3.15 - When Titans Clash...A Lot!
"Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?"
"Coincidence is one thing, setup is quite another"
Shit has hit the fan, ladies and gentlemen. The gauntlet has been thrown. It comes to bear, from my life and times, that being perceived as wicked overshadows my virtue and mature qualities. The public at large enjoys making me out to be a monster, a wicked creature, a devil, a villain. Fine. If I am to be cast in the super-villain role, it can hardly be surprising when evil begins to manifest like a storm over the horizon.
I had laid out my week with the assumption that Thursday would be my big, exciting day at Hershey, followed by a day of makeup and recovery. No such fucking luck. I got a pass, an innocent, but pretty little green pass to see Mrs. Ober seventh period. I thought it might just be a simple matter of senior business, transcript or graduation issue. Maybe they just missed me. Nope, the world doesn't reward goodness.
For the majority of first period, I did my best to analyze the Hershey Park data and forget Kelly. She made it easy, by going for donuts and taking the viper Kendall with her. I got work done, had a plan for the rest of the day, things were looking cheery.
Period two, Hahn was out and I helped Mrs. Cheng handle the attendance and class setup, she's a little uneasy in a classroom. She has a charming Chinese accent, which sets her up as a target. I heard some not nice things that morning, but took it upon myself to forget 'em. They're kids. I divided the rest of the class time working with Kasey on the problems Hahn left for us, intermittently talking about Wicked, and helping Laura, Danielle, and others with the work. Two good deeds in one class period. From the introduction of Wicked, I should have recognized it. Track 16: No Good Deed(Goes Unpunished).
During study hall, I, the ever diligent and responsible student, sacrificed a study hall to make up part of the AP US final and take a quiz I'd missed. I did okay and left feeling upbeat. The whole morning had been filled with a general aura of goodness. In retrospect, I suppose I should have seen it coming. Good feelings often presage bad things in my life. I still don't learn. Why is that? Some resilient hope for humanity, I think. Give it time, it'll die.
After an uneventful lunch period, I was waylaid by Mr. Brousse who told me that I needed to miss AP Lit/Comp, which I hadn't attended since Tuesday, to meet with Mrs. Ober. Hmm. Suddenly my little green pass from first period was making sense that I didn't like.
Moments later, I was in the dark conference room of the guidance suite. It felt dramatic before it began, like the air before a lightning storm. Brousse, Mrs. Ober, and for God knows what reason, Mrs. Cook all sat across from me. At the time, it struck me vaguely like a tribunal. When I saw the printed copy of How to Be a Villain: The Brain, with highlighted sections of concern, I started to lose it. I'd talked to Brousse, the police, and a few others along the road, getting their conviction that I'm not a danger. Going through the trial and being found not guilty. When Ober and Cook started in, (Brousse played the strong, silent type through the meeting, but he was intimidating nonetheless) I realized that double jeopardy laws didn't apply in this particular system. I lost it about halfway through opening arguments. Something inside me snapped like a twig. I told them as much. My first remark was to the effect that I was angry, damned angry.
We were in the session through the entire period, I was grilled on the nature of my Endgame and the implications thereof. We talked about my life, how I treat others, which I'd like to think is with some respectful distaste, but that's not enough, apparently. Cook tried clumsily to psychoanalyze me, it was the clumsiness of her maneuvering, of them all, that truly began to irritate me. I'd been inconvenienced three times before. Now, it was overkill. Not enough kill, in their minds. Or someones. I can deal with inconvenience, but this was something else. I kept a remarkable level of control. Six years ago, there would have been a different ending. I could have hurt someone easily then. And I did on one occasion. It's so similar that the irony is beyond the telling. A few times through the meeting, they tried to offer advice with the "Could you...", "Would you...", "Might you..." line of questioning as to resolve it. Each time I told them resoundingly no. I thought of Judge Meade, Judge Nancy Paul, wondering how I might end the meeting of the damned. I thought the L-word was a little excessive, but we've established that I wasn't thinking clearly. Lawyers would have been appropriate.
