The Art of a Perfect Life

II


empty as you
a bit of lust
mistaken love.

– Ray Kurzweil, "As You"


Most of my high school experience was utterly unbearable. While everyone else was off
socializing with their friends, and gossiping, I was stuck, alone. I guess to fully explain myself, I’ll start from the beginning of my schooling, all the way back to elementary school.

My parents got divorced when I was in first grade. At that time, I attended Fernley
Elementary School, home of the wolves. Maybe that’s where my love for being at school and
learning things comes from. Wolves were always my favourite animals, so when I started going there, I was enthusiastic from the beginning. Sam, who was in fourth grade at the time, tried to avoid me at all costs. He thought he ruled the school. He called himself "The King of 4th Grade."

He pranced around the school with his sheep-like friends. I swear to God, if Sam had told them to jump off a bridge, the first question they’d ask would be "How high is the water?"

After mom decided to move all the way to Hawthorne, Sam told them he wanted to stay with dad. My mother didn’t like the idea, but gave in after a while. So it was just me and mom, all alone in this huge house that she apparently got a great deal on. It was on Bailey Drive. We had great neighbours, one of whom would become Jennifer’s babysitter, Mrs. Morse. I never really trusted her.

She was an old woman, with too many cats, who smelled like something rotting. She was just one of those creepy women.

One of Mrs. Morse’s cats ran away from home once. It was a little grey and white striped kitten, he couldn’t have been very old. Jennifer found it rummaging out in our back yard one night, and brought it in. Before she even asked my mom or Jeff, she came to me. She said she got us a kitty to share, and said she named it Fluffy. I told her that I thought it was a boy kitty, and that he would appreciate it more if his name weren’t so...girly. So we agreed on Otto von Fluffenstein. I think he liked it better that way anyway. I called him Otto, and she called him Fluffy. Poor cat, he must have been so confused.

When mom and I moved to Hawthorne, I obviously had to change schools. I went to Hawthorne Primary. My mom didn’t like the drive, but I guess it was worth it to her. She refused to put me in the school right down the road from our new house. She said that those teachers weren’t very educated. I guess it was some rumour that she’d heard before we moved in. I sort of wish she had put me in that school though. I hated every day in that school. It was such a small school, only about thirteen kids in each of my classes. How do you expect to make friends like that?

I guess Sam was having lots of luck with his school back in Fernley at that time. He stayed with dad for about three years. He got into junior high, and apparently that’s when he started going to parties. Once, after he came back to Hawthorne, I over heard him on the phone, talking to a friend from Fernley. He was talking about one of the parties they’d gone to right before he got caught. It sounded like he partied all the time. Honestly, I don’t think dad would have noticed if it hadn’t been for that random parent, of that random girl he tried to sleep with at the age of twelve. I couldn’t believe that one the first time I heard it. What a guy.

At this party, Sam and his two friends, Chris Lancaster, and Vince Gibbs, decided to go and experiment with huffing gas. I guess Chris and Sam went into a coat closet, while Vince went and got a gas can out of the garage. When they went into the closet, somebody saw them or something, but didn’t do anything right away. Vince came in, with the gas and a plastic baggie. He poured the gas in and they all started to huff it. It sounds like Chris passed out right away, but Sam and Vince were so out of it they started kissing. The girl who threw the party, Amber Flynn, who turned out to be the biggest known slut in Fernley, heard they were in the closet, because of that one girl who saw. She went over and opened the door, and immediately freaked out. She kept screaming that they were so disgusting and everything.

I guess Sam got irritated with her or something, so he pulled her into the closet with them. Vince ran out, and Sam tried to rape Amber. When she threatened to tell the entire school that he was making out with a guy, he came to his senses, and he didn’t get very far.

At the same time, Amber’s father was just returning from a business trip he had in Carson City, a few days early. He came right in, demanding to know where Amber was. He saw all the beer, and all the kids, and started to freak out right away. He found Amber, and the first thing he did was slap her across the face. She started to cry, and ran up to her room, I’m assuming. He saw my brother, and the two other boys, with the gas, and immediately asked them for their parents’ names and phone numbers. That was how Sam got busted.

It turns out that Amber didn’t actually run up to her bedroom. Instead, she ran outside, in the busy traffic of the night, and being so drunk, ran out in the middle of the road and got hit. A few years later, the same thing happened, only that time she wasn’t as lucky, and she died a few days after. Maybe it was better that way. She probably would have ended up with an STD or something anyway, as horrible as that sounds.

The first time anyone had any evidence of her being a huge slut was when we all met John Dickson.

John came from Reno, and he thought he was a big hot shot. He had a reputation back in Reno of being a man whore. He slept with so many girls, that at some point he’d gotten gonorrhea from some girl, that apparently he didn’t even find out her name before sleeping with her. You’ve just got to ask yourself what he was thinking. I feel no remorse for people like him.

Anyway, Amber ended up fucking him one night at this party, after he’d just moved to

Hawthorne. She had no idea he had anything. I guess you learn pretty quickly to question the person your sleeping with, even if you think you know them.

When Amber found out she’d gotten gonorrhea, she knew it had to be from him, because he was actually the first person she’d ever slept with. She decided to tell everyone she knew, especially the people with big mouths, who couldn’t keep a secret if they’re lives depended on it, that he liked to sleep with girls and not tell them he was infected. I think the cops found out, and apparently they can arrest you if you know you have something. He was put in juvenile detention. I think he moved back to Reno when they let him out a couple months later.

