This is part THREE of a four-part story. You'll get entertainment value from this bit, but you'll get even more if you start at the beginning
I sat in the office of the English and Literature faculty, lightly tapping my pencil against my forehead just has I had every single day for the past four and a half months. It wasn’t so much a gesture of boredom or writer’s block or even a nervous twitch. I’d actually started doing it with the hope that, slowly but surely, I’d tap a hole into my head so that my brain could escape and be free.
“Come on,” I said with a sigh; exasperated.
“What now?” Miss Starling said from the other side of the room.
“This is boring,” I said.
“That it is,” she responded. “And somehow, you’re going to suffer through it and turn in yet another
amazing piece of writing.” I looked her way. She had a genuine smile that backed up her slightly gritty voice.
“Right,” I responded. “I’ll be lucky if I can actually move my fingers at this point… My brain has completely atrophied.”
“You seem to be moving your lips quite easily enough,” She responded with a smirk.
“Nice,” I stated with a smirk of my own. “The future educator of the nation’s youth, ladies and gentlemen…”
“Tsk…. Whatever,” She said, smiling. “You like it.”
“I like ANYTHING that takes my mind off this boring nonsense.”
“Well, hang in there,” She said, returning her attention to a textbook of her own. “You’ve come this far… Just one more month to go before graduation.”
“Thank GOD,” I said with a typically teenage sigh. “I hated school enough before I had to sit in it an extra two hours a day.”
“Riiiiight…”
“What?”
She looked back up at me. “For someone who hates being here, you sure have spent a lot of your life showing up early and leaving late…”
“That’s different,” I answered. “That’s sports.”
“See!” She said, pointing her college-issue yellow highlighter at me. “You admit it! You’re a total jock!”
This was her favorite form of argument – the old jock vs. punker shtick… Mostly because it’s the only hand she ever had to play. “Here we go,” I said, laying my pencil down on the notebook. “We’re going to rehash this entire thing once again?”
She laughed. “Nah, I just like ruffling the Peacock’s feathers.”
“Well, good,” I said, looking back toward the one and only sentence I’d written in the hour I’d been there. “I’d hate to have to hand you your ass in yet another music debate.”
“Look,” she said, beginning to get defensive, “Just because you got me on the ‘Rancid is Op Ivy’ thing…”
“And the Ramones thing,” I reminded. “And the Keith Morris being the first Black Flag singer thing… And the…”
“I GET IT,” She stated. “Still… I got you on the ‘Plagiarizing song lyrics for English class thing,’ so I guess I still win.” She smiled a defiant smile at me.
I let my silence answer for me as I returned to my bullshit writing assignment.
The sound of my pencil scraping against paper in loops and curves was the only noise to be heard in the room. I could feel her looking at me, trying to figure out how to say whatever it was she was going to say. I refused to look back at her.
“Look…”
“You know I feel like shit about that,” I interrupted.
“Yeah, I know…”
“It’s not like I LIKE being here.” There was a fair amount of disdain in my voice. “I hate this place… I hate this bullshit writing assignment, I hate this school, and mostly, I hate you. Just leave me alone.”
She sat silent for a few seconds. “Look, I’m sorry. It was just a joke, you know.”
“Yeah, well… So was my little rant. Sucker.” I let loose the smile I had been fighting back.
“You… You jerk!” She said, wrinkling her nose at me. She looked around her desk, found the first piece of waste paper that presented itself to her, wadded it up, and threw it at me.
I simply laughed. “What, you think I’m THAT sensitive?”
“NO.” She said with a fake pout. “You’re not sensitive at all. You’re a jerk, and I hate you.”
“Right…” I said, returning to my writing. “You can’t pull the exact same scam I just pulled on you. Bad form there,
Miss Starling.”
“GRRRRR!” She said, looking for another wad of paper to throw my way. She HATED it when I called her ‘Miss Starling’ – not because it was a symbol of the master-student system that she’d grown to abhor these past few months, but because, when I said it, I made every effort to make it sound like I was in the 4th grade and she was fifty-five years old.
“Come on, Beth” I said, “You know you’re going to miss me when school’s over.”
