AND THE
DARK
Copyright © 2011
Kalan Reese
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in review, without permission in writing from the author/publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-0-615-58182-8
Printed in the U.S.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
“I am recognizing that the thoughts inside my head are urging me to be myself and never follow someone else, because opinions are like voices we all have a different kind...”
-Q-Tip,
“Steve Biko (Stir It Up).” Midnight Marauders, 1993.
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Dedicated to my Mother, and my Best friends.
I love you all.
Prologue
The Portrait of an Artist, As a Young Man: The Medley
Dear,
Mr. Allen, and Mr. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Welles, and Mr. Hemingway, and Mr. Nelson, and Mr. Jackson and, Mr. Wonder, and Mr. West and Mr. Simoni, and Mr. Da Vinci, Mr. Williams, Mr. Miller, Mr. Joyce, Mrs. Blume, Mrs. Clearly, Mr. Mathers, Mr. Jones, Mrs. Hinton, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Dahl and Mr. Moore. (There’s more, but I guess you all get the point by now).
There once was a boy who built a sail boat, that everyone liked, except for the boy who built it. The boy wasn’t the only one in the town who built a boat. In fact, most if not all of the boys in the town had done the same. Why you ask? Because there was a competition to be held in town, for all of the young boys and girls to compete against one another with all of the boats that they had built as well. But when the boy finished his boat, no- even before so, all he could do was hold his sail boat beside the other sail boats of the kids whom he would be up against, and feel great disgust, and be overcome with a great, gargantuan feeling of inadequacy. There were plenty of sail boats, that were bigger. Plenty of them had sails that were more lovely, and built of finer fabrics. There were plenty of sail boats that were smaller, cuter, and undoubtable faster than the boys’ boat. There were boats with much more intricate designs. And boats with much more technical marksmanship. The boy had no clue what to do. His boat had none of those things. His boat, was simply his boat. And everyone who saw his boat liked it, except for him.
I want to punch Mr. Hemingway in the face. Not because I have anything against him, but because I want to be the best. And if being the greatest artist ever required for me to fight all of the people whom I address in this letter to the death, than so be it. I must admit however, that it is because I want to punch Mr. Hemingway in the face, that leads to perhaps the most predominate of all of my flaws. Ironically enough, the biggest hindrance in my quest to be considered the absolute greatest, is how I am supposed to obtain that title. I am required to be the best as a result of popular opinion. Without the nomination and the support of the majority of the people that presently, and will one day inhabit this planet, my place on top of that plateau means absolutely nothing. For every person triumph, and accolade that I achieve during my lifetime, and in some cases afterwards, I will never be whom I want to be, if I don’t have the words of so many to back me up. And that you see, is why my hubris, is also both my greatest weapon, and my greatest weakness.
I’m writing to all as a spectator, an admire, and a competitor. I plan to achieve more than you all have one day. But the reason that I am writing this letter is to let you know that it was by far the most difficult thing that I’ve ever done in my life to get your voices out of my mind as I created this particular work of art. In fact, my method of creation could be considered “nomadic” in the fact that I work on some many ideas at one time. So not only have you influenced this particular art, but the many that I have divulged in.
To clarify exactly what I mean by influence, it isn’t just the impression that I’ve gotten from each of your works, as much as the level of achievement, and the prestige that you’ve gained from pushing society forward that I’ve reveled in. And it is that same prestige that filled my mind with so much pressure as I worked on this novel, Chaos and the Dark, because it was my first work that I was capable of unveiling to an audience. And it is because of the Illmatic’s, the Citizen Kane’s, and the Sun Also Rises, that made me want the most auspicious debut possible.
Because of these many shadows that I feel as though I stood inside of when I wrote this novel, my first novel, I know I’ve put a great deal of pressure on it. I plan on writing several novels in my life, all of which that I hope to write with the same sort of ardor, and passion that I wrote this novel with. Although ironically, it was that same ardor, and passion that I wrote this one with, that nearly drove me insane.
Sincerely,
Kalan Reese
Chapter One
The Kid And the Hall
When anyone talks about their memories from high school, most of the adults that you’ll encounter will usually tell you something along the lines of: “Years from now, these will be the times you reflect on the most. Try to make the best of them.” And, “Your mind and your body are about to go through several changes, as you blossom into the person that you are going to be for the rest of your life.” Although I've heard those same concepts, over and over again, it wasn't until I entered high school myself, that I was able to really understand what those things meant.
They
were all right. People do
change when we hit high school. Everyone
does. Although, some people change faster than others. For the ones
that are able to change
quickly enough, they will be met with dozens of opportunities that
are presented to them just as swiftly and easily as a blink of an
eye. For the ones that don’t
change as quickly, the road can be tough. It could filled with dozens
of potholes, and imperfections the entire way through. And, believe
it or not, the fact that there are so
many imperfections,
doesn’t make the road any easier to drive on.
