My punishment turned out to not be as bad as I thought. I was still
allowed to hang out with friends on nights and weekends and as I
mentioned I was burning up the phone lines lamenting my unjust
treatment. When I came back to school there was a lot of rumor,
exaggeration, and insinuation in the air and I tried to let it stay
up there. Even though the behavior that led to my suspension had
developed in a very organic, bottom-up desire to make people laugh
the story sounded more like I was off the rails and just didn't care.
One girl that sat next to me in history wanted to know why I got so
mad that I broke a chair over a kids head and nearly killed him.
Because, You know? That is how she had heard it. Well, I would say,
sometimes you just have to unleash hell.
I had been in two fights at my new school both with Hispanic kids and
both fights had looked rather violent but had mostly been me falling
down. I am not sure what conclusions about me you can gather from
that but I must include that my best friend at the time was, and I
guess still is, Hispanic (I mean he is still Hispanic not still my
best friend, we are still good friends but not best friends). So, it
is not that I was a racist, if that is what you were thinking and I
know it may have crossed your mind. It was not that I was
particularly brave or violent, I am a fairly cowardly pacifist. All I
can say is that I kind of liked my new bad boy reputation and I
didn't correct any of the chair-breaking-over-head vs.
me-falling-backwards-off-of-a-chair-that-broke-from-repeated-misuse
misunderstandings. It would probably just confuse the issue. I
started being welcome with the hard-A kids that sat a t the back and
didn't give a damn. I always wanted to hang out with these kids
because they were the coolest. A really pretty girl named Summer even
invited me to a party at her house, and it was one of those mythical
parties of Junior High lore, a non-chaperoned boy/girl party. I was
really digging this new school. Some other boys and girls invited me
to skip class and go hang out at there house a couple of blocks from
the school. We just went and sat around talking but the thrill of
just blowing off class was amazing. It was not all good though the
teachers evidently talk in secret rooms just for teachers and my
story was evidently well known because when I came back from
suspension I got extra special treatment right off the bat in several
of my new classes. In my carrers class which was the third
installment of the TLC trifecta the teacher didn't even talk to me
when I walked into the room he just pointed at me and said, ' Gause,
to the back.' He then indicated a chair well away from all of the
other students and behind his desk at the back of the room facing
into the wall. I tried to turn the chair to face front and he yelled
back to me that it was facing the wall on purpose and I was to leave
it how it was. Cool. No, actually uncool. Some of my other teachers
mentioned something to me or warned me about misbehavior and others
said they had no idea why my punishment had been so harsh because
they thought I was a great student.
