Above Average

69

Imagine if you will a situation where you are going to graduate from High School by showing up at the school in the morning and turning in a paper. Then imagine that your father has ordered you not to leave the house or go to school that morning. What would you do?

Years later, when I'd tell people of this story, it'd be pointed out to me that my father had been trying to stop me from graduating since the very start of my Senior year of High School. How? I wondered. By starting out the year with him stating that I was disowned upon graduation. I had been set up for failure as my subconscious would realize that if graduation meant I was disowned, not graduating would save me from being disowned... Was that why I had done so poorly in my final year of High School? Perhaps it was a contributing factor, but the loss of my mentor and erstwhile protector Zack Hatch had a part to do with it, and my inability to figure out why I couldn't pass any 'Advanced Math' exam factored into it as well. Still, it was a good point: That my father had set me up to fail that year.

And as that had failed, he was now taking steps to assure I'd still fail by the end of the year, one way or another.

During the morning phone call when he ordered me to stay at home until he got there, he was formulating this plan where he was going to cancel my plane ticket to Colorado and I would be staying in town and taking Summer School in order to finish my classes and graduate. Despite my trying to tell him the issue was resolved, he wasn't going to listen to a word of it and I was to definitely stay home until he got there to give me a piece of his mind in person.

And so from that phone call at six forty-five that morning, I stayed at home and watched the clock pass seven fifteen. It was now too late to catch the bus. And I continued to wait until seven thirty. It was now too late for me to hop on my moped and take it to the school. And then seven forty came and went. And went with it, too, was any chance of catching a ride with a friend driving themselves to the school that morning. By seven forty-five, an hour after my father had called and told me he was on his way over to chew me out, it was clear he wasn't coming as he was only a twenty-five minute drive to the house when he called. At seven fifty, I decided to blow him off and realized I could take the spare key from the cabinet and take Lois's, his girl friend's, left behind truck to the High School. I did and got there with two minutes to spare.

I saw the English teacher and handed her my report, she thanked me, and I let the Principal know, and he thanked me, and I met my friends in the cafeteria. They were all going to go to Jonathan's house for an afternoon of fun and boating on the lake. I joined them and we picked up Pete's upperclassman friend along the way. At the far side of the lake, we tied-up the boat and bummed around the lake town and ate, then we boated back to Jonathan's house where I excused myself and went to work for my last day at the grocery store before I would have gone to Colorado later that week. Once done with work I took the truck home and parked it where it had always been and found that my father still wasn't home. He didn't get there with Lois until a few minutes later and apologized to me for making me wait all day for him to arrive. So I now knew that his order for me to stay home had been a rouse and I also knew that he had no clue that I hadn't stayed home.

So I told him it wasn't a problem as I hadn't stayed home.

A touch of his anger flared but with Lois there, he held it in check. But I wasn't going to graduate and he had told me to stay home! ''What are you talking about? They told me yesterday I was going to graduate,'' I said trying to suppress the smile at the corner of my lips. I was? ''Yes, I checked in at the school this morning and confirmed it,'' I noted, letting some of the smile out.

If his girl friend hadn't been there he would have had a yell fest at me and repeatedly called me a liar, but with her there, he couldn't and just said, ''Well that's nice to know.'' During dinner preparation he lamented that he hadn't had time to get ready for the graduation ceremony. At this I told him not to worry about it as I wasn't going. Now he had a new thing to bark about. I definitely was going to the graduation ceremony and he wasn't going to hear another word of it!

What was I going to wear, he asked during dinner. For what? For graduation. I guessed just my jeans and tee shirt. That wasn't acceptable the bark came back. I pointed out that I would be wearing a gown over it so no one would know. It still wasn't acceptable and we were going out first thing in the morning to buy me something appropriate!

whatever.

The next morning I pointed out that I could use my corduroy three piece suit from my eldest brother's wedding a few years earlier, it would only be the fourth time I had ever worn it. But no, it was too old and I needed something new for graduation and the three of us got into his car and we were off to the capital city. We went to the same formal wear place I had gone to two and a half years earlier for the corduroy suit and, as I didn't care, I let him and Lois pick out the suit, slacks, formal shirt and tie for me. They made me dressed up at the clothing store to make sure it all worked together. With the top button closed and the tie cinched up to my neck I felt myself break out in a cold sweat and wanted to tear them from my throat. Years later a psychologist would theorize the reason why I hated things tightly around my neck harkened back to the day of my birth. But I didn't have to worry about it now as my father and Lois were soon satisfied and I could quickly take off the suit. We drove back home as I had to be to graduation prep by the start of the afternoon.

Once back, we realized that we hadn't gotten any dress shoes so I'd have to wear my sneakers for the ceremony, but at least I'd be nicely dressed-up otherwise. I put on the slacks and shirt but kept it unbuttoned at the top and carried my tie & jacket over my arm as I left, I told my father I'd put them on at the school. Van picked me up and we were off. At the school it turned out that many of us who swore we weren't going to participate in the graduation ceremony were there as well, no doubt also upon demand of their parents. I left the tie & jacket in Van's car and everyone else went to get their gowns from the fittings of the previous Monday, I went to the office to find out about my gown. It turned out they had given it to a girl in our class who hadn't a gown of her own on Monday during the fittings, at the time they thought I wasn't going to need it, after all. So they pulled out a box of spare gowns and found one close enough in size for me to use, cap too, then I scrambled to the gymnasium where the rest of my classmates had already started 'procession practice'. I snuck into line where Luke showed me how to walk: Step, pause, step, pause. It reminded me of the 'King Tut' dance comedian Steve Martin had done on Saturday Night Live.

Once practice was done, there was a short break until the ceremony, this was when I should have gone out to Van's car to get the rest of my suit, but sure enough, with the gown on, all you could see was the line of the shirt collar and cuff of my slacks with the sneakers the most visible part. I didn't worry about it, just buttoning all but the very top button of the shirt and pinching in the collar underneath the gown to make it looked like it was buttoned.

