“I am above consequences and my potential is limitless. Just imagine what I will accomplish….”
The school lunch trays are made of the same material as bowling balls. I haven’t gotten around to proving or disproving that, but I suspect I’m right. I’m right about most things, as far as I’m concerned.
I snapped the ancient dissection tools back into their holders in the faded teal plastic box and closed it up. The smell in Mr. Thatcher’s classroom was atrocious and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I don’t know if dead frogs can go bad or are just bad from the start, but the mixture of formaldehyde and amphibian flesh is not the greatest of all smells. I don’t care one way or the other, but I haven’t learned one thing in eighth-grade science class. Not even one. We were supposed to find and remove different parts of the frog based on slides that Mr. Thatcher showed on the off-white cinderblock wall. The projector's light wasn’t strong enough to overpower the hundreds of shadows thrown by the texture of the wall so it wasn’t easy to see what was going on or what we were supposed to be looking for. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I slashed with the dull scalpel, picked with the misaligned and bent-tipped tweezers, and made a pile of dead frog stuff on the small paper tray that was more likely manufactured with the intent of holding French fries instead of frog parts.
The halls of Hayes Middle School filled at the bell and I got into the stream of movement that was headed for the cafeteria. The pink mimeographed flyer taped to the wall beside the door listed today’s meal as Tuesday Surprise. The Tuesday part of the Tuesday Surprise referred to mashed potatoes dropped onto the tray with an ice cream scooper. This was the constant. The Surprise part of the equation referred to a “meat” and gravy that was either dark brown or light gray. The texture and flavor of the meat were the same whether or not it was trying to impersonate beef or chicken. There was a side of canned vegetables, either corn or peas and a roll that you could date using a scale from soft to hard and usually leaned toward the hard end of things. And always that smell. You’d think that a kitchen would be pumping out smells of delicious food cooking. But this more resembled a faint burnt plastic mixed with the ass of a hyena. It was a smell that did not make you hungry.
I was nervous about buying two lunches. But no one said anything about it. I should have known. We’re all invisible, even to the dumb lunch ladies wearing their stupid shower caps. I’d never once given a thought to the existence of the lunch ladies, where they came from, what their lives were like, or what their hopes and dreams might have been. It felt okay for me to not think of them at all. But for them not to see me was a fact I could not abide. I placed my dual trays at my usual table with my usual crew already sitting there. I took a moment to wonder at the reality of my arriving at this Table of the Cool Kids in the first place. It was a long road to get here.
Back in fifth grade, I started to notice the patterns. Popularity had never really occurred to me before that. But I began to see that some of the kids were treated differently (better) than I was treated. At first, I didn’t know why. Over months of scrutiny, it started to become clear. First, there were looks. The prettier girls and the cuter guys rose in status because of it. That one wasn’t hard to figure out. When sixth grade started, coolness was the next category I discovered that seemed to make a difference. But defining coolness is a tough thing. In a rural Connecticut town in the very early 1980s, cool had something to do with feathered hair, a comb in your back pocket, and a Members Only or a denim jacket and parachute pants for the guys. The skill of amusing belittlement appeared to be a skill I would need. An attitude of superiority and meanness seemed important. By the end of the first month, it was easy to see who the coolest guy in sixth grade was. It was Brian Stewart. His hair was black and feathered perfectly. He wore a tee shirt with a patterned button down over it, but the buttons went unused. And he rolled up his sleeves in a way that was so perfect. I could not figure out how he did it. He had the comb and he also had a gold chain. He looked just like Chachi from Happy Days, who at this point in time was even cooler than the almighty Fonz himself.
My public elementary school was some kind of strange experimental attempt at something new. There were open classrooms with no walls. And the curriculum was structured in an odd way - where you didn’t just sit in front of the teacher all day. You had “Centers.” So the teacher would say some stuff, and then you’d spend the day going to each Center for each subject and completing whatever work was there. If you finished everything and the day was still going - you had some leeway to do what you wanted. My two friends and I would always finish very early and we’d sit in the Media Center (too experimental for a library) and look for naked ladies in National Geographic or we’d draw logos for our imaginary rock band or we would talk about whatever fifth-grade nerds talk about. The point is, I was not cool. And I was sick of it. Over that summer, I decided that Middle School was going to be different. And Brian Stewart was my ticket to ride.
