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Title: Refractions
Author: Doug Bolling
Date: 1994
Language: en
Topics: AJODA, AJODA #40, fiction
Notes: Originally published in “Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed” #40 Spring/Summer ’94. Vol. 14., No. 2.

Doug Bolling

Refractions

Sometimes I follow crowds. Going where they go and keeping my mouth

shut. Listening to their chatter, their swelling rages and

disappointments, observing the bright splashes and plaids of their shirt

and blouse, mingling of button down collar and high couture with an

ocean of blue jeans, a democracy of fashion. Inside a crowd I feel safe,

everybody seems to be going somewhere, every cat knows his way, I am

alone and nobody bothers. It is a trip that costs nothing. It teaches me

the need of a society. A social fabric as they say. To be yourself and

part of the people at the same juncture. To be on the team but not to

have to carry the ball, have your name on the roster but not have to

swing the bat. Safety if not love.

I am walking along in search of a social mass. I am strolling in London

or Miami or Dallas. On a tomato crate a plump middle-aged gentleman is

telling us about the horrors of the nuclear age. His face is veined and

purple, he is very sincere. We are all of us no more than twenty-eight

minutes from the ground zero of a nuclear missile. They are pointed

everywhere, no escape. I like this man, his ardent bulging eyes, soft

voice, gesture and stance. His is a truth I cannot accept, live with. I

pull away to be with the crowd shuffling around him, I prefer the

scenery of the people. I am turning him off and walking on down the

pavement. Everywhere the leaves are falling, the crows and squirrels

seem indifferent to the dying clomping feet of the populace. I throw

seed and nuts to the autumn wind and sink away.

I am out again looking. In front of a Picasso bronze a young woman is

talking about the New Age of Woman. She is telling us the day of the

male is over. Women are in every sphere of government business industry;

in two years we may have a woman in the oval office; the male chauvinist

dare no longer rear his ugly face, his rapacious intent, chortled

innuendo. The National Sperm Bank of Kansas City, Kansas, has rendered

the erection inutile, the penis superflous. The locutor is ablaze with

the Tightness of her words, she is searching the throng of her words for

an antagonist, her eyes sweep toward and over me, I am still safe. Hands

are clapping around me and I join in. She points fiercely into the far

corner of the mall but no voice rises to challenge. The woman next to me

murmurs that the occupant of the stage is a famous cinema star taking

time off from her work to spread the message. It is built into her

contract that she can do this anytime the director isn’t ready to shoot.

She is tall and blonde and speaks the words without a script. I couldn’t

do this, I’d be in trouble. I imagine she is smiling at me and I find a

way to smile back. This tells me something personal can sneak into a

group and at the same time you can be safe. I feel good now, I am

watching her exit to a sleek dark limousine with flashing blue lights.

She is off to an airport a speech a liaison with Good-bar. I am moving

through the coats and dresses, the umbrellas and swinging purses. At the

crowd’s edge I become lonely again, I hesitate. Should I return to the

center of this group or break away to wave after the speeding vehicle.

It is already turning into 61^(st) street. I tell myself someday I’ll

see one of her movies. Everybody around me is talking about Encore

L’amour. It is the woman’s latest hit, it is playing in sixty cities.

It is another day or another year. I believe it is early fall and I am

testing the beaches of South Florida. I am afraid to go in the water,

but I will enjoy getting close, letting the moist sand ooze through the

sandals and about my toes. I am comfortable in my trench coat and Giants

hat. I look up and down the long running beach and observe many folk

conducting their vacations. There are license plates from twenty-five

states parked just beyond the ropes. I am feeling good, I am a part of

the people. I’m a citizen. The breakers are crashing out beyond us but I

am safe here with only the tiny fingers of water sucking at my toes.

Gradually I hear a great noise in the background. It is coming this way,

it is a parade, a band of marchers. They are shouting skyward, they are

chanting, I begin to pick out individual faces and torsos, the rhythm of

their pace and musculature. I guess there are two hundred of them. My

eyes pick up the banners the slogans, I am beginning to wonder if a war

could break out here. The bodies are coming at me in tight rhythm, very

orderly it seems. The participants wear suits and ties or neat dresses

and heels, all of them seem to be in need of glasses. I wonder about the

absence of blue jeans or upper body nudity. The wide canvas banners are

only half a block away now, I can see very plainly the lettering DOWN...

DOWN...DOWN, I can hear the roar-DOWN uh DOWN uh DOWN uh DOWN...the

shoes and boots slapping smartly on the damp pavement... the remaining

words are beginning to peek around the bobbing determined heads...the

canvas tightens against the breeze... DOWN ... DOWN... DOWN ...WITH ...

WITH ... FORNICAT ... ION ... FORNI ... CA ... TIONL. FORNICATION... the

voices are upon me... DOWN WITH ... DOWN WITH FORNICATORS ... GOD’S

WRATH ON ... ALL FORNI-CA-TORS ... DOWN uh DOWN uh DOWN uh... I am

directly in their path, I shuffle to the curb and lose myself in the

chant, I am breathing heavily, I am conscious of the scarlet tincture of

my neck and jowl, I feel the need to pee, to get relief. They are

surging past me so close I can reach out and touch the bobbing

haberdashery but this is not enough. I stand out, I begin to tremble, I

am afraid to look around in case others are watching me. It is too

painful, many don’t understand a crowd a group a haven. Even six inches

of empty space can cut you off from being safe. Either I am in a crowd

or I’m not. My knees are melting softening, I could faint. With my eyes

I bag to be taken in. The wooden poles of the banners, I would give

anything now to take one in my hands. No matter ; the weight, the press

of the breeze. I — would carry it high, do my share. It would be like a

meaningful sexual experience to me. The thinking of this jars me, my

brain has tricked me again...! look around again, the faces are inches

away but so far. They are indifferent to everybody outside the magic

line. I look at them with admiration, I know who they are now...the

Moral Majority, the new power source-...I see the morality in these firm

faces, the uplift the knowledge. I am weakening, I am needing to be

carried off in this throng of virtue. I need the Moral Majority. I am

frozen in my tracks, my sandy tracks, only my ears seem to function —

DOWN uh DOWN uh DOWN uh DOWN uh DOWN -

I am begging to be taken in, I am ready to lurch forward and hope for

the. I am ready to shout out the ugliness of the great god Fornicator,

Forn, Fornix...! taste the lewdness the maniacal lust...the rocking

sweating flesh...the sin in this...my brain is saying to this mighty

phalanx take me in — take me in — take me IN — I am reeling and

dropping, I am on my knees... and the marchers are passing, the last

banner sweeps by, the last pair of uncuffed polyester, the last

heels...a little man is running into the street, he is pointing into the

other block, he is waving a somebody far away or nearby. He is wearing a

dark tan and white Bermuda shorts, he is less than five feet tall. He is

yelling now, he is very happy with something...my eyes follow him to a

second parade a group, a marching organization. They are coming on fast

now, they have a chant of their own and it is beginning to reach us,

con-nect...CON uh CON uh CON uh...uh... DEMN uh DEMN uh DEMN uh...

CONDEMN CONDEMN CONDEMN ...the breeze is filling with the safety of

words, I am struggling to my feet and looking listening

waiting...MAS-TUR-BATION...MASTUR-BATION...COND-EMN uh MASTURBATION uh

MASS-TUH-BAHH-SHUNN... the little man is jumping up and down in his

happiness, I see the wisp of saliva floating across his lips, the face

crinkling to the breaking point with the enormous smile...he is trying

to talk, make sounds, I realize he is retarded — the banners are in full

view now, they are proclaiming the identical message to the breeze, the

tourists, the masturba-tors of this world — the ranks are closing up

fast, they are right in front of me, I am feeling the panic again, the

need to belong, to be with the people. The sea of faces might be the

same as the other, I look for clues but the clues are all the same. My

emptiness is killing me, I study the situation out of absolute

necessity, I feel a sudden moistness down my left thigh, I will only be

safe inside this crowd. I am searching for an opening, I am juking I am

juking right, I am begging for a juju, I step between two fat ladies and

am inside the ranks, my toes shins knees taking the knocks...! fall into

the pace, I remember the secrets of close-order drill in the Nam

days...I am helping support one of the poles...I am part of a people

with a mission, I am a voice among voices: Con-demn

Mas-tur-ba-tion...Con, Con, Con-

It is later, we are two or three, blocks along our trail, we are moving

parallel to the sea, the roaring breakers and the dancing froth, we are

like folk, we are going somewhere...! know we have strength too big for

the noisy ocean fifty yards away, I believe believe...! am beginning to

get myself together, relax, my anxieties are dropping away, I ignore the

peering waving hostile bystanders, the solitary tourist and her muttered

FUCKYOU...I am on a bigger safer trip...I adjust my stride to the

formation and let my brain perk a while. It begins to whisper to me, it

is leading me out of the present scene and back into the years, it is

showing again that a fellow can live privately inside the method of a

crowd, he can be a regular person but delve into many secret feelings,

secret memories. I am — happy about this, I am striding along inside a

balloon of a sense of purpose and I am beginning to feel my brain take

into the years....

I am fourteen years old, a student in the Brickhouse Junior High School

in Philly or Montclair or...! am remembering what it is like to be a

loner in a school like this, an eighth grader of fourteen without any

big interests, any big prospects, a kid taking dull courses in

arithmetic, geography, personal hygiene, taking them inside the ugly

scarred brick walls of the Brickhouse Jr Hi. I remember the cinders of

the playground and the rusted out swing sets, the harsh hanging chains

of the basketball stands, my inability ever to work the ball up and over

for a lay-up, the coach liking to send the failures on laps around the

black field, twist our arms up behind our shoulder blades. The cafeteria

food and the slimy showers and latrine...all of these are coming to me

now and they’re not that bad anymore, I can see them in the past and

they say the past is gone, they say it can’t really hurt that much after

a time. I graduated from the Brickhouse many years ago, I am in fairly

good shape most of the time now. It helps me to sift back in my past

like this, the thrum and thump of our many marching feet is sealing me

off, calming me. These work together.

I am sitting in my desk in Mrs. Wiglafs general science class, I am

taking a test on gases, on hydrogen oxygen sulfuric. On what happens to

these when you put with pressures things temperatures. I have never seen

these gases, I always believe Wiglafs words of their vital importance,

they are very real this woman says. I am a good student, A’s on the

tests and the little quizzes usually. This is my trouble, the cause of

these pressures on me now. I am a loner but one with the smarts, this is

my reputation around the other boys. This is why burly Peter and Paul

are using me this afternoon. They are sitting at the desks in front of

me, behind me, they have me boxed in, they are making me pass the

answers in front of me, behind me, I am so busy I hardly have time to

get down the words, the clues. My fingers hurt, my back is smarting, my

lower regions need to pass a huge amount of gas into this room, I am

very tense, I am not far away from tears. I remember the threats from

these two in the lunchroom, the latrine. I can slip the answers to them

or they’ll get me. They will wait for me after school in the Porter

Alley and smash my ass. Peter will ram me from behind, Paul Korcher will

work over the upper end of me, he is a head and throat man. When they

finish they’ll drag me over to show Mary Mae the results. Mary Mae runs

with these two, she is tough also. She’ll do almost anything. She is the

first to let me see her bare ass, the dark thick hair at the bottom of

her stomach, she did this because the other two told her I loved her.

She laughed at me, she said one look at something I’d never get to

touch, she told me to go home and play with myself. She said I was

cherry, I was a sissy.

I’m writing as hard and fast as I can. Peter is kicking my shoes under

the desk, he needs the next two answers. I am sweating all over, I’m

conscious of the lifting stink of my armpits. Mrs. Wiglaf is looking, I

remember she is hoping to catch some cheaters, I remember I am guilty,

the hard smacks of the principal’s paddle, the one with eight holes in

the middle, the one that always smells of a boy’s bowels. Wiglaf wants

to have a boy thrown out of school this afternoon, to make an example.

