For NaNo this year, I kick off the first in a tetralogy of novellas about school life. It has a few autobiographical elements to it, but with embellishments and wacky situations added to liven up the experience. I hope you can relate to some of these experiences and characters as I have. Enjoy.
People are too concerned about The Destination.
It's the absolute truth. You may cast your dubious stares at me, but I invite you to think about it. Look around you and see. People focus on The Destination almost to the exclusion of everything else. They get wrapped up in their own cares and forget about the things that are happening on the outer fringes of their existence, as though these things don't matter.
Whatever happened to enjoying The Journey?
As it happened, my Journey this past year was an interesting amalgam of odd consequences stemming from odd events. I prefer to say these things were "odd" rather than strictly "bad". "Bad" would have me looking at everything in the most pessimistic view possible. Oh, I know exactly what you're about to think. Don't go for the absurd. Pessimists are not realists. That's a pathetic rationalization for willful misery. No, I refuse to be in the league of the pessimists; next thing from that would be being one of those idiots who wears nothing but black, hides in closets to avoid sunlight, and sings hideous ballads about blood and rain and self-mutilation. These very people are a perfect example of what I mean. They've all but focused on The Destination, however nebulously miserable they expect it to be, and are therefore making The Journey hard for themselves. Half, and indeed perhaps more, of the fun is getting Thither.
Ah, but where are my manners? Allow me to thank you for sitting down with me this fine day. I do concede I am a bit surprised to find you've taken an interest in what I have to say. I assure you, it is not poignant, riveting, or compelling in the slightest. God only knows how little people take an interest in each other these days anyway, unless one is angling for sex. Personally, I find it easier to be a distant observer. Nonetheless, I know that I'm an insider trying to be an outsider looking in at others. Hardly an existential crisis, but it is a bit of predicative crisis. Am I not an observer because I'm among people, or would I not be able to be an observer unless I were among people?
Alas, I am getting readily sidetracked by abstruse thoughts. Greetings, my newfound friend. My name is Augustus James Kennedy III, of a proud old house of Irish immigrants. Residing in that wonderful armpit of the United States of America that is the Great State of New Jersey, I have led a fairly uneventful life with my benevolent parents and my elder siblings, the twins Allison and Richard, both 22. Why is there a seven year age difference between us? As my parents would have me believe, I was intended to be born earlier but Reaganomics crippled that idea like Tiny Tim. Those are Dad's words, anyway. He, like Mom, is an ardent Democrat who curses the name Ronald Reagan with a fiery passion. It makes talking politics more interesting than most cable television whenever a Republican comes over for a visit. I'll give you a fair warning right now; I'm a fastidious liberal, so to you venerable lovers of neoconservatism, there is the door.
In the festering cesspool of a sprawling middle-class suburb called Chevlington, I suppose that it is only natural to be parochial in perspective, and it's the sort of thing to which you become accustomed in living here. And when I say parochial, I'm not just talking about worldview. Chevlington is nothing if not an almost utterly white community, split essentially evenly between the Irish and the Italians. All else are politely ignored, usually. This, compounded with the fact that this wretched excuse of a hometown is right on the central Jersey Shore, explains A) why Chevlington is such an expensive place to live and therefore B) why this place is laden with flagrant conservatives. But perhaps worse, New Yorkers are flocking to this community in herds, the hideously impolite sub-humans that they are, as though places like this are their last sanctuary before the tiny blocks of the City assimilate their souls into the greater Borg entity of Brooklyn. I continue to be baffled and amazed by the thought of voluntarily immigrating to Chevlington; it is truly the Mecca of Boredom. Nothing ever happens here. It's not that interesting of a place. Perhaps I've always felt that way because I find it hard to associate with its inhabitants. Growing up, I was the only person of my age in our neighborhood. Lacking playmates, I suppose I was led to become introspective at an early age and never looked back from that point. Astounding, really, that I could turn out that way in a town that has sixty thousand residents, a dozen elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools. These last two schools become the basis of my contention these days.
Left up to me, I will do nothing but harp on the shameless illogic of adults fostering strife between cross-town high schools. It only serves to make them hypocrites; hadn't they urged us to play nicely with others in kindergarten? My high school, Chevlington Seaside High School, and our erstwhile, purported rivals on the other side of town, Chevlington Hillside High School, loathe each other passionately. I've never quite grasped the inherent hatred, but it may just be that I suffer from mental clarity.
Certainly by now you've grasped I'm far from shameless about my arrogance. I don't pretend to be modest; I don't pretend in general to be that which I am not. You get "educated" in a school system for ten years and learn nothing, and you too would start looking at the whole oblique structure of education with a tinge of contempt. Sometime in August, I had my freshman orientation at Seaside High. What it amounted to was a series of long-winded speeches by administrators paid far too much to do far too little. Afterwards, student-led tours initiated to lead the new class around; I daringly took a map and placed my faith in luck and the belief that no architecture could be made too complicated for its design. After all, it is just a high school.
All right, all right; enough of this banter. By now, you've gotten accustomed to my needlessly expansive verbosity and may be reconsidering listening to me. I implore you not to leave just yet. We're getting to the good part: my freshman experience. But it's more than that, though. It's The Journey.
Bestow that patronizing look. Many people, as they age, become dismissive of the experiences of those younger than they are. They presume that the youth know nothing and that the aged are wise. Some people just come to learn more in a shorter amount of time, if you can believe it. I'm not dramatizing this for my own sake, much as you may imagine I'm simply craving your attention. I'm merely trying to break the vicious cycle of whatever happens in Chevlington staying in Chevlington. It may just be that if I narrate this story to you, you shall see the middle-class suburban life not as the fabled American Dream that generations previous have deemed it. Rather, you'll see that this self-absorbed conurbation is more like the American Daydream.
So here it was, a warm night in early September 2002, the night before high school was to begin. I lay up in bed, restless. It was unlike me to be nervous about something as trivial as school. Eventually, though, I surrendered to my anxiety and rose so I could take a look outside at the late summer night.
It is never dark in Chevlington: lights are always on somewhere in town, so at best, the sky is a dark purple at the town's darkest hour. I cast my eyes heavenward to a full moon, argent and calm, as if it were awaiting my arrival for a cup of tea and a chat about the latest cricket match. Stars twinkled poetically around it, but almost at once I dismissed any thought of thinking aloud about this. Stars are just lights in the sky in the same way that dreams are just illusions; neither rules my destiny. Pragmatism is my kingdom and logic is my executive authority.
I flopped back into bed when the red digits of my clock testified it was midnight. A lot was on my mind; specifically, whom I would see and whom I wouldn't. I came from McKean Middle School. Practically everyone from McKean graduated to Seaside High, but interspersed among us would be half of the graduating class of another middle school, Schweitzer Middle School. Invariably I would be meeting new faces and seeing old ones. I wondered what kind of mix it would be.
I shut off my thoughts as best as I could. I was Augustus Kennedy, the king of academics! I graduated from McKean as the valedictorian, if that meant anything in a middle school. I held the high honor roll every marking period of my three years there and had had best grades in English, math, science, history, foreign language; the works. My grades were immaculate like Mary. What did I have to worry about? Seaside High would only be a more raucous, more decadent extension of McKean. Sure.
And of course, none of these thoughts occurred to me when my damn alarm clock jolted me out of my sleep at six in the morning. Having had only about six hours of sleep, I contrived to stare my alarm clock into silence. Failing that, I took up my morning ritual. I shut off my clock, clapped my headphones over my ears (trust me, this does work), turned the volume on my CD player up to maximum, and hit the play button. At first, I didn't get much of an elaborate response; George Gershwin was in my CD player, and his sweet "Rhapsody In Blue" doesn't shock you senseless immediately, but give it about a minute and it'll blast you right out of your bed.
I donned my purple bathrobe and tromped downstairs to the kitchen to fry two eggs and begin seeing to compiling my necessary school supplies. I love the way it goes. You buy back to school stuff, then the teacher tells you that stuff isn't the right stuff, so you go and buy the stuff they tell you to get and then you never use that stuff. But I digress.
Pitching my backpack into the living room, I hurried back, scrambled up my eggs and sat down to a light cholesterol-laden breakfast. Finishing that, I raced across the den to the bathroom and did my usual prettying up: brushing teeth, shaving, et cetera. After washing up and such, it was a short dash upstairs to my bedroom to grab proper clothes and try and tame that maniacal mane that calls itself my hair. My hair and I, for the record, are not on speaking terms. That wild patch of blazing red fur refuses to bend to the will of any brush, comb, or gel. I'm pretty sure it ate one of my barbers in an extreme demonstration of its unruliness. It's a nuisance, since no one else has such shockingly red hair among my peers, making me all too easily distinguishable. You have no idea the amount of times I've been likened to a French fry with ketchup on it as a consequence. Moving southward, one comes to my feline jade eyes, which have almost certainly frightened people before. Let's not even talk about my pale complexion, spangled as it is with freckles from one cheek to the other. To make the package complete, I am ridiculously slender. I'm not atrophying or anything, because I did have consistent muscle mass in my legs from years of playing soccer, but I did have altogether a small frame. My brother Rich, the great gorilla that he is, could probably have crushed me with his thumb.
I threw on some suitable attire and deemed myself capable of walking amongst the living again. I made an arrogant face and checked it in the mirror, pleased with what I was beholding. Oh yes, there was the Augustus Kennedy of song and story. And without question, the people had come to love that Augustus Kennedy, and indeed, Augustus Kennedy would not disappoint. He never disappointed, the haughty bucket of pomposity.
It was that haughty bucket of pomposity who descended the stairs and sat in the den, staring at the clock impatiently after throwing together his lunch. As for me, I just came along for the ride and watched him. At a quarter to seven, Dad came downstairs and smiled paternally at me, extending his hand.
"Good luck, guy," he wished. He oftentimes calls me "guy". I shook his hand and nodded, grinning.
"Who needs luck when you're me?"
Like I said, a haughty bucket of pomposity.
Enter Mom, ready to fuss at Dad and me. She started by insisting Dad straighten his perfectly aligned tie and jacket and so on and so forth. Dad works in the commercial district of the City-only a miracle prevented him from going to work early in September the year previous. He was a man in his mid-fifties, his fiery red hair graying ever so slightly at the temples. Truly, that hair coloration made me my father's son. Mom, also in her fifties, had turned her attention to me, insisting I behave myself and conduct myself with fitting decorum. As she did so, I observed her strawberry blonde hair had begun graying as well. It was obvious, from so close a vantage point, that she was coloring her hair to hide that natural aging process. Having met her standards, I grimaced and rose. It was show time.
With a bus pass in hand and backpack on my shoulder that weighed half as much as I did, I made a hurried exit from the front door, waving farewell to my parents. I began my five minute walk to the bus stop, two blocks away at my old elementary school. Ah, East Chevlington Elementary School, how I long for your innocent years once again! You never gave me fits like McKean or Seaside. Well, when I got to the bus stop, I said nothing to anyone I saw there, whether I knew them or not. Some semblance of aloofness had to be maintained. Without arrogance, Augustus Kennedy had nothing.
When the bus arrived, I took the first seat up front and began listening to my CD player again. This time, I rocked the Broadway revival version of the musical Chicago. I don't know what it is with you kids these days and these awful songs you listen to on the radio, but you need to acquire some taste. To me, there are only three classifications of musical genre: classical, jazz, and crap. If you can't appreciate my Aristotelian categorizations, you are one of those unfortunate, backwards-turning mortals forever destined to ride around on the Wheel of Poor Taste. I understand, of course. I simply wish to enlighten you that Nirvana is not forthcoming to fans of Korn.
I stepped off the bus and entered the school silently. Chatter reverberated in the hallways with words occasionally surfacing for distinction before submerging into the din once again. I tucked away my CD player in my backpack and armed myself with my map and class schedule. With these weapons, I easily located my first stop of the day: chemistry. The chemistry room was a large, antiquated room, with squalid yellow walls and large tables. Being the first one there, I had my pick of any seat in the house. Naturally, I opted for front row, center. It's a personal thing I have about being first and foremost in the teacher's eyes.
Some people whom I didn't know drifted into the classroom. Doubtlessly they were students from Schweitzer. Soon, however, a pair of familiar voices was audible on the edge of my hearing. Two girls sauntered in a few moments later and I recognized them as fellow McKean students. I greeted them with a wave, which they returned.
"Ladies," I said, in the usual noncommittal way in which I carried out any affair.
The blonde one grinned at me toothily. "Hey, Augustus."
Meet Sarah O'Shaughnessy, a nice, pretty girl I'd gotten to know during my days in McKean Middle School. While I considered her a good friend, it did occasionally disconcert me how she behaved with some guys. She'd earned a bit of a reputation for her unhealthy obsession with one guy who never liked her the way she liked him in middle school. It had been one of those big, dramatic to-dos that made for great social gossip, if that was your thing. I, for one, don't like to indulge in that kind of talk. I don't see the point.
The brunette winked at me. "Hi, Augustus."
She was Amy Ramirez. A pretty cute girl with soccer skills, Amy was virtually Sarah's conjoined twin. They were part of an iron ring of five or so girls that would move en banc back in middle school. In any event, Amy and Sarah took seats behind me and immediately got to business chatting about who did what or whom last night. I tried hard not to read into it too much as a stereotype of gossiping women.
Next came a pale, thin guy, stalking into the room. Here was my good friend Mark Pallidin. He is a damn fine intellectual, if I do say so myself, though he has an inclination toward eccentricity. I liked to think of it as a phase of his, but he did nothing to allay my concerns by dancing in wearing a Harry Potter T-shirt and sitting beside me to declare, "This is going to be sweet. A year of potions, elixirs, and roiling cauldrons full of sin!"
"Spare me," I said in exaggerated exasperation. "This is a chem class, not a course in druidic blood orgies."
"Come on," Mark protested. "What's wrong with sin?"
I shot a sideways glance at my sallow-faced friend. "There's a difference-large difference, I must stress-between sin and tree-hugging. You're confusing the occult with being a member of the Green Party."
Mark had long been fascinated by all things Wicca, and his creative imagination was like a lightning rod for dark forces trying to manifest in our world, usually via stupid ideas of his about channeling demons and such. Therefore, I was not entirely surprised when he said, "There's nothing wrong with tree worship. Summer did it all the time."
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. "Which is exactly why she is best remembered as a dendrophile. Anyway, you need to stop thinking about her. She went off to that health vocational school, probably to get away from your ambitions to become High Necromancer Lord of the Universe, Level Seventy."
Mark gave me a reproachful look. "Believe what you want."
"I'd say the same to you, except what you're inclined to believe scares private citizens into needing years of intense psychotherapy."
By now, more Schweitzer students had filtered into the room, striking up their own conversations as they found one another. One tall gentleman walked in around this point; I was certain he was the teacher. You could probably imagine my surprise when he sat down beside me and smiled pleasantly. I arched an eyebrow at this and looked at Mark, who shrugged. The guy must have been past six feet, with short, close-cropped brown hair and a benevolent smile.
"No one's sitting here, are they?" he asked.
"Other than you?" asked Mark. I kicked him under the table.
"Nope," I replied, still reeling from his height. I wondered if his ears popped when he came down to our altitude.
"Thanks. McKean student?"
"Yes. A Schweitzer student, I presume."
"Yep. Charlie Vilanti."
"Augustus Kennedy."
"Nice to meet you."
"Indeed, enchanté."
It was at this point that I thought to myself: so that's how friendships begin. I'd often wondered where this sort of thing began. It's not the sort of thing you usually notice, really. People seemed to just go together. It was one of my quirkier observations.
At 7:35, the bell rang. While I wondered where my chemistry teacher was, the loudspeaker clicked on. Classical music played in the background while a cheery voice began speaking to us.
"Good morning, Chevlington Seaside High School! This is your principal, Mr. Hastings. Welcome to the 2003-2004 school year. I…what? It's what year? Why wasn't I informed of this?"
I'm sure fits of giggling must have racked every classroom at this point. Frenzied whispers, just barely audible over the music, tried to correct Hastings in the background.
"Welcome to the Two Thousand Two school year. We're happy to see your bright, chipper faces here once again! Except for the freshmen, of course, but we'll soon associate you as part of the big Seaside family here."
I leaned in and whispered to Mark, "Shoot me."
"Now then," said Hastings, "please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance."
Allow me to draw a little neoconservative ire. Why do we need to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance in high school? Okay, I understand you want to indoctrinate little elementary school children by having them repeat it day in and day out. I assure you, nobody's going to forget it after eight years of doing it. I'm pretty sure "ability to recite Pledge of Allegiance" doesn't go far on a résumé. Maybe if we don't say it, the terrorists are winning.
"What?" Hastings suddenly snapped amidst more whispers. "What do you mean we don't say it now? It's the Pledge! Whose dumb idea was that? The Board would think something like that! What idiot agreed to this anyway? Me?"
Laughter abounded. You couldn't help but find this sort of first impression very telling of the way things worked at Seaside.
"Never mind," said Hastings. "Be seated. Evidently the Pledge can wait until after first period."
The loudspeaker clicked off, and some guy in the back sagaciously commented, "Hey, no teacher."
A few kids jeered along at this, as though he had said something delightfully witty. The decline of wit is a by-product of a shoddy national education system.
"Why don't we call the office?" suggested Charlie. I winced immediately as retorts came winging back at him from every direction.
"No way!"
"Why, dude?"
"What the hell, prissy boy?"
"What's with that kid?"
"Yeah right!"
"It's not such a terrible idea," Amy snapped, silencing the contemptuous jeers from the back. She rose and approached the phone connected to the office. That was one magnificent thing about women; they overrule men anytime and anywhere. An alliance with one woman means an alliance with many women. No guy argues with a girl unless he's looking to lose what made him a guy in the first place.
Amy's hand was on the phone when the door opened. We all looked up as a man staggered in. What a sight this guy was: long brown hair pulled into a ponytail, rainbow bandana, purple tinted half-moon glasses, colorful quilted shawl over a Pink Floyd T-shirt, blue jeans, and flip-flops.
"Are you the teacher?" asked Amy. He nodded. Incidentally, he reeked of marijuana, evidently. I myself had no idea what it smelled like, so it never occurred to me, but the others assured me it was true. I was more offended by his body odor, frankly.
"Yo," he said casually said, sitting down at the teacher's desk. Some people responded with salutations as he flipped through an organizer. I stared in mute horror.
"So I'm your teacher. You don't need to call me Mister Jones. Call me James. This is honors chemistry. Sorry I'm late but I was in the wrong classroom. Chem books are good stuff."
He rattled off names in the class quickly, lobbing a heavy chem book at each student as he named him or her. I was not really hoping for much in the way of this class. When he was done with book distribution, he leaned forward on his desk dramatically and asked, "Kids, what do you want to learn in chemistry class?"
"How to roll doobies like you!" said someone in the back.
"I don't do that stuff," Mr. Jones insisted. There were some muffled guffaws at this. He continued, "This is about protons, neutrons, and atoms. This is about elements that combine in your brain and make the world spin and the universe explode into color all at once. This is a samba with the stuff that makes up existence, and kids, by June, you will believe."
My hopes for this class sank faster than the Lusitania. There was not a thing you could tell me to convince me he wasn't simply high and rambling in an accidentally philosophical way. I was ready to chalk chemistry as a mulligan. Oh, high school was looking up already.
Onward and upward. 6170 words as of today.
"Oh God, he's so hot!" Sarah drooled on the outside bleachers during second period. I rolled my eyes. She was sitting with Amy, and the two of them were ogling our young gym teacher, Mr. Richardson. You know, I don't follow the shifting double standard. When men do this to women, it makes them pigs. When women do this to men, it's…somehow on the fringe of acceptability. However trivial this kind of thing is, something tells me it hinders progress toward an egalitarian society. My thoughts on gender equality were rudely interrupted when Mr. Richardson happened to turn to them and smile. Amy and Sarah started howling in excitement at this meaningless display of attention, prompting me to clap both hands over my ears and stomp my foot.
"Argh, stop!" I snapped. "He's a twenty-something gym teacher working at Chevlington Seaside High. His prospects can't be too good at this point."
My words fell on deaf ears. Sarah went on, "Oh my gosh oh my gosh, he totally just looked this way!"
Alright, I'll throw the girls a life saver here. Mr. Richardson doesn't cut an unattractive figure. He's fit, trim, and has blue eyes that, I assure you, girls get lost in all day long. Just between you, me, and the person in the next room, I wouldn't mind having such a degree of physical attractiveness that makes girls swoon as he has. Hard as it is to believe, being as well-versed in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer as I am is not as useful in winning affection as looking good. I know; strange, isn't it?
What followed next proceeded to unravel the girls' hopes. Mr. Richardson came over to our section of the bleachers, specifically assigned to us freshmen, and began taking roll call. From the moment he opened his mouth, one thing struck all of us: his voice took a slightly high, effeminate tone. Amy and Sarah looked like they had just been given the death penalty. Seeing their faces made me crack up. Entertaining fantasies about teachers is so very passé. I was pretty sure that kind of thing only happened in teenage novels and movies and all that jazz. Ah, the realm of fiction, where anything is possible!
"So Jones is a renegade from the Sixties. Ten bucks says the next teacher's an alcoholic," I muttered to Amy. Amy slapped me on the shoulder and adjusted the black-framed glasses balanced on her nose.
"Don't whine," she replied. "Jones is probably a really smart guy and you just don't know it yet."
I rolled my eyes theatrically at her and pursed my lips. "No one smart gets sent to work here."
Amy stopped walking and glanced at the numbers over a doorframe. "Here it is. Spanish class."
I followed her into the room. A woman wearing a brightly colored flamenco dress was sitting at the desk, awaiting us students. I recognized one student from McKean; a tall, lanky guy named Tim McPherson. As there was a range of grade levels represented in the class, I only really knew Tim and Amy. She and I took our seats.
"¡Bienvenidos, estudiantes!" the teacher declared after the bell rang. "¡Me llamo Señora Gonzales! Soy la profesora de ese clase. Lo siento, por no hablo mucho inglés."
I looked back at Amy and gave her the wryest smile imaginable. She rubbed her fingers together, indicating I owed her ten dollars.
Fourth period is the midmorning stretch. What a wonderful time, then, to be in algebra class. I dourly took a seat up in the front, thinking to myself how bizarre this teacher could be. I figured Jones was a tough act to follow and a fluke at best. A Spanish teacher that doesn't know much English, however, is quite impressive. I'd have loved to be there for that job interview.
My eyes soon settled on what appeared to be a gnome chalking mystic runes against the blackboard. Amy and Sarah, seated off to one side of the class, appeared completely perplexed by the strange hieroglyphs. I have to admit, math is not my forte, so I was no less nonplussed. Short, blonde, and rotund, the gnome turned around to face us and remarked, "What? These equations won't go away by staring at them."
Something told me that would be the extent of student-teacher rapport. Mark, who came in and sat at the desk behind me, asked me, "Do you think we'll learn how to calculate the air speed and velocity of an unladen swallow?"
I stared vacantly at him over my shoulder as Charlie came in and took the seat to my right. "Mark, what have you been sniffing lately?"
"Nothing," he said, a hurt look in his eyes. I pondered.
"You have been remembering not to lick your erasers, right?"
"Of course."
I puzzled on this a little more. He was hiding something; I only had to dig deeper. "Voices been talking to you again?"
"Only Little Johnny. It's okay though. I already reprimanded him and put him back in my pocket," Mark said in the voice of a child caught raiding the cookie jar and now trying to make the best of it. I shook my head in disapproval.
"Damn it all, Mark. What have I told you? No permitting voices in your head unless they're paying you rent."
Charlie laughed aloud. Just beyond him was the door to the outside hallway; a fairly short kid with a somber expression on his face was standing in my line of sight, changing books at his locker. He had a darker complexion than I did (which didn't take much), dark eyes, and wavy, black hair. The beginnings of a mustache were apparent on his face when he shut his locker and turned his head in my direction. I could hear Sarah saying to Amy, "There's that other hot guy from before!"
Amy smiled quietly to herself, taking in a good eyeful of the gent as he departed. I kid you not: Sarah had her tongue hanging out of her mouth as she craned her head around to watch him disappear into the multitude. She whispered to herself, "God, it's getting hot in here…"
The people you associate with, right? Resignedly, I stared out the window in idle fascination at the road. The gnome stood by the podium in the room, it being too tall for her, and said, "Welcome. I'm Mrs. McCartney and this is Algebra II. If you don't belong here, get out now. Otherwise, you're in my private arithmetic world now."
Well, wasn't this year going to be just delightful?
I rejoiced as the mid-morning stretch closed with the long-awaited advent of lunch. I had absorbed nothing in algebra except that McCartney was going to be no holds barred in her approach. I'm sure there have been happier turkeys in November than people in that algebra class. Anyway, I raced for the cafeteria, eager to be seated so I could devour my oils and high fructose corn syrup with wild abandon. On the way, I considered where I would sit. A window seat would be nice, but a seat closer to the door would reduce my turnaround time. However you put it, I was anticipating this the most. You can understand much about an institution by observing its treatment of food for its patrons. The more an institution cares about its food, the less it cares about its patrons.
Gleefully entering the cafeteria, I beheld a dingy, poorly-lit room with filthy wooden floors. The ambience alone should have earned the place a condemnation from the Chevlington Health Commission. Roaches would have been disgusted by this place. I was startled to feel a mouse crawl over my shoe. I patted myself on the back for bringing my own lunch; Heaven knows what the kitchens to this place looked like. I don't think I have the constitution to find out.
"Hello, my good friend. Do you mind if I sit with you?"
I was surprised to hear anyone address me quite so jovially and with such familiarity. I turned to see Charlie smiling at me cheerfully. Hesitantly, I glanced around and pointed to an open table.
"Let us adjourn thither," I said, leading the way. We took up a seat at the back end of the cafeteria while I mulled over the idea of him deeming me a "good friend" already. I unwrapped my lunch and began devouring my pepperoni sandwich; truly, food of the gods. Charlie withdrew from his backpack an entire sub sandwich. I looked at this but said nothing, sort of dully surprised. I guess small people like me have smaller appetites. Stands to reason.
Oh, and permit me a small digression here. The word, my friend, is sub. I know that, the farther south into Jersey you go, heading into Philadelphia, the ignorant masses allege these things to be hoagies. What, pray tell, is a hoagie? That word in and of itself sounds wholly unappetizing. People ought to ashamed of themselves for making up such a ridiculous word. It's a blasphemy. Lest you try to argue the point that eating a submarine doesn't sound appealing either, let me point out to you that the word hoagie sounds like the noise a child makes when hacking up phlegm.
Anyway, I was about to resume eating when several guys showed up and exchanged salutations with Charlie. I scratched my head but gave no other indication of my interest in these individuals. Instead, I chose to maintain a strict air of austerity, not especially acknowledging their presence until one with messy brown hair and a pair of glasses asked, in a strangely monotone voice, "Are you going to introduce us to your friend?"
Charlie smiled. "Where are my manners? Guys, this is Gus."
Two full seconds elapsed before I realized he was referring to me. My head revolved mechanically and I corrected him darkly.
"The name is Augustus Kennedy."
The metaphorical temperature of the cafeteria must have dropped to a point where I could have preserved milk with my glare at Charlie, who smiled nervously.
"I mean, Augustus. That is Nate, Rob, and Brian."
"You in the honors classes?" Brian asked. In retrospect, he was probably making conversation. At the time, however, my frigid stare zeroed in on him next and I simply said, "Yes."
Someone ought to have called the coroner, because the conversation flat-lined fast. Charlie jumped in at this point, either because he was aware that I was one step away from turning these people into popsicles with my glare or because he wanted to lighten the mood.
"I'm sure glad to be in the honors level. I'd hate to be in the college prep level, or even lower. What about you, Augustus?"
I lightened up around now. "Indeed. Had a perfect academic record all my life. Of course, I'm sure you can boast the same."
I said this smugly, secure in the knowledge that no one could match with an A+ in everything all the time.
"Yeah," said Charlie. "Perfection is tiresome though, isn't it?"
I looked at him. "Oh really?"
"Charlie's had nothing but an A+ in everything," said Brian.
"So have I," I asserted.
"He graduated from Schweitzer with the most awards out of all of us for virtually everything," Brian added.
"So have I," I countered.
"Charlie's also the nephew of Mr. Paratini."
I faltered here. Mrs. Paratini had been my algebra teacher back in eighth grade. What would they have me say? With contempt, I responded, "What meaning does that have?"
Brian backed down, perhaps acceding the point. "Just saying."
"I think there's something more important to consider," said Robert. Nate was the one with the messy hair and glasses. Brian was short with a miserable expression. Robert had glasses also, but had neat black hair and an almost tan complexion.
"What's that?" asked Brian.
"Did anyone else just see a mouse scurry past…?"
As Charlie and I left lunch, we ran into Amy and Sarah, with whom we were going to have our next two classes, world literature and world history. In a new move of some kind, Seaside High was conjoining the honors English and history classes for freshmen. This was supposed to be some kind of experiment to see the effectiveness of two teachers in action, I had heard. We would see how that would go over.
On our way to class, Sarah was drooling all over Charlie. Amy and I stared sideways at her.
"Aren't you just a tall, handsome thing?" Sarah said, completely lacking in refinement or shame. I then looked squarely at Amy, who shook her head.
"Pray with me for Charlie," she said to me. "She'll probably have exhausted him before we're done with class."
I didn't respond. My acerbic tongue would have had me say something like, "She'll probably have exhausted before we've gotten to class," but something stopped me. I just looked at Charlie and Sarah quietly, feeling oddly annoyed. It seemed…well, like Charlie was stealing one of my friends there. I have a tendency to take a doting, protective attitude with all of my friends, especially my female friends. The fact that Sarah had such a repartee with Charlie, as though they had been best friends for the entirety of their lives, was beginning to vex me deeply. I can't explain it in more precise terms than that. Don't get me wrong; I didn't and don't harbor any romantic feelings toward Sarah. Oh, trust me, I know better. Being Sarah O'Shaughnessy's boyfriend lasted about as long as pleasant conversation between a Democrat and a Republican.
Upon entering the classroom, we met a plump, cheerful woman standing at the lectern. As more students filed in, she said, "Hi kids. I'm Mrs. DiGenari. Let me tell you a little something about myself. First, I'm very glad to be here with you all, teaching world history honors. This is actually my first day teaching; for the past seven years I've been a practicing lawyer in upstate New York…"
That explained the indefinable accent in her voice that caught my attention from the start. I'd noticed it when she'd said her name; the "ar" in DiGenari had this certain inflection, as though it were being spoken by a pirate.
