The poem attributed to Max is an original poem that I wrote when I was about fourteen. Please don't use it anywhere else. And sorry about the double spacing - I can't get it to separate the lines otherwise. :(
A Better Fate Than Wisdom
Chapter 5: Too Good to Be True
From a Different Point of View
A lock of golden hair hangs over her lowered eyelids
My hand comes up and brushes it over her shoulder
Her eyes meet mine and skitter away, searching desperately
For something to cling to, something that cannot betray her
Her hands are clenched in her lap, rigid with fear -
Of me.
Max Kane, September 29/04
When I go into paleo on Monday I look around for Aerinah, but I don't see her anywhere, so I sit down in my usual seat (front row center). It's funny, my 'usual' seat is the last place I'd usually sit: I'd much rather be an anonymous shape in the back instead of this big ape taking up the whole front row. I hate the feeling of having all these people behind me, wondering how many of them are staring at me. But that's where I got stuck the first day, and after that everybody sat in the same seats from then on, so I figured I should stay put too.
I'm digging around in my backpack looking for a pen, and when I finally find one and look up, Aerinah's just coming in the door. I smile at her and kind of wave, and I'm hoping maybe she'll come say hi before she goes up to wherever she sits. But Aerinah not only smiles back, she comes over and plops down in the seat right next to me.
"Hey, Max," she says. "How are you?"
"Hi," I say, and clear my throat. "Um, okay."
Great. It's not exactly the most intelligent or engaging thing I could've said, and I don't get a chance to come up with anything better, cause the prof starts in, talking about lungfish and early tetrapods.
But it's nice to be sitting next to someone I know. It's nice to be sitting next to someone at all, actually – in most of my classes people leave at least one seat between me and them, like they're scared of even brushing up against me. I admit it's kind of cramped this way, and I have to tuck my arm in at a funny angle as I write, to keep from elbowing Aerinah in the ribs, but I don't mind.
The lecture seems to drag on forever, but at the same time it's also over sooner than I expect. I'm still trying to shove everything back into my bag when Aerinah bounces up from beside me and tosses her backpack over her shoulder. "Well, see you later," she says.
"Yeah, see you," I say, and then she's gone.
----
I don't see Aerinah in Bartlett Hall at lunch time, and my two afternoon classes are mind-numbingly boring. I'm glad when they're finally over and I can head back to the dorm, but as soon as I go into Maclean Hall I start wishing I was somewhere else. Cause today it seems like every single person in the dorm is looking at me, and whispering about me as soon as I pass by them. I swear by the time I get up to the third floor, I've heard no less than four groups of people start snickering after I walk by.
It's even worse on my floor. "That's him," I hear somebody hiss behind me, and someone else giggles.
And, there's a group of people clustered around the bulletin board between the washrooms. It looks like they're all trying to read something that's posted there, but when a guy at the back notices me he elbows the guy next to him, and pretty soon they're all staring at me, some of them blankly, some smirking or trying not to laugh.
I have no idea what's going on, so I stop in front of them and just wait. I don't like to cause trouble, but I'll be damned if I'm going to slink past all these people and hide in my room and pretend I don't know they're laughing at me. I shouldn't have to do that. It's not right.
"Nice poem, loser," somebody finally says. I recognize him; he's one of the late-night party people. I think his name's Darren. He's slept his way through half the dorm so far, judging by the different girls I've seen him with, and the various rooms I've seen him exiting on different mornings, not to mention the stories I've overheard in the common room and the computer lab. He's also the guy who cracks jokes about Godzilla and steroids when I pass by. "Your title sucks though," he's saying, and I have no clue what he's talking about. What poem?
"Yeah," this girl pipes up from beside him. She's got long brown hair and bright blue eyes, and she'd probably be really pretty if her face wasn't twisted into a sneer. "It can't be a different point of view if you freak everybody out!"
The crowd shifts as they laugh, and suddenly I see Aerinah's there, standing close to the wall. Her eyes are enormous and I can't read the expression on her face. Surprise? Dismay? I can't tell, and then I forget all about her cause I finally get a look at the bulletin board. Tacked up right in the middle of it is a poem I wrote last month. An embarrassing poem. So embarrassing I didn't even want Worm to read it. A poem that should be in the folder in my backpack along with all the other poems I've written, but which is instead posted on the third-floor bulletin board for everybody to read, written out in pencil, with my name and the date I wrote it scrawled across the bottom, just like I put on every one of my poems.
I feel like I'm going to throw up.
"So who's the girl, Mad Max?" Darren sneers. "And does she have a restraining order filed against you yet?" That comment gets quite a few snickers.
I push through the crowd, snatch the paper off the wall, and turn away, heading for my room. The laughter in the hall rises again, and I can hear it even after I close my door.
