Manic Winter - Chapter I

Chapter I - The Burn That Changed It All

          I imagine that there are still many people who wonder about what happened to me during my senior year of high school. They are probably a little bit too shy to ask me about it. Some people probably still think I’m crazy, or at least that I’m not quite all there. They might even be right, to tell you the truth. I still don’t feel like I’m the same person I was before all this madman stuff happened. If you want to know what actually happened, I’ll tell you the truth. No fibs. I guess I’ll have to start in the beginning. It all began with my friend Riley. He was planning on picking me up that night.

          I was lying down on my bed pondering. Pondering what exactly I can’t remember. It probably was something important, but that’s beside the point. When I was in the middle of my pondering I heard a honk outside. That must be him, I thought. I don’t know anyone that would drive around late at night honkin’ horns besides Riley. He’s a tad absurd in that sense. You’d like him though, Riley. He has the dreaded curse of red hair like me. However, he dyes his hair blonde. He’s always asking people, “Does my hair look red at all, even a little bit? For the love of God does it look red?” Just to avoid a scene it’s usually best to say “no” when he says that even if you can tell it’s red. He also sometimes acts a little outrageous, but it is usually at the right time. Sometimes he’ll pretend like he’s really angry, but he’s only fooling. He never fools me though. Just between you and me, I might even hate the kid. Anyway, that’s all beside the point. I heard his car and walked out of my house. The plan for that night was to smoke a certain green plant.

          Smoking marijuana is not just a past-time in Burlington; it’s a way of life. It really is. It’s very sad, but it’s the truth. I don’t think anyone in the Western Hemisphere smokes more weed than we do in Burlington. It just gives you something to do, I guess. It starts off as a fun activity, but sooner or later it becomes an integral part of your life. It’s no longer about watching television, it’s about smoking weed and watching television. It becomes no longer about going to see a movie; it becomes all about smoking weed and going to see a movie. It’s like, interconnectedness or whatever.

          Planning on smoking weed can often fill up your entire night. First of all, you have to locate and purchase your drugs from the local drug entrepreneur. Then you have to decide upon the method of ingesting them into your bodies such as a blunt, bong, pipe, or even one of those stinky-popcorn vaporizers. Then you have to decide upon a location to ingest the smoke at. And then after you’re high, it becomes a desperate struggle just to find something to eat. If you’re high, you can eat just about anything. I once drove all the way down the highway to another town at four in the goddamn morning to get eleven burger sandwiches for my friends to eat. However, when I got there, they told me all they had was soggy breakfast sandwiches. So I bought eleven breakfast sandwiches. Good Lord, were they disgusting, but we ate them anyway. I digress. It looked like tonight was going as it usually did. I walked out the door and across the street. It was a pretty peaceful night that night. The stars were twinkling and all.

          “Do you have the green?” I asked Riley after hopping into his car.

          “Yeah,” he replied.

          “Awesome. Let’s roll a blunt,” I suggested.

          “I can’t roll. And you can’t roll either,” he said sternly.

          “Let’s just have Marcus roll it for us. He’s always rolling those goddamn burritos at John’s Tacos so he should be pretty good at it,” I said passively.

          “Alright, we’ll head over there,” Riley said leaving my house.

          We drove the few blocks it takes to get to Marcus’s house. Marcus is a clean-cut mixed kid with quite an interesting personality. He really gets a kick out of being obnoxious and messing with people. But the way he’ll mess with you doesn’t really get on your nerves, it’s just entertaining. He sure does enjoy messing with people, though. I think that’s why everyone likes him so much. Everyone knows Marcus; he’s quite popular I would say. Eventually, we arrived at his quaint little white house on the legendary Starr Street.

          “Can I park on this side of the street?” Riley asked me.

          “I do.”

          “No. I mean, will I get a ticket if I do,” he said, getting a little pushy.

          “I never have,” I informed him.

          “Very reassuring,” he said sarcastically.

          Nothing steams me more than when someone gives you some sarcastic sass. Being sarcastic is just the verbal analogy of someone rolling their goddamn eyes at you. If I was in charge in the world, I would make it illegal to roll your eyes or be a little sarcastic. Punishable by death. I’m not even joking. That’s why people are so pissed off in this world. You can wake up some day on the right side of the bed with a smile on your face. You can get in your car, in a helluva mood, ready to rock the day. But if you’re driving and you see some asshole in a rotten mood roll their eyes at you while they drive by, well in about a second you’ll be in a rotten mood too. It’s just human interaction, I guess. Why can’t we all just smile and shake hands?

          We got out of the car and headed towards Marcus’ house. His room is in the basement and we often communicate through this tiny, wide, rectangular window at the base of his house. I tapped on his window lightly. He hates it when I knock loud. In fact, he told me he hates it when I knock on his window period. He even said he shakes his fist and says my name aloud when I do that. It’s nothing but comical anger, I know. But still, you don’t want someone shaking their fist and saying your name. It’s not even polite. Although sometimes I do knock loud on purpose just to get him going. Not this time, though. We needed a favor.

          He cracked open the window.

          “Yeah?” Marcus said, staring curiously up towards us.

          “Yeah?” I repeated. “Is that how you greet a good friend?”

          “Shut up, Jerry,” he said trying to sound like he was joking. But I could tell he was secretly being serious.

          “I need a favor,” I said. Riley was just standing there, kind of looking all around stupidly.

          “Oh God,” he said. He was starting to put on an act. He was trying to get me going, I bet.

          “Marcus, don’t be an ass. How about all those times that I’ve given you a ride to work or bought you cigarettes? And now, I just want a small favor…” I said, slightly irritated.

          “You’re doing that thing again! You are!”

          And I was. I was doing that thing. You see, I like to think that I’m a generous person. But here’s the problem; whenever I need a favor, I tend to bring up all the things I’ve done for people in the past, like a ride home or a free cabbage or something. And I’ll remind you just about when I need a some kind of favor. If there is anything that makes you look like a jerk in this world, it’s when you’re doing that thing.

          “Alright, Marcus. I take it all back. I’m a bad person. I’m not even nice. Ever,” I said, feigning an apologetic tone of voice. “But seriously, we need you to roll us a blunt.”

          “Fine, I will. Just come inside,” he said casually.

