Jim's writing

Don't ever send your kids to a private boarding school.

Mine sent me, that's why I'm so screwed up. The Kenneth Burnsby School for Boys was nothing but a manufacturing plant for robots. I just thank God that I overrode my programming during high school. But the early years I spent marching single file, like all the machines, eating the same polite little way all the other machines did, and giving "Yes, ma'am/sir" responses to every question I was asked by the big machines. The only kid I know of who resisted programming that far back was Eddie Panetti.

Maybe Eddie was a jerk, but maybe that's what it means to be free-to be able to act like a jerk.

Eddie Panetti made everyone laugh, he made everyone cry. He was everything you go to the movies for, right in your bunkroom. He was defiant like James Dean and disgusting like dead baby jokes. Sometimes you liked him and sometimes you detested him.

One of his jokes he told me was, "What's green and slimey and slides down your neck?"

"I don't know," dumb old me said.

"I dunno either but ya better wipe it off, 'cause I just flicked it on ya!" He'd snort like a pig with his gross laughter and I'd feel like puking.

Mrs. Berflannigan didn't take kindly to Eddie at any time. She wasn't a fan of the hi-jinks of the black-haired kid. She fed him and made sure he didn't kill himself, but everyone knew she would prefer it if Eddie's parents had been transfered to the Arctic Circle.

The most famous of Eddie's complaints was about the food. He could always turn the most delicious dish you ever laid eyes on into a thought that would call your lunch up. His favorite comparisons were to boogers and some unknown substance he referred to as "buttcrust".

The mere mention of the word buttcrust took me on my way to the bathroom, where I would chant a prayer to the great white porcelain god. Eddie would laugh his pig-snort chuckle and Mrs. Berflannigan would yell at him.

"Eddie Panetti!" she would shout. "You stop that! Eat your (fill in the blank) or you'll not get a smidgen of food ever again!"

"Don't get my hopes up!" Eddie would scream at her, then laugh. Everybody else laughed as well, and that really yanked Mrs. Berflannigan's cords.

"Go to your room!" Berflannigan roared. Eddie would march off, laughing and accepting cheers from the audience of ten-year-olds.

The worst incident in the Panetti-Berflannigan war was, if I remember correctly, the Battle of the Spaghetti Dinner. Berflannigan had cooked up some fine pasta and sauce with big meatballs and served it to us all. Eddie was the only one not at the table, so she called for him.

I must interrupt here to tell you that Eddie Panetti's one weak spot was his rhythmic name. He gave a kid a shiner once when he sang his name in a baby voice. "Eddie Panetti! Eddie Panetti! Eddie Panetti!"

Mrs. Berflannigan's words were surely not meant to sound as funny to us as they did, or as cruel to Eddie, but they came out all the same.

"EDDIE PANETTI, YOUR SPAGHETTI'S READY!" she creeched.

Eddie Panetti emerged from the dark hallway with the look of an angry gunfighter on his face. It was high noon and he was going to gun down that old Berflannigan.

"There you are!" said Berflannigan. Eddie's expression didn't change. "Sit you down and have some spaghetti."

"I don't want no booger-brand spaghetti!" Eddie shouted. Berflannigan's wrinkled brow fell over her eyes.

"Eat your spaghetti, Eddie Panetti!" Every one of us except for Eddie died with laughter. Eddie looked at us like we were traitors.

He took a plateful of spaghetti from the table and launched it at Berflannigan. "You eat it, ya old buttcrust!"

The plate splattered orange sauce and noodles all over Berflannigan's old-lady dress and made instant stains with the oil. Four meatballs rolled to the ground and stuck there.

Berflannigan's surprised look was sculpted to one of fury. She shrieked in a voice that peeled the paint off houses in the next state.

"NO MORE EDDIE PANETTI!" she shouted. It was like he had been a torturous test sent by God, and she was now giving in.

The poor old lady picked Eddie up and held him under her arm, and keep in mind she was in her seventies. She carried him like the evening paper to the door and opened it. With an angry toss, Eddie Panetti was thrown from the Kenneth Burnsby School for Boys.

Berflannigan stormed over to the phone, muttering under her breath, "No more Eddie Panetti," and dialed the Panetti household from memory.

"Mr. Panetti?" she said into the phone. "This is Ruth Berflannigan. Come and pick up your boy. He'll be out front."

Mrs. Berflannigan sat in an old chair and sighed happily all evening.  She was fired the next day.  Both her and Eddie Panetti disappeared from our lives forever.

The End