The Strange, Strange Tale of Baghetti Jones

Chubs

Jones was impatiently staring out the window of his classroom. He looked out into the empty courtyard, looking in the direction of his destination. Jones quickly looked towards the clock hung up at the front of the classroom. Slowly but surely, it was 12:04, slowly making its way to 12:05. The "seconds" hand steadily made its way to the 12 at the top, and to Jones it seemed like the only object in the room. It hit 12. The bell rang and Jones shot towards the door. Holding onto the straps of his backpack to minimize its shaking, he dashed towards the lunch line.

Running through the courtyard, the lunch line came into sight. Jones' favorite time of the day was lunch. Not just because he got to eat a delicious cheeseburger and milkshake, but it was a time to relax. Jones liked to just soak in the moment. When he would sit down at his lunch table and let the breeze blow over him. Sometimes he would try to focus in and listen to random peoples' conversations, but the overlapping nonsense was weirdly calming to him too, though.

As Jones approached the lunch line, he was excited to be the first in line. He believed that being the first got you the hottest lunches; the freshest. Suddenly, two other kids got in line before him. No biggie. Jones didn't care too much if it was just one or two kids in front of him. The lunch lady came out of the heavy door at the side to raise the metal shield in front of the lunch window. She slowly pulled the chain to raise it, and it started to give Jones anxiety since she was moving so slowly. Eventually, it got all the way up, and lunch was ready to be served. The kid at the front was slowly deciding what he wanted.

"He didn't already decide what he wanted? He had so much time to decide and the lunch ladies server the same food every day..." Jones mumbled to himself. As the kid was deciding what he wanted, the girl in front of him turned to seemingly nobody and giddily greeted someone. A group of five girls emerged from a crowd and hugged the girl in the line. Then they kept standing there. Jones was usually pretty impatient, but he drew the line at cutters.

He visibly got angry, and adrenaline surged through his young body. He doubled in size, and roared angrily at the girls, slamming the concrete into pieces with every fist he crashed down. They shrieked, and he picked all five of them up with one fist. Jones quickly spun around and tossed them like a lot of javelins. Everyone stared at him, in fear. Suddenly he roared out to the crowd:

"No cutting!" As he began flipping tables. The crowd screamed and ran away, as police sirens blared in the distance.

"Next!" The lunch lady called out. Jones snapped to reality from his imagination and noticed that he was the next one. He rushed to the window, eager to give his order.

"Ch-"

"Cheeseburger and milk? You got it," The lunch lady cut him off. Jones smiled ear to ear as the lunch lady gave him a cheeseburger wrapped in blue paper and a carton of milk on a lunch tray. Jones felt it with the back of his hand. Oh yeah, it was warm all right! Jones looked for a place to sit amongst the sea of people and decided he would eat at a table outside of the covering. He found a nice spot in the sun and decided to sit down. The crisscrossed metal seats were warm, but he didn't mind. The classrooms were usually cold, so the warm sunshine was always a nice contrast. Jones carefully unwrapped his cheeseburger. In one swift motion, Jones stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. He let it sit there, then forcefully chewed the whole thing and swallowed it. Letting out a sigh of satisfaction, he then turned to his milk carton. Jones took it and began shaking it violently. He then popped it open and drank its contents.

"I love milkshakes," Jones softly spoke to himself. As Jones got up to return his tray to the top of a trash can, he noticed a boy walking towards it. But something was off. On his lunch tray, he had a fully intact cheeseburger! Jones couldn't just stand by and let the cheeseburger go to waste.

"Hey!" Jones shouted as he ran up to the kid. The kid was a bit pudgy and wore a shirt that looked a tad bit too tight for him, along with some jean shorts and neat black hair.

"Huh?" He responded, visibly confused. Jones, out of breath, then began to speak.

"Are you going to throw that away?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I'm full. I already had one and I had a big breakfast."

"You get two cheeseburgers?"

"Yeah. I like to eat."

"Really? Me too. Especially cheeseburgers."

"Do.. you want-"

"Yeah!" Jones said ecstatically, holding out his hands. The kid gave it to Jones, and Jones immediately started devouring it.

"The name's Charles. My friends call me Chubs."

"My name is Jones. People call me Baghetti."

"Why do they call you that?"

"I don't know. Why do they call you Chubs?"

Chubs cocked an eyebrow for a second, then smiled and chuckled.

"You're an alright dude. Baghetti Jones."

The two talked for a while. They had a lot in common, and Chubs even offered to bring Jones some extra money so he could get two cheeseburgers. Jones wanted to keep talking to Chubs, but their conversation was cut short due to the bell ringing, signaling that lunch was over. They said goodbye and offered to meet in the same spot the next day.

Later that day, Jones retreated to his room to begin working on his homework. His language arts teacher had given the assignment to write a creative story with a beginning, middle, and end. He sat at his desk, with his desk lamp the only thing illuminating the room with the exception of the bluish dusk sky.

Jones was always a lonely boy. He tended to not get along well with the other children. He desired their attention, but more often than not he would end up driving them away.

"Why am I like this?" Jones would frequently ask himself. Despite taking hours at night after bedtime to ponder reasons for his awkwardness, he would be unable to act upon it the next day. He would forget all about his thinking, creating an endless cycle of an empty hope for self-improvement.

But what is it that Jones hoped to gain from better social skills? Who knows. Perhaps it's the approval from his peers, some sort of validation from them that he was normal like them.

"If you want to be the best, you have to at least be average," Jones would say to himself, looking out of his bedroom window watching the other kids play outside amongst each other. The sun had begun it's descent that day, casting a warm hue against everything that the sunlight touched. The fall leaves outside only added to the sensation of loneliness, reminding Jones of the passing of time; the passing of time in which he had not accomplished anything yet.

Of course, Jones could go outside and introduce himself to the other children. Maybe eventually they would get used to him. But what would he say? How would he introduce himself? What does one say if they are not accepted into the group? How do you ask to be one of them? What if it doesn't even work out? These questions along with many more no longer bothered Jones, as he learned to filter them out, as he accepted his own truth that he would not play with the boys. After all, he was so much... different. He didn't even have a mother like the rest of the kids he went to school with.

Jones instead turned to the desk in his quiet room. He pulled out a blank sheet of notebook paper from his drawing suitcase; it used to belong to mother. Jones began making rough sketches of himself with the children outside. They not only accepted Jones into their own friend group, but they looked up to him and showed him respect. Jones was happy with his drawing. He signed it with his alias, "Baghetti Jones", and signed the date on it. Jones took out a rather large binder that was packed full of pages just like that one. He placed the page into it, making sure that the page behind it was the date before it. The binder was then put away to the side of his desk, where he would surely add to it the next day.

Jones suddenly realized that Chubs was indeed a friend. Jones hadn't driven Chubs away, in fact, Chubs seemed decently pleased in Jones' presence! This newfound glee fell short, as Jones was filled with anxiety and dread. What if Jones was no good at being a friend? What if he drove away Charles and Charles told everyone how weird and socially awkward he was? Just as Jones started to sink into a depression, his door swung open.