          We went around the house to the back door. We stepped inside and walked down the stairs past the “turn back” sign spray-painted on the wall leading towards Marcus’s room. Marcus’s room is quite the trip. You’ve never seen anyone in your whole life with more Superman stuff than this kid has. His walls are all blue and stuff with this dingy red carpet. He has Superman posters and Superman figurines and Superman T-Shirts. He even has a massive blue bong with magical properties that has superman stickers on it. It’s a riot. At work they even call him “Kel-el”. It says that on his name tag, I’ve seen it. I and Marcus work at a local taco joint called “John’s Tacos”. Working with Marcus really makes the time go by. He is always raising his voice and pushing everyone’s buttons.

          “Do you guys have a blunt?” he asked me and Riley.

          “Yeah, just a sec,” I said as I reached into my coat pocket. “Here you are…”

          Marcus grabbed the grape flavored cigarillo out of my hand, while at the same time blurting out, “You gonna let me hit this aren’t you?”

          “Do you even have to ask?” I said as if I had some great debt to Marcus for being the great blunt-rolling virtuoso.

          “Alrighty…” he said focusing his attention towards the blunt.

          Marcus carefully examined the cigarillo to determine the precise point of the seam. He licked the cigarillo, making sure not to over-saturate the paper with his disgusting John’s Tacos saliva. Then, he cut the cigarillo along the seam with one quick slide of the knife. He slid over a trashcan and casually emptied the blunt guts into the trash.

          “Is the weed broken up already?” he asked.

          “Yes sir,” Riley said, taking out the bag of marijuana and handing it to him.

          He delicately sprinkled the weed into the blunt paper, making sure to keep it nice and even. He gave it the eye, and then started at one end, and began to roll it together slowly, with all sorts of precision. Pretty soon, we had one top notch blunt rolled by an expert. There is usually a lot of anticipation at this point in the ball game. The smell of weed never ceases to get me going. We then decided that we were going to drive around and smoke. That’s always a good idea; let’s do drugs and drive around. Strictly for the kids, I’m sure. Everyone says that they can drive not only just fine, but better, when they’re high. It’s that magical point when you’re high enough to try and drive carefully because of your insecurities or whatever, but not so high that it directly affects your driving. Isn’t that an idea? We left Marcus’s room and headed back out to Riley’s black car sitting outside, shining in the stupid moonlight. It was quite cold, I remember. It was December, after all. I’ve always hated the cold. When you’re cold, be cold.

          “Shotgun, no blitz!” Marcus shouted like a maniac.

          I’m sure everyone knows about shotgun. If you yell shotgun, you stake your claim to the front seat of the car. Well, we decided to take it one step further, you know, make a game out of it. So we invented “blitz”. If they shout “shotgun” and you shout “blitz”, you get the front seat because of the blitzing. So now, you have to say “no blitz” as well as “shotgun”. It’s stupid as Hell, I know. And then, in our naivety, we invented “challenge”. If you shout “challenge” you engage in a physical altercation over the front seat. That’s dangerous business, so we rarely go there, but it exists. Go on, tell all your friends about our stupidity, I don’t care. Sometimes you need a few stupid things to define your existence. It’s not like you have to act like some scholarly genius every minute of your goddamn life. Acting stupid can be quite humiliating, in a good way. I mean, it’s always nice to be a little bit humble.

          “Hey, instead of driving, we should go to Perkin’s Park. It’s late. I doubt anyone will even be there,” I said.

          “Alright,” Riley said.

          So it was decided. We would go to Perkin’s Park to smoke our blunt. Perkin’s Park was one of my favorite places to smoke, in all actuality. They have this steep hill there right in the center of the park overlooking this valley with trees and squirrels everywhere. Whenever we smoke we always sit right at the top of this steep hill. After you get pretty high you might catch yourself staring down this hill and become dissociated, losing your sense of being. Staring down this hill starts to make you feel like you’re enclosed in some sort of orb. That probably doesn’t make very much sense. It’s very hard to describe. Weed gods also live in Perkin’s Park. I know, I’ve offered up sacrifices to them. When we have a blunt that we can’t finish we flick it down the hill and sacrifice it to the weed gods. Sometimes they grant wishes, but not very often.

          Riley pulled into the parking lot. Luckily, there were no cars there. There still might be some crumby hobo wandering around the place looking for trash to eat or something. But we weren’t too concerned with hobos at this point in time, we had a drug to smoke. We all got out of the car and walked toward the top of the hill. Marcus pulled out the blunt and cautiously had a seat on the top of the hill. In our group of friends, we follow certain codes of conduct within our smoking circles. The first rule is that whoever rolled the blunt is the one that will light it up. Following the rule exactly, Marcus then pulled out a lighter and sparked it up.

          “Brother Marcus, that looks like the nicest blunt I’ve ever seen there,” I said. I was just humoring him. First of all, it looked no better than any other blunt I’ve ever seen. And second of all, he’s not even my brother. I call him my brother sometimes though, anyway, because we are actually related. No one believes it, but he is related to me through his mom. Usually I call him brother just to put him in a mood. When you get Marcus in a mood, he never stops going. Marcus is a huge source of entertainment for everyone.

          “Who you calling “brother”,” he said. Now I’ve got him going.

          “Oh, no one in particular….” I said condescendingly.

          “Oh so now you’re calling me a nobody now, aintcha?”

          By this time the blunt was really going. Now you could really smell the weed. That’s how you know you’re nothing but a goddamn drug addict, when just the smell of the stuff can drive you nuts. Marcus finished hitting it and passed it to Riley. That’s another rule right there; you always pass to the left.

          “Marcus, you’re such a nobody that I don’t even want to carry on a conversation with you.”

          In all reality, I was actually complimenting the guy. The people that I don’t like are the ones that are so full to the brim of their own egotistical selves they are about ready to explode! People that know how to be humble are the best kinds of people that are out there. I mean, there’s nothing worse than some hot-shot wearing a suit walking around yapping on a cell-phone all day, walking around with his back straight, talking about stock mergers and fine women. It’s disgusting. And don’t even get me started on cell phones.

