear in the locker room at Phys. Ed. that afternoon.

After class was over, I was about to leave, everybody had already left when Sherry came into the room. She grabbed the back of my chair and started spinning me around.

"Say you love me and want to go out with me," she said.

I wanted to, but for some reason the word "no" came out of my mouth. She said it again with the same reply.

"I'm not going to stop spinning you until you say it."

I wondered why she couldn't say that she loved me and wanted to go out with me, but didn't think to ask. Finally she stopped spinning the chair and stormed out of the room. I knew I had made a booboo and wanted to run after her and yell "I love you," but instead I picked my books up off the floor and went on to my next class, to which I was late.

On the bus ride home that night, Sherry sat far away from me and acted as if I wasn't there. It was positively icy and I almost missed having my underwear shredded. I felt a chill through my shoulders and longed for her arm around them.

I went up and sat with a girl named Amy. I put my hand on my thigh and when the school bus hit a big bump, moved it to her thigh as if it got jolted there. I kept my hand there and acted really cool. My heart was racing and Amy was acting cool too.

I massaged her thigh a little as the school bus continued along it's hour long trip. Her ride was only half an hour so I knew if I was going to make another move I had better make it quickly. I started moving my hand up her thigh but she had her hands in her lap and stopped me. Before I knew it, it was her stop.

After she got off I moved to the back of the bus and sat in the seat in front of Sherry. She pretended I wasn't there. Her sister, Kelly, was in the seat across from me sitting with a boy.

"Hi Mikey," she said.

"Hi Kelly," I replied.

I turned and stared out the window, regretting not having said what Sherry wanted to hear. It seemed like an awfully long bus ride without her teasing me. I felt a tug on my shoelaces and realized that Kelly had tied me to the bus again. At least some things don't change.

After I got off the bus, I walked up the dirt road to my house. When I went inside to get a snack and change for milking Grandma asked, "So, how did your day go?"

"The same as usual."

"Anything interesting happen?"

"Not really."

I took off the leather jacket I had gotten for my fifteenth birthday. As I sat on the chair in the back kitchen and pulled off my school sneakers, I wondered what was wrong with me that caused me to not go out with Sherry. Grandma had fixed me some Ramen noodle soup from one of those rectangular boxy packages that come five to a dollar and I went in to the kitchen and ate it.

"Be sure to keep an eye on Bess, she's due to freshen soon." That meant that she was about to have a calf.

"Okay, should I put some hay behind her"

"Yeah, that's a good idea, why don't you do that. Also, I'll come down and check on her while you are milking."

"Okay."

I changed into my barn clothes and headed out through the basement to milk the cows. It had been a confusing day and I was still kicking myself.

As I milked the cows I thought about what had happened, running it over and over in my mind. Why couldn't I just say the words? I would have had a cute and popular girlfriend. Instead, we were ignoring each other and she wasn't even teasing me anymore. I wished that I could go back to earlier in the day and say the right things.

After I finished milking, while water ran through the milking machines to clean them, I pulled out a book from where I had it hidden under the window sill. I wasn't supposed to read in the barn as that would interfere with getting the work done. I sat down in the hay in an empty stall, leaned up against a cow which was lying next to it and read a couple of chapters.

All of a sudden the barn door flew open and I desperately tried to hide my book under the cow. That didn't work and I jumped to my feet. It was my math teacher from school. That was the last person that I expected to see in the barn after milking. She found it very amusing that I was trying to hide the fact that I had been reading.

I scraped up the barn, swept the mangers and finished up in the milkhouse before heading up to the house. It turned out that Grandma had invited her over for dinner. Talk about a surprise. We ate dinner and talked about school and farming and my math teacher and her husband told Grandma about some of the people who live in the area.

***

I couldn't sleep that night, thinking about Sherry. After I finally fell asleep, I couldn't get up the next morning. I missed the school bus and Grandma had to give me a ride to school. Since the ride was only five minutes by car, that gave me a long time to sip coffee and stare at the wall before it was time to leave.

