I Would
By Skittles. Disclaimer? I Heart Disney, and fully respect Roy Disney and wish he would stay with the company for sake of tradition.
Chapter 1: "You remembered me!"
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My school is a piece of shit. That's a lie. It's not a piece of shit, in fact, it's one of the National Exemplary Schools. It's a big, rich public school in Oak Glen, a wealthy suburb of Van Buren. Oak Glen High School...aah...it's like dissonant noise to my ears.
You see, OGHS is very respectable. Its students are predominantly white, upper middle class Christians who wouldn't hurt a fly. They do all the right things, think all the right thoughts, and say all of the right things to kiss ass all the way from kindergarten to graduation. Counselors hold your hand and lead you gently through the process of choosing a career path. They then put you on that career path insisting that, "Nothing is set in stone!" Ha ha. Right. Ever try to get your schedule changed? Not possible.
This is why I was sitting in fucking sewing with all of the giggly cheerleaders and adoring boyfriends, girls who haven't thought of something other than a cheer or a football player in about three years. I was busy staring at the wall contemplating my imprisonment in this goody goody hell-hole when I was attacked.
"Hey, Jamie, could you like, pass me a bright pink bobbin?" Like, Trisha, could you, like, jump off a cliff?
"Sure," I mumbled. I reached over to the box next to me and picked out the ugliest pink thing I could possibly find, threw it at her, and got on with my life.
I went back to staring at the wall.
"Hey, Skittery, man, you could be a bit nicer to her. She never did anything to you," said Pie, one of my so-called "friends." When I first moved here, he had been the shit: we went drinking and his 18 year old brother bought us smokes for nothing. And then he went and fell head over heels for this Gabriella chick, who's your patented white Christian OG girl. He was seated next to her, and she was frowning disapprovingly at me from behind his massive shoulders.
I think it's a government conspiracy to test me, and all of the students here are robots. Next he'll be asking me if I want to attend Church with him and his dear Gabby.
"Skit, you know we're going up to Gall Slopes with Gabby's church on Saturday, you should come. It's like a retreat thing."
I hate this school.
"Naw, Pie, I got some shit to take care of."
"Aww, you don't know what you're missin', dude."
Quite sure I do. But would it be right to tell him to his face that I don't feel like being lectured, and told that I'm going to Hell while peacefully falling on my ass trying to snowboard? Probably not. But what the hell. Since I'm already on my way....
"I don't much feel like being lectured while I fall on my ass trying to snowboard."
"Oh." He withered. He's been doing that a lot lately. Such a sap-ass.
The bell rang and my fellow cattle and I were herded into our next classes. Such is life.
Or, such was life.
Though I didn't go to Pie and Gabby's retreat thing (I had to save a little of my self esteem--just in case.), I did manage to have a most horrible Saturday that weekend.
I work at a restaurant as a bus boy, and after dropping my fifth tray full of dirty plates and food in as many hours, my boss told me to go home and not come back until I could successfully carry a tray without wreaking havoc on the entire kitchen.
So, pissed at being cheated out of three hours of pay by my own damned self, I sped home. Lo and behold, what do I see in my rear view mirror? A cop, sirens blaring to wake the dead. Thinking this was just your routine, "pull over and let them pass," deal, I pulled into a nearby gas station, and into the adjacent supermarket's parking lot. I proceeded to turn out of the parking lot to take a different way home when I realized that there was another cop coming with his sirens on.
I pulled over.
So did the cop.
Oh, excuse me, sheriff.
Apparently I had been speeding and since I tried to "elude" the Sheriff, my lovely little ticket was doubled.
But of course! I had a six pack of beer in the back seat from a party the night before.
The Sheriff wanted to give me an MIP--but I'd be 18 the next day, and legally that means I'm no longer a minor.
He said I was resisting arrest because I had argued with him. He wasn't even fucking trying to arrest me.
He wanted to search my car. Under the plain view law, I knew full well he had the right to search my car, and I didn't have anything else illegal, so I let him.
He found pot under my seat.
Which was my fucking brother's.
All of a sudden, I'm sitting in the police station, holding the phone at arm's length as my mother screamed her lungs out at me.
"HOW DARE YOU LIE TO ME! I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE GOOD ONE! I THOUGHT I TAUGHT YOU BETTER THAN THAT!" I could hear her sobbing from two and a half feet away and my face burnt as the officer who had escorted me to the phone tried to hide his laughs.
"Sorry," I said, not even trying to explain how I wasn't at fault.
After a few more outbursts, she said she'd be there after she got out of work, that she wasn't going to leave work early to defend a delinquent like me. I hung up without saying good-bye, and went to go sit in the lobby.
I found myself sitting next to a kid I knew from school. He one of the first kids I'd met back in 8th grade, but hadn't talked to in ages. His name was Chris, I think but we didn't call him that--I couldn't remember what we called him.
