Okay class, welcome back to Bruce Reminisces, the
exciting series of essays that reconstruct the thrilling adventures of a
sexually frustrated pubescent boy in his lifelong journey to become a
sexually frustrated pubescent man. If I remember right--and that would be a first--I left everyone at the end of my poetry-related Life Lesson in Mr Lariscy's seventh-grade English class at Oak Grove Middle School. Let's go back, shall we?
It was getting near the end of the year...not quite final-exam-class-party season but pretty close. In Lariscy's class, we had already traversed he spectrum of contemporary literature: poetry, essays, memoirs, drama, and selections from novels. Now we were delving into short stories: O Henry, Saki, London, Harte, Poe, Twain, even some Asimov, which warmed my sci-fi fanboy's heart. This was the year I was introduced to Ambrose Bierce's "Chickamauga", Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" and Ring Lardner's amazing "There Are Smiles". Tarzan and The Hardy Boys were never really the same after that.
(That's not totally fair. I had been weaning myself into adult fiction since ten, having been exposed to one of my brother's Book Of The Month Club selections, Ira Levin's dystopian thriller This Perfect Day. He had described it to me, which had intrigued me to the point where I spent an afternoon flipping through it randomly, which in turn led to my discovery of a scene that started with the sentence "Fucking began", which in turn led to my decision to read the novel straight through. As awesome as "The Secret of Wildcat Swamp" was, I knew deep down in my heart that Frank Hardy was never going to boink Callie Shaw, so my interest began to wane.)
After the obligatory reading and analyzing we were once again given a writing assignment, which went something like this: Lariscy gave us a list of six "characters"; actually, six names, with brief personality details underneath them. We were instructed to choose at least two--a protagonist and an antagonist--and write a short story around them. He also gave us a small selection of situations to put them in, and each situation had a "first line" that was supposed to kick off our story. We had the weekend to compose, all were due on Monday, and we were to spend the rest of the week reading our stories aloud and commenting on them. Furthermore, Lariscy told us that he was grading our papers from A to F based on grammar and punctuation, but then assign everyone either a "Plus" or "Minus" based on creativity.
I had this. I chose a handful of characters and the situation that interested me--something involving a bank robbery--and went home and knocked it out in about an hour. No sweat, easy "A".
Monday morning I turned in my paper, and Tuesday I--along with the rest of the class--got it handed back graded. I got an "A". Minus. I blinked and looked at it again. Surely this was a mistake. An "A-"??? ME?? This was unprecedented.
I didn't need the extra points. I was already going to end the year with an A in English. This was a matter of pride. What the hell Lariscy?
I sat through that day's class, hardly noticing several of my classmates' droning recitations, knowing I was going to confront Lariscy at the end of the day. The bell rang and, as everyone else headed out the door and to their next class, I marched up to the desk.
"Ah, Mr. Driggers, I've been expecting you," he said with a lopsided smile. Asshole. "Let me guess, you're wondering why you got an A minus instead of the expected A plus, right?"
"Well, yeah." I plopped the graded paper back down on the desk in front of him. I was a presumptuous little prick.
"Well Bruce, there was nothing technically wrong with your paper...but you know that already I'm sure." Yeah, go on. "I didn't get the feeling you really gave it your best shot," he continued. "It was as good--better, actually, than almost everyone else's. But you're capable of so much more."
Okay, whatever, I've heard this one before. You're not applying yourself. We expect better from you. Blah blah blah. He picked up the paper and flipped to the second page. "You dialed it in," he said. "There's nothing technically wrong with it, except it's kinda dull."
"You're the one who assigned us the stories, and the characters," I countered. I was being petulant, my pride was wounded.
"True...but you're the storyteller, it's your job to entertain me. You told me a story about a guy who foils a bank robbery and becomes a hero. It was, at best, a lesser episode of Dragnet."
Oh no he didn't. He just compared me to Jack Webb. Unfavorably. Now I was pissed.
"Okay fine, you didn't like it, big deal. Here," I offered, trying to regain my dignity, "let me write another one. I'll come up with something different."
He considered this for a moment, then shook his head no. "No need," he said, "this story, these characters...they're as good as any. I've got a better idea." He picked up my Dragnet episode and handed it back to me. "Just re-write this one. Same situation, same characters, same story. Only this time," he said, looking me right in the eye, "make it a comedy."
I took the paper back and stared at it like it was written in Swahili, maybe for a full ten seconds. I was intrigued, but confused. Usually, my forays into humor landed me in the principal's office. This time, Lariscy wanted me to be the clown. It was my assignment. I jumped on it.
"Don't you have another class to go to?" Lariscy asked, and I realized it was almost Second Bell. "Yeah," I said, and left, my mind racing.