It’s not easy to change your status and class. First, you have to jettison your actual friends. You’ve seen the movies. Everyone knows that. No problem. Done. Then you have to align yourself with those who have the status and class you want. That’s tougher to accomplish, but I had an innate sense of how to go about it. First, I tried out for the basketball team because I’d heard that Brian was. I loathed sports of any kind. Brian was a natural athlete and had real skills. I was just good enough to make the team and that was good enough for me. I took part in the Friday school-sponsored bus rides to the roller rink because Brian did. I could have done without that, but there was one girl who would always do the slow skates with me when Babe by Styx came over the sound system. I also did the long school-sponsored bus rides to Mohawk Mountain to ski because Brian did. All of this created opportunities for me to start worming my way in. I’d make sure I was sitting in the seat across from Brian when I could. And we’d just naturally start talking. Something I always knew without having to learn is that everyone’s favorite person is themself. I also knew that people need to feel understood. So, if you can bear listening to someone talk about themselves for an hour-long bus ride to Mohawk Mountain, you are halfway there. The other thing I knew instinctively is that if I tried to get my hair to look like Brian’s, if I could wear the same sort of clothes, if I could roll up my sleeves the same way— he wouldn’t be looking at me. He would be looking at himself. And like I said, everyone’s favorite person is themself. I learned much later that this is akin to a psychological technique called mirroring. I was so ahead of my time I can’t stand it.
It all worked flawlessly. Within a few months, Brian and I were best friends. His friends became my friends. Eventually, we were equals. I was just as cool as he was. I had everything I’d wanted. Except I thought— am I even cooler than Brian now? There was no doubt in my mind. I was.
So when I put my two lunch trays on the table, everyone looked up at me and nodded and smiled the way they always did. I made a dumb joke about how hungry I was to cover the two trays and everyone laughed. There’s something that infects you when you become the cool kid. You want more. You want to test it.
I tripped Freddy Siler when he walked by. He was a tubby kid who had to go to special classes and he was an easy and constant target. Everyone laughed. When Max Harris walked by we all threw pennies at him and laughed which was a tradition I had started. Max was Jewish and someone had told me that Jewish people were cheap. A weaker kid would feel guilt or shame at these endeavors. I am not weak. Don’t forget, belittling and meanness were part of the recipe. I didn’t make the rules. I’d even do things to the friends gathered at my lunch table to put them down once in a while. Again, it was this innate knowledge I had that to keep my friends on their toes, to give them constant small indications that I was above them in some way, and to let them know that I could do these things and get away with it— these were important facets of my campaign.
And today would be another test of my rising power. If I could pull this off, who knows what would be next? I grabbed a pile of mashed potatoes with my right hand and simultaneously launched it across the room while yelling FOOD FIGHT! Time switched to super slow motion. All of the air left the room. I knew this moment would be thrilling. There was silence. The pressure changed. I’d pulled the trigger and all that was left was to wait to see if the gun would fire and if the bullet would come out of the barrel. Off to the side and out of focus was a lunch lady. The shortest one, with deep wrinkles and sagging eyes. She looked at me. Just for a second. Like she knew exactly what I was. And I reveled in that. I looked around my table as the slow motion continued. My dumber friends were already in glee. They didn’t even need the moment to consider. The smarter ones, and Brian himself, had looks of concern knowing they had a split second to make a decision. A decision that might follow them for a long time to come. What would they have the strength to do? I knew before they did. I was born to lead.
The air rushes back in, time slams back to its normal pace, and the thrilling moment is over. Everyone at the table has hurled food in every direction and any moments of reflection are gone. Anarchy rules and spreads from the Table of the Cool Kids like a comic book energy blast and practically everyone else in the cafeteria joins in the melee. That first glob of potatoes hit the side of Sarah Franklin’s head, sliding down in a slow, pasty streak. Plastic trays crashed. Cartons of milk erupted midair. Laughter, shrieking, crying, the screech of chairs against tile—it was beautiful and it was mine.
When mayhem and chaos are present everyone wants a little piece of it while they have the chance. Who knows when an opportunity like this will come again? When will you again be given the chance to participate in pointless destruction? When again will you be able to make such a mess of things? When again will you be able to soil everyone around you? Who knows?! And so you let the moment take you where it will. You participate, and you participate with relish. You throw every frustration, all of your disappointment and anger, you throw it with all your heart as hard as you can. You will deal with the repercussions at some other time - for now - it feels good. Even my old friends from fifth grade, kids who I know for a fact have high morals and who know better - there they are mirroring me because everyone else is mirroring me. The grandness of my success is astounding but does not surprise me. After all, I am my favorite person.
I have engineered a fracas. I have invented cities of Pandemonium and Bedlam. I have brought forth great Hullabaloo where Hullabaloo did not exist before. I looked at Brian and saw his surrender. I watched the principal come in face red and flustered. I ignored him. He’s just another lunch lady to me. I am above consequences and my potential is limitless. I’m going to need a bigger cafeteria. Just imagine what I will accomplish. Just imagine.
NOTE: This was supposed to be Washington DC 2025 set in my middle school cafeteria in 1981 or 2. I was trying to imagine how simple it is for someone like you know who and the gaggle of spineless dipshits that populate our leadership can come to be. Obviously, I missed the mark because I think people thought this was just a story about me starting a food fight - which I can’t say I ever did. I did throw a ball of processed cheese down the art hallway one time though - and I got in big trouble for it. But that’s another post altogether….
Man , I always thought food fights were dumb as f**k 🤷♂️
Wow, great writing and full of sad nostalgia for my days in elementary school