ON AWFUL






After school, I sat down on my bed bookbag beside me for a moment. Mr.Dimitri was just so presumptuous. I pushed my bag off onto the floor letting it slump down. What right did he have to think he knew me at all. A teacher was supposed to be supportive of students efforts. How did he know I wasn't the kind who would be hurt by things like biting comments, humiliation in class? Why did he not care if he hurt me. Cause he sure didn't seem to care. I had written exactly what he asked. He said he wanted us to tell things exactly as they happened. He had said he didn't want a story, that he wanted only simple accounts. Sketchs of our lives. Well I quoted things said to me, I punctuated things with witty asides -for his benefit not mine!, I shared a part of my life. And he had the nerve to write that it was not good enough. That he was not satisfied with what I was showing. That possibly I wasn't being honest. What had the other students written that made my journal pale in comparison? I couldn't possibly imagine what Dan who sat next to me could have that I didn't. Maybe I shouldn't have ever mentioned my interest in writing. Obviously it seemed to him I was trying to be something I clearly wasn't, or worse he thought I was showing off. The way you see someone who thinks they are really good get up and embarass themselves endlessly until you want to slap them or walk away disgusted. I didn't want to speak with him again, not after reading his "note" and mark. Not so much dislike, it was more that I knew he was no doubt a good writer. He's been to college. He had a degree. He had an education. And I didn't have any of these things yet. But I always thought I was smarter than everyone else and sometimes that has gotten me places. It was getting me places here too but not where I anticipated. During the last ten minutes of class Mr.Dimitri had us take up our journals, write that days entry and of course leave them with him. He said it would be better that way, "More spontaneous." Like that was a good thing. I wrote my entry the way I'd written all the others, I couldn't let him know right away that what I had seen on the page before the latest entry in his scratchy handwriting had ruffled me. I would let him think it was like water on feathers. Sliding right off this chickens back. But I also realized I wanted this particular person to be impressed with me, and that maybe to do that I was going to have to do exactly what he wanted. But I wouldn't let him know that, exactly. He would see I was made of metal and that maybe he had underestimated me. That's what I decided in that moment anyway. During dinner somewhere between passing the margarine and Jessie's comments on how different this year was going to be from last year Mom asked about grades. Jessie's of course not mine. She asked what Jessie was thinking in terms of higher education and for what she would like to do. Mom wouldn't ask me because it was already set my plan. College. Degree. Degrees. With Honors. A career of some respectability in whatever field I'd feel "passionate" about. Well that would sure would not go the way anyone thought. But it did, the dinner discussion anyway, make me think of Mr.Dimitri. An awesome grade in his class was going to be tough and any student who got one would definitely make an impression on him. I wanted to make an impression. Oh the sweet ignorance. Logically I thought that meant I would need every mark I could get in creative writing and these journals, that I thought were givens and evidently weren't, would have to be reconciled. I resolved during dinner that I would just go and ask him what I could do to improve. I mean teachers always offer to answer any questions you may have right. I helped clear the dishes and went up to my room to do a page and a half of physics stuff , then came back down later than I thought I would be when I started the physics. Jessie and Zoe were eating something and Eli had the remote.


"Hey. So what are we watching?". Jessie pushed over next to Eli leaving a space for me to sit at the end of the sofa. "Godzilla takes..someone".


"Great two things I hate. Monsters and black and white Japanese films". Really I didn't mind either one, but I was trying to make conversation.


It was sort of okay to have lots of people around, doing all these different things. When it was just Zoe and I the age difference really stood out. The things she wanted to do were rarely the things I wanted for myself. The myself I wanted to be. That cool hipster person. Yeah right. But having Jessie and Eli around in a way made things just so normal. And I didn't resent them as much as I expected to. In fact it was just so much easier to be normal with them. To see myself as normal. Eli was one of the popular people when I went to school with him, back when I even had a crush on him. It was an extreme confidence booster this summer to see he thought that I was pretty okay too. And it wasn't that I was still ,in love, with him because it was more embarassment than anything else I had now whenever I thought about a possible Eli/me romance. It was just, not even something I could picture anymore. It really was embarassing because I was sort of sure he knew about it. It was so over. I wanted it to be over at least. But Eli was still cool, he still did all the neat things I wished in part I could be a part of , yes encompassing the drugs, the parties , the relationships. I was just really ready to start living. Eli was a part of that. He knew a lot of the people I still went to school with. We had like, acquaintances in common. So when he asked about school I totally fell into talking about it with him. And who really wanted to watch Godzilla anyway. All the little towns people averting their eyes in horror as the misunderstood monster carried off the girl. Then I found I was thinking of Mr.Dimitri again and his weird orange hair. I started to wonder if maybe he did drugs. That would be pretty cool for a teacher, sort of. And he looked like the type that maybe. This was all before I knew him very well. I wanted to try his name out. Outloud so (I didn't mean to smile here),


"I hate my creative writing teacher."


