Storymania - Bad Boy by Richard Koss

Bad Boy
Richard Koss

"He’s a bad boy and I don’t want you associating with him." That’s how most of our parents felt about Frankie back then, when I was twelve. Using today’s standards of evil, he’d probably be considered a wimp. He didn’t do drugs (there were none) or bring guns or knives to school, or threaten to kill anybody. There were no cults or rock groups in those days either; and our only idols were movie stars and sports heroes. We didn’t have computers, no internet, no VCR’s or DVD’s, or porno flicks and Hustler type magazines. Hard to imagine isn’t it? The boys in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades at St. Christine’s amused themselves by playing baseball and football in vacant lots and fields after school, trading comic books and baseball cards, and doing homework, lots of homework. Most of the families didn’t even have television sets and if they did, there wasn’t much to watch in 1950. Sounds boring doesn’t it? So what the hell could a twelve-year old kid do to be considered a bad boy?

First of all, you have to know that Frankie was twelve going on thirty. Barely an average student, he was nonetheless, very worldly wise. Frankie taught most of us about the birds and the bees and "rubbers." (He used to laugh at the little pale balloons washing up on the beaches of Lake Erie.) How he managed to acquire such carnal knowledge and learn about a variety of other subjects considered taboo by the Catholic Diocese and the Franciscan nuns, was a mystery to most of the other parents (as well as his own) in this predominantly Catholic neighborhood.

We didn’t know what it was then, but Frankie definitely had charisma. His influence on the other boys could be seen in the way we dressed (or tried to dress), how we combed our hair, and in our vocabulary. He even made up words that we all used like "crusted out," an expression I still hear kids use today. I really think he originated it. He wasn’t very big or the toughest kid in the school, but he was a natural leader and with the exception of some of the nuns and the old priest, no one questioned this strange control he exercised over the rest of us.

Frankie was never bored because I’m sure he spent every waking moment plotting and planning something devious or fiendish. Like a guy named Clinton, the girls thought he was cute too, and everything he did was for his own self-gratification.

By the seventh grade, he had taught most of the boys the techniques of masturbation. The nuns made us go to communion at least once a week, so we had to go to confession frequently because masturbation was considered a mortal sin. One Saturday afternoon, Frankie came early and stood near the front of the long confessional line of mostly students and a few older parishioners. He looked back at the boys behind him in line and you could see the smirk on his face, almost as if he were pleased with himself for being able to corrupt so many.

Instead of saying we jacked off, the priest insisted we refer to masturbation as "abusing ourselves," so when Frankie got in the confessional, he said, "My last confession was one week ago - I used God’s name in vain, disobeyed my parents, and abused myself." Well, that wasn’t good enough for the old pastor of our parish. He insisted on knowing how many times you did it. Frankie tried to disguise his voice and mumbled back in a whisper, but the old priest knew most of our voices, especially Frankie’s. Impatient when he couldn’t understand him, the priest got louder, "How many times?" Frankie mumbled something again and the priest came back even louder, "HOW MANY TIMES?" There was silence. Now the old man was really shouting, "HOW MANY TIMES, I SAID?" Frankie finally got mad and yelled out, "THIRTY- THREE!" This infuriated the priest and he yelled back, "THIRTY-THREE TIMES IN ONE WEEK? WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU? ARE YOU CRAZY?" By this time, everyone in the church heard them and we were laughing so hard the red-faced nuns were giving us dirty looks from their pew.

I’ll never forget the time Frankie and some of the other kids began selling punch boards. These were cards with perforated circles on them. Each circle cost a quarter and had a girl’s name inside it. After the board was all sold out, the larger, center circle, containing the winning name was punched and the person with the matching name won a prize. Well, Frankie already knew the winning name because he cheated and peeked at the name in the center circle, then glued it back on the board. Somehow, Frankie, or one of his relatives, always ended up with the winning name, so he made money selling the chances and usually ended up with the prize. This time it was a Brownie camera. When Frankie brought his camera to school to show the other kids and take pictures, Sister Martha said, "Frank, when you use up the roll of film, give it to me and I’ll get it developed. Then we’ll show the pictures to your classmates and post them on the bulletin board . Who knows, maybe you’ll be a famous photographer someday." ……Right! Little did Sister Martha know what Frankie had on his mind.

