The most effective way to ruin a young man’s reputation in a small Ozarks town in the 1970s was to persuade people he’s a homosexual. You can spread similar rumors about young women, but for some reason, people don’t seem to care as much about lesbians, probably because men get turned on by the idea of girls licking each other. Anyhow, if I could spread the rumor Benjamin was gay and not get caught doing it, he would be blackballed forthwith. The tricky part, of course, was the not-getting-caught part. If I simply went around saying “Benjamin Brute is gay,” the rumor chain would work its way back to me, and the other kids would probably start saying I was gay. At the very least, they would know I was an “envious fool,” as Tina put it. And it was Benjamin who deserved punishing, not me.
So, this is what I did.
The walls of the men’s stall at our bait and tackle shop were covered with a scribble-scrabble of graffiti. Anarchist A’s were scrawled beside “Jesus Saves” next to a couple of “For a good time call” phone numbers that were adjacent to prophecies of the Second Coming next to renderings of penises and testicles and the occasional vulva. And presiding over the whole mess was the ultimate articulation of rage and frustration: “Fuck you.” There were “f-words” everywhere. My dad always said if there really was an “f-bomb,” our bathroom stall would have blown up a long time ago. Dad tried painting the stall a couple of times, but the paint peeled off the metal, and the pervs scratched penises and phone numbers into the walls themselves, so he gave up and let the weirdos have the damned stall.
You’ll recall I talked with Tina Thomas on the 21st of November. On Monay the 22nd, I took a Sharpie into the stall and wrote: “I like boys Meet me at the Big Spring pavillion this Saturday night, Nine o’cock sharp.” I intentionally misspelled “pavilion” because I figured if I didn’t, the hillbilly queers might get suspicious. And I thought the “o’cock” bit was pretty clever, if I do say so myself. Scrawling the message on Monday would also give the queers a full week to see the message and schedule their Saturday night accordingly.
Then, I put a handkerchief over the telephone receiver and called the Brute household. Mrs. Brute answered the first time, so I hung up. The second time, the phone rang and rang. But the third time, Benjamin picked up, and I called him a pussy and said his girlfriend was a whore, and I would whip his ass, and he was a coward if he didn’t show up at the Big Spring pavilion on Saturday night at nine o’clock sharp. You can see where I was headed with this, which is more than I could say at the time because I was making it up as I went along.
On Thursday I suggested to Stu and Will that we go to the Big Spring pavilion on Saturday night and drink a few beers. They asked who was going to buy the beer, and I said, it’s none of their damned business who my supplier is; are you guys coming or not? What time, they asked, and I said eight o’clock, and they just grinned and said, See you then. Then I thought of something else. “But don’t park in the main parking lot. Park down by the fire tower. You never know if the cops might come by. No point in advertising we’re there.”
So another piece of my partial puzzle fell into place.
On Friday afternoon, I went to the payphone outside the library and made another call, this one to the police station.
“Van Buren police department.” The fellow sounded like he thought he was important.
I dropped my voice a half octave and said, “I have information, solid information. Something strange is going down at the Big Spring pavilion shortly after nine o’clock on Saturday night. I can’t say what.”
“Who is this? What’s going down?”
“I told you all I know.” Then I hung up.
By the time Saturday evening rolled around, everything was set up. I cribbed a twelve pack of Coors from our walk-in cooler—the first time I had ever done something like that—and when I got to the pavilion at eight o’clock, Stu and Will were already there. We sat on the picnic table and popped a few tabs and were feeling mighty good when the Methodist Church struck nine bells. Right on cue, there was a sweep of headlights and the crunch of gravel and I said, “Damn! The cops! Let’s go,” so the boys and I ran behind a big bush. We were looking through the branches when Benjamin walked up. He had on a leather jacket, and I have to admit he looked pretty good standing there in the glow of a mercury light and pounding his right fist into his left palm. Then another pair of headlights pivoted around the parking lot, there was another crunch of gravel, and into the same mercury light strode Jerry Stamps, our biology teacher. He saw Benjamin before Benjamin saw him, and he tried to crawfish back to his car. But he wasn’t fast enough, and Benjamin called out, “Hey! Where are you going? Are you trying to chicken out? Huh? Are you a chicken shit?”