That night, after dinner, I sequestered myself in my bedroom and began translating my Dragnet episode into something closer to Get Smart. I paced, reading it aloud, scribbling notes and ideas down whenever they came to me. My Downtown Tampa bank relocated to Key West. The bank robbers transformed from common street thugs into a brainwashed heiress backed by a group of leftist rebels ala Patty Hearst and the SLA. The bank guard / hero became an overweight bungler named Pee Wee, who had overslept that morning and rushed to work, late, still in his pajamas. The robbery was foiled when the escaping robbers slipped on a puddle of coffee, which had been spilled only a few seconds before by the just-arriving Pee Wee.
It wasn't art. In retrospect, it probably wasn't even funny. But it wasn't dull, and my audience was going to be a group of seventh graders. Not the toughest crowd. I felt pretty confident.
I walked into class the next day ready to wow Mr. Lariscy with my Laugh-In Masterpiece. I tried to hand it to him, but he declined.
"No, I've already graded the paper, Bruce. Now show me why I should give you an A+. You're up first."
Yikes! I gulped. Okay then.
I stood up behind the podium and started spinning my epic tale. My classmates were admittedly hungry for something--anything--more interesting than the previous day's parade of drivel. I had them from the first paragraph, recounting how the stoned, dreadlocked assistant teller had to quickly douse his spliff when Miss Buckles, the Head Teller, showed up to unlock the doors. For the next five minutes, I kept the whole room in stitches, punctuated with frequent bursts of laughter. By the time I got to the part where the bad guys were sprawled out on the bank floor, Pee Wee's pistol pointing at them, most of them were in tears. Then I finished them off with my last few lines:
As the police took the gang away, Pee Wee figured he could relax, and re-holstered his gun. Unfortunately, he was still in his pajama bottoms, and the weight of the gun had the unfortunate effect of pulling them down around his ankles. He wasn't wearing underwear.
"Oh my," said Miss Buckles, "Now I know why they call you Pee Wee."
To the two-dozen or so pimple-faced adolescents that made up my audience, that was The Funniest Thing They'd Ever Heard, maybe even The Funniest Joke In The History Of The World. They laughed at that for a good solid minute, and I'm pretty sure I remember James Elrod falling out of his desk and collapsing on the floor in laughter.
Even Lariscy was wiping his eyes. Cha-ching!
Oh yeah: I got my A+.
*********************************
Barely a month later, and it was time to bid Oak Grove farewell.
We had already had our finals in Lariscy's class, and we were pretty much slacking till the end of the school year. We watched movies one day ("An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"), played records and discussed them the next (just like we'd done during the poetry lessons months before). Mostly, we all sat around and shot the shit, and one time I got a chance to have a little smalltalk with the man himself.
"So, what are you gonna do this summer Mr. Lariscy? Try to recover from all us idiots in time for the new batch next year?"
He smiled. He was sitting at his desk, absent-mindedly thumbing through some papers. Then he responded. "No. I'm going to be taking over my father's business."
I didn't say anything for a few seconds. I wasn't really sure what he meant. "Taking over?"
"Yeah," he said, and I thought I detected a hint of sadness in his voice. "My dad had a stroke a few months back, and he wants me to take over the operation of the family business." Lariscy Drugs had been a northwest Tampa institution since right after the end of World War Two. It was a solo family business, an independent drug store, not tied into any chain.
"Just for the summer?" I asked.
"No," he smiled again, but I knew it wasn't a happy smile. "He needs someone to carry on. He just isn't up to it any more."
I mulled this over for a minute. I knew the implications. Teaching was Lariscy's life, and literature was his passion. He was keeping mum, but I had a pretty good suspicion he was crushed.
"Well," I volunteered, "Maybe you can straighten out the business and hire a manager, or sell it or something and go back to teaching."
"Yeah," he replied, smiling that wan smile again. "Maybe." He stopped shuffling the papers and looked up at me. "So what about you Mr. Driggers? What are you doing this summer? Even better...what are you going to do with your life? I hear the circus needs clowns."
I gave him my best sarcastic "Har har." Then, impulsively, I told him: "I'm gonna be a writer."
"Oh really? That's pretty ambitious. Good luck to you, really." He was sincere. He was always sincere. He was the real deal, a man who loved to teach, and loved to watch people learn.
"Yeah," I said, trying to give him some encouragement, "all because of you."
This time, he didn't smile. I think he got a little choked up, and I was starting to feel a little sniffly myself. He covered it, best he could. Looking back down at his papers, he said: "Well, you make sure you come and see me at Lariscy Drugs, okay?"
"Of course!" I replied, as chipper as I could manage. "I mean, after all, I'm about to be a teenager. I'm gonna need a drug dealer."
