jackboots – only joking!) My waitress spoke no English at all and I had the most extraordinary difficulty getting myself understood. I asked for a beer and she looked at me askance.
‘Wass? Tier?’
‘Nein, beer,’ I said, and her puzzlement grew.
‘Fear? Steer? Queer? King Leer?’
‘Nein, nein, beer .’ I pointed at the menu.
‘Ah, beer ’, she said, with a private tut, as if I had been intentionally misleading her. I felt abashed for not speaking German, but comforted myself with the thought that if I did understand the language I would know what the pompous man at the next table was boasting about to his wife (or possibly mistress) and then I would be as bored as she clearly was. She was smoking heavily from a packet of Lord’s and looking with undisguised interest at all the men in the room, except of course me. (I am invisible to everyone but dogs and Jehovah’s Witnesses.) Her companion didn’t notice this. He was too busy telling her how he had just sold a truckload of hula hoops and Leo Sayer albums to the East Germans, and basking in his cunning.
When he laughed, he looked uncannily like Arvis Dreck, my junior high school woodwork teacher, which was an unsettling coincidence since Mr Dreck was the very man who had taught me what little German I knew.
I had only signed up for German because it was taught by a walking wet dream named Miss Webster, who had the most magnificent breasts ever and buttocks that adhered to her skirt like melons in shrink wrap. Whenever Miss Webster stretched to write on the blackboard, eighteen adolescent boys would breathe hard and let their hands slip below the table. But two weeks after the school year started Miss Webster departed in mysterious circumstances – mysterious to us anyway – and Mr Dreck was drafted in to take over until a replacement could be appointed.
This was a catastrophe. Mr Dreck knew slightly less than bugger-all about German. The closest he had come to Germany was a beerfest in Milwaukee. I’m sure he wasn’t even remotely qualified to teach the language. He taught it to us from an open book, running a stubby finger over the lines and skipping anything that got too tricky. I don’t suppose he needed a lot in the way of advanced degrees to teach junior high school woodwork, but it was clear that even there he was operating on the outer limits of his mental capabilities. I learned more German from watching Hogan’s Heroes.
I hated Mr Dreck as much as I have ever hated anyone. For two long years he made my life hell. I used to sit during his endless monotone lectures on hand tools, their use and care, genuinely trying to pay attention, but after a few minutes I would find my gaze romping around – thirty-six adolescent girls, all wearing little blue pleated skirts that didn’t quite cover their pert little asses – and my imagination would break free, like a dog off its lead, and scamper playfully among them, sniffing and panting around all those long, tanned legs. After a minute or two I would turn back to the class with a dreamy leer tugging at my lips to find that everyone was watching me. Mr Dreck had evidently just launched a question in my direction.
‘Pardon, Mr Dreck?’
‘I said what kind of blade is this, Mr Bryson?’
‘That’s a sharp blade, Mr Dreck.’
Mr Dreck would emit one of those exasperated sighs that stupid people reserve for those happy occasions when they chance upon someone even more stupid than they, and say in a wearied voice, ‘It’s a fourteen-inch Hungarian dual nasal borer, Mr Bryson.’ Then he would make me stand for the rest of the hour at the back of the room holding a piece of coarse sandpaper to the wall with my nose.
I had no gift for woodwork. Everyone else in the class was building things like cedar chests and ocean-going boats and getting to play with dangerous and noisy power tools, but I had to sit at the Basics Table with Tubby Tucker and a kid who was so stupid that I don’t think we
‘Wass? Tier?’
‘Nein, beer,’ I said, and her puzzlement grew.
‘Fear? Steer? Queer? King Leer?’
‘Nein, nein, beer .’ I pointed at the menu.
‘Ah, beer ’, she said, with a private tut, as if I had been intentionally misleading her. I felt abashed for not speaking German, but comforted myself with the thought that if I did understand the language I would know what the pompous man at the next table was boasting about to his wife (or possibly mistress) and then I would be as bored as she clearly was. She was smoking heavily from a packet of Lord’s and looking with undisguised interest at all the men in the room, except of course me. (I am invisible to everyone but dogs and Jehovah’s Witnesses.) Her companion didn’t notice this. He was too busy telling her how he had just sold a truckload of hula hoops and Leo Sayer albums to the East Germans, and basking in his cunning.
When he laughed, he looked uncannily like Arvis Dreck, my junior high school woodwork teacher, which was an unsettling coincidence since Mr Dreck was the very man who had taught me what little German I knew.
I had only signed up for German because it was taught by a walking wet dream named Miss Webster, who had the most magnificent breasts ever and buttocks that adhered to her skirt like melons in shrink wrap. Whenever Miss Webster stretched to write on the blackboard, eighteen adolescent boys would breathe hard and let their hands slip below the table. But two weeks after the school year started Miss Webster departed in mysterious circumstances – mysterious to us anyway – and Mr Dreck was drafted in to take over until a replacement could be appointed.
This was a catastrophe. Mr Dreck knew slightly less than bugger-all about German. The closest he had come to Germany was a beerfest in Milwaukee. I’m sure he wasn’t even remotely qualified to teach the language. He taught it to us from an open book, running a stubby finger over the lines and skipping anything that got too tricky. I don’t suppose he needed a lot in the way of advanced degrees to teach junior high school woodwork, but it was clear that even there he was operating on the outer limits of his mental capabilities. I learned more German from watching Hogan’s Heroes.
I hated Mr Dreck as much as I have ever hated anyone. For two long years he made my life hell. I used to sit during his endless monotone lectures on hand tools, their use and care, genuinely trying to pay attention, but after a few minutes I would find my gaze romping around – thirty-six adolescent girls, all wearing little blue pleated skirts that didn’t quite cover their pert little asses – and my imagination would break free, like a dog off its lead, and scamper playfully among them, sniffing and panting around all those long, tanned legs. After a minute or two I would turn back to the class with a dreamy leer tugging at my lips to find that everyone was watching me. Mr Dreck had evidently just launched a question in my direction.
‘Pardon, Mr Dreck?’
‘I said what kind of blade is this, Mr Bryson?’
‘That’s a sharp blade, Mr Dreck.’
Mr Dreck would emit one of those exasperated sighs that stupid people reserve for those happy occasions when they chance upon someone even more stupid than they, and say in a wearied voice, ‘It’s a fourteen-inch Hungarian dual nasal borer, Mr Bryson.’ Then he would make me stand for the rest of the hour at the back of the room holding a piece of coarse sandpaper to the wall with my nose.
I had no gift for woodwork. Everyone else in the class was building things like cedar chests and ocean-going boats and getting to play with dangerous and noisy power tools, but I had to sit at the Basics Table with Tubby Tucker and a kid who was so stupid that I don’t think we
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