Al Steiner - Doing It All Over

I made sure my alarm clock was set for the proper time and turned it on. I then lay down and turned out the lights. For the longest time I still couldn't sleep, fearful of what I'd find upon awakening. But at last my mind was able to shut down and I drifted off. CLICK. "So if you're tired of the saaaaame old story. Ohhhhh, turn some pages. I'll be here when you are ready, to roll with the changes…" Came the voice of Kevin Cronin from my clock radio the next morning. REO Speedwagon. Another blast from the past. A song I hadn't heard in years. My eyes opened and I saw the now familiar confines of my teenaged bedroom. I was still here! I felt like shouting with joy. Still here! Tracy was looking someone haggard as she combed her hair at her desk. Her face was pale and her eyes had bags beneath them. She looked up at me as I headed to the shower. "Morning Trace. " I told her. "Morning. " She said slowly, her eyes trying to read my face. "Sleep well?" I asked her. "No. " She told me. "I was awake most of the night. When I did sleep I had horrible nightmares. " I nodded. "I'm sorry about that. " I said. "They'll pass. Just remember what I said. " "I will. " She told me. "I don't think I could ever forget it. " "Good. " I muttered, walking to the bathroom and closing the door behind me. Dad, as usual had the newspaper before him at the breakfast table. As I slurped down my cereal I asked him if I could see the business section. "The business section?" He asked, raising his brow again. "Yeah. " I told him. "I'm just curious about something. " He shrugged and handed it over, going back to his perusal of the front page while I opened my section to the stock market report. I scanned through the list of publicly traded stocks for a few minutes, happening across several that seemed good prospects but, most importantly, not seeing the one that would be an absolute killer investment. I smiled to myself. So it wasn't on the stock market yet. Good. "Find what you were looking for?" Dad asked as I sat the section back down in his pile. "I think so. " I told him. "Have you ever considered investing in the stock market?" He lowered his paper and looked at me, his eyes taking in my face, finally concluding that I wasn't joking. "Not really. " He answered. "I have my pension plan from the school district. The stock market seems like kind of a gamble. " "In a way it is. " I agreed. "But if you could pick the right stocks and invest heavily in them, you could really make some money, couldn't you?" "Ahh," He said. "But that's the trick. You have to pick the right stocks. If you pick the wrong ones, your money is down the toilet. It would take either someone with a lot more market savvy than I have or a genuine psychic to make a killing in the market. " "A genuine psychic huh?" I smiled. Tracy, who had been silent during this exchange, gave me a sharp look. "But as far as I know, such creatures are rare. " Dad said. "I suppose. " I said. "But if someone DID have knowledge about which stocks were going to go sky-high in the future, that someone COULD make quite a bit of money. Couldn't they?" "Well sure. " Dad answered. "It's a nice fantasy. Suppose you knew that say, oh, ATT was going to go through the roof next year. If you knew that, you could invest every penny you had in it. When it skyrocketed, you could sell it off at enormous profit. But unfortunately, we don't know that information, do we?" "I guess not. " I said, my mind whirring a mile a minute. "But it IS a nice fantasy. " "So where were you yesterday dude?" Mike asked me as we walked to school that morning. The snow on the ground was almost completely melted and the sun was high in the sky. It was still a little cold but on the whole it was a beautiful Eastern Washington late winter day. "Oh I met up with Raisin and Lonnie. " I said absently. "We went over to Raisin's house and smoked some buds. " "Yeah?" He asked, obviously hurt that he hadn't been there. "Yeah," I nodded. "Debbie was there too. I got to make out with her a little. " "With Debbie?" He asked. "The cock-tease?" "That's her. " I affirmed. "She cock-teased me damn near to death. " He asked for details and I provided him with the story. I knew that would serve to reinforce the story that Lonnie and Raisin would pass around and therefore protect Debbie's reputation. When I was finished he said, "It's too bad you didn't get to fuck her. " He put on a sophisticated look. "I fucked her once you know. " "Oh really?" I asked, as if I believed him. "Yep. At a party at Nick Costigan's one night. I had some weed and she wanted some. I told her she wasn't getting any until she gave up the puss. " He then went on to describe his mythical session with her. Of course he'd made her come six or seven times until she'd begged him for more. He'd then fucked her up the ass, making her come an additional three or four times before he finally 'shot my wad' in her ass. After that she'd always wanted a repeat performance but he'd always turned her down. She was nice in a pinch he told me. "How come you never told me about this BEFORE?" I asked, unable to help myself. He blanched for a minute. I'd just asked a forbidden question. When you were told a pussy story you weren't supposed to question its validity. They might not listen to YOUR pussy stories if you did that. "She asked me not to tell anyone. " He answered. "She didn't want anyone knowing she fucked. " "I see. " I nodded. "So why did you tell me just now?" "Well," He stammered. "It's been a while and I know you won't tell anyone. " "Ahhh. " I nodded. "I get it. " We walked in silence for a few minutes. Finally I asked, "Mike, do you ever think about what you're gonna do AFTER high school?" "What?" "After high school?" I repeated. "It's gonna end some day you know. What are you gonna do with your life?" "You sound like a fuckin' school counselor. " He informed me, almost angrily. "High school ain't ever gonna end man. It's a fuckin' prison. " "In a way. " I allowed. "But some day you'll be freed from it. You ever think about what comes next?" "No. " He said, his tone telling me to drop the subject. "I don't. " Mr. Achmed was surprised to see me hand in homework to him that