Objectified

The only chicks you like are working at strip bars

The only dudes you like are driving all the fast cars

The only kids you like are trapped inside the cages

The only grandmas you like are all so fucking ageist

The only fat guys like you like are six feet underground

The only fit chicks you like weigh less than sixty pounds

The only crazies you like are Manic Pixie Dream Girls

The only sickos you like are the ones who don’t hurl

The only celebrities you like are ones you masturbate to

The only politicians you like are ones who shit on Me Too

The only workers you like are the ones who lick your boots

The only laborers you like are the ones who pick your fruit

The only athletes you like are the ones who’re undefeated

The only students you like are the ones who have succeeded

The only teachers you like are picking quotes from the bible

The only cops you like are so good at committing libel

The only judges you like are the ones who say the N-word

The only gunners you like are the ones who collect dead birds

The only soldiers you like are the ones in Arnold movies

The only SJW’s you like are the ones who are worth suing

Objectified, electrified, open your asshole wide

As long as they tickle your fancy, you’re always on their side

But one day when you need your very best friends the most

They’ll leave you to die and haunt this world as a wayward ghost

Yelling at Empty Seats

VERSE 1

You’re not owed an audience

And we’re not fucking idiots

Shouting in an empty venue

Isn’t on our college menu

Fuck your so called “big ideas”

There’s no sense in fighting us

Racist trash and sexist garbage

Spoken by obvious con artists

CHORUS

Yelling at empty seats

About what you believe

What will it achieve?

Who will you deceive?

VERSE 2

Yelling at invisible drag queens

Transgender males in their teens

Black Lives Matter protestors

And human rights protectors

Yelling at people not even there

We stayed home in case you care

Your talking points bore us to tears

Try spreading hope instead of fear

CHORUS

Yelling at empty seats

About what you believe

What will it achieve?

Who will you deceive?

PRE-VERSE

Let me ask you a philosophical question

VERSE 3

If you shout and nobody cares

Were you even fucking there?

Do you go on a verbal tear

And picture everyone in underwear?

When you break the fourth wall

Do you need to give mommy a call?

If only there was someone to answer

But we’re busy avoiding your banter

EXTENDED CHORUS

Yelling at empty seats

About what you believe

What will it achieve?

Who will you deceive?

Yelling at empty rows

Purple-in-the-face prose

Save it, we already know

Same shit, different show

Incelbordination, Chapter 18

Oswald Crow didn’t sign up for college just so he could sleep through the whole thing. He didn’t lose his parents to a drunk driver pretending to be a born-again Christian so that he could run into another fruit basket with the macho name Antero Magnus. College was supposed to be a learning experience, yet he saw his teachers not as mentors, but as obstacles. Maybe there was some truth to what Valerie Sand had been saying to him this whole time. Maybe she shouldn’t have had a piece of gym equipment named after her. Maybe…just maybe he really was loved in this world.

Rather than reflect on his many nights spent in the hospital (where his toes were surgically reattached and his ribs were held in place with Canisteo tape), Oswald wanted to go right back to work on his homework assignments. No misogynist criminals were going to hinder his process. No lack of marijuana was going to cloud his mind. It was do or die for the dwarf and he wanted to graduate as soon as possible. Summer was almost upon him. He needed to fix that C- paper. With a little more life experience under his belt and some hardcore Googling, his aching fingers danced across the keyboard to produce something he could actually smile about, even if only sadly.

He emailed the corrected paper to Valerie and sat in his computer chair staring at the medical boot on his surgically repaired foot. “Goddamn, that’s going to cost me,” he said. “Where the fuck is all this money supposed to come from?” Even successful authors needed extra employment every now and then. Oswald couldn’t picture himself sweeping popcorn off of movie theater floors or dipping frozen fries in boiling oil. Then again, he knew he had to start somewhere. The bottom of the ladder would be a welcome place if he could ever find it. He had weeks to think about it since graduation was on the horizon.

As Oswald trudged across campus with his medical boot and his cumbersome trench coat, he couldn’t help but notice the ghostly faces of everyone around him. No doubt that trauma was tearing them apart from the inside. “Goddamn you, Antero,” the dwarf said to himself. Even he felt like a wraith haunting the college grounds. One minute he was a hero and the next he was a part of this graveyard-like background. These people couldn’t cheer for him because they didn’t have the psychological energy to. As much as depression tried to tell him otherwise, he wanted to be understanding rather than dismissive of their “ignorance”.

The glass door from Valerie’s classroom was still in shambles, but the inside had improved quite a bit since Oswald was last here playing the role of hero. New desks were brought in. Wheeled chairs from the computer lab were also part of the furniture. There was even one lucky lady who got to sit in a fuzzy recliner chair. That lucky lady was none other than Nikita Johnson, whose black eye healed quite nicely over the past few days. She still had golden patches here and there and she tucked her chin to show her psychological frustration, but she was otherwise okay. Oswald wanted to take a seat next to her and tell her it would be alright, but ultimately left well enough alone when he sat in the back like he always did.

Valerie Sand stood at the head of the classroom also with her chin tucked, but was the only one brave enough to speak first. “Good morning, class. I know I don’t say this often enough, but thank you all for being here today. It’s been a bad few weeks as you can tell from the smashed door and whatnot. Some of our classmates couldn’t make it here today, either because of their traumatic experiences or because they’re no longer among the living. For those of you who were fortunate enough to live through these terrorist attacks, I have three words for you: life goes on.”

She wrote those words on the chalkboard and underlined them for extra emphasis. “It never ceases to amaze me what kinds of events bring people together. It could be music. It could be comedy. It could be theater. But in this case, as sad as it may seem, it took a war to bring us together. It’s because of our collective strength that we can truly say life goes on. We give each other the strength to push forward. We cannot divide each other at a time like this. Yes, Antero Magnus is finally behind bars. Yes, this is the first terrorist attack we’ve had on campus and we were wildly unprepared for it. But life goes on. It went on after 9/11. It went on after the various school shootings that took place around the country. Life goes on because we refuse to let negativity reign supreme. We are here for each other.”

Pointing her finger around the classroom, she said, “Each and every one of you.” She then looked Oswald dead in the eyes, “You included, Mr. Crow…you are all loved. If you have to find that love in the comfort of strangers, so be it. But it is there if you look for it. Help awaits you if you want it. It’s never too late to take care of yourself and each other. Look around you, ladies and gentlemen. These people are your friends. They’re your secondary family. Antero Magnus and the rest of Incelbordination failed to see that and they paid the price for it. Could they have been helped? It’s a debatable point, but I’d like to think we’re all capable of being helped at one point or another. I want to see the good in everyone. I want to believe that Antero wasn’t always a psychotic murderer. Something inside him snapped and he became this monster we know today. Don’t ever stray from the path of love. It’s never worth the pain.”

The entire classroom’s eyes, Valerie’s included, welled up with tears, but no sobbing took place. She thanked her students and they all applauded for her, including Oswald even though he still had sore hands. Making sure his teacher’s words were appreciated was more important than minor physical pain.

Once the clapping died down, Valerie said, “And because life goes on, it just so happens that I have your papers graded. I see a lot of improvements among you, some more than others, but then again, this is not a contest where the best grade wins. All that matters to me is that you’ve learned something from being in my class. I don’t care what grades you get after college is over. I’m more concerned with what kind of people you all will become. And that, my friends, is the biggest improvement of all.”

Oswald couldn’t help but give a sad smile at that sentiment. There was hope for him after all. There was hope for this world. There was hope for the future. The difficulty of believing his elders had finally been lifted from the dwarf’s shoulders. Valerie passed the corrected papers back to all of her students and of course, because Oswald sat in the back, he got his last. His anxiety bubbled up just a little bit, but it was more like a cup of tea rather than a raging lava pit. What he wouldn’t give for a cup of tea right at this moment. Such a relaxing thing to drink on a ghostly day like today. Maybe it would help his mental illnesses if only for a little bit.

The good news for Oswald was that upon receiving his paper, he was no longer a bastardized C- student. Instead that minus sign had a slash through the middle and his sad smile turned into a look of despair. He went from a C- to a C+ after Valerie just gave a speech about how everybody improved so much. Oswald’s inner voices told him to just tear the paper in half and toss it in the garbage, maybe spit some mucous onto it first…or piss on it right in front of the rest of the class.

But he did none of those things because he knew such reactions would prove nothing to a teacher who already made up her mind about him. Oswald felt no need to alienate himself further from his peers, so he quietly tucked the C+ paper into his backpack and maintained a stoic expression. If what Valerie said was true, then the C+ would be nothing compared to the feeling of becoming a new person. But was it true? Did Oswald really learn anything from being wrapped around Antero’s finger this whole time?