I left the meeting with a masterfully controlled rage. Laura saw me, my expression, asked me if something was wrong, I glided past her. I saw Mrs. Krebs and asked her if she didn't have class. I looked past her and saw the class signing up on the showcase for buses. Shit. Barrick had gone ahead with the information I forgot I'd given him for the senior trip and made up the seating charts. If I'd been planning with him period three, in class period four, I would have gotten a good seat. It just added to the injustice I felt and began to become overwhelming. I knew what I had to do. I'd been given this choice before and made it wrong. One right turn could come about as a result of this thing, I knew that. So I made the choice.
I showed Wisner the pass Ober'd given me on leaving the guidance suite, telling him it was for period five, not to excuse my tardiness. It's reassuring to know that even when I'm emotionally crazy, I can still lie like a P.I.
I left and thought about leaving, about running away from it all. I've done it with Kelly twice and it would be simple. But I decided I wasn't going to be a coward. I decided it was time to start dealing with the shit of reality.
Walking between the Fowler Building and the Swartz, the sun bore through the overcast skies and I was burned by the harsh light of day. Hot winds blew from hell and I felt like the devil. I went to my sanctuary, my refuge, the only place in the high school where I've felt safe and protected and return to as the swallows to Capistrano. D12, S08, call it what you will, I went to find my teacher, mentor, and advisor, Mrs. Daniels.
She had a class until 12:27, so I waited in the room between her classroom and the next. Turned off the lights and wrote by the gray half light filtering in through the window. It was angry, deranged, threatening, violent, terrifying to read later. I came out after her class had gone, she made an offhand comment about her notebook check for Option II classes. She took one look at me and asked if I was all right. I said no. I told her what had happened, knowing full well that as a mother, a teacher, a friend, she would know what I should do since I was in no position to do it myself. She asked if I wanted to call my mother. I did. I told her and she said what Mrs. Daniels had replied as soon as I'd finished recounting my experience. It was harassment. By the school and a craven, disturbed girl who was hiding from me, but causing me grief despite it. Or to spite it? Anyway, I told her I'd be fine for the rest of the day and after I hung up, I broke down. Mrs. Daniels got me a tissue and she knew I had a final the next period and asked if I wanted her to get Mr. Wagner. I said yes. That's one of the staples of our relationship, we ask one another and, nine times out of ten, take the advice which we would have probably done in the first place. Wagner came and I arranged to take it next week, others from Hershey still had to make up theirs and so it wouldn't be a problem. I worked to collect myself while Daniels offered to let me hang out in her room, call my mom to get me home, and a few others. But I was already reverting. I was already going back to the core of who I am. I try to be kind, human, optimistic, and pleasant. It's the abrasive citizens and place that Carlisle is that renders me different. They recognize that as badness and alienate me for it. They want me to be a villain. As a villain, I can be stone cold, icy, hateful, malicious, manipulative, and terrible to people. But what some would say is worse, I do it so that I don't get caught.
By the time the bell rang, I was in reasonable shape and had begun thinking of what I had to do and what I was going to do. These sort of situations take on a life of their own. Emotions run high, everything gets intensified. Mrs. Daniels let me go and I told her I'd talk with her next week, after I'd felt and sorted out everything. Wagner knew already I wasn't going to be in AP US, so I had until Period 7 to work. I saw Alex, Gina, and a few others in my class. They were understandably puzzled that I was going in the wrong direction from the final. But I wasn't going with them. I had other places to go. I was going west.
Now called the McGowan building, I know it as the West Building. For my purposes, that's what it is. I chuckled at a few "Wicked Witch of the West" comparisons in my head. I dropped my backpack and residual Livewire in Mr. Moyer's room. Then I went to see Mrs. Ober.
