Читать книгу The Punk and the Professor - Billy Lawrence - Страница 9

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I CAME HOME to find my brother bleeding from the mouth and my mother crying in the bedroom. It was 11:30 on a Thursday. Don had left for the night. Who knows what he’d done. Who knows when he’d be back. These kinds of things happened mostly when I wasn’t home or when I was upstairs sleeping. It’s not that I was bigger and stronger than Don, but I guess there was something about my presence that spooked him— maybe knowing I had a crazy father of my own out there. I don’t know. Any anger Don directed towards me was passive aggressive. When I wasn’t around he would become another person when he was angry. I only saw a glimmer of this other Don once in a while; most of the time I would only hear about it and witness the aftermath.

My brother was sitting alone with a rag to his busted lip. He didn’t want to talk, but I asked him what happened anyway.

“I bumped into the TV.”

“Again?”

He threw the rag across the room. His red t-shirt was stained with sweat. His troubled red face, bent brows, and pained lips all stared back with hopelessness.

“He’s a motherfucker,” he said.

For a nine-year-old, JP was years ahead in so many ways, yet kept back by too many distractions. He couldn’t stay still. My little brother had the energy of a marathon runner, yet he couldn’t find his way to the race. No direction.

I remember once we went to the Bronx Zoo and he couldn’t stop fidgeting as we waited on the long line to get in to see the monkeys. He must’ve been three or four, just a baby, but he bounced all over. My mother would pull him back to her every few minutes like a dog that was wandering off. At some point, he picked up a broom and shovel left behind by maintenance and started sweeping up the sidewalk. My mother yelled at him to put it down. He refused and so his father grabbed him and dragged him back into line. JP started to cry hysterically. He wanted to do what he wanted to do. It was a scene. I stood there pretending not to know them.

To deal with his hyperactivity, they pushed him out of the house.

“Go ride your bike,” my stepfather would yell.

JP would go out and ride his bike all around the neighborhood, mostly in the park. Everyone in the area knew him. Crazy JP Tortis. Even though his last name wasn’t the same as mine, he inherited it upon telling them who his older brother was.

As early as six he was already getting into trouble. He would have fits of wildness. One afternoon he threw his bike into the lake in front of some older kids and then went in after it. He rode the bike right out of the lake. He was so hungry for attention— a true showman.

The after-school trouble spilled into school with letters, phone calls, and his first suspension for pissing on a kid on the bus. He made my wildest days look wimpy. He was out of control, yet the only discipline he received was when he left a smudge on the wallpaper or accidentally bumped into the behemoth of a television set.

“Dude, just be careful,” I told him.

What else was I supposed to do? Plot to kill my stepfather? Demand he stop the abuse? I didn’t know what to do, so I went to bed.

$$$

The next morning in school a math teacher hassled me for being late in the hall. I was always feeling rushed and wondered if everyone else had this same anxiety. If I had had a number on my back or thick glasses on my face, I would have been invisible, but I had a spotlight. The spotlight screamed, “Come nail the punk for breaking yet another rule.” The spotlight followed me and teachers needing a power fix were attracted to the light.

I had heard this guy was a hard-ass. We met eyes a few times in the hallway but did not know each other and never talked until this morning.

“What do you think you’re doing walking this hall after the bell has rung?”

“I’m sorry. I had to return my books to my locker and had to run over to the other side and—”

“Excuses. You can’t make excuses your whole life.”

“Who the hell are you? Mr. Perfect?” I snapped.

“Pardon me, mister?”

“You heard me, asshole. Why don’t you go pick on someone actually doing something wrong? I’m not hurting anyone.”

“You’re hurting me with your blatant disrespect.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Poor you. Didn’t you start it?”

“Come with me.” He lunged for me and yanked my arm. I shook him off and continued walking away.

“Mr. Tortis. Is there a problem?” It was Mr. Bundy calling from behind me.

“Yeah, this creep is bothering me on my way to class. My mother always told me not to talk to strangers.”

“Mr. Bundy, this kid needs an attitude adjustment. His language is disgusting.”

The assistant principal called me over and waved the teacher off.

“You’re suspended. Two days.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Insubordination.”

“What is that supposed to teach me?”

“Mr. Tortis!”

“What about my side of the story?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I sat there in his fancy office and watched his fat hands fill out the paperwork with a heavy looking silver pen. Then he called my house and left a message about the suspension. Upon finishing the forms and being dismissed from his office, I stormed out of the doors and left school for the day. This got me an extra day in the in-school suspension room, but it didn’t matter. The day was shot, and no one was going to cool me down.

I walked it off as usual, alone until I bumped into some other punks. We smoked cigarettes and small talked for a while until I got tired of them. A friend came by in a car, and I jumped in. My friend lit a pipe and then passed it to me. That first sizzle was such an escape. I knew I was going somewhere else. It wasn’t always a great place, but it was always different. Sometimes it was a frenzied world of paranoia and speed. My experience on pot was different than everyone else’s. It was a rush, an internal one I couldn’t show because everyone else was in a relaxed lazy mood. They always say pot calms you down, but not everyone reacts to it the same way, and some pot is also sprayed with funky chemicals that alter your experience. My friends got mellow and I would be wired like I wanted to run the track. I actually dreamed about hitting the race track again, but I knew the more I smoked and the longer my life remained in turmoil, the further I got away from that other Jack.

$$$$$$

I had embarked on the writing project immediately. By lunch, several sheets were full. I gave them to Mr. Kelly, and the man looked surprised. He told me to keep going.

“Tell me more. Show me more of this school.”