And while both lanes may have a ton of differences, the world isn’t as black and white as it may seem. There are some people who ride along a road that has just as many opportunities as it does potholes, and its the drivers on those roads that have a hard time figuring out which is which. Either way, every road is much more easily travelled with more than one passenger in the car. But unfortunately not everyone will always have the luxury of finding the right people to tag along for the ride.
The yellow hallways sang loudly, and held one continuous note that stretched all the way down, until it began to blur and dominate the distance. The red lockers that were being opened and shut simultaneous sang just as loudly. However, neither could compare to the synthesis of millions of boisterous, yet indistinguishable conversations being held by a hallway festooned by my peers. Judging by the volume of the conversations being held, every single one of them seemed to understand exactly what tune that the hallway was playing. Although they were composed of several diverse individuals, the packs of students that filled up the hall appeared to all be linked together, and from a far, resembled one continuous chain, like a colony of bees indulging in the nectar buried deeply within the pit of a freshly blossomed sunflower. It was a jungle in that hall. And whenever I walked through it, I felt lost. The marble tiles that made up the floor were partitioned into gray and ecru, both of which seemed to morph and become elongated with every step I took. They would seem to stretch my journey at least another mile that was riddled with anxiety. The school year was nearly over, and I still hadn't used to that hallway. There was no doubt in my mind that the walk would have been a lot easier if, I had something to walk it with me. It seemed like I was pretty much the only person who didn't. Just about everyone else did though. It didn't take very long at all for everyone else to make friends. Friends that they shared special moments with, and even though they discussed the same stories over and over again and they never lost the humor they had the first time. They talked about their absences from each other over the weekend. How much they missed each other, even those that spent the entire time talking to each other on the phone. And how much they couldn't wait to tell them what happened in between those phone calls. But I didn’t have any of that. All I had was myself, and my loneliness to reflect on. Almost all the hallways at my school were like that, especially the seven hundred hall, which was where my math class was. It was actually the most crowded hallway in the entire school by far, and saying that it was tough to maneauver around in was a bit of an understatement. However, around the middle of the school year, I found a new route to take. One that allowed me to avoid walking through that hallway almost entirely. In fact the only times I had to be on that hall was to get to my locker. Which I tried my best to keep to a minimum by carrying all of my books with me all day. It was a bit of a hassle, but I got used to it after a while. Even though my back did hurt a little from time to time as a result of carrying such a load around all day. I always hated walking through that hallway, and luckily for me I’d found another way to my class by going through the cafeteria. Going that way always made me late, but it didn’t bother me because it reminded me a little of the way my friends and I used to take to class in middle school, when those hallways got too crowded.
“Hello Mr. Hatcher. How nice of us you to join us,” said Mr. West.
“Sorry sir,” I said trying my best to avoid making eye contact with anyone in my class as I stepped into the room. At this point in the year, I wasn’t too embarrassed about being late to class.I never really missed a day of school, but if any of my teachers ever tried to say something about my tardiness, which they never did, I could always just attribute it to the distances I have to go from class to class, in combination with the congestion in the hallways. That was something everyone was familiar with, and that nobody was a fan of. Normally I didn't have to worry about any of that though, none of my teachers seemed to have anything against me. Probably because I never gave them any problems when I was in class.
Mr. West didn’t say anything in response to my apology, he simply nodded towards my desk on the opposite side of the room, and continued to lecture the days lesson to the class.
“So what we have here is called a dependent variable. And we won’t be able to solve the equation, until we’re able to isolate it.”
Mr. West was a tall man with a bit of a gut, but not anything overly excessive, like Mr. Wright my english teacher, who had a fat lower body to go along with it. He was a little more than slightly balding at the top, making him look like Mr. Clean during his promotional off-season. His face had an excess of wrinkles that would appear on the top of his extended forehead whenever he would change expressions. He was an extremely articulate man who was often the only person in the room able to understand the jokes he told. Overall he was fairly non threatening. Perhaps it was the fact that he was one of the few male teachers in school that wasn’t also a coach. Most of students that I knew never felt any sort of fear whenever they were in his class, which was something that not wearing shorts that were too short, having a whistle, or yelling, were probably the cause of. In fact he was like a father to every student that walked through his door. And he never treated anyone disrespectfully, even the students that treated him that way at times.