The first thing I do is dig through my backpack for my folder, to make sure none of my other poems are missing. They're all there, thank god. I smooth out "A Different Point of View" and put it back in the folder, and then I sit down on the bed and try to think. How in hell did my poem end up on the bulletin board? I'm always really careful not to leave personal stuff like that lying around; that folder, and my journal, are always either in my backpack or on my desk, and no one—
Then it hits me, and my stomach makes this nasty lurch. There's only one person who could have done this. I had my poem folder in my backpack yesterday, when I rescued Aerinah from the bathroom, and then I threw it on my desk and left her alone with it while I went to find the RA. I remember how she had been standing right in front of my desk when I got back, and how she kind of jumped back when I came in. She acted like she'd been looking at my pictures. But had she in fact been going through my backpack, and pulling out the most embarrassing thing she could find?
My face is burning, and my hands are shaking. I don't even know what all I'm feeling; humiliation and embarrassment and betrayal and… and rage, I guess. Yeah, I'm fucking furious. I helped her, I let her in to my private space, I opened up to her – my stomach twists itself into a slick knot as I remember all the things I told her, about Worm and the Undertaker, and my mom, and… about Killer Kane. Yeah, that was a big mistake. All the time I thought she was so nice, she was probably thinking to herself what a big retard I am and all the fun she was going to have humiliating me.
"Serves you right, stupid," I mutter under my breath. That's what I get for thinking anyone – any girl – could like me. I should have known it was too good to be true.
I wish I was home, in the down under. I could squeeze under my bed and just drift, let the world go away for a while. I can't crawl under the bed here; there are drawers underneath. So I turn the light off and backflop onto the bed (which hurts; I keep forgetting how thin the mattress is: my bed is basically like a coffee table with a pad on it) and just lie there, my eyes and throat burning, trying not to think about anything.
----
I don't come out for supper. I've never felt less like eating in my life. I should be rereading "The Yellow Wall-Paper" for English tomorrow, but I don't do that either.
I can tell I'm going to have to get up sooner or later though, cause I have to pee. I picked a great day to drink three Cokes and two coffees.
Finally, the pressure gets too uncomfortable to bear, and I sit up. There isn't much light coming in the window, and the only thing I can see in my room is the green glow of my alarm clock, which says it's 9:36. I stand up, flick the light on, and stretch (as much as the low ceiling and my cramped bladder allow), then go stand in front of my door, pressing my ear to the dark wood. I can't hear anything in the hallway. Hopefully it'll be deserted and I can get to the can and back without running into anyone.
I open the door, step forward – and just about plow right into Aerinah, who's standing there with her hand up, about to knock. I grab the door frame to keep from walking into her (cracking my forehead on the top edge of the molding while I'm at it), and she stumbles back a few steps in surprise.
"Oh, hi," she says, startled. "Sorry. I was just coming to see if you were… you know, okay."
She's looking up at me, waiting for me to say something. My forehead is stinging where I whacked it, I have to pee so bad I can barely stand up straight, and all of a sudden I'm madder than I've ever been in my life. "No, I'm not okay," I say, stepping into the hall and yanking my door shut with a bang. I take a couple steps forward so I'm looming over her. "Why would I be okay?"
For the first time ever she looks scared of me, and part of me is viciously glad to see it, at last. "What do you really want?" I say, and my voice is starting to get loud. "You think if you're nice to me again I'll let you come in and take something else of mine?"
"What?" she stammers. "Max, no, I didn't—"
"Yeah, whatever," I say coldly. She just stares up at me, mouth open, as I push past her, and stride angrily down the hall to the bathroom.
I'm still furious as I wash my hands and splash water on my face, drying off angrily with rough swipes of brown paper towels. I remember how I waved at her in paleo this morning, grinning like an idiot. Yeah, that was pretty pathetic. Man, she better not be out there when I come out.
I go into the hallway, and there she is, standing right in front of my fucking door. Like she thinks she could stop me from going around her – or through her – if I wanted to.
"Max," she says, scared but determined, "Look, it wasn't—"
I don't believe this. Okay, so I was dumb enough to fall for her shit once, but does she really think if she bats her eyelashes at me and swings that shimmering hair around she can fool me again? "GO. AWAY!" I tell her through my clenched jaw.
When she doesn't move I want to shove her out of the way so hard she flies all the way to the other end of the hall, but I just duck around her and unlock my door, then slam it shut behind me.
So I'm standing there, in the middle of the floor, shaking with rage and breathing hard like I've been running, and I'm thinking I'm so fucking furious I could—
Strangle her. That's what I was thinking, only I happen to glance at the window right while that thought crosses my mind, and for a minute my reflection – face twisted in fury, shoulders hunched, fists clenched – looks exactly like Killer Kane.
And the thought breaks off cleanly in my brain, leaving only white noise, and I'm shaking even harder, but it's not rage now, it's fear.
Images pour into my head: my mom, her face turning purple and her hands fluttering like wounded birds around my father's face and shoulders; Loretta Lee, on the dirty floor in a tinsel necklace and a fur coat, coughing and gasping and Killer Kane telling me Look away, son; just look away; and him, the murderer, lying to me, looking me right in the face with tears in his eyes saying he never harmed one golden curl on my mother's head.
Some choked sound escapes from my chest; I sit shakily down on my bed. I lower my head into my hands, and tears drip down onto the knees of my jeans.
Maybe I really am just like him.
