Audrey and the Maybe-Missed Opportunity

I. The Next Mutation

I was in the shower preparing for the first day of my Junior year of high school.  As I scrubbed my hair, I noticed clumps of it coming out into my hands.  “What…?” I ran my hand through my hair again, removing more hair in the process.  “What’s happening?”   

When I got out, I brushed my hair, and noticed more hair collecting in that as well.  “What’s happening to me!?” I screamed.  It felt like that scene from The Fly when Jeff Goldblum's character, Seth Brundle, begins slowly transforming into a hideous monster.

“What are you yelling about, piccolo player?” my dad asked, opening the door to the bathroom.  After assessing the situation, Dad’s annoyance immediately melted away, and he took a deep, solemn breath before saying:  “And so it begins…”  Knowing firsthand the emotional gravity of the situation, he simply padded my shoulder, backed out of the bathroom, mournfully shaking his head, and closed the door, leaving me staring after him in horror with the hair brush in one hand and a clump of my beautiful, golden hair in the other. 

At the tender age of seventeen, when I couldn't have been more emotionally sensitive about my appearance, I was starting to go bald.  

***

Every day I'd wake up to a veritable nest of discarded hair on my pillow.  It was as if Gizmo from the Gremlins movie had exploded in my bed.  I was losing it at an alarming rate, and could even see it thinning under certain lighting.  Over the years, I would try several tricks to either hide my hair loss or distract from it.  I would style my hair in such a fashion that it wasn't immediately apparent that I was losing it, then freeze it in place with hairspray (which, in all honestly, probably quickened the process).  I'd wear hats a lot to simply hide the state of my head entirely.  For my senior year of high school, I would even grow out a mullet, as if the long hair in the back would completely distract people from the fact that I was losing it in the front.  It was a regretful strategy, forever immortalized in my senior yearbook.  I would often entertain the delusion that my hair could be saved, or that perhaps the worst of it was over and I would stop going bald right then and there.  

In the end, nothing could be done, short of embarassing procedures like having my pubic hair surgically grafted to my scalp, or even worse, wearing a wig.  As my young adult years went by, so did more of my hair, until eventually I was left with the choice of scouring my head of hair and embracing my baldness, or greedily hanging on to what few scraps I had left, which was an option too pathetic and sad to ever seriously consider.  One day in college, after getting tired of looking in the mirror and seeing the faded remnants of my once gloriously blond mane, I attempted to use my dad's electric razor to just shave it all off.  Unfortunately, my hair was far too long for an commercial razor to lop off, a fact I didn't realize until it made a buzzing sound, like an irate hornet, and stopped working, leaving my head looking as if someone had attempted to take a bite out of it, but only got a mouthful of hair.  Panic-stricken, as I had class that day, and my hair looked as if I had just gotten a frontal lobotomy, I put on a hat, and quickly drove to the nearest barber to lop off the rest of my hair.

After it was all said and done, the barber began to say:  "Okay, let's see how it went..." before suddenly trailing off.  I caught his startled expression out of the corner of my eye.  I held my hand out and quietly asked for a mirror.  The barber hesitated, making me bark my command louder:  "MIRROR!"  

He handed me a hand mirror, and for the first time, saw myself without a single trace of hair on my head.  I moaned in sadness for a moment.  The barber responded apologetically:  "You have to understand, the chances of saving your hair was completely gone, Mr. Williams!"  I suddenly erupted into a fit of giggling, shattering the mirror into the nearest table.  "You see the tools I have to work with," the barber desperately explained, gesturing at a pair of scissors and an electric razor sitting on the table.  I simply continued giggling, until it evolved into maniacal laughter. I grabbed the barber by his lapels, stuffed some money into his pocket, and walked out of the shop, my laughter trailing out the door.  

I was a new man.  All kidding aside, I loved the new look.  I was blessed to have a perfectly shaped head for baldness, so it didn't look totally weird with my hair all cut off.  Also, I felt more confidence in that moment then I had in a long time.  I may not have realized it then, but in that moment, I made an important step to embracing who I was, baldness and all.  I began to realize how something like being bald was all in how one approached it.  Bruce Willis, George Carlin, Hulk Hogan - these people didn't let their lack of hair be a hindrance to their ambitions, and neither should I.

***

Despite embracing my "handicap" later in life, that day in the bathroom, when I first realized I was going bald, I was not mentally prepared to accept it at all, and it became one of many chains of insecurity I'd bare for the rest of my high school days.

