David vs. Goliath (alternate ending)

I'm walking down the hallways of Mitchell Senior High School. I'm fifteen and a sophomore. In two more years I graduate and discover that who you are in High School is not who you are in the real world. No one tells me this. People tell me school is my career. People ask me what I'm going to do when I graduate. I tell them I am fifteen years old and not responsible enough to make a decision that will affect the rest of my life. People ask me if I'm going to college and I tell them I want to own my own gas station. They scoff at me. I tell them there's lots of money in gas. I take a careers class and a policeman comes in to talk to us. Before he arrives, the teacher, a man who looks a little like Martin Short with braces, tells us not to ask him if he's ever shot or killed anyone. I draw a picture of a black hole in my notebook and wonder what my girlfriend is doing in another class. I write down a list of my favorite bands. I try to teach myself drums by staring at a picture of a drum kit. I imagine the noises that come off each piece and try to put a few beats together. When I find one I like I write the combination down in my notebook. The girl next to me asks if I know how to write music. I tell her I do but it's not your standard stuff.

The bell rings and I'm back in the hallway and I'm walking along and I’m wondering if graduating feels like one long weekend. I’m wonder if having a nine to five is better than having an academic eight to three. I arrive in my basic grammar class, led by a woman who will later date a student a year my junior. I take my seat towards the back of the room and begin writing a letter to a friend of mine. Instead of composing it as myself, however, I decide to speak from the perspective of a female desperate for his affection but too shy to introduce herself. I sign no name, ending it only with, "Yours Truly". In the letter I tell him that I watch him wherever he goes. I tell him I follow him. I tell him I've loved him for a very long time. Later on I will slip it in his locker and he will become worried and nervous. I will continue to write a letter, three to four times a week, for approximately six months before I finally get bored with my assumed identity and tell him I was just playing a practical joke. He will find it less amusing than I do. His girlfriend will look at me with downcast eyes and I will think she is angry with me. Later on, perhaps a year post, the two of us will date after I help to mess things up between them.

The kid sitting behind me is named Matt. He is a football player and doesn't really understand grammar, whether it be writing it down or speaking it. He leans forward and tells me that he heard I was in a band. I tell him yes. He asks me what we're called and I don't want to say because it doesn't matter; he will find a way to humiliate and embarrass me. He thinks of several clever names, asking each time if this is our name or if that is our name. I tell him no. I tell him to leave it alone. I tell him I’m trying to do my work (write my bi-daily letter) when he asks if we’re called The Fags. I turn in my seat and I call him a dick. I don't whisper it. I say it loud and proud like a newly discovered proclamation for all to hear. The teacher, the milf, the hand that rocks the cradle, she asks me what it was I just said and I say, "I was just letting Matt here know that he's a dick. He is, after all, a dick". She asks me if I want to go to the principle's office and in the cheeriest voice I can muster, I sing,,"Do I?" before grabbing my bag and exiting the classroom.

In the office I tell the receptionist that I've been sent here to be punished. She tells me to sit down and I wonder how you really begin to discipline a child who doesn't care about grades? The answer, as it turns out, is that you put him in Saturday School, The Breakfast Club, Weekend Detention. You arrive at 8:15 on Saturday and you stare at a wall until 3:00. In prison this is called solitary confinement. No one learns any lessons; every Saturday I am there with the same kids. I suggest using shock therapy instead but they don't listen.

It is a Monday and I'm sitting in Study Hall. I've missed lunch because I had to run some errands but managed to purchase a cream cheese danish while I was out. I pull it out of my bag, open it up and begin eating it towards the back of the class. The Study Hall teacher (academic requirements to get that job?) asks me what I'm doing. I look up from my History book and tell her, with my full mouth, that I'm doing my History homework. She asks what's in my hand and I tell her a cream cheese danish. She asks me to come up to the front and throw it away. I tell her I missed lunch and am hungry. She points to the garbage can and I stand up, shove the treat in my mouth, approach her desk and drop the wrapper in the wastebasket. "There ya go," I say, “happy?” Walking back to my desk I pass this kid, Eddie, who chuckles and says to me, "cream cheese danish......". Eddie will later get into a catastrophic car accident and nearly die. The driver of the car, another boy in my study hall, a boy named Adam, does die.

