Super-Loser/Hero Wannabe: Chapter Five A

Chapter Five: Pick Up the Phone and Dial Her Number

            The soccer season was going pretty well. Everything was going well, except that I didn’t have the ability, okay, courage, to call a girl. Random people congratulated me on my play, including the president of the high school. “Doogie, right.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “I’m hearing great things about you!”

            “Thanks, sir.” I knew I was a big deal when the boss of two thousand five hundred people stopped me in the hall.

            Not only that, my dad had started attending the games. It was a big turn around for him from me getting cut the first day. I could hear him yelling during the games, “That’s my Doog!” After the first game he drove me home and asked Mom what we were eating. He’d been scarfing pizza store food for a while refusing to touch anything she cooked. He’d been saying loudly to no-one that it was probably poisoned. Mom kind of looked surprised that he was going to eat home. She thawed some steaks. My dad stayed in the kitchen while she cooked, sucking down a beer, and giving her advice. “Pepper, baby, lot’s of pepper. Cook that boy three steaks, Mindy. He’s got to be hungry after that game.”

            “Get out of the kitchen, Doug or you’re not eating anything.”

            He pulled up a seat next to me and Steve, who had found his way to kitchen probably shocked to hear the civil conversation between our parents.

Mom set dinner on the table, steaks and mashed potatoes. Steve and I launched in, happy not to be eating Mac-N-Cheese out the box, but Dad kept talking, “Doog was the best player out there.”

“That’s great, baby.” Mom was more happy that Dad was eating steaks, but then she was always proud of me. For her I didn’t need to score a goal to be impressive.

“He’s only a freshman, and he’s the best player out there. He could go D-1, Mindy, D-1. He could even go pro.”

            He didn’t go out that night and they went upstairs early. After that he didn’t go out most nights but stayed in. In the morning he’d give her a kiss, Mom looked at him with these puppy eyes, with a look I’d never seen before. Steve shook his head, like, “Look at this Valentine’s Day shit,” and I shook my head, but if I’m honest, it was okay. It made the world feel safe.

            I had to call Jean. There was every reason to be motivated. She was cute, and she liked me (or at least I had every reason to believe she liked me). The main reason I wanted to play soccer was girls. So you’re thinking, what’s the problem? There were a bunch. For starters I hadn’t called a girl before. What did you do after dialing and saying hello? That moment after hello and before whatever came next was a terrible gap, the yawning space between the dragon’s jaws, and I feared it. I also wondered if I could trust them. Maybe Alex and Jean were conspiring against me, getting me to call, and then they’d make fun of me (these some farfetched now, but at the time I was plagued by the ghost of Sara and her jagged shiv of a rejection, “What a loser.”)

I was sitting in the living room, watching TV, because I don’t have cable in my room, and because my plan was to be alone in my room to make the call. Since I wasn’t in my room, I couldn’t make the call.

            The news was going on about this super rich guy named Primo, who was starting this ginormous mall just for teenagers. Adults were going to be allowed in, but it was going to cater to teenagers. Some parents were mad about it. They were complaining to the reporter, “What goes on in there?” The mall seemed cool to me; two video game stores were going to be in it with free play. They had a super large screen in the food court and were going to have video game tournaments.

            “Kids, be who you want to be, and do what you want to do, at the Primo.” He was a big guy with a frothy white beard, kind of like Santa Klaus except he looked super powerful whereas Santa just looks fat. “We’ve got everything you want.” It seemed like he was looking right at me, but of course that was the way they made the ad. They flashed shots of the video game tournaments, some clothing shops, and a sports arena.

            Steve came in and wanted to change the channel to Batman. I punched him a couple times, hoping we could have a bro versus bro smack-down that would delay my journey to my room, the space of call-possible. He just said, “Ow. Give me the remote.”

It was like a sign. I groaned and got off the couch. I climbed the stairs, pulled my phone out, and sat on my bed with my heart down in my stomach. Do it. You heard me. I said do it. Oh my goodness, what if she asks why the hell I called. She’s not going to say that. Just call.  

