by Wizner, Jake
There was no question that something disastrous was going to happen. Any moment now, Ms. Mitchell would turn away from the board, see Rocco drooling on himself, and discover the magazine. It occurred to me that if I got expelled from school, at least I wouldn’t have to do the science project that was due next week.
“Give it back,” I whispered through gritted teeth.
“Shhh, don’t draw attention to me.”
In desperation, I grabbed for the magazine, Rocco grabbed my wrist, both our hands banged into the desk, and everyone in the class turned to stare at us.
Ms. Mitchell was there in two Amazonian strides. “Give me the magazine,” she said. When she saw what it was, she blushed deeply and seemed at a total loss for what to do.
“It’s not mine,” Rocco said. “You can ask him.”
Ms. Mitchell looked ready to explode. “Both of you need to come with me to the principal’s office right now!” She turned to the class. “Start on your homework. And if I hear a sound from this room, you’ll all have detention tomorrow.”
We didn’t get expelled. The principal listened to Ms. Mitchell, then asked us a bunch of questions, then gave us a long lecture, then called our parents to come pick us up. I told the principal exactly what had happened, the only lie being that I had found the magazine on the way to school that day.
We waited outside the office for our parents to show up, and Rocco started to cry. “I’m so dead,” he said. “My dad said if he caught me reading pornos again, he’d send me to military school.”
My father arrived first, and he looked more concerned than angry. He spoke to the principal for a few minutes, then told me we were going home.
“Are you okay?” he asked after we were in the car.
“I guess so.”
“That must have been really embarrassing in class.”
“I’m never setting foot in that school again.”
My father laughed. “Your principal showed me the magazine. I can see why math must seem pretty boring in comparison.”
I didn’t really want to talk about porno magazines with my father, because anything he said was bound to be disturbing.
“You know, I used to read magazines like that,” he said. “But then I met your mother and she—”
“Okay, Dad, I don’t need to hear that. Does Mom know what happened?”
“Your principal called her first, then Mom called me and told me I had to go to school because she was too embarrassed.”
My mother is one of those people who lives and dies by what people might think. It wouldn’t have been a big deal to her to find out that I was reading pornographic magazines, as long as nobody else knew. For her, the great tragedy was that I had been caught, and now people she knew would talk about what had happened.
“Why couldn’t you just look at your magazine inside the house?” she asked over and over at dinner that night.
“I can’t believe you never showed it tome,” my brother said.
Will called me later that night to find out what had happened. “You didn’t tell anyone where you got the magazine, did you?”
I assured him I had not.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll give you another one for free tomorrow.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m trying to convince my parents to transfer me to another school.”
My parents made me go back to school the next day. Word had gotten around about what had happened, and for one day I actually experienced what it was like to be popular. I gave Ms. Mitchell an apology note at the beginning of math class, and she told me that writing the note was a very mature thing to do and that she was glad to have me back.
On my way out of school, I saw Will Baker and Lisa Kravitz kissing in the stairwell.
JANUARY
Here’s a little multiple-choice quiz.
Why did Celeste break up with me?
a) She was more comfortable with our just being friends.
b) She was never really interested in me and only needed a little diversion to get her mind off Jordan Miller.
c) Jordan Miller came home from college for Christmas vacation, and she went rushing back to him.
d) She is manipulative and selfish, with no qualms about trampling on a poor boy’s heart.
e) All of the above, especially d.
What happens is I go to the movies with Neil over vacation and there they are, at the concession stand, buying buttered popcorn. They are holding hands, and Celeste is looking radiant. When she sees me, she whispers something to Jordan, and he looks at me and nods.
Celeste leaves Jordan in line and walks over.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hey.” I really do not want to talk to her.
“How are you?”
I shrug. “I’m okay.”
She looks around. “Are you here alone?”
“Neil’s in the bathroom.”
We stand there in silence. Can’t she sense that this is an uncomfortable situation, or is she just too caught up in her newfound happiness to recognize the misery she has caused me?
“I feel like vacation started, and we never really had proper closure,” she says.
I look toward the bathroom. Where the hell is Neil? Why does he always have to take a crap before every movie? “It’s okay,” I say. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
Jordan calls out to Celeste, and I use the moment to say good-bye and slip off into the theater. Neil and I have come to see Bloody Battle II, and I am more than ready for some graphic violence and gratuitous bloodshed.
I spend most of vacation finishing up college applications, working on my memoir, stressing out about the poem Ms. Rigby has confiscated, seething with resentment, and feeling sorry for myself. On New Year’s Eve, I get drunk with Neil and Katie, make a clumsy pass at her, vomit, and end up passing out on the bathroom floor. Three days later, school resumes.
I sit as far away from Celeste as I can the first day back. I want her to feel guilty. I want her to feel rejected. I want to win the memoir award and I want her to lose. I want her to realize what she has given up. I want her to beg me for another chance and I want to tell her she had her chance and blew it. She catches my eye during class and smiles. I smile back.
