But really anytime you’re in a room with a bunch of groups mixed together, you have to disengage as much as possible. In class, at lunch, wherever.
At this point, you may be asking: “But what about your friends? You can’t ignore your friends if you’re in class with them.”
To which I say: Maybe you haven’t been paying attention. The whole point is that you can’t be friends with anyone. That’s the tragedy and the triumph of this whole way of being that I’m talking about. You can’t lead a typical high school life.
Because here’s the thing: The typical high school life sucks.
You may also be asking: “Greg, why are you talking trash on the group-less kids? It sounds like you’re basically a group-less kid.” You have a point, sort of. The thing is, I was in no group, but I was also in every group. So you can’t really describe me as group-less.
Honestly, there’s no good word for what I was doing. For a while I thought of myself as a practitioner of High School Espionage, but ultimately that was too misleading of a term. That made it sound like I was sneaking around having illicit sexual liaisons with voluptuous Italian women. For one thing, Benson doesn’t have any voluptuous Italian women. The closest thing we have is Ms. Giordano in the principal’s office, and she’s kind of lumpy and has a face like a parrot. Also, she does this thing women sometimes do with their eyebrows where they just completely shave them off and draw new ones in a different weird place with a Sharpie or something, and the more you think about it, the more your stomach starts churning around and you want to claw your own head.
That is literally the only appearance Ms. Giordano is going to make in this book.
Let’s just move on.
So I guess we should start with the first day of senior year. Which was actually awesome until Mom got involved.
I mean, “awesome” is a relative term. My expectations were low, obviously. Maybe “awesome” is too strong a word. The sentence should be: “I was pleasantly surprised when the first day of senior year did not make me want to freak out and hide in my own locker pretending to be dead.”
School is always stressful, and then the first day of any school year is especially insane because the hangout spots have to be realigned. I failed to note in the previous chapter that the traditional groups of Rich, Jock, Smart, Theater, etc., are further subdivided by grade: The sophomore gothy dorks live in resentful terror of the senior gothy dorks, the smart juniors are dismissive and mistrustful of the smart freshman, etc. So when a class moves out, all of the spots that they used to occupy before school are up for grabs, and there’s usually some weirdness as a result.
Mainly it made for a busy morning for me. I showed up stupidly early to see how things would play out, and there were already some kids staking out their ground. These tended to be representatives of Benson’s more dicked-upon groups.
INT. HALLWAY IN FRONT OF THE LIBRARY — MORNING
JUSTIN HOWELL is hovering nervously near the door to the library, hoping to claim it for the theater kids. He is pacing back and forth humming THE THEME FROM RENT OR MAYBE CATS. With visible relief, he notices GREG approaching.
JUSTIN HOWELL
clearly relieved that it is not a jock or gangbanger or anyone else who will immediately call him a faggot
Oh hi Greg.
GREG GAINES
Justin, good to see you.
JUSTIN HOWELL
Good to see you. Greg how was your summer.
GREG
It was hot and boring, and I can’t believe it’s over already.
JUSTIN HOWELL
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
OH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA.
This seemingly innocuous JOKE has caused Justin Howell to completely lose his shit. Perhaps it is the MIND-DESTROYING ANXIETY of being back at school.
Meanwhile, this was not quite the response Greg was hoping to get. He had intended to say something bland and unmemorable. Now he is SHRUGGING and FIDGETING AWKWARDLY and attempting to avoid EYE CONTACT, which he usually does when people are laughing at a thing that he has said.
JUSTIN HOWELL (CONT’D)
turning his eyebrows into a weird shape
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA.
MRS. WALTER, the librarian, arrives. She is glaring at both of them. She is almost definitely an ALCOHOLIC.
JUSTIN HOWELL
Hi Mrs. Walterrrr.
MRS. WALTER
with dislike
Hhngh.
JUSTIN HOWELL
Greg that is too funny.
GREG
All right man, I’ll see you later.
I was obviously not gonna go into that library and have a lengthy bro-hang with Justin Howell, for reasons I’ve already explained to you. It was time to move on.
INT. HALLWAY IN FRONT OF THE BAND ROOM — MORNING
LAQUAYAH THOMAS and BRENDAN GROSSMAN have not been let into the band room yet. Despite not having instruments, they are poring over some SHEET MUSIC. You can sort of tell that they are doing this to show everyone that they are good enough at music to just casually sit around reading sheet music.
BRENDAN GROSSMAN
Gaines. You doing orchestra this year?
GREG
apologetically
Couldn’t fit it in.
BRENDAN GROSSMAN
Whaaaaat.
LAQUAYAH THOMAS
incredulously
But you woulda got timpani this year! Now who’s gonna play timpani?
BRENDAN GROSSMAN
mournfully
It’s gonna be like Joe DiMeola.
GREG
Yeah, probably Joe. He’s a better percussionist than me anyway.
LAQUAYAH THOMAS
Joe gets the sticks all sweaty.
GREG
That’s because he’s so focused.
INT. AUDITORIUM — MORNING
Two senior gothy dorks, SCOTT MAYHEW and ALLAN McCORMICK, are camped out in some seats near the back playing Magic cards. GREG enters cautiously, his eyes darting from side to side. The auditorium is perhaps the school’s most valuable real estate. It is highly unlikely that this little goth colony will survive the WAVES OF JOCKS, THEATER KIDS, AND GANGBANGERS that will doubtless arrive later this morning.
GREG
Hello, gentlemen.
SCOTT MAYHEW
Good day to you.
ALLAN McCORMICK
blinking rapidly and forcefully for probably no reason
Yes, good day.
The gothy dorky kids are very low in the social hierarchy, but at the same time they are almost impossible to infiltrate. Maybe it’s because they’re so low in the hierarchy. They’re insanely suspicious of everyone who tries to talk to them. This is because pretty much all of their characteristics are targets of ridicule: their love of elves and dragons, their trench coats and long un-groomed or maybe-too-well-groomed hair, their habit of striding around way too fast while breathing really hard out of their noses. Getting them to accept you is difficult without becoming a gothy dork.
Actually, I feel kind of a soft spot for them because I completely understand their worldview. They hate high school, just like I do. They’re constantly trying to escape it and instead live in a fantasy world where they can spend all their time striding around in the mountains, jabbing people with swords under the eerie light of like eight different moons or something. Sometimes I feel like, in an alternate universe, I could have been one of them. I’m pasty and chubby and completely insane in social situations. And if I’m being honest, attacking people with swords is awesome.