The time had come and we lined-up in our places inside the gym and the band started playing. We processed from the gym's back door to our seats in front of the spectators already there and sat down. Various people spoke, but I wasn't paying attention as I just wanted to get this over with. Finally, it was time to be given our diplomas and we got up one row at a time to process to the stage. The Principal handed them out and the tassel of my cap moved from one side to the other, then I walked normally back to my seat and unbuttoned my upper shirt and pulled out the collar to let my neck breathe as I awaited the end of the ceremony. It came, some tossed their caps into the air, and then we could go to the parking lot to 'meet our loved ones'. In my case though, it was my father, his girl friend, and to my surprise my British Uncle Ronny had somehow found out about the graduation and come. He was the only one armed with a camera and all the pictures the family had of the event came from him. I don't even know if my eldest brother knew of the graduation day and time, nor if my not as older brother was still in town.

With Lois there as a witness, I decided to manipulate my father and asked him if I could stay at the house one more year to work full-time at the grocery store and save my money to officially move to Colorado. Knowing with her there hearing this request, he'd have to say 'Yes' so as not to reveal his true self to her. He said, ''Of course!''

He decided we should go out for dinner. Uncle Ronny couldn't join us and excused himself to drive home, and I 'went to change' and got the rest of my suit out of Van's car. I took off my gown and cap and carried them with the suit to where dad had parked and we drove to the house to get Pappy. After dinner, we got home and as they went to the living room to watch shows, I went up stairs to my bedroom. Using the headphones, I listened to music lying in bed throughout the night as I was so buzzed with the excitement of having graduated.

I couldn't sleep at all and watched the clock until it was time for my final trip to the school the following morning. It was the day after graduation and I remembered what I could do. I entered the school and went to the guidance counselor's office. He wanted to know what brought me back and I told him I wanted my file. He'd have to get it and a few minutes later returned, file in hand. It looked like a lot of paperwork had been removed, but the results of the I.Q. test were still there. I didn't know much about I.Q. tests, but as I left the school and peeked in at the results I knew that one hundred was an average score.

I was above average.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

Not Graduating

68

The last week and a half of Senior year was effectively just a full day study hall for us as they wanted to get the final grades in and confirmed ahead of time before the graduation ceremony occurred Wednesday of the following week. The first couple days of this was us trading our yearbooks back and forth for signings. This would have been a good time to play games on the computers at the school, but I'm glad I couldn't as it assured I didn't spend my last days hidden in a closet while the rest of Senior class had its final social fest. Twelve years. And if you include all the years I'd been going to any school with some of these kids, Fourteen!

I did have a panicked moment the previous week as it suddenly occurred to me that, given the number of classes I'd withdrawn from and failed this year that I might not have enough credits to graduate, but looking over all my past years and totaling up the credits, I found I'd be fine. I had become such a class-taking over-achiever toward the end of my Sophomore year and all through my Junior year that I had gotten most all of the credits I needed to graduate before my Senior year. In retrospect, had I known this, then I would have demanded taking the 'Civics' course during my Junior year as I had originally wanted, thus I probably could have been done with High School by the first quarter of this year. Too late to worry about it now. As long as I passed the final quarter of 'Civics' class, I was free and clear. With the gaps left from the withdrawn math and Spanish classes, I even had additional English quarter credits to spare!

As the end of the final full week came, year books were filled and we faced the challenge of where we were going to sit as we visited for the hours of the day: Library area for a couple of hours? Shoot some hoops in the gym? Let's sit in the cafeteria for the last few hours of the day! All this time in the background was the Death March. Names of Seniors were called over the intercom, about one per hour, as they were beckoned to the office. These were the students being informed that they were not going to graduate. Most of the time these names were no surprise as they would include students who would never show up to school anyhow and thus their name would be called again and again between the names of those who were here. One surprise was the son of the music teacher; after his name was called we didn't see him again. We soon heard that his father had rushed him to the nearest G.E.D. testing location so he would be done with High School one way or the other, though still wouldn't be able to participate in the graduation ceremony itself. Hell, a lot of us weren't planning on putting on the cap and gown and participating in that. No great loss.

We were sitting in the cafeteria for our final Friday, chatting, and my name was called. A hush fell over the table as everyone assumed what it meant. Even me, despite my having gone over my numbers earlier and finding them fit. Even me. I rose from my chair at the end of the table and walked to the office. With each step my mind raced: Had there been anything I'd missed? If not, then that meant I'd flunked the final quarter of 'Civics' class: A required class, if not passed one couldn't graduate. But I thought I'd been doing better in that class for this final quarter...

Arriving at the office I was ushered into the conference room where the guidance counselor sat. He told me to close the door behind me. I did, then immediately asked: ''Was it Civics class?''

He knew exactly what I was asking and said, ''No.'' Then I rattled through the rest of the classes I had been taking during the final quarter and to each it was, ''No.'' I had passed all my classes and yet had gotten called to the office? Was there some other reason I'd been called in to the office for? ''No.''

''Then what?'' I asked, dumbfounded. The guidance counselor gave me the explanation of why I wasn't graduating: I had failed Basic Composition, a required class for my Sophomore year. ''Yes, but I took it and passed it in my Junior year,'' I shot back. True, but when one fails that class, they need to take an additional English class along with it to make up for failing it the first time. ''But I have spare English credits,'' I pointed out. Yes, but they weren't the right type of English class credits. There was a specific class type that needed to be taken and as I hadn't taken it in the past two years, I wasn't going to be graduating now... My jaw dropped at this bizarre situation as I asked what type of English class was it? A literature class. Had they caught it soon enough then I could have taken 'Science Fiction Lit' this quarter and graduated. ''But I read Science Fiction all the time...'' I returned. That may be, but you didn't take the class. Sorry. Next.

