MY LAST CLASS OF THE DAY WAS ENGLISH WITH MR. Blocker.
Brand-new teacher, fresh out of education school, all smiles and enthusiasm. He still thought high school students were nice. He didn’t know any better. Dante would have loved him.
He wanted to get to know us. Of course, he did. New teachers, I always felt sorry for them. They tried too hard. It embarrassed me.
The first thing Mr. Blocker did was to ask us to talk about one interesting thing that happened to us during the summer. I always hated this icebreaker bullshit. I made up my mind to ask my mother about teachers and icebreaking exercises.
Gina Navarro, Susie Byrd, and Charlie Escobedo were in the same class. I didn’t like that. Those three, they were always asking me lots of questions. Questions I didn’t want to answer. They wanted to get to know me. Yeah, well, I wasn’t interested in being known. I wanted to buy a T-shirt that read: I AM UNKNOWABLE. But that would have only made Gina Navarro ask more questions.
So there I was, stuck in a class with Gina, Susie, and Charlie—and a new teacher who liked to ask questions. I sort of halfway listened in on everybody’s ideas of what constituted interesting. Johnny Alvarez said he’d learned to drive. Felipe Calderón said he’d gone to LA to see his cousin. Susie Byrd said she’d gone to Girls State in Austin. Carlos Gallinar claimed to have lost his virginity. Everyone laughed. Who was she? Who was she? Mr. Blocker had to put down a few rules after that. I decided to just check out. I was an excellent daydreamer. I got to thinking about the truck I hoped I’d be getting on my birthday. I was picturing myself driving down a dirt road, clouds in the blue sky, U2 playing in the background. That’s when I heard Mr. Blocker’s voice aimed in my direction.
“Mr. Mendoza?” At least he said my name right. I looked up at Mr.
Blocker. “Are you with us?” “Yes, sir,” I said.
Then I hear Gina’s voice yelling out: “Nothing interesting ever happens to him.” Everyone laughed.
“That’s true,” I said.
I thought maybe Mr. Blocker would move on to someone else, but he didn’t. He just waited for me to say something.
“One interesting thing, huh? Gina’s right,” I said. “Nothing really interesting happened to me this summer.”
“Nothing?”
“Getting my legs broken in an accident. I guess that counts as interesting.” I nodded, but I felt really uncomfortable, so I decided to be a wiseass like everyone else. “Oh,” I said, “I’d never tried morphine before. That was interesting.” Everybody laughed. Especially Charlie Escobedo, who had committed his life to experimenting with mood-altering substances.
Mr. Blocker smiled. “You must have been in some serious pain.” “Yeah,” I said.
“Are you going to be okay, Ari?” “Yes.” I hated this conversation. “Does it still hurt?”
“No,” I said. It was a small lie. The real answer was longer and more complicated. Gina Navarro was right. Life was complicated.
