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“Domestic Violence charges are serious. And no, you do not abstain from arresting the perpetrator if the victim says that he or she does not want to press charges, because there have been too many times where officers abstained from the arrest, only to get called back to that same address for a homicide call days later.”
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—A Saber Parish Law Enforcement Academy instructor to a class of cadets, while speaking on the dangers officers must be aware of when responding to domestic violence calls.
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Alex found most of the classes fascinating. Except for two. Science—while not quite the most interesting—was tolerable, and necessary. After all, scientific achievements, including modern tech and forensics, made the world go round, alongside evolution and money. Besides, while it wasn’t Poe or Shakespeare, science had its share of interesting moments. And math…well, math was math. Of course, he couldn’t stand it. It was math. Anyhow, the classes seemed to go by too fast for Alex’s liking. Especially English. Except for math. That class couldn’t be over fast enough. Because it was math. The math teacher was nice, seemingly a good person, and a good teacher. Alex had no problem with her. He had problems with math, of course. It was math.
Anyhow, Alex’s burning hatred for the academic subject of mathematics aside, it was now lunch. Alex sat at one of the tables, chewing Shepherd’s Pie. For those unaware, there’s an actual type of food called Shepherd’s Pie—a dish, one could say—composed of mashed potatoes, cheese, and some sort of meat. Not only did Alex not know what the meat in Shepherd’s Pie was, but he also didn’t care. It was food, good food, it was tasty, and Alex was eating it.
“I still don’t get how you can stomach that,” Pauline said.
“What,” Richard asked, after swallowing a mouthful of Shepard’s Pie, “Do you mean Shepherd’s Pie?”
“Yes,” Pauline replied, “Even its name is disgusting.”
After chewing and swallowing, Alex retorted, “It’s food! It tastes good, and it’s not moldy or expired. Therefore, I eat it. Questions?”
“It looks gross,” Pauline stated.
“Never judge a book but its cover,” Alex replied, before adding, “Trust me, if I had, I never woulda watched anime. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not cosplaying, but there are some good shows there. Also, Castlefreak.”
“What? The video game series almost nobody plays anymore,” Richard inquired.
Ethan spoke up, saying, “Actually, there’s an anime adaptation of it on Streamflix.”
Everyone seemed to stare at Ethan, except for Caleb, who just looked confused.
Ethan got a funny look on his face, before saying, “What? I have a life outside of class and sports!”
“Of course, Tyron, of House Belle,” Alex replied to Ethan, in a deliberate reference to the Streamflix show in question—or, more specifically, one of the main characters.
“Isn’t that a reference to the games? Didn’t get the Tyron part though,” Richard remarked.
“It’s a reference to the Streamflix Castlefreak show,” Alex explained, “He’s one of the main protagonists.”
“What’s Castlefreak about,” Pauline asked.
Alex was about to crack a joke about her being Sansa Ozark, another main protagonist—and a romantic interest for Tyron—in the show, but that’s when he heard someone yell, “Go back where you came from!”
Turning in his seat, Alex saw a Mexican American—or was she Latina? Or otherwise Hispanic American? Alex wasn’t one hundred percent sure. Regardless, he saw a younger, female student, clearly, a Hispanic American of some sort, run out of the Cafeteria and into the Main Hall—in short, another part of the building—crying, with her head in her hands, as an idiot in a football jersey yelled certain slurs against Hispanics and Mexicans at her. Those slurs shall not be replicated here, even to quote the Idiot in question. Alex felt his blood practically boil in his veins as this Idiot shouted out insults and slurs at the girl, who appeared to have either finished her lunch—or the portion of it she was going to eat—as the abuse began, or to have just abandoned what was left of her lunch altogether. Alex figured that he had to do something about this.
Standing up, Alex yelled out, “Hey, you! In the football jersey!”
The Idiot turned to look at Alex, confused, asking, “Who, me?”
“Yes, sir, you! Sir, the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency has ordered you be deported to the Sovereign Republic of Dumb-ass, sir,” Alex shouted back coldly, as he feigned respect in the most contempt-filled, mocking way he knew how.
