Joe Johnson
- Measurements Day (1987)
Marco was the only boy in Home Economics. He was the boy who could sew. Back then, in the ’80s, people—even teachers—used harsh words about such boys. Especially gym teachers. They would call him a “fruit,” though they did not use that word. They would say, “You run like a girl.” When gym teachers said those things, Marco ran fast to show he was a regular boy.
But Marco kept going to Home Ec. The girls were kind. They practiced tying ties on him. Sometimes they even walked around class with their shirts half-buttoned. Marco didn’t tell the other boys this for fear they would colonize Home Ec.
He also didn’t mention Ms. Watson. She didn’t look like other teachers. She wore glistening blouses and scooped collars. She could’ve been a TV newscaster.
One Wednesday, Ms. Watson paired off all the girls for Measurements Day. Marco was the odd number, so Ms. Watson said, “I’ll be your partner.” She said measurements were different for boys and girls. She told Marco, “For today, we’ll measure each other like girls.” Marco was thankful no gym teachers heard this.
Ms. Watson said, “You’ll take four measurements,” and handed Marco a paper slip. She showed him how to hold a fabric tape. She said, “You put the metal tip on the highest point of my shoulder and run it across my back to the highest point of my other shoulder.” She said, “Go ahead.” Marco stood behind her and traced the tape, shoulder to shoulder. But he glimpsed the plummet of Ms. Watson’s neckline. He had never seen so many freckles. His fingers trembled as he wrote on the paper slip.
The next measure said Bust. Ms. Watson said, “We’ll skip that today.” Marco felt both relieved and cheated. He asked what he should write on the slip. Ms. Watson said, “Put thirty-seven.” After that, whenever asked his favorite number, Marco said, “Thirty-seven.”
Ms. Watson said, “Now, the under-bust.” The tape would need to run around her mid-section. Ms. Watson said, “Here.” Marco leaned in. With his left arm, he guided the tape past her belly and relayed it to his right hand on the other side. He lifted the loop gently. Marco did not mean to, but his thumb grazed the boundary between under-bust and bust. Wonder pulsed through Marco like hunger and space travel.
Ms. Watson did not flinch. She said, “Now my waist.” She pressed her finger into her abdomen and said, “This is where my belly button is. That’s your reference.” She lifted her arms as Marco wrapped around her. Marco found the spot and tightened. He said, “Twenty-seven.” But Ms. Watson said, “I think it’s twenty-five.” Marco strained the tape to twenty-six, but he said, and wrote, “Twenty-four.” Ms. Watson said, “That’s good.”
She touched her fingertips to her hips like signaling exits on an airplane. “Last one,” she said. “Around the widest points.” The room stirred with the other girls, measuring and talking. But Marco watched the tape. He slipped it softly around Ms. Watson’s hips, as if they were made of clouds.
Marco was fever-warm. His lips parted, and his jeans stiffened.
Ms. Watson said, “Your turn now. We’ll start with the shoulders and work down.” Marco faced the wall, away from Ms. Watson. He cupped his hands against the front of his jeans and whispered to himself, “Please. Not now.”
From behind, Ms. Watson pressed her thumb into the boy’s left shoulder, slid her fingertips across his back, and pushed on the other shoulder. When she pulled the tape away, her breath brushed Marco’s cheek and fell scented like cotton candy. Marco pressed his hands flat against his zipper.
Ms. Watson said, “Lift your arms.”
Marco didn’t move.
Ms. Watson said, “Lift them and hold your chest out.”
Marco lifted as Ms. Watson lassoed him. She closed the tape around Marco’s bust. She cinched tight at his under-bust. Marco closed his eyes to remember each touch as if studying for a test.
Marco returned his hands over the fly of his pants. He pressed, but stopping the bulge was as futile as squeezing popcorn back into a kernel. Ms. Watson said, “I can’t get your hips with your hands in the way.”
Marco said, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m so sorry.”
Ms. Watson straightened and said, “Turn around.” Marco didn’t turn. She said, “Turn, and stand tall.” Marco turned, but not tall. Ms. Watson fixed on him, eye to eye, and said, “Lift your chest with confidence. Hands at your side.” Marco dropped his hands. He breathed deeply. His belt tightened. Ms. Watson said, “There’s nothing wrong with you, Marco. You’re a normal boy.”
After Measurements Day, the gym teachers still called Marco a fruit. He was the boy who could sew. But Marco no longer ran fast to prove he was a regular boy. Instead, he held his shoulders firm. He carried his hands to his sides and lifted his chest as he walked sure, like a girl.