My eyes wandered around the room at this point; I really didn't have that much interest in what Mrs. DiGenari was saying at the moment. The room was large, and so was the class. We must have had close to forty people in this room. The floors were nearly as bad as in the cafeteria, and the windows were so filthy and grimy that they filtered sunlight out, much to my horror. This school was probably every mold's paradise.
Mrs. DiGenari began to take the roll call. I noticed a girl sitting far away to my left. She had long, raven tresses and a clear, olive complexion. She was quite full-figured but hardly what you'd call overweight. Her long eyelashes batted at apparently nothing; at least, nothing that I could see. My concentration on her was broken as soon as DiGenari said a name that made my blood run cold.
"Mackenzie Blake?"
"Here."
Of all the English and history classes in the world, she had to walk into mine. With a mechanical turn of my head, I beheld a girl seated directly behind me. Her pale complexion, speckled with freckles, was complemented by red hair; not as offensive to the eyes as my own fire-mane, though. Her deep, blue eyes merrily matched her lovely blue sweater. Looking at her, something had been hotwired within me. I think it was nausea.
"Hey, Augustus," she said, flashing a toothpaste commercial smile. "It's been a while."
Oh, hell. So that's how it was going to be, was it? I hoped she was ready to throw down, because I was more than prepared to bring the pain. Narrowing my eyes, I said, "Hello, Mackenzie," in the sort of tone that Seinfeld reserves for greeting Newman.
"How was your summer?" she asked, still smiling pleasantly at me. The nerve of this girl! This is something I see all too often in people; they like to pretend they've forgotten about their past offenses. Clearly she expected me to have forgiven and forgotten. I had done neither.
"Exquisite," I lied. There isn't anything exquisite about Chevlington, period.
"Really?"
"Quite. And yours?"
I heard Mackenzie reply, "Wonderful," when Mrs. DiGenari called a name that my ears picked up on for some reason. Mrs. DiGenari called, "April Carissilia." That girl with the long, dark hair and eyelashes responded, "Here." I had paused, letting some errant thoughts bounce around in my head when my ears reminded me of something conspicuously absent: Mackenzie's words. I looked back at Mackenzie and tried hard not to make a face. Her expression was starry-eyed, which said it all, really. It invariably meant she was in a new relationship with some tough guy who didn't treat her respectfully in the slightest. Oh so logically, Mackenzie would naturally be head over heels in love with this miscreant, whoever he might be, because he mistreated her. The fact that she wanted to engage in conversation with me about this very issue redoubled my desire to vomit. I went with the next best idea: denial of expectations. I turned around to face forward and kept my head down, saying nothing else to her. I was like that all throughout history. Doubtlessly, I had some dour grimace on my face for the entire class.
When the bell rang, Mrs. DiGenari yielded the floor to a short woman with glasses who had just entered the room. This woman looked ready to have a go at all of us. This was the legendary Mrs. Perkins, who had taught both of my siblings before me. I brightened up a little; Allison and Rich had both said nothing but good things about Perkins, so perhaps this would yank me out of my Mackenzie-induced funk. Even before Mrs. Perkins had gotten to the lectern, she saw me and said, "Kennedy, right?"
Damn, she was good. I nodded. She smiled.
"Allison and Rich considered me their favorite. I'm sure you'll do the same."
As one arrogant individual to another, that was a statement worthy of my respect. She began to take attendance, despite the fact that it was the same forty-something of us in the room. When she called Mackenzie's name, I soured slightly. It occurred to me I'd be spending another forty-plus minutes in her company. Oh, the humanity. I also took notice of that girl, April Carissilia. Perhaps it was my bad mood, but I came to a snap judgment in looking at her. A false good girl, a spoiled brat, a deceitful liar: I was sure of it. How revolting such types are.
Mrs. Perkins outlined our curriculum after finishing the roll call: Native American literature, Shakespearean tragedy, Greek drama, Scandinavian mythology, Petrarch's sonnets, romanticism, realism, World War One poetry. What a plethora of literary delights! I was ready to take it all on at once, but time flew so quickly. We had gotten no further than distributing some of our books and talking about our summers when the bell dismissed us to our final classes. Onward to art class for me.
I walked off, leaving behind Charlie, Amy, Sarah, and most importantly, Mackenzie. I hiked upstairs and sat down in the art room, a large room with plenty of windows overlooking the front of the school as well as the student parking lot off to one side. It occurred to me that soon, I'd be joining the ranks of motorists in the great state of New Jersey too. A voice interrupted my idle thoughts.
"May I sit here?"
I looked up. Damn the luck, it was April Carissilia. I supposed there was nothing for it but to give in on this one; Fate was not with me here.
"Go ahead."
I'd always had a penchant for art. I drew a lot. My algebra notebook from eighth grade, for example, had thousands of idle doodles. I never took notes on general principle, so that was how I kept myself sane during long lectures and made it look like I was paying attention (which I wasn't…ever).
My teacher, Mrs. Norton, was a large, matronly black woman. She outlined some of the things she expected us to be able to do by the end of the year and gave us big portfolios in which to store our work. She told us to put a design on them.
"They're going to represent you for the whole year," said Mrs. Norton. "Make them look good."
She honestly seemed friendly. I wrote my name in a very Romanesque style, done up with marbled columns, eagles, standards, laurel wreaths, the works. I have always found Roman history fascinating, and I have come to think of myself as a patrician among plebeians both academically and socially. So when I glanced over the table at April's design and saw that she was making a flower out of the L in her name, I just rolled my eyes in haughty disgust and went back to my own work.
The end of the day came sooner rather than later. I went down to my bus and popped in my CD of Mister Gershwin. I listened calmly to the sounds of "An American in Paris" and closed my eyes for the ride home. Upon reflecting about it, "Rhapsody in Blue" seemed much more fitting for my first day of high school. I don't know why, precisely, but it did. As we bumped and bounced back to my end of Chevlington, my imagination painted vibrant, creative pictures of what I could hope the year would be like on the canvas of my brain. When I got off the bus, I took a deep breath to take in as much of the summer air as I possibly could. I came to regret that decision immediately. For those of you not in the know, New Jersey does not have what most people would consider "fresh air", or, for that matter, "air". I really just inhaled bus exhaust. Still, the sun was shining and the air was warm and pleasant. I whistled, after I'd recovered from a fit of coughing. This would be one of the last pleasant days of summer. Autumn was near.
The first day done, high school seemed to pose no insurmountable challenges. It was more of the same. I did not find much to be radically different from middle school, except for waking up earlier. September started off quite uneventfully. Almost immediately, we freshmen developed our routines and became part of the grinding mechanism of the thoughtless public school system. It was not until halfway through the month that personalities and idiosyncrasies began to make themselves known.
There it was, one lazy morning in algebra. Mrs. McCartney was demonstrating factoring to us on the board. I was staring off into space; quite par for the course, in truth. My flights of fancy were disrupted when a girl at the back of the class burst into frightened screams. I looked back as she jumped from her desk and shrieked, "A rat!"
Now I figured that this would not do. The meat they put in the burgers at school was now trying to make a bid for its freedom.
Mark, ever consistent, exclaimed, "Sweet, just what I need for my elixir!"
I think my look at him was well-founded based on that statement. "Mark, what do you need a rat for? Why-I mean, you can't seriously be making an elixir that requires a live rat!"
Mark shook his head. "Of course I'm not. What kind of a person do you think I am, man?"
"Ah, good," I said, relaxing slightly. I assumed he had just been kidding around about making an elixir.
"I'm not taking it alive."
Not the first time Mark ever defied my expectations; I suppose I should have seen that one coming, in fact. Mark sprang up from his desk, brandishing his algebra book. As any student knows, the math book is always the heaviest one. In the case of particularly weighty subjects such as algebra or calculus, the book will weigh as much as a baby. Therefore, when Mark swung at the rat and accidentally struck Charlie's foot instead, we all heard about it immediately.
"Ow! Jesus, Mark, watch it!"
"The little devil's fast," growled Mark, zipping after the rat. I stared hypnotically at this Coyote-Roadrunner sequence unfolding before my eyes. It had started to take on a surrealism of its own. Someone yelled, "It went that way!" Another girl had started wailing. Mrs. McCartney yelled, "Kill it!"
By now, consternation had displaced any signs of order in the classroom. Mark was hot in pursuit of the rodent, which drilled fast toward McCartney. She screamed and hopped onto her desk with a scream; this was better than slapstick. The sight of McCartney, little gnome that she was, trying to shoo away this rat that Mark was trying to club into submission, was too much for me. I flopped over on my desk, laughing hysterically at the situation. People act as though they are serenely in control of themselves and their surroundings; when the unexpected happens, it's like inviting an utterly different person into the room. As for me, I didn't think much of the presence of a rat. Hadn't anyone else noticed them in the cafeteria?
Sadly, this amusement came to an abrupt end. Mark crushed the animal with a resounding smack. Everyone in unison, because they had apparently not matured since kindergarten, went, "Ew!"
McCartney the Gnome descended from the table. It was only then that I even noticed a Chinese take-out menu taped to the ceiling above McCartney's desk. I reflected on this, wondering what it was doing up there. The Gnome tried to resume class as usual, switching back into "I know everything and you don't" mode with almost an audible clunk. If she thought I was buying her pretense to composure, she was severely mistaken. It wasn't going to be a good day for her to try and deceive anyone with that act.
"Mrs. McCartney?" Mark said. "Could you help me scrape these rat remains off my book?"
Mark lifted his book from the floor, where he'd flattened the rodent. McCartney took one look at the scene of the murder and darted to the garbage can to vomit. The class gave another cry of, "Ew!" I looked away to some corner of the room and tried to keep my smile as small as possible. Somehow, I knew this was going to be an entertaining year.
Had to put off the writing for a while to clear out some of my pressing academic obligations. Now I'm all caught up at 15400-something words. Long wall of text, go!
In case I ever felt too grounded in reality, I could come to rely on gym class as a respite from reasoning. The first marking period of the year would take us outside to enjoy outdoor sports. We started off with softball for September. One day, I took note of Sarah and her embarrassing salivation over that one debonair guy I'd seen at his locker outside of my algebra class. Said debonair gentleman was up at bat, and with Mr. Richardson pitching, Sarah was having a veritable feast with her eyes.
"They're so cute!" she squealed.
"So cute," I repeated dryly.
"They're so hot!"
"So hot."
"They're so handsome!"
"So handsome."
"They must get any girl they want."
"Any girl, I'm sure."
Sarah and I were sitting on the bench, awaiting our turn at bat. On just the other side of the fence separating us from the diamond, Amy was playing third base. She turned and gave me a look, clearly questioning why I was mocking Sarah so. If I'm honest, I don't see any harm in it. As far as I know, Sarah was barely paying me any attention. A sharp crack of the bat resounded and the ball sailed well into the outfield. Sarah sprang to her feet and cheered.
"Yeah, knock it out of the park!" she shouted. I watched the ball sail into the wild blue yonder for a little longer before looking at her and remarking, "Do you even know his name?"
Sarah blushed. "No, but why does that matter?"
Can't argue with that logic, mostly because there isn't any logic to argue. The debonair gent trotted around the bases swiftly while Mr. Richardson said, "Nice job." I reflected for a little time on what gym class meant to me. On the one hand, teaching is a much-maligned profession in this country, with education seemingly counting for little. Role models persist in saying that one needs an education to get anywhere. At the same time, society has come to glorify getting rich quick, substituting greed and avaricious deals for education. It doesn't follow that things should be that way. Obviously, not everyone can enjoy being wealthy. I like to think education is key to one's professional and personal advancement. I like to think thus, for if it is not true, I'm unquestionably wasting my time here.
On the other hand, there's a huge difference between teaching calculus and "teaching" gym. Teaching, noble profession that it is, is sullied in certain respects by the constraints of reality, and one of those constraints is that getting qualified to teach physical education cannot possibly be as difficult as getting qualified to teach physics. I've yet to meet a gym teacher who enlightened me on anything, at least. What else did gym class amount to for me, then, but a guy paid a decent salary to have me suffer through thirty or so minutes of being privy to my classmates awkwardly suffer through their own shortcomings in physical activity?
Well, I suppose watching someone else's shortcomings did not make it a total loss.
Listen well as I expound a theory of mine. One day, while waiting for Mr. Jones to finish his lecture, Mark yawned. Who can blame him? It is early in the morning when we have chemistry. Medical science, as of yet, offers no practical support for my theory, nor does it explain the phenomenon. What I offer, however, is no random hypothesis, but is rooted in years of empirical observation as would please Aristotle, The Philosopher (perhaps the only thing Thomas Aquinas got correct). Have you ever sat next to someone who yawned, and then moments later you were yawning as well? My theory is that yawns are both cyclical and contagious. A yawn travels across the world, affecting people as it hops from one host to another like some sort of parasite of boredom. I came to this conclusion, ever so irrational, when I found myself yawning shortly after Mark had. Charlie followed up by yawning after me.
"That was odd," I quietly observed. "Perhaps yawns move in some kind of pattern."
Amy yawned behind us. Mark ruminated for a half-minute before suggesting, "An irregular cycle throughout the world, do you suppose?"
"Affecting each person as it goes, I see," said Charlie. "But what about when everyone in a room has yawned?"
"It must travel swiftly through the air to its next vector," I postulated. "The cycle of the yawn is regular, whereas the essential nature of the yawn is not. It tends to move faster to areas where there are long stretches of time such as those early in the morning, midway through the morning, midway through the afternoon, and late at night. Yes…I believe, gentlemen, that we have made an important discovery that could land us in the same category of individuals as Galen and Salk: the Great Yawn Theory."
Mr. Jones yawned. The three of us started giggling to ourselves. That look you're giving me is not necessary. Give us a little credit. You know that lucidity is wanting when you're up at seven-something in the morning learning about significant figures.
They say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. If that is the case, neither side belongs on Earth. However, one may sometimes draw the inference from this cliché statement that the two sexes have radically different conclusions about the same matter. Take school photos, as an instance. Girls labor for hours just to achieve a modicum of satisfaction with their appearance in a school picture. They invest themselves in the whole ordeal time-wise, economically, and emotionally. Conversely, guys oftentimes think very little of them. I certainly don't, especially since our photographers were clearly inept at their jobs. Those indolent dolts ought not to be paid as much as they are, but then, this could be said for very many people. My freshman photo looks normal, though I'd consider myself one of the lucky ones. Nate, for example, looks a little like some dull-eyed, slightly anorexic bird. I perhaps should not have been surprised by this: Nate was far from the most cheerful person I'd ever met. I suppose he made up for that by hanging out with Rob, who was always given to seeing the amusement in everything, and Brian, who always found a reason to be irate. To their credit, Brian had unquestionable loyalty in him, and Rob was a serious scholar. With such divergent outlooks, though, I did occasionally wonder how they got along. It seemed to work much better in practice than in theory. I even found myself fitting neatly in with the group dynamics at lunch.
"Don't drink your soda so fast," Brian insisted at lunch one day, eyeing Rob with something a little less strong than outright contempt. "You'll get hiccups."
"So what?" asked Rob, shrugging off Brian's tone of voice. I suspect he has been around Brian long enough not to be phased by it. I still wonder why Brian makes even the simplest statement sound like an assertive personal challenge.
"It's not the end of the world if he does," Nate said quietly, looking up from his chemistry homework at Brian curiously. Incidentally, honors students typically pull stunts of this nature. Lunchtime is best spent in the practical pursuit of doing homework due that day. We leave academics where they belong: in the academy, not in the home on our free time. That's why we are the honors students.
"This one," Brian said, indicating Rob, "can't stop once he gets them. I swear to God, it takes like an hour for him just to calm down. I'd rather have him not start."
"If it came to that, I'm sure you'll tough it out, trooper," I rejoined to Brian, mildly amused at his histrionics. Probably because Brian aspires to be a teacher, he is inclined to treat everyone like a schoolchild. It doesn't fly with me, of course; when two supercilious people come together, it's like The Highlander or something: there can be only one.
Brian rolled his eyes at my comment. "You have no idea what he's like."
I turned to Rob and asked, "Is there something about you that I should know?"
Before Rob could answer, Nate looked up again. "He doesn't understand the basics of lunch. In middle school, he once said, 'I'm going to get lunch here today!' and he went off to the line. He came out later with a sad Rob face and said, 'I didn't know you have to buy it with money.'"
Rob found this hysterical, given the way he started laughing. All of a sudden, he gave a cry and Charlie asked what was the matter with him. Rob replied, "Soda bubbles went up my nose!"
While Rob coughed, Brian nodded knowingly. "If you weren't drinking that carbonated junk, this wouldn't have been a problem, would it? That's what you get."
Nate gave a slight shrug and started drinking his bottle of water. Charlie, traditionally easygoing, gave Brian a look and said, "Relax. It's just a soda."
"Just a soda?" repeated Brian in disbelief.
"Just a soda?" I mimicked. "Charlie, you must be unhinged! Don't you realize the danger that soda poses! Today, you have a soda. Before you know it, you're trying harder stuff. Coffee. Before long, you're strung out on caffeine and need a bigger stimulant fix. Soda is the gateway to abusing Ritalin, man! Think of the children!"
Nate spluttered, laughing at my theatrics, spitting water up every which way. Charlie, Rob, and I came apart, laughing maniacally at Nate while Brian threw his hands up and called the lot of us jackasses. That is the essence of friendship right there.
We were halfway through September when English/history class took an interesting turn. It started the day that I was asked a peculiar question upon taking my seat in class. I was idly reading my history book, finding myself errantly engrossed in a map of medieval Europe and the geographical breakdown of kingdoms. Mackenzie Blake leaned forward in her chair and tapped me on the shoulder. I looked over my shoulder at her inquiringly. She smiled sweetly.
"Augustus, I have a question. Are you going out with someone right now?"
Well, it could only go downhill from there, right? To be certain, I found it a puzzling query. Was she mocking me? I've never been on a date with a girl before, and Mackenzie surely knew this. We'd gone to the same middle school and knew each other pretty well, all things considered. I couldn't fathom what she was playing at, so I did a little digging.
"Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I just wanted to know."
I felt the impulse to make a face come upon me, but I resisted. This felt like the beginning of a joke at my expense. "No, I'm not, nor have I, nor do I expect that I will for a long time."
"Why?"
Alas, had I wound up as a victim of the Spanish Inquisition? I replied, "It is probably safe to say that there is not a girl in all of Chevlington that comprehends love in the slightest. Until I find someone so mature, so empathetic, I fear that I haven't the patience to try my hand at a relationship. Statistically speaking, the odds of a long-standing relationship are slim, and I do not play games I won't win."
"You really feel that way?"
I shrugged off the feeling of being put upon by that question. "What would you have me say? I know there are some men who treat relationships as games, with a one-night stand being the prize. I cannot subscribe to such a school of superficiality. It's shallow, it's illogical, and it's meaningless. I won't try to force what is fake into something that is real and hope for the best."
"Oh…" Her voice trailed off. I raised my eyebrow in overt suspicion.
"You really just wanted to know that?"
Mackenzie had a look that suggested to me there was more to it, but she chose not to surrender. "Yeah, I was just curious. You seem to…I don't know."
"I seem to what?" I prodded.
"To be lonely," she yielded. I blinked, stunned by the thought. Why would I be lonely? Was the purpose of dating to avoid loneliness? This was all news to me.
"No, not really. Not at all, in fact. I'm perfectly content as I am."
"That's good."
There had to be more to it than that, and as much as I wanted to know what it was, such considerations had to be tabled. Mrs. DiGenari was starting class, so whatever it was would have to wait. I turned around in my seat and saw a ginger-haired guy about our age standing next to her.
"Kids, this is a new exchange student from the U.K., Terry Canterbury," spoke Mrs. DiGenari. "Try to make him feel welcome."
From her desk in the corner of the room, Mrs. Perkins added, "Prove to him that Americans aren't as stupid as the rest of the world thinks we are."
Uphill battle, I thought.
"Pleasure to meet you," Terry said quietly, bowing slightly. He was lanky, blue eyed, fair-skinned, and, as I perceived immediately from those four words he had uttered, capable of making every girl in the room want to drop her skirt by virtue of the all-powerful British accent. Sarah was halfway slumped over her desk, her eyes shining and her mouth practically watering. I noticed behind me that Mackenzie wasn't much better.
"Would you like to take a seat right there next to Augustus?" suggested Mrs. DiGenari, pointing to the empty seat beside me. The person who usually sat there was absent. I smiled politely and as welcomingly as I could. Terry smiled and nodded to me. No sooner had he sat down than Mackenzie tapped me on the shoulder again. I leaned back and only let my eyes swing over my shoulder. I could see a folded-up piece of paper in her hand. She whispered to me, "Pass this to Terry."
I swiftly snatched the paper from her hand. Far be it from me to be hostile to the culture of passing notes in class, but I'm not someone's mailman. Besides, what could be in this note other than a proposition to go out on a date? What a joke. I waited until Mrs. DiGenari asked a question and had called someone to answer it. While that was happening, I made an exaggerated demonstration of tearing up the note in front of Mackenzie, who appeared thoroughly shocked. I didn't care. This was not the forum for such behavior. There's no doubt that this self-righteous streak I have will one day land me in trouble, but it wasn't that day, so I demonstrated no concern.
At the bell, Mrs. Perkins allowed us to walk out into the hall to stretch our legs. Terry reached over and tapped my arm to say, "Excuse me, which way to the bathroom here?"
I rose and said, "Ah, follow me."
The two of us proceeded to the bathrooms down the hall. I didn't have a need to go, so I was about to turn back, but he said something that made me pause.
"That girl looked quite disappointed in you."
I turned around. "And?"
"That note was for me, wasn't it?"
He was observant, no questions there. "Yes."
"I figured as much."
"Are you angry about that?" I could see where it was possible that my actions may have crossed the line. Of course, I figured I was doing him a favor by saving him from someone like Mackenzie Blake.
"Not really. It's all about the raging hormones. I didn't come here to pounce on a bunch of yankee lasses."
I took a moment to process the thought and came up with nothing to say. Terry added, "Same with you, I'm sure. The accent is what does it, you know. If you went off to my part of Greater London, you'd have a bunch of girls salivating over your American accent, calling each other slags in an effort to weed out competition."
"Slags?" I repeated with a dull perception of understanding. "Never mind; I think I get it. So you were just trying to duck out of the room so the girls wouldn't follow you?"
"Got it in one. You're pretty sharp, Augustus."
"I try."
"I tell you, it's a right old nightmare. Every class I've been to, been nothing but lasses lining up for me."
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was outraged. At the forefront of my mind, though, I was amazed. Being chased by women was not a problem that I'd ever encountered. Terry rubbed his eyes wearily and said, "It's not like home. I enjoyed the comfort of being alone."
"You too, huh?"
Terry nodded. In that moment, I knew we were kindred souls. Brian happened to be walking by us and hailed me.
"Hey, Augustus. Who's Union Jack here?"
"Union Jack? You mean Terry?"
Indeed, there was a print of the British flag on the shoulder of his T-shirt. Terry scratched his head and remarked, "It's nice to know yanks actually know something about the United Kingdom."
"I used to think it was the Captain Jack," Brian said. How classy. So much for convincing Terry that Americans weren't embarrassingly dull-witted.
"This is his first day at an American school, poor soul," I said to Brian.
"Poor soul? British schools aren't terribly great either. Just 'cos we have Oxford and Cambridge doesn't mean every school is on their level, especially among public schools," observed Terry.
"School sucks no matter what culture you come from," Brian nodded. I supposed that was true, even if I wanted to retrain some starry-eyed hope that education isn't merely a matter of going through the motions-which I commonly regard it as being in my more cynical moods.
The bell to return to class rang. Brian cursed and waved farewell to us before trotting off to his class. I nodded to Terry and said, "You ready?"
He took a deep breath and nodded to me, still looking a little uncomfortable at the prospect of going back into the jungle. I smiled.
"You're going to be fine," I assured him as I led the way back to class. "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself in the meantime?"
I figured shifting his preoccupations would help him. He began, "Uh, I don't think I ought to talk about that right now. Bit of a long story."
"Very well; you'll have to tell me later though, alright?"
"Promise."
Part of the requirement for graduation from Seaside is passing two artsy-type classes. This, in part, was why I elected to take Fine Arts. Now, as with many elective courses, you find an eclectic mix of students and reasons for taking the class. There are those with an amateurish interest or curiosity, like me; the ones who are taking the class because they aspire to go further in life with the subject; and of course, those who are trying to finish fulfilling their electives with anything that doesn't seem too pressing in order to skate to graduation.
I sat at a table with a few freshmen, some of whom I somewhat knew and some of whom I did not know at all. The table next to us had several seniors. These seniors generally made for interesting diversions while doing art projects. One day in late September, Mrs. Norton gave us a specific task.
"Blind contour drawing," she explained, "is when you look directly at an object and draw its outline without looking down at your paper or lifting up your pencil. You just keep drawing blindly until you think you've finished outlining the subject. Today, I want you to pick any two things in the room and do a blind contour sketch of them before the day is done."
I glanced the way of the seniors' table and selected my subject. A tall, blonde senior named Ken had his back to me. I gave it no further thought as I began blindly outlining his body and the stool on which he sat. As I went along, however, I heard the conversation at their table and found my concentration increasingly broken by their humorous exchange.
"How was last night?" Ken said, addressing one of the girls at the table. This girl was named Brandy. Brandy was one of those students who aspired to go further into the world of art. Ken was one of the skaters.
"It was interesting," Brandy laughed. "I didn't have as good a time as I hoped, but it wasn't bad or anything."
"Where did you go?" asked another guy at the table named Roy, another one of the skaters. Brandy, fixated on something across the room for her outline, continued to speak.
"I went out to Driftin' last night," she said, brushing her bangs away from her eyes. Driftin' is the name of a local club that's one or two towns over; I don't precisely know, since that's one of the last places you'll ever find me.
"That would explain it," Roy said in mild amusement. Driftin' happens to be a pretty sleazy place, as I understand it. It is a nightclub; I'm hazarding a guess that sleaze is an inherent part of its ambience.
"Well, like, I was dancing for a while in a group, and then this guy came up to me and asked me to dance. I said sure 'cause I didn't think there was anything wrong with this guy, but he was dancing a little close for comfort, if you know what I mean."
Another girl, whose name I would come to know was Jessie, was evidently not surprised. "Guys do that all the time. That's why I don't go to Driftin' anymore; too many guys are trying to feel you up in there."
I was halfway through sketching Ken when he said, "That's not true. Not every guy is trying to cop a quick feel during a dance."
Thank you! Proof that chivalry isn't dead; just in intensive care.
"Some of us want to take you back to our car and boink you in there," Ken concluded. I almost broke my pencil. Looks like the plug was just pulled on gentlemanly manners. Brandy laughed again.
"Yeah, well, I don't know…he asked me for another dance later and I was like, 'No thanks.' He took it in stride and stuff, since he found someone else to grope. But I know what you mean, Jessie. This isn't the first time something like this has happened to me before at Driftin'."
I could perceive this. Brandy was a little top-heavy, if you catch my meaning. One-track mind teenage guys don't need much more encouragement than this. I myself hold the stringency of values, especially Victorian ones, accountable for society's hard swing on the pendulum about sexual mores. Going back to early monotheistic teachings in the West, there is enough evidence to suggest a degree of taboo about sex that was not present in pagan culture, and for the next thousand years we have had this persistent repression of sexuality. It must have come to a head in the Victorian age, with bizarre devices meant to curb lusts. I bet you didn't know that the tablecloth was created because it was a popular Victorian belief that men were so incontinent that table legs would put them in mind of a woman's legs and drive them wild with desire. Nothing like some varnished oak to stir up amour.
Now we've got this whole sexual liberation trend going back to the Sixties, when people's sexualities became more open and in the public eye. I'm sure the problem of teen pregnancies and diseases would be lessened if people ceased being so uptight about it. I mean, it's bound to happen between any animal; many of my best friends are the result of sex. I'm sure it's true for you as well. But I digress.
"I think the worst time was when someone asked me if he had seen me in a strip club before," Brandy added. Ken burst into laughter at this. I shook my head. How tactless can some people be? What would be the purpose of such an inquiry anyway? I am almost horrified at the possibilities. No gentleman of any worth would dare ask a lady such a thing.
Ken said, "You should've danced around a pole and told him, 'No way.' That would've been great."
Brandy shook her head. Roy asked, "What did you do?"
"I told him no, obviously," she replied matter-of-factly. "Though when I got home, I did try dancing around my stand-up lamp just for the fun of it."
When you listen to this kind of conversation and attempt to reconcile it to the speeches of motivational speakers who are eagerly trying to convince you that you can do anything and will be a great leader one day, sometimes you wonder who is fooling whom, but even I couldn't be entirely uptight about this. I let my thoughts linger on Brandy dancing around a lamp for a while. It made for a more pleasant daydream than worrying about all the algebra homework I had, I can tell you that much.
The thing of coming from McKean Middle School and having so many friends from Schweitzer Middle School is that you find yourself out of the loop when they reminisce. I don't know if it was merely the way we were assorted between honors classes or what, but it seemed that Schweitzer produced far more honors students than McKean.
"These fries are so soggy," observed Rob one early October day.
"You get what you paid for," commented Brian.
"They're not at all like what they were at Schweitzer."
"That's because they were covered in salt instead."
Rob shrugged and gnawed halfheartedly on a French fry, though it was clear from the expression on his face that he was disappointed by the quality. I made the same kind of face thinking about the quality of education I was getting here in high school. Nate leaned over and sniffed at Rob's lunch.
"Are those fries burnt? They smell like it."
Rob poked through to the bottom, finding a few blackened fries. Nate nodded.
"It must be the smoky smell, 'cause I was put in mind of that time Mike Green was caught smoking in the bathroom in middle school."
Ah yes, Mike Green. Recall, if you will, those kids that jeered at Charlie on the first day of chemistry. Mike was the leader of that pack. His mother happens to be a basic skills teacher here at Seaside. For some reason, he takes this as license to act like hot stuff. Brian and I both agree that if we were in the same building where our mothers taught, we would not be half as egregious in our behavior as this idiot (Brian's mother is an elementary school teacher in Chevlington, and my mother used to be a teacher prior to my birth).
"Speak of the devil," Brian sighed. Charlie and I turned to see Mike approaching us from behind with a can of soda. And yes, it is called soda. Don't call it a Coke if I'm drinking a Pepsi, and it isn't pop. Call it a soft drink and I'll have to ask you to leave right now. It's called soda. It's so-motherloving-da.
