Get Some Skills!

You know what? I miss college. I really had a great time there. I went to Katharine Gibbs, a tiny school located on Boston's ultra-trendy Newbury Street. The unassuming front door looks like the service enterance to the Crate and Barrel next door. Maybe it's Pottery Barn. The point is, if you didn't know it was there, you probably would never even notice it.

Unfortunately, I only stayed in contact with one person. Well, two if you count Jose, which I don't because I've known him since high school.

A few months before graduation, I went on a road trip with Neil, one of the guys in class, to Charlotte, NC to go to this big comic convention there. Why? I had nothing else to do. Really. He just called up and asked if I wanted to go and I said "Why not?" He was going because he'd been apprenticing with a comic book artist named Pop Mhan and he was going to show a few sketches and even sit at the table with him. It was pretty cool. Anyway, at the hotel Neil was nervously drawing his sketches, tearing up paper and cursing, while I was doodling some pictures of my own. I was way too shy to show anything to professionals, but I showed Neil what I did. It was a picture of two of our classmates, Phil and Kristina.



He thought it was hysterical and captured their personas perfectly. Phil and Kristina were inseperable. He was this big gentle hulk and she was a tiny little ball of adorable anger. The three of us used to go to lunch together every day, and the whole time he'd complain about his crazy ex-girlfriend, and she'd complain about her boyfriend, Jay. Sometimes she's come to school with bruises and she'd say Jay was just playing. That pissed me off a great deal, and I know it pissed off Phil, but she continued to go out with this jerk and even though her and Phil had this cute, funny ying-yang relationship, they never ended up together. That kind of bummed me out. Like I said, I lost contact with everybody, so I hope she's okay.

So I drew this picture of the two of them, and then I got an idea to make a yearbook for all the students in my class. I drew a picture for each student, some portraying what their personal intrests were and some as parodies of movies catered to the individual student's personality.


We'll start with Kristina. Like I said, she was just the cutest thing. But if you piss her off, you'd better be prepared to suffer! Once, Jose had a dream that I had her locked in my basement. I was wearing a lab coat and rubbing my hands together, saying, "I'm gonna keep her!" When he told her about it, she hit me and said "Why would you do that?" First of all, it was a dream. It wasn't even my dream! Women are nuts. Anyway to capture her spirit (and lock it in the basement) I drew her in a happy little cartoon world looking very innocent, until you notice the giant mallet she's got behind her back. She loved the picture, which is good, because she punches pretty hard for such a skinny little chick.


This is Neil. He was sort of a Goth-Metal type guy. He lived in Salem, known for it's infamous witch trials, and is into the whole Wiccan thing. So I drew him as Bram Stoker's Dracula, sucking blood from a heart through a straw.


Neil always hung out with Sam. Sam's previous job was a cook on a submarine. He had a little...accident with a vegitable cutting tool and lost a finger, but when I was drawing his picture, I forgot which hand. So if you notice, his picture has 4 fingers on both hands. Yes, I realize how wrong that is. He worked at a BBQ place called Jake & Earl's, but I heard he lives in Texas now. Sam could be loud and opinionated, which scared off a few of the other students, but I got along good with him. Me, Neil, Sam, Phil and Kristina usually hung out together. Sam's a good guy.


Chandra was really cool. One time she came back from lunch and a few of her shirt buttons were undone and no one told her for most of the day. I guess I could have picked a better Chandra moment to share. She did a report on Mary J. Blige once. Yeah, I liked the first one better, too. This picture pretty much sums her up. Chandra was one mean motha-Shut yo' mouth! I'm just talkin' 'bout Chandra.


The first person I ever talked to in college was Marcia. She was a biker chick in her 30's who'd been a hair dresser for years and was looking for a change in careers. She was really great; we had kind of a big sister, little brother thing going. The other thing about Marcia was her husband's name was Ox or Rhino or some huge scary animal.


I've known Jose since high school. He worked at Blockbuster for years, but after college he jumped ship and went to work for Video to Go, where he spends a considerable amount of time in the porn room doing God knows what. If you look at the posters on the back wall on this picture, you can see "What's Eating Gilbert Godfried" with Gilbert's head superimposed over Johnny Depp's. I'm hillarious.

There were two guys in our class that we called the Backstreet Boys, because of their pretty-boy image. One was Alex (aka Chandler), who I drew sitting on a couch at Central Perk with the cast of Friends. I still like the concept, but it didn't come out the way I wanted it to, so I'm not going to show it here. Sorry. Move along.


The other Backstreet Boy was Anthony. Anthony was a basketball nut, so I put him on a Wheaties box. Alex and Anthony were cool guys, but I'll admit everyone, including myself, got them confused. I think even they did a few times, if that even makes sense. They didn't look the same at all, it's just the names I guess...


