photo credit: dcjohn, 2005
A scented breeze blows through the window of the windowless classroom, and Mark pivots his left foot a quarter inch to the right, wonders if Liza Chapman hears the squeak, pivots it back, wonders why he didn’t know that would just mean another squeak, lifts his foot off the floor, bumps his knee on the metal support for his desk, makes a sound with his tongue and the roof of his mouth, thinks it sounds like crackling ice, imagines asking Liza if she’d like ice in her drink, worries he’ll never say drink and mean something with alcohol without sounding like that dimwit Gregg Easterbrook (who puts his cap on that way like fourteen seconds after coming out of the shower), lets his foot dangle to keep from making more noise, speculates about the best way to set it down without giving away that he hadn’t really meant to lift it up, decides to hook his heel on the metal basket under his seat, feels grateful when the tip of his shoe touches the linoleum without making a sound, worries he’s a freak for sighing, concludes the situation is stressful and that he’s responding to stress, assures himself sighing is human and he is human and humans are amazing things, supposes he really is too hard on Gregg Easterbrook, who is, after all, dyslexic, hooks his other foot onto the basket, suppresses a yelp when pain shoots through a muscle at the back of his right thigh, argues to himself that it’s from volleyball, feels certain he could’ve made that spike if his older brothers had ever wanted to play sports with him growing up, imagines the dismissive way he’ll treat his brothers when he, Mark, oozes power as an FBI agent, thinks a breeze really is blowing through a window in this windowless room, tries to ignore the chill and the smell, like melting candy corn, wonders if dyslexia makes you do things like see the stripes in candy corn in the wrong order, remembers the right order as orange, yellow, brown, black, regrets that he had once complimented Liza by saying she had a nice pumpkin-colored sweater on, certain that she was repulsed by both an indirect reference to her pumpkins—as his father’s hairy friend Norfolk called them—and by what a wuss he was to say pumpkin-colored, finds the breeze along his neck increasingly annoying, unhooks his left heel from the basket under his seat, knows the best thing to do in case someone is watching is set his foot down firmly, doesn’t blink when he stamps the floor so hard one of the quartz samples Mrs. McMurphy keeps on the shelves near his head falls, falls smack onto his desk, thunk-thip, doesn’t blink, doesn’t blink, doesn’t blink—stop looking, Liza, stop looking—decides it’s impossible to be too hard on that chuckling idiot Gregg Easterbrook, wonders whether the FBI ever stoops to arresting guys who don’t have their act together enough to even be called potheads, realizes his chest is tight and he needs to breathe, does so through his nose, quietly, blinks, breathes, blinks, blinks, hates that the melted candy corn smell is sharper now, sets his other foot down just as loudly, effectively shows everybody he isn’t afraid of them, doesn’t blink, remembers to breathe, grabs both sides of his seat, decides there must be a breeze because the seat feels so cold, so damp, and leans forward. He scoops up the quartz sample. The rough part goes against his palm. He rubs the smooth side with his thumb. That rock is older than everyone. Everyone in the whole school combined.
