Chapter Sixteen
-- September, 1999
Billy Joel – “The Stranger”
I was not looking forward to high school. But suddenly it was here. In anticipation of the event, Mom insisted I see a psychiatrist. I didn’t really want to go, but after the hospital visit, I felt like I wasn’t in a position to say no. So, on the last Saturday before school started, Mom dropped me off at an office in downtown Summit.
My therapist was a British woman named Rebecca Nance. Mom had told her that I liked movies, so we chatted about what was playing at the art house theatres in the city. When I told her about the last six months of my life - especially the freak out at Rich’s house and my suicide attempt – she asked me if I had ever heard of panic attacks. I shook my head.
“Never heard the phrase ‘fight or flight?’” she elaborated.
“No.”
“It means that you’ve been pushed to your limits. That you’re not capable of staying in the moment, so you’re forced to start swinging, so to speak, or run away. Does that sound like something you’ve been dealing with?”
At the end of our session, she wrote me a prescription for Prozac and Ativan in the hopes of curbing my depression and anxiety. The only problem was there wasn’t enough time for the Prozac to start working before I had to see the Vanowen’s for Sunday dinner.
In the car on the way over, I groaned loudly. “Do we really have to go there?!”
“Of course, we have to go, it’s a tradition. What else would we do?”
“I don’t know, I just wanna go home...”
Mom smacked the steering wheel, tired of my bitching. “Would you just tell me what happened between you and Dean?” But still, I wouldn’t answer.
I expected things between Dean and I to still be frosty, but from the moment I entered the house, it was Aunt Lynn who was on top of me. “Were you gonna call Mr. Meyer and tell him you couldn’t make it into work?!”
I thought about my stay in the hospital. “I had some other stuff going on...”
I tried to shake her, but Lynn followed me into the kitchen. “Yes, but did you ever stop and think how this might reflect back on me?” When I shrugged, she hit me with one of her patented withering looks. I figured the evening was ruined, but soon the conversation drifted to Dean and his new girlfriend, Layla, who Aunt Lynn just happened to meet and adore.
This was news. I looked over at Dean, who nodded.
He had been dressing differently lately. Differently, not better. This meant long-sleeved, collared shirts in the middle of summer. Boat shoes with no socks. This, apparently, was how Layla liked her men.
But when the “children they were proud of” part of the night ended, the focus again shifted back to me. From her purse, Mom pulled out a glossy handbook for a boarding school that had been sent to her. On its cover was a photo of two white students and an Asian in a wheelchair. She handed it to me. As I flipped through it, I saw smiling, besuited future leaders of America mixing beakers and scoring lacrosse goals.
The school was called Agony-Bishop. Uncle Nick and Uncle Kev had both attended, Nick for six months before getting kicked out, and Kevin for all four years. Clearly, the adults had been talking about me when I wasn’t around because they had decided on their own that I was to be sent away. As bitter as this made me, it had become clear that I didn’t fit in with the Long Ditch Public School system. It was time for a change.
“But it’s already September, I missed the start of the year...”
Mom shook her head. “They don’t start until mid-month.”
“Does that mean they go year-round?!”
“Says here they’re done for the year May 5th.”
Now that was something they should have led with: a four-month summer! Maybe this private school thing wasn’t the worst idea in the world...
When they saw that I hadn’t rejected the idea outright, Uncle Kevin relayed some stories from his days there. “You ever hear of the ugly stick, Taylor?”
I shook my head.
“It’s when they wrap the handle of a hockey stick in duct tape. Then, the upperclassmen have you swim down the hallway on your belly while they beat you on the ass with it!”
“And that was something that was fun for you?”
“You didn’t have a choice! We had this one teacher, no joke, who kept a stack of hockey pucks on his desk that he’d whip at you if you were misbehaving--”
“--What?!” I couldn’t believe it, Kev actually seemed nostalgic about hazing!
“And that was just the teachers. The coaches would withhold water from you if you weren’t giving 110% at practice.”
“That’s gotta be illegal!”
“I’m telling you when I went there the place was stuck in the fifties. We were the least political guys on earth, but everyone banded together to protest how strict the school was.”