Sakeo was a blast. When we first started school, he and this other kid Tai used to breakdance on the tables. This usually ended with Keo getting too close to the crux where four tables joined and collapsed the whole thing, screaming all the way down. He acted super-confident around the guys, but when there was a girl involved, he was even more shy than me, and I had a crippling fear of rejection, so that's pretty bad. Jose took him to Hooters, and he was so nervous, he pretended he couldn't speak English. Then there was the librarian. He had a thing for the librarian. She was teaching us HTML for some reason, and Keo was in the back row, leaning his seat back, I guess trying to get a better view of her. A few seconds later, he lost balance and his chair tipped over. He quickly got up, waved his hands in the air to show he was alright, and sat back down. After class he was running around saying, "Green thong! She was wearing a green thong!" A new girl came to class third semister and he was obsessed with her. She was very quiet and none of us knew her name; we all called her Foreign Girl. Every time she walked out of the room, Keo would smile and say "Foreign Girl, yeah!" (sometimes it was "Yeah, Foreign Girl) I found this funny because he himself was foreign. Keo didn't show up for graduation, which sucks because he never got to see this picture. It's one of my favorite pictures, too. I really like how the sky came out. Oh well.


One thing Sam and Neil (hey...when you say their names together, you get actor Sam Neil!) loved to do was tease Kristen about her complete lack of movie knowledge. When she saw this picture, she admited that she didn't know the answer. I'm serious.


Mark was a quiet kid. He could draw like crazy, but he didn't really talk all that much in class. But as far as yearbook pictures go, this might be my favorite. Just a simple play on his last name.


Dave. Little Dave. Dave looked exactly like Michael Jackson in the Jackson 5 days. He was older than me, but he looked nine. I was kind of afraid he was going to be offended by his picture, but he got a kick out of it.


Jen is sitting in her favorite painting. Jose had a thing for her when we first started school, and since I somehow always seemed to be in the same group as her, he asked if I could help him out. You know, put in a good word. But the reason he liked her is because she reminded him of his old girlfriend, and all kinds of red flags go up when that happens. No good can come from that. He was pretty bitter about it for a while, especially because I used to go to lunch and stuff with her. Once I went to breakfast with Jen, Chandra, Kristina and Phil, and on the way back, Phil went in to Dunkin Donuts and the rest of us waited outside. While we were waiting, two homeless guys with maybe three teeth between them asked if "These were my women?" Before I could even say anything he had his arm around my shoulder asking if I minded if his friend took their picture, while the other guy was already asking the girls to smile. So two homeless guys randomly took a picture of Jen, Chandra and Kristina. And they thought I was a pimp. Cool.

Next time... We meet the rest of the class, and I explain why I left $60 by a teacher's bed.

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Back in the Day

This week we've been getting Brianna prepared for her first day of kindergarten. It's got me thinking about my first day. Getting on that big yellow bus and discovering what I can only describe as "bus smell," which is sort of a combination of gasoline and thirty or so peanut butter and jelly sandwiches mixed with that inimitable new plastic smell.



I remember waiting for the bus with my mom, Jen, and her mom. I remember my Gremlins lunchbox. I remember I wore a striped shirt. Okay, so I'm just describing the picture, but there really are some things I remember about that first day away from home.

In fact, the first memory I have of school is of a kid named Raymond. I don't remember much about Raymond, and to be honest, I don't think I ever even saw him. But Raymond sat behind me on the bus on that first day of kindergarten. And Raymond was not ready to interact with other children. Raymond spazzed out. He grabbed the kid in front of him (yeah...that would be me) and started choking him from behind with what I imagine to be a glint of sheer joy in his eye. He was grabbed by some adults and abruptly pulled off me, cementing at least one more year of sitting at home shoving crayons up his nose. I'll give him credit: not many people can get kicked out of school before they ever set foot in it. Here's to you Raymond, you crazy bastard, wherever you are.

Anyway, in honor of Brianna's first day of school, here are some of my memories from Thomas V. Nash Elementary School.

Our principal was Mr. McCorkle. Otis H. McCorkle, the most principal-sounding name ever. We used to call the papers we'd get from him "a notice from Otis." Every time he announced something over the loudspeaker he would start with "Ah, attention please..." and end with "That is all. Thank you!"

I was in Miss Shea's first grade class when the Challanger exploded. We watched it on television. I don't think I really understood what was going on. All I knew was that something important must have happened for them to bring the television from the library into the classroom. I will never forget that day.

I remember reading with Ms. Brown, the librarian. She reminded me of Diane from Cheers. She used to read "Riki Tiki Tavi" and "Miss Nelson is Missing!" to us. One year Ms. Brown got married, but her new name was ridiculously long and hard to pronounce, so I continued to refer to her as "Ms. Brown."

I remember Brian Larkin, effecionately known for one reason or another as "Bubba." Bubba Larkin was our school's Scut Farkas. A schoolyard thug whose antics invariably got him banned from field day every year.

