3) Intimidation

Part Three
(This is chapter three of my personal accounts, "-Liking-: Refractions and Infractions" )


It was all very intimidating, that freshman year: 1997.


New people: new friends, new enemies, new teachers, new smartasses, new dumbasses, and of course, new girlies. There were so many of all of them. Among them, how could I seperate the good from the bad, the dangerous from the caring?

What's worse, since this was high school, all bets were off. There were no longer any rules for behavior. As far as anyone was concerned, they were adults -or at least they thought they were.

I knew this all too well, as the few girls my age I had gotten to know when I started high school were going out with guys at least three years older than them. Who could live up to that?

The many people at this school were (conveniently for me) seperated into three magnets. The first magnet -the default magnet- was the comprehenseive magnet. This is where the majority of students at Henry were enrolled. This was a very 'ghetto' school, they said, located in a very low-income neighborhood. Thus, (sadly) a class in the comprehensive magnet amounted to little more than an hour of daycare.

The second magnet at Henry was the 'Open' magnet. It was an alternative for those in comp who were unchallenged, and also for those in the third magnet who felt they were being OVERchallenged.

The third magnet was where I found myself, for all intents and purposes the ONLY reason I was going to this school: The International Baccalaureate magnet. For most students, it was just the hard English class and the hard history class. For the determined, it was also an intensive program focusing a student's studies culminating in six exams in different subjects at the end. It was a challenge, and more was expected of the IB student. Of course, the result was an air of superiority in all of the students, something that really couldn't be avoided in such circumstances. Nevertheless, it felt good to be on top. The ability to focus on the studies rather than the behavior was something I really enjoyed.

There were about a hundred and fifty of us in my IB freshman class. By senior year there would be about forty five, and only a few hundred students in the entire school would graduate. So it goes.

Along with the few friends I inherited from my sister, I inherited a few teachers as well. The first of note was one Steve D., who taught civics/history to both the incoming freshmen and the graduating seniors. He prided himself on running a strict and uncompromising learning environment. He donned a suit on the first day of class, and did his best to intimidate the entire IB freshman class: "A third of you will fail this semester" he said. Steve was an excellent teacher, but he was a real bastard and he loved it. He would joke with students between classes sometimes, but once the bell rang, he was all business. When I learned that my sister had had him as a teacher not just two years, but EVERY single year of high school, I was astounded -that she could stand him for that long was one thing, that she survived his class for four years was amazing.

In most of my classes, I pretty much tried my best to disappear. I had learned in middle school that my eccentric hairstyle was a magnet for unfriendly comments, and I didn't want to take any more than I was already getting, so shutting up was in order. For the most part, my disappearing act worked.

Also, this of all times an observation was true: when you're new, all the angry faces seem to be because of you. This I felt especially in biology, where I had tested into a sophomore-level class. Thus, my classmates were even more like strangers than my freshman classmates were. So frightening, I tried harder to be invisible.

In some classes though, participation was mandatory. In Spanish, for instance, I was pretty much forced to make friends. I got to know the people sitting next to me, Ashish and David. For that year, I pretty much solely used them for the dreaded group projects. Julie was in the class also, and tried to talk to me every so often (I was not such a good responder, however). The main problem was that one is assigned random partners sometimes, and talking was required. Ironically enough, I found it much easier to talk to and joke with strangers when I was speaking in a different language.

A fairly harrowing expedition early on in the year was the freshman IB picnic. For some of the time, I attempted to tag along with one of the only people I knew, Nate. He had actually gone to grade school with me, but we then didn't talk in middle school. Reunited in high school, I found him to be a much changed person. The first change was that he had somehow made friends with many many people since I'd last known him. Nate was exactly one of those guys who seemed to make the most friends for some reason: he liked to talk a lot, he was large in both stature and presence, he was now a reborn Christian, he was 'deaf' in one ear (convenient!), and he never seemed to be free from some friend obligation or another -meaning that he would kind of just leave you there. In short, he was the nicest asshole I ever met.

While I desperately clung to his group during that picnic, he introduced me to Vu, saying "You two are my strangest, nerdiest friends, so I've been waiting for you to meet." Nate had a real talent for unintentionally insulting people in a friendly manner.

