Juncture 1.3

Trepidation filled my heart as I walked into the principal’s office. I knew that nothing good was going to result from this meeting.

“Sit down Mr. Antony, we have a lot to discuss.”

Principal Saunders was sitting at his large wooden desk, the kind that would seem large and imposing were he not bigger than it was. As it was, he made the desk seem tiny, folds of his fat wrapped around the desk. He looked awful. There was no nice way to sidestep the issue, he just looked awful. He was wearing an uncomfortably bright orange dress shirt underneath a tweed jacket, the kind with the elbow pads. However, on his short, stubby arms, they reached somewhere down to the middle of his forearms, and he actually had to roll up the sleeves. His hair was, for lack of any better terminology, Homer Simpson-esque, to the point where, if you were to look close enough you would be able to count the individual strands in his combover.

The worst part was his face. He had bright red cheeks that constantly looked like he had just finished a whole marathon, and the uneven layering of stubble didn’t do much to cover it. You could say he had a weak chin, but then again you could also say that he didn’t really have a chin whatsoever. Finally, he had tiny, piggy eyes underneath overly-large glasses.

I was snapped out of my reverie to the sound of him clearing his throat.

“Sit down Mr. Antony, we have a lot to discuss,” He said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. I sat. He continued speaking, “So I heard you were removed from class again. Making this the fourth time in the past two weeks that you’ve caused a teacher to remove you from their learning environment.” I nodded and opened my mouth to respond, but he bulldozed over me, “Now I don’t know what’s causing these repeated incidents, but they cannot be allowed to continue with this regularity.”

I waited until he continued talking, but he just looked at me expectantly. I was supposed to answer him, but he hadn’t asked a question. So I just sat there, looking sullen at him like I remembered doing the last time.

About thirty seconds passed in complete silence. During that time, I stared directly at him, trying to make him uncomfortable. I didn’t expect it to work, because it didn’t work last time, but I still felt the same small rush of satisfaction when he was forced to continue talking. He coughed.

“Ahem… as I said, I don’t know why you insist on being a distraction to the rest of the class. I know that you’ve given up on learning, but your fellow students have not.”

When I went through this last time, I had felt as though he was trying to get a rise out of me with that, like I wasn’t trying my goddamn hardest every day I was in this school. In retrospect, he was faced with a situation in which a kid was being, well, difficult, but I wasn’t in a state of mind to see things from his perspective. That probably explained why I said what I said: “Fuck them, that’s why.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Antony, I will NOT tolerate that language in my office. Especially not from a delinquent such as yourself! If you cannot behave, then I will have to lay down the law!” Principal Saunders fumed at me.

“Yeah, you’re good at anything that involves laying down, aren’t you?” I smirked internally. When I get stressed or angry, I get really witty and tend to start mocking people and make quips about things. Of course, these tended to get whomever they were aimed at pissed at me, which only put me in a worse mood, continuing the cycle.

Yeah. I’m kind of an asshole sometimes.

“Yeah, you’re good at anything that involves laying down, aren’t you,” I asked. Principal Saunders’ red face turned an almost uncomfortable shade of magenta as he struggled to find a dignified response to my comment. I kept talking, and thought to myself, “If there was ever a time where I needed to not say what I’m going to say, it would be now.” Internally, I desperately tried fighting the compulsion, to be able to change even a word, even a fraction of the venom with which I delivered the verbal assault, but my efforts were for nothing:

“In fact, I bet just the thought of not having to move gets you hot and heavy, doesn’t it? Oh wait, I forgot; you already are. Never mind, then,” I delivered the angry words airily, as if I were commenting on the weather rather than brutally insulting the one man who could destroy any chance I had at a real future. I was kicking myself in my head, but of course the compulsion didn’t allow me to stop talking, because that would be wrong. That couldn’t happen. My hands clenched hard out of frustration, hard enough to draw blood.

“So I’m assuming you’re gonna lay down the law at this point, so I may as well keep going, huh? Nothing? Alright good,” I kept talking, as Principal Saunders floundered, trying to find a way to end my tirade. “Fuck this school, and fuck everyone in it. You think I’m not trying, do you? You think that I don’t take my classes seriously, because why else would I keep getting kicked out? You’re talking to the one person in school who has literally every factor going against him. I get kicked out for not reading? I. Can’t. I get kicked out for missing a homework assignment? In what home am I supposed to do the fucking work? I can’t do it in mine, that’s for sure.”

“In fact, every single time I’ve been kicked out there’s been a good reason, but you and the teachers all choose to ignore it,” I was ramping up the volume, and I got up out of the chair, walking toward the desk. “I don’t know why you decided to run a school, but you chose the wrong profession. Principals are supposed to have at least an ounce of empathy, but you don’t have any! You don’t care! You-“

“Detention!” Principal Saunders shouted, his tone matching my own, his voice querulous, as he managed to get the one word out.



“Fine by me,” I growled, and I stormed out of the office.