Once at school, though, things started picking
up.
Paul grudgingly came to grips with the fact that
he was awake and that this wasn’t very likely to change any time
soon.
His acceptance of this sad truth was
aided by one of his best friends, Mr. Pibb. Paul liked Mr. Pibb
because there was a certain quality about him
that made Paul feel alive and refreshed. This quality is
generally
referred to as caffeine. As he sucked down
the carbonated wonder and made his way to his locker, he remembered
the test in American History. A
naughty word passed Paul’s lips. If there was one thing Paul
hated more than socks, the morning, and
school, it was having to take a test in the morning at school.
Socks really didn’t figure into the picture
unless they were to, say, burst spontaneously into flame or come alive
and eat his feet. This would be rather
inconvenient, but would have the potential of getting him out of the
test. Paul weighed the two possibilities
as he struggled to remember the combination to his locker. He
didn’t have a bad memory, per say, it was
more of a jerk than just plain bad. When he was finally able
to wrest the combination from his brain, it
would not, of course, work. It took three tries, seven swift
kicks, and a string of vulgarity the length of the
Panama Canal to open the locker.
Lockers were another bane of Paul’s
existence. In fifth
grade, he’d thought it would be great to
have a personal place to stow his stuff, but he had been young and
naive then. Lockers, no matter how big
they looked on the outside, were always the approximate size of Girl
Scout cookie boxes on the inside, and
managed still to hold less volume than even those. Lockers defied
the laws of physics. Paul nonetheless
managed to cram his stuff into the small opening and close the door
again. He grabbed his notebook and
headed downstairs, toting Mr. Pibb along, too.
He was early today, and took up his usual
place at the pole near
the 20oz coke machine. He leaned
against the pole and watched people milling about aimlessly and
yammering
on about how so-and-so’s
boyfriend/girlfriend is such a pathetic jerk/bitch and how so-and-so
would be better off with someone else,
namely the people who were yammering on about it. Paul could
more or less sympathize and showed this by
sucking down more of the Pibb.
Eventually, Craig wandered down the stairs,
dropped his books,
and leaned against the pole.
“Hello, Craig,” said Paul.
“Hola,” replied Craig, and that was the end of
the discussion.
It was one of those mornings when
no one had anything to say. Craig was, to say the least, weird.
For that matter, so was Paul. Both had
disturbing senses of humor.
Paul sipped his pop and tried to think of
subject matter, and
Craig started humming something
indistinctly while also trying to find a topic of discussion. Both
were interrupted when a large form began
wobbling in their direction. It blocked out a good portion of
Craig and Paul’s fields of vision. It wheezed
with the effort of bipedal locomotion. It appeared as if it was
struggling to remain upright at all.
“Ah, crap. Something obese this way comes,” said Paul.
“Hello, Beef.”
“Shut up, Serena,” said Danny, “Or should I
say ‘person who is
about to die slowly and
painfully?’” There was a general lack of laughter at Beef’s
feeble
attempt at humor. There was almost
always a lack of laughter at his feeble attempts at humor.
Sometimes,
by a fluke of nature, a humorous
string of grunted words would pass difficultly through his lips.
I use the term ‘lips’ very loosely. With
Danny, the term ‘human’ is used loosely. It’s really rather sad.
“That was pretty funny, Wiggly” said Paul.
Paul winced as angry ripples quaked beneath
Danny’s shirt.
“Wrigley,” Danny corrected Paul’s
‘accidental’ mispronunciation of Beef’s surname.
Paul rolled his eyes and heaved an exasperated
sigh. “Wiggly,
Wrigley, potato, potahto. Same
smell, different cholesterol level.” Craig stifled a small
chuckle.
Danny put a chubby fist under Paul’s chin.
“Shut up, Serena.”
There was a pause, and then Danny
produced a large wad of money from his pocket. “I want a Coke.”
“Why is it that, every day, you feel it
necessary to wave around
big wads of cash?” said Paul,
“Does it make you feel important? Do you think that, if you’ve
got money, people won’t be repulsed by
you? Where do you get it, anyway?”
“He pimps for his mom,” said Craig.
“Like I said, where do you get all that
money?”
Danny knocked Paul’s books from his
hand. “Ha ha!” he said
as Paul mocked crying. He
wandered (wobbled) away to the vending machine.
