Sequel: Loosen Your Ties (Incomplete) Book 2 ›
Status: Complete, but being edited.
Straighten Your Ties / Book 1
Edge
Wake up I’m calling you
Get up they’re mocking you!
I thought that you were the ones who would make it all on your own
-Eye Alaska – I Knew You’d Never Fly
I don’t know what happened to me during all those months. I sort of wasn’t myself. I didn’t have anything to look forward to or even really do. I just lived and didn’t care. I’d come to school crabby that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I’d yell at people at lunch or whack people with binders if they got in my way. Everyone still laughed at me. I still hated it. I ignored Miss Evans and didn’t talk to her at all. Not even Spider-Man 3 got me excited. I was writing more disturbing stories than ever. I started blogging my pissed off thoughts more and more, and then less and less. I forgot about the blog for a while. Life was total shit. I didn’t think much of anyone or anything. I didn’t care about anything at all. Ever. I even stopped talking to Greg every day. At the end of the day, I’d lock myself in my room, do my homework, and just sit in my office chair doing nothing. It sounds totally unrealistic to be sad and depressed for nearly four months, but it hit me in waves. This wasn’t all at once.
My birthday prolonged the depression. I was happy for a few weeks, up until I had to write an analysis on Julius Caesar. I could care less about English during that time too. Just my own writing. I still got hundreds on my creative writing assignments. Those sort of things got happy for a few days. March break was good too. I spent two weeks in Italy, and I forgot about my life back home. Sure, I had gone on the school trip with Mme. O-C, but I had Jason and Cole to take my mind off things. I liked that. We stayed up every night just talking about the stupidest things. Then it hit me. School was starting again. This was going to kill me.
School was the same old. I hated life more and more because of it. I don’t even know why. I never came to my senses that nothing was happening, but I just felt like I had done wrong. Minerva gave me a worried look every time I passed her. April merely ignored me. I felt like an outcast because I made myself one. I settled down eventually, but it was only until May that more stuff came crashing down.
***
My parents and sister went to Germany for some pet convention that year in May. I was alone with my grandparents living at my house for a whole entire week. I have never hated my grandparents, but I’ve just never seen the point of them staying over at our house other than to cook me and my brother food. Either way, I could easily have just ordered food half the time. That is, only me. My brother couldn’t remember our home phone number, so there was no chance of him even telling the delivery guy over the phone what our address was. The joys of living with an autistic are substantially better than one that can interact with people more normally.
I was in a bad mood all around that week. Just really, all around horrible. I couldn’t sleep, and as a result I was falling asleep in class, and my grandfather didn’t like that I was sleeping in the car on the way to school. I know it’s only a drive down the hill, but honestly, five minutes can do you a lot of good. Then, when I got home, I was constantly being asked things by my grandmother.
“Derrick,” she called up to my room, “Do you want supper yet?” I looked at the clock on the computer screen in front of me, where I was diligently editing a story for English class. It was only five o’clock. I usually ate dinner between eight and nine. I wasn’t hungry at all and wouldn’t be for a good while.
I sighed. “No no. I’ll make myself something later.” I knew how to make a killer grilled cheese. That counted for something, right?
“Are you sure?” She called again. “It’s going to be ready soon.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Eh?” I hate that so many people have hearing aids. I feel bad for them too.
“I’m fine!” I repeated. Louder. Christ.
“OK, well just let me –”
“I hear you!” I was very rude, but just not in the mood to deal with her. When I was downstairs, the two of them were usually sitting on the couch watching TV. Oprah or whatever they could find. Eventually, it looked like it was pointless that they were here. They weren’t doing anything and I wasn’t nine years old anymore. I could take care of myself or even just go over to Greg’s house. My mother constantly worried about my brother though, thinking he’d starve himself. My brother wouldn’t eat breakfast sometimes if he wasn’t told and would even skip lunch too if he didn’t see that it was way past noon. He’d go the whole day without eating, and when my mother asked him what he had eaten for the day he’d try and cover up the fact he hadn’t eaten anything at all.
“What did you eat for breakfast?” She’d ask.
“Ummm… uh… toast.” He’d reply.
I’d interject, “He didn’t eat anything.”
“Did you eat anything?” She would worry more.
“YES!” He would yell. He always yelled.
“No… he didn’t.” I’d insist. My brother was incredibly bad at lying. I was OK at it, but I wasn’t lying in this case. He really hadn’t eaten any meal that day.
And so, my mother still worried that he’d go days without eating for some reason even though he ate a shitload of ice cream and could likely survive on that alone if he had the willpower to. I mean, he didn’t burn any energy by sitting in his computer chair all day on the net. Our family was prone to a fast metabolism though, so none of us were really chubby or fat at all. I was a rake when it came to that aspect of my body.
