6/09/2006

1997 pt. I: The last Tango in High School

Exactly nine years ago to this day I was thrown out of class by my High school Physics Teacher because, well, because it was a Monday and I had to pee so bad and it was almost noon, I was hungry and I was bored beyond belief, god, it´s a wonder we all actually got out of High School with most of our mental faculties intact but anyway. So the teacher all of a sudden said he was wrapping up with these calculations or something on the blackboard- I was oblivious to everything, probably reading something tucked under my desk and was paying zero attention- so I decided to laugh a little and gathered up my stuff just for kicks and stood up and pretended to say goodbye. Boy, guy sure got sore, go figure.
I was 17 years old.

So there was I was, expelled from class with about half an hour to spare. I was obviously sent to see the Principal over disciplinary issues but it was my last year in High School and to that day I´d avoided seeing the Principal in every occasion they´d sent me upstairs so of course I was pretty adamant in dodging the bullet once again. Like they could get me in High School for chrissakes, buncha twits…
Her secretary was an old friend to my mother so we kind of went a way back. I sat on the couch outside the Principal´s office for a bit (had to walk the walk with the Hall Monitor, by the way), made small talk with the secretary, then simply got up and headed for the bathroom, then to the library.

Coolest thing about the library back in High School was everything but the books. Ever since they´d disappeared with all cool books back in Seventh Grade (by “cool” I mean a shelf once filled with Erich von Daniken books, which are utter crap for grownups but paradise for a 13-year old kid, those books long since burned by the local Thought Police) we´d all cram up in the back aisles and shelves to look over old photos or fool around with pretty girls.
K. are you reading this? I got this close to kissing your cousin there once when she was teaching me how to Tango. Tango in the back-aisles of the library. High School was so cool in a relative kind of way- I didn´t get to kiss her but damn I guess I fondled her up a bit & she was so pretty, had those big… Dude, whatever happened to that girl anyway? Daniel´s mom told me a few months ago that she´d moved back here and now lives just a few blocks away from my place…
But I digress.

Anyway, there I was fresh out of my Physics class looking for some John Constantine comics in the library which I was sure Andreas had stashed behind some old, unwanted grammars but the bell rang and I rushed outside to catch the bus home.
I met a classmate on the way to the bus stop and he was laughing at me, making fun that I was kicked out of class, etc, then he got really serious for a split-second and said, “Your fun had to end one day or another” which I think to this day it´s the most ominous thing I´ve ever heard even though it was still 1997 and a few years before the lights finally went out & the world got so serious & I had to get so serious myself.

Still we had a whole semester ahead of us & nothing to worry about & plenty of money flowing in & about a billion friends all over (I had seven friends called Fernando back in ´97 so you get the idea) but it was all so boring. God how I counted the days for High School to end, I was never really into being 17 and all that, too many smiles under empty eyes, I guess.

But there were good bits too and we made the most of them.