Alex wasn’t quite sure if the statement counted as sarcasm—something Alex typically avoided like an apocalyptic plague—but Alex was not going to stand idly by and let this bigoted fool harass someone.
Un-American bigots like him give our nation a bad name, Alex thought bitterly.
The Idiot’s eyes flared up with something—Alex had never really been able to read people’s body language, facial expressions, or emotions, very well, and was too furious to even attempt it at this point. Anyway, the Idiot’s eyes flared up with something Alex couldn’t decipher, all while said Idiot began approaching Alex. Alex, in turn, walked towards the Idiot. Without pulling his arm back, the Idiot threw a right hook, straight at Alex’s head. But Alex slammed his left forearm into the Idiot’s right forearm before Alex wrapped his left hand around said Idiot’s forearm, preventing the blow from landing, and preventing the Idiot from turning tail and running. Then, as the Idiot began to pull away, Alex slammed his right fist into the Idiot’s right elbow and heard the crunch of bones breaking. Kicking out with his left leg, Alex let out a savage blow into the back of the Idiot’s right knee, sweeping this fool’s legs out from under him. The Idiot crashed to the ground, and Alex—releasing the Idiot’s forearm—dropped himself to his knees over the Idiot. While straddling his enemy’s waist, Alex rained down a hailstorm of punches onto the Idiot, who unsuccessfully tried to kick out, and feebly tried to block the falling barrage of punches with his uninjured arm.
Somewhere behind him, Alex heard Caleb scream, “STOP! Stop this senseless violence! Stop beating hi—.”
But—while Alex recognized Caleb’s voice—what Caleb was saying did not register in Alex’s mind beyond those initial words. Alex was beyond furious, and would not tolerate bigotry, nor stand silently by and let its perpetrators just walk away from all the pain they caused by attacking others. Plus this Idiot had thrown the first punch. The fool need to be taught a lesson, and nobody else seemed to be willing and able to do it. Therefore, Alex would be his instructor, and pain would be his curriculum.
“You want to look down on her for the color of her skin? She’s worth at least a hundred of you, at least,” Alex yelled at the idiot as he beat the bigot.
Someone wrapped their arms around Alex from behind and gently began squeezing him in their soft grip.
Alex was about to shrug them off when he heard Pauline plead in his ear, “Please, Alex, get off of him!”
Immediately, Alex went limp, allowing her and Richard to pull Alex off of the Idiot in question who lay sobbing on the floor.
No, I’m not getting into a fistfight with my friends. They’re good people—unlike the bigot that I just beat down, Alex silently decided.
It was at this point Alex heard a familiar voice yell, “What the hell is going on here!” Rage was an odd thing to hear in that normally serene voice. Principal Rafkin’s voice, that is.
Well, shit, Alex thought.
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Alex was jogging hard—or running hard, depending on his speed, although Alex was not sure at all what the difference between the two was, nor of where one ended and the other began. As his feet pounded the cement-paved path, he thought about the future. It had been July of 2033 when Alex had convinced Richard to join his Personal Endeavor. Almost half a year since Alex had started secretly honing his Variant abilities for use as…a vigilante. He still hadn’t come up with an alias yet. He needed to do that. It was almost 2034 now—schools had let out for Christmas break—and Alex was growing impatient with himself. He needed to commence operations as a vigilante, but Alex knew that proceeding before he was fully ready—or otherwise proceeding with his skills only honed in a half-baked, name-only manner—would most likely get innocent people killed. The preventable deaths of innocent people were something Alex could not let happen, even if that meant having to delay the gratification of his desire to deal out justice.
The cement path was surrounded by trees, with the occasional bench or water fountain along the path. The sun was high in the sky, but Alex was wearing a cowboy hat—the brim of which he had deliberately flattened out—so the sun was sufficiently out of his eyes. Alex also wore a pair of green sweatpants; a sleeveless, white undershirt; and a zipped-up, navy blue sweatshirt. Alex had to admit that the orange fanny pack strapped to his waist, which held his smartphone, looked odd. But the fanny pack worked, preventing his smartphone from falling out of his small, sweatpants pockets—which had happened before.