“Wow!” said Paul sarcastically, “It’s like a
great weight has
been lifted from my shoulders. A great
big, huge, annoying, perverted weight.”
“No,” said Craig, “the weight’s always there,
it’s just distributed
different.”
Another person joined them at the pole. This
person was different
from the usual group of guys
that hung around the pole in the respect that she was not a guy. She
leaned against the pole, too, and also
against Craig, who wrapped his arm around her.
“Hi, Lindsey” said Paul.
“Hel-lo, Paul,” said a voice that was
definitely not Lindsay’s.
Paul said a quick prayer, asking for
God’s protection as he turned.
“Oh, hello, Doug. For the love of God,
please don’t hurt
me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Doug, who, in
fact would dream of
it (and also plot it, carry it out,
write a book about it, and sell the movie rights.)
“But, Doug,” said Sean, “that’s not what you
said on our way
down here, you said...”
“Quiet, Fool! The Victim mustn’t know of
the Evil Plot
devised to end his life!” admonished
Doug with his usual flair for drama. Doug is one of those people
that has it good. He’s immensely creative,
more than a little sadistic, and is big enough and smart enough to
pull off many of the convoluted visions of
sadism that dance within his brain. He is also a health
hazard.
Prolonged exposure to Doug has been known
to cause extensive bruising, massive internal bleeding, fractures of
major bones, and in some cases,
stress-induced cardiac arrest.
Sean is also quite creative and endowed with a
twisted sense
of humor, yet isn’t as painful to be
around. He won’t kidney punch you because it’s overcast outside
or hang you by your eyelids because you
don’t blink often enough.
“I’m going to stand, uh, over here now.”
said Paul.
He shuffled quickly in a random direction.
“Ye-es,” Doug said conspiratorially, “You
stand right there.”
But Paul wasn’t listening. He was
watching. He frowned and clenched his jaw. Craig rolled
his eyes as he followed Paul’s gaze.
“Christ, Paul. Three words: GET
OVER IT!”
“If you know how, I’m all ears.”
“Really?” piped Sean, “Looks like you’ve
got arms and legs
and...”
“It was something called a ‘figure of speech,’
Sean. Can
you say ‘figure of speech?’ C’mon, I
know you can...” said Paul in a mock-patronizing tone.
“’Figure...of... speech.’ Oh,
yeah. Figure of speech.
Right. Got it. Yaaay!” Sean bounced up and
down happily. “I’m smart now!”
“Good. That’s just terrific. I’m
very proud of you.
Now back to my problems. Why don’t any of
the chicks in this school, one in particular, have any taste in
men?
Let’s ponder this.” Paul leaned on the
wall and made an exaggerated expression of concentration. “Hmmm.”
“Lindsay’s got good taste in men,” said Craig,
smiling and patting
her on the head. Lindsey looked
smug.
“No she doesn’t.” said everyone else in
unison.
Looking indignant, Lindsey folded her arms and
pouted. Craig
pretended to ignore the remark, but
wondered if it were true, and said, “What’s your problem?
Whatsizface
is gone, there’s no one in the way
now. Just get it over with and ask her out again.”
“But we’ve already established that no one in
this school has
any taste in men,” countered Paul.
“So then she’ll say yes,” said Craig.
This comment invited
an insincere “brick wall” from Paul, who
had seen the remark coming a mile away anyway.
“Besides,” added Paul, “if she turned me down
again you’d have
to put up with my self-pitying
griping for months on end.”
“So what would be any different from the last
four months?” said
Craig.
Doug, being the nice guy he is, smiled, patted
Paul on the shoulder
(much harder than was
necessary, to Paul’s dismay), and offered, “We’ll club her and drag
her to your house for you.” He smiled
expectantly. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he would
do it if Paul said he should, or even that
he’d do it anyway. Such were the workings of Doug’s mind.
As appreciative of Doug’s generosity as he
was, Paul felt he
had to decline. “No, something tells
me that wouldn’t work too well. I’m thinking more along the lines
of drugs or brainwashing.”
“Aw, you’re no fun,” said Doug. Doug was
lying. Paul
was loads of fun for Doug, in the same
way a gimpy mouse is fun for a cat.