          Riley was done and then he passed the blunt to me. Sheesh, about time, I thought to myself. I definitely wouldn’t say that out loud. I’m always talking all this crap about how people who are impatient aren’t truly happy. I’m a secret hypocrite. No one knows it except maybe one or two people. I say a lot of things about a lot of things, but a lot of times I am the opposite on the inside. It’s almost like I’m telling a fib. But not just telling a fib to other people, but telling a fib to myself. And that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame, lying to yourself filthily. I took a hit of the blunt.

          “So guys, let’s talk some philosophy,” I said. I shouldn’t use a word as big as “philosophy” but sometimes it’s just a guilty pleasure.

          “Oh no. I don’t want to hear another one of your psycho metaphysical rants again, Jerry,” Riley said.

          Who the Hell did he think he was saying something like “metaphysical”, a particle physicist? That just killed me, seriously. I hate big words something fierce. The more syllables a word has, the less meaning it has. I mean, all you have to do is go buy a dictionary or a thesaurus and memorize how to say a few big words. Then you can just throw them around like they’re nothing and pretty soon people will think your I.Q. is about a million and a half. But then, if you’re ever carrying on a deep conversation with some haughty big shots who really know what’s going on, and you drop some big word like “metaphysical” they’ll just tear you apart. I can hear it now, “This blunt is quite metaphysical”. That really isn’t the proper context for that word at all. After a bomb like that, you’d be lucky if they thought your I.Q. was in the twenties. That’s the thing with the big shot types; they are always worried about what your I.Q. is or where you bought your jeans or how big your yacht is. It’s so shallow and unnerving. But the types I hang out with aren’t really like that. At least I don’t think they are. They are either some pretty nice guys or else they do a damn good job hiding their flaming narcissism and bad attitudes.

          “Okay, do you have some big clue as to what ‘metaphysical’ means?” I questioned.

          “Something that is metaphysical is involved in the study of metaphysics,” Riley stated.

          As I passed the blunt back over to Marcus, I shook Riley’s hand. I didn’t know if he was expecting it or not, but I did it anyway. The blunt got passed around a couple times. When Riley passed it to me, however, I noticed something quite peculiar. This is what started it all. He had a circular burn on his arm.

          “What’s that?” I asked him.

          “Well the other night, me and this girl were hanging out.” Riley was always trying to put the moves on some babe. “We were both smoking cigarettes and we did a friend brand.”

          “A friend brand?” I had no idea what kind of nonsense he was talking about.

          “Yeah, you just each put your cigarette out on one another.”

          I thought that was actually pretty stupid.

          “God Riley, you are so lame,” Marcus said, voicing my thoughts exactly.

          “It’s so you can test your pain tolerance,” he said trying to defend his abnormal behavior.

          “Yeah, I’ve got your pain tolerance,” I said being a smart ass. “Hey, pass that there chief!”

          Riley passed the blunt to me. It was almost done by this time. I hit it and asked Marcus if he wanted it back. He said no.

          “Pain tolerance my ass,” I said. I then took the blunt and then put it right out on my left arm. Yeah I hesitated, but I have a stoic, adamantine constitution after all, so I barely flinched. It burned like a sonuvabitch. I have no idea why I did it. Partly because I thought Riley was an idiot, I imagine. But maybe deep down, I was a lost and depressed soul. Maybe I actually wanted to feel pain in that instant. Maybe I was extremely unhappy with myself for being such a goddamn pothead. Even now I have no idea why I did what I did. But regardless of why, the action would change the course of my life forever.

Manic Winter - Chapter II

Chapter II - I’m A Nut About My Teeth

          I woke up the next morning on the wrong side of the bed. Big time. As soon as I opened my eyes, I knew it. I was going to have a helluva chip on my shoulder all day. I looked at the clock; it said 7:24. I’ll get up at 7:30 I thought to myself. That’ll be just enough time to shower and hit the road to school. While lying there, my cat Boo jumped on my bed and started nudging my face with her nose. My cat Boo is quite the cat. She has pitch black shiny fur and quite the personality. She’s smart, too. She knows when I’m sleeping in. I don’t know how she knows, but she does. I realized it was time to get up, so I slid out of bed and stumbled, half-delirious, to the bathroom for a shower.

          “Ugh, why did I smoke last night,” I mumbled to myself.

          I stumbled, half-delirious into the bathroom to take a nice shower. I take pretty hot showers, with steam and everything. There’s nothing I hate more than an ice cold shower. You can be in a terrific mood, but the moment a stream of freezing cold water hits your back, it’ll piss you off for the next week and a half. I did the shower thing and brushed my teeth meticulously. I’m a nut about my teeth. I brush them three times a day, floss, and use mouthwash. I was even thinking of getting those white strip things to impress my friends. You see, all through high school, I haven’t had a girl try and kiss me once. Not even once. I started to think it was because I had bad teeth and bad breath. Apparently not, because I’m such a goddamn nut about my teeth now. That pretty much verified my alternative hypothesis (alternative hypothesis! I crack myself up). Now I know girls don’t like me because of my crumby personality. A bad personality is a lot harder to fix I’ve learned over the years. Sometimes you say and do things and don’t even realize that you are saying and doing them. Personalities are tricky. I don’t even have my own completely figured out yet.

          I’ve been really self-conscious about my teeth especially ever since I got one of them ripped out. It’s been a couple years now since that happened. One night I was sitting at my computer chatting with this girl who I was crushing on big time. Her name was Courtney and she had very pretty dark hair. I’ll tell you about her later. But anyway, I was sitting there, minding my own damn business when my dad comes in all up in arms over the front door being left open. He was just furious that I was trying to cool off the outdoors. But the whole thing was, it wasn’t me who left the door open; it was my sister! What a load of crap! Why would he yell at me for something I didn’t even do? Well he said I should have noticed it and shut it. Maybe I should have, but I was too busy chatting with this girl I was nuts over. Besides, it was hot outside, it could use the cool air.

          He said to me, “Pay attention when I’m talking to you, Son!”

          You won’t believe what I did. I really shouldn’t have done it. But I rolled my eyes and said “whatever”. That pissed him off something fierce. But what would you have done? You are chatting with this top-notch babe with dark hair and all of the sudden your crazy dad barges in and tries to tell you you’re to blame for something you didn’t even do?

