Larry George

September 4th, 1971

Larry and Steven woke for their first day of Kindergarten and Heather for her first day of the third grade. Larry has learned basic life etiquette from Kappy over the rest of the summer—what Theresa would have called a rapid development. She even spoke with Gilbert about placing him in an advanced placement program, but that idea dissolved faster than it had appeared whenever the topic of money came up. Funnily enough, it seemed to be a familial habit to lose track of ideas once they were proposed.

Steven and Larry walked outside with their matching backpacks and similarly styled t-shirts to join Heather who was already standing outside at the edge of the front lawn. She turned around as Theresa and Gilbert stepped outside, watching their children all stand out on the edge of the lawn. A picture of the three of them outside would be clipped onto a magnet and hung up on the family fridge for the entirety of time that both boys were in school. By the time the end of this tape finishes through, you may assume that some fragment of that picture exists out there in the universe. Think of it as some sort of inside joke that the family here will long forget about after everything happens.

“Please keep an eye on them, okay? Promise me?” Theresa asked Heather.

The look that her daughter gave was one of genuine joy. If Heather were just a little bit older, she may have given off the attitude that most teenagers know—the kind that yearn to find themselves through testing limits.

“I will.”

“Now, the both of you are going to be on your best behaviors, right?” Gilbert regarded his boys.

“Yes Dad.”

“Mhm.”

“Great,” Gilbert smiled a nervous look, “I uh...love you and hope you have a really good day.”

The bus pulled up in front of their house and slowed to a stop—the ancient sounding wheels screeched as the red stop sign flung out like one of those gag toys you’d get from a carnival. The doors swiveled open and Larry saw the older man behind the wheel. From the second the doors opened he could smell a thick coat of coffee emanating from the man’s body. Larry had never drank coffee, but when he would later in life try the drink, his mind would instantly impress the smell that this man carried for life.

Heather walked to the stepped and climbed up the first, then turned to her brothers, “Well, come on now!”

Larry and Steven turned to their mother and father who both nodded at them. The twins turned and then they both made their way to the bus just as their sister had, climbing up the stairs. Steven made it up first, looking around all of the new kids with wide eyes and an open mouth. “Wow!”

Larry reached the top step after him and then also saw all of them, “...wow.”

“Come on, Larry, let’s find a seat for the both of us!” Steven said, jogging to the middle of the bus.

The small act of Steven including the both of us in his statement was one that touched Larry’s heart so subtly he wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint the feeling if asked, but if he had access to an entire transcript of all of his life he would pinpoint this moment as the last that he and his brother were twins and more like two unequal halves. The both of us would change to me or you. As twins oft to wonder if one or the other is more of the whole, Larry was the one who tended to be more uneasy about these feelings. He tended to more often than not think that Steven had been the whole one.

Quickly, we’re going to rewind in time just a little bit—not long, I assure you...just to last night. Larry lied awake in his bed staring up at the ceiling, a parasite ate away at his heart and a cold sweat formed on his face. This parasite was what Larry would grow to know as fear. He had never really been afraid of anything before. Meeting new people struck him as a very real—and very primal fear inside of his core.

The only people he’d ever known his age were his brother and sister, they were the people he knew, they were his people. He’d known what they’d liked and disliked and what kind of food they would hate to find under their pillow for Easter (it was all of them, but Heather especially hated broccoli. Steven was more of a spinach decrier, Larry himself was not partial to potatoes. Vegetables were not liked in the George household.)

He didn’t know these other kids, and he didn’t know what kinds of food would make them the most mad if they had found it underneath their pillow. Of course, he had no intention of sneaking into their houses to hide food under their pillow, but it was the uncertainty in not knowing that paralyzed him completely.

“i used to not know a lot of people,” Kappy whispered in his ear. “it is a very natural thing to be nervous, but do not let it worry you. if you ever feel that it is too much, just pull out the headphones and i shall be there to comfort you.”

“Oh...um, I was actually thinking of leaving them here,” Larry said.