II. The Tim Allen Sculpture

Weeks later into the school year, I sat in Sculpture class with my friends Johnny and Matt.  I was attempting to salvage a clay self-portrait that was, much to my dismay, beginning to resemble Tim Allen more than it resembled me.  No matter what I changed, it would only make the sculpture look more like Tim Allen.  Matt was in the middle of talking about something, when I suddenly caught a glimpse of Erin walking by in the hall with Burt.

“That lucky bastard,” I grumbled under my breath.  This three-word phrase would come to be my mantra for whenever I’d see a guy dating a girl I was attracted to.  

Matt and Johnny seemed confused.  Matt asked:  “How is he lucky?  The guy got shot by his wife!”

I snapped out of my hate daze. “Huh?  What are you talking about?”

“I was talking about how sucky it was that Phil Hartman got shot by his wife.  What are you talking about?”

“I was talking about Erin and Burt.”

Both Matt and Johnny exchanged looks.  “Dude,” Matt said patiently.  “You have got to get over this.”

I held my hands up in supplication.  “How?  How do I get over this when they haunt me in the halls everyday… just rubbing it in…”

“Hey, at least you got to see her boobs, right?”  Matt pointed out, turning to Johnny for validation, who simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged in agreement.

I sighed.  “Yeah, yeah, that’s true… but I didn’t get to feel them, so…”

“You don’t have to feel the Mona Lisa to fully appreciate it,” Johnny pointed out sagely, and we all three nodded in silence to the wisdom of this statement.  I was just beginning my Junior year of high school at that point, and the moment I saw Erin with Burt again, it unearthed a lot of negative feelings I thought I had already dealt with.   After all we had been through in Florida, it burned to see her with him.  I just knew that entire year of school would be haunted by the specter of “the Florida Incident”, as I had named the story while telling it to my friends. 

 

Mr. Stinson, my art teacher, walked up and leaned down to inspect my bust.  “Nice job, Craig, but the assignment is to sculpt a self-portrait.”

“It… it is a self-portrait.”

“Oh,” he studied it more carefully.  “It’s just that it looks a lot like… hmm, doesn't it look like Tim Allen?"  He turned the bust to face my friends.  "Am I crazy?  Or doesn't this look like Tim Allen?"

“Yes!  That’s what we’ve been telling him,” Matt said.

I wiped my face in exasperation.  “I just suck at sculpting, I guess.”

Mr. Stinson patted my shoulder.  “Now don’t be so negative!  Think about it this way:  you’re very, very good at sculpting busts of Tim Allen.”  When this didn’t make me feel any better, Mr. Stinson helpfully added:  “Look, just use the mirror more and pay attention to the features on your face that make you who you are.”  He left me to help other students.  I regarded my Tim Allen sculpture, which looked back at me with a contemptible sneer, as if it’d rather be destroyed rather than bare my likeness.

I looked at the reflection in the mirror.  My face was pale, bloated, and pockmarked with zits; my nose was too big, and with my thinning hair, I was looking for the all world like the titular character in the Nickelodeon series Doug.  It was no wonder I was subconsciously sculpting a bust of Tim Allen instead of me; he was a vast improvement to the awful reality of my existence.

The classroom intercom suddenly buzzed.  “Would Craig Williams please report to the office,” requested the distorted voice of the vice principal.  The entire class went “Ooooh”, as if I were in trouble.  “I’m taking my driver’s test today!” I explained.  The class again elicited another chorus of “Oohs”, but with an entirely different intonation, as if the entire town were in trouble… and they were probably right.  I stabbed my scalpel into clay Tim Allen’s forehead, and proceeded to say two words that would set the tone for my Junior year:  “Fuck it.”

 

III. A License to Puke

I had been sitting on a driving permit for almost a year before I finally decided to go for my driver’s license.  The most valuable lesson my parents ever taught me, when it came to driving a car, was to never, ever drive with them as a passenger.  As of the time of this writing, I have not been in an automobile accident, thanks largely because I took this lesson to heart.  My dad had a tendency to constantly criticize my ability to comprehend even the simplest aspects of driving (ex: “Umm… those are call ‘stop signs’. They’re usually used to ‘stopping’, homes.”).  My dad didn’t have much room to talk, considering how he’d often drive while reading the newspaper on the steering wheel.  

Meanwhile, my mom had a propensity for screaming in terror, while bracing herself against the dashboard, and frantically pumping her foot to mimic the act of braking, even though I was still several yards from the nearest stopped car.  So the experiences I’d had of driving with my parents made me a nervous wreck (no pun intended) when it came to the very idea of driving anywhere.  If I had to ever drive with either one of them in my car for a prolonged length of time, it wouldn’t have been long before their badgering would have caused me to drive us, car and all, off the nearest overpass.  