“Looking at you, I’m thinking using all three
would be necessary,”
Craig smiled.
Paul flipped him the bird. “No,” he
said, “I’m not any
fun. That’s probably why I’m still alive.”
Just then, Danny came back. He was
gripping a Cherry Coke
in his fat hand. It is a well known
fact that one Danny Wrigley has more mass than most average small
stars.
This being the case, he would
naturally have an immensely stronger gravitational field and would
essentially be a living black hole. As
Danny walks down the street people, small animals, cars, and
miscellaneous
other objects should be sucked
into Danny, which is a fate I would wish upon no one. Thankfully,
Mother Nature has somehow
compensated. Against all reason things are not sucked toward
Danny and squashed into oblivion at his
Event Horizon, instead we must merely tolerate his existence.
I’m not sure which is a more disturbing
prospect.
“Tell me,” Paul
addressed everyone, “How is it that you...humans deal with these, uh...
these,
er, short word for random electrical and chemical reactions and stimuli
in the brain... starts with ‘E’...”
“Eggs?” asked Craig.
“Eggplants?” said Sean.
“Edward?” said Lindsey.
“Who’s Edward?” Craig asked suspiciously.
“You people are all idiots. Obviously
he’s talking about
ergonomically designed mattresses,” Doug
said. “Fools.”
“Oh, I know...ego!”
“Eggo waffles.”
Paul grew tired of the light mocking of his
problems, rolled
his eyes, and said, “Pathetic humans.
The word I’m looking for is emotions. None of you are worthy
of salvation. When my people invade, none
of you shall be saved. Except maybe you,” he pointed at Lindsey,
waggling his eyebrows.
“Hey, back off, pal,” Craig said protectively.
“Okay, she’ll die with the rest of you.
Well, anyway, I
can’t believe I’m letting it get to me like
this. It’s remarkably inconvenient. I should be able to
exercise better control over myself.”
“Paul, you can’t even keep regular control over your
bladder,”
said Danny.
“I think I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, for your own well
being.
I think the universe exists solely to
irritate me. Some higher power thinks it’s funny to pester me
with...Sweet Jesus! Did you feel that?” Paul
looked around in confusion as he regained his balance. Everyone
wore similar expressions of genuine
confusion.
“Huh?” they chorused.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that...It was
like a huge shockwave
slammed into me. I’m amazed
that I wasn’t reduced to an organic sludge on the opposite wall!”
“The universe is mad at you for figuring out
its plans,” said
Sean.
“Must be. It ain’t wise to go thwarting
the universe.
Bad things happen when you try to thwart
the universe,” Craig said matter-of-factly. There were general
nods and murmurs of agreement. They all
also took a small shuffling step away from Paul.
“I’m not insane. Something happened.”
“Well, of course something happened, Paul,”
Doug said sympathetically,
“We all felt it, too. Huh,
guys?” Everyone nodded vigorously.
“Be serious. I wasn’t imagining
it. And I’m not insane.”
“No, of course not, Paul. Everyone else
is insane,”
assured Doug.
“Stop mocking me.” It was then that the
final bell rang.
The small crowd dispersed to the different
corners of the school except for Paul, Craig, and Lindsey.
“It’s Tuesday?” asked Lindsey, who never knew
the day of the
week.
“Monday,” Craig said.
“Bummer,” she said. “Well, I’ll see you
at lunch.”
“Bye,” Craig told her.
“Bye,” Paul said to her. She waved as
she turned to walk
away. Craig and Paul went in the
opposite direction, headed for the stairs. “I really did feel
something. I’m being serious.”
“Sure.”
“Maybe I’m just tired.”
Craig shrugged. “Maybe.” They
walked in silence till
they were at the stairs, then Paul said, “I
really hate Mondays. Nothing could make them worse.”
“Oh, I’m sure the universe will find a way to
make it worse,
just because you said that.”
“You’re probably right. Well, bye.
And, Craig?”
“What?”
“I am not insane.”
“Of course not. Just be nice to the men
in the white coats
when they come for you.”
“Hmmph.”
Craig veered into the hallway and Paul took
off to the left,
heading for his locker. He managed to
open it in two tries and tossed the half-full bottle of Mr. Pibb
in.
It was time to go take a test, oh boy, oh
boy, oh boy.
part 3