My grandparents got angry with me for the stupidest of things. On Wednesday, my grandfather said he’d pick me up and then bring me to their apartment in LaSalle as he had to pick something up before going to our house. I sighed when he told me, but it was more of a small annoyance than anything major. He drove up to the stairs that were in front of the Spencer building and waited there. I wasn’t facing their car though and I didn’t seem them pull up. Plus, a bunch of elementary kids were around me, making so much noise that I didn’t notice the sound of the engine.
I kept my gaze locked on the Macdonal building as my brother called out to me with the front door of the sedan open. “DERRICK! DERRICK!” I turned. Were they in such a hurry to scream at me? My brother shut his door as I headed down the small set of steps. Jokingly, I opened my brother’s door and screamed, “MARK!” I laughed and shut his door. I got in the backseat, and there was my grandfather, looking at me.
“What the bloody hell did you do that for?” I thought he was joking, so I just joked back in my usual sarcastic voice.
“He screamed, I screamed back. Bloody hell.”
“Freakin’ kids…” My grandfather is actually where I get a lot of my sarcasm, so honestly, I don’t know why he didn’t get what I had done, and at the same time, I had no idea he was being serious about me yelling at Mark. It was childish behavior and there was nothing much else to it. Plus, this wasn’t something out of the ordinary for me. My parents knew I acted out and joked around like this. My grandparents, not so much.
***
I went into math class the next day expecting a usual test. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. At the time, it was a bunch of geometry. Constructive geometry at that, meaning the use of a compass and ruler. It was a bitch to deal with and was much easier with Miss Evans last year. As I’ve said before, our teacher was a real hard ass. Miss Von Escher lived on the South Shore, so I felt for her when she came in crabby in the morning due to traffic. I had travelled into my parents’ office from the South Shore on ped days years before. The traffic was always hell to deal with.
It was the last period of the three period mornings that Thursday. Everyone was dreading the idea of doing this test. I didn’t like geometry, but I could handle it. Escher sat at her desk looking down at her laptop, her bright blonde hair was down, reaching just halfway down her neck, legs tucked under the bland grey desk of the basement classroom of the Macdonald building, and polished nails going clickity click against the keyboard typing away an email. Before you get any ideas, no. OK? No. That’s over now.
I took my seat and as did Anthony, side by side. I missed Greg in this class. We always loved math class together because it was one of the only classes we had together the whole day. While I was in his homeroom, it just wasn’t the same. Anthony was eyeing me. I saw so from the corner of my eye. Without turning my head, which was resting on my hands on the desk, I asked, “What?”
“How you doing today?” He sank in his chair to my level, with his head now resting on top of his hands. He had known that the past few months had been a whirlwind and some things were only starting to get better. I didn’t bother Greg with it. Greg was not to be bothered with such things. He was actually my last resort. Anthony was annoying at times but was my go-to guy for troubles. I never told him what it was all about, but he never asked either.
“Things are betterrrr.” Holding my r. I lied though. My grandparents were all about making sure I was in bed by nine. I had even told my grandmother that I stayed up much later and my parents let me, but nonetheless, she was in my room every ten minutes making sure I was asleep. I had my laptop turned on and left to the side of my bed though while I pretended to be asleep for her sake. I wanted my parents back.
“Righto. Test-wise?”
That was fucked too. Because I had gone to sleep at nine, I didn’t get much of that done. But I still wasn’t dreading it. This week was “I don’t give a fuck” week. It consists of not giving a fuck towards anything at all and ignoring the bad and trying to see the good. It was going poorly as you could tell. Miss Evans had given me a kind of scornful badgering this morning, which is what made it a bad day. I had been bad-mouthing Von Escher to Greg. And April didn’t take very kindly to that at all. She bitched back, “Derrick,” I averted my eyes from Greg, “I don’t enjoy you talking that way about my friend.” Friend? I didn’t really think that could happen in the real world. Co-workers as friends only happened on sitcoms. All the same, I didn’t retaliate and instead sunk into my chair, immediately feeling like April still had hard feelings towards me.
“I’m good.” Lies as always. Even if I was, I wouldn’t be for long.
Yet it turns out I could do whatever the test asked me to do. I thought that maybe things were going to get better after lunch. I crossed the street between the Macdonald and Spencer and Terrance building. Lunch was actually chicken today, and I for some reason, liked Seguin’s chicken. It was shitty by avian cuisine standards, but I couldn’t complain. Even if I did, they would ignore me like always.
I headed up the stairs and punched in the code for the lock on the door. I stepped inside from the already warming nearly summer weather outside into the humid still-on-winter-mode conditioned Terrance building. I turned to my locker and started screwing with the lock, testing myself with the combo. I opened it with no problem. Things were indeed going my way.
Everything seemed so easy now.
David strolled up to me, “Did you just have Escher’s test?”
I shut my locker with my books in my hands. “Shit.” I was too lazy to open it again to put them back in. “Yeah, it wasn’t so bad.” Jason came up from behind David then.
“OH my god Dave!” He said in a loud Jappy voice. “Take a chill pill. It’s not like you’re gonna fail.”