I remember Mrs. Lavangie, the lunch lady. We weren't allowed to talk during lunch, and it was her job to enforce the law. She walked around with a clipboard, shouting "Ah, that's a check!" at anyone who made a sound. If you got three checks, you'd have to sit up on the stage of the cafeteria-auditorium-gymnasium until lunch was over. I guess that was supposed to be bad. I don't know. You'd think they would have come up with something a little more threatening. Usually she had her hands full with the sixth graders, so us younger kids talked quietly while she was down at the other end of the room.

And who could forget the school's flamboyant music teacher, Mr. LaPiere? He was the musical equivilant of Richard Simmons, minus the tiny shorts. He'd wheel his piano into the class once a week and make us practice our singing exercises. He always hit impossibly high notes; I kind of wonder if his balls never dropped.

Nnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

That's what he'd have us do. Say the word "new" and hold it until our lungs collapsed. Sometimes he'd bring a big red rubber dodgeball in and throw it to whoever he decided should say "new" next. That was doubly embarrassing for me because that exposed both my inability to sing or catch a ball.

Nnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Years later when I met kids from other parts of town, I learned that they too had Mr. LaPiere, except rather than a piano, he'd bring in a little keyboard. That's a shame, because you can't really get the same sound from a keyboard as you can with a piano. Plus, it was just plain funny to watch him push that giant piano around the whole school.

When I was in fifth grade, one of the sixth grade teachers was fired. From what I heard the reasoning behind it was that he was narcoleptic, and would sometimes fall asleep in the middle of class. I didn't really know the whole story, but the whys didn't matter. The important part of the story was that now there was only one sixth grade teacher. Miss Hanian.

Miss Hanian. Her name alone is enough to send a chill down your spine. Hanian, as in heinous. She was far scarier than anything any kid could dream up. A fearsome disiplanarian that screamed with all the throaty horror of the fires of Hell. On any given day, you could hear her Banshee cry echo down the halls and through the very spines of trembling kids. At recess, she stood on a hill with mirrored sunglasses watching over the playground like a gargoyle. Nobody wanted Ms. Hanian.

As sixth grade loomed closer, there was still no one to fill the vacancy. We were doomed.

But we weren't doomed. Well, half of us weren't, anyway. That summer they hired a new teacher, Mr. Brink. That year would go on to be the best time I ever had in school. That's actually kind of sad, considering I still had six more years of school left.

But it was a great year. Full of firsts. It was the first year the Barbie twins were in the same class. Ben and Megan Barbie, together for the first time. It was also the first time the three Elizabeths were in the same class. The Smart One, the Cute One, and the Quiet One. We didn't have a Ringo. Honestly, they were all smart, and all cute. But one was just a little smarter, one just a little cuter, and only one of them was quiet.

I always had a thing for the Quiet One. I remember I used to see her at recess in first grade. I didn't know who she was, but I couldn't take my eyes off her. In first grade! She ended up in my class the next year, and again in forth and sixth grades. One year at Jen's birthday party, Jen started crying because she said we were ruining her party. I don't even remember what exactly happened, I just remember her saying that. I think it was because I was the only boy there.

I was always the only boy at her parties, but that year she also invited Nathan Stockton. She had a crush on him, but he had "soccer practice" and couldn't make it. Maybe she couldn't take seeing us flirt, if you could even call it that. It never got any further than flirting, and I never told Liz after all those years that I liked her, something that would become a recurring theme in my life. So that's how that whole deal started.

Mr. Brink was great. His classroom didn't look like other classrooms. He had a huge Happy Meal collection on a shelf running all across the room. We learned about ancient Egypt and created board games based on what we learned. We disected squid. When he had gym, we played Brinkball, which was kind of like Doctor and Spy.

Sometime's he'd tell these corny jokes under the guise of anecdotes about himself, or more commonly, his cousin Otto. These stories always ended with a few laughs, a lot of groans, and Lakeisha, possibly the sweetest person ever and one of Weymouth's two black people, saying "I don't get it." Then twenty minutes later when we are doing math she'd say "The pig squealed. Now I get it!" and laugh uncontrollably for three minutes.

At some point, Mr. Brink had to have his gall bladder removed and was out of school for a few weeks. I can't remember who we had as a replacement, because there was a few different substitutes we used to have. There was Ms. Log (pronounced Low-g), who scared everybody by scowling all the time and looking like Bea Arthur. She used to give us the first answer on tests and say "It's my gift to you." She even sounded like Bea Arthur. Then there was Mr. Young, the Oldest Man on the Planet. And of course Mr. DiSessa, who looked like a turtle. Or a shriveled up dead indian, like those Weequay things in Return of the Jedi.

The school closed after that year. I was going to another school for seventh grade anyway, but it was still sad. They closed a few schools and restructured the whole school system because there were too many schools and not enough kids, then re-opened a few years later when there were too many kids and not enough schools. I guess the people who make decisions like that didn't realize that all the babies being born in the town when they closed the schools would be starting school in a few years. Gotta love the system.

