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ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about Robert R., one of my old high school classmates that I ran into at the reunion last week. Back then, we knew him as "Bobby the Wop," not because we were so ignorant and hateful that we would call an Italian kid a wop, but because during our junior year when he ran for class president, his campaign posters all read: "Vote for Bobby the Wop!"
We had so few kids of Italian ancestry in our school that none of us knew what the word meant, so we went to the most reliable source of word definitions that we knew of: our English and Creative Writing teacher, Mrs. Sheridan. The incident stands out in my mind because she looked so uncomfortable, but seemed to feel that her obligation as a teacher meant she could not duck the question. She hesitated, opened her mouth, and then hesitated again. She looked at Bobby, who sat smiling at her in the middle of the classroom. She looked at the rest of us, who all sat bent forward with our heads cocked, ready to learn and expand our vocabularies.
Mrs. Sheridan took a deep breath and said slowly, "It's an ethnic slur for Italians, kind of like spic is for Hispanics."
The class let out a collective, "Ohhhhh" of understanding. We had enough Hispanics in our school know what spic meant. We also know that wop was the kind of word that Bobby could call himself, but that the rest of us needed his permission to use, and then only if we were saying it with a smile. We took it on faith that by running his campaign for class president on a platform of wophood, he had kind of given us group pass to use the term, if only in reference to him. Bobby was not a wop, he was the Wop.
"Why are you calling yourself a wop, Bobby?" one of the more sensitive and concerned kids asked.
"Why not?" Bobby said with a shrug.
"I'll vote for you," I said. To the mind of a 16 year old, audacity is every bit as important as leadership skills when it comes to electability. I can't recall if he won the election or not, but I'm convinced that he should have.
At the time, Bobby was an exceptionally good-looking guy, with chiseled features, warm olive skin, dark expressive eyes, and wavy jet-black hair. He was the king of the drama department – he got all the lead male roles in every production – which meant that his role in the social stratus of the school was to be as outrageous as he could get away. As a drama guy, Bobby's reason for being was to push the limits and entertain his peers.
The other thing I remember about Bobby, besides his election campaigned built around an ethnic epithet, is the day that we didn't have sex in the boys restroom outside of the English department.
We were in Mrs. Sheridan's class again, but she had left the area to talk with another teacher. I say "area" and not room, because our school was built as an experiment during the 70's and most of it was open concept, meaning that desks and tables were set up around the floor in little groups as if there were walls around them, but there weren't any. This arrangement has its perks, as you could wave at and toss notes on paper airplanes to your friends in other classes. The summer before my senior year they retrofitted the school and we all returned that fall to a building with walls and hallways between all of the classes. Those of us who had never been in such a school before were leery of this change, and worried that we would feel claustrophobic. We got used to it pretty quick, but it seemed very strange to find our wide-opened world suddenly partitioned off into little boxes.
That day, for some reason my own ethnic background came up in conversation, and I mentioned I was mostly Swedish.
"Sveedish?" Bobby asked in a very bad fake-Swedish accent. He leaned in close and lolled his tongue out at me. "Vill you let me leek your Sveedish meatballs?"
I slipped into a bad Italian accent to answer him. "Only if you give-ah me some-ah your Italian sausage," I said.
Mind you, this was the innuendo-laden banter, free of all expectations, that can only happen between virgins. For some reason, nobody loves sexual innuendo more than people who have never had any actual sex.
"Okay, you're on," said Bobby, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of my chair. Together we ran through the open class area, Bobby dragging me by my hand while I waved goodbye to our creative writing class as I stumbled after him. He took me out into the hall and into the boys bathroom, where he pushed me against a wall and began to interrogate me about a piece of hot gossip that was going around.
"So," he said, "Did Troy Jones really ball Mandy Smith last Saturday night?"
I made a face of disgust. Mandy was known around school as my best friend, but only because I could not figure out how to make her go away and stop telling people that she was my best friend. She wore layer upon layer of makeup foundation on her acne-plagued face, which only made the acne worse and had a tendency to melt and congeal by the end of the school day. That previous Saturday she had gone to a function and had spent some time outside talking alone with Troy, who she found sympathetic but not attractive. After they went back inside, he told everyone else that she and he had sex during the 10-minute interlude they were gone. She was very upset about the whole thing.
"No," I said, "Don't you think he would have been covered with her makeup if he'd had sex with her? She told me they didn't, and that she's still a virgin. I bet Troy is, too. He's a double virgin, because he's going around lying about not being one."