Alex slowed from a jogging pace to the pace of a brisk walk upon realizing that Richard was no longer next to him. This made Alex more vulnerable to the cold temperature of Louisiana’s December. Granted, the grass was still green, and folks from up north might not view anything without snow as “cold”, but to Alex—who’d grown up in Louisiana—it was cold.
Looking around, Alex realized that Richard had fallen well behind himself, and stopped. It took Richard a few minutes to catch up. Upon doing so, Richard approached Alex, panting hard, breathing hard, and just generally looking worn out. He wore only navy blue sweatpants; some grey running shoes; and a long-sleeved, red shirt, made of some breathable, athletic fabric.
“Why…the hell…do you like…jogging,” Richard asked in between gasps for air.
“Because it’s rhythmic and fast-paced,” Alex answered honestly, “At sufficient speeds, there’s no room for doubt, for fear, for self-loathing. At sufficient speeds, there is only room for action, and maybe instinct.”
“Do you…loath yourself,” Richard asked Alex between gasps for breath, sounding concerned, before Richard hastily added, “Knowing…you’re not to blame for…what happened?”
“What do you think,” Alex replied, his voice far harsher than he had intended.
“I think you’re blameless in what happened, Alex,” Richard replied, after taking a moment to catch his breath, “Your father’s responsible for that, not you. I—.”
“Wait! What’s that sound,” Alex inquired, interrupting Richard as he held up his hand in a stopgesture.
Upon Richard falling silent, Alex could hear it again, and this time he was able to discern what it was. Voices speaking.
“My son, are you robbing us,” A voice asked, sounding stunned.
“Shove it, old man. Now hand over the necklace and any other valuables,” another, very aggressive voice demanded.
“And your wallet,” someone else commanded the first voice, before a fourth voice added, “What he said!”
Alex didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation—he didn’t need to. Running off the path, through the trees, Alex soon found a small gathering of people—three masked youths, holding one abnormally pale, unmasked youth, seemingly of average height for what appeared to be his age, and an older man in a priest’s robes—who was a bit short for a fully grown man—at knifepoint. Alex had never been much of one for religion, but wasn’t about to let someone innocent get robbed or killed, either. The three criminals were all looking at the pair they were trying to rob, and so didn’t notice the two newcomers. The three knife-wielding robbers had surrounded the pair, so Alex immediately decided on a plan of action.
The plan in question, simply put, was to attack the criminals before the scum in question could spot Alex or Richard. There was no way to shout it out to Richard without losing the element of surprise, and most likely no time to relay the plan to Richard, so Alex could only hope that Richard would catch onto the plan—or the gist of it, anyways—by observing Alex taking action per said plan.
Without slowing down to anything below a full-speed run, Alex ran right at the knife-wielding criminals in question. Tackling the thug closest to himself—and knocking the knife from his hand in the process—Alex brought him down and began choking the robber with one hand while beating him upside the head with the other. Alex’s hat was suddenly gone—although Alex had no clue when it had fallen off of his head—and pain from the sunlight consequently stabbed his abnormally sensitive eyes. The eyes of Alex Westsmith had been abnormally susceptible to being painfully irritated by sunlight for as long as he could remember, but Alex ignored the pain that now flooded his eyes.
If the two victims had an opportunity to flee, then they certainly squandered it, standing still, not even twitching a single fiber of muscles, seemingly stunned into inaction.
The remaining two thugs charged at Alex, only to be intercepted by Richard, who threw a large rock at the head of the second thug, prompting him to fall to the ground, limp. Alex kept beating on the thug he’d tackled until he heard Richard cry out in pain. Looking up, Alex saw Richard fall to the ground, crimson creeping across the grey fabric of Richard’s shirt, and a masked robber standing over him, still stabbing him.
“Richard,” Alex yelled out, as he ran towards the criminal who was stabbing Richard, fully intent on saving his friend, all other thoughts forgotten. Alex was so scared for Richard’s life, that—due to his fear of Richard dying—it never occurred to Alex to use his Variant abilities. Scooping up the knife of the thug he’d tackled off the ground, Alex proceeded to charge Richard’s assailant down and swing the knife. The blade plunged deep into the criminal’s throat before Alex pulled it out and plunged it back in, again and again, prompting blood to splatter all over himself. Letting the criminal drop to the ground, Alex rushed to where Richard lay on the grass.