Frankie liked to watch dogs fucking. Sometimes after school, he’d say," Let’s wait for Buster and watch him fuck Shoo Shoo." There was no dog pound in our little city, so there were a lot of stray dogs roaming around school yards and any other place they could find scraps of food. Frankie had names for all these dogs and Buster was his favorite, because he was always horny, chasing the females around, trying to fuck them. Buster also had lots of scars because not all the females he mounted were in heat. Each day after he got his camera, Frankie would wait in the school yard for Buster and take pictures of him fucking Shoo Shoo and the other dogs. It seemed like Buster knew Frankie would be waiting for him because he came around just after three every day, when school let out. After Frankie finished the roll of film, he gave it to Sister Martha. A week later, the pictures were ready and she gave Frankie money to pick up the pictures on his way home from school. We both went together to pick up the pictures. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that I was Frankie’s right hand man and we were almost inseparable in those days. I think I was the only boy in the class he ever confided in or whose opinion he respected, and that was only on rare occasions. Anyway, we sat down at the soda fountain counter to look at the pictures. I watched him as he viewed them with fiendish delight. There were a couple of blurred ones, where the dogs were running away from Buster, but the rest came out pretty good. Most of them were of Buster fucking Shoo Shoo and a few other new ones thrown in for good measure. There were also a couple of Buster pissing against a fire hydrant. "Too bad these ain’t in color." Frankie was not completely satisfied. He examined each picture like an artist critically appraising his work. Finally, he held one up for me to admire, and while I cracked a smile, he began a sick laugh I had heard many times before. The picture showed Buster standing on his hind legs, still not quite finished, with his front paws holding air, while the female dog had just walked away from him, either bored or with no further use for poor Buster.

"You’re not really gonna show these to Sister Martha, are you?"

Frankie took that as an immediate challenge. He looked at me and smiled .

"Buster’ll be all over that bulletin board, don’t you worry."

Frankie had an uncanny instinct for taking advantage of opportunities. Sister Martha was preoccupied with other things and forgot about the pictures for a couple of days. Then, one afternoon, the old pastor called a teachers’ meeting with the nuns and our class was left unattended, to "study" while Sister Martha was at the meeting. During her absence, Linda Smith, an honor student, devoutly religious, and destined for the convent after eighth grade graduation, was left in charge of the class.

Frankie recognized the opportunity, so he approached Linda Smith with his pictures in hand. "Sister Martha said I should ask you to put these pictures on the bulletin board, since you’re so neat and I’m such a slob." The plain, quiet, girl was flattered and pleased to accept the task, so she started to pin all of Frankie’s pictures on the bulletin board. As the board became filled with the pictures of Buster and his playmates, the rest of the class started to gather around to look at Frankie’s artistry. At first, the snickering began, followed by laughter which got louder and louder. Even some of the girls couldn’t help themselves from laughing until it became obvious to poor Linda that the joke was on her. She turned red, then she started to cry from embarrassment. As Linda sat there in tears, consoled by a few of her closer friends, Sister Martha returned to the classroom, having heard the commotion from her meeting room.

Sister Martha was dumbfounded as she stared at the bulletin board. It looked like a montage of slides for an animal sexual reproduction class. "Who put these pictures on the board?" The tearful Linda started to explain to her but the nun had already begun removing the pictures from the bulletin board. "From now on, no one posts anything on this bulletin board without my permission? Is that clear class?" The students walked sheepishly back to their seats, but many were still snickering and smiling.

After class, she approached Frankie and myself before we could get out the door. "Frank, I’m very disappointed in you and you too, Richard. You’ve violated my trust in you and things will never be the same again. I’ll be watching every move the two of you make and tomorrow, I’ll have notes for each of you to take home to your mothers."

That was only one of many notes sent home to our mothers. (The nuns never bothered our fathers.) During our eighth grade year, we got so bad, that she (we had her for eighth grade as well) actually told our mothers we shouldn’t associate with each other outside of the classroom. She said we were a bad influence on each other and bad things seemed to happen when we got together. Of course, this didn’t stop us and we managed to continue to sneak around together, finding more ways to misbehave and disrupt the lives of people. I guess you could say I was his enabler. I usually felt guilty about these pranks and schemes we conjured up, but I never saw any sign of a conscience or remorse in Frankie. Maybe that’s why I always thought he was much worse than me.