Vu was one of the most creative people I met. He was a character of boundless artistic energy, and he produced comic strips of a quality I had not yet thought possible from real people. We had not only civics class together, but also health class. Also in health class was David, who I didn't talk to a whole lot even though I always worked with him in Spanish class. I always thought he was mad at me for some reason. But he talked to Vu.

Health class was the most useless excuse for learning that I have ever experienced. It was taught by a physical trainer who liked to tell kids that he was smart and that he made lots of money being a physical trainer. However, the class was unnecessary for me, and I wanted to test out of it, because it was all about taking a textbook and answering reading comprehension questions. It wasn't that the very subject itself is so irrelevant, it just doesn't conform to any real field of study. It was reading a textbook full of common sense. That's all the class was, short of some educational videos. But it was required that all freshmen take it, along with gym class afterwards. I'm not sure why, but Vu and I had a running joke about how the health teacher kept a stash of pornography in his desk.

I had an abundance of freetime at school. Health class was my last class, and I inevitably found myself finishing all of my other homework before health class was even over. My boredom spilled out as creativity... I used the school's daily planner as a foundation, and I started doodling on the first page of the printed school policies. One after another, the doodles turned into a consistent tiny smileyface-like creature that I deemed a potato. No larger than a couple milimeters in diameter, they could be produced like mad. After a few weeks of class, thousands of potatoes covered the first few pages of my planner. As time went on, I added more intricate details in with the potatoes, and I added different expressions to each face. Pretty soon, I was spending even lunch time working on my potatoes. Passersby would look at it for a few seconds and say that this boy was crazy. Whenever I had free time in a class: to the potatoes. This would continue for some time.

Broken

Just when I must have been beginning to get comfortable with the people at school, I fell sick with a case of pneumonia. This left me missing about four days, which I think is the most that I missed for the entire four years I was there. I was left home coughing things up and playing Final Fantasy 7, a fine combination.

I went back to school pneumonia-free, but I was aching all over and inside. There was something painful, in my back or in my side, somewhere in there, and it hurt. I suspect that it may have been a pneumothorax now, undetected. Nevertheless, I moaned to my lunch friends and said things half jokingly, like 'I'm broken'.

There was little work to catch up on, but for one class: Biology. A lab had started without me, and I needed to join a group. This would certainly be torture, I thought... all of the groups looked to be either too full, or had people too intimidating. With so many scary groups, I found myself uncharacteristically approaching the back table where three sophomore girls were working.

"Do you mind if I join you guys?"

Sure, they said.

They were three very different girls.

One of them was Melinda, who had actually known my sister; small world. She had been part of that circle of friends when she had dated someone three years older than her (in fact, the same person Julie was by this time dating). She was a smart girl, scoring better than anyone on most of the biology tests. GRAWR. She had reddish hair, slight freckles and a delicate nose, a small frame, and green eyes. She was so very unintimidating that I felt at ease. And she called me Coke.

Then there was Misty, and my first impression of her was when she was making jerk-off motions while filling a test-tube from the sink, and we shared a smile. It was a most appropriate first impression for her, I would soon find out. She had short and light brown hair, and her face was exotic but pleasant. She was skinny, but quite busty. She had a ditzyness to her, but not due to lack of intelligence. I don't now why, but she was very nice to me from the very beginning. Soon she was even calling me Coke too.

Finally, there was Kelley. I had actually seen her in junior high. I had remembered her name for a very specific reason. In my Pre-IB class in seventh grade, two girls had transferred in in the middle of the semester. Their names were Kelley and Molly. But there was a problem, because the one named Kelley had long brown hair and dark eyes and very slightly puffy cheeks -basically, she looked like a 'Molly'. Molly, on the other hand, had light hair tied back in a ponytail and bright blue eyes and very skinny legs - she looked like a 'Kelly'. So I remembered immediately Kelley's name when I saw her because she still looked so much like a Molly should look.

Kelley seemed somewhat quiet for the most part, but she liked to play around during labs -saying odd things- and I enjoyed it. She had the most enduring spontaneity that made every day a treat. She also had such a very distinctive voice, and said things with a mild squeak that I found very likeable.

From that point on, I always worked with them. Required labs or not.

I was still very much broken later in the week, when EV and another senior planned on going home with me and visiting some people at the University of Minnesota (conveniently located near my house).

