The Mt. View Junior High Naughty Boys' Club

In the seventh grade I occasionally hung out at recess with a handful of guys who, like myself, were essentially non-athletic. We weren't necessarily nerds, because one guy, John McReynolds, was a Fonzie type (long before Happy Days came along), and you certainly wouldn't call Fonzie a nerd. Mac was cool. The rest of us were ... nerds. I'm not sure what athletes do when they hang out in groups, because I've never been one, but in Mac's group there was just one topic of discussion: girls.

Well ... sex.

Well ... jokes about sex.

Our best joke teller was our leader, John McReynolds. I don't know where he got them, but Mac had new jokes every day and we all gathered around to listen. Maybe he had a book at home. Maybe he had a baudy father, or mother. Maybe he made them up, which is what I liked to think, that instead of doing homework, Mac went home and did his chores, ate dinner with his family, then hid in his bedroom and read Playboy and sex novels and crafted his newest masterpiece so he could have us in stitches the next day.

My favorite was "Come on, Harold, we're moving!" This was the kind of joke that all you had to do was say the punch-line and we'd all cringe and cough and chortle at the same time. It was a great joke because it had everything: the beautiful widow, the endless guilt-free sex, the butcher knife....

The butcher knife?

Okay, well maybe Mac didn't make it up, I don't know. But the joke was about this beautiful woman who lived next door to a lonely horny man. The beautiful woman was married to Harold, and every night she and Harold had sex for hours. She was insatiable. The lonely man could only look over through the window and agonize about what he was missing. One day Harold had a heart attack and died, and the beautiful woman buried him. Well, she buried everything except for her one favorite part of him -- his dick, of course. She took home this special part and nailed it to the wall. (Why she didn't secure it somewhere on her bed wasn't explained, but if she'd done that the joke wouldn't have worked.)

So every night the beautiful woman got naked and used Harold in the way that gave her the most pleasure, and the lonely man watched ... until one day the lonely man had an idea. He went to the house next door and drilled a hole in the wall, took out Harold's dick and stuck his own through the hole. When the beautiful woman got naked that night, he would be the one to experience the wonderful joy of sex with her. He grew hard and big with anticipation. Eventually the beautiful woman walked into the bedroom. She was still clothed, but walked toward the wall with a purpose. With one motion she brought the butcher knife from behind her back and slashed the lonely man's dick off at its base, and said:

"Come on, Harold, we're moving!"

Among the rest of us in his group, Mac was a revered icon of prurient wit for this and other such tales. But he was also our best listener. If anyone else had a joke, Mac wanted to hear it. Most of the guys made it a point to share something now and then, and no matter how lame the telling, Mac would laugh and slap the guy on the back and tell him to keep 'em coming, and the guy who told the joke would beam in the glow of camaraderie.

Me? I was just a hanger-on, never feeling the indoctrinating pat of Mac's hand on my back. I didn't know any jokes. In fact, although I enjoyed hearing them, much of the time I did not understand the humor. I didn't know about sex. I didn't get why a guy would want to put his dick in a woman. These days kids know everything by the time they're five, and if they don't know, they can ask and get answers. But I had a sheltered upbringing. For instance, when I was in the third grade there was a joke going around:

Q. What's a donut?

A. A pregnant Cheerio.

Even though I must have been nearly eight years old, I didn't get the joke. So I asked my mother, "What's pregnet?" and she refused to tell me. She had wanted to postpone or prevent my awareness of such things, which eventually backfired in the explosion of sexual curiosity that remains in me to this day (Tuesday).

My desire for inclusion in the joke-teller's group finally got the best of me. One day, I'm not sure what I was thinking, when Mac asked if anyone had a "good one," I said "I do." He was surprised but grinned his toothy grin and said, "Let's have it!"

What have I got myself into? I thought.

So, with all eyes on me, I started telling about this guy who had a huge dick. "It was so big that he couldn't have sex with a woman because it was just too big."

Okay, that part went well. Now, what happens?

"Yeah? Yeah?" John prompted. "Cool. Then what?" (Yes, we did say "cool" in those days.)

"So because he was really horny and couldn't find a woman, he got a couple of mattresses and stuffed ground sausage in between the mattresses, because he was so horny because he couldn't have a woman because his dick was too big to fit in a woman."

"All right, bummer," John said. (I don't remember if we said bummer in those days, but substitute the appropriate expression.)

"He put the sausage in because he kind of figured it would feel like a pussy, and he screwed the mattress. He liked it a lot and screwed the mattress every night with his big dick."

Now what? I have no idea what's going to happen with this guy. What kind of trouble have I got myself in? You see, Mac, as I said, being the joke connoisseur that he was, admired fellow story-tellers. Once you'd told a joke in his group, he had your back. You could be out on the playground and get picked on by the baseball players, and Mac would come to your defense. He didn't fight. Like Fonzie, he didn't have to. When Mac confronted them the other guys backed off and went back to their ball playing. But what would happen if you were a fake jokester? How would Mac feel about being made the fool? It had never been tried. Now here I was halfway into a joke that I had no idea how to end.

"So, he made love to the mattress. What a guy! Go on, man."

"Well ..."

I have no idea what to say. I'm doomed.

Then ... the bell rang, and recess was over. I was saved!

Maybe.

I shook my head, pretending disappointment, and started to break away from the group.

Mac wouldn't have it. "Wait, that's okay. We got time. Finish the joke."

"The bell rang, we have to go to class," I said.

"I want to hear the punch line," Mac said.

He was now not so much an appreciative listener as he was a betrayed buddy, a scorned lover. The other guys headed back to their home rooms, but even as the crowds of teens ambled past us like cattle, Mac leaned in closer, his grin morphing into a grimace, and he said:

"Go on, I'm listening. What'd the guy do?"

"Well," I started, but I had nothing. "Sorry, Mac, I can't be late." And I hurried away and went to Mrs. Pratt's room and took my desk in front of Vicki Miller, and Mac took his desk near the back of the class, and he never got to hear the end of the joke that I had no end for.

As far as I remember, I never hung out in Mac's group again, whether it was because he excluded me or because I was too embarrassed to come back. But the memory of jocus interruptus stayed with me for years. Of course it would slip into the recesses of my consciousness for lengthy periods of time, but eventually it worked its way back to the foreground and I would relive the humiliation of that seventh grade recess.

Still, I vowed that one day I'd find a punch line. It took twenty years, but finally I did. So here, in brief, is the rest of the joke:

"So every night the guy with the big dick screwed his mattress stuffed with sausage. Then one day the Jolly Green Giant happened by, and he was hungry. This guy's mattress sex toy looked like a big sandwich, so he picked it up and took a bite. 'Not bad,' said the Jolly Green Giant, 'but next time hold the mayonnaise.'"

Not as cringe-worthy as the butcher knife story, and not even as funny, but I finally had a punchline. At last I can find Mac and have closure on this whole sordid affair. So how can I get hold of him? Would he remember that day? That I hadn't finished the joke? Would he still be wondering all these years what happened with the guy with the big dick?

Even though I didn't really try very hard, I never found Mac. Maybe it's just as well. After 20 years, it's too late. The moment has passed. The laughter would be hollow, and the camaraderie a wisp of what I might have known in seventh grade, when Mac told his jokes and hung on every word of those who had a "good one" to share.

Knowing Mac, though, he might still want to hear my joke. And I'd finally get my slap on the back. Cough. Chortle.