While Oswald’s mind didn’t race nearly as hard is it normally did after receiving a bad grade, he did find it hard to concentrate on that day’s lecture. He still didn’t participate in the conversation, but then again, not a lot of students did that day. This wasn’t just candles burning at both ends. This terrorist attack truly did take its toll on the student body. But life goes on as Valerie wisely said. Life goes on…

By the time Oswald could gather his wits together, Valerie was already dismissing her class. One-by-one they filed out of the room, but the dwarf just sat in his desk in silence. The teacher said his name several times, but didn’t get his attention with a sharp tone this time around. Instead she told him, “It’s good to have you back, Mr. Crow. This place isn’t the same without you.”

All the dwarf could do about that was nod like a bobble-head and gingerly leave the classroom. The garbage bin was right there. He could rebel against the system once again if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He walked right passed the teacher and her bin and gazed into the pink clouds, which looked lovely in an environment where the student body were paranoid and peaceful at the same time.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 25

Tom Simpson dared not tread on sacred ground, otherwise known as the Xanax Pavilion, where a special kind of ceremony was being held. Instead he sat in the driver’s seat of his car and allowed the soft sound of “True” by Spandau Ballet to relax his aching soul. He closed his eyes like a dam keeping his raw tears in check. He knew what was going on in that pavilion. Cheers, screams, and general happiness, the latter of which he knew nothing about. This was the next generation of greatness…and among that generation was Scott fucking George.

The sound of that name running through his pounding head caused Tom to clutch the steering wheel with strangulating force. He could have ripped the damn thing off if he wasn’t careful. But if such hulk-like strength was possible, he could only imagine how easy it could be to disconnect Scott’s head from his shoulders. Maybe he wouldn’t have to do that. Maybe it could be a series of powerful haymakers. Maybe Tom could gouge his eyes out through the back of his skull. Maybe he could feast on Scott’s worm-infested brain like a zombie and never have to eat again. Oh shit, there he was.

The new generation of knowledge and wisdom poured out of the pavilion dressed in gowns, caps, and bright smiles. Scott led the pack with happy tears in his eyes, though Tom would be more convinced if such wetness came from a crocodile. Even more disturbing to the disgraced teacher was watching Adrienne and her mother Julie hugging it out with Scott and showering him with sugar and kisses. Julie looked beautiful in that flowery sundress and blond hair. Adrienne looked cuter than a baby bunny as she hopped up and down on her love interest’s arms. But Scott…oh, Scott…

Tom turned off the ignition and got out of his car to stare down the unsuspecting trio. His heart was frozen cold and his blood was boiling hot at the same time. Just a few punches to Scott’s jaw would make everything okay again. Daddy would come to the rescue and put the Simpson family back together again. No more would Scott become man of the house. But even in Tom’s icy heart, he knew such an outcome was only a Hollywood fantasy. A tear rolled down his cheek as he sat on the sidewalk with his head lurched forward. “What am I doing?” he quietly asked himself. He continued ranting in solitude, “This isn’t me…this isn’t me…I couldn’t…I couldn’t…uh-oh….”

The last bit came when the shadow of a rotund woman was cast over him. Tom slowly peeked upward and saw a lovely smile on the face of a high school graduate in a cap and gown. She appeared to have Down Syndrome, which still made her more beautiful than Tom could ever imagine himself being. The young lady held a tiny LGBT flag in her hand and waved it around while shuffling her sneaker-wearing feet. “It’s okay to be gay!” she sang over and over again in a cutesy-wutesy voice before handing the flag to Tom.

For the first time in a long while, Tom’s smile was genuine and heartfelt. “I guess it is okay. I guess so. But how did you…?”

“These things have a way of getting out. That’s okay, though. I still like you anyways!” said the young lady as she patted Tom on his disheveled hair. She introduced herself as Misty Keith before Tom introduced himself offered her a place to sit, which she took. Misty gently rubbed the ex-teacher’s shoulder blades and pointed at Adrienne while saying, “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yeah…yeah, she is. And smart too,” said Tom with solemnity. “She’s going to grow up to be quite the remarkable woman, that’s for sure. But unfortunately, I probably won’t get to see it happen. Not in my lifetime.”

“How come?”

“…You wouldn’t understand. It’s…rather complicated.”

“Try me.”

Tom took a deep breath and held his face in his triangulated hands. “I said some things to her and her mother that I shouldn’t have said. I raised my voice at them. I tried to make them something they’re not. And this is the end result of it all: a nasty divorce and a new man in their lives. I can’t even find it in my heart to be angry anymore. I’m just…” Another tear traveled down Tom’s face and Misty was there to wipe it away with a restaurant napkin. “Thank you, young lady.”

“You’re welcome,” said Misty as she ruffled Tom’s hair yet again. “Why don’t you just tell them you’re sorry?”

“Oh, Misty…I wish things were that simple. Trust me, if I knew I could make things right with a wishy-washy apology, then I would have done it a long time ago. But unfortunately, not all stories have a Hollywood ending. If I tried to apologize to Julie and Adrienne…they’d just tell me to fuck off again.”

“You don’t have to do it right now, Mr. Simpson,” said Misty as she wiped away more tears from Tom’s face. “Give them some time. Don’t rush into things. Remember: slow and steady wins the race.”

Tom smiled and shook his head. “That’s a lot of wisdom coming from an eighteen year old. I’m decades ahead of you and even I couldn’t figure that out in time. That’s amazing to me. So what are you going to do now that you’re done with high school?”

“I’m going to be an artist!” said Misty with excitement in her voice and a gleam in her eye. She even pantomimed paintbrush strokes to solidify her dreams. “I’m going to draw lots of pretty pictures and be in an art gallery someday! You want to see one of my drawings?” After Tom nodded, she pulled a folded up drawing out of her breast pocket and showed it to him.

Tom’s eyes grew wide with impressiveness as he saw a highly-detailed drawing of roses and trees, colored with unique shades of purple, orange, and teal. There was even a fairy with butterfly wings waving hi in the background. “That’s amazing, Misty. You’ve definitely worked hard on this drawing.”

“Thanks!” said Misty before she pecked Tom on his cheek, causing him to blush slightly. “So what are you going to do now, Mr. Simpson?”

Tom shrugged his shoulders and said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out this whole time, Misty. In the meantime, I’ve been collecting unemployment checks and dipping into my savings. I can’t live this way anymore. Something has to change. I don’t want to be a teacher anymore. If I can’t get through to my own daughter, let alone Scott George, then I don’t deserve to teach history.”

“If you don’t like teaching, you should find something you love doing,” advised Misty. “Maybe you could draw lovely pictures like me. Or maybe you can play the piano. Or you could dance!”

“Once again, you wisdom shines through, young lady. My own students and my own family have been telling me something along those lines for years. I didn’t listen to them. Now I’ve got unemployment checks and a broken heart.”

Patting Tom’s shoulders, Misty said, “It’s never too late to start over again, Mr. Simpson. You don’t have to decide what you want to do right away. Take your time. It’ll come to you. Maybe you can find yourself a nice boyfriend.”

Tom chuckled in embarrassment and shook his head. “You’re funny, Misty. You really are.” Seeing that wonderful smile on her face, he asked, “You’re serious about that last part, aren’t you?”

Misty shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?” She stood up and waved at her mom and dad in the crowd. “I have to go now, Mr. Simpson. You think about what I’ve said today. I just have one more question before I go. Are you sure you don’t have a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Misty, I’m sure,” said Tom with a sad smile. Misty waved at him and trotted happily away towards her own parents. Tom ducked his head and said, “I can’t even afford to be a good husband and father.” His legs ached as he heaved himself up and plopped down in the driver’s seat of his car, turning the stereo back on.

Feeling a little more relaxed now, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander between Misty’s talking points and what his next move was going to be. Tom learned more about the world in that one conversation than his college degree gave him credit for. Being mentally disabled nor being gay was anything to be ashamed of. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Tom Simpson was free from psychological bondage. Free from anger at the world around him. Free from a job he never loved. Free from judgment for his past sins. His body was so relaxed at that moment that he almost fell asleep in the car. A mid-afternoon nap with a creative dream: what beautiful things.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 16

Linda Williams sat comfortably on her couch enjoying a bowl of wheat cereal while watching her daily dose of MSNBC. While her “pet project” Scott George no doubt spent his Saturday in misery, Linda felt guilty about being able to enjoy hers, so much so that she could barely concentrate on the world news. “I sure hope Tom is enjoying his little triumph,” she said softly to herself before taking another bite of cereal.

The rampant pounding on her front door jolted her so much that she spilled her food on the hardwood floors. Her spine tingled at the sounds of a familiar voice screaming, “Linda! Open the damn door! We need to talk!” The pounding grew progressively louder with every second Tom Simpson was forced to wait. “I know you’re in there! No sense in hiding from me!”

“Oh, for god’s sake!” belted Linda as she marched over to the front door in bare feet and a nightgown. Sure enough, Tom stood there with his fists balled up and his teeth gnashed together like a venomous snake waiting to pounce. “This better not be what I think it’s about.”

Taking labored breaths, Tom let himself in the house much to Linda’s confused dismay. He said, “You need to have a little chat with Scott George. Oh, he showed up to detention like he said he would. It’s what he did after that made me so...UGH!”

“Two things,” said Linda with her arms crossed. “One, you don’t come barging into my house without me letting you in first. And two, once you’re in my home, you don’t demand things from me like you own the damn place. Both of those things could have gotten you arrested today and I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a cage, quite frankly.”

With a sickening smile, Tom said, “Arrested?  You’re going to have me arrested? Well, you better bring the entire police force and the SWAT team, because you’re going to fucking need them!”

“Well, look at you, tough guy. The same Tom Simpson who’s so anal retentive about swearing is suddenly unleashing some nasty words at me. If hypocrisy was against the law, your ass would have been gone a long time ago.” Linda pointed at her front door and barked, “Seriously, you’d better get out of my home before things go south. Get a massage. Sit in a hot tub. Meditate. Do something relaxing for the first time in your life and quit acting like a small child!”

“Speaking of small children, guess what your teacher’s pet did to my daughter,” said Tom while grabbing his boss’s arms. “They had sex behind my back. Lots and lots of sex! Can you imagine that slimy little creature Scott putting his lips and other body parts on someone else?” Tom shivered for extra dramatic effect.

Linda ripped her arms away from Tom and said, “That’s not my problem, Tom, so quit trying to make it mine. While I don’t condone underage sex, there’s not really much we can do about it. If Scott and Adrienne are in love, so be it. Don’t forget: you were in love at one point in your life. And then you threw it all away in a disgraceful divorce. Is that where you’re getting this attitude from?”

Tom pulled his glasses off and shouted, “You don’t know a damn thing about my marriage!”

Linda remained stone-faced as she stood up to her employee. “So why don’t you educate me about why you’re so upset. You are an educator, after all. That’s part of your job description. Tell me why you suddenly care about your daughter’s life now that she’s completely out of yours.” Tom’s haunted face stared off into the distance as he refused to respond. “Tom! Tom! Ground control to Major Tom! Hello?!”

“How old is Scott?” asked Tom.

“Eighteen. Why?”

Tom’s insane smile widened and was accompanied by clownish chuckles. “I got him! I got him by the balls!” He grabbed Linda’s arms once again and excitedly explained his viewpoint to her. “Think about this for a minute: Scott George is eighteen years old and Adrienne is only fifteen. The two of them openly confessed to having sex. That means…Scott just broke the law! Oh, this is too good! This is too fucking good!”

Once again shoving Tom away, Linda said, “Give me a break, you sick freak. Scott’s no more of a pedophile than you are a good history teacher. Three years difference between them doesn’t mean a damn thing in today’s world.” Shoving a finger in his face, Linda said in a low, angry tone, “I’m warning you, Tom, don’t you go through with this so-called case of yours. This is beyond vindictiveness. You’re talking about ruining a young man’s life before it even has the chance to begin, all because of a stupid technicality that shouldn’t be there!”

“Oh, Linda, you’re just as naïve as Scott. For better or worse, the justice system in this country doesn’t care about circumstances. It doesn’t matter when young people are applying for a job. It doesn’t matter when they get suspended from school. It won’t matter when they’re sitting in the defendant’s chair with all eyes of the world judging them. The law is the law and it will be enforced. If you don’t believe me, ask any war protestor who’s sitting in jail over causing a traffic jam.”

Arms folded and death stare locked on her target, Linda sneered, “I’m warning you, Tom, if you press charges against Scott and turn his life upside down, I will fire you. I’ve been waiting a long time for an excuse to give you a pink slip. I think I may have just found it.”

“Well, look at you, Miss Social Justice Warrior,” said Tom with his hands on his hips. “You’re all about getting justice for women on college campuses who get gang raped at frat parties. You’re all about sending Alan Young to jail for trying to get away with less. But the minute statutory rape takes place and it involves one of your favorite students, you’re so quick to cover it up. Who’s the hypocrite now?”

“There are degrees, Tom!” shouted Linda. “There are circumstances! I don’t give a damn what the law says! Everybody is different! Every case is different! You can’t just paint them all with the same brush! Lord knows what else you’re applying that twisted logic to! Is that how you teach slavery in your history class?! By painting all black slaves with the same brush?!”

“Wow, your naivety really does astound me, Linda,” chuckled Tom while shaking his head. “Don’t you get it by now? This country has gone through the ugliest history imaginable and not a goddamn thing has changed. The ugliness never went away, Linda. It just showed itself in a different way. The same applies to the law, for better or worse. Unless Scott has the debating skills to back it up, he’s not going to make it with the wolves in that courtroom. I’ve tried to toughen him up to the world around him, but he’d rather be sheltered. Well, they don’t shelter people in the darkest parts of prison, I’ll tell you that right now!”

“Just know this, Tom…” said Linda with a trembling voice. “You will not have the support of this school or any of its officials. And just like your classes, you won’t have the support of your own pupils. You want to win this war? You’re going to win it on your own. Clean your belongings out of your office first thing Monday morning. You’re fired, Tom. Get out of my house!”

Tom’s maniacal chuckling caused him to double over before he said, “That’s okay, Linda. I don’t need anybody’s help to win this case. The law is on my side and that’s the only ally I’ll ever need. I don’t need you. I don’t need my ex-wife. I sure as hell don’t need my daughter’s help. Scott George is going to crash and burn because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants like our sex ed program says to do.”

Before Tom could cross the threshold to the outside world, Linda stopped him with one last thing to say. “No matter how this court case turns out, whether you’re triumphant or defeated, just know that you’ll have nothing you want by the time it’s all over. Once Scott George is behind bars, there will be another rebellious and open-minded student to take his place. And another. And another. You’re not going to send a good message to your students by going through with this petty trial. One of these days, Tom, the hate alone will be enough to give you a stress-induced heart attack.”

Fiddling with the door knob, Tom looked down at his feet and said, “You know, Linda, some people prefer to die while having the best sex of their lives or doing some kind of extreme sports activity. Me? I think you just gave me an idea of how I’d like to die someday. See you soon!” Tom closed the door behind him and walked back to his car, leaving Linda Williams in a cataclysm of her own tears.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 6

“I was beginning to think you actually served your thirty minutes with my dad,” said Adrienne with a cute smile as she held Scott’s sweaty hand in hers. While the two of them walked down the street together like a cuddly couple, Scott’s hand wouldn’t stop perspiring and his face wouldn’t stop glowing with strawberry redness. The more embarrassed he looked, the more Adrienne held onto his hand and smiled at him. “You don’t need to be nervous around me, Scott.”

“I know, I know…it’s just that…” Scott sighed as he searched for his words. “It’s been a while since somebody held me hand like this. I mean, are we…uh…what are we, exactly?”

“We can be anything you want, Scotty-Boy. We can be friends. We can be good friends. We can be really, really, really good friends. For all the world knows, we could be dating right now.” That last sentence really brightened up Scott’s tomato-colored cheeks. “You’ve never had a girlfriend before, have you?”

“Actually, I had three of them before you,” explained Scott, his eyes tucked low and not meeting Adrienne’s. “They didn’t work out too well, though. They were a lot like your dad in the sense that they didn’t give a crap about my introversion. Either that or they didn’t know it was a real thing. Constant phone calls, twenty-four seven, right in the middle of homework.” Adrienne gave him an accusatory look and placed one hand on her right hip. “That doesn’t mean that…” Scott stuttered. “I mean, you can call anytime you…oh, no…”

“I’m just screwing with you, Scott, you can relax now,” said Adrienne while swinging Scott’s liquefied hand. “Truth be told, I actually get a lot of what you’re saying. Sometimes you’ve just got to have your space, that’s all. But even with all that space, there still can’t be secrets between us. You have to find a balance between those things, you know?” A beat of awkward silence hung between them. “So tell me the truth, Scott: did you have anything to eat today?”

He sighed, “No, I didn’t. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t show up for our walk right away. I was at the gas station eating a microwavable pizza.”

“Lift up your shirt, Scott,” demanded Adrienne. Scott swallowed a nervous gulp and questioned his girlfriend before she asked him again to lift up his shirt. When he did so, he revealed that his ribcage was slightly visible. “I knew it,” she said. “You’re not getting enough to eat these days. That’s not good for you, honey.”

“Thanks, Mom,” snickered Scott.

“Scott, I’m serious. Didn’t you take health class in middle school? You would have learned all about anorexia if you actually paid attention.”

“I’m not anorexic!” snapped Scott, to which Adrienne’s accusatory eyes widened. “Sorry about that. You’re right. I should be eating more often than I do. It’s just that…it’s this goddamn dream I keep having every night. It won’t go away.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s like…having an acid trip every night. There’s this puppet teacher and she’s always covered in worms. So are her students. And every time I try to take a bite of food, all I an see are those worms just crawling around on my plate. It took all the strength I had just to eat that gas station pizza. Goddamn, what the fuck is wrong with me?” Scott placed his head in his free hand and rubbed his temples, as if the face massage would actually ease his permanent pain.

Adrienne let go of Scott’s goopy hand and instead wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “I get it, Scott. School is a shitty place to be. It always has been. But if you don’t eat on a regular basis, you could die. And don’t even try telling me that’s a better option than living.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Every time I have something to eat, it’s just worms and maggots. I can’t put it out of my mind. I can’t see a shrink or else they’ll lock me up in a loony bin.” A little tear splash plopped onto the sidewalk, Scott hurrying to wipe his eyes away.

“I have an idea. How about instead of worms, you imagine something else over it. It’s like mental censorship. If you’re eating mashed potatoes, imagine gravy instead of worms. If you’re eating pizza, imagine more cheese and pepperoni instead of maggots. It takes a lot of time to master, but that’s true with pretty much any skill. That’s what being healthy is, Scott: a skill. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Scott let out a deep sigh and said, “Okay, I’ll give it a try. If it’ll keep me out of the nuthouse, I’ll do it. By the way, how do you know all about this?”

“I see a therapist every Sunday morning.” Scott’s dewy eyes widened as if this therapist was a true alternative to the nuthouse he saw in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. “It’s true, Scott,” said Adrienne. “You get to sit on a comfy couch and talk about your feelings for an hour or so. It’s good for the soul.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…You always seem so happy all the time. I mean, why would you…you know…”

“You of all people should know that what happens on the outside has little to do with what happens on the inside. My therapist got me through the divorce proceedings between my mom and dad. There was nothing happy or joyful about any of what happened between those two. I’m still hurting over it. I get that my dad can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s still my dad. He should have protected me…”

A small tear welled up in Adrienne’s eye and Scott gently wiped it away with his shirt sleeve. He said, “Now we’re even,” referencing their shared moment in the cafeteria. She gave him a little smile and his heart pulsated with life once more. For the next twenty minutes, the two of them walked together in silence, just admiring each other’s company.

Scott still couldn’t help looking down at Adrienne’s bare feet in those sandals. He tried his damnedest not to get a boner in front of her as he admired those pink-painted toenails of hers. He even titled his head backwards so that he could see her soft and silky soles, which were his favorite part of the female foot. Adrienne thought he was staring at her ass and playfully swiped him away before giggling.

“Is this your house?” Adrienne asked. Scott nodded and the two of them stopped in the lawn while holding each other’s hands. They gazed in each other’s eyes and Adrienne couldn’t help but giggle again, while Scott’s shy guy smile was a little more attractive than his slasher smile in the locker hallways. “I had fun walking with you today. I learned a lot about you.”

“Yeah, uh…same here…heh…”

“Goodnight, Scott. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” Adrienne grinned sweetly at Scott before slowly bringing her face closer to his and planting a kiss on his already flaming cheek. The senior’s eye’s widened as his newfound girlfriend kissed him on the lips and swirled her tongue around his mouth. For good measure, she kicked off one of her sandals and rubbed her sole against his calf while kissing him deeper and deeper.

This was the first time in a long time that Scott’s oral activities didn’t involve worms and maggots. Adrienne’s lips and tongue tasted more heavenly than Crème Brule despite the fact that she had eaten a crappy school lunch just hours before. This was Scott’s instant vacation from reality, if only for a few seconds. He could stay in this beautiful kiss forever. He thought to himself, Fuck you, Mrs. Striker! Fuck you, Mr. Simpson! Fuck you, Alan! Fuck everybody…

“Oh my god!” said Adrienne as she broke the kiss with shocked wide-eyes. Scott began to kick himself once again as he assumed he was talking out loud the whole time. But how could he form a coherent sentence with another woman’s tongue in his mouth? And then Adrienne pointed down at Scott’s crotch and the offender stood proudly in the air.

Scott used his backpack to cover up his aroused manhood and profusely apologized to Adrienne, who just stood there not knowing what the hell to do. Any smile she once had was minimal at best. Instead of throwing more useless, “I’m sorrys” her way, Scott ran inside his house and bolted upstairs to his bedroom, where he threw the backpack on his bed and locked the door. He hoped in all of that turbo-charged madness that his own mother didn’t notice the wood jutting through his sweatpants. Otherwise, he’d have to kick himself even harder than before.

Scott placed a hand on his chest and kept telling himself to settle down before taking a seat on the bed and breathing heavily. “It’s just a boner. It’ll go away. They always do.” His breathing intensified as he laid back in his bed and pounded the mattress with his fists. “Goddamn it, why did I have to be so stupid!” He tried to say it softly enough so that his mother didn’t hear him. Lord knows she didn’t need to see Scott giving her a one-gun salute after a hard day of work. “I’m so fucking embarrassed,” he whispered while his breathing intensified yet again. He wiped the sweat off of his face and hands and closed his eyes for a while, hoping the boner would flatten sooner than later.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 5

Tom Simpson had a strange feeling this would happen: sitting in the office next to his classroom with a cup of coffee glaring at the clock on his wall. Three o’clock turned into three-fifteen. Three fifteen turned into three-thirty. The teacher’s face scrunched downward as though he drank warm piss instead of hot coffee. “I knew it…” he silently groaned to himself. “I knew it!” He punctuated that sentence by throwing his coffee mug against the brick wall and watching the brown liquid drizzle down onto the carpet. He huffed and stomped out of his office without bothering to clean up the mess he made.

As Mr. Simpson stormed down the hallway with fists clenched and brows furrowed, several students (who actually showed up to their respective dentitions) tucked their faces away in fear. Some of them even swerved right past him in a big hurry to get their asses out of school. Mr. Simpson’s sniper sight zeroed in on the Principal’s office. He took a few deep, raspy breaths before fixing his shirt and throwing the door open.

An older black woman in a flower-patterned dress shirt and black slacks typed away at her computer before noticing Mr. Simpson standing furiously in her doorway. She gave him an awkward stare before asking, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, Miss Williams, you can.” Mr. Simpson took a seat next to the Principal and said, “Scott George was supposed to show up after school for detention at three o’clock sharp. It’s a half hour later and he still hasn’t shown!” Tom pounded Linda Williams’s desk and asked in a disturbingly calm voice, “What do you plan on doing about it?”

Miss Williams took her glasses off and folded her hands around her belly before leaning backwards in her chair, clearly no-selling Mr. Simpson’s silent rage. “While I don’t condone skipping out on detention, I also can’t condone you pounding your fist on my desk demanding things from me. Slow your role, Tom. Tell me exactly what happened and I’ll see what I can do about it.”

With animated body language and a silent voice, Mr. Simpson said, “Scott George has zero respect for my authority. He frequently back sasses me, he swears in class, and today was just the day where I’ve had enough of him. Can you blame me?”

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t,” said Miss Williams. “But this seems to be a pattern with you throughout your career. You push your students to their breaking point and wonder why they’re tipping over the edge. What I’m trying to say is, you’re not exactly the easiest teacher to get along with.”

“So what?!” squeaked Mr. Simpson. “Lots of people in the world have to put up with authority figures they don’t like. It’s a hard fact of life. Sometimes in this world, you have to get along with people who don’t necessarily have to get along with you. In this school, you get either an F or detention. In the job market, you get fired. Or if it’s a judicial situation, you go to jail. It’s not the most pleasant system of authority, but if we could all just democratically elect our own authority figures, we’d get nothing done. Haven’t you learned by now that democracy is dead?”

Miss Williams gave a closed-mouth chuckle, shook her head, and said, “So that’s what you’ve been teaching your students, huh? You’re a history teacher who tells his own kids that democracy is dead. Maybe that’s why they don’t want to hang around you anymore, because you suck the hope right out of them. I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but part of your role as a teacher is to guide your students to a better life. If you can’t do that, then you’re not a teacher.”

“But see, that’s the thing, Linda,” said Mr. Simpson while flailing his hands around. “The only people who I can guide to a better life are the ones who’re willing to meet me half way. This is the land of opportunity, not the land of milk and honey. Scott George doesn’t give a damn about earning anything from me, hence why he didn’t show up to detention this afternoon.”

Miss Williams typed on her keyboard and said, “Well, that’s funny, because judging from his other grades, he seems to be well on his way to the Promised Land. Look at my computer screen for a moment. Algebra: B+. Graphic novels studies: A-. General art class: A-. Physical education: A+. Chemistry: B-. Not bad so far, huh? But the one place where he struggles the most is US history, your class, where he’s currently sitting pretty at a C-.” She leaned back in her chair again and asked, “Tell me, Mr. Simpson: why is Scott George struggling one class and doing so well in the others? Is US history his weakness or are you just not helping him through his tough times?”

“I could have helped him through whatever he needed if he’d just show up for thirty minutes of detention,” said Mr. Simpson with folded arms. “He’d be getting his very own tutor session.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass, Tom, you know full well that’s a bunch of BS,” warned Miss Williams.

“Oh, so you’re going to use foul language too?” asked Mr. Simpson. “And I’m the bad influence on my students? That’s part of the reason why Scott was supposed to show up today. Oh sure, he gets detention for saying it here, but what if he said it front of a bunch of small children? Or churchgoers? Or his own boss, if he’s actually able to get a job once he’s out of school.”

“He’ll cross that bridge once he gets to it. In the meantime, you’d better stop worrying about the stuff that comes out of your students’ mouths or what they do when they’re not in school. Let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that these teenagers are just sitting around being squeaky clean. That’s not what life is about for these kids. The only thing you’re teaching them by holding Scott George hostage is how to resent tight-asses like you!”

Mr. Simpson pounded Miss Williams’s desk again and asked, “Are you going to do anything about him not showing up or are you just going to turn a blind eye to the bigger picture! He needs to be made an example of!”

Miss Williams’s temper exploded when she stood up, towered over Mr. Simpson, and belted, “I’ll deal with Scott George in my own damn way! I’ll have a talk with him first thing tomorrow morning! If it makes you happy, I’ll even leave a message on his house phone telling him to show up!” He continued her vengeful oratory with finger pointing at a stoic Mr. Simpson. “As far as you’re concerned, you’re leaning on the precipice of career suicide by talking to me that way! You don’t give the orders, I do! This is my school and you’re not going to disrespect me any further!”

Mr. Simpson smiled and shook his head before standing up to meet Miss Williams’s coffee brown eyes. “You’re angry, huh? Now you understand my frustration with people like Scott George. I’m glad we could reach an understanding.”

As Mr. Simpson patted Miss Williams’s shoulder, she shrugged him off and snapped, “Get your hands off of me and get the hell out of my office before I fire you!” The history teacher held his hands up defensively and strolled out of the office, shutting the door behind him. He could see through the glass door that the Principal plopped back down in her seat and rubbed her aching temples.

The teacher turned around and saw a semi-circle of wide-eyed students fixating their gazes upon him. Mr. Simpson threw his hands up and yelled, “Boogedy-boogedy-boo!”, causing the crowd to quickly disperse in several directions.

Off in the distance, Mr. Simpson saw that another student glaring at him was his own daughter Adrienne, who had her arms folded and was leaning against the wall. Seeing his estranged flesh and blood in that mood brought a sinking feeling to his own heart. He let out a sigh and turned around to walk away.

“What am I doing?” he whispered to himself. He began to think there was a little bit of truth to what Miss Williams said, as much as it stung. Maybe that was why his wife divorced him and took Adrienne away. Maybe that was why he had a crappy car waiting for him in the parking lot. Maybe that was why he dined on TV dinners every night while watching the news alone.

He slapped himself in the head for thinking such “horrendous” thoughts. He knew he had to stand his ground if he was ever to get a victory against his own students. It was too late for him to win the war against his own wife and daughter. But the battle lines had already been drawn between himself at Scott George. If he had it his way, he’d bring back corporal punishment just for that one student. But now that he was fighting this war, he had to figure out what exactly he stood for. As a history teacher who taught various wars in his class, he needed to figure this out quickly. Otherwise, history would repeat itself over and over again.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 3

Wandering through the high school hallways might as well have been an intercity marathon for Scott George. His legs felt as though they were tied to cinder blocks. His head hung low enough to obscure his vision. His breathing was shallow and measured. All he could muster up for dialogue was the occasional zombie groan. Exhaustion hit him like a baseball bat to the skull. Hell, any deadly blow would have been a welcome addition to this hellish day.

By the time he dragged his lifeless corpse into Tom Simpson’s history class, the teacher was already scribbling notes on the chalkboard and the rest of the students were either goofing around or filing in. As always, Scott took a seat in the back of the classroom and tucked his head low, which was a favorite tactic of his for avoiding Mr. Simpson’s attention. Scott rubbed his temples as a way of clearing up his blurry vision, but it was all for naught. Perhaps a trip to the vending machine before class for a Dr. Pepper would have woken his ass up. Too little too late. The buzzer blasted throughout the school to signify the first class of the day.

“Alright class, settle down! Take your seats! It’s time for the lesson to begin,” said Mr. Simpson in with Shakespearean authority. The students did exactly what he said, but there was still the occasional snicker from one or two of the quarterbacks. The history teacher straightened his flat black hair, moustache, and glasses before clearing his throat and officially addressing the class.

“Now then, when last we were together, we were on the topic of slavery in the United States. In 1843, the settlers…” To Scott, all of Mr. Simpson’s words started blending together and cannibalizing each other to where he was merely background noise on a TV. No different from a used car salesman. No different from a televangelist begging for cash. No different from a politician giving a boring speech on campaign finance reform (if that’s what it was called).

Scott could feel his eyelids growing with heaviness. No matter how hard he pulled them open, blurry vision would cloud his consciousness. The crescendo of exhaustion came in the form of an uncovered yawn that opened his mouth as wide as a Pink Floyd the Wall movie poster. What a familiar piece of cinema to him.

The thunderous pounding on his desk jolted Scott awake and quickened his pulse to at least a thousand beats per minute. Somehow Mr. Simpson had teleported to the back of the class and stared him down with malicious intent. “If you’re going to yawn in my class, cover your mouth first. Nobody wants to see what’s inside of that thing.” As Mr. Simpson made his way back to the chalkboard, Scott’s muscles tensed as the other students gave him mocking smiles.

“As I was asking you all,” said Mr. Simpson. “Does anybody have an example of what a slave’s living conditions were like?” The class was silent. “Anybody?” Still silent. “Oh, Mr. George, how about you?”

“I…uh…” Scott’s lips quivered as he struggled to find his words. “I didn’t raise my hand.”

“I really don’t give a damn where your hand was, Mr. George. I asked you a question and I expect an answer. Your grade depends on it,” lashed Mr. Simpson, to which the other students snickered at Scott again. The introverted student felt his cheeks warm up like a coffee pot as he struggled for more words. “Out with it, Scott!” belted the teacher.

“They slept in….shopping carts?” Scott mentally kicked himself so hard that he could have been a professional Muay Thai fighter in another life. Another possible occupation would have been comedian since the entire class burst into laughter and Mr. Simpson held his temples between his thumb and forefinger.

“No, no, no, no, no!” rambled the teacher while throwing his chalk to the ground. “The slaves did not sleep in shopping carts! When I first said at the beginning of the semester that class participation counted towards your grade, I did not mean giving foolish answers that you clearly pulled out of your posterior! Try again!”

A sea of chuckles and hateful smiles spread out across the classroom and Scott George was the captain of his own capsized boat. He drowned in embarrassment and anger rolled into one as his entire body heated up even faster. Mr. Simpson wasn’t even close to being as hideous as Aloysius Striker, but Scott kept his vengeful response measured anyways. “I guess that’ll be the last time I speak up in class.”

“So what you’re trying to tell me is that you’re willing to take a C or a D because you gave one stupid answer? Is that how you got to the senior level of this school? By giving up easily?”

“The truth is!” belted Scott, silencing the classroom gigglers. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I gave you a better answer like sleeping on mesh beds. It wouldn’t have meant a damn thing if I told you that’s where the phrase Nighty-Night, Sleep Tight came from. You know why? Because you wouldn’t have taken my answer seriously anyways. Anytime I’ve given you an answer, all you said was Okay and then left me hanging. And why aren’t you doing anything about these laughing pieces of shit?!”

Mr. Simpson wagged his finger at Scott and said, “Watch your language with me, young man. I don’t care how justified in your opinion you think you are; it doesn’t excuse such disgusting speech.”

“Disgusting speech?!” snapped Scott as he smacked his palms on the table. “Your students are fucking laughing at me and you’re calling ME disgusting? Is this how you treat all of your introverted students? By humiliating the shit out of them?!”

“Two things, Mr. George” sneered the teacher while folding his arms across his blue flannel shirt. “One, if I catch you using those words again, you’re getting thirty minutes of detention after school. And secondly, you can’t use some pop science personality test to justify not speaking up in class like you’re supposed to. All you had to do was give me a reasonable answer and instead you said shopping carts! Shopping carts! For god’s sake, Scott, get it together!”

“Yeah, Scott, get it together!” said a football jock off in the front corner, which earned a round of hideous laughter from the other students.

Every immature cackle sent a surge of lava hot adrenaline through Scott George’s body. His stomach twisted in painful knots. His head ached worse than a football concussion. His vision glowed bright red as he scanned the room for his first victim. He didn’t have to look hard to find his next form of pyromantic speech. “Shut the fuck up and stop laughing!” he screamed before shooting to his feet and throwing a garbage bin at the jock.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Mr. Simpson snapped, shutting the class up immediately. He pointed at the mocking football player and said, “I’ll deal with you later. As for you, Mr. George, I told you exactly what was going to happen if you swore again, so try not to be too surprised by the consequences. Thirty minutes of detention after school with me!”