I walked out of the office and meandered back toward my friends sitting in the cafeteria. I had no clue what to say. As I came to my empty end seat, I spontaneously kicked it and, as if I was dreaming and this wasn't reality, it made a beautiful arc while staying completely level from where our table was, down the empty aisle between tables to make a perfect four point landing at the end of the cafeteria around thirty feet away. It was an impossible kick, and yet I had done it. Everything was no longer making sense. My friends were looking at me with straight faces, more interested in what I'd been told rather than noticing the chair. How could I tell them that an oversight from my Sophomore year of High School was why I wasn't going to be graduating? ''I'll think of something,'' I told them but knew I had nothing.

''Get that back,'' the cafeteria monitor said about the chair. I went and carried it back to the table of my friends and sat down as they talked about other things.

For some reason my not as older brother was on leave and back in our home town for a few days. Staying with my eldest brother and his wife, I had already been invited to join them after work for a visit. An evening of bagging groceries immediately after school then I hopped on my moped and drove to my eldest brother's current place. This was the closest he had lived to the family home since he had been disowned eleven years earlier. A small house that had been added onto again and again over the century, it had an odd linear feel to the rooms. At the far end was the sitting area of futons or platforms with cushions tossed on top. We sat there and my not as older brother talked about his work in the military as my mind just zoned-out about the fact that I wasn't graduating. Eventually the talk turned to asking me how things were going, it would have been a great question at the beginning of the school year, but now all I had to say was, ''I'm not going to be graduating.''

This caused a quiet moment, then the echoed question, ''You aren't going to graduate?''

''No. They just told me this afternoon,'' and that seemed to be the end of that topic.

After nine o'clock, I took my leave and went home.

My paternal grandfather had returned from snowbirding by May and my father and his girlfriend had taken up returning home for dinner and to watch T.V. with him during the evenings. I just went straight to my bedroom and lay there until I fell asleep.

Saturday was my final full day at the grocery store until my summer break, then our final Dungeons & Dragon's session for the school year that evening. Sunday morning I got a surprise phone call from Van, he and Luke were going to see that new Spielberg movie and were wondering if I'd want to come along and I did. Van picked me up and we made small chit-chat during the drive, but ignored the big issue. We picked up Luke then continued the rest of the way to the capital city where we saw E.T. The Extraterrestrial. It was a nice enough movie, but for some reason my mind was on other things during it. Afterwards we found a sandwich shop and ate, then got on the road back to our homes. I'm sure we talked of various things during lunch and the drive back, but I can't for the life of me remember what.

When I got home, my father and his girl friend, Lois, had taken the night off so Pappy was back in his apartment for the evening and I had the house to myself. I went to my bedroom, lowered the computer keyboard and placed the writing board over it and began writing my heart out about the whole 'Not Graduating' situation. I noted the unfairness of it all with the bit that the guidance counselor had told me in my Sophomore year that he'd get back to me if there was any problem with my not passing Basic Composition the first time. I added my dismay that he apparently meant he'd get back to me four days before graduation. Five pages written in pencil over three hours, I read it and realized it was pretty good but could be tightened-up. For the first time in many years, I went from a rough draft and made a final copy in pen, cutting out about a page worth of whining and focusing on the facts.

Going to school the following morning, I left it unsigned in the Principal's inbox. Van caught me in the hallway as I walked out and told me he was going home after his gown fitting and wondered if I wanted to join him for a trip to his house and lunch. Sure, I waited in the cafeteria until he was done, then we left.

The visit to his house was a nice change of pace than just sitting at the school waiting out the final days as we had been the whole previous week. His mother was there and made us some sandwiches. We played a little in his front yard, I think it was with a Frisbee, and then we hopped back in the car to return to the school to pick up some stuff.

Barely before I even made it in the front door of the school, classmates were coming out to get me. They had been calling my name over the intercom for the past few hours I had been at Van's place and the staff had been going to each student asking them if they knew where I was. Well, I was now here, so I went to the office to find out what the fuss was about. The office staff was excited to see me and I was rushed into the Principal's office, the guidance counselor was there with the Principal.

He had read my note from his inbox and had been inspired to look into the facts, guess who it was that had left it, and see if what I said had been true. After he confirmed it, they had brain stormed to find what they could do and, since I was already familiar with Science Fiction, they decided that I could take the Final of the 'Science Fiction Lit' class. If I passed it, they'd grant me the quarter credit I needed and I'd be graduating with the rest of my classmates. I could do the Final at home that evening, but I needed to have it in by eight fifteen the next morning for it to be graded and my graduation confirmed. I agreed with this plan and they handed back my four page letter and was told to find the 'Science Fiction Lit' teacher to discover what the Final was.

It turned out it was with the English teacher who had been so impressed with me during my Junior year and stunned by my decline during my Senior year. I had actually taken two English classes with her in the preceding two quarters and had improved from my failed second quarter class with her. The further irony was during the fourth quarter I had 'Reading For Leisure' with her and had spent my time reading and doing reports on various Science Fiction books of my choosing. I found her in the teacher work area and mentioned I had been sent to her to find out what the Final was. Essentially, I had to write a book report on one of a selection of Science Fiction books. I looked over the list and found that I hadn't read any of them already. So I picked the Arthur C. Clark one: Bicentennial Man. The school didn't have a copy I could borrow, but I was sure my father had one in his Science Fiction book collection.

Van greeted me outside the office area and asked what was up? By now, the rest of my classmates had long since gone so it had been nice for him to hang around. I told him about the plan that they'd let me graduate if I turned in a book report. He was stunned, but thought it was great and offered me a ride to the grocery store for our afternoon's work. Still holding my four page letter in my hand, I tucked it into the fold of the car's bench seat during the drive, then after work I walked home across the hayfield and had dinner with dad, Lois, and Pappy. My father, as seemed always the case, was oblivious to what was going on in my life and never asked any questions. Once done, they retired to the living room to watch shows and I went up stairs to look through his Science Fiction book collection, now shelved these past three years in my prior bedroom without my consent, and found the book, a book club edition.

