The Onset

Part 2(Michael's POV)

Michael

June 24th 2015. Only two days remain until I never have to see those silly kids at my high school again. By the fall, I will be in beautiful Cambridge, Massachusetts. I will join the cream of the crop of the country and the world at Harvard. Finally, I go away from here, where I could never adjust.

The events this past Monday and Tuesday were rather peculiar. I’ll recount what happened, beginning with Monday morning:

I woke up late that day. Didn’t even have time for breakfast. After showering and dressing, I had only the opportunity to rehearse the very beginning of my I.B philosophy speech which I would deliver later that afternoon. Being both the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable of my class, the teacher Mr. Edwards accepted a proposition I brought to him a week ago concerning this end-of-the-school-year talk. I summarized it for him in a one-page outline, and, after reading it he remarked that it was “the most well-conceived project of any student he’s ever had”, paraphrasing of course. And so, for the next couple of days I researched, reviewed, and rehearsed almost incessantly, even so much as to neglect my homework from other classes. The speech was going to touch on everything that was covered in the class during the year and then some. And by that, I mean I would add an existentialist modicum for them to chew on, existentialism being the most relevant philosophical approach these days. And how could it not be?

“God is dead. And you should know. You killed him!”, would be the punchline of my speech. Those are not my words of course. I am paraphrasing the famous words of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the father of existentialism, and the most relevant philosopher of these modern times. He is also my favorite person who is, ever was, and ever shall be. He died a sad death though. He died insane. Even so, I can’t help but think that at the moment he died, he was the most lucid and aware person that there is, ever was, and ever shall be. Excuse me for being repetitious, but you can’t laud the guy enough. He changed everything. “I am the crucified one.”, were his dying words. Since the beginning of his scholarly career he aimed to replace the original Christ. And if you ask me, he succeeded.

My sister caught me in an embarrassing situation. She saw me in the middle of saying the aforementioned punchline to myself in the mirror. Let me explain:

I could hear her in her room that morning, singing along to a nonsensical hip-hop song on her boombox, like she’s in a club. I think it was tuned in to hotstuff 97 fm or something like that, whatever these unscrupulous teenagers listen to these days. Anyhow, it was very disruptive, but I carried on practicing my presentation, including my commencing stance—arms folded, smirking almost mischievously, and leaning on my bed (which stood in for the teacher’s desk). First, I rehearsed the introductory buildup. Then, shortly after, I would say the punchline in a deeply serious tone.

Realizing the shock value this was going to have on my class, I laughed, uncontrolled chuckles. I can’t wait to see the mesmerized expressions on their faces, I thought to myself. I felt proud. At some point, I got the feeling that I was being watched. I look to my left. And there she was, gawking at me from the hallway! It was my mistake; I should’ve kept the door closed. I don’t know why she thinks I’m so abnormal. But then again, I suppose she wouldn’t make me feel like such a pariah if I were more like her thugged-out boyfriends, or any homeboy she deems worthy to socialize with. I’d say she looks like an alien with all that makeup she puts on. She likes to primp herself to an extreme. Her lips are overly glossy, her lashes are long enough that they could prick you if you get too close, and her face is ghost-like with powder. A designer tote bag is always hanging on her right arm; she has about fifty of them. That’s what she uses to carry her books. You’d have to pay her a substantial amount of money for her to wear a backpack. I asked her what she was staring at, but she didn’t say anything. All she did was turn away and go down the stairs, all the while flipping her over-processed hair at me. This was a gesture I long figured out was her way of diminishing someone. After a moment, it occurred to me that I didn’t have much time left, so I grabbed my book bag and headed out.

Later that day, I faced my classmates from the front of the classroom, adopting the same stance that I did in the morning, including that mischievous smirk. Despite being the more studious ones of Martin Luther King High School, the students of my fifth period I.B philosophy class don’t enjoy the subject of the course as they do my distinct point of view. Many of them said so during the year. Yo, dis niggaz a trip, they would say. Their eyes veered towards one another as I leaned against the teacher's desk saying nothing. This was of course the off-putting effect I intended to invoke in them. I am probably the most well read, well-spoken, sharp student in the New York City public school system. Mr. Edwards the teacher, calls me an enfant terrible, a French word for a badass intellectual. I begin to speak:

“Okay!” I uttered capriciously, catching them off guard. “So, last week, I asked Mr. Edwards if I could go before the class today and make a confession.”

