 |
|
2002:May:20
The following is my second edition of a series referred to earlier this month called "I can smile about it now but the time it was terrible".
In my junior year of high school I had two best friends. D and S. D befriended me in the 10th grade because he liked my clothes. I rode in the homecoming parade or something in a straw filled truck. D, an outcast himself as well, did suffer some blows in the days that followed because D, D was a local. The terribly fat, well dressed, and high voiced sexless future queen that I was, was too much for D. But D, like my friends in the past, liked me one on one. I took the scraps that I was thrown and slowly began to hang out with S much more. S was better I see in retrospect in some ways. Of course, worse in some ways as well. S was a freak, like me, or at least the rest of the school thought we were. S and I connected through music so much. The Smiths, R.E.M, Replacement, Pylon, etc. etc. We took endless trips through country roads, passing signs that claimed that Jesus was now or that Jesus was real. Poor S, an outcast too, because of the town, a beautiful girl, really, but she was punished from earliest memory for being the only jewish girl in a frightfully baptist southern town. So, with all that in mind, back to the terrible
In an effort to assimilate, naively, and perhaps a still frantic effort to remove myself further from the unit and instead evolve into something not quite so ordinary, I decided that I wanted to attend Modeling School. S did not approve. S was forced to attend modeling school and did every thing in her power to rebel against it so I assumed that the only way I could get to that level where she was at was to experience it myself and glean whatever I might need to perhaps bring myself up to level with the average boy. Again, like I mentioned earlier, I was naive. So, my mom drives me to the school after shopping for shoes for her at the mall. The school is in midtown Savannah. I enter a small waiting room filled with pictures of guys and girls that really looked like they had it together, models, etc. I waited my turn surrounded by young women, slightly plump, with hair in some stage of red or blonde for the most part as I remember now. When it was my turn, I had my check ready and I was so excited. I had not eaten all day and I was so proud of myself. My mother had offered over and over again to take me to any one of my favorite stops on my hossing tour of Savannah. A 40ish, blonde woman, in a blue leotard, looked at me, looked at check, and told me that when I start classes I should try to look my very best. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. She repeated this several more times and looked more and more worried each time as she looked at my legs and then looked at my face. I was taken on a tour where I was told I would learn about makeup. Funny, I did not think that I would be learning about makeup. She shook my hand and again looked at my legs and said that we really try to look our best here and that she would see me next saturday. We drove home from Savannah, my mother and I. I was home for about a half an hour. I had just started cooking. My Dad would be home soon. The phone rang. It was the woman from the school. I guess she figured it all out. "We do not offer classes for men anymore. I was mistaken when I accepted your check. You can have your check back of course". I thanked her and hung up quickly. I was so relieved that my parents did not know. I think the next day I started getting a grocery bag full of snacks from the convenience store on the way home to devour before I boiled the chicken and fluffed the rice for my father.
|
|
|