Visually Mr. West’s classroom wasn’t much different from any of the other classrooms in the school. Especially the other ones on this hallway. The only things that made his room unique, were the ceiling tiles that past seniors had painted for him before they graduated. There were several of them that had corny math equation based wordplay like “Mr. West plus fourth period equals the best class ever,” or “Chuck Norris minus his hair equals Mr. West.” But the one that stood out to me the most said “I Love you Mr. Weezy.” Other than that, there wasn’t anything much different at all. The room had alternating white and pail crystal blue cement walls, that were cracking within the tiny crevices and spaces in between each block. The ceiling, with the exception of the custom painted tiles, were acoustical and salt and pepper patterned. And like the walls, they were antiquated, slowly breaking apart and occasionally dropped sprinkles of plaster and insulation whenever the building settled. The floors emulated the walls, they were blue and marble tiles, patterned like a checkerboard. The white tiles were an alabaster, clear enough to show the other side of the world, and reflected the classroom in clear form, with the exception of the opaque figures it would blur out and reduce to gray misty silhouettes.
When I got to my seat, I pulled my textbook, and my math notebook out of my backpack, and sat my bag on the floor underneath my desk. I knew there was no point to me even trying to take notes along with the rest of the class. I wasn’t understanding the material at all. I can’t say that it was Mr. West’s fault although I’m sure that he blamed himself for the majority of the bad grades that any of his students made. It had to be me. Even though Mr. West spoke at a mile a minute, everyone else in class seemed to understand every word. And it seemed like they were able to write them all down just as quickly as they were being said.. When I looked around at the rest of my classmates, who for the most part, had their heads buried in their notes, all seemed to be saturated in total syncopation when Mr. West began to explain whatever we were learning. I could hear everyones pencils scratching against the paper, moving simultaneously with the tip of Mr. West’s marker skating across the white board. I felt like I was only able to catch every other word, like my brain wasn’t able to grasp on to any of what he was saying, and the lesson itself would simply vanish into the air.
Half an hour had gone by in a flash, and Mr. West set down his dry eraser marker, which seemed to be smoking because its usage, on the silver tray that sat in front of the board. He looked around the classroom for a few seconds to survey everyone and catch any blank expressions that he could in the crowd. Then he walked over to his desk, and grabbed a stack of papers that sat on top of the mahogany, which were wrapped in a purple rubber band. All of his classes were color coordinated, and purple was our classes color.. Even though I was one of the confused faces that he had been searching for, there was a feeling of embarrassment that had been buried so deeply inside my psyche that I couldn't pull myself to ask him for help. Not in front of all my classmates at least.. And what made everything worse was the fact that everyone else seemed to get it, I couldn’t be that guy that held everyone back because he wasn’t able to keep up. If I was going to figure this stuff out, I was going to have to find some other way of doing so.
The stack of papers that had been sitting on Mr. West's desk were the quizzes we had taken last week. As he passed them back to us, he'd simply lie them face down on each of our desks. You never had to make much effort to see what type of grades other people made on their work. Their reactions pretty much did all of the work for you. The students who got A's, would pump their fist in celebration. Of course there were some that were more overt than others when they did so. People who got B's would smile for a moment, and nod their heads in confirmation that they did decently. The ones that got C's would look at their papers less than the other two had. There was a slight look of disappointment on their face, as you could see them trying to convince themselves that they did a good job. A good enough job to pass at least. Very few students ever got D's. It was just unlikely to get that grade, because of how few points were actually possible to receive that grade. But of course there was a few. Although they usually had the same reaction as anyone who scored anything below a C. While the people who got anything less, would be hesitant to even peak at their scores in the first place. And when they finally did, they would immediately and silently place the paper back down. The ones that scored really low would go as far as crumpling their papers up as they hid them inside their backpacks.
I wasn’t sure what I had gotten. I remembered taking the test and having that feeling of ambiguity with each question. Some of the questions look familiar but at the same time I wasn’t truly sure whether or not I had done well.
When Mr. West laid my quiz down on my desk, I tried my best to get an idea of what I had gotten on it by searching for signs from him. I was looking for some sort of a grunt or even a sigh of a disappointment. Or maybe even a sound of intrigued at how well I had done in comparison to the rest of the class. But I got none of that, Mr. West gently placed my paper down on my desk and continued to walk down my aisle and pass out the rest of his stack.
I stared at the paper for a while, which returned its glance to me as blank as a bright full moon. The closer I tried to slide my hands towards it to flip it over, the more it seemed to inch away, eventually pushing the entire classroom away from me along with it. I tried to trap it into a corner, but it only squirmed in defense. Getting increasingly frustrated, I slammed it down flat onto my desk with the bottoms of both of my fists! That caused everyone to jump with surprise and look in my direction.