"Augustus, did you do the lab for Jones yet?" Mike asked through half-closed eyes. That made him look more pompous than he usually did.
"Yes," I said dryly.
"Do you have it with you?"
"Yes."
"Would you like to give it to me? Here, I even got this soda for you."
I accepted the can graciously and glanced at it. I'm not always the most trusting person. When it comes to people I dislike, it's only natural that I wouldn't trust them. Nate, Rob, Brian, and Charlie had informed me of many a story of Mike's troublemaking and practical jokes. In the interest of avoiding a practical joke, I tilted the top of the can back at him and said, "No thank you. I'm not a fan of soda."
Mike's face hardened a little. "Come on, don't have such a stick up your ass."
"I hope you're not under the impression that will encourage me to give you my lab," I responded. Mike sighed, getting exasperated with me.
"You're not going to give me the lab?"
"The stick up my ass forbids it, you see."
Mike clicked his tongue in vexation. I popped the top of the can open, spraying him with soda. As I suspected, Mike had shaken up the contents beforehand in an effort to be clever.
"Thanks for the soda," I said with the sweetest smile I could manage as he glared at me.
That same day, another peculiar event occurred that gave me pause for concern. Sarah slipped me a note before history class began. I unfolded the paper and began reading it. You may think I'm adhering to a double standard by reading notes meant for me and destroying ones going through me to another party. I suppose that's an entirely possible interpretation of it. In so many words, however, Sarah was explaining to me that she had broken up with some guy she'd been dating for two weeks and was feeling down about it. She also mentioned she thought she had found the "perfect" guy now. Blah, blah, blah; I had been down this road with Sarah many times before, and so began meandering through the words with some disinterest in the details. I'm one of those people who always provides the sympathetic ear to anyone in need of a venting. I don't always enjoy being the psychological counselor to others, but it's a role I fill comfortably for many of my friends. For me to stop, at this point, would be to deprive them of a rock on which they rested some of their concerns, and that is something I am unwilling to do to them.
I was about to go over to Sarah's seat and talk with her for a minute or so before class began, but a word in the note caught my eye and demanded I reread the message in full. Here was a puzzle of a different kind. My heart stopped for just a moment after scrutinizing the note again. This "perfect" guy was well known to me. Well known to me indeed. I looked up and glanced at Sarah, who gave me a pleading look, urging me to give her counsel on this matter. How could I, though? I'm not a miracle-worker, if you can believe it, and I'm certainly not a matchmaker, yet she was obviously expecting me to do a little of both. I winced at the thought of trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy her.
Sarah O'Shaughnessy went through boyfriends like a flu sufferer went through tissues. We both knew this. She wasn't disloyal or anything, but was evidently hard to please. After class, I told her I would need time to think about what the plan of action was and swiftly left her. I didn't know what to say. What would she have me say? For me to get involved would be to go down a road to disastrous consequences in the future; indeed, almost invariably so. Long-term relationships to her were two months long. She's too flighty for anything longer. So why on earth would she have selected our mutual friend Charlie, of all people, as her "perfect" guy?
As you may have surmised by now, I have a nasty streak of cockiness. Sometimes, this manifests itself in impudent ways. In the middle of the month, I was chosen as the most academic freshman of September. As if there would be any doubt.
My reward for this honor was dubious: a luncheon with the principal, Mr. Hastings. Mr. Hastings had glasses and a small, dark mustache with dark, beady eyes. I entered his office to find the most academic senior, junior, and sophomore were already there.
"Ah, Mr. Kennedy, have a seat, will you?" Mr. Hastings greeted. He gestured to a seat at his desk. Pizza boxes sat on top of his desk innocuously.
"I'll stand, if it's alright with you," I responded. Mr. Hastings's smile suddenly vanished.
"Uh, I believe you'd be more comfortable if you sat."
"I believe I know my digestive tract well enough."
"Please, have a seat, Mr. Kennedy."
"No, thank you."
"This is my office, Mr. Kennedy, and I would have you sit, preferably."
"Though not necessarily. You could easily all stand up as well."
The other three students stood up. Floored, Mr. Hastings glared at me sinisterly.
"Sit down!"
"Stand up."
"Sit down!"
"Stand up."
Mr. Hastings jumped up from his chair and was about to reply when I promptly sat down, if only to contradict him. The other three did likewise. Mr. Hastings sighed and sat down resignedly.
"Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. Now, you've all been gathered here because you represent academic excellence in our school, and as such…"
I stood up. The other three followed suit and stood up with me. Abjectly dismayed, Mr. Hastings leapt from his chair and shouted, "But I will not tolerate insubordination out of the most brilliant nor the least brilliant! Sit!"
"No."
"That's it. Get out. Go to the principal's office at once!"
I exchanged looks with the other students. They smiled, trying to repress their laughter.
"I'll discuss this with the principal myself when you're less…" Mr. Hastings began.
"Handsome? Charming? Suave?" I prompted helpfully. Mr. Hastings waved me away.
"Shoo! When you're less…standing…"
As I left, I remarked, "Don't all stand up on account my going. Please, have a seat."
As a direct result of the incident with Mr. Hastings, the next day I was given a referral. But it was not to his office, as one might have assumed. Rather, I was referred to the school psychiatrist, Dr. McShallasy. She was a fairly young woman, perhaps in her late thirties, constantly wearing her light brown hair in a tight bun. Her office was large and spacious, with a luxuriant red plush couch. She smiled as I entered.
"Are you Augustus Kennedy?"
"Yes."
"Have a seat."
I smiled at the irony of this but complied.
"Now, I understand you've had a little difficulty with the rules here lately," she said sympathetically.
"Rules? I beg your pardon, Ms. McShallasy, but…"
"Doctor," she corrected. "Doctor McShallasy."
"Of course. However, I…"
"Say it."
"Come again?"
"Say it."
"It."
She nodded affectedly and began scribbling on a notepad. "I mean say my name."
"McShallasy."
"All of it."
"What's your first name?"
"No, my title."
"Exalted god-empress of student minds."
"Well clearly it seems you have a problem with authority in all forms, verbal standing out in particular," she noted.
"Why's that, Doctor?"
She froze and grimaced. "Don't toy with me."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You're trying to manipulate me. Trust me, it doesn't work that way, Gus."
"Gus? My name is Augustus."
"There! Fatal flaw! You have shockingly high levels of unhealthy narcissism that are usually expressed in the form of arrogance that leads to chronic fits of self-doubt and mental anxiety. I give you three years to live, tops, before such behavior does you in. Textbook case."
"Of what textbook?" I challenged.
She nodded, narrowing her eyes. "You shall see, you shall see."
"Study with Freud, did you?"
"In a way. I'm his heiress, you know."
"Oh?"
"Oh yes. I'm Austrian down to the marrow."
"The name gives it away."
"You see it? Everyone insists that McShallasy sounds Scotch-Irish. I can't imagine any reason why!"
"They must be all sick in the head."
She nodded vehemently. "This is true."
"Tell me, does that ever bother you?"
"Yes it does. It does tremendously."
"Tell me about it."
"I don't want to."
"Well I see I'll get nowhere with you like this, so we shall simply arrange another appointment in which you will feel more at ease divulging your past to me, okay?"
"Yes," she nodded, mumbling to herself.
I left, glancing over my shoulder as Dr. McShallasy curled up into a ball in her chair. Textbook case.
It was lunchtime one day in the week that followed. Like any lunchtime, we honor students were doing work rather than eating lunch. Actually, the only one who was eating was Nate, chomping on a banana held in one hand and busily doing his algebra with the other hand. I broached the subject of the visit to McShallasy with the guys.
"Anyone ever had to visit the school shrink?"
The answer was a collective no. This also prompted Charlie to ask, "Why? Have you, Augustus?"
I think he meant it as a joke. It would explain why his grin suddenly vanished when I told him that I had.
"You did? When?" he asked. I looked back down to my chemistry.
"Other week. She's a damn psycho herself."
Charlie laughed. Brian shook his head.
"I always knew there was something wrong with that woman. She just strikes me as an idiot."
I nodded to him. "You don't know the half of it. I think she needs more psychological help than I possibly could. Probably the fool who hired her here also needs a little check-up in the old brain box."
"Psychologists are all weird," Nate said. "Just look at Freud. There was someone who was just…ew."
I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned around, looking up. To my mild surprise, it was Sarah O'Shaughnessy standing there.
"Hi…can I help you?" I asked, in a tone that was admittedly probably ruder than absolutely necessary. Sarah leaned down and whispered into my ear, "Augustus, can I talk to you for a moment?"
I laid down my pencil and got up just as I heard Brian say to Nate, "Freud, huh? I'm sure he'd have lots to say about that banana you're eating," and I figured I was leaving just in time, especially because Nate retorted, "Sometimes a banana is just a banana!"
Sarah and I walked a little ways away from my table and she stuck close to me. She thereupon said, "Two things. First, Amy needs to talk to you. Second…"
"Time out. Did I really need a messenger to tell me I'm getting a messenger? Is Amy a mute all of a sudden?"
Sarah gave me a look. "Good thing people don't talk using telegrams anymore or you'd probably be the meanest person ever to those telegram delivery guys."
Rolling my eyes, I insisted, "The second thing?"
"Right. The second thing is that…well, what do you think?"
"…about what?"
"About Charlie, dummy."
All I could do at that point was blink and say, "He's got a great body but we don't click. I think he prefers blondes. Do you think he'll like me more if I change my hair color?"
Looking back, I frankly wonder why Sarah didn't just slap me then and there, but hey…I'm all for not getting a smack, even if I deserve it. I gave her a helpless shrug. I'd been dodging her for days, hoping to come up with something brilliant to say, but time was up and I had generated nothing of worth.
"Uh, Charlie's a nice enough guy. I don't think that means you ought to date him, though," I offered tentatively, hoping to make it up as I went.
"Why not?" she insisted sourly.
"Look at it from this perspective: the last guy you went out with…how many weeks did you date him?"
"Two."
"See, that's exactly it. That's about par for the course for you. You don't hang on to guys for very long before you move on to someone else. And he's always the 'perfect' guy until you dump him. Does Charlie deserve that?"
"Gee, thanks," Sarah bitterly spoke. "I didn't know I was talking to my dad."
I made a face. "Remember, you asked me for my input."
"No, I asked you for advice."
"And I'm advising you to knock this off. It's going to end in disaster, and if you go down that route, I'm going to watch it all from afar. I'm speaking out of empirical observation. You always ditch a guy."
"Things tend to get messy with guys."
"Then stop dating them."
"That's not an option."
"Why not?"
"Because, Augustus!" she snapped. I admit I was a little startled by her tone. It wasn't like her to get so harsh.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but there are some things that friends owe to each other. One of them is the truth."
I left her there to talk to Amy about our homework for Spanish. Sarah said nothing to me for the rest of the week.
So one day, the bus was pulling up to school to drop us off. I disembarked and was about to go to the entrance when I heard a distinct British accent apologizing profusely. Concerned, I turned in the direction of the voice; was Terry in trouble? I saw him a few yards off, standing in front of a tree beside a girl. I sidled toward the two of them out of curiosity. The girl looked down at her jeans, which were darkened by a large wet spot on them. Terry was holding a half-full plastic cup of soda and looking thoroughly embarrassed.
"I'm sorry about this, really!"
"It's okay, I'm sure this was a total accident," the girl purred. This sounded like an abnormal tone to take, given the situation. I would've been infuriated if that had happened to me.
"It was!" protested Terry, convinced she was being sarcastic. The girl took it all in stride. She winked at him, darted behind the tree for a few minutes, and emerged wearing gym shorts in place of her sodden jeans. She took a moment to flex the muscles in her toned legs before saying, "Don't worry about it, Union Jack."
The girl disappeared into the building, but not before pausing at the door to give a vigorous shake of her hair in Terry's direction. Mouth agape, I approached Terry, still glancing in the girl's direction.
"What was that all about?" I asked him. Terry blushed.
"It was an accident. I…I spilled my…"
"Accident nothing, Terry. That was nothing short of hilarious," I chuckled.
"No, seriously…" he began. I put up my hand to silence him.
"I hear you, I hear you. It is merely amusing to me; that's all. Come on, Union Jack. School is about to start."
"I hate that nickname," he muttered.
At some point later in the day, I was in the bathroom when Mike Green sauntered in, wearing that usual smug grin of his. He stood at the urinal next to mine and commented, "So how did that chemistry test go for you?"
"Unquestionably excellent," I answered swiftly, oozing with haughtiness. He tittered at this.
"Do you ever get tired of acting like that?"
"Only as much as you get tired of acting like you do, I'm sure."
"Kiss my ass, Kennedy."
I arched an eyebrow as I flushed the toilet. "What did you just say to me?"
"You heard me," he snorted. I narrowed my eyes.
"I'm afraid not."
"My ass, Kennedy, my ass!" he snapped irritably. Some upperclassman just walked in when I then asked, "What about it?"
"I want you to kiss it, dumbass."
I looked at the upperclassman and then at Mike. "I suppose nothing would give you more joy in the world than that, right?"
"I'd love it," he replied.
I shrugged at the upperclassman, who pushed past me and muttered something quite possibly offensive at Mike as he went. I went to the sink and began washing my hands, remarking, "I've had better offers."
October seemed to throw a switch in the minds of our teachers. They became less obsessed with making impressions and were content to do however they saw fit. Algebra was a perfect example of this. To be fair, Mrs. McCartney was a little less stringent from the moment Mark flattened the rat in her class, but one day, things were turned on their head. It started with her smiling at us, which was enough of a rare event.
"Now I know that a lot of people have been dropping out of this class and blaming me for working you too hard in your first month of high school, but you can't deny it has been good to discipline you like this," she said with the most insincere smile. Whom did she think she was deceiving? Our class had shrunk from thirty to thirteen. Were the seventeen drop-outs really reaping such fantastic rewards from refusing to tolerate her inflexibility?
"I like to do this to all my classes so that the true math students stay where they belong and the pretenders leave. For making it this far, I won't ride you guys so hard anymore. You've passed your initiation into high school. Congratulations."
I looked over at Amy. She shrugged. I looked back at Mrs. McCartney, who then said, "And I don't feel like playing around with numbers today. You guys can have a free week."
We looked at her with incredulous stares. She laughed.
"What? You don't believe me? Fine, enjoy doing math by yourself if that's what you want. But I'm leaving."
With that, she picked up her keys and walked out to the faculty parking lot, hopped in her car, and drove away. We didn't see her for the next four days.
In art, Mrs. Norton dropped a surprise bomb on us.
"Now as many of you know, you have a twenty-hour project coming up at the end of the marking period. One-fourth of your grade depends on this project. You have to do a project of anything you like, using any medium you want. It has to be something big. That's why it's called a twenty-hour project."
Oh great, just what every student wants: a major project that requires an investment of time and skill. Alright, I understand the idea that one has to prove one's own capacity through a project of this kind, but it still sucks. It's rough on students, mostly because these things come in clumps. I don't know if teachers have some kind of hive mind, but before I knew it, Mrs. DiGenari and Mrs. Perkins were echoing the idea.
"Most of you have probably never written a thesis paper before," said Mrs. Perkins, "so we will guide you through the process. We're going to take a few days in the library so you can research a topic of your choosing."
"For our purposes, we're going to be doing history, which is a little easier to do than language arts," Mrs. DiGenari added.
Lovely; who wanted to slap me with something equally ridiculous so I could win the full trifecta? The answer was Mrs. Gonzalez, who assigned us the task of studying a particular Spanish-speaking country and researching its culture. Fortunately (or perhaps not), this last one was a group project. I was in the same group as Amy and Tim. For our assignment, we were given the country of Mexico.
"Have any ideas?" I asked, looking between Amy and Tim. We had broken off into our respective groups to work together. Tim yawned and said, "I think we should give the class a siesta as our project."
"Nice try," said Amy, looking at him over her glasses. "Be serious."
"I am," responded Tim earnestly.
I chuckled dryly. "We could just as easily make tacos and call it a day by that standard, Tim. Uh, we should probably address their Aztec heritage in some small way."
"Tacos wouldn't be a bad idea," said Tim.
"I agree," Amy concurred. I rolled my eyes and made a note of it in our list of possible ideas. I was in the middle of taking this down when a loud bang interrupted my thoughts and I glared at the window.
Outside, construction workers were hammering something. There was a little quirk about Seaside; since the time that Allison and Richard came through this school, there were plans in the works for renovating the place. Due to one reason or another, namely corruption in the contract bids and the usual way bureaucracy mushrooms around these things, renovation was delayed by a full seven years and had just gotten underway as I entered Seaside. You have no idea how marvelous it is to be concentrating intensely on writing an essay for an English test only to have jack-hammering above you interrupt your thoughts. I let my eyes settle on the falling foliage in a stiff wind before resuming writing. It was just one of those days where you feel imprisoned and would love nothing more than to be outside.
While on my way to English and history class that day, a hot pink flyer hanging in the hallways caught my eye, not for its color but for the image of a rook on it. It was an advertisement for interested people to join the school's chess team. Tryouts would be the next day; I made a mental note to look into this. I was fond of the game, though I hadn't played in many years. I was sure my skills had rusted up by this time. I would have to see how it went.
As I continued down the hall, I was in a merry mood. We were about to start Greek drama in English class. I was already well familiarized with Greek mythology and the like, so this would be a breeze. You see, I took the SAT on a whim in seventh grade and scored something like a 1200. My performance garnered the attention of an organization called TYA: the Talented Youth Association (though the participants in it often jocosely called it the Troubled Youth Association). TYA offered me, as well as numerous equally intellectual students in my age range, the opportunity to do a three-week intensive course in a subject of my choosing at one of their locations over the following summer. So it was that for three weeks between seventh and eighth grade, I went down to a delightful little college in Maryland and studied Latin. The next year, I returned to that same college to do a three-week intensive course in ancient Greek. Knowing these languages did not have any practical purpose for me; it was basically yet another opportunity for me to show off.
And so I came into the class and sat down beside Terry, who was leafing through our textbook's edition of Sophocles's masterpiece Antigone. Terry scratched his head.
"I can't help but be perplexed at these crazy names," he said to me with a glance in my direction. "Antigone?"
He pronounced it in a very English way: ant-eye-gon, as it were. Being a classicist, I cringed at the mispronunciation and hastily corrected him.
"No, no; Antigone. You sound out all of the vowels."
"Oh really?" he asked. I nodded vigorously and glanced at the clock; we had a few minutes before class would begin, so I figured I could show him what I meant. I rose and approached the chalkboard, selecting a piece of chalk to write out the name in the Greek alphabet.
"See here? Alpha, nu, tau, iota, gamma, omicron, nu, eta. This last letter has a sound to it; it's a long sound, no less."
"You know Greek?" he asked.
"A little. For instance, consider her uncle, Creon. That would be kappa, rho, epsilon, omicron, and nu. Interestingly, 'Creon' is a kind of generic word in Greek that means 'ruler'. I suppose whoever made up this myth was running out of creativity."
"That's pretty fascinating," Terry commented, looking legitimately interested. That's when Mackenzie approached me and said, "What's that you're writing on the board, Augustus?"
I tried not to sound too exasperated as I related the details of the Greek alphabet to her. Mackenzie cocked her head to one side and asked, "So, could you write my name in Greek?"
I hesitated for a moment, and then I nodded. "Here we go: mu, alpha, kappa…I suppose we can do another kappa-there is no letter C in the Greek alphabet, you see-epsilon-after all, that isn't a long E there-zeta, and iota. We'll leave off that last E for the sake of letting it be as phonetic as possible. It still will sound different."
"How would it sound?"
"Makkenzdee," I said. "Zeta is a strange case; it takes a double letter sound, so it sounds like Z followed by D."
"Makkenzdee," she repeated. She smiled a killer smile, seemingly pleased by the sound of it. Terry grinned.
"Do my name, Augustus!"
"Alright; there we go. To make your name phonetic, we'll make that C in your name into a sigma and drop off that last E. Voila; Terrens."
"Terrens," Terry repeated. Mackenzie smiled broadly.
"Ooh, I like how you said that with those Rs," she approved. "What about your name?"
"Pretty much spelled the same, but it would take a slightly different sound. Instead of the Au in my name sounding like 'aw', it would sound more like 'ow' instead."
"That's interesting," said Mrs. Perkins. I nodded and began to write the letter pi on the board when I realized who was addressing me.
"Oh, sorry," I said, reaching for the eraser. She shook her head.
"No, no; I think it's fascinating. You know Greek?"
"And Latin," I said, giving her a brief explanation about my intensive courses in Maryland. She seemed to have a thought in the back of her mind; I could see it in her eyes. The bell rang at that moment, so she shooed us back to our seats.
"Alright, kiddies," Mrs. Perkins said. "Today, we're going to get started on Antigone. Does anyone know anything about it?"
I raised my hand. Mrs. Perkins looked around the room in vain, searching for someone else. I could hear some shuffling in the seats behind me that implied there was no surprise among my peers that I had something to say. Mrs. Perkins smiled.
"Now of course, Mister Kennedy here has something to offer, but I don't think we want to need to hear from him again, do we?"
Ouch, burn. Some of the students laughed.
"After all, many of you can probably guess what his grade is going to be for the marking period. For those of you who aren't participating like he is, even I don't know what your grade is going to be…hint, hint," she added.
Point for Perkins. This time, the shuffling in the seats indicated discomfort at the verbal slap she'd given to the rest of the class. Yeah, you know I'm that kind of student that always has the answer and always raises his hand…the kind you love to hate.
"Mrs. DiGenari and I will read the parts of Ismene and Antigone, respectively," declared Mrs. Perkins, quickly launching into Antigone's dialogue. She and Mrs. DiGenari seemed to be enjoying this dramatic reading until they got down to the chorus, at which point Mrs. DiGenari said, "The chorus, kids, is usually a group of fifteen or so men who would come in to a circular pit called the orchestra and narrate scene transitions. Who would like to read that part?"
I was a little surprised to hear Mike Green open his mouth and say, "I think Augustus should do it." His proposal met with murmurs of assent that quickly escalated into its own chorus. The teachers smiled at me as I rose and approached the lectern to read before the class. The chorus part was about sixty lines of text, but I breeze through with ease and theatrical gusto. No names posed a challenge to me. With flair and fluidity, I drilled through the chorus lines.
"…but lo, the king of the land comes yonder, Creon," I recited, "son of Menoikeos, our new ruler by the new fortunes that the gods have given; what counsel is he pondering, that he hath proposed this special conference of elders, summoned by his general mandate?"
Upon finishing, I was slightly surprised to get a round of applause from the class. I suppose I startled a few people in the beginning by being loud and dynamic; generally when I speak, I keep my voice low and dry. Loud and dynamic is unconventional for me; Charlie later told me several students jumped when I started off so forcefully. I took a quick bow and was about to return to my seat when Mrs. Perkins called my name and beckoned me to the corner of the room; Mrs. DiGenari continued leading the class.
"Augustus," Mrs. Perkins said, "I was thinking about something: you've read this before, haven't you?"
I answered in the affirmative. Mrs. Perkins nodded knowingly.
"I figured you had. Listen, I don't want you bored in class. I'm thinking there's something different you can do while the rest of the class continues reading this. You like Latin, I take it."
I nodded. She continued, "I want you to take this hall pass and go to the room I've indicated on it. There should be a Latin class about to start. Take this note with you and give it to the teacher there. The rest will take care of itself."
Well, that wasn't cryptic at all. I took the hall pass and the note and proceeded to wander up the hall to a mostly empty classroom. The walls were painted a stark white, though there was a blue stripe and a red stripe running around the edges where the walls joined the ceiling. I was stunned to see pictures of Roman artifacts and the like hanging on the walls. A teacher was flipping through the pages of a textbook meticulously with the eraser of his pencil. He had thin brown hair, a slender frame, and a light brown mustache. He didn't notice me at first, but after some time, he looked up at me from behind his scholarly glasses and rose, adjusting his brown sport coat.
"Good afternoon," he said. "May I help you?"
Hesitantly, I crossed the room and offered him the note that Perkins had given to me. I hoped I wasn't in the same boat as Bellerophon at that moment. The teacher read the note. He arched his eyebrows and pursed his lips.
"I see," he said at length. I worried that this was far from a promising sign. He crumpled up the note and pitched it into the garbage. He reached over to the nearby bookcase and selected a slim red volume, which he handed to me.
"What a fitting name," the teacher remarked. "Augustus. I'm Mister Tullile."
"Pleasure to meet you," I responded with a slight bow. I glanced at the red book; it was a Latin textbook. Students were beginning to filter into the room, doling out salutations to Mr. Tullile as they entered. Mr. Tullile gestured for me to have a seat and rose. When the bell rang, he nodded at me; I had taken a seat in the back for a change, trying to be inconspicuous. I wasn't used to it, so I suppose I wasn't very good at it. I'd already received several looks from some of the students; they were sophomores and higher, at least.
"Everyone," spoke Mr. Tullile, "we have a new addition to our class for the present time. This is Augustus Kennedy, and he will be joining us to…audit the class, let's say."
I waved from my seat shyly as everyone glanced in my direction.
"Augustus has taken a three-week course over the summer to study Latin, so, if I'm not mistaken, he's probably in the same range as most of you right now."
More stares from the class.
"He's here because he is also well versed in Greek, and his literature class is covering Greek tragedy right now, so we're going to see if we can keep him from being bored. In fact, I've heard of this summer program he's taken before. They don't use the same book as we do, but his book and ours were written by the same authors. I think we will be able to test his mettle accordingly."
Was Tullile trying to intimidate me?
"I think he may even be more advanced than some of you," Mr. Tullile said matter-of-factly. I shifted in my seat, not certain what he was playing at now. The kid next to me looked at me with a smile and remarked, "Sound like the real deal."
I smiled weakly. He asked, "Freshman?"
"Yes."
"Oh, you must know my bro, Mikey."
I blinked. "You're Mike Green's brother?"
"Justin Green," he said by way of introduction. My word, I thought at the time; I hoped he was nothing like his sibling. Mr. Tullile had been leading the class through a passage in the book and suddenly called on me.
"Let's test our newcomer: Mister Kennedy, translate the sentence for us, please."
I shuffled through the book hastily, having not even opened it. Justin quickly tossed me his open book and pointed to the specific sentence in question. I began rattling off the translation on sight.
"Look! In the picture is a girl, Cornelia by name. Cornelia is a Roman girl who lives in Italy…" I recited swiftly. Mr. Tullile held up his hand and I stopped.
"When was the last time you looked at any Latin, Mister Kennedy?" he asked.
"Since I went to take that course," I answered. Mr. Tullile smiled brightly.
"Well, everyone? Don't just sit there; he hasn't looked at Latin in a year and yet he knows it like the back of his hand."
For the second time, in less than twenty minutes, I received applause from a class. What was there not to like about that?
"What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?"
Such is how Rob and I greeted each other the next day after school. We were in the classroom where chess team tryouts were being held. Yes, I know, you're probably thinking that being on the chess team certifies me as a first class geek. Why did it take you so long to find out such an obvious truth?
"Hey, look at that!" Rob said. I turned to the door, surprised to see Terry standing there. He smiled and said, "Chess team?"
"Naturally," I replied, opening a chess set. The team's advisor was an English teacher named Mr. L. Everyone just called him Mr. L because he had a complicated Polish name that either most people couldn't pronounce or, like me, never bothered to learn at all. He was a young guy, with cheery blue eyes and a goatee. He had a shaved head; this all had endeared him to the girls in his classes. It takes all kinds, I suppose.
I could go on and on about the strategic and tactical masterpieces laid out on the boards that day, but even I acknowledge this is far from interesting. Long story short, Terry was the best out of us. After him was Rob, and then there was me, and then there was a sophomore girl and a sophomore guy. The five of us, in that order, were now the Seaside High Chess Team. What fun, right? I can tell you're just tingling with excitement.
Mrs. McCartney had the gall to give us a test on Halloween. Even without her dressing up, everyone was inclined to call her a witch. One got a certain sense of who was going to have her car egged before the day was done.
I have long since abandoned the tradition of dressing up for Halloween. For the most part, my male friends were of the same mind as yours truly. However, Amy came dressed as a vampire and Sarah came dressed as Cinderella. By far the most impressive, and certainly one of the most fitting, was Mr. Jones coming in dressed up as a toilet.
Now that October was done, a lot of us were trying to assess our marking period grades, which would be soon forthcoming. I was not part of this group. I felt secure in assuming A-pluses would grace every inch of my report card. But the end of October also meant that most students had come to feel out their routines with school. For the most part, school was a hang-out spot, with teachers providing a constant, inconvenient background noise. As I was leaving the boys' locker room for gym class, I saw a girl and a guy hanging out behind the school. He was drinking a Mountain Dew, whereas she was smoking a cigarette. At some point, they both made faces.
"What's wrong?" she asked him.
"I heard the yellow coloring in this lowers the sperm count," he replied.
"Smoking can cause birth defects," she added.
I smiled as she flicked away her cigarette and he lowered the bottle from his lips. Perhaps the surgeon general had just scored a victory. They both exchanged looks and then traded items; he took her pack of cigarettes and lit up while she took his soda and started quaffing it. Well, that was almost a victory for logical reasoning.
November opened as dramatically as you'd like. It began with Amy stopping me after Spanish class. We'd just given our presentation on Mexico and I was already pretty tired from working out all the little details meticulously the previous night. When she stopped me just outside the door, I had a feeling I wasn't going to like what she had to say.
"Augustus, can I ask you something?"
"Given that you just did, I'd have to say the answer is yes," I grimaced.
"Cool," she said, ignoring my snide commentary. "I was asked to tell you something."
"From whom is this message and what is it?"
"Mackenzie."
"Oh, great." Like my day was going to get any better now.
"She says she feels you're being unwelcoming to her and she really wants to be friends with you. She apparently feels very strongly about this."
"That's…nice. But what does that mean to me?"
"Oh, come on. She's genuinely sorry."
"I bet she is."
"She wants to make up for what went down last year. She says she misses being friends with you."
I rolled my eyes. "La-di-da. If this meant so much to her, she should've given more consideration to that back when it mattered."
"Be reasonable. She wants to kiss and make up."
"Classy. I don't think you should be suffering the ignominy of being a go-between for Mackenzie Blake."
Amy sighed and walked away from me. I grimaced again. Teenage drama is mindless, I swear.
"Isn't teenage drama wonderful?" said Tim McPherson, approaching me from behind. I shook my head.
"I can't wait for adulthood so that I may leave it all behind," I replied.
