Dyna-Mike

2.

"Check it out, dudes!" the voice said, as laughter rolled around me. I opened my eyes, a bit confused, trying to figure out where I was. Leaves overhead were moving in the chilled morning breeze, and I was lying on the ground shivering. Half-crushed beer cans clinked as I moved my legs and struggled to stand. As I rose, I stumbled into the surrounding branches in a failed attempt to steady myself. A piece of wayward fabric detached from the branch and hung on my left ear. I saw I had returned to the bushes behind the town library. There was a group of teenage boys and girls all looking at me, laughing as I removed what turned out to be the small pair of flowered panties hanging from my ear, apparently lodged there when I had fallen into the wayward branch.

"Dude, they go on your butt, not your face," one of the smart-alec boys quipped as the girls laughed together with him.

"Not my style…" I muttered, tossing them to the ground. I walked towards the entrance of the clearing.

"See you later, girlie-man," the annoying boy called out as I turned towards the school. There was a light 'thump' as a cigarette butt hit me in the back of the head, followed by more giggles from the fan club.

"Yeah, whatever," I groaned, pulling my jacket tighter as the cold air began to penetrate.

The remaining three blocks to school was a slow, arduous event. My mind was reeling, trying to comprehend what had happened. Reality was confusing, and I walked in a stupor, trying to make sense of the morning's experience. I was cold, disoriented, and moving like a malfunctioning robot when a loud, sudden blast caused my heart to freeze and my eyes to fly open widely.

"Watch where you're going, stupid!" screamed the driver over the thumping of his overpriced car sound system. He hit the horn and screeched around me, narrowly missing my body by inches. As my adrenaline began to settle, he threw his arm out the window and thrust his middle finger towards me. "Jerk!" he shouted just before he careened around the corner out of sight.

"Right, thanks," I said, and continued on my way.

Fairmont High School was, well, unusual. It had started as a big dream for our small town, and the City Council and Mayor had made flowery announcements and long speeches about the new state of the art facility for the town's constituents. Unfortunately, when it came time to pay for all the wonderful features, there was no money to be found. So what we students eventually wound up with was a brand spanking new administrative office building, surrounded by cheap trailers and portable classrooms, all with poor heat and no air conditioning. Kids used to get in trouble on purpose in the summer just so they could be sent to the office where the temperature was bearable. The teachers were so exhausted they really didn't care any more. By the time July rolled around, the lack of windows became a real problem, particularly after a PE class when the sweat flowed freely and the body odor was weapons-grade quality. It really didn't matter all that much, because half the student body arrived stoned out of their minds in the morning, and frequent visits to the vans in the school parking lot replenished their levels of intoxicants throughout the day. I discovered early on that the Technical Equipment room was air conditioned, so I joined the geeks and nerds in the Audio-Visual club right away. I was always cutting out of class to go to the equipment room, and would stay there as long as possible during the heat of the day. Since geeks and nerds weren't really popular with the girls, I discovered the Audio-Visual Club had a massive treasury of risqué men's magazines hidden in an equipment cupboard in the back of the room. Some of the photos were artistic, some were graphic and medically accurate, but it certainly explained why you never saw nerds on the schoolyards during lunches or recesses. They were all huddled around the latest issue of Playboy in the equipment room.

Oftentimes the summer heat was so oppressive the teachers would schedule movies every day, just so they could sit down and rest in a dark classroom rather than teach. This meant I, as the official "AV Guy" would go check out the movie and equipment, and roll the squeaky cart to the classroom. After fumbling for a while, I finally managed to get the films threaded properly, and the lights would go out, and the movies would begin. More often than not, the quality of the films was so bad you couldn't understand the audio track at all.

"Ttthhhiisss iiiiissssss thhhheee ppllaaaaattaappuusss sssss ssssssss…." The narrator's voice would quiver as the film hung on a worn gear. The class would start throwing trash and pencils at my head at this point. Then the film would jam, and we would all watch the screen as the picture froze, went dark, and then started to melt as the hot projector bulb burned right through the frame.

"You loser," came the onslaught of supportive comments from my loyal classmates. It was moments like these that made high school so memorable to me. Many were the times I had to remind myself that it wouldn't be long before these antagonists would get out of high school and advance to the local correctional institution.

But it was winter this particular morning, not summer, and I had a different set of problems. As I arrived at my first class, Algebra, with Mr. Bessler, I was informed we were going to view "Reefer Madness", and old anti-marijuana film created by the United States army back in the 1950's. This was always a high point in my day (no pun intended), because the movie projectors squeaked so loudly in the winter it sounded like a thousand cats screeching their claws on a chalkboard. I went to the Audio-Visual equipment room, and unlocked the door with my pass key. As I opened the door, there was a great commotion as the resident geeks and nerds scrambled to hide the girlie magazines from the new intruder.

"Oh, it's only Weatherspoon," they grumbled, and went back to their drooling. I got a projector cart, and pulled the appropriate film from inventory. I started back to the classroom, and had made it about halfway when a wheel fell off the cart.

"Great," I muttered, and bent down to try to reinsert the wheel shaft into the cart leg. As I fumbled about in the cold morning air, I heard a ripping sound, and then felt a blast of frigid wind in my crotch. I looked between my legs to confirm my dreaded suspicion. Yep, my pants had ripped. There was a ten-inch tear from the front to the back of my seam, and my Fruit of the Looms were on full display to God and country. Naturally this wasn't a clean tear, no, of course not; there was a flap of fabric hanging down to my knees, ensuring all passers-by would view me in all my splendor.

"Samual, what's taking you so long? The class is getting restless waiting. Are you……….what in the world are you doing?" As Mr. Bessler approached me, I moved behind the cart in a feeble attempt to hide my embarrassment. He walked around, and I countered his moves so the equipment was always between us. "Will you stop that?" he barked. I halted. His eyes focused on my little problem. His encouragement was as sensitive as I expected. "Great! Now I supposed you'll be late with the film. Why can't you be more careful?"

"Sorry," I mumbled. "Can I go home and change?"

"Why not? Why not take the whole day off? Shoot, why not just take a vacation? Just go ahead and leave me this mess to deal with…" came his reply.

"Okay, thanks," I quipped, and ran off quickly as I could with the swath of fabric flapping between my legs. I made sure I was humming to myself so I couldn't hear the shouting emanating from Mr. Bessler's proximity. All I cared about was putting as much distance as possible between the school and me before someone else saw my predicament.

I approached the end of the administration building, which was the last structure between freedom and me. I turned the corner, thinking I was home free, and stumbled directly into the center of the entire girl's track team running laps around the school perimeter. Squeals of laughter sprung up from the girls in front, and gradually spread to the rear of the group, growing in volume.

"Ohmigod", "Gross", "Gag me with a spoon", "Total loser", "Icky", and other exclamations filled the air. Pretty soon the whole student body was peering out of classroom doors and windows to see what the girls were snickering at, and as they realized what was going on, the entire property began to shake with roars, whistles, catcalls and comments. The principal came out to see what all the commotion was, and that made my glory complete. I dropped all attempts at humility, walked proudly to the middle of the street, turned to face the crowd, and bowed low to one and all.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone…" I proclaimed loudly, as I turned and walked away, occasionally tripping on the offending piece of cloth that by now hung to the ground, exposing my entire rear end and right leg. The sounds of the crowd carried on for a while, and eventually faded into the distance. I continued on my way, no longer concerned with propriety, just hoping I had some clean pants waiting at home when I arrived.

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