“Hahaha!” I laughed, “Dave’s definition of failure is a ninety.”
Dave comically laughed back loudly, “SHUT IT.”
“No but seriously, dude,” I said with all honesty, “You’ll do just fine. It’s like last year’s geometry.”
“Poon.” Jason always had to be the one who was random. He then punched my arm to amplify his poon-shout. I shrieked. That dude had way too much weight behind him.
“HEY!” We all froze. A grade eleven said from across the hallway. “COULD YOU BE QUIET?” I didn’t get it. We didn’t even seem that loud.
“Yo, G, cool it.” His classmate next to him said, putting an arm on his shoulder.
“Yeah, G, how bout you just screw off?” I retorted back. “SHUT UP…” I imitated him then.
“What did you say?” The dude must’ve been deaf.
“I said shut up!” I imitated him again.
He stomped towards me. Jason and Dave moved out of the way. It all happened so fast. His hand was around my neck, and I instinctively dropped my binder as my hand stretched out all ways, my fingers all fucked up. I couldn’t turn my head, and I didn’t even notice that my feet were off the ground at the time. I my head and body was bashed against the locker. My neck arched up, making my vision unable to see his eyes, and merely his dark hair that was standing up in all directions. I tried to keep my cool and stay on edge. My body refused to comply. My teeth clenched. My throat closed up and I couldn’t breathe. Then he started yelling.
“My name is Greiche.” Wait a second… Like Greiche and Scaff? It was a company in Quebec that was basically like the Quebecois Lenscrafters. “Don’t you fucking dare cross me, you fucking little prick. I will kill you next time you do. Got that?”
“Yeah…” I wheezed out.
“You think you’re all that?” He tried to catch my eyesight, but I was frozen. “You’re not. You’re an insignificant nothing, you fuck!” He then repeated himself. “Do NOT fuck with me. Next time, I will have your head.” And with a flick of the wrist, I was sent flying into the garbage bin next to my locker. My hip knocked against the aluminum siding and my vision went hazy for a second. I was lying against the ground crying. What the fuck had just happened. Jason and Dave rushed over. George Greiche was gone when I saw them looking down on me. Jason went to one knee. “Are you okay, Der?”
“Fuck…” I wiped a tear from my eye. I felt queasy. And my head was incredibly drained. I swayed from side to side as I sat there. People in the hallway went about their normal business. A few stared and looked shocked, but only Jason and Dave were around me. The rest acted as if this was all a normality and ignored. For a split second, I thought I was at a public school. “I’m just…” winded. But I winced as I noticed that my hip hurt like hell, and so did the side of my head. “How long was that whole thing?” It felt like I was off the ground for an hour.
“A minute or so,” Jason took a look at my head, which my hand was rubbing. “We should get some help.”
I shook my head. “Fuck that.” I winced again. I shouldn’t have shaken my head….
My luck was bad. Escher strolled in the door behind me and noticed the heap of a mess that was me. She turned. “Derrick?”
“Miss,” Dave was already tending to her curiosity. “Derrick was just –”
“I was just pushed into the trash can by George Greiche.” I interrupted. “It’s no big deal.” I didn’t want to make it a big thing. My parents were out of town, and my grandparents couldn’t deal with this kind of thing on their own.
“What?!” She exclaimed. David gave me a look saying You should tell her everything. “GREICHE!” He was only down the hall. “GET BACK HERE.” From where I sat, I couldn’t see him, but I heard his shoes clink down the corridor towards us. Fuck. Don’t call him back!
I scrambled to my feet with Dave’s hand pulling me up, and Jason’s hand on my shoulder to steady me. Greiche dragged his body and untucked attire towards Escher, who stood there glaring with her arms crossed. “Miss –”
“Just tell me what you did.” She said coldly.
Greiche remained calm and avoided my stare. He just looked blankly at Escher. Not saying a word.
“Tell me.”
“He and his friends were being loud and I couldn’t hear my friend next to me even. I kept saying ‘what?’ to him over and over again. And I was getting really mad about it. So I told them to be quiet.” He wasn’t going to tell the whole story.
“He did push him against the locker.” Dave interjected. Damn, I didn’t want to complicate things further.
Escher faced Greiche, “Is that true?”
“I couldn’t –”
“No, you know what…. Forget it! I don’t know who’s in the wrong here, but this will be reported. Go to lunch, boys. We will be getting to the bottom of this. Derrick, are you all right?” I nodded, still shaken. “OK. Gentlemen…” And she walked off. So did Greiche.
I stood there for a moment before realizing that I was incredibly light-headed. “Oy…”
“Sit down.” Jason lightly pushed me down and I began to slide down against the locker I had just been pushed into moments before. My ass touched the cold floor, settling there while Dave and Jason kneeled by my side. “We’ll defend you, you know.”
“Yeah man, we will.” Dave nodded alongside Jason, “That was BS. You shouldn’t be in trouble for what he did.”
