Untitled Story - First Section

As she flicks the ashes the wind starts up again. It's irritating how it tries to keep up and be noticed. As if an incorporeal breeze could compete with the tangibility of Candy's perpetual veil of smoke.

Coughing, I say, "Do you have to do this when I'm around?" Her eyes are superglued, possibly by the excess eyeliner and mascara caked around them, and they stay locked in the tiny cloud.

A breeze breaks the carbon monoxide for just a moment, but then she releases another wave. I cough, and she rolls her eyes before looking at me. She holds out the cigarette, offering me a sip.

"Jesus no!" I say, pushing her hand away. Ashes flutter like tiny white pixies around us, landing almost strategically on our black and white school uniforms.

"Christ in a fucking blender, Morgan!" she spits. I smirk slighty. Her exclamations always hit the spot when I'm soaking in smokey melancholy. "You got it on my fucking skirt." She wipes it off and the dilemma is discarded, the cigarette shortly following it.

"There, you can loosen up now," she says, turning to me. Daphne only smiles when she's being a bitch. The only exception to this observation would be when she gives me her little grin, which has always been my personal gift. No one else gets this gift, and if they did, it would probably be a result of extreme intoxication.

Daphne's an avid partier, unlike myself. I like to stay on the sidelines and watch her move in on prey, take them down, and then milk them of their cash and souls. People always go for Daphne. She's that kind of girl.

Looking at her, I can see why guys want her. She's not too tall, which is the first thumbs up, for most guys don't like to feel intimidated by women who might surpass them in height, weight or strength. In addition, her body is thin and toned. I could go on and describe her as vaguely cheerleader-esque, but that would be an insult (the last individual to bring up the sentence: "Oh Daphne you should be on the cheerleading squad" was found to be severly injured shortly after). To top it all off, her hair is gold, but not that sickly jaundice sort of gold, but more like a white gold. It's elegant and vibrant, and adequately matches the icy blue topaz hoops around each of her pupils.

She's a catch, I must say. Every guy wants her, even if he's afraid to admit it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out if every boy in our school had wacked off to a fantasy of her blowing him in the locker room at least once. No one can resist her.

Well, except me of course.

"So are you and what's-his-fuck fucking yet?" she chimes in as I'm admiring her stoic, punk rock beauty as she lights up for the second time on school grounds.

"You mean Lawrence?" I say.

"Yea, that one," she huffs. "So did you blow him? Did he pop you yet? What's the deal?"

I love how she puts things so bluntly. There's never any of that bullshit friends have to beat down before they reach the really juicy climax of their secret-sharing relationship.

"No, we decided to take a break," I shrug.

"Ah, I see. So you're on to guy number, what? Fourteen this year?" I'm amazed at how she can keep track of my endeavored love life. I go through so many different obsessions. One week I may be drooling over the bi-curious boy on the track team, and the next I'll be wanking on the phone with Henry Whoshisface from Philadelphia. It's not that I'm fickle, and it's not that I'm a whore. I've never been sexually active, and I've never had a solid boyfriend. Just interests, that's all that's available to me. And sometimes it's a challenge to keep up with all the names and all the infatuations. So I rely on Daphne to file it away for me, keep it under lock and key.

"Probably," I reply. "I don't know. Maybe I should just give it up."

"Fuck you, and your self pity," she hisses. She puts out the cigarette and pulls out her cell. The digits switch over to 2:42. A sudden shift in temperature erupts between us as I see her grit her teeth and spit onto the pavement.

"What time is it?" I ask stupidly, only to fill the gap.

"That cunt is motherfucking thirty minutes late!" She stops on the ground and spits again. Plastering myself against the red brick wall of the building, I pull myself out of any danger of being in her path. "I'm going to be fucking late for work. If I get motherfucking fired..."

"Sorry," I sigh. At least it's something simple to say so that she's aware that I'm beside her.

"When are you going to fucking get a car?" she snaps. Wonderful, I'm dragged into the maelstrom.

"When I get a job," I say. I haven't had a job since two summers ago. I had worked as a busboy at some poor excuse for a brunch cafe and the pay sucked. Worst part was the old ladies coming for their mid-day meal and tea. They liked to press their lips against everything, tainting the napkins, plates and straws with magenta, saliva-sodden lip marks. Those wretched old harpies! So I never went back, and since then my income has depleted. I need a car, I understand, but there's no where else to work.

For a moment I picture myself behind the counter at Shoprite. Then I imagine myself smashing my forehead into the cash register repeatedly until it resulted in self-induced blunt-force trauma. So Morgan how was your day at work? Suck me.

"Yea, well you need a fucking job," Daphne grunts. "I need you to drive me to work, because I ain't waiting for this motherfucking bitch to come get me between shots."

"I'm working on it," I try to tranquilze her, but I don't think she hears me as she starts walking into the afternoon light. "Where are you going?"

"I'm walking to work," she yells back at me.

"But don't you need a your work clothes?" I ask.

"I'll ask Liv for her shit when she gets off." Daphne keeps going and doesn't stop to wait for me. I would have yelled back that Liv is too large to be sharing work clothes with Daphne, but I didn't want to state the obvious and risked being grilled by her glassy stare of death.

So I follow behind her for a few minutes. How else am I going to spend my afternoon?

Not five breaths after I step off the curb do I collide with the right headlight of blue sedan pulling out of the teacher's lot. Going no more than ten miles an hour, the impact is minor, but enough to body check me onto the pavement. The sound ricochets through the quiet aftermath of a school day, ringing in Daphne's ears so that she whips back and fires her first rounds at the driver.

But looking back at the single second, the fraction of a second, before the abrupt, unexpected collision, I can capture a peculiar exchange between the man behind the wheel and me, his unintentional victim. The interaction is much like that of drivers passing by while you stand on the side of the road. A magnetic pull occurs, where your eyes can't help but meet with theirs for just a tiny, unmeasurable moment. It's unexplainable, and it just happens. I could say that this is exactly what happened before the car hit me, but that would be an understatement.

Examining the scene more thoroughly, I can point out the void - the rippling expanse - between my eyes and the black eyes of the driver. The driver is a man. He's in his late thirties, I suspect, possibly early forties. There's a noticeable urgency in his gaze; perhaps he's late for something. Of course the next noticeable feeling would be fear, concern, or something that reaches an equilibrium with, "shit i just hit a kid!" But no, before any reaction, there is a pause. My heartbeat skips, my breath stops, and the pause echoes for what seems like a lifetime. The connection is locked in between our eyes.

It's so beautiful, I remember thinking for a moment. "It's so beautiful," I imagine the driver whispering to himself subconsciously before smacking into me.

And then the inevitable impact comes along, and we're back to Daphne pulling out her bitch hat and wailing on the guy.

"Faggot! What's your problem?" she roars, running to me and pulling me to my feet. A sudden pain jolts in my left ankle, and I can't stand up without wrapping my arm around her.

"Oh my god!" the driver gasps, pulling himself out of the car. He almost stumbles as he shuts the door. "Are you alright? Christ, I'm sorry, I wasn't even paying attention!"

The man is wearing a pale blue button down shirt with a little front pocket for pens. A red and black striped tie flutters around his chest, whipping his shoulder as he comes along and steps into the wind. Behind a thick pare of lenses, his eyes are magnified to an enormous size. They're black and deep, so deep that they become immeasurable, and the concern in them serves as a safety net from falling into their gaping abyss.

"I'm fine," I say, "it's just my ankle hurts." Ok, maybe my whole damn leg is being a bitch, but it's obviously not broken. I don't see femurs or patellas jutting out anywhere, so I must be fine.

"I'll call an ambulance!" the man says, taking out a cell phone from his pocket. The way he moves strategically gives away his identity. The way he must maintain a responsible, mentor image hints at the fact that he's a teacher. But I have never seen him. Perhaps he is new, I suspect.

Lovely way to greet the new teacher, I chuckle to myself.

"I'm alright," I say. "I can walk." I take a few steps. It hurts like hell, but it's still working. Isn't that enough to let me go?

"I'm still going to call an ambulance," he says.

"And call your fucking lawyer while you're at it!" Daphne threatens. "You got a fucking lawsuit on your hands, Mr. Dritske!"

Mr. Dritske? It dawns on me that I have heard of him. Supposedly So-and-so from art class has a Mr. Dritske for Algebra. And Slutty Von Bitch from science has him for geometry. That's all mathematics, right?

"Please, it was an accident," he reasons. "I'll take care of it. I apologize, I'm sincerely sorry."