Mr. Stamps turned around and came back. “Benjamin? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me! Oh. Mr. Stamps. What are you doing here?”
“The real question is, what are you doing here?” I could tell Mr. Stamps was getting his hopes up.
“I’m going to give it to some fella good, that’s what I’m doing here.”
I couldn’t have scripted a better choice of words.
Mr. Stamps made an “ummm” sound.
Then Benjamin asked, “Say, you didn’t call me, did you?”
“No, why would I have called you?”
“Somebody called and said he wanted to meet me here.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“Huh?”
“You said you were going to give it to some fella good. Looks like I’m your fella, big boy,” and with that, he stuck his thumbs into his belt loops and pulled his pants down. He was, as we said back in the day, going “kamikaze,” and what’s more, he was manifesting a definite interest in Ben.
“What are you doing, Mr. Stamps? There’s been a misunderstanding!”
Suddenly, a brilliant beam transfixed Benjamin and Mr. Stamps in a circle of light, followed by a bright swirl of blue and red lights and the short whoop of a siren.
The Chief of Police, Officer Burnham, got out of his car, and said, “Well, well, what do we got here? A tea party right out here by the Big Spring! We don’t do that in this county, boys. Get your hands up. That’s right. Just ‘cause you’re a pair of girly boys don’t mean you mightn’t try something.”
Benjamin said, “No, sir! You’ve got it all wrong. I thought I was meeting somebody to fight! I ain’t queer! I’ve got a girlfriend! You know me, Chief Burnham!”
Mr. Burnham said, “Hell, boy, I don’t know my own wife from one day to the next. One thing I’ve learned over a long career is that every man has a locked room hidden in his head. Some men like ‘em young, some like ‘em black, and some are you like you boys, and don’t like ‘em at all. That’s why they call it ‘coming out of the closet.’ Come on, now. We’ll sort it out at the station. And pull your pants up, Stamps. Good God.” Benjamin and Mr. Stamps got in the back of the car, doors slammed, a sweep of lights cast shadows over the trees, and they were gone.
Only then did Stu say, “Holy shit! That was crazy!”
“And so, boys,” I said slowly and in perfect pentameter, “what are we to make of that?”
Will said, “Well, clearly, Mr. Stamps is queer.”
Stu said, “Clearly.”
“But what about Benjamin?” I asked. “It’s sure suspicious he was out here at the same time Mr. Stamps was here.” I sounded like a villain in a B movie.
Stu said, “Well . . . Ben did say he was going to give it to some fella good. That sounds pretty queer. Especially under the circumstances.”
Will countered, “But he coulda meant he came here to fight somebody. That can be taken two ways.”
“Can it?” I asked. “Mr. Stamps seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.”
Will said, “But Ben is screwing Jenny Briggs. Everybody knows that.”
I felt the blood rush to my face, but I calmly replied, “Maybe it’s like the Chief said, everybody has a locked room hidden in their head. Maybe Ben swings both ways. You know, AC/DC.”
Stu said, “Well, I think he’s a queer and that’s all there is to it. If he was going to fight somebody, why didn’t the other guy show up? And then when he saw Mr. Stamps, maybe he was afraid he was going to get in trouble or something, so he only acted like he wanted to fight somebody.”
And Will said, “Irregardless, we have quite a story to tell come Monday morning.”
I said, “Do you think we should? I mean, after all, he is a fellow classmate.”
Stu replied, “He’s the quarterback of the football team and the class president. Who gives a damn if he’s a ‘fellow classmate’? He’s got it coming if you ask me.”
And I said, “Well, whatever you boys think. I’m keeping my mouth shut, so keep me out of it.”
We drank the rest of the beer and walked down the gravel road to where our cars were parked and talked about what happened and what might have happened if the chief hadn’t arrived and by the time we got to the fire tower, Benjamin Brute was a bigger queer than Liberace. I thought, Hell’s bells! That went smoother than a loose stool after a bean burrito. I looked up to the stars and silently thanked Machiavelli, though he hadn’t really done anything except recommend fraud as a legitimate means to an end.
Then again, that was all I needed.