For example, one time my mom let me drive to Bowling Green.  She badgered me the entire way on how recklessly I was driving, so by the time we got there, my nerves were frayed.  As we approached a busy intersection, which was the length of a football field in the distance, my mom began screaming for me to brake, as if it never occurred to me to do so.  I began screaming back that I fully intended to break when I got closer to the actual stoplight.  This eventually turned into the both of us just yelling at each other until, in absolute exasperation, I let go of the wheel, crossed my arms, and pressed the gas, driving us straight into the intersection despite the red light.  It was a lot like the scene in The Empire Strikes Back, when Han Solo flies into the asteroid belt.  As the car drove through the intersection, only avoiding collision with the passing cars by the grace of god, my mom was screaming in horror and flailing her limbs about like C-3P0.

After we cleared the intersection my mom screamed for me to pull over, and as we switched places, she vowed to never let me drive ever again.  Considering how she had nearly driven me (again, no pun intended) to vehicular suicide, this was probably not a bad idea.  Nevertheless, once Junior year rolled around, it became a matter of practicality that I be able to drive my brother and I to school in a vehicle of some sort.  So, against all my instincts for self-preservation, I went for my license.  

***

“Craig, you’re gripping the wheel awfully tight,” my mom observed.

“Mom…” I replied patiently.  “We’re parked right now.  Could you maybe not get on my nerves about my driving when we’re parked?”  I coughed, dry-heaved, and took a drink of the Coke I had with me. 

“Nervous?” she asked.

I coughed again.  My stomach felt like the pink river of slime from Ghostbusters 2 was coursing through it.  “Yeah…” I dry heaved again. “…just a little bit…”  We were in an Aerostar, parked in the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly, a grocery store that seems to exclusively exist in only the most rural of southern towns.  We were supposed to meet the driving instructor in the parking lot for the test.  He finally pulled into lot and emerged from his car.  The instructor was a short, stocky man with a mustache that made him look a little bit like Super Mario.  He began walking over to us with a clipboard in hand.

“Well, here he comes,” my mom said rather ominously.  Still gripping the while, I turned to her with the most serene expression on my face… and vomited all over the interior of the car.  My mom managed to jump out before it got on her, but the passenger side seat was not as fortunate.  My mom stood outside of the van, shocked, but with enough of her wits intact that she managed to grab a towel that happened to be in the van, and wipe away most of the puke.  The instructor closed in on us, and my mom backed away, shrugging, and saying, “You’re on your own, son!”

The instructor got into the van, shut the door.  “Okay, first thing I’m going to have you do is turn the headlights on and…” he sniffed the air.  “…off.”  He sniffed again, and took a moment to regard my condition: I was looking at him, wild eyed in fear, both hands gripping the wheel, my face paler than usual, and what could only be chunks of puke all over my clothes and chin. “Ugh…” he said as he put it all together.  “Well… uh… let’s begin… I guess.”

***

Somehow, against all odds, puking all over myself ended up being the least worst thing that happened during this test… well, in terms of things that actually effect my final score.  I began the test by pulling out in front of semi-truck and nearly getting us both killed.  In my defense, the driving instructor told me I could turn right on red… although he probably would have finished by saying, “…but only if it’s clear”, if he didn’t have to scream “TRUCK!  TRUCK!  JESUS CHRIST!” instead. 

Thankfully I managed to quickly swerve into another lane to avoid being hit by the truck.  You would think that merit some points in my favor, but no… I was instantly disqualified right then and there.  We went through the rest of the test as a formality, before returning to the parking lot, where he leapt out of the car so quickly, one would think he discovered a bomb inside of it.  If he’d had the appropriate stamp, he would have stamped the words FAIL on my forehead, but instead, he politely informed me that I would need to try again in a month.

***

I spent an entire month practicing my driving so that I wouldn’t repeat that disastrous first attempt at getting my license.  Unfortunately, the only teacher I had available was mom, and while she’s a decent driver, who’s never been in any major accidents, her style of driving would probably considered… unorthodox by the standards of the Kentucky DMV.  This resulted in mom giving me the absolute wrong advice for the rules of the road.  For example, as we approached a stop sign:  “If you can already tell there aren’t any cars coming from either way, just roll on through!”

