Loaded: A Blessing in Tragedy

[REWIND]
Remember a few years ago, when there were those school-shootings in Virginia? The ink was still drying on the newsprint when my chemistry teacher brought up the story, which he had heard the night before on the local news. He called me out in front of the class, looked me in the eye, and said I was no better than the kids who shot everyone. A year or two later, I graduated from Capital High School. The principal had her eyes fixed on mine; her facial expression was something like a wife would give to her husband’s mistress before a cat-fight. I don’t think she approved of the tutu and lingerie I wore beneath my unfastened graduation gown. Or of the accurate and unflattering description of herself I had provided a few months prior, inches from her face, my shouting voice echoing in the hall. I myself approved of very little during those years.

I’ve learned to become more tolerant of many things recently, including monogamy, drug free lifestyles, and community college. But just because I am accepting toward these things, doesn’t mean that they’re for me. Quite to the contrary, I am now at St. John’s College, where I have yet to be afflicted with any of the aforementioned symptoms. I only needed a G.E.D to get in here. Why the hell did I graduate instead? Honestly, I didn’t really want to at first. I just wanted to drop out and go straight to St. John’s. The only, or maybe just the main, reason I didn’t was for my family. Both of my sisters got pregnant at an early age, and both my brothers got criminal records before they were even old enough to buy their own porn. None of my siblings graduated high school. I, being the youngest, bore this burden. Admittedly, it was voluntary, but it’s always nice to have family as a scapegoat since it didn’t exactly go as planned. My parents went year after year to registration, where they smiled as I posed for a school I.D that felt more like a mugshot, where they good-naturedly murmured about the lab fees and activity expenses, where we all signed paperwork and bitched about the system. There was no way for them to know that it would lead to their kid falling into drugs, gang activity, attempted suicide, and all that other bullshit that after-school specials want to twist your panties over. It’s ok. I didn’t know that stuff would happen either.

Despite my shortcomings, my family constantly encouraged me, gave praise for things they call “talents” that I still don’t believe in, let alone understand. Somehow it got into my head, and I was under the mistaken impression that I’m smart, a notion that I disprove on a daily basis. In retrospect, I realize that being literate sets my I.Q above a large percentage of New Mexico’s population. But during high-school, I mistook the ability to read and write for unrecognized genius, and became a martyr. The fact that I’m a Metalhead didn’t really help matters. Being a headbanger and the proud owner of a cerebellum just might qualify me as an anatomical anomaly.  There are very few edumacated Metalheads in this proximity. Sometimes we meet in arroyos to get smashed, all three of us. And I’m not even as articulate as I pretend to be.  I don’t think I’d ever get an essay done without the built-in thesaurus thing on Microsoft word. I used it the other day to find a synonym for shenanigans. By far the most hilarious was monkeyshines. But in spite of all my stoopid monkeyshines, I have yet to bring a gun to school.  Take that, chemistry bitch. I’m in college, and that’s my priority. Not  money, not family, not relationships. The only thing rivaling my studies is Metal, which in all fairness, laid claim to my fate way before St. John’s did. There’s certain people who bitch about my music, say it’s noise pollution, immature, unintelligible. There’s other people who bitch about school, that mine in particular is too expensive and I should prioritize money over education. I’ve noticed that both groups of people tend to be overweight and have probably spent more money on nicotine than on their own education, so I could care less what they think or say. Or rather, I wish I didn’t care. I obviously gave it enough thought as to write it down. But don’t worry, folks. The ability to write is just a blessing in disguise.

[PAUSE]

Hammers are great. You can philosophize with them, like Nietzsche. You can make them march, like Pink Floyd. You can pull them back as you bite the barrel between your teeth, like I do. It’s no mistake that metal tastes like blood.