Steckland Russ (II.iii) -- The Ride and The Slick

    (vii) --



    The bicycle Thirteen Division gave me is certainly the worst bike I've ever rode. The seat is stiff and makes my butt sorer than an insert-prison-joke-here line. The wheels wobble and the steering stalls on left turns. The acceleration lags and costs me at least three red lights on any journey. All it has going are its exceptional brakes (which have already saved my backside twice) and the fact it was an unexpected gift of charity from a cast of people I assumed forgot me after paperwork. As such, I shall begin my tale of the first great adventure of my new bicycle, which I have since dubbed "The Golden Hornet."
    I was leaving my last class yesterday, which as a Thursday was World History. The Golden Hornet was locked next to the side exit of the school, and as I approached a voice called out to me from across the street:

    'Yo Steck! Where you ride to?'

    It was Mal Larson, atop a rather decent looking black road bike. I shrugged timidly and went about my business of unlocking my back wheel from the frame. Mal zipped across the street and pulled up alongside me with a rubbery screech.

    'You headin' north?' he asked me.
   
    I shrugged again. I feel weird not shrugging at unexpected questions.
   
    'Yeah. I head north.'
    'Wanna ride together? I know a nice spot up, I'm sure it's not far outta your way. Let's go.'

    Every instinct in my flesh wanted to refuse his offer, and I don't know why. There was no logical reason to reject him, for I had no plans or no stern before-supper curfew imposed by my father. Yet my first thought was to humbly refuse him, and if I hadn't taken that extra second of consideration I dare say I would've done so and the adventure would never have happened.
    So I agreed and he led the way. We went up along Jarvis until Bloor, east on Bloor and across the viaduct until Broadview, followed Broadview into O' Connor Drive and then its transformation into Millwood Road. At this point I was remarkably confused, for I had no idea where I was and the twists and turns had dissolved my sense of direction.
    It was when we crossed the Leaside bridge that the city transformed from the one I knew into one I was aware of only by its ink on a map. Now we had passed this threshold and I admit to being rather scared. The winding Millwood Road wound so only to make me lost. The dead looking trees behind the chain fences of the ravine glowered in the breeze to choke me with their branches. The people on the street just stared hollowly at me as I passed them by, like the obscene stranger I was. We went under a bridge and three passing cars nearly swiped me with their rear-view mirrors, as if there were black and white posters of my face posted all over telephone poles.
    I am relieved to have survived this barren spot, and after a confusing trip north on hilly Bayview Avenue, we reached the temporary end of Lawrence East. The wind of the cars zooming past bothered our faces so we dismounted from our bikes and walked up to a big stone gateway. A small, lime damaged metal plaque fixed upon the stone wall read:

    Glendon Hall

    'What is this place?' I asked.
    'It's a college.' answered Mal.
    'Are we allowed to go in?'

    Mal had already started into the grounds before I could finish my question, so I followed him in. My senses, still affected from the ride, became completely overpowered by the atmosphere of this place. An old fulfilled man here could still be lifted by the nooks of joy scattered about, while an uninspired kid could find something to believe. The noisy speed traffic of Bayview stays behind the walls of this kingdom, for I could hear the slow breaths of Mal Larson as we walked deeper. These bright green trees bid me hello in the wind, and the pink and yellow flowers in front of every squat stone building danced by the whim of the same breeze. Students of the campus passed by us, their minds too immersed in study to afford us any acknowledgement. Some small groups we encountered were even speaking French. We came upon several different pathways and I wished there was time to take them all. The light from the sky shone colourfully upon a still pool of water and I wanted the sun never to go down. Still as I write this now I am boggled that such an Elysium could exist within this bustling ever-growing city, and how I never knew about it.
    Mal and I found a bench with an excellent view of a tree filled valley. He took the chance to ignite a cigarette while I just watched the distance.

    'Whaddya think, Steck?' Mal asked, exhaling smoke.
    'Can we come back here tomorrow?' I replied with a smile.

    ***

    On Friday I had the fortune of meeting the forever infamous, never suspicious, Marcos Slickon, or "Mark Slick" as he's often called. He is a character previously mentioned in every social circle window I've ever peered through but had never encountered in the flesh or the word. As it happened we were both in class, vaguely listening to one of Calsuco's lectures when Marcos dropped his pen. By whim of the universe, the pen rolled to me and I grabbed it up. It was a particularly sleek pen, and by the sleepy slouching of his shoulders I could tell Marcos had not noticed it was gone. I decided to give it back after class, and despite his haste to pack away his books and papers in some hurry I caught him at the doorway before the hallway hustle.

    'Hey, think this is yours'
   
    At first he looked at me as though I were a mosquito daring to disturb him. It was certainly intimidating, as Marcos fits into a bruiser image seamlessly: broad shoulders, a thin gold chain around his neck, short sharp hair, and piercing blue eyes to look an enemy or friend directly in the heart. Once he noticed his pen, outstretched in my hand, his attitude adjusted instantly.

