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the contrarian #3

When I got to the door, I pushed my face up to the window to sneak a peek inside. I could see all the paintings on the old brick walls, some abstract stuff, like splatter on canvas, clocks hanging from trees, and faces made from triangles and incomplete circles, and this one especially weird painting of these sun and moon people hugging each other near a black hole so they looked all spaghettified, painted by this girl Phoebe, who always sat in the very front of the class and barely spoke a word but was like idiot-savant levels of talented when it came to painting.

There were about ten kids sitting at these long wooden tables, laughing, drawing, talking, big sheets of tan paper in front of them, rulers too, and I could see Aaron sitting in the back, alone, keeping a spot open for me. Ms. Vickers was nowhere in sight, so I figured she must be in the back, getting supplies or whatever, which was the perfect chance for me to sneak in unnoticed and pretend as if I wasn't eleven minutes late to class, so I cracked the door open, slid through, and pushed my way between the tables, into the back, where I sat down next to Aaron, all without drawing Ms. Vickers’ attention, so I guess my lucky break was actually lucky, because it didn't seem like I would be getting written up, at least not yet.

“Where’ve you been?” Aaron said, all baritone.

“Heaven.” I was only being partially sarcastic.

I guess I was distracted because I kept looking at the classroom door, imagining KB walking in for some reason, so I was sucking my cheeks in a little bit because I thought it made me look thinner, more attractive, and then, elbow on the table, I rested my head on my palm, feigning obliviousness, and said, “What’s going on?”

“Ms. Vickers is on a call.”

“Oh,” eyes flicking back and forth from Aaron to the door, hoping, wishing, wanting for KB to walk through, see me, wave, maybe even walk right up to me, tell me she actually knew what I meant, about what I had said earlier, tell me she wasn’t freaked out that I had just bolted out of the grove like a madman, that she actually found it quite endearing and cute and “here’s my number, we should hang out some time,” and I just couldn’t stop thinking about her, her nerdy glasses, her freckles, her duck lips, her viola, kissing her, holding her, not in a sexual way or nothing, but in a romantic way, even though I’m a terrible romantic, awkward as hell, but I'm excellent at falling down, face first, into love, at first sight, which isn’t so much a skill as a curse, having gotten me into a lot of fucking trouble in the past.

“Do you want to play Counter-Strike tonight?” Aaron said in like a baritone whisper.

But I was twirling my hair, totally unable to look away from the door at this point.

“Nathan.”

I made one of those oblivious huh’s.

“Source, Counter-Strike.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” I was just saying stuff, having not really heard him. I was too busy hallucinating almost, forever blowing dumb romantic bubbles, wanting so badly for her to walk through the door so we could coyly steal glances at each other like kids in love often do, already pretty much convinced that we were like destined to be together or whatever.

And then that’s when Ms. Vickers walked out to the front of the class, to the big green chalkboard, ruler in hand. She started pointing at something on the board, then, noticing me, she stopped and simply said, “Mr. Wheeler.” And that’s when the class went all silent, some kids looked back at me, oh-shit looks on their faces. And then Ms. Vickers said, in her most stern teaching voice, “Mr. Wheeler, when did you get in?” and that’s when Aaron gave me a nudge, because I guess I was staring off again.

“Oh,” I said, adjusting my gaze to Ms. Vickers, taking my elbow off the table. “I’ve been here,” I added, leaning back in my chair, arms crossed, all casual as hell. “What’s up?”

Ms. Vickers’ eyes narrowed, then she shook her head, sighed, and said, “With the call I just got, and everything else going on, I just don’t have the energy to deal with you right now.” She was always saying stuff like that, dropping little hints about her life, but no one ever seemed to care. But I did notice that she wasn’t looking too good, like she was sick or something. She was an older woman, maybe in her late fifties, and she had this wiry gray hair, pulled into a ponytail, some strands falling down around her face, and her cheeks were all sucked in, gaunt, like her skin was pulled way too tight over her skull or something, and she was looking a little yellow in the face, and when she lifted her arm and pointed her ruler at the words LINEAR PERSPECTIVE, I noticed she seemed a little slower and shakier than usual, like maybe she was dying or something.

“If you remember,” she said, looking right at me, “last week, we covered Filippo Brunelleschi, the father of linear perspective,” and then she tapped the board with her ruler, “which is really just a way of tricking the brain into thinking a flat picture has depth.” She emphasized the words “flat” and “depth.”

But I was leaning back, pretending like she wasn’t annoying the shit out of me, although she actually was, because I was starting to suspect she was trying to make a point or something, and I can’t stand people who try to make points.

She put the ruler down, picked up a piece of chalk, and started drawing as she spoke, “You start with a horizon line, then you pick one or two vanishing points, and every line in the picture that’s not vertical or horizontal points back to these points.” She stopped to finish a simple drawing of a road. “See this road,” she paused, looking around the class, “see how it looks like it’s getting narrower the farther away it gets, as if it has depth when, of course, it’s just a flat picture?” She had emphasized the words “flat” and “depth” again, before pausing to look right at me. But I wasn’t really paying attention at this point, because I was forever blowing dumb romantic bubbles, so I didn’t really notice the awkward silence and all the kids looking at me again.

“Mr. Wheeler,” Ms. Vickers said.

Aaron nudged me.

“Mr. Wheeler, do you see how the flat picture appears to have depth?”

I was looking but just sort of blinking.

She started going off again, “You could say that, perhaps, the picture is lying to us, superficial in a way, tricking us, could you not?”

And that caught my attention because she was definitely trying to make some sort of point now, so I glared at her and said flat out, “What’s your point?”

And then she said, in this annoying tone, “My point is, despite how much superficial depth one might add,” she started drawing some sort of house on the road, “it’s still just a boring old canvas underneath.”

Trying very hard not to sound bothered, I said, “Is that the lesson today, like, canvases are boring, or something? You know, my stepdad pays a lot of money for this education, and like, if that’s the lesson, then I don’t know if he’s getting his money’s worth, to tell you the truth.” Not that I cared about my stepdad getting his money’s worth, I was just a little annoyed, is all.