“leaving them...? larry, as your guide i don’t believe that is the best thing to do. i would worry about you, and it is nice to have me there just in case, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m sorry for thinking about leaving you here.”

“it is okay, larry. now, you should get some rest. tomorrow is going to be a big day.”

Larry rested his head down with the words of Kappy echoing in his head. It eased his heart a little, but he still was nervous about the big day. Steven was snoring up a storm, lost in his dreams, mildly content.

Back to the morning of school, the children left the bus as it started back up and took off. Steven and Larry were guided with the other Kindergartners along to the assembly hall inside the school. The time flowed for both of the boys. They were assigned their classes and for the twins’ sake they had been placed in the same class. Their teacher was named Mrs. Farnon.

Once they arrived at their new classroom—filled to the brim with tiny little desks—the two boys were put on opposite sides of the classroom, however, a fact that Larry wasn’t too keen on. He watched Steven turn to the kids at his side and beginning to introduce himself. He said something, and they laugh. Larry turned to his left and saw a girl turned to her left, talking to another girl by her side. He didn’t dare interrupt their conversation. To his right was a boy who was staring up at the teacher, a concentration stronger than steel. He didn’t speak to him either. He looked back to Steven across the room and saw he was making a motion of catching a ball as he spoke to the kid next to him.

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Larry took a deep breath as he looked down to his bag beside him and pulled out the cassette player, sliding the headphones over his ears quietly.

“Kappy, making friends is so hard. I don’t want to be rude to anybody, but nobody wants to talk to me like they do Steven.”

“larry, you always have to keep close to your heart that everybody else is second to you. friends help, but they aren’t necessary. the most important thing is that you keep yourself happy.”

“I don’t know, I just feel down on my luck.”

“trust in me and you won’t regret anything.”

Larry looked up and he saw Mrs. Farnon’s gaze right at him. He slid one of the headphones off of his ears as she stepped closer toward him. “Excuse me, but we haven’t begun yet. I’m going to need you to take those off until recess, then you can listen to whatever you like.”

“do not take take them off, larry.”

“But Kappy, she’s the teacher.”

“do not take them off. authority isn’t right just because they’re the authority, that is an important lesson you need to learn.”

“I...” Larry held his hand up, shaking, he took in a deep breath as he slid the other headphone back over his ear. A muffled “oooooooooooooooooooooooh” rung out through the classroom.

“very good, larry. you are a very strong boy.”

Mrs. Farnon stepped closer, “I’m going to give you one more chance to take them off, or else I’m going to have to take it until the end of the day.”

“do not bend.”

Larry sat back in his chair, his eyes wide open and he gave a bit of a smirk. “Try me.”

Mrs. Farnon gave a shocked look as she turned around, walking to her desk, shaking her head. “Not even the first day and already we have a problem child,” she said to herself. “Alright...” she looked down to a clipboard down on her desk. “You’re name is...Lawrence George,” she read. “Well Lawrence-”

“It’s Larry,” he said quietly. All eyes shifted to him.

“Larry...it looked like we’re going to need to call your parents. Maybe you’re not ready yet to handle coming to school with the other kids,”

“don’t let her intimidate you. stay strong.”

“My name is Larry, Mrs. Farnon, and my headphones help me stay calm.”

The eyes shifted back toward Mrs. Farnon, her eyes of thirty haven’t prepared her for an open discourse with her kindergarten students. The children waited for her response. “We can’t have you listening to music while we are in class. How would you hear?”

“going strong. keep breathing.”

“I can hear you just fine,” Larry said. “I’m not listening to any music. If I was blind I could have a guide to help me I may not be blind, but I need my headphones, they are my guide, and I insist on keeping them on.”

She waited a tense second, not wanting to be made the fool by a child, she looked to the phone and back to Larry. Never before has anyone in her class done anything but dribble and doodle, and here was a kid who was insistent—debating, forming full arguments. A part of her wanted to just yank the headphones off of the little brat just to see his argument crumble before her—but a part of her just couldn’t. A part of her was proud that she got one of the thinkers. “Okay, you can keep them on,” she said, forming a wry smile, “but the second I hear any music I’m confiscating them for good, got it?”

