April Fool

by: Joan Hitz

One morning in 1963, my mother, hearing a noise, became convinced a stranger had entered the house to steal her one-year-old from the playpen. She rushed to the living room to find that baby ... me ... whistling.

I am told that, as a baby, the production of noise was so valuable to me that I worked on perfecting this early whistle until such time as I could make real words.

Words. 

Words have gotten me out of, and into, trouble, pretty much since becoming aware of them (at birth) and starting to use them (shortly thereafter).

Like viruses, bacteria, fleas, and other things that thrive on multiplicity, words - my words, anyway - demonstrate an ability to reproduce themselves at a compound rate that’d knock the argyle socks off Warren Buffet.

But here’s a story of only two words - two words which played a starring role, onstage, in my first flimsy attempt at remedial juvenile rebellion.

To explain: Having spent kindergarten through eighth grade as a non-cursing, rule-following, homework-doing handraiser, by ninth grade, fearful that I was somehow missing out on the good things in life by being so ... well ... good, I decided to wrap up junior high by learning how to be ... bad.

My rebellion made its debut one April evening during a meeting of the Brennan Junior High School PTA. This meeting featured a theatrical performance by the ninth-grade drama club.

The play: Nathan Hale, American Patriot. 

The role of “Nathan” was played by a lanky dark-haired boy who I was one day going to like. My role, “Zeb,” was Nate’s loyalist friend who was furious at Nate’s treason to the Crown. (For this male role, the director had me hide my long hair inside a high-collared jacket.)

In my scene, I was to storm into Nathan’s prison cell while shouting one simple phrase about his treasonous spying: “You fool!”

I enjoyed practicing this line. For weeks, I’d storm around my house, bursting in on family members, sputtering, “You fool!” (My family couldn’t wait for the actual performance, so Nathan could get hanged and have it over with.)

I couldn’t wait either. I had my line down pat, all ready to enter, stage right, and blast Nathan. “You fool!”  

And then ... enter M*A*S*H. Two nights before the play, with the fervor of an American patriot, I watched and memorized my favorite TV show. A language lover, I’d hear and look up lots of new words from that wonderfully written program. 

And that very week, Hawkeye spouted, “You ... impetuous ... fool!” 

Whoa ... Dictionary! 

Impetuous: impulsive, passionate ...

Hey! I could use that in the play ... 

Like a total criminal mastermind, I could commit my first shocking act of rebellion - not tell the director - and “ad lib” the word “impetuous” into the corny script of the PTA play.

Too cool! Thursday night, I’d trash my good girl image, yank open Nate’s cell door and shout, unscripted, “You ... impetuous ... fool!” 

So cool. So bad. (My ideas about rebellious behavior had far to go.)

So did my memorization skills. Thursday night, while three hundred parent and faculty eyeballs honed in on me, I stormed in under the hot white lights, honed in on Nathan and ... forgot my line.

(You fool.)

What was it? What WAS it?

(You fool, Prisoner Nathan mouthed.)

Ten silent seconds. Twenty. The words were gone. The original ones, the “ad lib.” Where was Hawkeye Pierce when you needed him?

And so, I, Zeb, British Crown loyalist, schoolgirl aspirant to the Kingdom of Bad, really did ad lib that night. Desperately. Into the blackened theater of three hundred waiting grown-up ears, I opened my mouth like the gaping maw of a Tory cannon, and fired two, really bad, expletives. 

Which expletives? How bad? Let us suggest, gracefully, that these particular expletives invoked the Lord’s damnation of the posterior exit point of Nathan Hale’s body. 

Oh, Zeb. You ... fool.

Exit, stage left.

Into the arms of my great friend, John, who, hugging me, smiled supportively while gleefully banking the memory, forever, of me, cursing, during the PTA play. John also endured a second barrage, into his chest, of every existing curse I knew (about twelve, at the time) as I exhaled the sum total of suppressed expletive matter from my conforming non-cursing past.  

At the after-theater snack reception, I slunk among parents, teachers and school board members, obscuring my face behind a large cookie, while an imaginary cartoon bubble hovered above me. It featured two words, and neither of them was “impetuous.”

No matter. Zeb lived, to turn fifteen, sixteen, then seventeen.

At the cast party following our senior play, “Zeb,” full of wine instead of cursewords, kissed “Nathan Hale.” And in that impetuous moment, all acts of treason were forgiven.