Terrorist like me?
There was a stabbing at my old high school on Monday, Nov. 11.
The high school I went to is notorious for being a rich “preppie” school, where you can count the number of non-whites. Not a likely target for high school violence, or so one would think. Because of these non-threats, the administration felt it should focus on what it considered to be threats to the school, one being me.
As a gag, when I first entered high school, I was voted “Most Likely To Go Columbine” and “Favorite Terrorist Look-Alike.” I was not a violent person – just an outspoken, uncaring, insensitive guy who was too lazy to shave. I ran for class president as a joke, mocking politics. I used to back-talk teachers in order to make valid points that precious public schools did not want their students to know. When they told me I couldn’t take half the classes I pre-registered for, I said, “I’ll just drop out of school since that’s obviously what you want me to do,” and ran down the halls screaming, “Because the stupid bureaucrats who run this public school system are trying to cheat me out of an education, I am forced to drop out of school.”
Since there were no real threats to the school, the administration decided to crack down on me, the loudmouth.
I was under constant supervision by the principal. Almost every thing I ever did had to be run by him first. I was supposed to run the school’s television station my junior year, but because of the principal’s extreme hatred for me, I was not allowed to. For the pep rallies, my big friend Ben and I were going to do a “J & Silent Ben” sketch, but since I was the “J” involved, we were not allowed to. All the teachers knew I was blacklisted and could not do much about it since in public schools the principal can hold their jobs at stake. Even though the principal hated me so much, he could never really silence me. Finally, he found an excuse to get rid of me.
On Sept. 11, I walked into the office to get a parking pass, not knowing anything about what was happening and saw a plane crash into a tall building on the television screen. I had no idea what was going on, but said, “Let that be a lesson to you kids: Don’t drink and fly.” I’m a comedian, and like I said, I didn’t know what was going on. The principal overheard my remark, and said that I was a threat to the school since I showed no form of sensitivity towards the situation. Me, the joker – a threat to the school. He had connections high up in the district and found some obscure reason or clause to have me sent to an alternative education institution. My sentence: 30 “good” days.
When I first stepped into the alternative school, I was freaked out. It was worse than “Oz.” There were signs all over the walls that said, “I Will Strive For 30 Good Days”; “Today I Will Be The Best Me That I Can Be”; “Today Is My Good Day.” I was so freaked out. This was a K-12 school. There were delinquents in kindergarten? They were put there for not sitting in chairs properly. I’m sorry, isn’t that normal childhood behavior?
The kids in this school were tough. They used to make fun of me because I was the only one without a prison record. Every morning we had to be frisked by a 300-pound security guard. While frisking you, he would try to have a conversation with you: “Catch the game last night? What’s the weather like out there? Must be a cold one.”
Since this was right after the terrorist attacks there was an Iraqi kid named “Haji,” who acted like he was black because he thought it would reduce his chances of being the victim of a hate crime. These kids were so tough, they would somehow manage to turn every game into hockey. I had never seen a game of “Mother May I” with a penalty box.
The guys had a pool running on why I was sent to their “penitentiary school.” One had $5 on “I loaded a computer virus onto the system and screwed up all the computers.” Another had $5 on “I was looking at porn in the school library.” And there was my favorite: “I was blackmailing the cheerleaders with doctored photos of them.” Finally, I admitted the real reason why I was there: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
The girl situation in the alternative school was pretty bad. I remember this one time a guy nicknamed “The Señntilde;or” saw a girl and said, “Say fool, she hot. I think I’m gonna go talk to her.” He went up and talked to her, and then came back. We all asked him what had happened, and he said, “Say fool, she my cousin. She here illegally.”
One day Haji came up to me and said, “Home-dog, that girl, over there, thinks you’re hot.” I said, “She must be here because of drugs,” and he said, “How did you know that?” I said, “Well, she must be high if she thinks I’m hot.” Meeting girls outside of the school setting was pretty hard, too. I could walk up to cute girls and say, “Hey baby, according to the state of Texas, I’m a terrorist. What’s your name?”
My principal thought that the stint at the alternative school would change me, but I’m a screw-up and can never do anything right. I went back to my high school the exact same way I came out. It baffles me how I was considered a threat to the school when real threats walk around and the administration does not even notice. They wasted all their time and energy trying to crack down on me, and totally missed the real threats.
I am sorry for those who had to go through the little stab-fest that took place at my high school, but maybe now the administration will crack down on real terrorists, and not terrorist look-alikes.