“Uh, thanks.” We sat there throughout lunch and said nothing more, watching teachers and students pass by with urgency, hurrying to the lunch line or their office, and not stopping to look at us. I didn’t budge till it was five minutes before class. Just when things get so good, they go to the shits. It would always be like this.
I sat in English class with Greg by my side. I didn’t speak to him. He kept his silence too, perhaps sensing something was up. I kept my head nestled in my hands until Caldwell walked into the classroom fuming at a breaking point.
“SHUT IT AND SIT DOWN!” He yelled. I jostled up from my seat. He walked to the back of the room as everyone fell silent. Our mouths were closed shut, not even twitching the slightest bit. Periods like this really sucked. I could tell this wasn’t going to be a good one. Caldwell didn’t go to sit in his chair as usual. Instead, he stood up at the back of the class, leaning on the counter that lined the back wall with worksheet and stray essays lying across it. He looked down at his feet.
“I hate hearing crap like this from you guys. I think it’s ludicrous that I even have to talk about this with you. You boys are better than this.” He breathed in a heavy sigh, closing his eyes. I thought he might have started talking about my current situation due to my selfless ways. “Earlier this week, when you all went to McGill for French class,” which is a boring field trip that isn’t worth mentioning except for the reason Caldwell would soon describe, “I heard people had been bugging a boy in grade seven. Jamie was teased and bugged on the bus back to school, I hear, saying that he was a dweeb and that he had no dick.” No one chuckled. “He proceeded to threaten the people involved that he was going kill them. What I hate about this is that someone drove him to that point. Boys, at the moment, Jamie is in Ms. Mullins office being given a stern talking to. Several students and parents have been calling up Ms. Mullins since Monday night about this, saying that he also said he was going to get his dad’s gun and come into school, and kill. I don’t even know the whole story. I don’t want to know, boys.” That made us all remain quiet, for I bet that several people would speak up if they had the chance.
“Now I know it’s not right to threaten anyone in any circumstance at all. But I’m sick and tired of people doing this. The school tries to get through to you all that bullying like this cannot be tolerated and that we don’t allow it. Do you boys just learn nothing? Is it in one ear and out the other? Some parents think this is a safer place because you all need to pay to get in these desks. You boys take advantage of this place so much. I hope you could just make it the place that some parents want it to be. Christ…
“I’m not taking this issue lightly. With the Dawson shootings this year, people are all up in arms about school shootings and are ready to pull the trigger, so to speak, on any little threat. It’s ridiculous. Joking about this is disgusting. It’s sad to think that some people in this world will be driven to the point of destruction as what we saw earlier in the year.” Back in September, Dawson College had a school-shooting incident that sent Montreal into a whirl of worry. Not to mention that the CEGEP was just down the street from us. One student was killed, several more injured. “And you know what? The sad thing is that it could’ve happened here. The same thing that happened just down the street from us could’ve so easily happened again in those very hallways.” He pointed to the door, but all our eyes remained on the floor or on him. “What if Jamie’s dad had a gun? What if he had come in the next day with a gun in his hand, killing the jackasses that put him through the hell in his mind? It’s a plausible circumstance. A disheartening one, but very possible. Jamie’s not all there in the head. Don’t think us teachers don’t see who’s less accepted by this ‘civil community’ than another. Jamie isn’t all that popular and he’s a bit of a geek, mind you. He’s still a good kid. He gets good grades, he has a few friends. He’s no different than anyone else. He’s just not all there with the world around him. If a fuse is blown within him, all that pent up anger will come rushing out at one point. I’m not just speaking for Jamie, as it could very well be any of you.” He was all gritted teeth now, angry as hell. “I don’t want to hear anymore shit like this. Don’t fuck with what you can’t live up to and stand up against. Karma will bite you square in the ass.” Caldwell walked over and sat down at his desk behind his laptop. “Read Catcher for the rest of the class.”
We all got out our books and read. No one said a word.
***
I woke up early on Friday morning. It was way too early to even consider getting into uniform. My phone at my bedside desk read 5:02am. I had gotten to bed only four hours ago, and couldn’t find sleep once again. At times like these, I always turned to my blog. And I did just that. Words just came flowing out:
I’ve had a bad week between people, a beating, and weapons of mass destruction. I just wish that sometimes we could have a do-over a year. At this point, I don’t know what’ll be happening to me and I don’t know who’s after me. All I know is that I hate life. I have people yelling at me, teasing, and beating me and just glaring at me. I can’t trust myself, my life, and my dignity. Nothing. I’ve got nothing left to do but wait it out. I can pray to a faceless God I don’t believe in, but it’s rather pointless. I can’t go back on what I’ve done or said or have been trying to fix. No one gets it anymore and I’m tired of it. Quite frankly, I’m just glad this week is over. I’m glad. And you know what? Monday will come soon, and everything will be better one Monday. I can only hope. But I wish I could know for sure.