This all happened before her fatal accident.

Like I said before, I don’t actually think that dad would have cared, but he felt guilty, and called mom. Mom was furious, and told Sam he had three days to pack his things, and she was coming to get him. Sam wasn’t all that happy, either. When he came to Hawthorne, it didn’t take him long to make friends, there was just something about him that attracted real bone heads to him.

My school experience was not quite as eventful as Sam’s. I went. I learned things. I’ll never forget the first time anyone gave any bit of notice to me at all.

I was in my ninth grade English class. Our assignment from the last weekend was to write a short poem about anything we wanted. I chose to write about leaves falling from a tree that was outside my bedroom window. I always loved that tree, so I thought I’d pay it back by writing about it. Nobody ever saw the painting I did of them too, except Joey. It was his favourite. Anyway, this girl in my class, April Warren, was watching me so intently as I was reciting that poem. I don’t even remember it now, I wonder if she does.

I always thought April was a little bit pretty. She had this shoulder length brown hair that was sort of wavy. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she was pretty I guess. She was the kind of girl who secretly got around. Even while we were dating, I knew she was fooling around. Nothing hardcore or anything, just casual hand-jobs and things like that. It never really bothered me though.

One time, when April took me to a party, I started out thinking "Okay, I can do this, I’m NOT going to get shitfaced tonight"...I didn’t want to do things that would make me look like an idiot. I was in front of people I hadn’t met previously, and I wanted to make a decent first impression.

When we walked in, there were people all over the place, already drunk, some of them passed out on the couch, and some of them drinking more and more. April had disappeared into the back room somewhere, mysteriously. I never knew where she was most of the time.

I was getting really bored, and really irritated with this girl who was constantly blowing in my ear and "whispering sweet nothings" to me, so I just got up and grabbed a beer. One beer, I mean, what would that hurt? I guess I just lost control or something, because that one beer quickly turned into two, then three, and before I knew it I was too drunk to even tell that girl my name. I had to push her off of me multiple times though.

I got up to try and find April, but with no luck.

I decided I wanted to get out of that place, so I got my coat and started walking around. April had driven, so I didn’t take her car. On the way home, I guess I wasn’t paying attention, because somehow, I tripped on a banana peel. I know what you’re thinking, "how in the hell do you trip on a banana peel, Derrick?" Well, when you’re that drunk, you just do. There’s no way else to explain it.

At least, I think it was a banana peel. I can’t really be sure now. I’m pretty sure it was. The point is, I face planted in the middle of the street, and it hurt, bad.

Luckily, Chad was nearby, at a different party. At least I think it was a different party. Either that, or he was following me...he did that sometimes. He ran up to me and helped me up. He didn’t even question it, he just walked me back to his house and let me crash there.

April apparently got really worried about me when she found out I’d left without her. I think I was better off leaving before her, she got into a minor accident on the way back to Hawthorne. She said she was really upset and worried. Yeah right, she was off fucking some guy, just like she always did.

Sometimes I wonder if she even knew what she was doing. And if she did know, why didn’t she question whether I knew? And if she knew I knew, why didn’t she wonder why I wasn’t bothered?

Well, on this particular day in English, as I was reading my leaf poem, she couldn’t keep her eyes off of me. When class was over, and I left the room (always the first one out, to avoid any conflicts I may have run into), she followed me outside to my secret spot. It was secret because I never told anyone, but at one point during the summer before ninth grade, I stole a pack of Jeff’s cigarettes while he was at work, and got hooked. I always went outside to smoke in my secret place after English.

She was surprised at first, but turned that into awe. She told me she really liked my poem, and asked if I had written any more. Of course I had. So she asked me what I was doing later, and I told her just going home, nothing special.

I ended up going to this little coffee shop with her that I’d never been to. It was a little weird, since I’d never been anywhere with anyone besides my family, let alone a date. There were all these older kids, my brother’s age mostly, talking about useless things that they probably only pretended to be interested in.

Me and April talked about what we like to do in our free time, and what we’d like to do in the future. She looked very interested in the information I was telling her, although I’ll never understand why.

When we were on our way home, she asked me if I’d be her boyfriend. I didn’t really know what else to say, so I just said yes. I mean, what else can you say? I was desperate for social interaction, and I was thinking she’d be my ticket to it. She was semi-popular, she had a lot of friends, and got invited to parties all the time. I knew that if I said yes to her I would be too. So I walked her home that night, and at her doorstep I panicked. I knew the guy was supposed to be the one to kiss the girl on the cheek at the end of the night, but I just stood there, frozen to the porch.

She could tell I was nervous, so she leaned over and softly kissed me. She giggled, and then ran inside the house, but not without turning back to give me a cute little wave.

I still couldn’t move after that for a good thirty seconds. I didn’t know what to think. Here I was, a social outcast, who’d never thought about kissing anyone seriously, who had just somehow, by some higher power, gotten a girlfriend. Just thinking about that now still gives me the shivers.

I went home smiling this big goofy smile that night. Jennifer saw me when I climbed up the stairs. She was in my room in a matter of minutes, to get all the juicy details. She always told me I’d find some beautiful girl to love, and that I’d be happy. I think she was the only person I could tell that I wasn’t happy. She was the only one I completely trusted.