Nervous breakthrough.

After much deliberation the jury has decided to continue

A Memoir, part 2 of 4

High School Gets Fun

In 1999, I practically became a new person. I got a job working at Wendy’s. I ditched my nerdy glasses for contact lenses. And most importantly, I became an athlete.

I had run track in middle school, where the longest race was a meager 800 meters, but I took a hiatus when high school began. About a week into the first semester of junior year, I ventured to a cross-country practice. Cross-country was the fall running sport in high school, with half a dozen 5K races each season. I was nervous as hell; I didn’t know anyone there, I hadn’t run in a couple of years, and the coach was the permanently gruff Mister Banks. Mr Banks arrived before practice each day in his red Pontiac Grand Prix, wearing an immaculate business suit, back from his job at — irony — a bank. The most uncharacteristic act I ever witnessed was Mr Banks playing hacky sack with us before a practice.

In any case, my friend Urica introduced me:

“He can play the violin really well,” which was true enough. But Mr Banks’ question was:

“But can he run?”

Initially, no. My first practice we ran seven miles, possibly the most painful experience of my life up to that point. But pain has a cathartic attraction, and pride and peer pressure kept me running. There was something magical about the stomach-sick nervous prelude to a race, the twenty-minute unconsciousness and the floating relief of completion. Besides, shared trauma is a great source of camaraderie.

To cope with my new caloric needs I began drinking copious amounts of Gatorade, a phenomenon noted by my teammate “Phreaky” Phil. Phil would shout out a spirited “GATORADE!” whenever I passed by on the track; apparently even the reminder of my favorite beverage summoned a boost of speed. Phil, I owe it all to you.

I should also note Phil’s more famous achievement, removing the pen Excalibur from it’s cap, making him the first black King of England. The unthinkable occurred, however, when Shock also unsheathed Excalibur. Fortunately, the two compromised, and a mural depicting the joint rule of Britain hovers over the cafeteria at Great Bridge High to this day.

An unexpected benefit of my running was a new religious phase. As the newest and slowest runner on the team, I got to spend many a long mile with the assistant coach, Mr Robinson. Burton Robinson’s main interest as assistant coach, as far as I could tell, was to keep an eye on his son, Chris, who had just joined the team as a freshman. His second interest became inviting me to the church he pastored, and with all the time we had on those runs, I was invited frequently. At the time, I had been teaching myself guitar, and I made the mistake of mentioning to Mr Robinson that I “played” guitar. I made the even greater mistake of assenting to play guitar at a youth group function at his church.

Youth group, a weekly event, was just about as generic and undirected as its (lack of) name. Needless to say, standards were not high, and my barely amateur guitar work was well-received. Amidst the cheesy songs and relentless ice-breaking games (which we dutifully performed week after week despite the lack of newcomers), I found a new kind of friendship. With other groups, the price of admission was a sense of humor, style or good looks. Youth group instead catered to the lowest common denominator, at least in theory. Some kids came to youth group out of habit, because of parental pressure or to fulfill some social need. Some, like Shock, came for the girls, a mistake I’ll get to later. And then there were Russ and CJ.

In social situations, very few of us are risk-takers. We sink or rise to a level where we feel comfortable, where we aren’t terribly out of place. We avoid competition and therefore find a niche within a group that allows us to fulfill our social needs. For example, there are those who inflate their self-esteem by beating up less assertive people. But when you do so by winning football games at a church youth group, you’ve sunk pretty low. CJ and Russ would terrorize the smaller and more timid youths like Chris and Kevin, to whom the leader Skip’s only consoling words were: “Boys will be boys.” Skip and the rest of the adult leadership (many of whom were parents of youth group members) were constantly locked in meaningless political debate about the direction and control of the group. Despite the disintegration that occurred shortly after I graduated, most of the youth group alumni seem to have turned out fairly normal, as far as I know.

Certainly it was a flawed organization, but it provided important outlets for my teenage angst and social awkwardness. Amidst my conflicting emotions, the opportunity to yield to the mystical was an escape I admit I sometimes miss. And the ease at which I was able to impress others by my false piety has never again presented itself, providing a startling insight into my character. I found I could gain social power within the group by affecting a humble-yet-holy attitude. Thereafter I have been suspicious of spiritual leaders; their only credentials are smooth talking and the ability to manipulate a willing audience.

The End Is the Beginning Is the End

Shock: “A llama walks into a bar, and the bartender says, ‘What are you doing in here? You are a llama!’ ”
Patrick laughs uncontrollably.
Everyone else in uncomfortable silence.

By senior year, I was about as well-rounded as I would ever be. Not only had I lettered in three sports (never mind that they were all just different types of running) and involved myself in various religious groups, but I was also beginning to enjoy moderate success as a violinist. Orchestra had always been a fun class, with built-in social opportunities, field trips and other reasons to miss school. Early on we were led by the lovable Mr V, who was later replaced by the less lovable Mr Husser, who kicked me out of his class at least three times (in the last case, I was visiting as a graduate). The fastest ways to get on Mr Husser’s nerves were talking in class, and making noises with one’s instrument, both specialties of mine. Even more deadly than the wrath of Mr Husser, however, was the ire of Leslie Stewart, director of the Bay Youth Symphony Orchestra (BYSO). She could wilt anyone with her evil stare. In any case, the BYSO was a prestigious ensemble consisting of students in bands and orchestras throughout Hampton Roads, performing classical masterworks by Bach, Dvorak, Gershwin and Stravinsky. The most exciting performance I recall included both a piece called Threnody, which successfully intended to sound like the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, which included a full choir. So I may have been a little out of place, but it was a fun challenge nonetheless.