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Loss

...continued from Ten Years Gone

Summer came and went and I eagerly waited to see her again. But I never did. High School was not Junior High. I barely saw her anymore and we never talked. I wanted to, but I just couldn't face her. A lot had happened since Virginia. During the summer between 9th and 10th grades my face broke out with a vengeance and I found out I had to wear a back brace at night because my spine curved too much. Even though there was never any indication that she would feel any different towards me, I felt like a monster and hid from her. Of course, she never made any effort to talk to me, either. The longer we didn't talk, the harder it became to start up again. It got so that I was even afraid to look at her. I wasn't good enough.

Also, I was in the Voc. One thing they don't tell you when you sign up for the Vocational School is that regular High School kids hate the Voc kids. That's not in the pamphlet. I lost most of my friends, including my best friend since kindergarten. Oddly, it didn't bother me as much as losing her, even though I knew him since I was six and I'd only known her for a few months. A few days, really.

I got by. I made new friends. Nick, Jose, Jim, Mike and Wah-Kee. Good old Wah-Kee. They were a little weird at first; Nick had about thirty people living at his house at any given time, and Mike is the personification of the word "spaz," but they stuck by me when the people who where supposed to be my friends bailed. I was really lucky to have friends like them.

I still thought about her all the time, even if I was too afraid to actually talk to her. Seeing her in the hallways caused my throat to dry up and my heart to start pounding in my chest so fast I thought it was going to burst. As time went on, in my mind I just kept replaying what little time we'd spent together and building her up until she became this untouchable goddess. She was like the Ark of the Covenant; one look and I'd melt like a Nazi.

Even so, in the back of my mind I imagined scenarios where we'd have some chance meeting one day and everything would go back to the way it was before. I just needed that one moment. And it kept almost happening.

Sophomore year I had Mr. Welsh for honors English first period. She had Mr. Welsh for honors English...third period. For me, third period was Principles of Technology with Mr. Soule. Mr. Soule wore glasses with one tinted lens. He explained his unique eyewear on the first day of class.

"You're probably wondering about my eye," he said as he removed his glasses to reveal one eye that looked straight at us and the other facing Mecca. As if he really needed further explaination, he told us that he had a lazy eye and the darker lens was to correct it. Mr. Soule was a great teacher, but Principles of Technology was just a fancy name for "applied physics," which itself is just another name for "math stuff." Since I'm what some people might call mathematically retarded, this probablly wasn't the best choice of classes, but it was part of a required program for kids in Tech Prep. I spent three years in that class and I think all I got out of it is that there's something called foot-pounds. The point is, I did horrible in this class and if I had any sense at all, I would have switched to biology. I know I would have done much better in Biology, which if I had taken, would have been first period, meaning I would have had the third period English class. Could have been that one chance I was looking for. If only.

There was a school magazine called Reflections. When my mom was in school, it was a quarterly magazine (and called "Reflector"), but in its current state it was only put out once a year. Anyway, it offered an opportunity for creative types to share their work with the whole student body. Or at least the six people that actually bought or was even aware of Reflections. I signed up to be part of the staff, but after a couple of weeks of sitting in an empty library waiting for the rest of the staff to show up for the meetings, I stopped going. When yearbook time rolled around, guess who was in the group photo of the Reflections staff? Missed her again.

Senior year, the guidance councilor suggested that I take a creative writing class. I didn't have any room for one on my schedule, but I was able to work out a deal with Mr. Landry, my graphic arts teacher. Instead of having graphic arts for the last three classes of the day, I'd leave sixth period for my creative writing class and come back to finish the day in the shop. It was a second semester class, and I knew it was my last chance to have a class with her. I remember actually pleading with God for her to have sixth period creative writing class. As it turned out, I had Mr. Welsh again. And she did have creative writing sixth period...with Mr. Ghiorse. She was in the next room! It's like God was saying, "You should have been more specific. Hehe."

That's the way it went. I was always just missing her. And I saw signs all over the place, like our phone numbers were one number off on the first and last digit. Even our birthdays separated by one month and one day. It couldn't just be a coincidence, right? This was bigger than just two people. This was destiny. I could feel it.

One time I went with Nick to his locker. Out of nowhere I heard, "Will you hold my orange juice, Hammel?" I turned around and there she was. I couldn't believe it. She handed me the juice while she opened her locker. A million thoughts raced through my head as I tried to think of what to say to her, but all that came out was "Phlarmmmble..."

Without turning away from what she was doing, her reaction to was, "What, did you spill it?"

Oh, that's it. Screw you and your stupid orange juice. You haven't said a goddamn word to me in two years--two years-- and now you decide you're going to speak and the first thing you say isn't 'Hi,' or 'How are you?' it's 'Hold my orange juice.' Well why don't you hold it between your knees?!