“Did it help?”
“Did it help?!” Kev laughed. Then he caught my Mom’s judgmental eye. “Oh, but I’m sure it’s better now...”
The problem, as always, was money. I knew we couldn’t afford this. Part of our house’s foundation was built on final notices. I would be a financial aid case for sure, but even with loans there was still a substantial chunk of tuition left over.
The first thing Mom did was call Aunt Sheila, newly moved into her house in Naples, Florida. She always said she thought of me as the son she never had, but when Mom got her on the phone, Sheila rebuffed her so severely it dumbfounded her.
Janet thought the plan was dead in the water until Nannie came through at the last second. She requested that the bank make provisions to her trust, so that her daughter could get some inheritance early. I hated that we were wasting it on me. On my entreé into high society...
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my behavior wasn’t approved of and that’s why I was being sent away.
The school sent a checklist of everything I’d need as an incoming freshman. I couldn’t afford a brand-new wardrobe, but fortunately, most of these items were among Nick’s clothes that Sheila had bequeathed me. Mom made me try them on before we packed.
I slipped on a suit jacket and put my hands in the pockets, trying to look casual. They weren’t empty though. I pulled out a tiny plastic baggie and said, “uhhh...”
Mom looked up, saw the coke in my hands, and quickly grabbed it from me. “Give me that!” She said, secreting it away.
I threw my hands up. “Hey man, I didn’t see anything...”
I went back to trying things on. Most of Nick’s clothes fit surprisingly well. I was in a coat and vest, admiring myself in the mirror, when I made the offhand comment, “I’m wearing a dead man’s clothes...”
I didn’t think much of it, but Mom walked over to her bed and sat down. When she started crying, I knew I’d said the wrong thing. I sat next to her and let her get it out.
The next day, we drove up to the school. In the car, I had a growing sense of dread. I’ve never liked change, but lately that seemed to be all I had been experiencing. I began to bite my fingernails as the school came into view.
Agony-Bishop fit that New England Private School mold to a “t.” It was an imposing collection of brown brick buildings surrounding a squared-off quad. The main building that held the Headmaster’s office stood ominously in the center of campus as a kind of monolithic inevitability.
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As we parked, I felt like I was walking into a movie. But this wasn’t “School Ties” or “Dead Poet’s Society.” Being in upstate New York, Agony-Bishop was one of the only New England boarding schools not actually located in New England. The New York stink seemed to scare away the ultra-rich and while the majority of the students were wasps, Bishop was probably the most multi-cultural school in the division. This gave it a reputation among the other private schools as a rough place. Most of these kid’s parents had money, but their children had either been suspended from, or plain couldn’t get into, better schools.
My roommate was from Ohio and half a foot shorter than me. But what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in being a cunt. Dense and wiry, Jeff was destined for the wrestling team, something he proved by instantly challenging me to a wrestling match. I declined.
As I was unpacking my bags, he saw me secret my prescription pills into my dresser drawer and asked if I was “holding out on him.” I mumbled something about these not being able to get you high, which seemed to satisfy his curiosity for the moment.
When the faculty had us gather on the quad for Orientation, I met the other guys from our dorm. We had what looked to be a grown man living with us. Pat Starkey (from Bas-tan!) was a jacked thirty-year-old in a freshman’s body. He had a southie accent and would fight ANYONE. The anyone part was made clear time and time again.
As we broke into teams for character building exercises, we were each given an upperclassman to show us the ropes. Our team was led by a nerdy junior named Nelson, but everyone else called him “two dads” because, well... he had two dads. He walked around campus in his straight-billed CNN cap because some relative or another had worked there. I watched as Pat overheard some cool seniors making fun of Nelson and saw the wheels start to turn in his head.
Nelson had us freshmen sit on the grass. As he stood over us, he launched into a monologue about how this would be the last time we would set foot on the quad. He warned us that only seniors were allowed on the quad.
Pat snickered. “Oh yeah? What’re you gonna do about it?”
Nelson seemed unfazed. “Me?” he laughed. “Nothing. But it’s your own damn fault if you get caught crossing the quad at night.”