Pulling off his own sweatshirt, Alex pressed it onto his friend’s wounds, telling Richard, “Come on, we gotta get you outta here!”
The younger of the two robbery victims approached Richard, saying, “Let me have a look at his injuries.”
“No,” Alex declared, “I have to stop the bleeding!”
“I’m a Variant,” the pale stranger replied, “Let me heal him! I can do it!”
Alex knew it was foolish to step away from the bleeding, but—in his desperation to help his friend—obliged. The young stranger proceeded to tear the jacket off of Richard’s wounds and take off Richard’s shirt before he then laid his hands on Richard’s wounds. The wounds in question were a bloody mess of incisions on Richard’s abdomen. Richard’s body and the younger stranger’s hands began to glow. Then, as though by magic, Richard’s wounds rapidly grew smaller, until they sealed themselves, leaving the blood Richard was covered in as the only sign he’d ever been injured.
“Why do I feel so dizzy,” Richard groaned.
“That’s the blood loss,” the younger stranger replied, “My Variant ability accelerates and enhances the healing process in others’ bodies, but—despite stopping further blood loss from occurring—it does not replace any blood that was already lost. You’ll need to eat something and drink water. You might need a blood transfusion as well.”
“Oh…okay,” Richard replied, kinda out of it, “Wait…where’d my shirt go? And why didn’t you help us fight them?”
“We stayed peaceful because our faith forbids us from participating in any sort of violence. Or, at least, our denomination of the faith—not all Christians are pacifists, as we are,” the priest explained as he gestured to the pale, younger victim, who looked to be a teenager, “I am Collin Westbro. The boy is my son, Caleb, who had to take your shirt off to heal your wounds. As for the shirt, between the knife holes, and the bloodstains, I fear you will need to replace it.”
“You’re things babies suck on,” Richard inquired, clearly affected by the blood loss.
“No, Richard,” Alex responded, “You’re thinking of pacifiers, not pacifists. I—what are you doing?”
Caleb, who had begun healing one of the thugs—the one Alex had stabbed in the throat, more specifically—looked up. As Caleb did so, an emotion—Alex was not certain of its identity, but Alex believed it was likely confusion—was swirling in his brown eyes, as well as the brown eyes of his father.
“Healing him. Why,” Caleb answered.
“He threatened to stab you. He did stab Richard,” Alex exclaimed.
“So?” Caleb replied.
“Alex, I’m tired,” Richard spoke up.
“You’ll be okay, Richard,” Alex soothed Richard, before telling Caleb, “For all you know, he’ll attack you as soon as he wakes up!”
Caleb replied, “He may do that. But I have a duty to help the injured. He is, by definition, injured.”
Exasperated, and somewhat trying to hide the full extent to which he was exasperated, Alex turned to the priest, and asked, “Father Westbro, can you watch over Richard while I call the police?”
“Ah, but of course,” Collin Westbro answered.
“Thank you, sir,” Alex stated, before standing up and pulling his smartphone out of the fanny pack around his waist.
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Alex nervously entered the baby blue walled office and looked around. There were various shelves of books lining the walls, but—oddly enough for a school administrator’s office—there were no photos. Actually, that was almost—but not quite—true. There was one photo, and only one. It was a movie poster-sized thing, hanging on a wall, the one across the room from the entrance, behind Principal Rafkin’s rather cluttered desk.
In this photo, there was a young, black man, in what appeared to be a desert, wearing a military ACU-style combat uniform, printed in a desert camouflage pattern. The young man was smiling, while leaning the left flank of his own body against the side of an M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank, and giving a thumbs up to the camera with his right hand. The man in the photo looked a lot like James Rafkin but was decidedly not James Rafkin. However, Alex could barely see the photo, on account of the fact that Principle Rafkin was standing right in front of it, seemingly staring at it, as though Principle Rafkin was entranced by it.
Principal Rafkin was a tall and portly black man, with short, curly hair; well-groomed, short-cropped facial hair, in the form of a neat, black beard; and more than a little bit of a beer gut as some would call it. He wore a white dress shirt, and tan, khaki pants, with a brown, leather belt.