In homeroom I sat next to Dawn and tried to talk to her, but she had gone back to her boyfriend. I felt completely alone and wished that I had only had the courage to say what I felt. When the bell rang, I moped on to my first class.

Sitting in class I daydreamed about my missed opportunity. Class flew by and before I knew it the bell rang again. I gathered my books together and went to my next class. On my way there I realized I had lost my pencil and asked a girl in my class named JuLee for one.
JuLee's friend Suzie said "Get on your knees and beg."

"I won't beg for a pencil!"

"Then no pencil."

I figured I wouldn't need it. It was French class and I couldn't understand a word that was said in there anyway, I wasn't going to be taking any notes. I sat behind JuLee and soon my mind wandered. My mind soon wandered to JuLee's rear end which was showing through the hole in the back of the desk.

I put my foot up and pressed my foot against her butt. She turned around and said "Stop it!"

I put my foot down and wondered why saying that had never worked with Sherry and Kelly. This got me thinking back to the previous day again and pretty soon I was daydreaming again. The teacher called on me, breaking me out of my daydream but I couldn't understand a word she said.

I used the only French I knew and asked to be excused to the boy's room. A torrent of French poured out of her and I asked her "Oui or Non?"

"Oui"

I didn't wait for her to change her mind, but headed straight out of the room and to the boy's room. Once there I fished a cigarette out of my sock, opened up the window and hopped out.
As I stood next to the building puffing on the cigarette, the custodian walked by. "You're not supposed to be smoking that on school property are you?"

"I won't tell if you won't tell."

"It's not my problem, but it will stunt your growth."

That hurt, because I was short, but I kept my mouth shut. No need to get myself in trouble by making the custodian go tell a teacher. It's amazing how many people figure that your smoking is not their problem. It makes life a lot easier.

I walked back to class slowly, not in any hurry to get back to a class where I could not understand the language. As I did, I passed Sherry in the hallway.

"Hi Sherry!"

"Hi Mike."

"How is life--" A teacher came by then and we both scurried back to our classes.

On the bus ride home I was sitting in the back with the older group of kids. My school was K-12, so we had a lot of little kids on the bus and they sat up in the front. Someone asked me what I was going to do when I got home.

"I'm going to milk the slimy cows" I replied.

Sherry overheard this and said "you were slimed by a cow!"

I had no idea what that meant but it sounded bad. "No I said that I was going to milk the slimy cows."

"Mike was slimed by a cow."

"Was not!"

"You said you were."

"Did not!"

We were at an impasse. I went to put my feet up but they were tied to the bus. I sighed and bent down to untie the knot my shoelaces were in. It had been a rough day.

I got home and went in to the back kitchen. "Hi Grandma!"

"How was school today?"

"It went okay."

"That's what you always say, 'pretty good,' 'it went okay,' did anything happen?"

I racked my brain for a minute. Nothing had really happened, at least, not anything I was going to tell Grandma about. "No, it was just the usual."

"Okay, I'll fix you some soup in a minute, I've got to find my glasses here."

"Sounds good."

"Here they are. Do you want to go with the church youth group on a hike in the Adirondacks this weekend?"

"Sure!"

"Okay, I'll call and tell them. I think there is a 4-H club going with them."

"Sounds pretty cool."

I got up to the table and in a few minutes the soup was ready. After I finished eating it I changed my clothes and headed down to the barn.

***

On Saturday it was time for the hike. I dressed for the woods, including an Army surplus fanny pack my uncle had given me and a Rambo knife I had gotten mail order for ten dollars. I felt ready for anything that might occur during the hour or two we were going to walk in the woods.

When we got there it turned out the 4-H club that we were hiking with was Sherry and Kelly's club. Between the two clubs we numbered maybe half a dozen people. I walked up next to Sherry and said "hi."

"What are you doing here"

"Going on a hike, what about you?"

"I guess we are hiking together."

