truancy
It became easier to skip school after a time. The teachers came to expect me’s and Jameson’s seats to be empty at roll-call. Sometimes the principal took us into his office and threw words at us. ‘Truancy’ and ‘delinquency’ and others I never bothered to remember. I didn’t quite understand ‘em, but I got the gist. We was no good. We’d never be any good. She never came out and said it, that High ‘n Mighty Queen o’ Wells High School, but she could read us like a grocery store paperback. We were trash, plain and simple. Easily digested, easier to dispose of trash. Any one else, she might have given us the ‘You’re throwing away your futures, you have so much you can aspire to!’ spiel, but not us.
So we skipped, me and Jameson, more often than not. In autumn we waited until Pa left for his shift managing the Bowl-a-rama before spending the late morning in my house. We’d take Pa’s hunting rifle out to the fields and take shots at unopened cans of frozen vegetables, hollering like savages when we’d unleash a geyser of crystallized peas at seventy-five yards. In winter, we stole packs of Chesterfields and tried to learn how to fight on the frozen river that ran through town. We breathed smoke and tackled each other, listening for the sound of deep ice cracking beneath us.
Some days it was just me, especially when winter took a turn for the nasty. I walked to the diner where you could still smoke indoors, across a lot from the bowling alley. I’d watch for Pa when he took out the trashes. Wondered what he’d do if he’d look up and see me drinking sweetened coffee, grey tendrils of nicotine billowing from my lips.
I moved gingerly, walking without any aim. Throwing rocks at houses I thought might be abandoned. I was often sore and bruised from my fights with Jameson. I could run a hand along my ribs and feel the tender skin left behind by a wild left knuckler. It made me want to fight even more. Not just Jameson on the ice, but the principal too. And the kids at school—all the jocks, the fags, the burnouts, the girls with perfect teeth, the rich pricks, that mick fuck in geometry—I wanted to make ‘em squirm. I wanted to tear people apart. I wanted to do all sorts of things, none of them good.
I looked up once when passing a closed storefront and didn’t see my reflection at first, only a starved dog that had learned to stand.
(Photo: Tim)