-D
I caught sleep by the tail that night, and anticipated the next day as one that would hopefully be better.
Get up they’re mocking you!
I thought that you were the ones who would make it all on your own
-Eye Alaska – I Knew You’d Never Fly
I don’t know what happened to me during all those months. I sort of wasn’t myself. I didn’t have anything to look forward to or even really do. I just lived and didn’t care. I’d come to school crabby that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I’d yell at people at lunch or whack people with binders if they got in my way. Everyone still laughed at me. I still hated it. I ignored Miss Evans and didn’t talk to her at all. Not even Spider-Man 3 got me excited. I was writing more disturbing stories than ever. I started blogging my pissed off thoughts more and more, and then less and less. I forgot about the blog for a while. Life was total shit. I didn’t think much of anyone or anything. I didn’t care about anything at all. Ever. I even stopped talking to Greg every day. At the end of the day, I’d lock myself in my room, do my homework, and just sit in my office chair doing nothing. It sounds totally unrealistic to be sad and depressed for nearly four months, but it hit me in waves. This wasn’t all at once.
My birthday prolonged the depression. I was happy for a few weeks, up until I had to write an analysis on Julius Caesar. I could care less about English during that time too. Just my own writing. I still got hundreds on my creative writing assignments. Those sort of things got happy for a few days. March break was good too. I spent two weeks in Italy, and I forgot about my life back home. Sure, I had gone on the school trip with Mme. O-C, but I had Jason and Cole to take my mind off things. I liked that. We stayed up every night just talking about the stupidest things. Then it hit me. School was starting again. This was going to kill me.
School was the same old. I hated life more and more because of it. I don’t even know why. I never came to my senses that nothing was happening, but I just felt like I had done wrong. Minerva gave me a worried look every time I passed her. April merely ignored me. I felt like an outcast because I made myself one. I settled down eventually, but it was only until May that more stuff came crashing down.
***
My parents and sister went to Germany for some pet convention that year in May. I was alone with my grandparents living at my house for a whole entire week. I have never hated my grandparents, but I’ve just never seen the point of them staying over at our house other than to cook me and my brother food. Either way, I could easily have just ordered food half the time. That is, only me. My brother couldn’t remember our home phone number, so there was no chance of him even telling the delivery guy over the phone what our address was. The joys of living with an autistic are substantially better than one that can interact with people more normally.
I was in a bad mood all around that week. Just really, all around horrible. I couldn’t sleep, and as a result I was falling asleep in class, and my grandfather didn’t like that I was sleeping in the car on the way to school. I know it’s only a drive down the hill, but honestly, five minutes can do you a lot of good. Then, when I got home, I was constantly being asked things by my grandmother.
“Derrick,” she called up to my room, “Do you want supper yet?” I looked at the clock on the computer screen in front of me, where I was diligently editing a story for English class. It was only five o’clock. I usually ate dinner between eight and nine. I wasn’t hungry at all and wouldn’t be for a good while.
I sighed. “No no. I’ll make myself something later.” I knew how to make a killer grilled cheese. That counted for something, right?
“Are you sure?” She called again. “It’s going to be ready soon.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Eh?” I hate that so many people have hearing aids. I feel bad for them too.
“I’m fine!” I repeated. Louder. Christ.
“OK, well just let me –”
“I hear you!” I was very rude, but just not in the mood to deal with her. When I was downstairs, the two of them were usually sitting on the couch watching TV. Oprah or whatever they could find. Eventually, it looked like it was pointless that they were here. They weren’t doing anything and I wasn’t nine years old anymore. I could take care of myself or even just go over to Greg’s house. My mother constantly worried about my brother though, thinking he’d starve himself. My brother wouldn’t eat breakfast sometimes if he wasn’t told and would even skip lunch too if he didn’t see that it was way past noon. He’d go the whole day without eating, and when my mother asked him what he had eaten for the day he’d try and cover up the fact he hadn’t eaten anything at all.
“What did you eat for breakfast?” She’d ask.
“Ummm… uh… toast.” He’d reply.
I’d interject, “He didn’t eat anything.”
“Did you eat anything?” She would worry more.
“YES!” He would yell. He always yelled.
“No… he didn’t.” I’d insist. My brother was incredibly bad at lying. I was OK at it, but I wasn’t lying in this case. He really hadn’t eaten any meal that day.
And so, my mother still worried that he’d go days without eating for some reason even though he ate a shitload of ice cream and could likely survive on that alone if he had the willpower to. I mean, he didn’t burn any energy by sitting in his computer chair all day on the net. Our family was prone to a fast metabolism though, so none of us were really chubby or fat at all. I was a rake when it came to that aspect of my body.
My grandparents got angry with me for the stupidest of things. On Wednesday, my grandfather said he’d pick me up and then bring me to their apartment in LaSalle as he had to pick something up before going to our house. I sighed when he told me, but it was more of a small annoyance than anything major. He drove up to the stairs that were in front of the Spencer building and waited there. I wasn’t facing their car though and I didn’t seem them pull up. Plus, a bunch of elementary kids were around me, making so much noise that I didn’t notice the sound of the engine.