By now, some students were looking back at me, some with looks of fear, some with awe, some started laughing real loud, but they stopped instantly the moment Ms. Vickers cracked her ruler against the chalkboard and said, “No, Mr. Wheeler, the lesson today is a test of your perspective, I want you to draw a black-and-white structure using this technique.” And then she walked to one of those rolling carts and pulled off a rolled-up canvas, unrolled it, taped it up to the chalkboard, and pointed at it with her ruler. “Like this.” It was a picture of a church or something, but with the illusion of depth. And then she said, “Good luck, hope you were paying attention, and remember, black-and-white.” And then she walked off to the back room in sort of a huff, coughing up a storm. The room filled with chatter.

“I wish I could do that,” Aaron said.

“Do what?” I said, blinking.

“Just not care about stuff, like you do.”

He said it in this reverential tone that made me feel kinda sad for some reason, so I averted my eyes to the door and said, “I do care about stuff.”

“Really,” he said, a few octaves higher than normal, “like what?”

But I didn’t want to get into it with him right now, so I just stood up, walked to the front of the class, to the supply drawer, found myself a pen, a tan canvas, and, feeling a little rebellious, a box of very colorful pastels. I wasn’t about to let Ms. Vickers get away with making some sort of point, although I couldn’t figure out what the actual point was, I just knew she was making one, and I also knew that I wasn’t about to draw some lame-as-fuck black-and-white picture. No, my drawing was going to be colorful as hell and full of perspective, so I walked back to my table, sat down, and, overflowing with defiant purpose, got ready to make the most vibrant thing that I could think of.

You see, back then, I considered myself somewhat of an artist, so I knew a thing or two about art, I really did. I knew all about the big artists, from Wikipedia mostly, like da Vinci and van Gogh and Picasso and Pollock and Dalí and Warhol, but I was particularly interested in Yoshitaka Amano, the artist for Final Fantasy, and Marcel Duchamp, who was like the father of this movement called “dada,” which was an anti-art thing. The guy took a toilet, signed it “R. Mutt,” and put it up in a gallery, to illustrate that like anything could be elevated to the status of “art” simply through the artist’s intent, but that wasn’t really what drew me to Duchamp, what really drew me was the fact that his toilet was also like a big “fuck you” to the art establishment back then, which I imagined had gotten all huffy and pretentious and gatekeepy, like artists often get, and I hate huffy and pretentious and gatekeepy. So Duchamp was sort of like a hero to me. He kind of inspired me to start making art, to tell you the truth. I would take pictures of everyday stuff, like televisions and beds and the East Beach shoreline, print them on big canvases at Michaels, then smear oil paints all over them, not to make a point or nothing, but as a fuck you, as a way to illustrate that anyone could be an artist, that you didn't have to learn all these dumb high-minded techniques like shading and layering and perspective to make some really aesthetically beautiful stuff, because the cool thing about aesthetics is that they’re totally subjective, meaning I wasn't going to draw some dumb-as-fuck black-and-white picture of a building, because that would have offended my personal subjective aesthetic values, which Ms. Vickers didn’t seem to understand, even though she had the audacity to call herself an artist, which blew my mind, because she was about as rigid and by-the-book and creatively bankrupt as they fucking come, an artist my ass.

So, eyeballing it, I made my lines and my vanishing points, then I drew this plain-looking house right in the middle, with a few windows, a porch, and a chimney, pointing all the edges or whatever right back to the fucking vanishing points, like Ms. Vickers told us to do, then I whipped out my pastels and started going crazy. My thought was that even the most boring thing in the world, like this dumb assignment, could be made interesting given enough color, so I divided the house into vertical sections and colored each section a different color, like a rainbow or whatever, then my mind wandered to KB, so I drew all these big sunflowers in the foreground, overlapping the house a little bit, then I took some of the dark blue and orange pastels and colored the background like early twilight, and after about twenty minutes, I had completed my rainbow-sunflower-twilight dream home, then I leaned back in my chair, hands locked behind my head, grinning a little bit, feeling proud for having stuck to my personal subjective aesthetic values.

Aaron leaned over, looking down at my picture, and said, “Didn’t she say black-and-white?” He didn’t have an artistic bone in his body, as far as I could tell, so I didn’t really expect him to understand me or my artwork. He was all intellect. He had like a 200 in trig or something.

“Yeah, so what? I did the whole perspective thing, or whatever it is.”

Then he leaned his head real close to my canvas, studying it for a second, “Aren't you supposed to use a ruler?”

I blew a raspberry and shrugged, “Didn’t need it.”

“But your lines are all wobbly.”

Then, almost out of nowhere, that Phoebe girl walked up to our table. She just stood there, staring down at my canvas. She had this pale mousy face, and her hair was blue-black and bobbed. She had like no feminine grace whatsoever. She wasn't ugly or nothing, but she was no KB, that's for sure. And she was staring for like a whole minute. It was weirding me out. Both Aaron and I were blinking up at her, like what the fuck, but she just kept staring for a while until she looked up at me with this creepy toothy smile then, without saying a word, abruptly turned and walked off, footsteps not making a sound, as if she were a ghost gliding eerily back to her seat or something.

I turned to Aaron and whispered, “What the fuck was that about?”

But before Aaron could answer, I heard a loud, “OK, Students!” And just like that, Ms. Vickers was back in front of the class, pen in one hand, notebook in the other. “I’m going to walk around and give you each a grade.” Then she started walking, and talking. “The criteria is simple,” she said, “did you follow the instructions, or didn't you.”

As she walked, she looked at each student's canvas, “pass, pass, fail, pass, fail,” while making little marks in her notebook. And as she got closer and closer to my table, I started feeling more and more excited, because I knew she was going to hate my artwork, and that made me feel pretty good in this dada, punk-rock sort of way.

“Pass, fail, pass, pass.”