“good job larry, you’re in there. smile and go for the finish.”

“I’ll keep them on,” he said, giving a tiny smile.”

“i’m proud of you larry. you’re a hero to these kids now, consider that for making friends.”

Later on—when the school day ended and the boys returned home, Steven was mostly quiet throughout dinner, Larry too, but that much was normal around dinner time. Heather was the only one willing to share stories of how much better the third grade was compared to last year. “We talked about all the things we were going to learn this year,” she said. “We were going to be learning cursive, and how to do our times tables.”

“Times tables already?” Gilbert asked, “I still don’t know those, and they’re already starting you out on ‘em?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Theresa said, fanning her hands across the table, “I think it’s just wonderful.”

Later still, the boys had made it to their beds after dinner, absolutely stuffed from the special school dinner that Theresa had cooked up—a stuffed turkey, a special treat that both her and Gilbert had decided to splurge on. Gilbert would be eating canned beans for the next few days, but he considered it a worthy time to instill a sort of happy memory for the kids to associate with school. Learn things and you’ll be able to eat like this every day, Larry’s father would say. Steven looked up at the ceiling, taking even breaths as if each one was deeply calculated. “Why didn’t you take off the headphones?” He asked out of nowhere.

Larry looked to him with a cocked head, “Huh?” He looked to the side toward the cassette player by his side out of habit.

“Your headphones. Why didn’t you take them off? You aren’t blind...or deaf. You don’t need them.”

“I just thought...uh, that the teacher wasn’t always right.”

“You don’t even know that. We don’t even know what a teacher is supposed to teach. You can’t know that.”

“It’s like I told you, Stevie, I have a guide. I hear Kappy and I feel like I can do stuff like you can. I can’t do stuff the way you can.”

Steven shook his head and crossed his arms. “It’s not that hard, and all you did today was make yourself look weird.”

“Weird? I was a hero today, Stevie.”

“Not to Conrad and Sally.”

“Who are they?”

“They’re the kids that were next to me, I was talking with them about baseball stuff before you did your stunt. They said that you were weird for listening to music in class.”

“Stevie, it’s like I said, it wasn’t music it was-”

“Kappy, I know. But Kappy doesn’t exist, Larry. I tried to hear him, myself.”

“He said that only a few people can hear him,” Larry said, a bit defeated.

“He isn’t real, Larry. Please don’t be weird tomorrow,” He turned over, facing away from Larry. Please don’t be weird tomorrow. Larry turned in his own bed, sliding the headphones over his ears, silently asking his guide, “Kappy, I don’t know if I feel good about what happened today.”

“what you did today was learn firsthand that authority isn’t the end. they aren’t always in control of you. sometimes you need to stand your ground to them.”

“But it was just wearing a pair of headphones.”

“today, yes. but there may be someday where this piece of advice comes singing back to you and you really need it. you never know when the formative years of your childhood will come back to you later in life exactly when you need it. there will be times that this may get you into trouble, today could have ended up differently with you being sent home. that is the risk of the world. i am instilling the building blocks in hopes that it shall be useful.”

“I see.” Larry looked up to the ceiling in the dark. He really didn’t see, but if Kappy had said so, he must have had his reasons. He sighed and rested his head on his arm. “I just wish I could be better at talking to people.”

“i know larry. i know. this is something that shall get easier with time, i promise.”

Larry set the headphones aside and pressed his face against his pillow and breathed out hard, letting it flow back into his face, cringing as the hot air traveled back up his nose.

He let the thoughts swirl around his head for a few before he turned on his side. Still, he felt uncomfortable, but he couldn’t tell if it was with Kappy’s advice or if his pillow was just ratty and needed a wash. Sitting up, he fluffed it extra hard and sat back down, cradling it between his neck and head as his eyes closed. It seemed like it was going to be one of those nights where sleep was the eternal treasure at the end of a long adventure that would escape his grasp.