And this is where I write the paragraph about the long night I spent reading the book from cover to cover and the bleary-eyed pre-dawn hours working up the book report... Bull. I just read the back cover tease, the jacket flaps' description and used my memory of the many other Arthur C. Clarke books I'd read over the years and the themes he would often touch on. I then wrote a report based on those themes and the impact they had and tossed in the couple of facts I had gleaned about the book so the report had some apparent connection to it. In pen, single draft, I slept well as my father and Lois went to her house for the night.

The following morning I woke up and got ready to catch the bus to school and turn in the book report, then the house phone began ringing and ringing. I answered it. It was my father, he had just found out about my not graduating and I was to stay home until he got there to have a talk with me. I tried explaining to him that I was graduating and that I couldn't stay home as I had to get to the school. He called me a liar and ordered me to stay there until he arrived.

Period.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

Extracurricular Activities

67

After bottoming out at school, could I somehow end up with a moment of 'success'?

With using the school's computers out as an option for Luke and me to play computer games once a week, he had taken up driving me to my place after school once a week to play the games there and have an impromptu dinner. Given no time constraints, these late afternoons soon turned into evenings before Luke would head back home, twenty miles away, at eight o'clock.

On one of these evenings we picked up a roasted chicken from the grocery store across the hayfield and sliced it in half down the spine and had a fun 'Medieval' time eating it with our bare hands. We decided to go to the arcade that night rather than using my computer to play video games and I noticed a funny thing: I was losing the left side of my field of vision. Not that I was losing vision in my left eye, but that I was losing the left side of my vision in both eyes, half with my left eye, about a third with my right eye. This area was replaced with a greyish fog. Something like this had happened to me the previous month, but it had soon gone away and so other than discussing it with Luke as an oddity, I saw little point in worrying about it. When playing games at the arcade I just turned my head a little to the left so the game screen was centered in the portion of my remaining vision. By the time Luke headed home I was beginning to get my full vision back. An odd occurrence, since it went away on its own, and mother hadn't wanted me to see a doctor since my thirteenth birthday, I just ignored it.

I had gotten into the routine of coming to school late and leaving early as I'd left my first and last periods of the day empty. Technically this was skipping school as I was under eighteen years old, but no one seemed to notice. Then, on one of the days I was driving my father's car, one of the Principal's twin daughters called to me after I snuck out the front door. Stunned, I stood by the car wide-eyed. Was this going to be an intervention? Had her father roped her into sussing me out after the incident with the computer tape? As she walked up to me she asked if she could ride along with me.

I nervously agreed. As she was eighteen, she could come and go to the school whatever times she liked. Perhaps she just wanted a ride somewhere? But when I asked she was vague and just wanted to go a little ways. Still worried about her being sent to have a 'chat' with me, I missed while moving the manual stick shift to the next gear. I looked down to see where I had gone wrong and she suddenly grabbed the top of the wheel and pushed it to the left; it turned out that as I looked down to the stick shift, I had let the car drift to the right and she intervened before I went off the side of the road. Now looking like a complete fool who couldn't drive as well as needing a good talking to, she had me stop a little further down the road and thanked me for the ride. She got out mentioning that she needed to practice her running and left me completely clueless. My only guess was she wanted a reason to run back to the school before the buses came...?

As the last month of school came and they were getting ready to take pictures for the year book, a funny thing happened. Students would come up to Luke or me to ask us a favor. Toward these last few weeks of our Senior year, our classmates began to realize the importance of being involved in 'extracurricular activities'. Could they join us for the Computer Club picture? I hadn't even known there was going to be a club picture for the year book, but since we had officially registered the club that meant there would be a picture for it. As more and more students asked to join, we agreed and when the time came I brought in my own computer to place next to the office's Trash-80 Model III on the table in the conference room. The photographer didn't feel there was enough room for all of us to be in the room and get a good picture, so we brought the table out into the more open front office area, set the computers up and, as the club sponsor, the wood shop teacher was called to join us.

He had attended the first couple of club gatherings at the start of the school year but soon lost interest, so he seemed truly surprised when he showed up and there was just shy of ten students gathered for the photo. As the founders, I sat down by my computer at one end of the table and Luke took the end with the Model III, the rest lined up behind the table with the wood shop teacher in the middle and the picture was taken. Looking through the resulting year book at our photo and the impressive Computer Club group we seemed to have that year, it left me wondering just how many of the other extracurricular activity photos had 'additional people' in them as well?

These books were handed out with still a full week left to go and we made notes in each others' pages. It turned out there was a surprise for me in the year book. Not only did it have a good picture of me giving my variety show speech at the end of Junior year, but in the 'Notables' section I was listed as 'The Sneakiest'. This stunned me, first that anyone would think I was notable, but then not knowing exactly what I had been the sneakiest at? Was it from making my own computer room key? Was it for my stunt bringing in the bottle of nonalcoholic grape juice to celebrate the new Principal? What was it? I asked my friends as they seemed to all know with the smirks on their faces, but they wouldn't tell me.

This would remain a mystery for me over the next two years.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

Computer Crumble

66

By early March, Luke and I were staying after school again to play games as part of the Computer Club. Originally intended to be a group that would share computer programming knowledge and occasionally play games, all others had drifted away and Luke and I just played until the late bus arrived. But this day we'd only been there a half hour when the library assistant stopped by and said she had to use the computer for a bit. Leaving my winter coat and school books behind in the computer room, Luke and I roamed the school building and chatted as we killed some time. After half an hour, we checked back and she was still using it and needed more time, so we drifted to the library area and settled down at one of the tables as we waited.

