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NOT SO FUN AFTER ALL
FINDING OUT WHO I was like the hardest slap in the face you could ever experience, only twice as bad. It sounded pretty cool at first. The control. The energy. And, most of all, the power. This account probably makes it sound like an exhilarating blast, but believe me it wasn’t. I’m telling you this story to warn you: don’t take this path. It causes nothing, but a lot of pain, anxiety, loss, and sadness.
Keep reading if you want. I can’t stop you. But don’t forget what I’ve said.
***
I live in upstate New York, in some place called Stoneleigh. I couldn’t point it out to you on a map, and I won’t, for your safety. I do know that it’s really remote, hours away from New York City and the nearest highway is about ten miles down the road. I don’t get out of town much, go figure.
My foster parents are a bunch of rich businesspeople with twin sons who are about as nice as hippos. They say I deserve whatever I get because I’m a delinquent, and I’m lucky they’re kind enough to let me under their roof. I know better. The state gives them extra money just to keep me out of foster care. It’s obvious that’s their only incentive to keep me because I can see just how much they want to keep me around. I can’t like them much, but they’re important in some way because they made me who I am.
I don’t really think that’s a good thing.
The truth is I am a bit troubled. I’m on my way to being twelve years old, which won’t help a black kid like me seem any less bad. It’s even worse that one of my birth parents was white, and I have “mixed features” like gray eyes, caramel skin, and dark unruly hair that isn’t like many other kids—a strange combination that’s curly in some parts and straight in others. Fights are a common occurrence for me. My grades are bad, not because I can’t do the work, but because I can’t focus in class. Weird incidents are always happening around me, and who takes the blame? Me, Aaron Desrouleaux. Not that I’m even allowed to go by that name. I’m known as Aaron Evans, your everyday troubled kid.
Sounds bad, huh?
Well, I’m not exaggerating, nor am I trying to complain. I can’t help it, and you sure as heck can’t either. It’s not that bad…I do have a lot of freedom. My foster parents seem to think it’s prudent that I’m out of their sight for as long as possible, so I stay out of the house most of the time. So long as I’m home at a reasonable hour, no one cares what happens.
So, my life was rather uneventful for about twelve long and monotonous years. I learned to deal with the comments people were always shooting at me like bullets with my fists, so I don’t have friends. So what? I don’t need them.
Well, you can probably imagine how stupid my life is. That all I ever do seems pointless and that I’m going to fail at life, because everyone says so.
Last August, I learned otherwise.
I got stuck in summer school. Picture a brigade of juvenile delinquents like myself, except with demeanors that more resembled irritated, lazy, and incredibly obese rhinoceros.
So there I was, nudged in a desk saved for particularly troubled kids, right up front, with my teacher who possessed a rather unfortunate temper sat at her desk stared at me evilly. It was Thursday, so I had something to be hopeful about, since we retook the state exams, and nothing left to do but to learn about trivial things that we went over already until Friday. I was trying to bug a kid into telling me just who bought the Louisiana Territory in the first place when my life started taking a bad turn.
The teacher (Mrs. Something or another, I had no idea what her name was and I still don’t care) turned on me and snapped, “Won’t you just shut up for once boy? It’s bad enough here without you talking and cheating like some ingrate—”
“And that’s really nice of you to tell me to shut up,” I spit back. Thinking back on it, it was a pretty dim move, but then again, I wasn’t thinking much at all then. “I’m pretty sure I’ll start respecting you if you keep it up.”
Her face turned purple. “My office after class, Evans,” she said, effectively ending the conversation. She turned around to do grades at her desk, and I stuck up my finger at her while she couldn’t see.
Charlie Berkenzi, the only kid I was on speaking terms with, turned his head around sadly. “You really should have shut up.”
I ignored him, because I didn’t feel like listening to common sense at the moment.
I spent the next twenty minutes trying not to feel sorry for myself while the minute hand twirled around on its axis. Time seemed to speed by, so that one minute it was 2:33 and seconds later the clocked popped over to 2:52, when the bell gave a final beep and a bunch of gleeful adolescents dashed out of the room, chucking paper planes and notebooks and various other refuse into the air, their voices ecstatic. Charlie gave me a look of pure pity before running off with them, a smile coming to his face.
I cursed Charlie in my head with all the bad names I knew and improvised a bit before I slowly rose out of my desk. A feeling of impending doom started weighing me down, and I packed up very lazily, trying to delay the inevitable. When I couldn’t stall any longer, I made my way out of the room and down the hallway.
What would they do? I had a track record longer than a whale, so for all I knew, this could be the last straw. It could lead to expulsion, and having to go to school somewhere far away was not something I liked to consider. Maybe my stepparents will stop sending me to school altogether, and then I wouldn’t even have a slim chance of getting a college education. Or maybe they’ll home school me! The idea made me shudder. But before I knew it, my teacher’s office was lying in front of me. The door was very basic, but from considering my position and what was probably about to happen, it looked downright ominous. It was just a simple but looming mass of wood, which behind it hid my downfall, about to punish me.
I pulled the door open.
