My Last First Day and a Book of Unwritten Pages

Hamlet was a coward, Gatsby a fool, and Holden Caulfield a hero; at least that’s the way I saw it. I was probably the only junior in high school whose best friends were fictional characters. That happens when your old man is in the military, and you’re moving around so often that you don’t spend more than one year in one place. I was rebellious—about as rebellious as one can be when the consequences consist of a Captain in the Marines wailing on you for receiving a B in advanced Trigonometry. When I was young, around thirteen or so, I often thought about running away, but I always imagined the horrific outcome with my Pop after being found. So, I nestled my nose into every F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger and—God forbid if they were to be found—Hunter S. Thompson book I could get my hands on, and I made friends with the people whom I could never leave, rather take with me, every time my life was uprooted and transported to another town.

I have an older brother, Nicholas, an established novelist, living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Our mother divorced our father just a year after I was born, and it wasn’t until three years later when she was killed in a car accident that it became just me and my old man. Nicholas, who is thirteen years my elder, was lucky enough to be on his way to college, never having to receive the abusive fate I inherited. When my father finally remarried—to a woman who never wanted kids—I was Seventeen, working on my first novel, and eager to cause whatever hell was necessary to be relieved from my father’s grasp. So, on my first day of school at Fork Union Military Academy, in a suburb outside Washington D.C., I dressed up as Adolph Hitler, marched right through the front doors, and made it no further than five steps before being assaulted by a half dozen proud-to-be future American soldiers. I made it all the way home before receiving my first broken bone—a cracked radius in my left arm as I tried warding off my father who violently swung at me with a 2 by 4. I’m still not very proud of it—definitely the most un-American thing I have ever done—but it worked, earning me a free pass to move in with Nicholas, after children’s services came in and cleaned up the mess. Anyway, I could get into a great deal of unneeded details about the life I wish to forget, but it’s painful, and I’d rather recount the first day of the life I could have never imagined. My name is Bryce James, and this is the story of my first day of school—that’s what I like to call it, because it was the day my life started anew.

Morning had finally come for my first day of classes at Charles F. Brush High School, a co-ed, public institution, yielding kids from the neighboring East Cleveland suburbs of South Euclid and Lyndhurst. Nicholas let me drive his 1974 Pontiac Firebird GT, with a four-speed transmission, a jet black exterior, and tinted T-Tops. It was his summer time, Sunday drive kind of car, which he never even thought to expose to the brutality of winter streets. He said he’d let me arrive in style on my first day, but I think he felt guilty for all of the time missed throughout our short lives.

He followed me to the school and pulled around to the visitor’s lot while I parked in the student one. Getting out of the car was an entirely new experience. First off, I had never driven to school before, let alone in a classic muscle car. Secondly, I couldn’t believe that girls were actually filing in the same doors as me. It was winter time, and there was at least a foot of snow on the ground, causing the vibrant energy and youthful fanaticism of teenagers to be expressed by hurling pineapple sized snowballs at one another. A couple flew right past my head, and I was praying to God that I could somehow escape the onslaught until I reached cover at the back doors. I was the new kid, and everybody already looked at me funny, so getting nailed by an iceball wasn’t first on my “to do” list.

I filed through the doors with hundreds of other kids, pretending I had gone there all along. I had no idea where I was going, and I didn’t want to ask anyone for directions. Then I saw Nick and a great feeling of relief enveloped me. He helped me get registered in the main office, signing all of the necessary paperwork and medical forms. Then, like that, he was gone, leaving me completely and utterly alone. After I received my class schedule from Mrs. Murdock, the guidance counselor, I stepped out of the office and looked down a hallway which seemed never-ending. I had to go to room 222, which couldn’t have been further away.

I swear to God, I couldn’t have looked like more of a nerd. I wore a pair of stone colored Dockers, much too short to exhibit any real fashion sense, a yellow three-button down polo, and a pair of sneakers that were so white you’d think angels came down and polished them overnight. I didn’t know what to wear, I had worn boarding school uniforms all of my life. I breathed in and out as I approached the door. I looked at my schedule at saw that it was European History. I slowly turned the knob and entered. As I made my first step inside the classroom I encountered Mr. Cherney, a short, chubby guy with thinning hair and glasses which encompassed the entire top half of his head.