            Fine. I pressed call. Ring. Please don’t answer. Ring. I could hang up. Ring. Don’t hang up, Doog, that’s for babies. Riiin—“Hello?” Her voice. Curious. Click. I hung up.

I sat there for a minute, shame and relief battling in my head. Shame won; I punched myself, super-powered smashes to the chin and stomach. I was a weirdo. I couldn’t make the call. Now I really couldn’t, because she had my number saved as “WEIRDO STALKER” in her phone.

Chapter Four- Part Two

            It was easier, that night, to play Bat Boy. Nope, sounds like a baseball bitch.

            I went out and caught a bus. Traveling into North Philly, I felt more and more out of place. Eventually I was the only white person on the bus, but nobody said anything to me. I got off and walked by a shopping center with a McDonald’s as big as a church. Somebody rode by playing a rap song so loud the house windows rattled. I tried not to look at anybody, walking down to Mike’s block. A group of guys looked at me. One said, “Hey kid, you want dippers?”

            Another added, “Make you feel like a super-hero.”

            “You gone need that out here.” A few laughs and then they ignored me.

            I shook my head no and shuffled past. I didn’t feel like a super-hero, but I actually was one.

            A group of kids my age were playing football in the middle of the block. I stood watching them until I saw Deshawn. He stuck out, giving orders, calling huddles, angry at his receivers for missing catches. When a smaller kid suggested he throw, Deshawn said, “You think you can throw?”

            The kid said, “Better than your corny passes.” Deshawn threw the ball right into the kid’s face at point blank range.

            “Better than that?”

            The kid shook his head and said, “You an asshole.”

            I was shocked a little and I think my jaw was hanging open. He saw me. “What you looking at, whitey?’

            I didn’t say anything. He stalked toward me, and I thought he was going to hit me. “You better answer me when I ask a question.” Actually, he tried to push me first; two hands came up shoving me in the chest. I didn’t move, but he fell back a few steps. The voices of the other kids around started. “Oh snap, Deshawn.”

            “He ain’t scared of you, Deshawn.”

            “Why you push like a (insert misogynist word referring to the female anatomy here. Miss Farr said that she hoped that if we ever used words derogatory toward female genitalia that we would never get close to one)?”

            Deshawn knew better than to talk at that point, he stepped up and threw the biggest punch he had. I caught it. He looked at me in shock, and then, following his instinct, swung the other fist. I side-stepped that one, and brought the flat of my hand across his face hard. The swashing blow knocked him back. The only thing that kept him from hitting the asphalt was my grip on his other hand.

            “Damn.”

            “Deshawn, he ain’t respect you enough to punch you.”

            “Slap you like your mama.”

            The commentary was quality. I let go of him. I could see the fear in his face, the slap still hurt, but he was more scared of the comments, the damage to his reputation. He got up, and came at me one more time. This time I slapped him with a hammer motion on the top of his head. The blow pushed him to his knees.

            “Damn.”

            I waited until his eyes refocused, and he looked me in the eye. “Stop picking on people for no reason. You don’t want me coming back.”

            He nodded, and murmured, “Ok.” I walked off. On the ride home, I replayed the events of the fight. I tried to feel triumphant, but being super-powered and beating up on regular people, even when they’re bullies, doesn’t feel that great. Mouse squasher. Jack the G-Ant-Killer. Get it. G as in gangster?

            I thought that Mike would be talking over the next couple days about how much Deshawn had changed. Even if it didn’t feel like a triumph, it’d feel nice hearing how Mike’s situation was improved. I thought about telling him what I’d done for him. He’d love the part about Deshawn’s humiliation in front of the whole bunch. I threw that idea out, ‘cause Mike would be mad I didn’t tell him about my super powers right away.

However, the next day, Mike didn’t come to school, and the day after that he came in with an ankle splint and the lumpiest eye I’d ever seen.