“Sorry,” I said embarrassed. After a few glances that told me how awkward some of my classmates thought I was, everyone turned back around, including Mr. West who was passing out the last few of the exams, and was on his way back to his desk.
“Pretty basic stuff here folks,” he said as he sat down in his comfortable black swivel chair. “For the next chapter we’re going to be moving on to two step equations. And if you didn’t understand the material in this section, than the next one will be even more difficult.”
I grimaced when Mr. West said that. Knowing how much I wasn’t understanding the material we had just covered, I was pretty sure that I was one of those people that were going to have an even tougher time on the next quiz. I could be wrong of course. I may have done really well on this section and just not known it. Maybe the next one would be even more of a walk in the park. The optimism drove me to finally flip over my quiz to see how well I had done. Still not too sure, I flipped my paper over slowly, and looked at the paper with one eye closed as if my score had the ability to jump out and attack me.
I could feel my face sinking when I saw my grade. It fell in perfect synchronization with my heart Which had fallen to the pit of my stomach so quickly that it called my body to sink down into my seat.. My entire quiz looked like it were purposely written in red ink, with a little bit of black to add character. There were several anecdotes written next to the problems that I had missed, that narrated just how terribly I had done.
“Does anyone have any questions,” asked Mr. West looking at his watch. There was a clock on the wall directly above the dry erase board, that all the students could see, but not Mr. West because of his proximity to it. It was nearly time to go. And it couldn’t have come any sooner. I just wanted to run out of the classroom as fast as I can as soon as the bell rang.
Mr. West stood up and surveyed the class again to look for anyone with confusion on their face. He looked at me. And I looked at him, feeling like I was exactly the person he was waiting for to ask for help, but I couldn’t. I just slowly shook my head no, and took my eyes off of him, choosing to gaze out of the window instead.
“Alright,” he said with a sigh. He slapped his hands on the sides of his thighs in defeat and made his way back towards his desk. Once he sat down, he grabbed a stack of papers, probably work from another class,, and pulled out the same red pen he had used all over my quiz to grade theirs. “I guess you can all talk quietly amongst yourself until the bell rings.”
It didn’t take long for everyone to begin talking loudly. There were conversations being held from across the room, paper being thrown, silence being destroyed. Bad grade or not, everyone appeared to be over whatever grade they had gotten on their quizzes. Everyone except me at least. I just continued to stare at it in shock. It’s sad because this certainly wasn’t the first time I had failed something, especially in this class. If anything I was successfully maintaing my poor average.
Although he usually would have done so, Mr. West didn’t make an attempt to break up all of the action going on around the classroom. He didn’t have to. The bell rung quickly enough to alleviate him from the savagery that my classmates were in the midst of committing.
“Tonight’s homework will cover the basis of the next chapter,” shouted Mr. West over the footsteps and yelling coming from my classmates. “But it’s important that you all understand the first section to be able to understand this one.”
I sat too far away from the door to be the first one out. But I tried to leave as quickly as I could. I crumpled up my bad grade and tossed it into the abyss that was the bottom of my book bag, and bobbed and weaved through my classmates on my way out of the class. I wanted to get out of there quickly so I didn’t give Mr. West the chance to try and talk to me about it. Unfortunately I failed at that.
“Alex,” said Mr. West who was still sitting down.
I immediately stopped dead in my tracks. Doing so almost caused me to bump into some of my classmates that were walking closely behind me. After I apologized to them, I stepped to side and waited for everyone to leave the room before I made an attempt to approach Mr. West's desk. I already knew what he wanted to talk to me about. He was going to explain to me how poorly I was doing in his class, and after the reprimanding, he was going to suggest that I get my act together. Just like any other adult would. I wasn’t upset, although I’m pretty sure being okay with something like that isn’t necessarily good either.
After my last classmate made his way out, I finally approached Mr. West who was sitting at his desk with his legs folded looking over more exams.
“Hello Mr. Hatcher,” he said without looking up. “I’m sure you already knew exactly what this is about.”
More than you know, I thought to myself.
“Yes sir,” I said out loud.
“Good.”
Mr. West picked up the stack of exams and patted them down on his desk to bundle them together. Then he sat them to the side. From the other corner of his desk, he grabbed a thin spiral bound book with a hard dark green cover. It was so deep a green that it could have easily been mistaken for black, while the manufactures name was embroidered across the front in small gold letters. When he opened the book, and and flipped through its pages. I recognized what it was immediately. The book was filled with white and blue grid paper. On each sheet the first four units from the left of the paper were grouped into one big column. That's where everyone's name was written down. The remainder of the spaces were used individually, and they each contained numbers, if anything at all. It was his grade book. My heart began to beat rapidly as he licked his finger and flipped through the pages looking for the page that contained my classes info. He was able to find it relatively easily since the top corner of the page shared the exact same color purple as the rubber band that all of our assignments were bounded by. After finding the page, he took his long callused index finger and used it as a guide as he looked for my last name.