Then, excitement reaching fever pitch, she was right on me, staring down at my canvas, which I had so graciously spun for her, so that its rainbow-sunflower-twilight glory was in full view. I was leaning back in my chair, arms crossed, looking her up and down, starving for some sort of reaction.

But all she said was, “Fail.”

Then she turned to Aaron, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Good effort at least, pass.”

Then she just started to walk off, toward the front of the class, me still leaning there, arms crossed up hard, kinda annoyed, so I said, in my loudest speaking voice, “That’s it?”

She stopped, unmoving for a good few seconds, then she slowly turned like she was in a made-for-television drama or something, this subtle scowl on her wrinkled old face. “What were you expecting, Mr. Wheeler?”

“I don’t know, Ms. Vickers. I think it’s aesthetically pleasing, to tell you the truth.”

“This wasn’t a lesson in aesthetics, Mr. Wheeler,” she said sternly as she walked up to the table, picked up my canvas and held it out for all the class to see, eliciting some laughter from the students, at which point my face got all warm and fuzzy and I melted a little bit into my chair.

“Mr. Wheeler obviously didn’t use a ruler, and he obviously missed the part where I said, ‘black and white,’” she said, speaking to the class more so than me. Students were still laughing. In fact I think the only person not laughing was Aaron, and Phoebe, too, for some reason. Then Ms. Vickers turned back to me and said, “But it’s more likely that you just ignored my instructions on purpose, to make some sort of point, isn’t that right, Mr. Wheeler?”

I was the one scowling now, couldn’t help it. “I wasn’t making a point.”

“Then why all the color, why the sunflowers?”

“Because it’s pretty,” I said, “and the assignment was boring, so I thought, like, why not make it more interesting?”

“Remember that time, months ago, during our cubism lesson,” she said, laying the canvas on the table, “when you decided, for some absurd reason, to, instead, draw a person made of circles?"

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

“And what was your reason then?”

I didn't really want to answer her, but after a few weird seconds I did anyway. “Dada.”

“Do you know what dada is, Mr. Wheeler?”

“Sure I do, Marcel Duchamp, early nineteen hundreds,” I would have kept going, but Ms. Vickers cut me off.

“You know some names, some dates, some superficial facts,” she said before coughing a little bit, “But did you know that Marcel Duchamp was a trained artist, educated at the Académie Julian in Paris?”

“So what?” I said, trying to hide my scowl, but the more I tried to hide it, the worse it got.

“Did you know that, early on, before dada, he painted in the impressionism and cubism styles, and that he even displayed a mastery in shading, perspective, and human anatomy?”

The whole class went silent. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. It was making me kind of nervous, to tell you the truth, and my face was heating up, so, with my arms still crossed, I said, again, “What’s your point?”

“My point, Mr. Wheeler, is that Duchamp was a trained artist who mastered the most basic principles, he learned the rules, and he learned them so well that, later in life, when he broke those rules, his output was not only taken more seriously, but, most importantly, it was all the more shocking and subversive."

“So what?”

“So, what I’m trying to tell you, Mr. Wheeler, is that it’s easy to sit there and pretend that you've got it all figured out, that you're above all the rules, but before you can break the rules, you must first learn the rules, because only then will you know which rules are worth breaking, otherwise it's all performative, superficial, lashing out for no good reason, as if you're trying to make a point without knowing what the point actually is.”

I was both fuming and embarrassed as hell, cursing like crazy in my head, leaning there, arms crossed, saying nothing, trying my damndest to look unbothered, but I could feel my lips quivering and my nose scrunching and my face turning red. I was praying, please aliens, please abduct me, right here, beam me up, take me away from this place, but then I started thinking that, if aliens did abduct me, I wouldn’t see KB ever again, and right when that girl popped into my head, all the fuming embarrassment faded, and I relaxed in my chair, and I even uncrossed my arms, but Ms. Vickers just kept going for some reason.

“The difference between you and Duchamp, Mr. Wheeler, is that Duchamp mastered the basics and knew exactly what he was doing, but you, you haven't a clue.”

Then there was a long silence, her just glaring down at me with this holier-than-thou look on her face, like she had just made the best damn point in the whole universe or something.

So all I did was, I slowly raised my hand, as if I had a question.

“Yes, Mr. Wheeler?”

I let my hand hang in the air for a moment, building up the suspense, then I said something I probably shouldn't have said, but I said it anyway.

I said, “Why do you have to be such a bitch all the time?”

And then the whole room gasped.

Entry tags:

the contrarian #2

I was stepping quick down the wide stair brick, cool breeze washing over me, one hand dragging along the top of this fancy low cement wall for balance, when I heard my name called from behind me. I didn’t stop, but, while moving, I tried to turn my head to catch a glimpse of whoever it was, and that’s when I lost my footing a little bit and stumbled down the last few steps, landing on my palms at the bottom of the stairs, contents of my messenger bag spilling out all over the walkway, and not just a few things spilled out, all of it did, my Moto flip, bright yellow Sony Walkman, headphones with the orange puffs, cassette copy of Beck’s Sea Change, zipper binder with all my papers and stuff in it, wallet and credit card, that copy of Catcher Mr. Moody told me to hang on to, some loose comics I had drawn earlier, a few textbooks, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil which I didn't understand a word of but felt cool carrying around, my little pill baggie, and the Final Fantasy VIII strategy guide I had been keeping in there for when I got bored in class, which was like all the time, and even my pack of Luckies, thankfully they didn’t burst open or nothing, so the cigs were unharmed, which was important because, well, I couldn’t buy them myself, on account of being seventeen, so I had to get my sister to buy them, and she always made a big deal out of it for some reason, saying I shouldn’t smoke and all that, which is rich considering she smokes weed like all the fucking time.

Anyway, on that brick walkway, on my hands and knees, clumsily scooping everything back into my bag, I could feel my face flush red with fuzzy embarrassment, and my stomach was churning a little bit as I imagined the whole student body watching me, laughing, which probably wasn't actually happening, but I imagined it anyway, and I was hungry, having not eaten all day, because I was watching my weight, always thinking myself fat as hell, even though Mom always told me I was too thin, but I knew she was just trying to make me feel better.

