Birds And Bees Aren’t People

All cities are small towns in the sense that your neighborhood, your school, and your church are your community regardless of how many neighborhoods, schools, and churches the city may contain. This is particularly true for a youngster who is still depending on his feet or a bicycle for transportation. If you live in a blue-collar neighborhood your neighbors will know you and your parents. People of that social-economic class are the ones who attend PTA meetings and participate in little league, the scouts, and other organizations set up for their children. Being known by your neighbors can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how much mischief you get into. Do not throw rocks unless you are doing it with a kid whose dad replaces windows for a living. Most of your neighbors are pretty practical about who they are going to blame. If they see you and him throwing rocks, they will want to blame him rather than you for the broken window.

Kenny was twelve. He was too young to be worldly, but he was too inquisitive to be as innocent as his youth would suggest. The city where he lived seemed large to him, but it was getting smaller all the time. This apparent shrinkage was merely his perception caused by a change of perspective. It was a comforting indication that the world becomes smaller and less mysterious as one grows up. He preferred to walk to school rather than riding his bicycle because walking gave him more time to interact with the other kids walking to school, particularly the girls. He was attracted to the girls even though they did not share many of his interests. He knew why this was so, but since he had not entered puberty the attraction had not translated into an urge at this point. This is not to say that he did not get erections. In fact they were becoming fairly frequent. It was really embarrassing when he had one and the teacher called on him to do a math problem or something else at the blackboard. His teacher ignored the protrusion, but the giggles from his classmates told him they noticed it. The erections were a mystery. He knew what they were for, but it is not like he was having sexy thoughts when he got them. So why did the damn thing act like it was trying to poke its head through his pants to see what was happening outside? He thought there should be a mental switch to raise it and lower it when appropriate. Apparently, it did not work that way.

The other facets of the male world were a lot less confusing. Males love sports. Whether you are watching or competing, you can usually share sports with your father and other males. Men spend a lot of time talking about sports. The barber shop is the best place to go if you want to know what else they talk about. Men will talk about almost anything at the barber shop. The two subjects the barber tries to discourage are religion and politics. People get too emotional about both. Kenny could understand why people get emotional about religion. You believe what you believe, and you do not want someone saying you are full of it when you cannot prove they are full of it. Why people get emotional about politics was not so clear. It seemed to him that there were two things you should ask about any political candidate: “Will he do what he says he will do? Should he do what he says he will do?” His father told him there was very little in human experience that was new. That is why we study history. Kenny thought you should be able to look back in history to see if and when a proposed action or something similar was tried and how it worked out. Perhaps people get upset about politics because some politicians mix religion with their politics. The other, and, Kenny thought, the more likely reason for people getting upset about politics is that politicians say such terrible things about each other. He wondered why people were so inclined to believe the bad things they hear about people they do not even know.

School was out for summer vacation. Kenny had just finished eating his breakfast. His mother was looking at him critically.

“You need a hair cut,” she said.

“But I’m meeting some of the guys to play baseball at the park.”

“Then you should get your hair cut now so you’ll be back in time to do that.”

She had a point. He still had several hours before the other kids would be at the park.

“Okay.”

His mother dug through her purse and sighed. She did not have the money for his hair cut. “Well, tell the barber your father will be in to get his hair cut this afternoon, and he’ll pay for both hair cuts then.”

Kenny got on his bicycle and rode to the barber shop. The place smelled like cigars and the powder the barbers used to dust their customers after cutting their hair. Normally, Kenny did not mind waiting at the barber shop until a barber was available to cut his hair. In fact, he liked it because there were magazines there that appealed to him. They were not girly magazines; they were sports magazines and adventure magazines. The adventure magazines contained some very interesting stories, and they were not magazines he could find elsewhere. There were two barbers at this shop, and only one of them had a customer in his chair. This meant that Kenny could get his hair cut and make it to the park in time to play ball. The available barber, Barry, agreed to cut Kenny’s hair. Barry did not seem to think that waiting for payment was a big deal. This might have been because his business had slowed down lately. Electric hair clippers were frequently advertised on television. They were supposed to be easy to use. You simply placed the attachments over the blades to cut your hair to the desired lengths. The pitchman assured his audience that they could get professional results in no time at all.

Kenny sat down in the barber chair.

“Who’s your favorite baseball player,” Barry asked as he started cutting.

“Mickey Mantle.”

“Isn’t he an Okie?”

“I don’t know, but he’s a great player.”

“He’s from Oklahoma, just like me.”

“Do you know him?”

“No, but I like him.”

An upset teenager now walked into the shop. It was easy to see why he was so upset. It looked as though someone had shaved off a large swath of his hair just above his forehead.

“My little brother removed the attachment from my clippers when I was answering the phone, and I did not notice it until it was too late.”

This made Kenny laugh. It also made Barry laugh. Kenny finally stopped laughing, and Barry started cutting his hair again. Then Kenny had a thought that was even funnier. The only thing the barber could do to correct the accident was to skin off all the teenager’s hair. The teenager would have been as well off if he had left the attachment off his clippers and finished the job himself. The fact that that did not occur to the teenager was understandable. Most people are going to panic when they see a large hole in their hair, and their instincts are going to tell them to have it fixed by someone who is more competent than they are. Kenny’s laughter was now making the other barber laugh, and production at the barber shop ground to a halt until everyone regained their composure. That was when another gentleman entered the shop.

“Hello, Barry.”

“Hi, Frank. Just back from Vegas?”

“Yeah, I had a great time.”

“How’s your wife?”

“Better than nothing. How’s yours?”

Even the distraught teenager laughed at the comment.

“That’s great line,” Barry said. “Did you hear it at one of the shows?”

“Yeah. This gal, Rusty Warren, is really funny. I even bought her record album. It’s called Knockers Up.”

Kenny quickly guessed that “knockers” was another name for boobies. He had not heard anyone call them knockers before, and he found it funny. He could picture women literally bumping into things with them.

The men at the barber shop did not discuss sex, but they sure joked about it. Most of the jokes were not explicit; instead they contained innuendos the men did not think the children would understand. Children, however, hear the more explicit sexual references on the playground and elsewhere. There are even references to sexual acts in the bible. It does not take long for kids to realize what adults are talking about. They might not understand it, but they certainly know about it.

Kenny was glad that his parents let him take the sex education class at school. The subject was confusing enough as it was. There were obviously some things the class did not cover. His teacher said people have sexual intercourse to have babies. Yet, the other comments and jokes Kenny had heard told him that adults do it because they enjoy it. The teacher also described sex as an act of deep love. Yet, the other comments and jokes Kenny had heard told him adults will have sex with people they hardly know. Was the teacher wrong or was he simply leaving out a lot of information? And why did Kenny get erections for no apparent reason? Was his penis simply exercising itself so it would be ready when called upon?

Kenny also wondered why some parents would not let their children take the sex education class. Like religion and politics, sex was a subject that upset people. It was not a subject you were supposed to talk about. But what if his teacher was right? Was sex evil even if it produced babies? Was it evil even if it was an expression of deep love? Kenny wanted to resolve those contradictions but that was not important at the moment. It was time to play baseball.

First published in macsbackporch.foxtail-farms.com on Jul. 20, 2010