Sherry's mother looked me up and down as if she had never seen a fifteen year old dress for the woods before. She said hi and I said hi back to her.

I dropped off behind the group and lit a cigarette. I stayed behind Sherry's mother so that she wouldn't see me and puffed away. After I finished the cigarette I ran and caught up with the rest of the group.

Kelly saw the knife and yelled, "he's got a knife and he's gonna kill us all."

I giggled, and she laughed. We walked together a ways while Sherry walked up ahead with the adults. We followed a trail through the mountains and chatted a little bit.

We caught up with Sherry and Kelly walked with her as I went up ahead. The trees had red and gold leaves, the breeze was sweet, and I was having a great time. Finally we reached the end of the trail and the cars were there.

I got in the Pastor's car and Sherry and Kelly got into their mother's car. I realized I had missed an opportunity but figured it would give us something to talk about in school on Monday.

When we got home Grandma fixed me some steak and rice and started quizzing me on the hike.

"Where did you guys go?"

"I don't know, you would have to ask Pastor."

"Who went with you?"

"A bunch of kids."

"Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself."

"I did."

After dinner, before I milked the cows, I tried to call Sherry. I got a busy signal. "Bummer!" I thought.

While milking the cows my mind wandered. Why hadn't I talked to her more. I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to give the cows their grain. I uttered a profanity.

I pulled the machines off the cows and went up to grain the cows. Sherry made me so absent minded it was ridiculous.

Monday came a little too quickly. When I got on the bus Monday morning Sherry said, "Hi, did you have fun on the hike?"

"Sure , it was great."

"I had fun too."

The other kids on the bus were caught up in their own conversations and the seatbacks were high. Sherry came to the seat where I was sitting and sat down. "Do you want to meet in the caves on the Nature Trail during lunch?" I asked her.

She said her class wasn't allowed to leave during lunch, they were too young. I didn't follow up with another invitation, having gone far enough with that one.

I shuffled reluctantly into homeroom. "How was your weekend?" Dawn asked.

"It was pretty cool, I went on a nature hike with the church youth group."

"That sounds cool, who else was there?"

"Sherry and Kelly."

"Oh."

I wondered at the tone she said that. It sounded like I had said something wrong, but I racked my brains and couldn't figure out what. "You want to go down by the caves for lunch instead of the feed mill?"

"Sure."

At lunch time we got passes for the Nature Trail. Our school had a huge nature trail with a big creek. We walked down the path to the caves which were next to a waterfall which fell into a big round swimming hole.

The cave was round, about seven feet in diameter. It was ten feet high at it's highest point and seven feet high at it's lowest point. We entered from the side next to the creek where it opened up. It was well ventilated by cracks in the ceiling, but sheltered from the cool breeze.

It was much too cold to go swimming, in fact the cool breeze made standing outside a little uncomfortable. We went into a big cave and leaned up against the walls. "It's pretty cool down here," I commented.

I pulled out a two cigarettes, lit them and handed one to Dawn. Dawn took it and started smoking. "We aren't allowed to smoke here," I said.

"No one ever comes down here, and if they do they don't come in the cave."

"How is Rich doing?" I asked, referring to her boyfriend.

"Pretty good. Is that what you brought me all the way down here for? To ask about Rich?"

"No, I needed someone to come with me. I don't like doing things by myself."

"Yeah, well, I wanted to come down here too."

"It's pretty cool that our school has a nature trail."

"We ought to come here more often."

Since it was a bit of a walk back up to school, we had to start heading back up soon after finishing our cigarettes. As we walked back up, we chatted about people at school and gossiped about who was with who.

After school it was school bus time. I was still wearing my sweatpants from phys ed, which was my last class. I climbed aboard the school bus and choose a seat near the back of the bus. After the schoolbus was under way and we had dropped a few kids off, including the one who had been sitting next to me, Sherry came and sat next to me. Sherry was wearing a dress and was looking pretty good.

"Hi Mike!"

"Hey Sherry."

"Mind if I sit here?"