          After I told him “whatever” he said I had to get off the computer and go downstairs. That wasn’t going to happen. I just straight up told him “no”. Now he’s beyond pissed, so I go into the kitchen to get a little snack, and I don’t even know what happened after that. He tried to physically force me downstairs into my room, but I wasn’t going to budge. I was still in the middle of a fantastic conversation with the girl. I had to get back to the computer. And boy was I determined. I tried to throw a kick at him near the top of the stairs, but that just made him even more furious after he blocked it. Maybe if I was wiser I would have tried to use my words instead like they try to teach you in kindergarten and everything. Maybe we could have collaborated on the situation a bit. But that wasn’t going to happen that night. We started to wrestle around and pretty soon he’s got me on the floor, his damn knees on my shoulders.

          “Get yer damn knees off of me!” I yelled. Now I was pissed. I bet Courtney thought I was blowing her off. Wouldn’t that be something. I’m always worried about girls blowing me off, but now she probably thought I was blowing her off! That would definitely switch it up a bit.

          “Apologize!” my dad said.

          Apologize!? For what? Minding my own damn business on the computer? I didn’t leave that door open. I was innocent here. At least I thought I was. The problem was, I couldn’t realize the simple fact that I had been very disrespectful. I mean, Hell, I rolled my eyes at the guy and said “whatever”. If I was somebody’s dad and my little shitbag son was rolling their eyes left and right and telling me to buzz off, Hell, I would have them right on the floor with my damn knees on their shoulders telling them to apologize.

          But unfortunately I couldn’t realize that simple fact. Instead I called him “Stuttering Stanley”. My dad has a bad stuttering problem, and to be honest I feel damn sorry for the guy. Especially when we’re out in public and I see people look at him a little strange when he stumbles over a word. That’ll just make you feel rotten. When that happens, you have no one to be mad at. It’s not his fault he has a stuttering problem, and it’s not the person’s fault he’s talking to because they don’t know what the Hell’s going on. So in the end you just feel really bad for him. But at this point, I was quite pissed. And I wanted him to be as pissed as I was. So I really tried to strike a nerve by calling him “Stuttering Stanley”. And boy did I ever! He placed his right hand over my mouth and didn’t even say anything. His eyes got really wide and flaming. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him that angry before.

          Pretty soon I got fed up with him on top of me covering my mouth and flaring his eyes at me so I just opened my mouth and bit down on his hand as hard as I possibly could. That hurt him. He pulled his hand out hard, ripping one of my teeth out of the bottom row. Pretty soon there was blood everywhere, all over my shirt and all over the floor. I just got so pissed that I just headed out the front door. I went next door to this bum’s house. Neighbor John we call him.

          I knocked on the door. It took a second, but he came and opened it. You should’ve seen the look on his face. He wasn’t about to let my bleeding, disrespectful face into his nice little home. He didn’t even know me very well, and here I was, showing up bleeding all over his porch. The guy didn’t even let me say anything. He just said, “I’ll call the cops, get off my porch”. Some compassion this guy had. I mean, for all he knew, a mugger on the street could’ve just hit me in the face with a table leg for chrissake. But I did what he said and got off his porch. I’m some kind of idiot. I’ll listen to some bum I barely know, but my own dad asks me to apologize and I roll my eyes like a smart ass. Hell, I’m not just like a smart ass, I am a smart ass. I’ll admit it. But I’m working on it. But goddamn, I tell you, I have no respect sometimes.

          Pretty soon the cops arrived and they found me outside with blood all over my shirt. They asked me what happened, and I told a fib. I knew my dad didn’t mean to rip my tooth out, but boy I was so pissed that he interrupted my conversation with that girl I was crushing on that I told a big time fib. I said that he punched me right in the mouth. The cops believed me too. I mean, it looked like I just got clocked. They went inside to talk to my dad and before you knew it they were hauling him off to jail. That actually made me feel pretty rotten when I saw them bring my dad out in handcuffs. I mean, I don’t care if your dad punches you in the liver. But when you see your dad in handcuffs, and deep down, when you stop lying to yourself, and you know it’s your fault, it makes you feel pretty crumby.

          The cops then left and hauled him off to jail. I went back inside and got right back on the computer. Luckily Courtney was still on. Boy did I tell her a bullshit story! I exaggerated the whole thing. I told her it was a complete, knock-down, drag-out, fist fight. I said I was dodging punches left and right but then he landed a lucky swing on me. I think I really had her going too. I told her my dad was drunk and just came home and started attacking me. I wanted her to imagine me as the smooth, cool hero who defeated the drunken, belligerent man. Even though the truth was that I was just a disrespectful child with a lame crush on a girl who had his comeuppance coming. My stories are always a million miles away from the truth. I’m a fibber. I really am.

          After I electronically chewed the rag with Courtney for awhile, suddenly my dad showed up back at the house! Apparently he made a lame bail. He just looked at me and said “You need to go.” Boy did I ever! He knew I lied to those cops, and I bet that pissed him off like nothing else ever had. So I left the house and headed out on foot to my grandma’s house. Upon arriving I told her a slightly embellished story regarding the events of that night. She said I could stay there for a few days. Well, in this case a few days turned out to be a few years. My dad said he didn’t want me to live with him up until I learned some respect. So I moved in with my grandmother. And there I was, in my grandma’s bathroom, getting ready for school, digressing into a pointless story about why I’m crazy about my teeth. Probably because I’m brushin’ ‘em.

          By then my hair was pretty dry. It’s at this point in time that the biggest goddamn struggle of my entire stupid life begins. Every single morning, I just barely make it school on time because I can never get my hair to look quite right. It’s silly, I know. But if you had red hair like mine, you’d be silly too and would have the same problem. See most people look about the same regardless of how their hair is, wet, dry, short, long, etc. But not me. Not me at all. My hair could just be slightly off and it makes my entire face look completely different. That’s no exaggeration. It just has to “fall” right. If it doesn’t fall right, it’s all wrong and I have to start over. So I stood there in front of the mirror for quite some time trying to get my hair right. Pretty soon it was eight o’clock. If I leave a hair past 8:02 I’ll be late for sure. I quickly threw on some clothes. I always pick clothes that make it look like I don’t care about what I wear. But secretly, I probably care more about what people think than anyone else. I especially worry about the way I look. That day I just threw on a plain yellow shirt. It’s my favorite color after all. I really don’t care what’s on my shirts; usually they are just plain or they might have some lame band name on them. But really, I want people to think that I don’t care what I look like. That’s why I never wear some shirt with some goddamn Abercrombie logo on it or something. Nothing makes me want to puke more than some square-shouldered guy walking around with fourteen babes wearing an Abercrombie shirt. I mean, who the Hell do these people think they are? Anyway, I decided my attire and hair were adequate; so I left.