As I anticipated, a student—seated way in the back behind an empty row—lets out a frustrated grunt. This student is my adversary in ideology, Terrence. Terrence wears a heavy gold crucifix around his neck. He’s anything but a back-door Christian. He and I often debated vigorously about religion, ethics, purpose, truth, morality, and the source of values. I know that’s a loaded statement, but that’s what philosophers discuss, if you can call Terrence one. His favorite topic is the distinction between faith and religion. I and the rest of the class agree that there is no such distinction. Nevertheless, he tried to convince us and Mr. Edwards, but to no avail. Terrence shook his face with his forehead in his hand and complained, in his words, of my trippy-a*s s**t. A girl seated next to him jabbed him in the shoulder to keep him quiet. Mr. Edwards, who sat on the broad windowsill to my right, also implored him not to interrupt. He had been through this with Terrence before of course.

“Nah, but for-real though,” Terrence argued, “s**t gettin’ me tight. He wanna make a confession; get his a*s to a priest!” At this, a consort of giggles goes up from the class. The pack mentality. And he’s always trying to cut into me with remarks like that! Jackass. But it didn’t faze me. I was about to turn the pack on him.

“Let’s see where he’s going with this.” Mr. Edwards said, coming to my defense. “We don’t interrupt you when you’re talking, so give other people a chance.”

Flashing my teeth, I continued and said, “My confession is that I have an issue with my values.”

“Then pray!” Terrence said, cutting in once again.

The class made sounds indicative of their annoyance now: the sucking of teeth, murmurings, heavy sighs, etc. The girl jabbed him in the shoulder again.

“Stop interrupting!” she said.

Mr. Edwards got down from the sill and reacted much more sternly this time, stretching out the index finger at him: “Listen, Terrence. One more time and it’s—”.

“—No, no, that’s okay.” I cut in, speaking with a forbearing tone. “That sets me up real well.” Then, turning to Terrence I asked, “Who do you suggest I pray to?”

“God!” he said emphatically.

“God is dead, Terrence. And you should know. You killed him.”

Together, the class goes ‘ooooooooooooo’. Terrence looked as if he was going to explode. He grinded his teeth.

“You lucky I got Jesus in my life,” he said, “or I would whoop your ass.”

Mr. Edwards was about to send him out of the classroom, but Terrence was very apologetic afterwards. He didn’t say a word for the rest of the period. That was so slick of me, Mr. Michael Windsor.

I enthralled them like I knew I would, or so I thought. In my talk, I was able to touch on everything Mr. Edwards taught during the year. Mr. Edwards spent very little time on pre-modern philosophies, but emphasized the importance of Plato and Aristotle. He said it was good to know about those philosophers before going into existentialism. Although it enriched it, my fascination with Nietzschean philosophy didn’t begin in Mr. Edwards’ class. This was why I was able to give such an engaging talk, or so I thought. I went on for about ten minutes until I arrived at my final point. I drew a large circle on the board and marked the outside of it with one short line. This circle represented time, and the line represented a point in time.

“Theory of Eternal Recurrence, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.” I announced proudly.

I paused while studying everyone’s face. Their expressions were like a toddler’s watching Blue’s Clues.

“Note everything around you.” I said. “Such as the colors, the smells, the lighting, the sounds.” I was nervously pacing to and fro, as I am very passionate about this subject. The eyes of my audience followed me as if observing a tennis match. “If you can, note the position of every molecule. The thought going through your mind. And take a snapshot.” Again, I paused. I wanted that thought to sink into their brains. “According to the laws of the universe, that very point in time in that mental snapshot you just took has already occured an infinite number of times and is bound to reoccur an infinite number of times. That’s why, as we are at the end of our final year of adolescence, and entering adulthood, we should carefully think every decision through, because we are some way or another bound to relive it.”

