Naked by David Sedaris Page B

naiveté. Like all her previous anecdotes, this woman’s story was headed straight up her ass.
    “I checked to make sure she didn’t have any candy on her hands, and then I bent down and let this little colored girl touch
     my hair.” The teacher’s eyes assumed the dewy, far-away look she reserved for such Hallmark moments. “Then this little fudge-colored
     girl put her hand on my cheek and said, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I wish I could be white and pretty like you.’” She paused, positioning
     herself on the edge of the desk as though she were posing for a portrait the federal government might use on a stamp commemorating
     gallantry. “The thing to remember,” she said, “is that more than anything in this world, those colored people wish they were
     white.”
    I wasn’t buying it. This was the same teacher who when announcing her pregnancy said, “I just pray that my first-born is a
     boy. I’ll have a boy and then maybe later I’ll have a girl, because when you do it the other way round, there’s a good chance
     the boy will turn out to be funny.”
    “‘Funny,’ as in having no arms and legs?” I asked.
    “That,” the teacher said, “is far from funny. That is tragic, and you, sir, should have your lips sewn shut for saying such
     a cruel and ugly thing. When I say ‘funny,’ I mean funny as in…” She relaxed her wrist, allowing her hand to dangle and flop.
     “I mean ‘funny’ as in
that
kind of funny.” She minced across the room, but it failed to illustrate her point, as this was more or less her natural walk,
     a series of gamboling little steps, her back held straight, giving the impression she was balancing something of value atop
     her empty head. My seventh-period math teacher did a much better version. Snatching a purse off the back of a student’s chair,
     he would prance about the room, batting his eyes and blowing kisses at the boys seated in the front row. “So fairy nice to
     meet you,” he’d say.
    Fearful of drawing any attention to myself, I hooted and squawked along with the rest of the class, all the while thinking,
That’s me he’s talking about.
If I was going to make fun of people, I had to expect a little something in return, that seemed only fair. Still, though,
     it bothered me that they’d found such an easy way to get a laugh. As entertainers, these teachers were nothing, zero. They
     could barely impersonate themselves. “Look at you!” my second-period gym teacher would shout, his sneakers squealing against
     the basketball court. “You’re a group of ladies, a pack of tap-dancing queers.”
    The other boys shrugged their shoulders or smiled down at their shoes. They reacted as if they had been called Buddhists or
     vampires; sure, it was an insult, but no one would ever mistake them for the real thing. Had they ever chanted in the privacy
     of their backyard temple or slept in a coffin, they would have felt the sting of recognition and shared my fear of discovery.
    I had never done anything with another guy and literally prayed that I never would. As much as I fantasized about it, I understood
     that there could be nothing worse than making it official. You’d seen them on television from time to time, the homosexuals,
     maybe on one of the afternoon talk shows. No one ever came out and called them a queer, but you could just tell by their voices
     as they flattered the host and proclaimed great respect for their fellow guests. These were the celebrities never asked about
     their home life, the comedians running scarves beneath their toupees or framing their puffy faces with their open palms in
     an effort to eliminate the circles beneath their eyes. “The poor man’s face lift,” my mother called it. Regardless of their
     natty attire, these men appeared sweaty and desperate, willing to play the fool in exchange for the studio applause they seemed
     to mistake for love and acceptance. I saw something of myself in their mock weary delivery, in