by Cole Parker
Circumstances 10
We had school assemblies now and then when the principal had things to say to all of us kids and wanted to do it face to face rather than over the loudspeakers in the classrooms. Sometimes assemblies would be for giving awards to kids who’d earned them, sometimes it would be for a speaker of some kind, like a policeman talking about not doing drugs or a college recruiter talking about taking the SATs and getting applications in early. Stuff like that.
At our school assemblies we sat with our homeroom groups, with our homeroom teachers in charge of us. When everyone was seated and the kids’ buzzing finally stopped, the principal didn’t get up in front. As was pretty usual, the principal wasn’t even here. Mr. Johnson was in charge, instead.
“There was an incident yesterday that many of you know about, but rumors have escalated it into epic proportions. You deserve to know what happened. So—”
And then he looked at my homeroom teacher and said, “Mr. Banton, please bring Keith Perryman up here.”
I couldn’t believe it! I was going to have to go up on stage and face the whole school? I must have gone pale, and I know I was starting to shake, but Mr. Banton stood up and beckoned to me, and suddenly I was on my feet and sort of stumbling and then Mr. Banton had his hand around my upper arm and I was being escorted—or perhaps dragged—to the front of the auditorium and up the stairs and then I was standing next to Mr. Johnson. I was sort of out of it, things seemed blurry, and my heart was patty-caking about three times faster than normal. I could hear the sound of my blood roaring in my ears.
Mr. Johnson turned to look at me, then turned back to the kids seated in front of us. Their faces were lit up now, their eyes eager. This was better for them than being on the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl.
“OK,” Mr. Johnson said. “The best way to do this is to address all these rumors, to talk about what happened, and to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. I’ll talk about what I heard, and then if anyone in the audience has any questions, you can ask them.
“We should start at the beginning, I guess. The rumor was that a boy was masturbating on his bus on the way to school. That boy was Keith Perryman.” Mr. Johnson stopped and half-turned to me and gestured at me with his hand.
“That isn’t what happened. Is it Keith?”
I shook my head. My throat was way too dry to speak, and anyway, I hated trying to talk in front of people. It always made me think everyone would laugh at me and see how stupid I was. Even in class, when I had to speak, it was really hard for me. In front of the whole school, just the thought of it was terrifying. So I shook my head, but at the same time started to realize I would have to say something eventually, and probably talk about things that I didn’t even want to think about.
“Right. Keith didn’t. Would you like to clear this up, Keith, tell them what really happened?”
I shook my head again, and shook it pretty violently. I began to think about what might happen if I just ran off the stage.
“Well, I’ll tell them then. We all are mature in this room, and have had Sex Ed and learned about puberty and changes boys go through and things like that. So you’ve all heard about wet dreams. That’s what happened here, wasn’t it, Keith?”
I just looked at him, shock on my face. How could he say this?
He watched me for a moment, saw I wasn’t going to respond, and turned back to the assembled kids and teachers. “I guess Keith doesn’t really want to talk about it, but the thing is, it’s OK. Many boys have wet dreams. They used to be called ‘nocturnal emissions’ because they usually happen at night when the boy is asleep, but if it happens during the day when the boy is asleep, he still has no control over it. Which means no one should blame him for it. For what he did. On the bus.”
He looked at me again. I was close enough I could read his eyes. He was enjoying himself, and I felt like curling up in a ball on the stage.
“All right, that was what happened on the bus, and none of the rumors you’ve heard about him standing up and doing it, or dropping his pants so everyone could watch, are true. So let’s move on.
“The other rumor that’s been floating around is that Keith streaked—that means ran naked—down the halls during class break. Did you do that, Keith?”
I shook my head really hard again. If this went on much longer, I’d have a severe headache to go with my terminal case of embarrassment.
“No, he didn’t. Can you tell us what you did do, Keith?”
More head shaking. I’d decided, somewhere between the second and third shaking session that, no matter what, I wasn’t going to say a word.
“No? OK, what happened is, Keith went to the boys’ room, took off his pants to clean where he’d stained them and then was trying to dry them over the hand dryer. What happened then, Keith?”
OK, so my vow of silence was going to last about thirty seconds. But I wanted to say this. If I did it right, it would end up just the way I wanted it to. I was surprised I could think clearly enough, given my present circumstances, to see even a short way into the future.
I spoke up then, and my voice was only a little shaky, and only a little higher pitched than I wanted it to be. “I was drying my pants and two upperclassmen came in, grabbed my pants, stripped me of my underpants, and left me like that.”
That caused a general titter. Mr. Johnson’s glare ended it.
“Who were these kids, Keith? Did you know them?”
I nodded, the first time I’d done that.
“Good.” He smiled at me. “Tell us all their names.”