“Here we go. Hatcher,” he said confirming his findings. “Okay I want you to look at this.”
He rotated the book around, so that it faced me, but kept his finger on the row with my name on it. Before I was able to get a good look at it, he found a blank sheet of paper from a random spot on his desk, and used it to cover up the rest of the class that was above my name to keep their grades as confidential as possible.
My grades weren't looking great at all. The majority of them floated between the high sixties and mid seventies. With maybe one or two scores that were in the eighties sprinkled in between.. According to the book, the only really good grade I had on there was a hundred which was from the syllabus that we had to take home and get signed around the first week of school. Other than that, it pretty much went down hill from there.
“As of right now you aren’t passing my class Alex,” said Mr. West. “And I’m sure that its been explained to you several times, but grades are recorded by semesters. So, even though you did well enough to pass last semester, if you don't do well this semester, then you'll fail the class entirely. And you'll have to re-take it next year.”
I was speechless, more so because I couldn’t imagine what I had done with the time when I looked back on all of those failed assignments.
“I don’t want that,” said Mr. West.
“What,” I asked confused. “I said ‘I don’t want to see you fail.”
“Why?”
“Why? What do you mean why? I don’t want to see anybody fail. You think that looks good as a teacher to have students that don’t pass? Plus I care about you all and I want to help. Here.”
He tore part the paper he used to cover up my classmates’ grade and began to write on illegibly. Then he handed the paper to me.
“What this,” I asked. There was no way I could read that. Heck, there was no way anybody could read that.
“This is what’s going to help you pass my class.
I didn’t respond. Not verbally anyway, I just looked at him even more confused than I already was. My confused look said it all for me.
“There's a group of students, some of them from my class, some from other classes, that needed something great on their resumes for college. And I told them that tutoring would be just the thing.”
“Tutoring?”
“Yes, so they meet in this room,” he said pointing at the section of the paper he handed me with the room number I couldn’t read. “They’re there everyday after school with a group of students your age. And if you start attending regularly I’m sure they’ll have you understanding everything before you know it, and you’ll be doing much better in my class.”
I listened closely. Yet, in the back of my mind I was embarrassed by the offer.
“I know it may not look good, but you do still have a chance to do well in this class. You have to take advantage of every opportunity however the chance is slim. But it is a chance nonetheless. Don’t be discouraged.”
He stopped speaking after that. Then he closed his grade book, and reached for the stack of papers he had placed over to the side of his desk, at the beginning of our conversation, and resumed grading them.
As I made way for the door, I stopped before I completely left the classroom, and turned back towards Mr. West to ask him one question, but I for some reason I changed my mind, and just left the room silently.
#
“Aw man you got a F,” asked Kevin who practically yelled that across the whole cafeteria. I looked at him with as menacing a leer as possible. We would have actually been standing eye to eye, had he not outgrown me sometime over the summer. Up until that point, he and I had always been the same height. But out of no where, he had suddenly outgrown me.
“Hey come on,” I said whispering to Kevin. “Keep it down will you? Yes. I got an F.”
Kevin just looked me in the eyes with disappointment. At that point, I would have preferred for him to return to broadcast my business to the entire cafeteria again then to continue to look at me like that.
“Kevin relax,” I said. “I can still pass the class.”
“Are you sure?”
Of course I am. I asked Mr. West to see my grades earlier, and after I did a few calculations, I saw that it was still mathematically possible to pass. Chances are slim, but nonetheless there's still a chance. So I shouldn't be discouraged” “Because that’s like the third or fourth quiz that I’ve seen you fail. In a row,” he quipped back quickly; ignoring my rebuttal. I know he was only being a friend, but his concern had quickly descended into condescension and I couldn’t take anymore.
“Maybe you should worry a little less about me, and focus on yourself. Aren’t you and the rest of the X-Men super busy with all of that rocket science?”
That hit Kevin hard. It wasn't the first time somebody said that to him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I asked Mr. West if there was any extra work I could do, to help me out before the next exam. I lied trying to appear as if I was giving my circumstances the attention they deserved. “And he told me about this study session that I could go to after school everyday. I'm sure if I do that, then I'll pass the class.”
“And how are you so sure of that?”
Kevin’s pessimism always rubbed me the wrong way.
“Kevin, trust me. Plus I probably won't even go to those anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Come on Kevin, tutoring really? I mean all I have to do is study a little bit harder that’s all. I’m sure its just one or two things that I’ve overlooked, but once I looked back over those, I’ll probably be fine.”
