The Seven Day Gangster

Chapter 31

Using a diagram and the graph below, assume a neo-classical aggregate demand/aggregate supply model. Then, explain the short-term as well as long-term effects of a rise in aggregate demand when a country is at full employment.

Very slowly, very calmly, I lowered my pencil to the hard, wooden desk with as much self-restraint as I could muster.

Then, very slowly, very calmly, I sunk my head straight down onto the thick test packet that was full of bullshit answers in despair.

Was any of this even English?

Short answer questions were terrible. And short answer, economics questions were the absolute worst.

I had read each question five times, and after each time, I still was nowhere closer to an even slightly coherent answer.

I didn’t want to fucking be here anyways. I wanted to be in another class, any class. Jesus, I’d rather be in gym, running the mile. I’d rather be doing pushups or crunches or embarrassing myself in front of the entire class doing pull-ups. Anything but this.

I had gone back to school that Monday, the past week or so filled with excused absences. I guess one of the guys had called in for me or something.

When I got back, the teachers were being incredibly nice to me, so much so that it was weird. Like, a lot of them had cut down on class presentations as well as homework for me. I assumed that my fake excuse of a funeral had been overplayed to my advantage or something by whoever had called in for me.

Other than the shitload of homework I had received as well as the God-awful economics test I was suffering through at the moment, my return back to school had been rather uneventful. No one really questioned my story about having been gone at a funeral at Arizona; Tori helped back me up several times, in fact.

So there I was, back in school, back in my normal life with my dad and my homework.

Except it didn’t feel that way.

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I struggled, so many thoughts shot back to the past week that I was pushing to the farthest crevices of my brain.

I thought about Sam, about Alex, about Logan, about Randy. About the huge house, the multitude of Wii games, the strong detergent and Marlee’s incredible cooking. I thought about the carnival ride and the stupid duck shooting game there and then the first trip I took to a bar.

But most of all, I thought about him. About Nathan.

About the cool, collected, leader of the gang, a walking contradiction of beautiful opposites. He was at times both harsh and gentle, both sharp and oblivious, both angry and startlingly cheerful. An enigma of sorts, the kind of guy who you never truly know what he’s thinking. The kind of guy who communicates silently, through a minute glint in the eyes or an ever so slight curve in a fleeting smile. The kind of guy who you would never have expected to be harboring such profound, deep-rooted pain.