The Boy From Sears (story) (Patreon)

The Boy from Sears
by Joey Comeau

I was more nervous than I expected, pulling the stolen address book out of my book bag. William took it and laid it open on his bed, holding his finger on the first page. My mother had the telephone number for every kid in my class written in that book, their parents' first and last names penciled above. I picked the cordless phone off up the bed and handed it to William.

"Prince Albert in a can?" he said. I shook my head no.

"Refrigerator."

The first name in the book was Rick Jong, Margaret's father. I tried to calm my breathing as William dialed. We sat in silence while it rang, leaned in close to the receiver, our heads pushed together. After a moment, a man answered.

"Mr. Jong?" I said, making my voice as deep as I could. "This is Sears calling. We were wondering, is your refrigerator working?"

"Yes, it is." Mr. Jong said. "Why?" William pinched my arm.

"Running." He whispered at me. "Is his refrigerator RUNNING. Not working."

"Running!" I said into the phone, twisting away from his pinch. I wasn't going to be able to make it without laughing. "Is your refrigerator RUNNING?" I asked, laughter choking the last word. There was no answer from Mr. Jong. I just wanted off the phone. "Then you'd better go catch it!" I said as loud as I could.

I shoved the phone into William's hands, and shook with laughter. "Hang it up!" I said. "Hang it up!" but William just rolled on the bed, still holding the phone, laughing harder and harder. He shook his head no. He lifted the phone again.

"Mr. Jong?" He said, imitating the deep voice I had made. "Is your refrigerator working? Is your refrigerator operating properly? THEN YOU'D BETTER GO AND CHASE IT DOWN THE ROAD."

I grabbed the phone.

"Mr. Jong?" I said, my voice serious again, deep. "Mr. Jong, are you there?" I could hear his TV over the phone, his wife in the background asking "Who are you talking to?" I remembered that he was a librarian. I could picture him, standing behind the desk at the downtown branch of the library. "What's a clitoris?" I asked, and William laughed so hard that he had to bite a pillow.

Mr. Jong hung up on me.

"What's a clitoris?" William said, still laughing. "Oh man." He leaned over the address book, and dialed the next number. "Hello," he said, his voice deepened, "I'm calling from the Sears Department Store. What's a clitoris?" He held his hand over the mouthpiece as he laughed, his whole body shaking. And then he was suddenly quiet. "What?" he said, into the phone.

I leaned closer, trying to press my ear to the receiver, but William pulled away.

"Is that true?" he said, and then he nodded. "Okay," he said. "You too." He hung up the phone slowly, and turned to me. "Do you want to hear something weird?" he said, and that was how it started.

Later that week we heard the principal's son, Carl, telling a joke to the kids behind us in class. I wrote the whole joke down, word for word, and that night we called Jim Peters, Sarah's father. It rang twice, and Sarah answered. I shoved the phone at William, and he tried to shove it back at me. I disguised my voice.

"This is Sears calling." I said. "May I speak with your father, young lady?" William pressed his ear to the receiver, too. Mr. Peters answered and I said, very calmly, "Good evening Mr. Peters. I am calling from the large appliance department at Sears. I wonder, could you please tell me what the following joke means?" and I read the joke, word for word.

Jim Peters was silent for a long time, and we sat there on the bed, leaning together in anticipation. William balanced himself, his hand on my leg. Jim Peters laughed.

"I haven't heard a joke that dirty in years," he said. "Shouldn't your dad be answering that question for you?"

"But what does it mean?" I said, my voice normal, undisguised. William's door opened and we jumped apart, the phone falling on the bed between us. I grabbed it and hung it up quickly, leaving Jim Peters to explain 'fisting' to the dial tone.

"Dinner," William's mom said, smiling.

Later that night I woke to hear William whispering on the phone. I rolled closer to the edge of the bed, pretending to be asleep. He was sitting on the floor in the dark, the phone cradled in his shoulder.

"But if I pretend that I don't care, why would she say yes?" he said. "No, Mrs. Jennings, I just don't understand." Mrs. Jennings was another name in the book, Tara's mother. Why was William calling her without me? "And am I allowed to," he trailed off. "Well, how will I know?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and rolled away from the phone. I pulled the pillow over my head and I lay there with the crowded silence of the pillow in my ears until I felt him crawl back into the bed beside me, head to toe. He shifted, fidgeting with the blankets.

Monday morning, on the bus to school, I heard the boy ahead of me telling his friends that Sarah, Jim Peters' daughter, had sucked him off behind the school. They all laughed, and I laughed along too, completely confused. I pulled a notebook from my backpack and I wrote down "sucked off?" in the back. At school I went looking for William's locker.

"We could ask Mr. Dreyfus," I said, after I'd read it to him. He shook his head.

"You call," he said. "I'm going out tonight. I asked Kelly to go to a movie with me." I smiled as wide as I could and said that sure, I could call Mr. Dreyfus by myself. It wasn't any problem. I don't know if he even heard me, turning to watch Kelly walking down the hall.

"Hey," I said. "What movie are you gonna go see?"

That night Mr. Dreyfus answered on the first ring. I sat on my bed, my door closed, my notebook open in front of me. Downstairs, my mother was watching television.

"I'm calling from Sears," I said, the deep voice almost natural now. I cleared my throat. "What does suck off mean?"

He hung up on me. I put the phone back on the hook, and then picked it up again. When I called back, it rang three times before he picked up.

"Yes?" he said, and I cleared my throat again.

"I'm calling from Sears again." I said. "I think we got disconnected."

"I'll call the police," Mr. Dreyfus said. "You can't just call people up with your obscene phone calls. There are laws. Do you want your mother to know that you're a pervert?"

"I just, I just honestly don't know what it means." I said. "They don't teach this."

"Why would they teach sucking off in school?" he said. "That doesn't seem appropriate."

"How would I know if it's appropriate?" I said. "I don't even know what," But he'd already hung up again. Outside a bus drove past, and I picked up the phone.

The next name in the book was Patricia Thompson. I dialed the number and I wondered if William was sitting in the dark theatre. I wondered if he had kissed her yet. A woman answered the phone.

"I'm calling from Sears," I said, opening my notebook to the questions that I'd written in the back. "I was wondering if you could tell me what it means when someone says they got sucked off?" There was silence, and then a laugh.

"That's when someone takes someone else's penis in their mouth," She said. "It's called oral sex. Oral means in the mouth. It's sex with a person's mouth I guess."

"Oh." I said. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then I flipped to the next page in the notebook. "Is it okay if I ask you a couple more questions?" I said.

THE END