"It's ok!" I push. "I'm fine! My ankle's just a little out of wack, it'll be fine tomorrow."

"You can totally press charges on this asshole!" Daphne shouts. Sometimes her hostility towards authority and educators crosses some unnecessary lines. This would be a decent example.

"No, I'm fine."

"You're not going to let him fucking get away with this!"

Pulling out the big cannons, I take a chance at silencing the blonde beast. The poor man accidently hit me, he doesn't need a psycho banshee disembowling him with her white trash venom.   

"Christ, Daphne shut up! It was an accident!" I thunder, seismically shaking her. Daphne takes orders from no one, but when her personal fag roars in her faces, she will heed. I love how she loves me.

"Fine," she submits. "You can walk."

"Yes, I'm alright," I confirm by limping.

"Then I'm going to work," she sighs. "You sure you don't need me to walk you home?"

"I'll be fine," I assure her.

"I can give you a ride," Mr. Dritske offers, jumping into the conflegration once again. And suddenly it's warmer. Daphne's shaking her head, but I'm putting out her flames with a constant, unwavering glare.

"Whatever, I'll see you later," she says to me, whipping her white tentacles of hair across the wind so they would gently lacerate the air in front of Mr. Dritske's face. He shutters slightly. She disappears on her raging path toward work.

"Once again, I'm really sorry," Dritske continues to apologizes.

"I'm fine," I repeat. No one ever listens to the injured, obviously.

"I'll give you a ride," he offers again.

"I'll be alright," I go to say, but already his hands are at the tips of my shoulders, gently nudging me toward the passenger side. With gentle actions, being cautious of my possibly fragile condition, he places me into the vehicle. I admit, I can not help but comfortably fall into this light caress of physical interaction.

Then my mind zeroes in on teacher-student relations. Is he really allowed to be giving me a ride home? Highly unorthadox, I conclude, but he is a nice guy.

"Where do you live?" he asks, rounding the corner and skating the vehilce onto the street. I give him my address and he starts in the right direction. His car hums and burps in intervals as it makes its turns and hits bumps in the road. It is rickety and not the most impressive, and it appropriately matches the man's stuttering disposition.

"I'm really sorry about that," he keeps repeating. "I didn't even see you. My wife was calling me, and I had dropped some papers on the floor, and I was just..." He rambles on.

There were papers littering the floor of the vehicle. I could see names capping each of them, followed shortly by red, circled numbers. Looks like That-Dumb-Chick De Gym-Class failed her quiz on polynomials. Eyes wandering, I also found emptied cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee rolling around the back. Were all teachers so disorganized in their private lives?

"What's your name?" he asked, surprisingly breaking the cycle of apologies and excuses. I am torn away from my optical meandering.

"Morgan," I say. "I'm a senior."

"I see," he takes in, chewing on it slightly before making a left turn onto my street. "You taking Statistics or Trigonometry this year?"

Typical teacher, can't keep it in school. I reply, "No, I'm not a math person." He nods slightly, as if what I had said was a bad bathroom joke.

"You teach math right?" I drag along.

"Yes, Algebra and Geometry," he explains. "Sophomores and Juniors mostly. This is my first year at Wilson."

"Where'd you move from?" So he's mildly interesting. I continue casually.

"California," he says. "Los Angeles to be exact. Quite a big change."

"I'll say!" Here I am talking to Professor Hollywood after first getting hit with his car. How ironic! Only a few more blocks and I will be out of the vehicle. I can't help but feel a slightly awkward sensation coming about me.

"Yea, frankly I liked it better out there," he continues. "California is hot, beautiful. I love the beaches there. But things came up, I moved here, and my wife's happy with it."

Cancerous and spiteful, the awkward sensation forks through me, pinpointing at the location I would most like it to avoid. Unsure of the reasoning behing it, I am both surprised and embarrassd when the feelings precipitate into a solid, tangible, cylindrical form. I look down at myself. It was slightly evident. I pull my jacket down a bit and stuff my hands in my pockets.

"So why'd you leave LA?" I try to focus. I think about avoiding throwing more wood onto the fire, but of course this works in reverse. I am suddenly ejected into an illustration of Mr. Dritske and his Jane Doe wife half naked on a sunny California beach. Now it's just Mr. Dritske. I am so disgusted. And even worse, it's provoking the dilemma springing up in my pelvic region.

