A List of Best Intentions

When I was bored, that was when I broke out my old yearbooks from elementary school and junior high. I always thought it was funny how everyone looked like a total dweeb, including me. Nobody liked their own photo, and anybody could see why.

It was a Wednesday night when I flipped through my kindergarten yearbook dating back to ’89.

The glossy photos were old and worn compared to those of more recent yearbooks. Everyone was dolled up in eighties fashion; more than half of my former peers had Jerry curls or a godawful mullet. I counted my blessings that my head was shaved for my picture, though I was the only obviously not-white kid amongst the faces.

I scanned over the page and saw faces I hardly recognized and faces that vaguely rang a bell. But my eyes caught a snag when I saw the name…

Elton Suarez.

My blood went cold.

~~~~

That kid was a target for bullies. From his red hair that stuck out everywhere to his big Coke-bottle glasses, Elton just screamed “LOSER!”

Anybody who was anybody made fun of him. With the exception of the quiet kids who never interjected, of course – and we made fun of them, too. It was a free-for-all.

I’d been a mischievous kid back in kindergarten. I refused to sleep during naptime, I threw a fit when recess was over, and I…I was a nightmare.

Elton and I didn’t mix that well.

I was one of the cool kids back then ‘cause I never left Elton alone. Oh, boy. I called him names and all that bad stuff – “Elton John,” “Hothead,” “Four Eyes,” whatever. I made him cry before. Back then, I didn’t care.

When I looked over that yearbook, though, I sure as hell did.

So anyways, we had a naptime every day. That day was no different; the teacher laid us down to rest our immature nerves and the lights went out.

Not everyone was sleeping, though.

When the teacher (or, “teacher lady,” as I called her) wasn’t looking, I sat up. I can still remember what it felt like to have such an evil grin crawl across my face like it did. I had a plan.

I carefully snuck over to my backpack and pulled out a washable marker. Blue. Everyone’s favorite color back then.

It wouldn’t be Elton’s for too long, though.

I took a quick look around. Detecting no possible interference by the teacher or anyone else, I crawled over to Elton. The kid was pretty much knocked out sleeping, snoring. There was no possible way that I couldn’t get away with this.

Taking the cap off the marker, I doodled away at the blank canvas of his face, a pre-thought pattern I’d already decided upon. The marker glided across his freckled skin perfectly. It almost seemed too good to be true.

I had to battle not to laugh, and just as I’d finished my artwork, the teacher got up from her desk and I pretended to be asleep.

The lights were flipped on. Kids everywhere shuffled awake, and I pretended to wipe imaginary sleep from my eyes.

“Okay, children, nap time’s over,” she said.

Elton sat up. I stared at him and grinned, and pretty soon everyone else was doing the same. He looked puzzled, but shrugged it off.

The teacher gasped. “Elton - ! Wh-what…who did this?!”

The kid looked like he pooped his pants, and everybody suddenly noticed the lines across his face. He had a nice mustache and goatee combo, and a monocle around one of his eyes. I even gave him blue Kool-Aid lips for good measure.

Everybody was cracking up. And despite nobody knowing for sure who had done it, Elton glared right at me and pouted.

I glared right back.

He said, “You’re a butthead.”

I wasn’t the least bit scared.

~~~~~~

My heart dropped. That was an unfortunate memory that, at the time of its happening, I was proud of. I felt ashamed of it the moment I saw Elton’s picture, and God knows I feel like shit over it nowadays. My mind was racing and I couldn’t rip my eyes away from the page, cringing into oblivion.

“Oh my God,” I said to myself.

Elton Suarez. Though the name rang clear in my head along with the image of him, I hadn’t seen him since kindergarten. After that, he disappeared. I never saw him again.

Something came to me. I had something on my list that I could do – “Redeem Yourself to Someone.”

Though the memory was bitter, I couldn’t contain a smile.