    'Yo thanks! I was wondering where that went.'

    By his over-confidence I could tell he never knew it was missing.
   
    'So I guess you find Calsuco pretty boring, huh?' I asked casually.
    'Ugh, man! He just goes on and on, here's what I know and listen to me because I know, right? I mean he's a big buyer and all, if you catch me, but man I just don't get what he's sayin' most of the time...'
    'Yeah, yeah. I don't get him either.' said I simply.
    'For sure, for sure. He's always like: "Oooooo-kay, guys. I'm just going to taaaalk about sommmething raaaaaandom for, twenty minutes nowwwwww.'

    His impression was flawless. I chuckled easily.
   
    'Yo, you don't know the tall girl with the torpedos stickin' out all nice...?'
    'Lindsay Chambly?'
    'Damn boy, yeah! Mmmmm! Tell ya what I'd do with those but, huh, there's my girlfriend comin' down the hall. Hey, you ever need a little something something, whatever it is, you come find me hey hey? Thanks for finding my pen!'

    He jogged down the hall into the welcome of a dark haired, stern looking girl who crossed her arms as soon as he was within range. I observed this encounter between them without seeming obvious, and I pondered if this dynamic was normal in all relationships. Is there natural happiness in such complacency and obligation, or does it have to be battled for? Suddenly I felt relieved at being unaccounted for, as it seemed safer, easier. For a long time I'm sure though, I'll remember the way Mark Slick's eyes went all wide, like a toddler released into a playground, by the mention of Lindsay Chambly.
   
   

    (vii) -- The Ride and The Slick
   

Steckland Russ (II.ii) -- The Table and The Gift

    (vi) --



    As a week of classes have passed and I am yet mostly sane, I feel the need to mull over my initial impressions of classes.
    To start Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings is Philosophy, to ignite the minds of sleepyheads like me. I feel like I'll enjoy the class, despite that I've yet to arrive on time. Last class the teacher, Mr. Hayney, remarked that a young Kierkegaard was always late as well, whoever that is. He seems nice, in that he cannot go three minutes without releasing a loud boisterous laugh, which suits his round, bald balloon figure. I imagine if he was filled with any more helium he would make a fine explosion of chuckles.
    Period B begins my Tuesday and Thursday mornings: Drama with Mrs. Seddington. This is my third year taking Drama with Seddington, the only one who teaches it. As such, she has complete control over the course and material, and shows a shortage of patience with anyone who lacks her droll enthusiasm. She is a slender, tall, dark haired woman, bony but not unhealthy. Her skin has grown flabby with the progress of her middle age, yet she still dresses as he might have twenty years earlier.
    As I didn't take Drama until second year, I'm in the Grade Eleven class. Sure, there are a couple of Grade Twelve stragglers here like myself, but mostly it's a group of wide-eyed Eighty-Eight Born go-getters, eager to inquire upon my wisdom of future tests and their answers. Some of them get along with me quite fabulously: Len Baxter, a raunchy, sweaty sort of jokester who grows a better beard than I can: Bellamy Wondumas, the best student in the class, and while her acting talents are modest her stage smarts are prodigious. Perhaps her best bit of performance is acting like Len's clothes-off jokes don't disgust her in any way. Sam Peavy is another upstanding kid, and then there's Harold Cho, Sunnie Woom, Deka Navinara and Alex Coretetez. We're a core that's been together since the beginning, and I regret I cannot be there for the end.
    Period C is World History with Caruthers, which as I mentioned earlier was the only class I made on my first day. The class is okay: Caruthers is a bit of a sentimentalist which is a good quality in a History teacher, while that strange Soraunen girl hasn't caused any more scenes. In our second class together she sat next to me, but in our third class she took a seat way on the other side of the room. I must've weirded her out somehow without doing anything. Big surprise, that.
    Period D is scattered throughout the week, and I can never recall where it is until I look it up, usually when there's a homework assignment I haven't done. This year it's Film Studies with Ms. Weiss, a course I picked because at best it seemed like a possible career and at worst just moderately interesting. So far it has been neither. The work is burdened down by technicality, a great curtain of mechanical knowledge that lost my interest twenty minutes into the first lesson. We've spent a week looking at camera lenses and zoom mechanisms and now are supposed to write a test or essay on which camcorder model can offer the best effectiveness for a low budget production. It is information useful for people hungrily seeking this kind of knowledge, but not for me and my search for inspiration.
    Period E is English (quite a coincidence) with Calsuco, famous for his peculiar teaching methods and personality. I've heard, from many people who've had him before, that he tries his best to relate to students by coming down to our level, thinking along as we would think. I have not yet seen anything like this, aside from his occasional humming of Reggae and snappy PG-13 jokes. That Soraunen is also in this class, as is Tom Northcliffe and Pretty Lindsay Chambly, who has caught my eye and tied my tounge since Grade Nine.
    Period F is Gym with Mr. Kregheit, my Gym teacher three of my four years at Highview Collegiate. I only took Gym this year at all on the hope we would finally play Softball or Baseball for a few weeks. Every year it's been promised, but something more popular like Basketball or Rope Climbing Class takes over. They always put the Softball unit at the beginning of June, right before exams when most people stop showing up to class anyway. My loss, everyone else's indifference. Just once I'd like to jack a ball off the big brick wall of the West Building.
    Period G, the period before lunch on Mondays and Wednesdays and after lunch on Thursdays, is World Politics with Foxwell. As I've mentioned some experiences with her before I won't say anything more, except I predict the grade average for the first report card will be a lower number than her year of birth, and I'm certain she was alive when JFK was killed.
    Period H, finally, is Finance and Functions, my punishment for failing Grade Nine Math. One of the few certainties I have in my young life is that I will not be a Mathematician. To me, Math is bone-tighteningly boring. Useful certainly, but the lack of imagination that comes from studying Math puts vibrations under my skin. Maybe I never had the right teachers, maybe I was born to miss at long division, either way it's a course I have to pass and complete or I don't graduate. The classroom itself is also too old and hot, and the teacher Mr. Bhavla smells like curried chicken.
    So yes, that is the timetable for the Twelfth Grade of Steckland Russ. I make record of it now so that I or you, Mr. Future Steckland Bigshot, can make reference to it as my story continues. Surely many of my early impressions here will be proved wrong by time, and shall be those ones I do not expect.

    ***

    There is also a conversation with Principal Boller I suppose should be taken into account. It concerns the shenanigans of my first day, and I recall her marching up to me in a huff as I was leaving English class:

    'Steckland, like, what's going on Steckland? What's going on?'
    I don't understand.' said I simply.
    'The police were here asking for you, looking for you!'
    'The police?'
    'That's what I said!' said she, shaking her head.
    'Where are they?' I asked, feeling nervous in my innocence.
    'They're gone now but they left this note.'
   
    Ms. Boller handed me a folded piece of paper and I was relieved to see it was handwritten, without any kind of official stamps or lettering. It read:

    Hey Steck, some of the boys round the station left bad bout your rough break that day, so we all pitched in and got ya some new wheels. It's locked outside your school, you can find the keys under the back tire. It aint much, but we wanted to do something. Keep safe and don't do drugs!
                                    Sgt. Patrick Lawrence, 13 Division

    'So? What is it? What do they want? Why were they here?'
    'Er, well nothing bad, I...'
    'Nothing?' she interrupted.
    'No. Well, they just came to drop something off for me.'
    'Oh.'

    Ms. Boller gave me a quick exasperated look and stormed off down the hallway towards other frustrations. I hopped down the rotunda stairs and through the front doors of Highview and there outside, shining against a stop sign on this sunny autumn afternoon, was a bicycle with a blue bow atop. The brand was generic, the frame lopsided, the colour an eyesore yellow, but they were wheels and they were my wheels. I got home twice as fast as the bus would've taken me, and spent the two-fifty for fare on a jug of root beer.


    (vi) -- The Table and The Gift



   
   
   

Steckland Russ (II.i)

   
    (v) --



    There is outrage, considerable outrage, amongst myself and my classmates that we are four days into the new school year and already a test has been scheduled.
    Worst of all, the test was today (surprise!) and it was on a unit we weren't supposed to even think about until November. I recall the first question vividly, for I stared at it for at least ten minutes.

    Give three examples of the Magna Carta having an influence upon the Twentieth Century

    I figured the Magna Carta was either an album by a Swedish metal band or an incredibly large condom, so I wrote up some references on Dark Side of the Moon in comparison to Highway to Hell. If you're going to fail, fail with style I say.
    It wasn't only me. The looks on the faces around me was of a squirrel looking in a tree to find the nuts he had stored away for the winter were really pinecones. There were twenty questions on the test, and we were given only thirty minutes to finish it, no breaks. When quiet Vince Choi asked to go to the bathroom, there was such a tremendous scene that everyone was deducted five percent from their final mark. I have never had a class with Mrs. Foxwell before, and I'm sure glad this is the only one I'll ever have.

    'Pens and pencils down. You're all out of time, so stop that scribbling.'
   
    Mrs. Foxwell has small stature, but that makes her all the more intimidating. Her appearance is actually rather friendly, like that of a learned academic often willing to dispense advice like a free soda machine. She has a scowl, however, that breaks through this illusion of kindness whenever the very slightest thing comes across her. I had been in her class for barely fourty minutes and had already seen that scowl a dozen times. I felt in danger by even daring to slouch.
   
    'World Politics is a subject with several different approaches. If you took this course because it sounded like a free ride, well you took the wrong train.'

