February 12, 2005
...Continued from Part II...My first year of High School was actually quite grand. It was a small, older school filled with marks of generations passed. Graffiti and engravings could yet be found outlining the wooden frames of classroom doors, science lab tables and upon the cold gray metal of nearly every student locker. The main hallway was always immensely packed with herds of Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors flowing in one direction or another and it was the same school in which my brother, Chris, still reigned as martyr over the majority of the student body. For that reason, people knew me and people feared me.
"You're Chris's little sister, aren't you?"
"Damn straight, I am," I would proudly reply.
I was an arrogant little Frosh.
Chris was in the Marines at that time and I kept a picture of him in my locker as a reminder to all of those who might question my ability to call upon him while he was on leave to kick their asses. He had also instructed some of his Senior, female friends to look out for me during my first year of High School. And thus the roles of prestige were reverted, when normally one would have command in the ranks as a Senior, I had authority as a Freshman and I adored it.
In order to carry on the impressive moniker of tyrannical 'Johnson,' I was required to get into as much trouble as humanly possible. To my credit and to my surprise, I was exceptionally capable in the accomplishment of this task. I learned to smoke cigarettes and weed in the bathroom, to mouth off whenever possible, to chide my fellow Frosh and to skip out on as many classes as the day permitted. I had a partner in crime named Melinda who made this passage into deviating behavior a walk through the park. Save for her amiable qualities toward myself and her cat, she just did not give a hooey about anything. Her home life dipped below the lines of unsatisfactory and her unwillingness to conform to any regard of institutional structure surrounded her completely. But, unlike myself, she had a greater propensity for getting caught.
Mr. Cipriano, the Vice Principal and enforcer of law within the school, had cornered her one day just before she was to make a dashing escape from those confining walls. I had tried to dissuade her myself, as we had a test in one of our classes, but to no avail. The second bell rang, signaling the start of class, when she made a second attempt to flee from Cipriano's encroachment. She was quickly caught by the arm and jerked backward with his overpowering grip and I simply stood back and shook my head. 'He should not have touched her,' I thought to myself while placing my books on the floor in the hall.
"Don't fucking touch me!" she shouted.
The resilient echo bounced between the lockers that lined either side of the hallway and seemed to boomerang over us more than once. She instantly jerked her arm free and retreated violently into the women's bathroom. She flung the door open so ferociously that the door stop had bent backward and, as a result, the door impacted the large, wall length mirror behind it. I made a motion toward the door but Cipriano warned me that I would be severally punished for such an act. He was about to search for our female guidance counselor in order to coax Melinda out of the bathroom, but I warned him that without me, he would not be very successful. I knew just how stubborn Melinda was and I knew that she would stay in there for days if only she had the opportunity.
A male police officer arrived and the female guidance counselor could not even set a toe within the women's bathroom without being bashed by Melinda's forceful weight against the door. She was screaming and bellowing profanities from within her hideout and I was getting more and more angry and more and more defensive as this pathetic little game of back and forth continued without resolution. Finally, I turned toward Cipriano, realizing that the ultimate consequence was going to involve sending in the police officer, and begged him to let me have a go at it.
"You're not going to get her out of there without hurting her. Don't you get? Just let me go get her."
I would not recall the crunch of glass beneath my shoes until hours later when I was gingerly picking out the shards embedded within my Nike's. At that instant, it did not matter. I only wanted to bring Melinda safely out of that bathroom despite the fate that awaited her outside. After a bout of tears and a persuasive hug, I was granted my wish and she and I exited the bathroom, arm in arm, together. Without a moment's delay, she was handcuffed and taken off to the police station in a squad car that every student witnessed from their classroom windows. The adrenaline still pumped through me and I was sure that the tambour of my heart could be heard just as audibly as Melinda's screams.
The female guidance counselor took me into her little office and sat me down at a long folding table. She advised me against hanging out with such eccentric company and mandated that I spend an hour with her every Wednesday to receive the proper counseling. I laughed at her, my unintentional nervous laughter and cried (as, no matter how often I got into trouble, I truly did feel terrible for having been caught) and never, ever came to her on Wednesdays or any other days of the week. Thus began the long chain of 'All Day Detentions' and 'Saturday Schools.'
All Day Detention, or Eight Hour Hell as we liked to call it, consisted of being confined to a small 5X5 room, directly across from Cipriano's office, with a single desk for the duration of a school day. We were not permitted to sleep, eat, draw, talk or be in any way idle with our time. We were required to study, whether we had material to study or not, and we were also expected to write a three page analysis of wrong doings. Herein lies the problem - Melinda and I really liked to draw and sleep. Despite the warnings, we would curl up on the floor and snooze the minutes away until Cipriano banged on the door. We would bring bags full of magic markers and doodle all over the floor, walls and window of that small space until Cipriano brought in the mops and sponges.
I can still recall running over to Melinda's room to see the little 'Welcome To HELL' mat that she drew in front of the door, along with the fireplace in the corner and a small fleet of rabbits and flowers drawn at attention. We would always run back and forth to deliver notes to each other, considering we were in a three day 'All Day' stretch, and rarely were caught. I became so bold in my deviating ways, that I would often make a dash to the lunchroom and sit with my friends for a break in the day or retreat to the far end bathroom for a smoke. Every time Melinda attempted this feet, she was immediately caught.
I also had a line of Saturday School detentions in which some of my brother's friends were also required to attend. My brother was on leave from the Marine's during that time and kindly insisted that his buddies take me in their car so I would not have to inform our parents of my punishment. One Saturday morning, Jesse and Mandi picked me up from my house but were running relatively late. We entered the specified room for detention but because we were so tardy, the supervisor scolded Jesse and Mandi and added another Saturday School to our already full rosters. They were so infuriated that they decided to simply walk out, leaving me to question what I would do in order to get back home (which was about 12 miles away). The girls assured me that they would return after detention and bring me home, but for some reason, I had my qualms.
Luckily, they did show up, eventually. But that didn't change the fact that I would still have to attend another fun filled Saturday in detention because of them. It was one thing to be completely anomalous, but I have never liked being tardy.
Eventually, I became so skilled at skipping out of classes, climbing out of my bedroom window at night and avoiding all consequence, that I was often confronted by my fellow students to help them in their own escapes. Since I did not, as of yet, have a driver's license, I would employ those with the necessary means of transportation and, in exchange, conspire the grandest ways in which we could all flee unnoticed or, at least, uncharged. I was the source of forged pink slips that allowed us legal rights to venture off school grounds, I was the expert of excuses and the dominator of dodging authority. Since I was so quiet in class, I was rarely noticed to be missing and therefore usually added an extra hour to my lunchtime by skipping my Spanish class. This made for a perfectly relaxed, two hour lunch at McDonald's where my friends and I would get 'the munchies' after a short drive through the country.
All of this changed during my Sophomore year when we moved into the new High School...
*To be continued...