It is the blue aquarium hush of Manual high school when the Boy without a face arrives and still has no clue where the fuck he is going. The bell sounds less like a bell and more like some sort of electronic nasal clang. It is the first day of high school and the Boy without a face is wading behind himself, making it a salient point to remove his glasses while floating in the fish tank of the hallway. On fee day he received a Xeroxed sheet with the list of classes followed by room numbers followed by a solicitation to purchase a fictitious elevator pass. With the exception of Home room and early Bird PE, he has every class with Patrick, much to his father’s chagrin.
Morning commences with at 6:55 with Early Bird P.E. where youthful limbs arrive attired in patriotic garb. Deep sea blue shorts complimented with blaring red shirts with a white hyphen bullseyed across the center where we are to brand our last name in block lettering using a permanent marker. If the outfit bore stars we would be slapping our hands over our chest and pledging our allegiance to them. Coach Simmons has us running laps and then we more or less just hoop. Coach Simmons’ sanguine countenance and balding fresh beet forehead grants the appearance of either optimal health or a covert drinking problem. The first days of PE we walk laps around the extremely groomed gym floor. I am next to Tim. Patrick has early bird Health and will vacillate and take PE next semester. After walking laps as the Coaches take attendance we are allowed to hoop. Juniors and seniors who are involved in a varsity sport are exempt from taking PE, the cardiovascular workout being governed by the hours tilled in the locker room after school. One second he is in patriotic garb and the next he is in the hallway and he is all alone, glancing down at the Xeroxed rectangular robotic-fonted slip of paper informing him of the digits of the room he is to enter. He is walking alone. He is unsure. He carries several notebooks and pens/pencils slip in the furled coil of his spiral notebooks.
The Boy without a Face is drowning the hallway between heads and bodies, each paddling past him, ferrying bags. The bell sounds less like a bell and more like some sort of electronic nasal clang. An agitated alarm clock to the wet dream of adolescence, greeting the world with the residue of a nocturnal jam coating the interior of your wet thighs dreaming about the exam you forgot to study for, the one human being with the smile you will never taste whose forehead you will never have. He locates his homeroom dissipating completely inside swallowed and gulped in the first twenty minutes of the day where the teacher takes attendance. Its purpose is to foster friendships that will purportedly last an abbreviated lifetime.
Announcements crackle into the classroom like a fresh log to a gasoline-fused hearth. We are being serenaded by two upper classmen with spritely feminine voices. We are being welcomed to school.
When the teacher inquires if anyone is taking la francais the Boy w/out a face raises his hand. A cool girl with long blonde hair and Metallica t-shirt who smells like peach perfume and nicotine whose hand raises also. I sit next to a girl named Theresa I remember from orientation. The standard icebreaker queries seemingly evolve around class schedules and what grade school we have recently hailed from.
When the bell dismissing homeroom flares it sound less like a bell and more the shotgun to a race he will never finish in a hundred thousand years.
Even though it is hard for you to see. Even though you have to squint to intuit the numbers outside the hallway, you continue to walk, holding my slip ahead of me, wondering where you are going.
The bell is sounding more and more like a sneeze.
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