"In Which Reality is a Teenage Purgatory Known as High School"

(Pt. 1)

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High School. Society's bright idea to put all their aggressive, naïve youth into one environment to torment and emotionally scars each other for life."

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Chris Colfer, Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal

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September 13

8:45 AM

Belle Mont Prep

https://youtu.be/BN1WwnEDWAM

"Darling you gotta let me know, should I stay or should I go?"

I mouth along to the chord progression of The Clash's 'Should I Stay or Should I Go', my fingers itching to twiddle on an air-guitar.

It was the perfect tune for the view in front of me.

Belle Mont Prep. Or, as I call it, Averill's very own teenage purgatory.

An essentialist's paradise for learning where every kid is taught and raised to be mindful and ready for what life — and adulthood — has to offer ahead. 

It was a place of never-ending high school drama that is borderline cliché. It was also a place where integrity, teamwork, excellence, and diversity are easily overshadowed by petty status quos, stereotyped cliques, and petty bribes.

Even its students weren't any better.

To maintain the status quo, the majority immerse themselves in a sociocultural reality driven by imagery and hype.

It was where your social worth is determined by how wide and deep your parents' wallets are, what type of car you drive, and which gated community you come from.

Also, let's not forget about dressing and looking the part of a societal priss who takes great pride in acquiring the latest trends and knows when to exert caution from wearing last season's Prada or Gucci

I trek along the massive parking lot, passing some expensive cars on the way. Not that I care. I can only name several car brands with one hand.

I give a light sidekick to a brand-new Audi.

BEEP... BEEP... BEEP, its ear-splitting alarm system echoes throughout the empty parking lot.

Oh-h-h-kay, shouldn't have done that.

I snicker.

Well, at least when no one's inside to scare the boner out of them.

I ignore the beeping car.

I slump my shoulders at the sight of the 'proud and fine' institution before me. Its steel-plated name, along with the school insignia plastered at the top of the main building, gleams in the daylight.

I'm not really looking forward to seeing a bunch of students with their self-entitled air around them — not that all students are like that, in general. 

As luck would have it, there are also the normies (kids from other less well-off neighborhoods whose only public school had to shut down from a lack of funding) enrolled here.

Besides, the school wasn't really as bad as it is on the inside. On the outside, it was an architectural sight to see.

Instead of keeping up with the typical 'bland' design that most schools are associated with, Belle Mont Prep's structures took their inspiration from a modern industrial style of architecture.

With its strong unified form and its sweeping play of structure and angles consisting of flat roofs, steel frameworks, and reinforced concrete, it was an institution stripped of chaos and built on strong clean lines accentuated by shades of deep space blue and squash.

Ironic that it was just a gold foil wrapped around the reality that the school is like a factory production of future industry workers that have been conditioned to conform to society's standards of success.

What's worse, it was a charter school being run by condescending rich kids. Ain't that a great setting for high school dramas and reality TV shows?

Why hasn't anybody called the Kardashians* yet?

Uh-oh, I think I know where North West* is gonna go to school.

Somebody call TMZ!*

Just kidding. She lives in California, anyway.

And that concludes the brief and entertaining tour of this wonderful and illustrious school.

I make a quick turn to the right, not bothering to enter the grand entrance and head straight to the school garage around the corner.

Standing by the steel-paneled garage doors, a tall wiry man in his late 50s nurses a half-lit cigarette between two thin veined hands.

His olive-green coveralls, what once must've been stark against the deep sepia shade of his skin, looks like it had seen better days in the past decades when it was not too starched or littered with stains.

He lifts his hat and places it on his head, adjusting it over his short salt-and-pepper hair. 

He looks up and narrows his sunken-eyed gaze in my direction.

"Hey, Ave!" Wilbur, one of the school janitors, waves me over with a tobacco-stained smile on his narrow face. 

He takes one last puff before snuffing the cigarette butt on the ground with his shoe.

I take off my headphones as I stop a few feet from him.

"Hey Willie, how's it hanging?" I ask as we share a quick high-five.

"Same old, same old" — he sighs, his weathered brows shooting up in mock exasperation — "I'm getting too old for this shit, but, a job's a job" — he shrugs, stuffing his hands inside the deep pockets of his overalls — "I gotta go clean up another mess. Who would've thought it would be funny to rig the AC with pepper spray in Mathers' office yesterday. They're still trying to find the kid responsible for it."

I smirk slightly, giving myself a secret pat on the back.

He shoots me a knowing glance.

I sigh and roll my eyes. "That's stupid. Every student knows it's better to die than to be a snitch.*" Except for those willing to commit social suicide, I decided not to add on.

"Never said they had any brighter ideas than that," he chuckles, causing the air to fly toward me, his breath still carrying the scent of nicotine. 

He nods at my bag. "Where you off to, anyway?"

"Class. You wouldn't happen to be charitable and help a kid here get to her class?" I bat my eyelashes at him.

Willie just shakes his head, probably used to other female students pulling the same puppy-dog eyes at him.

He pulls out another cigarette from his breast pocket and puts it in between his lips. He takes out a lighter from his other breast pocket. 

With the cigarette still securely wedged between his lips, he lights up his cigarette and takes a short drag. "Depends. Who'd you get?"

"Crankston."

"Ugh," he wrinkles his nose and blows a cloud of smoke in disdain.

He knew all too well what the students had been saying behind Crankston's back.

"Well, it won't be cheap" — he rubs his two fingers with his thumb — "What'cha" — he turns his head from side to side, looking out in case someone walks by on our 'shady backdoor dealing' — got for me?"

I grin. 

The advantage of knowing the janitors is that they can hook you up with almost anything in school and get away with it.

This includes safe passages inside the school for latecomers like me. Idealistically, it's like an underground mafia smuggling scene — where, instead of prostitutes or stolen organs, they smuggle students. For a price.

I pull out a paper bag with a café's logo printed on top of it and hand it to him. 

Eyeing me still, he takes it from me. He opens the bag as if to check if there is something inside aside from shredded paper.

"Your favorite, of course," I say as he fishes out a delicious sugary confection.

He looks at me excitedly, resembling a child being handed the key to a candy store. "Bear claws*, Skittles, and coffee?" — he gives me another toothy grin — "Kid, you spoil me."

I chuckle, hands tucked in my pockets. "Anything for you, Willie. Hallway clear?"

Willie tucks the bag in his arm. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny remote. He clicks the button and one of the garage panels opens — big enough to fit a single-car driveway.

"Already ran a clean sweep a few minutes ago. You're clear to go," he says in a muffled voice, a brand new cigarette lodged between his lips.

"Thanks, Willie. Wish me luck," I wink at him.

"G'luck, kid! By the way, you should know I would've helped you out even without the bribe."

I turn around and shoot him with an impish smirk. "And I could've tampered with the fire alarm" — not that I would. I don't want to risk being at the mercy of Tia's wrath for making her miss a quiz that she studied for — "but I didn't, and I still would've given them to you," I shrug and proceed inside.

He barks in laughter from behind me.

I pass through the endless arrays of model cars and motorcycles. Spare parts of engines were placed by the tables that lined the sides of the room.

Wrenches, Pliers, hammers, pry bars, and other doohickey auto tools hang on hooks that were wedged tightly to the corkscrew boards plastered to the wall.

The lights slightly flicker, shining over the smooth wooden floors. My boots make a silent squeak at every step. The room for Crankston's class was only five classrooms away on my left.

My playlist plays another song.

"Doo doo doo-doo doo doodoodoo

Doo doo doo-doo doo doodoodoo

Doo doo doo-doo doo doodoo doo..."

https://youtu.be/U16Xg_rQZkA

I bop my head slightly to the rhythm.

"Rebel Rebel, you've torn your dress," I lip-synch to the voice of the one and only Halloween Jack.*

"Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess

Rebel Rebel, how could they know?

Hot tramp, I love you so!" 

I pump my fist upwards, two more classrooms and I'm at Crankston's class.

Oh, joy.

Sarcasm. Pure sarcasm, right there.

Suddenly, a pale hand clamps on my shoulder and drags me to a nearby-secluded corner before I can react. The force of the movement makes my headphones slide down to my neck.

He wraps an arm over my shoulders and pulls me closer to his long lissome body. From the way he's breathing near the top of my head, he was taller than me.

I slip my phone into my jacket pocket. The song from my headphones sounds off like a distant humming in the back of my mind.

I twist my abductor's hand, not to break it, but to apply agonizing pressure on it. Judging from the yelp of pain behind me, I was on point.

Smiling darkly, I twisted my body around, taking his arm with me until I was behind him.

He struggles in front of me, twisting violently to free his arm from my vice grip. 

I chuckle in amusement at his poor attempts. I twist his hand again, forcing him to bend his back an inch or two to have him at face level with me.

In a low voice, I whisper to his ear. "Nice try. You better have a good explanation for me to try to sneak—Was zumTeuful!"

WHAT THE FUCK!

(To be Cont.)

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Moral Lesson: befriend the school custodians. You'll never know, you're gonna need their help.

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PLAYLIST

(in order)

Should I Stay or Should I Go — The Clash

Rebel Rebel — David Bowie

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TRANSLATION

Was zum Teufel?! — What the fuck?!

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*[F/N]*

Kardashians — a family of celebrities famous for the hit reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

North West —Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's daughter.

TMZ — a tabloid journalism online newspaper

 Snitch — slang for a tattletale.

Bear claws — a sweet, yeast-raised pastry, usually filled with almond paste, and sometimes raisins. It got its name from the shape of the pastry once it's baked. 

Halloween Jack  — one of David Bowie's many personas.

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Copyright © 2017 Lei André