morning. He was even more surprised to find it was correct. He expressed his pleasure with my work and made a point of calling on me during class. Most of the time I managed to come up with the right answers to his questions. Instead of making me happy however, it kind of pissed me off. Now that I was supplying the right answers to his questions he was paying attention to me. But before, when I was flunking all of his tests and getting an F or a D in his class, I was simply ignored. The same was true for my other teachers. Now I'm not a screaming liberal that likes to blame everyone but the person responsible, but there is a certain amount of responsibility instilled in a teacher isn't there? Why hadn't I been helped along before this? Why had I been allowed to simply sit in class and flunk without even a single pulling aside by a teacher? Cynicism was the answer of course. It was the answer, but it wasn't an excuse. I had been a paramedic and, except for cops, you would be hard pressed to find a more cynical group of people. I had been called out for so much bullshit in the course of my career that I assumed everyone was full of shit until proven otherwise. People called us for hangnails, for colds, for ear infections that their kids had. And they reported these things as finger amputations, difficulty breathing, and head injuries. But never had I acted upon this cynicism. If someone said they were having chest pain, then they were having chest pain and I treated it appropriately even if they were twenty-five year olds only trying to get out of work for the day. If someone said they were short of breath than they were short of breath, even if they were speaking in complete paragraphs. If you acted on your cynicism you would be right probably ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But that one time you were wrong would bite you in the ass hard. My teachers obviously assumed that trying to reach a disinterested student was a waste of time. Most of the time it probably would have been. But sometimes it wouldn't have been. Shouldn't they have been extending at least a little effort when someone like me simply sat in their classrooms and paid no attention? How many people that might have been turned around had just been allowed to sink into the abyss because the teachers assumed they were lost causes and directed their full attention to those that showed an interest in their subjects? I was surprised by how strongly I felt about this subject and was quite pissed off by the time I left Algebra and headed for American History. My feelings were reinforced when I explained to the teacher that I didn't have my homework that day but that I would turn it in tomorrow. "Fine Billy. " She said absently, moving onto the next student, obviously not believing that I was going to turn in anything the next day. Granted I did not make a habit of turning in the homework but had she ever talked to me about this? No. Had she ever called my parents and talked to them about it? No. To her I was a lost cause, unworthy of her attention. She would expend no efforts towards me unless I showed HER that I was interested in her subject. Why wasn't she trying to GET me interested in her subject? Why was she simply letting me sit there every day? What system was encouraging this? Her lecture that day was on the role of Southern abolitionists in the beginnings of the drive towards the Civil War. She portrayed them as saintly people, dedicated to the cause of abolishing the evil institution of slavery. She implied to the class that they were right up there with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in American History. About halfway through I could take no more. I raised my hand. She ignored it for quite some time but finally was forced to call on me. "Yes Billy?" She said. "Do you have a question?" "Yes. " I nodded. "I'm just curious about something. You just told us that the abolitionists used to use protests to influence those southern slaveholders. Exactly what kind of protests are you talking about?" She gave me THE LOOK for a moment and then said, "Well, they used a variety of methods. Boycotts of services and that sort of thing. " "That sort of thing?" I said. "Isn't it true that they used to attack slave holders and their families in the middle of the night? Burning down their houses and hacking the men and even the women and children to death?" She nearly choked but she composed herself quickly. "Well, there were some cases of the more fanatical elements doing things like that of course. But that was rare. Usually they used the other measures I talked about. You have to understand that these people felt very strongly about anti-slavery. About it's wrongness. It's only natural that some of them went off the deep end as it were. " "Really?" I pressed further. "I actually read that grotesque violence was more the rule than the exception. I guess I must have read wrong. But to answer your other point about them feeling that it was wrong. Don't you think that these abolitionists were motivated more by economic factors than religious or moralistic ones?" She was now speechless. "I mean think about it. Who were the southern abolitionists? Poor whites for the most part, right?" "Well yes," She nodded, "But… " "Poor whites without jobs. How could they compete with slave labor? They couldn't. Isn't it true they also used to kill the slaves when they would attack a plantation? Hardly sounds like people that are just interested in freeing the slaves now, does it?" "Well again Billy," She said firmly. "What you are talking about was the exception, not the rule. There were SOME incidents as you described but usually they used economic measures like boycotts to achieve their ends. And many of them were imprisoned or killed by the corrupt southern system for their efforts. " "Well of course they were. " I snorted. "They were destroying valuable property and threatening a near-perfect economic system. The plantation owners ran the law after all. I imagine they came down rather hard on them when they caught them. " She was actually flustered by what I'd said. "Well that's a very interesting point of view Billy. " She told me. "But I think we've discussed it