The August heat in Texas swelters to the simmering sun's cry. I was back at Keller High School, and I don't think the staff was quite prepared for the antics I had in store for them that year. Jincos were the jeans to be seen wearing, pagers were more prevalent than cell phones, and LSD was more popular than Ectasy is now, at least in this monkey's part of town. I had that old 85' Toyota Celica back in my possession, my vehicle which I handled usually somewhat intoxicated, and it had a sun-roof to facilitate efficient ventilation that might clear out any smells that could land my ass in jail. Again I was getting away with so much madness, but this would all eventually get me caught up, over and over again. Most of my crimes were petty offenses, like "Missy Misdemeanor' (the name Missy Elliot original went by), except I wasn't a chic, but I was gangsta', not really but I thought I was a quite the badass. I was a little monkey heathen. This story reveals a picture of day one of my junior year in high school back in 1998. This day was also day one of my brother, Aaron's freshman year, and he was about to experience high school the 'badass' way, like his big brother. I was up freshly showered, clean and ready with more than an hour to spare before that initial morning bell rang at 7:30 a.m. This glorious scheduled ringing sounded all over America signifying that all us little teenage monkeys needed to hurry and usher into class.
"Aaaarrrooon lets get going! If you want a ride with me you need to come on!" I belted out my demands over the noise of the shower.
"I am almost done dude, what the hell is your problem? We got way enough time," Aaron replied in confusion, but he was smart and figured it out quick,"so I guess you got plans before school starts, huh?"
"Just hurry yea we are going to stop at Eddie's, meeting up with my boys, you should feel special I'm even letting you come." I was such a dick head to my lil' bros but they knew how to engage with verbal jabs right back at me.
"Man Isaac you are such a jackass, Im gettin out right now."
"Okay I hope you got your best blouse ready for school princess...... Lets go, come on shit-terd!"
I walked outside of my house and looked up at the grey smattered sky, a humid clad dawn available for me to stare into its abyss, to wonder how good I could get myself feeling this early in the morning. I had to be in stoned mode without drawing to much attention to myself in school. In that fashion and many other ways I am a walking contradiction, I love attention and yet I always wanted to fly underneath authority's punishing radar. I was a nonsensical dope maniac. My dad came outside and asked me why we were leaving so early for school. I told him that we were going to get Mc Donalds before school, and he didn't inqiure any further. If only he knew what went on when I left for school, and how much school I actually attended. He would find out off and on that I had been skipping school plenty. Aaron sauntered out and hopped into my car. We were off and Aaron's expression signified that he realized that I had something adventerous planned but he wasn't exactly sure. I drove quick and proud, cut through some back roads and came up where Florence Rd. tees at Ottinger, I hopped out and ran behind a road sign that marked where I had stashed the remnants of an 18 pack of Budweiser.
"What? So you are going to drink beer at 630 in the morning Isaac.... really?" Aaron didn't seemed to understand.
"Yea this is how I wake up man, so I was only half lying to Dad, this is my Mc Donalds," I cracked open a warm beer and downed it, then cracked another one. I had to drink them quick because of my time constraints. "Lets go smoke some weed!" I cackled like just another dumb teenage stoner on a mission, and with the beer in hand and the gear shift in another, my knee restraining the steering wheel as not to veer off course from my destination. I charged the gas pedal with my foot and we were off.
I made it past all the areas of Keller I could have been spotted by the local cops and as we pulled into Eddies's neighborhood I was ready, but was Aaron? I really didn't intend for him to participate, I only really cared about how much weed I could smoke, so selfishly if he part-took the it simply meant in my fiendish head, less for me. However, all of my peers in high school seemed top display the stereotypical attitudes of young party animals. We parked amongst five recognizable as being my friend's rides, I grinned at Aaron as we hopped out like a smart-ass. "Don't let them pressure you into anything you wouldn't normally do Aaron," I tried to warn him, but as I was saying my friends were some peer-pressuring jack asses. It was on!... as soon as we tramped thru Eddie's house, opened the back patio's sliding door, and the scene swamped my emotions to break into a pothead antics.
"Whats up myyyyy niiggggaaasss!"
"Whatsup Burnes.... Its Burney Snow and little Burns is with him, what up Aaron!" Eddie welcomed us, and there was the collective close bunch of my friends that I mainly drank, smoked weed, tripped acid, and skipped much school with in order to divulge in these activities in some balanced time. In a mangled circle next to Eddie going clockwise was Daniel, Toni, Tyler, and Jeremy. A macgyver styled j-funky-rigged up as a make shift steam roller pipe was passed to me and then I returned it to Eddie completeing one round of a grand marijuana passage.
"Hey Aaron you got to hit this dude!" he said and everyone convincingly added, "Yea bro don't be a pussy," yelped the chorus of red-eye-ripped to the hilt monkeys that chimed there song and dance of peer pressure, and so Aaron got high with us. He already pretty popular amongst the peers in his own class, so now he could brag about chillin' with some upper class-men. Later on he informed me he got so dizzy in his first peiod class that he had to excuse himself, so the first day for him in high school he had to spend laying down for awhile in the bathroom in order to collect himself, after throwing up. It seemed funny then but I now feel a bit guilty, but it happened and he turned out to be very spiritually sound regardless of that negative influence that my friends and I might have been guilty of. I went to school for some of that first day, really after that first week it was a struggle to go at all. Can you believe I was once the kid with perfect attendance all throughout my school career up all the way through junior high. I guess I just couldn't do it anymore, I couldn't be that 'above and beyond' perfectionist anymore that once had defined me. The less school I attended the more drugs I could ingest, that was the perfect balance I believed I could achieve as a teenage monkey. I know it makes no sense when you think of an objective definition of a balanced life, but in my own subjectively un-clear state of reality I had figured something chemically heroic out. How long could I run with these drugs?... a long time, too fucking long, but I really had to learn this shit myself. I am still and then really was an unruly stubborn.... an ultra stubborn, I mean I was a bowling ball hard-headed little punk, and so in this character I truly had to live and learn everything myself. I could of listened to others advice very simply. Those warnings about the destructive path I was venturing down were all coming alive one at at time, but if I hadn't experienced this 'Hell' personally I wouldn't have been so desperate years later to yearn for God and the ultimate reason He has me here. I now believe I have a real purpose today in the grand scheme of all of these things, as crazy as they were then, they're much crazier in a joyful manner today, all because of Jesus' love.
