Headache (Eleven - an incident with a bully)

The time? A lovely spring day in south Louisiana…sun shining, crepe myrtles in riotous pink bloom, cotton candy clouds cruising past.

The place? A high school quad…a grassy rectangle where the B-lunch crowd mingled, gossiped, and sprawled in the sun like lizards. Red brick walls provided shade, and small raised nooks gave a secret place for smokers to gather, their black-dyed hair, Metallica shirts, and leather jackets unseemly for the cheerful day. The grunge kids frolicked near the stairwell by the arts class, unaware that their idol was merely weeks away from taking his own life. In the center, just in front of the cafeteria doors, is a flagpole set into a concrete base, and this is where our story begins…

A young girl (let’s call her Angie…what the hell…) who is normally fully ensconced in the typical teenage chitchat and friendly flirting is off by herself today. She had a headache. No big deal, really. Just needed a break from the noise. So she moved away from the group to sit at the base of the flagpole and take five. She closed her eyes and tilted her head up to the blazing sun, which at first kind of scraped at her brain like a cheese grater, but then started to feel good. Kind of like a massage hurts at first, but then there’s that “ahhhhhhh.” You know. The hot concrete and metal warmed her from the inside, and the earthy breeze blowing in from the Mississippi River filled her lungs with warmth. The headache was beginning to subside.

She nestled into her fuzzy sweater and scraped the soles of her worn-out Chucks on the sidewalk to accompany the chorus of “Friday, I’m in Love” that was playing in her head.

A shadow crossed over her.

“What’s wrong with you?”

She looked up at the intruder, squinting. “What?”

A toe nudged hers. “What’s wrong with you?”

Ugh. David Hamback. (Seriously. That was this kid’s name. He’d been a zit in their school for years.) “I. Have. A. Headache. That’s. Why. I’m. AWAY.”

“Oooohhhh…” (The Neanderthal’s eyes lit up.) “Your head hurts?”

Boy. A genius! “Yes. That’s generally what a headache means.”

“You know what else hurts?” (Is this a trick question?)

“What?”

“This.” With that, his meaty hand snarled in her hair, right at the nape of her neck, and he yanked a handful of red curls.

She leapt from her perch, incredulous, too stunned to say anything.

And then it happened. The whole slow-pan, muted voices, blurry faces, jaws dropping, cheesy movie scene…thing. Angie reared back an arm and swung. The little, balled fist connected with his fleshy jaw with a thud. Then both just stared. Four things then happened simultaneously. One – the laughter began, of course. Two – he shook his head like a dog after a bath, but with a much funnier expression (shock and humiliation, maybe?). Three – Mr. Garrison, the extremely intimidating school disciplinarian, left his perch on the steps and walked toward her with a look of purpose. Four – Angie burst into hysterical tears.

Mr. Garrison strode to where she was standing, still crying, and took her by the arm. “Come on, Miss Smoorenburg.”

She glanced at her friends. Chad and Van were giving thumbs-ups, Cassie was grinning ear-to-ear, and Stephen and Chris offered to take her to dinner. Angie turned and faced doom in the form of a six-foot-four, shiny-headed black man who was built like a tank. Head hung, defeated, still snuffling, she followed him to his office.

They sat in the cool cinderblock room on opposite sides of his desk. He glared down, like an angry Buddha, elbows on the desk and fists under his chin so only his eyes looked across at her. Angie let out a pathetic squeak as she tried to explain herself. “Mr. Gar-“

“Stop.” He held out a paw the size of a baseball mitt. “Just stop right there.” Oh, God. This is going to suck so bad… “You still hungry?”

What? “What?”

“You still hungry?”

“Um. Not really?”

“I saw what that boy did. He been axin’ for that for a long time. You alright, honey.”

ohmygodohmygodohmygod

“I’m…not in trouble?”

“Take a few minutes, calm down, and you can go back to class. I’m going to get some coffee.”

Angie saw his shoulders shaking with laughter as he left the office, leaving her to wonder what exactly inspired his mercy. Was it the damsel-in-distress factor? Was it that she was obviously upset about the whole thing? Or did the grownups in charge secretly enjoy seeing the school buttheads get taken down a notch? She never asked, but each time she saw him after that, he gave her a wink and a smile.