I enter into my Science class and the room is mostly empty save for a few seats. The teacher isn't in yet and I plop down next to a girl named Cassie towards, as was my M.O., the back of class. A tall girl named Serena is sitting at the table next to me. She turns and says something about my pants. She insults my khakis. I ask her to be quiet. I punctuate my request by calling her a whore. This, I will soon learn, was a terminal mistake. She stares at me with her big blue eyes and it’s then that I notice her pierced nose. While I think it looks nice on her I don’t say so. Cassie turns and stares at me, her lips slightly parted, her tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth. The kid next to Serena, maybe his name is Jeremy, closes his eyes and shakes his head, resting it in his hands. Serena looks around, clears her throat and asks me what it was, exactly, I’d just said. She doesn’t seem to be asking me to clarify but almost daring me to speak it again. Looking back, perhaps she was giving me a second chance. Perhaps she was giving me a moment of mercy. Had I known better I would have said, "oh, nothing. I didn't say anything. I apologize for what you think I might have said. You have a very beautiful name and I like your pierced nose". But instead I went for brevity and stated matter-of-factly, "I called you a whore. Get it through your head".

She nods slowly, allowing the word to sink in before smiling and letting me know that I would soon be meeting certain doom. I thought maybe she was going to slap me or knock my books out of my hand or throw chocolate pudding at me in the cafeteria but as it turn outs, what she really meant was, "I'm going to tell my older brother what you said. He's a senior. He plays football. He lets people punch him in the face for money. When he finds you he's going to twist your head off and punt it across the parking lot".

The teacher, a man who looks like Droopy Dog, steps out of the storage closet. People say he goes in there to drink from his flask. People say he smells like alcohol. What do I care? At least he's not the driving instructor.

Class is over and I go to Basic Math. This is the class for the kids who don’t quite click with numbers. There aren’t many students here; maybe half that of your standard gathering. It's filled with kids you wished you weren't in class with because you know that being here makes you some sort of "special". I’m sitting up front with a perfect view of the hallway (it's hard to sit in the back of the class in a classroom FILLED with Back-Of-The-Class-Kids). Whenever somebody walks by and peers inside, I feel like a chimp at the zoo. “Look at the dumb kids, mommy! That one has a funny haircut!” They see us practicing how to fill out our fake plastic checkbooks and I want to jump up and say, "HEY! I know how to fill out a stupid checkbook! I didn't sign up for this dumb class! I UNDERSTAND basic math!" I would pause then, for dramatic effect before getting a little teary eyed and saying, "I just......don't get.....all the algorithms and angles and how to incorporate letters into my mathematical equations. I GET A's IN CREATIVE WRITING! I GET B's IN GRAMMAR! I'M SMART! I'M SMART!”

I’m just finishing up my I’m Smart Speech for the third time in fifteen minutes when a boxy blonde kid walks past. He's about seven feet tall, takes up half the hallway and has no distinguishable neck. The tops of his thighs rub against one another and his arms stick out at odd angles due to his massive biceps that don't allow for them to lie straight against his colossal pectorals. We suddenly make visual contact and something behind his blue eyes clicks. He stops and stares at me. I turn around and look at the kid behind me, wondering if I'm in the middle of some sort of telepathic conversation. No. Everyone in the classroom is special, but not telepathic special. We might be fire starters but we're not Firestarters.

I turn back to The Albino Skinned Hulk and point at myself. "Me?" I whisper and he smiles but it's not kind. It's the sort of smile a Doberman Pincher gives right before being released on a community of unsuspecting guinea pigs. His lips peel back and he says, "You're dead. I’m going to kill you". And then I'm looking at him and recognizing those blue eyes and that blond hair and the height. I'm recognizing facial structures and skin tone. I'm seeing Serena's older brother and now the joke is on me. I AM dead. The boy's name is Dustin. He opens his mouth again and says, "when you leave this classroom, when I see you in the hallway, I'm gonna kick your ass," and to me, this is bad news. This is David and Goliath except I don't get a slingshot. I just get my weak wristed slaps that won't make it much higher than his rippled chest. I'm already hearing myself screaming for mercy in my head. I'm hoping that when his fist meets my face that my teeth fall out (which would leave them in one piece and completely replaceable) versus just shattering into a hundred million shards, lodging chunks of ivory in the back of my throat. When he snaps my arm over his knee I just hope that I don't cry. I know there will be a crowd. I know there will be witnesses and God, PLEASE, don't let me cry.

