It's Wednesday, and that means it's time for yet another chapter of Making Sh*t Up: An Improvised Life. If you're new to this blog, you should probably back up and catch the last thirteen chapters. There's laughs, a few tears, some really horrible shit, and the time I unintentionally creeped-out a Golden Globe - winning actress. It's worth a read. And off we go!
Chapter Fourteen
Cancer, Leprosy, Honesty,
Sympathy, and Skipping School
Every kid’s eighth grade year is awkward. That is a universal truth. But
I will risk a little conceit and suggest that my eighth grade year was more
awkward than most, compounded by the fact that, just a few weeks before school
started that year, my father had blown his brains out. And, Conroe being the
small, gossipy Texas town it was, every kid in school had heard about it. I
became an instant celebrity in eighth grade, and for all the wrong reasons.
I have never had cancer. Or
leprosy. But I feel I can relate, if only a tiny little bit, to what it must be
like socially for victims of either disease. Not because my schoolmates treated
me like something to be avoided at all costs; my father’s suicide didn’t cost
me any friends. It’s just that nobody knew what to say to me. Eighth graders
can pretty much handle the sarcasm, derision, contempt, scorn, and outright
mockery that they get from other eighth graders. That comes with the territory.
But sympathy? Pity? What use has an eighth grader for those things from his
peers, who were as ill equipped to give them as I was to receive them?
So, there were a lot of
awkward silences betwixt my classmates and me that year, which I started
filling in with humor, which seemed a very great relief to my friends. If Larry
was clowning around, then he must be okay, and so we need never speak of “the
thing” again. The only honest response I got that year was from my buddy, Tony
Vilardi. We never hung out after eighth grade, but I’ll never forget what he
said to me. It must have been one or two weeks after the school year started,
and I was feeling a lot of eyes on my back as I passed people in the halls.
Kids hanging around my locker would scatter at my approach, for fear they’d be
expected to say something. One morning, as we were hanging around outside
waiting for the bell to ring for First Period, Tony looked at me square and
said, “So, your dad. He just killed
himself, huh?”
Me: Yeah.
And then he said the most honest thing I heard from any of my
friends that year:
“Shit. That sucks, man.”
I did not understand – and so could not have voiced in that moment –
that what I felt at those words was a profound gratitude. Because Tony wasn’t
offering sympathy; he was simply stating the truth. My dad was dead. And it
sucked. He didn’t say he was sorry for my loss. And he didn’t – thank the
universe – say, Bless your heart, which
I never heard from any of my classmates, but which I heard from practically
every adult I came into contact with for that year. Where I come from, Bless your heart often – but not always
– is a good Texas Christian’s magnanimous way of saying, You poor fucking bastard. Better you than me.
I did get a goodly amount of
sympathy from my teachers in eighth grade, which I exploited as much as my
non-criminal mind would let me. Some let me slide on homework assignments that
were incomplete, or that I didn’t turn in at all. How I mainly cashed in on
their sympathy was being absent from school. A lot. This carried over into my
freshman year of high school, where the one and only time I was called into the
counselor’s office was to discuss my chronic absenteeism.
I wish I could remember the
guy’s name. This was still at a time when – at least in small-town Texas in the
early 80s – counselors were still the people whose primary occupation was to
paddle the asses of wayward students. Actually counseling children was a few years away. But this particular
counselor was what I would now call one of the “new breed,” though at the time
he was probably considered a leftie-hippie-free-love radical at Conroe High
School. First of all, he was younger. And by “younger,” I mean he wasn’t alive
during the exodus out of Egypt, which most other counselors at the school
obviously were. And secondly, he seemed genuinely concerned – about me.
He basically said that he’d
added up my absences for the year-to-date, and that I had essentially already
missed one whole six-weeks (a semester) of my freshman year. He asked me if
there was anything going on with me – a health issue, problems at home with
parents or siblings – that could possibly account for being gone from classes
that much. Here, then, was an adult’s (albeit, a young one’s) honest attempt to
“reach” me. I also realized at that moment that this guy had to be new in town,
because he didn’t ask me about my Dad’s suicide, which meant he didn’t know.
Which meant he didn’t go to the local Baptist church.
All this I see with the wisdom
of hindsight. This poor guy was probably earnestly concerned about my
situation, and was really trying to get me to open up. His earnestness had the
opposite effect. I slammed shut tighter than a new prisoner’s sphincter on the
first day of incarceration. And instead of answering his question, I responded
with one of my own.
“Mr. Whatever The Hell His Name Was, do you have my report card in front of you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mind telling me what my grades are?”
“You’re making straight A’s.”
“And do you have my report cards from the beginning of the year until
now?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And can you remind me what my grades have been all year?”
“You’ve been making straight A’s all year.”
“And can you tell me whether I make it to tenth grade is based on my
attendance, or my grades?”
(Pause) “Your grades.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
And
that was the end of that. I never got called to the counselor’s office again
for attendance issues. In fact, I never got called in for anything. I was not a
trouble maker in the classic sense. But I did know just how far I could push
people and circumstances, and (most of the time, at least) I knew when to back
off. Besides, staying home all the time was getting boring, and the girls were
all at school. And I made a shit-load of trouble with girls.
Next Week, Chapter Fifteen: Giving Myself A Hand
Make a contribution to the book by clicking HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment