Frank Portman - King Dork

I came up with six points, or topics for discussion, which I present in ascending order of validity (one being the most valid) along with some of my notes.

Six:She was impressed with the band.

True, she hadn’t seemed too interested. But when I first mentioned the Stoned Marmadukes she said, “Yeah?” and there was something about that “yeah” that seemed a little more fascinated than other “yeah’s” I had experienced in my life. Dubious, yet possible.

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Five:She was captivated by my masterful command of the English language.

By my count, I had said no more than twenty-one words to her, and that’s only if you count “um.” And my first bit of dialogue had been nothing less retarded than “I’m cool.” But clearly my ability to make words my slaves had had some comedic effect. And girls dig guys who can make them laugh.

At least, they do according to scripts written by TV and film comedy writers. Likely, but not necessarily crucial.

Four:She had no idea who I was, and hadn’t figured out that I was an Untouchable.

Lack of accurate information had to have been a factor. And anonymity. I only knew her first name and she didn’t know any of my names. But was that enough? The mere fact that my reputation had not preceded me? Could I have come off as some kind of Cool Dude when disassociated from Chi-Mo, the dork, the myth, the legend? Hardly. I still radiated me-ness, I’m sure.

Relevant, but insufficient.

Three:Fiona prefers dorks.

I’ve heard that there are girls with this fetish. It’s a complicated matter that I don’t completely understand, but I’d guess it mainly applies to girls who for one reason or another can’t do any better and who persuade themselves that settling for a degree of dorkiness is better than nothing. Are there any girls as hot-looking as Fiona in this category? No way. But maybe her instinctive alterna-ness (in her capacity as a CHS drama mod) made her more tolerant of dorkiness, less repelled by it, even when it radiated from the anonymous King of the Superdorks.

Two:She knew no one was watching.

This one almost goes without saying.

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One:She was totally high.

Well, obviously.

M R. JAN I SC H’S U N DE RG ROU N D B U N KE R

I was mulling over some of these points in Geometry that Monday when I felt an eraser hit me on the forehead.

“Somewhere else you’d rather be, Thomas Charles Henderson?” said Mr. Janisch. He always calls people by their full names as they appear on the roll sheet. Just to be a dick.

“No, of course not, Mr. Janisch. Copying these problems and their proofs from the front and back sections of this book respectively is the realization of a lifelong dream.”

Of course, I didn’t really say that.

What I did was: I gave him a look that was intended to convey the impression that I had been contemplating the mysteries of the world of Pure Geometry and that I had been on the verge of discovering an Important Truth that would have been a boon to humanity and would also have had considerable commercial value had my concentration not been shattered by his supremely ill-timed, inappropriate, and possibly actionable eraser assault.

But at the same time, I was in no mood for Mr. Janisch’s foolishness, so I’m not surprised that my look may also have managed to convey the sentiment “No duh, Einstein.”

Six of one, half dozen of the other, really.

The punishment for this sort of low-level insubordination is usually that you are made to copy out something, typically a dictionary page, onto a sheet of notepaper. This is no big deal. There is little difference between this penalty and the other assignments they give you as part of your “academic”

work. The only difference is the thing you’re copying. A 81

dictionary page is preferable to a chapter from The Catcher in the Rye, even, because, well, at least the chances are good that it will be a page you’ve never copied before and that’s special.

Mr. Janisch, for reasons known only to him, likes to make you fill a page of notepaper, front and back, with zeros, in groups of three like this: 000,000,000, etc. The weird part is that he seems genuinely pleased when you hand him the finished page of zeros. It’s like he gets caught up in the excitement and forgets that it’s supposed to be a disciplinary measure. My theory is that he saves these pages in a series of black binders in a specially designed rebar-and-concrete lead-lined underground bunker. When the bomb drops, or on Judgment Day, or by the time he retires and goes underground to plot his revenge, he’ll have thousands of binders filled with millions upon millions of zeros. Then he’ll add a one to the beginning and suddenly he’ll be in sole possession of the world’s largest number in manuscript form. Or I guess it’d be even better to add a nine. Then he can laugh mania-cally and die happy.

Whatever gets you through the night, big fella.

Anyway, that was my punishment this time. I enjoy it, actually. It’s mindless, routine, repetitive, familiar, and no more pointless than anything else they make you do in school. The hand moves automatically; the pen goes circle-circle-circle-tic, circle-circle-circle-tic, a soothing rhythm; and the mind is free to wander. I started trying to think up some lyrics to

“Trying Not to Believe (It’s Over).”

TH E F LOWE R P OT M E N

One thing that was slightly freaking me out was the thought that even though I felt I couldn’t be more different than the 82

CHS people at the party, we did seem to like a lot of the same music. Because I love the Who. But I’m not a fake mod like the dolphins at the party. Not at all. I don’t dress up like anything. True, I did let my hair grow a little longer and started to wear flared jeans over the summer when I got more into seventies bands and stuff, as a sort of tribute to their fine work; and I’ve got the army coat, though that’s more of a practical tool than a fashion statement. But I don’t “dress punk,” or mod or metal or goth or garage or rockabilly or anything. I don’t wake up every morning and put on a music-genre-oriented youth-culture Halloween costume—that’s what I’m saying.

My tastes do tend to be a bit retro, though. I’m really into the Who, the Kinks, the Merseyside/British Invasion sort of thing. And like I said, I also like a lot of seventies stuff, which I find myself listening to more and more often. 1975 was a great year for rock and roll, and don’t believe anyone who tells you different. But I can find something to appreciate about most pop music—it’s all part of rock and roll history, which I’m trying to know everything about. I have a pretty big record collection of mostly old stuff, and I’m totally proud of how schizophrenic it is. I even kind of like Wishbone Ash.

And I’m not even exaggerating all that much. But for some reason I’m not necessarily too interested in very much of what was recorded after I was born. And, as a matter of prin-ciple, I don’t dig whatever mindless, soulless crap all the normal people are into at any given time, because what would be the point of that?

My personal ultimate in art rock will probably always be, well, either the Who or the Sweet. Or Foghat. But I’m also really into Bubblegum, and that’s probably what confuses people most.

Bubblegum is this music they had in the seventies, created and marketed for little kids, and, apparently, not taken 83

very seriously by anyone involved. But it somehow ended up being brilliant by accident without anyone realizing. I love that. I have a pretty big collection of Bubblegum records.

Now, I admit, maybe I got into it at first because it was so clearly the opposite of what everyone else liked. But whatever: it’s some of the best rock and roll music there ever was.