Dealing with tailgating drivers behind me:  “Ugh, just slam on your brakes, that’ll teach that asshole.  Besides, in the state of Kentucky, all rear-end accidents are considered the fault of the driver behind you.  Remember that part, it might be in the test!”

Finally, last but not least, how to perform a turn-about:  “Just pull into the road front first, back out of it, and you’re all done!”

***

“Alright, please perform a turn-about for me,” directed Super Mario, the same driving instructor from before.  Up to this point, the driver’s test had been going much better and was vomit-free.  With supreme confidence in all that I had learned, I hung a right on some street, put the van in reverse, and backed out into the road I was just on, but facing the opposite direction, and narrowly  avoiding a rear-end collision with an oncoming car, who had to screech their brakes to stop.

“Good god, you very nearly hit that car!” the instructor exclaimed, as the car honked holy hell at me.

I shrugged. “It’s okay!  In the state of Kentucky, all rear-end accidents are the fault of the person behind me.” I recited studiously.  The instructor began furiously scribbling on his clipboard, and I glanced over to try and see what he was writing.  “Are… are you giving me bonus points for knowing that?”

***

“How was I supposed to know that’s not the right way to make a turn-about,” Mom said in self-defense.   

“Nobody ever performs turn-abouts in real life anyway!  They really should take that out of the test.”

I was leaning on my hand, staring morosely out of the passenger side window of our van.  “Yeah, well, it’s still part of the test, and you automatically fail if you perform it ass backwards, like I did!”

“Watch your language,” Mom reminded me in a non-committal fashion, which suggested this to be more like general advice and less of a parent-to-son command.

“If I fail a third time, they won’t let me test again for six months.”  I sighed.  “If I can’t even manage to get my license, then what the hell good am I?  I’m so useless.”  Mom’s response was simply to do what she always did when one of us descended into a spiral of self-pity – she turned on the radio and continued driving while singing whatever song happened to be on, which in this case, was “Do You Believe in Life after Love” by Cher.

I sighed for what was probably the 254^th time that year, but who was counting?

IV. Destinos!

When I got back to school, I went into Spanish class, which was already in session.  My teacher, Mrs. Herndon, who absolutely adored me, was thrilled to see me walk back into class. “Ola, Senior Williams!  We were just about to watch another episode Destinos.”  

“Ugh, not Destinos…” I groaned dramatically.  “No mi gusta!”  Destinos is a Mexican telenovela designed to help teach Spanish while also telling a story.  I could appreciate in theory:  teaching a language by engaging a person’s brain with a narrative is probably the most effective method.  However, Destinos was painfully bad, and dated-looking even by 90s standards.  Despite being in Spanish, the story was still incomprehensible, because it’d constantly introduce new characters in every episode, while leaving plot threads from previous episodes completely unresolved.  Of course, it’s entirely possible that I was being far too critical of show that was written with the priority of teaching Spanish, rather than telling a compelling story. 

Screw that noise – it’s possible to write an educational telenovela that actually has an interesting plot and likeable characters!  Destinos was just boring garbage.  The show was about a dying father named Fernando Castillo (an easy name to remember since it is pounded into your brain repeatedly) who calls his family over to his house for some kind of announcement.  His extended family is massive, so it takes the course of several episodes to chronicle all of their reactions to this news.  I don’t recall that we ever finished Destinos, so I don’t know what his big announcement was, but it was probably something along the lines of singing “La Cabasa” or some shit like that.  The most I can remember about the show are the constant, relentless tight shots on Fernando’s vacant, slightly wistful expression.  They used that shot so many times I began to develop feelings of absolute hatred towards Fernando Castillo, and openly expressed it whenever Mrs. Herndon put the video on.

“Please tell me this is the episode Fernando finally dies,” I pleaded before sitting down, eliciting laughter from the class, who were also just as exasperated by Destinos as I was.  

Mrs. Herndon laughed.  “We’ll see!”  She started the video.  I felt a hand lightly squeeze my shoulder and turned to see Audrey sitting behind me.

“How did it go this time?” she asked.

“Wonderful…” I said brightly, before adding, “…if I were being tested on breaking every traffic law in Kentucky!”

She winced in symphony. “Oh… sorry.”

