Crew

What does a guy who’s a girl, wear on his first day of school? I had always just gone to school in whatever I happened to put on that day. My mother hated it, but I didn’t see the point in wearing something different on the first day. Today I stood in front of my closet, and wondered what I was going to wear. This shirt. It was the one with the little loopy bits on it. These pants. They were the ones that fit the best. This bra. It went with the shirt. These underwear. In only a week I had a favorite pair. They were blue. I like blue.

I had an hour before I had to be there and no idea how long the train ride would take. “I can drive you in on the first day.” Mom had said. I hadn’t wanted her to do that. “What if you forget something?” I would call her and have her bring it to me. “I can’t be your go-for, Aisling.” Please mom? “Do you need to do this yourself?” Yes mom.

And so I was going to the light rail station, with an app that told me when I should leave, and what transfers I would need. I had my shiny bus pass in the wallet that wouldn’t fit in my back pocket anymore. I had shoved it inside the backpack, which made the whole point of a pocket wallet moot.

I got my earbuds, made certain my phone had a charge, and emptied my backpack of everything but a notebook and pens. Empty, it slung over my shoulder like a wafting corpse. By the end of the day I would have all new textbooks to hate inside of it.

Downstairs I found a Poptart while my mother stood with her hip on the sink and watched me with a coffee cup in her hands. She handed me my own cup, a travel paper one (we had a stack under the sink) with a lid. “Do you have all your things?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Do you know how to get there?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Do you have your phone on you?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Okay,” she came and gave me a little kiss on the forehead. “You’ll do fine. Call me if you need anything.”

And I was out the door, putting on my earbuds and playing a dubstep mix tape.

I got to the platform just in time to wait five minutes for the train. I sat on a bench in the shade. Shade slowly becomes a necessity in a city that gets 300 days of sunny skies. Despite the Octoberness of the month it was a nice 70 degrees in the morning cold.

Gradually people started filtering in. Cyclists with their road bikes and helmets and silly pants. Business pricks in suits and briefcases, schlubbing with the common folk. 20 somethings, who knows where they were going. And three children, one stroller, and an overworked single mom.

The train came on time. I would learn later to get in the first car. The first car is furthest from the stairs, so no one gets on it except the people who feel like walking the extra 50 feet. This first time I got on the last car, already filling up.

The train wasn’t full, but I had to go down the car to find an empty seat to slump in. There were signs saying not to put your feet on the other seats. I tried to, and with my new height it was much less comfortable than I thought it would be. Instead I crossed my legs, lady style (it really was more comfortable), and read the last bit of Breakfast of Champions while the train took off.

I watched carefully for my stop, then followed my phone the five blocks to the school and checked in at the front desk.

Matt was there, and his first words to me were, “We have a problem with your test scores.” Then he said nothing to me as he took me back to Mr. Counselor, and I sweated over what the problem could be.

“Good to see you again, Miss McKinnon,” Mr. Counselor stood and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “We didn’t see your scores for the aptitude tests until last week when Albuquerque sent the records over,” he sat and blew out of his lips. “They’re… impressive.”

“They should be. I had to take the dumb test five times.” I had been pulled out of my English class once a week, for five weeks, to fill in little bubbles for an hour.

“Yes. Well. Have you considered an AP class?”

“No. Why?”

Mr. Counselor shuffled his reports, “Because frankly you test out of everything else we offer. I could put you in English four but… Look Aisling, you’re not going to find it challenging.”

“Can I just not take an English class?” I found the prospect a little disappointing, to be honest. I didn’t like to take a class I didn’t need, unless it was an art class. But English offered the opportunity to expand my reading list.

“You can. With Common Core I can just test you out of everything. But frankly,” he used that word too much, “It doesn’t look great on your transcripts. Admission officers are going to ask if you’ve actually learned anything.”

“I was planning on art programs.”

“Frankly, they still look at your English scores. The good ones do at any rate.”

“And AP English looks good.” I wasn’t asking a question.

“AP English your freshman year looks very good.”

“I’m coming in two months into the semester.”

Mr. Counselor leaned forward in his chair, “Frankly,” there was that word again, “I think you can handle it.”

“Okay, AP English it is.”

“Great!” He printed out my new class schedule, and signed an excusal note for me. My new first class was “Health,” which was a pre-rec for PE, for god only knows what reason.

On my way out Matt handed me my ID badge in a little sleeve and told me to keep it visible at all times. I put the lanyard over my neck and went off to ‘Health.’ Seeing the stragglers going to class, I noticed that none of them was keeping their ID visible at all times, and felt like a dork.

I stood outside classroom 234 for several minutes. Okay Ash. A classroom full of people. Not just people, your peers. They are going to judge you. But, they are going to judge you based on what they see. They’re going to see a pretty (you know you’re pretty) girl, who’s just starting a class like a new student.

In all likelihood, no one will care.

Confidence at nearly 30% I opened the door and walked inside.

The teacher was writing notes on the board, looked at me and said, “What do you want?” Like a coach who thinks he’s a drill sergeant. My confidence crashed to nothing, and I felt my eyes water. The guy realized that he’d just yelled at a vulnerable young woman, and that this could get him another meeting with the PTA, and immediately softened his tone. “How can I help you, little lady.”

He surely can’t know that’s worse. If I’d dealt with that all my life I’d be more pissed than embarrassed.

“I’m Aisling McKinnon. I just transferred in.”

He went to his desk, leaned over the drawers, and started pulling things out. “Lets get you on the seating chart.” I glanced at the paper. He’d filled the desks from front to back, so the only spot left was furthest from the door.