When the computer room had first been made over our Sophomore year Christmas break, it meant the computer was safely locked away when not in use and in order to access it we'd have to ask for the key from the math department head, Zack Hatch. Rather than carry it around with him, he left it hidden at his teachers' work area desk and told us where it was and we could just take it when we were going to use the computer. Toward the end of my Sophomore year, Zack was going to be away for a couple of days and when I returned to his desk to drop off the key, it occurred to me that I could just... Keep it over night and return it in the morning and he would never know. From that point forward, I had my own copy of the key when it was time to use the computer. And so I had been using it these past two years.

When Luke and I checked back another half hour later, she was just letting herself out of the room and told us we couldn't go back in as she had left something behind for the science teacher to use later that night. When we protested, she was firm. I could have asked to at least get my coat and books before she closed the door behind her but I came up with a 'clever' idea. Once she had gone, we would let ourselves back into the room to play games and if anyone asked, we'd say we had only let ourselves back in to 'retrieve my coat and books'...

This just shows how brain dead I was at the time as I let it happen and she closed the locked door of the computer room behind her. While Luke was bummed as she walked away, I told him of my clever plan and he liked it, we killed another five minutes until we saw her gather her stuff and leave the school and we went back to the room where I reached into my pocket to get my keys... Only to realize they were in my coat... Locked in the computer room.

No problem, we just made our way to the teacher's work area and Zack's desk to get the official key from his hiding place. It was gone. Was the key now being hidden somewhere else while Zack was on sabbatical? It hadn't been a question I had needed to ask during the year given my own key. In retrospect it could simply have been a case that the science teacher had already picked it up for his own visit later that night. Regardless, I was realizing just how stupid my 'clever' plan was.

Then it dawned on us that the custodian would have a key to the room, after all he had to clean the room and empty the waste basket. So we hunted him down as he was cleaning the cafeteria area and asked if he could let us in. He said he didn't have a key to the room either. This surprised us as how did the room get cleaned and the waste basket emptied out? So I told him that it was for a good purpose as my coat and books were locked in there, but he assured us he really didn't have any way into the room.

Now I was facing the prospect of having to take the late bus home, which would drop me off in the center of town, then walk a mile and a quarter to my home without my coat. While my house key was in my coat as well, we'd long had a hidden key at the back door of my home which I could use to get in. But I kept that little news from Luke as I hatched my new idea. The school used drop down ceiling tiles and those same tiles went over the computer room as it had been built after the ceiling tile had been put in place. So my idea was that we could go to the back of the room where there were storage shelves, use them as steps to the ceiling and push the tile aside and slip over the edge of the wall.

While agreeing it could work, Luke wasn't as sure about this idea, but I pointed out that if there was any fuss we'd have the fact that we were 'just retrieving my coat and books' as an excuse. To even better prepare this excuse, we told the custodian we were going to do it. While he couldn't give us permission, if we were telling him our alibi in advance, then we could use him as a witness that all we were going to do was get my coat and books... So when we got to the shelves behind the room, Luke went first and the idea was solid, but he realized he could just open the door from the inside once down and I wouldn't have to follow him through the ceiling void. He did and we were back and playing games in minutes.

We noticed next to the computer cassette player a spare tape and concluded that must have been what the librarian assistant had left behind for the science teacher. When it was time for the late bus, I decided to take it in revenge. Luke wasn't so sure about this new idea but I assured him it was just a prank to get back at the assistant for not letting us use the computer after she was done with it.

On the way home in the bus, I was feeling jazzed. Not only had I defied a teacher and gotten back into the computer room when she said I couldn't, but now I had that item she had felt was so important. And I debated what to do with it. Sure I could just return it in the morning, having had my counting coup and be scolded for my prank, but being thrilled by how much I'd gotten away with so far, I wanted to continued with this feeling of empowerment and do more. On the walk home I debated if I should read the tape and see what was on it, but if it wasn't a program then reading it would be a major hassle as to read and load data easily you had to know what the pattern of it was ahead of time. If it was a program, I honestly didn't care about it. As I got home I concluded I really didn't care what was on the tape, whatever it was.

So I decided to destroy it. Yes, that would continue to make me feel big and powerful! I pulled the tape out of the cassette, stringing it into the air and tried to pull it into pieces. It was surprisingly strong. So I just unspooled it all into the dining room's waste basket and decided I'd light it on fire as I'd seen on a television show way back when. But then I thought better of that as, what if the fire flared-up and reached the ceiling? Or left the waste basket scorched and ruined? But I couldn't just leave it in the waste basket either, as it could be rewound and would probably work just fine... I NEEDED TO DESTROY IT!

So I got my father's deodorant spray from the downstairs bathroom and sprayed it on the tape and felt truly supreme as I was finally getting back at the school system for all the years of it apparently having screwed me.

At the time, I felt this was the best moment of that year for me. Looking back at it now, I realize it was the most pathetic moment of my life.

On the bus to school the next morning I reveled in the fact that I was going to get in trouble. There was a plausible excuse for everything up until the point I took the tape from the computer room. Unless the science teacher had changed his mind and not gone to the school that night, then the staff would know the tape had been stolen and they'd want to have a talk with me. Sure enough when I got to the school, I barely had time to say 'Hi' to Luke as I put my stuff away and our names were called to the office.

Once there, we were sat down in the Principal's office and he looked more troubled than angry. The Vice Principal was there, arms folded, and the science teacher was the only one visibly brewing. We were asked about what had happened that night and we kept to our story about having to get into the computer room to get my coat and books.

''And the tape?'' the Principal asked.

''I destroyed it,'' I returned feeling a slight smile on my face.

The Principal and the Vice paled with shock at my statement, the science teacher turned red with checked rage... Then I saw Luke's face as he realized he had hitched his wagon to my charge over the cliff.

The Principal began to harden as he asked Luke, ''And you took part in this?''

While I wanted to crash and burn, I realized I didn't want to take Luke with me. I interjected: ''He was against me taking the tape and he didn't know what I was going to do with it.''

''Is this true?'' the Principal asked him. Luke agreed.