Pat was already locked and loaded. “What the fuck did you just say to me?!”
He was on his feet before anyone could do anything about it. By the time we broke it up, he had sent Nelson and his CNN cap sprawling across the quad.
When I asked why he had done that, Pat replied, “I’ve always hated that kid!” Keep in mind we’d been at Agony-Bishop for maybe four hours now.
As a financial aid student, I was required to work odd days in the cafeteria washing dishes. The first time Jeff saw me in my required hairnet and smock, his lips pulled back from his teeth in unconscious revulsion. He wasn’t the only one either. My fellow students, Pat included, loved dumping their half-full dinner plates right in front of me so that the spaghetti sauce or whatever else they ate that night would splash all over me.
When I returned to our room that first night, Jeff was waiting for me. He had “accidentally” come across my pill bottles and done some research on the internet. He told me they were for crazy people and to stay the fuck away from him. I can’t be exactly sure when Jeff started beating me, but it always seemed like it was for the most harmless offenses. That fall break I came home with bruises and welts all over my arms. But that was later...
The next day classes started. I put on my dead man’s clothes and headed over to morning chapel. As I found a spot in the balcony with the other freshmen, I looked out over the rest of the student body. It would take me a couple days to get the whole picture, but it became clear on that first day that this new environment was so extreme for everyone that people naturally split into groups for protection.
There were the Koreans, who barely spoke English and formed what could loosely be called a gang. There were the Day Students, who were mostly townies. They talked about paintball way too much, but were good salt of the earth people, the majority of which had been going to Bishop since middle school. There were the Botanists, which my roommate was very much a member of. They spent most weekends doing whatever they could to get kicked out. There were the Jewish students who endlessly quoted Monty Python. There were the Juiceheads who lived in the weight room and usually had coke. There were the insufferable theatre kids, the kids who volunteered to give tours, and dozens more.
After the introductory hymn, we sat through Headmaster Smith’s chapel talk where he warned us all about Agony-Bishop’s zero-tolerance drug policy: “a puff or a pack, a sip or a six pack and you’re out!” The Headmaster was replaced by the Chaplain who blessed us and our athletic teams and sent us off to our classes.
As we filtered out, Pat marked his territory by cornering day student, Chad Nikola, in the church balcony staircase. “You think you’re tough?!” he demanded, pushing Chad against the wall. I saw in Chad’s eyes he had no idea what he’d done to piss this guy off. But Pat didn’t stop until he had Chad close to tears.
When he realized he had our attention, Pat was generous enough to share sexually prolific stories from his past. My favorite was the one where he was sharing the only sleeping bag on a camping trip with his friend and “this scared bitch wanted to get in, so we said she could as long as she blew us – and she did!” I didn’t point out that he was sharing a sleeping bag with another man though because I didn’t want to be Chad Nikola’d.
In History Class, my professor had hair growing out of his ears. He delivered a bleak introductory monologue wherein he promised us that “if you don’t learn from the mistakes of the past you are doomed to repeat them.” It was a portent of classes to come. In fact, the only class I seemed to enjoy was Mrs. Reade’s English Class, where we were supposed to do an entire section on famous short stories.
It was probably the placebo effect, but lately I found myself more focused, which was good because Agony-Bishop had something called “the Effort System.” It was a grading scale from 1-5 (one being the best) that measured how much you were “trying,” the idea being if you were truly giving it the old college try then your grades would reflect that. These seasonally updated ratings were entirely based on teacher’s marks and meant the world to every Bishop student because the higher you scored, the more they left you alone. If you did get into the coveted “Group One” - a feat only five or six kids managed a term - you didn’t have to do evening study hall from 7:30-9:30. That meant I could watch T.V. at night!
Thus, I became a grade grubber.
Through this system though, I discovered that Uncle Kev was right. Not all of Bishop’s sadists were students. Jim Hofer was 25 or 26, tops. He taught Algebra and made it clear that only people who participated got “ones.” Now, being fourteen, I couldn’t speak an entire sentence without my voice cracking, so I had to pick my volunteering opportunities carefully. The fear of voice cracking was real. If it happened to you, you were teased mercilessly.