Of course, I didn't say that, I just said "Okay" and held her drink, while she got something from locker, took her drink back, and walked away again. I should have been mad, but I wasn't. She remembered my name.

I never told anyone about my feelings for her, and when Nick finally did found out, he was determined to get me to talk to her. Or at least nag me about it incessantly. As more people found out, they all seemed to take Nick's stance. He even stole my yearbook and got her to sign it for me during the senior cruise. My cousins saw her comments in the yearbook and immediately hopped on the "You gotta talk to her" train.

But it was too late. We had different lives. I wasn't about to bother her just because I had some repressed feelings I needed to express. Despite what everyone insisted, it was best for all involved just to let it go. Then something happened that made me change my mind.

After graduation we found out that my grandfather had cancer. Esophageal cancer. I couldn't understand it. He never smoked or anything. He was one of the healthiest people I knew. He used to swim laps in his pool every day and he competed in the senior olympics. But he still got cancer.

He went to the hospital Memorial Day weekend for what was supposed to be a simple opperation, but there were complications. They flew him to Brigham and Women's Hospital from South Shore. My grandparents lived next door to us, and seeing him in the hospital everyday and watching my family, especially my grandmother, try to cope was too much to bare. That's what finally drove me to write her; I was trying to get back to a place in my life when I was truly happy in an effort to ease the pain I was going through. I was trying to escape the misery that had enveloped my life. So I wrote to her and told her what was going on. I also foolishly confessed to loving her all those years ago, despite the fact that she now had a boyfriend and seemed quite happy.

I took a huge risk, and waited for her to write back. But she never did.

My grandfather's health continued to deteriorate. My parents went up to the hospital every night. I usually stayed home and watched my brothers. He died December 10, 1997, after five months in five different hospitals. I was a pall bearer. The funeral home was in North Weymouth. It was right next to her house. I remember that my grandmother was upset that they did something to his face. She said it didn't look natural and she kept crying. It was just too much for me, so I went out side and sat on the steps, hopelessly looking at her house, wondering if she was even there.

Then, just before Christmas, I got an envelope from her. I had just moved in with my grandmother to help her cope with losing the man she'd been with for over fifty years. I went into my room and opened the envelope. It was a Christmas card. She said she was sorry for not writing sooner and she asked how I was. I couldn't help but think she completely missed the point of the letter I sent, if she even read it at all. She told me to write back.

I wrote back to her and told her about my grandfather's passing. I waited for a response. And waited. Damn it, she did it again.

My friends and family continued to ask how things were going, and said the letters weren't working. If I wanted to resolve this thing I'd have to call her.

You have to call her. You have to. After hearing that over and over again, I finally called the day of my dad's 50th birthday party. We had this huge tent in our backyard and everybody was there. We even had some black people. I remember thinking, "Wow, I've got black relatives. I did not know that."

I called her and she put me on hold. We were on the phone for about an hour, but most of that time I was on hold. I'm not really even sure what was said. I just remember her saying "Oh God, this is so awkward." a bunch of times. That's not a good indication that things are going well. There was something in her voice; but I couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying. Was she laughing at the pathetic loser who can't let go of the past, or was she crying because she really did care for me once, but now has a happy life with someone else? My money's on that first one. I asked her how she felt back then. I didn't even care how she felt now. I knew it was too late. I just had to know. That's all I'd wanted to know all these years. If nothing else, I needed closure. She said she had to go.

Please, I said. Please.

She said again that she had to go, and I said okay and hung up. That was it. I always wondered if she liked me all along, as so many others suggested, or did I confuse friendship and kindness for love? I had been asking myself that since ninth grade, and I'll never know, because she wouldn't tell me. Honestly, that hurts a thousand times worse than if she said no. At least she didn't hang up on me, so that was classy of her.

And that was that. I thought the hero was supposed to get the girl. That's when I realized that maybe all those similarities and close calls I was so quick to point out really were signs after all. But I'd been reading them wrong. In each case, I was always just missing her, or a number was one off, etc. It seems so obvious now. I was destined to be the guy that doesn't get the girl. I wasn't John Cusack. I was John Cryer.

I don't think about her anymore. It hurts to. It doesn't matter now. I've got the best girlfriend I could hope for, and for the first time in nearly a decade, I'm happy.

Now she's just a memory. It's strange how someone that once brought so much happiness can cause so much pain. I hate memories.

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Ten Years Gone

Memories. I hate memeories. For the longest time, that's all I had. Just memories. Memories of a better time. Of her. Everyone has that one story. That one person that changed their life. She was mine. This is my story.

It starts in ninth grade Science class. I had Mr. Galiano. I hated that guy. I'm sure the feeling was mutual; he didn't like anybody. Some people become teachers to educate and inspire. Not Galiano. He became a teacher so he could yell at people all day and get paid for it. He never bothered to learn anyone's name; he just called everyone "freshman" in that condescending, excessively monotone voice of his. It was equal parts Ben Stein and Darth Vader.