Audrey and I met in that Spanish class.  I was always so bored in that class, and as most of my teachers could attest to, when I get bored, that’s when I tend to act out the most.  If I’m not quietly sketching pictures of Batman, I’m goofing off with my friends, or anyone who was receptive to my jokes.  In Spanish, that person ended up being Audrey, which is why we hit it off so well.  She was an upperclassman, but she was a lot more approachable than the other upperclassman girls I knew.  Part of the reason we got along so well was because I was comfortable around her.  She was attractive, but in a very plain way, by which I mean, she had all the qualities to be super hot: a great body, nice skin, beautiful, round chestnut eyes, and a gorgeous smile that really lit up her face.  She sort of reminded me of Molly Ringwald, but with mousy, brunette hair.  So when I say she was "plain", I don't mean she was deficient in any way - she simply tended to downplay her natural beauty more often than she attempted to augment it.  She didn't wear make-up, or skimpy clothing that showed off the contours of her body.

Her modest beauty aside, she was also very genuine, sweet, intelligent, and, most of all, had a great sense of humor, which leaned surprisingly on the bawdy side.  In fact, we initially began talking because she wanted to hear the dirty George Carlin bit I was trying my best not to butcher while reciting it to my friend Josh.  On a side note, as I write this, I’m beginning to notice a trend wherein most of my first encounters with girls I eventually develop feelings for usually involve a filthy joke of some sort.  Huh… there’s probably something to that.

Audrey was not only receptive to dirty jokes, but conversations about sex in general.  Her casual attitude about the topic of sex was something my friend Josh and I were all but gleeful to exploit.  We took advantage of it as much as possible, asking her an assortment of questions about sex we always wanted to ask a girl, but never had the opportunity.  She would even discuss the positions she was looking forward to trying one day.  The three of us spent many a boring Spanish class, metaphorically trading notes on the subject of sex.  Now, at the time, Audrey was still a virgin, but not out of any kind of sanctimonious desire to save herself for marriage, but rather because she was very selective about the kind of guys she wanted to share that moment with, and nearly every guy in our high school were, in her mind, tragically under qualified for the honor of deflowering her (or anything else, for that matter).  

It was so odd to meet a girl who was not only just as anxious to have sex as I was, but openly admitted it.  I had the impression, like a lot of teenage boys (and even some grown men), that women generally hated sex and found it to be a disgusting by-product of a healthy relationship.  When one considered the act of sex, it's difficult for the male mind to comprehend how it could be at all good for the woman.  I mean, for the love of Pete, a woman's body is literally penetrated over the course of, well, intercourse.  Can you think of any other moment in time when having one's body penetrated is a pleasant experience?  With all of this considered, I could only imagine most girls' attitude towards sex to be fear and loathing.  So it was refreshing, not to mention reassuring, to meet a girl who could dispel my misconceptions.  

On one such occasion, I turned to Audrey and asked, “So, I read somewhere that girls have this thing called a ‘g-spot’ that is supposed to give them an instant orgasm.  Is that true?”

Audrey grimaced in thought for a moment before carefully answering: “Well… I don’t know from experience, of course, but I’ve heard that too.  I haven’t been able to find it when I’m, you know, by myself… if you know what I mean.”  At this point, Josh and I would exchange silent expressions of barely contained glee at hearing a girl talk this intimately about her "alone time".  If we could have communicated telepathically, we would have given each other the telepathic equivalent of a high five.

Between the sex talk and our bantering, we three managed to make a painfully boring class into something to look forward to.  On this particular day, though, I was much to glum about the result of my driver’s test to be very jovial… and Destinos wasn’t helping.  

V. Driver’s Test Take Three!

It was another crisp, autumn morning, and again I gripped the wheel of the van, but this time with determination instead of anxiety.  I went over all of my mistakes before and concluded that my problem didn’t necessarily lye in my driving ability so much as my confidence.  As nerdy as it is to admit, I had spent the interim mentally training myself to approach driving with the same cavalier attitude that Han Solo piloted the Millennium Falcon.  I was in command of the vehicle; the vehicle was not in command of me!

My dad was with me this time around.  We had gone out for a delicious breakfast before the test at a local country diner and he gave me his advice for driving: “Craig, don’t worry about what you’re doing – worry about what everybody around you is doing.  Most accidents happen because somebody wasn’t paying enough attention to what’s going on around them.  Don’t be that person – be a defensive driver.”  I seldom ever took my dad’s advice seriously, but considering that his job in sales entailed him to drive long distances all day, every day, on this subject, I was prepared to concede to his expertise.

Super Mario approached the passenger side door and sighed with apprehension when he realized who I was.  We pulled out into traffic, and I felt myself driving with an almost supernatural grace.  We practically floated effortlessly through traffic, like mist, and I was executing every instruction Mario gave me with flawless precision.  For the final part of the test, he instructed me to parallel park.  I scoffed.  For whatever insane reason, in both of my spectacularly failed attempts to get my license, I somehow managed parallel parking, the most nerve-racking, perilous maneuver in driving, without incident.  If this was all that was left to do, I had this test in the bag. 

