I had a nice idea yesterday.
Maybe drugs are discarded human souls.
Each trip is someone's life experience, taking you
through a short roller coaster of their emotions when confronted with their
demise.
Or maybe it’s how they feel in the afterlife, whether that
be above or below.
__________________________________________
I got messages unread,
pain that’s unsaid
Here’s some old stuff:
Towson Years
Chapter
New School
It was
January 6th, 2009
I was 16
Today was it. 69 Cedar Avenue,
Towson, Maryland 21286...the new school. I woke up at 6:30 am, ready to step
into public education. That morning held mixed emotions of excitement and
nervousness. Mind you, I had been attending private, all boys schools since 6th
grade. I was a second semester high school junior stepping into the world of
co-ed education for the first time in 5 years. You can only faintly grasp the
extent of my anxiousness.
Another thing that was unusual that
day was my uniform. For 5 years, I had a set uniform. Tie, slacks, button up
shirt, dress shoes. Nothing else. While I walked the path from my new Towson
home to Towson High, I felt a little sense of freedom and dread with my attire.
It felt like a step closer to the real world with my jeans and basic tee on. I
could wear whatever I wanted, but with that, I had to contend with teenage
threads and trends. I let that latter thought fade from my mind and continued
on the path to school.
I arrived. The school was off into
the distance, surrounded by concrete and grass. Walking onto the grounds, I
peeped out the baseball field diagonal from the actually school building. Near
the entrance was a tennis court and another larger field off to the left of the
school doors. Coming to a burgundy door that lead to the cafeteria, I stepped
inside and noticed I was early. Really early. School started at 7:50 am and It
was 7:10 am. I saw no use in turning back, so I walked around the bottom
portion of the school to get acquainted with the halls. It looked exactly like
an episode of Saved By the Bell! The hallways were adorned with school
sanctioned club flyers, lockers with peeling paint, and dust in every corner.
Classrooms were littered with hard chairs and paper crumpled into balls. The
ceilings of the school had digital clocks and the bathrooms were decorated with
sharpie amateur drawn graffiti. I walked in a big circle and ended up back at
the cafeteria and I could only think to myself “Is that it?”
I took a seat and let my head fall into my arms. This school was going
to eat me alive. I knew it. I just wasn’t ready for the change. High school had
all these familiar, non existent rules that I didn’t know of. I left my
brothers at Loyola for strangers. It was a new field. I was a new player. I
knew when the school buses started reeling in, I would be able to sort everyone
into three categories: That guy, that girl, and that cute girl. To them, I was
only one thing: that new boy. In my mind, it was Degrassi and I was a new cast
member.
7:25 am had rolled around and the
school buses started unloading the little social miscreants known as teenagers.
In a matter of minutes, the once empty cafeteria was bustling with noise and
lights. It felt like all the students had brought some color to a blank canvas.
By 7:38 am, the noise had died down a little, but I could tell everyone had
settled into their normal seating areas, except me. The cafeteria was shaped
like a box and each section had a ruling clique. At the top left corner, the
Jews and quirky art kids were sitting around each other and telling jokes,
laughing loudly. Down towards the bottom were the “cool” black guys, kicking
their feet out and just chilling before class. On the other side were jocks and
an assortment of other people I didn’t take care to look at because I realized
my table was a blessing and a curse. My table was housed directly across from
the “cool” black girls table. My eyelids expanded in awe and I had fight my jaw
from dropping at their beauty (mind you, once again, I’ve been around all boys
in school for 5 years). In retrospect, I can imagine that I over exaggerated
their appearance, but at that exact time, I wasn’t. Those girls were stunning,
so gorgeous. I believed that they could even make the Greek goddess Aphrodite
jealous with their weave flowing in the still air, New York runway tops
stretched across inflated breasts, and complimentary make up powdered on their
faces. They were perfect. Perfectly plastic. But I didn’t care. I faded off
into my head and imagined that they all left their table of utopia and sat with
me, feeding me green grapes and caressing my face with their soft touch.
RINNNGGG!!! RINNNGGG!!! That damn bell struck. It was only 7:43, but
as I soon found out, that was the early bell. Everyone started to file into the
hallway, looking for their class. I walked upstairs to the guidance office,
waiting for my counselor to give me my schedule. I dropped my head to my chest
and silently twiddled my thumbs in that office chair, nervously. People
streamed in and out of the room, taking secret peeks at me, making me more
nervous. It felt like everyone knew that I was new. I didn’t like that.
“Hey, you must be Dominick. Well
hello, Im your counselor Mr. Smith.”
I turned my head to see an
extending, wrinkled hand towards my face. I stood up and shook it with feigned
ease. I followed him into his office and sat down in another chair soon after.
He quickly asked me a couple of questions and started to print out my schedule.
His balding head and caring demeanor had irked me for some reason. I couldn’t
explain it, but he felt like a weak man in a strong environment. I asked him a
couple of questions in regard to my classes and he only nodded his head at all
my questions. He lost my respect the first day I met him.
Mr. Smith had a student come to the
office and show me around to all my classes. She led me out of the office and
off into the wide world known as Towson High. By this time, I started to really
get a feel of the school. It had a decent sized library, a special room for
cooking class, not-so-hidden cameras on every floor, and so many secret corners
that someone could duck into to escape class. She dropped me off at my math
class, which was outside in a trailer, and wished me luck. I entered class and
the teacher turned from the chalk board and asked who I was.
“Hey, my name is Dominick. This is
my first class and Im new.”
“Oh ok, take a seat.”
She took back to her chalk board and
I rustled over to a seat close to the heater. The whole classroom turned around
and followed my steps with their eyes. I figured this was the inspecting
period, where the kids decided if they wanted to befriend me or not. I didn’t
care. I hated math and wanted school to be done with, so I could go home.
It was about 6 minutes before class
ended and no one had said anything to me. I found myself looking around at each
of my classmates faces to see if I could find a potential hot girl to make
small chit-chat with. I looked up to the left side of the class and saw a thin
petite Mexican girl. I swear, man… I cracked my neck trying to see her face. I
could only see the back of her and a little bit of her side, but I was already
convinced that she was the one for me.
“Aye yo, you tryna take peeks at
Raven?”
I directed my attention to the guy
two seats in front of me asking the question.
“Yeah, she look straight.”
“ I know yo, she can get it. You new
here?”
“Chea.”
“Oh ok, my name Marteze. This school
some ass.”
I laughed at the obvious and said,
“I’m Dominick.”
Later Days, Longer Nights