She looked at me through narrowed eyes and black-rimmed glasses. “
Maybe,” she said with a half-sneer, half smile. She then threw a wadded Post-it note at me. “Get back to work!”
I laughed and began writing on the second paragraph of a five-page story that had to make use of the ‘Man vs. Himself’ theme in literature. I wrote about a man who was losing his sanity and began engaging in lengthy debates with himself anytime he passed a mirror. I found that, by making clever use of dialogue, I could easily fill as many pages as I wanted to with little effort… Quite possibly the only lesson I learned in school that I’ve made any use of in my modern life. Well, that and hating authority.
A little over six college-ruled pages of writing later, I put my pencil down and sighed a bit.
“Done?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Finally.”
“Bring it over,” she demanded. I complied.
I walked back to pack up my bag as she read. I could hear a few snickers and chuckles, and could tell when she’d gotten to the part on page four when the man bellowed “Stop blocking all my punches!” at his doppelganger in the mirror, because she laughed loudly. She was a total sucker for surreal humor.
“This is good!” She said, looking up from the final page. “Is this a concept you had before, or did you make it up on the spot?”
“On the spot,” I said. “Just sitting here.”
“Any special meaning behind it?” She asked.
There was, but I wasn’t about to tell her that I saw the two of us as being extremely similar. “Isn’t that up to the reader to determine?” I parried masterfully.
She cocked her head and smiled. “I suppose it is,” She answered as she placed a large red check mark on the front page of the assignment and dropped it in a special bin containing a stack of other papers with similar handwriting and similar checkmarks adorning them.
“Alright… I’ll see ya,” I said, turning to leave.
“Wait,” she said, “I’ll walk out with you – unless you have some sort of practice today…”
“Nah,” I said, “Wrestling’s over, and the track coach won’t let me show up for practice late like Coach Stallion did. So I’m sitting out the shot put this year...” I twisted my voice so as to be as apparently sarcastic as I could as I coughed, “THANKS TO YOU!”
“Hey, I didn’t force you to be an idiot,” She answered. “I just still can’t believe you managed to get back on the Wrestling team.” She packed her things into her satchel; and then flipped the cover closed and hoisted it up on her shoulder.
“They never took me off of it,” I said. “They just wanted to scare me.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, I know… You really DO get away with murder around here, don’t you?”
We exited the room and walked down the hallway toward the main entrance. “I didn’t get away with the song lyric thing,” I answered.
“Eh, you would have,” She said.
“Yeah, then YOU showed up,” I said with a smile.
“Well… I’m sorry I actually called you on your intellectual theft and forced you to do a bit of actual work.”
“No you’re not,” I said.
“You’re right, I’m totally not,” she said with a laugh.
“Punker,” I said.
“Damn right,” She replied, throwing up the trademarked Syd Rotten sod-off double-finger rawk gesture.
We poked our head in to the main office as we passed by, letting Mrs. Jones know that we were leaving. She smiled and waved and said something about how proud she was of me for taking my punishment with honor and dignity and all that crap principals say to students to make them feel less like crap.
“So, you’re really not going to prom, huh?” She said as we stepped into the parking lot.
“Nope,” I replied.
“That girlfriend of yours doesn’t want to go?”
“Michele?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Not really… She’s not really one for those sorts of things.”
“What, and you are?”
“Oh, hell no,” I answered as I stepped up on a parking block and attempted to walk it like a tightrope. “The last thing I really want to do is spend what little money I’ve got on dressing like James Bond and paying for some girl’s lobster at some three-star restaurant in the city.”
She laughed. “Sounds about right… I didn’t go to mine, you know.”
“I didn’t figure you’d be the type,” I replied. “You regret it?”
“Not even slightly,” she answered. “So what are you going to do then? Are you and Michele going out that night?”
“Probably not,” I replied. “I haven’t talked to her in, like, a week.”
“Uh oh,” She said. “Relationship trouble?”
“Yeah,” I responded, “I’m having trouble determining if there even IS a relationship.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing in particular,” I said with a sigh. “She’s just… She’s impossible to read.”