“But judging by the past few quizzes, you’re not doing very well in the classes, maybe you should you know...get some assistance. I just don't understand how you're failing. I recall you used to do pretty well in math in middle school. How are you doing so well in all of your other classes, but not this one?”
“That was middle school,” I said back quickly. “And maybe its because they went and changed all the rules of math over the summer.”
“Math doesn’t change,” Kevin said frankly.
“Maybe for you it didn’t. But every other class is pretty much the same thing every year. In English, we may read different books, but there's still grammar. In history, we learn about different places, and different times. But we're still just remembering dates. And in Science, we're still learning about things that haven't changed in decades. But math…”
“Math is just like those other classes Alex,” said Kevin solemnly, interrupting me again. “Its all about progression. Like building blocks or steps.”
“Well these steps are pretty steep to me. And how about a little encouragement for a change Kevin?”
“Sorry. I’m only being realistic.”
“Yeah well I’d rather you be a little less practical and a little more supportive. Is that too much to ask for?”
Kevin was speechless. I could tell my words had hurt him. He didn’t have the same math class that I had, as a matter of fact, he didn’t have any of the same classes I did. We were the same age and everything, but Kevin was so smart that he professors from these huge prestigious colleges would come from all over to see him at work because he was such a genius and all. Actually this past summer was the first summer Kevin and I didn’t spend together. It wasn’t any fault of mine. Our principle in middle school had been so impressed by Kevin’s mind that he recommend him to be put into this program that was supposed to unlock his mind’s hidden potential. That by far was the loneliness summer ever. It wouldn’t bother me as much as it does if he didn’t continue to wear these shirts that he had gotten from the camp everyday. They were these polo shirts made of really nice material that had an atom as the logo etched ,right in front of his heart.. Not to say that clothes were important to me or anything.. I haven’t gotten new clothes for school since I started the sixth grade. And that was just because of how much I had grown the Summer after fifth.. I had grown some this past summer too, but most of my shirts from middle school still fit me well enough to where I didn’t have to worry about changing my wardrobe.
Kevin and I moved up in the lunch line we were in and finally got our food. The cafeteria we had now was fairly similar to the one we had in middle school. The one in middle school had two lines, that offered the exact same meals. All you were supposed to do was grab a trey, and slide it with you down the railing while the lunch ladies would serve whatever mystery meat they chose to. But here, the lines were divided by offering as opposed to expedience. There were significantly more lines. There were two lines that served chicken, one for salad, one for pizza, and lastly one for dessert. It was any student’s dream. The only problem was that there were so many students in my school, that the lines as well as the cafeteria were so overcrowded. So much so that it took just as long to wait and line and get food as it did to find a place to sit own and eat it.
Kevin sat the tray with his slice of pizza down on the table and immediately went for his book bag.
“Okay here I want you to try this.”
Kevin’s back pack was very similar to his shirt, which made perfect sense because he got them both from the same place. He pulled out a notebook, and after nearly flipping through the entire thing, he finally found a blank page to write on and began to scribble down some notes.
“Let me see your quiz.”
I put my tray down next to his, and dug into my bag for my crumbled up exam and handed it to him. It didn’t even take him very long to understand it all. He stared at the entire paper, and looked it up and down while twisted his head slightly like a robot, while he computed it all; only saying “hmm” and “ahh” as he examined it, then writing some more notes down.
“Alright, and done.”
Kevin handed the paper to me along with the quiz and smiled, then he returned the notebook back to his bag.
“That should take care of everything.”
“I can’t understand this stuff Kevin, could you at least explain it to me?”
“I don’t have time Alex,” he said. I could feel the pain in his voice from Kevin knowing that I was disappointed and hurt. It surprised him, even though this wasn’t the first time he had said those words to me. And it surprised me, even though I should have been used to hearing him say that by now. And more understanding as well. I looked at him for a moment, frozen. I couldn’t see his eyes anymore. They had hidden themselves between the silver glare in his glasses. All I could see inside of those frames was myself. And as I stood there in a cafeteria filled with no less than four hundred and fifty students, I was alone. Those glasses that belong to that kid I spent the first fourteen years of my life calling my best friend, had provided us both with clarity, and the painful truth.
“Oh okay,” I said.
