ONE
Brightly-clothed figure on one of the roof tops. I always wondered why nobody did it before me. I mean all those comic books. Movies. TV shows… You'd think that one eccentric loner would have made himself a costume. A young man in a super hero costume. Perilously near the edge, striking an iconic pose. With cool resolve, he slips a pair of goggles into position. Is everyday life really exciting, are schools and offices so thrilling, that I'm the only one who ever fantasized about this? He spreads his arms
to reveal awesome mechanic wings. C'mon. Be honest with yourself. Calmly, he dives off the roof. At some point in our lives, we all wanted to be a superhero. A smile onhis face. A beautiful open vista of concrete and glass windows reflecting the sun. He's in flight. Oh wait… No he's not. The smile fades. This isn't flying. Just good old-fashioned falling. "Fuuuuuk!" Below falling, pedestrians become aware of his impeding approach. Pointing and screaming. Camera phones. Running to safety. He lands on a
parked car. It crumples like paper. The alarm strikes up over the crowd noise. That's not me by the way. That's some Armenian guy with a history of mental health problems. On the news, his sister said he read about me in the New York Post. A huge, antiquated building students mill around outside. A car pulls up and out climbs highschool senior Ron Stoppable. That's me. Back before any of this stuff happened. Back when you'd have to be a lot crazier than that guy to try and be like me. He waves to
his father. Mr. Stoppable, who is driving. Later, dad. …And gets off towards school entrance. Not saying there was anything wrong with me. Just that you'd have had a hard time finding a hook. I'm mean I wasn't into sport… He strolls past a brace of soccer-team girls kicking a ball. Ron joins the back a line of kids, all waiting to pass one by one through a metal detector archway. I wasn't an athlete… Down the line there's three kids ahead of him. Or a hard-core gamer… Two boys. Their t-shirts say "AFK"
and "The cake is a lie". I didn't have a piercing, or an eating disorder, or three thousand friends on MySpace. Four skinny, pierced emos stand at the front of the line. I was funny. A chubby white guy comes to know as Larry, dances through the arch way doing the "Soulja Boy" dance. The bell rings. Ron and the class scramble into their seats. Like most people my age, I just existed. Ron's teacher Miss Go, 29, comes in. A skinny borderline midriff. She takes off her jacket and hangs it up. Ron lies on his
bed watching TV. Kick in my bedroom door and you'd probably find me watching TV or talking to my friend Felix on Skype. Ron sits at his Pc. On the screen: a YouTube page and in a minimized window, the face of Ron's best friend Felix. "You watching Family Guy?" "No." "Me neither." The sound drops. Or jerking off. Mostly to my biology teacher. In a replay of Miss Go takes off her jacket. Then takes off her blouse. She reaches back to unhook her bra. Under Ron's desk, his pants around his ankles. A wad
of soiled tissues are into the wastepaper basket by his feet. Though, to be honest, it didn't take much to set me off. Ron's computer screen. A homework document headed "The Maasai tribe", and a shot of some bare-breasted tribeswomen. He types: " …traditional ceremonial beat-work". Then – sentence abandoned – the cursor clicks to minimize the document and bring the tribeswomen to the foreground. Another handful of tissues goes in the basket. Ron's playing World of Warcarft. His female night
elf is on the screen. The cursor flies to and fro, removing all her clothes. Fingers moving urgently on the key board, Ron types "/dance". The nearly-naked digital elf performs a sexy dance. Another tissue. I tell you, when my hormones balance out, Shares and Kleenex are gonna take a dive, man. Now back to the classroom, Miss Go takes her seat and learns forward to put down her purse. She catches Ron looking at her tits. Ron Stoppable. "You might want to be looking at your textbook about now?"
"Yes, Miss Go. Sorry." She flashes a playful mock-stern frown, then an amused smile, before looking away. Truth is, she's flattered. Sure, a lot of what got me through the average school day was making deposits in the wack-off warehouse for later. But don't get me wrong. I liked girls my own age, too. Ron walks the crowd corridor, eyefixed on a strikingly cute girl who is fumbling in her locker: Bonnie Rockwaller. Especially Bonnie Rockwaller. Bonnie looks up and breaks into a smile. "Hey gorgeous!" "Hey!"
Bonnie claps her hand over her mouth, and hearing a bark of laughter from behind him, Ron wheels round to see the person Bonnie was actually addressing: her best friend Tara King. "Oh my god." "No, you meant - Tara. I know. I knew that you were… I was just kidding. I knew you didn't… Oh god. …mean me. That was… It's cool. Ok. Then. See ya… Later." He hurries away. Behind him, Tara and Bonnie clutch each in helpless laughter as Bonnie dies of embarrassment. I was just a regular guy. Ron sits at the
table with his dad and his mom, 42. She's eating cereal. No radioactive spiders. No refugee status from a doomed alien plant. Ron morosely pours himself a bow of corn puffs. "Know what? Felix said they do still make Count Choucula. They just don't sell it at the A & P anymore." Suddenly, Ron's mom slumps forward on the table. Her bowl of cereal crashes to the floor, the spilled corn puffs bouncing ironically like the pearls from Martha Wayne's broken necklace. My mother was killed by an aneurism in the kitchen is opposed to a gunman in an alley. So if you were hoping for any…