"Doubt it. It just becomes adult drama," he observed sagaciously. It didn't make it any more of a joy to hear, of course.
"Thank you for brightening my day," I grumbled dourly.
"What's wrong?"
"At this point, I don't even know anymore."
"Well, that's not good. Maybe if you lightened up a little, you wouldn't have these problems."
I didn't say anything. There was no doubt in my mind that what he was telling me was true. However, condescension toward everyone around me was a habit that would be hard to break. I'd been at it for years, after all. I went off to my next class, wondering if I even had the will to change.
Not that it should've mattered to me, but when Brian asked Charlie at lunch, "So how is it being out of the single market?" I was mortified. I'd seen the handwriting on the wall last month, and now the countdown to the apocalypse was on.
Charlie just smiled. "It is what it is."
Charming; now to let the other shoe drop.
"Who are you dating?" asked Nate.
"Sarah O'Shaughnessy," Brian said knowingly. Charlie nodded. Damnation! I felt like I'd been watching a whole bunch of plates falling in slow motion for the longest time and did very little about it. Now, I was watching each dish shatter with alarming alacrity.
"Really?" asked Rob in curiosity. "Why didn't you say anything? How does he know, anyway?"
"I talked to Sarah about it," answered Brian. This was getting on my nerves rapidly. How did Brian and Sarah know each other? Why had all of this escaped my notice? I looked at Brian, whose typical glower looked even grimmer than usual. I filed this expression away for consideration at a later time.
"I didn't want to say anything 'cause I didn't think it would make a difference to you guys," Charlie said. He took a nibble on his sandwich and added, "Some things aren't other people's business, you know?"
I couldn't disagree with him there. The fact that I knew whither this relationship was going (the crapper, to put not too fine a point on it) urged me to try and intervene, if only for my own peace of mind.
"Uh, Charlie," I said, "I've known Sarah for three years now. I can tell you many a story about the way she views a relationship. I don't want to see two good friends go down a dangerous road together…"
"It's not really your concern," said Charlie with a slightly harder tone. My brow furrowed; what was getting everyone so set in their trenches all of a sudden? I decided to cut strings and tactically withdraw.
"Of course; it's none of my business," I said.
Rob changed the subject, unequivocally for the better of all of us. "Has anyone done McCartney's homework?"
"One moment," I said, reaching down under the table for my backpack. I fished out my algebra notebook and handed it to him. He thanked me. Nate looked over at Terry, who had started sitting with us at lunch on a regular basis.
"You've been quiet," Nate said in his monotone voice. Though it was a declarative statement, it was really a question in disguise. Terry leaned back in his chair.
"I've been thinking about London," he said.
"Homesick?"
"A wee bit."
"Hi, Union Jack," said some girl, straying by our table with a wink. She was an upperclassman, without doubt. I puzzled at the fact that, despite the autumn weather, her skirt was pretty short. We all stared silently as she passed by; Terry said, with a sheepish smile, "I think I can appreciate being here in the colonies, though."
November is traditionally a short month; in fact, it is usually the shortest month of the year. There are the Jewish holidays, a week off for "November Recess" (whatever that is), Election Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, Thanksgiving Recess (more commonly known as Black Friday), and the three days of the NJEA convention.
I began airing out some of my thoughts in my LiveJournal. I'd used it only sparingly in the first few months of school, having just made one. I don't remember exactly how I'd managed to advertise it, but once it was known among my friends that I had one, everyone who didn't already have one went and acquired one. On one of the teachers' convention days, I logged on and started reading whatever updates had come in from my friends.
A Ride Into The Center of My Mind
I kiss him and we part ways. He smiles lovingly at me. Oh, how I love that boy.
With great regret I get into Dad's car. The ice-skating idea was so sweet and wonderful. He's so devoted to me I sometimes think I owe him back.
My mind grows impatient. The thought of him consumes me like I want him to consume me really. I become restless, eager to feel his touch. I don't ever want to let him go. He's so cute when he blushes and gets apologetic for something like when we fell over together on the rink. He's so adorable. He cares for me, I can tell.
Anxiety begins to follow me. What if I lose him? I could never rebound from this one. I mean, with some guys, they're just not worth it anyway anymore and you want to break up with them. But he's different. He means it. He's sincere. Where did he come from? Why did I have to wait until now to meet such a wonderful guy?
I glance out the window at the new snow on the ground. It's really coming down hard out there. Soon my tears are ready to fall alongside each snowflake. I can't help it. If he only knew how much he meant to me. I'd want to spend the rest of my life with him. He's the one. No others. He brings me to tears with his sweet innocence.
"Sarah?"
My dad looks over at me, pointing at the house. "Get out. What are you waiting for?"
I go inside and try to relax, but I can't. It's because I think constantly of you.
Is that so wrong?
I rolled my eyes. That was Sarah's most recent update, obviously about a date with Charlie. This was going to get really tiresome really quickly. I looked past the computer out of the window in the next room. The sky had taken that particular color typical of late autumn and winter: a perennial gray. I signed onto AIM and just shook my head. I feared that Tim was probably right; Sarah would likely never grow out of this kind of behavior. She was going to be a drama queen as an adult as much as she was as a teenager. What a delightful thought.
Lo and behold, Tim sent me an instant message shortly after I signed on.
Reckless88: yo
Studens Princeps: Salutations.
Reckless88: what was the hw for Gonzalez?
Studens Princeps: To my knowledge, we have been given a reprieve. There is none.
Reckless88: sweet
Reckless88: what are you doing?
Studens Princeps: Enjoying this day in the only manner befitting of Augustus Kennedy's illustrious name: by writing an essay for English.
Reckless88: haha that sucks
Studens Princeps: What about you, Tim? How are you celebrating this day of liberation from the forces of public education?
Reckless88: actually i will be going out soon
Studens Princeps: Oh? Whither?
Reckless88: just over to my gf's house to hang out with her for a little bit
Studens Princeps: You have a girlfriend? This is news to me.
Reckless88: yeah actually I just started going out with her last week. I won't say anything if you won't
Studens Princeps: If I may kindly inquire, who is the unfortunate young lady?
Reckless88: you might know her. her name is April Carissilia
Madness! Had everyone started consciously trying to date the most reprehensible girls around the school?
Studens Princeps: Is that so?
Reckless88: yeah you know her?
Studens Princeps: I know of her. We share a class or two.
Reckless88: what do you think about her?
Studens Princeps: Honestly, I know very little about her. It would be prejudicial to form an opinion of her at this stage in the game.
Reckless88: gotcha
And so another friend was lost to the clutches of a stupid relationship. I didn't try to rescue Tim; after Charlie's aggressive reaction, I came to the conclusion that the only way one learns is by making the mistake by oneself. And thus rolled the drama of November.
When my report card came in November, my sister Allison opened it and saw the litany of A-pluses. She shook her head at me and said, "You make me sick."
"Jealous is more the word you're after," I taunted her.
"Did you enjoy that twenty-hour project for art?" Allison asked. I'd taken a huge sheet of paper and done a drawing of a Roman garden, mostly inspired from my own imagination. It was a fanciful little retreat in my mind, the ideal place of beauty in my own head. Mrs. Norton had loved it.
"It's not quite as perfect as how I picture in my head, but I liked doing it," I said. The drawing now hung on one of the walls in my room. Allison nodded.
"What did you call it again?"
"Hortulus Viridis Miraculorum," I said. "The Little Green Garden of Miracles."
"You're such a geek," she said.
"Why, thank you."
The final thing of any importance I can remember about November is another surprising referral to Dr. McShallasy. I was a little concerned about why Mr. Hastings was becoming insistent on sending my to the school psychiatrist. Then again, I didn't feel a need to read too deeply into his methods. On my way past the main office, en route to McShallasy's office, I saw Mr. Hastings standing. He was simply standing over his desk. I stopped and stared at this. After four minutes, it became apparent he would not be taking his seat anytime in the near future. I wondered if I had permanently scarred the man.
I knocked on Dr. McShallasy's door. She called, "Come!" from within.
As I entered, she smiled serenely. "Ah, Augustus, please be seated."
"You wanted to see me?"
"Yes. I looked at myself hard in the mirror last night and told myself you're my friend and I have nothing to hide from you. So I'm ready to talk to you about my past history with my name."
I am surrounded by idiots. But it gets better. At the end of our little session, I rose and remarked, "Glad to talk with you, Doctor."
"You're just saying that."
"No, I mean it."
"Liar!" she snapped. "Careful now. You better watch yourself, Kennedy! If I have to, I'll go voodoo on you. Don't make me."
"I beg your pardon?"
She stood up and smiled. "Nothing."
"Did you say you were going to use voodoo spells on me?"
"Of course not. Are you joking? Now, that'll be all."
A sane person, referred to a lunatic by a lunatic. Am I alone in seeing something amiss with this situation?
"So, like, you know Greek?" I was asked one day in early December. I turned and looked up at the smiling face of a blonde girl with classic Teutonic features.
The bell had rung, marking the time between English and history; I'd just returned from attending Mr. Tullile's Latin class and was setting down my backpack by my seat.
"Yes," I said cautiously.
"That's awesome. Did you study it on your own or what?" she interrogated.
"I studied it in a summer program for three weeks."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"Oh yes. It was a marvelous experience. The participants were on a small college campus in Maryland, disbursed to appropriate buildings. Engineering students, for example, went to the engineering building. Being a linguist, I went to the hall where they taught foreign languages. It is a lovely little place, and right behind the languages building was this absolutely charming garden. Verdant grass stretches out and down the hillside to the banks of a deep river. Overlooking that hill is a romantic terrace, with roses and vines and ivy wrapping over the woodwork. Rose bushes adorn the outer perimeter of the garden, and a fountain with a classical statue stands at the center of the…"
I stopped, wondering what had made me begin rambling so mindlessly. The girl gave me a curious look and asked, "What?"
"Sorry, I believe I've been getting carried away with reminiscence. I don't believe I know your name, either, Miss…?"
She laughed. "Katarina West."
"Enchantée," I said, prompting her to widen her eyes.
"You speak French too?"
"Un peu," I assured her, gesturing with my thumb and index finger.
"How many languages do you speak?"
"English, a bit of French, Spanish, passable Latin and Greek, and I can get by reading Italian."
"Wow, that's impressive. How long did it take you to learn all those languages?"
I shrugged. "I don't really remember. I simply have the memory for them."
What I didn't tell her was that I'd also started spending time looking at the Russian textbooks in the back of my Spanish class. They were going to be phasing out Russian classes in Seaside, perhaps because Communists no longer pose a threat to the United States.
"That's really cool," Katarina said. The bell rang and she waved to me before returning to her seat. I sat down, puzzled at the kind of awe she had demonstrated. I didn't think it was all that impressive. Just then, I heard another voice behind me say, "I think it's pretty impressive too."
I looked over my shoulder at Mackenzie, smiling widely. I turned my head to face forward and noncommittally replied, "Because it is impressive."
On the thought of reading the Russian textbook, I was sitting in Spanish class one day and, to the class's collective surprise, Mrs. Gonzalez greeted us with, "Hello, everyone."
You must understand that Mrs. Gonzalez hadn't spoken a word of English to us yet. This was entirely novel. I nearly dropped the Russian book I was holding. In slightly stilted English, she explained to us that she had just become a naturalized citizen of the United States. After we applauded her citizenship, she added, "It has been difficult. I was drinking much in the months before because I worried I would be rejected. Now I am away from that habit."
I turned around slowly and smugly to look at Amy and rubbed my fingers together to indicate I'd won our bet after all.
"Alright kiddies, stand back," Mr. Jones said in chemistry one day. "All the alkaline metals are highly reactive to water."
He had a Plexiglas shield between himself and us. He set down a beaker of water on the table in front of him, and then lifted a lump of potassium with a pair of tongs. Mark was practically salivating.
"At last," he whispered to me eagerly, "real science!"
"Relax, child," I responded.
Mr. Jones dropped the potassium into the beaker. Mark leaned forward even further than he had been. The splash was greater than any of us had anticipated. Sparks shot over the Plexiglas and landed everywhere. Some sparks landed on Charlie's textbook. Some bounced against the stone walls. By far the most startling case was when sparks landed on Mark's shirt and lit up the fabric. Mr. Jones sprang to the fire extinguisher and yelled, "Hang on, dude!"
With that, our brave chemistry teacher hosed down Mark full force with the fire extinguisher, covering him in a nice, white foam. He looked like Frosty as he lay there on the ground. I leaned over and asked him, "You alright down there?"
"Can we do that again?" Mark asked.
It began snowing hard early on in the month. It was not so strong that we had school closures, but it was enough that the roads required regular plowing. One night at home, I was looking at the downy precipitation blanketing the windows from the vantage point of the computer table. I turned away and checked my friends' LiveJournal updates. Nate had written something only a few minutes earlier.
It's snowing like a @#&% outside. Meteorologists say that it'll be this way for a while yet. I don't care, really. Snow is so sad sometimes. It's times like this that frustrate me the most, perhaps. I don't get this stupid nonsense. It's all about prestige and false images in this world and it brings me to tears. Every day in this house is just another reason to want to bleed in the mirror. She keeps yelling about how she's unloved and ignored and you know what? Nobody gives a damn! Why don't you do something useful in this damn house instead of complaining about everything you wish you had? This man slaves and sacrifices on your behalf and you're demanding, always demanding. And it's being kept up in this lonely house on cold nights like this that also make me the most desperate. I don't want to have to stare at my wrists pulsating with scarlet for the rest of my life. I want to put my arms, unscarred and uncut, around the one.
The one…who is that person? I remember fondly the times of Schweitzer Jr. High. What am I saying? Fond memories of Schweitzer? I must be going insane. I know I am. I can feel it. The Chosen One…I desire her comfort more than ever. I'm a damned lost lonely child and nobody cares.
My words are a fading echo in a cavern called Time.
I reflected on this for a while. I wasn't sure what to make of it, except that maybe Nate had some tough family problems. Reading that had tugged the strings of sympathy within me, though I wasn't certain how to approach talking to Nate about it. Perhaps it was not appropriate to do so. I'd have to ruminate on that.
I scrolled down the page. Sarah had written some trite little observation about an hour previous.
I look at McKean and I look at Seaside. Each one hurts in a different way. I see my friends disappearing. They'll never be my friends again.
I miss you guys.
I hated it when she did that, and she was prone to doing it often. Those little throwaways occasionally came two or three at a time. They were the embodiment of meaningless thought given life. Besides, what was Sarah complaining about? If she felt she was losing her friends-and here I imagined I could number among the ranks of the lost-it was because she was consciously pushing them away in pursuit of folly. Many of us were displeased with Sarah for one reason or another. I'd noticed that Sarah had been coming on to Terry quite strongly all of a sudden in class, and I was not the only one. Amy had spoken to me about the same, demonstrating concern. I issued no such emotion, assuring Amy that whatever mistakes Sarah made were the product of her own willful ignorance. Brian had also begun expressing criticism about Sarah's moves onto Terry, sometimes right in front of Charlie at the lunch table. I could see how nasty this was going to be before long.
Unsurprisingly, this five sentence entry garnered twenty or so comments. Long, lucid entries such as mine amassed zero comments on average. Let me provide you with an example.
Being Festive
Another day, another story.
December proves to be one of those annoying months where the idea of charity is manipulated in such a way that fills me with nausea. A virtually self-appointed branch of the Freshman Council organized a drive where you were given the choice of wearing festive Christmas colors or giving them $5. Somewhere along the way, I'm sure there's a legal precedent for considering this to be harassment. And even if no such precedent exists, I'm sure the ACLU can make one.
I gracefully acknowledge that the charity is a good cause, raising money for the local hospital. But I fail to see when the line between charity and extortion blurred. I am, by nature, a generous individual; there isn't a Salvation Army collection tin that I can pass without donating. So it is that, being an open-palmed person already, and furthermore, a person of considerable intellect, I know perfectly well that these demands for cash are ridiculous. I do not doubt in the least that a clear majority, if not all, of the people chosen to accept "donations" are financially irregular: money is going to stick to someone's fingers. These fiscally flexible idiots should be thankful they're still minors; try this game at the age of 18 and see how quickly the police will pounce on them for embezzlement.
Indeed, I was sitting in the library, for we had a study hall during gym class. As I was wearing blue today, some councilman stopped me in the aisle while I had pulled a thick volume off the shelf that had been written about Margaret Mitchell. He politely told me I had to give up $5 to him. The ensuing dialogue went a little like so:
"Since when am I obliged to give you anything?"
"Don't give me a hard time."
"I am afraid it is entirely too late for that. Cease and desist."
"Hey buddy, you really want to be a Scrooge and turn your back on kids and sick people this Christmas?"
"How appalling. Your reprehensible behavior does nothing to inspire my charitable nature. I think it best for all parties involved if you leave now."
"Give me $5."
"You can try all you like, but the Ghost of Christmas Future has indicated this book against your face if you come any closer."
"Where's your sense of charity?"
"Shall we say 'tis gone with the wind?"
I suppose this is the end result of devoted studies to the school of Cynicism. But one must accept that the novel idea of giving and sharing as part of Christmas is a mere commercial illusion. I'm dismayed at listening to the foul noise of pop stars belching out rehashed, sexual versions of Victorian folk songs overhead when walking through the supermarket as petulant brats bemoan what they want and their parents slap them in an effort to look like they are less of a brute than they already are.
My only parting thought is that any encouragement to see things in a brighter way ought to be directed to the wall. The wall shall listen, which is better than what you can say for what I shall do.
"This is degrading."
Never had any three words I uttered invoked so much contempt from a teacher before, but that's just the way it went. We were moving swiftly into the period of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in English and history. Mrs. Perkins had decided to give us a project in which we wrote our own love sonnets, rather much like Shakespeare or Petrarch. I aspire to be as far removed from so shallow and deceptive an emotion as love, so this whole idea did not win much approbation from me. When Mrs. Perkins announced the project, I inwardly groaned. At some point, she gave us some time to start working on our poetry. I detest poetry. I can't put my finger precisely on why; it irritates me nonetheless.
She came around and checked up on us. I was still staring at a blank sheet of paper when she approached me.
"What's wrong, Augustus? No inspiration?"
"This is degrading," I replied, somewhat thoughtlessly.
"Why?" she said, a pained look on her face.
"I…just don't see what I am to get from writing a sonnet. I don't identify with the theme at all, and I do not like poetry. If at all possible, I'd just as soon not do this project."
"Well…" she said, her voice trailing off coldly. "You need to be more considerate of emotions."
When she said that, it struck no chord with me. It was not until the end of class that the fecal matter hit the fan. She called me over to her desk.
"Yes, Mrs. Perkins?"
"Augustus, I think you need to understand how inconsiderate your statement to me was. That was extremely rude. I will tolerate none of that in my class. Is that understood?"
I was baffled. "Yes."
I didn't think any more of it until that night, when the phone rang at my house. The family was eating dinner at the time. Mom rose and answered the call.
"Hello, Kennedy residence," Mom answered sweetly. "Yes? This is she. Oh, hello, Mrs. Perkins!"
That's when I came to the conclusion that, between the two of us, Mrs. Perkins had the more fragile ego. Was she really going to play this game?
"Yes? Really? He did what?"
Mom gave me a look of horror. Dad arched an eyebrow.
"What's wrong, Lady?"
Dad always called Mom by the appellation "Lady." I can't explain it.
"It's Mrs. Perkins. She said Augustus gave her back talk in school today."
She went back to the phone. Dad looked over at me. Spaghetti was hanging limply out of my mouth. Damn it.
"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Perkins. No, of course not. Yes. Good-bye."
Damn it.
Mom hung up the phone, marched over to me, and stood over me, hands akimbo.
"So, what's all this about?"
I bit off the strands of pasta and composed myself.
"Well, I shall not equivocate," I answered. "I said that an assignment Mrs. Perkins gave to us was degrading. It was an honest assessment of a meaningless project given to us to occupy our time. I dare say that I will learn nothing from it."
Mom paled and looked ready to keel over. "Go to your room."
My brows knit in distaste. "Why?"
"Don't question me, Augustus James Kennedy! Just go!"
Sulkily, I ambled upstairs. Getting into trouble is a rare event for me, mostly because my parents practice a kind of salutary neglect policy with me. However, this set off my mother, angering her deeply. I suppose she could relate to Perkins, having been a teacher herself. The point remained that Mrs. Perkins was playing for keeps, and I'd just lost the game. To this day, I find it a stellar example of the fact that hypocrisy is a principle by which humanity lives. Society generally exalts one speaking one's mind openly and honestly, yet nobody likes to hear about their own shortcomings. Well, which is it? I value integrity over sensitivity. It's nice to know where my teachers, contriving to be role models as they are, stand on this issue.
"Wow, that's rough," Mark said the next day, after I told him about the situation.
"Agreed," I remarked.
"Though you have to admit, you won't win people's favor by calling their work 'degrading', Augustus."
"But that's just it…it was degrading," I scoffed. "Does no one put a premium on a critique anymore?"
"That was probably a bit more than a critique," said Mark. "That was an insult."
"Oh, let us all shed a tear for our oh-so sensitive teachers!" I snarled. "They get set in their ways for twenty-something years and they can't be told for a moment that they could stand not to do the same routine. Everyone wants to be spoon-fed mindless adulation. It's absurd, I say. If you can't take a criticism, no matter how it is phrased, you've got a problem. Live with it."
"I don't think that's how it works."
I groaned. "I don't see the world ending for every person who is ever insulted on a day-to-day basis. A teacher is supposed to be a professional, not a shallow wretch concerned first about appearances and second about education. If they don't like it, they should get the hell out of school and into some occupation where they have more sycophants. This isn't the place for megalomaniacs."
Mark said nothing. I looked down at the table and continued stewing in my anger. This whole event had infuriated me. Someone was trying to best Augustus Kennedy, and that was unacceptable.
There was, naturally, more fallout to be had from this fiasco. Perkins at once stopped me from attending Mr. Tullile's Latin class. Instead, she started right off by giving me a referral to Dr. McShallasy. Dismayed, I hiked over to her office. For five minutes, she made animal noises at me. After that, I felt we had made significant progress and I returned to class.
Studens Princeps: 'lo, Charlie.
Chuckles125: Hey Augustus
Chuckles125: What's up?
Studens Princeps: At present, I'm allegedly doing Mrs. DiGenari's essay, but to tell you God's honest truth, I'm procrastinating.
Chuckles125: Haha
Chuckles125: Point taken I need to do that too
Studens Princeps: How are things at your end of life?
Chuckles125: Could be better I guess
Studens Princeps: Mind if I ask why?
Chuckles125: Can I confide in you?
Studens Princeps: I am nothing if not discreet.
Chuckles125: It's about Sarah
Studens Princeps: What about her?
Chuckles125: You've known her longer than me so I have to ask how you can tolerate how annoying she is
Studens Princeps: How is she annoying, pray tell?
Chuckles125: She's always tagging me around and if I'm not with her I ought to be calling her or texting her to talk to her otherwise she thinks I don't like her
Studens Princeps: I see.
Chuckles125: Yep so what do you think?
Studens Princeps: I'll tell you the truth here, Charlie…Sarah picks her places to be vexatious. As for her constant need for attention, I can't add much beyond the obvious in that I've never A) been her boyfriend nor B) spoken to any previous boyfriends of hers.
Chuckles125: I see
Studens Princeps: But I will tell you this: Sarah's one of ill repute in romantic affairs. Hardly three weeks go by before she's left one guy for another. I say this as a forewarning.
Chuckles125: I see so what do you think I should do?
Studens Princeps: Well now, it's not really my position to pontificate advice from. I'm absolutely inexperienced regarding the proper treatment of the opposite sex.
Chuckles125: Come on you're the smartest kid in the entire school so surely you must have an idea?
Studens Princeps: * shrugs * I'll be frank with you (or Ernest if you rather), Charlie: I am nothing of an authority on the matter of females, but my personal opinion, based on knowing Sarah, is that you must ask yourself if you really want this relationship to last.
Chuckles125: I do that's the problem
Studens Princeps: Then you should address the matter with her.
Studens Princeps: No sense in ignoring something that may mushroom into a larger problem than it ought to be.
Chuckles125: Thanks Augustus
Studens Princeps: Certainly.
Chuckles125: I don't suppose you have McCartney's hw do you?
Studens Princeps: Nope. Doing it in chem tomorrow.
Chuckles125: Damn I'm not going to be 1st period tomorrow
Studens Princeps: Why is that, now?
Chuckles125: Dentistry appointment
Studens Princeps: Never fear. Augustus J. Kennedy III provides for all. When do you get back?
Chuckles125: Not a clue
Studens Princeps: Text me when you're coming into school. Your homework will be waiting for you.
Chuckles125: You'll take care of it?
Studens Princeps: Oh yes. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than hoodwinking teachers.
At this point, my hatred for teachers knew no bounds. Needless to say, I forged Charlie's homework for Mrs. McCartney. It just goes to show the sort of zealous fidelity I have concerning my friends. I knew it was really me railing against Mrs. Perkins, but it gave me some superficial pleasure to think I was gaming the obnoxious system. I'd get even somehow; I was determined. Oh yes.
Things had gotten unpleasant at home as a result of that ill-fated phone call. I was usually given a tongue-lashing for any trivial things that I did that displeased my parents. If I was on the computer for too long, someone shouted at me. If I was not eating all of my dinner, someone shouted at me. If I didn't promptly begin my homework upon coming home from school, someone shouted at me. I looked forward to Wednesdays the most for this reason; on Wednesdays, the chess team would play matches against competing high schools in the region. However, the frustration on the home front began needling its way, ever so irritatingly, into my performance at chess matches. What began as a strong start to my season quickly turned into a string of consecutive losses from November on through December. After one more glorious loss I had sucked up in the middle of the month, I was approached by Terry, who had also just lost his match.
"Are you quite alright? You haven't been doing too well recently."
I expressed the length of the story in as few words as I could manage, being especially certain to emphasize my low regard of the contempt given to my opinion. Terry ruffled his sandy hair and nodded.
"Ooh, bad form. I suppose it'd have done you well had you said nothing."
"Narcissistic wench," I grumbled, glaring at my chess notations. "She sent me packing to see McShallasy again. I'm waiting for the time I'll end up in that unhinged psycho's office and she'll aver that I have some kind of uncontrolled Oedipal complex."
Terry chuckled. "Well, you certainly look like hell. You've got a face only a mother could love."
"Not even," I said, not particularly wanting to direct the conversation to how my parents were handling the situation.
"You haven't shaved in a while, I see," he observed. "Trying to impress the ladies with your rugged good looks or something?"
I scoffed at this joke. "Hardly."
"If I might ask, why is it that you don't have a girlfriend, Augustus? You seem like a…good-looking guy, you know. I was thinking you shouldn't have a problem landing any ladies."
I rolled my eyes away to a corner of the floor. Bitter contempt of teenage girls forced my tongue.
"Well, I'll be honest with you, Terry. There's simply no more room in this, or any other, world for the 'nice guy' anymore. Traditional values have gone to hell in favor of the punk, the badass, the bad boy. I really don't care that this is the way it is. Frankly, in ten years' time from now, in our mid-twenties, I shall have my vindication. All those girls who thought they were having the time of their lives with street trash will either find out how horribly mistaken they were or just end up in a trailer court. I myself shall be grinning from ear to ear when that happens."
"Nice guy, eh? You sound more like a…mis…mis…misnomer, I think."
"Misogynist, you mean? No, I don't hate girls. I just think that, by and large, teenage girls are interested in the very ephemeral. Far-sightedness has never been celebrated in very many people of our age, but sometimes I get the impression that girls, at least around here, are even more narrow-sighted than guys are. And that takes skill. Guys are, by and large, one-track minded beasts, eager to demonstrate their false machismo in order to attract a mate. It's a race to the bottom, our human behavior. Teenagers are pretty bad about this, since they are almost entirely at the whim of the hormones dictating to them what they ought to feel. No one possesses an iota of self-control."
Don't eye me that way. I'm not trying to sound callous; I honestly believe we of this generation have a long way to go before we claim dominion over the world from our parents. I don't know why people are obsessed with the trivial as much as they are. There are so many things that demand our attention, and we ignore them. This generation in particular has a focus problem, but that may just be me being especially critical of my peers. They may be no worse than any previous generation, but that is not hopeful either. Once again, it's always The Destination and not The Journey.
What small consolation there was in all of this was that I was clearly not alone in my misery. If misery loves company, as it is often claimed, that was certainly the absolute truth among my friends. Brian seemed to be more miserable than he usually was, as if that were even possible, and I had my suspicions as to why. Charlie became more and more morose as time wore on, perhaps because even he could not turn a blind eye to Sarah's penchant for Terry. Nate seemed to be succumbing to the dark tendrils of the emo culture further and further every day. Terry continued to long for London, likely if only because Sarah was getting uncomfortably forward in her attention toward him.
That's when Christmas projects came along, just to lighten the mood. In Mrs. McCartney's class, the gnome ordered us to use algebraic functions to come up with a graph of something holiday-oriented (she didn't say Christmas-oriented because Chevlington is all about a PC status quo). So that was going to make the whole 10-day vacation a washout. Mrs. Norton started talking to us about keeping up with starting our marking period projects, urging us to use our Christmas vacation (ahem, Winter vacation) "wisely." And the worst of it was when Mrs. DiGenari assigned us a project as part of our studies in the Late Middle Ages. I was shackled together with Katarina West, Charlie, Sarah, and worst of all, April Carissilia. The day our groups were picked, I bemoaned the cruelty of the Fates and met with my assigned partners, still internally moaning about my misfortune.
"Well, this is a pleasant group," Charlie smiled, not looking directly at Sarah. I noticed Charlie had dark rings around his eyes. This wasn't new, in retrospect; he had those for weeks now.
"Sure," I mumbled, looking over at April begrudgingly. Katarina poked me in my side. Traditionally I wasn't very cheerful about things like being touched.
"Can I help you?" I snapped. Katarina laughed merrily, as she often did.
"Cheer up, sour puss," she advised. "If looks could kill we'd all be six feet under."
I put on a distinctly sarcastic smile and asked if that met her approval. Undaunted, she said it did.
"So it looks like we're doing the Protestant Reformation," Charlie said, returning to his seat. I hadn't even noticed him leave. He had gone to get our assignment.
"The Protestant Reformation? Quite," I declared. "I know exactly what we shall do."
"Come up with something historically accurate and informative as we have to?" Charlie sarcastically asked.
"Indeed. But in a talk show format. And it shall be called 'History Night Live,' and it shall be declared good, so sayeth the Lord."
"Okay, almighty one," Sarah scoffed. "How do we do it?"