“Yeah, she seems… Nah, nevermind…”
“What?” I asked.
“Not my place,” she stated plainly.
“You can’t do that,” I said. “You can’t just throw something like that out there and then pull it back and not expect me to react to it.”
She turned and looked at me. “She’s just… She’s not right for you, Joe.”
“Right for me?” I asked. “Like you even know what’s right for me…”
“I know that she isn’t,” she replied. “You’re a hard worker, very motivated, bright, on the ball…”
“So is she,” I replied.
Beth stopped walking. “Joe, she’s got a 12 in my class,” She stated.
I stopped. “A
twelve?” I repeated, turning back to face her. “That’s… Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she works a full-time job,” I said, defending Michele as I turned to begin walking again. Beth joined me. “I mean… You don’t understand. She’s been through a lot.”
“You know,” she said, backing off, “You’re totally right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, no… I appreciate what you’re trying to do… What I think you’re trying to do, anyway…”
“Yeah, anyway…” She said, trying to change the subject, “So, no prom… What are you going to do tomorrow night then?”
“I dunno,” I replied. “Probably draw or play Nintendo or something.”
“Your friends are going to prom?” She asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, “Mike’s taking my sister and Walter’s taking Amand… Er, uh… A girl I used to know.”
She looked at me strangely. “That sounds like a story…”
“…For another time,” I answered without being asked.
“Point taken,” She said. She pulled her satchel in front of her and began digging through it as we walked. “So then, you’re not doing anything?”
“Nope,” I said as we reached her car. “And I’m pretty happy about it – Hey, watch out!”
She looked up from her bag just in time to avoid walking into a Handicapped Parking sign. “Wow… thanks for the heads-up there…”
“Yep,” I said dismissively.
“Well, anyway…" she continued, "As happy as you pretend you’ll be, sitting at home and proud of being mister I-Don’t-Need-Anybody-Total-Loner-Boy, I think you might be just a bit happier going to
this.” She whipped out a blue and yellow piece of paper shaped like a concert ticket.
I stopped dead in my tracks. “No… Way…” I said, knowing exactly what it was she was handing me. “You… No way.”
“Yes, way,” she said. “You’ve been working hard, you deserve it.”
“I… I can’t…”
“Come on, Joe!” She insisted. “It’s Faith No More! It’s one of your favorite bands of all time!”
“Yeah, but…”
“No buts!” She said, wagging the ticket in front of me. “Take it!”
Dude…
I KNOW!
This is huge, right here…
I know, right?!? A free ticket to Faith No More!
Well, yeah… That, too…
What should we do?
I don’t know… We want to go to the show, but… This just feels weird…
Yeah, tell me about it… We’re going to go see Faith No More without Mike…
Okay, I definitely don’t think we’re on the same wavelength here…
I reluctantly reached out and grabbed it. I looked it over and sure enough, it was a ticket to the Faith No More show at the Masquerade, the night of my Senior Prom. “I… Wow…”
“Do you have a ride?” She asked.
“Uh… I can probably ask my dad…”
“Well, if you need one, let me know – I can swing by and get you.”
Okay, yeah, this is definitely something.
Yeah… A free ticket to Faith No More AND a free ride!
You are TOTALLY missing out on something very, very vital right now.
What?
Beth…
What about her?
I think… Well, I think she LIKES us.
Get out of here…
No, look at it! She’s into our music, she’s always laughing at our jokes, she’s giving us a free ticket to the show tomorrow…
Uh… She wants to drive us in her car…
Yeah! See?
…Holy. Shit.
EXACTLY.
My mind was a blur. I had no idea what to think. “Thank… Thank you…”
“No problem!” She replied with a very sincere smile. “I’m glad you’re going to go with us!”
Wait… ‘Us?’ Us WHO?
I dunno! What are you asking ME for?
I’m your subconscious! It’s my job!
Well I don’t freakin’ know what she meant by ‘Us!’ You’ll have to ask her!
I CAN’T ask her. You have to, dipshit!
Oh… Yeah, uh… Like, how do I do that?
“Who else is going?” I blurted out, almost unconsciously.