Eli didn't turn but answered, "Oh yeah?" Yah! Acknowledgement of me talking. Me. "He publicly humiliates me." I didn't think I needed to add that maybe I had provoked him just a little. Besides who would ever believe that. Now Eli had looked over. He probably wonders what I term public humiliation and is thinking not much.


"I do that, you don't hate me." He's right I didn't. Even when he really did humiliate me. In school, with Carla. I just was more disappointed with him than anything in those times. So why did I hate Dimitri. I guess he was just a safe person to hate. Until he wasn't safe anymore.


"Yeah I do." Like right this instant, I sort of am tired of all the stupid teenage mentality comments. I threw a piece of popcorn at him. I could tell Jessie was getting annoyed with us, no I should say with me because she usually had this attitude when it came to me. Jessie started turning up the volume on the tv. Like anyone was really watching the movie to hear the lines. Before I could stop myself , I tried a first name out.


"Plus his name is August, which is just--" . Eli interupted me now. "That's not a name, that's a month!"


"Exactly!". My point exactly. It really was a really odd teacher that had fallen into my class. My life. I needed sympathy from someone, anyone. Someone to help assess the very weirdness of all that was this teacher with me. "And he acts like he's the only person in the whole world who knows anything."


"That's how you act."


That was weird. I mean I knew I always felt smarter than everyone else in my mind. But I thought I was really a pushover, very kind, benevolent, yes I thought I was --nice. "Shut Up!"


God, this was silly. What did I care what anyone thought. Eli was totally making fun of me. I reached over to slap at him. Because that's what you do when you are having fun, flirting in a perfectly harmless fashion with a good looking guy who is not related to you (by clinical blood ties), but still a permanent part of your life in a really safe neat way. All I had ever thought about Eli was how cool it would be to be with him. Not physically, emotionally - none of that really. Friends was perfect. Jessie started wiggling and for a second I though she was going to help me slap him too. That would have been okay, but she didn't instead she took it all the wrong way.


"Okay, let's go." Jessie was looking at Zoe impatiently and I was just really confused for a second. Until I realized what she was thinking. Embarassment, and a desire to make things right soon followed. Zoe was actually watching the movie."What?".


"They obviously want to be alone!" I was shocked Jessie actually said that. I never knew she had a backbone, and I was silently pissed that she would even think that. And that she was ordering around my sister who I now didn't want to leave the room at any cost. I mean, Zoe was enjoying the movie. Why should she leave and if she did that left me there with Eli after Jessie's impossible to miss outburst. It was too embarassing, happening way to fast and I don't think I even thought a thing except. Oh no. No. Eli must have felt this too because right away he sprung up, "Whaat?!"


Freaked out I piped in, "No we don't." Really I didn't. I was all a gigantic misunderstanding. Oh Zoe stay. But Zoe seemed confused, but also because she's smarter than I really like to think at times said, "No they don't". At least someone understood.


"Hey. Jess--we don't--" Eli was saying. It just came sputtering out of me , "We don't want to be alone!" But Jessie was stomping off out of the livingroom and Zoe got up hurrying after her. Zoe idealizes Jessie. Or at least I think she admires a lot of her qualities. Who can blame her. I mean it''s not like she'd ever want to be like me. At all. I caught Eli's eye.


"I have to---"


"Yeah--"


"--write in my journal, and--". Yes that was it. My journal. Even though I didn't have it. Mr.Dimitri had kept it at school. And right when I really needed a journal. Dimitri would love this. Or would he? My embarassed side.


"Me too. I mean--" Holy shit. Was Eli that thrown he was slipping, or thinking of writing in a journal. That was laughable. Oh, no I know what he meant. It was just really vital to get out of there before Jessie thought her thoughts that we wanted to be alone, and she thought alone meant only one thing, were true. Right behind Eli, moving in the opposite direction I quipped. "No, I know."