The Nemesis

It was my first day of ninth grade. It had not gone well: I woke up ridiculously early to make sure I caught the bus and crouched on the curb in the semi-darkness, trying to read by the light of my watch. The bus was late, and upon arriving on campus, I kept getting lost. I located the girls' gym with difficulty, obtained my class schedule, and discovered to my horror that I could not leave the gym as I had P.E. first period. I went and sat on the bleachers miserably, listening as the butch coach droned on about horrible cotton T-shirts and foul itchy shorts. To complicate matters further, the girl sitting next to me threw up. I always claimed that that last unfortunate incident was my only real memory of my first day of high school, but indeed it was not. Aside from meeting my dear friend Nich on the bus, I had one other memory: He was in my science class. No, not Nich. Him. My arch nemesis.

I was hurrying to my fourth period class, which, obviously, was on the opposite end of campus from my third period one. Even more obviously, I got lost on the way. I could really have done with a map. I scurried toward the high rise (the campus's only three story building) and, noting the revolting orange carpet, located my classroom. All the students were gathered around the door, entering one by one as the teacher checked our schedules to make sure we were in the right place. Crap. My schedule was buried somewhere in the badly organized pile of books in my arms. Attempting to fish it out, I dropped most of my things on the floor. I glowered silently at the teacher as he checked my schedule. He apologized for making me drop my books. I glowered again and entered the classroom, not really noticing the Periodic Table of Elements on the wall, looking over people's heads and scanning for an empty seat.

Oh no.

Oh yes.

He was there, on the far side of the room, apparently either not yet aware of my presence or choosing to ignore it. I pointedly sat down as far away from him as I could get, which conveniently also happened to be nearest the door.

The class settled down, and the teacher began calling roll. My name was first, and a few names later came his. Until that moment, I had hoped that possibly it had not actually been him, but alas. It looked to be an interesting year.

Unlike in all my other classes, the teacher did not rearrange our seats, and thusly we sat in the same seats where we'd sat on the first day all year. I was immensely relieved that I'd deliberately sat as far from my Nemesis as possible. While I did not overhear him torturing the girls sitting near him as he had me, he did seem more or less up to his old tricks. He disrupted the class by telling unfunny jokes, goofing off with his friends (mostly fellow jocks), and disrespecting the teacher. He did at least sometimes try to help the Thai kid who sat behind him. Aforementioned Thai kid barely spoke any English and was undoubtedly thoroughly confused most of the time. My Nemesis would sometimes try to help him in class when the teacher called on him, though I suspect he did this probably more out of an attempt to just get it over with than actually help him.

I was agonized by catching his eye every so often in class. The class would be laughing over something the teacher had said or goofing off or participating in a class discussion (though he and I never got involved in a class conversation when the other was involved), and our eyes would briefly meet across the room, and I would again see that look on his face that I had seen in seventh grade when he told me that yes, he had read some of the books he was mocking. I couldn't place it at all, but it was suspiciously unlike a look one would see on a person totally malevolent. I was reassured, however, by the knowledge that he associated with scum. His best friend had, in seventh grade, famously been caught masturbating in class. Rumor had it that my Nemesis himself had once had to extricate his younger brother from a Jacuzzi when he'd trapped himself trying to masturbate with one of the jets. Surrounded by characters such as those, it was not surprising that the Nemesis was obsessed with homosexuality.

I was surprised that he apparently got good grades, especially since our science teacher frequently mentioned him not doing his homework. I suspected that a certain amount of favoritism was involved, as was usually the case with athletes— My Nemesis played basketball (it figured—I loathed basketball; still do, actually). Favoritism was the only thing that could explain it since I certainly never saw him behave the least bit studiously about anything except avoiding me. I never saw him take an active interest in anything we did in class, save the mouse trap cars.

In the spring semester, after an uneventful fall, the teacher assigned us a project: Build a small car powered by a mousetrap. It was a bit ambitious for a class of fourteen-year-olds, and I initially panicked. I told my dad about it, and over the weekend, he used his power tools to saw many bits of wood and help me construct a completely awesome mousetrap car. By that I do not mean that it was particularly aesthetically pleasing—it was just unfinished plywood, the trap, and a bit of twine, after all—but it worked very well and looked a lot better than most of the hastily stuck together things my classmates produced. We tested it exhaustively on the floor; I was delighted to see it racing along, especially when it did not fall to bits as I feared. I proudly brought it to class the following Monday, only to learn that we actually had a whole extra week to work on it. I had not read the date on the sheet correctly. Oops. I did not want to carry it home again, however, and asked if I could leave it on the floor in the classroom where the teacher had said we would be storing our cars the day they were actually due. He said I could, but he didn't recommend it in case it got stepped on. I grouchily stuffed it in my backpack and boarded the bus with it that afternoon. I soon wished I had left it in my locker, for all too soon, my friend Nich (whom I'd met on the bus on the first day of school) asked about the car and wanted to see it. I was reluctant. I'd slaved over it and hadn't actually handed it in and been graded yet, and I didn't want anything to happen to it. But Nich was most insistent, and, mostly to shut him up, I pulled the car from my bag and began instructing him how it worked.

"You pull the string back—"

"Like this?"

"NO!"

SNAP.

Too late. A key component of my precious, perfect, ungraded mousetrap car was now ruined. There was a brief moment in which Nich looked up at me awkwardly and I thought, "No way that just happened." But what to say to him?

". . . Fuck. You."

Then I ripped off his head and spat down his neck.

Actually, we both began laughing hysterically, and I took the car home and fixed it. It did not work quite as well as before, but the results were still impressive. I tested it repeatedly on the kitchen floor, and each time, it raced across the floor without flying apart. I brought the car to school again the following Monday—refusing to allow Nich to touch it, of course—and brought it once more to my science class.

It came time to test our cars on the floor in the front of the classroom. To my abject, utter, complete horror, my Nemesis chose that moment to take an interest in something we were doing for class. He left his seat and moved to the front of the room, sitting on the floor next to the spot where the other students would sit with their cars before setting the traps and releasing them to shoot across the floor. I hoped he would move before my turn came. He did not. I was third up, and I dragged myself to the front of the room, squatting on the floor as far as I could possibly get from him without retreating into the aisles of desks. I refused to glance at him and hid my reddening face behind a curtain of hair. I forced myself to focus on the mousetrap car in my shaking hands. I felt terribly queasy, fearing the worst. What if there were a repeat of Nich's broken twine incident? What if it flipped in the air, crashed to the floor, and smashed to a thousand pieces? What if it actually hit the far wall and broke? What if it just didn't work? I gulped—quietly, I hoped—and glared down at the car, forcing myself to concentrate. I released the trap.

The car shot across the floor, twice as far as either of my predecessors' cars had gone. There were impressed gasps and murmurs from my classmates. I choked back a smug grin, refused to look at my Nemesis, and repeated the results twice. I sat down, trembling and sweating slightly beneath my trademark light blue windbreaker, and thanked the God I didn't believe in that my mousetrap car had not let me down. I did not seriously expect my Nemesis to be impressed, though I suspected he was. The teacher was, at any rate; I got an A on the project.

The next few weeks passed peacefully enough. Then, in mid-April, almost at the end of the year, something terrible happened.

We were forced to be civil to each other.

It was at the end of the class, and we were all moving as one, funnel-like, toward the door. My Nemesis and I had carefully avoided reaching the door at the same time all year. We had a tacit agreement to stay as far from each other as possible without being obvious about it, lest it elicit awkward comment. Thusly, every day at the end of class, we would each subtly keep an eye on the other so as to ensure we were not forced into proximity lest war break out. But, inevitably, we slipped one day and arrived at the door at the same time.

There was a pause. I stood, immobile, staring straight ahead, fiercely ignoring the people behind us. The pause stretched into a yawning chasm of a good three seconds, and then, sounding incredibly strained, my Nemesis said, "Go ahead." I didn't dare glance around, but I was quite convinced that he was also staring ahead, expressionless.

Obviously, I did not smile politely and thank him. No, I said not a word but rushed down the hall with a red face and fists jammed in my light blue windbreaker pockets. For the remainder of the year, we were both extremely careful to avoid a repeat of the incident. I never recovered.

Tenth grade began, and I did not have any classes with the Nemesis, nor did I see him in the halls. This was just as well since it was the worst year of my life, and I would not have wanted my Nemesis to see me as I was that year. Nich moved away, I had family troubles at home, I was still living in the awful house to which we couldn't invite people, and I had the worst teacher of my life—my English teacher was a religious Republican and hated me for being an outspoken leftist and atheist. All the uptight rich kids in her class (it was my only honors class, filled with stuck up snobs) hated me too for not being one of them. I was the only blatant nonconformist in the whole class; there were a couple of others who were roughly in the same league as I, but they had friends with the preppy set that I did not. I might not have been completely alone, but near enough. It was a terrible year, and I spiraled into depression, made worse by that one class. Though I have often spoken hatefully of it, I benefited from it in many ways completely unrelated to education. It taught me to stand up for myself and recognize and despise hypocrites and bullies. I learned to be proud of my nonconformity, grateful not to be one of them. I learned how to sharpen my wits in that class and not give a damn what other people thought. I think perhaps my obviousness in this last, while it worked against me in some ways (making me a target of derision and ostracization), it also worked very much to my advantage by showing me clearly who to avoid and who to trust. Thusly, I don't regret that terrible year. It was awful, but it prepared me for dealing with such situations in the future.

So, near the end of this long nightmare, I finally began cheering up. It was May, and the horrible year with its horrible English class was nearly at an end. I had made a new friend, Aron, and thanks to him, I began writing my infamous Kinky People stories. Writing funny stories made me laugh, which helped end my depression. I'd sorted out some of my family troubles (by quitting speaking to my mom's side of the family), and my shell of resistance to others' opinions was thickening. It had started as an act but grown solid, and I survived my English class primarily by completely ignoring my classmates. It wasn't that I didn't hate them anymore; on the contrary, I had merely learned that remaining impervious to their taunts aggravated them even more. I was never sure why exactly I was such a target, but no matter; they weren't worth caring about. Besides, I had Kinky People stories and notes to Aron to write.

And thusly, barely a week before the end of the year, I was standing at my locker after my English class and talking to Aron. I remember that moment all too well, right down to what I was wearing, my cream shirt and light blue windbreaker. As I was speaking, I saw Aron glancing over my shoulder with an annoyed frown on his face. I wondered why since I hadn't said anything to provoke it. I then wondered what he was looking at and was on the verge of turning around to find out when it happened.

I felt an arm thrown around my shoulders and an all-too-familiar voice said, "How's it going, babe?"

I whirled around, furious. There stood my Nemesis, cockily grinning at me.

"Get away from me!" I shrieked.

He blinked, apparently astonished and barely moving his arm. "What?"

"Get the hell away from me!" I bellowed, swinging at his jaw. There was a satisfying, albeit far too brief, connect, and he left. Quickly. I did not actually see him leave—he might have walked, skulked, sauntered, fled, or vaporized—at any rate, he was gone as quickly as he had materialized.

I glanced awkwardly at Aron, who had not so much as blinked during the incident and was still standing there with his hands on his backpack straps.

"Okay," he said.

"Well . . . that was interesting," I said, and we continued our conversation as though nothing had happened.

