Surviving High School

here’s something most people don’t know about me: i never graduated high school.    

well, not in the “traditional sense.”  while the days of our senior year whittled down and everyone had their eyes set on college, i was held in limbo.  college was no guarantee.  the only school that i made any attempt to get into, illinois state university, called me down to their campus midway through the year for an interview.  which i thought was a little weird, since most of my friends were already admitted into their schools, and none of them had to go in for interviews.

i interviewed with the dean of admissions, who showed me a list of 1000 student names.  she pointed to my name on the list.  “we only have room for 100 more students at this university.  tell me,” she asked, “why should i let you into this school?”  i did not expect this.  i fumbled with my words, and then without really giving any thought to what i was about to say, blurted out, “because i speak japanese.”  which was kinda bullshit.  i had taken four years in high school, but i was 3rd grade level at best.  it turned out they have a japanese department there, and they must’ve been desperate for students, because she called the head of the japanese department, and without even testing my japanese, he said that they could use another japanese student.

so she agreed to let me in, but only if i could graduate with no D’s or F’s.  i never had an F in my life, except for that very moment.  i assured her that i had just starting taking medication for my ADHD and that i was finally getting my life together.  and that was about as far away from the truth as could be.

high school was rough, man.  my senior year i was a fucking mental patient.  no, literally; i spent two weeks in a psych ward.  i had a girlfriend from the neighboring town to the south, a piece of white trash who cheated on me with my best friend (and his girlfriend!) and somehow turned me against my whole family.  after school i would frequently hop into a car with a bunch of black dudes and drive to “the tip”, aka the drug zone, in a very bad neighborhood of chicago to pick up chronic.  as for school… well, same damn story.  i just straight did not give a fuck.

high school was comprised of ten “periods” (classes) during the day.  my first period class was yearbook class, where i was one of the goons responsible for the year-end publication of the high school’s massive yearbook accounting for each of the 3000+ students in our school.  i was a “photographer.”  at some point though, they realized that all of the photos i was developing in the dark room were nothing but photos of people in shopping carts crashing into walls.  unexpectedly, i was kicked out of yearbook class, leaving me with my first period completely open.  i utilized this time by “shadowing” my friends in their classes, aka acting like i was from another school and that i was here for sightseeing.  i always got away with it.  well, except this one time…

it was in a friend’s algebra class.  the teacher was sick; a substitute teacher in his stead.  i preyed on substitutes.  and so i decided that i would assume the name of someone that was absent that day, just so i could fuck with the sub.  during role call, the teacher called out one of the absentees: “jimmy heffenbachen?”  to which i convincingly responded, “heeeere!”  to my horror, someone sitting in the back exposed my true identity.  the sub stared at me for several uncomfortable seconds, until i gave a big shit-eating grin, stood up and motioned for the door.  the sub got there before i did and blocked my exit.  there was nowhere to go.  nowhere, except out the window.

i had no idea what was out that window but i had to escape.  fortunately, i landed on a roof a few feet below the window.  i climbed to my feet and started running away from the sea of cheers and laughter behind me.  dashing now at full speed, i realized that there was no way off the roof other than jumping and landing into a thick patch bushes twenty-feet below.  so i continued running all over the roof for several minutes until i found an open window, dove in, and disappeared into obscurity.

i never expected them to catch me, but later that day, i was paid a visit by a couple of very familiar faces: the school security guards.  whenever you fucked up, our school security staff (all ex-prison guards or equivalent, sans one old woman who looked like the wrestler ric flair) would come to extract you from class and escort you to the dean of discipline’s office.  everyone in the office already knew me by name, although i was always the whitest and least pregnant person in the room.

i knew the routine.  my roof antics would earn me a detention or two, or maybe, if i was really unlucky, a day in in-school suspension.  but this day was different.  mr. perna, the dean of discipline had another kind of document waiting for me:  a “behavioral contract.”  i’m not one for reading contracts (or reading anything, for that matter), so i just asked him to summarize it.  “basically mr. o’connell, the next time you get sent to my office, your days as a student here will be over.”  WHAT.  there were 9 weeks of school left, and i was in the discipline office on a weekly basis.  there was no chance this was happening.  i begged for a lighter sentence, but my pleas fell on deaf ears.  all the bad things i had done in high school, and this trifling incident would be the death of me??  mr. perna had an explanation.  “when you ran up and down the roof screaming your head off, you ran past the teacher’s lounge, where the superintendent of the school was getting her daily bagel and witnessed the whole spectacle.”

so the person in charge of the ENTIRE SCHOOL saw me doing something naughty.  and now i had to survive 9 weeks with a squeeky clean record.  could i do it?  hell no.  but i was prepared to try really really hard.

i made it through my first week without causing any significant problems.  it wasn’t easy.  and then i passed week two.  and three.  and four.  by god, i was half way there.  i was even doing better in school (well, my grades reflected this… i just developed better cheating methods).  and before you knew it, i was one week away from graduating oak park and river forest high school.

at the start of week 9, i had a minor confrontation with this kid from my japanese class.  we exchanged words and then he stepped up like he wanted to fight, but i exercised restraint, because i was a good boy now.  i didn’t punch him.  i merely grabbed a water bottle out of my friend’s hands and sprayed the kid in the face.

i thought nothing of the incident until security pulled me out of class a couple periods later.  as i stepped into mr. perna’s office for the first time in 2 months, i was cool as a cucumber… until i saw the water bottle kid sitting there in the corner crying.  i wanted to choke him but mr. perna roared at me to sit down.  according to him, i had violated my contract and i would be spending time in in-school-suspension until they could “figure out what to do” with me.

