Read Online Every Third Thought by John Barth - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Barth
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brassiere.
“Let me get this straight,” now said Amanda Todd. “You’re telling me that as late as 1941, at least a few fifth-grade boys in Bridgetown, Maryland, imagined that female sexual arousal involved mammary engorgement?”
“Some of us must’ve. What did we know?” What Narrator knew, and now reported, was that the formidable Miss Brinsley had been unamused. Crumpling the poem-script without expression and tossing it into her desk-side wastebasket (from which its author would manage later to retrieve it, he being assigned blackboard-erasure and trashcan-emptying as supplementary penance at that school-day’s close), she had sternly summoned him to the front of the classroom, pronounced him guilty of indecency and illicit note-passing, ordered him to bend forward over the desk, and directed the poem’s interrupted first reader to come forward and administer five hard whacks to the poet’s posterior with a large wooden paddle kept prominently on display in a front corner of the classroom to discourage misbehavior. Why five? Opinions differed in subsequent playground discussion of the incident, some maintaining that it was one whack for each grade, others that it was one for each line of the already much-repeated quatrain plus one for good
measure, and others yet that it was one for each snap-hook on Miss Brinsley’s bra (more than the usual number, Ruth Prosper would inform us from her more knowledgeable perspective on such esoterica—but then, think of the size of Miz B.’s . . . boobs !). Author’s punishment having been smartly delivered by Reader, at Subject’s order the tables were then turned and three whacks laid by Scurrilous Sender upon Ready Recipient’s backside, Miss Brinsley explaining to both and to the class that accessories to any misdeed, while perhaps less guilty than its perpetrators, must bear their share of responsibility.
In a put-on Eastern Shore drawl, “Sounds to me,” Mandy allowed, “like yer ole Miz B. there was right smart of a teacher.”
That she was, if a less than lovable one: She even explained to us the difference between Accessories Before and After the Fact. And we knew our Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn long before we discovered Henry Miller’s naughty novels in college days.
“Which however I believe were first being published in France at just about the time you tell of. And what did Future Fictionists Prosper and Newett take away from this experience, other than sore derrières ?”
Didn’t hurt all that much, actually, in the physical way, and more of a scalding embarrassment to G. I. Newett, who knew he’d be in deep shit at home when word reached his parents, than to Ned P., whose folks, being educators themselves, were as a rule more understanding in the Classroom Mischief department. To all hands’ surprise, however, there were no further
unpleasant consequences. For whatever reasons, Miss Brinsley chose not to report the incident to either set of parents. Nor did Ned’s sister “tell on them” when she quickly got chapter and verse, so to speak, through an extracurricular grapevine that extended from Bridgetown Elementary up through Stratford Junior High, where she was in eighth grade. She merely shook her head in disgust, promised much worse retribution than a mere handful of hiney-whacks to anyone who dared write such shit about her , and made the gossiped bra-hook-number correction mentioned above.
“You should know,” one of us teased her—Gee, G. suspects, inasmuch as Ned was already remarking that a handful of whacks was exactly the right number: yet another possible explanation of the five-count.
“Don’t think I’m going to show you ,” came back pert Ruthie, whose budding breasts, as far as Gee could judge, were not yet cupped: “Those peep-show days are in the attic for keeps.”
“On second thought,” Ned suggested on the school playground shortly after, where he and Gee and an approximate handful of their
“Let me get this straight,” now said Amanda Todd. “You’re telling me that as late as 1941, at least a few fifth-grade boys in Bridgetown, Maryland, imagined that female sexual arousal involved mammary engorgement?”
“Some of us must’ve. What did we know?” What Narrator knew, and now reported, was that the formidable Miss Brinsley had been unamused. Crumpling the poem-script without expression and tossing it into her desk-side wastebasket (from which its author would manage later to retrieve it, he being assigned blackboard-erasure and trashcan-emptying as supplementary penance at that school-day’s close), she had sternly summoned him to the front of the classroom, pronounced him guilty of indecency and illicit note-passing, ordered him to bend forward over the desk, and directed the poem’s interrupted first reader to come forward and administer five hard whacks to the poet’s posterior with a large wooden paddle kept prominently on display in a front corner of the classroom to discourage misbehavior. Why five? Opinions differed in subsequent playground discussion of the incident, some maintaining that it was one whack for each grade, others that it was one for each line of the already much-repeated quatrain plus one for good
measure, and others yet that it was one for each snap-hook on Miss Brinsley’s bra (more than the usual number, Ruth Prosper would inform us from her more knowledgeable perspective on such esoterica—but then, think of the size of Miz B.’s . . . boobs !). Author’s punishment having been smartly delivered by Reader, at Subject’s order the tables were then turned and three whacks laid by Scurrilous Sender upon Ready Recipient’s backside, Miss Brinsley explaining to both and to the class that accessories to any misdeed, while perhaps less guilty than its perpetrators, must bear their share of responsibility.
In a put-on Eastern Shore drawl, “Sounds to me,” Mandy allowed, “like yer ole Miz B. there was right smart of a teacher.”
That she was, if a less than lovable one: She even explained to us the difference between Accessories Before and After the Fact. And we knew our Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn long before we discovered Henry Miller’s naughty novels in college days.
“Which however I believe were first being published in France at just about the time you tell of. And what did Future Fictionists Prosper and Newett take away from this experience, other than sore derrières ?”
Didn’t hurt all that much, actually, in the physical way, and more of a scalding embarrassment to G. I. Newett, who knew he’d be in deep shit at home when word reached his parents, than to Ned P., whose folks, being educators themselves, were as a rule more understanding in the Classroom Mischief department. To all hands’ surprise, however, there were no further
unpleasant consequences. For whatever reasons, Miss Brinsley chose not to report the incident to either set of parents. Nor did Ned’s sister “tell on them” when she quickly got chapter and verse, so to speak, through an extracurricular grapevine that extended from Bridgetown Elementary up through Stratford Junior High, where she was in eighth grade. She merely shook her head in disgust, promised much worse retribution than a mere handful of hiney-whacks to anyone who dared write such shit about her , and made the gossiped bra-hook-number correction mentioned above.
“You should know,” one of us teased her—Gee, G. suspects, inasmuch as Ned was already remarking that a handful of whacks was exactly the right number: yet another possible explanation of the five-count.
“Don’t think I’m going to show you ,” came back pert Ruthie, whose budding breasts, as far as Gee could judge, were not yet cupped: “Those peep-show days are in the attic for keeps.”
“On second thought,” Ned suggested on the school playground shortly after, where he and Gee and an approximate handful of their
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