Anyway. When I went to pick up that old copy of Catcher, a chunky wrist reached down and picked it up for me, so I looked up and there I saw Aaron, holding my book, wearing his signature suspenders with green bowtie, tucked Epworth nearly bursting at the buttons. He was breathing heavy, which was normal for him, because he was actually fucking huge, and his cheeks were all puffy and red, but he had this big smile on his teddy-bear face.

“Sorry, Nathan,” he said in baritone, pausing for breaths, “didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me,” I mumbled, snatching the book from his hand, glancing around nervously as if I were a criminal who had just committed the unforgivable crime of being a tall, awkward teenager with zero coordination and a bag full of incredibly nerdy shit.

And I felt kinda bad about what I did next, because I was like Aaron’s only friend, but I started speed-walking down the brick walkway, toward the Harrington Building, determined to distance myself from the embarrassment zone, passing all sorts of polos along the way. Aaron waddling behind me, trying to keep up, huffing and puffing the whole time, “hold on, hold on,” but I just kept zooming, passing through the crazy shade of one of those mighty oaks, until I reached a fork which verged into an alley between Epworth and Harrington, where Aaron caught up with me and said, “Hey, aren't you going to class?” but I just gave him a dismissive wave and said, “Yeah, I’ll be there in a few,” then I turned into the alley, head down because, well, if a teacher saw me or something, they'd stop me and ask me all sorts of questions, which I didn't really want to deal with right now, because I just wanted a damn Lucky, so I picked up the pace a little bit, through the alley, through the parking lot behind Epworth proper, and finally through a shady opening in the evergreen wall surrounding the entire campus prison complex, and when I looked back, Aaron was nowhere in sight, so I guess he must have waddled his way to Fine Arts. He was such a stickler for the rules, always worried about being on-time and shit, which often made me wonder how we got along so well, considering I didn't give a fuck about any of that.

Stopping in the shade of leafy tunnel, I dug my hands through my bag, pulled out my pack of Luckies, which also housed my Bic, and then I slid a Lucky between my lips, at which point I started rumaging through my bag again, looking for my Walkman, which took me a few seconds to dig out, and when I did, I quickly put my headphones on and pressed down on that chunky play button, and that’s when Beck’s Sea Change started playing with all its strings and acoustics and moodiness.

I was trying to like the album, I really was, but it was so different from his previous work that it kinda annoyed me. I mean, this is the guy who did “Loser,” for fuck’s sake, the wizard of poetic junk pop, who once sung about “garbage-man trees” and “mouthwash jukebox gasoline,” but now he’s sitting here strumming an acoustic guitar, comparing himself to a paper tiger like he’s Neil Young or some shit. It was a big change for him, which I guess makes the title appropriate, but it also kinda pissed me off, not that I hate change or nothing like that, but I just don’t see the point, especially when you had something good going on before. I just don’t get why everyone is always trying to change all the time. It makes me kinda sad, in a way, like whenever someone changes, the person they were before just withers away and dies or something.

Anyway, around the time Beck started singing about “stray dogs gone defective,” I sparked up and took a nice long drag, and as the smoke reached my lungs, I was overcome by this heady feeling like I was a storm cloud full of heat lightning just rumbling off in the distance or something like that, then I glanced at my watch, seven minutes till, just enough time to finish smoking and get to class on time, so in that moment, I was feeling pretty good, not a care in the world, so I decided to push a little further through the wood, into an opening between a circle of trees, fully shaded by a thick canopy, into a place I had taken to calling Smoker’s Grove because, well, it was a grove that I smoked in, and it was a special to me, a place to call my own, a place where no one bothered me. The ground was all dead leaves, twigs, and branches, so it was snap-crackle-pop whenever you took a step, and there were a few fallen logs and stumps scattered about, perfect for sitting, but I usually preferred to sit on this out-of-place, long-forgotten electrical box off in the corner, because it was the only spot where you could see the sky through the canopy, so, taking another drag, then blowing a huge smoke cloud, imaging myself like some sort of sick dragon in a Japanese role-playing game, I turned to the electrical box and, to my surprise, there was already someone sitting right on it.

She was just sitting there, with headphones on, reading a book, one finger on the page, mumbling to herself. “What storm is this that blows so contrary?” A stray sunbeam shone down on her, through the canopy, as if she were chosen by the heavens or something, not that I believe in heaven or nothing like that, but you know what I mean, and her pale legs were crossed at the knees, and her long orange hair was draped over one shoulder, and she had these big duck lips, and these big square glasses, which made her look kinda nerdy, but also kinda cute, so cute, in fact, that I forgot about the Lucky dangling from my lips, smoke swirling up into my nostrils, which made me sneeze, which must have startled her because that’s when she looked up from her book, her big green eyes scanning me up and down, and for a moment there I thought that I had disturbed an angel or something, not that I believe in angels or nothing, but man, seeing her sitting there in that stray sunbeam could turn any boy religious, I'm telling you.

In that moment, with our eyes locked, I tried to affect some sort of cool pose, but my body was stiff, feeling pretty nervous, so instead I put a hand up to my face, trying to catch the Lucky between my fingers, but ended up knocking it right out of my mouth onto the leaves below, and when I bent over to pick it up, that’s when my headphones fell off my ears, which dragged my Walkman out of my pocket, causing it too to fall into the leaves below. Then, confused as to which thing to pick up first, I sort of fell forward onto my palms, and that’s when that fuzzy feeling of embarrassment I had come to know so well returned, so I scrambled to pick up my Lucky, burning my hand a little bit before getting it back into my mouth, then I slung the headphones around my neck and pocketed my Walkman, but not before pushing down that chunky stop button, which, at that point, I wished had also just stopped my life, because I was feeling like a fucking idiot, I really was.

