a revised version of the story i recently posted. this time written from billy’s perspective, and not a narrative one, i think it get across the feeling better.
My name is Billy, and I am high school student, a sophomore to be exact. I attended a secondary school with grades from seventh up to seniors. Now this is a problem I think. Going from sixth grade to seventh grade was an accomplishment. You changed schools. And you are supposed to graduate from ninth grade into high school, not just continue in the same school with the same teachers. Everything was not meant to be the same. High school was supposed to be a right of passage; one shouldn’t have to be around junior high school kids anymore.
This was driving me over the edge. To start, I grew up in a broken home. My mother left when I was little leaving my father to attend to me and my three sisters. My mother was what one would call a tramp. Let me correct that, she was a swinger. A swinger who just plain liked to fuck. She didn’t care about the actual swinging part, you know changing partners. She just wanted a taste of everyone.
My father was no saint himself. He had a hardy crack habit, a small coke addiction, and a drinking problem. He also liked to smoke it up on football nights. He was also notorious for being caught with hookers. Needless to say, me and my three sisters grew up to be very fucked up kids. My eldest sister died in a drunken car crash when I was 12, she was 17. Another moved to New York at 16 when I was 11. And the last sister was in juvenile detention hall for attempted robbery at age 16.
I was the best of the four kids I thought, I never got in trouble. I just kept to himself, collected weaponry for a hobby and read comic books. In my spare time I would steal my dad’s drugs and flush them, after I cut myself a little. I hated my father for doing them, but couldn’t help but love to do them myself. One can only watch it so much before they must attempt it.
My favorite drug of choice was cocaine. I liked the idea of sniffing things, and using a razor blade to cut lines was always fun. After I would cut a few lines, I liked to slice a new line on my arm for each line I did. It was like a trophy mantel. The slashes on my arm where done the same way a prisoner marks his days on the prison cell walls. Currently I had about 42 slashes down the back of my left arm, starting at my shoulder. My goal was to move to my right arm before I was 18 years old.
In school I got good grades in all subjects. Intelligence just came natural. Reading a chapter of a text book took less then 2 minutes. Math was a breeze, way ahead of kids my age doing collage level math. The only thing that kept me going in school was my dream of one day becoming a teacher. Deep down I knew this would never happen because I wont live to see 30. I know by then the drugs would take over and my life would be over, only a shell would remain fending for hits, like my old man.
With all my intelligence I knew drugs where not good for my mind, but they where his only escape from the hell of my life outside school. In school life was hell as well for me. Being the smart kid that was to poor to have nice clothes is never a good thing. Its not that I would get picked on, it’s just that I would get ignored. I had no circle of friends like to kids at Columbine High School that went on a shooting rampage. There where six of them, there was only one of me. The only friend I had was the comic books he read. Living my life through the worlds of Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. As you can tell, I read a wide variety. For regular literature I stuck with authors I thought where visionaries. Authors such as Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Alan Moore. As you can tell, there is strict British theme to the type of books I read. i didn’t really plan it that way, it was just that American authors had nothing interesting for me to read. At least not any American Authors I had found. Then again, I hadn’t put a lot of effort into searching for one, since I was not a large fan of Americanism.
For music I liked to listen to techno/beat music as I liked to call it. Being able to play mp3’s of my computer at random and have it be one continuous rave party in my room. The beats helped me to think. Helped me to come up with stories I would write about the destruction of the Earth, about the deaths of people at school, or famous people. My favorite story I had written was about the Columbine boys. I decided wrote it as a 1960’s super hero comic book, even drew it accordingly.
I do not agree with the reasons why the boys went on a rampage, but I do agree with the school shootings in general. I just wished they where more specific on their targets, and not just ‘jocks.’ So what the jocks didn’t like them. Did they really want to be in that crowd? They had no friends? How many of them where there? I didn’t have that many friend’s or any, I only had myself. And I wasn’t about to go on a shooting rampage to kill people who didn’t like me.
This got me thinking. There should be a pamphlet describing the benefits of a school shooting, if conducted properly. I spent three weeks researching medieval laws, recent laws, all laws I could find on public execution. On mental patients, the rules and regulations regarding them. The level of metal retardation person could have before they where of no use to society.
Week four I started writing this pamphlet. Calling it ‘The Benefits of School Shootings’ with a sub-title of ‘How weeding out the incompetent can make education better.’
Week five, I printed 500 copies of the pamphlet and decided to set them in various places around the school for people to pick up and read. I put my name on it since I was not ashamed of what I had written; in fact I was rather proud of it.
The initial reaction to the pamphlet was one of expelling me from school. This of course came from the ignorant people who did not read the pamphlet, just read the title.
You see, inside the pamphlet was reason to have stronger testing in school. If a student is failing a class, they should be reprimanded. There was no excuse to fail a normal high school level class. There should be three main levels for each class. If people couldn’t make it in the normal level, they would drop down to the first level. If they couldn’t make it there, they would be kicked out of the high school and sent to a labor/trade school since education was obviously not doing them any good. If the normal level was too easy for you, you would be bumped up to a higher level class so that you would be challenged accordingly. And in return if you failed a quarter in the upper class, you would drop back to the normal class.
I felt that if this sort of class structure was implemented, with more emphasis on education, and less of outside activities of any sorts that are non educational, would result lessen need for school shootings. If everyone was challenged accordingly to their intelligence, they would not need to pick on the other kids. The smart kids would not be bothered by the ‘jocks’, because for the most part they would not be in the same level as them. And the smart jocks wouldn’t pick on them anyways. Since the only reason a person with intelligence would pick on some is because they are coerced into it by someone else. Peer pressure is a bitch.
The few people who took the time to read it all the way through, read all of his points, and facts about my plan agreed with me. For they where facts, and my points where valid. A system such as this would really impact the educational system, and in turn make education more important then sports, or outside activities.
The plan did not call for the elimination of outside activities such as sports or FBLA, but stated that the importance should be placed about 80% on school work, and only 20% on the others.
The faculty did not take the time to read the pamphlet. They immediately expelled me from school for writing about the positives of school shootings. They deemed this a subject not to be discussed in school. I thought about that. Where else should you talk about it? It is pertinent to a school environment to understand all elements of it.
My fucking father figured it about time I was to get kicked out of school. Of course, he didn’t care, but felt obligated to give me a few lashings for it anyways.
The night after my expulsion, and after my beating from his oh so loving father, I decided that I would move on. I packed up what was important to me. Two pairs of underwear, an extra shirt and pair of socks. My copy of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ by Neil Gaiman. A pad of paper, and a pen. Put all of this into my black Jansport backpack, and started walking away from town at around 2:30 A.M.
I wasn’t sure where I was going, I figured I would walk until I was comfortable somewhere. On my way out of the town, I dropped a copy of the pamphlet into the mail box of a teacher that had been absent that day at school and did not get a chance to read it since he was on two week holiday. In the envelope I added a note telling him what had happened, and that I would send him a letter when I finally decided to stop walking. And to please not tell my father, or anyone that he had any idea where I was going, or where I was when I contacted him.
My hell was just about to be over. I had gotten out something I was passionate about, and now had left my wretched family to finally be on my own in search of happiness.