“Like I’m going to show up!” said Scott as he sat back down and folded his arms.

Mr. Simpson’s face molded into weaponized anger as he marched towards Scott, placed his hands on either side of the desk, and stared directly into his introverted student’s puffy eyes. With a calm, yet sinister tone, he said, “Believe me, Mr. George, you will show up today after school. We’re going to clean up this classroom together. We’re going to spend some quality time with each other. And if you don’t show up to detention…a laughing football jock will be the least of your worries. Do you understand me, Mr. George? Do you catch my drift? Or do you need to recharge your introverted batteries and think about it some more?”

Scott spent the rest of the class trying to control his mild shivers. The rest of the class had nothing to laugh at anymore as they too stared on with trepidation. Mr. Simpson marched back to the chalkboard, scribbled some more notes (with a new piece of chalk), and glared at his students. “Since none of you feel like giving me the answers I need in a typical conversation, perhaps you’d be willing to do so on a pop quiz. Take out a piece of paper and a pencil. There are twenty questions on this assignment.”

Scott’s shivering intensified gradually as the other students glared at him with a sarcastic “Thanks a lot” stare. He couldn’t even hold his pencil and paper still as he took the pop quiz. Some of his answers looked reasonable while most looked like chicken scratch. He hurried through the questions so that he could curl back into his corner faster. He wished the buzzer would hurry up as well. Oh, what he’d give to lock himself in a bathroom stall or a janitor’s closet. What he’d give to release the tears that built up within his system. He’d give his left nut if it meant he could punch the shit out of Mr. Simpson until the end of time. Blood and tears were a tastier and more intoxicating cocktail than the finest of wines.

But before that fantasy could come to fruition one of these days, there was the ever looming timestamp in his mind of thirty long minutes. Thirty minutes of mockery. Thirty minutes of agony. Thirty minutes of hatred. The mental timestamp should have just read five minutes, because that was all Scott George needed to blow his stack and go into a rampage. Five minutes alone. What a glorious usage of time. Maybe he wouldn’t show up to detention just to spare Mr. Simpson the beating he rightfully deserved. Such a noble act of consideration from a guy whose blood boiled like a cauldron.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 1

With the third grade classroom dimly lit in shades of purple, puppet children on strings danced and twirled their way through the door. The girls wore pretty red dresses and had their blond hair in pigtails. The boys wore elegant blue tuxedos and were shaven completely bald. This waltz of perfect conformity was accompanied by the PA system’s glorious soundtrack of the Moonlight Sonata. The rhythm carried the puppet children to their desks one row at a time so as not to cause unnecessary disorder. Once they had taken their seats, the puppets slouched over with their pale white faces and rosy cheeks touching their desks.

Their strings jerked them to the upright position while another puppet descended at the chalkboard in a heap. With another tug of the strings, the clown lady with rainbow hair, a distorted face, and a frilly white dress reassembled and proceeded to write her name on the chalkboard. As she wrote, she sang a “happy birthday” style rendition of her class greeting in a condescending, Shakespearean voice. “Good morning to you. Good morning to you. Good morning dear children…”

She signaled for her students to speak up with a wave of her hand. And true to form, they completed the song in perfect unison with, “Good morning to you!”

“Very good, dear children!” said the teacher while curtseying, still using her hammy stage voice. “My name is Aloysius Striker, but you may all call me Mrs. Striker. And my, don’t you all look lovely today! All smiles, tight strings, and not a single misstep in the morning song. No disorder among you all. Do you know why? Because we are all part of something much greater than ourselves. We have the same dreams. The same desires. We are all part of…a community!”

Mrs. Striker quickly erased her name from the board and wrote in its place the word of the day, community. “Now class, would any of you like to tell me what a community is? Don’t be too shy to speak up. Your grade depends on it!” The last sentence was punctuated with a mock whip strike with her piece of chalk.

All at once, the puppets rotated their heads three hundred sixty degrees and said, “A community is a gathering of people who have something in common!”

“Excellent, children! You’ve made me very proud already! But what are some examples of communities? Oh, do please speak up. We’re all part of a community, after all!” sang Mrs. Striker.

“Churches!” said the puppets, to which Mrs. Striker gave a celebratory, “Yes!” and quickly chalked it on the board. Other examples the children gave were shopping centers, police departments, congress, and yes, even school. That last answer sent an orgasmic chill throughout Mrs. Striker’s puppet body. She even gave a sing-songy laugh.

And then the teacher’s demonic smile turned to a saggy frown when she saw one student in the back corner of the class with his head tucked firmly in his hands. No puppet strings, no puppet face, no handsome tuxedo, just a shadow silhouette and glowing green eyes. Mrs. Striker tiptoed towards this lonely student like a ballerina and towered over him with a vengeful sneer.

“Look who decided to join us today, class. Mr. Scott George, the so-called introvert! The so-called shy guy! The little boy who hasn’t crackled a smile since the day he was born! Let me show you how it’s done, Mr. George!” The children’s heads turned one hundred eighty degrees and their puppet strings morphed their faces into insane grins with monstrous teeth and worms in the backs of their throats. “See? It’s not so hard, little Scotty! But in all seriousness, why haven’t you spoke up with the rest of the class? Don’t you want to be part of a community?”

Surveying the ghastly smiles around him, Scott brushed his teacher off with his hand and said, “Not really.”

Mrs. Striker’s elongated nose touched with Scott’s forehead before she chirped, “Well, that’s tough cookies, Mr. George! Your grade depends on your participation! Your ability to get a job depends on your sociability! You are indeed part of this society whether you want to be or not!”

The teacher clutched Scott’s wrist with a death grip as she dragged the shadowy student kicking and screaming towards the chalkboard, all while the puppet students pointed and laughed at him. By the time Scott made it to the chalkboard, Mrs. Striker grabbed him by the scruff of his neck to pull him up and placed the piece of chalk in his hand. “Now then! This is your next assignment, Mr. George, and you shall not screw this up for your fellow students, but most of all, for me! I want you to write on this blackboard another example of a community! Post-haste! Chop-chop!”

Scott George shivered and cowered, barely able to keep the chalk in his hands while the students giggled at him through their noses and closed mouths. Sweat poured off of him like rain while the purple lighting turned to a single bright halogen spotlight on him. He swallowed hard and stared at the chalkboard like a monkey doing a math problem. All of these examples of a community and he couldn’t come up with one…until he piggybacked off of the shopping center answer.

With slow precision and squeakiness that made the puppet children squint and hold their ears, Scott wrote something on the chalkboard without actually seeing what it was. It seemed as though hours went by and a whole tidal wave of sweat poured off of his body. But then he finished writing what he was going to write and breathed an anxiety-crushing sigh of relief. The pregnancy-sized knot reformed in his stomach when Scott saw the children laughing their asses off as well as Mrs. Striker staring at the blackboard in wide-eyed horror. “Shopping carts?!” she cried in disbelief. “Shopping carts?!”

As the laughter got louder and Mrs. Striker’s dramatic sighs grew more obvious, Scott’s crippling anxiety morphed into white hot rage. His boiling blood gave third degree burns on his tender flesh. His neon green eyes bulged out of their sockets. Every vein in his arms and forehead looked like a stick of dynamite ready to blow. His fists were clenched tightly enough to turn even the strongest metals into powder.

In one volcanic scream, he belted, “Shut up!” before picking up a text book off of a student’s desk and smashing him over the head with it. The teacher and students alike gasped in horror as the unfortunate student’s head exploded into a pile of worms and maggots, his body limp and lifeless. The puppet strings had no choice but to pull him into the heavens while Scott watched in horror at his own sins. Students cried maggots out of their eyeballs while Mrs. Striker sobbed blood.

“Oh, Scott! How could you do such a thing to your own community?!” asked the teacher. “Now the whole system is going to crash down upon us! Why, oh, why! WHY?!” With his head hung and his voice sheepishly low, Scott muttered a nearly incoherent apology before Mrs. Striker burst into flames and clutched his wrist with purpling tightness yet again. “Oh, I’m afraid an apology’s not going to be enough, Mr. George! You’ve been causing grief to my class for far too long! Your refusal to obey even the simplest commands makes me sick to my stomach! I’m afraid there’s only one thing left to do!”

The puppet strings yanked every child back into the heavens while the classroom burst into a fiery hell all around Mrs. Striker and the convulsing Scott George. The teacher smashed every desk into splinters with one punch and in their place ascended a torture chair with leather straps and a ball gag.

“No, Mrs. Striker! Have mercy on me! I’ll be a good boy! I promise!” pleaded Scott, who was bound and gagged to the chair with constricting tightness. He tried to thrash around and break free, but with a ball gag cutting off his air supply, he quickly became exhausted. It became even harder to breathe when Mrs. Striker shoved a funnel up one of his nostrils and held it in place with duct tape.