I sat down and used one of my favorite Alan Shore lines from The Practice. "This is my favorite kind of meeting, the kind where I and only I talk, your job is to listen." It worked, she hardly said five words during the conversation that ensued. I appraised her of my mental and emotional state before announcing my intention to find who was spreading calumnies and lies about me and get them to stop. I gave her the usual set of disclaimers to keep myself in the clear while I went forward. She expressed further concern which I tuned out. It wasn't worth hearing.
Next, I went to Brousse and after he finished with a student, went through the same procedure, announcing what I felt, thought, knew, and was going to do. It certainly felt dramatic. I respected him enough to leave out the Alan Shore line, but tossed in Wendel Phillips after he expressed concern, as Ober had. They both told me how they regretted my actions, but the sense that they make was not of much clout at that time. I didn't even bother going to Cook. I'm done with her. I'd been duely warned before engaging in Mock Trial that she was duplicitous, two-faced, and a detriment to education. I hadn't believed it until then. But since her judgment is so poor, it will cease to concern me. She does not earn any explanation. She doesn't get more than the bare minimum her position entitles her to. Nothing more.
I went to the last period feeling better, although hot in the balmy, air conditioning-less West. I'd recovered from the initial shock, but still had another tribulation in the day. Barrick caught me outside the Periscope office and I grabbed the Senior Trip itinerary materials I'd collected, doing Kyle and Alex and Cait and Emily's job for them. AGAIN. But I'm so God damned helpful, why not? I realized that Barrick, along with John and Sean, was hanging up the seating charts, revised, typed. There was no good seat left for me. The inequity was enraging.
I sat with Barrick, who was slightly less prickly than I at that point in the day, and worked out the itinerary and a few details that needed to be addressed for him. I let him know how pissed I was and he picked up on it. I went back to the Periscope office and read, of all things, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Fitting, no?
After school, I went to see Mrs. Pitts about a few more matters I had to attend to. I have all this responsibility and what to show for it? I'm not in the senior class council picture, I didn't get to go to homecoming, I'm not an officer, though I do the work of two, and I don't get any recognition, just suspicion of terrorism. I told her as much, we walked to the office to get her mail and ran into Callahan. The three of us mused on the unfairness of the world, lamenting the loss of right and wrong to the popular demand. Absolute morality is a thing of the past, all that matters now is what feels good afterward. And what feels good for me is probably not going to feel good for others. We're just that different. I gathered my belongings and left and started home.
I believe in the oath I took. They don't. I believe it is my duty to protect the sheep. They don't. They don't like me because I'm not like them. They hate and envy me for merely being what I am. They are weak and unruly and will believe in nothing! How the hell do I live in a world like that! Tell me! I want to know! When did we lose our fundamental morality? And why didn't anyone tell me before I started reforming myself for good? The Year of Hell could have just as easily forged me into a terror, a wicked being. It was a glimmer of hope for good that changed me for the better and I let it. I worked for it. But the oppressive evil that comes from the outside and works through the public at large attacked me. Four long years I've been under constant attack. Trying to find love, make my way, find my calling, all while weathering a storm that is not of my creation. It's funny now. I had a snow flakes chance in hell. Similar odds now.
Sure, I meant well. But look what well meant did. I got a late start, but I'm running now. It's not my job to make other people feel better. From popular example, I must make them feel worse, if I'm to believe that. My tolerance for bullshit has hit the ceiling and is gone for the most part. I need to start doing what I've been doing under the surface for so long. Accepting the villain within. If I'm going to teach anyone how to be a villain, I need to lead by example. Let all laws be agreed, I'm wicked through and through.
But know this, just because other people feel terrified, doesn't make me a terror. Reason is the best companion to justice and I need to show the world that my way works. You don't get treated to respect, you see to it. An enemy isn't an enemy until they take action. This one has. You plan for what the enemy can do, not what you think they will. I shall. I don't care who started this, but I'll tell you how it's going to end, in tears, and they're not going to be mine! Not ever again!