Hello, freshman.

Where's your homework, freshman?

You underestimate the power of the Dark Side, freshman.

He'd get right up in your face and all you could see was this forest of tree-trunk-like nose hairs and horrible, nasty teeth that would make a dentist wake up in cold sweats.

There was only one thing that made sitting through that class tolerable. The girl that sat behind me. I didn't even know her name; it was the only class we had together and Galiano always called her "freshman." She knew my name though, probably because the only time Galiano would break his rule and say your name was if he was yelling at you. Let's just say everybody knew my name.

She always asked me how to do the lab assignments, and I never had a clue. I'm more of an English major guy. So I'd turn to my lab partner, Wah-Kee, then go back and tell her whatever he just said. Good old Wah-Kee. I found out much later that she was on the honor roll and probably didn't need help anyway. Maybe she was just wanted to talk to me. Or not.

She was just nice. To everybody; even people undeserving and unappreciative of such kindness. I actually looked forward to that class just so I could talk to her. It also didn't hurt that she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. There was a whole world in her eyes; you could get lost in there. And her hair; she had those hangy-down things framing her face. I don't know what they're called, but I love those things.

The class trip that year was to Williamsburg, VA. I went there with my family when I was younger, and decided to go again. This time around, there was no Winnebago, and anyone that wanted to go had to pay $300. I raised the money selling candy. It wasn't easy. The school gave us Kit Kats and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to sell. I figured since everyone was selling the same thing, if I brought in a box of Snickers, I'd have the edge. Give people an extra choice. Apparently, that was illegal. I was forced to stop immediately and was told everyone must sell the same thing. Sounds a bit like Communism to me, but rules are rules.

Maybe a month or so before the trip, Ms. Qualey held a meeting for all the students going. The girl from science class was there. All this time I didn't even know she was going. She had bought some of my candy bars, and I never saw her selling any herself, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her there. Ms. Qualey asked if everyone had a roomate, and neither of us raised our hands. I remember her looking over at me. Of course, co-ed hotel rooms were out of the question, but knowing that she was going to be there put a smile on my face.

The day of the trip finally came. May 25th. I'd just turned fifteen. About forty of us ended up going. We had to be at the school at five in the morning, which meant waking up around four. My dad dropped me off in the school parking lot, I put my bags away, and got the bus. I had never been so exhausted in my life. I found a seat next to Jason Crevison. Crevison's father was teacher at the junior high; I had him for Graphic Arts. The two of them are like shaved Yetis. They're huge. Very cool people, but still...huge. He gave me the window seat, which was probably a bad idea since now I was wedged between the wall and this massive kid, but I didn't really care at that point. All I wanted was to sleep. Never happened. No sooner had I closed my eyes, I heard someone say, "Hey, wake up!" It was her, sitting in front of me, smiling. If it'd been anyone else I would've punched them in neck. Instead, I sat up and we started talking. It was a little weird trying to carry on a conversation with her without the benefit of knowing her name, but after all these months I wasn't about to say, "By the way, who the hell are you?"

At first we talked about a video we saw in science class about a con-artist guy that said he could bend spoons with his mind and faith healers that smack little old ladies to expel their inner demons. I demonstrated the process for her, saying "Satan be gone!" Then, "BAM!" I'd take my palm to Crevison's forehead. I'm lucky the kid didn't break me in half. She loved it, though, even after about eight hours.

Satan be gone. BAM! You've been healed, praise Je-hee-zus!

I was saying "BAM!" way before that Emeril guy.

By the time the bus pulled into the Quality Suites hotel we'd talked pretty much nonstop for twelve hours. Twelve hours, I couldn't believe it. It went by so fast. We just went back and forth, going on about different topics. I even finally got her name, albeit through hearing someone else speak to her. All the while I couldn't help thinking, "What's a girl like this doing hanging around with a loser like me?" It seems someone else was thinking the same thing.

Rich Bagan. The Moriarty to my Holmes. The Joker to my Batman. The Newman to my Seinfeld. The man who will forever be known as Dick had his own grisly plans for her. Plans that most likely involved whipped cream and gelatin. The fact that she had spent the entire ride down talking to me did not sit well with him, and he was ready to do all within his power to stop it.

Hey, show her your chest.

Damn. See, I've got a bone sticking out of my chest, slightly resembling the creature bursting out of John Hurt scene from Alien. My sternum, the reason I could never have a Slip and Slide when I was a kid. It serves no purpose, other than maybe conveniently fitting in the crevice between a woman's breasts. Hell, maybe that's what it's for, but I had yet to find a girl that wasn't freaked out by the damn thing. It was the sole reason for my role as an outcast of society. It was a constant reminder that no matter how much I tried to fit in, no matter how many people said they like me, they know I'd always just be a freak. Just a freak. I wish I could say that didn't hurt, but it ate away at me every day of my life. Funny thing is, I never even noticed it until I was in seventh grade. That's the first time we had to get changed for gym. The other guys were like, "Ahh! What's that thing?" At the same time I was thinking, "Hey, where's your lump?" What the hell did I know; I thought everybody had one.