"Sure, sit down." I was a little flustered.

She hopped onto my lap. This gave me quite a thrill and I was even more flustered by this. Her dress was thin and I was wearing sweatpants so there was no hiding my feelings. After she had sat there a couple of minutes she sat down next to me. I stuttered.

"I-I-I"

"Your ears are turning red!"

"Well I-"

"That's so cute, Kelly! Mike's ears are turning red!"

This made me blush even more and caused the girls to tease me even more. Finally it was my stop. I climbed out of the bus, still blushing and walked up the dirt road. The wind blew through my light sweatpants and gave me a chill.


***

On the school bus the next morning Sherry was cooler. She sat with her friend and talked, as if I didn't exist. I would have gone over and chatted with her, but the school bus was filling up and there wasn't room. I was annoyed by this, but didn't say anything.

Kelly said, "Hi Mickey" in a sing song voice.

"Hiya Kelly."

"How is everything?"

"Going okay, I guess."

"I like you."

I didn't reply. I considered Kelly a little too young. Kelly said, "Your ears are turning red."
I wasn't aware that I was blushing, "No they're not."

"You're cute when you blush."

"Thanks."

Kelly suddenly reached in the back of my pants and grabbed my underwear, apparently having learned from her sister. She pulled my underwear up and it ripped. "Picking means we like you."

Soon the schoolbus arrived at school. On my way to homeroom I wondered what else could happen that day. The second bell rung. I was late, and I started running down the hallway. A teacher stopped me and told me not to run in the hallways. It was an impossible situation, I was late but I couldn't run.

I arrived at homeroom. I was late so I slipped in to my seat, while the teacher continued to take attendance. My homeroom was the Home Economics room and the teacher was the Home Ec teacher. I wondered if Home Ec would be worth signing up for so that I could be in it with the girls, but decided that I would be teased mercilessly if I did.

I met with Dawn and the usual crowd up at the feed mill at lunchtime. I bought a candy bar and a pack of cigarettes for lunch, a fairly standard meal for us denizens of the mill. I was chilly and the first snow of the season was in the air.

I was wearing a flannel shirt under my leather jacket, but the chill still got to me. I puffed on my cigarette frantically so that I could go back to the nice warm school.

"Well, Dawn, I think I'm going to head early today."

"Okay, I'm heading too, I'll walk back with you."

We started walking down to the school. "What do you think of Sherry?" I asked.

"Why?"

"I'm just curious."

"I don't really know her that well, what grade is she in?"

"Eighth."

"How do you know her?"

"She's on my school bus."

"Well, if what you want is someone a couple of years younger-"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, what were you getting at?"

"I was just wondering what you thought of her."

"I think you should go out with someone in your own class."

"I'll keep that in mind."

We were back at school. Soon it would be time for a class that just about everyone in our class had to attend, Health. Today's lecture was going to be on how not to make babies. Coach, the phys ed teacher, taught health and always got embarrassed when he had to talk about sex, so it was going to be a riot.

Waiting outside the classroom Penelope said she craved pickles and ice cream. What she was getting at was that she was pregnant. I wondered about the timing of this lecture for her. Soon Coach arrived and unlocked the biology lab.

"We're going to talk about sex today," I enthused.

"No girl in this school would have sex with you." Dawn retorted.

We filed in and took our seats. I sat next to Penelope, because of the way things worked out. Soon coach was describing orgasms. He said that he didn't know what a female orgasm was like and Penelope volunteered to tell us. Coach turned beet red. We all laughed at Coach.

Health class was a hoot. Coach was notorious for being embarrassed by the curriculum, and we found it hysterical. Of course, teaching a pregnant girl about condoms is closing the barn door after the horse got loose, but that is the way things worked out.

After school Sherry wasn't on the bus. Apparently she was taking the late bus home. Kelly was there along with a friend of Sherry and Kelly's.

I was wearing my sweatpants again, which, I suppose, is asking for trouble. I didn't really mind asking for trouble though, there are some types of trouble that are fun.

I sat with my books on my lap, at an aisle seat, trying to avoid provoking any incidents. It had been a significantly eventful day and I was tired. Kelly commented that she was horny. I let that comment pass, and her friend put her head up in front of me and bumped her forehead against mine, hard.

"Ouch."

"Wow, it worked," she said.

I wasn't wild about being experimented on but there wasn't much I could do about it. "You know that you love it," Kelly called out.

Kelly's friend came up to me and suddenly grabbed my sweatpants and pulled them down. My books went flying to the bus floor, and I was left naked in a place where one isn't supposed to be naked. Kelly looked at it as I pulled my pants back up. I was horribly embarrassed. I gathered my books and we sat quietly in the bus. Apparently the girls knew they had gone too far.

I was so embarrassed I wanted to cry. In fact, I could feel the tears in my eyes and ran my hand over my eyes to clear them off so that they wouldn't be seen. I blinked back more tears and sat in stony silence the rest of the trip.

There were some more antics going on, but I was left alone, at least I thought I was being left alone until I discovered my shoelaces tied to the bus at my stop. I struggled with the knot, got off the bus and retied my shoes, standing on the edge of the dirt road.

I put my books under my arms and trudged up to the house. I was still mortified and blinking back tears of embarrassment. I slunk into the house and started untying my shoes.

"How did your day go?" Grandma asked.

"I survived."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that."

As usual, I didn't tell her about the horseplay on the school bus. I tended to be reticent about what happened at school when I was home. That is just the way I am. Some kids go home and tell their parents everything, others, like me, go home and answer "nothing" when asked what happened at school.

The last thing I felt like doing that night was milking the cows, but I was glad to have the time to myself. I thought about what had happened. How would she have felt if I had done that to her? What would her parents say if they knew? It seemed unfair, if I had done something like that I was sure I would have gotten into trouble.

As I swept the mangers, I started sneezing. The hay was dusty and it was getting to me. At least that would be good cover for why my eyes were red from my near crying earlier.

***

At school the next day there was no discussion of the incident on the school bus the night before. Sometimes it is funny what people don't gossip about. Sherry had virtually ignored me on the school bus in the morning and things were pretty quiet.

During one class, which I got the teachers permission to skip out of, I was hanging out in the business room by the computers. Mr G. was asking me some questions about how to do some things with the machines and I was happily playing guru. The bell rang, and it was time for me to go to a class which didn't have a teacher quite as understanding about me being missing. Mr G. thanked me for helping him and students started coming in the room as I grabbed my books together to go.

Sherry came in the room and smiled at me. I smiled back.

"Hiya, how is it going?"

"Hi, I've got to get in my seat."

I had to get to my class, as well. The second bell was about to ring. I sighed and left, trotting to my next class with an assortment of books and notebooks under my arm. As I rounded the corner I bumped into a girl and my stuff went flying.

"I'm so sorry, I'll help you pick it up."

"Thanks. Are you heading to Mr G's class?"

"Yeah."

"It's getting about ready to start. I'll pick up my books, I'm going to be late anyway."

She helped me pick up my books anyway. I appreciated that, as they had scattered all over the hallway and she was cute. "How is everything in the Eighth grade?" I asked.

"Pretty good. I heard that Sherry has a crush on you."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

I was impressed. I knew she liked me, but to hear she had a crush on me renewed my faith in romance, or whatever you might call what we had. My heart raced at the news. Maybe there was still a chance to get together with her. I had no idea as to what to do, however.

"Thanks." I replied and headed for my class. The day was looking up for me.

I reached class and slinked into a seat in the back. The teacher was rambling on about grammar and I scanned the bookcase next to me for something to read. I picked up a book of short stories and found one to keep me occupied through English class.

The teacher didn't think much of my plan and called on me to answer a question from homework. I hadn't done my homework which caused a little bit of a problem.