“GO BACK AND KNOCK! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST BARGE INTO MY CLASSROOM?”

My heart hit the floor. That was my first impression for twenty five kids who just stared at me, shaking their heads. So I left the room, shut the door, and knocked. He called me in, and then slightly lifted his pudgy left arm off of his desk top to call me over.

“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes, my name is Bryce, and I believe I’m in this class,” I said with a nervousness so extreme my hands began to sweat.
“Do you believe you’re in my class, or do you know?”
“It says here on the schedule, room 222, Mr. Cherney…European History—
“Well, you’re lucky I failed O’brien last week, or else you wouldn’t have a seat.” I assumed he was pulling my leg, but he said it with such a smirk on his face that I had to believe there was some truth to it. “In that closet over there, you’ll find a book…treat it like the Bible.”

I grabbed a book and walked back to my seat. I was lucky enough that O’brien sat behind the center on the basketball team, because I planned on slouching as far down as possible, hoping to avoid any interaction with Cherney. Honestly, you had to picture this guy. When he lectured he sat on an old leather chair stool, which rose a few feet up in the air, and his chubby legs dangled off the edge—too short to reach the ground. In front of him was an old, weakening wooden podium. Just like the chair, it rocked back and forth as he leaned his weight on and off of it. Every once in a while you thought the momentum was gonna cause him to fall right to the ground, and he must’ve weighed at least three hundred pounds, so if he did plummet he’d shake the whole goddamn world. His face had about three chins and he even had thick bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in a week. He’d belt out speeches that the gym class could hear from across the school.

After doodling in my notebook for a half hour I peeked around the wideness of the guy in front of me to see what Cherney was up to. There was a silence in the room, which was totally unlike him, because you could tell he was the sort of guy to lecture for forty-five minutes straight. Kids all over the room were holding their writing hands as if they just preferred them to be cut off. Old man Cherney, on the other hand, was eying one of his many doses of fat intakes for the day. Then he did something I couldn’t believe I saw. He took four peanut butter cups, stacked them on top of each other, opened his chubby little mouth, and devoured all of them with one bite. I thought I was watching Garfield. Then, he raised his 22 oz. cup of water and with one breath of air he took in every last drop. And if it couldn’t have gotten any worse, he attempted to talk before it all settled, and as I passed him on my way towards the door, he belched, and with it came a few airborne drops of peanut-buttery backwash, landing square on the left side of my neck. I made no motion to wipe it off until I reached the hallway.

I immediately walked across the hall to the boys’ bathroom. I leaned over the sink and thoroughly washed my entire face and neck area. Once I gathered my composure I looked at my schedule and re-entered the hallway. English with Mrs. Kubicek was next on my agenda, room 117. When I turned left to walk towards a set of stairs I was instantly face to face with the most gorgeous blonde haired, blue eyed, freckle faced girl I have ever seen. Due to my surprise and lack of space to even move an inch, I stopped.

“I’m Alison.” She reached out and forced me to shake her hand. “Pretty rough first impression,” she said, with the cutest half smile on her face. I just stood there, speechless. “So, you must be new.”
“Yeah, why? Are you gonna beat me up now and take my lunch money?”

Oh my God, I couldn’t believe that those were the first words out of my mouth. I was a total idiot. Worse. I was a dork, with absolutely no communicational experience or skills with the opposite sex.

“No,” she responded amidst a giggle. “Let me see that,” then she grabbed my schedule from my right hand. “Ooh, pretty rough set of classes.”
“I guess so. I didn’t really know what to take…I’ve only ever gone to boarding schools, and they don’t really give you a choice.”

Mrs. Murdock automatically put me in the four basic required classes of English, French, European History, and Trigonometry, and I figured that Journalism, Piano, and Film History would be a lot better than sitting in study halls.

She handed me back my death sentence, so to speak, and added, “You have a couple with me.” It was single handedly the best news I’d received about school since kindergarten, when we were granted time to take naps.

We began walking, away from the staircase I was first headed towards. I didn’t say anything, I figured she knew better than me where room 117 was.