Bobby looked disappointed. "Oh," he said. "All right, then." He grabbed my hand and pulled me back out the door and led me back to class. As we got closer to our classmates, he began panting like he was out of breath, and I followed suit.
As he slipped into his chair, he kissed the back of my hand and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Those were some great Svedish meatballs."
I slipped back behind my own desk and said, "And that was a very spicy Italian sausage."
"We have to do that again sometime," he said.
"Anytime, Bobby, anytime."
By then, Mrs. Sheridan was walking back toward the class and wanted to know where we had been.
"Just out in the hall," Bobby said innocently.
"I don't want you leaving the class without permission again," she said.
We promised we wouldn't and said we were sorry. We liked Mrs. Sheridan a lot, because she was very sweet and we knew she wouldn't write us up, even if she was irritated with us.
When I saw Bobby last week, he looked like a middle-aged Italian businessman instead of the hot young Italian stud that I didn't have sex with in the boys bathroom when I was 16. He's put on some weight, and his black wavy hair has turned solid silver on either side of his head. Still, his smile is the same and he is just as gregarious and charming as ever.
He didn't seem the least bit offended when I saw him and said, "Oh my God, it's Bobby the Wop!"
"In the flesh," he said, and we hugged.
I wonder if he remembers not having sex with me that day, or if I am just one of many girls in high school that he pulled into the restroom and didn't have sex with? I was particularly impressed with that chivalrous kiss he gave me on the back of my hand after all we didn't do. While he may no longer be the young hot Italian guy that I remember from school, I still like him. Back then, I said, "Anytime, Bobby, anytime," and I meant it. If he ever decides on a whim that he wants to drag me into a public restroom and not have sex with me for old time's sake, I'd gladly not do it with him all over again.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
We had so few kids of Italian ancestry in our school that none of us knew what the word meant, so we went to the most reliable source of word definitions that we knew of: our English and Creative Writing teacher, Mrs. Sheridan. The incident stands out in my mind because she looked so uncomfortable, but seemed to feel that her obligation as a teacher meant she could not duck the question. She hesitated, opened her mouth, and then hesitated again. She looked at Bobby, who sat smiling at her in the middle of the classroom. She looked at the rest of us, who all sat bent forward with our heads cocked, ready to learn and expand our vocabularies.
Mrs. Sheridan took a deep breath and said slowly, "It's an ethnic slur for Italians, kind of like spic is for Hispanics."
The class let out a collective, "Ohhhhh" of understanding. We had enough Hispanics in our school know what spic meant. We also know that wop was the kind of word that Bobby could call himself, but that the rest of us needed his permission to use, and then only if we were saying it with a smile. We took it on faith that by running his campaign for class president on a platform of wophood, he had kind of given us group pass to use the term, if only in reference to him. Bobby was not a wop, he was the Wop.
"Why are you calling yourself a wop, Bobby?" one of the more sensitive and concerned kids asked.
"Why not?" Bobby said with a shrug.
"I'll vote for you," I said. To the mind of a 16 year old, audacity is every bit as important as leadership skills when it comes to electability. I can't recall if he won the election or not, but I'm convinced that he should have.
At the time, Bobby was an exceptionally good-looking guy, with chiseled features, warm olive skin, dark expressive eyes, and wavy jet-black hair. He was the king of the drama department – he got all the lead male roles in every production – which meant that his role in the social stratus of the school was to be as outrageous as he could get away. As a drama guy, Bobby's reason for being was to push the limits and entertain his peers.
The other thing I remember about Bobby, besides his election campaigned built around an ethnic epithet, is the day that we didn't have sex in the boys restroom outside of the English department.
We were in Mrs. Sheridan's class again, but she had left the area to talk with another teacher. I say "area" and not room, because our school was built as an experiment during the 70's and most of it was open concept, meaning that desks and tables were set up around the floor in little groups as if there were walls around them, but there weren't any. This arrangement has its perks, as you could wave at and toss notes on paper airplanes to your friends in other classes. The summer before my senior year they retrofitted the school and we all returned that fall to a building with walls and hallways between all of the classes. Those of us who had never been in such a school before were leery of this change, and worried that we would feel claustrophobic. We got used to it pretty quick, but it seemed very strange to find our wide-opened world suddenly partitioned off into little boxes.
That day, for some reason my own ethnic background came up in conversation, and I mentioned I was mostly Swedish.
"Sveedish?" Bobby asked in a very bad fake-Swedish accent. He leaned in close and lolled his tongue out at me. "Vill you let me leek your Sveedish meatballs?"