I carefully pulled alongside the car in front of my intended parking space, and then pulled into reverse behind it.  Suddenly, the passenger side of the van was violently thrust up as I accidentally steered in onto the curb.  I immediately accelerated, driving the van off the curb, which made it settle with a jarring bump.  I was overcome with a cold sweat and turned to look at Super Mario.  “I… I’m sorry.  I don’t know what happened.”

He just calmly made a mark on his clipboard and replied with: “Just take us back to the starting point, please.”

I drove back with the sick feeling of failure in my stomach.  I was doomed.  I wouldn’t be able to make another attempt for my license in six excruciatingly long months now.  By the time we parked back in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, I was on the verge of tears, but I kept them in.  Super Mario finished making marks on his clipboard before saying: “Well, you did everything correctly this time around, but hitting that curb is normally enough for an automatic failure…”

I felt the breath leave my body.

“…however, since you were able to parallel park without incident before, we can make an exception in this case.  You managed to pass by one point.”  He tore off a copy of my results.  “Just take this up to the court house for your license.  Congratulations.”  He shook my hand and left.  I sat there, dumbstruck with joy.  My dad got into the van.

“So, did you run over anybody this time, piccolo?”

“I passed,” I answered, holding the paper up proudly.

“Cool.” Dad said, burping under his breath.  “Well, drive us up to the courthouse.  I guess you’ll have to buy a car now.”

“Yeah!” I said, excited, before asking: “Those… those still cost money, right?”

VI. Hot Off the Presses

Unfortunately, cars did still cost money – more money than I could possibly earn working for my Uncle Scott on the weekends during school (which was a hellish prospect anyway, despite how much I otherwise enjoyed spending time with my uncle).  For the first time in my life, I was faced with the necessity of getting a real job.  The first places I tried were places I hung out at with my little brother, such as a nearby bowling alley.  My brother and I would very often walk up to that bowling alley to bowl, shoot pool, or play arcade games.  It was greasy, badly lit, dingy, and constantly reeked of cigarette smoke; in otherwise, it was a bowling alley in the truest sense.  I loved it.  I’ve never liked the sparkling, polished, laser light show bowling alleys have become today. 

My brother and I were such regulars to this bowling alley that the clerk knew us by name, and would often give us free games if the place wasn’t busy (which is never, ever was).  The job looked so easy, which was a sublime change of pace from the backbreaking labor I was used to with Scott.  I filled out an application with the Homer Simpson-like fantasy of spending most of my days behind the desk, legs perched on the counter, as I read a Star Wars novel, nibbled on some free nachos, and dispensed rental shoes to customers without ever breaking my gaze from the book I was reading.  

It was not to be.  Shockingly, a bowling alley that didn’t do very much business could not afford to hire on an ambitiously lazy teenager such as myself.  I was not deterred though!  There was a movie rental place my brother and I hung out at called Get Reel.  It was a large, local store with a pool table and arcade games in the back.  Huh – another place with a pool table and arcade games.  I’m beginning to detect a theme.

My brother and I often liked going there to browse through all the video games and new movies they had to offer.  Again, we were such regulars that we had struck up enough of a rapport with the clerk that she’d let us play pool for free, provided the manager wasn’t around (which he never was).  This time I entertained an entirely different fantasy of working in a place where I could spend most of my day watching movies, only to then be able to rent any movie or game I wanted for free.  My brother and I both salivated at this possibility. 

Unfortunately, this too was a dead end, as I had to be 18-years-old to work there.  Eventually the place got bought out by Blockbuster, which got rid of the pool tables and arcades to make room for the uniform interior decoration style of the Blockbuster corporate brand, completely erasing all the personality I loved about the place in the process.  After the change, my brother and I still rented from the store, but ceased to hang out there, because it just never felt the same.

By this point, I was greatly discouraged.  The only two places in town I actually wanted to work were both shut out to me.  The only other places I had a chance of getting on with were the Piggly Wiggly or a variety of fast food restaurants.  I refused to even consider working at such places.  My parents were eager for me to get my own car, so my dad offered to get me a job at the local newspaper.  I was absolutely ecstatic with the opportunity.  Immediately, I imagined writing up movie reviews, which the local paper was utterly devoid of, or drawing a scathingly witty comic strip.  I thought about how awesome it would be to become a freelance photographer, like Peter Parker, even though I didn’t own a camera and knew absolutely nothing about photography except what end to aim the camera, and even that I got right only half the time.