"Leave all to me," I answered. "I shall have scripts for you almost immediately."
"This should be interesting," April commented.
I looked at April sideways. Someone was going to have a highly diminished part in this little performance.
I Hate People
I hate people. That's all there is to it.
People are nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, maddening, infuriating creatures of mercilessness.
The word "no" is the most impotent word in the world. There's always a sense of reluctance draping over me whenever I reject someone's demands. I'm too gentle, perhaps. Still, what good is it to say no? People will continue provoking you until you submit to their will.
Some girl I know virtually mauls me, demanding things of me…homework, lunch money, things like that. When I insisted she do her own work, she outright slapped me right in the hallway. And being the total idiot I am, I relented and gave it to her.
I'm trying to avoid going off the deep end this Christmas season. It's another excuse to pretend that people are merry in their degenerate, immoral lives. Laden with secrets of irreverence and debauchery, people carry on waving morality in your face. I was told I had to buy Christmas presents for my parents. They told me to get them something. I understand they've given to me for years, but I assumed the idea behind Christmas was voluntary giving.
Some asshole was nettling me about my hair and making fun of me for the sort of music I listen to, calling me all the usual names. I came so close to punching him…but I didn't. My arm was raised and everything, and I opened my fist after getting hit with my screams of rationality. I waved him off but I must question if that was the proper answer-nonviolence. It's praised so much and practiced so little.
Some jackass came up from behind me and pushed me into the lockers the other day. As my books and crap spilled out everywhere, people continued to walk right by. Screw you, you malicious #@*&. I still have a bruise on my arm because of you.
I'm so irritated by people. If I could, I'd just decimate the whole world. Yes, I'd gladly gut one out of every ten people living in existence. It'd be a relief to this planet anyway. One more push like this and blood will run, and for a change, it isn't going to be mine.
I guess I'm overreacting. I don't know. Traditionally, I've tried to repress my angst. I've tried to keep it under lock and key so nobody would do something useless like pity me. But I don't care who sees this. I want the whole world to know I'm not playing games here…I'm a malcontent in this so-called civilized society. I don't need to drain happiness, but anger, hate, fury, vengeance. If I don't, that guy who was making fun of me before would be laid up in a hospital.
Yes, I realize that many people would be more satisfied with a nice, cheerful journal. When I have a nice, cheerful life, you can come read this.
With something like trepidation did I read this entry in Nate's journal. Every day was a new adventure in waiting for a threat to go on a violent rampage. I took the world decimation thing lightly in view of the fact that it was a general assault on humanity and not on specific targets. All the same, I watched closely. Nate was sliding into oblivion, and something had to be done. For the first time, Augustus Kennedy felt the need to act…and didn't know what to do.
Things remained interesting through the short month of December. For example, Sarah was given to being more flirtatious with Terry from day to day. It was appalling, and Charlie was clearly ill at ease with the whole thing. He tried to appear laid back, but I could read him like a book.
Speaking of whom, Terry seemed more popular than ever among the ladies. Far be it from me to pass any judgment, but as I figure most of the girls in Seaside High are ridiculously easy, they must have been expecting Terry to go out with them. He made no overtures toward any, which came as something of a relief to me. Terry's poise turned me into an Anglophile, and by Christmas I was behaving all over British.
This didn't escape the notice of Mark, who gave me a quizzical stare when I jovially greeted him one morning with, "Top of the morning, my lad. How are you jolly well doing?"
Mark made a face. "I'd ask what you've been drinking, but you're so sober you make drunken people get over their hangovers by being near them."
"It's just an interest in the United Kingdom," I answered.
"Fascinating," Mark lied. "By the way, if you happen to see a pretty blonde girl, about five-six with blue eyes, send her my way, would you?"
"Whom are you talking about?" I asked cautiously. Mark had his repute with me for having an interest in strange girls, and this description was of someone who seemed frighteningly normal by comparison.
"Haven't a clue. But hey, who knows? Such a girl may even exist."
Girls were such a nuisance of a topic, and they kept coming up over and over again in conversation. And if they weren't being spoken of, I was observing at least one: Sarah. More correctly, I was observing how she was slowly causing the ruination of Charlie. One day the two were in the lunch line when they exchanged some words. She seemed to be trying to cajole him into doing something and finally left him, clearly flustered. Charlie was red in the face and stole a candy bar from the cafeteria. He went over to Sarah and gave her the stolen item, and Sarah appeared delighted. I paled (if that is at all possible) at the thought that Sarah had asked Charlie to commit theft. But then again, it made sense with my belief that she lost interest in guys just because. And that was a damn shame.
At the lunch table, we were engaged in the usual banter. Rob was talking about something…I don't really remember what it was. I was somewhat withdrawn, still sullen. At this point, I see that it's my habit to set a certain window in which I mope about something. This, decidedly, was longer than is commonplace for me. I attribute this to the unusual circumstances of the event. This did not go unnoticed. Terry nudged me and said, "You look miserable."
I whispered back to him, "Everything and everyone is getting on my nerves, I'm afraid. I take a look around and I see nothing but willful, shameful ignorance demonstrated on a sliding scale of avoidable consequences."
"This isn't about Perkins, I take it."
"In small part, but it's more than that. It's…well, I don't know how to explain it properly. So many of my friends are doing things that I'd consider self-destructive. They refuse to listen to reason, and it's detrimental to their happiness, at which point they want to bring everyone else down in the same state of misery."
"So? Let 'em wallow. It's not your business, right?"
I leaned back and crossed my arms across my chest. "If only. These are people about whom I care deeply. However, they choose to ignore my counsel, and they suffer for it. I wonder if I'm merely deceiving myself. It's absurd."
"You can't be a knight in shining armour to everyone every time," he assured me. "Life is built upon learning from the mistakes you make. If you go around rescuing everyone from themselves, how will they ever learn?"
I paused to give due consideration to Terry's quite valid point. After some rumination, I replied, "What would you have me do, then? These people are determined to be injurious to themselves, and it invariably gets back to me."
Terry sighed in exasperation. "It doesn't have to do with you, Augustus. You have to learn that."
I gave him a look that indicated I didn't lend much credence to that statement. He frowned in response. I finally said, "It continues to suck."
"You want to know what sucks? Having a mother who purposely gets pregnant with you in order to leech off your naively kind father. You want to know what sucks? Getting bullied for years and years in school, to the point that it was safer to have break time bloody well hiding among the coats. What sucks is when you're transplanted between households because your parents have divorced, with your mum on the one hand being entirely unstable and your dad constantly cheating. You wind up in some rotten little flat at one end of London, little more than a hole in the wall, rats everywhere and your whole life coming apart at the seams because no one can expend the energy to care about your welfare. You're living in a dump, relying on candles for heat since you can't afford anything better, watching your dad struggle to pay off the growing pile of bills delivered daily by some cheerful agent of Royal Mail.
"Eventually, there just comes a point where you either choose to drown or paddle your way back up to the top. There wasn't a thing I could do about what I was going through, except try my hardest not to let myself get swallowed up in the storm. That's what it's all about, and that dedication is what got me here. It's possible to hit rock bottom and still claw and scrape your way out, inch by inch. What are you going on about? Some whining about an arrogant teacher and some stupid drama among your friends. That, my friend, is a load of horse%#@*. If you can find the time to cry about it, you've got the time to do something about it."
These words wrestled with my inclination to be self-righteous. In the end, Terry's words won. I chose-prudently, as I like to believe-to keep my mouth shut at the time and nodded silently. Terry nodded back and resumed eating his lunch. I learned a great deal in that exchange, I think. What had been my problem, anyway? Was I so caught up in myself that I'd begun losing sight of the big picture? I was disgusted to think that I'd behaved so abominably and indecorously; indeed, that I even had the capacity to behave thus. Perhaps my train had flown off the rails, but it was now time to get back on track.
Everyone knows that nothing meaningful is accomplished in the last few days before the holidays. As a testament to that, I was on my way to algebra when I saw Rob dancing in the hallway.
"What are you doing?" I queried.
"Getting down," he answered. It was a goofy-looking dance. You kids today gesticulate wildly and call it dancing. I have no idea what horrible trick has been played on you, but I can assure you most unequivocally that you aren't dancing. You're giving me a reason to laugh at you.
"Why are you doing that here?"
"Because our English teacher is postponing the due date of our thesis rough draft. That's cause for celebration!"
Delightful. Mrs. Perkins was certainly not going to give us any such reprieve. I went into algebra class and took my seat. Mrs. McCartney was wearing a grim expression on her face at her seat. That was an inauspicious sign.
"Mrs. McCartney?" asked Mark, already seated. "I have a question."
I was about to plead with Mark not to ask a stupid question, but it was too late.
"Why is there a Chinese take-out menu on the ceiling?"
Mrs. McCartney smiled. That was downright unsettling.
"It's for the calculus students. We sometimes order Chinese in the afternoon for brain food," my teacher quite calmly explained. I was entirely bewildered by this. Just then, the intercom clicked on and Mr. Hastings, brilliant orator that he is, began to speak.
"Good morning, Chevlington Seaside High School. This is your principal, Mister Hastings. You may ask why I call myself the principal."
No.
"It's because among your pals, I'm a prince."
As I said, a brilliant orator.
"God," moaned Mrs. McCartney.
"I am pleased to announce, after many false starts, that the new Seaside is finally about to begin opening to the public. Starting in January, the new wing of Seaside will open up for use. We will accordingly close off another part of the building for renovation. I know you've waited long for this. We are about to cross the finish line in a very long race."
Mrs. McCartney looked at the class and said loudly, "This man can talk forever. I don't even feel like trying to teach anymore. Take the day off, on me."
Once again, I maintain that Mr. Hastings is a brilliant orator.
On the very last day of classes before school was out for the holidays, I received yet more unwelcome updates about drama. It started at the end of chemistry class, when Amy approached me and whispered to me, "Got a moment?"
"Yes, but act now; supplies are limited," I responded.
"What do you think about Mike Green?"
"He's a wretched little cretin."
"Really?"
"He's probably the sweetest person I know," I said with deadpan drollness. Amy was getting flustered by my flippant answers.
"Stop playing around. I'm being serious."
Unused to hearing Amy sound so concerned, I decided to honor her request. "Fine. I find the child an objectionable blight on society. Why do you want to know?"
"I was just wondering," she said, ducking the question. Great; three guesses as to what was on her mind.
"You can't seriously be thinking what I think you're thinking."
"Why not?"
"Why should you? What on earth makes him attractive to you? It's like I'm watching a whirlwind of innately fractious romances breeze past me and it's sucking in everyone at an alarming pace."
"Who said I like him?" Amy protested.
"Are you really trying to deceive me? We've known each other for three years. I can read between the lines."
We began to walk to Spanish class, continuing our conversation. Amy glanced over her shoulder.
"Please, don't tell Sarah."
"Why would I?" I asked, almost laughing at the proposition. "She doesn't even talk to me that much anymore."
"I just don't want her to find out and give me grief about it."
I rolled my eyes. Everyone's manipulating information and sharing secrets; had I woken up and fallen into a Shakespearean play?
"You've got it. I am nothing if not discreet."
"Thanks, Augustus."
"You still haven't answered me as to why you like him, though."
"I don't know…why does anyone like anyone?"
"That's a terrible answer."
We entered the classroom. She still didn't have an answer. I viciously volunteered one for her.
"Let me guess: it's one of those things where his obnoxious demeanor makes you laugh at first. Then you start hanging around him a little more so you can laugh at all of his immature jokes. Then you start talking and you find out he's into the same bands that you are, and you go with him and a bunch of friends to a concert. At some point, you start spending more time with him alone, and just like that, you've linked yourself to some worthless Neanderthal."
"Since when do you care about what I do?" she snapped. Already fatigued from this conversation, I remarked, "I would be remiss not to try to prevent something I fear to be terrible from happening to a dear friend. That said, it is not my place to sit in judgment of whatever it is you intend to do and with whom. You're right to stop me.'
Amy gave me a quizzical look and left me to take her seat. What a joy it was now to have both Sarah and Amy not willing to talk to me. I was pretty much entirely silent until history. While Mrs. DiGenari was teaching, Mrs. Perkins called me aside and out into the hallway.
"Augustus," she began, "how are you doing?"
I wondered what game she wanted to play now. I gave her a noncommittal answer of, "Fine."
"I'm just wondering because I see you're started to become less and less active in class. Is there something wrong at home?"
"No," I lied.
"Your parents are upset with you because I called them, right?" she posed.
"Yes, but that is neither here nor there. What importance does that have to me?"
"I want you to know that I called them for your own good. You should have at least apologized."
Oh yes, as though that would have ameliorated any part of the situation now.
"Well then," I said, supposing that was some kind of indirect prompt, "I am sorry for offending you."
"I didn't mean for it to affect you so adversely," Mrs. Perkins continued. I glanced over her at the windows in the doors. Snow was falling heavily. I looked back down at her.
"I want to see you participate in class again. You're a very bright student and a role model for the rest of the class. Have you seen how hard it is to lead discussions when you're not setting the bar? It's terrible."
And the confusion set in, this time in earnest. I was so exemplary that I just had to be kept in line? Terrific; I was an instrument for my teacher.
"What would you have me do? Resume being myself so it makes the class easier for everyone? I mean, if they don't want to engage in discussion, it's not a reflection on me."
Implicit in my statement was another cheap shot at her teaching methodology. That one was intentional.
"Oh no, not at all. I mean you did such a good job inspiring the students in our unit on Greek drama…"
"And you'd like me to do that all the time?" I interrupted. "I can do that, though I am curious as to why I should. It's selling my peers short. While I overstepped my boundaries with criticizing your teaching style so severely, that's not to say that anyone else in the room is less capable than I am."
I didn't believe that per se, but I was trying to make a point of putting Mrs. Perkins on the defensive for her scheme.
"Oh, of course not. You aren't hearing my message properly. It would be to the benefit of others' understanding if you helped them by being a touchstone in the class for me through which questions could be clarified."
I wasn't entirely against this idea on principle. Nevertheless, she was getting a check whether people learned in her class or not. I wasn't. My reservations were not weakening.
"Well, that's fine," I said. If you think I had any intent to humor her request, you don't know me very well. We returned to class, probably with both of us thinking that we had walked away victorious from the encounter.
"I'm flattered."
I could feel myself blushing. It wasn't precisely what I had anticipated for an answer. I scratched at the back of my head, the question of asking, "How do you really feel, though?" never once crossing my mind. Intelligence sleets through the cosmos. It's only by the slightest chance than intelligence actually hits the human mind at the precise angle to spark wisdom in the brain.
"I just thought I'd mention it. It's been hounding me since sixth grade and all," I responded, fumbling for something, anything to say.
"I'm touched by it, Augustus, really."
Was that a lie? I looked up and observed, "It's kind of awkward, talking about this in a church."
"Why? Love is the message of Christ. There isn't a thing that can't be said here."
I stared up at the ceiling. It reminded me of the Sistine Chapel. The interior architecture reminded me of the Pantheon. I glanced back down.
"What about you?" I asked. I had been roundabout in coming to this question, afraid of the response. I didn't get an answer. I suddenly lost control of myself and rage superseded everything else. I looked up at Christ on the cross: his face, instead of pained or sorrowful, appeared angry. Someone was laughing at me. I whirled around. It was that sinister wench April.
Screaming. Silence.
I bolted upright. I stared around in the darkness, my heart in my throat. How I managed to scare myself awake that Christmas, I have no idea, but it was a particularly unusual and at least partially disturbing dream. That dream bothered me and provoked me into walking around the house late that night. Trekking downstairs silently, I sat in the kitchen, staring into the purple sky through the skylight. It was around one, so this was probably the darkest it would get in Chevlington. All at once, I felt a case of mental claustrophobia. Mental claustrophobia…yes, in a more vulgar meaning, "suburban syndrome." The feeling of confinement by constantly being indoors is a psychological thing, and while I make no claims to having any expertise in psychology, I do know that I went stir crazy that night. The house air was thick and oppressive. I had trouble breathing. The more I thought about it, the worse it got. I felt encaged, and I was restless. I couldn't sit still. I needed fresh air (a sign I was in bad shape, since I knew there's no fresh air in New Jersey). I needed to escape. I worried I might be losing my mind. I raced to a window and pulled it open. I stuck my head out and inhaled deeply. My lungs ceased burning but my head ached. It's a horrible feeling, mental claustrophobia. Chevlington has nothing to do in it. And having led a sheltered life as I have, it wasn't surprising that this would start to catch up with me. Even talking about it now still gives me distressing symptoms.
I turned on the computer and went online. As could be expected, nobody was online to talk to, so I flipped through the news online. Depressing talk about the state of world affairs and the state-sponsored terrorists who threatened the sanctity of America lined most of the pages. Tibullus was right about the first person to craft a sword; I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be in a war. You may have hundreds of people act to aid others in peace. In war, hundreds of people act to destroy others. I gave up thinking about it and went to ramble in my LiveJournal, like so:
Dec. 26, 2002-1:17 am
Christmas again leaves me bitter.
I've been trying to stave off mental claustrophobia for the past quarter hour, feeling encaged in the clutches of this dismal suburban neighborhood. It's my come-uppance for the life of sheltered pleasure I've hitherto led.
This morning, I arose at some God-forsaken hour to tear into my Christmas presents. I wasted the whole of the day enjoying them, barring the clothes, of course. I detest the person who thinks that clothes constitute a decent Christmas present. There are only two things worse to give for this holiday: a calendar and a Chia Pet. A calendar only functions for three hundred sixty-something days. And a Chia Pet's just flat out cheap. But I enjoyed the quietude of the house for a short while, what with my parents and siblings having gone to see friends at various Christmas parties. I was without a soul to talk to all day.
One has to love this merry season, filled as it is with family, friends, and sharing. Unless, that is, you happen to be me, in which case you spend ten days doing @#%+*!$ nothing except killing time, doing McCartney's project or Norton's project or DiGenari's project. I'm up eighteen hours of the day, with usually one or two people to talk to during the day online, for everyone else has vacated Chevlington.
Is this what Christmas is, then? Hurtful as this must be to people more faithful than I might ever aspire to be, I severely hope that Christ was not nailed to the cross for this. It's lonely in Chevlington. My popularity is more a product of vanity than verity, and it's appalling to think that at my age, considered by so many to be "the best years of one's life," I'm more likely to be watching my parents have a good time than I will have myself. I've taken up writing as a means of passing the time, as well as engaging in a great deal of idle thought during my classes. It's a depressing thought.
And then, when we return to school in January, everyone will talk about what they got for Christmas and where they went, and we all can drop any pretenses of caring about anyone else's Christmas because nobody really cares about your damn holiday. It's a ridiculous façade that's been perpetuated by adults and has rubbed off on us.
Every once in a while, I consider these things and contemplate what it means…what does it mean to have such spited, jealous, malicious thoughts? I may damn well say it doesn't matter. It never has because nobody cares. Somewhere along the way in eighth grade, I began to take acute notice of the fact that I was a standard. Let's ignore the fact that I am a person. I became a standard. I was the paradigm by which others judged academic success. I've always had people compare themselves to me when they outscore me on a test and whenever I outshine everyone, people say, "Of course Augustus gets it." It didn't bother me until last year though, and now it infuriates me. I lost my humanity between elementary school and now. And I may never get it back.
Typically I wouldn't go so far as to say something arrogant like, "It's hard being Augustus J. Kennedy III," but you know what? It is. It is because the expectations are always high and the demand for success is omnipresent. Failure has never been given a chance to be considered. And that young redhead who always smiled in kindergarten to everyone is now just a myth.
New Year's was not particularly satisfying either. So it was 2003. I wasn't going to pretend it made a difference. Life didn't change with a given year.
Such was my generally malcontent sentiment the first day back in school. I was in a pretty bad mood. However, foul though I felt, I was all but cheerful in comparison to Charlie when I saw him in chemistry. His expression was absolutely cross, and he looked capable of murder. I probed into this tentatively.
"What's with you? Certainly the new year hasn't thrown any misfortune at you yet," I spoke to him.
"No, but last year did," he spat angrily.
"How?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
This year was going to go by smoothly. Mr. Jones then walked in and surprised us all. He was wearing a suit and tie. His hair was cut close and he was shaven. He smelled sweetly of cologne. Initially, I didn't recognize the man at all.
"Looking sharp," Mark called.
"Thanks," Mr. Jones replied.
"Hot date?" asked Mike Green.
"Maybe," Mr. Jones evasively responded. A few whistles came back at him. I rolled my eyes.
"Guess what, everyone?" Mr. Jones rhetorically questioned. "It's January. That means it's time to begin our midterm review."
He was right, of course. We were going into the half-year stretch. For a moment, I tried to remember something Mrs. Perkins had told us the second day of school. I believe she said, "Four years may seem like a long time, but they'll go by quickly."
Tim had been distinctly distracted during Spanish class. While Tim is almost always distracted, this appeared to be the consequence of a distraught mind. After class, I approached him and inquired as to how he was feeling.
"Eh, I broke up with April," he answered.
"I'm terribly sorry to hear that," I said, not really feeling at all sorry. I was nearly indifferent, in fact.
"It's okay. We weren't really feeling it, you know?"
I hadn't the slightest idea what he meant, but Augustus Kennedy never admits to being ignorant. "Oh yeah, I know."
"So, how's chess coming along?" Tim colloquially inquired, evidently trying to change the subject.
"Well. Number two and holding well against everyone but the all boys' academy."
"Oh yeah, Novus Homosexual Academy?"
Truthfully, it was called Novus Homo Academy, but as it was an all boys' school…
"Yes, them. Truth be told, they're our only true competition. I've been doing reasonably well this season, but we were roundly trounced by those presumptuous blackguards at NHA last time."
"I guess you want vengeance, huh?"
"Indeed. Victory shall not elude us this time. We will crush them with martial glory paving our road to fame," I declared emphatically. Tim laughed.
"You remind me of April's dad. He was like some hardcore fascist dude or something."
"Oh, sorry."
"Nah, it's okay. I guess we weren't meant to be. She's interested in this other kid…uh, I think his name is Michael Green or something like that."
My eyes widened and I looked at Amy. Amy was in front of us and pushing her way through the flowing river of students flooding the halls. She had not heard what Tim said, obviously, though I'm sure she probably would have wanted to. I wasn't sure that I wanted to see what that car crash would look like.
Our project for history went well, I am pleased to report. Charlie made a huge banner that read, "History Night Live," and taped it to the blackboard behind us. I was acting in the capacity of a talk show host. Charlie was Huldrich Zwingli, a Swiss Protestant reformer. Sarah was John Calvin, another Protestant reformer. Katarina was Martin Luther himself. April…well, you'll see.
"Thank you, thank you," I said, walking up to my desk when it was our group's turn for presentation. "Welcome to another episode of History Night Live. Tonight, we're talking about corruption, bribery, scandal, and insurrection. This is the Protestant Reformation. Our first guest is the esteemed Martin Luther himself."
Katarina took a seat next to me. She had on a dark green robe to match the famous painting of Luther.
"Hello, Augustus."
"Hello, Martin. Tell me, what have you been up to?"
"Well, after I nailed up my Ninety-Five Theses on Wittenberg Cathedral, I've been on the road. I've taken this show all over Europe…Prague, Worms, Aquitania, London. It's been a glorious tour, but I'm considering my next moves after the end of the tour."
"What next?"
"Probably establishing a separate church in my own name, denouncing Papal authority, urging German princes to stop supporting the Italian Popeocracy, things like that."
While she was speaking, I had a Goofy cup on my desk. There was nothing in it, but I pretended to drink from it anyway.
"Fascinating," I said at length. "And now, one man who is proudly walking in Martin's footsteps already, our foreign correspondent Huldrich Zwingli."
Charlie sat down beside Katarina. He had on a long beard made of cotton balls.
"Hello, Augustus."
"Greetings, Huldrich. How goes it?"
"Well. I just got down from the Alps. I've been spreading a new Gospel and all, teaching Martin's doctrine."
"Fascinating. Are you going on tour also?"
"No. I'm going to be authoring my own collections of letters and treatises from home. Protestant propaganda, if you will."
"Fascinating. Last question: what's with the crazy name?"
This was an ad-lib. I didn't write it down in the script, and Charlie looked at me cross-eyed before answering, "We'll get it together when Napoleon invades."
Mrs. DiGenari laughed. I nodded.
"Yes, let's bring out our next guest, Mister John Calvin."
Here, Charlie looked away as Sarah, wearing a miter made of oak tag, sat down beside him. It was duly noted.
"Mister Calvin, I understand you're preaching as a protégé of Zwingli. What do you have to say?"
"Only that the way Martin seeks isn't rigid enough. We need strength. We need discipline. Back in Scotland, this sort of thing doesn't fly unless it's hardcore."
"Well spoken. Your Calvinist sect has been growing rapidly, yes?"
"Two hundred converts today. By the end of the year, we'll be ready to outbid the Vatican."
"But surely yours is a non-profit organization."
"Nope. Jesus Christ is our prophet."
"Fascinating, fascinating. And now, we turn to the commoners in the streets to ask them their opinion."
This was April's cue. She was kneeling behind a desk, wearing a cardboard box over her head. The front was cut out so her face was visible.
"April, can you hear me out there?"
"Yes, I can."
"You're in Rome right now. Tell me, what's going on over there?"
"It's pandemonium over here in the Eternal City, Augustus. Pope Leo wants Martin to recant and people here are rejoicing at the prospect of interacting with God themselves."
I turned away quickly. "Martin, final thoughts?"
"If the Church was so great, it wouldn't be interested in molesting children."
"Well that's all the time we have here tonight. Join us tomorrow night when we'll talk religion with John and Paul, and even George and Ringo, when we interview the Beatles!"
We got a distinctly loud applause. I doubt it was so much for content as much as it was for brevity. Whatever works.
I should mention that the return to Seaside had not been without its changes. Most importantly, the school had undergone renovation, and most of my classes were accordingly relocated to new places in the building. While Spanish had not changed its location, there were now new rooms for chemistry, algebra and art. Perhaps most bizarrely, English and history had been relocated to the room where I had had art in the previous marking periods.
As our old chemistry room had been locked away behind a wall of caution tape and plywood, so too were our lockers; our lockers had been assigned to us to be as close to our first period classes as possible. With the whole wing now shut down for renovations, the school had to give us new ones. Mr. Jones handed out little strips of paper to us with our new locker numbers and the combinations to them. As we emerged into the hallway to ensure that the combinations and locker numbers matched, some of us were slightly surprised at the new lockers.
"Those are different," Mark observed quietly.
A locker at Seaside was, for the most part, what you think of when you think of a typical high school locker. Tall, thin, just enough space to fit your books and coat; it's all very standard. These lockers looked more like safes built into the walls. They were a shiny jet black color, set deep into the wall, and were relatively small length-wise. One sat upon another, forming two long rows of lockers between classrooms.
"Whatever works," I said, opening my locker and sticking my head in it. "Hello in there!"
My voice resonated loudly within the locker. I closed it and shrugged. "If it does what it's supposed to do, then that's all that matters, right?"
I didn't get an answer from Mark. I turned and was horrified; Mark was trying to crawl into his locker.
"You idiot, get out of there!" I hissed at him. Mark smiled cheerfully.
"Have to test these things out. Empiricism requires all questions be answered to their utmost," he insisted.
"And what's the question here? How far are you willing to go in demonstrating your madness?"
"Something like that."
Make no mistake; Mark is a scrawny, little guy. With only minimal exertion, he was able to slide about halfway into his locker before he reached the end. Not to be denied, he exhibited his amazing powers of flexibility. Through some struggle, he turned over onto his back and began folding his legs into his locker. Before long, he had completely inserted himself into his locker and smiled at me.
"Success!" he declared.
"Alright, you've made your point," I remarked. "You have yet to answer the last question though, Riddler."
"And what's that?"
"How do you propose to extract yourself from your locker?"
Mark struggled a bit to dislodge himself, but his legs, crossed as they were, were wedged up firmly against the sides of the locker. He smiled weakly.
"Through reliance on my dear friend Augustus," he answered.
"Somehow, I don't think these are the questions that were weighing heavily on Aristotle's mind, just so you know," I said.
Christ was glaring at me. I heard laughing. April again, curse her! I was feeling the desire to kill. It wasn't her fault but I was still angry.
I tried to lunge at her but I was inexplicably restrained, as if I were tied to some heavy weight. I struggled to attack her, but I gave up. She was too far away. I glared at the other person.
"You!" I shrieked.
"What about me?"
"This is your fault! How could you do this to me?"
"I don't owe you anything."
"You don't feel anything at all?"
"Not like you do."
"That's it?"
"Yes."
"I could kill you!"
I woke up. It was another dream. I groaned at this unnecessary mental stress. Why couldn't things go right for me? I was beginning to fall apart, and at one of the worst possible times. The marking period was winding down. Midterms were on the horizon. My art project would be due soon. Deluges of emotions were racking the foundations of my stolid self-composure. I shook it off as just stress that I couldn't afford to deal with. Confident in this, I fell right asleep again. Just stress.
Midterms came and went with no great change in life. Naturally, I got an A+ in each, as well as an A+ for each class of the second marking period.
Perfection is good.
One other consequence of January is that they herald the time in which New Jersey gives its ninth graders across the board a standardized test. For the life of me, I don't even remember what it is called, so inconsequential is it to me. For this, they really went all out in being sticklers for regulation and procedure. They separated us into small groups based on last name. That being my luck, I didn't have anyone to enjoy shooting the breeze with because all of my friends were of radically different surnames than mine. Resigned to my fate, I shrugged it off as another one of those little stupid things about school.
One morning, for the test-taking period lasted for several mornings, we were lined up outside the classroom. Our proctor had not yet come to open the door. The next room over was Mrs. McCartney's room, and I could hear her taking attendance. I wasn't really giving it that much attention until I heard her call a name I hadn't heard in years.
"Stephen Martinez?"
"Here," someone said.
No way! It couldn't be! But…surely…perhaps it was another one. The name could be somewhat commonplace, though in a township like Chevlington, the odds weren't on it. Still, could it have been the Stephen Martinez? I was seized with a burning passion to know then and there, but our proctor showed up just at that moment and ushered us into the classroom.
For the next two days, I tried in vain to catch a sight of this Stephen Martinez in the hopes of confirming something…indeed, anything. It was not until the last day of testing that I arrived sufficiently early to catch a glimpse of the students whom Mrs. McCartney was proctoring. I saw a young man from behind with a tanned complexion and dark, wavy hair. I was so stunned that it took me a minute to get out the name, "Stephen?"