“Oh… My friends, Matt and Mary…”
SEE! Just her friends! She’s TOTALLY into us!
“… and my boyfriend, Hector.”
… Shit.
Ah, well there you go. She’s got a boyfriend.
I know. That’s why I said ‘shit.’
Oh… Why? Do we like her?
Um… Yeah, actually, I think we might.
WHAT?!? Why the hell didn’t you tell me this sooner?
I don’t know! I only just now realized it myself!
Bastard! Isn’t it your job to realize this shit much earlier on?
Well it’s hard!
WHAT? What’s so hard about it!?! She’s a female! You’re my subconscious! You analyze the facts about her and start implanting shit in my head! It’s not that hard!
Yeah, but… She’s a teacher…
So? That didn’t stop you from making me have wet dreams about Mrs. Windsor in 9th grade!
That wasn’t me… You were having wet dreams about everything then.
Yeah, I guess that’s a good point…
Well, before you get too deep into analyzing it, you should know that you’ve been staring at her strangely for about three seconds now, and you’re about to enter the officially creepy zone.
Oh… Thanks.
No problem. Your mouth’s hanging open, too.
My jaw snapped shut as I returned to reality. “Yeah, I’m… I’m excited!” I slapped the ticket against my open left palm. “This is going to be fun! Good!”
She cocked her head slightly and furrowed her brow. “You okay with this?”
“Yes!” I said, a little shocked and a little excited. “Yes, this is great! I… I really wanted to go to this show! I didn’t think I was going to be able to!”
“Well, don’t let it keep you up all night,” She said, placing a hand on my elbow, “You’re going to need your sleep. It’s going to be an awesome show.”
Yeah, okay, we definitely like her.
Yep.
FUCK. Why didn’t I realize this sooner?
I don’t know.
This is going to be difficult. She’s older, she’s our teacher, and she’s got a boyfriend… And we’ve got Michele, sort of…
Uh…
And man… Now that I really look at her, she is really very, very pretty. She’s into the music we like, she’s smart, she’s funny…
Um… If I may, uh… Interrupt you for a second…
What’s up?
Can you please start playing through the pattern for World 8-4 of Super Mario Brothers? Like… Right now?
Uh… Yeah, sure, why?
Can you not feel that?
Feel wha… OH. Oh oh oh. That.
Yeah… That.
I shifted my legs and hips a bit and tried my best to remember the path through the final castle of Super Mario. I noticed her hand was still on my elbow.
“I, uh… I’d better get on home.”
She took her hand away – not out of fright or rejection, but because it happened to be the one she wore her watch on. “Yeah, it’s getting a bit late, huh… Hey, you want a lift?”
“I’d love one,” I replied honestly, “But you know I can’t.”
“Come on,” She replied. “Your Dad couldn’t possibly get THAT mad.”
Now, I couldn’t retort too sharply. She didn’t live with my father. She’d never been grounded by him. She hadn’t plagiarized songs, so she wasn’t forced into an extra-curricular punishment that impacted the schedules of other people. She wasn’t sentenced to walk home from school every single day of the punishment (the standard consequence anytime I had some sort of detention or suspension). She couldn’t possibly know how pissed my father would actually get if I accepted the ride.
“Seriously, I’m fine. I need the exercise. Thanks for the offer, though.”
She shrugged. “Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“As usual,” I replied.
She smiled, turned, and got into the car. I stood there like a moron, wondering exactly when the hell my life had become a Cameron Crowe film. She pulled away and waved, and I began walking across the parking lot to the road that led both to home and about an hour and a half of pretty intense thought.
* * * * *
“Holy shit! Really?!?” Mike yelled from the other end of the phone.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Totally for free?” He said. “Man… You’re going to go, aren’t you?”
“I… I dunno,” I answered as I pulled off my other shoe and plopped on my bed.
“You don’t know?!?” he said. “Dude… Why the hell not?”
“It’s… Complicated.”
“What’s so complicated? Faith no More is, like, your favorite band! You’ve been wanting to see them forever! And you have a free trip to go!”
“Yeah…”
“So why not go?”