"Skit? Skittery O'Leary? Is that you?" Damn. He recognized me.
"Yeah." He smiled dolefully up at me, with big brown eyes and tight curls.
"I, uh, didn't recognize you in all the black."
"Yeah, well. People change, uh...," I tried to think-- what had we called him? Something to do with mashed potatoes, I think.... Mash...Marsh...Mince...Mesh... Mush! That was it, Mush. "Er, Mush," I finished, turning to look at him. He smiled, genuinely happy that I had remembered his name. His smile was disarming and I found myself smiling back. It felt strange to smile and, resuming my usual scowl, I looked him over. He seemed the same as I had remembered him, except that his features were more defined, his hair was a little longer, and there was an aura of sadness surrounding him.
"You remembered," he stated, bluntly.
"Yeah. What are you doing here?" I asked, suddenly remembering that this kid was not, as I remembered him, a risk-taker. In fact, he was very close to being another OG clone. But not. He had done something--but I couldn't remember what. For what it was worth, he just didn't feel like a God-fearing clone like the rest of them.
I watched him respond to me, but didn't really listen to what he was saying. He was wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch sweatshirt with a rich, corduroy jacket over it. His jeans were faded and slightly tinted in the shade of his jacket, and he wore the same clogs that every other trendy person had.
He slouched appealingly in his chair, and I turned my gaze to the floor, ignoring the warming of my cheeks.
I started listening to him again just in time to hear him say, "If Specs hadn't kissed Snitch during the game, I don't think Dutchy would have drank so much-- he was totally wasted." I felt instantly awkward: why did that comment embarrass me?
He shook his head sadly.
I contented myself with staring at a nicked tile in the dirty floor. I had heard that Dutchy and Specs were gay, but never seen them together to prove it-- I guess that was just Mush's crowd. He seemed perfectly comfortable talking about it, as though being gay was normal. Normal.
I could feel Mush looking at me, and I looked at him in annoyance. After a pause, he continued, as if he were waiting to see if I had been listening.
"I hate it when people at our school try to force their religion on you."
Okay. Now I'm listening. Here's a boy with some sense. I felt like singing--I knew I liked this kid.
"It sucks. They're so fuckin' pushy. The assholes are so fuckin' righteous, as if they're the only fuckin' people on the planet with brains, and all the rest of us are going to Hell," I burst out, a little louder than I had intended. I immediately shut up, aware that he had intended me to let myself go.
"Yeah," he said quietly.
I had to endure a couple of hour-long seconds, but thankfully, my mother stormed through the glass doors and hurried over to me, murmuring about delinquents.
"I just don't know what I'm going to do with you. I can't find your brother. I can't believe the trouble you get into. After we moved you to such a good school, how could you have possibly gone so far downhill? I suppose we should have noticed when you started failing all of your classes--" I stopped listening to her: I didn't need her constant commentary of all of my faults.
Mush had stood up and was staring out the window at the heavy, silver clouds that sat like over fed slugs in the sky. Dirty piles of plowed snow stood in heaps on the curbs, and lifeless trees waved their claws in defeat.
"I hate winter," I said, teeth clenched.
"Yeah," Mush said, without looking back at me. I watched a Cadillac Escalade glide smoothly into the rough parking lot. "Hey!" Mush said, turning to me. "I gotta go. But gimme a call sometime, eh? We'll chill." He patted me on the shoulder and smiled his strange, sad smile at me.
"Right," I said. He shrugged and left. He climbed into the Escalade, and started talking with the pretty woman who I assumed was his mother in the front seat. I bit the inside of my cheeks. Hang out with him. Right. What would someone like that want with a fucked up guy like me? Right.
"James, come on. We have to get your brother to hockey." My ten year old brother, Joe, scowled disapprovingly at me.
I sulked out to our Oldsmobile and didn't talk on the ride home.
In my room that night, I laid on my bed and listened to some music with all the lights off. I could hear the happy clinkings of a family at dinner downstairs.
My thoughts were wandering through the dark alleyways of self pity as I relived the day with vengeance. Injustice was vivid and its anger made me feel good, powerful.
I clenched my teeth together as I remembered the Sheriffs unfounded accusations. Why did I not have a chance to defend myself? Why would he not listen to me? Was it my age? My music? My clothes?
If I had been dressed like Mush then maybe he would have given me a chance.
Unbidden, Mush's sad smile sat itself in the forefront of my mind. I directed my attention to the sheriff, imagining the ways I would like to hurt him.
But Mush's strange top toothed grin lingered, and even as I swam in the delightfully pungent puss pool of self pity, he looked down on me.
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Reviews would be helpful. I know I haven't written anything fanfiction in ages. Forgive me, I do live.
-Skittles