    She elaborated on this, scowling all the while, for another ten minutes. Not once did it feel like she was talking to us but instead at us. Besides, I took Politics not because I thought it would be easy, but because I was interested in it. Three classes in and my Dread Thermometer is already approaching feverish levels.

    'Psst. Hey Steck, how'd you do?'

    This was Tom Northcliffe, a rather talkative tucked in sort whom most of us regard as a nerd. He fiddled with his large framed glasses while leaning forward for my response.

    'I'd be happy with an "F" and an apology. Seriously, how were we supposed to describe the political system of Constantinople?'
    'My favourite was the one asking us for three advantages a modern day Feudal system would have. Good thing this wasn't worth marks or anything, eh?'
    'It isn't? I thought it was.'

    The dark colour of Tom's face immediately became five shades lighter by the horror of what I had said. He remained in contemplative silence for well over a minute, like a desperate man looking over a ledge.

    'Well, I'm sure it was barely worth anything.' reasoned Tom with himself. 'One percent, two at most. Yes, nothing to really worry about...'

    'Don't go anywhere!' shouted Mrs. Foxwell sharply, noticing some of us beginning to pack up and leave with just three minutes of class remaining.
    'Listen! Your homework for tonight is to pick a question on the test you feel you did exceptionally poorly on, write a five minute presentation on that question, and present it next class! And this will be worth marks!'
    'Can we at least look at the test again...?' asked a brave soul in the back row.
   
    Mrs. Foxwell even seemed to consider it for a moment.

    'No!' she yelled. 'See you Friday!'

    ***

    As I am writing these recollections for your benefit, Future Steckland, I feel I should elaborate on Tom Northcliffe somewhat. To this point we've had an on-and-off type of friendship, but not because of any kind of hostility. Ours is a friendship that goes by the whim of a spring breeze, in that we have had times of close camaraderie, and other times of indifferent disconnection.
    I first met Tom in Grade Ten Careers class. The teacher, Mr. Galvakas, had a habit of dozing off half an hour into every class, so Tom and I would pass the free time by comparison: Star Trek episodes, Batman and Spiderman, Coca-Cola and other soft drinks, Starcraft and Halo, The Silver Snail and The Hairy Tarantula, and of course Kirk and Picard. I went to Tom's house numerous times that year, always to play Smash Bros. or laugh at the camp of TOS.
    I was fifteen and embracing my inner nerd, but unfortunately my inner nerd was like me and not adept at finishing schoolwork. As for Tom, Grade Eleven came along and his first report card average of 83 did not satisfy him. He grew into an obsession with grades, abandoning his Warhammer figurines and his Chess Club (we played often, and I would often win) for any books and papers assigned to him. His next report card was much more to his liking, I'm sure, but his clever company was always preoccupied from that point. Whenever we spoke I could see sprockets turning in the back of his mind, considering the time he spent talking to me could be better used to study.
    There is a table in the school library where he can be found every lunchhour. While we wander outside in the warm or cool air to cure our hunger and socialize, he grasps at words he reads for dear life, on the minimal chance they might help him on a test someday. Behind a shelf of red encyclopedias, in a little corner alcove with four random textbooks and his peanut butter and jam sandwich, looking through eyes that see numbers instead of people.
   

    (v) -- The Fox and the Cliff
   

Steckland Russ (I.iv)

    (iv) --



    There is one more event to recall from this memorable day which, after reflecting upon it these past twenty hour hours, seems worth mentioning. I had just walked down the front stairs of the rotunda after my encounter with Soraunen when a baseball rolled down the steps past me. I hurried down to pick it up, in case Mrs. Hawker saw it, and once it was mine I turned to see if I could discover the source. A boy, lanky, short haired, young, Korean, came down the steps and stopped as he saw me, eyeing the ball in my hand.

    'Is this yours?' I inquired.

    He nodded. As I had never seen him in any class, I determined he was at least two grades below me. There was an enthusiasm to his manner, a hustle to his nature. I could tell he imagined such perfection to his routine that my interruption had muddled his whole dynamic. As someone who often contemplates the game of baseball, I craved a response from this stranger.
     
    'Be more careful with this.' I said, handing him the ball. 'If Hawker or Principal Boller walk by and see this, they don't give it back.'

    The stranger looked down at his baseball then at me, without any kind of expression. I turned to leave but then a voice turned my attention right back around.
 
    'Do you play?' he asked me.

    His pronunciation was choppy but clear, understandable.
   
    'Um, yeah. A little bit. I try to.' I answered. 'It's hard to find a place though, you know? Especially in the city.'
    'The place I go is pretty good. Not far from here.'
    'Where's that?' I asked.
    'Sumach Street. Near Riverdale.'

    Our conversation faded from there. Awkward silence was followed by awkward goodbye and awkward nod. Only as I was halfway through the front doors did I think to blurt out:

    'Hey kid, what's your name?'

    I had not meant to call him kid, and felt brutish for doing so.

    'Hoosyan.' answered he, and was gone.

