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even though I never heard anything directly.
    Then, in the second semester of eighth grade, I was called in to the headmaster’s office for something I wrote in a book report. Even though the book I read was in Curtis Crane’s library, as well as the Ealing Public Library, apparently nobody other than kids had bothered to read the book until I wrote my report on it.
    The book was called The Chocolate War , and the copy I read belonged to my brother, Eric. Mrs. Edith Mitchell, who was the eighth-grade English teacher, assumed the book was about a candy kingdom or something. She probably thought there were magical talking peacocks in the book that shot gumballs and Sugar Babies out of their asses.
    But there were teenage boys in the book—Catholic boys—who masturbated.
    Boys who attend Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy are not allowed to masturbate.
    My father nearly lost his job because I wrote a report on a book that had Catholic boys and masturbation in it.
    Pastor Roland Duff, the headmaster at Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy, was very distraught.
    He had the school’s only copy of The Chocolate War resting on his desk when I came to his office.
    There, he counseled me about masturbation and Catholicism.
    â€œMy fear is that when boys read books such as this,” he said, “they will assume there is nothing at all wrong with masturbation, and may, out of curiosity, attempt to masturbate. In fact, Austin, it is true that masturbation has serious harmful effects. It makes boys spiritually and physically weak.”
    The headmaster patted his forehead, which was damp, with a handkerchief that had the Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy logo—a black cross surrounded by a bloodred heart—embroidered on its corner. I wondered if they had prepared him in his religious training for giving teenage boys talks about masturbating.
    He went on, “In history, entire armies have been defeated because their soldiers masturbated too frequently. It happened to the Italians in Ethiopia.”
    When he said the words too frequently , I wondered if there was some number higher than once or twice per day that would get me off the hook to hell and military failure.
    In any event, I hoped he was right. I hoped the bad guys in Afghanistan—where my brother, Eric, whose book got me into trouble, was fighting—were also excessive masturbators like the Italians.
    Pastor Roland Duff continued, “Masturbation can also turn boys into homosexuals .”
    When he said homosexuals , he waved his hands emphatically like he was shaping a big blob of dough into a homosexual so I could see what he was talking about.
    That frightened me, and made me feel ashamed and confused.
    Then he called my mother into the office and he talked to her about masturbation, too.
    Up until that day, I was certain my mother didn’t know there was such a thing as masturbation.
    As I stood there, shifting my weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, Pastor Roland Duff told my mother about the Warning Signs of Masturbation , so she could keep a better watch over me.
    Then he sent me home with my mother and suspended me from classes for one day.
    When I came back to school, Mrs. Edith Mitchell made all the girls leave the classroom while Pastor Roland Duff explained the guidelines for books we boys were not allowed to read at Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy. We were no longer permitted to read any books that had masturbation, Catholics, or penises in them. Pastor Roland Duff gave the entire class of boys the same speech he’d given me about masturbation, weakness, and homosexuality.
    Once again, he blamed masturbation for Italy losing wars.
    That kind of shit never made it into history books, either.
    Sometimes, during his speech, he would remark, “As I was explaining to Austin Szerba . . .”
    And he would wave his hands as though he were shaping a doughy Austin Szerba in the air, so all the other boys could see what