EV's boyfriend Gut lent me some comics that EV seemed to like very much. I had no time to read though, because I was soon invited to follow them to campus. I hung out with some of the group there, not saying much as usual. Later in the evening, I was convinced into seeing a screening of Chasing Amy. After that, it was a matter of us trying to get me home, because I really didn't know where I had gotten to. Finally, I got a ride with EV. However, I was still broken (I had been in pain all day). I couldn't sleep in any position, so I ended up reading all of Gut's comics...

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, it was called. This was a comic that sucked me in and entertained me to no end. Only 7 issues. In particular in this comic, there was a mini-comic entitled "Happy Noodle Boy". Happy Noodle Boy was a stick figure with a sour face whose day consisted of going to the park and standing on a box, shouting belligerent nonsensical phrases such as "You deny me freshmaker? Minty I tellz ya. You will not sink my cheerio. Fried cyclops." It would usually end in Mr. Noodle getting shot and killed. It was delightfully non sequitur.

This comic was finally something that I really enjoyed that was very independent and counterculture. It was fresh. It was nothing like the stale superhero somics I had tried and failed to get into before. It made me feel special, and I liked inflicting it on others. I found that it opened up a new world for me. In addition to buying all of the comics and waiting ecstatically for new ones, I started trying out drawing a comic myself.

It was pretty bad, but it was at least different than my massive potato project. I did the most of it early in the morning, waiting for geometry class to start. I liked it because it told a simple story and told some dumb jokes along the way. It was fun to create.

At some point, my little try at comicry got into the hands of Misty. After reading it, she started to demand more comics of me. And when I showed her my potatoes, she demanded updates every day to see what I had added to them. That which she demanded in her milky voice, I happily provided.

At the end of the first trimester, Steve in his "A third of you will fail" class offered precious extra credit points for basically anything: it was a talent show. I photocopied some pages of my potatoes and passed them around. I made the defensive statement that I had done them because I was really bored, and that health class sucked. The reactions of many classmates were of awe. "Wow! You must have been really... bored. I could NEVER do that, dude." It didn't sound so good when they said it like that. Like they could do the same thing, as long as they had the time. They probably could, but after that I was determined to put something special into the potatoes, something beyond the hours.

Switcheroo

The second trimester of classes started soon, and I finally got to say goodbye to health class. In place, my schedule was rearranged and I had gym first thing in the morning. It was a major difference, as I usually had enough time in the morning to draw some potatoes or something -my bus got to school quite early. In gym class, I could only sit there and go into meditation mode. In this state, and due to my position near the front of the alphabet, I could watch everybody go past. I think there was one girl in particular I got really into waiting for, she was really tall and had the most perfectly bouyant chest that I could not help but ogle. Perhaps it is an indication of how little fun I got out of gym class, or maybe how perverted I am, but that was probably the biggest thing I remember about those mornings.

On the other end, having geometry as my last class of the day was getting on my nerves. Suddenly I was realizing how much I hated the way in which the material was being taught. I always preferred using algebra or my own internal visualizations than the methods that were recommended. Thus, I ended up losing out on the precious 'show your work' points, because I hated doing it their way. It was math, but it was twisted into such a shape that I no longer enjoyed it. I was getting fed up.

Suddenly, the idea dawned on me. There was a solution, but it would require great strength on my part.

Between classes one day, I marched into the classroom I thought was 'algebra-trig' and approached the teacher. I told her that I would like to transfer to her class and out of geometry.

That's right, I was invoking pressure to skip a class I didn't like. Can you believe it? I'm so cool.

Then she told me that she wasn't the algebra-trig teacher. I said sorry, and went to the REAL algebra-trig room. I talked to the guy in there, and he said "yea, that sounds good. But I'm not the trig teacher, I'm the teacher's assistant."

I was going to have to face the geometry teacher, Mrs. Kostik, face to face. I was frightened before, but after not one but TWO rejections, I was just about shivering with intimidation. It was not only the foul-ups, but the sheer scale of my endeavor and the woman that I had to talk to that made it so very frightening. In most situations, I would have simply given up at this point. I was not so good at sticking my neck out like this. However, there was something about this class-skipping crusade of mine that I knew was just RIGHT. Then again, maybe I convinced myself this when I had learned that NATE, of all people, was in algebra-trig himself. If ever there was an indicator that something was wrong, I felt that it must be Nate sitting in a higher math class than me. I'm such a bastard! But bastard or not, there was a wrongness to me being in that geometry class, and it needed righting.