“You’re going to conform, Mr. George, whether you want to or not!” warned Mrs. Striker in a deep, devilish voice. She tore open the flesh on her own wrist and pulled out a handful of worms with razor sharp fangs and hooks. Scott tried once again to squirm and thrash in his bindings, but they only cut deeper into his skin. With a sick smile and Scott’s gagged pleas, Mrs. Striker shoved the razorblade worms into the funnel and watched them fest up his nose and into his brain. The children descended back down into the hellfire scene and repeatedly chanted along with the teacher, “One of us!”

After an eternity of having his skull feasted on, the present day eighteen-year-old Scott George awoke from his nightmare with a deep gasp of air and pulsating nausea. As soon as he caught his breath, the teenager looked around the room for his digital clock, which read five-thirty in the morning. Relieved that this was a dream and that he still had hours before he had to get up for school, Scott plopped backwards into his bed and burped his nausea away.

“Why does this keep happening?” Scott whispered to himself. “I hate falling asleep.” Tears formed in his eyes when he realized that the only thing fake about his nightmare was the psychedelic backdrop in which it took place. He never dropped acid or smoked marijuana a day in his life. Why was he being punished for it? And most of all, why did he have to take a United States history class with a teacher who was basically Mrs. Striker with a penis?

Knowing that class was his first period of the day caused Scott to skyrocket out of his bed and dry heave in his garbage bucket. No matter how hard he puked, all that came out of his mouth was tiny streams of snot and orange stuff he couldn’t identify. Once he had finished, he sat next to his desk and breathed heavily while fighting the urge to go back to sleep. “Goddamn you, Mr. Simpson,” whispered Scott. “Why doesn’t somebody go Columbine on his ass already?”

The Ballad of Gravedigger Jane

Gravedigger Jane stewed in the middle row next to the aisle of the college auditorium, a place that was nearly packed with hee-hawers and pot smokers. She wished she could have some pot to soothe her boiling anger, but if she tested positive for it, it could mean the end of her college boxing career. Instead she pulled a metal flask out of her hooded vest and took a swig of booze. She shook her head at the hypocrisy of allowing alcohol but banning marijuana. What the fuck was that all about? No matter what her drug of choice was, hopefully it would get her through this god-awful performance.

As Jane relaxed in her seat with her sneakered feet on the empty chair in front of her, the madness was about to begin. Royal trumpets blasted over the sound system and almost gave her a migraine. While holding her ears with her taped hands, she turned around to see why such ludicrous music was playing at an obnoxious volume. There he was in all of his nose-in-the-air arrogance: Chris Duncan riding a horse while wearing a musketeer outfit: a blue tunic with a crucifix on it, black leather pants, knee-high brown boots, and a fedora with a feather in it. His bloated neckless bodyguards were also dressed in musketeer garb.

Chris swung his thin blade and pointed it at Jane before giving her a saucy smile and a wink. Jane responded with a shake of her head and a bruised middle finger, to which Mr. Duncan gave a royal belly laugh. The audience around her didn’t know whether to cheer or boo, so they just sat in wide-eyed silence. Then again, that could have been the pot talking. Jane took another swig of booze as Chris dismounted his horse and slapped it on the ass to send it trotting out of the theater. The speaker took the center of the stage with his bouncers standing at the edge, arms folded and attitudes in check.

The speaker adjusted the mini-microphone on his tunic and said, “Testing, testing, one, two, three.” Sure enough, everybody could hear him loud and clear as evidenced by the mixture of cheers and boos. The initial shock of Chris Duncan coming down in a musketeer outfit war off in a big fucking hurry once they figured out what he really came to talk about. Knowing that time was near, Gravedigger Jane took yet another swig and let out a monstrous burp.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” opened Mr. Duncan. “You’re probably wondering why I’m out here dressed as a musketeer. Two reasons: one, the musketeer has always been a symbol of loyalty to king and country. I’m loyal to my country and I would like to make it great again, if you know what I mean!” The mixed reaction blasted through the arena once again, but Gravedigger Jane sat still and clicked her knuckles.

Pacing around the stage and swinging his saber, Chris said, “The other reason I’m wearing this outfit is because it doesn’t look anywhere near as ridiculous as the dresses men put on to pass as women. You’ve got big ass men with neck beards going down to their knees walking into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms and this university doesn’t do a damn thing about it! It’s time we scrubbed this politically correct filth from college campuses everywhere! Political correctness is a threat to our free speech rights in the same way these so called transgender students are a threat to our purity! And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of the rest of the fag population!”

While the auditorium unleashed a firestorm of half-cheers and half-boos, Gravedigger Jane’s muscles were bulging in red hot anger. Her teeth were clamped tightly enough to make her granite jaw ache. She popped both of her wrists while staring bullets into Chris Duncan. The sick prick pointed his musketeer sword at her and she knew it was time to get her violence on, but not just yet.

“You see that man slash woman over there? Boxing fans might know that person as Gravedigger Jane. But I know him as Kevin Ferguson!” snapped Chris. The combination of hearing her old name along with the catcalling of the crowd caused the blood vessels in Jane’s eyes to pop like hot air balloons.

Chris had only begun his verbal assault. “Thanks to your school’s lenient policy on gay crap, Kevin over here can waltz into a woman’s locker room without so much as a bat of the eye! He can swing his dick around like a baseball bat and let his nuts hang down to his feet in front of all those poor women! Not only that, but he can punch out women legally and split their skulls down the middle! You call this equality?! I call it bullshit! You’re a fucking man, Kevin! You will always be a man!”

The guffaws of laughter, the screaming, the vulgarity of Chris Duncan’s speech, they all led to the tightly-muscled, predatory-faced, and stone-fisted Gravedigger Jane to pop out of her seat and storm down the aisle towards the stage. The fat bouncers formed a blockade between Chris and Jane while the former dropped his saber and backed off, screaming, “Whoa!” multiple times in rapid fire succession. Jane breathed heavily and punched her fists together while the students chanted, “Fight!” repeatedly.

“Easy there, Kimbo Slice!” shouted Chris. “You’re not going to do a damn thing to me! This is America and I’ve got free speech until the day I die! Nobody’s making you be here! Go run off to your safe space, little boy!” To add spice to his already flaming rhetoric, Chris stood on the edge of the stage and pointed his chin out to the crowd. “You want to hit me so badly, go right ahead! I’ll sue the shit out of you and have you blackballed from the sport! Come on, tough nuts! Throw a big one! Knock my ass out!”

“I’d love to knock your ass out, you little turd biscuit!” shouted Gravedigger Jane. Despite the raucous noise of the crowd, she was as audible as every news pundit who liked to turn it up to eleven. She even threw her hood back and revealed her corn-rowed hair and rolled back demonic eyes. Chris’s own eyes were wide with horror as he slowly backed away while Jane gave her oratory.

Jane continued with, “I paid for my tuition by beating people up! I’ll punch you so fucking hard you’ll be shitting teeth for two weeks straight!” Using her taped hand for visual references, she gritted her own teeth and throatily bellowed, “Your nose will be stapled to the back of your head! Your eyes will explode like little hand grenades! Your brain will splatter like a bucket of paint! I’m not even sure you’ll have a fucking head by the time I’m done with you!”

Chris slipped on his ass and convulsed in terror as the students chanted, “Fight!” some more. Gravedigger Jane looked like one of her punches could tear this whole building down. She looked like a simple left jab could turn these bouncers into protoplasmic jelly. She was ready to start swinging and show why she was a multiple time boxing champion.

But then a tear rolled down her cheek and her bear trap jaw trembled and ached with sorrow. Once that one tear rolled down, several more followed. The levies in her eyes broke in the same way her heart did. With a shaky voice, she said, “You’re right about one thing, though: if I punch you or your bouncers out…I could lose my career. I could lose my scholarship. I could lose everything. You’re not worth it. You’re loud and stupid as hell, but you’re not worth it. I…I…um…”

The avalanche of tears interrupted her passionate speech to where all she could do was storm out of the theater with half of the students chanting, “Get a job!” in succession. She slammed the door behind her and plopped backwards against the brick wall. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. They raged on and on while all Gravedigger Jane could do was punch the bricks behind her and scream with no audience…except for the horse.

“What are you looking at? Huh?” asked Jane with trembling lips, the same trembling lips that took yet another swig of booze. And another. And another. The horse gazed at her with innocent puppy dog eyes and Jane said, “Aw, fuck it, you can have some too.” She gently poured some booze into the horse’s mouth and watched it drink the last of the liquid courage. “That’s some strong shit, isn’t it. It’s not doing a damn thing for me right now, but oh well.”

