The Genius of Little Things (8 page)

My physics teacher was unimpressed by my stall door campaign promise. In the middle of explaining error analysis, Mr. Zirke told the class, apropos of nothing, that western society was too afraid of excrement. “We anesthetize everything about our bodies, hide in shame, irradiate our food. I’ll tell you something. I love to take a dump in the woods. I feel alive when I’m doing it. I mean we don’t have to be like
Angola
, but stall doors? Gimme a break.”

In English lit, Mrs. Yglesias asked the class the meaning of
canard
. Her question was met with open-mouth stares. She informed them canard was a lie told often and universally believed to be true. “Tyler used it well in his campaign speech. Abstinence-only sex education
is
a canard. Thank you, Tyler, for saying what needed to be said.”

Student reactions to my presence included whispers, furtive glances, exaggerated pretend-laughs, and “hey, condom guy.” One creepy guy in physics stopped me after class and asked whether he could get HIV from oral sex. Reflexively, I asked whether he meant giving or receiving, because there was a difference in risk factors depending on how it was performed. He became angry and told me to forget it. That was fine. I didn’t want to be talking about that subject with anyone, especially him. As he rushed away, I told him to talk with the school nurse.

The most annoying reactions were guys who squatted down and comically pretended to have a painful bowel movement.

This was not popularity. Notoriety was more like it. My reputation was, at that moment, somewhere between football captain/prom king and black trench coat/army boot types. This was far more attention than I had received after my science fair achievements. But it was not something Caltech would care about. Their admissions committee wanted an elected class leader, not some guy who gave a
scheizen
mixed-up speech about sex and drugs and toilet stalls.

But the promised election wasn’t happening. There had been no announcement of it, and none of my teachers had heard anything.

During biology II, a goth-looking guy came to Mr. Proudfoot’s class with a pink slip. Mr. Proudfoot waved the slip and said, “for our speechmaker.” The class laughed. I felt a familiar tickle in my throat.

By the time I reached Principal Nicks’ office the tickle had turned into a cough. I was experiencing the beginning of acid reflux as well. To calm my nerves I began making a grocery list in my head.

Principal Nicks tossed me a heavy document,
Guidelines for Student Government
. He explained that the role of SGA leaders was to improve the lives of the constituents, AKA students. The point he made, over and over, was that SGA was a governing body for those who are serious about government, and, therefore, it was not the SGA candidate’s role to advocate for sex lit or condoms.

He leaned forward. “
Capiche
?” I could smell menthol lozenges and aftershave.

I nodded. I couldn’t say anything because I was trying to suppress my coughing.

“And in the unlikely event you ever speak in front of the student body again, you’ll run it by me.”

I nodded vigorously. A bark-like cough slipped out.

He wasn’t done. “Did you know I was a member of a task force on drugs in schools, in the Bush administration? The first Bush, the better one.” He segued into a monologue about keeping kids off drugs. “So many lives lost. For what? Freedom? Fun? While pushers profit and kids suffer.”

His extended rant reminded me of a poem written and performed by Thor, a strange guy with a nose ring, in the Creative Soul class. “I am your cowboy, your muscle man, your lover, your fighter, your savior. Do you like my stirrups? My smoking gun?” When it was all over Thor did an elaborate curtsy. Ms. Gurzy cooed and students murmured enthusiastically. Zoe snickered silently, her shoulders bouncing. I enjoyed watching Zoe bounce.

“I
said
am I making myself clear?” Principal Nicks was glaring at me. Or maybe he wasn’t. It was hard to tell with his tumbleweed eyebrows. “The stall doors will stay off, and
you
will stay off the ballot.”

“Who’s on the ballot?”

“Nobody. There’s no special election.”

I still had the guidelines for student government in my lap. Why had he shown me this book when I would not be in the SGA? What I really wanted to say was there had been no time to run the farking speech by him, and the whole thing had been his farking last minute idea.

He emitted a breathy cough. I could feel the moist wind on my face. Great. He was going to give me a virus along with a lecture. He snatched a box of lozenges from the desk and tossed one into his mouth. “And you’ll walk back your comments on pot,” he said, while loudly clearing his throat. “Marijuana
is
a dangerous drug HACK-HOC-HOC so what you’re going to do is aaarUUGHAHH write an op-ed in the
Clarion
denying everything you said.
Capiche
?”

I gave up trying to suppress my cough. Now we were both coughing. I didn’t bother covering my mouth, because he wasn’t covering his.

During a break in his hacking, he reminded me I was on thin ice, as if that weren’t already clear. “Twice in a month I’ve seen you in my HACK-HACK office. That doesn’t CARRUGH-KA-KA bode well, does it?”

I shook my head. Counting a short visit to drop off the election petition, I had been in his office three times. I didn’t correct him.

I had made an enemy of Principal Nicks. But Mr. Proudfoot was pleased with my predicament. Being banned from student government meant I could devote more time to the science fair. He loved my idea about investigating the cause of the massive bee die-offs. Even though the proposal wasn’t due until November 15
^th
—and that was only a suggested deadline because the fair wasn’t until February—he wanted me to start working on it right away.

“Forget about viruses,” he said. “If it’s bacteria killing the bees, then it’s bacteria that will save the bees.”

He wanted me to work on the project every lunch period, with him. I told him I did my best thinking alone.

“A lone wolf with a he-
uuuuge
ego. You’ll be right at home at Caltech.” I liked the term
right at home
. It was confirmation that I belonged somewhere.