She hates all cheaters, the ones who lend, the ones who copy. A boy like

this is a criminal, he is ready for reform school. I look around at the

room, the others scribbling at their answers. They are happy, they are

safe inside the group of the class of the school. They are working their

pencils their minds in a perfect unison. I yearn to join them, to be

loved by Mrs. Wiglaf. I need. I remember Mary Mae three desks behind me,

I wish she would do something to rescue me, she will not, she is

grinding out her own answers just good enough to pass. I remember my

father, he will take me up to the attic for a beating if I am if I am

caught this time. He will be drinking large portions of a cheap whiskey

and he will pull me after him up the steep steps to beat me, to make his

day end, add up to something. I am about to cry, I am about to drop the

little stubby pencil, the paper on my desk is a blur, a torment, she

will be waiting at home for me to walk in the door at 4 pm, she is tall

and pretty, she says I must never do wrong, she couldn’t stand it if I

ever did anything bad. I am letting her down, I am guilty. I am going

dizzy, I might fall out of this desk. My mind shows me running pictures

of all these people... Wiglaf and Mr. Staroff the principal, the father

and the mother — the shiny lips and dark eyes of Mary Mae. All are being

followed by Peter and Paul the bullies of Porter Alley, the ones who are

after me now in this dusty smelly place. I think of my home, my house,

it is dissolving away from me, it is going too fast for me to catch

up...I see I am a loner around here, I see I am in a trap, a box...

Mrs Wiglaf is watching me closely now, she is beginning to move in my

direction. Like a big red cat she is coming stalking, her eyes seem very

red very mad. She stops, she looks over Peter and Paul, the whole

section of the room where we sit. My answers are in my right hand and it

is halfway through the slit in the back of Peter’s desk. It freezes

there, it doesn’t move forward, backward. I hear the silence, the two

bullies have quit breathing, they are waiting for it to happen. They

have been caught before, they can survive, they can do things I can’t

try, do... Wiglaf is in the aisle now, she is advancing straight toward

us, she is not ten feet away...one last time my eye catches her eye, I

see a look I’ve never seen on her before, I believe it is a look of

shock at my crime, her disbelief in the inescapable guilt of a teachers

pet. My right arm remains forever wedged in the slit of the bully’s

desk. My back is cracking in pain, the tearsof a terrible retribution

are falling down my puffy thin cheeks. A tiny but intent stream is

making its way down my left leg, I can feel it pass my knee and curl

into my sock, my shoe. In a minute I will be yanked out of my desk and

exposed to the room, my shame will be known everywhere, the boy who peed

in his pants in the eighth grade of the Brickhouse. I am thinking these

things, I am sure...

WiglaPs eyes are on me, they are large and glittery...the eyes are

staring straight at me through me...a pool of urine is rising up a left

shoe...a black sock is turning yellow in the yellow pool of pee...I am

looking, waiting for the dooin...something, something...sud-denly it is

changing...the horrible eyes are swinging around me, the torso the

corset of power is beside and behind me...I am hearing a heavy breath

from Peter Riess, he is turning around to look, he is watching something

behind me, he is sneering at a sight down (he row between Paul Korcher

and Mary Mae. One of his long hairy arms is reaching down and snatching

away the little folded answers, his ugly tongue spits out a bubble of

saliva toward me. I watch it land on my shirt front. I am too dizzy to

care, I still expect to be smacked from the rear...my eyes begin to want

to turn with Peter’s eyes, my body Begins to swing around, I realize the

huge silence suddenly in the room ...everybody is screwing around to

look at the rear of the room.

My eye catches the look on the face of the girl sitting across from me.