“Sir, you wanted to see me?” Alex’s words seemed to break whatever trance, or sacred silence, that the older man had found himself in.
Turning his green eyes to Alex, Principal Rafkin gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk, as he sat down in the chair behind it, saying, “Yes. Yes, Alex. Please, take a seat.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex replied as he placed his backpack on the floor next to one chair, and sat down, across the desk from Principal Rafkin, in what was a very soft, cushiony black leather chair.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you, and not entirely for bad reasons,” Principal Rafkin began, “In fact, mostly for good ones.”
It did not escape Alex that the older man sounded so, very tired, in such an extreme of physical and emotional fatigue that Alex would not have been surprised had the principal fallen asleep, or otherwise unconscious, then and there.
“So, I take I’ve managed to avoid making a horrible impression, sir,” Alex replied, himself unsure if the words qualified as a question or not.
Surrounded by the air of a tired man, Principal Rafkin softly stated, “Smart. Polite. Socially awkward—but not malicious. Studious, with a strong sense of justice, and a bit of a temper when provoked. You know, my son was a lot like you. He served with the Army in Afghanistan—before our idiot politicians abandoned our Afghan allies, and let the Taliban scum retake power. All that time, all those American lives and limbs lost, all for nothing. Their abandonment of our Afghan allies was, and remains, both a tragedy and a travesty. I can recall being so proud of my Eric. I was, and still am, so furious that his service, and the sacrifices of others like him, were thrown away. My son did not die in Afghanistan, however.”
Alex paused, confused and wholly unsure if he should ask this next question. Finally, Alex asked, “So, did he die, sir?”
“Yes,” Principal Rafkin answered, “Two years after he came home from his third tour of duty, there was a kidnapping. There were also off-duty police officers at the nearby supermarket where he’d been buying groceries, working as uniformed, armed, security guards. He stumbled onto the abduction in progress, most likely while walking back to his car, several blocks from where he’d bought those goods. Rather than call the police, he lunged at the gunmen, who opened fire, not caring that my son was unarmed. The six-year-old and his pregnant mother were found dead in a ditch two days after they were abducted.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” Alex replied, for multiple reasons—the first being that he was sorry to hear it, and the second being that Alex was simultaneously acting politely, per the habits that had been drilled into him, by both himself and by his mother.
A tremor was evident from the shakiness of Principle Rafkin’s breath, as he continued, “You know, he had ambitions beyond the Army, my Eric. He wanted to be a novelist. He was constantly writing—in his spare time, mind you, never when he was supposed to be on duty. His work was good, too, even as rough drafts. I’ve got boxes upon boxes of notebooks, and manuscripts—both typed and handwritten—alongside flash drives and sketches. He drew up concept art. Eric even made his own cover art, you know? So much potential, all wasted, snuffed out by a few imbeciles with guns. I have thought, often, in my quiet moments, about trying to edit and revise his work—he toiled away at twelve different novels, plus a collection of poems, some full rough drafts, other partial manuscripts, by the time he died—as none were fully finished in terms of editing or revision at the time he died. But I’m no writer. I’ve often pondered what stories he could have told, what works he could have written, if only he’d had a little more time. But his hopes were killed in that damned moment when he was killed by those damned criminals.”
There was a brief pause before either of them spoke again.
“My point is that these sorts of issues need to be reported, not immediately made the subject of a beating,” Principal Rafkin concluded, admonishing Alex in the process.
Somewhat indignant, Alex replied, “Sir, this was self-defense.”
Principal Rafkin seemed to stroke his short-cropped, well-groomed beard—still sounding extremely tired—as he said, “That’s true this time. And it may very well be true the next time, and the one after that. But—even assuming you’re never the aggressor; and also assuming that you’re never arrested, correctly or incorrectly, as the aggressor—sooner or later, you’ll find a problem that you cannot punch your way out of. What will you do then?”
Feeling apprehensive without knowing quite why, Alex tried to focus on not uttering anything that might anger the principal, as he said what he believed the principal wanted to hear, telling Principle Rafkin, “Report it, sir.”