There I was. Trapped. Damn. She was going to find out. I knew if she saw that I was just a freak, she'd never want to see me again. I wouldn't let that happen. I wouldn't let Dick win.

No.

C'mon, show her.

Show me what? What are you guys talking about?

Before I could protest, Dick reached over and pulled my shirt up, revealing my hideous deformity for all to see. She didn't say anything for a few seconds, but seemed relatively unfazed. I sat back in my seat and she picked up the conversation from where we left off before Dick interrupted. She didn't care. Wow. Didn't see that coming. I could almost see Dick twirling an imaginary mustache, muttering, "Curses! Foiled again!"

I never told her how I felt about her. I was too afraid. I knew she liked me a little, but I also knew she didn't feel the way I did. She couldn't. I looked like a failed genetics experiment. It's not easy going through life as a scrawny sack of bones that doesn't look like it's put together quite right. I have no ass. It hurts when I sit. Being skinny sucks. Every time I hear people complaining about wanting to be thinner, all I can think of is how I have to grab a hold of something every time a gust of wind blows by, for fear of being swept away to Munchkin City. Something to think about before you go buying all that GNC vitamin-enriched fat-free health food crap. I tried that Weight-Gainer stuff. What a load of garbage that stuff is! It's just chocolate milk, for Christ's sake, and it doesn't even mix right; it just lumps together at the bottom of the glass. Then again, maybe I just couldn't stir it hard enough with my tiny, useless arms.

I don't think petty stuff like that really mattered to her. But I felt that she deserved better than me. I didn't know what to do. She was unlike anyone I'd ever known. This was far beyond a schoolyard crush. I loved this girl.

I realized this when we were in Jamestown. It's a lot like Plimoth Plantation we have in New England, except for all the southern accents. We split apart from the rest of the group and went to look at the horses with a few of her friends. After a while I looked up and noticed that her friends had left. I don't know where they went; to the bathroom or something. It doesn't matter, they were gone. It was just us. I looked at her as she watched the horses. There was something about that moment as she stood there with the sunlight on her face; she was like some majestic beauty you always hear about in books and movies, but could never exist in real life. Yet there she was. She looked at me and I looked into her eyes. Those eyes held so many stories. I wanted to know them all. I could have stayed there forever. The perfect moment. Neither one of us spoke, we just looked at each other. That's all. It was at this moment that I realized how deeply I felt about her, but I didn’t say anything. I wish I had.

One incident that will always stick out in my mind is the flume ride at Busch Gardens. I was waiting in line with three other guys, Phil, Olsen and, you guessed it, Dick. She was ahead of us with her girlfriends, Cindy, Andrea, and some chick I didn't know. She turned around and asked me if I wanted to ride with her. I almost went into cardiac arrest right then and there. I collected my nerves and said, "Sure," as I looked over at Dick and gave him the most evil grin I could muster. I switched places with Cindy. Now you might think that riding the flume with the most perfect girl you ever met would be a good thing, what with all the screaming and wetness, but that just wasn't the case this time.

While we were waiting in line, Wayne decided he wanted to ride with us, too. Wayne. This kid epitomized nerddom to such a terrifying degree that...let me put it this way: he spoke fluent Klingon. Klingon! It's not even a real language!

The thing that kills me is that I still don't even know where he came from. He wasn't in line with us; it's like he just sort of...materialized. The flume log seats four single-file. Ours managed to squeeze in five: the three girls in front and me and Captain Kirk in back. She sat in front of me, separated by a bar that divided the front and back portions of the log. Wayne was behind me. As the log clicked its way up the incline, I sat there baffled as to why Wayne was on my ride stealing my thunder. Again, where did he come from? We were standing in line for forty-five minutes and he was nowhere to be seen. I didn't have much time to think about it, because a few seconds later we went down that steep hill, and I slid forward into the bar (which caused severe man-pain), and my head flew back and landed between Wayne's legs. Somehow when I started I didn't think this ride would end up with my head nestled in Wayne's crotch. I washed my hair about fifteen times that night.

All my insecurities and embarrassing mishaps aside, the major thing I had going for me was that the entire time we were there, from the bus to Jameston to Virginia Beach to the Air and Space Center to Busch Gardens, I never left her side. Well, almost never. Our group of about twelve people kept getting smaller and smaller as kids broke off to go on different rides. She wanted to go on the roller coasters. Screw that. I had this thing about roller coasters. They scared the hell out of me. Now I go on them all the time, mostly because I got tired of seeing little five year old girls do something I was afraid to do. If I had a time machine, I'd go back and beat the crap out of me until I agreed to go on a roller coaster with her. But I don't, so she went off to go on the big coasters the park is famous for, and I, like a giant lump of concentrated idiot, stayed firmly on the ground and just sort of...wandered. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but before I knew it, I was alone and lost. I walked around for hours, trying to find somebody --anybody-- I recognized. All this time she was in one of those booths making a video with Cindy and Phil. They did the Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right to Party" under the name the Hammels. She named her group after me. That's so cute I could vomit. Of course, at the time I was completely oblivious to all of this, because I was lost in a giant amusement park. Ever been lost in a giant amusement park? It can be very traumatizing.