            Kyana started, “What happened to you?”

            Mike shook his head.

            “Not that Deshawn dickhead?”

            Mike nodded his head. “Yeah. So my little friend Boog from our block told me this crazy story. Two nights ago all the kids on our block are playing football on the street, yelling five oh every time they say a cop car, just your normal night in the ghetto. Then this white kid walks down the block, like some serial killer, and stares at Deshawn. Deshawn gets offended and steps to this white kid, who basically concusses Deshawn with two slaps and tells him that he’s supposed to stop picking on people. All the kids are nodding, but after the white kid leaves, Deshawn starts to beat up the smallest kid out there, who was Boog, and Boog just cussed him out, but then the next morning he manages to get up at six thirty and fuck my morning up. He punches me a few times, and if that wasn’t enough chucks me down into the train tracks, and when I land I sprained my ankle. My mom said she’s too busy to go to the doctor. So that’s how come I missed two days.”

            My first reaction was I got angry with Deshawn. Why wouldn’t he learn? But what Mike said next showed me the truth.

            “That dumb mutant white kid. Don’t he know that shit always flow downhill?”

            I didn’t say anything to that. He looked at me. “It’s weird, the kid sounded like you- but if you had mutant strength you’d tell me.”

            “Yeah, of course.”

            “You’d need a Professor X to give you advice.”

            “I’d think you more as an Aunt May.”

            “Same thing.” Of course I couldn’t tell him. He wouldn’t believe me, and he’d be mad at me for basically breaking his leg if he did. I felt so stupid.

            One of the things that Miss Farr talked about as we were reading toward the end of Hamlet was the logic of blood. She talked about how gangster movies, whether it’s Godfather, Goodfellas, or Scarface, those who kill, spill blood, don’t escape the repercussions. Each act of violence is like a rock thrown in a pond; its effects ripples out and hurt even those far from it. Claudius kills the King, and the whole kingdom is destabilized. Hamlet stabs the “most secret, most grave” counselor, and Ophelia dies, Laertes seeks revenge. In fact, she said, repercussion should be reverberation, because it comes back on the perpetrator, and then bounces back out.

That’s a lie in comic books. Violence is not a solution.  But I believed them, thinking slaps were going to make North Philly a place where a smart kid could be safe.

Super-Who-O Chapter Four- Part One

If you are starting now, scroll back to chapter one.

Chapter Four

            On Monday something was up with Mike. At first I thought it was because Alexandra sat next to me before class started, and began talking excitedly about how much fun Friday had been, and how Jean said she really liked hanging out with me. She asked me what I thought of Jean. I thought she was pretty, and Alexandra got happy about this, and said that she didn’t have a boyfriend, and didn’t Aiden give me her number? And I said, yeah, but I was busy, which you and I know was bullshit. She said I should call Jean, and by that time Miss Farr was goading us toward our desks, her red hair abuzz as she cried, “Journal! Now, kiddies.”

            I saw Jean walk by in the hall a few times and look in the class. I’d have waved but Miss Farr was good at catching that kind of thing, and as much work as she gave us, her class was fun.

            At lunch I told Kyana and Mike about what happened. That was when I noticed that Mike didn’t seem too happy. Normally he works through the greasy stuff on his styrofoam platter like each item was a one up mushroom, but he was eating like a robot. That’s when I wondered if he was upset because Alexandra was talking with me.

I told them about Jean so that Mike would know he didn’t have to worry about the me and Alexandra. He said, “Congratulations, man. It sounds like easy street now. You know she likes you. She sent her friend to basically tell you that, and you have her number. Only someone as dumb as you could possibly mess this up.”

            Kyana was holding up a thin piece of ham so that the florescent lights shone through; the ham rainbow resplendent as oil on a seal’s muzzle. “This ham is shit. So is your date. I know that Jean girl, and she’s stupid.”