Respectfully Submitted,
Art "The Brain"
"Coincidence is one thing, setup is quite another"
Shit has hit the fan, ladies and gentlemen. The gauntlet has been thrown. It comes to bear, from my life and times, that being perceived as wicked overshadows my virtue and mature qualities. The public at large enjoys making me out to be a monster, a wicked creature, a devil, a villain. Fine. If I am to be cast in the super-villain role, it can hardly be surprising when evil begins to manifest like a storm over the horizon.
I had laid out my week with the assumption that Thursday would be my big, exciting day at Hershey, followed by a day of makeup and recovery. No such fucking luck. I got a pass, an innocent, but pretty little green pass to see Mrs. Ober seventh period. I thought it might just be a simple matter of senior business, transcript or graduation issue. Maybe they just missed me. Nope, the world doesn't reward goodness.
For the majority of first period, I did my best to analyze the Hershey Park data and forget Kelly. She made it easy, by going for donuts and taking the viper Kendall with her. I got work done, had a plan for the rest of the day, things were looking cheery.
Period two, Hahn was out and I helped Mrs. Cheng handle the attendance and class setup, she's a little uneasy in a classroom. She has a charming Chinese accent, which sets her up as a target. I heard some not nice things that morning, but took it upon myself to forget 'em. They're kids. I divided the rest of the class time working with Kasey on the problems Hahn left for us, intermittently talking about Wicked, and helping Laura, Danielle, and others with the work. Two good deeds in one class period. From the introduction of Wicked, I should have recognized it. Track 16: No Good Deed(Goes Unpunished).
During study hall, I, the ever diligent and responsible student, sacrificed a study hall to make up part of the AP US final and take a quiz I'd missed. I did okay and left feeling upbeat. The whole morning had been filled with a general aura of goodness. In retrospect, I suppose I should have seen it coming. Good feelings often presage bad things in my life. I still don't learn. Why is that? Some resilient hope for humanity, I think. Give it time, it'll die.
After an uneventful lunch period, I was waylaid by Mr. Brousse who told me that I needed to miss AP Lit/Comp, which I hadn't attended since Tuesday, to meet with Mrs. Ober. Hmm. Suddenly my little green pass from first period was making sense that I didn't like.
Moments later, I was in the dark conference room of the guidance suite. It felt dramatic before it began, like the air before a lightning storm. Brousse, Mrs. Ober, and for God knows what reason, Mrs. Cook all sat across from me. At the time, it struck me vaguely like a tribunal. When I saw the printed copy of How to Be a Villain: The Brain, with highlighted sections of concern, I started to lose it. I'd talked to Brousse, the police, and a few others along the road, getting their conviction that I'm not a danger. Going through the trial and being found not guilty. When Ober and Cook started in, (Brousse played the strong, silent type through the meeting, but he was intimidating nonetheless) I realized that double jeopardy laws didn't apply in this particular system. I lost it about halfway through opening arguments. Something inside me snapped like a twig. I told them as much. My first remark was to the effect that I was angry, damned angry.
We were in the session through the entire period, I was grilled on the nature of my Endgame and the implications thereof. We talked about my life, how I treat others, which I'd like to think is with some respectful distaste, but that's not enough, apparently. Cook tried clumsily to psychoanalyze me, it was the clumsiness of her maneuvering, of them all, that truly began to irritate me. I'd been inconvenienced three times before. Now, it was overkill. Not enough kill, in their minds. Or someones. I can deal with inconvenience, but this was something else. I kept a remarkable level of control. Six years ago, there would have been a different ending. I could have hurt someone easily then. And I did on one occasion. It's so similar that the irony is beyond the telling. A few times through the meeting, they tried to offer advice with the "Could you...", "Would you...", "Might you..." line of questioning as to resolve it. Each time I told them resoundingly no. I thought of Judge Meade, Judge Nancy Paul, wondering how I might end the meeting of the damned. I thought the L-word was a little excessive, but we've established that I wasn't thinking clearly. Lawyers would have been appropriate.
