2006-03-14
hieroglyphics
Thayer yanks out raggedy sheets of paper and wads them into lumps. They litter the cage under his desk like moon rocks. Ms. What's Her Name hovers over his shoulder, tsk tsking about wasted trees.
"It's 80 percent recycled," he says, pointing at the fine print on his folder.
His fingers are smeared with marker-blood--deep purple splotches that leak all the way up his jacket cuffs. Across his desk he has carved thick tags with the edge of a protractor. They repeat like a magic spell:
NERS NERS NERS
He outlines their creases in Liquid Paper, the corners flaking like dead skin. This is how he spends every class, every minute until the bell rings. I sit in the corner, keeping watch as the words corkscrew down the desk legs.
"That's it. You've just earned a lunch detention," says Ms. What's Her Name, ripping the marker out of Thayer's fist.
"For what?" he wants to know.
"For defacing school property," she says.
I think about that word, "deface." The desk had no face until Thayer gave one to it.
Back at her desk, Ms. What's Her Name is eating an avocado, just spooning pale green chunks into her mouth. The sight makes me want to vomit. I try to focus on my Earth Science worksheet:
Fossil Fuel Scavenger Hunt
1. ______________ are made up of decayed plant matter and decomposed animals.
4. The cave man used ______________ for heating and cooking because it burned longer than ______________.
11. The ancient Egyptians used _______________ to preserve mummies.
Who cares about dead plants? I'd rather study wormholes or map out the possibility of a comet crashing into our planet. Don't we have better things to worry about decayed plant matter?
I peek at Thayer's paper. For number one, he wrote, "this school." For number four, he wrote, "poop," and "George Bush." For number eleven, he crossed out the entire sentence and wrote, "I don't have to answer this because it's against my religion. The pharaoh's heart was balanced on a scale against a feather, which symbolized Truth, in the Hall of Osiris, the God of the Dead."
He knows all the answers. But he refuses to write them. By the end of the day, his Ritalin has worn off. He's cruising on auto-pilot, his needle hovering at ninety miles per hour. Drawing is the only thing that chills him out, just like numbers do for me.
When class gets out, I take a look at his desk. It's buried in a secret language, thicker than hieroglyphics. I know the words by heart.
f-i-n at 12:06 p.m.