          So I’m driving to school, and I take a few good looks at myself in my rear-view mirror and, goddamn it, my hair just didn’t look right. At this point I always have to make the same decision. Be late and look good, or make it on time and look like a pile of feces. I chose to be late as I typically do and avoid appearing like feces. My first class was Consumer Economics with Mr. Garbage. I’m going to say mean things about Mr. “Garbage” so I’m not going to use his real name here. Mr. Garbage will have to do. I wouldn’t miss much in first period; it’s a stupid class, anyway. I turned around and went back to my house to work on my hair a little bit more.

          I worked it for awhile, and pretty soon I got it close to perfect. Rarely is my hair perfect, but I can get it close if I work on it for awhile. It’s hard to get red hair to look good, that’s my whole problem. If I had brown or blonde hair, I’m sure I wouldn’t be such a nut. But I have a couple goddamn recessive genes. I learned in biology that you have to have two red hair genes to have red hair, because it’s the most recessive. I mean most people don’t even have one red hair gene and I got slapped with two of them. Just my luck, eh?

          So I’m back in my car on the way to school. I do the smart thing and just turn my rearview mirror around so I can’t even check myself out anymore. I pull into the parking lot and make a mad dash for the front door, my backpack swinging back and forth. Since I got there so late, I had to park really far away, making me even later.

Manic Winter - Chapter III

Chapter III - Hat Turned Backwards Yellin’ Cuss Words

          I made it to my rotten locker and quickly put all my things inside. I got my Consumer Economics book and walked through the dull, grey  halls with purple carpet all over to class. I really didn’t care that I was late. I’d rather do anything other than watch my teacher Mr. Garbage’s fat face talk on and on about money all day. Let me tell you, that was the only thing this guy cared about. Well, maybe that, and hitting on girls that are young enough to be his grand kids. It’s disgusting, I know. But here’s what really grinds my gears; this guy is so goddamn shallow it’s unbelievable. He’ll give all the pretty girls in class more attention than they can deal with and give them A’s on their papers and then he won’t even give the time of day to some of the homelier ones or even the plain ones. I mean, deep down, I’m shallow too, but not as bad as this guy. At least I hide my shallowness. And besides, he’s an adult; he is supposed to be respectable.

          But here’s what really gets me. Mr. Garbage himself is definitely nothing to gaze at either. He has this fat face with a thin mustache, and (get this) no eyebrows what-so-ever. Wow! He also sort of looks like a Rhinoceros. He must not own a mirror, I swear, because he’s conceited as Hell for being so ugly and having a crumby personality. I burst into the door. Everyone stared right at me.

          “So Mr. Stout,” he said, his double-chin flappin’ away. “Late again are we?”

          Okay first of all, this double-chinned douche bag wants to call me “Mr. Stout”? I don’t know who the Hell he thinks he is. Boy does that steam me up when they call me “Mr.” I’ll be honest, I’m a bit choleric when it comes to some things. Being called “Mr.” condescendingly or even a little sarcastically is one of them. It’s like they are offering you joke respect. And I’ll tell you this; receiving joke respect is much worse than receiving no respect at all. Hell, I’d rather have him call me an arrogant, rotten, conceited, dumpster-diving, prude than “Mr. Stout”. And that’s not even all of it. Then he goes on to say “Late again are we?” We? It’s not like I brought Queen Victoria or some other tramp along with me. He’s just saying “we” so he can sound all proper and cool. I wasn’t buying it. I didn’t even say anything to this guy. Just looking at his face was enough. I can just picture this guy chowing down on three Big Macs all at once. If I saw him, I would even approach him. I would say, “Hello, Mr. Garbage, whatcha eatin’ there?” He would say, “Goddamn Big Mac.” Grease would be just running down his chin and he would be making all sorts of chewing sounds. Ugh, you’d throw up if you had the same image in your head as I have in mine. Jesus…

          “So what were we up to this time?” he said. He was really trying to chew the fat with me now. You see, I had a different excuse every time I was late. I could really just pull them out of my ass. The Buddha says that you shouldn’t tell fibs, not even in jest. But I tell a Hell of a lot of fibs “in jest”. I always like to make up a fib and get a laugh or two from a nearby girl. It kills me.

          “I had to check the traps in my attic. We have an infestation,” I said right before I sat down.

          “An infestation of what, Jerry?” he said.

          “I don’t know. The traps were empty. You tell me Mr. Garbage,” I replied.

          A couple people laughed at what I said. This girl Tina who everyone thinks is quite a babe let out a gregarious laugh, but she’s always laughing gregariously at something or another. Either way, that always gets me going; when a girl laughs at one of my lies. However, in my opinion I don’t think this Tina girl is quite as hot as everyone says she is. In my opinion, she kind of has a man look. A girl should have a girl look, not a man look.

          “Alright I think that will be enough there Mr. Stout,” he said.

          I didn’t say anything else after that. I didn’t even want to talk to this guy at all, really. He began to just go on with class as usual. I didn’t even get any more chances to throw in a smart remark. Before you knew it, class was over. My next class was English with Mr. Slum. Mr. Slum wasn’t so bad in my opinion. I think he’s actually a pretty smart guy in all actuality. He just doesn’t show it that much. I bet if he really wanted to, he could say something intelligent every time he opened his mouth, but he doesn’t want to. Maybe he doesn’t want people to think he’s smart. He might even be a little bit like me in some ways. The truth about me is that deep down, I’m not really smart at all. But I pretend like secretly I am really smart. I’m really convincing, I use big words all the time. But on the actual surface I act stupid. It’s deceptive as Hell, I know. I act this way because I’m trying to teach people something; use a little bit of reverse-reverse psychology you see. I act stupid on the surface and I’m actually stupid at the core also. But people never accept things on the surface; they have to look into things like there is some secret meaning to everything, like everything is a crappy, stupid koan. So I bet people analyze me and think, “Oh he’s just trying to act stupid, but he’s really smart.” That’s where I trick them right there. If they went one step deeper they would realize I’m not really smart at all. They wouldn’t even have to go one step deeper, really. If they just accepted the fact that I appear not all that bright, then, well, I really must be not all that bright. In fact, I doubt that there are that many genuinely smart people in the world to begin with. I’m definitely not one of them. If I was smart, I could describe my thoughts and have them make sense. I can’t even do that.

