Beatitude Prologue/ 1
Boom!
Written by Mark Scott Ricketts
PROLOGUE
When I was a kid – like nine-years-old – I used to listen to music on a yellow, plastic, Panasonic TNT 8-track tape player that I carried everywhere. I thought it was cool because it had a plunger like the dynamite detonators in cartoons. Every time I pressed it down to change a song I’d say, “Boom!”
When I first got it, my uncle Glen gave me two 8-track cartridges: Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” and David Bowie “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.” I remember my dad was super ticked off. He told him to buy the Bee Gees and Elton John.
I eventually lost interest in my 8-track. Pink got left out in the sun to warp and the player gobbled up Bowie. I probably still have that old player stored away in a box somewhere. Could be a collector’s item or museum worthy by now, if my mom didn’t trash it.
One of the many aggravating things I remember about 8-track was that sometimes a song would cut out before it ended. Just when you were caught up in a groove, you’d have to fast forward to hear the finish.
This is exactly where I am right now in my life.
My too-cool-for-school, seniors rule groove is just about to cut off. But I won’t drift into a static void or get jammed up with my confidence crinkled and unraveling. My inner pulse will continue on, for I am the master of air guitar and the keeper of head-bobbin’ time.
The question is: Do I fast-forward or press the plunger and start a new track?
CHAPTER ONE
I must be a friggin’ genius. Right? My high school literature teacher, she couldn’t keep up with me. Her whole life, I think she’s read exactly three novels. Period. And for the last thirty odd years those three novels have been at the center of her lesson plan. I’m thinking she’s better suited for a career as a Walmart greeter. Hell, I should have led a revolt and taught that class myself. One time I mentioned Nabokov and she excused me to go see the school nurse.
“A cough? No ma’am.”
I should be celebrated for my brilliance. I should be, but I’m not. Instead I’m just one of many wearing a polyester gown and a square cap with a tassel. My parents — ugh. They made me come to this stupid ceremony. They just love to torture me. Especially my dad.
I’m sitting in an uncomfortable metal chair on a stage in a cafetorium (cafeteria/auditorium) listening to the epitaph of my miserable high school career. It’s all cheery rah-rah, teary bye-bye crap and the freakin’ valedictorian, best remembered for having pissed his pants in grade school, is at the microphone. This poor kid is trying his best to give a sincere farewell speech. But the jerkwads sitting behind him, the guys that bullied him for the last 12 years, they’re snickering, mocking his lisp. One of them actually coughed out the words “queer bait.” In a public forum. In front of everyone. His parents, even.
I guess something must have triggered their primal instinct. Like in grade school that time they jumped the kid in the boy’s bathroom. They wouldn’t let him pee. And he really, really needed to pee.
I was there. I saw the whole thing go down. The savage bullying, the panicked look on the tortured kid’s face, the stream flowing down his leg, the raucous laughter. I could have defended him, I guess. But that probably would have just made matters worse. For me, mostly. Bullies already called me “worm,” shortened from “bookworm.” I assume that was just a few notches above “queer bait.”
(I just realized all their cruel nicknames sounded like something you’d use to lure fish.)
Confession: I felt sorry for him, but I did smile a little when he whizzed himself. In my defense, I was a Fourth grader. The mere mention of boogers, farting, pooping, or peeing was pure comedy gold.
Now look at the guy, standing up there, all proud, ignoring his detractors. He’s an honor student, a mathlete, and he just got a scholarship to a prestigious school in the East. Plus, he has a girlfriend. She’s pretty religious and I’m sure they’ve never had sex, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t desire it. They’ll probably marry before he ever sees her naked.
I guess I still feel sorry for him.
If I think about it, I feel sorry for most of the numbnuts in my class. Especially the bullies. They have no idea who and what they are. They sure as hell don’t know what they’re going to do with their lives after graduating high school. If my class thought too hard about the future, they’d ALL be pissing themselves.
A banner hangs like the sword of Damocles over our heads. It reads: Congratulations Graduating Class of 1984! It should read: The End Is Near!
As far as grades go, I never made anything less than an A minus. And I never missed a day of school. But no one asked me to give the valedictory. They wouldn’t dare. My closing statement would be too real for them to handle. It would make women weep, men fall to their knees, cats howl and dogs roll over to play dead. It would make my so-called teachers reassess their miserable lives. It would be a butt load of truth and it would blow the lid off this sad, saggy ass affair.
And it would go a little something like this:
We stand at the precipice, ladies and gentlemen. And some among us will take flight and soar to greater heights.
This is where I would bow my head to reflect on the fate of our hallowed jocks. How will they survive without a scrappy cartoon mascot to worship? Without the benefit of chants from acrobatic acolytes in short skirts? Without one more holy weekend crusade?
Some will fall from grace to despair and many will grow bald, pull a few shifts at the Jiffy Lube and add to an already overgrown population. But when loved ones forsake you and your ambitions turn to dust, when your job becomes a tedious run on the treadmill of life, when you look into the eyes of your husband or wife and see nothing but contempt, when the weight of the world crushes you like a cigarette butt, you can always look back.
Look back to this very night, and remember it as a time when your head was still full of dreams. Remember it as the time when you celebrated the accomplishments of your past and basked in your illusions of a bright future. Because when this momentous night is over…
At this point, I would add an unnecessary dramatic pause for effect. You know, to build some tension. Just long enough so everyone’s startled when I hit ‘em with the full metal, evangelical, James Brown in-a-cold-sweat closer.
I say, once this glorious night is over, your memory of it may be all that stands between you … and a loaded gun.
For many in my graduating class, tonight really is the end of the frikkin’ world. So, in honor of this occasion, we must all get totally trashed. Absolutely everyone must get laid, especially the valedictorian. Bullies need to finally come out of the closet. I’m looking at you, Jimmy Holms. It’s okay. Nobody cares. Stop torturing yourself. Be you. And you know what? You’re forgiven for being an asshole. No shit.
Tonight, all secrets will be revealed. Cos no matter what, we grew up fighting in the trenches together so we’re tight. Reveal your truth. Spill your beans. We’re cool. It’s cool. Everything’s cool. Well, I mean, if you’re hiding the fact that you’ve killed somebody you may want to hold that back. But - heh- other than that, hugs all around.
Most important: Everyone is required to commit at least two misdemeanors tonight. Go for a felony if you’re so inclined. Damn the consequences until tomorrow. Tonight has to make prom night look like a marching band bake sale. I want to witness a spectacle – like a no-one-goes-home-until-someone-lands-in-the-hospital-or-in-jail kind of spectacle.
Long live the Class of 1984!
There’s the applause. It’s not for me, of course. They’re clapping for the kid I’ll always remember standing in a yellow puddle crying for his lost dignity.
I clap along, but not because I really got worked up over his speech. Mostly because my long suffering slog to freedom has ended. I can leave my parent’s grip now. It may be 1984, but Big Brother is in my rear view. I can thumb my nose and flip the bird to this school, this crappy town and any chump who ever tried to hold me down and make me conform.
Chumps like . . . Principal Fischer.
Tomorrow I will finally be released into the wild where I can reveal my true genius. I can become independently wealthy, insufferably famous and loved by multiple partners. High school is dead to me. I toss my cap in the air to signal its passing.
Get stuffed, Fischer.
BEATITUDE © Mark Scott Ricketts
BEATITUDE Illustrations by Jay Washer
Apologies to the late Jack Kerouac for use of his “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose" tips.
I feel badly for the ones who really thought the years spent at high school were the best years of their lives. What they do during the next decades? I was lucky, I guess...