We were dismissed from his office while they decided what they were going to do. Then we were called back in. Luke was asked for an apology for his part and he gave it. I was asked for one and gave none. Again, my lack of remorse seemed to confuse the Principal, but he told us that our punishment would be that we were no longer allowed the use the school's computers.

That punishment felt a little light to me and, since I had my own key, I continued to use the computer at school. I tried to rope Luke into that, but he wisely refused to join me.

A couple weeks later they changed the lock.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

The Prodigal Father

65

The Computer Club kinda fizzled within a month of inception. For the first meeting about two thirds of those having expressed interest showed up, including our sponsoring teacher. By the second meeting it was already down to four of us, three for the third and then just Luke and me for the rest. While I had started trying to teach code and programming concepts to the novices, once it was just down to Luke and me it became a straight computer gaming get together. We were using the offices' new Trash 80 Model III in the first two months, but once it was clear we didn't need the extra space of the conference room, the office staff strongly encouraged us to move back to the original Trash 80 Model I room.

And so once a week, Luke and I would stay late after school and play computer games together. I could play as much as I wanted to at home, but it's amazing what a difference a second person makes as they get to enjoy your play and then you get to let your hands have a rest as you see their play style and strategy. While there were two player games, Luke and I had exhausted them by our Junior year and pretty much stuck to the flashy graphics based video game clones made for the computer.

After two hours of play, it was time for Luke and I to go home. Originally we'd take the late bus, but then I had the moped and he soon borrowed a car from his parents for these days. Once Winter set in I was back to using the late bus and he continued to use his car. I think one time he offered to drive me home, though I was in the opposite direction, and we ended up grabbing a pizza and spending time at my home town's local arcade which had cropped-up over the previous years.

By late February I was looking forward to it warming up enough so I could get back to using the moped by March. Luke drove home once we were done playing at school and I waited outside for the late bus to arrive. Zack Hatch came out of the main door of the school and spotted me as he made his way to his car, ''Do you want a ride?''

The Hatch house was only about a quarter mile from my family home and so it wasn't out of his way to give me a ride. Over the previous two years of High School, I'd often catch a ride home with him during the handfuls of days I'd stay late at the school. This time was different though as it was the first time I'd seen him since the end of my Junior year of High School.

Taking the familiar passenger seat as he started the car, I suddenly wondered how much he knew of my devolving school year. If he didn't know anything, should I tell him? My fear was soon pushed aside as I realized he was more interested in having someone to talk to for himself. I finally found out why he had been on sabbatical...

Late in my Junior year, they had discovered his wife had cancer. It was soon apparent that he would have to take up more of the workload at home as well as help ferry her to and from appointments as she entered treatment and thus he had taken the year off from the High School. He told me many of the details, which I've long since forgotten, but it wound-up that things had not been going well during the course of the year and he was afraid of losing her.

Not only was he talking of his wife, but also of my original best friend's, Pete's, mother. Was this why Pete had been so unwilling to say anything to me about why his father hadn't been working this year, as he didn't want to have to talk about his mother's condition? The thing was, I had known her well, too. When Pete and I were best buds in Elementary School I'd spend plenty of time at his house and she'd be there. One time I followed Pete and his sister's pattern and called her 'Mom' by accident. When my mother had first moved to the apartment town and taken me with her, separating me from all my friends, Pete's mother, Zack's wife, had been the one I had spilled my heart out to about the loneliness I had been facing that Summer.

As Pete's and my friendship had faded by Middle School, so had my opportunities to see her. In my typical out of sight out of mind way I doubt I had thought of her at all in the previous six years and assumed that everything was as it had been. But now I was finding out she was likely in her last year, if not months, and Zack was devastated with what he had to face.

The only reason why he had bumped into me was that he had to get some paperwork at the school concerning his time off. As we reached my driveway he asked me how things had been going for me this year? With everything he had told me, how could I possibly add to his load by giving him details of my collapsed year? I said, ''Fine,'' as he pulled up to the door and noted how dark the house was. I told him my father just wasn't home yet. I thanked him for the ride and passed on my best wishes for his wife. I didn't see him again that year and only once briefly the following year when he picked up some milk at the grocery store.

I'm sure he must have finally found out some of the details of my school experiences when he returned to work the following year. I wonder what he made of it, or if it just paled in comparison to his own loss...

We never talked again.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

Forgotten

64

Out of the blue during the third quarter I was called to the high school office. Had I done something wrong? Was there a family emergency? No, it was a note that I was to meet with Dr. Drysdale of Dartmouth College who wanted to see me, including a phone number, an address, and a date & time. Stunned, I had no idea what to make of it. Having recently read a Larry Niven story called 'Dry Run', in part about making a trip ahead of the time just to make sure a planned route would work, I decided to make the long drive to Dartmouth the preceding Sunday to make sure I could find the address and office.

I eventually found it and it turned out he was with the computer science wing. Had he heard about me from my computer fair touring days in my Sophomore and Junior years? Had my absent mentor Zack Hatch bumped into him during his sabbatical and dropped my name? Or had Dr. Drysdale recently bought a Trash-80 and heard I was the one to talk to about setting it up? This little mystery gained my attention at a time when very little caught my interest.

While my first quarter had respectable grades amongst the blank slots from withdrawn classes, the second quarter I only had a couple of 'D's to break-up the string of 'F's. I hadn't even thought to use the trick of withdrawing from a class before the grades were in to avoid the 'F's. Having the first period of the day free had worked out so well for me in the previous quarter that once my two quarter last period of the day class ended, I kept that period free as well for the third and fourth quarters allowing me to show up to school late and leave early. Being able to leave early was going to be a good thing as I'd need the extra hour to get to the Dartmouth appointment from the school as it had been scheduled for a weekday.