“Well,” I replied, “Michele called a little bit ago…”
“So?”
“So, she wants to hang out tomorrow,” I said, stretching my left arm over my head and twisting my back, creating a distinct cracking sound.
“Oh, man… Fuck that,” He said. “She hasn’t called you in, what, two weeks?”
“Two weeks and three days,” I corrected.
“Right… Forget her, man. Go to the show.”
“But she’s my girlfriend, dude,” I said, laying back. “I can’t, like, not see her.”
“Well she certainly has no trouble not seeing you,” He replied. “You should definitely go.”
“Well, there’s something else, too…”
“What?” He asked.
“It’s…”
Don’t even THINK of telling him.
What? Why not?
You know why not. He’s just going to laugh.
Yeah, I know… But we’re desperate, right? We have to figure this thing out.
We HAVE figured it out. It’s not real. We don’t actually like her, we just like the idea that someone older and in college could like us.
Wait – WHAT? What the fuck? When did you decide that?
Just now.
So what, you let us walk an hour and a half home agonizing about this and just decided not to bring it up?
It’s how the subconscious works. You should be used to it by now.
…
It’s nature. Live with it.
…You REALLY fucking annoy me sometimes.
“Hello… Earth to Joe…” Mike said through the earpiece.
“Oh… Uh, sorry dude,” I stammered. “What’s up?”
He sat silent for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘What’s up?’ You just hinted about something that could be interesting, and then you dropped it.”
“Oh… Yeah, it’s nothing.”
“It’s something,” he said, smashing through my bullshit, “And I want to know what it is.”
“It’s just… I don’t have a car. So I can’t go.”
“Didn’t Miss Starling say she’d come pick you up?” He asked.
“Yeah…”
“SO what’s the problem?”
“I… I dunno,” I said. “I’m going to have to think about all this.”
He sighed into the phone. “You’ve got to THINK about changing your plans from skipping prom and sitting around the house, to skipping prom and seeing Mike Patton – your favorite singer – scream and yell all night? For FREE?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I do.”
He emitted a frustrated laugh. “Whatever dude. You’re an asshole.”
“What?” I said incredulously.
“I sit in Mrs. Cowart’s office every damn morning with Walter and get reminded about how bad I am for copying songs, but YOU get to go to free concerts with Starling… And you’re thinking about turning it down?”
“Well… Yeah…”
“You’re an asshole!” he repeated.
“I think I like her,” I blurted out.
“You are just – Wait, what?!?” Mike said
What!?!
Sorry.
What’d you go and do that for?
I need his advice.
Oh. My. God.
What?
You just went from telling me how we shouldn’t tell him about it, and how we’re over it, to spitting it out like old chewing gum! WITHOUT my consent or involvement, mind you!
Yeah… Sorry about that…
You are the worst damn subconscious ever. When this is all over, you and I are going to have a serious talk.
Save it… I already know what you’re going to say.
“JOE!” Mike yelled into the phone, presumably more than once.
“What?”
I could hear him grinding his teeth over the phone. “You know ‘what’ – that little thing about Miss Starling! You like her? As in,
like like?"
"Yeah," I said with a tone as flat as an iron.
"Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I answered, “I guess I might be.”
He sat silent for a moment. “
Really?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” I repeated.
What came across the wire at that very moment could best be described as a laugh who’s creator knows very well that he shouldn’t be laughing at that moment, but can’t help it, because what he’d just heard was one of the most ludicrous things he’d heard in a while. It would burst forward for a moment, then get reeled back, followed with an apology, then a statement of disbelief, then the realization that the statement of disbelief just reminded him of what made him laugh in the first place, followed by another burst of laughter…
“Are you done yet?” I asked during a breathing break.
“I… Ohmygod. I just… Oh man…”
“Yeah, I’m gonna hang up now,” I said.
“Wait, I… Oh man…”
I let the receiver down gently and sat back in my chair, knowing that Mike knew better than to call back right then. I broke out one of my journals and began writing everything out, hoping that by the end of it I’d have something I could analyze and work from.
The entirety of my entry for May 8, 1995:
What the hell am I going to do?
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