I don’t know if I’ve related this tale to you, before, but it is a true story told with the honor of my Chicanery.
I’ll start with a bit of back story:
My siblings and I were subjected to very little of the horrors that the public school offer. My sister, being the oldest, was tortured the longest.
I was in school for two years or so, and the best thing I ever learned was that doing retarded things may impress people, but those same folk who were so in awe of your skills at urinating high above the latrine will casually cast all blame aside and never look back as it crashes upon you. I was promptly whisked away from public school and began my career in the home schooling, and was emasculated as my mother learned everything ten times faster than I.
I am uncertain, but peeing in front of the school bus may have had something to do with me being withdrawn, in addition to it being, as mother said, what she felt that God wanted.
My cousins, in general, have been treated in the same manner, being withdrawn from the indoctrination camp and were often learning right alongside my siblings and I.
My cousin’s name, the important one, anyway, is Preston. He’s almost six feet tall, red headed, broad-shouldered, and in a perpetual state of anger and dismay because his little brother is apparently going to be more broad shouldered and taller. Attempts at beating him down have been unsuccessful, and the bruises do not even last.
Preston’s mother is a bit– capricious, and despite the fact that her son is incredible smart, especially in regards to mathematics, (he got his GED twice as fast as I was able to earn mine, once he got to the school) she became distraught at many different periods in his life during his schooling.
Although it seems like several times, I am fairly certain that it was only once, whereupon she became so frustrated that she reinstated him into public school for a transient session. I do not know if it was for even a full grade, but he was touted as smarter than anyone in his class, and he ostensibly was, because he never complained about having trouble in school.
Be that as it may, this is the temporal interlude wherein the story begins.
There was some sort of party happening at his school. I have no idea what type of party it was. It took place in a large basketball court, with rotating, colored lights and unreasonably loud music.
Somehow, I was able to accompany him, and the lady at the entrance was not as happy about receiving an extra five dollars as I thought she should be. It was not as if I were getting free drinks and food.
Upon entering, I was enthralled by the lights and sounds, and it was a unusually prolonged moment before the natural feeling of being an outcast settled comfortably in.
There were some dances, and one in particular that confounded me was the slow dances.
I was against a cool, concrete wall behind the high basketball goal, watching curiously. Men and women partners (or, rather, boys and girls) had clasped hands, shut and locked jaws, and blank stares as they moved in an almost trance-like state about the floor in slow circles, swaying left and right.
This did not immediately come to my attention, but rather, I thought of it in retrospect. What did intrigue me was when the song ended and the lights grew slightly brighter, though still remaining dim.
Everyone, I noticed, detached from his partner, promptly averted his eyes, and walked away from one another.
Wait– what!
It was as if they wanted to have nothing to do with each other! They were dancing because it was expected of them, but when it ended, they made no pretense to chat or bring his or her date to the punch table. (I don’t think there was a punch table, actually) They just disengaged and distanced themselves as quickly as possible without appearing manic.
I found this extremely odd, but attribute it to awkward adolescence. Half of those kids would not know what to do with a girl if he had her. (Personally, I could never buy chocolate for a girl. I would eat it before I left the store.)
This is not the main event I intend to relate to you, however.
After this took place, another song began playing soon thereafter. Now, maybe it is the rustic, old fashioned, morally astute person within me (and who permeates my very being) but I was absolutely appalled at the manner in which these girls danced!
They could not have been older than fifteen, and they danced – a word I use loosely, as it was more or less a display of how well her body still performed; a demonstration of her womanly faculties, rather than a dance – as if they were 23 years old in a rave club dancing to depraved techno music.
It is beyond my knowledge to describe exactly how they were moving, but it involved less coordinated rhythm than the ability to individually control each muscle running along that young, lithe figure.
These girls put snakes to shame with their absolute control and serpentine movement. I felt as though with every sensual writhing of their stomach muscles that they were beckoning me forth.
I observed in silent fascination.
There was one particular girl who was pretty, to me, in such a way as that no one else mattered after I had set my eyes upon her.