Mr. Edwards started clapping by himself, then most of the class joined in, lackadaisical-ly. Terrence did nothing of course. I felt chagrined. The night before, I dreamed of thunderous applause accompanied by whistles and chants of my name. Excuse my language, but reality's a b***h for optimists because it exposes their expectations for what they really are: wishful thoughts. I should be a complete pessimist and let success take me by surprise. Or maybe not?

Right before sixth period, I sifted through my locker, trying to decide which of Nietzsche’s books to read after school on the bus (I have copies of his eight most important works), when I noticed that a shadow was cast in front of me, making everything dark. I turned around, and saw the tall and imposing body of Officer Wesley the school safety officer, looming over me.

They call him ‘Officer Wes’, or sometimes jokingly ‘Wesley Snipes’ due to his stark resemblance to this actor I’ve never seen or heard anything about. The man has had it in for me ever since that day just before spring break started:

I saw him socializing boisterously with Terrence and some other boys outside the basketball court after lunch. I wasn’t surprised so much with how the students were speaking. But from a man with at least a college degree and who is considered to be so upstanding that he can carry a g*n and a badge, one would expect something much more urbane than a bunch of ‘this nigga’ and ‘that nigga’ and ‘f**k this nigga’. It really bothered me, so I approached him very politely. “Excuse me Officer Wes.” I had apparently said it too low. They kept on conversating. “Excuse me!” I said a little louder. They all looked at me. “I don’t think you should be using that kind of language, Officer Wes”. The next thing I knew, I was waiting outside the administrative offices with the yellow write-up slip Officer Wes had given me. Before that day, I seldom had any disciplinary action taken against me, let alone a demerit for ‘usurping authority’, as the yellow slip said. When it was finally time to enter the office of Dean Sanchez, the assistant principal assigned to me, I noticed the man was a big Yankee fan. He had a large poster of Derek Jeter that said in large letters, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and a bobble head doll of the baseball star. After giving him my account of what happened Mr. Sanchez acknowledged that Officer Wes wrote me up in spite, and that he would talk to him about it. In addition, after seeing in the system that my grades were very good and that I was going to Harvard, he admitted that he wouldn’t want to enter anything in my record that would be a ‘red light’ for the administrators at the university. He sent me on my way with not even a phone call to my mom. I was so grateful. “Go yankees!” I said before leaving his office.

“Betta hustle, forty seconds to the bell.” Officer Wes said as he looked at his watch. I picked a book at random, shoved it into my satchel, and shut the locker.

A moment later, I was rushing down the hallway. I could see my I.B English teacher standing beside the open door next to Officer Wesley. I knew I had to haul a*s, she never gives anyone leeway. I wasn’t more than a few steps away when the bell rang. Still, she shut the door in my face. She’s jealous of my top-notch verbal skills, no doubt. When I told her Harvard had accepted me with a scholarship, she griped about how she would have been accepted herself, had she been a minority like me. Immediately afterwards, Officer Wesley sent me to tardy hall, motioning like a baseball umpire:

“You’re out!”

“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed.”

“Nope. Tardy Hall. Let’s go!”

It was my first time in tardy hall. At the front of the room, Officer Wesley sat back in his chair with his feet up on the desk, eating an apple. I’m seated in the front row, along with two other students. He glances at me every now and then. Leering glances. Since we’re missing class, I figure they’d want us to edify ourselves in some way, so I take out the book I took out of my locker earlier, Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. However, soon as I open it up:

“No reading, just sit.” the officer tells me. I return my book to my satchel and lay my head on the desk.

Next period is I.B calculus. The teacher Mr. Saphron should not be teaching at this level, honestly. For instance, towards the end of class that day, it took him much too long to do a differential problem. He stands there for about fifteen minutes doing something that took me three. He writes much too big, the solution took up the whole board. And on top of that, he comes up with the wrong answer.

“Okay…” he says as he takes a step back, looking his work over. “So, this limit does not exist.”

“Can you explain why?” I ask.

“Well—"

“—Because you did make a mistake in your third step. That’s not the derivative of arc-sine-x. I got one over the square root of one minus x-squared as the simplified answer.” For a moment, he’s still in denial. He then takes a closer look at what he did and realizes he made an error. He made the necessary adjustments to the solution, erased his answer and put the one I stated.