“So what brings you to Brush?” she inquired as she removed the legal pad from my right hand, and began flipping through it.
“I decided to move in with my brother…my dad is in the Marines, and we moved around a lot.”
“So do you play any sports or anything?”
“No, I never really got the chance.” Truth was my coordination skills lacked from the day I was born. Also, my old man couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn when it came to pitching me batting practice, so I just got beaned all the time, and I couldn’t understand, at the age of seven, why anyone would want to play a game where you stood defenselessly, outside of holding a thin tube of wood, as a tight wound ball of string and cowhide was pelting you anywhere from your head to your feet.
“I’m a cheerleader, but don’t go thinking I’m a flake…I hate that.”
“I wasn’t gonna—
“So…what’s this?” she asked, referring to my novel, which was only about fifty pages, and still written in long-hand.
“It’s just some of my writings. I like to write in my free time.”

We kept walking for what seemed like a mile. I watched the classroom numbers gradually increase, and were still on the second floor. The time was rapidly running out between classes, and I could only imagine what was going to happen in Kubicek’s room—after the Cherney incident, that is. So I went to say something, and that’s when she grabbed my hand, dragging me toward a door that looked like a janitorial closet. She opened it, then yanked me in real fast, and shut the door behind me. It was complete blackness as she guided me through another door, and shut it while flipping a light switch.

“This is our little secret,” she said. “Hardly no one knows about it…it’s the second floor dressing room for the Auditorium below. It’s never used anymore, and it’s the perfect place to have a…” she stopped as she dug through her purse. “To have a smoke.” Then she removed a Marlboro Red from its pack, offered it to me, which I quickly accepted, before removing one for herself.

That was the first cigarette I ever smoked in my life, not inhaling a single hit. She talked, mostly about Cherney, and how to skip class and get away with it, and smooth talk your way out of getting detention if ever you’re caught. My heart raced like the Indianapolis 500 on a cocaine overdose, but somehow, knowing I was with her, I felt calm despite of it. We spent the entire period in there, sneaking back out just minutes before the bell would ring. I skipped the first class of my life, with the first beautiful girl I can honestly admit to holding a conversation with, and just minutes after first meeting her.

“Well Bryce, I’ll see you around,” she said just as the bell rang, classroom doors swinging open and kids engulfing us from every direction.

I struggled to keep my mind off of her as I finished the morning. Third period was Piano class, and I must admit, I couldn’t as much as play Chopsticks. There were only three others in there, and two were in my previous classes, so they didn’t pay me much attention. The other kid was a pretty nice guy that offered to show me around town if I wanted. His name was Ashton, and he was also a junior. He was the only kid I had seen all day who didn’t plaster his hair to his head with styling gel. He also looked like he was under quite a bit of stress. Like he hadn’t slept more than an hour or so the night before. He wasted no time opening up to me, explaining his disdain for anything Pop Culture or mainstream. He encouraged me to read Whitman and Thoreau, imploring that no one has thought like either one of them since their respective deaths. By the time the bell rang, and it was time for lunch, I was ready to make a run for the woods, I was just waiting for Ashton to lead so that I could follow.

The lunch period was set up so that the first half of the alphabet ate for twenty five minutes while the second half either went to study hall or the library, and then vice versa. I was always a sucker for books, and I hadn’t had the chance to peruse the library yet. So, without knowing that the cooler half of the high school population would rather read comics and throw spitballs at one another in the auditorium, I found myself in a sanctuary for the popularity challenged—which, I guess you could say, was quite fitting.

My actual lunch half scared the hell out of me. I was just worried that I was going to take someone’s seat, or not find one at all. The sort of stuff that should worry you as a freshman on your first day. Walking over to the cafeteria felt like an eternity. I8 was surrounded by the dorks. I’m not kidding. Seven or eight nerds suffocated me into a small pocket while walking down the hall. I felt like their chosen one. Worst of all, I looked like their chosen one. I had to diverge a plan as we neared the main hallway, which was clogged with kids. Just as we approached the intersection of the hallways I spotted another bathroom. I crossed quickly and entered it. Ashton was standing in front of a mirror.