It was just before the start of winter break, and I came up to her after class. I must have been trembling, but I tried my best to present my ridiculous request in a natural way. This all had to be founded first on the fabrication that I had been working ahead in the book. It was a lie, but something I was nonetheless perfectly willing to fix. After I said it, there was silence as she contemplated what I was suggesting...

She was on to me, I thought. She's gonna yell at me for trying to weasel out of the fundamentals! She's gonna keep me here forever! Then she spoke, her face still unreadable:

"Well, if that's what you think is best."

I was in. I let out immediately that I would do any work that she wanted me to, that I would get it to her soon. I tried very hard not to break into a big stupid smile and start kicking my feet together in the air; this was official.

I had won. I had invoked powers beyond my possession for preferential treatment. And boy did it feel good! I brought an algebra-trig textbook home with me that winter break and set out catching up.

Before leaving for winter break, I bumped into Brian, one of my lunch acquaintances and a branch on that tall tree of my sister's friends. He was trying to get people to act in his Othello project for sophomore IB English. I accepted the huge part of Iago, as I thought Brian had always been a nice guy, and since I loved Othello so much anyways. I got to the location of filming early. We filmed a couple scenes, but it kind of turned out not so well. What Brian had hoped it to be was animated and magical. It turned out to be tired and dull. The second day of filming was elsewhere, and fortunately there were more people. There was a rather awful mix-up when the amount of scripts was outnumbered by the amount of people, and there was an attempt made to collect a script from a dead character. The plan fouled up when the time came for the long-dead character to once again speak; it was a disaster. Earlier in the day Brian had filmed me banging randomly on a guitar and moving my mouth with gibberish, and a song was to be dubbed in later. This funny idea of Brian's I guess turned out to save the day; the bit turned out much more entertaining than the rest of the play. After returning to school, I was greeted by Julie and Laura, another sophomore. I was told that my lip sync-ing was entertaining. Yep, my part on the tape had been played to that sophomore English class. So that was fun.

Because of my triumph over the math program, I had a bit of schedule-shifting to do when I came back from break. I said goodbye to my first hour gym class and hello to my sixth hour gym class. And I said many many hellos to my new math class, but declined saying anything to old geometry class. Everything seemed in balance with the new classes: in sixth hour, I was reunited with my friend Vu, which made participating in gym class (i.e. sitting in the corner) all the more endurable, because we could BS about video games and whatnot.

Sitting down to trig class was an odd experience. There was big Nate, and he was surrounded by his female friends. And there were Brian and Laura and other sophomores as well. Also, the material was not hard at all, but I actually enjoyed it. I did fine, and the teacher was good too, and on group days I worked with the familiar faces and had fun. Nate's female friends were very friendly to me -perhaps a bit TOO friendly.

There was a reason for this that I found out soon enough. Nate was part of the 'Christian Youth' posse. That's right, there was a student organization at Henry High that was all about Jesus. Not only was it there, and met in classrooms after school with food, but during lunch they all sat together and held Prayer Circles. I might not have even noticed the group, however, but for the huge poster presence they left on the walls: Join Christian Youth! Jesus Rocks! Got JESUS?
To this last, one person at my lunch table remarked "yeah I've got him, and you can't have him back unless you give me five hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills." Other jokes were made about forming opposition clubs of various natures.

I was vehemently non-christian -even anti-christian- at that point and the Christian Youth Club made me mad. I was still friends with Nate, of course. I just hated his club, and pretty much all that it stood for. But I think what made me REALLY hate the club was that I didn't belong to it. I wanted to be part of a club like that, one chalk full of cute, friendly, nonthreatening creatures of the opposite sex. But I couldn't because of my beliefs -or rather my lack of them. "Oh the persecution!" I must have claimed, finally having some visible force that I could complain about.
I was invited to Bible study sessions, but I respectfully declined anyways.
Just not my thing, I said.
I hate you all, I thought.