            I didn’t know why she was so mad. But then her face changed, and she said, “At least the pickles are good.” She went on to tell us a story about a crazy guy on her block who believed that he was E-40, the second in command to Weeble-Man. When he told her this, she held in her laugh, “I’m afraid of crazy people.” He asked what she was reading, and she told him Hamlet. He told her he’d read it, and he was sad when the little pig died, his face dead serious. He asked her if she was sad about the little pig, and she told him she bawled her eyes out. I laughed at lot at the story, but Mike was staring off across the lunch-room. His lunch was only half-eaten. Something was definitely going on.

            Kyana said, “Mike, what’s wrong?”

            He turned and looked at us slow and mournful as a dying elephant. “Nothing,” he said.

“Come on, tell us.”

            He went on to narrate how this kid Deshawn on his block that used to bully him in middle school now has been calling him names that Miss Farr would kill us for using- you know gender and anatomy insults, because Mike won’t fight him. On Friday Deshawn cornered him and started punching him. That was when I saw, and I felt bad that I’d been so excited about a girl that I hadn’t seen it, that his one cheek was dark with the bruise, and his eyebrow was split.

            Kyana said, “I’ll fight him. I’m coming home with you. I’ma whip his ass.”

            Mike said, “Great plan, Kyana, then everybody on the block will respect me.”

            She said, “I’m so mad. You just want to be you, and he come at your neck. Dickhead probably know he dropping out this year, and he see you going to Central, and he so salty he just try and fight you.”

            Mike said, “It’s not a big deal.”

But it was. I didn’t want those things happening to Mike; I wanted the bully punished. Unlike Kyana, there was something I could do about it. There were logistics to figure out, but I could definitely do something. How was I going to figure out who Deshawn was? Was there any chance he would be armed? But once I got those little details ironed out, I’d be up close and personal, delivering super-punches into his face, asking him how he liked it.

            I said, “What’s his last name?”

            “Williamson, why?”

            “I like to have a last name when I fantasize about beating someone up. Is he a drug dealer?” I figured he would only have a gun if he was.

            “No, he wants to be, but I don’t think he does anything but yell if he sees the cops. He’s putting together a resume, and somehow he thinks beating up Central nerds is an important accomplishment.”

            It wasn’t that hard to find Deshawn. He had a public profile on the Face. He thought his name was Deshawn Do-One-Thing Williamson. I memorized his stupid face. He had high cheek bones and squinty  meanness in his eyes. Overall he was better looking than I expected, but I planned to make him more how I’d imagined.

            I put all black on, but I was just wearing sweats, no mask, no stripes. I looked like a normal person. Super-Kid doesn’t have that kind of get up. I’m working on the name thing.

            You can imagine the kind of nervous energy that was boiling in me. This was my first moment of action. Up to now, all my new talent was used to become popular (okay, I wasn’t popular yet, but I was on my way.) I loved Spiderman, despite the constructed quality of the story, and there I was, little Spiderman. Spider Boy! All I had to do was beat Deshawn up, and let him know that it was justice, and if he picked on anybody else, I’d kill him. Start small, Lance-Often. Lance-often was not bad. Our school name was the Lancers, and it played on Lancelot.

            Some of you are saying, what about the girl? Couldn’t you have called Jean, who was probably holding the phone in her hand, waiting for your call? First of all, as much as having super-powers had given me new confidence, I wasn’t picturing her holding the phone waiting. The thing I was thinking about was what happened after we’d exhausted discussing Bio homework? And how pretty she was and how nice it’d be to impress her and also how likely it was that I wouldn’t.

            It was easier, that night, to play Bat Boy. Nope, sounds like a baseball bitch.

Teachers and their Unions

I was listening to KYW, getting a twenty two minute slice of the world, when I heard a story about Tom Corbett attempting to entirely privatize the state liquor sales, eliminating state stores altogether. A  spokesperson for the states store workers' union said that Corbett was cutting thousands of jobs, ruining the livelihood of many. Having often been frustrated by Pennsylvania's state stores I am for privatizing them. Not only do the stores overcharge, but the workers there are often frustrating slow, and unlike any other consumer experience, I have no alternative. I thought, as the union spokesperson talked, "Of course he's going to say this, they're trying to protect their jobs. At the same time, it's not true that jobs will be lost, they'll just move." I'm excited for the sale of liquor and wine to be governed by consumer choice.

I thought with a sudden jolt that this is how people see the teachers' union. They believe that teachers fight against the move to charters and vouchers in an effort to protect their cushy union jobs. In these protected jobs they can laze along doing nothing. Any educational movement which takes power from these unions is good. Competition for jobs, and between schools, will make teachers better. It favors children, who will get a better education, and in turn society, who will get better citizens. Why should unions and some people's desire for more money, and job protection, get in the way of that?

1) Teachers need protection from the capitalists. Some teachers will work for any amount of money, no matter how little, to work in their beloved profession. Thus, small Christian schools pay a salary that puts the teacher below the poverty line. Prep schools pay their teachers amounts of money that would induce fits of laughter among their graduates (at a school where the tuition is ten thousand dollars teachers are paid thirty five thousand. The excess money is poured into school infrastructure and extracurricular programs, directly benefiting the children. The wealthy parents, who run the school, are happy). This willingness to work for peanuts does not make peanuts fair pay. In this field, more than others, the worker is prey to the authorities disposition toward maximizing their return at the expense of labor. 

2) Other workers, notably teachers at schools like Mastery and KIPP are paid living wages, but expected to work hours that only highly successful lawyers or doctors work. The teachers are making half of what the lawyers make and possess the same competencies and work just as hard. Most of these teachers are pumped up, "You must save the children, if you don't you're a white supremacist." Most of these teachers burn out after two or three years, though they would have made great career teachers. This is not a situation in which the teacher could pursue raising a family- leaving for work at six, home by seven, with a stack of papers to grade. The bosses use up the young's hope and belief in the space of two or three years, and get out of it the narrative that charters can be successful.

3) Good sustainable education means a better job for the teacher. Initially competition allows for quickly getting rid of some of the worst teachers (ideally, although many time the worst teachers are also best friends with administration). In the long term, it will drive away many able teachers. The schools will become mills for career journey-persons, never developing or supporting true professionals (with the exception of the group who will teach regardless of how bad the situation is).

4) Unions mean that teachers get due process. I'd like a society in which every worker got due process, but teachers, with their dedication, and their aforementioned predisposition to be abused by the capitalists, need it more than most.

These are my thoughts. This is how Billy Bragg said it.

Superhero Chapter Three Second Half

            I didn’t tell Mike that Alexandra friended me. I thought he might be jealous, and that’s stupid since it was just facebook. It’s not like we were real friends, much less anything else. It was kind of dumb to protect him from the fact that she friended me. It wasn’t like he had any special rights to Alex.

            At lunch, Kyana made an attitude face, and said, “Oh, look, Doogie’s sitting with us!”

            “What’s your problem,” I said.

            “Now you got different friends; now you a big deal.”

            “I’m not acting different, I just did something that impresses people. I moved from being a five point five to an eight. Hey, I’m eligible for you now. You want to be my girlfriend?”

            She said, “I don’t give a shit about soccer, which is just a sport for white people anyway. You might think you’re an eight, but to me you’re still a five point five.”

            I was going to explain that everybody in Africa, Asia, and South American played soccer passionately, but the way she was vigorously dissecting her sandwich, it seemed like a bad idea. I said, “Why are you so mad?”

            Kyana said, “This table okay. I mean, maybe you and Mike the biggest dorks in the school, but sometimes Mike funny, and you got a lot of theories that I like listening to, cause they’re so stupid.  I like that we all have Miss Farr’s class. Now you gone hang with white people and talk about mayonnaise.”

            I said, “It’s not like that. I wanted to play soccer. My dad wants me on the team. I’m not going to go sit anywhere else. I hate mayonnaise.”

            Maybe the conversation made me a little guilty, though I don’t know why, but I got back to thinking about how my powers could help people. That night I looked up opportunities for superheroes. Well, first I was playing Illumen’s Children, and I got to the part where the grolf destroys this army of Fels, and I was thinking how the grolf (a big hairy monster that lives on mountain tops) was a type of superhero, since he saves the kids. That made me think about whether I was supposed to be using this power for something, “With great power, comes great responsibility;” blah blah blah.

            Turns out that the main people looking for superheroes are willing to pay money to meet them but they also expect sex.

            “Super-girl seeks Super-man to fly her away.”

            “Robin looking for Batman to hit a home run.”

I wondered how that never happened to Batman- you’d think people would be shining bat logos all over, ready in their sexiest lingerie, trying to jump his bones. Maybe I’m the only one who would try this. I wonder whether Batman prefers plaid boxers, or uniform color. He’d probably go for my Union boxers.

            Sorry, tangent. So I couldn’t really go to the folks who were seeking super help. I would have to be more creative. I looked up “Philadelphia Crime Bosses”. Philadelphia used to be run by Garfo, who managed to murder thirty of his guys during his tenure as cappa don. After him came Bobo Santino, who was so much of a smart ass the FBI had to get him. Now, the family is run by Mike Licambi, who the FBI says, “Stabilized South Philadelphia and created an atmosphere of professionalism after the years of chaos and bloody division.” That’s pretty crazy right, when the FBI is endorsing a crime boss? But it proved my point. It’d be pretty dumb if I went down there, beat up Licambi, threw him off a roof, and destabilized South Philly and introduced a new era of terror and bloody civil war.

            Sokay. You’re thinking, what about drug dealers? They provide bad stuff to people just so they can get paid. They seem like real bad news. Why don’t you do something about them? Go around, pull people off corners, give the here’s how, and I’ve had a enough bit.

It’s all a lot more complicated than that. I saw this article about some drug dealer getting arrested for kidnapping in Philadelphia. The guy had tied up some wanna-be robber who broke into his house. The cops caught him with the house breaker stripped, boiling a pot of water he was about to pour on the guy. Here are some of the comments.

            “Anyone who says they (code pronoun for black people) ain’t the problem is retarded. Don’t teach their kids, got no job, committing crimes.”

“There is no job, no opportunity for these young people. They want to make money because that’s the way to be productive as an american. We need to provide opportunity if we wantt the drug dealer culture to die.”

“I GOT MAD BAGS SKUNK ONLY 5”

“Why he ain’t hide his stash? Then he tell the popo he just making spaghetti for his house guest. Hide u stash, dumb ass trappers.”

“NOBODY WANT SKUNK. I GOT CRACK, PONIC!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“These ignorant people (you know the code) shouldn’t be policed. They should be allowed to kill one another off. No respect for the law.”

“Without jail time, with these courts that let felons go with a slap on the wrist, it’s no wonder things like this happen.”

“On my stoop, I got five young men, dealing drugs. I ask them to stop, and they say, ‘Shut the ---- up, Grandmom.’ How can they call me Grandmom, and say that? Is that what they say to their grandmom?”

            Okay, there’s a lot of ignorant people on the message boards but also, nobody knows what to do. Even the police argue with the chief about how to stop crime. As long as there is demand, there’s going to be a supply.

            So being strong and fast is nice but not really useful in the crime fighting sense, but the best application is sports. So I went out to play the next day. I left my seventh period class and strolled down the South lawn across the street to the clubhouse. There was this nervous energy in there, I knew how they all felt, the game is coming, will I get time? Or if they knew they were going to get time, they worried about playing well. I felt nervous energy, but I felt good too. I was pretty sure I could turn in a nice performance. It was a home game, and any number of Central kids would be there to watch it. This was my chance to shine.

            Coach talked some bullshit about playing hard and had the nerve not to start me. He still can’t admit that somehow he cut the best player. I shouldn’t be bitter that it’s taking him awhile to process an event that no scientist would believe. A ball of light turned a subpar soccer player into a superstar super hero- I should drop the hero, because as I said, heroism was too complicated. Super kid.

            Well, twenty minutes into the game, I get subbed in. I guess the other coach hadn’t read the stat box on Rally because I didn’t get man marked. One of our defenders saw me lined up with their last defender, and smashed the ball downfield. I should say that I played at half speed. If I broke records for human speed out there, I might have gotten kidnapped by the CIA. I was still fast enough to dust the defense, and it was me and the goalie, who was rushing out to block the angle. I lean back, and flick the ball over his raised hands, lightly, so it comes back down, bounces, and crosses the goal line. It looked pretty, I could tell by the screams. I ran to the corner flag and did the celebration I had worked out, which was throwing an imaginary blue fireball (I don’t think anyone got it. Mike told me the only thing more boring than playing sports was watching them).

            I scored another goal that game, and after that, I tried to contain myself and not score another. After showers, a group of kids surround me, Alexandra and Aiden among them. Aiden says, “Hey, we’re going to go the diner, my dad’s treat. You want to come?”

            Kyana wouldn’t have approved, but it wasn’t like she was offering to hang out with me that Friday night, and all I had at home was “Alturban Adventure”, which is the most depressing level, because one of the kids betrays their tree person friend. So I said, “How am I going to get home?”

            Aiden said, “Catch the twenty three.”

            There were a couple of Alexandra’s friends there, Jean in a tank top that showed some nice skin, and Morgan, both eights. I said, “OK.” Okay, Miss Farr, I’ll stop referring to girls with numbers, but I bet you rate guys. “Lives at home, can’t be higher than a four.” “Rates girls with numbers, can’t be higher than a two.”

            We sat in a booth at the trolley car diner over on Germantown. Jean was next to me and she wasn’t shy about schooching all the way in so her smooth leg was against my hairier, and in my opinion, despite its super kid powers, uglier one. She said I had a good game, and how did I get so good?

            I told her the truth that it was more luck than work, and made a joke about how I wish I’d see the same improvement with schoolwork, which had her laughing really hard, like it was a good joke so then I thought I was the funniest guy in the world and made fun of our Indian Biology teacher’s accent, which we all know is the best possible form of humor. No, but it worked for her, so I felt great. At some point Alexandra interrupted us, “Doogie, did you go to a camp or something?”

            I said, “I was always this good, but my confidence just went up.”

            I walked outside at around six thirty, figuring I had to catch the buses back before the transpass wouldn’t work at seven thirty. Aiden walked me out and he said, “Hey, thanks for hanging out. You kicked butt today, man. By the way, I think Jean likes you.”

            This was the sort of thing that you think I’d have figured from the physical contact she created, and how hard she laughed at my stupid jokes, but hearing it said explicitly was good. I wasn’t used to being liked. Aiden gave me Jean’s number. On the bus home I thought all about everything that had happened and the other people on the bus were looking at me like this white kid must be high the way he’s smiling.

            I got home and my mom was watching fat people try and lose weight. I could tell by her expression that dad was at the bar. I went up to my room, and saw the game system there. That made me think about Mike. I could have called Mike and had him talk me through level three, but I wasn’t into it. I wanted to call Jean, and get back that feeling when she was laughing at me, her leg touching mine from thigh to ankle, but I was too nervous. What if I called, and she didn’t want to talk?

            Being nervous made me think about Hamlet, and how he felt about killing Claudius. His whole thing is, “I’m not going to kill him when he’s praying,” but maybe he can’t get his head around killing somebody. Miss Farr would like that. Basically he’s working through social expectations, instead of just going for it. I think he wants to kill him then, but he’s nervous about murdering, so he over thinks. He needs to be himself and kill.

            Which probably meant I should call the girl. Easy for you to say.