Mr. Parke returns our writing. He writes on my paper that the humor is wonderful, but I am using it as a defense mechanism to avoid confronting myself in a more substantive and honest way. He says I need to spend time reflecting on who I am and why I always cast myself as the victim in my life’s story. He sounds a lot like my mother. She’s been pushing me for years to see a therapist.
My mother is a great believer in therapy. She is also a vegetarian, a practitioner of yoga, and an aspiring Buddhist. Since therapy has performed such wonders for her—or so she claims—she is convinced that it could also perform wonders for me.
“It could change your life,” she is always saying.
“Maybe it could,” I say. “We’ll never know.”
“Why are you so resistant?”
And my standard reply: “I don’t know. I bet a therapist could help me figure that out.”
The truth is I know exactly why I’m resistant. I don’t want a therapist to tell me things about myself I don’t want to hear, and I don’t want to admit that I have problems I can’t deal with myself. It would be one thing if I could just go in and complain about my life, but having to confront and take responsibility for my shortcomings and insecurities is something I have no interest in.
Charlotte has been in and out since we came back to school. She always looks tired, and she is always working during lunch, probably trying to make up all the assignments she’s missed.
“Is everything okay?” I ask her about a week after we’ve returned. It is the end of the day, and she is slumped against her locker with her head resting on the door.
She quickly stands. “I’m just tired.”
What is she hiding? I wonder. Why does she keep herself so closed off? I ask her how her memoir
is coming.
“Slowly.” She looks at the floor and pushes her hair out of her face. “It’s opening up a lot of things that are hard to write about.”
“I know what you mean,” I say. “My life’s been one disaster after another.”
She gives me a sad smile.
“Do you want to get together sometime and give each other feedback on our memoirs?” I ask.
This seems to catch her off guard, and she takes a moment to answer. “I don’t know. Maybe when we know each other a little better.”
The crowd by the lockers is thinning out. I spy Lisa Kravitz making her rounds, exchanging greetings and good-byes with everybody, and when she sees me she flashes a wonderful smile and waves. “Hey, Shakespeare,” she says, walking over.
I say hi, and Charlotte smiles.
“I’m Lisa,” she says, extending her hand. “We haven’t met, but I’ve seen you around. Charlotte, right?”
Charlotte nods, surprised.
“Lisa knows everybody,” I say.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Charlotte says, turning to her locker to finish packing her book bag.
“How are you?” Lisa asks me.
“I’m okay.”
A group of her friends walks past and calls out to her. “Let’s talk soon,” she says, squeezing my arm and bounding off to catch up with them. I turn back to Charlotte, who has finished packing her bag.
“I’ll see you,” she says. “I need to get home.”
I realize I have never seen Charlotte outside of school, and I ask her where she lives.
She hesitates. “We kind of move around a lot.”
What does that mean? I wait for her to say more, but she just turns and walks off down the hall.
The second quarter is ending next week. The night before my history final I come down with a big cold, sleep miserably, and wake up feeling like someone has opened a fire hydrant inside my nose. My parents don’t believe in staying home from school for anything less than the plague, so I pop a couple of Sudafed and set off for what I am sure will be a wretched day.
I’m one of those people who, instead of blowing my snot into a tissue, sucks it back up into my nostrils. It works really well except when I suck too hard and feel the snot shoot all the way back into my throat, and then I have to run to a sink or toilet to spit it out.
“Don’t suck it back in,” my parents are always scolding me. “You have to blow it out.”
My father is a tremendous nose-blower. He always carries a handkerchief in his pocket, and several times a day he pulls it out and unleashes a mighty roar. Then he uses the handkerchief to dab at any stray snot or pick at any loose boogers, before putting the whole gloppy mess back in his pocket.
“Why don’t you carry a handkerchief in your pocket?” my father asks.
“You have a box of tissues in your bedroom,” my mother says. “What do you think they’re for?”
I know perfectly well what they’re for, but I’m certainly not going to discuss that with my mother.
“You sound like a snorting pig,” my brother says.
It is true that I occasionally get dirty looks from people when I snort too loudly, but it has become second nature and most of the time I don’t even realize I am doing it.
We have history first period, and Mr. Mullen hands out blue books for us to write our answers in. His tests always consist of a single essay question that requires us to take a position on some big topic and back up our ideas with specific historical detail.
His primary interests are weapons, wars, and military strategy. He always tells us that his greatest disappointment in life is that a heart condition kept him out of the army when he was younger, and he often likes to conduct simulated battles in the classroom to demonstrate his military genius.
I lift the test paper to read so I won’t have to lean over and give my snot the added advantage of gravity in trying to escape. The test question is predictable:
What was the biggest military mistake made by each side during the Civil War? Be sure to include the names of specific people, locations, regiment numbers, and weapons in your response. (Note: I am not interested in hearing your opinions about the causes or consequences of the war.)
