Chapter 7 – Head of the Class (or What Did I Kneed?)

Ask my best friends if I am an idiot and I’d wager that most of them, after a brief, polite pause would say something like, “Yeah, he’s an idiot. Nice guy, but you wouldn’t believe what I seen him do this one time.” And while this story certainly will not prove that I am an idiot. It should prove that back in 1970 I definitely had the makings of one.

I can’t remember ever wanting to be the smartest kid in my class. Or the hardest working. Or even the most popular. I just wanted to be the funniest guy in the class. Okay, so maybe I wanted to be the funniest so I would be the most popular, but back in the 6^th grade I was not consciously aware of that connection. I wanted to be so funny that the entire class would burst into hysterical laughter at my shenanigans. So funny that the teacher wouldn’t even punish me for disturbing the class or being mean. Because face it – if you’re committed to improvisational comedy at every given opportunity, there are times when someone besides yourself is going to have to be the butt of the joke.

And speaking of butts, how horrible of a person do you have to be to try to get a laugh with shenanigans that involve a nun’s butt? At the time, not so horrible. In retrospect, there must be a special place in hell for someone who would do such a thing. So one day, as per usual, I’m the last kid to enter my homeroom classroom. And since my desk is at the far end of the room, I have to walk behind Sister Ann Carmena who was standing at her lectern in the front of her 6^th-grade class, patiently waiting for me – the last of the stragglers – to take my seat. And due to my comedic predisposition, as I entered that room I did not see a roomful of 12 year olds. What I saw was an audience. An audience waiting to be entertained. By me. But a few impediments presented themselves to the commencement of an impromptu comic performance: 1) I’d have to do it without the benefit of words, sound effects or music – or risk getting caught and punished. 2) I’d have to perform while walking across the front of the room. And 3) I’d only have a couple of seconds to pull it off.

But then the idea came to me like a lightning bolt from heaven. And as I passed behind the good Sister, I paused for an instant and raised my right leg, thigh parallel to the floor, and pointed my knee at Sister Ann Carmena’s butt, visualizing the accolades I was about to receive in the form of stifled laughter – just as she glanced over her shoulder to see me frozen in time and space, standing two feet behind her, with my knee, poised in mid-air, pointed at her butt. With my heart in my throat I wondered how in the h-e-double-toothpicks I was going to worm my way out of this one, when the sky opened up and a second lightning bolt struck, prompting me into action.

I stepped through and set my right foot on the ground, took a normal step with my left leg, and I pulled my right leg up, pausing in pointed-knee position. Set right foot down. Normal step with left leg. Right leg to paused, pointed-knee position. Step right foot down. Normal step with left leg. Right leg to paused, pointed-knee position. Seven, eight, nine times – all the way across the room to the perceived safety of my desk. The good Sister never said a word. She just slowly shook her head back and forth, from side to side, perhaps wondering if a single saint in heaven had ever dealt with such lunacy, while I busied myself, adopting an utterly unconvincing air of nonchalance.

Sister Ann Carmena, along with 40 other witnesses, had seen the entire thing, from my pantomime knee-to-butt, to every step of that long, painful, hitch-in-my-giddyup walk to my desk. But she didn’t say a word. And for over 40 years I’ve wondered what that saint of a Sister was thinking when she caught my improvised nano-performance. Perhaps it was: “Does that Klenn boy have a neurological disorder that causes involuntary muscle spasms?” Or maybe: “Is he trying to measure the distance from the front of the room to his desk?” Or possibly: “I really need to have a talk with that boy’s Mother.”

But all I know is that Sister Ann Carmena was too nice to be thinking what I would have been thinking had I been in her place, which would have been: “Man, that Klenn kid sure is an idiot!”

And for the next couple days, all the kids at school gave me a wide berth in the hallway. Not because they were afraid I’d try to knee them in their butts. But because they weren’t sure if being an idiot was contagious.