Here in this Sorrow Chapter 18

Chapter 18

When a chair squealed against the floor across the table from him, echoing through the empty cafeteria, Andy picked his head up slowly, breaking open his crusted eyes. He curled his lips into an unenthusiastic smile as Jake Anderson sat down.

“You look tired,” Jake said with a smile. “How was that concert? I see your friends didn’t make it in.”

Andy looked around. “Christian is supposed to be coming in late, but the rest of them had no plans to come in at all.” He yawned and said, “The show was great. I’m glad they talked me into going.” He chuckled. “Those punks are ridiculous though. I think we were the only ones there without a Crimson Ghost tattoo.”

Jake laughed. “You’re the one who hangs out with those people.” He looked over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. “I can’t believe I made it in this early. I was at the party until almost one.” He forced a yawn to emphasize his point.

Andy tried to smile. “I know how it feels,” he said. “My night was the same. I didn’t get home until after two, and then my mom threw a fit because I was out so late, even though I told her I would be.” He blinked a couple times and yawned again. “How was that party?”

Jake leaned back in his chair. “It was crazy! John Parker fucked this sophomore girl, and then her friend, who was completely wasted, got mad and threw beer all over her. It was so funny!”

Andy released a puff of an exhale to pass as a chuckle. “Anything else happen?” When Jake just shrugged, Andy buried his face in his arms. “My mom kept me up until four bitching at me. I kept telling her I needed to go to bed for school.” He groaned, his voice amplified by the plastic table. “‘Why didn’t you call?’” he said mockingly. “‘We were worried about you, I told you to call me when you got to Albany!’”

“What a bitch!” Jake said.

Andy picked up his head and shrugged. “It’s just because she cares, I guess. I can survive it, I’ll be going off to school soon enough, and then I won’t have to worry about it.”

“Where are you going to school?” Jake asked as the warning bell sounded from the speakers above their heads. He looked up at the intercom and scowled. He picked his backpack off the floor and slung it over his shoulder, starting to stand.

“Florida State,” Andy said, sitting up and putting his backpack over his shoulder.

“Nice!” Jake said, with a broad smile across his face. “Spending your days with girls in thongs!”

“Yeah,” Andy snorted. “You know they love tall, scrawny guys.”

“You just need to drink more, then you’ll be popular.” He nodded knowingly as they walked out of the cafeteria. “It’s an integral part of college life.”

Andy smiled. “What do you know about college life? Besides, beer is so gross though,” he said, exaggerating a grimace.

“Then drink liquor,” Jake said. “Start out with girl-drinks, you know, strawberry daiquiris and work up from there. Soon enough, you’ll be drinking vodka from the bottle with no chaser! You’re gong to have to learn to drink a lot while you’re in college. You know it’s true.” They slowly waded through the throngs of people that were forming around the main office.

Andy laughed and they walked out of the cafeteria.

“Besides, aren’t all the punks supposed to be alcoholics anyway? Isn’t it a rule?”

“I’m really not much of a punk, I guess,” Andy said. “At least not by the book.”

Jake nodded thoughtfully. “The rest of the party was kind of lame,” Jake said. “You know, the usual shit: Standing around; talking; music; dancing, you know.”

Andy shrugged. “Not really. I don’t attend a whole lot of them.” John Parker was in the office preparing the morning announcements as they walked by. Jake gave him a thumbs up. “I’ve only been to a couple,” Andy said. “They were all punk parties that I went to with Clark and Christian. There’s usually just a lot of people passed out on couches with 40's in hand, and sometimes there’s a band playing.”

“You’ve got to stop hanging out with those punks, man. They’re going to make you weird. You’ll end up like Clark Golding.”

“Clark is a good guy,” Andy defended. Andy shrugged and said, “He’s a little weird, but he’s a good guy.”

“I don’t know man, he’s pretty fucked up.” Jake shook his head. “What’s up with his hair? Does he change it every week?”

“I know people that change it every day,” Andy said. They stopped at Andy’s locker, and he opened it. “Shannon dyed her hair in school once.” He pulled out a Economics book and put it in is backpack.