- Forever Young (1969)
Bobby Johnson boarded his first airplane on June 15, 1969, in Seattle. He was nineteen. He landed on June 17, just south of Bangkok, still nineteen. Somewhere in the air around the International Date Line, his birthday, June 16, never happened.
The Army barracks in Thailand rested a safe distance from the Vietnam border. They were made of fresh lumber and new canvas, and Bobby Johnson found his bunk. The soldiers around him talked about where they were from and said places like Dallas and Los Angeles. They asked Bobby where his home was, and he said, “You wouldn’t ever heard of it.” They said, “Try us,” Bobby told them, and they said, “You’re right. Never heard of it.”
The soldiers took Bobby into the city that night to welcome him to the war. The commanding officer said, “Stay in groups.” Bobby walked where the city soldiers walked, and he drank what they drank. At a bar overrun by GIs, Thai women in short dresses and slender legs swarmed. They looked younger than nineteen. Bobby watched the city soldiers squeeze the Thai girls close. The soldiers frisked the women like military police. Bobby asked how the soldiers knew the Thai girls so intimately.
Philadelphia said, “The girls just love Americans.”
Houston laughed and said, “They love American dollars.”
Bobby didn’t get the joke. Maybe it was city humor, because back home, men didn’t treat women that way. Those girls were sisters and daughters. He said to Houston, “Do Thai girls like to be touched like that?”
Houston said, “Johnson, you ain’t in Bumfuck no more. This is the city.”
Detroit held a woman on his lap. She drank from his beer. She smiled and spoke in broken English. Her words sounded mimicked and out of order, like a parrot.
Bobby said, “Guess I just don’t understand the city.”
The woman on Detroit’s lap cheered like she had won a prize. Detroit said, “You just gotta enjoy life, Johnson. You’re only young once.”
Bobby didn’t tell Detroit he would be nineteen forever. Maybe the Thai women were that way, always young forever. They smiled and bounced because they would never age. Or maybe they were just so happy to be in the rescuing hands of American men.
- The Town Gay (1946)
My great uncle, my grandfather’s older brother, was the town gay. For most men of his sort in small towns in the 1940s, this was a difficult way to live. But Great Uncle Thomas, so my grandfather said, was an educated and strategic man, a doctor. After some young men at a bar had cut him with a broken bottle, Thomas held a private meeting with the mayor, the sheriff, and the pastor of the Presbyterian church.
The meeting was closed-door, so it was anyone’s guess what was being said inside. My grandfather said the townspeople whispered theories. Most figured that Great Uncle Thomas, having been cut up, learned his lesson and would try to stop being a homosexual.
But my grandfather was in the room. He told me that, no, rather, Great Uncle Thomas had convened the meeting. He wanted to help the town understand it ought to be thankful that he, Thomas, was the way he was. Great Uncle Thomas asked those powerful men whether they thought it was fair to believe that about one in every five hundred men might have his “predilection.” They agreed that, yes, they supposed that’s probably a fair number, give or take.
So, Great Uncle Thomas noted that the town had about a thousand people. Roughly half of those were men. He reasoned that if the town knew who its homosexual was, it was free to suppose the 499 other men were not that way.
The men decided Thomas had a good point, my grandfather said. It was better to have a town homosexual who seemed so clearheaded about his affliction and, as a doctor, did his part for the greater good. After that meeting, Great Uncle Thomas had no further violence in his life. He lived long in his town and served the people well and was invited to baptisms and weddings.
The years passed without scandal, and Great Uncle Thomas died in his sleep on the eve of his eighty-first birthday. His funeral was well attended by an overflow of the townspeople. They loved their doctor. The minister said it would be hard to replace Thomas; he did so much for the town. And when the minister said this, a cold wind blew through the cemetery. My grandfather called it, “A wind of knowing.” Yes, Great Uncle Thomas would need a replacement.
The townspeople fidgeted and squirmed, as if taken by a great unease. They understood everything Thomas had given for their town. Then each of the men stood a step closer to their wives, of those men who had wives. The rest of the men looked around the graveside at the leftover women. Those men murmured to one another. Then they said to my grandfather how dearly they would all miss my Great Uncle Thomas.
Joe Johnson lives in Portland following a lifetime in the Yakima Valley among the hills and river and growing things. His writing has appeared in Catamaran, the Santa Clara Review, and X-R-A-Y, among others. He won Peatsmoke Journal’s fiction contest and Carve Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award.
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash