The first time in my life I experienced what I'd later find out was "dread" was on my very first day of school. I might have had the same feeling upon initially leaving the womb, but my memory of that day was hazy. It was a curious feeling, and one that would occur on the first day of school for the rest of my life. I felt a sense of hysterical panic, coupled with the perpetual sensation of my stomach bottoming out, as if I were trapped in an elevator with a dangerously schizophrenic clown, as the elevator plummeted down a bottomless abyss. In fact, I think I even had that dream the night before school, along with my recurring nightmare of a skeleton jumping out of my closet, and tap dancing in front of me while singing, "Nick-nack-patty-wack, nick-nack-patty-wack!" The worse thing about that latter dream was that no matter how hard I tried, or how scared I was, I couldn't wake up from it. No, actually, I take that back - the worst part of the dream was inevitably waking up in a pool of fear urine.
Another recurring nightmare I would have at that age was one in which I accidentally throw a ball into the carriage of a stopped train, and when I wandered in to get it, the train would suddenly take off. I would look outside, and see my mom screaming my name as she rapidly receded into the distance. I remember the feeling of despair at the prospect of being lost and alone was profound, and I would always wake up from the dream crying my eyes out.
Ultimately, that's what I felt like on my first day of school: a profound sense of loss, abandonment, and loneliness as my dad drove me away to school, and I watched my mom rapidly recede into the distance, just like in the dream. What was this about? Why did my parents not want me anymore? This must be what dogs imagine whenever they take that "last ride" out into the country. Nah, more likely they're thinking: Oh, that looks like a good place to poop! Oh, that looks like a great place to poop! Meh, my poop could only help that shithole... The ironic thing about that last sentence is the dog was probably referring to Russellville, where I would later spend my teenage years.
***
My dad dropped me off in the school's gymnasium, where all the students had to wait before school was in session. He left me with my backpack, my lunch money (which was held in my trusty little, plastic, vagina shaped change wallet), an encouraging "Uh, have fun learning and stuff", and not a clue what to do next. I saw a small table, where the school was selling supplies. That looked like something to do, so I went over there. They had a small variety of stuff on sale, but what instantly caught my eye was a basket of small, fruit shaped erasers that almost seemed to glow in the morning light, giving off a soft, inviting halo. There were banana erasers, strawberry erasers, grape erasers... *gasp*... was... was that a watermelon?
You see, at that age, I had a bizarre fascination with fruit; not the way fruit tasted (I hated eating it), but the way fruit looked. I was a very tactile child - I was into the way things felt, looked, smelled, and even tasted. For example, when I was first exposed to shag carpeting, I would spend the better half of a day rubbing my face against it, running my fingers through it, inhaling the new carpet smell, or in most cases even the mildewy, old carpet smell. Then I would lick it. Yes, that's right, I licked carpet. Get it out of your system, perverts. I didn't need to lick something more than once to get the gist whether it tasted good or not. Any mundane, ordinary object was a potential wonderland for me, capable of keeping me busy for hours at time. Unfortunately, this eventually led to a very brief fascination with poop (The Final Frontier), but... the less said about that, the better.
Something about fruit, though, just really appealed to me. I love the variety of bright colors it came in. I loved the leathery, smooth surface of it. I even liked the "thud" sound it made when I threw it at a wall (my parents, however, did not). My love of fruit was not restricted to actual fruit, but extended to even pictures of it, fake toy fruit, and most certainly erasers that not only looked like fruit but... smelled like fruit? Are you kidding? I immediately surrendered every cent I had in my rubber, vagina-shaped change wallet and bought every variety of the erasers I could find.
The erasers made me feel much better about this whole school thing, and I wittered away the morning examining each one with intense scrutiny, which was convenient for the kids who would later be my bullies to spot me out of the crowd, because a kid who openly reveled in owning fruit erasers, as if he had found pirate treasure, was a kid who was destined to receive daily beatings. The fact that I was slinging around a vagina wallet didn't help my case.
Vagina or wallet... you decide!
***
The lunch lady and I stared at each other in mutual confusion. She was expecting money for the trey of food I was holding, while I was trying to cope with the concept of paying for food. I never had to pay for food at home. Well, this was certainly a dilemma.
***
I sat at the lunch table, alone, without a meal, and felt even more hopeless than I had that morning. I took out the fruity erasers, and wondered if they were also edible. As an experiment, licked the watermelon eraser... blegh! Not even close! It didn't even taste like watermelon chewing gum! I had thought nothing could taste worse than actual watermelon (besides my grandparents' shag carpet), but here was this eraser to prove me wrong. Great.
At that moment, a girl from my class sat next to me. Her name was Jessica. Even though I was far too young to understand my attraction to girls, I still felt an attraction to them, and to Jessica in particular. She was very pretty, as far as such things went in my mind back then, and as it turned out, she was also incredibly generous and sweet. She looked at the space on the table where my lunch would be, but was instead currently occupied by fruity erasers and my tears, then she made the connection: this poor dope really must like fruit. So she gave me her fruit cup. I graciously accepted the offering, and devoured it quickly.
Just as the fruit erasers were a temporary diversion from my general sense of despair earlier that morning, Jessica's fruit cup was another reprieve from what was increasingly becoming a much worse day. More importantly, though, this angel of mercy had become my first school friend. I began to feel like maybe school wasn't so awful after all!
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