Tyler Emery
Under normal circumstances, in school suspension, or ISS, would be absolutely unbearable; it was eight hours in a single dark room, with complete silence like a tomb, and being oversaw by an eager young supervisor that was ready to report anyone for anything because he wanted the principal to know he took his job oh so seriously. It was rumored that Bryce Gilbert sneezed a bit too loudly one Thursday last winter and was given two extra days because he 'disturbed the peace.' Normally I would be complaining at the top of my lungs, begging my cross country coach to find a reason to get me out of it, and scheduling sessions with my counselor to talk about gummy bears, the importance of a three hour lunch, and what my dream about the talking swordfish with a sombrero really meant. Normally, I spent as little of my ISS punishment in the actual ISS room as possible.
That Thursday and Friday, I reveled in my sentence. With my new philosophy that I would grow up to be my brother, that there was no hope for any sort of change, I started out every morning with a snick of a beer tab opening. Instead of carrying around a water bottle full of sweet tea, I carried a water bottle full of a mix of vodka, liquor, and beer. It burned like the fiery pits of Satan's playground going down, but it left everything smudged and undefined, like sculptures that were in their very first stages of creation. Drew warned me about the possible consequences, about expulsion, suspension, and detention, as we sat on my truck bed before school, the water bottle sitting between us. I laughed and told him it would just speed up the process, and didn't everyone expect it to happen anyway? Drew didn't reply to that, but that afternoon, I found a caricature of him sitting in class with an empty desk beside him. I shoved it into my bookbag, my eyes squinched shut.
In ISS, I could sit in my desk and slowly slip into alcoholism without the beady eyes of Alexis watching my every move to see if I was flirting or showing interest in anyone else. I saw her in the morning, with her friends clustered around like penguins. Her sandals clacked obnoxiously as she tapped her toes and tried to stare at me without me knowing she was staring. If I had to deal with that for an extended period of time, I knew that I would do something that would get me way more than my five days of ISS and four weeks of detention.
I did absolutely no classwork those two days, even though the teachers piled it on like whipped cream on a five year old kid's chocolate ice cream sundae. Worksheets, lab reports, projects, and essays built up on my tiny desk in the ISS as I swigged my Satan's brew and tried to spin my pencil around on the tip of my finger. I thought a lot during those two days: why dodo birds where extinct before I could have one as a pet, the ratio of water to melon in watermelon, and my mom. We had been avoiding talking about anything of merit since Wednesday. She told me my shirt would look better tucked in on Thursday morning before handing me a cup of flat coffee. I tossed her a quarter as a tip, because ever since I was six and learned what being a waitress entailed, I always tried to tip my mom because if she got them at work, then why not home? She caught it and kissed my forehead before slipping out of the house without another word. On Friday morning she told me that she had a meeting with my father that night to discuss some things so she would be home late. I drank three beers after she left, the door whispering shut behind her. I drank until I couldn't remember my mom's bruised face after a "disagreement" with my dad, until I couldn't remember her crying because she didn't have the skill set to care and pay for us by herself, until I couldn't remember her screaming at the top of her lungs when my dad served her the divorce papers so he could properly live with his secretary who he had been having sex with for a little over two years. I drank until I couldn't remember my name.
That's what I was thinking about when the bell rang on Friday to signal the end of the day. I stood smoothly and knocked all of the papers that had piled up on my small desk after two days to the floor. They hit it with a satisfying swish and I looked up to see the nerdy crypt keeper nearly foaming at the mouth. By that time, I was incredibly and satisfyingly drunk, so I just smiled sleepily and sauntered out of the room, the tile only slightly shifting under my feet. The hallways were sweltering with the heat of the encroaching student bodies, as everyone rushed and raced to abandon the terrible prison of public school. The freshmen didn't annoy me anymore, with their huge bookbags, overdone makeup, and vivid shouts. Now they seemed like bright beacons of hope, of teenagers who haven't had the chance to mess up their lives yet. At one point, I saw a girl with pigtails holding hands with a boy with slouched jeans, and I felt tears spring to my eyes. Why would anyone experience the world sober when they could taste and breathe in these beautiful emotions like fruits from Jesus himself?
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Romance"Is this how it feels, Charlotte? To talk to someone when you're blind? You can't see their face or expression or their hands; you just focus on their voice and let their words wash over you?" ... Everyone is judged by their book cover, how they...