“Well, I guess I stand corrected." he said, capping the marker and pinning it down roughly on his desk. "Yet again, by Mr. Windsor.” The bell rang. “Have a nice summer guys.” We eyed each other before I left the room.

Calculus is the seventh and final period for me, so I exit the school and descend the steps at the front entrance. As usual, clusters of rambunctious, loud, giddy teenagers litter the sidewalk. And as usual, I don't act like I'm friends with anybody, because I'm not. I'm a lone wolf. No friends.

My audition has become very sensitive lately. Everything is much brasher than it used to be. For instance, after I crossed the street in front of school, I recall hearing an ambulance with its wailing sirens vibrating through the air. Even after sticking my index fingers into my ears, some of that piercing sound was able to seep through and was enough to make me cringe. I breathed a sigh of relief after it whizzed past and was a good distance away. But I had yet to run a terrible gauntlet. I had yet to hear loud music on other people's car stereos. I had yet to hear the setting off of 'poppers' by other boys. And I had yet to hear the honk of a large diesel truck, which froze me in my tracks when I heard it. I also had to pass by a construction site. I hate it when they use the large circular saws to cut into the concrete. It was t*****e.

Something very odd occurred after I reached my destination that day. For the past three years, I've been walking to the third-to-first stop of the B-eighty-seven bus route. I have been going to that stop instead of the one by my school because the bus is still completely vacant by the time it gets there, which frequently gives me the choice of any window seat I desire. On the day in question, I had arrived just as the bus was approaching from a few blocks away. At first, I thought no one else was waiting under the stop’s awning. However, when I reached into my pocket for my metrocard, an older woman behind me came into view from the corner of my eye. She looked about eighty-ish, pasty-white, and wore sunglasses. She seemed to appear out of nowhere. A little surprised, I glanced in her direction. She smiled at me. I smiled back.

"Hello." she said chirpily.

"Hi." I said.

"You're smart."

"Huh?" At that moment, I didn't have a clue as to why she made that assertion. She soon clarified for me:

"You walked to this stop to get the bus instead of by your school." She probably knew the area, and it wasn't a farfetched assumption for her to make that I was from M.L.K. High.

"Oh yes...I wanted to make sure I get a seat."

"Of course." she concurred.

"Also, I can't stand waiting for the bus by my school. It's too crazy."

"I know what you mean. Yes, those kids can be pret-ty wild."

"Just two more days, and I'll never have to see them again." I sighed.

"Oh! You're graduating!"

"Yes." I nodded.

"Congratulations."

"Eh. It's no big deal,” I said, waving my hand in dismissal, “it's just high school."

The bus came up to where we were standing. I was closer. However, she seemed very frail so I let her get in first. In the bus, I saw her insert her metro-card and walk to the left. After I scanned mine and began walking to the back, I noticed the bus was empty. The woman had disappeared as instantly as she appeared minutes ago. I walked back to ask the driver of her whereabouts.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about.” he said. “You're the only one one on my bus."

"But I saw her! We talked at the bus stop."

"C'mon man, don't talk to the driver while the bus is moving. It's dangerous.”

I didn’t want to annoy him further, so I left him alone and took a seat at one of the singles in the middle. But that was so strange, I thought as I slowly subsided into my window seat.

The bus would soon pull up by the stop across the street from the school. Through the window, I could see Malia in the crowd of students that stood waiting. She's unlike me, I thought. She seemed to blend in much better into her ghetto-urban environment as she and a boy, whom I recognized as a former boyfriend of hers, heaved insults and curse words at one another. She is carefree, nonchalant, and something else—I don't know. I'm happy I have an intellect of course. But sometimes I wonder how it is for people who don't. Might they be happier? She was with her two 'besties', Ebony and another girl. They helped her in taunting the boy. I always remember Ebony's name and not the other girl's because Ebony is an overgrown beast of a woman. Malia once disclosed to me that she measured six-foot-six and weighed in at around three hundred pounds in phys-ed.