He didn't respond at first, and for a split second I thought he was mad. Then I noticed a slight movement on his cheeks, which got more pronounced until it was obvious he was smiling. Then, suddenly, he threw his head back and let a huge laugh escape.
"I needed that," he said, still chuckling. And I'm sure he did.
But not as much as I.
It was getting near the end of the year...not quite final-exam-class-party season but pretty close. In Lariscy's class, we had already traversed he spectrum of contemporary literature: poetry, essays, memoirs, drama, and selections from novels. Now we were delving into short stories: O Henry, Saki, London, Harte, Poe, Twain, even some Asimov, which warmed my sci-fi fanboy's heart. This was the year I was introduced to Ambrose Bierce's "Chickamauga", Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" and Ring Lardner's amazing "There Are Smiles". Tarzan and The Hardy Boys were never really the same after that.
(That's not totally fair. I had been weaning myself into adult fiction since ten, having been exposed to one of my brother's Book Of The Month Club selections, Ira Levin's dystopian thriller This Perfect Day. He had described it to me, which had intrigued me to the point where I spent an afternoon flipping through it randomly, which in turn led to my discovery of a scene that started with the sentence "Fucking began", which in turn led to my decision to read the novel straight through. As awesome as "The Secret of Wildcat Swamp" was, I knew deep down in my heart that Frank Hardy was never going to boink Callie Shaw, so my interest began to wane.)
After the obligatory reading and analyzing we were once again given a writing assignment, which went something like this: Lariscy gave us a list of six "characters"; actually, six names, with brief personality details underneath them. We were instructed to choose at least two--a protagonist and an antagonist--and write a short story around them. He also gave us a small selection of situations to put them in, and each situation had a "first line" that was supposed to kick off our story. We had the weekend to compose, all were due on Monday, and we were to spend the rest of the week reading our stories aloud and commenting on them. Furthermore, Lariscy told us that he was grading our papers from A to F based on grammar and punctuation, but then assign everyone either a "Plus" or "Minus" based on creativity.
I had this. I chose a handful of characters and the situation that interested me--something involving a bank robbery--and went home and knocked it out in about an hour. No sweat, easy "A".
Monday morning I turned in my paper, and Tuesday I--along with the rest of the class--got it handed back graded. I got an "A". Minus. I blinked and looked at it again. Surely this was a mistake. An "A-"??? ME?? This was unprecedented.
I didn't need the extra points. I was already going to end the year with an A in English. This was a matter of pride. What the hell Lariscy?
I sat through that day's class, hardly noticing several of my classmates' droning recitations, knowing I was going to confront Lariscy at the end of the day. The bell rang and, as everyone else headed out the door and to their next class, I marched up to the desk.
"Ah, Mr. Driggers, I've been expecting you," he said with a lopsided smile. Asshole. "Let me guess, you're wondering why you got an A minus instead of the expected A plus, right?"
"Well, yeah." I plopped the graded paper back down on the desk in front of him. I was a presumptuous little prick.
"Well Bruce, there was nothing technically wrong with your paper...but you know that already I'm sure." Yeah, go on. "I didn't get the feeling you really gave it your best shot," he continued. "It was as good--better, actually, than almost everyone else's. But you're capable of so much more."
Okay, whatever, I've heard this one before. You're not applying yourself. We expect better from you. Blah blah blah. He picked up the paper and flipped to the second page. "You dialed it in," he said. "There's nothing technically wrong with it, except it's kinda dull."
"You're the one who assigned us the stories, and the characters," I countered. I was being petulant, my pride was wounded.
"True...but you're the storyteller, it's your job to entertain me. You told me a story about a guy who foils a bank robbery and becomes a hero. It was, at best, a lesser episode of Dragnet."
Oh no he didn't. He just compared me to Jack Webb. Unfavorably. Now I was pissed.
"Okay fine, you didn't like it, big deal. Here," I offered, trying to regain my dignity, "let me write another one. I'll come up with something different."
He considered this for a moment, then shook his head no. "No need," he said, "this story, these characters...they're as good as any. I've got a better idea." He picked up my Dragnet episode and handed it back to me. "Just re-write this one. Same situation, same characters, same story. Only this time," he said, looking me right in the eye, "make it a comedy."
I took the paper back and stared at it like it was written in Swahili, maybe for a full ten seconds. I was intrigued, but confused. Usually, my forays into humor landed me in the principal's office. This time, Lariscy wanted me to be the clown. It was my assignment. I jumped on it.
"Don't you have another class to go to?" Lariscy asked, and I realized it was almost Second Bell. "Yeah," I said, and left, my mind racing.
