I shut the door of my brother’s car firmly but without slamming it. I can’t bear him giving me another lecture on his precious, ugly Mustang. I know he is following me up the stairs to the school’s doors, but I don’t look behind me. Instead I adjust my backpack filled with brand new folders and notebooks, one of each color. Red for math, blue for science, green (my favorite) for English, yellow (my non favorite) for history.
First day of school, sophomore year. My brother Mitch is a senior and never lets too much time pass between telling me this fact and telling me again. Class of ‘87. It really is the one thing he can lord over me. That and his height, I suppose.
I hold the door for him, keeping my eyes straight ahead. I can hear his heavy breaths behind me, left over allergy congestion from summer. Soon will come his fall allergies, then the winter ones, then the mighty spring hayfever.
“Three o’clock,” he says with a grunt.
“I know,” I say.
“I’m leaving at three o’clock.”
This time I don’t respond.
The scuffing of our shoes echoes down the brick hallway by the gymnasium. He passes me by after a few strides, his long legs covering more distance per step. Part of me wants to wave goodbye to him, another part wants to flip him off.
As he goes by, I smirk in spite of myself, focused on his feet; his shoes are ridiculous. He has no interest what-so-ever in what is popular. Which is fine if you’re out of high school. In high school, it’s the kiss of death. At least pretend to care what’s in and what’s not. At least don’t buy your shoes at Payless because you can get three pair for the price of one at Footlocker. Save that sort of bargain shopping for when you’re living by your own means. When you’re old and don’t care if you’re cool.
I watch his shoes turn the corner to go up the stairs. I shake my head. I don’t even want to consider the other things he’s wearing--the Wrangler jeans, Dad‘s old khaki army shirt with epaulets. Is he kidding? I let him get a safe distance ahead of me before I go upstairs. He thinks my surfing tee-shirt and Girbaud jeans are stupid, and while that holds some weight at home when it’s just me and him, I can’t wait until we’re surrounded by the rest of the school. Then we’ll know who’s stupid.
I know where my homeroom is, but there’s no need to head there yet. Mitch likes to get to school really flipping early, at least an hour before we need to. Me, I like to sleep. I get to school when I get there. Odds are after Mitch graduates this year, I’ll end up tardy or missing from first period all junior and senior year. But for now, I have to find somewhere to hang out and do nothing until someone I know comes. I travel through the newly carpeted senior hallway, passing the trophy case which houses soccer trophies dating back decades--soccer is the only sport we’re any good at--and passing the chaplain’s office meekly stated by a tiny cross on the door.
It’s funny but sometimes I forget that I go to a Protestant high school until it’s time to go to Bible class. The kids are the same here as anywhere. We wear the same clothes, as long as our Bermuda shorts go passed our knees and we wear our ripped jeans on the weekends only. We play Super Mario Brothers and listen to the Cure. We learn the same curriculum. English, Algebra, Calc, Biology, Chemistry, Spanish, German. The only difference is we snort coke in the bathroom instead of smoking pot. And the cars in the lot are BMWs and Mercedes. I think Mitch’s is the only Ford, maybe the only domestic except for the Jeep Cherokees. I suppose the Swedish I-IV classes are a little odd for a school that only graduates a hundred and fifty kids a year, but lots of Protestants are hardy Scandinavians and must be represented.
Mitch and I are one quarter Norwegian, but I don’t think I’ve ever had to put that on any school forms. Mitch and I also are two of the twelve scholarship students here at Northwest Academy. Something Mom likes to remind me of. “We can’t even afford to send you to that school,” she says. I don’t remember her saying it to Mitch, though.
I make my way down to the Commons Room, which is really just the lunch room. My friends and I hang out there after school and talk about whatever. I set up camp at a table by the wall so I can tip my chair back and not have to hold it. Then I do just that. My chair back is perched against the wall and I slide on my headphones, melting into a song by an edgy British band I know no one else has discovered yet. The song about rain and sleeping pills and the British railway helps to drown out Mitch’s Phil Collins’ tape. I’ve really had it with “Billy, Don’t You Lose My Number.” But then Phil Collins is better than some of the other stuff he likes.
I feel a peacefulness settling in me after only a few moments. Good. I had guessed I wouldn’t be able to sleep, first day of school and all, but I start to drift. It’s heavenly until a sudden jolt of my chair jars me back into the Commons Room. Kiro, my best fried. “What the hell?” I say.
He just laughs and pulls up a chair. His kinky dark hair is carefully gelled into a Mohawk, only since the sides of his head aren’t shaved, it’s not really a Mohawk. Cool all the same. Plus it keeps the overly popular people far away. They’re scared of anything that isn’t strictly white, though they won’t say it to Kiro’s face. Kiro’s half white, half African with an Asian-sounding name. Being half white doesn’t make much difference to them. They still won’t talk to him much. It doesn’t make much difference to me either, but in a totally different way. If it weren’t for Kiro, my high school life would be humorless. We get each other in a way I didn’t think I could find at a Protestant high school. But then Kiro’s one of the scholarship children, too.