As I struggled through the grammar tree, I felt everyone's eyes on me. I came up with an answer as quickly as I could. It was too bad that it was wrong. The teacher let me off the hook and choose another victim to correct my mistakes. I went back to reading, but much more covertly. The day dragged on. By the time school ended, I was bored witless. I was looking forward to the school bus to provide some entertainment to end a terribly dull day. When we got on board, I noticed Sherry was missing again. "Damn," I thought, "she must have signed up for soccer or cheerleading or something."

I sat next to Amy again. With Amy I got to be a little aggressive instead of being the random victim of teenage hormones. I put my hand on her thigh, but it just wasn't the same. She got up and went to another seat. Apparently she didn't like me anymore.

Kelly tied my shoelaces to the seat, got out of reach and stuck her tongue out at me. I perked up a little bit and untied my laces and went to Kelly's seat. Kelly slipped out, and I chased her up toward the front of the bus. The busdriver turned around and said, "Cut out that horseplay."

We sat down immediately. It took a lot to get the busdriver annoyed and we didn't care to get into trouble. He had stopped once and spanked a little kid.

"Do you want to play house with me?" Kelly asked.

I let it go. It was her older sister that I was interested in.

Soon the school bus arrived at my stop. "See you tomorrow!" Kelly yelled.

"Have a good one," I replied.

I stopped at the barn on my way up to the house. I put some lime down on the floor and assembled the machines, preparing for milking later. This gave me time to think, a little alone time before I got up to the house.

It wasn't necessary. When I got to the house Grandma wasn't there. Neither was my Aunt. There was a note which basically said they would get back when they got back. I opened the cupboard and looked for some food. I found some Ramen noodle soup and proceeded to cook it. I changed my jeans, put on some boots and headed down to the barn. With the early winter chill, the cows were anxious to come in. I merely had to open up the gate and they were all in the barn.

***

When I got on the school bus the next morning I was not terribly wide awake. I sort of sleptwalked down the road, got on the bus and dozed off in a seat. A big bump woke me up and Sherry was yelling at someone for writing on the back of my leather jacket. I was grateful for the protection. A school bus is a dangerous place to fall asleep.

"Thanks, Sherry."

"I think I got it all off."

"Cool."

I could see that it was going to be a rough day. Soon we arrived at school. In homeroom we got the results of our ASVAB tests. The ASVABs are a battery of tests the military gives to high school kids to see how smart they are. I scored in the ninety-ninth percentile.

"JuLee, look at my ASVAB scores."

"I bet they aren't as good as mine."

"I bet they are."

JuLee scored ninety eighth percentile. I had beat her. "It only shows you are more knowledgeable then me," she said.

This was patently ridiculous, as the ASVABs are an ability test. I was quite happy to have the highest score in the class and intended to rub it in a little. Particularly with JuLee who had her nose a little bit in the air most of the time.

"Well we'll see who gets the better grades, dear."

I knew I would lose on that criteria. I am notorious for neglecting my studies.

"In the meantime, could I borrow a pen...or a pencil."

"Don't you ever bring these things with you to school?"

"When I remember."

"Well, with your scores you ought to be a able to remember a pencil."

The homeroom teacher cut in, "Mike, you have an appointment with the guidance councilor later today."

"Thanks." I suspected it had something to do with my score.

The guidance councilor wasn't cutting me any slack. He took his pen and circled "Ability." "This test shows what you *can* do. You have to study to make that happen."

I wasn't impressed. "It's the highest score, isn't it?"

He wasn't giving up anything. "You need to do your homework and study for your tests if you want to go to college."

I knew I was going to college, it was just a question of which college. I hadn't liked this councilor from the time I met him, the previous summer, so I gave him a hard time. "The test shows I have the ability, and I learn what they teach in most of my classes, so why do I have to do homework?"

For a man whose job was to pigeonhole students and avoid any "unrealistic expectations," my attitude was a square peg which needed to be filed to fit into a round hole. The problem was that my test scores fit about as well into his image of me as I fit into his pigeonhole. I made the most out of it. Opportunities to rub things in like this don't come around very often.