I have no recollection of what her friends looked like, or what anyone else was doing.
Now, I am fairly cognizant of most of the chicanery that women deploy in order to lure men into their detrimental and mortifying metaphorical clutches.
These girls, though– allow me to recount the events:
I watch these girls giving the air clothed lap dances for a little while, but eventually lose sight of them somehow. As I pick my way through the throng of people, trying my best to avoid running into or annoying anyone, I suddenly spot the girl – and a friend or two of hers – quickly moving through the crowd. She stops about ten paces in front of me, clearly within my visual range, and then begins dancing, once again, in the same erotic fashion. I was only a couple of years older than these people, and was thoroughly enticed by this girl in particular.
I had no spiteful thoughts toward them, and was filled with almost servile deference to their superior beings.
So I become pathetic and nervous around girls. Shut your teeth. Unless you’re a hot girl, whereupon you may chortle at your leisure.
It was suspicious then, and blatantly conspicuous now, that she was attracted to me (I cannot take all of the credit, you know how kids are with older guys). It was further made apparent and proven by the fact that she repeatedly appeared in front of me and began dancing, yet again.
The dance ended, another started, and people began to socialize. I ended up against that same blasted wall, attempting to work up the nerve to chat with this girl.
I really wanted to speak with her, because of my raging hormones, and because I rarely ever had the opportunity to so much as chat casually with a female who was not related to me. (Read that: my sister)
My cousin approached me and we had a short conversation that I do not remember, but it went something like this, I think:
Atari: Man, do you see that girl?
Blaze (Prestion) : What girl?
Atari: You see– the one in the blue shirt. (Or what ever she was wearing)
Blaze: Oh, yeah– I see her. You gonna talk to her?
Atari: Well, I want to, but – y’know, I can’t just walk up to her and start talking!
Blaze: Why not? Don’t be a coward.
Atari: O.K., I’m gonna talk to her. . . .
Blaze: Alright, go ahead.
Atari: . . . .
Blaze: Come on!
Atari: O.K.! O.K.! I’m going– just– I can do this. . . .
After about five minutes of this, my cousin grew annoyed at my lack of courage and decided that the best course of action was to beat some sense into me.
Having come to this conclusion, he quickly steps forward and buries a quick right fist into my gut.
I release a choking gasp and curl forward. Strangely, I can only think, “He’s right, you’re a worthless coward!”
Well, as luck would have it, while Blaze found something else to do while not pummeling me for my cowardice, the girl happens to cross my path and - much to my surprise and ecstacy - she speaks to me!
And what does she say?
“Hey– uh, why were you following me and my friends?”
Wait. Hold it right there. WHAT did you just say? I was following you? Why on earth would I follow a bunch of girls around a dance floor? Do you think I’m some kind of pervert? Or some idiot who isn’t a pervert but wants everyone to THINK he is? That’s the only reason I can think of , save for pitiful desperation, that would cause a guy to tail a bunch of girls as they dance like strumpets, feeling up their bodies like they had just inhaled a gaseous aphrodisiac.
But, I was on my A-game that night and calmly said,
“Uh, I was following you?”
My rapier wit cut a pause in the conversation, and I have little recollection of anything that happened afterward.
I do know that as I was sitting up on the bleachers, some moron who thinks he’s hot stuff comes up to me – all 5'2" of him – and has the audacity to tell me the ad lib quote below:
“Hey, dude, were you talking to that girl? Yeah, don’t bother, man. Just leave her alone. She doesn’t even like you– she HATES you, dude. So just don’t talk to her, any more.”
I smiled politely, and it was not hedged with the condescending acid which I only imagined.
What have we learned from this, boys and girls?
People who go to school are vacuous, asinine tools. Don’t go to high school if it is possible for you to avoid it. You may never fit in, but you can rest in comfortable solace, eternally secure in the knowledge that you will never know the ravages of incomprehensible stupidity drilled into your malleable psyche from age five upward.
Atari Maxi Tariyama Community Member 
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