As Jane tucked the flask in her vest, the horse started shaking its head and neighing in a thunderous voice. The transgender boxer watched the erratic behavior turn into violent galloping and said, “What the hell?” More neighing and more galloping ensued before the lightweight drunken horse stormed inside the theater to the sounds of horrified screams.

Jane placed her ear against the door and heard even more heavenly sounds: furniture being destroyed, bones shattering, even Chris Duncan and his bouncers couldn’t help but cry like bitches in pain and terror. She even heard Chris yell, “Why, sweet god, why?!” The next “Why?” he let out was more like a child’s whine and less like a brave and mighty musketeer. This put a smile on Jane’s face as she wiped away the tears.

She was nearly bowled over as students flooded all exists in an attempt to escape the drunken horse’s mad kicking. Soon enough the horse itself chased after a winded bouncer and toppled him before stomping the shit out of the poor bastard. Jane’s smile was even bigger than before and her rainy tears were all but gone.

As soon as the doorway was cleared, she peeked inside and saw broken bodies of students and bouncers lying about in total agony while theater chairs were splintered into nothing. Chris Duncan huddled in the fetal position while holding his groin and coughing up blood. He cried like a baby as he met Jane’s warrior gaze.

“For the record,” Jane shouted. “I didn’t lay a finger on you! Your stupid horse did! I guess the horse won’t have a boxing career after all! Maybe that big ass thing shouldn’t be trotting into women’s locker rooms with his saber sticking out! Adios, amigo!” Gravedigger Jane blew Chris Duncan a kiss before shutting the door behind her and leaving her haters covered in blood and darkness. Freedom of speech wasn’t free. In fact, the price was higher than Chris’s new soprano voice.

Zion Heart

“Ladies and gentlemen, our next act for the Central River High year-end talent show is a classic rock acoustic guitar piece. Please put your hands together for Miss Eleanor Paris!”

From behind the curtain, hearing Mr. Jeremy Land’s voice on the microphone accompanied by applauding hands sent chills through Eleanor’s body. She thought back to all of the times older kids shoved her against lockers and called her sexist names. She thought back to all of the teachers who doubted her guitar-playing abilities. And now here they all were to see what she was made of.

The redheaded, beige dress-wearing Eleanor took a deep breath to calm her nerves and treaded through the curtain to take her seat on the stool. She took a moment to survey the crowd before her. Some of the boys were chuckling silently and pointing at her. Some of the girls put on their best bitch faces with their arms folded. Another deep breath later and it was show time.

She rested her acoustic guitar on her lap and adjusted the microphone to her height before she started strumming away. She was gentle with every chord, almost putting her worst critics in a siren’s trance. And when she sang her lines, she had a voice of pure angelic gold.

“The child lay in the starlit night. Safe in the glow of his Donald Duck light. How strange to choose to end a life. How strange to choose to kill a child. Hoover, Blaupunkt, Nissan Jeep, Nike, Addidas, Lacoste and cheaper brands. Cadillac, Amtrak, gasoline, diesel. Our standard of living, could this be a reason…that we would choose to kill the child? That we would choose to kill the child?”

Those dark and heartbreaking lyrics put thoughtful frowns on the faces of her audience. No more were they giggling and pointing. Eleanor had these dopey teenagers at full attention. She strummed her chords with even more passion than before only to find her microphone silenced as she sang the second verse. She patted the microphone head a few times and then pounded it with her fist to try to get it working again. The once doubtful students were now in shock.

“I assure you, Miss Paris, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your microphone.” There was nothing wrong with Principal Gary Weinberg’s microphone either as he sat in the back of the auditorium with a disgusted look on his pudgy face.

“However!” he said with a booming voice in his Jewish accent. “There is something wrong with that song you’re singing! For all of our younger students who didn’t live with this kind of music, that song was written by former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters! His recent comments in the news about the Jewish people reek of racism and hatred! This school prides itself on its anti-discrimination policies! Because you, Miss Paris, have played a song by a raging bigot with the intent to incite trouble, you by proxy are in violation of those rules! Get off the stage! As a matter of fact, get out of my school!”

The student audience went silent as Eleanor ducked her head in shame and shed silent tears. She didn’t want to appear weak in front of the same people who put her down so many times. She wanted to get up from her stool and hide in a corner somewhere, but her legs were shaking with anxiety.

The dark haired, purple dress shirt and jeans-wearing Mr. Land approached the stage and gave Eleanor a gentle hug to try and comfort her. All it did was make the tears pour like a flooding rainstorm. “It’s okay, Eleanor. It’s okay. I’m here for you.”

Mr. Land pounded the microphone until it started working again. With a stern look on his face and his finger pointed at Principal Weinberg, he ripped into him with, “As a history and political science teacher, I thought I should correct you on something. If you actually paid attention to Roger Waters’ comments, he was attacking the Israeli government for their treatment of the Palestinians. It had nothing to do with Jewish people in general and certainly had nothing to do with little old you, Principal Weinberg! And quite frankly, I agree with what Roger Waters has said!”

Principal Weinberg laughed in jest and said, “Oh, this is rich. You’re actually debating me on this. You think you know more about my culture than I do.” Gary’s face turned serious when he said, “The fact that you’re even arguing this with me is hysterical. Actually, there’s nothing funny about it. It’s disgusting. It’s disgraceful. It’s unbecoming of someone like you, Mr. Land, who’s supposed to have an intricate knowledge about worldwide cultures!”

Eleanor held her hand up like she would if she wanted to be called on in class. She weakly said, “Um, excuse me, Mr. Weinberg, but this isn’t about…”

“Shut up, Miss Paris!” yelled the Jewish Principal as he stood up and pointed a commanding finger at her. “I’ve said pretty much everything I wanted to say to you! Now take your guitar and play that vile racist crap somewhere else!”

“Don’t you talk to her like that!” shouted Jeremy. “You never talk to your students that way! And by the way, if you’ve actually paid attention to anything Roger Waters has done over the course of his life, you’d know that you’re reminding everyone of how depressing your school system has become! Do you know why he says, ‘We don’t need no education?’ It’s because people like you make school a dangerous place to go! These students depend on you for guidance and wisdom! They don’t want to be talked down to by a power hungry, bottom feeding snake in the grass!”

That last line got a round of applause by the student audience while Gary Weinberg smiled sarcastically and shook his head. “You guys like that?” The audience cheered louder. “You want him to keep going?” They cheered even louder. “Well, he’s not going to do that! You’re fired, Jeremy!” The audience went silent and formed frowns on their faces. “As the Principal of this school, it’s my job to keep order around here! Are you surprised by the fact that I fired an insubordinate employee? You kids are lucky that the worst that happens to you is detention! In the real world, if you don’t conform to the rules, you sleep on the corner! Get out of here, Jeremy! Out right now!”

Mr. Land, seething with hot rage, threw down his microphone and broke it in two before marching his way down the aisle and through the exit. Before making his departure, he said, “You can take the microphone replacement out of my severance package!” He slammed the door with a thunderous thud.

Eleanor Paris remained sitting on the stage with tears in her eyes, snot in her nose, and a contorted frown on her face. She knew she was next on Weinberg’s shit list, but didn’t have the strength in her convulsing legs to get up and go. The Principal encouraged her with, “Well, what are you waiting for, Miss Paris? Get going! The final curtain has dropped on this talent show! Move it!”

She stood up and staggered off the stage, tripping many times in her high-heeled shoes. There were times when she just crawled across the floor with the helpless audience watching in pity. This demeaning scenario put her mind back to those dark places. This crippling anxiety was what she felt whenever another student physically or verbally assaulted her. It was what she felt when she doubted her own guitar playing abilities. It was amazing she could hold onto her guitar at all with her shaky fear as she took the walk of shame.

Eleanor Paris was ready to give up the fight against a corrupt system and walk out of the door with tears dominating her beautiful visage. She held onto the door handle for support and took one last sorrowful look at Principal Gary Weinberg’s jowl-covered face. This man had just fired his best teacher, expelled his best student, and silenced an entire crowd of students before turning them into conformist, putty-faced zombies. Come to think of it, what did she have left to lose? Who the hell did this guy think he was? What the fuck was she going to do about it?

She turned to face her tormentor with a different reason for trembling. It wasn’t anxiety; it was anger. Pure, white hot, volcanic anger for the authoritative bullshit that served as Roger Waters’ creative fuel. Eleanor steadied her lips and asked, “What was that thing you said about kids only getting detention for punishment? Well, seeing as how detention and expulsion are really just vacations in disguise and summertime is already here…”

An evil, quivering, rage-induced grin spread across Eleanor Paris’ face as she raised her guitar in the air and smashed it over Gary Weinberg’s head, knocking him to the ground and giving him a reason to abuse a bottle of Advil the next morning. The students and teachers alike gasped in shock while Eleanor shrugged her shoulders and said, “Do we really need an education from a guy who just lost fifty IQ points?” The student audience burst into raucous cheers while the teachers were frozen with fear.