I slipped into a bad Italian accent to answer him. "Only if you give-ah me some-ah your Italian sausage," I said.
Mind you, this was the innuendo-laden banter, free of all expectations, that can only happen between virgins. For some reason, nobody loves sexual innuendo more than people who have never had any actual sex.
"Okay, you're on," said Bobby, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of my chair. Together we ran through the open class area, Bobby dragging me by my hand while I waved goodbye to our creative writing class as I stumbled after him. He took me out into the hall and into the boys bathroom, where he pushed me against a wall and began to interrogate me about a piece of hot gossip that was going around.
"So," he said, "Did Troy Jones really ball Mandy Smith last Saturday night?"
I made a face of disgust. Mandy was known around school as my best friend, but only because I could not figure out how to make her go away and stop telling people that she was my best friend. She wore layer upon layer of makeup foundation on her acne-plagued face, which only made the acne worse and had a tendency to melt and congeal by the end of the school day. That previous Saturday she had gone to a function and had spent some time outside talking alone with Troy, who she found sympathetic but not attractive. After they went back inside, he told everyone else that she and he had sex during the 10-minute interlude they were gone. She was very upset about the whole thing.
"No," I said, "Don't you think he would have been covered with her makeup if he'd had sex with her? She told me they didn't, and that she's still a virgin. I bet Troy is, too. He's a double virgin, because he's going around lying about not being one."
Bobby looked disappointed. "Oh," he said. "All right, then." He grabbed my hand and pulled me back out the door and led me back to class. As we got closer to our classmates, he began panting like he was out of breath, and I followed suit.
As he slipped into his chair, he kissed the back of my hand and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Those were some great Svedish meatballs."
I slipped back behind my own desk and said, "And that was a very spicy Italian sausage."
"We have to do that again sometime," he said.
"Anytime, Bobby, anytime."
By then, Mrs. Sheridan was walking back toward the class and wanted to know where we had been.
"Just out in the hall," Bobby said innocently.
"I don't want you leaving the class without permission again," she said.
We promised we wouldn't and said we were sorry. We liked Mrs. Sheridan a lot, because she was very sweet and we knew she wouldn't write us up, even if she was irritated with us.
When I saw Bobby last week, he looked like a middle-aged Italian businessman instead of the hot young Italian stud that I didn't have sex with in the boys bathroom when I was 16. He's put on some weight, and his black wavy hair has turned solid silver on either side of his head. Still, his smile is the same and he is just as gregarious and charming as ever.
He didn't seem the least bit offended when I saw him and said, "Oh my God, it's Bobby the Wop!"
"In the flesh," he said, and we hugged.
I wonder if he remembers not having sex with me that day, or if I am just one of many girls in high school that he pulled into the restroom and didn't have sex with? I was particularly impressed with that chivalrous kiss he gave me on the back of my hand after all we didn't do. While he may no longer be the young hot Italian guy that I remember from school, I still like him. Back then, I said, "Anytime, Bobby, anytime," and I meant it. If he ever decides on a whim that he wants to drag me into a public restroom and not have sex with me for old time's sake, I'd gladly not do it with him all over again.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 10:43 pm (UTC)I just love reading your anecdotes!! They make me smile when the kidlings are making me boil. :P
*HUGS*
no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 11:30 pm (UTC)I loved it!
Date: 2007-11-20 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 12:56 am (UTC)I really love your story. I like how you just left class without permission, hehe.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 02:28 am (UTC)I loved this.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 08:04 am (UTC)(I did notice one tiny typo, though. The part in the bathroom where you say "...where he pushed me again a wall and began to interrogate me..." - I think that was supposed to be against. =)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 03:35 pm (UTC)Re: I loved it!
Date: 2007-11-21 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 03:39 pm (UTC)I have to confess, I was enough of a goody-two shoes that I would not have left class without permission except that I was being dragged by a cute Italian guy to the boys restroom so we could pretend we had sex in there.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 03:48 pm (UTC)You couldn't pay me enough money to be a teenager again. Well, 18 and 19 were kind of cool, but even then I was dumb enough to think I had it all figured out.
Nothing wrong with nerds. I hung out with band and drama kids; does it get any nerdier than that?
*hugs back*
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 04:00 pm (UTC)Nope. I never want to be a teenager again either.
Nothing wrong with them. Greg's hoping that all 3 girls will be nerds...but for all the wrong reasons (so boys won't like them. ;P)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 07:22 pm (UTC)