So I just sat there on the ground, in the lotus position, looking down at the leaves, feeling like an idiot, half covering my face, adjusting the Lucky between my lips, face probably red as hell, from all the falling down, but after a few seconds I looked up at the girl anyway, expecting to see a look of terror, but instead she was just sitting there with this cute curl on her duckish lips, looking both amused and mischievous, like an elf almost, because her ears were poking out of her hair just so. And she looked so radiant with that sunbeam that I had completely forgotten about being embarrassed, so I said, in the smoothest voice possible, “Hey,” then I took a long drag on my Lucky.

“Are you alright?” she said, her voice all smoky and southern, as if she were a country-jazz fusion singer or something.

“Yeah,” I said, taking the cigarette out of my mouth, flicking ash. “I just, well, I just didn’t expect to see you there.” I was affecting a real cool tone, feigning obliviousness, as if nothing had happened, which was kind of my default attitude, especially with girls, whom, for some reason, I just can’t stop myself from flirting with. I can’t help it. I’m always thinking girls are cute, even the dumb ones, but there was something different about this girl, something beyond cute, maybe it was her strange southern accent, which normally, on most people, I think sounds trashy, but, combined with the whole reading-a-book-in-a-shady-grove thing, projected some sort of like alluring intelligence or something that I just couldn’t get enough of.

She turned her attention to the book in her lap, slid out a bookmark with sunflowers all over it, put it between the pages, then closed the book, pulled her headphones down, removed those nerdy glasses, folded them, and hung them right between the collar of her green Epworth top, then she looked right at me and said, in that smoky southern accent, “Were you expecting someone else?”

“No, it’s just that,” I paused because at that moment, without the glasses, I recognized her. We weren't in any classes together, but I had seen her in the halls a few times. It was a large campus, but it was a small school, only about fifty high schoolers or so, so it was hard not to notice people. But I think she was new, because she just randomly appeared after Winter break, and I knew she was a senior, like me, because I always saw her leaving AP classes, none of which I'm actually in, on account of my poor grades. And I had only ever seen her from a distance, so I never really noticed how cute she was until just now, and she wasn't cute in this typical twiggy-barbie type way that you see on television or whatever, she was actually kind of big, in a way, not like fat or nothing, but she was taller than most girls, probably up to my nose, and I was 6’2 on a good day, and her face was long and pale and flecked with all these little orange dots, like a sunflower or something, and I was like lost like a bee in nectar there for a moment, probably staring a little bit longer than I should have been.

But she was just blinking those big greens at me. “It’s just what?” she said, finally.

And that snapped me out of my trance. Looking away, I took a drag off my Lucky and blew a smokescreen, then I said, “It’s just that, like, no one ever comes back here.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “It’s a nice spot.”

“Are you going to, uh,” I lifted my Lucky, “tell anyone?”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, then,” she said, that mischievous curl coming back, “your secret’s safe with me.”

Then, for a moment there, it was disney, what with all the birds chirping and leaves rustling and branches crackling and squirrels scampering up trees, and, in this quiet fantasia, we stole glances at each other in this shy sort of way, until, out of nervousness mostly, I flicked the filter of my cigarette so hard that the cherry flew out, so then I quickly stood up to stomp it out, and that’s when I heard her giggling a little bit, so I turned and there she was, covering her mouth, watching me. I didn’t know what to say at first, so I just ran a hand through my hair, pushing my bangs to one side like I do, and said, “So, hey, like, what were you listening to just now?”

“Oh,” she said, then, still sitting on the electrical box, she dug a hand into her pocket and pulled out this bright green iPod, then she thumbed it and looked down at the screen. “This song called ‘Neon,’ by,” but before she completed her sentence, I completed it for her,

“John Mayer?”

Her lips did that little curl again. “How’d you know that?”

“Good guess, I guess,” I said, feeling a lot cooler now, so I removed another Lucky from the pack and lit it. I was actually kinda obsessed with that song for a little bit, back in the day. That jazzy guitar line in particular can get stuck in your head for weeks. I was actually a big fan of John Mayer, although I didn’t often admit it because his music was a little too mainstream, and I was trying to distance myself from all that radio-friendly shit, but sometimes, when the music is just so good, you just can’t resist it. Besides, he was a really good guitarist, and he knew how to write a hook, and out of the big three corny singer-songwriters of the time, that being John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and Dave Matthews, John Mayer was easily the least offensive, musically. My mom was a big fan too. We even saw him live once, down at the Memorial Stadium. She even let me skip school for it, which was pretty cool of her, I guess, now if only she would stop lying to me all the time about being too thin, that would be even cooler.

“Actually,” I said, kicking my feet a little bit, “I really like that song, especially the guitar riff or whatever you call it.”
“Oh,” she smiled, “me too. I’m trying to learn it on my viola.”

“I saw him play one time, down at,” I paused for a second. “You play viola?”

“I try,” she said, her smile so cute I could barely even look at her. Then she added, “Do you play something?”
“I, uh,” I said, dragging on my Lucky, thinking for a second. “I play guitar.”

I don’t know why I said that. I don’t really play guitar. I mean, I know a few chords, but I don’t actually play guitar. I was in a band one time, in middle school, but was kicked out for, well, not knowing how to play the guitar, like, at all.

“I’d love to hear you play,” she said.

“I, uh, yeah, sure.”

The birds were chirping again. I was kicking my feet. Then she broke the silence. “What were you listening to?”

“Beck.”

“Bach?”

“No, Beck. You know,” I paused to prepare myself, then I started singing, poorly, “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill meeee.”

She was doing that lip curl again. “You sound just like him.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you should do it again.”

So I took a long drag off my Lucky, exhaled, then sang it again, practically screaming this time, “I’M A LOSER BABY, SO WHY DON’T YOU KILL MEEEE,” which echoed in the canopy and sent some birds flying off like crazy, then I added that funny little line at the end, “Get crazy with the cheese whiz.” And that cracked her up. She had these low hearty laughs, which warmed my dark heart, they really did. So I kept going, “Kill the headlights and put it in neutral, stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control.” I was laughing between verses at this point. “Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love-seat.”

“You’re a natural. You don’t even need school. Just do Beck covers for the rest of your life.”