    I considered this strange encounter with Hoosyan as I wandered outside and straight into the smoky welcome of Mal Larson. He was surrounded by a few other boys, class skippers like himself, all with baseball caps showing the authenticity sticker prominently. By the circle they were gathered in I could tell a cigarette was being passed around, like a precious nugget of gold for we the underaged.

    'Hey Steck, want a puff?' called Mal Larson.

    I politely declined. Not for any personal, health, or political reason, but just because the damn thing stunk so much. I'd never been offered a cigarette before, and I don't believe it will be hard to turn one down again. The circle had an opening, and despite the unpleasant smell I felt invited to join by curiosity. They were all laughing, smiling, adjusting their caps, so I too tried to do the same so as to not stand out.

    'Shit, son... Mr. Corpas is on me hard, yo...'
    'Man, whyddyou even take Biology for, D? You know Corpas don't play.'
    'Thought it'd be a class to get my sleep on, know what I'm saying? Shit about organisms, cells and shit. Naw son, I wish.'
    'You know you gonna have to dissect like a dog, right? Yo my bro took Biology and said like, we hadda dissect this dog and shit, it was gross. Gross...'
    'A dog? They can't do that. You playing me.'
    'I'm tellin' you boy, you gonna have to dissect a dog. Or a cat. Shit, maybe one of them dead people. You know, from the morgue and shit? Damn boy, you in it now...'
    'Yo cats, I'm out. I'll catch you later.' said Mal Larson, after taking a long last puff of the cigarette.

    I didn't care to linger awkwardly with people I barely knew, so I nodded farewell and went up with Mal. Words, precious insightful words, failed me here. I could not have broken the silence if given five hours, luckily Mal needed only five seconds.

    'How're you gettin' home, Steck?'
    'No idea. Walk it I guess.' I replied.
    'You live close?'

    Talking too fast I'm sure, I explained to him what had happened to me on this day. The bicycle being smashed, the police at the intersection, all of it. None of it seemed to affect him, and I felt small and exposed.

    'What's your deal, anyway? What are you looking to do with yourself, school-wise? Who are you?' Mal asked me a moment later.
    'I don't know.' I replied simply.
    'You don't know?' he repeated in surprise, and suddenly I knew I had snatched his attention. 'Like, what do you, like to do?'
    'A lot of things. Almost everything interests me in some way. I just don't know what to do.'

    It was here that Mal Larson gave me a look that I may just never forget. He looked into my face with a cocktail combination of sympathy, understanding, and newfound appreciation, and from this I don't believe we shall ever see each other the same way again.

    'It's cool Steck. I see you, bro. I'm not sure where I am either. But I'm looking for anything to pull me in. Something I can get into, something worth it.' he told me. 'There's a big old world out there, and Highview is just a little place in a little city in the big picture of things. I know what I'm looking for isn't in one little building.'

    We had come to the bustle of Yonge and Bloor, and the subway stop Mal Larson had been walking towards without me realizing. A nod goodbye and we went our separate ways: he on a train to wherever stop he lives near, and I on foot to my lonely house many dozen minutes away. The loss of my bicycle hollowed me, yet my experience with these unfamiliar people filled that hole most reflectively. 
   
    (iv) -- First Base
   

Steckland Russ (I.iii)

     (iii) --



    The rest of my first day unfolded as such that I suspect I'll write an account of it again sometime in the future, to reflect upon it at a time where there is some distance between it and present time. For now, I am certain that this will be one of those days that memory maintains a special shelf on the bookcase of life for. We all have them, all of us I'm sure. A recollection so vivid in sight, sound and thought, that our imaginations can return us to those moments with almost the same clarity as when they happened. This was my third such moment, and the first to not take place on a children's playground.
    I had taken a quick look at my timetable and saw I still had a chance to catch my last class of the day: World History with a B. Caruthers, Room 226. It did not take long to get there as I had taken a class in Room 226 before. I remembered it mostly for its chalky smell, uniformly orange chairs, and its proximity to the second floor bathroom. The lesson was already ten minutes in, so I opened the door gently and quickly scanned the room for a seat, in particular one that would make my entrance all the more inconspicuous. The only ones were at the back, and I made my path towards it with as little disturbance as possible.
   
    'Young man, what's your name?'

    This was Caruthers. I was uneasy, but I turned to face him straight away.

    'Steckland. Steckland Russ.'

    He checked a sheet in a red folder on his desk, lowering his glasses on a slightly crooked nose. His features are rather wolf-like: silver hair and beard, dark hungry eyes,  and an obvious affinity towards white sweaters, useful when out on the prowl.
     Mr. Caruthers scribbled something onto a note and continued with his lesson, mostly a long winded reminiscence of previous students he had taught. I took a seat in the back row and put my knapsack on an empty seat next to mine. After eleven minutes (I had been counting) he still had not changed his subject. The door then opened again, and something miraculous walked in.