I couldn’t say anything else, not even thank you. I picked up my tray, and nodded my head at Kevin, who pretty much replied with a silence that I understood and I walked away to find a place to sit and enjoy my lunch on my own. Kevin and I used to sit together for lunch everyday until we started high school. Now he sits with some of the other students that were placed in that same gifted program over the summer that he was placed in. They were actually all older than us, but it was obvious that Kevin was a lot smarter than all of them were. But either way they would meet up at lunch everyday, sit together and study. I don’t even know if it could be called studying at this point, they have some weird technique working and passing each others assignments around whenever they couldn’t figure something out. They never actually spoke once they got into their zone. They would just write notes down and pass them around, their whole system worked in syncopation, and it seemed like some big academic Ouija Board. It’s not like I didn’t have the option to sit down at that table with them. But the few times that I had, I felt more than out of place than anything.
There weren’t anymore places to sit inside of the cafeteria, which wasn’t surprising to me at all. It was pretty much like that everyday. I would just have to sit outside in the courtyard and eat, which was fine because the weather wasn't too bad. I found a nice spot along the wall, as nice as it could be, considering the circumstances. The courtyard wasn’t as elegant as the guide who showed all of the freshman around at the beginning of the year made it sound. It was a boring, all gray corridor, with an opening in the center of it, that let the sunshine in. A sunshine that wasn’t powerful enough to shine any light on the loneliest crevices that the resided within that section of the school. The courtyard was next to the zone where all of the buses stopped in the morning and afternoon, loading and dropping off students. There were a few brown benches placed out there that were never available as they were filled with students who brought their lunches and didn’t have to waste any time waiting in any of the lines inside the cafeteria.
I took a bite of my pizza, and decided to look over the notes that Kevin made for me. As far as I was concerned, they were in complete gibberish, and were way too difficult for me to understand. It wasn’t the handwriting that was hard to decipher, but the content itself seemed as if it had been printed out by one of those super computers that do nothing all day but process algorithms for chess matches. Still, I couldn't help but find a bit of comfort as I gazed over the page. It kind of reminded me of when Kevin would help me with my math homework, only he would actually be there to explain it to me. Eventually, I got so lost in the writing that I zoned out completely.
“Welcome back to One Plus One! Now here’s your host Matt A. Maddox.” “Welcome back to One Plus One ladies and gentlemen you’re favorite math gameshow. I am your host Matt. A Maddox, and we’re here with Alex Hatcher. Alex, say ‘hi’ to everyone watching at home. “Um...hi everyone,” I couldn’t help but be shy as I looked into the camera. Usually when I had to stand in front of a large crowd, I could find one person’s eyes to look into and focus on to avoid being nervous while I spoke. But this time I didn’t have any of that. There wasn’t any one person’s eyes I could look into. The studio that the game show took place in had too much going on. There was a large silver stand, filled with at least one-hundred members of the audience, and eventually all of their eyes started to blend together. And the host, Matt A. Maddox, had on a weird purple and pink suit, and too goofy of a smile on his face for me to look at. It was creepy and reminded me of the Cheshire Cat, because the rest of his face seemed to disappear behind it. As I stood in front of a large game board, filled with panels, which held the math questions for me to answer, I stood in the middle of three podiums, with the two others next to me, reserved for Kevin, and Tina, neither which whom was there. “Great,” said Matt. “Now you know Alex, usually we have teams of three compete in competitions like these, but I guess today is different. Why is that Alex?”
“Um, I guess my friends couldn’t make it.”
“That’s right. You’re all alone! Let’s begin... Alex what is a polynomial,” he said reading off of the card in his hand. “Um...”
But, I didn’t even have time to answer. The buzzer rang loudly, and Matt tossed the card to the side, pulling up another one. “In your own words, could you describe factorization?” “Yeah, it’s uh- well...” Again, the buzzer sounded. As I stood there answerless, pointless...hopeless. “Alright Alex, what is an independent variable...?” “It’s...um...it’s... I don’t know! I...I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T KNOW!”
The buzzer rang again, competing with my screams.
When I came to, I realized that I was still in lunch. The noise of a buzzer was from a nearby delivery truck, lowering a ramp from its back, in preparation for transfer.
I took a sheet of paper out of my backpack, and tried to work out the problems I missed on the quiz by using the steps and notes that Kevin had written down for me. But it wasn’t helping. I could copy that information with no problem, but none of it was helping me understand the material. Without Kevin there to explain, the things he had written down meant nothing to me, and weren’t comprehensible. If there was going to be something to turn my grade around in math, this certainly wasn’t going to be it.
I sat there in silence as I tried to enjoy the rest of my food. Overall, lunch was pretty uneventful for me, as usual. I just stared into the sky until it was time to leave. Over my head, I could see a flock of birds flying high, together. But somewhere along that flight, all of the birds except one broke off into another direction, leaving the remaining bird to flutter around in the sky listlessly until it gave up on flight all together, and just found a place to land.