“Yeah, but look at her.”

Andy closed his locker. “What’s wrong with Shannon?” he asked as they started back down the hall. “Shannon is a lot cooler than most girls in this school.”

“She looks like the girl from Beetlejuice!” Jake cried, laughing. “She wears a collar with inch-long spikes! What’s up with that?” He fanned his fingers around his neck, mimicking spikes. “Dude, that girl is whack! I don’t know how you can be friends with her.”

“Are you telling me you’d rather talk to Erica Tanning than Shannon?”

Jake nodded. “Definitely Erica.”

Andy cocked his head. “The girl who couldn’t figure out why the starving people in Africa don’t just buy some food?” He stopped in front of a doorway. “That was two days ago when she said that piece of genius.”

“All right, I’d rather spend time with Erica, but I wouldn’t want to have a conversation with her.” He smiled coyly. “I haven’t heard any stories that Shannon will let you play with her tits for a ride home.”

“Kind of says something about Erica,” Andy said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I have to go to class.”

“Enjoy!” Jake said and walked away.

Andy went inside and sat down at one of the desks in the middle of the room. He put his backpack on the table in front of him and pulled out a dog-eared copy of The Hobbit, and started to read. When the electric bell pinged, he marked his page and stood up with the class as John Parker recited the Pledge of Allegiance over the loudspeaker. As soon as it was over, they all sat down, and Andy resumed reading. John went through a list of announcements, and congratulations to the sports teams on their wins, mentioning his own score in the baseball game the night before. When the announcements ended, Andy put the book away and replaced it with his economics book and a notebook.

As John’s voice faded from the intercom, Mr. Merrin stood up from behind his desk, picking up the text book he had been skimming. “Good morning, everyone,” he said, his eyes still tracing over a page in the book. “How are you all?” he asked in a mumbled, distracted voice. When the class gave him an unintelligible, unenthusiastic groan of response, he said, “Excellent. Then you should all be prepared how to fill out a tax form today.” There was another groan, which made him finally look up at the class and smile sadistically. “Yes, the infamous tax form!” he boomed. “No doubt you’ve heard your parents complain about it.” He picked up a stack of papers from the desk and passed them out to the front of each row. “I’ve made plenty of these, in case you make any mistakes.” Mr. Merrin looked over as the door opened to John Parker strutting in. Mr. Merrin nodded and said, “Good morning, John. Great game last night. You really won that one all by yourself, didn’t you?”

John blushed in faux-modesty. “Thank you, Mr. Merrin,” he said. He took the seat behind Andy and dug his books out of his backpack. “The team won the game last night,” he said. “Not me. I just scored really big.”

Mr. Merrin laughed. “Well, keep up the good work.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” John said, slouching into his chair.

“Good,” Mr. Merrin said. “Now, let’s learn about taxes!” He held up a tax form for them to see. “This is the 1040-EZ, which is what most of you will be using for a while. I’ll show you some of the other forms, but there is no need for you to worry about them for a few years yet.” He went along, instructing on how to fill out the forms, passing out new sheets every time a mistake was made. Bye the end of class, his initially large stack of papers was significantly diminished. When the bell rang to end the class, there was a collective sigh of relief.

While papers rustled and people started talking, John leaned over to Steve Dellano next to him and said, “I fucked Jennie Dix at the party last night.” He slung his bag over his shoulder and stood up.

“Nice!” Steve said, standing up too. They walked past Andy, and he got up, walking down the isle behind them. “Was she good?” Steve asked.

“Oh yeah,” John said, giving a thumbs up. “It was a perfect end to a perfect day.”

“I heard that her friend came in and threw beer on her.”

“Yeah,” John said. “I guess her friend wanted me too, and got all bent out of shape about it. I had already gone downstairs at that point though.”

“What are you going to do about the friend?”Steve asked.

John shrugged. “There’s always next week.” They laughed and walked out the door, turning left, away from Andy.