“Bryce, what’s going on man?”
“Ashton? Do you have lunch now?” I asked, praying for him to say yes.
“Yeah, man, I do.” By this point I was leaning over the sink, splashing cold water on my face. “There’s an empty seat at my table if you want to join me.”
“Sounds great, I’d love to.”

He began walking, and I followed closely behind.
We walked into the cafeteria of about 300 kids, and I was shocked that there wasn’t a goddamn McDonald’s in there. It was probably twice the size of any other cafeteria I’d been in. He led me directly to a table along to far left wall. Three other guys sat a few seats down, but Ashton made no effort to acknowledge them.

“I usually just sit and read, but I can’t turn down company,” he said while placing his books on the table top. “You want something to eat? I’ll buy.”
“You don’t have to, really…I can—
“Don’t worry about it, I want to…you’re not a vegan are you?”
I didn’t know if he would take offense if I said yes, but I was starving, so I didn’t really mind if he brought back a large bowl of guacamole, I would have still scarfed it down. “Not particularly,” I reluctantly responded.
“Just stay here and check out some of these essays by Thomas Wolfe I was telling you about. There’s no need for both of us to wait in line.”

I hadn’t the slightest bit of desire to read any Thomas Wolfe at the time, so I began scanning the cafeteria. Then I spotted Alison. She was about ten tables away, sitting with a group of hormone ridden jocks and desperately anxious to look pretty female socialites. She might as well have been sitting by herself, because she made no attempt to partake in their conversations. She looked so perfect, sitting quietly, reading a book and casually eating one grape after another. I fought like hell all morning to rid her from my head, and when I finally thought I found closure, there she was, right within my vision, absorbing me again. I didn’t want to be caught staring at her, so I began flipping through the hardbound book of essays Ashton had mentioned.

“Here you go man,” Ashton said as he set a toasted turkey club sandwich in front of me.
“Thank you so much…but let me give you some money, I feel bad.”

He just waved me off, and sat down. We hardly talked during lunch. He mentioned that he liked to be as mindful as possible, chewing at least thirty times with each bite, spiritually taking into mind everything from the earth that went into providing that meal for him—a Buddhist practice he started after reading a Thic Nhat Hanh book. He was some guy, hard to get your hands around, but I very much liked that about him.

After lunch I went to my afternoon classes. Just as I figured when Alison told me we had Film History together at the end of the day, I spent an entire forty five minutes just observing her. I was weakened by a high school cheerleader worse than my military father ever could through vicious physical punishments. She drove me crazy. When the final bell sounded, I went to my locker, grabbed my coat and proceeded out of the back doors to my car. I got going after I had warmed it up for at least ten minutes—Nicholas’s orders. I took the same route home that Nick showed me in the morning, and as I turned onto a street I noticed a short blonde nearly shaking her legs off, walking along a snow covered sidewalk. I pulled over out of courtesy, because it was nearly zero degrees outside, no one should have been subjected to such weather. As I rolled the passenger window down, she turned to look. It was Alison. Just as if I had been walking out of the boys’ room to wash my neck from Cherney’s backwash, we were once again face to face.

“Bryce,” she said with a smile. “Nice car.”
“Come on…hop in, it’s freezing out there,” I said as I opened the passenger door.
She took the invite, making me immediately so nervous I forgot how to work the clutch.
“How’d you score this?” she asked, scoping out the interior from back to front.
“It’s just for the day…it’s my brother’s.”

We talked about my day in between the directions to her house, and how I liked Brush, and all that chit chat sort of talk you have with someone you hardly know. It was different, though. She cared, unlike every other stranger you first come across.

“Here it is…on the right,” she said before pointing at the prettiest house on the street. “Thank you so much…I’ll see you tomorrow?” Then she took her left hand and ran it across the top of my head, messing up my hair before she got out.

I wanted to just sit in her driveway for hours, looking at the pretty white fence, and the pretty bare trees, and everything else that was pretty. But I didn’t want her to think I was a lunatic. So I drove home and did it. Nicholas must have thought I lost my mind, sitting in the car, taking in all that had just happened to me.

I was gifted, God had blessed me with chapters of blank pages, and friends who weren’t susceptible to being put on a shelf, hidden behind the cover of a book.