The non-chronological collected works of my misspent youth, with notes, for your reading pleasure. Most names have been changed because I probably didn't ask you first.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Faking It: Journal, Early November 1993


The whole cast of “Blithe Spirit” is mostly in trouble with The Director right now because we can’t be bothered to learn our lines. Yesterday The Director got so angry that she threw the script at the wall and screamed and walked off stage threatening to quit. And Alex whispered “That would be amazing, you crazy old drunk hag.” Then, he and I went to [the pool hall across the street] and pretended to be Bobby Joe and Olga[1].

Anyway, we’re all so bad at our parts that the headmaster gave us a day off classes to study lines. Which is kind of awesome because I don’t have to see how disappointed Mr. M is that I didn’t do my math homework.

Anyway, I’m still on this rotten sofa, reflecting on the personalities of the people in the play and listening to the fluorescent bulb buzz over my head. I don’t have to go back on stage for another twenty pages so I can just hang out here and watch the pipes.

God, I need a cigarette.

We took a break during conference period and Denise & I went down to leave an offering at the homoerotic chapel[2] and then we hung out in the grass by the chapel and tried to pretend it wasn’t witch’s titty cold outside. Frank came by and tried to talk to us about knives and Denise kept trying to make the same joke because Frank is Swiss and Swiss Army Knives.

Next weekend is the Christ School Game. I could die before then therefore not have to watch football[3]. There might be a party at the S & G [4]house. Denise is going to try and talk Rebecca into it. Hopefully, this time she won’t invite all the guys from Asheville High and I won’t puke all over the back hallway again. I will never be able to show my face . . .


[1] My high school was located in the center of, what had been for decades, a predominately white, blue collar quadrant of the city (it has significantly gentrified since then). There was a seedy pool hall across the street, largely frequented by a shitkicker clientele and the occasional boarding  student looking for a place to smoke without getting busted. I’m amazed they even let us in there, but no more so the fact that Alex never had his ass handed to him for being an entitled shit in a polo shirt putting on his best broad Eastern Kentucky dialect and acting out offensive Appalachian caricatures with me over the pool table.

Have I mentioned recently that I am ashamed of my past? Because I am.


[2] A small-ish bronze cast of “The Good Samaritan” set back in the alcove in the basement of one of the Boys’ Dorms, in which both parties were naked, well-endowed young men. Denise & I regularly left clover and pennies and paperclips in the Samaritan’s bowl.

[3] Our school’s historic football rivalry. Student attendance was compulsory at the game, despite the fact that we weren’t much of a football school and most of us couldn’t give a rat’s ass about who won. Mostly games consisted of our side (a coed school) taunting the other side (a boys’ school) with non-sports related cheering—“We don’t mess with sheep. Hey! —and laughing at how the other side would actually hire out cheerleaders from a local county high school (our “cheerleaders” were members of the boy’s soccer team wearing pre-“Braveheart” blue face paint and girls’ field hockey kilts). That particular year, my friends received a censorious look from the administration for leading an “On the altar 1-2-3, get the nails, Kill Kill” cheer just before halftime.

[4] Due to the very small degree of parental oversight and the very large amount of readily available alcohol, my friend Rebecca’s house was known  as the “Sodom and Gomorrah” house for much of my senior year.

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