Beverly Wilson’s face is telling me something beyond words is

happening...! am looking behind me now, I am seeing Mrs. Wiglaf standing

beside the new boys desk. She is staring down at something in his

pants...Earl Leaton the boy who started at the Brickhouse only a month

ago, the boy called Little Earl by the others...he is crouched in the

desk with his eyes closed, his mouth is hanging open and quivering —

...he seems ready to fall to the floor, to the dusty spot in front of

Mrs. Wiglaf s shoes. She is telling Little Earl something, the words

come out in hard cruel whispers, she is putting put her hand to clutch

his shoulder, to inform him he is her prisoner, the words come out in

hard cruel whispers, she is putting out her hand to touch his shoulder,

to inform him he is her prisoner, the words flow from her face that is

beet red...from around Paul Korcher’s shoulder I can see the stranger

bringing up a dirty red handkerchief from his rear pocket...! see him

dropping it over his pants, I see he is following the teacher’s

commands...! believe he is only able now to do what Wiglaf says. Wiglaf

steps back and seems to pull the passive figure upward out of the

desk...Little Earl is coming up and the truth is there for everybody to

see or almost to see, everybody in this room feels it now...he is

holding the piece of dirty cloth in front of him but he is not quite

covered...his penis is out of his pants his zipper is wide open, the

long white flesh is briefly exposed, it is still in a half state of

erection...he is trying to cover himself but he is clumsy or slow or his

fingers are trying for a last squeeze of pleasure release...Wiglaf is

tugging sharply on his shoulder now, she begins to seem rattled...she

looks up at the ceiling and barks an order for John Katzer to go for the

principal ...from the scarlet face comes another command for the rest of

us to turn around and finish the test. The test on the vital gases of

the universe. We are too creamed out to withdraw our eyes, we are too

scared to disobey...the only thing in the room is the picture of little

Earl sagging against Mrs. WiglaPs rigid waiting body. I look one more

time, I see there is no paper on this boys desk, I know he was not busy

working at the questions, he was jerking off under the desk. All the

time he was flunking the test so he could have a climax, he couldn’t

wait for later. I look at Paul Korcher, I see him with a new look on his

heavy mean face. He is not laughing, he is mad. Suddenly it hits me he

is mad at little Earl. Paul Korcher had forgotten me, he wants to get up

and smash the new boys head in, he wants to do something violent about

this violation of the rules. I sneak a look at Mary Mae, I need to know

her reaction, I only see a look I’ve never noticed before. Maybe she was

too close to the action, maybe some of Earl’s stuff landed on her. She

has turned around, she is placing the palms of her hands over her

scarlet face, she is turning off.

There is ten minutes left on the test, ten minutes to sit in this room,

to wonder, to put things more or less together. I am putting down

another answer, I am unable to know the words my pencil scratches out. I

am happy that the two bullies are leaving me alone, they no longer seem

to care about what I write down. They watched Mr. Staroff drag little

Earl out of the room and they slumped down in their desks, they are

playing it cool or something else. I wonder if they intend to flatten

the new boy. I feel Earl might not be able to come back to the

Brickhouse after this. I decide he should stay away, he should find

someplace to go, hide. Someday he can start over. I realize I am feeling

something very heavy about this Earl Leaton. He had a feeling in his

pants he couldn’t stop, control. He came to class the day of the test on

gases but he didn’t try to pass, he just did what he had to do and

didn’t care about anyone else being in this room. Maybe I he tried to

rub off without anybody knowing but he had to do this to himself. I see

how his doing this probably saved me from Wiglaf: she caught Earl but

she could’ve caught me cheating with the two bullies. Even years later I

think about this, how the masturbator saved the cheater’s skin. I think

about Earl’s shameful act in this public room, I remember my own guilts,

the B I got on the test, the bullies two C’s...I begin to feel better

about the trip of masturbation, I decide it is a very human part of us,

I decide Little Earl was human, Little Earl is a part of me. Gradually

my brain clears, circles around into the present...

It is later, we’re going along the trail, the esplanade, we are moving

parallel to the sea, the roaring breakers. We’re very strong, a crowd a

group. I am beginning to get myself together, the anxieties are dropping

away...I am accepted by these people around me in the ranks, I am

telling myself how a fellow can live privately inside the method of a

crowd, how he can be a regular guy but delve into secret feelings,

secret memories. The chant is going up again, the chant is rising to put

down the waves the solitary onlookers the misfits...the power of the

chant is in me, I am very pleased to be part of this, I am happy to keep

aglow in a secret place the consideration of the act of masturbation.

Tomorrow I will be walking along in search of a crowd.