That night, after dinner, I sequestered myself in my bedroom and began translating my Dragnet episode into something closer to Get Smart. I paced, reading it aloud, scribbling notes and ideas down whenever they came to me. My Downtown Tampa bank relocated to Key West. The bank robbers transformed from common street thugs into a brainwashed heiress backed by a group of leftist rebels ala Patty Hearst and the SLA. The bank guard / hero became an overweight bungler named Pee Wee, who had overslept that morning and rushed to work, late, still in his pajamas. The robbery was foiled when the escaping robbers slipped on a puddle of coffee, which had been spilled only a few seconds before by the just-arriving Pee Wee.
It wasn't art. In retrospect, it probably wasn't even funny. But it wasn't dull, and my audience was going to be a group of seventh graders. Not the toughest crowd. I felt pretty confident.
I walked into class the next day ready to wow Mr. Lariscy with my Laugh-In Masterpiece. I tried to hand it to him, but he declined.
"No, I've already graded the paper, Bruce. Now show me why I should give you an A+. You're up first."
Yikes! I gulped. Okay then.
I stood up behind the podium and started spinning my epic tale. My classmates were admittedly hungry for something--anything--more interesting than the previous day's parade of drivel. I had them from the first paragraph, recounting how the stoned, dreadlocked assistant teller had to quickly douse his spliff when Miss Buckles, the Head Teller, showed up to unlock the doors. For the next five minutes, I kept the whole room in stitches, punctuated with frequent bursts of laughter. By the time I got to the part where the bad guys were sprawled out on the bank floor, Pee Wee's pistol pointing at them, most of them were in tears. Then I finished them off with my last few lines:
As the police took the gang away, Pee Wee figured he could relax, and re-holstered his gun. Unfortunately, he was still in his pajama bottoms, and the weight of the gun had the unfortunate effect of pulling them down around his ankles. He wasn't wearing underwear.
"Oh my," said Miss Buckles, "Now I know why they call you Pee Wee."
To the two-dozen or so pimple-faced adolescents that made up my audience, that was The Funniest Thing They'd Ever Heard, maybe even The Funniest Joke In The History Of The World. They laughed at that for a good solid minute, and I'm pretty sure I remember James Elrod falling out of his desk and collapsing on the floor in laughter.
Even Lariscy was wiping his eyes. Cha-ching!
Oh yeah: I got my A+.
*********************************
Barely a month later, and it was time to bid Oak Grove farewell.
We had already had our finals in Lariscy's class, and we were pretty much slacking till the end of the school year. We watched movies one day ("An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"), played records and discussed them the next (just like we'd done during the poetry lessons months before). Mostly, we all sat around and shot the shit, and one time I got a chance to have a little smalltalk with the man himself.
"So, what are you gonna do this summer Mr. Lariscy? Try to recover from all us idiots in time for the new batch next year?"
He smiled. He was sitting at his desk, absent-mindedly thumbing through some papers. Then he responded. "No. I'm going to be taking over my father's business."
I didn't say anything for a few seconds. I wasn't really sure what he meant. "Taking over?"
"Yeah," he said, and I thought I detected a hint of sadness in his voice. "My dad had a stroke a few months back, and he wants me to take over the operation of the family business." Lariscy Drugs had been a northwest Tampa institution since right after the end of World War Two. It was a solo family business, an independent drug store, not tied into any chain.
"Just for the summer?" I asked.
"No," he smiled again, but I knew it wasn't a happy smile. "He needs someone to carry on. He just isn't up to it any more."
I mulled this over for a minute. I knew the implications. Teaching was Lariscy's life, and literature was his passion. He was keeping mum, but I had a pretty good suspicion he was crushed.
"Well," I volunteered, "Maybe you can straighten out the business and hire a manager, or sell it or something and go back to teaching."
"Yeah," he replied, smiling that wan smile again. "Maybe." He stopped shuffling the papers and looked up at me. "So what about you Mr. Driggers? What are you doing this summer? Even better...what are you going to do with your life? I hear the circus needs clowns."
I gave him my best sarcastic "Har har." Then, impulsively, I told him: "I'm gonna be a writer."
"Oh really? That's pretty ambitious. Good luck to you, really." He was sincere. He was always sincere. He was the real deal, a man who loved to teach, and loved to watch people learn.
"Yeah," I said, trying to give him some encouragement, "all because of you."
This time, he didn't smile. I think he got a little choked up, and I was starting to feel a little sniffly myself. He covered it, best he could. Looking back down at his papers, he said: "Well, you make sure you come and see me at Lariscy Drugs, okay?"
"Of course!" I replied, as chipper as I could manage. "I mean, after all, I'm about to be a teenager. I'm gonna need a drug dealer."
He didn't respond at first, and for a split second I thought he was mad. Then I noticed a slight movement on his cheeks, which got more pronounced until it was obvious he was smiling. Then, suddenly, he threw his head back and let a huge laugh escape.
"I needed that," he said, still chuckling. And I'm sure he did.
But not as much as I.