I just wanted to come in and sit down. No wait, this was better. If I sat in the back, no one could stare at me.

“Michelle, you have a new friend.” This guy was a real treat. He handed me a syllabus, and the homework plan, and a pamphlet on exercise, then stood straight and went back to the board.

I went to the back and sat next to Michelle. Michelle had hoop ear rings and bangs. Her nails were sharp and I couldn’t figure out how she was using the phone, hidden under the desk, with them on. My ‘Hi’ was not returned, as I pulled out a notebook.

Here are my notes from the first class:

Organs
—Heart, lungs, etc
—Skin largest
—>Groups
—> I leaned this in 5th grade biology
Why am I relearning it just so that I can run around on a track.

The rest was a dragon I drew.

All I had to do was get through history and then I had design and drama and English

Drama was interesting. Ms. Clark wore a skirt, took her shoes off to teach the class, and told us to call her Sally, when no one in the administration could hear us. I was given a small introduction, and asked to tell everyone a secret about myself, and that this secret should be a lie. This is some kind of drama thing. I went with a firm belief in unicorns.

Two months into the semester we were playing a game called “Machine” to warm up. Someone stands in the center and performs a simple repetitive action. Then everyone around them takes turns joining their “machine” with their own simple action.

The key word is “simple”. When I had figured out an action to add (full body stamping the invisible somethings that another student was loading onto what I had decided was a conveyor belt), it only took five or ten stamps before I realized what a mistake I’d made. By the time the warm up ended, five minutes later, I was getting dizzy from exertion. And from throwing my head back and forth.

I wasn’t told how Machine ends. Machine ends with the explosion of the machine. Most of the other students exploded by throwing their arms up and crashing to the floor. Someone next to me exploded by flinging his body through the machine and knocking everyone over.

“Curtis, this is the last time I’m going to tell you to stop doing that,” Sally said. Curtis responded by flailing his body around, and making more explosion noises, which got him detention.

We took our seats, and I noticed that one guy, wearing black pants, a black shirt, black boots, and an army jacket, was waiting for me to choose a seat. Then he sat next to me. I knew I was new, but it was hard not to be shy about it. It’s okay, with luck he won’t talk to you.

“Hi,” he talked to me, “I’m Regular Dave.”

“Aisling,” I told him.

“I know. You were introduced in front of the class, remember? You really believe in unicorns, don’t you.”

Try one word answers, see if that will get him to stop. “Sure.”

Regular Dave nodded like he understood a secret truth. “I do too. As a pure virgin, I’m hoping to tame one.”

Oh my god he’s a Jesus freak. Then Regular Dave put his thumb under a Satanist pendant and gave me a wink.

I stifled a guffaw as Sally started talking to the class, “Okay, we’ve finished up with improv, so now we’re moving on to monologues. You’ve learned to act with your body, now you have to act with your voice. There are monologues starting on page thirty five of the book, but you can choose your own. The one’s in the book should all be under two minutes. If you choose your own, it needs to be under two minutes too, unless you talk to me. By next class you should have a monologue chosen.”

And then she gave us free time to choose our monologues, and everyone spent their time talking instead.

I was sitting in the middle of a group of friends, who all decided that I could be ignored, while they talked around me.

Regular Dave rescued me, leaning in and saying, “Do you already have a monologue.”

I just found out that we had to do them, what are you talking about? “No, why?”

“You haven’t opened your book yet.”

“Oh, no.” I gestured around me, “I was listening to the conversation.”

“It does sound compelling. I’m fascinated to know which one of their classmates is a slut too. Whatever you do, don’t do Sophie’s monologue from Star Spangled Girl.”

“Why not?”

“Because everyone is going to do it.”

“Really?” I picked up my book and started leafing through it to find the offending text.

“At least a hundred and five percent of the girls, and usually one guy too.” He leaned back in his chair.

Don’t touch your hair. Don’t touch your hair. Don’t touch your—goddamn it! I brushed a lock over my ear, and rested my elbow on the back of my chair. My arm ran across my breast as I did so, and I hoped he wouldn’t notice me blush. I still couldn’t touch them in public without feeling like I was doing something wrong. I kept expecting someone to laugh at me every time I brushed them, or adjusted my shirt. “Have you taken this class before?”

“No, I usually sit in on the auditions. Only a year and I’m already sick of that piece.”

“Why do you sit in on the auditions?” I knew I should be feeling shy, but he was just so easy to talk to.

“I’m the STD,” he said it like he expected me to laugh, and I defied him by only raising an eyebrow. “The student technical director.”

I had no idea what those words meant strung together like that, other than he was a student, and directed something technical. Other than the semantics it didn’t tell me a lot. I was about to ask more when Sally took the class over again.

“We have five minutes, so beat the rush hour traffic. On your way out, there are audition sheets next to the door. This semester we’re doing Spring Awakening—” Here Regular Dave threw his hand over his head in the classic “woot” expression, “—And it’s gonna be a lot of fun, David. It’s a hundred extra credit points if you audition.”

On my way out the door Regular Dave walked ahead of me, then stopped and gestured to the board, “You should sign up.” Then he blocked the doorway, and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

Well I don’t have to take the role, and the extra credit means I won’t have to do the monologue… “You won’t let me go until I sign up, will you.”

“Nope.”

“Give me your pen.” He whipped a beaten pencil on a clip out of his pocket so fast I almost didn’t see. Then tapped the paper where he wanted me to put my name. I carefully printed it on the line on the sheet, under the word “Crew.” Regular Dave threw me a huge grin, and left without another word.