I did one of those single ha’s, then I said, “I wish,” and put out my Lucky on a nearby tree, then I whipped out the pack and held it out to her. “You smoke?”

She shook her head politely and said, “What’s your name?”

“Nathan,” I said comfortably, “Nathan Wheeler.”

“I’m Katie-Belle,” she said, “Gallagher,” she added. “Most people just call me KB.”

I repeated her name over and over in my mind, then I said something really stupid, I said, “like KB Toys?”
But she didn't seem to mind, she actually laughed. “Yes, like KB Toys.” Then she smiled at me and said, “I just transferred here,” and then after a brief pause, brushing some orange out of her face, she said, “I’ve seen you around.”

She’s seen me around, I thought, she’s seen me around. I was getting excited and queasy in the best way possible. “Yeah, me too,” I said, “seen you, that is, I mean, around.” And the more her lips curled, the more I lost my way with words, but I just kept going, “Where’d you come from, if you don’t mind me asking, like, what school were you at before, were you even in school, or were you, like, home-schooled, or something?"

“I used to live in Alabama.”

“Really?” I said. “How’d you end up here?”

“My parents,” her voice a little lower now, “Divorced.”

“Oh yeah, mine too,” I said, my tone too happy for the subject matter, which I could tell made her fidget a little bit, but I just kept going. “I read somewhere that, like, ninety percent of marriages end in divorce.” I was just making shit up at this point, but I kept going. “So it's almost like marriage is like a self-fulfilling prophecy or something.”

She laughed one of those beautiful laughs again then got real quiet for a second before saying, “So I take it you never plan on getting married?”

“Well, uh, I never really thought about it, you know. I guess, if I met, like, the right girl, or whatever, maybe. I don't know.” She was nodding, so I just kept going. “And, like, I'm not religious or nothing, you know, so I don't really see the point, it's not like God is gonna strike me down if I don't get married or whatever. I'm agnostic, to tell you the truth.”
She was still nodding, and the birds were still chirping, and the squirrels were still scampering up their trees, and after a few seconds of letting my eyes wander, from the squirrels, to her, then to my feet, I said, “Well maybe I would, you know, get married, or whatever, but she’d have to be, like, really special.” Then, in that disney moment, overcome by some surge of confidence, I looked straight in those big green eyes of hers and said, “You know what I mean?”
Then, as if on cue, that stray sunbeam vanished, but KB was still radiant, even in the darkness of the grove, like a beacon of hope within the gloom or something. She was just staring at me, not saying a word, so cute I could barely look at her, then it started to feel like butterflies were killing each other in my stomach or something. I was suddenly overcome with this feeling of regret, like I had come on too strong or something, so I turned away from her, all red-faced, checking my watch, and that’s when I realized I was ten minutes late to class.

So I shouted “FUCK” and bolted the hell out of there.

I could hear KB shouting faintly behind me, “wait, wait,” but I just kept running, not because I was concerned about being late to class or whatever, but because Mr. Moody said I was just one write-up away from being expelled, which normally would’ve been fine with me, but not this time, because this time was different.

This time I knew KB.

Entry tags:

the contrarian #1

This novel fucking sucks.

It was called The Catcher in the Rye, apparently it was banned or something by the school board, but Mr. Moody gave it to me to read anyway, as like extra credit or whatever, on account of my poor grades, and he told me not to tell anyone. He also said I was real smart but that I had serious motivation problems and that my attitude was garbage and that I needed to get my shit together if I ever planned to get into a good school. He didn’t say it all like that, of course, but that was pretty much the gist of it, and that's why I had to meet with him every week, on Fridays, during free period, to discuss my serious-garbage-shit-motivation problem, which was really only a problem to my mom and teachers, not me, because I didn’t care much about getting into a good school. I hadn’t even thought about applying, to tell you the truth, because artists like me don’t need to go to school, we just need some heart and soul and a little bit of tragedy in our lives, which I'm perfectly capable of creating on my own.

Anyway, like I was saying, the novel fucking sucked. The day he gave it to me, I went home and looked it up on Wikipedia, read the plot summary and all that, it’s one of those pretentious books with literally no plot and bad grammar on purpose, it's no Neuromancer, and it's certainly no Clockwork Orange, that's for sure, and after reading the summary, it became immediately clear that Mr. Moody was trying to make a point, hoping the book would draw a parallel to my life or whatever, like a cautionary tale or something, because it's about a kid that wears a hunting cap all the time who hates everyone and flunks out of school and ends up in a mental ward. But the problem is, I don't hate everyone, and I don't wear hats, I hate hats, they look ugly on me, and I’m not just some delinquent kid from a novel, I’m a real person in the real world. It’s ridiculous to think that some fake person from a book can ever relate to my life, as if I’m so easily pigeonholed or whatever. I get that Mr. Moody was trying to make a point, but I can’t stand people who try to make points. It’s so arrogant, thinking you have some sort of point and that it can apply to anyone other than yourself, as if everyone is the same fucking person or something. It drives me crazy. Mr. Moody may have a degree in Child Psychology hanging on his office wall, but that doesn’t make him an expert on my soul or whatever, not that I believe in souls, but you know what I mean. I'm agnostic, if you want to know the truth.

So, there I was, in the little waiting room right outside Mr. Moody’s office, picking at the acne on my face, which I was quite self-conscious about, leaning back on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs with the metal legs, heavy canvas messenger bag weighing down one shoulder because I hadn’t bothered to take it off, thumbing through pages of Catcher, not being able to focus on hardly anything because I hadn't taken my pill that morning, my messy head real close to the white brick wall behind me, right by the poster with the school motto, TEMPUS FUGIT HABENAS TENE, with the armored knight on horseback holding his skyward sword with one hand and the horse’s reins with the other, when Mr. Moody’s office door cracked open and his tan face poked through. He had short, brown, curly hair that kinda reminded me of pubes.