   
    At first, I confess, I thought nothing of it. I was too busy being bored by Mr. Caruther's pointless lecture, and so was fantasizing about which pizza place to hit for the long walk home. It took me a few seconds to even realize her standing right in front of me, eyeing my knapsack occupying the last available chair in the room. I mumbled an apology, dropped by bag on the ground and dared not make eye contact. In seconds I'd forgotten what she looked like.

    'You who just came in, miss. What's your name?'
    'Galvin. Soraunen Galvin.'

    Her voice was focused, strong, projecting, yet with a feminine flightiness that could throw boys stronger than I to her heels to kiss them. Still I hardly paid any attention to her, and all I remember from the rest of the class were six more people coming in late, and watching them stand in the corner because there were no more chairs.

    'The chair delivery never comes on first day!' groaned Mr. Caruthers aloud.

    Wanting to accomplish something on what had been a useless day, I located my locker on the third floor, just two doors down from the upper level of the auditorium. I opened it up, found it free of any mutating odours, closed it, and saw this Soraunen Galvin girl standing right before me.

    'You're the one with the knapsack on the chair, right?' she asked.
    'Um, yes...' I replied, readying myself for some kind of chewing out.
    'It's really not polite, you know. Inconsiderate, really.'
    'Well, er, I was late.' I blubbered, 'I didn't, think, that anyone else was going to come in.'

    Soraunen shifted her head slightly, looked closer at my face and nodded. Her eyes were wide, dark, lively.

    'I'll just have to be early next time, so that your knapsack doesn't steal my seat again...'

    She walked away, down the hall towards the stairwell, and I realized she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever been in school with. By the way she walked: slow and graceful, but with a higher sense of direction than my eyes could comprehend, I knew I could never resist her. She vanished behind the swarm of exiting classrooms, and a last glimpse of her long straight black hair was all my memory could continue on.
    Her voice echoed throughout the hallway, the words she had said loudly ringing off the walls yet I was the only one who could hear them. Immediately I wanted to see her face again, to study it, analyse it, appreciate it like a lonely man in a empty art gallery. Still I don't know what exactly she looks like.

     (iii) -- Soraunen
 

Steckland Russ (I.ii)

        (ii) --



    I wonder in years from now, when I have a licence to drive a car, motorcycle or some kind of futuristic hoverboard, if I'll look back on this day without understanding how I ever rode a bicycle again. Years of riding the arteries of downtown have taught me to expect the unexpected, but today I couldn't even expect that.
    The commute to Highview Collegiate, my school, is hardly four kilometres. With the help of traffic lights, I could be there in fifteen minutes without losing a breath. I'd set off on Davenport, going at a steady cruising speed, and was approaching Christie Street. The light was green for me so I continued through, except a light-blue school bus in front of me turned right suddenly without signalling. I squeezed my brakes hard but could not slow down enough, so on instinct I leapt off my bike and ungracefully onto the curb of the sidewalk. My bike crashed into the school bus, bounced off the back bumper, and was hit by the silver car behind me, also turning right. The bike went down, was driven over, and then was stuck beneath the silver car. Sparks sprayed, the silver car made a dreadful screech and halt in the middle of the intersection, while the light blue school bus drove off down Christie without a slightest concern.
    The intersection was completely shut down. Police cars had to navigate through a swarm of traffic that could not escape the mayhem. A special tow truck from Vaughan was called in, two ambulances parked diagonally and stayed though there were no injuries, and I had to remain there the whole time as a witness to the incident. Once the business was finally cleared up, it was one-thirty and I had no bicycle.
    Luckily, and I was due some luck, the police gave me a ride to school. As I stepped out of the backseat, Mal Larson called out to be from the front steps of HVC:

    'Hey Steck! Nice wheels!'
    'Yeah, yeah.' I said as I approached him. 'Shouldn't you be in class?'

    Mal grinned from behind the cigarette dangling from his lips. One hand in the pocket of his leather jacket, the other hand leaning on the stair-rail effortlessly.

    'Ah, it's first day. You never learn anything on first day.'
    'Except where your locker is...' I grumbled.
    'Yo Steck, wasn't your locker was next to mine last year?' asked Mal.
    'How should I know? It's not like you were ever there.'
    'Ha! So true.'
   
    With no idea where my locker, classes, or even who my teachers were, I knew my only choice was an uncomfortable, shaming trip to the office. Now sure, my attendance record had a few blemishes from over the years, but this was an extraordinary circumstance. Once I explained myself, I was sure they would understand.
    The doors to the office creaked open from my nudge, and there sitting behind the reception desk, like she had been for the past thirty years, was Phoebe. Despite her greying hair, the occasional wrinkle on her face and the thick frames atop her nose, she was a woman of spirit younger than the thousands of kids she had watched mature into adults. She spotted me as I tried to inconspicuously close the door, and actually laughed out loud.

    'Getting a head start on the lateness record, Stecky?' she grinned.