Needless to say, I was NOT so nonchalant internally. I went to my next class with a racing heart, trying to figure out just what exactly the hell had just happened. I went home and scribbled frantically in my journal. My God—my long-time love-hate relationship with my Nemesis had just taken a wholly unexpected turn, and Something might actually be happening now. Granted, I reflected, it was extremely unlikely that he would actually seriously ask me out, and it would never ever work, I knew, but it was a step in . . . well, not the right direction, exactly, but a different direction. But, holy shit, had he actually had feelings for me (too) all this time? That, I thought, might actually explain the strange looks he'd given me a few times the year before. I had no idea what the hell to expect, though I had a feeling the answer was nothing.

I was correct in my assumption; he of course did not magically reappear at my locker again the next day, or the next, or ever again.

I did, however, see him in the cafeteria the following week. It was the last week of class, and our schedules had all been rearranged thanks to End of Course exams, a kind of precursor to finals. I wasn't sure why we really needed to be tested twice, but no matter. With our classes all out of order, I found myself taking a different lunch than usual and sat in the cafeteria for once instead of in the Commons. I was sitting at a table, talking to a girl in my Spanish class, when I glanced up and into the eyes of the Nemesis across the room. I barely even felt anyone watching me; it was a spontaneous thing. We had each sensed the other's presence at the same instant and looked up. It wasn't possible that he might have mistaken me for someone else; by an unfortunate coincidence, I was wearing the same outfit as I had in the mishap at my locker the previous week. The moment passed without incident, though, since he was walking out of the room accompanied by an assistant principal; presumably he was in trouble for something. I recalled that he was often in detention in middle school too; it seemed that had not changed.

I never forgot his face in that moment. His brown eyes meeting mine across the room in a moment of utter clarity, one of those tiny moments where it was totally impossible to hate him. He baffled me completely. I was convinced that he was not the jerk he so thoroughly appeared. But, it seemed, he would never drop that veil for everyone else.

And so ended tenth grade. I wondered all summer if I would have any classes with him the next year; surely things would be different after—not so much after the locker incident, but after the non-incident in the cafeteria. It was not an apology, but more of a silent understanding that while I did not welcome his advances in that fashion, he would not be wholly unreceived if he changed his approach.

Predictably, that did not happen. He was not in any of my classes in my junior year, and until the spring semester, I didn't even see him in the halls. I did start seeing him sporadically then, not entirely sure at first if it were even him. The awkward eye contact recommenced, but we never spoke again.

I heard one bit of gossip about him from a classmate. I eavesdropped when I heard his name mentioned; it seemed someone in my English class rode the same bus he did. Apparently one afternoon my Nemesis had cut something off the seat or removed a piece of the bus or something and threw it out the window when the bus reached his house. The next day, when he got on the bus, he had whatever it was he'd removed with him and said, "Someone left this at my house yesterday." My classmate said it was really funny. Yes. Hilarious. Goddam vandal.

Anyway, my Nemesis and I swiftly returned to hating each other with a passion, exchanging death glares and telepathic threats of mutual destruction every time we passed in the halls.

As the end of my junior year and the one year anniversary of the locker incident approached, I began to think, albeit with a certain amount of horror, of my senior prom. I had never been to a school dance since I loathed them, but even so, pride and girlish fancy dictated that I at least consider something as supposedly significant as that. I had no intention of attending, possibly not even if asked, but I couldn't resist wondering if my Nemesis might actually use the occasion to, as it were, bury the hatchet once and for all and somehow set things straight. It wasn't that we would have made particularly good friends since we hated each other's friends, and indeed each other most of the time, but there was that horrible tension. There was so much unsaid that, well, probably couldn't have possibly ever been worked out, but it was rather frustrating to think of all that might have been.

Alas—though perhaps that should be thankfully—I never found out. Over Spring Break of my junior year, I moved to Austin and got the fuck out of that school, feeling incredibly relieved that I succeeded in withdrawing from the school in one piece, and not one big flat piece. I had of course hated that school, but the new one was actually worse. I made new friends and enemies, but there was no new nemesis. No one could replace my Nemesis. He was mine, after all.

Throughout college, I occasionally Googled him, trying to find out if he'd gone to college and where. At this point, this story segues into its continuation in the college section.