I honestly knew I was more than what I was getting at the local public school, and my mom knew it. She knew it the moment I came home a couple of months after the beginning of freshmen year, with the story about my biology teacher: Mr. Aberdeen. Man of 42 or so, white skin almost pink with short white hair, almost balding. He kept in shape, but that’s because every other weekend he would drive upstate New York and visit nature. He would spend the weekend there and come to school on Monday with brand new photographs of birds, rodents and trees. No wonder he wasn’t married. You see, his class revolved around that. Every once in a while I would raise a question he either didn’t want to answer or couldn’t. Maybe it was a question within the biology-course range but he refused to continue talking about birds and rodents specifically. Years later when I took my first psychology course and witnessed, up close and personal, woman in labor, every other student my age was awed and awkward. The teacher asked us if we had ever seen something like this in our biology course, and someone cleverly answered that we had only seen birds, trees and rodents. I laughed at the thought. I also laughed when we were quizzed on birds sounds and not the reproductive cycle of cells. I was never a biology buff, but we all know our basics. Basics that I hoped would be expanded during my years in high school, but all I got was nonsense.
That’s the thing with public schools and counties. If you live in a bad neighborhood, you’re bound to get a bad school. That was part of the reason I sought education elsewhere. I was an honor student but realized I knew nothing. I knew my basic exponential rules but not how to use them in depth. My mother worked like hell to get me into private school, but she was never able to raise enough money. She was underpaid and it killed me. Not because it was little money, but little money in relation to who she was and what she represented in my life. She negotiated with the woman she worked with, Ms. Aimes, to reduce her working hours by one for her to get a new job as a waitress at a little Italian restaurant a couple of blocks from home. It was a cozy little place. Clay colored walls with plastic grape vines “growing” up the walls. They had a wine cabinet in the far right of the restaurant, next to the restrooms. The dinning hall had two booths, one to the right and one to the left. The center was filled with round tables for up to 6 people. I loved the place. Sometimes, after class, I would head out there. I would wait for my mom to get off from work to walk home together. We vowed to never take a taxi. The walk wasn’t long enough for a taxi ride, and it gave us an opportunity to talk. I barely got to see her those days. She would be at work by the time I was heading out to school and would go to sleep immediately after she arrived home. There was one day we took a taxi home. After her work, we dropped by the local dollar store. Our feet were worn out, especially hers. As I sat in the taxi, I opened by book bag and reached out for my walkman. As I opened it to insert The Chilli Peppers’ greatest hits, my mother put her hand on the back of my neck and said words I’ll never forget: “It’s a shame…”, she sighed, “that we’ve got nothing to talk about.” Never again did I waste on an opportunity to talk to her.
What I didn’t notice was that the long hours and my mother’s exhaustion began destroying her marriage. While at the restaurant, I would get my homework done so by the time I got home, all I had to do was read for pleasure. I couldn’t read during school, the book, Atlas Shrugged, was too big to carry around. I would lock myself up and read. That’s why I didn’t notice the constant arguments my parents had, until my father arrived later than usual one night. There were bruises on his face and cuts on his arms. His words slurred out of his mouth and his bloodshot eyes gave away the type of beverages he had been shuffling through for the past few hours. This was my father at his worst. And even if this sounds overdramatic, it was as if his soul had leapt out of his body. What was left of a person is what slurred horrible words and crashed into the light green walls of the living room. My mother, nimbly ,rushed towards him and held her hands out for his fall. He fell straight onto her arms, almost making her fall. I quickly ran towards them and accommodated myself under his arm as we carried him into the bedroom. That night, my mother didn’t sleep. I’m a light sleeper. Any sound, even if it’s a mouse’s crawl, will wake me up. That night, my mother’s almost-silent sobs woke me. I rolled myself onto the right and out of my bed and peeked out of the small opening from the door. There she was, almost silent, sitting on the red brown loveseat. Her face buried into the palm of her hands. She lifted her face up and I could see lose hair strands sticking onto her teary face. All her strong physical features were gone, for those 5 minutes that I watched her cry. She was an average size woman with jet black hair and yellow eyes. To me, her jet black hair was her strongest feature. People said she had incredible eyes but to me, it was her hair. Her rich yellow eyes lost its glow that night.
It was on a Tuesday when my mom handed me the 12$ she had earned as tip since Monday. She had heard me rambling about Jimmy Eat World’s brand new record, Clarity. My family had a long line of musicians. My grandfather had been a doctor/violinist. His brother had been an orchestra director and his son, a pianist. The record store was about ten blocks away from where we were, and fifteen from home. As always, I decided to walk there. I pushed open the glass door, and the silver trinket sounded over the door. When I look for a new record, I don’t go to “New Releases.” I head over to the alphabetically listed records. I think that when I look hard enough, I might just find something I like. I ran through the Hs and Is and finally came to the Js. Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity was at the front of Jimmy Eat World’s bin. I ran my fingers through the plastic and turned over the CD to look at the track listing. I heard someone shuffling through cases on my left. From the corner of my eye I saw a girl of about 5’6, long skinny legs covered in slightly baggy cords. Worn out black Chucks and over-sized (slightly) grey v-neck sleeveless t-shirt with Led Zeppelin’s angel printed on it. Her sandy blonde haired fell gracefully on her shoulders. “Looking for this?”, I pointed at the Clarity CD. Startled, she looked over. “No, actually. I was looking for Radiohead but Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing Shocking caught my eye.” It seemed as if she lingered on her thoughts and words. “But is that one any good?”, She motioned her head towards Clarity. “Well, the previous one was good but considering what you’re looking for you’re better of spending your money on Radiohead or Jane’s Addiction. Nothing Shocking happens to be on my list of CDs I would have if I were ever stranded on an island.” I smiled. I had my fairshare of friends: Tommy, Liam and Taylor. I didn’t really like the girls at my school, they seemed to be worried about things they shouldn’t be. Like what to wear to school or if anyone noticed what brand shirt I was using. But, most of the time, I was to immersed in my own world to be overly attentive of friends and girls. Tom would often accompany me to the Italian restaurant, while Liam and I usually walked to school. I had Taylor in a couple of classes. He happened to share my thoughts on a lot of the teachers and kids in our class. She chuckled at my comment. “I think I’ve gotta make on of those for myself.”, she said as she grabbed the Jane’s Addiction record. “Anyway, I’ve gotta be someplace else.” I had ran out of things to say. “The name’s Jack, by the way.” She stretched out her hand at me. “Layla.” The name fit perfectly, I thought. “Nice to meet you, Layla.” I began to make my way out of the aisle. “I’ll be seein’ you.” I turned around and headed out to the counter. And in fact, it wouldn’t be long until I saw her again.