He turned around, looked at me, and flashed a smile as Mrs. McCartney arrived and began admitting her students to the room. As he left, he simply said, "Hey, Augustus."
I could not believe it. I watched him disappear into the room. My mind had blanked in amazement. It was truly the Stephen Martinez. Would wonders never cease? I was in a daze during the examination period, still stunned.
All right, here's the deal. Back in elementary school, I had no greater friend than Stephen Martinez. I didn't always live in Chevlington; for the first five years of my life, I had lived in northern Jersey, close to Dad's work. After a while, he and Mom thought it better that they relocate to a more suburban location for the benefit of the three kids. It was a weird way to handle it, especially since I had already started kindergarten up north at the time, but they didn't exactly seek my opinion. So I was transferred into East Chevlington Elementary almost halfway through kindergarten. I remember meeting the principal that day and being shown to my new class. All those faces stared at me with a mix of blankness and curiosity. The first person to greet me was Stephen Martinez.
From day one, Stephen and I got along great together. He invited me over to his house and we would play video games together. Along with Scottie Rogers, we were a veritable Three Musketeers in kindergarten, always being the overachievers. We were also a little inclined toward mischief, but that comes as part and parcel in the kindergarten experience, don't you agree? Then first grade set in, and things fell apart, in the words of Mister Achebe. Stephen and I went to the same first grade class together, but Scott went to a different one. While the three of us tried to get together after school, the group dynamics shifted in a strange pattern. Scott became alarmingly aggressive, sometimes swinging his backpack at Stephen and me. Progressively, Stephen and I isolated ourselves from Scott. In second grade, Stephen and I were also separated. By third grade, Stephen and Scott were in the same class, and while I got to see both of them at Cub Scout meetings, the dynamics had shifted even more. Now Stephen and Scott were getting along fantastically and I was the odd man out. Fourth grade was the final nail in the coffin. Stephen came from a home that, while not yet broken, was rapidly breaking. I don't know all the details, but I do recall my mom calling it a shame. Eventually, much to my great heartbreak, Stephen moved away from Chevlington. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to him. In short, it was devastating. I figured that was the last I would ever see of Stephen Martinez.
You must understand that I'm very sensitive to this. My friends mean everything to me. What would I be without them? I've lost good friends to moving. One was Leo John Baker, a guy who shared my penchant for learning back in fourth grade. Halfway through the year, due to familial complications, he moved out. Though we knew each other for only a short time, we had been fast friends. We tried maintaining relations through telephone, but you know how well any long-distance relationship lasts. It doesn't matter if it's a friendship or a courtship; these things fall apart. The same went for another friend of mine between fifth and seventh grade, Ricky DiStefano. Ricky and I were passionate about video games, and we used to speculate on what it would be like to be video game designers. In fact, we used to draw up things that we wanted to see implemented as video games. Our dream back then was to be designers at Sega or Nintendo. We were such fanatics that we even created our own Pokémon and would compare them against each other's. My word, were we ever dorky!
Then, one day while I was in computers, the principal came in with Ricky and told the class that he was moving and would like to say goodbye to his friends. Most of us went up and gave him hugs and fond farewells. Yes, I know; you're probably wondering what sort of tearful goodbye I had for him. Well, the short answer is none. I sat dumbly at my computer, watching everyone give him valedictions. He looked shattered at the idea of leaving. He waved, and then disappeared out the door. Ricky DiStefano moved elsewhere in the county. I did not say a word to him, nor give any kind of farewell to him at all. I have not seen him since. It continues to bother me to this day.
You know, you should feel honored. I don't often discuss such a vulnerable spot with people so liberally. It pains me too much to talk about it most of the time. You may have a hard time appreciating that truth, pompous as I've come across so far. I dearly love my friends. Losing one is a great blow to me, so perhaps you can understand how troubled I was about Charlie, Amy, and Sarah. Three at once was not the way to go. But now, Stephen Martinez, my best friend from elementary school, was back in my life! In Seaside, no less! How had this come to be? My excitement was overflowing. Somehow, I had to make contact with him again, just to see what had happened. From the darkest turbulence of December, vitality was returning to the life of Augustus Kennedy.
If, however, you were to hazard a guess that, because things were improving ever so slightly for me, things were also improving for my friends, more is the pity for your incorrect supposition. Almost in direct and stark contrast to me, every day seemed to be a new ordeal for poor Charlie. Things came to a head in the middle of the month before chemistry began. Mark asked me, "Have you done McCartney's homework yet?"
I shook my head. "I'm going to get creative with my use of time during this class. Charlie, have you done the algebra?"
Charlie ignored my question. That was sufficiently rude. I petitioned him again.
"Charlie? Did you hear me?"
"Yes, I did," he grumbled at me.
"What say you, then?"
"Yes, I did it. Jesus…"
"What's with you?"
"None of your damn business," he grumbled, looking at me irately.
"Don't get cross with me, child," I hissed. "Remember who you are."
"Who the hell are you to tell me anything?" Charlie snapped. I stood up and leaned over him.
"I am Augustus Kennedy, and I will brook no dissent from anyone."
Charlie looked ready to jump up and punch me, but instead he put his head down. He didn't show up in any other classes for the rest of the day. For most of the day, I was entirely bemused by the debacle. This was not at all like the Charlie Vilanti I'd come to know in the past few months. That Charlie had been cheerful and easygoing. This Charlie was tense and irascible. More peculiar still was Sarah's near-total indifference to the exchange Charlie and I had, even though it was right in front of her. We had already reached a straining point in our friendship. I found it odd she didn't take the opportunity to lay into me a little more. However, she had not a word to say, looking as neutral as Switzerland.
Studens Princeps: What the hell was your problem today?
Chuckles123: Nothing
Studens Princeps: Must you insist on wasting my time?
Chuckles123: You jackass leave me alone
Studens Princeps: You are arguably the most irritating person when in a foul mood.
Chuckles123: Thanks
Studens Princeps: Not at all. Does this have anything to do with Sarah?
Chuckles123: Maybe
Studens Princeps: Your little facial challenge with her was evident during our history project. You've been uptight since the beginning of this month. Is there something wrong with your relationship?
Chuckles123: Look, we broke up ok?
Studens Princeps: My condolences.
Studens Princeps: Is there anything I could do to ease your anguish?
Chuckles123: No
Studens Princeps: What happened, if I may ask?
Chuckles123: On Christmas I was over at her place for a little party. She was trying to be alone with me but I didn't like the look of things b/c her parents weren't there and some jackass brought over beer so I assumed she was drunken when she tried to get alone with me. I called up her parents and they came back right away and called the police. They busted up everything and they were so pissed with her and she got pissed with me for it
Chuckles123: So she said I didnt love her and said "if you didn't want to make me happy why didn't you say so" and crap like that. So I told her what she was doing was dangerous and she told me to stop acting like a priest and she left me
Well, wow. The night of that conversation, I contemplated my next action. The only logical recourse I had was to consult with Amy. If nobody else knew, she would know what to do. I certainly didn't. What was wrong with everyone these days?
That next day, during morning announcements, Mr. Hastings said something that caught my ear.
"All students who wish to participate in the spring musical this year, report to the auditorium directly after school. Again, all students who wish to participate in the spring musical this year, report to the auditorium directly after school. I can't stress this enough… all students who wish to participate in the spring musical this year, report to the auditorium directly after school. What? What's the what now? Oh, right. The spring musical is Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville."
I was delighted by the choice, and I already had my heart set on being the sleazy trial lawyer, Billy Flynn. Such hopeful thoughts were running rampant in my mind that I nearly forgot to consult Amy. I didn't remember until Spanish class, and when I got around to remembering, the class was already over. She was out the door. I groaned and plopped my books back on the desk in exasperation. Mrs. Gonzalez regarded me unusually.
"¿Agosto, qué es tu problema?" she asked. I resignedly answered, "Ay, problemas sobre mis amigos."
In Spanish, we had an exchange of words like so:
"What's wrong with your friends?"
"Two friends had a short and sad relationship. It ended and now they are both miserable. I confess I don't know what to do."
"Oh, I'm sorry. It is good that you are so concerned with your friends though. I wouldn't have expected it of you, truthfully."
"Do you speak the truth?"
"Not especially. You seem aloof all the time."
"You do not tell a joke?"
"Yes. I have noticed that you, for all your intelligence, seem condescending to others. I've noticed, however, that you've been softening on this point much more recently."
"Have I?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"Yes, now go. You haven't the time to be late if you mean to do some good in your friends' lives."
"Why have you been so cheerful?" asked Brian at lunch. I didn't think my emotions were quite so transparent. If I did not look gloomy, though, I suppose that was as close an indicator of cheerfulness for me as possible.
"There's a friend that I haven't seen in forever who's now going to this school. I didn't even know he had come back to Chevlington. I hope to find out some time when I can meet him and catch up," I explained.
"Who is it?" asked Rob. Nate, rather randomly, sighed aloud.
"His name's Stephen."
"Martinez?" Brian posed. I looked over at him curiously.
"Yes. However did you guess? Do you know him as well?"
Collectively, Brian, Rob, Nate, and Charlie all rolled their eyes. How entirely auspicious.
"That kid is so annoying," Charlie declared.
"Stephen? Surely you jest."
Nate shook his head. "He's best friends with Mike Green. How could he not be annoying? Stephen Martinez was a nightmare in middle school."
"He went to Schweitzer with you?"
Rob nodded. "And he was a disaster every step of the way. Once, we had a project for history class where we studied ancient cultures. He went up to some group that did ancient Egypt, right? They'd made a Sphinx out of papier-mâché and everything. He went up and punched its head off."
Apart from the hilarity of something quite as outrageous as punching a Sphinx's head clean off its body, I was mortified. Were they serious about this? I couldn't believe it. Still, if they were telling me the truth, I was not so certain about my desire to go catch up with Stephen.
"So, he's been here the whole time? He went to middle school with you all three years?"
They nodded. I was thoroughly at a loss. This was not the sort of news I anticipated hearing.
"That's…disappointing," I mumbled. Yeah, I had heard better news in my day than this. Catching up with Stephen swiftly tumbled downhill on my list of priorities.
I tracked down Amy in history. Before the class began officially, I stopped her to talk about Sarah and Charlie.
"What can I say?" Amy rhetorically asked. "@#%* happens."
"What do you mean '@#%* happens,' Amy? This is their joint ruination!"
"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to pretend I feel any compassion for a slut like Sarah O'Shaughnessy."
"Oh come on, what's with you two now?"
"It wasn't right of her to dump Charlie like that. He was completely devoted to her and she blew him off because she can't handle a long-term relationship. She needs to grow up."
"You're having a tiff with her over a moral point?"
"Yeah," Amy replied, as if this shouldn't have struck me as strange. Another strange habit with girls: they are worse backstabbers than any of Julius Caesar's assassins, I swear.
I was still out of my league, though, and failing any help from Amy, I figured it was all I could do go straight to the source: Sarah. I approached her between English and history, imperiously demanding to know why in hell she thought it was just of her to dump Charlie. She responded that it was none of my business. I pressed her again, and she yielded something to the effect of honestly believing she and Charlie were better off as friends. Considering Charlie's take on it, I told her she was either full of crap or wasted beyond mental clarity on Christmas. I further added that if she thought such was the case, this feeble (not to mention wicked, childish, and malicious) excuse of being better off as his friend, she should have left well enough alone rather than cause Charlie and herself unnecessary pain. Sarah didn't respond. I felt my point had made, harsh though it was. An acquaintance, in eighth grade, told me I said that which people needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear. Honesty, however, brutal, is a byword in this part of the Kennedy clan.
I wondered if Sarah had been abandoned by everyone like Amy had done. I grumbled as the thought evinced sympathy, and I resentfully contemplated my next move on the way to the auditorium after school.
Auditions were interesting, to say the least. Whenever I sing, it's in total privacy. I don't consider myself a terrific singer (needless to say, Augustus Kennedy thinks he's the heir to Orpheus) but to be one was unnecessary: everyone else sucked. Well, everyone else sucked at singing and dancing and acting except for one: April Carissilia. I went through a couple of audition pieces. Again, I wasn't stellar, but by comparison I was. But April…dear heavens, she had a voice with the kick of a well-muscled donkey in heels. She was sensational, but of course I'd never tell her that.
Three days later there were callbacks, and the day after, I was triumphantly awarded the part of Billy Flynn, as I had so desired. Now when I got home that day, I was conspicuously exuberant because of my thespian victory. So when I burst into the den, my dear elder brother Rich looked up from his biology book and regarded me quizzically.
"What are you so happy for?"
"I tried out for the play this year. I got the male lead."
"Really?"
"Yeah, Billy Flynn in Chicago."
"Nice," he said, smiling. Rich scratched at his nose and looked into the kitchen. Then he shifted his position and said, "I guess that means you'll be up till like ten almost every practice night, right?"
My face fell. "What?"
"Oh sure. When I was a crewman, they'd keep those guys around till ten, just practicing and practicing and practicing."
I winced. Rich tried to repress a smile. "Not one of your more well-thought out plans, is it?"
"Not particularly," I admitted gracelessly, souring. "$&#*."
"Yeah, well, I'm surprised they're putting on a play like Chicago. You know how conservative this town is."
My mom stuck her head around the doorway from the kitchen. "Did someone mention Chicago?"
"Yep," I said, my proud smile weakened in the face of long practice hours. "I'm going to be starring in the play when Seaside puts it on in April."
"Congratulations!" she said. "I hope you're ready to memorize, memorize, memorize. Acting is a lot of work."
Te-freaking-rrific. This was going to be a few months of stress, as though I never got enough of that. Curse my love of theatricality.
Tim appeared a little unhappy in Spanish class one day. When I (rather foolishly) probed him as to the wherefore and why, he gave me an unexpected answer.
"My girlfriend cheated on me."
"You have…well, had another girlfriend since April?"
"Yeah. We met at a party and we started going out. It wasn't entirely serious yet, so it's not a big loss, you know, but…it still kinda sucks."
"I can imagine," I said, not at all able to imagine what that feeling must be. "Well, look on the bright side: plenty of other fish in the sea, right?"
"That was definitely how she viewed it," Tim said, slightly cryptically.
"What do you mean?"
"We went to this party on the weekend. Now I'm not the kind of guy who keeps his girlfriend on a leash or anything, so I was milling around, doing my own thing, right? I figured I'd catch up to her later since we had many mutual friends and I figured it wouldn't be hard to find her. So I'm talking with some of the guys about an hour after the beers started flowing-and I'm not even a drinker and I had a headache by the end of the night, let me tell you-and they're telling me about this girl that everyone's having a go at upstairs. I had no idea that it was that kind of party…stupid me. And so I hear them mention my girlfriend's name and I'm like 'lolwhut', so I go upstairs and boom! There she is, cheating on me with anyone and anything that's got a Y chromosome. I left her there, pretty disgusted. It wasn't until yesterday I found out she went through thirty-seven guys that night."
"In a row?" I said automatically.
Tim let his head drop in misery. "More or less."
I cringed. "Damn. Uh, well, at least it's not like it was something strictly personal. She was just a base person; she didn't have an emotional attachment to those with whom she cheated."
"Oh, it gets better," Tim assured me. I wasn't sure I had the stomach for more details than those he had already presented to me.
"Better? Dare I ask?"
"She did have sex with one person who she is now having a romantic relationship with," Tim told me glumly. I clapped both of my hands atop my fiery mane, wincing at the faux-pas I had committed.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"It's alright. Like I said, it wasn't serious yet. Better to find out about this sort of thing now than later. I just don't get why she went through a whole slew of guys and then decided she wanted to start going out with Kristen."
Had I heard him right? "Did you Kristen?"
Tim had a slightly amused face. "Yeah, about that…thirty-seven guys later, she decided she was bisexual. Who knew, right?"
My mouth opened, but no words were forthcoming. It is this sort of thing that I quietly categorize as 'Only In Chevlington' and move on, never to look upon it again.
It was around this time of year that the school started asking students which elective courses they wished to take. I was presented with a real quandary. It was commonplace for the best math students to go on to take advanced placement calculus in their senior year, but in order to do so, they needed to "double up" by taking both geometry, the standard sophomore math class, and precalculus, typically a junior math class, in the same year. However, I was considered a different kind of "double up". I have always been fascinated by languages, and I really wasn't that much into math. While I wanted to enjoy my passion for languages, Augustus Kennedy wanted to let everyone know that he was every bit as good in math as anyone else doubling up. In truth, I really wanted to go back to Mr. Tullile's Latin class. One day, on my way to lunch, I stopped in at his classroom. He had a free period and was leafing through the Latin textbook. I knocked on the open door to announce my presence. He looked up at me with a charming smile.
"Augustus, old boy! How are you doing?"
I chuckled a little. "I am just fine, Mr. Tullile."
"Do we have the honor of seeing you return to class anytime soon?"
"That depends. You see, I would like to take your Latin class next year, but I'm slightly uncertain if that's a wise idea. I'm already certain I'll be taking Spanish Four next year. Taking Latin One would be a second language that I don't really need to take."
"Latin One?" asked Mr. Tullile with a scoff. "Nonsense; you're more than prepared for Latin Two."
While Augustus Kennedy certainly liked to think that, I was personally a little surprised that Mr. Tullile would say such a thing. I tried to negotiate my way to a decision.
"Is that necessarily true? I have been out of the game for a while."
"Don't think so little of yourself."
Now there was a phrase I rarely ever heard.
"Thank you, but I continue to retain some reservation."
He gave some time to ponder. "Tell you what: if you can pass the midterm and final exam that I'm giving to my students in Latin One, you should be in the clear. Take the textbook with you. Next week, you'll take the tests. Your proficiency will determine your worthiness. Does that sound like a fair deal?"
I was astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose very few students came to Mr. Tullile with a genuine passion for Latin, so this was years of waiting for a star student to come along now pouring out onto me.
"I…very well," I said. Did I have a choice? From that moment onward, I had my nose buried in my Latin textbook. Morning, noon, and night, I was rigorously studying for these tests. Tim questioned me on this in Spanish class.
"What's with the Latin book? Learning how to curse out the Pope in his own language?"
"Not quite. I'm going to take Latin Two next year, and in order to do so, I need to pass the Latin One midterm and final."
"Why are you taking Latin?"
It's a fair question. When pressed on the idea of studying a language no one speaks, it's always difficult to give an answer that everyone finds acceptable. It is invariably classified as pointless and a waste of one's time to study a language that is considered to be dead. There's that quaint little half-truth that studying Latin enables you to do well on the verbal section of the SAT, but do you really believe that? You do? Oh, you've never given it much thought, have you? Well, allow me to dispel that rumor straightaway. Only if you're deep into learning Latin will that necessarily be true. The person who only casually studies the language in high school probably won't get anything out of it. Mr. Tullile is a very nice man, and apparently an easy grader. I'm quite certain if he weren't so liberal with his mercy when it came to taking up the red pen, most students would consistently fail his classes. It might make better Latin students out of them, but there would also be fewer students willing to take his classes, and Latin, being such a strange niche, already has few enough students. In short, don't take Latin expecting to be able to break down the word "odiferous" into the component parts "smell", "carry", and "full of" in one lesson.
Mr. Tullile had told me the chapters that the students had covered for the class, giving me a range in which to work. Ultimately, curiosity got the better of me. Though the range went from chapters one to fifteen, I decided to take a look at the passage of the sixteenth chapter. I am grateful that I did; the final exam was none other than that very passage. In the end, I aced both exams-as if one would expect anything less. Mr. Tullile remarked about my performance on the midterm, "Augustus, I have never seen anyone do so well on a test of mine as long as I've been teaching."
To emphasize his point, he held up my test. It had no markings on it other than what I had written. I did not initially follow his demonstration, but he then said, "This test is perfect. You got every single question right."
Sadly, I did get a few questions wrong on the final, but that is ultimately neither here nor there. The point was that I was going to take Latin Two after all. My parents, upon hearing that I had schooled that midterm, insisted on taking me out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, a little place on the river. Allison and Rich both remarked there was something deeply wrong with my tendency to perfection. I assured them that mere mortals like them could not begin to comprehend being flawless.
Like I said, a haughty bucket of pomposity.
February got off to a wild start. I was daydreaming about lunch in Mr. Jones's class, for I'd awoken late and therefore missed breakfast. Besides that, it was more interesting than discussing significant figures and moles; no offense, Signor Avogadro. Sometimes food is more compelling than stoichiometry, you know? Anyway, Mark slid a note to me. I glanced down at the contents; it was from Amy. She wanted to tell me that both Sarah and Mackenzie wanted to talk to me. I didn't understand why this sort of thing had to pass through Amy to get to me. Couldn't either Sarah or Mackenzie approach me personally, without the need of an outside influence? I'd have listened to them, however dismissive I'd be to them prima facie. Whatever; I didn't care that much. When they were ready to talk to me themselves, I'd be waiting.
I did finally intervene in at least one person's troubles early on in the month. It was after school and I was en route to the auditorium. Ms. Foster, the drama teacher, had us rehearse Chicago at least four times a week. As I was about to go down one of the staircases, I heard a sob from somewhere in the echoing vicinity. Eyebrows arched conspiratorially, I trekked through the halls in pursuit of the mysterious sobs. I ended up in the math wing of the school, where most of the freshman lockers were. The way the new wing of the school was laid out, there were all kinds of bizarre nooks and crannies. I rounded a corner into one such nook and saw a familiar face.
"Nate? What are-what the hell are you doing with that?" I shrieked.
Nate had a razor in his left hand. Tears were pouring down his cheeks, and he looked up fretfully. He held the razor over his upturned right wrist, and my eyes widened. Nate had no words for me. I pushed him forcefully to knock the razor from his hand. I can't precisely explain how the fall went over, because I went down with him. What I do know is that the razor ended up in my left shoulder and the fall shattered my watch, little glass fragments tinkling everywhere. I yanked the blade out automatically, hissing through my teeth at the pain. Nate looked at my injury and buried his face in his hands.
"What the hell are you doing?" I demanded, shaking the razor at him angrily. Little drops of blood splattered to the white floor. I threw the razor to the floor and held my wounded shoulder.
Nate just cried inconsolably. I scowled, unable to believe that self-mutilation was ever considered an option. Eventually I squatted down next to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
"It's okay," I said, uncertain of what else I could say. It was a little like Yossarian trying to console a dying Snowden. What could I have said at that moment?
After some time, Nate calmed down and sighed. He didn't say anything, as one might well understand, and got to his feet. I stood up too and looked at the razor on the floor. Nate and I then exchanged glances. An uneasy silence descended over us gloomily, but it felt like the ball was in my court. I picked the razor up, flung it into a trashcan nearby, and said, "Don't worry about it."
I turned to walk away when a sudden spasm of pain came screaming out of my arm. I winced and started to walk with my arm hanging down flaccidly. At length, I let out a groan and clutched at my injury.
"Augustus…!" Nate began, but I glared at him fiercely.
"I said not to worry about it, didn't I?"
I walked down to the auditorium and pretended to carry on without any trouble during rehearsal. Fortunately, the scenes we were rehearsing weren't the musical numbers and I didn't have to do much ostentatious gesturing. When Allison picked me up around ten, she noticed the odd way I was carrying my arm and immediately quizzed me on it.
"What did you do to your arm?" she asked, perplexed.
"Oh, I'd rather not talk about it."
Let me get sociopolitical for a moment. I don't understand why some people try to get so textbook doctrinaire about certain issues. Sometimes it seems they do it more for appearance than actual principle. In art class, Mrs. Norton had insisted we have a little party to celebrate having a fantastic new art studio. She encouraged people to bring in snacks if they so desired. Personally, I was thrilled that she had chosen to cancel the twenty-hour project for the third marking period that day, so I was in a good mood. Roy had brought in some kind of glazed food, a little like munchkins from Dunkin' Donuts. The seniors next to me were devouring them fiercely when Brandy stopped and smacked her lips a few times.
"Does…this have milk in it?"
"Yeah, why?" asked Roy. Brandy's face soured and she said, "I'll be right back." At once, she slipped out of the room. Roy and Ken looked at each other in confusion. Mrs. Norton came by to answer the evident questions on their faces.
"She's a vegan, boys. It's nothing personal."
Brandy returned a few minutes later, her eyes somewhat glossier than before. Roy gave her a funny look and said, "Sorry, I didn't know you didn't like this."
"It's okay," she said.
"Don't tell me you went to the bathroom just to throw that up," Ken pleaded. Brandy shrugged and said, "Then I won't."
Oh, how classy. I rolled my eyes, meaningfully ignoring the cigarette that she had tucked behind her ear. Eating animal products? Unacceptable. Smoking? A-OK. I'm one of those people who, however irrational it may be, considers smoking to be a sign of personal weakness. It is like taking a long and expensive road to suicide. You can get short with me all you like on the matter; there is no logic behind puffing one's life away, however hard you may try to justify it. Give me cow products over tobacco any day.
I was distinctly surprised when I was summoned in the middle of Spanish to Dr. McShallasy's office one day; I had presumed, quite wrongly, that those days were over. When I approached her office, I was surprised to find Mr. Hastings already in there and speaking to her. I hung outside the door, craning my neck around the doorframe in the hopes that Dr. McLunatic would notice I was here. However, Mr. Hastings was clearly commanding her attention, shouting angrily and gesticulating wildly like some kind of wild puppet.
"Do you see that? Do you see that?" Mr. Hastings thundered vehemently, a vein in his neck bulging with unsightly intensity. Dr. McShallasy, with uncharacteristic calm, leaned back in her chair and asked, "How does that make you feel?"
"How does that make me feel? How do you think it makes me feel?"
Dr. McShallasy nodded slowly and reached into her desk drawer. I thought she was going to retrieve a notepad or some such thing, but she instead took out a box of graham crackers and asked, "This is the photo of you above the main office we're talking about, right? The one that says 'Alan Hastings, Head Principal', if I'm not mistaken?"
"The very same," snarled Mr. Hastings, leaning over Dr. McShallasy's desk. "Only it doesn't say that anymore."
"So…what do you expect me to do about it? I'm supposed to be here for the students, not for the faculty and staff. Get a thicker skin."
"This kind of behavior could jeopardize your continued presence at this institution," Mr. Hastings threatened her. I was stunned by such a stark intimidation tactic. What was going on in there?
"Sanctimonious today, aren't we? Listen, you had a student take a marker to the caption by your name and strike the letters N, the second I, P, A, and L from the word 'principal'. After the C, he wrote the letter K. It may be upsetting, but it's far from the end of the world. This is not something I can precisely help you with."
Mr. Hastings had tightened his fists into white-knuckled balls of barely-contained rage. I had to slink away for a moment to snigger to myself as I came to understand why he was so infuriated.
"Also, no, I won't go out with you, so don't ask," she added. The seething Mr. Hastings stormed out of her office with a back draft of ire passing in his wake. I was grateful he was too vexed to take notice of me giggling by the door. Dr. McShallasy started giggling to herself and muttered, "Another crisis solved."
I sidled around the doorframe and knocked on her open door. She was looking down at a manila folder filled with tabbed papers…probably someone's files. Maybe even Mr. Hastings's file. Considering how overloaded it was and Mr. Hastings's neurotic behavior, it seemed reasonable.
"Dr. McShallasy?" I said, hoping to garner her attention. She held up a hand, indicating I ought to wait. I stood there for a moment, puzzled by what new game she was playing with me. I tried again.
"I believe you called me down here."
She held up her hand again, but this time followed that up by pointing to a little device on the edge of her desk. I leaned in and scrutinized it, only to be startled when it spat out a slip of paper right in my face. I fell over and looked at the paper, which simply read "Number Seventy-Nine". I scratched my head at this. Dr. McShallasy then coughed politely and I heard a little ding from above; mounted on the wall behind her desk was one of those "Now Serving" signs. The number it indicated was "Two". Dr. McShallasy looked up at me from over her glasses and remarked, "Come back later, Mister Kennedy. We aren't yet at that threshold."
I was, and continue to be, uncertain of what she meant by that, but there was nothing that really urged me to remain in that room. I ducked out of her office and was not called back. That was more than okay with me.
That afternoon, it was more play rehearsal. As much as I was warned about the misery of learning my lines, I did not find it to be some insurmountable challenge. For the most part, memorizing lines came naturally to me. I guess when you have a natural talent for languages (and what is the study of languages but relentless memorization?) it does not present a problem. Of course, there were the good rehearsals and the bad rehearsals. Some days, people were on the ball and other days they dropped said ball. That's just the nature of the beast, I suppose. For the most part, I tried to stay on top of it, though even I was not immune from screwing up. I didn't suffer from stage fright, at least. Being afraid of performing never came up on my radar; hell, every day of being Augustus Kennedy was its own performance. I should say that I was used to it by now.
"Okay, now, we're going to practice one of the most difficult numbers now," said Ms. Foster that day at rehearsal. Fortunately, it was simply a tuning rehearsal; we weren't dancing and choreographing yet. Not every number was blocked out yet.
"What number is that?" asked the guy playing Amos Hart. Ms. Foster was a tall, thin lady with blonde hair and our director for the play. She had this look about her that puts one in mind of a Fifties housewife. She flipped through her script.
"We Both Reached For The Gun," she declared. "Augustus, April, Carl, and the ensemble, you are on."
Katarina West poked me in my side. She had been cast as one of the female leads in the play. The other female lead in the production was being played by (unsurprisingly) April Carissilia.
"Hey, have fun with this number," she smiled merrily. "I can't wait to hear your voice."
This number was particularly interesting, and by interesting, I mean bizarre. In this song, I was supposed to sing in the most ridiculous way: first, I had to sing out of the corner of my mouth, like an incredibly shoddy ventriloquist. Second, my singing voice most of the time was supposed to be high-pitched like a girl's. April was supposed to mouth all the words I sang.
"Now I know we haven't blocked this number yet," Ms. Foster admitted, "but the only persons who need blocking are the ensemble and Carl. So for this, I want Carl and the ensemble to stand in the back a little bit. April, take that chair and bring it up to the proscenium. Augustus, have a seat."
I complied. I almost trembled knowing what sort of heresy was about to befall me. I had seen the movie. Ms. Foster was not producing a faithful shot-by-shot adaptation of the movie for the stage, but even in the theaters there was only one way this musical number worked. Ms. Foster delivered words I was not precisely anticipating with glee.
"April, sit down in Augustus's lap."