Andy watched them walk away and shook his head. He turned right and went down the hall, keeping to the side of the hall, away from the crowds of kids that were talking in the middle. He went to the computer room at the end of the hall, turning the lights on as he entered the empty room. He sat down at a computer at the back of the room and turned it on. As he waited for it to boot, he pulled a notebook out of his backpack and flipped through it, opening it to a page near the back, half covered with finely written words.

A menu screen came up, and Andy typed his name and selected the word processor. It turned on, and he started transcribing the lines on the notebook page. The electronic bell pinged, and the door opened to reveal a girl with shoulder-length brown hair and tortoise shell glasses. Andy looked up at her and smiled. “Hey Kate,” he said, lifting his head up over the computer.

She craned her neck and smiled broadly at the sight of him. “Hey!” she cried. “How’s it going?” She came to the back of the room and sat down in the chair next to him, putting her blue backpack on the lap of her black skirt. “How are you?” she asked, turning on the computer. “I haven’t talked to you in a long time.” She studied his face for a second and said, “God, Andy, you look like you haven’t slept in days!”

He groaned. “I went to a concert in Albany with Christian, Clark and Shannon last night. Christian was too tired to drive, and neither Clark or Shannon have licenses, so I had to drive back. When I finally got home, I had a huge fight with my mom. In the end, I got about two hours of sleep.”

She scowled and said, “That sucks.”

Andy nodded and said, “Well, I don’t have to worry about it much longer.”

“Yeah,” Kate said thoughtfully. “Who did you go see?”

“The Misfits,” Andy said. When she cocked her eyebrow, he added, “They’re a punk band. They’re Christian’s favorite band, and I thought he would kill me if I said I didn’t want to go with him.”

“You don’t like them?” she asked, calling up a document on the computer.

“No, that’s not it,” Andy said. “I like them. I have a couple of their CD’s, but Christian is nuts for the band. I had fun at the show, it was worth it.” He groaned and leaned forward. “I feel like I’m going to die today though.”

“Don’t say that, you never know what will happen!” she said with a laugh.

Andy chuckled. “I’m falling apart here,” he said. “My big psychology paper is due on Monday, and I can hardly think straight to type it. I don’t have a computer at home, so I have to do it today. It’s going to come out so bad, I hope I have a chance to edit it on Monday.”

“Is that for Miss Cataran’s class?” she asked. When Andy nodded, she said, “Mine is all done. I actually showed some discipline and got it all finished early.”

“Yeah,” Andy said. “Mine is all written,” he said, holding up the notebook. “I just have to type it. My fingers are all over the keyboard though. I’m going to be lucky if I spell anything right.” He looked down at his watch. “I wonder where Christian is. He said he was going to be here working on his paper all day.” He slid back in the chair, resting his hands on the keyboard, idly tapping random keys. “Did you go to that party last night?”

She shook her head. “Naw, parties aren’t really my thing. I can find better things to do than watch all the jocks get drunk. I had stuff to do last night anyway. My grandmother is in the hospital, so we had to go see her.”

Andy furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong?”

“She had to have an operation on her hip. It was nothing life threatening.”

“Oh,” Andy said. “That’s good.”

“So, are you doing anything besides proof reading this weekend?” she asked, toying with the zipper of her backpack.

“There’s this punk rock show I might go to tonight, but other than that, I have nothing going on. I haven’t even really decide if I’m going to the show,” he said. “I spent most of my money last night, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get any more off my mom.”

“We should hang out,” Kate said, typing half-heartedly. “We haven’t hung out in the longest time. Maybe we could go to that show together.”

“Oh, I don’t know if you’d have a good time there...,” he said, trailing off.

“Why not? I like Green Day. It would be fun.”

“We’ll see,” Andy said. “I don’t even know if I’m going yet.”

“Well, maybe we can just get together and hang out, or something. You know, we could watch a movie or something.”

Andy smiled. “That would be great,” he said. “I’ve still got your number, I’ll give you a call tonight.”

“Make sure you do,” Kate said.

When the bell rang, Kate patted her backpack and said, “Well, off to psychology!”

Andy nodded. “I think I’m going to the library to take a nap.”

“Good luck,” Kate said. “I hope Mr. Lombardo doesn’t see you.” She stood up and pushed her chair in.