Arriving at the College, I discovered finding a parking space during regular hours much harder than during off hours, but I fortunately found one and got to his office only a few minutes late. I introduced myself and he introduced himself and told me who he was. I wondered what the appointment was about and it turned out he wasn't so sure either... So a third party had made the appointment and hadn't thought to let either of us know why? He asked if I had interest in computers, which I told him I did and so he warmed-up the terminal in his office. He asked how my interest had started and I mentioned how it began with typing in games from magazines and by the next year I was writing my own. This prompted him to bring up the College's local version of 'Colossal Cave', a text based adventure game consisting of text descriptions with the player able to type in simple directions such as 'go north' or 'take ax'. Having played more advanced variations on my home computer, it was interesting, but the College's version didn't catch my attention.

Dr. Drysdale asked me about some terminology, which I was unfamiliar with and we seemed to have come to an impasse as what to talk about. Then it occurred to me that maybe I should show him some of my code and asked if I could make a follow-up appointment with him and bring my computer with me so I could show him what I could write. He agreed and I had little doubt that once he saw my magnum opus game, 'Star Quest', he would be duly impressed. While it still lacked a climactic ending, all of the flashy graphics along the way should make 'Colossal Cave' pale in comparison!

Appointment made, the following week I loaded up my computer into my dad's car in the morning before going to school. I whiled-away the school day with anticipation, a great improvement for me versus staring at the floor. And I was even able to get out of my second to last period class early just to provide me that extra time to get to Dartmouth and set-up my computer. The drive went by fast and I arrived; leaving my twenty-five hundred dollar computer in the car hidden under a blanket to be safe, I went to his office. A quick greeting and I asked where I could set-up the computer and he took me down to the garden level staff lounge and said I could set it up there. He'd be going to a quick meeting but would be back within the hour. That sounded great and I went out to the car.

I brought in the computer piece by piece and hooked it all together, then attached the cassette player and began loading the game. Out of paranoia, given that the cassette tape interface was known to be flaky, I brought a second copy of the game on another tape just to be safe. But I didn't need it. Having arrived just before four thirty, I was all set-up with the program loaded into the computer's memory and ready to show-off by four forty-five. I knew I was going to impress Dr. Drysdale when he got back.

All original code, my program was replete with algorithms containing: Inter-language calls, time slicing routines, real time graphics, data compression logic, constrained data generation, line algorithms, and a universal user input routine with program state dependent data parsing. My only regret was I wouldn't be able to show the doctor the Bubble Sorting technique I'd come up with to provide my school its random number list in the previous year.

Some professionals in the computer field had made their reputations, in part, on originating one of these logical techniques apiece. The problem was I didn't know that as I was unaware there were books on computer programming beyond the Trash 80 Level I BASIC manual. All other books I had come across had been little more than programming language syntax references. The thing was, I was self taught and thus hadn't realized there was a whole world of computer programming jargon out there that I should know in order to communicate with other people in the computer field.

While I waited for Dr. Drysdale to return, I got to show off my program to a number of Teaching Assistants that came into the lounge, but I think it only totaled around three. I assumed the doctor would arrive by five thirty and when that came and passed, I assumed he was running late and would definitely be there by six o'clock... By six thirty I was starting to feel a little antsy and daringly left my computer unattended in the lounge while I went up a few sets of stairs to check his office. Locked and dark, I realized he might be at the lounge right then and wondering where I was. I flew back down the stairs and reached the room. No one was there. Six thirty spanned to seven fifteen and I asked the last T.A. I saw that evening if they knew where Dr. Drysdale was, he assumed he'd gone home by now. This startled me as I began to wonder if he had forgotten about me after his meeting and simply went home. By seven forty I went up the stairs to check his office again simply because it was the only other place on campus I knew of to look for him.

Once eight o'clock came, I realized he probably wasn't going to show. As the campus was obviously closed for the night and I hadn't a clue where any centralized office might be where I could ask about Dr. Drysdale's location or off campus contact number, I realized I should probably go. Still, I waited until after eight just to be safe and reluctantly disconnected the computer and took the parts to the car. By eight thirty, just over four hours since I'd gotten there, I started my long drive home.

In subsequent days I tried calling his office number but it just rang. Before the days when answering machines were common place, I couldn't just leave a message for him. At my High School I asked if they had some alternative phone number or contact information for him. They didn't have anything beyond the note they had originally given me. Nor did they know who had originally set-up the first meeting with him. I toyed with the idea of just driving back to his office one day and linger by his door until he showed-up at some point but, given the driving distance involved, that seemed like a silly waste of gas.

Surely he would have called me if he had really wanted to see me again, and I concluded that he didn't. Of course, in the days before answer machines were common place, for all I know he had been calling my home time and again to apologize and make an alternative appointment...

But with no one there, there would be no one to answer the phone.

Impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

Brain Dead

62

From high to low, when and how would my life bottom out?

I got through the first month of my Senior year of High School pretty intact and if I had been able to pass any test in 'Advanced Math' I may have rebounded and made it through the school year. During that time the 'Civics' teacher had warned us of the up coming military aptitude tests they'd be having us do. He pointed out that while they would say and legally couldn't use the test to come after us for recruitment, that they always did anyhow. How could we find this out for ourselves? When taking the test put down the wrong middle initial, then see how many recruitment fliers and visits you get using that wrong middle initial...! And so we were rounded-up for the military tests in the semi-balcony portion of the auditorium at the end of that week and took them.

Also in the early Fall I went to various Radio Shacks trying to buy the lower case kit by itself so I could install it directly. The majority of the stores said that I could only get it as long as they installed it for an additional fee, but not otherwise. I finally found one at a mall about fifty miles away that would sell it to me plain without questions asked. When it arrived nearly a month later, I pulled out my father's old soldiering set and called my friend Jeff in Colorado and he talked me through the process of installing it as he had installed a third party kit of his own. With the chip in place and jumper wires attached where I thought they should have been, it came time to cut a lead on the circuit board itself that would sever the old uppercase-only video chip from power. Had I gotten anything wrong, I'd not only have no lowercase displayed, but no text displayed on the screen at all. Knife out, I made a gouge in the lead, closed the computer case and tried it out. It worked! Buoyed by this, I went ahead and mail ordered the 'Expansion Interface' and first floppy drive that would bring the computer up to thirty two kilobytes of memory and allow me to get off the frustratingly slow cassette deck. When it arrived, the extra RAM worked fine, the but floppy drive didn't work, it lit up and spun, but no data was read or written with it. I returned it and received a replacement disk drive only to find it had the same problem and the mail order company said that they had found nothing wrong with the drive I returned. My early boost from the lowercase kit had become frustration from having plunked down all that money and only gotten some additional memory for it. Working out the problem with the floppy drive would have to wait until the next time I was in Colorado and my friend Jeff could take a look at it.

I had scored very well on the military exams and sure enough I started getting fliers and invites in the mail to join various armed service branches, all featuring the wrong middle initial of 'Q'. I looked over the application forms I'd gotten and found it interesting that when you reached the 'sex' check boxes, the answers were 'male' and 'a female'. Apparently for men, sex was an adjective, but for women, sex made you a thing in the eyes of the armed services. Intended to be a passive aggressive response to having to take women into the military, rather than referring to women as 'women', the military took up referring to women as 'females', but by fifteen years later women had started referring to themselves that way, as well. When Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came out, they tried to point-out that 'females' was a pejorative, but once another fifteen years had passed, not only had women been routinely calling themselves 'females', men had even started calling to themselves 'males' completely defeating the original intent of the pejorative. After my not responding to their mailed invites in the Fall of Nineteen Eighty-One, I got a recruitment visit at my house. I don't remember if it was one or two guys that showed up, but they were very keen on signing me up. I assured them it wouldn't work out and I wasn't interested. They asked why I thought it wouldn't work out but I just assured them it wouldn't.

With November the first quarter of school had come to an end and I was entering a dark spiral, both emotionally and cognitively. Of the two math classes I dropped, I used one of the empty slots to take additional English classes, one of them with the teacher that I had for my second go around of 'Basic Composition' the year earlier. The other free slot was first period of the morning and I kept that free. I was admiring the wheels of a student who had been coming to school on his moped. He asked if I wanted to buy it. I realized with it and my first period free, I could effectively sleep-in each day and come to school late without impacting my classes. I took him up on it, working out a payment plan that would have it paid off by the end of the calendar year. The rest of the Fall I'd putt along to and from school with the moped and then again once Spring came.

Yet with the payments on the moped, junk food purchases, house bills and exhausting my savings with the unsuccessful computer upgrade, I realized I couldn't make ends meet with my part-time grocery store paycheck. I asked Van if I could borrow some money from him and he agreed. I was paying him back twenty dollars out of each weeks' paycheck and one week when he asked for his twenty, I thought I'd have some fun and say, ''I already paid you.'' Meant to be some teasing to have a little fun, after the first volleys of 'no you hadn't/yes I had' he abruptly said I was right, and I had. This stunned me and I tried to convince him I really hadn't but he was adamant and wouldn't take the money for that week. I would later discover that he had been carrying some guilt concerning me and I guess letting me have the twenty dollars helped relieve some of it.

By the middle of the second quarter the sudden hot spells I'd been having once a day since the end of my Junior year of High School had now started to occur a couple times each day. But as they always went away after a few minutes, I just ignored them as best I could and continued with my day as if nothing was happening.

I had started to completely shut down in class. Any class. I had entered this mental fog and would just stare at the floor as each class went on around me. The English teacher, who had been so impressed with me the previous year, actually blew up at me in class demanding in front of the rest of the students what was wrong with me? This barely got me to look up from the floor to her but I had nothing to say and she went back to teaching the class for the rest of the period. Once done and the rest of the students had left I was lethargically the last one to leave and she came up to me and apologized for having done that, but I told her that she was right, there was something wrong with me and I didn't know what. She didn't know what to say to that as I left.

In 'Civics' class my staring at the floor became the mainstay of my class participation and the only time I perked up was when I heard a student talk about how not all youth culture was against the Reagan era, take for instance the recent Devo song 'It's A Beautiful World'. ''For you,'' I mumbled. Perhaps stunned that I showed any life at all, the teacher asked me to repeat what I had said. I pointed out that the Devo song ended with ''It's a beautiful world for you. It's not for me.''

Toward the end of the class, we were to read Machiavelli's The Prince and Marx's Communist Manifesto. While we could show we had read the books by turning in a written summary, I opted for the verbal one-on-one question & answer to avoid the additional writing by hand. Despite having read them, when the teacher asked me about them my mind was an empty void. When asking about The Prince I could only come up with the vaguest of answers to his questions, prompting him to ask if I had actually read the book. I assured him I had.

He moved on to the Communist Manifesto and started with the question, ''Name a form of socialism mentioned in the Communist Manifesto.''

There had been another form of socialism mentioned in the manifesto? I panicked as I desperately tried to remember what it could have been. But again there was nothing there. After a bit of me staring at the floor while I failed to think, he prompted me again with the question and I apologized with tears in my eyes, ''Other than Communism, I can't think of another one it mentioned, I'm sorry.'' He stopped asking me any more questions at that point and said I could go. I again apologized thinking I had just blown the oral exam. I hadn't realized at the time that Communism was the form of socialism he had been asking for. But he apparently realized from my answer that I was just trying too hard to answer his questions and gave me passing marks for having read both.

By the middle of Winter I had taken up finding empty classrooms just to sit in and stare at the floor, it gave me more privacy than staring at the floor in the study hall area, I guess. But in this open concept school, it wasn't like I couldn't be seen and one time Van found me and asked what I was doing. I just shook my head and lamented how I used to be able to think, I could come up with pages of computer code at a whim and now I couldn't think of a thing. ''I just can't think anymore!'' I repeated with a burst and started to cry. Van put his hand on my back as I slumped over and buried my face in my arms.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop