When I was a senior in high school, all of our sadistic English teachers decided that it wasn’t enough punishment to have all of the Freshmen, Sophomore, and Senior classes struggle through Shakespeare, now we would have a full day dedicated to the plays. The premise was simple enough, even fun in theory- but what is fun in theory is hardly ever fun in practice. Everyone had to dress up in period costumes, bring a period food, and either put together a period game or be involved with a scene from one of Shakespeare’s plays. And just in case this sounds like fun, just picture this: hundreds of teenagers dressed in dark and/or heavy costumes (dresses for the girls and tights for the guys) walking around a football field (aka, no shade) between ten A.M. and two P.M. on the hottest day of the year in the South. Believe me, after about an hour it was not pretty at all.
I think that, personally, the funniest part of this was my father’s role in all of it. Me and my three friends were playing the three witches (and the queen of the witches) of Macbeth. The day before, my father took me to Party City and loaded up on a wig, witch’s hat, false nose, teeth blackner, and makeup. The next morning, he woke me up at about three in the morning to fix my makeup- and did it perfectly. The man had more fun dressing me up and doing my makeup then I did.
There were sixty five people in my graduating class. Yes, that’s right, sixty five. It was a very small church of Christ school, which meant that if you didn’t go to “their” church, you were going to hell. If you listened to anything but church music, you were going to hell. If you were the least bit different you were a freak and would be ostracized. Most of the people in that school had been in the school since pre-K and, therefore, most of the cliques were established by first grade. We were required to go to Chapel every day for half an hour. And unless we had “separate Chapel” (as in boys and girls were in separate buildings. And we think that the rules for women in the Middle East are strict?) women were not allowed to speak in Chapel. At least twice a month, all of the boys and girls were hauled into separate buildings to be told how sex (called your “first kiss” because God forbid that we say that dirty word) before marriage was horrible.
Even though everywhere else in the U.S., boys and girls are actually encouraged to interact, in school it was frowned upon. In our chapels boys and girls were separated on the bleachers- the big privilege that came with being a Senior was that all of the Seniors could sit together. Boys and girls. In the middle of the bleachers. But, despite the best efforts of most of the teachers and staff at the schook, we were all just bundles of hormones walking around waiting until the weekend when we could explode. (And sometimes not even waiting until the weekend. Sometimes it was just waiting until lunch when we could sneak out to somebody’s car or waiting until after school when we could go hide in all of the nooks and crannies of the school, or in one of the classrooms that were left unlocked.) Since I hung out with all of the guys (despite the fact that I was a virgin) I was automatically a whore, which ironically I was called by the girls who spent their weekends with their hands or mouths around their boyfriend’s dicks.
Luckily for me, I had a group of best friends that were like my family: four sisters, a father, and a baby brother. Unluckily for me, by the time that we graduated our family ties were so muddied up that I don’t think any of us knew how we were really related. My best friend (and sister) O’Phylia married my father Justin, who wanted me to date his best friend (and brother) Chris. My best friend (and brother) Greg, had a huge crush on me throughout high school and, after I graduated, we ended up dating for a while, which made me wonder if he was my boyfriend or my brother. Do you feel like you’re in Kentucky yet? My “other mother” was the housekeeper (what would be called the janitor in any other school) called Ms. Darlene. She took care of us, gave us all advice, and made sure that we knew that we were beautiful and special, and that any boy that hurt us was going to have to answer to her. I will never forget the time that I was dating an upperclassman, a guy who was a year older than me named Ben. One day we were walking down the hall, holding hands (which we only got to do because the teachers, in my opinion, thought that I was good for him and I would keep him on the right track. And, of course, because they were pretty sure that he wasn’t getting any.) when Ms. Darlene called him over to where she was and told him that he’d better take good care of me because I was her little girl and he’d have to answer to her if he didn’t. Is it any surprise that we broke up not even two weeks after that?
There’s an old joke that has to do with the crazy best friends; the one thing is that nobody knew how crazy my best friends were. They were the ones that were smoking weed and reading out of the Anarchist Cookbook at thirteen. My parents used to joke that my friends were the crackheads that were making pipe bombs in their bedrooms. Well, yeah. That’s mainly why they were my friends: so that when they got pissed off and decided to blow up the entire school, I would be the one that they would call and tell not to come. The part that might just be even more sad than the fact that these people were the ones that I was hanging out with voluntarily (and not just because I felt sorry for them or wanted them to do my homework for me or something. Hell, I didn’t feel sorry for them and I could do my own damn homework, thank you very much.) but the fact that I also voluntarily dated them! Yes, I dated these people, the ones that everyone at the school was scared of. And, you know what? They were the most fun boyfriends that I ever had.
One of my boyfriends was named Zach, and he was probably the only one that I ever met that had a family that was as strange, if not stranger, than mine. His mother was an overweight blonde with boobs the size of beach balls and a strange obsession with Chihuahuas. His dad was an overweight alcoholic who was actually really funny. Zach was the one that I credit with teaching me how to make a flamethrower out of a can of Axe and a lighter (yes, we had very very strange lessons after school.) and who made me laugh until I cried half of the time. But, somehow, I got the idea that the boy wasn’t that smart. One day, there was a hurricane and tornado warning out on the entire area of Mobile county. My best friend O’Phylia and I were sitting inside of the building, like sane people would do, while Zach ran around out in the rain, eventually slipping and falling in the mud, having to walk around with his school pants wet from the crotch down and his ass solid brown from the mud.
The first job that I ever had, when I was sixteen, was working at my high school’s daycare. No, I wasn’t taking care of the whiney, sniveling brats that I eventually graduated with- I was taking care of the brats who would graduated in ten to fifteen. If I ever really loved kids before this, then I wouldn’t after.
It wasn’t a very hard job, which is why they payed me less than minimum wage- one reason why it wasn’t a huge deal when my father stole every damn cent from me.
You can tell a lot about the way our future generations are going to be from how they are at a really young age. The little girl who hides in the corner of the playground, kissing all the little boys and regularly lifts up her skirt because (as she announces “I got pretty new panties”) will probably end up as the school whore. I could also tell during this time that I will be a terrible parent as I would regularly start cracking up when this happened and end up sitting on the ground while the other tow teachers admonished her. Then there was the little boy who was always in trouble for something, the one who always started fights and had a seat reserved in the principal’s office. Mine was probably my favorite of all the kids. He was a little troublemaker who made me feel like I was going to have a heartattack at seventeen, like the time that he walked up to me with red running all the way down his arm. I freaked out, looking everywhere for the huge gash that would have elicited the massive amounts of blood, until I notice him laughing and holding up a Crayola marker that he had broken. It was like a new game-hey kids, let’s play Who Can Give Ms. Layne a Heart Attack First!
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