April looked at me reluctantly. For some reason, I opened my arms invitingly. At length, she exhaled as if left with no other recourse and sat down on my lap. Now, I'm a remarkably slender guy. I'm sufficiently scrawny, but my limited weight also means I have a fairly muscular frame. April may well have been one and a half times my weight (perish the thought if I ever said that to her face, of course), and it all came down on my thigh. I was afraid that it might be like saying good-bye to blood circulation for my leg, but she felt startlingly lighter than I would have expected. It wasn't a strictly awful situation. She brushed her hair back behind her ears and smiled shyly at me.
"What would you like for Christmas, little girl?" I asked her. She laughed and seemed more at ease.
"Does everyone know the lyrics? I really hope so!" Ms. Foster shouted. "Katarina, hit the stereo, would you?"
We practiced our songs to an instrumental version of the soundtrack. Where Ms. Foster exactly procured such a CD, I don't know, though doubtless it was not in any licit manner.
The music cued. Ms. Foster shouted the first line. "Mister Billy Flynn sings the press conference rag. Notice how his mouth never moves-almost."
The ensemble began. "Where'd you come from?"
April and I were apparently spot on, because as I began to sing, Ms. Foster's eyes lit up. All through the rehearsing of that number, she looked absolutely delighted. And April and I were pretty outstanding, I must say. We were working in tandem like a well-oiled machine. Even in my solo parts, I was ringing out a solid baritone that filled the room.
"Big finish, Augustus!" Ms. Foster urged. My last part was holding the words "the gun" for as long as humanly possible. It was expected that the amount of time I'd hold this would be like six to eight seconds. I sang as loud as I could.
"Both reached for…theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!"
This met with furious cheers and applause. On holding the word "the," I had maintained the note for sixteen seconds. No doubt I had gone red as a cherry in that time, but it was worth it. I don't remember passing out thereafter, but I don't remember much else of the rehearsal except my solo and April in my lap. My dreams were relatively disturbed that night. Largely they focused on opening night and for some reason when April sat in my lap, I picked her up and carried her off into a limousine to be married. I was already in a tuxedo (it was my costume anyway) and April was in a dress (that was her costume as well).
I have a sick mind.
February is naturally a short month. And personally, I can't tolerate the month at all. It seems to be extraneous, and it houses one of the worst holidays ever conceived: Saint Valentine's Day.
Why is Valentine's Day celebrated at all? Valentine was some Christian priest who married people illegally. There is some belief that marriage and love are invariably intermingled, and so we have the romance of Valentine's Day. Does it matter that Valentine suffered a very horrible death for defying the Roman emperor's wishes? Not to most people. Honestly, it's absurd; why should we celebrate the execution of a criminal? It's quite imbecilic. Valentine's Day always proves to be one of those nauseating times of year for me. It involves seeing people kissing in hallways all lovingly and such. It bothers me more than I care to admit to see it all the time. As proud of myself as I am, it is true that this Mark Antony has no Cleopatra. And although I don't like to admit it, sometimes I'm lonely.
What I am about to tell you, mind, is a part of my story that happens to be unusual. It's unusual because it's difficult for me to talk about. I'm a little embarrassed, a little upset, and a little ashamed about it. I speak about this in the strictest confidence that you will understand that this is a case of teenage drama and angst with which I had a bout. It was, in every way and without question, an aberration. I'm not the least bit proud of the way things happened and without doubt, February Fourteenth was the worst day of school ever for me. Teenage drama sucks royally. Descend into the abyss with me now on that rueful day.
In chemistry, I was daydreaming. Charlie and I weren't talking much these days, because he was all wound up still about Sarah. Sarah and Amy weren't on speaking terms anymore. Mark and I chatted less frequently too, though I attributed that at least in part to his sudden lack of energy those days. He was almost persistently some kind of dull vegetable, as engaging as a beet. Mr. Jones was lethargically lecturing on atomic structure, and he smelled of cheap shampoo as usual. Well, it was better than marijuana, I suppose. More peculiar still, I had even been getting along with Mike Green when I needed to. I missed McKean.
When the bell rang and I headed for gym, Amy tapped me on the shoulder.
"Are you going to talk to Mackenzie or not?" she impetuously demanded. I frowned.
"What business is it of yours? Why do you even keep bothering me with this?"
"Because she keeps bothering me about it. She always stops me in the halls and says, 'Did you talk to Augustus yet? He hasn't said anything to me yet,' or something like that. Talk to her and do us both a favor."
I related this to Tim in Spanish. Tim shrugged it off.
"So just talk to her. What's the worst that could happen?"
I wanted to tell him the story-the whole story. A certain pain forbade me from saying anything more detailed about my friendship with Mackenzie other than how we suddenly grew apart at the end of eighth grade. All in good time, I assure you.
"You don't understand," I began. "It's a complicated and unnecessary series of events that led us to this place."
"Isn't that always the way?"
"No kidding…"
By now, my mind was already wandering. It was a mere overture to destruction. In algebra, I was in a completely different world. This was okay, however, since the gnome was breathing fire about how the class was doing poorly in understanding something comparatively simple: radians. I comprehended it easily enough, and could not, for the life of me, understand how this was beyond anyone's intelligence. Rather than worry about McCartney's ranting, though, I ignored her completely. She was not worth the time.
During lunchtime, while Charlie was being morose and Nate was being unusually chatty, Brian asked, "What's with you, Augustus?"
I made a face. "Nothing."
"Okay," Brian said, knowing I was lying. I'd soon have to confront Mackenzie, and I wasn't looking forward to it. So when I walked into Mrs. DiGenari's room, I staged an illness. Mrs. DiGenari smiled.
"Practicing for your play?"
I stiffened. "What?" How did she catch on to me so swiftly?
"Katarina West was telling me how good you were the other day at rehearsal."
I didn't have much desire to continue feigning sickness when such ingenuous behavior was meeting my lies head on. I slunk to my seat and put my head down.
"Augustus, are you okay?"
I looked up. It was Mackenzie. My first thought was, %*@!, here we go.
"Yeah, I'm okay," I lied, sitting up. "Amy said you wanted to talk to me."
"After history, okay?" she said, smiling sweetly at me. The horrid girl! Extend my agony, would she? I had no choice but to comply, lest I risk making a scene. I relented gracelessly, sour all through DiGenari's lecture. When the bell finally rang, it sounded hollow, like a death knell. I rose and tried my utmost to charge out before I could get stuck with Mackenzie, but she was right on top of me as I made for the exit. I accepted the inevitable and approached the gallows just outside my classroom.
"What did you want to talk about, Mackenzie?"
"I just wanted to know if you have been alright. You've been all, like, mad this year. Are you still upset about last year?"
Here it came. Ancient history.
"A little, yes," I said, remaining temperate as best as I could manage.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. It just wasn't good for me at the time. Do you accept my apologies?"
"Apologies?" I sneered, suddenly angry. "What good are they?"
"Look, Augustus," she snapped, her tone getting more severe, "I didn't do this just 'cause. I just couldn't, you know?"
"The hell I know. You just carried on like I never existed at all by the time May came around!"
"Why are you being so self-centered?"
"You're calling me self-centered? Augustus Kennedy is anything but!"
In retrospect, that has to be one of the funniest things I've ever said.
"And you're still such an arrogant jerk! I can't believe you're still upset over that little tiff!"
"What's worse? Arrogance or total cold-heartedness?"
"I am not cold-hearted!"
"The hell you aren't! You just wanted to play everything down like it was all a bad dream and it never really happened!"
"You asshole, I wanted to make peace with you!"
"Good damn job. You should become a diplomat!"
"Why are you being so mean?"
"Because you ridiculed me, Mackenzie. You ridiculed me in a way I can never forgive. You didn't even respond to me."
"I said I was flattered…"
"I wasn't trying to flatter you. I was telling you a personal secret that had been with me since sixth grade. I thought you would have understood."
My heart was pounding in my ears.
"I tried to put this down as softly as I could for you."
"Damn it, you ripped out my heart and packed it down my throat again with a tire iron! Have you any idea what sort of humiliation I felt? And you want us to just pick up being friends like this never happened?"
Mackenzie was at a loss for words. Finally she said, "Why is it always what you feel?"
"Since when has it always been what I feel? It's always been about what you feel!"
"I don't want you to hate me because you didn't get what you wanted."
I felt tears welling up in the corners of my eyes.
"I don't hate you, Mackenzie. I never could."
"Then just accept my apology."
"I want to, but…"
Tears rolled down my cheeks, charting their own course. I was momentarily overcome, but I regained some composure.
"If I accept your apology," I whined, "then it's like saying none of this was real."
Mackenzie looked down. It was miraculous I was still so articulate, even distraught as I was. That's not to say I was rational in the slightest, of course-such conversations rarely exhibit any rationality.
"You've always been so nice to me, Augustus. You're always there for me when I need you, you stick up for me, you defend me…all I'm saying is I'm sorry. Why's it so hard to accept that?"
"Because…I still love you."
My recurrent nightmares, my angst, everything all culminated in this moment. There are very few people who, at our age, understand the simple complexity of love. Maybe nobody. I liked to think that I could understand it better than anyone else, but that was in McKean. I was still a paragon of wisdom and virtue (of a sort), but I can tell you not a single Chevlington teenager, at the very least, understands love.
"No," Mackenzie moaned, both repulsed and exasperated. "Augustus, please…"
"I do," I said, clearing my throat lest I start openly sobbing. "I love you, Mackenzie. I did then and I still do now."
"Augustus, please…don't say that. You couldn't possibly love me."
"But I do."
"We're not so alike. You should find someone more your type. What could you see in me that you couldn't get in someone much else?"
"It's not about someone else, Mackenzie. Don't you see? What do I have to do to…prove that I love you?"
Mackenzie ran away. The bell rang. I heard laughter. April Carissilia was up the hall, chatting with someone and laughing. Just like my dreams.
I was on the verge of breaking down all throughout the rest of the day. And I should have been elated when Mrs. Norton was absent, thereby giving us practically nothing to do for the entire art class period except goof around in the fine teenager tradition. But I was truly depressed, and I do not use the word lightly. Many people are in worse situations, and they may be classified as depressed. Life is not bad as a spoiled, well-off kid in the suburbs. But that day, well, I was a mess. Apparently I wasn't alone in that respect; Mackenzie was apparently attending school but consciously cutting English and history. With the benefit of hindsight, I see how utterly stupid this entire exchange was. What was accomplished? What was gained? How did anyone benefit? I see it for the ignorant shouting match that it was and these days I jocosely call February Fourteenth of 2003 my Saint Valentine's Day Massacre.
Like I said, not a single Chevlington teenager understands love.
Suffice to say, this rippled back to the proper channels: namely, Dr. McShallasy. She called me in to her office the following day during Spanish. When I arrived at her office, she was handing over a book to a student.
"Here. This is A Thousand Ways to Cope with Low Self-Esteem. Now shove off, you worthless, witless toadsucker. You're the reason your father drinks, you know."
The student burst into tears and staggered out of her office. Holy hell, this was going to be far from pleasant. A ding from her "Now Serving" display arrested my attention. Oddly enough, the number it displayed was, of all the numbers in the world, seventy-nine. I entered her office and took a seat. She had spun around in her swivel chair to face her window; she closed the blinds and took a quick peek between them before swiveling around to face me.
"Well, well," she said, giving me a creepy grin, "right on time, Mister Kennedy. Very…how shall I put this? Punctual."
After a moment's hesitation in which I deliberated on whether or not that was a compliment, I thanked her. She set her hands on her desk and interlaced her fingers expectantly. I noticed she was wearing thin, black, leather gloves. The doctor stared archly at me, only remarking, "I had a visit from a certain other fire-crotch earlier today."
My eyes widened a little. "Mackenzie Blake?"
"You might say that," Dr. McShallasy said, her grin never leaving. It sounded like she was speaking with some kind of over-the-top Southern accent.
"I did say that," I responded.
"Then we are in agreement," she said cryptically, raising a declaratory finger at me and nodding severely. "Proceed to tell me everything."
"Um, well, it goes back to middle school, Doctor. I developed a crush on Mackenzie in sixth grade; she was so much fun to be around, and she was always kind, cheerful, and very sweet. I admit to being a little optimistically naïve; sometimes I felt that she was sending me signals that there might have been a mutual feeling. In truth, I was deceiving myself. There was some other guy whom she thought was, in her own words, 'a total hottie'."
"I notice you seem to use that phrase with distaste," she interrupted. "Why don't you tell me why that is?"
"I can't stand the common lingo of calling attractive people 'hot', as it were," I explained. "I absolutely detest that usage of the word. It's plainly derogatory, whether applied to men or women."
"Fascinating," she said. "Tell me, have y'all ever engaged in covert operations against the United States of America?"
"What?"
"Did you or did you not just dismiss a common American pastime of regarding others purely by their sexual attractiveness?"
"Um, I…"
"We are on to you, Mister Kennedy. Moving funds from Afghanistan to Switzerland just before the Taliban was displaced. Blame America first attitude, and now hate speech against the United States."
"What? What are you talking about?"
She tittered derisively and then clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Mister Kennedy. Miss Blake swears on an affidavit that you, with prejudice and malice aforethought, hurt her feelings. What am I supposed to make of that?"
I frowned. We were certainly taking a circuitous route to the point. "You don't understand. Last year, I told Mackenzie how I felt about her. Her first reaction was simply to say she was flattered, and then she walked away with a polite smile. I didn't know how to interpret that. It was a vague brush-off. The last few months felt awkward and uncomfortable; she acted like she hadn't even heard me. There's something in it that made me feel betrayed and unimportant."
"I see. Is that because you've never had affection from a female peer?"
I was about to affirm that, but I then realized that was not true. "Not quite. It just happens that the girls who have taken a liking to me were…well, unstable."
"Instability is my specialty," Dr. McShallasy said, adjusting her position in her chair and forming a conspiratorial steeple with her fingers. "I will be the judge of that."
"Very well, but I think even you would be inclined to agree with me. For example, there was Danielle. In eighth grade, Danielle, who was a seventh grader at the time, wrote on one of the benches outside of McKean Middle School the phrase 'I love Augustus Kennedy'. Someone brought it to my attention; I thought it was an obnoxious joke. To my great surprise, that wasn't the case. I was approached one day by a girl in the hallways who gave me a love note. I still reel from the strange circumstances."
Let me jump into my narrative here and tell you that it was strange. I have the very note to which I refer here. It reads as such: "Augustus, Hey! This is Danielle Partruchia. I really like you and I wanted to know if you would go out with me? I liked you since 6th grade if you say no its ok. or do you just want to be friend at first and see how it is. after you know me. My locker # is 1040 it is by room 136. you can write me back if you want to. What is your locker #? Im 13 by the way. I hope you say yes cuz I really like you! Bye! love, Danielle Partruchia."
All that is sic, of course. Perish the thought that anyone, least of all me, speaks in that way. Now, you may ask why I didn't act upon this opportunity. You wouldn't be alone. McShallasy was right there with you.
"And you rejected this opportunity? What was your angle?"
"Isn't it obvious? I was in love with Mackenzie at the time. Considering another girl whom I didn't know but who obviously wasn't Mackenzie was simply out of the question."
"I am glad you are being responsive. I would hate to have to apply the nipple clamps to you. Go on."
I ignored those statements. "There were also Tess and Kim, two close friends who developed crushes on me within months of each other. I was in social studies with Tess. I can't remember how we started talking, but I remember thinking of her for the most part as a dork. Well, somewhere along the lines, we started to get to know each other better, and we got a little flirty, and we opened up to each other. At the same time, I was in creative writing and the girls there didn't particularly like Kim, whom they found a bit too catty for their tastes. The girls approached me and asked me to work with Kim for a group project, and I, being the gentleman that I am, honored their request. Kim found me charming and witty, evidently, because she fell hard for me, it seems. I think that may have been in part because she was on the rebound from a break-up with her previous boyfriend though."
"And you did what in regard to them?"
"They both confessed their feelings for me at the same time on instant messenger. They were at the same computer, and so they obviously knew each other's feelings for me. I didn't really like either one of them because, again, neither was Mackenzie. So I gently turned them down and let it go at that."
"So you're in the habit of being a lady-killer, Mister Kennedy? Steal their hearts and then break their hearts all in one go?"
"Not by any conscious effort!" I protested. "Danielle deeply unsettled me, especially when she later told me she was the one who wrote her love for me on the bench. I just stayed as far away from her as possible at all times, including once having my friends hastily whisk me away to safety when she tried to trap me in the hall. Tess and Kim were both nice girls, but I wasn't interested in either of them. I only have a desire for Mackenzie Blake."
"Then there is only one thing for it. We must contact Washington immediately," she said, picking up her phone.
"Washington?"
"Central Intelligence will want to hear about these seditious activities."
"Hold it. Are you treating me like a terrorist in an interrogation?"
She slowly put down the phone and stared at me. She reached into her desk drawer equally slowly and retrieved a walkie-talkie, into which she said, "We have a Code Redhead; I repeat, a Code Redhead! Requesting urgent back-up!"
I rose and scowled. "I believe we are done here."
Of all things to retrieve from her desk, Dr. McShallasy pulled out a lit cigarette and took a puff on it before warning, "A military commission will let you know when your days are numbered, Mister Kennedy. Until then, good luck, you radical extremist."
I swept out of her office. Believe it or not, that was a cathartic session with her, and I felt better for it. I returned to Spanish and pretended nothing at all had happened. When class was over, Tim approached me and asked if I were feeling alright. I began to explain to him the long, tiresome story. At length, he nodded sagely.
"Ah, so that's what this is all about. I figured it was something like it. That's embarrassing."
"You're telling me," I muttered dourly, not really wanting to talk about this more. Tim was nevertheless determined to expound his advice.
"I think you should apologize to her," he said, prompting me to flash an incredulous glare at him.
"Apologize to her?" I scoffed, the antipathy clear in my voice. "Never!"
"Well, it's just advisable if you hope to land her."
"Land her? Who said anything about me hoping to land her? No, no; as far as I'm concerned, what has been said has forever left a rift between us. This chasm won't be bridged by insincere demonstrations of remorse."
"I think you'd feel better."
"Really? Gosh, I suppose since you're such an expert on interpersonal relationships that I best heed your advice. How much do I owe you for this session, Doctor?"
Tim shook his head and smiled. "Free of charge."
I had delivered my sarcasm with deadpan precision. I gave up and let it slide.
Just putting in the last few parts of my NaNo project for completion's sake.
One thing that is consistently mindless about school is wasting time on a fire drill. It is my understanding that institutions such as ours are supposed to have fire drills on a regular basis, but it was not until the end of February that we had our first one. Personally, I think someone in school administration suddenly realized we had not had one yet, because the idea of having a fire drill in February is madness. In spite of that, we had one in February all the same. In the middle of a test for Mrs. DiGenari, the sirens began blaring and the lights began flashing. You would have thought the Russians were coming to drop the bomb on us. So the lot of us were miserably shepherded outside, most of us having left our coats in our lockers. I tended to carry my coat in my backpack, so that was not a problem for me. It was still a nuisance to stand out in the snow and stare at the school like a pack of morons. I was stamping my feet around in the half-melted snow when I saw someone cruise behind me; I looked over my shoulder and saw Brian zeroing in on Sarah, who greeted him as warmly as she could in the cold.
"Well, that's peculiar," I observed aloud.
"Quite," said Terry, standing beside me. "Just when I thought she'd never quit pestering me, it seems she's moved on. Thank the stars, eh?"
I glanced at Terry and said, "How long has she been ignoring you?"
"About a fortnight or so. Bloody relief, really…"
I stopped listening and looked at Brian and Sarah chatting amicably there in the snow. When Brian took off his jacket and threw it around her shoulders, I rolled my eyes. It was time to put into practice what Terry had told me before. I was not going to let myself get suckered into this kind of stuff anymore; it was not my business.
Rehearsals went into overdrive in March. The play was in April and Miss Foster was working us like dogs. I was scheduling my whole life around rehearsals, because I certainly didn't see anything else to live for at the moment. I'm melodramatic about love, and the Valentine's Day Massacre had ruined me. I was now slavishly throwing myself into everything I did. I had asked Mackenzie out in eighth grade and she had rejected me. Be that as it may, I could prove that devotion could equal success in other fields. Naturally, with rehearsals lasting until ten, I was frequently snoozing in Jones's chem class and I'd be breakfasting on snacks in Spanish, having no time for it in the morning anymore. I was an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist with anything and everything, to the point where dissatisfaction got me so annoyed that even Terry said, "You must relax, Augustus."
I was merciless to myself moving into March. I rarely spoke to anyone. I was relentless in rehearsals, which had gone into a whole new level. We were doing dress rehearsals, with Miss Foster expecting us to remember our blocking and to deliver our lines from memory. Those nights when we practiced our musical numbers, I insisted upon getting every note right or I'd demand that we restart the number from the top. I had no doubt that the others were getting sick of my behavior, but I certainly didn't care. I wanted absolute perfection. Of course, my rigorous expectations were matched only by my abysmal screw-ups. I frequently garbled my lines, missed my cues, muffled notes, and that was just the start. Once, when April and I were supposed to be doing a press conference sequence, I threw my arms out wide to emphasize my lines and wound up smacking her in the face. That had been a particularly rough week, since we had also been throttled severely in our chess match the day before against Hillside High and my last algebra test was a low B of all things, sending me into a kind of spiraling ignominy.
"Ow!" shouted April, clutching her hands to her nose. Miss Foster, who had been sitting in the audience and watching, huffed and stood up in her chair. She clapped her hands together and declared, "I think that's enough for one night, everyone."
"My word, I'm so sorry!" I apologized, having turned to April. "Are you alright?"
April nodded but winced. "It's okay, I'm fine."
I lowered my head dejectedly and slunk away from her. I had no idea what the hell was wrong with me, but I was turning into some kind of crazed klutz. Soon, I feared, my visits to McShallasy would be legitimately justified. Katarina clapped me on the back as I retreated to go change and she said, "Hang in there, Augustus. You're pretty on edge, dude."
"I know, I know," I moaned. "I'm the first one to hear about being on edge, believe me. I haven't been sleeping, or eating, or feeling calm at all these days."
"Why's that?" she asked.
"It's…personal," I replied. "Lots of malarkey in my life right now."
She patted my back again. "Hey, can you hang around for a sec? I want to talk to you some more after we change, okay?"
"Sure, I've got the time," I said, wondering what was on her mind. The prospect of chatting freely with Katarina excited me, if I'm being perfectly honest. She was a sagacious, free thinker who could really say some insightful, wise things in the course of interlocution. I quickly changed and awaited her outside the auditorium, bouncing on my heels in anticipation. When she emerged from the auditorium, Katarina smiled at me and held up one finger.
"Can you wait one more moment? I'm just gonna run to the bathroom real quick."
I nodded and started tapping my toes to kill time as she disappeared into the bathroom. No sooner had the door swung back behind her than I heard her yell, "What the…? Get the hell out of here!"
I looked up, alerted by her cry. Was something the matter? Was there a pervert in the bathroom? Was someone trying to assault her? I was ready to bound in there, but faster than you could say, "Here I come to save the day!" out came Sarah and Brian. I blinked and furrowed my brow.
"What the devil…?" I started. At least Brian had the decency to look embarrassed at being caught like this. Sarah's face betrayed no shame. Oh yeah, this was classy.
"What are you doing in the girls' bathroom?" Katarina shouted at Brian.
"Three guesses," I snidely commented, observing Brian's mussed hair and Sarah's smeared lipstick. Katarina shook her head and closed the door behind her. Brian looked urgently at me as though pleading with me for something. I looked from him to Sarah, who said to me, "I've been meaning to talk to you."
"Yeah, Amy told me as much. Can't say I'm looking forward to the idea."
"Why not?" she said, starting to look annoyed.
"The last girl whom Amy told me wanted to talk to me ended up getting the both of us deeply distressed. I don't precisely have a good track record for this."
Brian began to slink away, but I wouldn't let him off so easily. I pointed at him and said, "I'll catch you later, Brian. Probably tomorrow at lunch. You know, with the rest of the guys."
Brian whirled around and darted to my side to whisper in my ear, "Please keep your mouth shut about this."
I smiled cheerily and mimed cracking a whip a few times. He gave me a glare and stalked off down the hall. Sarah shook her head and said, "Are you done already? We need to talk."
"About what?" I asked, a little annoyed as well.
"About a lot of stuff. Like…I miss talking to you. We used to be close, Augustus. What's happened to us?"
I rolled my eyes and snorted, "You tell me. How many months have we been basically ignoring each other because of…hell, I don't even remember why we're not talking."
"That's just it!" she exclaimed. "It was something about Charlie, I think, but I honestly don't remember. What good has it been to either of us not to be talking?"
"Good question, Sarah, and I wish I knew, but damned if either one of us is completely innocent in this."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"So am I."
"Great. We have so much to talk about…"
I had a slightly worried expression on my face as I said, "I agree. We do indeed, but wouldn't you believe, you're not the first in line for me at the moment. Terribly sorry."
"Oh yeah? Who's in front of me?" she said with a smile. Just then, Katarina emerged from the bathroom and grinned at me. I nodded to her and answered, "My next client. I'll be online later, okay?"
"I'll make an appointment next time," Sarah joked. I turned and headed down the hall with Katarina, who led me upstairs. She stopped in front of one of the large windows overlooking the snow-covered sports fields in the upstairs hallway. She pushed open the window and stepped out onto an expanse of snowy rooftop. Yes, our school had stretches of roof that one could easily jump out onto if one so desired. Traditionally, these windows were locked, but the custodians must've unlocked them after school. Who knows why? I was diffident to say the least.
"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked her.
"Come on," she encouraged, waving me out to join her. Reluctantly, I crawled out of the push window and stepped out onto the roof. Though it must have only been four in the afternoon, it looked reasonably dark already. A plane was cruising by in the sky. Katarina leaned up against the brick outer face of the building, hands behind her back, and smiled at me.
"Katarina, we shouldn't be out here. This is almost certainly against the rules and potentially dangerous…"
She shook her head at me with a grin, which somehow shut me up. She laughed, "There you are, worrying again. You need to loosen up, dude. Smoke if you got 'em."
"Nasty habit. Never got into it."
"Suit yourself," she said. "Come on."
We crunched along in the snow, rounding a part of the building that juts out further on the roof. I looked around anxiously, wondering into what sort of madness I had walked. Katarina stopped and pointed at some birds flying by in the sky.
"Look. These birds, they don't fret over every little thing. They do what they gotta do. No questions or second guessing; just straight thinking in a crooked world. That's what you've got to shoot for, Augustus. I'm looking at you these days and dude, you're fallin' apart on me. What's wrong? Talk to me."
I felt that she had led me out into a rather strange place to ask such a comparatively simple question, but that was neither here nor there. "Katarina, I…"
"Dude," she interrupted, chuckling, "call me Kat."
She knew how to exploit a weakness, without doubt. I was not accustomed to calling people by diminutives unless that was how they had introduced themselves to me as such. I winced and said, "Kat…right. Fine."
"You don't have to open up to me if you don't wanna," she said, metaphorically opening a door for me. I considered that avenue, but reality intervened whena loud clunk caught our ears' attention. We went back to find that someone had just shut the window and locked it.
"@#*%," I quietly spoke. Katarina shook her head again.
"See, there you are, trying to keep yourself restrained. You're keeping yourself on like the tightest leash ever and I can see how it's killing you. Let it out for real."
I thought about what she said and took it to heart. I yelled, "@$%*!" at the top of my lungs, the expletive rebounding in the empty fields. She smiled and nodded in approbation.
"That's more like it. Now you're ready to open up."
I groaned and leaned up against the bricks. "It's a whole bunch of %@*, Kat. I've grown up in this kind of bubble, thinking I'm so damn incredible. Now that I'm here, it's not that I'm thinking I'm not incredible or anything, but…things haven't gone as planned. I hoped to be the ringmaster of my life at this point in the game. Instead, I'm subject to the whims of circumstances I can't control, and I hate not being in control. Perkins gave me grief for calling her poetry lessons crap, and my parents are just beginning to get over that. In the meantime, I've had Sarah hopping between guys every chance she gets and she hasn't felt like talking to me because I was giving her the right advice, Amy getting mad at me because I've tried to head off a bad relationship for her, Charlie falling apart on me because of Sarah, Nate just plain losing his mind, rehearsals going to hell, my grades are dropping, McShallasy driving me crazy, and oh yes…the girl whom I had a crush on for years had a huge argument with me on Valentine's Day and we don't so much as look at each other anymore. I hate to ^&*#, but this doesn't qualify to me as the best years of my life like everyone says it's meant to be."
Katarina tilted her head and said, "You're quite an unusual character, you know that? Not everyone tries so hard to take everyone else's problems and make them his own."
"Oh, come on. I hate having my friends all whiny and such. It just means they come to me to complain, and then I try to give them advice and they ignore it, the impetuous little morons that they are."
"Deep down, you love it."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Try and hide it as much as you want, but deep down, you know you live for the feeling of having others come to you with their problems."
"Are you saying I'm gratified by being the responsible one in the group?"
"Not necessarily gratified, although I do think you take a slight delight in knowing you're not suffering like them. No, you are just unique."
"Well, I guess that's comforting, but it doesn't solve my problems."
"You don't have that many problems, dude. Your only problem is that you've become frustrated with your life because you want to be doing it all already and reality isn't letting you."
"I guess you could say that," I said, scratching my head, "but if that's the case, I don't see any remedy for it."
"I do have one recommendation: stop being so rigid. You're stiffer than rigor mortis. What you have is a huge capacity to love and you're afraid to share it."
"I'm not afraid of such a thing," I objected. "The matter is that I don't have a reason to share it with anyone."
"Then what's with this girl you're telling me about? She sounds like a reason to me. Talk to me about Valentine's Day."
Sighing, I gave her the run-down on the exchange I had with Mackenzie. Katarina nodded, not demonstrating any particular surprise.
"That sucks, but so what? You can't go full tilt into everything else and hope that you'll get over it by ignoring her. There are plenty of other girls out there who would treat you better than her."
"If that is supposed to make me feel better, it isn't working."
"Then look at it this way. You know how gold is refined before it's made into jewelry? Well, think of yourself as that metal. You're being purified right now, being melted down and melted down so that the impurities are removed. When all's said and done, there's gonna be nothing but the shining core of your character remaining, and the happiness that you bring to some lucky girl will be worth more than any gold."
Call me sappy, but that allegory struck a chord with me. I began to laugh at myself hysterically. Indeed, my manic laughter amused Katarina, who declared, "That's the way to do it. By the way, that laugh is amazing."
It was just at that moment that the two of us saw Miss Foster walking by in the hall. Immediately I jumped to the window and started banging on it, trying to get her attention. Miss Foster turned to look at us, gave us a bewildered look, and pushed open the window.