Chapter Two
The River of Styx
“An honor like this one can only be given to a member of this staff...I’m sorry,” said the speaker. He laughed after he stopped speaking, and although it was obviously rehearsed, his false sentiment convinced the audience enough to laugh along with him. “...This family, that has been dedicated to its objectives and its improvement for several years...”
Judy
sat at the table focused so hard on maintaing the smile she had
painted on her face, that she didn’t even hear the kind words being
said about her. It wasn’t just the faking the smile that bothered
her. Ever since it was announced that she would be receiving
the vanguard award, she had this strange feeling run through her
nerves that she couldn’t explain. In fact, up until that night, she
had been able to suppress those nerves, and deem them as simply
anxiety. But it was more than that. And it wasn’t until earlier,
just before she arrived at her ceremony that she really began to
realize it was something more.
“You alright mom,” asked Alex who was sitting on the edge of her bed packing his backpack.
“Yeah I’m fine. why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, you just seem kind of nervous I guess. I just assumed it was because you were winning this award. You sure you don’t want me to go?”
“Yeah I’m sure. Go to Tina’s and finish your homework. This is no big deal.” Alex hadn’t told her about the quiz from earlier that he had failed.
“No big deal,” asked Alex sarcastically, stopping everything he was doing. “I’d say it was a pretty big deal, this is a pretty huge honor right?”
Judy simply nodded her head in affirmation, but it was clear that she didn’t really mean it.
“So what happened with that job offer,” asked Alex.
“Never really thought about it,” answered Judy quickly. “Can you help me zip this up?”
Alex laid his backpack down on his mothers bed, and walked over to her, to give her assistance. After a few attempts at pulling up the zipper on the back her skirt, Alex was finally able to zip it up all the way, but only after his mom inhaled deeply enough to provide more room for him to do so. This was their usual routine. The skirt was black, and went simply, yet perfectly with the white laced blouse that she wore that had no sleeves. The majority of the blouse was of standard aesthetics. However the closer they got to the sternum, the fabric began to fold into ruffles, and resembled a beautiful white rose. Alex stood behind his mother, whom he had just recently grown slightly taller than, and placed his hands on her shoulders, as she modeled herself in the mirror; turning her body side to side every few seconds to see how she appeared from every angle she possibly could. The mirror, with its coarse black frames, floated on the wall, with the clarity of a river frozen still. It was just the two of them in that stood in that mirror. Just like it was only the two of them that stood together, when there was no one else in the world that was there for them. Alex and his mom, Judy, had been all each other had for more than a decade, as they endure all of the tough times that life had to offer them. They’d been through homelessness, but were all of the shelter each other had needed. They had been through fires that burned down their homes, but never their resolve. They were the ones that held each others world in place whenever it had been in danger of spinning out of control.
“What do you think,” she said.
Alex just smiled and gave a thumbs up, the same answer he gave every time she asked him that question. Although, it without a doubt came across as sarcasm, he was just doing so to be nice. Not that he thought the outfit was any sort of bad, he just didn’t have an opinion about things like that all together. He walked off, making his way back to the bed to continue packing, and to escape from any guilt he may have had towards his fabricated answer. Alex’s opinion about her attire didn’t matter to Judy anyway. Except when they were bad, which was rarely ever the case. The more she looked at herself, the more she questioned whether or not she should change before she left.
“You think I should just wear a different top?”
“I think you’ll feel the same way regardless of what you wear. Perhaps its not the dress, but the occasion. And you’re going to be late if you keep changing clothes. That’s the third shirt already.”
Judy heard Alex clearly, but had no response. She shrugged her shoulders, and continued to look at herself, still twisting at every angle possible, hoping that eventually her opinion would change.
“So how exactly is this whole situation going to go down?”
“What do you mean,” asked Judy.
“Like the ceremony. Is it just one big party, forcing you to see everyone that you work with for eight to ten hours a day?”
“Basically.”
“So then it’s a waste of time?”
“Basically.”
Alex made a sarcastic expression that reflected his feelings towards the propaganda. With his backpack finally packed up, he laid it back down on the bed once more, and sat down next to it.
“So did you finish your speech?”
“Yeah I guess,” said Judy who was plucking the top of the shirt to give the rose more volume.”
“Do you have it memorized?”
“I do.”
“Well let’s hear it.”
She stopped playing with her shirt, and got serious as she glanced deeply into the mirror, to the point where had she been anymore focused she would have be able to see through it. Judy took a second to clear her throat and reposition her stance, before she began to rehearse the speech that she had drawn up.
“I’ve been with this company for seven years. And I remember who I was when I first started, I look back on that in amazement. And when I look back at that person I was when I started, I can definitely see a lot of differences.”
She paused right there, and appeared to choke up a bit, however she thought nothing of it, and continued.