I never got in trouble in high school.
This is not to say that I did well in high school; those who know me know that my senior final exams were a time of intense anxiety for me. But I was never in any disciplinary trouble, which proves that teachers are more than happy to ignore you if you’re quiet. And I was quiet, most of the time.
I used to smoke out in the parking lot every morning. A cloud of cigarette smoke followed me in through the doors when I went to homeroom, and I frequently had at least one cigarette on me. Not that searching me would have done much good – I had a couple emptied - out markers that I carried them in, along with a very small lighter that fit easily in a hollowed-out highlighter. Everything looked good, on the surface.
People, at least teenagers, already thought there was something wrong with me....I’d accidentally gotten a reputation for being mentally unstable before I even got to high school. If they’d known that I carried a knife with me most of the time, I suppose it would only confirmed their suspicions. I never did anything with that knife, and I certainly never showed it to anyone, but I kept it with me because it made me feel safe. Just in case.
There was one other weapon that I had, but I don’t see how the people at my school could have taken it away. My nails were just long enough to inflict damage without being in serious danger of breaking off, perhaps a quarter of an inch, and I sharpened them every day until my senior year. I was very proud of those nails.
One day, I guess it was in ninth or tenth grade, we were playing basketball in phys ed, and there was this fat kid named Tyreese. Now, Tyreese fancied himself a bad-ass, but he was more like an older version of the archetypical schoolyard bully. He only picked on girls and guys that he thought were weak. Now, we were playing the school gym when this girl stole the ball from him. I think her name was Janet – she was short and really skinny; looked like trailer park trash. But trash or no trash, she couldn’t stand up against him, and he was shaking her to get the ball away from her.
To this day, I still don’t know where I found the courage, or the strength, but I spun his fat ass around and screamed into his face, “Why the fuck don’t you leave her alone, pig?” Tyreese, who was bigger than me, smiled this greedy, satisfied little smile and wrapped his hands around my throat. Just like he was trying to strangle me. In fact, he was choking me, and I remember I got this ungodly grin on my face. Grabbing his arms with my hands, I dug the nails in, feeling the skin give way beneath.
And didn’t he squeal? Just like a piggie! He ran to the teacher, who’d been watching us, and showed him his arm, which was bleeding. I remember the teacher just told him to clean himself up; he’d seen what was going on. Tyreese avoided me after that, not that we had many classes together. The last time I saw him, he still had the scar on his arm....and he told everyone how he got it.
The scar on Tyreese’s arm was another reason I didn’t get fucked with in High School. I used to give him a little smile and a wave when I passed him in the hall.