I kept my gaze locked on the Macdonal building as my brother called out to me with the front door of the sedan open. “DERRICK! DERRICK!” I turned. Were they in such a hurry to scream at me? My brother shut his door as I headed down the small set of steps. Jokingly, I opened my brother’s door and screamed, “MARK!” I laughed and shut his door. I got in the backseat, and there was my grandfather, looking at me.
“What the bloody hell did you do that for?” I thought he was joking, so I just joked back in my usual sarcastic voice.
“He screamed, I screamed back. Bloody hell.”
“Freakin’ kids…” My grandfather is actually where I get a lot of my sarcasm, so honestly, I don’t know why he didn’t get what I had done, and at the same time, I had no idea he was being serious about me yelling at Mark. It was childish behavior and there was nothing much else to it. Plus, this wasn’t something out of the ordinary for me. My parents knew I acted out and joked around like this. My grandparents, not so much.
***
I went into math class the next day expecting a usual test. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. At the time, it was a bunch of geometry. Constructive geometry at that, meaning the use of a compass and ruler. It was a bitch to deal with and was much easier with Miss Evans last year. As I’ve said before, our teacher was a real hard ass. Miss Von Escher lived on the South Shore, so I felt for her when she came in crabby in the morning due to traffic. I had travelled into my parents’ office from the South Shore on ped days years before. The traffic was always hell to deal with.
It was the last period of the three period mornings that Thursday. Everyone was dreading the idea of doing this test. I didn’t like geometry, but I could handle it. Escher sat at her desk looking down at her laptop, her bright blonde hair was down, reaching just halfway down her neck, legs tucked under the bland grey desk of the basement classroom of the Macdonald building, and polished nails going clickity click against the keyboard typing away an email. Before you get any ideas, no. OK? No. That’s over now.
I took my seat and as did Anthony, side by side. I missed Greg in this class. We always loved math class together because it was one of the only classes we had together the whole day. While I was in his homeroom, it just wasn’t the same. Anthony was eyeing me. I saw so from the corner of my eye. Without turning my head, which was resting on my hands on the desk, I asked, “What?”
“How you doing today?” He sank in his chair to my level, with his head now resting on top of his hands. He had known that the past few months had been a whirlwind and some things were only starting to get better. I didn’t bother Greg with it. Greg was not to be bothered with such things. He was actually my last resort. Anthony was annoying at times but was my go-to guy for troubles. I never told him what it was all about, but he never asked either.
“Things are betterrrr.” Holding my r. I lied though. My grandparents were all about making sure I was in bed by nine. I had even told my grandmother that I stayed up much later and my parents let me, but nonetheless, she was in my room every ten minutes making sure I was asleep. I had my laptop turned on and left to the side of my bed though while I pretended to be asleep for her sake. I wanted my parents back.
“Righto. Test-wise?”
That was fucked too. Because I had gone to sleep at nine, I didn’t get much of that done. But I still wasn’t dreading it. This week was “I don’t give a fuck” week. It consists of not giving a fuck towards anything at all and ignoring the bad and trying to see the good. It was going poorly as you could tell. Miss Evans had given me a kind of scornful badgering this morning, which is what made it a bad day. I had been bad-mouthing Von Escher to Greg. And April didn’t take very kindly to that at all. She bitched back, “Derrick,” I averted my eyes from Greg, “I don’t enjoy you talking that way about my friend.” Friend? I didn’t really think that could happen in the real world. Co-workers as friends only happened on sitcoms. All the same, I didn’t retaliate and instead sunk into my chair, immediately feeling like April still had hard feelings towards me.
“I’m good.” Lies as always. Even if I was, I wouldn’t be for long.
Yet it turns out I could do whatever the test asked me to do. I thought that maybe things were going to get better after lunch. I crossed the street between the Macdonald and Spencer and Terrance building. Lunch was actually chicken today, and I for some reason, liked Seguin’s chicken. It was shitty by avian cuisine standards, but I couldn’t complain. Even if I did, they would ignore me like always.
I headed up the stairs and punched in the code for the lock on the door. I stepped inside from the already warming nearly summer weather outside into the humid still-on-winter-mode conditioned Terrance building. I turned to my locker and started screwing with the lock, testing myself with the combo. I opened it with no problem. Things were indeed going my way.
Everything seemed so easy now.
David strolled up to me, “Did you just have Escher’s test?”
I shut my locker with my books in my hands. “Shit.” I was too lazy to open it again to put them back in. “Yeah, it wasn’t so bad.” Jason came up from behind David then.
“OH my god Dave!” He said in a loud Jappy voice. “Take a chill pill. It’s not like you’re gonna fail.”
“Hahaha!” I laughed, “Dave’s definition of failure is a ninety.”