‘Cause a plan was already forming.

~~~~~

There were a few kids in my school who I’d actually known since kindergarten. I never spoke to many of them, since when school rolled on by we all went in different directions. Still, if I wanted to do what I wanted, I’d have to get some answers.

So I consulted Brad Savage in my chemistry class, some jock who I had nearly every class in grade school with. I knew he’d remember Elton – he teased him too, back in kindergarten.

I approached him near the end of class shyly; I hadn’t spoken to him recently and felt a little awkward.

“Um, hey Brad,” I weaseled.

He looked confused. “Hi, Kevin…?”

“Do you…remember Elton? Suarez?”

His face broke into a huge grin and his eyes softened into laughter. “Oh, that queerbag?”

“Yeah, him. Er,” I recovered. “Do you know what happened to him?”

Brad pursed his lips. “Shit, I don’t know. He’s probably dancing at some gay bar by now.”

Well, that did a fat load of nothing.

“Um, thanks.”

~~~~

This preceded an entire week of confusion.

Secondly, I asked Cody if the name Elton Suarez rang a bell. He said no. Stephanie wouldn’t know, since I know she didn’t go to my grade school. So, I was forced to talk to people I was estranged from, despite how weird it felt.

During lunch and before classes started, I hunted down everybody who was in kindergarten in 1989 at Tanglewood Elementary. And that crap was tough. I had to stare at random people for a while before I could decide whether or not I recognized them, and to the outsider, it just looked creepy.

Still, I was able to talk to a bunch of old classmates, and that was pretty cool, although on the other hand, nobody knew where the hell Elton went.

All of their answers had one thing in common, though: whether they slurred the terms, “queer,” or just plain old, “gay,” all of them mentioned some sort of homosexuality, even if the words they used were horrible. Huh.

The main point was that I still hadn’t found any dirt on Elton. I was growing hopeless. I felt really bad about what I had done, and I wanted to apologize, no matter what kind of shitstorm I had to wade through.

I hadn’t asked everyone, though – I kept a mental image of my ’89 yearbook in my head and realized that there was still someone who I hadn’t met up with yet.

So I finally caught her – I saw Haley Berkeley sitting alone one morning with her nose in a book, sitting near the cafeteria. While other kids were bunched up in crowds, she was solitary.

I cocked my head and asked, “Haley? Berkeley?”

She looked up at me, a little shocked. “Yeah…”

I smiled. “It’s Kevin, from kindergarten.”

“Oh. Oh! Mrs. Lucas’s class?” she gasped.

I nodded, trying to get to the point. “Yeah, I got a question, though.”

Haley raised an eyebrow. “Okay…”

“Do you know what happened to Elton Suarez?”

She pointed at me and grinned in excitement as if she knew it all for certain. “Oh, totally. He’s at the Westburg School of the Arts.”

“Really?” I asked. An actual tidbit of info that was useful? “Thanks.”

“He’s also gonna be in that Blues Brothers play that their school’s gonna host,” she added. “He’s gonna be a gay Elwood.”

Okay, seriously. Was he really gay or was everyone just insulting him? “Thanks for tellin’ me ‘bout it.”

“No problem. But…why’d you ask?” she inquired.

“Um I’m feelin’ bad about him…you know. And…yeah,” I explained awkwardly.