          In Mr. Slum’s class we had just watched this movie about this girl who got raped but no one would believe her. They believed her story was nonsense. It was a pretty heavy topic for an English class. They say that rape is a crime of rage, not sex. Sometimes people are so pissed off and horny that they just go ballistic. It’s sad that people don’t have a little more control over their emotions. You start getting angry thoughts in your head and pretty soon they grow and grow and the next thing you know your hat is turned backwards and you’re raping some girl right on top of a goddamn pinball machine yellin’ cuss words. Some people are just plain unscrupulous.

          “Now what would you do if you were having sexual intercourse with a girl and suddenly she started yelling rape, rape!” Mr. Slum asked the class leaning back in his chair.

          “Jerry, what would you do if that happened to you,” said Brittany quietly as she gazed in my direction. Brittany was this Barbie doll type with the personality of a glazed donut. I mean really. She’s smoking hot and always giving me these silly seductive looks, but she is just not my type. Either way, I got a kick out of the question.

          “I would leave the area and tell an adult who I can trust,” I said. I thought that was an adequate answer. I mean that’s what I would do, really. I mean, I’ve never gotten sexy or anything. But if I did and some girl started yelling “rape” I would just quickly leave the area without causing a scene and tell a fireman or a librarian or something. They’d know what to do. I’m not going to jail over some crazy girl who’s got it out for me.

          There was also this other girl named Patty in my English class that I used to be crazy about. The key words there being ‘used to be’. But she didn’t even laugh at what I said. That got to me. Whenever I say something funny in that class I always look to she if she laughs or not. When we were watching the movie I said, “If they had kept that bitch in the kitchen making breakfast none of this would’ve happened.” I meant it jokingly, of course; the man could have easily raped her while she was in the kitchen making breakfast. But boy did that crack her up. However, Mr. Slum got sore with me for saying such a serious cuss word aloud in class. I only said bitch one time though; I don’t think he likes cuss words as much as me…

          After English class I headed towards Zoology with Mrs. Satan. Her real last name kind of sounds like Satan and she’s also a very austere, difficult teacher, so that’s what we humorously called her. She wasn’t exactly the type of teacher that you hated, but boy did she know how to intimidate you. There was this one time that I did a project for her class. I had to design a model of a DNA strand. Deoxyribonucleic acid. One time I dropped the acronym DNA lightly in front of some dumb man, my grandma’s husband, and he said to me, “Oh yeah? Deoxyribonucleic acid?” I thought to myself, “Wow there, big word, impressive, man” I wasn’t impressed.

          Well, anyway, I made this model of DNA with gumdrops and toothpicks and everything and the model itself was perfect. But there was one problem. The whole thing had to be color coded. Mine was color coded, it really was, but we also had to have a note card that had the colors written down and what molecule they corresponded to. I made one mistake writing down the wrong molecule next to the wrong color and Mrs. Satan took one point right off for every single gumdrop that was that certain color on the model, leaving me with a D+. I was furious. That’s when I started to think she might actually be a Satan. Afterwards I took the model apart and just munched on the gumdrops, pissed off as Hell.

          Today in class we were continuing our dissection of pig fetuses. It was definitely something I did not enjoy. Whenever I started dissecting these pig fetuses, I could never help imagining what their lives would have been like if they were born and grew up on a farm. The life of a pig wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, you wake up in the mud, eat out of a trough, carouse with the local pigs and farm animals, chat about the wife and kids, and go back to bed in the mud. It’d be quite the life I would think. Very Zen, just the way I like it. I’m always working towards a Zen lifestyle.

          Pretty soon everyone in class was in their respective groups, working on the fetus. Nate and Ryan were in my group. Nate was a pretty cool guy. He is pretty tall and he really extenuates it by standing up very straight. He has a protruding brow, but it doesn’t make him look like a Neanderthal or anything. It just defines his face nicely. He is actually a pretty handsome guy; I’m secure enough to say that. He also always looks like he is surveying the place, like he has to make a plan or something. I don’t have a clue what kind of plan he’s making, but he is definitely thinking about something. I didn’t really know too much about Ryan, on the other hand. We weren’t really that good of friends at the time. He is pretty quiet and mellow though; I did know that about him.

          “So let’s do this,” said Nate. He always pretends like doing this dissecting stuff doesn’t gross him out, but I think it does. It really grosses me out.

          “This is exactly what I wanted to see this morning. You come to school and it’s nothing but stomachs and small intestine.” I couldn’t help but be a tad sarcastic.

          I looked through the manual that pointed out all the parts we were supposed to be dissecting. Boy did that get boring in a hurry. I then decided I’d try and pull their leg a bit.

          “Let me tell you guys a story,” I said.

          “Goddamnit Jerry, why don’t you pay attention instead of screwing around all the time?” Nate was scolding me. Some nerve this guy had.

          “Seriously, I have a good story to tell,” I said enthusiastically. I actually didn’t, though. I just wanted to shoot the shit a little bit. In fact, I just wanted to push Nate’s buttons. I’ll be honest here; sometimes I get a kick out of doing things people tell me not to do. Actually more than sometimes, a lot of the time. Most times, actually. I don’t know why. It’s just got to be one of those guilty pleasures that you can’t seem to help. I didn’t even wait for him to give me permission to start running my mouth.

          “There once was a man from Ireland who wanted to come to America in search of a better life.”

          “Jerry, just shut up and give me a hand, wouldja?” I think I was starting to strike a nerve or two.

          “He won a ticket in a card game with some hoodlums and derelicts. A ticket to America. That goddamn ticket just made his day, man. He just couldn’t wait to get out of his crumby town and start a new life in America; land of the free, home of the...”

          “Ryan, would you get me the scalpel, we have to…”

          “The day he set sail for America,” I interrupted. “Was the happiest day of his whole life. As he boarded the ship, he saw a hummingbird fly by.”

