Careless Talk: Jennifer Crocker

I cannot remember whether it was third or fourth grade, only that I did not know what sex was. Only that it involved kissing and nudity with someone whom you "liked," and that it was to be desired. When I said what I said, I wonder if in part I was throwing a line out there, begging someone to say something about sex that would clear it up for me? What I said to Seth Gleaves and some others at the lunch table that day (I believe that it was in the Fall) was: "I want to have sex with Jenny Crocker." Again, I really had no clue. Like maybe we would kiss for awhile naked and then at a certain point we would "have" sex. . . "having" being like consuming something. . . did I picture the climactic action as something like eating a parfait together? What would we "have" together? And yet I knew the language of "having" proper to sex; I didn't say "I'm gonna do a sex with her," or "We're gonna do sex to each other." I knew the grammar, but not the meaning, or even a half-adequate image. But I said it. The kids around me were shocked. They couldn't believe that someone they knew -a peer, no less- was going to have sex. Well I was, it was settled. Made up my mind. I was not aware of the predatory tone of this claim, but Seth was (did he know something I didn't? Did he get "the talk" long before I got the news of what it really was?) Seth scrambled to the other end of the lunch table and sat across from Jenny Crocker and her mom, Betty Crocker, who was eating at school with Jenny that day. I've never had much luck with timing (not that there's ever a good time for a child to voice their naive, rape-esque plans). I can remember Seth's face. As he reported my words to Jenny and her mother, he had a look on his face like he was revealing the secret plot of a criminal to a policeman. I don't remember being that nervous regarding what her response might be. I still didn't know what sex was or why it was a big deal, really. I thought knowledge of it was suppressed because it was something like doing a backflip on a trampoline: fun, but dangerous, and therefore inadvisable (and perhaps there's some truth in that). When lunch was almost over, Betty Crocker got up to leave and as she passed behind me leaned down and said in my ear (loudly, not whispering), "You just keep your ideas about sex to yourself, mister!" Which wasn't perhaps the most constructive response. I feel that I should have been taken very seriously, or not seriously at all. She should have addressed it more directly. I should have gotten in a shit-heap of trouble. But it was enough to keep me from talking about sex anymore until fifth grade, when I talked about it every day and still didn't really know what it was.