With a resigned sigh, as though he were giving up on preventing some great catastrophe, Principal Rafkin replied, “If only I could believe that answer to be genuine. You’ll receive no punishment this time, as it was self-defense. But at least try to stay out of any more fights. You may go now, Alex.”
Standing, Alex once again shouldered his backpack as he replied, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” and walked away.
As Alex walked away, he did so with a bad taste in his mouth, or so to speak, which almost felt like he was leaving a friend for dead. While the principal was not quite a friend, he was friendly enough—at least, towards Alex, anyway.
Exiting the principal’s office, Alex found himself within the off-white walls of a small hallway that sat within the school’s Discipline Office, with textbooks stacked along one, doorless, side of the hallway in front of him, an Emergency Exit door to his right, and the open-ended bit of hallway to his left, leading to a small and cozy, yet somewhat cramped, waiting room. Walking towards the waiting room, Alex saw three administrators at their desks, behind which was another small hallway. Alex knew from previous experience that the Discipline Office had six doors; three that led to a set of conference rooms from the other small hallway on the far side of the Discipline Office; one that led to the Vice Principal’s office; a fifth door, the exit leading from the Discipline Office into the Main Hall; and the door through which Alex had just passed; assuming one did not include the previously mentioned Emergency Exit door in that count, as it was the seventh door, but was typically only used during fire drills. Turning left in the conference room, Alex found one door—this one a heavy, wooden door, without any windows, like the doors to most of the classrooms—which opened into the Main Hall. Walking through this door, Alex found himself in the Main Hall.
The Main Hall was an extremely large hallway that was lined with lockers. Additionally, there were pillars and archways at a few twin sets of double doors that had initially been intended to lead to hallways of forty ground-floor classrooms apiece, but that plan had to be scaled down due to limited real estate being available in the Midtown District of New Hellensburge. As such, they instead lead to several computer labs (which totaled well below forty rooms per hallway), stairwells (which lead up to the higher floors), and the previously mentioned Student Storage Rooms.
These Student Storage Rooms weren’t the type of locker rooms you’d find in the school gym, where you were supposed to get changed from your regular clothes into a gym outfit—dressing out, as it was called. Rather the lockers in the Student Storage Rooms were meant to be used for textbooks and school supplies. While there were lockers in the Main Hall, there wouldn’t have been enough space for each student to have a locker for school supplies and textbooks if it weren’t for the addition of Student Storage Rooms.
The Main Hall had a high ceiling, and so took up two stories worth of space, although there were rooms above it. Big, cone-like light fixtures in metal cages hung down from the ceiling of the Main Hall, and there was an alcove at the entrance to the school library.
As he looked at his watch, Alex was trying to remember which class he was supposed to be in. This was not the smartwatch that he used as Pyre, but a Tillman brand, Expedition model watch, which was like an old-fashioned watch, with the physical minute, hour, and second, hands, only less prone to breaking. It was Seventh Period. In other words, it was time for History class—which had to be tied with English for Alex’s favorite class. You were required to take two years of history classes if you attended the Brunswick Academy—the first being a class that focused solely on American history, and the other a class that focused more broadly on world history. History was one subject that Alex wished had more years of classes made mandatory, simply because he liked it. Humanity’s past was full of both generosity and atrocity, of hope and despair, and it fascinated Alex, like only a good novel, movie, podcast, or some other format of fiction story could do—with the caveat that history was real. It actually happened. As he walked towards one of the exits, Alex began wondering about—and worrying about—how much class he’d missed, when a familiar voice startled Alex, from outside of his field of vision.
“Hey Alex,” Richard called out softly from somewhere behind Alex.
Turning around, Alex saw his friend leaning his back against some lockers, with his arms folded across his chest, and an almost sly look in Richard’s green eyes.
Smiling, Alex replied, “Hello, Richard.” Then the smile swiftly evaporated, and Alex’s voice gained a note of disapproval, as he demanded, “You’re cutting class again. Aren’t you, Richard?”
Richard gave a lopsided grin, before answering, “Yup! So, where to?”
“Class,” Alex deadpanned to his friend.
