MR. DEAL’S WORDS OF WISDOM

(from EVERYTHING I LEARNED ABOUT SEX BEFORE I TOUCHED A WOMAN)

Mr. Deal spent his twentieth year keeping the bench warm as an alternate defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks, then married rich, bought a Mercedes convertible, and moved to Toronto to become a junior high school gym teacher. He was a thickset, red-faced man with thinning yellow hair and dull blue eyes set over a flat, broken nose and thin lips that peeled back into a semi-toothed snarl whenever the unathletic kids, like me, held back the class.

“Fatty four-eyes,” he’d scream, “Get your flabby ass in motion!”

The class’ brightest young athletes could expect a stubby-fingered slap on the behind on their way to the locker-room where Mr. Deal kept his office in a windowless utility closet. While we changed, he’d look up from his desk and holler,

“Hey Simon! Nice abs! Keep it up,” or, “Goddamn Miller, are you hung!” or, “Tim! You better put in a few extra laps or you’re gonna have a heart attack by the time you’re twenty.” (It was rumoured that Tim had tried to hang his massive self from a basketball net).

Mr. Deal was particularly fond of contact sports—football, rugby, and dodge ball—and scoffed at the “wussy” girl sports—volleyball, softball, and gymnastics—that were mandatory parts of the curriculum. When it came time to combine the girls’ and boys’ gym classes for a month of square dancing, Mr. Deal said,

“Don’t worry men, it won’t be so bad. If you’re lucky and sly enough, you might be able to cop a feel. As in sports and life, don’t let any opportunity pass—you got some real hotties in your class.”

We were also lucky to have Mr. Deal for a month of sexual education, where he would mispronounce the scientific names of our various parts and then frustrated, close the textbook and impart his particular wisdom upon us:

1)      “There’s nothing better than being circumcised. It looks better, the ladies like it, and you don’t have to worry about no rank shmegma build-up. But for those of you poor bastards with ant-eater knobs, make sure you peel back that sucker and scrub hard.”

2)      “So, a normal man has the XY chromosomes and ladies get the XX, right? But that don’t explain no queers. Queers, you see, have a chromosome dee-fish-in-sea, so that fags get an extra X, and dykes get an extra Y. That’s why fags are hungry for cock and act and look like women, while dykes act and look like men and pine after pussy—their chromosomes are all fucked up.”

3)      “Sure, you should wear condoms—nobody wants no babies, AIDS or clap—but listen, I have to say, it just doesn’t feel as good with one on. So, what you got to do is find yourself a clean virgin girl, put her on the pill, and then screw the bananas out of her bareback, you understand?”

4)      “I want you to remember this, because it’s as true as the day I was born. Look at your fathers, grandfather, uncles, because, let me tell you: there is no such thing as a man who hasn’t cheated on his wife.”

Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Shawn Otis