johnthebaptist

The skull of John the Baptist sleeps in a wicker basket in one corner of my basement, like a cherished cat. I stole it from an old lady who plays pipe organ at the church up the hill. She kept it in her Victorian house, upside-down on her armoire. She stored her costume jewelry in it.

On September 29 of last year I snuck into her bedroom while the old bat was snoring. I silenced her hounds with some pigs' feet, then pilfered the skull off her dresser and tipped on out. In the sickle moonlight, Old John seemed to smile. Thank the lord, free at last.

When she discovered the skull missing she called up a howl that roused every mutt in the Northern Hemisphere. It sounded like an air-raid siren going off in Berlin during the Allied bombing. The earth missed a heartbeat and birds hid in gopher holes.

When I heard her screech I leaped for joy. I had already turned the corner for home. I climbed into the belly of the wind, and rode back to my shack, clutching the treasure like a precious stone.

Sometimes I take the skull out and set it on my desk, next to the computer. On those rare occasions when my own head isn�t too full of itself, if I listen very carefully, old John�s pate occasionally wishes a word with me.

Last night we had quite a chat. It went something like this.

Once upon a time -- before I fully realized what was being done to the children of this land -- I wanted to be a schoolteacher.

Kids like me, I like them. There�s a part of my personality which is spontaneous and child-like, and I have no qualms about, say, falling to the ground in front of a bunch of little 'uns, waving my legs in the air, and playing the Dead Bug Game.

First, I volunteered to work in a low SES (Socio-Economic Status) primary school, as a reading tutor. The kids were magnificent, absolutely famished for interaction with a male, and thrilled at the special attention. The teachers and administration were a mixed bag � not very bright, but oh so docile. Some, it must be said, went well beyond the required, giving generously of their own time and money.

But quantity cannot replace quality. Unfortunately, they exhibited little independent thought, and invariably transmitted the culture�s dogma, including the psychotic, regressive Grrrrl Power Agenda.

I was 4.0 in the Master�s Program in Education at the nearby university. One had simultaneously to breathe and grow hair to get As. After all, we wouldn�t want to Offend anyone through the patriarchal inequity of earned rewards.

Then I worked as an aide at another primary school, again low-SES, this time in a �special-ed� first-through-third-grade module. That�s where they dump the uppity little males they can�t otherwise coerce or drug. None of these boys had a strong male presence in the household � or in their lives at all. Strong male presences have pretty much been wiped out in America.

Again, the kids were all over me, even the hardest-case boys, some truly damaged little beings. When they figured out that I was going to accept, limit and guide them despite their �inappropriateness,� they loosened right on up. On the playground at recess, while I was busy breaking up fights between boys � those wonderful, aggressive little monsters � a coterie of little girls would follow me around, my daily munchkins, clutching my pantlegs, holding my hands, rushing up for hugs, giggling. Part of this behavior was simply a natural, child-like outpouring of affection, but part of it also expressed the peculiar kind of emotional, tactile, and sexual denial that America deems healthy, and useful, in its children.

My popularity caused a moderate amount of ill feeling on the part of some faculty, although others paid no mind. The male principal, for example, was ecstatic to have me there � I kept the violence on the playground low. No tackling on the blacktop -- same rules I played by. One less headache for him.