“Come on in, Nathan, time’s a-wastin’,” he said. He had a northern accent but was always affecting some goofy southern one. I guess he thought if he acted goofy he’d get students to drop their guards or whatever, and he carried that philosophy into his clothing too, because he was always wearing this brown tweed jacket with goofy, thematic ties underneath. Today his tie had little sunglasses all over it. I guess he thought it made him seem silly and relatable, but to me, it just made him look stupid as fuck, and the pube hair certainly didn't help his case.

Pushing my weight forward, the chair landing on all four legs, I stood up, put the book down, and tucked in my Epworth Academy polo because I knew Mr. Moody would make some silly remark if I hadn’t, and I didn’t want to deal with all that right now. Then I picked the book up and stepped through the wide open door, into the sunlit world of student counseling, where I sank into the plushy recliner, leaned back, and crossed my arms like I always do when I don’t want to be somewhere, meaning I was pretty much crossing my arms all the fucking time.

There was only one window in the whole room, overlooking the bright green campus lawn, where students were reading and picnicking in the shade of the massive live oaks, their branches twisted like skeletal limbs reaching out from the grave, Spanish moss like death shrouds or something, and there were some boys kicking soccer balls around, their green Epworths all tucked into their brown khakis like gold star for robot boy, and some girls were spectating nearby, wearing green skirts that stopped just above their knees, because the Epworth uniform was modest, but not that modest.

The walls of Mr. Moody’s office were covered in posters like YOU MATTER and DRUGS DON'T WORK THEY JUST MAKE IT WORSE and EVERY MISTAKE IS A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY, and there was even one with Freddie Mercury from the band Queen standing on stage in that iconic yellow jacket of his with the words BE YOURSELF NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY in big font just above him, which I guess was Mr. Moody’s way of trying to be hip, but it was also ironic, considering the school tried its damndest to make everyone look exactly the same, what with the uniforms and all. Besides, I was more into obscure stuff, like The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, Lush, The Strokes, Pavement, Beck, you know, music that's actually good, not that corny “We Are the Champions” shit, which, needless to say, always played at the school pep rallies and drove me fucking crazy.

On Mr. Moody’s desk, around the black panel monitor of the Dell-Inspirawhatever computer, whose tower served as a makeshift stand for the monitor itself, was a mess of papers, pens, and folders all spread out in some sort of system that only he could understand. The desk itself was large, dark wood, and the edges were lined with bobbleheads ranging from baseball players like Babe Ruth and some other guys I would never be able to name because sports are lame as fuck, and there were Star Wars characters too, like Yoda and Luke, all perpetually bobbling somehow, as if they had minds of their own, maybe they were motorized, I don’t know, either way, they were kinda creepy. There was even one of Kramer from Seinfeld, a show I actually liked but would never tell Mr. Moody that because, fuck that, we have nothing in common.

Mr. Moody and I sat there in awkward silence for what felt like a whole minute. At least it was awkward for me because, to tell you the truth, I was a little socially awkward back then. I wouldn’t say I was shy, per se, but I preferred to be quiet because I figured silence and a scowl were better than making myself look like a stupid dumbass. Mr. Moody, however, didn’t seem awkward at all, shuffling papers around on his desk, occasionally holding them up to his face like he was reading them or something, which I suspected was just some sort of clever contrivance to make himself appear busier than he actually was, maybe to prompt me to speak first. He was always trying to get me to speak first, like he was expecting me to just pour my heart out to him every Friday afternoon during free period when I had like a million better things to do, like listening to music or sneaking a smoke in the grove behind the Harrington building. Anyway, in the weird silence, I started losing focus, thinking these sessions were kinda like Street Fighter, a weird verbal game of Street Fighter, waiting for someone to strike first, to exploit an opening for a perfectly timed Dragon Punch or whatever, which I used to do all the time back at the arcade in the old mall on the mainland, which I had stopped going to because it just wasn’t that fun anymore, and most of the mallcore kids were assholes that would always get mad at me because, well, I would win all the fights, because I would never make the first move. I was stubborn as hell like that. And, to tell you the truth, I preferred Japanese role-playing games anyway, like Chrono Cross.

Anyway. In the silence, I started thinking about Chrono Cross and its incredible soundtrack and how I wanted to go home, pop an Adderall, and play it, but then, to my surprise, Mr. Moody made the first move.

“So, Nathan, it’s been a few weeks, how’d you like the novel?” he said in that low, nonchalant voice of his.

It took me a second to respond. “It’s alright.”

“Just alright?”

I made one of those verbal shrug noises.

“Surely there’s at least one thing you liked about the book, Nathan.” He was always saying my name like that. I figured it was some sort of conversational engagement trick he had read in a self-help book or something.

“Well,” I said, “to tell you the truth,” I paused, “I didn’t really read it.”

Mr. Moody said nothing for a moment. He just straightened himself out in that big leather chair of his, bushy brow straightening a little bit too, which was his way of trying to look serious, although the pubic hairs made it hard for me to ever take him seriously.

“You know, Nathan,” he paused to adjust his tie, “I should have expected that, considering the themes of the novel and all.”

“Well, I know about the book. I read the summary online.”

“Then you know the point I’m trying to make.”

“I guess,” I said, kinda annoyed.

And Mr. Moody must have caught on to my attitude because he quickly replied with, “It seems like you have some thoughts about that.”

“Sure,” was what I said, and all I wanted to say, because I didn’t want to get into it with the guy.

“Tell me about those thoughts, Nathan.”

“Well,” I said, shifting my gaze to the dark berber carpet below, “I guess I just, like, don’t appreciate it,” I paused, “or whatever.”

“What do you not appreciate, Nathan?”

“The whole, like, I’m-making-a-point thing,” I said, looking everywhere except him, “feels kinda condescending, you know.”

“How is it condescending, Nathan?”

“Well, like, it’s kinda ridiculous to think that a character from a book could ever relate to me, since I’m, like, not a character in a book, you know?”

“Interesting. Tell me more about that.”