Ebony has a crush on me. For the longest time she's been acclimating her manner around me and staring at me every chance she could steal. My sister had taken note of this very early on, and, during one of those rare candid conversations we had over ice cream at Kings Plaza mall in early April, suggested that I ask her out to prom:

“I’m not so sure if it will work out.” I said, waveringly. “We have completely opposite personalities.” That was just an excuse of course. Actually, I was afraid of what that behemoth would do to me if we were to have relations.

“But she want you to hit it.” Malia attested.

“Not all men crave s*x as much as you think we do.” I explained to her. “We intellectuals keep it to a minimum so as not to dull our minds. Besides,” I added, “If I’m going to ask anyone out, it would be Erica.”

“You mean that preppy white girl that be talkin’ all proper?” she said with a snigger. Erica was the only other senior—except me—who decided to take all I.B courses in her final year. Contrary to what Malia was insinuating, I don’t like her because she’s white or preppy, or even because she’s one of the only other students in our school that speak well. I like her because she’s at my level.

“I’m not going to get with a girl whose highest form of discussion concerns the current celebrity scandal or the latest designer boots.” I began to explain to my sister. “I need a partner who will help me reach new intellectual heights, who will aid me in my research, who will ponder questions with me such as ‘What came first? The chicken or the egg?’, who will help me edit and publish books, who will—”

Malia interrupted me with her sniggering and said, “She don’t wanna do all that with you. She want a thug.”

“But how can you say that?!” I asked.

She sucked her teeth and said, “Cuz that’s how it is. Good girls want bad boys. And plus, I seen her! She be all up in Mark and them otha niggaz with braids.”

I stared at Malia blankly for a moment before I could recall seeing what she described with my own two eyes in the school hallways. Indeed, she clung to them like a starfish. Meanwhile, other than hearing her speak in English class, the most I got out of her was ‘Hi Michael, ‘How are you’, and ‘Bye’. “She’s infatuated with them, isn’t she.” I said with a sigh.

“Duh.” Malia said. She then went back to munching at her cone. I hung my head down over my banana split for a while. I ended up throwing it away.

Soon, there was a mad dash of students grabbing seats. I decided to take out the book I tried to read in tardy hall. At that moment, I heard a loud peal of laughter behind me. I craned my neck and saw some boys huddled up in the back looking at one boy’s phone screen. Most likely it isn't about me, I thought. They’re probably looking at something funny online. But sometimes I do think people like to make fun of me. As I began reading, I got that very faint sense of someone watching me again. I looked up. Ebony was staring at me.

She greeted me very lively. I could sense the longing in her. However, I chose to remain distant and unattainable, and acknowledged her in a deadpan fashion so she could get the picture I'm not interested. She bit her lip and fidgeted in place as though she had to go to the bathroom. She may have wanted to say something in that moment but Malia's other bestie came over and dragged her to the back. I shook my head and then tried my best to get deep into my book despite the noise.

The bus let my sister and I off at Flatlands Avenue & 92nd Street, our usual stop. After bidding her homegirls adieu, Malia goes out the back door and I get out the front. As she is walking down the street, she's texting of course. I am not too far behind her, however, once she turns her head and notices me she starts walking at a quicker pace. She's been doing that lately. The nerve of her. I don't know why I can't walk next to her after school.

Anyway, our neighborhood Canarsie is almost a perfect mesh of lettered avenues and numbered streets. It's how the rest of New York should be organized, terribly easy to find things. Need to find that West Indian Restaurant? That's on 88th & M. Need to find that computer repair store? That on a 101st & and L. Easy-peachy. The typical home is usually a two or three-floor red brick house with these ugly tin canopies above the entrances. Almost all of them have the boiler in the basement, and a driveway that slopes downward into a garage. Perfect for when a hurricane strikes, as you have two feet of water flowing through the streets. Did I mention a creek and a basin flank the neighborhood? And lies right outside a bay? Luckily, our mom is smart as well as prudent. Our two-floor home has no basement, and the boiler is next to the master bedroom upstairs.

As I approached the entrance of our modest house, I saw Malia leaning against the doorframe, on her phone of course. I asked her why she didn’t go in. She continued to tap away on her phone, not even looking up, and told me sullenly that she had forgotten her key. After I got my key out of my satchel and opened the door, she walked in, her eyes still glued to that phone screen.