The moment I start to write I feel the snot begin to drip and I give a violent snort, hoping to beat back the charge before it can really get going. There is definite strategy involved here. The trick is to snort at times when I won’t call undue attention to myself: when somebody coughs, for example, or when somebody moves his or her chair. What I don’t count on is such a persistent line of attack, and before I realize what I am doing I am working overtime to keep the enemy forces at bay.
I guess it must be frustrating trying to concentrate on an important test and having to listen to someone snorting up snot every few seconds. Still, I am completely blindsided by Paige Blanchard’s strike from all the way across the classroom.
“Would you just blow your nose!” she screeches. “That’s so unbelievably annoying.”
Everybody in the class looks up, a few people laugh, and somebody says, “Thank you, Paige.”
Mr. Mullen seems amused by the whole scene. “Go get some tissues, Shakespeare,” he says.
I can feel the eyes on me as I hurry from the room, trying desperately to make it out before any snot leaks down my face.
Safe in a bathroom stall, I wipe my nose with toilet paper and feel the full weight of my humiliation come crashing down. Not only is Paige Blanchard one of the most desirable girls in the school, she is also best friends with Jody Simons, the top girl on my fantasy list. Once Jody hears about this, any tiny possibility that she might be interested in me will be irrevocably destroyed.
I can’t stay in the stall forever, but the thought of going back to class is almost more than I can bear. In the first place, everybody will look up when I come back in the room. Then there is the problem of what to do about my nonstop runny nose. I have barely started my essay, and there are now only thirty minutes left in the period. I stuff as much toilet paper as I can in my pocket, take a gigantic snort, and hurry back to class.
Once at my desk, I devise a system that I think will keep my snot at bay. What I do is put my non-writing arm across my desk and slouch so my nose and mouth are pressed against the sleeve of my shirt. In this position, my eyes are right up close to my test paper, my writing hand is free, and I have formed a barrier against the onslaught of snot cascading from my nose. It is a bit difficult to breathe, no question about that, and I am aware that snot is pooling up against my sleeve, but I manage to make it through the rest of the period without causing any more of a racket.
“Time’s up,” Mr. Mullen says. “Turn in your tests on your way out.”
There is a lot of commotion as students push away from their desks, gather their things, and begin to move around the room. I lift my face gingerly from my arm and realize that my sleeve is drenched with snot, and my whole lower face feels sticky and wet. Most appalling is that as I raise my face, I trail a string of snot that stretches up with me from my sleeve, so I have to bury my face quickly again in my shirt before anyone notices.
I grab the wad of toilet paper in my pocket and try to raise my face and wipe it simultaneously. The snot is mounting a final, vicious attack, coming at me from all sides and overwhelming my defenses. The situation is desperate. I have to beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom or all will be lost. The key is not to make eye contact with anybody, to keep my head down, to drop my test book on Mr. Mullen’s desk with one hand, to cover my mouth and my nose with the other, and to make a beeline for the bathroom.
All this I accomplish, though I can only imagine how pathetic and ridiculous I look to the groups of students crowding the hallway. What’s even worse is that Mr. Parke’s class begins in three minutes.
I stand in the bathroom stall for the second time in the past hour. My nose is running, and I feel awful. Why the hell did I come to school today? I want to be home in bed. I want to get as far
away from what just happened as possible. There’s certainly no way I can sit through another class.
I make my way to the office, call my mother, and get permission to sign out. It is thirteen degrees outside, even colder with the wind. As I push away from the school building, I see someone who looks like Charlotte coming toward me, walking slowly up the street with her head down.
“You’re late,” I say as she reaches me.
She looks up, startled. Her eyes are wet, but I can’t tell if this is from the wind or if she has been crying.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She wipes her eyes and nods. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“Home. I signed out because I’m sick.”
She looks up at the school building, and I can tell she doesn’t want to go any farther. It seems like it has been a great effort for her just to make it here. Should I invite her back to my house? If only I didn’t feel so sick.
“I should go,” she says, but she doesn’t move.
It’s freezing, and my nose is starting to run. I give a violent snort and rub my nose with my hand. I feel bad walking away, but I can’t endure a repeat of this morning’s performance.
“I’ll see you,” I say. I hurry toward the bus stop without turning around, wondering the whole way if Charlotte is watching me.
I get home and take my temperature: 101.5. My mother comes home later and finds me in bed. She makes me soup, but I have no appetite. My brother says I probably have mono. He actually seems concerned. Then the phone rings and he goes off to talk to his girlfriend. I feel nauseated.
It ends up being a mild case of the flu. I am out of school for two more days and go through three boxes of tissues, which I use to wipe up various bodily fluids. Neil comes by to see how I am, to compare bowel movements, and to complain about Katie, who he says is an alcoholic. I tell him about my history-class fiasco and ask him how I am supposed to show my face in school again.