At thirteen, we began smoking cigarettes and started staying out later in the evenings, conning our parents into believing we were at the public library or visiting at someone else’s house. During Lent, on Wednesday evenings, we were required to attend Benediction, a church service which finished about 8:30. A mile down the street from the church, a new senior high school was being built. The only thing finished in the school was its swimming pool and it just so happened that adult swimming classes for women were held on Wednesday nights. Somehow, Frankie discovered that the women’s shower room was located in a dimly lit corner of the front of the building set back several yards from the main street. There was a window directly above the shower room but it was about twelve feet high. No problem for Frankie. The construction workers left a lot of things lying around outside and Frankie managed to find several wooden carpenter "horse" benches which he converted into an awkward, but usable ladder. One Wednesday, The word was out and during Benediction, while everyone was kneeling and praying in the church pews, most of the eighth grade boys of St. Christine’s were smiling at each other, anxiously anticipating their first opportunity to gaze at a naked adult woman taking a shower.

At exactly 8:35 there were ten boys walking down East 222nd street towards the high school. Frankie insisted we walk in pairs or threes so as not to attract attention from the cops or people coming home from the church. It was really dark in front of the high school and Frankie led us to the side where the benches were. He found two of them but they were kind of wobbly so two of the boys had to hold the benches while we took turns climbing up for a look see. Actually, you needed two kids on the benches, because the one looking had to stand on the shoulders of the other one in order to get high enough to reach the window. Frankie was up first , naturally, and each boy took his turn, ooohing and aahhing at the parade of naked, unsuspecting women below them. Then big Leonard, the fatso of the class climbed up on Billy’s shoulders and was enjoying his view when their weight became too much for the benches. There was a loud CRACK!! as one of the legs broke and Leonard hung on to the window ledge. The woman taking a shower heard the noise too, and she looked up to see Leonard’s face, eyes opened wide, staring down at her. The woman yelled "Oh my God!!" and Leonard let go and jumped all the way down from the window. " Oh shit!! She saw me," and with that, everyone panicked and started running towards the street.

After we got a ways from the school, we split up into small groups and went in separate directions, heading home. Leonard was nervous and babbling continuously. He knew Frankie was really pissed at him. "You fat asshole, you really screwed it up for us. Now they’ll probably have flood lights in front of the place and the cops’ll be watching out too."

Leonard was still breathing hard. "Yeah, well I got a bigger problem. That was Billy’s mom taking a shower and I know she recognized me."

Frankie said, "Did she have big tits?"

Billy, who was walking with us, yelled at fat Leonard. "You saw my mother naked? You son-of-a-bitch. She knows I was with you. I’m gonna get killed."

Frankie and I couldn’t stop laughing while Billy was almost in tears and Leonard continued babbling. "What if your mom tells my mom? Ohhhhhh shit!" It turned out that either Billy’s mom didn’t recognize Leonard or she was too embarrassed to admit it. But that was the last time we got to watch the women shower. Frankie was right. They put big floodlights in front of the building and a shower curtain over the window.

Even at that young age, It was obvious to me that Frankie was preoccupied with sex, ever eager to increase his awareness and share his experiences with others. When his older sister and her husband were first married, they moved in with Frankie and his parents, until the couple could afford to buy their own home. Late at night, Frankie would somehow sneak into their bedroom and crawl under the bed, taking in all the sounds of nocturnal bliss. The following day, he would give us a reenactment of their sexual adventures, complete with all the moans, groans, and screams of delight. I can still hear him mocking his sister. "Fuck me harder. Oh Harvey!"

There are so many other tales of Frankie’s spent adolescence, but then I’d have to turn a short story into a novel just to get half of them in. It was always something new with him. Hanging out in the little drug store, pricking holes in packages of condoms or casually dropping a lit cigarette into the overcoat pocket of some old pervert reading girlie magazines, laughing as the smoke billowed from his pocket. Was he bad? Was he sick? He certainly wasn’t your everyday kid growing up in 1950. I stayed in contact with him until he moved to Minnesota in 1980. We were never as close as we were in grade school. Ultimately, Frankie indulged in three bad habits simultaneously, any one of them enough to shorten the life of most men - drinking, gambling and women. Eventually, his charisma, his friends and his charmed life deserted Frankie. They found him in the back room of a bar. He weighed barely a hundred pounds. Not a very nice ending, even for a bad boy.