I left the meeting with a masterfully controlled rage. Laura saw me, my expression, asked me if something was wrong, I glided past her. I saw Mrs. Krebs and asked her if she didn't have class. I looked past her and saw the class signing up on the showcase for buses. Shit. Barrick had gone ahead with the information I forgot I'd given him for the senior trip and made up the seating charts. If I'd been planning with him period three, in class period four, I would have gotten a good seat. It just added to the injustice I felt and began to become overwhelming. I knew what I had to do. I'd been given this choice before and made it wrong. One right turn could come about as a result of this thing, I knew that. So I made the choice.
I showed Wisner the pass Ober'd given me on leaving the guidance suite, telling him it was for period five, not to excuse my tardiness. It's reassuring to know that even when I'm emotionally crazy, I can still lie like a P.I.
I left and thought about leaving, about running away from it all. I've done it with Kelly twice and it would be simple. But I decided I wasn't going to be a coward. I decided it was time to start dealing with the shit of reality.
Walking between the Fowler Building and the Swartz, the sun bore through the overcast skies and I was burned by the harsh light of day. Hot winds blew from hell and I felt like the devil. I went to my sanctuary, my refuge, the only place in the high school where I've felt safe and protected and return to as the swallows to Capistrano. D12, S08, call it what you will, I went to find my teacher, mentor, and advisor, Mrs. Daniels.
She had a class until 12:27, so I waited in the room between her classroom and the next. Turned off the lights and wrote by the gray half light filtering in through the window. It was angry, deranged, threatening, violent, terrifying to read later. I came out after her class had gone, she made an offhand comment about her notebook check for Option II classes. She took one look at me and asked if I was all right. I said no. I told her what had happened, knowing full well that as a mother, a teacher, a friend, she would know what I should do since I was in no position to do it myself. She asked if I wanted to call my mother. I did. I told her and she said what Mrs. Daniels had replied as soon as I'd finished recounting my experience. It was harassment. By the school and a craven, disturbed girl who was hiding from me, but causing me grief despite it. Or to spite it? Anyway, I told her I'd be fine for the rest of the day and after I hung up, I broke down. Mrs. Daniels got me a tissue and she knew I had a final the next period and asked if I wanted her to get Mr. Wagner. I said yes. That's one of the staples of our relationship, we ask one another and, nine times out of ten, take the advice which we would have probably done in the first place. Wagner came and I arranged to take it next week, others from Hershey still had to make up theirs and so it wouldn't be a problem. I worked to collect myself while Daniels offered to let me hang out in her room, call my mom to get me home, and a few others. But I was already reverting. I was already going back to the core of who I am. I try to be kind, human, optimistic, and pleasant. It's the abrasive citizens and place that Carlisle is that renders me different. They recognize that as badness and alienate me for it. They want me to be a villain. As a villain, I can be stone cold, icy, hateful, malicious, manipulative, and terrible to people. But what some would say is worse, I do it so that I don't get caught.
By the time the bell rang, I was in reasonable shape and had begun thinking of what I had to do and what I was going to do. These sort of situations take on a life of their own. Emotions run high, everything gets intensified. Mrs. Daniels let me go and I told her I'd talk with her next week, after I'd felt and sorted out everything. Wagner knew already I wasn't going to be in AP US, so I had until Period 7 to work. I saw Alex, Gina, and a few others in my class. They were understandably puzzled that I was going in the wrong direction from the final. But I wasn't going with them. I had other places to go. I was going west.
Now called the McGowan building, I know it as the West Building. For my purposes, that's what it is. I chuckled at a few "Wicked Witch of the West" comparisons in my head. I dropped my backpack and residual Livewire in Mr. Moyer's room. Then I went to see Mrs. Ober.