"Well," Dritske stalls for a moment, "there were complications with my other job. I just felt it would be easier to start somewhere new."

"That's always a good idea," I agree.

My eyes are perverted. As I try to maintain myself as an honorable, well-behaved seventeen-year-old from Wilson High School casually conversing with a math teacher, my scheming eyes try to find places to plug themselves in. They are the conduits that connect to outlets of desirable and even sexual images that adequately power unnecessary anatomical movements that should not be taking place in public, let a lone the passenger seat of a teacher's vehicle. They, of course, fall on the closest crotch, following up to a pair of black eyes keeping their balance on the undulating road before us.

Mr. Dritske is decently built. He is not fat and wasting away like half the men at his age. Apparently he must keep in shape. All forty-ish men should try to maintain themselves as he does. The world would be a more pleasing place aesthetically. A teacher with brains and a bod, I scandalously think to myself. His wife is a lucky woman.

"Oh shoot, that's it!" I halt, suddenly realizing we almost past my house.

"Okay then," he says, parking abruptly. Realizing the tent is still pitched, I almost cry when I see the distance from the car to my front door.

"Thanks for the ride," I am about to say, before Dritske opens his door. He walks to my side and opens the door.

"I'll help you," he says, "I'll tell your mom what happened. Just in case she wants to take you to a doctor to check up on that ankle."

A bomb just dropped. The headlines would hammer those covering Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I can see it now: "TORPEDO LAUNCHED FROM MORGAN MISSILE BASE HITS CAPITAL OF DRITSKE!" Imagine the politcal and social strife following that one.

Cautiously I peel myself from the seat. Dritske uses his gentle touches to coax me to my feet. Carefully he guides me to the sidewalk. My hangs are digging viciously into the bottoms of my pockets. I can feel my pants tightening from the unplanned excess of Morgan. I walk carefully, keeping Dritske clear from any slight frontal view.

I reach the front door of my house unscathed. My mother is waiting, and I am about to give up breathing here. She opens the door, eyeing the seeing for its awkward appearance.

"Hello there," she says to Dritske. "What's this about?"

"Hello, ma'am," the teacher introduces himself with a handshake. "I'm John Dritske, I teach math at the school."

She nods. Anxiously I tug at the air trying to grab her attention. She refuses to move from my path. I can't get into the house. I can't reach safety. Caught between the two adults, my sword almost drawn into the sunlight, I feel extremely discourage to play knight with these dragons.

"I ran into your son with my car," he says reluctantly. "It was a very minor accident, but he's been limping a bit. I'm really sorry, and I'll pay whatever costs."

"I'm fine Mom," I answer the wide-eyed concerned stare glistening in her eye sockets. "Can I go change out of my school clothes?"

Three. Two. One. Lift off. Relief floods in as she steps onto the porch and permits me into the house. I take a few steps inside before turning around. It would seem awkward to run from them like this. I could not bare any more suspicion. Peculiar has defined this afternoon enough.

"Thank you," I say to Dritske. And once again, similar to the speck of time that had been shared before the accident, our eyes connected.

When speaking casually with someone, eyes are just eyes. The same can be said with just giving a raw, meaningless glance. Eyes are just the receivers of light stuck on the head of the human body. But when caught in a crossfire they are ripped apart into pieces so beautifully individualized. I stare for a moment, taking in the perfect spherical shape of his irises. The way they engulf the pupils in their overwhelming shadow is captivating. Deep pools of oily essence, they glimmer in the magnification of the glasses shielding them. The lenses serve as a protective barrier, shielding the world from what ever potentially breathtaking energies could be ejected from the endless abyss of those eyes.

Stunned for a perpetual second, I am stripped of everything. I am standing naked in the doorway. There are no concerns at this time. Everything is soft and smooth. Sleek like oil and cool like a persistant breeze. I am comfortable again, and my hands are pulled away from their pockets.

He smiles at me. I wave before I am clothed again. I look down at myself. I'm safe again.

Mr. Dritske returns his abyssal eyes toward my mother as I slip into the darkness of my house. As I slowly tear off my uniform, I cannot help but see the shadows cramping around everything. They are specks of him left over.

When you leave someone, you take their image with you. You can still see them when you close your eyes into darkness. I close my eyes. He is still there, his eyes locked with mine for a moment. And there is no looming collision.