The teasing happened in steps. There was the immediate laughter, the titters, as I called them, followed immediately by some jokester in the back of the class who would ventriloquist a goose honk which got even more titters (a double titter, if you will. Or a gaggle of guffaws.) When my voice did crack and there were laughs, I would wait a few minutes, quietly excuse myself to the bathroom, then slap myself in the head over and over. When I had sufficiently punished myself enough, I would finally return to class.
One night, I was walking back from dishwashing duty completely exhausted. Somehow, I found myself alone in the middle of the quad. I didn’t know how I had gotten there but decided to remain calm and keep walking.
Then I heard a whistle. And a sing-songy voice trilled, “Ohhhhh, freshmannnn!”
I took off running, but not fast enough. Out of nowhere, I got side-lined by one of the football players. After he tackled me, he popped up and stood over me hooting, “you’re on my quad, nigger!”
The air had been knocked out of me, but I still managed to squeak. “I’m white...”
The football player wouldn’t hear of it though. “You’re on my quad, you must be my nigger!”
When it became clear that I really wanted Group One, Mr. Hofer realized that he could use it to his advantage. Any time I acted out in the slightest he would tell me I was in danger of losing Group One. Like I was a small child being threatened with time out. He even dragged me out into the hallway once for something innocuous and pointed dramatically in my face. “You just lost Group One!” he said.
I don’t know how he thought I’d react, but if every one of your teachers didn’t place you in Group One then, by the law of averages, you didn’t end up in Group One. So, I had no incentive to behave after that.
I don’t think any of the teachers liked me. I once went to Mr. Eccleston, my Earth Science teacher, for extra help, and found Mr. Axelrod, the Spanish teacher, and Mr. Hofer drinking beer at his place.
I said, “looks like a party!” Ya know, like a nerd.
Mr. Axelrod took one look at me and growled, “the fuck do you want, Benson?!”
Needless to say, I didn’t have many friends. Business associates, sure. But no one I’d drive to the airport for. Fortunately, the loneliness left me with plenty of time to write. In English class we read “Paul's Case,” the story of a poor kid from a Pennsylvania coal town who spent his nights as an usher at the opera. He would watch the rich come and go in their finery and covet their lives. When his boss gives him the payroll to deposit at the bank one weekend, he never makes it. Instead, he flees to New York City and lives the life he always wanted to live with a suite at the Plaza, room service, and tailored tuxedos. He keeps this up for about a week. And when the money runs out? He throws himself in front of a train.
What an ending.
I left class wanting to write something as dark as that. But I didn’t think my fellow students would understand. These weren’t creative types. They were busy looking for ways to make as much money as their parents. So, I decided to hide my interests from the rest of the school. With nowhere to go, I began spending all of my time in the library. It was a regal kind of a place, designed with mahogany and green carpet.
I sequestered myself in the basement and started work on a new short story that I was tentatively calling “Death on an Escalator.” It was about a mother in the 1950’s who loses her small child when he gets sucked into an escalator at the local department store. I did tons of research so that the period details were accurate. Being in the library helped out a lot. I decided to write on notecards, so it looked like I was making lots of progress.
During a break in the process, I found a door I’d never been through before that led to the media closet. Most students didn’t even know it existed, but there it was with over a thousand movies in it! From that day on, I spent almost every weekend watching obscure French New Wave films or the Criterion Collection -- anything with nudity basically. Eventually, I widened the circle because the pills were killing my sex drive. I gobbled up Best Picture winners, James Bond collections, and feature length documentaries.
I would have spent all my free time there, but every day after classes, each student was required to attend some kind of sport for two hours. I chose cross country. I don’t know why because I hate running.
We were mid-practice when Joey McElligott pants’d me on Route 22. It was a particularly brutal pantsing too: I had no shirt on, we were on a major highway, and he yanked so hard and so unexpectantly that my entire shoe came out of my sweat pants. To get them back on, I had to violently pull the pants over my wet sneakers, while tumbling end over end, completely, buck naked.
I decided to run on my own from then on.