I found out later what I had so devilishly desired: that at least some of those hanging out in the club were doing so out of social intimidation rather than faith. It's cool to be Christian, so let's all pretend...
That's what most clubs are like though.

There was another club that wasn't the case, and that was Quiz Bowl. I had been encouraged by EV and my sister to attend practice; it would be just like playing Trivial Pursuit. Eventually, I up and went. Several of my sister's friends were there, seniors on the team. I remember the first day I came, I sat down and drew potatoes while questions were asked and everybody answered them. I was silent for most of the time, because I was of course intimidated by the club itself, and worried that I was too stupid. When I finally ventured a guess at one question (a wrong one), one girl said, "Finally you said something."
That didn't really make me want to come back, but I did.
Also on Quiz Bowl were Brian and EV and Ben the trivia genius, who were all from my lunch table. On the way to my first meet (which was actually the last match of the season), Mr. Hohn, the coach, suggested me and Brian join Cross Country (and I later did). I sat in on one game during that Quiz Bowl competition, and I did not answer a single question. Better luck next year, I thought.

Attention

Meanwhile, biology class was still the highlight of my day. I had so much fun working with those girls. I even talked to them and cracked jokes. I delighted in making the experiments fun with them.

I had been at first attracted to Melinda, because of that niceness and fragility that she had. However, maybe it was that I was sabotaging myself, or maybe I was too weirded out by her previous dating agenda, or perhaps she was too Christian for me, but I lost interest. On second thought, it was probably because Misty was around playing dominatrix with me -I had no ability to focus interest on ANYBODY with HER around. While we all usually worked together on labs, when we were sitting in our desks it was usually Misty who traipsed up to sit next to me.

As I mentioned previously, she was all about my potatoes. When I hadn't made any progress in a while, she ordered me to draw more. Also, after showing her my silly comic, she ordered me to make another one, on the spot. I responded by drawing this really crappy piece of bad humor on one page. The next day, she wanted another. This continued for a while.

During this time of her ordering me around, we got to know each other better. She would tell me about her drinking experiences and whatnot. She was also going out with a heroin dealer, and I would hear about her rollercoaster of smoking pot and then quitting, and then not quite quitting. In turn I would tell her about how many things I did NOT do. She must have gotten off on me being this super virgin, and she would talk about sex a lot. Not just that, but she liked to teach me all kinds of new related vocabulary. She had fun doing it, and I must admit it was fun playing my part. And of course, I could see nothing wrong about getting to talk about sex with a cute buxom thing that enjoyed my company. Though I did get tired of getting ordered around from time to time, even if it was a joke.

I remember one particular day, the end of the second trimester. It was a free day, and I was playing hangman with Kelley and Melinda. It was fun, and Kelley was making up all kinds of crazy ideas. But Misty started talking to me and I became distracted from the game. There was frustration in Kelley's eyes that I did not properly notice, and I feel pretty bad about it now. That must have been awful, the busty girl stealing me away from the others. There was also a similar situation around that time in which Kelley for some reason was calling me stupid. I had no idea what she was talking about. What a jerk I am.

Sometime in the middle of the last trimester of that school year, Kelley had to change her schedule and was no longer in my biology class. She came to visit one day though, skipping class. With her gone, the few remaining labs were no longer so spontaneous and fun. I really did just spend the whole time talking to Misty. Being such a shy guy, it felt surprisingly great that she had so opened up to me. I have to admit, I loved the attention she gave.

I was also starting to enjoy getting attention in other classes.

Most of the time, my entire focus in any class was not to get attention. Or bad attention at least, and I never really had a history of good attention. Unfortunately right in front of me in English class sat the epitome of bad attention: Mara, quite possibly the most unpleasant human being, let alone girl, I've ever had the pleasure of sharing space with. She complained at all times, while people were talking, and disagreed with people in an offensive fashion. Adding to that, she remarked on things out loud much of the time about her very specific interests in sci-fi and fantasy. I'm as much of a nerd as the rest of them, but I didn't go yelling it out! And then cursing under her breath at everyone who reacted. Anyways, sitting behind her I had to endure every single little comment and complaint she endlessly muttered. It was pretty bad.

Rather than risking attention anywhere near as bad, I simply tried to avoid it all. That meant minimum participation in classes. Then it came time for presentations.