The job I ended up getting was in the printing press room of the newspaper, inserting coupons into every paper.  When my dad first explained this to me, I was dumbfounded – this was a real job?  “Couldn’t this be done with a machine or a specially trained monkey?” I had asked my dad, to which he responded with:   

“Yeah – you’re the monkey.”

***

Let’s get something straight – there were many, many shitty aspects of this job, the least of which was the incredibly repetitive nature of the actual job itself.  Standing in one spot, mindlessly inserting coupons into a seemingly infinite amount of newspapers, on top of a makeshift counter made of three ink-blackened two-by-fours run across a dirty sink, while staring vacantly into space, with early morning AM radio blaring directly behind me (followed by FM country) was the very definition of Hell.  The smell of ink in the place was overpowering, and I’d often ruin my clothes by getting ink all over them.   

I’d also leave the place, coated in what I can only describe as newspaper dust, which covered every surface of the printing room.  I was deathly afraid that it would turn out to be asbestos, or something equally as lethal, that would end up killing me years later.  There were many times I’d wake up at 5am to go to work, and wonder if I hadn’t actually died way back when I was a kid and I crashed my bike against a tree reenacting the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi, and what I thought of as my life ever since then was actually Hell.  It made so much sense at the time.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still occasionally consider the possibility in my more glum moments in life.  The only positive aspects of that job was that I was allowed to listen to my CD player, which was a mixed bag because I owned very few CDs.  We also had many breaks that I spent reading while waiting for them to print the next section of the paper. 

The despair I felt driving to that place to work in the morning, and sometimes late at night, was indescribable.  One time I left the windows open and it rained over night.  When I opened the door, the water literally splashed out onto my feet.  I remember driving to work in the cold, soggy driver’s seat, and I thought about my family and friends who were still sleeping in peace, while I plodded to this awful job, and it made me cry.  All of my co-workers were old ladies, with the exception of a woman I dubbed The Bearded Lady.  In all my life, I have rarely encountered someone as heinous in every way as she was, and yes, she definitely lived up to the nickname I’d secretly given her (which is not so secret now, I suppose).  She had stringy, black hair, both on her head, and growing in patches about her face.  The beard that she was evidently nurturing, unabated, reminded me of when Beavis and Butthead glued hair to their faces in a feeble attempt at having beards.  Her teeth looked like a crooked, dilapidated picket fence for a haunted house.  As if all of these bewitchingly alluring physical traits weren't enough, they were also accentuated by a pig ignorant, cantankerous personality and an overinflated sense of self-importance that was only matched by her obese body. 

She had taken it upon herself the burden of being the manager, even though we already had a manager in the form of a lanky, amiable man named Steve.  The assistant manager was The Bearded Woman’s twin brother, in every sense of the word, which may account for her false belief that she was automatically granted managerial authority under some obscure precedent in the Manifest Destiny.  She’d very often tell me how to do my job, which was doubly insulting considering how I’d have to be retarded to the point of having to be fed to not understand the admittedly complicated vocation of putting coupons into newspapers.  The Bearded Lady would often make snide remarks to me because I was “going too fast” as opposed to working a lackadaisical pace like the rest of my co-workers, who were trying to milk the clock.  My goal was to get the hell out of that place as quickly as possible… which is a goal that would very much drive my desire, nay, my need to go to college after I graduated high school.

***

My misery and hard work eventually paid off in the form of a 1994 Pontiac Sunfire.  In a period of my life when I felt utterly defeated, being able to afford such a nice car was a victory I sorely needed.  Well… I use the word “afford” liberally… nearly my entire pay check was committed to making payments on that car well into college, making me perpetually broke most of my adult life. 

Money issues aside, I was awfully proud to drive that car into the school parking lot, blasting Triple H’s entrance theme as loud as my factory made speakers could manage.  I stepped out of my car, wearing a new leather jacket I had also managed to save up for.  I felt like I was on the cusp of nurturing a new, more bad-ass persona.  I strutted into school, occasionally nodding to people who caught my eye, and remarking:  “You see that Sunfire over there?  Yeah, it’s mine.”  Then I’d shrug with false modesty and continue walking.  The moment I set foot into school, I ran into my friend Johnny, who happened to wearing the exact same leather jacket as me.  We stood, face-to-face, in awkward silence.  My friend Ryan strolled by, took in the site of us, and commented:  “Hey, nice jackets guys – you make a cute couple!”