          “For Chrissake, we’re trying to do some work here,” said Nate, obviously agitated.

          “When he got off the boat and set foot on American soil, he was on cloud nine,” I said. I really didn’t know what being on cloud nine meant, but it sounded pretty damn cool. I’ve realized sometimes it doesn’t even matter what the Hell you’re talking about, as long as you make it sound pretty cool.

          “It was in that moment that a hummingbird flew by. He decided to find a nice place to stay. He looked all around and what not for the nearest hotel. He then saw a hotel with a picture of a hummingbird on the front door. Interesting, he thought to himself. He went inside and asked about rooms, but they were all full,” I explained. I wonder if they had any idea where I was going with this.

          “They did however have a janitor’s closet with a cot in it. The man said he would take whatever they had. They led him to the room, and when they opened the door, a hummingbird flew out of the room. He got a good night’s rest and woke up refreshed the next morning.”

          “Will you quit yappin’? Nobody’s listening to your goddamn excuse for a story what-so-ever,” Nate said.

          I guessed that I would just have to talk louder.

          “The next day, he awoke to the janitor opening the door. The janitor took one look at him and said, ‘WHAT IN THE SAME HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY CLOSET!?!’” I shouted as if I was ablaze.

          That just broke the damn camel’s back right there.

          “You are so fucking crazy I can’t even stand it,” Nate said shaking his head.

          The nerve of this guy, to call me crazy. I was just trying to tell him an intriguing story and he just flips his lid. Sometimes I might just be trying to impress everyone when I talk about too much nonsense, but other times I am just testing them to see how much nonsense they can put up with without slitting my throat. It’s a pretty strange game that we all play in our daily conversational dance.

Manic Winter - Chapter IV

Chapter IV - Mrs. Satan The Psychoanalyst

          It was about that time that our teacher Mrs. Satan strolled over. She really gets a kick out of pulling apart pig guts. She claims that taking apart pig intestines doesn’t even gross her out one bit, but I know she’s pulling our legs. There is no way you can look at a rotten pile of pig guts and not feel even a little bit grossed out. I mean, we have skin for a reason. All that stuff is supposed to stay inside the body.

          “Jerry, do you even know where the liver is?” said Ryan.

          That was very irritating. He was trying to make me look stupid in front of the teacher while at the same time making himself look smart. It’s not like it even makes a bit of difference whether I know where a pig’s liver is or not. I guarantee the president of the United States of America doesn’t have a clue in Hell where a pig’s liver is, and he seems to get by just fine. But regardless of how meaningless it all is, I pointed right to the pig’s liver. That was a big mistake. I bet if I would have just kept my arms where they were and not have pointed at that liver I could have avoided this whole thing. That’s the problem with me; I’m always doing something stupid because I’m worried about what people are thinking. If I just would have stopped caring about whether the three of them thought I was smart or not and controlled my pointing reflexes, I could have stayed in school all day.

          The next thing you know, Mrs. Satan is grabbing my wrist and turning my arm over, scoping out my fresh burn.

          “What is this?” she asked.

          “Nothing,” I replied. I wasn’t even lying either. It’s not like my cuts and burns are some big goddamn deal. It was exactly what I said; nothing.

          “Jerry, why don’t we have a talk out in the hall,” she said. She really changed her tone of voice when she dropped that bomb. To be honest she sounded genuinely worried about me. She led me out in the hall and I had a seat in front of the window and kind of squirmed around a little just to put on a bit of an act. I just like, stared out the window like a tarsier.

          “Lately I’ve been noticing a change in your behavior,” she said. That really bothered me. There’s nothing I dislike more than someone analyzing my behavior.

          “Don’t patronize me,” I said. Patronize. What a joke. I thought I would just throw that word out there.

          “Jerry, I’m not patronizing you. I’m being serious. Is there anything you would like to talk about?” she said. Classic afterschool special, am I right?

          “You have no idea. Do you want a little clue as to what it’s like to be me? You walk around everywhere and people are always freaking out about you; what you’re wearing and the way you look and what you said to some girl about meeting a girl for lunch. They’re all lying to me, Elizabeth. They lie, and talk behind my back, and freak out about everything I do. But here’s the thing. They secretly freak out about it and you never know they’re doing it. They do it all secretly just to make me crazy.”

          “I see.”

          My gosh. When people say “I see” that’s just code for “I wasn’t listening, but I’ll pretend like I was”. She couldn’t dissect even a morsel to digest to fuel a decent, holistic reply? She replied with “I see.” I mean, she asked me if there was anything I wanted to talk about. If she wanted to talk to me, I’ll talk. I’ll probably just make up a bunch of meaningless garbage just to feed her pseudo-psychological mindset, however. I mean, seriously. Did she think she was my shrink all of the sudden?

          “Look, Elizabeth,” I said being a little condescending. I bet that bothered her just a bit. Teachers don’t like it when you address them by their first name. I didn’t care though. If she wanted me to talk, I’ll talk.

          “Do you want to know what it’s like to look into someone’s eyes and see nothing but emptiness? That’s all I see, just empty eyes wandering these goddamn halls. People look at me and I have to wonder who they are and where they came from and what they are going to do and everything like that. And it’s not just with one or two people. It’s with everyone, even the people I hate a lot. It’s just the worlds behind the eyes Elizabeth. That’s it. I can’t take it anymore.”

          I was really hamming it up at this point. I just couldn’t help it. I exaggerated quite a bit, I always do. But I think some of the things I said were stemming from truth, but I’m not entirely sure. I wonder what that really says about me, when even I don’t know if I’m telling the truth or just speaking falsehoods.

          “Jerry, you sound very depressed. I can see it in your face. Maybe we should take you down to the office and call your parents. After that we’ll get you some help.”

          “Fine,” I said hesitantly. I really didn’t feel like cooperating. I mean, she just said she wanted to talk about things, not analyze my goddamn behavior like Sigmund Freud. She led me through the hallways down to the principal’s office. This was obviously getting pretty bogus already. We arrived at the office and she asked me to have a seat, but boy howdy did I not want to cooperate. But I did. But believe me, they knew I wasn’t happy about it. As soon as I sat down in the chair I just buried my face in my hands. I’ll admit I was quite upset. I couldn’t help it though. I mean, how would you feel if you were minding your own damn business, dissecting pig intestines, having a jolly good old time, and the next thing you know you’re being ordered around and psychoanalyzed?