Steve. That bastard had a presentation component for each big project, and there was a project every trimester. I asked him if I could do my presentation in video form; that way I could avoid unwanted attention. I reasoned that even if the video was boring and bad, at least I wouldn't be in front of the classroom. And boy was the first video bad! I had narrated a very clumsy attempt at clay animation, and all I could think about was how bad my voice sounded as that tape went on, talking about Plato. I don't remember the reaction to it, as I was in a spooked out trance in the corner.

The next video presentation for Steve's class was made over winter break, and I put a bit more effort into it. It was open-ended and involved my favorite poultry item: chickens. The video was loosely related to a bill-to-law project, and I basically I got to make an animated sequence. So I smoothly animated chicken parts going down conveyor belts, and later ninjas were sent in to enforce tougher factory standards. There was music, the animation was good, it was funny, and best of all: everyone in class enjoyed it. And that felt goooood. From then on, whenever possible I would make a video presentation. It was no longer to shy away from attention, but instead to capture it.

I made several more videos that year, of varying quality. One thing was the same about them though: it wowed some people. And the one presentation that I was not allowed to video tape, I presented on Circus Freaks, and had plenty of pictures. Way to disappear! At the end of that year, I was forgetting my survival instincts: I was enjoying attention. But only, I might add, SEVERELY CONTROLLED attention. I was still very far away from spontaneous conversations with classmates. I could only do it when it was TIME, when I had time to prepare for it. If only -I imagined- I had time to prepare for EVERY encounter. Then, life would be so much easier.

Life would also be easier, I thought, if I could tell whether or not girls were going out with someone or not. It could have saved me so much aggravation and disappointment. Not that I actually asked anybody out. But it was just one more excuse for me not to, the possibility of them already having a boyfriend. I was having enough trouble convincing myself to take chances like that, but that was certainly the clincher.

As freshman year finally came to an end, this frustration grew. This was because I kept finding out -through eavesdropping, of course- how many girls had boyfriends. All of the best girls were taken, I decided. And all of the guys they dated, just as the pattern so far predicted, were years older than the girls.

This rolled around in my brain for some time, provoking serious aggravation. How could I have any chance of finding a nice girl when all of the best of them were taken by old guys? Then the next logical question came to mind. Why would so many older guys date girls so young? I answered this very soon with what seemed the most logical conclusion.

Because they were losers. I liked that answer because it gave me someone to hate.

The image became clear in my head. All of the guys who could not find dates their own age -because they were such losers, of course- had to fish around in MY age group to get dates. They were polluting the waters! What was I supposed to do, look for girls in junior high?
And not only that. The worst part was that once the girls my age had dated college guys, or whatever, they were different in my head. They were more mature. They were no longer in my league. They were... To be honest, I was afraid of them. How could I learn how to treat a girl right if she was expecting a guy with a car? A guy who knew all of the tricks?

Why even bother?

Even more reasons for me to wuss out. I was becoming a master collector of those reasons.

I would be a wuss for all occasions.

One of the last occasions of freshman year was the IB awards where every IB teacher gave awards to students for whatever. While I wasn't exactly expecting a math award on account of my switching half way through the year, it was kind of weird not to get one because I had become so used to it in junior high. But I was in for a serious surprise: I had won the student choice award in the category of "Best Presentations". Best presentations? Huh? I didn't present anything, I just made videos! And hey! How the heck did enough people know my name for me to get this? I was also surprised by getting an award for English class. English? That's not math!

I then got my yearbook, always the warning bell before the end. I gave it to Vu and he drew a chick in it. I then gave it to Nate and he drew stitches on her forehead, defiling her. Melinda signed a message: "see you at runs" (Runs were events with my sister's group of friends), and so did her new (again older!) boyfriend: "I am a dummie". Misty apologized for making me do things, and thanked me for smiles. Julie circled herself, the picture of her and the drama club where a can of Coke was balancing on her thigh. Here's what she wrote: "Nice meeting you. You better start going to more runs. Quit making those faces at me. See you soon, cause you better start showing up more often."

I should show up, I thought.
But come on, I'm a wuss.

Summer was here. Freshman year was over.

(This was chapter number three of my personal accounts, "-Liking-: Refractions and Infractions" )
(Next chapter: "4) Infatuation" )