I sat down and used one of my favorite Alan Shore lines from The Practice. "This is my favorite kind of meeting, the kind where I and only I talk, your job is to listen." It worked, she hardly said five words during the conversation that ensued. I appraised her of my mental and emotional state before announcing my intention to find who was spreading calumnies and lies about me and get them to stop. I gave her the usual set of disclaimers to keep myself in the clear while I went forward. She expressed further concern which I tuned out. It wasn't worth hearing.
Next, I went to Brousse and after he finished with a student, went through the same procedure, announcing what I felt, thought, knew, and was going to do. It certainly felt dramatic. I respected him enough to leave out the Alan Shore line, but tossed in Wendel Phillips after he expressed concern, as Ober had. They both told me how they regretted my actions, but the sense that they make was not of much clout at that time. I didn't even bother going to Cook. I'm done with her. I'd been duely warned before engaging in Mock Trial that she was duplicitous, two-faced, and a detriment to education. I hadn't believed it until then. But since her judgment is so poor, it will cease to concern me. She does not earn any explanation. She doesn't get more than the bare minimum her position entitles her to. Nothing more.
I went to the last period feeling better, although hot in the balmy, air conditioning-less West. I'd recovered from the initial shock, but still had another tribulation in the day. Barrick caught me outside the Periscope office and I grabbed the Senior Trip itinerary materials I'd collected, doing Kyle and Alex and Cait and Emily's job for them. AGAIN. But I'm so God damned helpful, why not? I realized that Barrick, along with John and Sean, was hanging up the seating charts, revised, typed. There was no good seat left for me. The inequity was enraging.
I sat with Barrick, who was slightly less prickly than I at that point in the day, and worked out the itinerary and a few details that needed to be addressed for him. I let him know how pissed I was and he picked up on it. I went back to the Periscope office and read, of all things, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Fitting, no?
After school, I went to see Mrs. Pitts about a few more matters I had to attend to. I have all this responsibility and what to show for it? I'm not in the senior class council picture, I didn't get to go to homecoming, I'm not an officer, though I do the work of two, and I don't get any recognition, just suspicion of terrorism. I told her as much, we walked to the office to get her mail and ran into Callahan. The three of us mused on the unfairness of the world, lamenting the loss of right and wrong to the popular demand. Absolute morality is a thing of the past, all that matters now is what feels good afterward. And what feels good for me is probably not going to feel good for others. We're just that different. I gathered my belongings and left and started home.
I believe in the oath I took. They don't. I believe it is my duty to protect the sheep. They don't. They don't like me because I'm not like them. They hate and envy me for merely being what I am. They are weak and unruly and will believe in nothing! How the hell do I live in a world like that! Tell me! I want to know! When did we lose our fundamental morality? And why didn't anyone tell me before I started reforming myself for good? The Year of Hell could have just as easily forged me into a terror, a wicked being. It was a glimmer of hope for good that changed me for the better and I let it. I worked for it. But the oppressive evil that comes from the outside and works through the public at large attacked me. Four long years I've been under constant attack. Trying to find love, make my way, find my calling, all while weathering a storm that is not of my creation. It's funny now. I had a snow flakes chance in hell. Similar odds now.
Sure, I meant well. But look what well meant did. I got a late start, but I'm running now. It's not my job to make other people feel better. From popular example, I must make them feel worse, if I'm to believe that. My tolerance for bullshit has hit the ceiling and is gone for the most part. I need to start doing what I've been doing under the surface for so long. Accepting the villain within. If I'm going to teach anyone how to be a villain, I need to lead by example. Let all laws be agreed, I'm wicked through and through.
But know this, just because other people feel terrified, doesn't make me a terror. Reason is the best companion to justice and I need to show the world that my way works. You don't get treated to respect, you see to it. An enemy isn't an enemy until they take action. This one has. You plan for what the enemy can do, not what you think they will. I shall. I don't care who started this, but I'll tell you how it's going to end, in tears, and they're not going to be mine! Not ever again!
Respectfully Submitted,
Art "The Brain"