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I am one of the 1900 students who attend Shady Shadows High School. The parking lot is littered with expensive cars sporting fashionable vanity plates that say the most ridiculously inane things.


I always park in the far end of the lot, away from other cars and the threat of potential dents and scratches.


My backpack is nearly in order when a giant Hummer wildly pulls into the spot next to mine. The Hummer’s door catapults open and violently slams into my impeccable paint job.


Out steps the perpetrator. Brodie Brockford. Beefy jock with a killer smile and half a brain. The kind of cocksucker that stains the earth with his presence. He’s akin to toxic sludge. Only he can throw a football sixty yards so people seem to think he’s worthwhile.


I leap from the car.


“What did you do that for, asshole!?”


“You were parked too close to the line dickcheese.”


Brodie’s Hummer is spilled into my parking spot.


“Brodie, I’m going to need your insurance info because I’m not paying for this damage.”


He scoffs and his flippant nature toward the situation only heightens my anger.


“Blow me, Stutters. I’ll pay for the damage the day you stop swooning over cock.”


He pauses for a moment while I digest his insult.


“I won’t hold my breath.”


Brodie pushes past me as I rack my brain for a comeback but a snappy response eludes me.

...............

1st period English class is alive with the clamor of indifference. Mr. Casey lost most of the class long ago but still gives an admirable performance to those of us still engaged. We’ve just finished reading “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, a story that has forever lodged itself into my subconscious. Put simply, a man in search of an identity, the want to be noticed, is something I can relate to.

Mr. Casey starts his questioning.

“Can anyone tell me why Ralph Ellison would leave his protagonist nameless?”

My hand shoots recklessly into the air.

“Yes, Walter?”

“I think by leaving the protagonist nameless, it affords the reader the ability to insert themselves into his life and his struggle. Ellison is making a blanket statement that all of us feel invisible sometimes regardless of color.”

Mr. Casey smiles and nods his head.

“That was a thoughtful answer Walter.” He scans the rest of the classroom.

“Did the rest of the class hear that?”

The question goes unanswered.

Mr. Casey calls on Andrew Magnusson, a dunce of epic proportions. He is sitting next to me and I see that he has taken the class period to work on some art. A monstrous, vein-bulging penis with legs, which is walking through New York City, spraying the poor citizens with what seems to be acidic ejaculate.

I say acidic because one of his characters has a voice box that says, “Argh! This acidic ejaculate is burning my eyes!”

“Andrew, do you agree with Walter’s assertion that Ralph Ellison leaves his protagonist nameless because it allows the reader to insert themselves into the life of the narrator?”

“Absolutely”. Andrew keeps sketching his masterpiece.

Mr. Casey rolls his eyes. “Thanks for participating.”

“Does anybody else have something to add to Walt’s commentary? Maybe even a new thread to contribute to the discussion?”

A celestial voice overtakes the room.

“I think Walt said it perfectly. Ellison wanted the issue of race to be a small part of the larger, more intricate theme. A person in search of their identity, the want to be acknowledged, even if it meant a polite head nod from an errant passerby. I mean, who can’t relate to that in some way? I know I can.”

I turn my head in the direction of the speaker. Her name is Amalia and I’ve noticed her before but haven’t ever had the guts to meet her eyes for fear of being leveled by them. In a sea of blonde, plastic throwaways, her porcelain, modest beauty stands out in a way that is almost too much for my eyes to endure.

She notices me looking at her and she smiles. I quickly look away.

I wasn’t expecting that. Damn her sweet smile and her barely visible cleavage.

Mr. Casey thanks Amalia for her input and ends class a few minutes early.
I say goodbye to Mr. Casey and take one last fleeting glimpse towards Amalia. She seems ready for my eyes and does her best to lock into them with hers. I awkwardly shoot my gaze above and past her but not before my face turns bright red.

...............

Every day, without fail, I ask to use the restroom during 2nd hour Calculus. Math class excites me about as much as anal-waxing or one of those made-for-T.V. movies showing on an all-female channel that stars a washed up actress from the 70's or 80's.

And they all have the same fucking plot. Woman gets abused by hick of a husband who watches NASCAR. Woman trembles, cries, trembles. She goes to therapy. Buys a gun. Tracks the guy down, which isn’t too hard because he almost always has a mullet. She proceeds to blow his nutsack to smithereens and all the women in the world join together and dance in the streets because they’ve just notched a victory against the mullet-sporting, NASCAR-loving wife-beaters of the world.

I’m walking down the hall at a molasses-running-down-the-side-of-a-tree pace, desperate to waste another minute before I head back to class. I’m twirling the bathroom pass in my hand when I decide to toss it into the air. I catch my first throw and rejoice.

