My father was an evangelist and pastor until his existential crisis and eventual break with the church, so I attended several different high schools in several different states in the US. I can tell you from experience that they're all about the same. I even attended one private christian school after I was caught and expelled for smoking pot on campus in Colorado. This was in 1988 or 89.
The strangest thing that happened at that school was one of my acquaintances was... um... is it only adults here? He was 'pleasured' by his gf on the bus during a school field trip. We were going down town to do missionary work and the two had become that through the top of the pants kind of intimate on the way there. So, this guy walked around downtown with a flannel shirt wrapped around his waist and buttoned down the front like a skirt because... reasons.
When I was in public school, also in Colorado, my cousin, a friend of his and I ditched class and hitch-hiked 45 miles to Evergreen to see a girl I was dating at the time who was home sick. All three of us ended up sleeping in her closet overnight. It was an interesting experience. My cousin soon started dating her bff shortly thereafter. It kind of sucked because I always liked her bff more. She was very short, and slim, and very quick-witted. If you've ever seen Toradora, that's basically her: a palmtop tiger, but slightly less mean. My gf, Becky, was much more demure.
I personally think her mom knew the whole time we were there. My cousin just would not shut up. Like verbal vomit kind of nervous.
I spent most of my time in Colorado ditching class and going to house parties. Three of the schools I went to there had smoking areas, which was where everything from fights to make-out sessions happened. I literally choked on another gf's tongue there. Her name was Jasmine. She had this giant, incredibly long tongue that she would just stab in there and try to throttle you with. It was... disconcerting, though now I might consider it kinky and exciting, at the time I didn't really want her to reach in and taste what I had for lunch that day.
I did have a gf actually try to kill me during high school. It wasn't at the high school, though. She was borderline personality disorder, so when we fought it was usually about me hanging out with other girls or some other imagined abandonment. She pointed her father's gun at me. It was much like the vaudeville "french lovers" routine, but felt way more serious at the time. The sex was great and we stayed together for almost a year. Every time we'd break up we'd get back together for a night and she'd steal my underwear, or conversely leave hers at my place. It was usually her bra as I had this thing for her "girls." They were middling-big but perfectly shaped, and she had good taste in lingerie. At the time I was all about the men's bikini's so it didn't much matter to me whether I had them or just went commando. It was more the thought that I liked about them than the sensation. I think of her on occasion, though usually only when drawing the naughty bits.
As you can imagine, none of this happened without a liberal supply of liquor, pot and occasional LSD which was my favorite. I quit smoking pot, then quit drinking after my second suicide attempt, but before I dropped out of high school. Tripping at school wasn't really that much fun. It was more like fighting through a cloud just to get to the paranoia.
It was really a friend of mine's suicide that grabbed my attention. Becky, another Becky, not the same one, was a gf of a sort-of friend. Kind of an acquaintance. But Becky and I got along really well. We were never single at the same time. I think her bf's name was Devon, or Devin or something, though I'm not sure. We'd hang out, basically, and I once died her hair plaid at a party. Just one side that she'd shaved pretty tight though. She was a Skate Betty, if you know the term. Kind of emo, but more like a grunge Pinky Pie. I gave her bf his first tattoo in my basement.
Yes, I skated. Yes, I had the Tony Hawk hair. Yes, I know it looked goofy.
Anyway, they'd broken up, and I didn't know. I was busy with my own gf troubles at the time. I was dating Melinda, (raven black, long hair. Smart, sexy, wild, like Jane Russel, but the latina version). She was "maybe pregnant" and I was working as a store manager at a crappy fast food place. (side note: we were actually robbed once) This whole huge long thing happened where we were briefly... not happy, then, basically, she left for California with her real Dad.
So, anyway, when Becky called, I was busy. Frankly, I was busy cheating on Melinda with Melissa (shockingly red hair and great body. When I say great, I mean wow great, and, in my own defense, the red hair and freckles, so totally not my fault) So, when she needed me, I just kind of brushed her off. I used to wonder. It's rare now, but it was really hard to think of her today. She was, I think, the one that got away, you know? And I was just... bad.
I had to edit this to say that what I meant by "the one that got away" was "THE one." Becky is the one I compare all other women to even if I'm not aware of it at the time. She was it for me.
When Becky died it tore me inside out. I had never reached the point before where I just didn't want to feel anything at all, ever again. Even my own brushes with death were more that "screw you, let's see you live without me" kind of juvenile crap. But Becky was so special to me. I know, though, really sad, right? But that happening, it saved my life. I quit everything, and kind of disappeared into me for a while. I stopped having parties at my place. My parents were potheads by that time, and didn't care what happened as long as no one was arrested. I have the ignoble distinction of introducing them to drugs. Yaay me.