A whole bunch of people had crowded themselves into the bland little office with brown tiles and white walls; a bucket load of school officials, like the principal, his assistant and the like; and my stepparents, two of the most unpleasant and untrustworthy people I had the fortune to stumble upon.
My foster father, Jerry Evans, was tall, thick, and bald. He was pretty narcissistic, which seeing as age wasn’t being kind to him, only made him more ornery when he looked in the mirror and saw a beefy, middle-aged man staring back. It was enough to make me almost pity him.
His wife was twice as vain, though a little more dignified about it. Jennifer Evans wasn’t worried about her weight, though I was, because she was so skinny in looked like she would snap in half every time she stepped the wrong way. She did, however, detest any wrinkle or blemish that appeared on her “perfect skin.” The medicine cabinet didn’t hold any medicine, because it was stuffed to capacity with anti-aging creams. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had thousands of dollars in stocks invested to Avon.
Seeing as they barely accepted themselves, I didn’t think that either of them would even try accepting me for what a delinquent I was, or how much money they’d wasted on my incompetent tutors.
“Hi, Aaron!” my teacher chided. “Please have a seat. Or, um—” her eyes flashed around the small space, and she realized that there were no chairs to sit in at this point “—you can stand.”
My foster parents didn’t waste time my acting cheery like all the other teachers and decided to sidle up behind me menacingly, frowns deep on their faces. I thought about the wrinkles that would probably etch themselves where the scowls had rested on their skin, and I almost smiled.
The principal handed her some papers and she ruffled through them, looking for something. At last, she took a few slips of paper out and placed it on her desk. I could feel my foster parents tensing. This was probably either my grades or my list of offenses. Either one of them could have me grounded for a long time. I’d been hiding the report cards that came in the mail, but it’s difficult to hide something when someone flashing it in everyone’s faces.
The principal started talking. He was a short guy, and his voice was a lot like a trumpet, in the way that made you impulsively cover your ears. “Here are his grades and a list of any of his, um, offenses—” I felt panic setting in my throat “—so that you can see anything that’s happened over the course of the year.” He finished looking extremely smug.
My head started to pound, pressure pulsing in my skull, beating at my temple. There was no way I could let them see the paper. If I did, it would be even more painfully humiliating, embarrassing, and demoralizing than jumping up in the middle of a town hall meeting while wearing violent pink pantaloons and singing Irish spirituals. No, screw that, even more demoralizing. In less than five minutes, my entire year would turn into a nightmare.
My teacher got up, and walked around her desk.
No! I thought.
She trotted over to my parents briskly and practically threw the paper in their faces. She really looked happier than I had seen her all year.
No, no, no!
The pain in my head started building up, making me feel this incomprehensible sense of power and insanity. I watched my stepfather take the paper and bring it up to his face, his brow furrowing into a deep, deep scowl.
NO!
There was a spark, a pulse of electric power, and then the paper started to burn. Smoke started to rise from its surface, and I saw the edge of it turn red. The pain in my head dissipated.
My stepmother’s nose went up. “Do I smell smoke?” Her head
started turning around and about. She screamed. “Oh my God, Jerry, the paper! It’s on fire!”
His eyes grew wide, because at this point, the papers were now being eaten by the flames. He yelled too, and the whole room melted into hysterics thanks to few stupid pieces of paper.
The principal was the first one to panic. He abruptly threw the window open and launched himself through it, skidding on the grass below. Both of my stepparents ran for the door and pushed it open, my father nursing his burnt fingers and leaving the paper to smolder on the floor. The assistant principals threw themselves under the desk and pushed the chair in front the opening, and my teacher thought it was the best to just faint onto the floor. The room was very silent after that, as I watched my official papers burn silently into smoldering ashes on the fireproof tile floor.
I must have terrible self-control, because I busted out laughing, not bothering to keep it in. This was probably the weirdest and definitely the best thing that had happened to me all year. I sank into a chair. Everyone one else started peeking their heads in to see if the fire, was out. In the principal’s case, he poked his head in the window, his shirt now stained heavily thanks to his little commando move, so that he looked remarkably like a leprechaun. I just sat in my chair, grinning at all of them, because, hey, that was freaking hilarious.
Instead of laughing with me, the principal looked at me dead serious, saying, “You must have lit that on purpose, right Aaron?” I saw everyone nod in assent. My parents came in, obviously listening in, and looked at me like a pair of cobras stalking a pitiful mouse. It’s pretty obvious who the mouse was in this situation.
My hand flew to my pocket, and, I realized that I was really in trouble. They’re gonna blame me! I didn’t do anything! I backed away, and I realized that I had stolen a box of matches in Living Environment today, because Charlie was using them for a homework project, and (oh, cruel fate) that they’d connect it to the fire! Oh screw me, I thought. Crap, crap, crap.
Suddenly, my stepfather, his face looking angry, dug his large hand into my pocket. Unfortunately, it didn’t burn up and of course, he got a good long look at it.
He looked at me and said matter-of-factly, “You’re screwed kid.”
I glared at him. “Oh really, Sherlock?”
Craaaaaaaaaaaap. |
