|
Ninth grade began relatively uneventfully. Granted, the Nemesis was in my science class, and a girl sitting next to me in the gym on the first day of classes had puked everywhere (fortunately, none of it landed on me), but other than that, life was good. Apart from the Nemesis, I didn't have to deal with anyone I disliked on a regular basis. I only saw the Tall Guy in the halls a few times the whole year, and then a few rows away from me during TAAS testing, as it was then called. Tenth grade began in much the same way. I passed much of the winter spiraling deeper and deeper into depression, beginning to emerge in March when I began writing humorous short stories. Just prior to that, I think it was in February, I saw Tall Guy in the halls for about the first time all year. That is where this story truly begins. It was in the spring of my sophomore year at Klein High School, that seething hellpit of teenaged arrogance and middle-aged incompetence. Every year, the members of the Klein swim team would bleach their hair and make it look all poofy and stupid; I'm not really sure why. Anyway, at the time of this incident, I was unaware of the fact that this bad hairstyle was a tradition. Otherwise, I might not have been so shocked to see it for the first time (I somehow managed not to notice it freshman year), and the incident might not have occurred. As it was, however, I rather think it turned out for the best. One day in the spring of my sophomore year, I was walking down the hall toward my locker when I saw three guys on the swim team whom I knew by sight from having had a class with each of them at some point—Tall Guy, a friend of his who sat next to me in English and annoyed me with his holier-than-thou attitude, and another friend of theirs I remembered from my eighth grade English who used to be a sweet kid but turned into a douchebag upon beginning high school. I was on my way to my locker, and I saw these three guys whom I didn't particularly like walking down the hall in my direction, and all of them had bleached their hair. Not in a professional way, either, but rather in a suspiciously do-it-yourself manner that looked closer to orange than the intended platinum blond; methinks a few 99¢ bottles of hydrogen peroxide figured in there somewhere—and their orangeish-blond hair was all poofed up and part Afro, part clown wig, and all ludicrous. I did a violent double take, tried really hard not to laugh, and failed miserably. I did more than merely smirk; I outright guffawed. I immediately felt a little self-conscious and turned away, but not before noticing, mercifully, that the three guys with the bad hair at least had the grace to look embarrassed. Heh. I bet they weren't so damn proud of their stupid tradition after that. To my credit, I did at least manage to resist the overwhelming temptation to point and laugh. My dad observed that my successful resistance of said temptation was a highly unusual occurrence, to say the least. Hee. Also, incidentally, I noticed that the guy who sat next to me in English came to class the next day with his hair noticeably toned down. Still horrible, but less so. I did not see Tall Guy again that year, but I was not so fortunate in eleventh grade. His last name being fairly close to mine in the alphabet, he had a locker only a few spaces away from mine. I don't know how I'd avoided having a locker near his prior to that. Most likely he had never used the one assigned to him. This year, however, I could not avoid seeing him several times a day on most days. I studiously avoided him, which wasn't always easy since a friend of his had a locker in between his and mine and tended to start conversations with Tall Guy as he approached his locker, meaning I would look up to see who was talking and see them. After a while, I learned to ignore his friend's voice and also the friend altogether, except for (possibly maliciously) treading on his foot one day in the hall. It is possible that the school year would have passed without incident had it not been for the tragedy of a mutual friend. A friend of mine sat next to Tall Guy in their English class, which I didn't know until it was too late. I wrote notes to my friend almost every day, usually making them as funny as possible. One day, during she was reading her note from me during her class with Tall Guy. "Who's that note from?" asked Tall Guy. "Lauren Brown," my friend replied. "Oh, yeah, I call her the Little Giant," Tall Guy replied. Apparently I looked like a girl in the movie Little Giants. (Incidentally, I eventually watched the film and discerned no resemblance.) My friend told me this story after school that day. I laughed until I was red in the face, though I'm sure the blushing would have occurred anyway. "There he is!" my friend called over my shoulder. Oh shit. "That's my cue to leave," I said, not glancing around and getting the hell out. The next day, my friend told me that she had told Tall Guy what had happened at her locker the day before. "What?" Tall Guy replied in horror. "You told her? Oh, shit, now she's gonna bomb my house!" Naturally, my friend relayed this to me as well, which, naturally, I also found hilarious. Also naturally, every note that I wrote to her after that included some mention of purchasing explosives. Only a few weeks later, though, I moved to Austin. I didn't make a big deal of moving; I only told a few of my closest friends and then abruptly vanished without a trace. This was as much because I didn't really care about most of my classmates as it was because I feared some kind of reenactment of the end of Carrie if certain people, such as Tall Guy, found out I was moving. Of course, it didn't end there. I randomly saw Tall Guy in a library on the UT campus once (I ducked into a restroom), but he soon withdrew from the university. Some years later, I learned that he now designed clothing for a living. I snickered at the ironic contrast to his formerly macho self and looked at his website. He blogged about how his back hurt from leaning over clothes sewing labels onto them; I rolled my eyes and wondered 1.) how he'd feel after working ACL and 2.) if he'd ever complained as much about getting sore from athletics in high school. Then I saw a picture of him holding up a large pair of sewing shears, Edward Scissorhands-style. He looked suspiciously as though he were trying to make up for the lack of machismo in his profession. I longed to send him a photograph of myself running the chainsaw or helping to lift subwoofers or something (captioned "This is how it's done, boy."), but I resisted. I have not heard anything of Tall Guy since, and frankly, I hope I don't hear from him again. He was a baffling case of a guy whom a lot of girls had crushes on, but I could never quite figure out why. Many girls—and (jealous) guys—have criticized my taste in guys, but I'd take a quirky, dorky guy over some macho jerk any day. |