“Oh.” I didn’t bother telling her everything. She probably already knew anyway, judging from the smile on her face.

~~~~

I had a spark, and I was gonna run with it.

I told Cody about it immediately, since I planned on taking him with me to the community theatre. “Whatever,” he’d agreed.

So, we did it. After school that day we rode the city bus down to Westburg and to their School of the Arts. I knew those drama-type schools practiced all the time, so I never doubted for a moment that they’d definitely still be there.

Cody and I got off the bus and wandered toward the school. I knew that this was the area of town with those weird people who listened to bands I’d never heard of and dressed funny. My dad had warned me about them and my mom told me not to accept drugs from ‘em.

Cody looked around nervously. “Let’s do what we gotta do and get the heck outta here.”

I can’t say I didn’t feel the same.

As we approached the school, questions surfaced that I probably should’ve answered before coming there. Did we need visitors’ passes? Did we have to attend the school to get in? Of course, I didn’t feel like asking them at the moment. My mind was too preoccupied with other stuff.

Before we entered the auditorium, Cody put an arm across my chest and stopped me. “Hold up,” he said. “Will you even recognize this dude?”

I smiled. “Well, I won’t know until we go in.”

He rolled his eyes.

I parted the double doors and the fancy-schmancy interior of the Westburg School of the Arts was right in front of me. It looked all high-end and expensive – there were rows of seats that led to a huge-ass stage. It was a far cry from Tanglewood’s “auditorium.”

Cody snickered and elbowed me. “Pinky up. You know what Spongeboy says…we’re in fancy territory now.”

For half a second I obeyed him, then I got a grip, realizing he was joking.

We inched closer toward the stage. On it was a huge group of people all decked out in black, sweating. Most of them were holding scripts. Two of them were wearing sunglasses, and one of those two had red hair.

But none of the actors paid me or Cody any mind.

They were all talking about the scripts in their hands, disputing over something about a Cadillac…I didn’t know. And I didn’t exactly know how to jump in without being an ass.

“Just…you have to put a little emotion into what you’re saying, Charlie,” the red-haired kid was saying.

Another, bigger kid who looked like he came straight from football practice replied, “But they don’t have emotion.”

The other one rolled his eyes and seemed to give up. “Let’s take it from the top…”

They both turned around and sat in chairs positioned on the stage, adjusting their sunglasses, and the ginger acted as though he was driving.

“Where’s the Cadillac? The caddy? Where’s the caddy?” the big guy said.

“The what?” the other dude replied.

“The Cadillac we used to have. The Bluesmobile!”

“I traded it.”

“You traded the Bluesmobile for this?”

“No, for a mic…”

They both froze when they finally noticed Cody and me standing before them. Suddenly, everyone onstage was staring at us, and nobody said a thing.

I smiled shyly and waved.

The red-haired dude tilted his head. “Um…hi?”

“We’re looking for someone,” Cody said.

Now everyone whispered amongst themselves and the bigger guy asked with a friendly smile, “Who you lookin’ for?”

I prayed on all I had that they’d know the name. “Uh, Elton Suarez…”

The guy with the red hair took his sunglasses off and grinned. He jumped off the stage onto our level, folding his scrawny arms over his chest, over the soccer team logo on his sweater. “I’m Elton.”

My heart dropped. I was standing face-to-face with the kid I’d made a living Hell for. What could I have said?

“Who’s asking?” Elton pushed.

“Cody and Kevin,” Cody answered before I had a chance to say anything.

Elton furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head. “Who?”

I cleared my throat. “Kevin Slater…”

It still didn’t look like I was getting through to him.

“From kindergarten,” I clarified.

A bolt of lightning seemed to strike the school. Elton froze. Then his eyes got all wide, and he looked at me all shocked, and then I got scared, and he raised his hand and jabbed an index finger right in my face.

“Y-you…you…” he stammered.

My mouth moved, but no words came out.

Elton pushed that finger right into my collarbone. “You’re the Kevin who…you made me…you’re the reason…”

“I’m sorry and I’m a dickhead and I regret it and I’m sorry!” I blurted out. When this cat was mad, he looked scary. And when I got scared, I got talky – here, at least.

Cody giggled. I didn’t have the concentration to hit him, though.

Elton grew a rather wicked grin. It sure as hell wasn’t the nice kind.

“…and I’m sorry,” I whimpered, trailing off.

“Ha!” Elton laughed. “…What? Are you serious? You’re…you’re wacked.”

“No, he’s not,” Cody deadpanned.

“Yeah, I’m not! Really, and true blue,” I elaborated. In all honesty, I had anticipated this. I didn’t prepare for it, but I expected it.

Elton scoffed, sneering. “You come back into my life out of nowhere and want to apologize…for the crap you made me go through when I was five…causing me to bounce back and forth throughout a million different schools…?”

“Well…yeah…”

Silence.

Cody sighed impatiently.

Elton turned around, putting his sunglasses on and heading back to the stage. “Well, tough. I’m not the little kid you pushed around a decade ago.”

“No! I mean…” I called out. “Really. I wanna talk about this.”

Cody sarcastically pouted at Elton.

The ginger I’d bullied hung his head, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and pushed his glasses up. “Okay, fine.”