Turd

The only time I hit a boy in the face surprised us both.

He was flailing; I was flailing. We weren’t joking around.

This was in fifth grade sixty years ago and I haven’t

seen him since. Who knows how his life worked out?

In those days being a writer was on the back burner,

and being a jet pilot seemed a better choice, perhaps

a private detective. Where I was and where I wanted

to be were two islands separated by miles of water.

I’d stand on my imagined shore and scratch my head;

lots of time passed like that. So I hit him, poked a knuckle

in his eye, and everything stopped. I’ve forgotten what

the fight was about. This happened in the boy’s dorm

at Clear Lake Camp—rows of bunk beds for fifty kids

and all cheered us on. When I hit his eye, he yelped:

He hit me! He wasn’t giving credit where credit was due.

It was an accident. He was appalled; I was appalled.

The boy began to weep and I began to weep as well.

He was nobody I knew; he went to a different school.

Boys from my school kept pounding me on the back;

boys from his school led him away. And that was that.

But this is just the start of the story. We were there

for a fall weekend, and before lunch the men in charge

gathered us together for an announcement. We knew

something big was coming; we saw it in their faces:

a mixture of moral horror and righteous indignation.

This was in 1951 and six of the men were vets. D-Day,

Okinawa, they’d seen it all. At first I thought the reason

for the meeting was my fight that morning. I was sure

the kid had told and I’d be called out. Instead we heard

that some unknown boy had left an oversized turd

in the middle of the shower room: twelve showers,

a floor of pink tile and the turd, six inches long,

squatting like a toad in the middle. I know this

because the teachers paraded us through single-file.

The word “turd” was never used, that’s my addition.

Shit, crap, dump, poop, caca, ass goblin, black banana,

hell’s candy, creamy butt nugget, keester cake, lawn

sausage—none of this was said. The phrase of choice

was that an unknown boy had crept into the shower

and “moved his bowels,” as he might move an elephant.

He had left his BM on the pink tiles. We were children.

What we knew about the war was comic book stuff,

so the product of one bad boy’s moved bowel viewed

through the filter of adult displeasure seemed equal

to Judas’ betrayal and the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The lecture was long and operatic. Nobody owned up.

At last Mr. Sullivan placed a small desk and chair near

the monstrosity, as outside the shower room fifty boys

formed an anxious line. Each was to enter and sit down,

as Mr. Sullivan, standing above him, shouted: Does that

belong to you? I won’t get mad if you tell me the truth!

Despite my innocence, I was sure my guilt would show.

I was sure I’d giggle. I was sure I’d weep. I was sure

I’d confess to punching a kid in the eye. But why stop

with one turd, the mere tip of ten years of bad behavior?

I’d spill out past sins like a fire hose spills out water.

I’d tell him I stole dollar bills from my mother’s purse;

I’d tell him I searched my father’s coat pockets for coins;

I was full of dirty thoughts; I’d begun to masturbate;

I’d killed a robin with a BB gun and buried the body

in my little brother’s sandbox; I’d tried on my mother’s

bra to see how it looked; I hid Hershey bars in my room;

I didn’t believe in God, not one bit; I stole comic books

from supermarkets; I didn’t return books to the library;

I once broke a girl’s leg on the teeter-totter and ran away;

I’d spent two hours looking up “whore” in the frigging

dictionary not knowing it started with W. I was a bad boy.

I was born a bad boy. I’d die a bad boy. I was marooned

on the island of childhood like a degenerate sailor.

My only chance was to plead guilty and beg for mercy.

Mr. Sullivan asked his question. I couldn’t look at him.

I shook my head. Then came a pause as long as January.

Next! he called, and a million birds began to whistle glory.

Nobody confessed. Buses took us back to East Lansing.

For all I know, the turd’s still there. And shouldn’t it be?

Shouldn’t there be a little turd shrine to bullied children

and dumb ideas, to preadolescent confusion, to always

being uncertain and mostly being scared, to all those

kids who triple-lock the bathroom door and then check

the window, afraid of doing something right, of doing

something wrong, of getting caught, of getting away,

afraid of wearing the wrong-colored socks, afraid their

flies are unzipped, afraid they’ll fart in class, a fart

like the tuba of John Philip Sousa, afraid of pee stains,

of reeking arm pits, of sudden projectile vomiting—

that’s the sort of shrine they need and if that antique

turd is gone, I’d be happy to donate one of my own.