          “So what’s going on, exactly?” the principal Mr. Smith asked my teacher.

          “Well, we have a bit of a situation,” said Mrs. Satan. “I’ve noticed a very serious change in his behavior as well as evidence of self-harm.”

          That killed me, seriously. I mean, Hell, I could tell by just the way she said that that she thought she was being professional. I guarantee she thought she was pretty hot shit talking about my serious behavior and all. She probably had them fooled, but she didn’t fool me. I’m seeing right through your façade like a crystal clear pond ya’ dumb broad, I thought to myself.  

          “I’ll call his father,” said Mr. Smith glancing at his computer.

          I just thought this was slightly ironic. You see, in elementary school, I got sent to the principal’s office every single day. For stupid reasons, too. In third grade I really liked the teacher we had in the beginning of the year, but she got way too old and wrinkly and eventually retired. The school then appointed this monstrous red-headed bitch as our teacher, freckles and all. I didn’t like her and I tried to lead revolutions during class time against her, clearly due to some kind of innate ginger friction. Some kids only laughed and one kid threw an eraser with me once. But it was almost always me that got in trouble. I remember one year we had the five mile run or walk for the end of the year celebration. They wouldn’t let me go. All they did was let me eat a popsicle in the office for my celebration instead of going to the park to frolic with the other children. I wasn’t too happy about that; but it is kind of what I get for being such a smart ass. But I really didn’t think I was that bad anymore. But then again, look where I was; years later, running my mouth in the principal’s office again. Oh by the way, you might want to know that I used to believe that leprechauns lived inside the crab apple tree at the bottom of the playground in Elementary school. Every time I start reminiscing about my Elementary school days I always think of those magical leprechauns eating berries and running Cash for Gold inside that odorous crab apple tree.

          I still had my face buried in my hands. I don’t know where this came from, but my eyes started to get a little teary. I didn’t really know why it was happening at all, but it was. I mean, I definitely wasn’t balling or anything, but there were one or two tears streaming down my face. Not that many tears though. I didn’t want them to think that I was too depressed or anything.

          “Jerry, you have to tell us what’s the matter,” said Mrs. Satan as she leaned over towards me. The school police officer and the dean walked in after she said that. I mean, who were they going to call next? The mayor? Now I was just too upset. I was in a room full of a bunch of distinguished men in uniforms and suits analyzing my behavior. That just made me feel awful. Alright, I’ll admit that they probably meant well. But seriously, this was just not the way to break into my inner psychological world. I sat there for some time while no one said anything. Pretty soon my dad finally showed up.

          “What’s the m-m-m-matter bud?” he said. Like I said, he has a stuttering problem.

          I couldn’t take it anymore at this point. I was about ready to freak out if these people weren’t going to get off my back. You just can’t imagine what it’s like. If there are people all around you trying to figure out what’s making you so sad, you just feel even sadder and sadder. It was quite the situation.

          “I ruined my family…” I stammered. I was so goddamn chattering nervous and uptight at this point I could barely even talk. It was the only thing I could think of to say. I mean, I couldn’t just come right out and say what I did, could I? Not in front of all those people. I mean, I had to at least try to explain to them why I was so down in the dumps; but I couldn’t come right out and say it. I’ll admit it though; I sure haven’t treated everyone in my family with the respect they deserve. I’ll never truly forgive myself for what I did.

          “Show your dad the burn on your arm,” said Mrs. Satan forcefully.

          I reluctantly put my arm out and turned it over. My dad didn’t like the look of that too hot.

          “Gosh, bud. I didn’t even know.”

          I wanted to say, “Well now you do”, but I didn’t. By this time I didn’t really feel like making any smart remarks. I just wanted to go home and bury my face into my pillow for days. I wouldn’t even talk to anyone. I would move to Chilé or Argentina or something, where everyone speaks Spanish and I would have no idea what anyone was saying. Nobody would know my name and I could be a drifter with a bandana and plenty of change for burritos. I would just be all alone. It’s not like I’m anti-social or anything, but sometimes it’s just nice to be alone.

          “So we have to decide what we’re going to do with you,” said the principal.

          Now all of this was really starting to get on my nerves. Here I was, freaking out and they are acting like I’m the problem of the day. I was perfectly happy in Zoology dissecting pig intestines. But some people just have to dive head first into your problems and turn it into some sort of spectacle. These people were just outrageous. It was all too much.

          “The psych ward at Great River only takes adults. We’ll probably have to take him to Iowa City,” said the principal.

          Oh my. I lifted my head right up after I heard that. I did not want to go to some hospital. I mean, not just a hospital, a psych ward for chrissake. The moment I heard those words I started thinking padded rooms and straight jackets and electro-shock therapy. I would meet a creepy autistic that would plant delusions in my mind and upset me if I ever wound up there. We would be roommates and he would convince me that exotic matter was used to build the pyramids and if only he can have a piecemeal mixture of my bodily fluids, we could create this exotic matter. I just didn’t even want to think about it. I was getting extremely nervous over all of this. But I wouldn’t wind up in one of those padded rooms or talking to autistics, draining my bodily fluids or something. I really, really hoped I wouldn’t. I admit it, I was scared.

          “Okay. I don’t want to go to some hospital,” I said. That was a dead serious statement right there.

          “Jerry, these places aren’t what you think. You need help. We are just trying to get you the help that you need,” said Mrs. Satan all compassionate and what not.

          I’ll give her some credit. I’ve never seen anyone pretend to care about someone more in my entire life. I mean, she practically had me convinced. You can never be too sure about people. But I was pretty damn close to thinking she might have cared about me, if even just a little. Maybe she actually did?

          Mrs. Satan stepped outside to talk to my dad, and the principal made a few more phone calls while I just sat around weeping mildly and hiding my face in my hands. Pretty soon the whole plan was in motion. They were sending me to the Children’s Psychiatric Unit at the University of Iowa. I was very scared. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. But I was going, no two ways about it. They let me go home for awhile to pack my things and eat something. It was very depressing. It felt like I was going to jail.