When Billy Berries, age 9, needed good advice, he would always look for his friend Caplooey, age 10. In Billy’s mind, age was connected to how big you were. So the bigger you were, the older you were, and the older, the smarter. Billy, himself, was a little tall for his age and felt smart enough for it, but at 6-feet-3, 400 pounds, Caplooey was the wisest kid Billy had ever known. And it was only Caplooey’s wisdom that Billy needed that day.
Billy found Caplooey coming off the end of the Dirt Path, which was less a path and more a large, wooded, vacant dirt lot bordered by Fairfax Street, where the two boys lived, on one side and a construction company rental lot on the other. The construction company never locked anything up, so Caplooey liked sneaking onto their lot to see how many trailer generators he could start before the workers chased him off.
Caplooey was sweaty from running from his latest attempt at besting his record but stopped on the Fairfax Street side where Billy caught up with him.
Through, his panting, Caplooey bellowed, “Dude, that was fucking awesome. Seriously, you shoulda seen me turn on those motors. Those guys were so pissed!”
Billy smiled, not brave enough yet to turn on any generators of his own. He wasn’t big enough yet, though he aspired to the day when he could follow Caplooey onto that rental lot. The two friends walked down the sidewalk toward their houses. Billy dropped his question while Caplooey caught his breath.
“Caplooey, we’re learning about the sex education in school. Do you know about the sex education?”
“First of all, dude, it’s just sex. You sound like a dweeb when you call it the education. And second of all, sex is totally awesome!”
“But I heard it was for making babies.”
“No, dude, it’s the best. First you take the girl’s clothes off, and then she tells you to stick it in –“
“The peter?” interrupted Billy.
Caplooey slapped Billy’s shoulder, “The peter, the jubblies, all of it, dude. You stick it in and you just start doing it.”
Caplooey stopped, looked into the sky, closed his eyes and started swinging his fat in gentle circles, ending each round with a thrust into the air that rippled his fat.
“Dude, when you stick it in, the girl is supposed to say, ‘oh baby’, and it’s like fire!”
Billy cringed. “Wait, what, there’s fire?! And where do you put it in? Do you put it in the butt, because isn’t that where the mommies poop out the babies? Why is her butt on fire?”
Billy’s questions were cut off by the voice of James Earl Jones booming the full length of Fairfax Street.
“Caplooey, get your ass home!”
It was Caplooey’s mom. She only had the voice of the actor, but not the face. She was so ugly, she had to buy new hair curlers every day because the old ones would straighten out when they saw the hairy moles growing on her brown teeth. She was also the only woman Billy figured was big enough to be able to have pooped Caplooey out of her butt.
“Caplooey, get home and clean your pig-shit room or I’m taking away your Metallica for a month!”
“Don’t touch my fucking tapes, Mom! Fuck, dude, I gotta go home,” and Caplooey bounced down the street and into his house where Ugly Earl Jones beat him through the front door with a rolled-up Vogue.”
Billy crossed the street toward home and wondered why anyone would ever put their peter into a fire. Even after everything had been fully explained during sex education class at school, Billy was still confused because no mention of fire had ever been brought up. And he knew there was no point in asking the teacher, Mrs. Grinell, about the fire, because she was shorter than Billy.