"I thought I was the smartest."

"Don't let it go to your head."

"I bet you wish it was an A student like JuLee."

"We don't play favorites."

"Yeah, sure. I know the principal hates me."

"We are getting a new principal next year."

That was a piece of news. I also noted that he didn't deny that Doctor Principal hated me. There was a sense that my computer knowledge outshone his. I made a mental note to get along with the new principal when he arrived.

"So, do you think I will go to college now?"

"It depends on how you do in school."

I snorted. I wanted to go to an Ivy League school, although my academic record could not support such ambitions. Meanwhile, this guy was debating whether I would go to college at all. At my old school, it was something of a given that you would go on to college, the question was what sort of college would you get admitted to.

After the guidance councilor was done with me, I went to Phys Ed. At PE we were in the wrestling phase.

"You're late." Coach said.

"Here's my note, I was at the guidance councilor."

"Go and get changed."

"Okay."

I went into the locker room. I was glad to have the chance to change alone. Changing with all the other people in the locker room made me uncomfortable. After I put on my sweatpants, my sneakers, and my t-shirt I went back out to the gym.

We had a few wrestling matches. I beat someone who was expected to whup me, and I bragged that I could take on Eric. Eric had thighs like tree trunks, a barrel chest and arms like tree limbs. I knew I couldn't beat him, but I figured I would get some respect if I tried.

Coach blew the whistle. Eric grabbed me and nearly pinned me right off the bat. I wriggled free and made an attempt to budge him. It was futile. Eric grabbed me again, and got me into a pin position, I arched my back and planted my head and feet on the mat, while he put all of his weight on my chest. We stayed this way for what seemed like forever until Coach finally called time.

"I didn't let him pin me."

"I saw that, good work."

"Yeah, good job, I wouldn't wrestle him."

I was the hero, however briefly, of that Phys Ed class, even Coach was impressed. I accepted the congratulations for not losing with a grin on my face. I knew I had done well, the muscles I developed putting up hay and doing farm work had served me well.

Coach sent us back to the locker room. I headed straight towards the school bus, anxious to catch a smoke in the parking lot before the long ride home.

Soon it was time to get on the bus. Sherry was there, and I made an effort to sit by her. Unfortunately, her friend, Sue, got the spot before I could. I sat ahead of her and we started the long ride home.

"Guess what I did, today."

"What?"

"I wrestled Eric."

"Wow, who won?"

"I didn't let him pin me."

"Cool. He's that big guy, isn't he?"

"Yeah."

Eric was a year ahead of me, so Sherry, who was two years behind me didn't know him. I was proud of my accomplishment and intended to toot my own horn a little.

"He was right on my chest, but I arched my back and took all the weight on my neck."

"Oh. That must hurt."

"I was surprised Coach let me wrestle him."

"Yeah."

I turned around and sat right. I leaned my forehead against the window and stared at the passing scenery. After we let a few kids off, Sherry sat next to me.

"Hiya."

"Hi."

"Why don't you join our 4H club?" Sherry asked.

"Sure, what do I do?"

"Come to the meeting."

She told me when the next meeting was. I promptly forgot it. I knew that if I started 4H my family would put pressure on me to show animals. I didn't care for showing animals, or more specifically, training them and preparing them for shows.

She asked for my phone number and I gave it to her.

"2431, I got it, I'm good at remembering numbers."

"Cool."

I accepted that she would remember the number and turned back to the window. She hopped out of the seat and went to talk with her friends. She never seemed to sit next to me for long. When I got home I wanted to tell Grandma about the wrestling.

"Guess what, Grandma, I wrestled Eric."

"Who is that?"

"You know, the kid up the road there with the muscles."

"No, I don't know, but I'll take your word for it."

"Well, I didn't let him pin me."

"Very good."

I got the feeling that she underestimated the enormity of the accomplishment. There was no use in trying to explain it. I finished taking off my boots. "Can I have a snack before I go down to the barn?"