    Phoebe liked to call me Stecky. I never corrected her, and she seemed to like me even more for it.

    'What is that record, anyway?' I asked.
    'Peter Wychwood, 1993. I think. Maybe 1992. The memory doesn't work as well when you're my age.'

    I didn't doubt that this "Peter Wychwood" was the record holder. I'm certain if I asked, Phoebe could tell me how many times I'd been late without even looking.

    'Hawker isn't in, is she?'
    'Mrs. Hawker.' corrected Phoebe. 'No, she's not in. Ms. Boller is in her office, though.'
    'Thanks.' I said. 'Say Phoebe, I don't suppose you'd have a copy of my timetable, would you?'
    'Principal's office.' she answered, smiling. 'Nice try, though.'

    Swallowing the lump in my throat, I head to the door marked: "Principal's Office. M. Boller" written in bold, black letters. The door was slightly ajar, so I knocked and let myself in.

    'Steckland.' said Ms. Boller, her eyes focused on some papers on her desk. 'What can I do for you?'

    Principal Boller is not at all like that classic image of a principal we all have, a sort of stuffy, drab creature always dressed in grey, glasses, or balding. She is filled with a type of frantic energy showing both an incredible focus and a crippling fear of losing control. She is perpetually pale, naturally blond, with sharp blue eyes capable of generous compassion or bitter punishment. She speaks a great deal, but comes off awkward and unnatural around other people. Ms. Boller also favours a colour scheme, fashion-wise, and this was a particularly purple day.

    'Well you see, Ms. Boller...' I said, those blue eyes looking up to pierce me, '...I never got a copy of my timetable.'
    'Interesting.' She said simply. 'And why is that?'

    I gulped and explained my story. At least I tried to, but Ms. Boller interrupted me halfway through.

    'Steckland, what really happened?'

    This caught me off-guard. Perhaps I had embellished the tale a bit, what with the exploding car and the heroic rescue of a baby girl. Still, I insisted what I said was the truth. She sighed, in a very defeated way, and leaned forward towards me.

    'I have your timetable right here, in this pile.' She suggested, with her eyes, to a pile of papers on a shelf behind her. 'There are a lot of students in this pile, boys and girls, who aren't going to do anything with this piece of paper. To them it's meaningless, a brochure on skipping classes. So why are you different?'

    This question put me on the spotlight, and the brightness of it burned. I said the quickest thing that popped in my head, just so the darkness would come again.

    'Because I came here today to get it. Obviously those people haven't yet.'

    She stared at me for a long uncomfortable moment, one that felt like an hour but was probably five seconds. She watched my eyes for the slightest fluctuation, scanned my features for any hint of deceit, studied my fingers for the smallest anxiety. She reached into the pipe of papers, pulled out my timetable, and handed it to me.

    'That will be all, Steckland?' asked she.

    I nodded, took my timetable and left Ms. Boller's office promptly. Through the corner of my eye I saw her drowning again in her ocean of work, her head down, obsessing over the tiniest things out of her control.


        (ii) -- A Misfortune On Davenport Road

Steckland Russ (I.i)

  

    (i) --

    There's a saying in the Russ family, passed down from generation to generation. "It doesn't matter what the first impression you make is, all that matters is the last." Sure, there's wisdom for the mind in those words, but to the heart they're terrifying. Especially for someone like me.

    "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" is a famous one too. My dad loves pulling that one out wherever he can. The breakfast table, the lunch table, the dinner table, the backgammon table. Anytime he's standing next to a piece of furniture, out it comes, like a radio ad you don't listen to but then find yourself humming in the shower. And yes, we have a backgammon table.

    My father isn't a hard man, he's more an idealist than anything. He's always been more content to parent us through slogans and quotes than by actual discipline. It's an approach that succeeded with my sister Laurie, failed with my brother Caplan, and now falls to me, the youngest. I can admire a solid family tradition, but these slogans compound my already growing sense of dread. It feeds the evidence that things are only going to get harder, not easier.

    It's not that I write this to bemoan my circumstances, oh definitely no. I write now, at this pivotal moment of my young life, so that I may look back from the future and better understand what I did and why. I'll try my best to keep my accounts of things as factual as possible, but my thoughts and opinions will surely break through more often than not. Which I guess is fine, for I'm sure the future Steckland Russ will be equally interested by my perspective as my decisions.

    Today, however, is neither past or future. It is that tangible we call the present, where the past is blind and the future deaf. On my bed is a stack of newly bought clothes, folded in a precise state they will never know again. On my floor are my other clothes, a pile of organized chaos calling the new arrivals of the bed to join them. On my desk are school supplies. Pens, pencils, paper, binders, a stencil, and a compass even. My brother Caplan left me his gym shorts before he left, and trying them on a moment ago I found they're about four sizes too big. They also smell like rotten sandwiches and alcohol, which knowing my brother is not surprising. On my wrist is a brand new watch, a much belated birthday gift from my sister Laurie. She'd mailed it to me months ago, but the postal service gets a little iffy once they have to cross an ocean. Engraved on the band is "SWR", my initials, with the word "Opportunity" cursively below. It arrived in the mail only yesterday, and has upgraded my mood from "frozen with terror" to just "horribly anxious". A fine late birthday gift.