Dave comically laughed back loudly, “SHUT IT.”
“No but seriously, dude,” I said with all honesty, “You’ll do just fine. It’s like last year’s geometry.”
“Poon.” Jason always had to be the one who was random. He then punched my arm to amplify his poon-shout. I shrieked. That dude had way too much weight behind him.
“HEY!” We all froze. A grade eleven said from across the hallway. “COULD YOU BE QUIET?” I didn’t get it. We didn’t even seem that loud.
“Yo, G, cool it.” His classmate next to him said, putting an arm on his shoulder.
“Yeah, G, how bout you just screw off?” I retorted back. “SHUT UP…” I imitated him then.
“What did you say?” The dude must’ve been deaf.
“I said shut up!” I imitated him again.
He stomped towards me. Jason and Dave moved out of the way. It all happened so fast. His hand was around my neck, and I instinctively dropped my binder as my hand stretched out all ways, my fingers all fucked up. I couldn’t turn my head, and I didn’t even notice that my feet were off the ground at the time. I my head and body was bashed against the locker. My neck arched up, making my vision unable to see his eyes, and merely his dark hair that was standing up in all directions. I tried to keep my cool and stay on edge. My body refused to comply. My teeth clenched. My throat closed up and I couldn’t breathe. Then he started yelling.
“My name is Greiche.” Wait a second… Like Greiche and Scaff? It was a company in Quebec that was basically like the Quebecois Lenscrafters. “Don’t you fucking dare cross me, you fucking little prick. I will kill you next time you do. Got that?”
“Yeah…” I wheezed out.
“You think you’re all that?” He tried to catch my eyesight, but I was frozen. “You’re not. You’re an insignificant nothing, you fuck!” He then repeated himself. “Do NOT fuck with me. Next time, I will have your head.” And with a flick of the wrist, I was sent flying into the garbage bin next to my locker. My hip knocked against the aluminum siding and my vision went hazy for a second. I was lying against the ground crying. What the fuck had just happened. Jason and Dave rushed over. George Greiche was gone when I saw them looking down on me. Jason went to one knee. “Are you okay, Der?”
“Fuck…” I wiped a tear from my eye. I felt queasy. And my head was incredibly drained. I swayed from side to side as I sat there. People in the hallway went about their normal business. A few stared and looked shocked, but only Jason and Dave were around me. The rest acted as if this was all a normality and ignored. For a split second, I thought I was at a public school. “I’m just…” winded. But I winced as I noticed that my hip hurt like hell, and so did the side of my head. “How long was that whole thing?” It felt like I was off the ground for an hour.
“A minute or so,” Jason took a look at my head, which my hand was rubbing. “We should get some help.”
I shook my head. “Fuck that.” I winced again. I shouldn’t have shaken my head….
My luck was bad. Escher strolled in the door behind me and noticed the heap of a mess that was me. She turned. “Derrick?”
“Miss,” Dave was already tending to her curiosity. “Derrick was just –”
“I was just pushed into the trash can by George Greiche.” I interrupted. “It’s no big deal.” I didn’t want to make it a big thing. My parents were out of town, and my grandparents couldn’t deal with this kind of thing on their own.
“What?!” She exclaimed. David gave me a look saying You should tell her everything. “GREICHE!” He was only down the hall. “GET BACK HERE.” From where I sat, I couldn’t see him, but I heard his shoes clink down the corridor towards us. Fuck. Don’t call him back!
I scrambled to my feet with Dave’s hand pulling me up, and Jason’s hand on my shoulder to steady me. Greiche dragged his body and untucked attire towards Escher, who stood there glaring with her arms crossed. “Miss –”
“Just tell me what you did.” She said coldly.
Greiche remained calm and avoided my stare. He just looked blankly at Escher. Not saying a word.
“Tell me.”
“He and his friends were being loud and I couldn’t hear my friend next to me even. I kept saying ‘what?’ to him over and over again. And I was getting really mad about it. So I told them to be quiet.” He wasn’t going to tell the whole story.
“He did push him against the locker.” Dave interjected. Damn, I didn’t want to complicate things further.
Escher faced Greiche, “Is that true?”
“I couldn’t –”
“No, you know what…. Forget it! I don’t know who’s in the wrong here, but this will be reported. Go to lunch, boys. We will be getting to the bottom of this. Derrick, are you all right?” I nodded, still shaken. “OK. Gentlemen…” And she walked off. So did Greiche.
I stood there for a moment before realizing that I was incredibly light-headed. “Oy…”
“Sit down.” Jason lightly pushed me down and I began to slide down against the locker I had just been pushed into moments before. My ass touched the cold floor, settling there while Dave and Jason kneeled by my side. “We’ll defend you, you know.”
“Yeah man, we will.” Dave nodded alongside Jason, “That was BS. You shouldn’t be in trouble for what he did.”