SEVEN

Contrary to the figures I presented in my campaign speech, many studies show that marijuana has a profound effect on the still-developing adolescent brain, including memory loss and permanent impairment of motor skills and reasoning. As for frank discussions about sex and distribution of condoms and safer sex literature, I’m informed that such activities cannot be conducted under the auspices of the Student Government Association. Please discuss matters with the school nurse, your own doctor, or faith practitioner.

**

I submitted the op-ed to Principal Nicks for his approval. He made a few changes, mostly deleting references to his drug czar work in Washington. I thought we were done, but he still wanted to know what I had against open toilet stalls.

“I believe everyone deserves privacy.”

“Try spending time in the Navy if you think you deserve privacy. No stall doors, no stalls. Sleeping quarters? Bunks were side by side and head to head. You get used to it. Learn to
like
the smell of sweat and feet. And you take your crap where and when you can.”

I thanked him for the information, and asked whether he wanted me to include his Navy experiences in the op-ed.

“What do you think?”

“Yes?”

“No!”

Rachel, the
Clarion
’s photographer, had something to say about the whole sordid matter. I mean about the op-ed I wrote, not the sordid matter of Principal Nicks’ Navy ship experiences. She thought I was wrong not to stand up to him, and she waited by my locker after seventh period just to tell me this. Her hair was even wilder than on the day of the assembly. She looked like the cartoons of someone who had been given an electric shock. She smelled good though, citrus-y. I didn’t notice her eyes at first, because she was standing very close, and I had a habit of not looking people in the eye, no matter how close they were. I realized that I was looking at her chest, and girls don’t like that. I forced myself to look into her eyes. They were green.

I told her that if I hadn’t written the op-ed, Principal Nicks would have made my life hell. He could kill my chance of being admitted to Caltech. She was sympathetic, to a point, but she was still under the illusion I was some kind of freedom fighter.

“You did what you felt you had to do, but I think it’s never wrong to speak truth to power. That’s why I’m a journalist. Well, a photographer. I’m trying to write for the paper. It’s such a boy’s club. I have a shot if I come up with a great scoop.”

“I didn’t mean to say whatever I said at the rally.”

She didn’t hear me. “Even more than promoting safer sex and drug use, you took on the establishment. A progressive leader does change lives by bucking the status quo.”

I wanted to say that it was a stretch to call me a progressive leader, since I didn’t have a real platform aside from restroom privacy, which was not so much a platform as a simple right. But I couldn’t get in a word. It was astounding how Rachel could say so much without taking a breath.

“People who run for office give the most boring speeches. Or they’re jocks and they just smirk and sway. But you have something special. Most candidates would say ‘don’t do heroin’ if they even mention it at all. But encouraging needle exchanges, that’s bold.”

“I did that?”

“Yes! And STD testing. A girl wrote an anonymous letter to the paper and said your speech made her think about getting tested. She said if it weren’t for you, she would have gone around spreading Chlamydia.”

Rachel had an even bigger agenda than praising me. She wanted to do a feature story on me. She would need three interviews, minimum. “This way you can do an end run around the administration. You can say what you want. Tell everyone the principal made you take back those things. And I think everyone wants to learn more about your life. At the risk of sounding selfish, this could be a career-making story for me. By career I mean my high school journalism career. If I do a great job they’ll have to make me a regular reporter.”

I said I wouldn’t make a good subject because I wouldn’t be SGA vice president, because Principal Nicks called off the election.

“That’s one more reason to do the story. Vindication. I promise I won’t write anything deleterious about you.”

“But you wouldn’t be writing a hagiography.”

She leaned in as if murmuring to a hidden microphone in my vest pocket. “You’re probably the only person in this school who knows the word hagiography.”

I agreed to meet her for one interview, with the option to do more if it didn’t go badly. Assuming she was truthful about wanting to write something semi-positive about me, I could use it in my application materials for Caltech.

Plus, she was likely one of a precious few at Firebird High who would use the word deleterious, let alone use it correctly.

The plan was to meet at lunch in the outdoor courtyard. Rachel insisted the interview would only take half the period. I expected her to show up during the first part of the period, but this didn’t happen. While I waited for her on my shady bench, I heard some guy shout, “Where’s our stall doors?” I knew it was directed at me. I raised my head and squinted at a group of students lounging in the sun at the next table. A girl in a halter top smiled—flirtingly?—at me. “Can we recall him if he doesn’t deliver?”

I informed her I was not in SGA, and, therefore, I could not be recalled.

A guy with spiked black hair talked with his mouth full. “Who beat you out?”

“He was the only one running.” This was from a girl who was draped over a muscular guy’s shoulder like a slutty squid.

“There was no election,” I said. I don’t think they heard me.

“Can you still distribute condoms and pot?” the muscle guy said.

 “The administration won’t allow it,” I said. “But they are open to distributing sex toys and heroin.”

Three seconds passed. Then they laughed. It was like I had given the secret password to their club. The halter-top girl waved me over. I scooted to the end of my table, close enough to hear them, but not close enough to invade their turf. The halter-top girl proclaimed me
too
funny, and then she shifted to oral sex. I mean she started talking about oral sex, not performing it.

It became clear after a minute or so that the conversation would no longer involve me. I knew this because nobody asked me anything or even looked at me. My tenure in the cool kids club could have been measured with a stopwatch.

I returned to my previous perch in the shade. When it looked like Rachel wasn’t coming, I commenced with my lunch. About five minutes before the bell, Rachel bolted to my table. She wore beige overalls and a black t-shirt. Her hair was different, tamed. I could clearly see her face. Pretty, I thought.