“in-school” is hell.  it’s basically a day-long detention.  as you’d expect, some of the biggest miscreants can be found in that room.  there is very little you can actually do in there, aside from stare at the wall or attempt to do your homework that they deliver to you (without actually teaching you anything about it).  the whole operation is overseen by a woman named deb, a middle aged woman with bad skin and a bad mood.  the day i was admitted, i realized that it would be either the last monday of my senior year, or the last monday of my first senior year.  not only was it boring and terrible being there with deb, the suspense over whether they’d let me graduate or not was killing me.  monday passed.  no word from the deans.  tuesday.  wednesday…  and then fucking thursday went by without any contact from the outside world.  like, did they forget about me?  and then i decided “fuck it.”  if i’m not gonna graduate anyway, why should i have to sit in this stupid room?  i’m going back to all my regular classes, one last time.  i did just that, and security never came for me.  maybe i was supposed to be back in class and never got the memo?

i finished up the year and took my finals like any normal student would’ve.  and then came the day to commemorate my long, troubling journey: the graduation ceremony.  the last gate i’d have to pass through to leave this shithole forever.

i showed up a bit late and was appalled to learn that someone was sitting in my seat.  i knew it was my seat because right in from of him was the guy i had alphabetically sat behind since middle school.  the guy in my seat would’ve scooted over, but there was someone in his seat.  so he asked that person to move over, and that person had to ask the next person to move over.  somehow, everyone was in their wrong seat, and this caused the entire second half of the graduating class to have to scoot over one seat.  it was almost like they just completely skipped me.

they ran through a flurry of commemorative speeches, and they moved on to the part where they start calling out each student individually and they give them their diplomas, and all the black parents start getting crunk and going “WOOP WOOP” and swinging towels around in the air for their kids.  my parents weren’t there.  at least, that’s what i thought.  unbeknownst to me, they were actually watching from a projector screen in the auditorium since i gave my two seating passes to my girlfriend instead.

each student in my school had an academic dean who acted as a sort of counselor for which classes you should take and give general schooling advice.  each dean had about 80-100 students under their wing.  some were more involved than others.  i had friends who had never met their deans.  my dean didn’t play that game.  mr. cieplak.  he was old as shit.  i’m pretty sure he fought in world war I.  and it was his final year at my school before heading off into retirement.  he was extremely old-school in his methods.  whenever our school had an assembly i’d ditch it, along with hundreds of other students who were smart enough to know which exits weren’t guarded by security.  but you could only get back in the school through one of two doors.  dean cieplak felt it was his duty to wait at the entrance and write detention slips out to all of his students he saw walking back in.  and whatever entrance i chose, he was always there, waiting with a pre-filled out detention form in my name.  he was always one step up on me.

he wasn’t a bad guy though.  he knew i was a troublemaker and accepted it.  so on my graduation day, when i saw him take the stage and start handing diplomas to each of students, i had wondered if had gotten word of my behavioral incident a week before, and if he would be or had taken any action towards me.  he read the names off slowly and each student approached the podium to shake his hand and receive their diploma.  he was reading the names from the ground, and not the stage, which was disappointing, and i wondered if they had moved the podium to the ground because they caught wind that i was planning on doing a backflip off the stage.

my name was coming up.  i was a few people a way, and i had no idea what would happen. i considered it a very real possibility that the dean of discipline was in the crowd and would come down and taze me, set my diploma on fire, and then toss my lifeless body away into a swamp.  suddenly, i was next in line.  i clinched my teeth.  mr. cieplak looked up at me.  and then he just kept staring, with a sort of puzzled look in his eyes.  he looked down at the diplomas briefly and looked back at me.  the delay was very apparent to myself, and everyone in the crowd.  sweat slid down my armpits.  all was quiet.  i looked down, embarassed.

and then i heard a combination of two words i didn’t think i’d be hearing: my first name and my last name.

i jumped in the air and triumphantly swung my fist.  i hurried to the stage and hugged mr. cieplak.  and as i did, he leaned into my ear and said this:  “consider this my going away present.  to you, and to the school.  they can’t handle you one more year.  i’ll get you a diploma and have it in the mail in two weeks.  now go on and get out of here.”  what a selfless, malevolent act.  with no diploma in hand, i turned the corner and started to walk down the center aisle back to my seat.  and there she was.  right in the middle of my path, stood none other than dr. bridge, the superintendent of my school.  a shortish 50 year old woman with died blue hair.  the very reason i had been through so much hell in the first place.  i didn’t know how to react, so i did what felt natural.  i picked her up and gave her a bear hug, and then swung her in the air.  and that was my going away present.

so i graduated.  graduated*.  that’s the asterisk they put on the barry bonds home run record ball.  how it got done is a little controversial, but i managed to graduate high school in four years.  and as a bit of an addendum i feel like i should mention i had a roommate in college who coincidentally was friends with the dean of discipline’s son.  when i met him, i shook his hand and inquired: “has your dad ever mentioned me?”

“my dad hates you.”

what a legacy.