by Grace Brackenridge
Coach LeBeau, the dark-skinned, short-haired, 20-something muscular PE coach, breaks up the locker-room catfight with a thundering, "Stop this instant!"
Miss Patch, the 40-something department head of nutrition and exercise, joins us minutes later.
She listens disapprovingly to the 'she said/she said' stories. Then she leaves with Coach LeBeau to call the principal.
When they return, Coach LeBeau carries the Board of Education.
"What about her?" asks Coach LeBeau, pointing her long, wicked paddle at me.
"Me?" I squeak. "I just tried to stay out of the way. I didn't do anything. Please Miss Patch!"
"Apparently Grace," Miss Patch tells me without much conviction, "you're to be included."
My face is ashen, my expression stunned.
"I'm afraid, dear, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Earlier That Afternoon
Everything happened so fast. Tensions were high on the soccer field, even though it was just a silly little game in our PE class.
Undressing in the locker room, Bertha used the N-word, which we all know is cool because Bertha is African American.
But then Jennifer used the N-word, which everyone knows is NOT cool, because Jennifer is white AND she's got an Oklahoma accent, making matters worse.
Bertha slapped Jennifer first. In less than 15 seconds, Bertha, Jennifer, Doreen, and Alice - members of different cliques - had all slapped each other at least once.
"Come on," I pleaded. "Can't we all just get along?"
I take off my gym clothes and walk timidly to the showers, fighting tears.
So terribly unfair! I'm thinking. I am so good all the time...
"Well, look who's here," chortles Bertha with a wicked display of large white teeth. "Little miss smarty pants. Teacher's pet. 'Bout time you learned YOU ain't so special."
"Shut up, Bertha!" Coach LeBeau tells her. "All of you get your butts nice and wet and your palms flat on the bench. Pronto! Schnell!"
The showers run the length of both walls. A 15-inch wide bench, supported by a series of steel poles bolted to the floor, runs down the center of the girl's shower room.
The five of us stand with our legs apart, bent at our waists and palms flat on the bench, our bottoms properly beaded with chilly droplets, soon to boil from the heat below the skin.
Bertha makes smart remarks to Alice, like she doesn't care. But we're all nervous with anticipation.
"Arch your back, Bertha!" commands Coach LeBeau.
Bertha sticks her big bottom out...
WHAP!
The cracking thunder of wood against wet skin echoes off the shower walls like a gunshot.
Bertha makes a grunting sound.
In the silence afterwards, water drips from the showerheads, echoing as they splat on the tile floor.
Coach LeBeau's gym shoes squeak on wet tiles as she steps down the row.
The steam from our collective showers hangs in the air and in our nostrils, commingled with the slight stench of funky mold.
Drip, drip, drip. Squeak, squeak, squeak.
Jennifer is next.
We all hear a quick pat-pat of the Board of Education...
Coach calls these 'prep pats', letting us girls know where the stroke will land. Although this is my first direct experience with a paddling in the gym shower, I know about 'prep pats' from the urban legends that are whispered among the girls at our high school.
These painless paddle pats sound ominous against Jennifer's wet cheeks, amplified by the cavernous shower room of tile and concrete.
Jenn gasps, frightened.
WHAP!
A sharp, short squeal escapes her lips but her palms remain pressed to the bench.
Doreen is next in line.
Drip, drip, drip. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Pat, pat.
"Oh!"
The rest of us can tell that Doreen is on the ragged edge and not at all in control of her emotions...
WHAP!
"Aieee-eee-eee!"
"Hold your stance, Miss Jones! Unless you want extra."
Doreen releases her cheeks and puts her palms back where they belong on the bench.
Bertha and Jennifer snicker.
Doreen Jones has shamed herself by crying out and breaking stance. This will be talked about behind her back for weeks to come.
Now Alice.
Drip, drip, drip. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Pat, pat...
WHAP!
Alice is stoic and makes no sound at all.
Now it's my turn.
My heart pounds. My breath is deep and shaky.
Drip, drip, drip. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Pat, pat.
I arch my back and stick it out, just like Bertha did. Like everything else at school, I try my best to do the right thing.
I close my eyes, clench my teeth, and try to make my naked body relax.
WHAP!
Jesus! Oh Jesus! I think to myself.
But the only sound that escapes from me is a jet of compressed air through my nose.
What comes next is a cruel ritual, designed to terrify.
I feel it's a form of legalized torture approved BY the Board of Education, applied WITH the 'Board of Education', but serves no educational purpose.
Coach LeBeau's shoes squeak ominously on the wet floor.
She walks slowly and deliberately behind the line of wet bottoms, each cheek with its own red oval left behind by the paddle stroke.
Coach stops occasionally to squeeze a handful of tushy, remarking, "That's going to bruise nicely."
Each additional swat is harder than the one before.
Doreen begins to cry on the second stroke.