Kiro grabs my walkman and ejects my tape. “Can we do this song?” He slides in what I know is going to be Motley Crue. “I think you can play this and I really want to do this drum riff.” He glances at the tape I was listening to and makes a face.
I roll my eyes and listen to his song for a while. It’s okay. It sounds like the last Motley Crue song we played, but what the hell. Motley Crue makes him happy. I can tough it out. He plays all the Police songs I want.
I listen more closely to the music, the guitar solo. “I can’t play that,” I say. I’m really not very good. I like to play. I like to write songs. But mainly I’m the lyric guy, the singer guy. Only problem is when it’s just two guys in a band, there isn’t the luxury of having a singer guy. So I’m rhythm guitar and lead guitar, and strangely sometimes even a bass line here or there. He’s drums and back up vocals and just this summer now, cow bell. Also he does piano on “Home Sweet Home.” Well, keyboard. We have this little Casio keyboard I got when I was eleven.
The bell rings after a while, so Kiro and I split up. We have the same lunch, but nothing else. He’s no scholar. A good musician--taught himself how to play the drums--a good artist, and a good writer. Not much into math and science and all that. Me, I’m still trying to prove to my mother that I’m a worthy human being so I try the best I can. I get put into all the advanced classes. Of course, there is no advanced Bible class…
My first period is in one of the rooms off the library so I head upstairs. I pass the mural on the landing from 1963, a cross with some multicolored banners and other things, and push open the library door. Towering above me is Erik Sorenson. Large Swede. I don’t think he’s taking Swedish class, but that’s only because his thick skull can’t handle English, let alone another language. I think Erik might believe English is a second language.
I take a step to the right to move around him. He blocks me. I move left he blocks me. I smirk at him. I can feel a lump growing in my throat. “Can I get by?” I don’t want to say anything too stupid, but I don’t want him to know I’m afraid.
He crosses his arms, but doesn’t respond.
My mind flashes over the incidents of last school year. Did I do something to offend him? I know I didn’t see him over the last three months. I live in Minneapolis and he lives in White Bear Lake. I don’t even know where White Bear Lake is. So it must have been last year that I pissed him off.
I turn back to the door. Maybe if I hurry I can get around to the other side of the library before the next bell rings. The moment my hand is on the door handle, his meaty paw slams against the door and it’s pinned there solid.
Now I can really feel that lump, only it’s settled in the pit of my stomach. I hate being late to class, but even more so I hate having really huge guys mad at me.
“Look, I need to get by,” I say. I can tell my voice is shaky, but I hope he can’t.
Finally he speaks, “You aren’t going anywhere.”
My breath comes faster and I’m hoping the librarian or someone will come over here. But I can’t see anyone from where I am, which means they can’t see me either. I’m totally screwed.
The bell rings.
His eye twitches. “Now you made me late.”
My stomach quakes and I wonder if I’ll throw up on him. Before I can, something happens. The strangest thing. From behind Sorenson comes another beefy arm, right around his throat.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hear from behind the giant. It’s Mitch. “You messing with my brother?”
Erik breaks out of the hold easily and spins to face Mitch. “Stay out of it.”
Mitch glares at him with a look of utter disdain. While keeping his eyes locked on Erik, Mitch grabs the front of my surfing shirt and pulls me over by him. “Lay off,” he says to Sorenson. Mitch’s hand clutches my shoulder as he walks me through the library. He escorts me all the way to my class, then simply turns and leaves without a word. I find myself thinking that if it weren’t for the epaulets and his dark hair, he’d look like a Viking. It’s about all I can think because I’m completely stunned.
After school, Kiro and I are talking about which teachers are going to suck and which classes will be okay because of who else is in them. I want to tell him about what happened this morning, but I can’t. For one thing, I still can’t believe it actually happened. But more importantly, I want to keep it for myself.
Kiro starts talking about art class, the next painting he’s beginning. They’re doing still life since he’s only in Painting II, but he’s still psyched about it. I tell him for the hundredth time that I wish I could paint, but he keeps talking over me about bringing in different kinds of apples--golden delicious, granny smith, Fuji. He wants to paint them in strange arrangements.
Before I realize, it’s three o’clock. “Shit,” I say and grab my stuff. Kiro knows my brother, so he knows why I’m running. I call back a “see you tomorrow,” and then I’m tearing out of the Commons Room. I think some of my papers fell out of my backpack, but I can’t be bothered with that.
It’s probably three after three as I gallop down the stairs and head to the student parking lot. There’s Mitch’s silver Mustang. Only it’s not in the same place we left it this morning. Exhaust is spilling out the tailpipe and it’s heading toward the exit. I can hear him in my head, “I said three o’clock, I meant three o’clock.”
It’s not the first time he’s left me here, it won’t be the last.