The second toss soars even higher and I leap a few inches off the ground. The bathroom pass connects with my right hand and I clutch it tightly. This is kind of fun. Toss number three reaches new heights, grazing the ceiling. I set myself under the falling fling when I suddenly hear fast approaching footsteps.

Before I have time to turn and see who is bearing down on me, I am struck in the small of my back, which creates a whiplash like effect that makes my spine bow into an indefinite shaped backwards C. My breath leaves me as I meet the ground.

Two pairs of rough hands pull me upright. The scent of Neanderthal hits my nose like smelling salt and I immediately know the culprits. Brodie Brockford and his sidekick Tad Ferguson.

Before I have time to give them a verbal lashing, my boxer briefs and rectum connect in a meeting so painful I shriek to shatter glass. I tumble back to the carpet and writhe about, my boxer briefs hanging out over my jeans.

“Nice squeal, HOMO!” Brodie imparts.

Brodie and Tad chest-butt, high-five, and slap each other on the ass before tearing off down the hall.

I gather myself from the floor and penguin-walk towards the restroom.

Once inside, I perform the delicate task of dislodging the boxer-briefs. It feels raw and tender, like I’m peeling skin. An angry, rhythmic burning sensation sets in. There has to be some sort of topical wedgie cream out there that soothes this sort of thing.

My thoughts wander back to Brodie and Tad and the Underwear Enema they had just given me. Having two jerk-off Jocks physically abuse me is not what bothers me. I realize that there is a High School Caste System and because I fall into the Nerd category it’s essential I’m abused by the Jocks. I can deal with that. Far be it from me to be at odds with such a time-honored tradition.

What really eats at me is that Brodie had the nerve to call me a “homo”. First of all, I am not a homosexual. I am not a queer. I do not “swoon over cock” like he said earlier. In fact, if I had any confidence at all, I could bonk genitals with the Nerds or the Semi-Fat Girls that walk around with even less confidence than I do.

Secondly, Brodie is the same guy who thinks it is hilarious to pretend to screw his lowest common denominator chums in the ass during lunch hour. Then they go to football practice and engage in a plethora of homoerotic physical activity disguised as machismo. So you know what? Fuck him and his witless lot.

...............

Lunch hour is my favorite part of the day. I sit with my best-friend, Ben Goldstein, and from a safe distance we watch, mostly with bemusement, the interaction between the rest of our peers.

Right now, our eyes settle discreetly on the African-American clique as they blast rap music out of a boom-box and dance rhythmically to the beat. We survey them walk on air for a bit longer and then jump to the Cheerleaders as they watch the aforementioned Jocks toss a football to and fro, presumably gossiping to one another about who they’re going to get their next mouthful from.

Closest to us, we see the exaggeratedly morose Goths sitting in a circle, painting each others fingernails black, waiting expectantly for the world to end.

Ben, diminutive and pudgy with coke-bottle glasses and curly hair, turns to me, breaking our silence.

“Do you think Gothic chicks are hot?”

I shrug.

“Not really. They’re too doom and gloom for me. Not to mention that trench coats don’t exactly embody sexy.”

Ben nods his head.

“I know what you mean but I’d still bump uglies with one of them if I got the chance. I think it would be a really nasty, mean-spirited sort of fuck. A little bit of choking. An ebb and flow of carnage and sadistic glee. Beautiful stuff.”

I look at Ben sideways.

“Maybe you could keep those kinds of thoughts to yourself”.

Ben puts his hands in the air and looks at me sheepishly.

“What can I say? I crave any sort of pussy. I’d eat it with every meal and sniff it like Coke if I could.”

“Ben, you’ve never even been near one.”

“That’s not true!”

“Online doesn’t count.”

“Fuck off.”

I laugh and the next few moments pass in silence. I suddenly become thoughtful, reflective even, and I decide it’s my turn to ask Ben a question.

“Hey Ben?

“Yeah Walt?”

“Do you ever think all of this, what we do everyday, life in general, is just a bunch of arbitrary, soul-sucking bullshit? I have a difficult time finding any meaning in what I do on a daily basis let alone figuring out what I’m going to be doing in the future. It all seems so goddamn hollow. You ever feel that way?”

Ben contemplates briefly.

“Sometimes. Mostly though, I just plan on floating through life and hope meaning falls into my lap somewhere along the way. If that doesn’t work, I think I’ll just kill myself.”

“Every once in awhile you really surprise me with your insight.”

A few more moments pass in silence and it looks like something is troubling Ben.

“Walt?”

“Yeah?”

“ Would you ever dick-tickle a black girl?”

I shake my head.

“I take back that compliment I just gave you”.

...............