"What are you two doing on the rooftop?" she cried.
"Overcoming acrophobia," I snorted. "What do you think? We were locked out!"
"How did you get there in the first place?"
"I bet you anything it doesn't matter," I grumbled, clambering back into the school. Miss Foster looked at a loss at us.
"What's wrong?" Katarina asked. Miss Foster unhappily replied, "Well, I'm concerned about the production. We may not be able to perform."
"What? Why not?" I asked. I hadn't gone through all those hours of rehearsal so that I could be denied a chance to perform.
"Chicago does contain some mature elements to it, and some of the parents have voiced complaints about the themes," Miss Foster said.
"Oh…poppycock," I said, searching for a word both socially acceptable in front of a teacher and also sufficiently able to express my contempt.
"That's nuts," Katarina said. "Don't they realize how many hours we've put into this already? If they don't want to see it, they can choose not to see it. That's their right, and performing is our right."
"I wouldn't have thought anything of it if the source weren't so near," Miss Foster said quietly, "but I'm afraid that's not the case."
"Who's the malcontent?" I demanded. Whoever had the audacity to try and cancel our musical would feel my wrath, I could guarantee it.
"Mrs. Green, one of the teachers here."
My eyes must have widened in that moment. Well, all the pieces were falling into place. Mrs. Green, the mother of Michael Green, was the fountain of conservative hostility, was she? The only way this could have been any more of life imitating art and vice versa was if we had elected to stage a performance of Footloose. Very well; if the mother of that vacuous cretin Mike Green wanted to tangle with Augustus Kennedy, she was going to learn her place.
The following week was the monthly Board of Education meeting, and we theatrical liberals were determined to make our case. I'd spent the time between Miss Foster giving us the news and the meeting informing as many people as I could about the injustice of shutting us down before we had a chance to perform. Mister L, our chess adviser, called it "crazy" and assured me he would be there to give his support to our cause. Many other teachers felt similarly.
So there it was, the night of the meeting. Mom drove me to Seaside, and we adjourned to the school's library, where the board convened. This being an ostensibly small item on the agenda, it was far down on the list of topics for the board to cover. When it was finally brought up for discussion, though, it was the shot heard round Chevlington.
"If I just may," interrupted Mrs. Green, rising from her chair to cut off the president of the board, "I'd like to say right now that the position that many of us have taken is that high school students should not be engaging in such debauched theater."
I glared at her. She was a pear-shaped woman with graying hair and an aquiline nose. The board president cleared his throat and said into his microphone, "The Board recognizes Mrs. Green."
"This…this theater is unfit for our children. It is our responsibility as parents to protect our children from harmful and mature influences in their lives. It would be a mistake to expose them to anything so immoral."
Really? Did this woman even know who her son was?
"I know there are some parents in the room right now who are thinking that this is not worth the Board's consideration. It is a slippery slope. Allow children now to mime this iniquity, and soon they will be engaged in it, doing unspeakable things before they know and understand what they're doing," she furthered. I love that patronizing parochialism that parents adopt when it comes to "protecting" children from whatever they think is unfitting. The rest of the cast, sitting in the very back, started whispering dissents and grumbling just loud enough to be audible, but not so loud that their words could be distinguished. I could see Mrs. Green's contingent of conservative morons smiling vacantly. Fools, every last one of them.
"Thank you, Mrs. Green," the board president said. As Mrs. Green sat down, a few of the cast members booed openly and derisively. The president banged his gavel, demanding silence. When order was restored, he called upon Miss Foster to testify as to why we should go ahead with the play. I hastened to her side and whispered to her, "Let us know if we need to jump in."
"I'd like to make a statement, if I may," said Mr. L, rising up from his chair. I smiled at this. The board president recognized him.
"We have two choices, it seems to me," said Mr. L. "Right now, we can either be protective of these kids, or treat them as maturing young men and women. It's pretty easy to go ahead and hope that kids stay innocent forever, but that doesn't change the fact that it's unrealistic. We're making a little too much of this whole 'think of the children' thing."
Mrs. Green was on her feet in a heartbeat. "That's not true! My Michael is a sweet boy, and he shouldn't be bombarded with images of sexual depravity and loose living!"
Nope, this woman really had no idea who her son was. The president demanded order and then asked Miss Foster to speak.
"If I may," she said, "I would like to cede my time to one of my cast members who has worked tirelessly on this production: Augustus Kennedy."
I looked at her like she was crazy. What was the idea here? I didn't understand why she did that, but the room's eyes were all focused on me. I could only hope that my eloquence might set aflame reason fierier than my hair.
"I haven't much to offer in terms of a passionate defense of something seemingly so trite. If a musical doesn't go on, so be it; life continues regardless. Despite this, I would ask if we might have a moment to consider what it is we aim to do. It is not our intent to bring depravity to the public, any more than it is the intent of some teachers to bring intelligence to the students of this facility. No, we are hoping to bring amusement and merriment to others, if just for a little while. I see nothing wrong with that. You might think our content is risqué. Fundamentally, it does not matter, for it is not a dogma that we are forcing upon anyone. Those who wish to see it may, and those who do not need not. Our culture is disintegrating swiftly as the result of this pervasive belief in an inflexible moral rectitude that prevents us from seeking common ground. I'm not here to make an argument that any who oppose my position are willfully ignorant. Society cannot function that way. Instead, let us see that between two fixed points on a spectrum, there is the overwhelming middle, taking up all the space in between. We should be in that great median, not entrenched on the endpoints. I leave it to you to think what you will. For my part, I believe it suffices that we can maintain civility when discussing something so consequential to all of our lives as the production of a high school play."
I sat down, not even sure myself of what position I'd taken. This was as good a forum as any to express my discontent at the prevailing attitude of self-righteousness that infects every discourse, though. To my surprise, the cast behind me started applauding. I didn't think it was that good of a speech. The crowd picked up the ovation, to my further shock. The president banged his gavel and asked for silence.
"All those who move to dismiss this matter and allow the musical to go on as planned?" asked the president. Every board member raised his or her hand. Katarina could barely keep her enthusiasm contained as she hissed, "Yes!"
"It is unanimous. The motion is carried," announced the board president. The cast erupted into triumphant exuberance. Victorious cheers overwhelmed the proceedings of the board meeting, and the president had to call for a recess while we were unceremoniously told to get out, lest we make more noise. Katarina gave me a quick hug and laughed, "You did it, dude!"
We cheered and laughed like lunatics as we departed the library. The laurels of victory having descended upon us, we made sure our furor was heard as we left. The euphoria kept me up most of the night. I exulted in my success, and fell asleep at a highly unreasonable hour. When I woke up the next morning, I'd barely had six hours' sleep. And after the second and a half of groggily regaining of cognizance, I grinned again. It was this kind of law practice that I meant to delve into. I could already see myself as the savior of the people, the champion of liberty.
I'd never had a greater rush of blood to my ego in my life. I was now a haughty vat of pomposity.
That next day, as I was walking through the halls, I was greeted by Mr. Tullile, who grinned merrily at me.
"So I heard through channels that you went the way of Cicero before the Board last night."
I had been shocked by the total quietude surrounding my performance of the previous night. None of my peers made any remarks, congratulatory or derisive. Silence seemed worse than derisive remarks. But Mr. Tullile was evidently pleased.
"Oh, it was nothing," I modestly lied.
"Nothing? I heard it was something to bring tears to the eyes of Cato…both the Elder and the Younger."
"I guess so."
"Are you looking at law as what you want to do with your life?"
"Yes," I nodded, way too eagerly.
"That was my profession, or one of my professions, before becoming a teacher, you know."
"One of?"
"I've been so many things," he laughed. "Mechanic, lawyer, bartender, accountant, politician…"
My ears perked up at the last word. Tullile had a political record?
Most curious, indeed.
Apr. 12, 2003-4:05 p.m.
The Entry Of Mental Regression
So I had a weird dream last night. I was walking around in this comic book store with a nice, plush carpet. It was really nice and I was checking out a book when I heard someone coming up behind me. So I turned around and I was in the bathroom at Seaside. Standing next to me was Augustus and Brian was sitting at a chessboard, deep in thought. So I'm like, "Hey, Brian, you want to play?" and he doesn't answer. Suddenly Augustus grins at me broadly and pulls a lever in the wall and water pours out of the sprinklers. Then he jumps in a pair of combat boots and is off. Brian is suddenly gone. I'm all alone in a bathroom with a chessboard.
I can't even dream chess madness away.
I had a laugh when I saw Rob write that in his LiveJournal. Yes, April was the month of great endings to maniacal work sessions. Despite our best efforts, the Seaside High Chess Team landed a wild card spot in the regional playoffs. When Novus Homo Academy dropped out of the competition, we jumped right in and crushed Scarsdale and Crownshead Heights in a wild doubleheader. I was also crusading through completing my thesis paper for Perkins and DiGenari as much as I could around rehearsals, and somehow loving every minute of it. That I was thrilling so much on writing a paper about the Peloponnesian War tells you a lot about me. As I began to really live for the things I was doing-chess, the play, my papers-I felt myself recovering from the Valentine's Day Massacre. My quirky sense of humor started manifesting itself again. The play was only days away and somehow I was high as a kite with cheeriness, while everyone else was gripped with icy panic. I was no home to stage fright. I wasn't even home all that often; I was asleep even less often. How I did it all, I still do not know. I must have been mad as a hatter.
Apr. 13, 2003-9:20 p.m.
Are You Like Augustus J. Kennedy III? Take This Quiz!
You solve problems that have nothing to do with you.
Walking on rooftops is not a novel experience for you.
You actively chase dreams because they're much easier to hold on to than reality.
You consciously wonder about the fate of the world now that your country has invaded the Middle East.
You figure that writing your thesis paper will bring you one step closer to conquering the world.
You're so arrogant that you can't spell mdesty.
Your hair is redder than the artificial coloring Red #20.
You create egotistical lists like this.
You have a superiority complex.
You have the bizarre urge to set gnomes on fire.
You have the urge to set fire to Perkins as well, come to think of it.
You hate sycophants.
You are more stable than the school psychologist.
You think you are a sleazy trial lawyer because you want to be a sleazy trial lawyer.
You know the answers to next week's quiz before the material was covered-you're just that good.
You're so sarcastic people can't tell when you're being earnest.
You're a textbook leftist, so inherently elitist and proud to be theatrical.
You speak six languages and don't give a stercus.
Your teachers include illegal immigrants and pot smokers.
You alone are more sober than the rest of your class combined.
0-5: Nope, not very much created in my image. I pity you, feeble mortal.
6-10: Fascinating. The Augustus has undoubtedly touched you.
11-15: You have the Augustus running in your veins.
16-19: Don the laurel wreath and the toga now. You've probably been trying to model yourself on me anyway, so why worry about looking like a copycat now?
20: Do I have to get out a restraining order?
"Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the silver-tongued prince of the courtroom, the one, the only, Mister Billy Flynn!"
It was the overture to my splashy entry number. Exuding a cool confidence, I adjusted my tie one last time and smirked. The girls introducing my number on stage were excellent. The whole show was excellent on opening night. When Ms. Foster asked me if I were okay, I smoothly assured her, "Of course I am."
Ready to give the performance of a lifetime, I hurried up the steps as the drum roll sounded my cue. With a sarcastic grin on my face and a cheap imitation of a cigar in my right hand, I looked out at the audience for the first time. All the numbers had been excellent. All the acting had been superb. The audience had hitherto thought every performance and performer was brilliant. Would they think the same about me? I had no doubts about that. I was going to make them love me.
I chuckled, "Is everybody here? Is everybody ready? Hit it!"
I hurriedly descended the steps, not missing a beat. I saw Mom, Dad, Rich, and Allison in the middle. Rob, Brian, Nate, and Charlie were up front for me. I found my voice.
"I don't care about expensive things, cashmere coats, diamond rings, don't mean a thing…all I care about is love. That's what I'm here for!"
The ensemble girls flocked to me. I was in full performer mode, and it wasn't until the instrumental interlude that I noticed Mackenzie Blake way in the back. As I was supposed to be whistling, I nearly choked on my own saliva but kept going all the same. There was no way she was going to trip me up in my finest hour. The fandancer girls on stage with me surrounded me and we sang in harmony, my voice ringing with every note in the auditorium.
"All I care about is love!"
For a brief half-second, the audience held its breath. For that matter, I did too. Then the whole house exploded with vociferous cheers. I could hear Rich whistling at me and Brian yelling, "Yeah Augustus!" I must have reddened from the praise, and I hurried into introducing the next musical number as the applause died down. Even so, that was one of those moments where it feels like the whole world has just celebrated your existence, and you couldn't be happier for that. After finishing my bit, I ducked backstage. I was panting as I sat down next to April, who smiled and said, "You were good."
"Was I?" I said, flattering myself horrifically.
"Yeah, are you kidding me? You were great."
"Thanks," I said noncommittally. I knew I'd done well, and I just wanted to hear it from her mouth. I considered contemplating her on her performance in one of the earlier numbers, but no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I heard Ms. Foster approaching.
"Augustus, get up! Your number with April is almost about to start!"
She thrust a chair at me, which I took into my arms and looked at the audience with. When the musical number on stage was done, I dragged the chair to the center of the stage. One of the other actors, whom I didn't really know, said to me, "Mister Flynn, the reporters are here."
I beckoned to April, who skittered over to me. I was ready to kick this thing into overdrive. April was delivering her lines, and as she did, I zoned out for the briefest of moments. There's a certain peculiarity to the feeling of being in a theatrical performance. The fourth wall, about which so much is said when it's broken, almost takes on a physical dimension, like a big pane of glass between you and the audience. You know the audience is on the other side of that pane, but you don't oftentimes find yourself acknowledging that fact very consciously. It was like there were two worlds in that theater, and I was trying to bridge the divide. Then reality-or perhaps theatricality-kicked in and reminded me of where I was. I pulled April onto my lap. I could feel April radiating an incredible amount of warmth. The girl was steaming, no questions about it. Even so, the warmth was strangely comfortable, and for an unreasonable moment I found it kind of nice.
The music kicked up. April and I were in perfect harmony. We put on a ventriloquist act like they could only do on Broadway or the West End. Oh, we were excellent. I say this with the twenty/twenty hindsight of sycophantic reviews from so many people, but even as I sang my solos, I knew all eyes were drinking in my every movement, all ears sucking up every utterance I made.
At length, we came to the crescendo part of the number that built up to the end. The chorus started out slowly repeating their part while I hurried up the steps to where the band was performing the music. From this level of the stage, I waved my hands around like I was conducting my own band. I mockingly encouraged them with phrases such as, "Let me hear it!" or, "Little louder!" or, "Now ya got it!" Eventually, I joined in until I came to my last solo, holding the big end note.
"Both reached for theeeeeeee-"
I started laughing as Rob yelled, "Go Augustus!" There went the big note. Whoops. The whole audience laughed and began clapping excitedly as I belted out my last note.
"Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!"
The chorus eagerly chimed in with a numberless amount of repetitions of the phrase, "The gun!" during the process. I flashed my brightest smile and posed. The carnival music ceased. The audience gave us a standing ovation. Nearly the entire cast was out there anyway, so it was a celebration of all of us, as far as I was concerned. And that was a wonderful feeling that truly can't be described in mere words. The euphoria was with me as I thundered out my last number, "Razzle Dazzle." It's all very hard to translate to words the sensations that go along with being part of a live performance for the stage, much less when you're a sensational hit and you get two standing ovations out of three musical numbers. Needless to say, though, we were sellouts on the subsequent nights, but the opening night was quite powerful, really. On the last night, Katarina and April finished the show with a truly dazzling performance, undoubtedly their best of the three nights. People literally began throwing roses at them before we closed the show.
"Roxie and I would just like to thank you for your faith and your belief in our innocence," Katarina graciously thanked, holding a bunch of roses to her chest. April nodded concurringly.
"Oh yes, it was all those letters and telegrams and words of encouragement that helped see us through this ordeal of ours."
"You know," Katarina grinned, rolling her eyes sarcastically at the Green family (who, for reasons still unclear to me even to this day, was there), "a lot of people have lost faith in America."
"And what America stands for."
"But we are shining examples of what a wonderful country this is!"
"So we'd just like to thank you," April smiled, "and God bless you!"
"God bless you!"
The ending music picked up. It was the cue for the entire cast to tap its way onto the stage. Katarina and April continued to bless the crowd, acerbically remarking, "God loves you!"
We sang the final notes of the play and the curtain came down.
That was it. Like that, as the audience disappeared behind the folds, it was truly the end. All at once I was overcome with emotion. Why had I the sudden urge to cry? What can I tell you? I had thrown myself headlong into this all, and now it was done. All our rehearsing had come down to this: the fall of the curtain.
We retired offstage as the curtain came up again. Miss Foster read our names and we were to run onstage and off again as we were called in succession. She started with the less important members of the ensemble before moving on to the primary actors. I was third-to-last to be called.
"Augustus Kennedy!"
As I hurried out on stage with a fedora crowning my fiery mane, the audience exploded. People sprang out of their seats to applaud me. I felt an immediate rush of blood to my ego and grinned cheerfully, tipping my hat to the crowd as I casually sauntered offstage.
"Katarina West!"
Katarina strutted onstage to equally grandiose applause. When Miss Foster called April, the whole audience redoubled in laudation. We got together for a company bow. I stood in the center, Katarina on my left and April on my right. As we went down together and rose up several times, I felt the sadness build up to the point where tears were rapidly welling in my eyes. As my hands were tied up, I couldn't stop the inevitable. I blinked and a few tears plunged to the stage. I smiled as best as I could manage, hoping to pass off the façade of tears of joy or some such nonsense. But when I got home that night, Dad said, "You did well, Guy. Change out of your costume and we'll go out to celebrate your fifteenth, okay?"
My birthday. It was my birthday on closing night. How bittersweet, no? But now I felt that a chapter in my school year had just closed. I couldn't help but feel a little melancholy now that it seemed all I had to use my energy on was a thesis paper. How could I pretend to be excited over that? Nevertheless, decorum dictated nobody could see my tears, so I pulled on a polo shirt and my leather jacket and came downstairs. There, I was pleasantly surprised by the presence of Rob, Brian, Nate, and their respective families.
"Happy birthday, Augustus!" the whole congregation exclaimed. I hit the roof with shock. After my heart ceased palpitating, I started laughing hysterically. As a massive party, we went out to my favorite restaurant on the river, the same one we went to after I schooled those Latin exams. It constitutes a perfect evening every time. And there's been no more perfect evening than that night out on my fifteenth birthday. Nobody had really said anything to me in school, but apparently this night out with my friends had been in the planning stages for months and I'd never caught on. Brian gave me two books on Roman imperialism. Rob gave me a few computer games. And what did Nate get for me?
A new watch.
It's with friends like this that sometimes, you don't need anything else.
"Tim, what is that?"
"A manga. Haven't you ever heard of them before?"
My brow furrowed at this. Tim was evidently reading a black-and-white comic book…backwards. It was labeled something bizarre about evangelism or something of that nature.
"Can't say that I have."
"You've heard of anime, though, right?"
"Yeah. Pokémon and the like."
"Ick…you haven't been exposed to much Japanese culture, have you?"
"Call it the extraordinary symptom of living in the eastern United States."
"Well, we'll fix that. You should watch some good anime with me, because you, good sir, are in desperate need of a Pacific culturing."
I raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. Somehow I felt that he was proposing a life-altering experience, and that was extremely dubious coming from him.
"I think," I said, "I've seen one of those books before. It had some Japanese samurai on it."
"That really narrows it down. What color was his hair?"
"Red."
"Cross-shaped scar on his cheek?"
"Maybe."
"Might've been what I think it is. I have that one too. First time I ever heard of lightning balls."
"I…beg your pardon? Lightning balls?"
"They're like…well, fireballs that appear in the sky in certain weather conditions."
I started laughing at him as the bell rang, indicating Spanish was about to start. "What a silly notion!"
"They're real, though. Seriously."
"Yeah, and invading Iraq was a totally brilliant idea."
May 2, 2003-7:57 p.m.
Sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti / in vente et rabida scribere oportet aqua.
Of course, I'm quite clearly not a woman, but sometimes I do feel like what I'm writing may as well be on the wind and rushing water. Valerius Catullus knew his metaphors, indeed. Why, then, am I writing these thoughts down blankly in the expectation that someone is reading them and either arguing my point or counterpoints somewhere else?
I dunno. Maybe I just like writing.
It's another gloomy, rainy day, and I can't go anywhere. I ought to be doing my thesis for Perkins, but then again, I'm invariably ahead of everyone else at the moment. I'm sick and tired of it already, even though it's on the Peloponnesian Wars. I just look forward to throwing it back at that little twit Perkins so she doesn't bother me again until twelfth grade. She teaches AP English for seniors. Mrs. DiGenari teaches AP History for seniors. God, being stuck with those two again? Frightening thought.
Mr. Tullile says I should spend an hour with Vergilius Maro as well. I ought to get down to that too. At the moment, I'm more concerned with everyone else. Terry is the only one who's remained level-headed throughout these long days and weeks. Charlie is…just Charlie. I've been having mood swings of my own, which I'm only beginning to get over, plus there was the play. Tim has been having this crazy thing called "a social life."
I don't know…perhaps I'm just too tired to be giving things rational thought. Give me hugs, people, or I'll come to your house and cut you. All of you.
One day while writing my thesis paper in early May, I was consumed with utter boredom. All at once infested with apathy, I tried in vain to snap out of the suddenly unusual sensation of ennui. To my alarm (well, I was too lethargic at the time to be alarmed then), I couldn't get over that feeling. I just felt that there was little place for me where I was. I wanted desperately to start my life over from the beginning knowing then what I know now. I suppose it happens to all people, but the thought stayed with me for days at a time. The feeling of being so pathetic sort of just sat on me. I imagined I could do much better if I started over from the proverbial Square One.
Finally, after about a week of this quasi-existentialist confusion, I suddenly became angry…so incredibly angry. And I had no idea why, which worsened the situation. My inability to deduce what was bothering me only frustrated me more, and thus my anger intensified. Whilst sitting at my computer, vainly attempting to add to my thesis, I was filled with a black desire to put my fist right through the monitor. It was a hell of a time for me to succumb to teenage angst. I tried reading to occupy my thoughts. I was mentally restless, and soon became physically restless. I began walking around the house, hopelessly desperate for something to do with my life. Loneliness is hell when you're Augustus Kennedy.
I don't like to talk about it like it's a real problem, but I didn't have, by typical standards, a very normal social life as a kid. I grew up always in my own house. My mom was highly overprotective and generally tried her utmost to keep my social life to a minimum. So I didn't do the usual visiting other people at their houses, et cetera. My mom never trusted me in anyone else's care. So school was, and still is, the only source of real social interaction for me. And while that's never honestly been a problem before, you can only do that for so long before the need to feel wanted overtakes your desire for solitude.
Fortunately, Terry interrupted my anxious social fretting by instant messaging me, asking me how my Spring Break was going. Finally, something to do! I started chatting with him eagerly, glad to have something to distract me from myself. Terry didn't fail to deliver, lobbing a bombshell declaration at me that I should've seen coming from a long way away. In a simple sentence, he told me about how he was ready for June to finish up so he could return to Britain. It was an utterly innocuous statement, but he may as well have socked me right in the face; the one person who was able to set me back on track was leaving this country. Before you even go the route of guffawing about how I'm inclined to overreact, don't. You might think that because we had instant messaging, this was no great problem. I defy you to tell me about how many people you've stayed in contact with over the years solely through instant messaging after getting to know them personally. Not very high numbers, are they? Indeed.
I didn't know what to say at the time, so I said nothing. Terry moved right along to talking about our upcoming competition in the state chess playoffs. As it would turn out, we went to the mall in the county seat and competed against New Jersey's finest-a phrase that sounds just as oxymoronic now as it did when it first entered my head. We were eliminated in the first round but won first in our local league. That was all that really mattered anyway. So we came home with a shiny first place trophy and bragging rights. Mr. Hastings made a special announcement for our victory when we returned to school after Spring Break:
"Also, the Seaside Chess Team won first place in the Shore League and went on to the State Championship. There, they were slaughtered 1-4, but that just goes to show how great this school is. It can come in last place in the foremost tier. That's what I call striving for excellence. Great job, guys. There will be a party today for them after school, including wine and ice cream with chocolate sauce and dancing afterwar-what? What do you mean they can't have wine? Isn't this a high school? Everybody drinks in high school! Well of course I drank in high school! Every day! Yes, today too. Why? I'm a what? Drop dead!"
I'd kicked my angst by the time school was back in session. When Brian and I were the only ones at the lunch table one day, I attempted to be conversational through the only starting point that was readily at hand.
"So, how are things with you and Sarah?"
Brian looked up from his sandwich, looking somewhat displeased by the question. Hastily, I added, "If you don't mind me asking."
"No, it's okay," he said. "We decided to take things slow…"
He started going on about their mutual insecurities in regards to rushing into a relationship. Yours truly had had enough of hearing about relationships already for one year, so I plastered a blank smile on my face and zoned out. I didn't come back to reality until Amy approached me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find her holding out a note in her hand. Rather surprised, I took the note and asked Brian to hold whatever meaningless thought that was about to spew forth while I read.
Hey Augustus,
I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you back in February. I know you're probably wondering why I chose to write this to you now, almost 3 months later. I just haven't been able to find the right words to apologize to you. I know I frustrated you but I want us to continue to be friends. You're like the sweetest and nicest guy I know and without you I'd be totally lost lol. I know that you really feel strongly for me and I'm flattered, but we can't do what you want. I don't mean to mean about this, but I've had bad experiences with friends who became boyfriends. I don't want that to happen to us, you know? I'm sorry this didn't work out like you wanted it to, but I know you'll understand. You've always understood me, better than I've usually understood myself.
This may not comfort you. I'm sorry I can't feel the love for you that you feel for me. But Augustus, I do love you as my best friend forever.
Mackenzie
At first glance, this note had insult written all over it. It took three months to figure out how to couch the phrase "I'm sorry"? How absurd. And what on earth does it mean to be loved as a best friend? How meaningless in light of the circumstances! My first instinct was to write this off as inconsequential, but the Augustus Kennedy that still felt something for her had yet to give his opinion. He felt it was kind of sweet; how often did I even get notes of this kind? No, there was no reason to be so brusque. She had come to be repentant, and that was enough for my ego.
So it came to be that, at the end of history and English, I stood around at the door and waited for her. I'd pretended to be aloof with her through the period for the sake of theatrics (as I'm sure I've said, I'm a showman at heart). When she came out, she didn't appear entirely fazed by my façade, but when she saw me staring down my nose at her, she almost trembled.
"Did you get my note?" she questioned uncertainly. I nodded gravely. After a few more seconds of fragile silence, she asked, "What? I said I was sorry, didn't I?"
I couldn't keep up the act any longer. A smile willed itself onto my face and I burst into laughter.
"Mackenzie, I'm sorry for having ever gotten cross with you. I concede I was selfishly obstinate about this at the expense of our friendship."
"Thanks," she smiled, lowering her eyelids in that tempting, coquettish way. "I think you're too good to me sometimes."
I just grinned, looking down into her eyes. "For you, anything."
It's hard to tell if I'm very forgiving or just stupid. Perhaps both, maybe neither. I didn't care; Valentine's Day is still just a worthless holiday celebrated by the emotional. When you're a rational person like me, you have no use for emotions.
"Glad to get your thesis done?" Charlie asked me at lunch the following day.
"It was no big deal to me in the first place," I responded. "In fact, I enjoyed researching the Peloponnesian War. It was interesting."
"How many books did you cite?" Rob asked.
"A couple-I can't remember offhand."
"My God, it took forever to research my topic. You'd think there is all kinds of stuff on the Wars of the Roses, but no," grimaced Brian. As he was speaking, I reached down into my backpack and pulled out my thesis paper. I flipped to the works cited page and showed it to Rob.
"Nine books; impressive," he commented. "Isaac Asimov had something to say about this?"
Before I could reply, Nate said, "Isaac Asimov? Isn't he the spacetronaut…astronaut guy?"
"Spacetronaut?" Terry repeated with a laugh. Charlie began chuckling at this.
"I meant astronaut," Nate insisted in his usual monotone. However, from that moment, the word "spacetronaut" entered our group's lexicon. Oh, to be among friends.
As the weather became warmer, teachers became less strict about classroom procedure. Perhaps their glue melted in the sun. Whatever the cause, it afforded me the opportunity to snack on some food during McCartney's class; that day, I hadn't particularly enjoyed awakening at six in the morning, and I'd missed breakfast as a consequence of sleeping a little later. Thus, I was starving by that point in the morning, and I was eagerly devouring half of my lunch in front of McCartney. Who cared to hear about radians anyway? I was more interested in my raisins. Mrs. McCartney stopped at one point to remark, "You're going to need to go to the bathroom so badly after that."
If raisins were inclined to do that, it was news to me. I ignored the comment and reached for my cookies. Mark tapped me on the shoulder and petitioned me for one, a request that I refused because I'm irredeemably selfish. Not to be denied, he swiped one from me; the audacity! I spun around in my seat and hissed at him, "Put that cookie down now!"
Mark started sniggering uncontrollably. The whole class stared at him and wondered what was so funny; I certainly didn't know the answer to that question. Mrs. McCartney turned away from the board and said, "Is there something you'd like to share with us, Mister Pallidin?"
He stuffed my cookie in his mouth and said, "No." McCartney eyed him and then resumed the lesson. I glared at him and whispered, "What was that all about?"
"You sounded just like Arnold Schwarzenegger when you said that."
"I did?"
"Yeah," he said, adopting a faux-Austrian accent. "Poot dat cukee down nao!"
I don't know why that stupid impersonation struck me as so funny, but for the rest of algebra I was giggling hysterically and trying my utmost not to disrupt the lesson. Of course, others noticed me shaking with barely bridled mirth, but McCartney never seemed to take notice of it. It is said that teachers are there to teach, not to babysit. When one considers the culture of willful ignorance in this country, though, sometimes that perception lacks credibility.
In early June, we were issued our schedules for sophomore year. For most of the day, people proceeded to compare each other's schedules to determine which classes they would be sharing with each other. Hence, this conversation at lunch:
"Oh, you got Verdorben?" asked Nate. "Oops."
"Why?" I asked at the lunch table.
"Verdorben…God help you," Brian laughed. "She's crazy."
"Bad crazy or good crazy?"
"Good crazy. Just really spontaneous."
Rob laughed