“The whole idea of making a point, to me, seems really arrogant,” I said, “like, the idea that you know best, and that you can make these really solid, profound points, and that they could ever relate to anyone except yourself. Sometimes I think people just want to, like, hear themselves talk and get pats on the back for making really good points. It just seems, like, really smug and, like, egotistical, and, you know, sort of assholish.”

Mr. Moody didn’t even get onto me for cursing. In fact, his tan face sort of lit up.

“Everyone is different and, like, really, our experiences are kinda subjective, so I just don’t like the whole making-a-point thing. That’s all. I think only stupid people make points, stupid people who are full of themselves and cocky and think they know best. When, really, ‘best’ is going to be different from person to person. So, yeah, I guess I don’t appreciate the point, or any point, really.”

Mr. Moody seemed to be mulling this over, twirling a pen between his fingers, and in this brief pause, I ran my hand through my bangs, tossing my hair to one side, mostly because it was getting in my eyes, but also because I thought it looked cool, and, in that moment, I was feeling cool, since I had made such a good argument.

Then, like some sort of debate champion, Mr. Moody said something that got on my nerves. He said, “That’s a really good point, Nathan.”

I wasn’t feeling so cool anymore. In fact, my face was very hot, so I looked down at my good friend, the carpet, and said, “That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, I wasn’t making a point. I was just, you know, stating my opinion.”

“What is a point if not an opinion that one backs strongly?” he said, sounding all smart and stuff.

I was kinda telling the guy to fuck off in my head, to tell you the truth. I was always cursing at people in my head but never saying it out loud, mostly because I didn’t want to get in trouble.

“I’m not trying to mock you, Nathan,” he said, affecting some bullshit wise gentle tone. “I do think you’re on to something, and I think you should think about it more, develop it into something full and cogent,” he paused and looked right at me, “maybe write an essay on it. I know you like to write. It could be extra credit.” He was always trying to give me extra credit, it was pissing me right the fuck off.

“I’m not writing an essay,” I said, “and I’m not making a point.”

Mr. Moody let out a soft chuckle, then said, “OK, OK, Nathan. You’re not making a point. I do think you should think about it more, though. I have some books here about Zen Buddhism that I think you would get a lot out of.”

“I’m not reading a book about Buddhism,” I said, trying to hide my frustration behind a blank face and a cool hair-swoop. Then, almost out of nowhere, I went off.

“Maybe this sort of point-making stuff might work on other kids, but not on me, because, like, I’m not like the other kids. If I were, I’d have one of those short haircuts all gelled up in the front, and I’d be on the Knights soccer team, and I’d tuck in my polo even outside of class, and I’d act like some fine upstanding young man in front of all the teachers but get wasted at keggers every night on the Island and I’d drive home drunk and I’d run for student president and be all conservative but get cheerleaders pregnant and then force them to have abortions, like that idiot Mackenzie. Those are the type of kids you don’t want growing up in society, the politician types, the posers who say one thing but do something totally different. Man, if I ever end up like Mackenzie, just kill me, you have permission to just shoot me right in the head. I wouldn’t even be mad. In fact, I might even thank you, from the grave, for sparing the world from such a moron.” I paused, starting to regret some of the things I had said, but I mumbled one last thing before I was done, “Hell, you may even prevent a war by doing that, who knows.”

The silence, at that point, wasn’t awkward, it was scary. Mr. Moody’s narrow brown eyes were narrower than I had ever seen them before. I felt like maybe I was about to get in trouble or something, but, after a few seconds, Mr. Moody just brushed at the lapel of his tweed jacket, ran a hand through his curly pubes, and smiled. Then he said, in a tone that was totally nonchalant, “I really wish you would read the book, Nathan.”

“I’m not reading the book.”

“Well, at least hang on to it for me, will you do that?”

I vocalized a shrug, then, feeling a little less worried due to Mr. Moody’s almost dismissive response to my rant, I glanced down at my watch, one of those old digital Casios, to check the time. It was about twenty minutes till fifth period, Fine Arts.

“I’ll let you go, Nathan, but will you hang on to the book for me,” he said in an earnest voice, “will you do that for me?”

There was a moment of tense silence before I finally said, “Yeah, sure,” then I stood up and adjusted my messenger bag because the strap was cutting into my neck, then I lifted the flap and dropped Catcher right into it.

Mr. Moody’s eyes lit up a little bit, then he nodded, stood up, and walked to the door, opening it for me, hand outstretched as if granting me passage or something. “Thanks, Nathan. You’re a good kid. Think about maybe writing that essay, will ya?” He was doing that southern thing again. “And you have a good rest of your day, ya hear?”

“Yeah, you too,” I said dismissively, walking through the door, into the waiting area, out into the second-floor main hall near the big stairwell with the huge window, into a cacophony of chatter and squeaky linoleum, students walking all around me, making their way to their next class, and one of them was Mackenzie, tall, blonde, built like a professional footballer. He looked kinda like Ashton Kutcher from That ’70s Show, if I had to choose someone to compare him to. And he must have been in a hurry because he was walking all in a huff toward the stairwell, but he didn’t quite make it there because Mr. Moody, who had followed behind me, shouted, “Mr. Harrington!” And this got Mackenzie’s attention, causing him to turn around and look right at me. The two of us didn’t really see eye to eye, except when we were glaring at each other. Then, upon seeing Mr. Moody behind me, Mackenzie quickly adjusted his demeanor to that of a fine upstanding young man, pushed some of the fluff of his polo into the waist of his khakis, and walked toward Mr. Moody, passing me along the way, and as he passed, he quietly said, “Wheeler,” so I said, “Ashton,” and then he sorta sneered at me, so I of course sneered right back, twice as hard, nearly baring fangs.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Mackenzie pass through the door into the office, and, in that moment, something turned in my stomach, suddenly remembering that I had said some pretty juicy stuff about the guy just moments earlier, and I thought maybe that was why he was being called into the office, so naturally I had to get the fuck out of there, before Mackenzie got out of that office, for my own good.

So I pretended like I was a ghost and disappeared down the stairwell. But before heading to Fine Arts, which was out in the Harrington Building, I had to take a detour.

I had to have my Lucky break.