Melinda came back from Cali about 6 months later. I'd changed, she'd changed, so it didn't really work out. I didn't really date after that. I grieved for a long time. By the time my head was right high school was just a "thing." Just this place that was, not torture, but, I don't know. It's hard to explain. It was like I didn't belong there. The best way to say it is that I was dirty and they were all clean. I couldn't smile and pretend. It was the isolation of a crowd, I guess. None of them were like me. It was just shockingly, jaggedly absurd.
But anyway, then there was Anna. Anna and I never dated, and we never really had a thing going or anything, but Anna breaks my heart. She basically dated the same guy for the entire time I knew her. She was like dirt poor, and I mean like, trailer park living with her crackhead mom poor. I was dating Melinda at the time and we were like the little clique that always hung out because our relationship status was mostly stable and Melinda was all daggers at any other female I was in close contact with at the time. The girl would literally stalk me. It was great but in a really creepy kind of way. So, the four of us thought we'd go to Anna's grandmother's house and just have some fun. I-can't-remember-his-name had a car at that time, which was odd because he didn't own a car at that time. Stop me when you see where this is going.
So we get up into the mountains, and we pull into what I think is Anna's grandmother's place. Spoiler: not really grandma's place. Big surprise. Melinda and I are all mussing the sheets in the guest bedroom, and the cops break in. The next thing I know we're all in handcuffs in separate cars, and I-can't-remember-his-name is all, "Oh man, I am so f**ked!" and I'm all "Really? That's all you can say?"
Btw, this was coincidentally just before Melinda took off with her Dad to Cali. I wonder why. And, Anna, not to make it sad again or anything, had a child by I-can't-remember-his-name who was in jail at the time. Anna was/is the reason I first considered emotionally that abortion be not only legal but easily obtainable by all without any notice or consent of the father of the child. Anna was sweet, but stupid (not dumb, just stupid in the way that women always return to their abusers kind of stupid) and she didn't deserve her mom or poverty or that... person. It would be an abuse of the term to say that I loved her, but she was my friend. She didn't deserve that.
Then there was the time all four of us snuck into some random person's hot tub. What?! The lights were off and everything! We ran, soaking wet and clutching our clothes while some old guy was just screaming at us. Melinda's just laughing her head off and Anna's going, "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!"
Aww man, good times.
We had a faux fencing duel in a cemetery once. This blonde wisp, I can't remember her name (and no I didn't sleep with her), her parents fenced, so we thought, being idiots, we'd steal a couple "swords" and have a play fight in the cemetery like we were fighting off evil or whatever. Was great until the cops came. We all got away though.
I can't remember any other ones that were really bad. Oh, the rehearsal party after some random person's wedding. I think I was friends with the bride's brother or something? I can't remember. I think I was dating (name removed) at the time? Total emo goth chick. Like, the whole cool hair and aunk eyeliner thing. Think of Robert Smith but with breasts. She actually wrote me a love letter in her own blood. Not kidding! She was spectacularly bad in bed. Actually, saying that, I think I'll just go delete her name now. So, we're making out in this back room and she's all, "hate me, hate me" and this couple just barges in and just starts going at it. It's the closest I've ever come to group sex, and also the furthest away I ever wanted group sex to be. It was kind of like watching gorillas on a nature show. Like, wait, that doesn't go there! And (name removed) is like WTF?! and all waaaay turned off by now so we went back to the party and just let them have the room. That was the night I became so wasted that I slept on a bus line bench. Thankfully no one threw change at me or anything.
Actually, overall, I laugh about it, but high school really sucked. I don't want to be the guy that boasts about his regrets, but that's pretty much it. My parents had disappeared into their own miasma. It was ironically the loneliest time of my life. When I look back, I never think about the fun times, but just the time I wasted playing grown up games with a boy's mind.
I know this sounds really weird after all that, but I've always been kind of nerdy. Not like glasses-guy kind of nerdy, but like quiet, intense poet kind of nerdy. I was an atheist and pseudo armchair anthropologist long before my father ever left the church. Most people I met didn't know what the hell I was talking about when I spoke of books and ideas. For a long time I just stopped. It was easier than being ostracized for being too smart. And if that doesn't sound egotistical, I don't know what will. I was a "freak" who blended with several different subcultures, looking for something that was quite a lot like me.