"That's what I fixing here, I'm sure you must have noticed."

I had noticed, but I wanted to see if inquiring about it made it ready more quickly. My nicotine lunch didn't tend to be very filling and I depended on my after school snack to give me the energy to milk the cows.

I finished getting my shoes off, went into the kitchen and sat up at the table. Pretty soon, Grandma had a couple of ham sandwiches ready. I ate them fairly quickly and then got ready for milking.

Down at the barn there was a mess. A couple of heifers had gotten loose and gone on a tear through the barn, mostly in the manger where the food was and shown a general disregard for cleanliness.

I chased the heifers outside and cleaned up the manger. It cost me about an hour, and soon the cows were bellowing to come in. When I finally let the cows in, they were disorderly and I had to let a group in, close the gate, get them in their stalls and let the next group in. Once you get behind schedule, everything goes to pot.

When I started milking the cows they kicked at me and were generally disagreeable. I spoke quietly to try to calm them down, but to little effect. Cows like a regular schedule, and variations tend to put them into a bad mood.

***

On Monday morning I got onto the school bus as usual.

"You said you were going to call me," I said to Sherry.

"I did, but your Grandmother said 'he's busy right now' in a nasty tone of voice."

It sounded like Grandma, and I was furious that Grandma would treat my friends that way. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"She didn't tell me you called."

"I called."

I sighed and sat back. It had been a rough weekend, we put up a lot of firewood, and I hadn't really woken up yet that morning. I leaned against the inside wall and dozed off. Before I knew it we were at school.

I stumbled into homeroom, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. I wished I was still at home, in bed. I put my head down on my arms and started to drift back off to sleep.

"Isn't that right, Mike?"

It was Dawn. I had no idea what she was talking about. I mumbled, "Yeah sure."

"See what I told you, he's completely out of it."

I had a feeling I had just agreed to something I shouldn't have. It didn't much matter, though. I dozed back off, as the homeroom teacher took attendance.

Later that day, at the beginning of math class, the teacher asked to speak with me before class.

"Hi, what's up?"

"I was wondering if you could tutor someone."

"Sure, when?"

"Now would be good, she has a study hall."

She wrote out a pass and sent me to her study hall to pick her up. It was Sherry, we went down to the library.

"I'm having trouble in math."

I had a feeling Sherry set this up, but I didn't say anything. As Jamie always says, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth." Of course, Jamie had me to test ride his horses.

"The quadratic formula is-"

She was kicking me under the table. I got the feeling she wasn't that interested in the math lesson.

"At any rate, you get the idea."

"Yeah, could you help me some more?"

"Sure, what do you need help with?"

"Math."

"Math is a big subject, what are you having trouble with?"

It went on like this for forty five minutes. I didn't mind, though, it is fun to tutor a pretty girl.

I caught the late bus home that afternoon. I was going to spend some time on the computer, and Grandma was going to get the barn set up for milking for me. Dawn and Sherry were on the bus.

"I think we ought to just nuke them." I wasn't serious, but such bravado is required for a fifteen year old boy.

"But it isn't the people, it's the government." Sherry said.

"They have an obligation to overthrow the communists."

"Give it up, Mike, they're all a bunch of commies," Dawn cut in.

"That's what he was trying to say." Sherry retorted.

My obligation to speak in this conversation had ended. Sherry was sitting across from me and Dawn was sitting behind me. Dawn dropped the conversation and so did Sherry.

"So tell me, who is living at your place?" Sherry wanted to know.

"Me, Grandma, Aunt Mary Lynn, my second cousin Jamie and, I guess that's it."

We rode a little ways in silence. I couldn't think of anything to say, and apparently neither could she. As the school bus pulled up by my dirt road, I asked the driver for a cigarette. He gave me one, unfiltered, and I got out.

I stuck the unfiltered cigarette in my mouth and got tobacco in my mouth. I spit it out and tried again. I lit it up. It was strong and burned my lungs.