My new bad-ass persona was instantly crushed.  I opted to keep my jacket in my locker the rest of the day.

VII. D.A.R.E to Keep Your Kids Off Drugs!

 

I was in World History class, sitting next to Audrey, watching Schindler’s List.  The class was taught… and I use that term loosely… by the head football coach, who’s teaching method consisted of having us read out loud from our textbooks, which culminated into viewing a movie about whatever subject we were covering.  It was public schooling at its finest!  Mind you, being that I was always excited to watch a movie in school, with the exception of Destinos!, I was a big fan of this teaching method.  Needless to say, it was a flawed way of running a class, especially when we watched Crocodile Dundee in order to cover Australian culture.

I had never watched Schindler’s List before that point, and was totally engrossed and disgusted with the treatment of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.  The movie had come to the point where the Jews were being made to march naked in a circle, while a Nazi commander picked them off at random with a sniper rifle.  The moment a nude woman showed up on camera, our teacher, who was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, pointed out in the most casual fashion possible:  “There’s a booby.”  Audrey and I looked at each with a mixture of horror and bemusement before we erupted into fits of stifled laughter.

“Will that be on the quiz, you think?” I asked her, making us laugh more.  Suddenly, the principle came on over the intercom:

“Will all students please report in an orderly manner to the auditorium for a special presentation from D.A.R.E?  THANK YOU.”

Normally, I’d avoid school assemblies by inconspicuously ducking into the restroom to hide in the stall and read.  The pep rallies I was forced to attend were pointless exercises in one’s ability to scream at nothing, one of many Neanderthal-like aspects about sports that made me hate them so much.  However, I was morbidly curious about this D.A.R.E presentation, and had a feeling it might be a comedic experience I could ill-afford to miss.  

 

As it turned out, my instincts were correct.  The D.A.R.E presentation turned out to be a concert put on by none other than their all-cop rock band, Street Heat.  They played a number of anti-drug versions of our generation’s favorite pop songs.  I vividly remember, while they played “This is How We Do It” by Montell Jordon, making eye contact with Matt from across the auditorium, who was in the midst of a full-on laugh attack.  His face was nearly purple with the strain of how hard he was laughing, and I could see tears streaming from his eyes as he looked at me with the expression that said, Can you believe this???

I was doubled over, laughing just as hard.  Audrey was laughing next to me, but more at my reaction than the actual show.  She kept asking me, “Are you going to be alright?” to which I’d try to nod an affirmative, only to erupt in more laughter.  Finally, at one point of the show, the band asked members of the audience to come onstage to dance the Macarena.  In a flash, Audrey swept by me and ran to the stage.  I was rather surprised, as she didn’t seem the type to be so bold.  I watched her awkwardly do the Macarena, but having a good time doing it, and in that moment it clicked in my brain: Oh my god… I think I like this girl.

***

“Are you alright?” Audrey asked the next week in World History class.

I jumped, startled.  I had been staring at her without realizing it.  A whole weekend had gone by since the D.A.R.E. presentation, which allowed me time to ferment my newly discovered feelings for Audrey in the form of many a sexual fantasy.  I had always found Audrey moderately attractive, but I had never considered her as a potential girlfriend.  I spent so much of my Junior year smarting so much from “The Florida Incident”, I simply wasn’t in the market for a girlfriend anyway. 

So I was at a sort of impasse.  Here was this lovely girl, who laughed at my jokes and seemed to like me, just like Erin, but I didn’t know what to do about it.  I didn’t have the confidence, nor inclination, to take a risk and ask her out, for fear it’d blow up in my face like my experiences with Erin.  At that juncture in my life, I could not take another rejection.  The odds were very favorable that I would be rejected, too, because Audrey made it very clear that she did not want to date anybody at Russellville High School.  Period.

I shook off my reverie and responded to Audrey:  “Uh, yes, um, I’m fine.”

“Your face is kind of red,” she observed.

“Oh, I’m just… just getting riled up watching the Scotts fight off English tyranny.”  We were watching Braveheart that week. 

“But, um… but it’s at the sex scene,” Audrey pointed out.

“Yes, so it is,” I agreed.  I held up my fist.  “Take that, British tyranny!”

She chuckled, but with a puzzled expression that was not entirely convinced.  We turned back to the movie.

***

The rest of Junior year flew by quickly.  I was never able to summon the courage to ask Audrey out or pursue her romantically in any way.  It just didn't feel right.  We continued our usual banter in class until the year was over, she graduated, and was off to college and out of my life… for now.

To be continued…