That night, after she had us watch the video several times, I headed back to my room and went to bed. Crevison was my roommate. He stayed up watching Platoon on TV. I was half asleep, but I kept waking up because the guys on TV were shouting "Ammo! Ammo!" but I was hearing "Hammel! Hammel!" I guess I fell asleep when that scene was over. And some time after that, the phone rang. Crevison answered. It was her. She asked for me, but rather than wake me up, he told her I was asleep. Gee, think it might have been an important call, Sasquatch?! I didn't find out until she told me at breakfast. But she didn't say what the call about. What could she possibly have called me for in the middle of the night, I wonder?

Whenever the group went out to eat, we'd always sit together, and if I didn't, she called me over to sit with her. Sometimes I'd sit somewhere else just to see if she'd call me over, and every time, without fail, she would. Everywhere I went, "C'mon, Hammel!" She'd grab my hand and take me with her. I don't think there's any greater feeling in the world than that feeling you get when a girl calls for you. But she never called me John. It was always Hammel. Did that mean she wasn't interested? I mean, you call your buddy by his last name, but I've never heard a girl say, "This is my boyfriend, Smitty." It just doesn't happen. That must have been what I was thinking of when I made The Mistake.

On the bus ride home, Dick kind of put me on the spot. Again. His earlier plans to get her away from me didn't work. This time he conjured up something far worse. I was sitting next to her now. I don't know how I managed that. Before the last rest stop I was sitting next to this kid who asked to borrow my Gameboy, and then I watched in horror as his festering, pus-oozing thumb mashed down on the B button for half an hour. But there I was. Sitting right next to her. Dick leaned over and asked me if we were going out.

Trapped. Again. What do I say? There was a number of things I could have done to get out of that situation. I could have just ignored him. I could have even asked her then, "Hey, are we going out?" I didn't really know. We were in a hot tub together, but there were other people in it too, so does that count? We were pretty much inseparable, and I mean, the Hammels? C'mon. But I couldn't help thinking it was all just a fluke, and that I didn't belong with her and it was only a matter of time before it fixed itself. I could have done lots of things but instead I blurted out "We're just friends."

We're just friends? We're just friends?!! Argh!! I never thought I'd live to see myself use the "we're just friends" line. What right do I have using that line? We're just friends, what the hell is wrong me? I should have let her answer. If she said no, she said no. None of the blame would lie with me, as it does so heavily now. I made the wrong move and Dick won. Dick's a jerk.

Regardless, the rest of that year we continued to talk in science class pretty much every day. A few days after we got back, she even wrote me note.

Hammel,
Did you get your pictures developed yet?
Danielle.

Tomorrow: The story concludes in Loss

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Spleen Day

April 2.

This day may not hold much meaning to most people, but to my friends and me, it will forever be known as Spleen Day. Yes, on this day in 1996, Nick got smacked around like an angry rag doll and wound up in the hospital minus a superfluous organ.

We were juniors in high school. I was sitting in homeroom, probably doodling skulls and bunnies, when Jim burst into the room, laughing hysterically.

"Nick's nose exploded!"

"What?!"

"There's blood everywhere!"

Jim explained what had happened. Apparently, Nick had some words with someone outside the building. I think Nick made fun of his girlfriend or something. I don’t know. I was sitting at my desk, channeling my own teenage angst into demented little scribbles in the margins of my notebook. But the point is, things started to heat up, and Nick got punched in the face, spilling forth what I can only imagine was a crimson torrent from his nose. That probably would have been more than enough for someone to get their point across, but it didn't stop there. He was also kicked in the side, which ruptured his spleen and set up the subsequent hospital stay. All this before school even started. It was an interesting day.

Ironically, the school was having a blood drive that day. Really. The joke was that all the blood collected went to Nick, either that or all the blood he left on the dirt outside was mopped up and donated to the Red Cross.

Nick was laid out for a few weeks, while the other kid with the silly poodle haircut was suspended and told if he got into another fight within so many days he’d be expelled.

Nick has since proclaimed that April 2 be known as Spleen Day, and while the greeting card companies haven't jumped on it yet (Happy Spleen Day, Grandma!), it's significant enough to be the date of Nick and Hedie's wedding next year. Easier to remember the anniversary that way.

Who knows? Maybe it'll catch on. Or maybe not. But for a select few, it will always be remembered as the day Nick got the ever-loving crap kicked out of him by a drugged-out lunkhead.

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