I have few good memories of high school. Even those are bittersweet, tinged with the unexpected, the unwanted. The most prominent memory I have is both the best and the worst. It was the week before Winter Carnival and a bunch of us art students had finished creating sets and displays for the festivities to be held at our school. At the end of that week, we were exhausted but excited at a job well done. We congregated in our art class to unwind, and talk. Our art teacher was a very popular and hip Scottish dude named Andrew Gilchrest. He insisted that we call him Andrew.
It was early evening. We sat there relaxing when Andrew came in with wine and a few joints. He hauled up some chairs, into the little supply room at the back of art class, and he locked the classroom doors. We were stunned…it should have been our first clue that this could become a problem. Some just thought he was so cool…they’re going to drink and toke with the art teacher. Even though I was part of this art group, and they were nice enough to me, I sat on the outside. So did an older boy named Phil. When they passed the wine and joints around, Phil and I refused them. He was the school president and smarter than that, and me, because I was too scared to even think of trying it.
The other students, and Andrew, got high and never even worried about getting caught. The cachet of doing something so illegal, and with a teacher, was probably just as intoxicating as anything else. Then the inevitable emotional shit began. People became uninhibited and their lives began to unravel. It was when a boy named Wayne began to cry that things got strange. He was going on about his pain, how his parents were getting a divorce. Andrew was sitting beside him trying to comfort him with words of wisdom. I remember seeing Phil crying and that surprised me. What surprised me even more was how I needed to comfort him.
I got up and boldly went over to him…tried to take him in my arms. He held his arms out and I got all red, because I thought he was pushing me away. What he was doing was turning, to put his arms around my waist. I held him close… He held on to me and just cried. I was shaking from fear, from ecstasy, from doing what I thought was right. Here I was, a nobody, holding and comforting the president of the whole school, the most popular boy and he was crying into my body. I could feel his tears slide down my shirt, along my skin. This was the closest I would ever get to someone like him. He was engaged to his high school sweetheart and in another situation and place, he probably would not give, someone like me, the time of day.
I was high in my own right. High on this physical closeness, that I’d not yet experienced, with a boy. His sobs shook his body. His parents were in the middle of a divorce too and this was the first time he’d let it sink in, let it get to him. I looked up suddenly. From the other side of the low wall, I could see Andrew Gilchrest watching me. He was smiling at me…he had the hungriest look in his eyes. He looked like a very stoned, very hungry wolf…and he was coming for me…
Next -> Fall Out
Tags: art class, joints, toking, uninhibited, wine