“No, don’t worry,” Andy said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “That guy is so old and senile. If you can just get him talking about something else, he’ll forget you were even doing anything wrong. It’s how Clark stays out of trouble up there, you just pretend you weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“But what’s worse, being in trouble, or hearing his stories?”

Andy nodded and conceded with a smile. “Good question,” he said. They left the computer room together and walked down the hall. They paused at Miss Cataran’s room and looked at each other.

Kate licked her lips and clutched at the strap of her backpack. “So,” she said. “You’re going to call me tonight, aren’t you?”

Andy smiled broadly. “Yeah, this evening. Around six?”

“Sounds good,” she said. She smiled again and went inside.

Andy continued on, going upstairs, weaving through the thinning crowds, getting in the library just as the bell rang. All the tables were full, and three kids were playing cards in the back room. Andy pursed his lips in frustration and left. The hallway was empty, except for Mr. Holowinski locking the door to his class.

“Hey, Andy,” Mr. Holowinski said as he pulled the door closed and locked it.

“Hello,” Andy replied, pausing.

“How was the show last night?” Mr. Holowinski asked, walking along with Andy. “Come down to my office. You’ve got to tell me all about it.” He smiled wickedly. “Maybe some of the other teachers will be in there, and we can freak them out!”

“It was really good,” Andy said. “I had a lot of fun.”

“Wow,” Mr. Holowinski said. “The Misfits used to be like my favorite band.” He looked up at a point past the ceiling. “This was back when I had a foot-and-a-half tall, purple mohawk. I almost got their skull logo tattooed on my shoulder.”

“The Crimson Ghost?” Andy said. “Christian painted his face like that last night and was talking about getting it tattooed on his face.”

They came to the stairway and Mr. Holowinski opened the door and held it for Andy. “We used to just drunk, drive around, listen to the Misfits, and cause trouble.” He laughed thoughtfully. “Those were the days.”

“Sounds like my days,” Andy said, going down the stairs.

“When Christian told me about the show last month, I ran to my wife’s office and begged her to let me go.” He chuckled. “I thought she was going to kill me! She told me I couldn’t, but I got home before her, and had already dug out my leather jacket by the time she got there. I was like a little kid! ‘Please! Let me go to the show!’”

“She didn’t let you, I see,” Andy said.

He scowled and sighed. “No, she told me I needed to be mature, and that I couldn’t go running off to concerts and calling in sick to work like I was eighteen again.” She shook his head. “I went with her to see Garth Brooks!” They circled around to the second flight of stairs. “Now that was painful. She wouldn’t even let me drink!”

“You guys are still young though. You don’t need to be that mature,” Andy said.

Mr. Holowinski shrugged. “Well, she came from a very conservative background." He looked around to make sure no one was listening and whispered, "We didn’t even have sex until after we were engaged. I think I just started out as the rebel boyfriend to scare her family with. I was trying to get my life together at the time, and she was exactly what I needed. She’s not exactly the type to run off and see some twenty-year-old punk band. So they were good?”

Andy laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “The show was good. They played for a really long time. Then Christian was too tired, so I had to drive home.”

“Ouch,” Mr. Holowinski said. “That always sucked. I was the one with the car and license when I was seventeen, so I was always in that same position. One time, me and my friends went to see Fear in the New York City, and I had to drive home. I wanted to just stay somewhere, but we had no friggin’ money. I was so tired, and I had to work the next day.” They went into the basement hallway and went to the science office next to the nurses office. “So where is the rest of your crew today? I haven’t seen them around. I figure Christian must be glowing.”

“Christian said he was coming in to do some work in the computer room. I haven’t seen him though, so I guess he changed his mind. Clark and Shannon were planning to take the day off.” Mr. Holowinski sat down at his desk, and Andy took the seat across from him. “I wanted to take the day off too, but my mom already was freaking out. I was supposed to have detention today for walking out last night, after you left. When they called to tell her about it, she went nuts and bitched them out. She said she would have Mr. Henry’s job if I was in detention today.”

Mr. Holowinski laughed. “It’s got to be nice to have a get-out-of-detention-free card like that. I could have used one of those when I was here.”

Andy sighed. “I’d rather have the detention. She blames all of this on Christian, Clark and Shannon. ‘If you didn’t hang out with those kids...’ It’s like she doesn’t trust me to pick my own friends. She’s always inviting over kids from our church to try and get me to hang out with them.”

“Ugh!”

“Yeah! They’re so boring. I mean, I’m not the most terribly exciting person, but these are seventeen or eighteen year old kids that get excited about sitting home and praying!”

“Wow. Are you a... Christian?”

“I don’t know... I guess so. I mean, I still believe in it, but I don’t really practice it. I only go to church once in a while.”

Mr. Holowinski chuckled. “My wife made me convert when we got married. I used to be against it, back in my punk rock days, but I was against a lot of things. I guess I stand where you stand. I don’t know if I believe in it, but I believe in something.”

“Well, my mom says it isn’t good enough. She thinks my friends are taking me straight to Hell. Of course, it doesn’t help that Clark antagonizes her. They think they’ve all got it so bad, but they don’t know what bad is, unless they’ve dealt with my mom for a week. Clark, his parents are so cool. They know he drinks and smokes pot, but they never say anything about it. They don’t care as long as he isn’t getting in trouble. One time, I went over to his house, and his mom was like, ‘He’s upstairs, smoking weed.’ He still bitches about them all the time though. And Christian, his dad is kind of rough on him, but I mean, it’s nothing compared to dealing with my mom.”

“That’s rough,” Mr. Holowinski said. “You know, Christian is a good kid, a smart kid. If he puts that to use, he could change the world.”

“Yeah,” Andy said. “He has a tendency to fly off the handle though. He’ll react to a situation that most other people could see their way through.” He leaned forward and entwined is fingers. “Like the whole thing with his dad. His dad is the same as him, he’ll go nuts over the slightest thing, and he doesn’t understand Christian in the least. His father is a very conservative, straight-forward guy, and having a son like Christian is just beyond him.”

Mr. Holowinski nodded. “I knew a lot of parents like that. All these kids used to ever talk about was how much they hated their parents.” He laughed and put his feet up on his desk. “My parents never really gave me a hard time. They realized it was just a phase, and I would cut the mohawk soon enough. I mean, damn, my mother was a flower-child, she was excited to have a son who went to protests and things like that. When she caught me smoking pot one day, we shared a joint, and then she told me not to do it anymore.” He chuckled. “After that, I didn’t even bother to spoof it, so I’m sure she knew I was still smoking it. I guess she was kind of like Clark’s parents.” His face tightened. “Of course, as a teacher, I’m supposed to tell you that it’s bad. So here goes: Marijuana kills. Everyone I’ve ever known that even tried it died as soon as they inhaled.” He smiled. “Did that do?”

Andy chuckled. “Oh yeah, now I’ll never start.”

“You don’t smoke it anyway, do you?” Mr. Holowinski asked.

Andy shook his head. “No, Clark convinced me to try it once, but I really didn’t like it.”

Mr. Holowinski nodded. “That’s probably for the better. It’s not all that great anyway. I wouldn’t mind it once in a while, but my wife would never approve.”

“Well,” Andy said. “Clark really likes it.” He shrugged. “Christian’s dad tries to understand him,” he said. “It’s not like my mom, who is completely against me, and who would kill me if I looked or acted like any of my friends. Christian’s dad will try and talk to him, he’ll try and bond with him. He doesn’t know what to talk about though. He’ll talk about what he knows, and how he and his father used to do things together. Christian will see this as some kind of attack and retaliate. His father is a little hard on Christian sometimes, but it’s not as bad as Christian thinks.”

“That’s sad,” Mr. Holowinski said. “I hope Christian can get through that. He has too much potential to waste. I’ve seen too many kids that had talents in this or that, just blow it off, ending up with no education, working in a factory all their lives. People need to get out there and make their mark. Christian is one of the people that could do that. I hope he realizes that soon.”

“I think once he gets out of this town, he’ll be fine. He’s just to big here. He wants to be in a band that does something, that makes a mark, one that people talk about down the road.”

Mr. Holowinski laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “We all wanted that. I was in like four of them during the years. One of them even got a record out on an independent label. We did one small, East Coast tour. The band broke up when I went off to college though. There were still some plans to go on, but I wrote all the songs. I told them I didn’t care if they went on without me, and that they could use my songs, but I guess I was the one with the ambition.”

“What kind of band was it?”

“We started out as a more hardcore punk band, but this was around the time that Green Day was starting to get big, so we wanted to get big too. You know, get on Mtv and everything. I was into it at first, but I lost my steam really quickly. I was used to playing for real punks, kids with leather, and spikes, and colored hair, and the works. Suddenly, we were playing for the same kids that used to beat us up. I decided I didn’t want to be popular with that crowd, and I just didn’t fit in. I was the only one at the time that hadn’t cut my mohawk yet, and I swore I never would.”

Andy smiled. “It’s good to see you stuck to your guns.”

Mr. Holowinski shrugged. “Things change. You realize you can make more of an impression on the world if they think you are one of them. It’s like that Dead Kennedys song, you know. Music scenes aren’t real life. They can’t change the world or anything like that. You can learn a lot from the music, and the messages, but in the end, you’ve got to take the good things you’ve learned, become a better person, and move on. That’s why I have to laugh at Christian, Clark, and Shannon when they go on about how they’ll be like this forever. There’s no way they will. Please don’t tell them I said this, but in ten years, Clark and Shannon are going to be just like the rest of the world. This is something they are into now, but by the time they get out of college, they will fit in.”

“What about me?”

“You?” Mr. Holowinski asked. “You’ve got a pretty good head on your shoulders as it is. You seem to pretty much know who and what you are. People like you rarely change much, you just expand your world-view.”

“And Christian?”

Mr. Holowinski snorted with a smile on his face. “He won’t be a punk. Christian has the ambition, the drive to do something really big, to really put his mark on the world in a really positive way. Christian is definitely going to make something of himself, but I don’t think he’ll stay a punk rocker.” He shook his head. “No way, Christian is way too smart for that. He is going to take the good things out of the scene and will move on. Someday, I’m going to be telling people that I taught Christian in school.”

“I hope you’re right,” Andy said. “He hasn’t been talking about starting a band lately. The only time I’ve heard about him writing music was for some song he wrote Shannon. I hope he get’s involved in something over the summer.”

“What’s he planning to do after school? He has always been really vague with me about that.”

Andy shrugged. “You and everyone else. I don’t think he actually knows yet. Shannon wants him to go to California with her, and I keep telling him he should. I think he’s kind of afraid though. He’s a sheltered life here, and now the prospect of stepping out in the real world is scaring him. I think he’d rather stay here, where he knows how things are, than going out and doing something new that he might fail.”

“Well, I hope he doesn’t do that.”

Andy shook his head. “I don’t think he will. He just needs a push. It might be that the push is working a couple months in his father’s gun shop while all his friends are scattered across the country. Then, hopefully, he’ll go to California and tell Shannon that he’s been in love with her for the last year.”

“Does he like her that much?”

“Oh yeah. He talks about her non-stop. He’s had a couple girls practically throw themselves at him at shows and stuff, and he just ignores them.” Andy shrugged and looked up at the clock. “It’s kind of depressing to watch.”

Mr. Holowinski chuckled. “Well, I hope everything works out for Christian.” He glanced up at the clock himself. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got to get ready for my next class. My fourth period kids are not getting this at all. I have to spend the next few weeks struggling to make sure at least a couple of them get passing grades.” He leaned back and laughed. “Though, now that I’ve got tenure, I don’t really have to worry.” He leaned back in his chair, netting his fingers behind his head, a look of faux-arrogance on his face.

“Oh, yeah,” Andy said. “I forgot to congratulate you on that.”

“Thanks,” Mr. Holowinski said.

“All right,” Andy said, faking hurt. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“All right,” Mr. Holowinski said. “I’ll talk to you later.”