Dropping his arms to his sides, Richard pouted, saying, “Oh come on! That’s no fun!”
Alex shook his head, telling Richard, “Remember, there are certain endeavors I need a trustworthy roommate for. You’re the only one I have. Besides, being expelled for cutting class won’t be good for you. In fact, it would be very bad for your college and career prospects.”
“Relax,” Richard replied, “I won’t get expelled. Hell, I haven’t even been suspended yet!”
“You’ve cut enough class that you’re flying damn close to that sun. And I’m not letting you get yourself in that kind of trouble,” Alex retorted, before adding, “And no, it’s not just due to your usefulness, but because you’re my friend, and I care about what happens to you!”
Richard seemed to become almost bashful after that, as though the words spoken by Alex had left him semi-speechless. Not entirely speechless, though, as he still cracked a few very sexual jokes. Nothing about sexual or gender-based violence though. There were some lines that—even with their very dirty senses of humor—neither Alex nor Richard had the lack of morals, or the malicious idiocy, necessary to cross with their jokes. These jokes—which were whispered while walking side by side, to avoid the attention of, and detention by, some teachers who occasionally walked past them—were of such a sexually-explicit nature, though, that they will not be repeated here—except to say that they made it an extreme struggle for Alex to stifle his laughter. However, Alex did manage to avoid laughing so loud that he would land in detention for disrupting whichever people or classes might be within earshot—although it should be noted, he only barely managed such a Herculean feat.
Exiting the Central Building, Alex and Richard—with the latter still cracking jokes, and the former still struggling not to laugh so loudly as to disrupt classes—walked down a paved, cement walkway roughly ten feet wide, shielded from the sun by a metal awning. As they did so, they passed several white, wooden—or, at least, the siding of the building looked like wood, although it might have been plastic—regardless, they walked past several white buildings, each four stories tall. These were called Class Blocks, although some students joked about how this term sounded like the prison phrase, Cell Blocks.
Either way, they found themselves entering Class Block Three, through one of four entries to the building's ground floor. The interior of the building took them into a small, green-walled space, with a classroom door beside a wall of dark green, metal lockers in an alcove, next to one of the sets of stairs that led to the building's second story, and beneath one of the sets of stairs which linked the buildings second and third stories. The building was designed with four classrooms per floor, and distributed between two sides of the building were four sets of staircases leading away from the four entries to the building. These staircases were intersected like a series of X’s which had been stacked on top of each other. Alex and Richard climbed up a flight of stairs and came to a space very similar to the first space that they’d encountered after entering the building, including an alcove—this one against the exterior wall—with lockers fitted around windows, and a set of stairs leading up, in addition to a classroom door, marked with the room number 35-B. Alex walked up to the door and knocked on it.
After knocking on the door, Alex heard Mr. Row’s voice ask, “Who’s there?”
“Alex Westsmith and Richard Caperno,” Alex called back.
There was the clicking of a lock being undone, and the door opened.
Entering the classroom, Alex and Richard were immediately looked over by Mr. Row, a tall, slim man, with blue eyes, and hair that had gone gray with age. He seemed immensely angry about something, even to Alex.
“Alex, take a seat. We’ve been expecting you. That said, the office did not say anything about you, Richard. Where the hell were you,” Mr. Row demanded, fury in his blue eyes.
“I was out,” Richard replied, as Alex sat down at a desk, and placed his backpack down next to said desk.
“Out where,” Mr. Row continued to press Richard verbally.
“Just out,” Richard defiantly replied.
“Okay, smart ass. Think. What would your mother, the city’s Chief of Police, say, or feel, if she knew you were cutting class,” Row stated.
Richard went silent after that one, which also prompted Richard to glare at Mr. Row, a furious, harsh, almost violent glare, that left little unsaid—even without the use of words.
Narrowing his eyes, Mr. Row simply issued an order.
“Richard, go to the Discipline Office.”
Richard nodded, and walked out of the room. Even someone socially oblivious, like Alex, could tell that Richard was seething with rage as he did so. If Alex had to guess, it was rage over the mention of Richard’s mother.109Please respect copyright.PENANATC0IR5PSsf