Memoir (Grade Four)

I remember very clearly fourth grade--sitting with Dan Sass and Cory Rinow, who would not, would not, listen in science class. (Dan Sass would grow to become my frenemy. Years later, in seventh grade, I cultivated a crush on my fellow clarinetist, Ashley Churder, maybe as a way of hiding my budding homosexuality. I think I didn't really want to kiss Ashley Churder, with her floral tops and her generous smile; I think I just wanted to *be* Ashley Churder. Anyway, I went around whispering the news of my crush, and Dan Sass actually relayed the news directly to Ashley, in the middle of Mrs. Carnduff's intro to algebra. Dan Sass. "Sass"--you couldn't make this stuff up. Stranger than fiction. He was weirdly tall--around nine feet, in my memory--and maybe his height made him feel entitled to act as a bully. The fact that he shared my first name makes me think of him as a bizarro version of myself--my malicious doppelganger, my Mr. Hyde. Ashley didn't mind that I had a crush. She took the news--as she took everything--in stride. We went along on field trips to Toronto, to see "Phantom of the Opera" and "Showboat." There was no greater thrill in the world.)

Back to grade four. We had to absorb many, many facts about electricity--an intimidating, daunting subject. Anodes. Cathodes. Closed and open circuits. Conductors and insulators. "Electromagnetic"--an adjective that, even today, makes my blood pressure climb. Our teacher was a revered local figure and he was in his early eighties, but maybe he wasn't as great as everyone said. Or maybe his energy was flagging. In any case, he couldn't hold my attention; he couldn't grab Dan Sass or Cory Rinow. While he'd yap about fuse switches, the three of us would giggle. There had been a commercial for a touring production of "A Chorus Line," recently, and we changed the words. We would sing quietly, feverishly: "One! Singular Sensation! One! MUCHO MASTURBATION!" I doubt any one of the three of us knew what "masturbation" was, but we knew it was silly and filthy, and so we just laughed and laughed at our own cleverness.

(I *do* recall--vividly--discovering what masturbation was, sometime in mid-eighth grade. We had an ambitious English teacher who really, really wanted us to understand everything about the Holocaust, so we spent a great deal of time on the Broadway adaptation of Anne Frank's diary, and on searching for light/shadow imagery in Elie Wiesel's "Night." One evening, back home, I rubbed myself to distraction--and I thought, this is so wonderful, it must obviously be very, very wrong. And I vowed to do it only on Wednesdays--a rule that never actually stayed in place. What a guilt-ridden, self-flagellating, self-deluded fool I was! I wonder how much I have really changed.)

The results from the electricity test came back. My teacher used an idiosyncratic grading system--this was part of the legend that surrounded him--and so a great performance was "FR" (first-rate), while a shitty effort merited a bitchy, passive-aggressive "F" (fair). I scored an F-, and sometimes, these days, when my hair isn't behaving, I think of Mr. Scholl and imagine that I'm having an F- day. The grade did not motivate me to learn new facts about electricity. I still get tense when you come at me with questions about ions. I learned nothing from my failure and my shame, but I remember that fourth grade wasn't entirely bad. We dressed as tin soldiers and belted out a barbershop-quartet number during Advent--fabulous! And at some point, we toured a local bread factory to see how pita was made. And so, buffeted by winds of change, we went about our lives.

I've lost touch with Dan and Cory, but: Hello to you two, wherever you are. You weren't always very nice to me. When would I snap out of it? When would I learn?

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

The Death of Bergoglio

It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic. She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...

Liars and Saints

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