“Uh, thanks.” We sat there throughout lunch and said nothing more, watching teachers and students pass by with urgency, hurrying to the lunch line or their office, and not stopping to look at us. I didn’t budge till it was five minutes before class. Just when things get so good, they go to the shits. It would always be like this.
I sat in English class with Greg by my side. I didn’t speak to him. He kept his silence too, perhaps sensing something was up. I kept my head nestled in my hands until Caldwell walked into the classroom fuming at a breaking point.
“SHUT IT AND SIT DOWN!” He yelled. I jostled up from my seat. He walked to the back of the room as everyone fell silent. Our mouths were closed shut, not even twitching the slightest bit. Periods like this really sucked. I could tell this wasn’t going to be a good one. Caldwell didn’t go to sit in his chair as usual. Instead, he stood up at the back of the class, leaning on the counter that lined the back wall with worksheet and stray essays lying across it. He looked down at his feet.
“I hate hearing crap like this from you guys. I think it’s ludicrous that I even have to talk about this with you. You boys are better than this.” He breathed in a heavy sigh, closing his eyes. I thought he might have started talking about my current situation due to my selfless ways. “Earlier this week, when you all went to McGill for French class,” which is a boring field trip that isn’t worth mentioning except for the reason Caldwell would soon describe, “I heard people had been bugging a boy in grade seven. Jamie was teased and bugged on the bus back to school, I hear, saying that he was a dweeb and that he had no dick.” No one chuckled. “He proceeded to threaten the people involved that he was going kill them. What I hate about this is that someone drove him to that point. Boys, at the moment, Jamie is in Ms. Mullins office being given a stern talking to. Several students and parents have been calling up Ms. Mullins since Monday night about this, saying that he also said he was going to get his dad’s gun and come into school, and kill. I don’t even know the whole story. I don’t want to know, boys.” That made us all remain quiet, for I bet that several people would speak up if they had the chance.
“Now I know it’s not right to threaten anyone in any circumstance at all. But I’m sick and tired of people doing this. The school tries to get through to you all that bullying like this cannot be tolerated and that we don’t allow it. Do you boys just learn nothing? Is it in one ear and out the other? Some parents think this is a safer place because you all need to pay to get in these desks. You boys take advantage of this place so much. I hope you could just make it the place that some parents want it to be. Christ…
“I’m not taking this issue lightly. With the Dawson shootings this year, people are all up in arms about school shootings and are ready to pull the trigger, so to speak, on any little threat. It’s ridiculous. Joking about this is disgusting. It’s sad to think that some people in this world will be driven to the point of destruction as what we saw earlier in the year.” Back in September, Dawson College had a school-shooting incident that sent Montreal into a whirl of worry. Not to mention that the CEGEP was just down the street from us. One student was killed, several more injured. “And you know what? The sad thing is that it could’ve happened here. The same thing that happened just down the street from us could’ve so easily happened again in those very hallways.” He pointed to the door, but all our eyes remained on the floor or on him. “What if Jamie’s dad had a gun? What if he had come in the next day with a gun in his hand, killing the jackasses that put him through the hell in his mind? It’s a plausible circumstance. A disheartening one, but very possible. Jamie’s not all there in the head. Don’t think us teachers don’t see who’s less accepted by this ‘civil community’ than another. Jamie isn’t all that popular and he’s a bit of a geek, mind you. He’s still a good kid. He gets good grades, he has a few friends. He’s no different than anyone else. He’s just not all there with the world around him. If a fuse is blown within him, all that pent up anger will come rushing out at one point. I’m not just speaking for Jamie, as it could very well be any of you.” He was all gritted teeth now, angry as hell. “I don’t want to hear anymore shit like this. Don’t fuck with what you can’t live up to and stand up against. Karma will bite you square in the ass.” Caldwell walked over and sat down at his desk behind his laptop. “Read Catcher for the rest of the class.”
We all got out our books and read. No one said a word.
***
I woke up early on Friday morning. It was way too early to even consider getting into uniform. My phone at my bedside desk read 5:02am. I had gotten to bed only four hours ago, and couldn’t find sleep once again. At times like these, I always turned to my blog. And I did just that. Words just came flowing out:
I’ve had a bad week between people, a beating, and weapons of mass destruction. I just wish that sometimes we could have a do-over a year. At this point, I don’t know what’ll be happening to me and I don’t know who’s after me. All I know is that I hate life. I have people yelling at me, teasing, and beating me and just glaring at me. I can’t trust myself, my life, and my dignity. Nothing. I’ve got nothing left to do but wait it out. I can pray to a faceless God I don’t believe in, but it’s rather pointless. I can’t go back on what I’ve done or said or have been trying to fix. No one gets it anymore and I’m tired of it. Quite frankly, I’m just glad this week is over. I’m glad. And you know what? Monday will come soon, and everything will be better one Monday. I can only hope. But I wish I could know for sure.
-D
I caught sleep by the tail that night, and anticipated the next day as one that would hopefully be better.