enough now. If you don't mind, I'll get back to the lecture now. " "Sure. " I smiled. "Okay," She said, "Now back in 1858 there was a group called… " Though I had no homework for Mrs. Crookshank either, she did not ignore me in class as she usually did. She remembered my dissertation on the blood cell the previous day and began probing at me to see if it was simply a well-studied joke on my part or not. Her lecture was on the major arteries of the body and she fired her first shot less than two minutes into it. "Now can anyone tell me the name of the arteries that feed the kidneys?" She asked and then, without waiting for anyone to put up his or her hand, turned to me. "Billy, maybe you can tell us?" She thought she had me I'm sure. I'd been doing what I usually did in her class; watching her alluring form move back and forth and not looking as if I was paying the least bit of attention to her words. "Mesenteric. " I said in a bored voice, causing her to give me THE LOOK. "Yes. " She nodded, obviously taken aback a bit, and then went on. She called on me multiple other times during the lecture, making the questions harder and harder. We covered the carotids, the circle of Willis, and all of the coronary arteries. Some of the questions I knew were not even part of her lecture, were not even part of high school curriculum. I came up with the answers every time, spouting them out in a monotone voice with an expressionless face. It quickly became clear to the entire class that some sort of battle was going on between Mrs. Crookshank and I. Finally, bored, I conceded the battle, telling her I did not know the answer to a question she asked. The look on her face was of weak triumph and more than a little relief. She wrapped up her lecture just before the bell rang and assigned us our homework for the next day. As the class filed out she called, "Billy?" I turned to her questioningly. "Do you mind if I speak to you for a moment?" "Sure. " I said, walking over. Her eyes looked me up and down as I stood before her desk. "You seem to have quite a bit of knowledge of anatomy and physiology. " She almost accused. I shrugged. "I like to read. " I said. "Really?" She said. "What books have you read?" "Oh the usual. " I told her. "Gray's Anatomy, A Physician's Guide to AP, stuff like that. " "You've read them?" She found this hard to believe. "Yep. " I nodded. "Fascinating reading. I've even read your textbook a little. It's not bad but it oversimplifies things a little, wouldn't you say?" She swallowed deeply, took a deep breathe, and then said, "Billy, I majored in Biology in college and I have an extensive background in AP. I asked you questions today that are well beyond high school level knowledge and you answered every one correctly except one. " "I only pretended I didn't know that one. " I told her. "I felt you were, shall we say, singling me out, and I wanted you to stop. " I smiled cynically. "Kind of unprofessional for a teacher wouldn't you say?" She dismissed the subject of her professionalism, or lack thereof, with a shake of her head. "I see. So you're telling me that you've known the answers to my questions all of this time, but that you haven't answered any of them, either in class or on your tests or in your homework until yesterday?" I shrugged again. "What can I say?" "What can you say?" She asked, getting a little angry now. "This makes no sense. Why would you do such a thing?" "Well Mrs. Crookshank," I told her. "I'm what's known as a classic underachiever. That means I have above average intelligence and good reasoning ability but that I am bored to death by high school because the curriculum is so scaled-down that the work is not challenging to me. This sets up a vicious cycle in which I stop listening and doing the work and therefore get far behind and fail many classes. It's mostly my fault of course, but the system itself is also partially to blame since it sets such absurdly low standards in the first place in an attempt to pad the statistics. I mean, when regional test scores are low, what do you people in the education business do? Do you beef up the learning or reevaluate your teaching methods? No. What you do is scale down the curriculum and lower the standards for passing, therefore making it easier for those "struggling" students to pass, but boring the crap out of those of us who would probably benefit from harder, more challenging classes. What then happens is that many of what could potentially be your best students simply don't give a damn while many of the less intelligent and less worthy ones have their good grades spoon fed to them by teaching them with Dick and Jane methods. " She gaped at me. I knew I'd hit upon the very subject that line teachers like her had bitched about for years to their administration. In a few years, after several lawsuits about people graduating at a functionally illiterate level while promising students were actually dropping out, education reform would hit the State of Washington like a sledgehammer, improving things remarkably. I almost wished I could tell her that. She would still be teaching when it occurred. But I didn't. "I read psychology too. " I told her instead, heading out the door. I ran into Debbie at lunch. She giggled over to me and smiled. I greeted her, looking her up and down, remembering what her young body had felt like naked beneath mine. "Word has it I'm the biggest cock-tease in the school. " She told me. "Well what do you know about that?" I smiled. "Better than being the biggest slut, isn't it?" She nodded, giggling again. "All the girls are asking me why I made out with you. " "Yeah?" I grinned. "What you tell 'em?" "That you were a totally awesome kisser. The best. " "Thanks. " I said gratefully, wondering how long it would be until one of the other stoner girls decided to try for herself. "How are you today?" She smiled shyly. "I could use another 'kiss' myself. " She said, blushing. I chuckled. "I got something to do after school today, but why don't you give me your phone number? Maybe I'll give you a call on Saturday. " She handed a piece of paper over to me. She'd already taken the time to write her number down. "Call me ANYTIME. " She said, walking away.