Is Greg the new me?
I just can’t watch (oh, yes I can!) as Greg takes Jenny in his arms and gently strokes her back as if she were fragile and then kisses her mouth in a short, respectful way. There’s no slobbering like most boys. Genteel, the last of dying breed, that’s Greg. How could Jenny not turn to mush? I melt just witnessing it. Jenny knows. Here, now, she takes off Greg’s glasses and tries them on, ruffling his straight black hair, but deep down, she knows I’m watching. She knows that I rot whenever I’m alone in this blinding hallway of public school hell. I might as well be a mannequin. Dress me up and throw me in the cloudy window of a rundown store. Right now, I feel equally plastic and unnoticed.
Turning to bid me farewell, Jenny points to a red wall poster, painted with a creepy pumpkin face, promoting the Monster Mash. “Can’t wait for us to shag!” she yells.
It’s the same line every year. Can’t wait to shag! Then she disappears with some random guy she’s destined to suck off while I’m left sucking in my chipmunk cheeks in an attempt to appear blessed with great bone structure.
As if Jenny cares about shagging with me!
Last year, she begged me to be her escort and then ditched me before we finished one dance. On most nights that would be fine, but she knows how much the Monster Mash means to me. It’s the only dance that I attend. There’s no prom queen to salute, and for one wondrous night, the outcasts rule the dance floor. Hiding behind a mask, anyone can be popular. Anyone can be queen, even me!
However, this year, I can already predict my luck. The charmed ones, Jenny and Greg, will be lost in each other all night and I’ll be the gay best friend by the punch bowl. Oh, this punch tastes great. It’s got pineapple in it? No kidding. Not even a zillion Brazilian boys could take me away from this punch bowl. That’s how lame I’ll sound. Sure, last year’s dance was no better, but at least being deemed a pedophile for dressing up like Pee-Wee Herman got me attention. This year my fate seems far, far worse. Now that Jenny has a boyfriend, this year it appears I’m destined arrive and go home alone.
Scene 1 2
Sometimes if you breathe in deep enough you can smell marijuana in the arts wing of Rivershore High. It has a pungent grassy scent and lingers around the boy’s room, just beyond a wall of abstract paintings created by emo kids. This is where I run now, along an empty hall where white origami birds hang on yarn from a low ceiling.
It’s an hour after school and I’m late for my first day of film rehearsal. A few paces ahead, two boys in girl-jeans (you can tell by the small pockets) slide forward on snail legs so I lighten my speed and trail them. They’re dishing about the ditzy cheerleader who’d bought a pill from Jenny earlier in the day. “Do you know her?” one boy asks the other.
“I know OF her.”
“Shit, everyone knows OF her now.”
The two boys laugh and one reenacts the scene. It appears Little Miss Pom Pom had a spill. She was eating lunch with her fabulous friends in the caf when she stood up without warning and promptly tit-flopped on the tile floor. There, dipping her bologna and cheese sandwich in what appeared to be an invisible bucket, she was on all fours when she began waxing the tile and singing. “She thought she was Little Orphan Annie,” the thinner of the two snickers. “It was a riot. There she was, a starfish in the middle of the caf floor, inquiring as to the whereabouts of her dear Daddy Warbucks.”
“Dude, that’s fucked up,” the other boy says.
“No. What’s fucked up was her sad rendition of ‘Tomorrow’.” The two boys crack up.
I think of Jenny – the havoc she wreaks, the lives she affects. They say high school is a microcosm of life. Well, if so, then who’s in control? Are the doctors crazier than the clients? How did each generation before ours make it without being medicated? This is what I
I just can’t watch (oh, yes I can!) as Greg takes Jenny in his arms and gently strokes her back as if she were fragile and then kisses her mouth in a short, respectful way. There’s no slobbering like most boys. Genteel, the last of dying breed, that’s Greg. How could Jenny not turn to mush? I melt just witnessing it. Jenny knows. Here, now, she takes off Greg’s glasses and tries them on, ruffling his straight black hair, but deep down, she knows I’m watching. She knows that I rot whenever I’m alone in this blinding hallway of public school hell. I might as well be a mannequin. Dress me up and throw me in the cloudy window of a rundown store. Right now, I feel equally plastic and unnoticed.
Turning to bid me farewell, Jenny points to a red wall poster, painted with a creepy pumpkin face, promoting the Monster Mash. “Can’t wait for us to shag!” she yells.
It’s the same line every year. Can’t wait to shag! Then she disappears with some random guy she’s destined to suck off while I’m left sucking in my chipmunk cheeks in an attempt to appear blessed with great bone structure.
As if Jenny cares about shagging with me!
Last year, she begged me to be her escort and then ditched me before we finished one dance. On most nights that would be fine, but she knows how much the Monster Mash means to me. It’s the only dance that I attend. There’s no prom queen to salute, and for one wondrous night, the outcasts rule the dance floor. Hiding behind a mask, anyone can be popular. Anyone can be queen, even me!
However, this year, I can already predict my luck. The charmed ones, Jenny and Greg, will be lost in each other all night and I’ll be the gay best friend by the punch bowl. Oh, this punch tastes great. It’s got pineapple in it? No kidding. Not even a zillion Brazilian boys could take me away from this punch bowl. That’s how lame I’ll sound. Sure, last year’s dance was no better, but at least being deemed a pedophile for dressing up like Pee-Wee Herman got me attention. This year my fate seems far, far worse. Now that Jenny has a boyfriend, this year it appears I’m destined arrive and go home alone.
Scene 1 2
Sometimes if you breathe in deep enough you can smell marijuana in the arts wing of Rivershore High. It has a pungent grassy scent and lingers around the boy’s room, just beyond a wall of abstract paintings created by emo kids. This is where I run now, along an empty hall where white origami birds hang on yarn from a low ceiling.
It’s an hour after school and I’m late for my first day of film rehearsal. A few paces ahead, two boys in girl-jeans (you can tell by the small pockets) slide forward on snail legs so I lighten my speed and trail them. They’re dishing about the ditzy cheerleader who’d bought a pill from Jenny earlier in the day. “Do you know her?” one boy asks the other.
“I know OF her.”
“Shit, everyone knows OF her now.”
The two boys laugh and one reenacts the scene. It appears Little Miss Pom Pom had a spill. She was eating lunch with her fabulous friends in the caf when she stood up without warning and promptly tit-flopped on the tile floor. There, dipping her bologna and cheese sandwich in what appeared to be an invisible bucket, she was on all fours when she began waxing the tile and singing. “She thought she was Little Orphan Annie,” the thinner of the two snickers. “It was a riot. There she was, a starfish in the middle of the caf floor, inquiring as to the whereabouts of her dear Daddy Warbucks.”
“Dude, that’s fucked up,” the other boy says.
“No. What’s fucked up was her sad rendition of ‘Tomorrow’.” The two boys crack up.
I think of Jenny – the havoc she wreaks, the lives she affects. They say high school is a microcosm of life. Well, if so, then who’s in control? Are the doctors crazier than the clients? How did each generation before ours make it without being medicated? This is what I
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