Revelations

10

After my left ear was back and working, I realized it had been about six months since I'd sent my old High School friend 'Van' a letter, and having a harrowing story to tell seemed like a good time to put one together. Not only noting the illness and subsequent recovery, I mentioned that I had finished my second quarter of Business College and realized that he, too, must have finished his second year of College. I don't remember if I mentioned anything about the job stuff, probably not.

After having completed her second year working at the hospital kitchen, it was pointed out to my mother that she had two years worth of vacation time to use. Never before in her life had she had a job which included vacation time and so she hadn't thought of taking it. But now she had little choice and debated what to do with it and the only vacation thing she could think of doing was a return trip to see old friends and relatives in New England. It had been five years since she had come to Colorado and I think one of her goals was to see the grocery store owner 'Joe' and discover why he had never come out to Colorado to 'sweep her off her feet' once he realized his longing for her.

And so by June I ended up with the mobile home all to myself and it was during one of these quiet afternoons that I received a surprise phone call... From Van.

He told me when he had received my first letter noting 'how he must have started his second year of College' that he had been able to ignore that bit but, when he received the second letter assuming he had finished up his second year, he felt the need to set the record straight: He had flunked out of College during his first year and had spent this past year working full-time at the ol' grocery store across the hayfield from my family home. It turned out that once he'd gotten to College and away from any parental oversight, he had just spent his free time there playing Dungeons & Dragons to the wee hours and often overslept, missing too many classes. As he realized what this meant to his grades and College success, he buried himself into more Dungeons & Dragons to escape. Apparently as the game had saved my life, it had helped Van destroy his own.

He had already planned a return to working at the grocery store for the Summer after his first year of College and simply stayed working there once Summer was over. This explained why he had been keeping his distance from me the previous year as he hadn't wanted to let me know he was blowing his future. I assured him it was all right and as he knew I had my own troubled year in school and recovered from it so I was sure he would... But it turned out I didn't understand and he needed to explain to me other things that had happened. Things that he had kept secret these past years and it had been eating a hole in him.

During the start of my Senior year of High School, I was to have 'Advanced Math' class with my mentor Zack Hatch while taking 'Calculus' with the second most senior math teacher in the school. But Zack was missing that year, as it turned out his wife had cancer and so he'd taken a year's sabbatical to help her through that. The third math teacher instead took over teaching 'Advanced Math' and for some reason I kept getting all of my test answers wrong and could never figure out why. I eventually dropped out of the class before the end of the quarter to avoid the 'F' being posted to my grades, but while I was doing well enough in 'Calculus' I had to drop that class as well. 'Advanced Math' was a prerequisite for taking 'Calculus' and by dropping one I had to drop the other.

Van was also taking 'Advanced Math' class with me that year and on the very day I didn't attend due to dropping out, the third math teacher had spent the entire class time crowing about it. He had been pissed that someone like me had been taking away attention from his Math Club over the previous two years by being deemed 'A Computer Wiz' and taken to various computer activities by Zack. When it came to people admiring math students, it was rightfully the place of his Math Club and his collection of students, not me. Especially not SOMEONE LIKE ME. Van mentioned how he had waved the disenrollment form around with glee as he said all this. Then the teacher mentioned that if I was supposed to be so bright, why couldn't I figure out all he was doing on my tests was marking my correct answers as wrong?!?

Van had been stunned that day, but as he had 'expectations' by his parents that he would be going on to College, he couldn't report this to me or the Administration for fear of becoming the next student to have to drop out of class. As 'Advanced Math' was deemed a college preparatory course, he didn't feel he could sacrifice it.

The story sounded wild, especially since Zack had warned me at the end of my Junior year of High School that these things -- other staff members over the years actively denying me my opportunities in school -- happened quietly in back rooms and not touted about in front of other students. But at the same time, it made complete sense. It explained why I could never understand how my test answers were always wrong even though I checked them time & again and thought they were right. It explained why the math teacher hadn't been willing to walk me through my test answers to help me figure out how I'd gotten them wrong. Van had been particularly consoling of me that year, but I thought it had simply been because he was a good friend. Now I could see he was feeling guilty at the time and his looking out for me was to, in part, assuage some of his own guilt.

Also the way he told me this story on the phone this day seemed to evoke memories of a few sentences from the anonymous letter I had written to the Principal once I was told I wouldn't be graduating from High School. When the Principal had returned that letter to me, I decided once I had gotten home that I should keep it. Yet I couldn't find it and couldn't remember where I had left it. I toyed with pulling the rough draft out of my trash can and saving that in its place, but decided it wasn't that important. Now listening to Van I remembered I had the letter with me when he had given me a ride to work from school that day and I must have left it in his car. I suspected now that he must have found it and read it, perhaps even kept it.

He was wondering if I could forgive him for not having come forward and telling me about this during our Senior year of High School. And the answer was I could. It had been two and a half years since, so there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it at this point, especially now living on the other side of the country. Further, my father had disowned me at the same time for wrongly assuming I was Gay and the school guidance counselors had explicitly chosen NOT to help me look into my college prospects at the start of my Senior year of High School despite my high Junior year grades. While there was a chance that continued success at math may have helped me weather the other two negative factors in my life at that time, if the math teacher didn't want me in his class, then going to the office staff about that fact wasn't going to have changed that. After all, what could they do about it other than scold him and put me back in his class and then that teacher grudgingly giving me the lowest possible passing grades that year, instead? The other math teacher was slammed having to take the majority of the class load from Zack's absence, so it's not like he could have independently taught me 'Advanced Math' on the side. It seemed true to me that the only result would have been that it would have torpedoed Van's chances of passing that same class that year. What good would have come from that?

And yet the guilt had been burning a hole in him ever since and apparently contributed to his flunking out of College the following year.

Since he was in an informative mood about the behind the scenes machinations of High School and he knew someone who had been on the year book committee, I decided to ask him a question that had been teasing me for the past two years. ''So why did I get 'The Sneakiest' notable listing in the High School year book?''

He laughed and said, ''Everyone knew what you were hiding with your note book!''

The only problem with this answer was, I didn't.

Now I had a whole new mystery to tickle my brain for the next four years...

My mother returned from her New England trip some days after and I picked her up at the airport and she was brewing about something during the ride home. Once I got her bags in the door, she closed it behind us and burst, ''How could you not tell me Joe had gotten another girl friend!?!''

I honestly returned, ''How could I?''

That answer she immediately understood and accepted with all the rage dissipating, leaving behind just grief. She took her chair and I decided to sit as well as she talked about her trip, seeing other friends and even having a whole day with Joe, at the end of which Joe explained he was with another 'someone else'.

Mother's whole idea had been to temporarily move to Colorado until Joe realized how much he missed her and came to sweep her off her feet and back to New England. It never occurred to her that he would simply find another girl at the store to 'comfort him' on those long work evenings and weekends. In fact I didn't even know if mother had been told it was another employee or not and I decided not to fill in that blank.

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