Two classes stood out senior year: Chemistry and English. Teaching Advanced Placement Chemistry was Mrs Gonyo, a very well-educated and intelligent Norwegian-American whose hobby was dressage (it has something to do with horses). The highlight of the class (aside from making ice cream, trying to blow up stuff, and creating hilariously loud powerpoint presentations) was the daily quote board. It all started when, on a whim, I wrote on the board something akin to: “By the time you read this, three bazillion people in the world will have died.” Obviously, there was a real number, but I forget what it was. Mrs Gonyo, dismayed by this statistic, demanded that I provide us with happier information next time. By the end of the year, an entire chalkboard was devoted to our quips and quotes, highlights from which are provided for your enjoyment:

• “It’s made in China; that’s how you know it’s bad.” —Peng Peng
• “Superman can leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but some people just run into things.” —Mr Gatje
• “My hair is like the Strait of Gibraltar.” —Matt
• “Munter’s the man!” —Mike
• “I’m disgusted by the lack of wall flip pictures in the yearbook.” —Chris
• “That’s metafigurative.” —Patrick
• “I used to enjoy Life, but now I eat Cheerios.” —Patrick
• “I’m still spelling it boullyaj!” —Patrick
• “Many hands make light work. That’s why it takes so many people to change a light bulb.” —Patrick
• “Suh-wheat!” —Patrick
• “Mmggbtd…” —Patrick
• “Revenge makes you late for track practice.” —Patrick
• “When it comes to nachos, not even death gets in the way.” —Patrick
• “If you’re going to fight for truth and justice, don’t wear your best trousers.” —Patrick
• “Chemistry is Fam’ly Fohn!” —Shock
• “Remember always: snake is long, but life is short!” —Shock
• “Word up, yo. Zing! Ow!” —Shock
• “People aren’t perfect, but chips are.” —Shock
• “Mrs Gonyo isn’t here today, so the class is a democracy.” —Sump
• “This is not a democracy…I rule!” —Mrs Gonyo
• “Munter, the gas is on.” —Mrs Gonyo
• “Do you know Kim-Chi?” —Daniel

On the other hand, the most unrelentingly unusual teacher I ever had was Mr Conover, teacher of Advanced Placement English Literature. Now, on the whole, I read some really good books that year. But I also suffered through the likes of Moby Dick and Middlemarch. In any case, Mr Conover, or “Chuck,” as Karen so affectionately called him, was a rather corpulent, long-winded fellow. Okay, let’s be honest. He was hugely fat, and he never shut up. He would start long diatribes with “At the risk of…” or “I’d like to draw out the implications of this passage…” and never missed an opportunity to mention sexual connotations in poems about swans. He played and danced a jig on the tin whistle in the parking lot during fire drills. He organized his chalk by length and color. He graded papers with a complicated matrix of letters, numbers, arrows, plusses and minuses, stars and circles. And he had three rules written in yellow chalk on the rightmost part of the chalkboard:

1. Primp and preen in the restroom.
2. Be on time.
3. Be polite.

Every time I got there before he did, I removed two r’s and an n from rule number one, making it:

1. Pimp and pee in the restroom.

Mr Conover started out with mild exhortations, asking us refrain from modifying his rules. After about a week, however, he was livid, and stunned us with an half-hour tirade about our immaturity. Afterwards, I made a recommendation:

“Mr Conover, you know if you changed ‘be on time’ to ‘be punctual,’ then your rules would all have the letter p in them.”
“You know, Patrick,” he said, “that’s a good idea.”

I wonder if he ever suspected.

I asked Caitie to the prom. It went something like this:

“Hey Caitie do you wanna go to the prom?”
“Sure.”
“Cool.”

Prom night was actually close to being the big deal they make it out to be. We went out to some Italian place under the nom de guerre “Smithers-McGhee, party of 12.” Kevin’s car broke down and we thought he had ditched Alison. Jessica actually ditched Shock. And I stayed up till dawn at the after-prom party, where I jousted, played poker, and won a pair of candle-holders. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

AP exams, senior skip day, graduation parties, the ceremony, the crying, the laminated pocket-sized diploma; it all happened too quickly to take in, but I was more than ready to get out of school. The summer after high school and before college was carefree and exhilarating: I went to King’s Dominion (a theme park) twice, and Busch Gardens (another theme park) probably a dozen times. But more importantly, it was the last time all of my high school friends and I were together before we began blazing our own trails into adulthood. Going to college was my first step into the larger world, and my last step out of the chaotic human drama of high school; I had no idea how unprepared I was to take that step.

There is more from whence that came.