Jennifer, Bertha, and I begin to cry with the third stroke.
Alice breaks down on the fourth stroke.
As Coach walks slowly down the row - squeak, squeak, squeak - applying her brutal closing stroke, all five of us cry uncontrollably.
I sob as I take the last of five. Nevertheless, I arch my back and stick it out.
I want to do the right thing, no matter how much it hurts.
Coach tells us to stand under the showers and cry till we regain our composure.
She whistles Polly Wolly Doodle as she returns to her office.
The squeaking of her wet shoe soles recedes.
Her door closes with a bang.
Five girls - two black and three white - sob. The walls reverberate with weeping and the sound of cold spray against burning bottoms.
The smell of funky mold wafts up from the drains, made more acutely pungent in our nostrils by the burning flow of clear, thin snot.
I cry for myself. I cry for all of us.
I sit uncomfortably through trig and social studies. The burning, throbbing, stinging sensation in my pantyhose breaks my concentration.
During study hall, Mr. Jamison calls me to the front office.
When I arrive, the secretary directs me into the inner office.
"The newspaper will look great, Grace," the principal tell me with a smile. "I like your photo feature."
He has the page proofs of the student newspaper spread out on his desk.
"Thank you, sir."
"Look, Grace, Miss Patch called earlier this afternoon. Apparently you were involved in some kind of a fight in the girl's locker room."
"Yes, it happened next to me, sir."
"Miss Patch said she didn't think you were involved. And what with you being an honor student, editor of the school paper, chairman of the student diversity committee, and all that, she asked if she should exempt you from corporal punishment."
I nodded.
"I told her no," he tells me, his eyes fixed on my face, reading my expression. "I told her to let Coach LeBeau discipline all five of you."
"Yes, sir."
I blink back tears. Of course, I'm not about to complain or anything. But I do feel misunderstood and - yes - a bit mistreated.
"I owe you an explanation," Mr. Jamison smiles. "First, I know you weren't involved in a catfight. It's not your style."
I blink and nod, trying to keep my face expressionless.
"Second," Mr. Jamison continues, "I thought it was important for you to realize that good work in life won't always get you out of some of life's unpleasant situations."
"Yes, sir."
"Third, I wanted you to realize that sometimes, life is very unfair."
I blink back tears.
"I wondered why Miss Patch didn't protect me," I say when I can speak without choking up. "At least I'm glad she believed me."
"It's a painful life lesson, Grace. But it's an important one."
"Yes, sir. Thank you for believing I wasn't in the fight. I really did try to make them stop."
He smiles and nods. "Yes, I'm sure. I do want you to go see Nurse Lopez for an examination."
Even though my buns ache, I tell him, "I'm okay, Mr. Jamison."
"Sorry, Grace. It's necessary. For the school's protection."
"You will experience some discomfort over the next several days, Grace," says Nurse Lopez, pulling off her rubber gloves. "You're an easy bruiser."
My panties and pantyhose down in back, I try looking over my shoulder.
"Your bottom just looks bad," she assures me. "No permanent injury. Don't worry if it takes some time to return to normal coloration."
Ms. Lopez picks up a digital camera. "Bend forward, Grace. Hands on your knees."
"But my bottom..." I protest.
"Yes, yes," she says testily. "It's exposed. That's the idea. We need it for our legal records. You know how litigious some parents are these days.
Flash!
"I want you back each day for continuing digital documentation," the school nurse tells me. "We'll take pics till all the bruising is gone."
Two weeks later, Mr. Jamison calls me into his office.
I'm thinking he wants to congratulate me on the scholarship I just won: all tuition paid for the next four years at the University of New Mexico.
But Mr. Jamison never even mentions it.
"Grace," he says, "I understand you keep a scrapbook."
I nod. "I like to keep track of my accomplishments."
"I had these printed up for you," he says, passing a manila folder across his desk.
I sit down and leaf through the seven digital photos that Ms. Lopez took of my bruises.
I'm embarrassed and humiliated, of course. But there's another emotion beneath the surface.
I admire the shape of my pert bottom, despite the Day 1 ugly purple bruises that morph in a series of color prints to black. My bottom is back to its natural, pristine creamy tone in the Day 8 photo."
"Day 2 looks worse than Day 1," Mr. Jamison remarks. "Is there a story behind that?"
Apparently, my school principal has carefully scrutinized the photos of my bottom. I blush.
"Yes, sir."
He sits across from me, slowly rocking in his high-back executive chair.
"That's because of my step-dad," I explain as the silence becomes awkward. "I told him the reasons why I was paddled. He felt he needed to follow-up. Mom disagreed and it looked like they were going to quarrel."
I smile and blush. "So I sort of volunteered. It seemed like the right thing to do."
"Did your step-father spank you on the bare?"
"Yes, sir, he did."
"Over the lap?"
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