    The future Steckland Russ will look back at this day through these scribblings and laugh to himself. He might say, while sitting in his soft leather chair by a roaring fireplace, a glass of fourty year old scotch in one hand and a gorgeous supermodel wife in the other: 'All this worry over a first day of school? Of Grade Twelve? Bah hah hah hah!' At least, that's my hope.

   

    'Wake up! It's eight-twenty!' yells my father.

    'I'm awake already!' I shout back.

    'Well up and at 'em! Early bird gets the worm.' he hums to himself.

    I've been up for hours. I don't think I even slept an hour. It's always like this the night before the first day of school. Not fear but a restlessness, an uncertainty. I've been fully dressed since five. I stuff all my school supplies into my trusty old knapsack, showing the stains of two full school seasons and a bicycle without a fender. Slowly I walk out of my room. I even take my time going down the stairs, relishing every step.

    'Oh, so you were awake.' says my father, sitting at the breakfast table.

   

    I nod in acknowledgement and sit in a chair across from him. This is the first ever school morning where it has just been the two of us. The room is chilly and empty.

    'Your mother wants to meet you for lunch. I told her you're a big boy now, you probably wouldn't want to do that. Trying to look cool for your friends and all.'

    He was right. I wouldn't want to meet her for lunch, because I am trying to look cool. Still though, that's my father in a peanut shell. Thinking he knows best, and making decisions for you without asking.

    'Maybe later in the week.' I say non-committingly.

    My father lets loose a loud, disgusting snort, and resumes reading the newspaper. He has a rather short, stocky build, a physique once solid but now ravaged by the dogs of inactivity and age. His hair recedes back to the very top of his head, thin and greying, the rubble of a prosperous civilization many years ago. His eyes squint to read the articles on the paper. In his stubbornness he refuses reading glasses, claiming he does not need them. He does not want to admit, to himself or the world, that he is not young, and he certainly does not want to look old.

    The steam of morning coffee dances around his nostrils as he takes a sip, while his attention remains monopolized by the newspaper. My father has never taken a specially active interest in my schoolwork, an attitude I used to my advantage to sneak by some awful Grade Nine report cards without severe punishment. Then of course, this neutrality has also been a blank insight towards when I've actually needed help. I've never been able to tell whether my father is incredibly confident in my abilities or incredibly apathetic, for he is a hard man to read. A hard man to understand, behind his steaming coffee and perfectly crisp newspaper.

    I turn to one of the empty chairs at the table to see Jack Burbon. He is as he appears in his films from the 1950's; a stylish fedora completes the leather jacket and jeans look for which he was known. His perfect black hair looks sculpted behind his ears, and a youthful expression on his face shows capability of both compassion and fire. He glares at me, his finely symmetrical jaw pretending to chew gum, and then he speaks.

    'Somthin' on yer mind, kid?' he asks in his familiar mumbling tone.

    'Yeah. Nothing you'd be interested in.' I reply.

    'C'mon. Try me.'

    I fidget in my seat. Our breakfast table chairs have always been uncomfortable.

    'Jack, how old were you when you knew you wanted to be an actor?' I ask.

    'I dunno, kid.' he replies, adjusting his fedora in an incredibly cool manner. 'Guess it was one o' them things I was always pulled towards. If I hadn't been an actor, I've always thought I'd've become a con man who wound up in jail.'

    He chuckles and leans back further. 'But I've always seen it like this, kid. Some professions are ones you choose. Others are professions that choose you.'

    'But how does someone know which way or the other? And how long does it take?'

    Jack Burbon doesn't respond. Instead he eyes a bowl of tortilla chips set in the middle of the breakfast table.

    'Hey kid, you mind if I have a couple o' those?'

    I shrug, and he grabs a handful. I stare at him, waiting for an answer to my question, while he munches away.

    'You're a smart kid, right?' he mumbles through a mouthful.

    'Yeah, I guess. I like to think so.'

    'You've got a good head on your shoulders. So it's confidence, kid. If you're confident, these answers find ya.' says he, grabbing more chips.

    'But what if I...'

    'Steckland! It's almost eight-fourty! Get going!' barks my father from behind his newspaper.

    It is just the two of us at the table again, my father and I. The tacky clock beside the fridge verifies the time, so I snatch the knapsack from my feet and rise quickly from my chair. As I reach the front door I turn around for some kind of encouraging look from my father, but see only a preoccupied newspaper and an empty bowl of tortilla crumbs on the breakfast table.

   

(i) -- The Twelfth Escapade of Steckland Russ