I sit in my desk and watch the clock and will it to slow down. I want to stay here forever. I want to practice my checkbook writing skills for eternity. Here's a check for my teacher. It's for a thousand dollars and the memo says, "for sneaking me out of school under guise of a blanket". Here's another one. It's for Dustin. It's written for one million dollars. The memo reads, "for not making me piss my pants in front of my friends". One final check before the clock hits 3:15. This one is to Doc Brown (from Back to the Future). It's for $750,000. The memo reads, "to build me a time machine so I can go back and tell Serena that she has a perfect smile and that I am just an ill disciplined child with no brain to mouth filter".

I try to cash the checks but the teacher tells me I can't write a check for a million dollars because I don't have it in the bank. I tell him it's okay. I tell him it can bounce. I tell him I just need the money right now. I'll find a way to pay it back later. He tells me to go home. I pack my bag as slow as I can. The classroom is empty and the halls are vacated. I move silently past the lockers. I skip mine altogether, not bothering to drop anything off. If I can just sneak out of the school, if I can just get through the parking lot, if I can just get across the street, I should be okay. For some reason I felt as though, if I got away today, this would all be done and over with tomorrow. Dustin would have had time to think it over. Serena would have forgiven me. All would be well. Things could go back to how they were two hours ago when I was a loser in a Marilyn Manson t-shirt and nobody really cared.

I'm outside and I'm halfway across the parking lot. My foot lands on the first of two speed bumps and I'm pretty sure I'm free. My friends are only a few short yards away and the street is just past them. I'm so close. And now I look up and now I see Dustin and now he is suddenly only three or four feet in front of me and towering twenty feet above me and he sees me and he doesn't stop to talk. He slams his body, full force, into mine and I stumble backwards and drop my bag and my books and I squat down to pick them up and he tells me not to and I stand up straight. Like some rabid bull moose he takes three hard steps and again rams his cinder block body into mine and I remember my mom saying that if you hit a cow with your car it can be like hitting a brick wall. He asks me why I thought I'd call his little sister a whore and I try to explain. I try to tell him what she said about my khakis and it sounds stupid and pathetic and he doesn't let me finish. In fact, he barely let's me begin. He slams into me again and now my throat is tightening up and my mouth is going dry and I'm sure I'm going to cry. He asks me if I want him to "kick my ass" and I quickly shake my head “no”. I don’t look him in the eyes because I remember hearing on TV that animals see that as a sign of aggression. What are you supposed to do if you're attacked by a bear? Just lay on the ground, limp? I think about buckling my knees and dropping to the concrete. He tells me that "this is what we're gonna do". He tells me that tomorrow when I go to class I'm gonna go up to Serena's desk and get down on my knees and I'm going to apologize to her. "Yeah". I nod my head. "Yeah, yeah, I'll do that". He tells me that if he ever hears any BS like this again, he's going to break me. I nod and he swings his automobile sized fist into one of my shoulders and I think for a moment that he has displaced my rotator cuff. I bend down and pick up my papers and start walking home. Once I'm out of reach of the watchful crowd I begin to cry.

The next day I'm rushing to the Science classroom, hoping that Serena is the first one there and that I am the second. I'm hoping that it is just the two of us and that no one else sees or hears what I have to do. I'm debating if Dustin was being literal or figurative with the "get on your knees" part. I try to weigh the pros and cons of following the directions to a tee. I enter and it is just Serena..........and Jeremy and Cassie and two other people, all of them talking. I don't ask for their attention. I don't think about what I'm doing. I don't wait to second guess myself. I walk up to Serena, I drop to both my knees and she smiles and I am embarrassed. I tell her that I am sorry for calling her what I did. I tell her I won't do it again. She says, "that's fine" and I stand up and go to my desk, glad that I'm just the loser everyone can ignore again. A few people laugh.

The following Saturday I find myself attending The Breakfast Club (again) for my collected tardies. I'm staring at my wall and I'm wondering why I end up here every weekend. I'm wondering why I can't seem to get to class on time. I'm wondering why I never learn my lesson. I'm wondering what would happen if the school sent their head quarterback after me and told me to stop being late for school or he'd "break me". I wonder if I'd listen.

I think I probably would.