11.25.2008

It was easy to shine in a one-horse town.

My teachers didn't know what to do
with me as a kid.
I remember being bored and unimpressed
in the second and third grades
at Highland Falls Elementary
with subjects that I had already absorbed
one way or another.
"He's ahead of his years, with a very dry
sense of humor," one teacher told my parents.
I asked my mom what a dry sense of humor was.
She said she couldn't explain it to me.
I hoped it wasn't a bad thing.

Those poor middle-aged ladies
must've felt bad for me half-asleep
at my desk, or they just didn't want
to have to go out of their ways to
keep me stimulated.
Some form of undeclared arrangement
came about along the way where I
was allowed to conduct independent studies
on the faux-marble floor of the hallway
in a safe niche under the stairwell.
They'd try to challenge me with
a task that seemed appropriate
according to their training
but I'd always go my own route
and impress them in the process
with my extracurriculars.
Eventually they gave up trying to direct me
in anticipation of what I'd come up with next.
One time I wrote an investigative paper
on a locally famous mountain, Anthony's Nose
complete with interviews with my classmates
regarding their own personal experiences.
Then there was a trite little folder of
perfectly dreadful rhyming poems I conjured
which was still sitting in the drawer of
a bureau at my father's house the last time
I was there.
Stories, skits, battle scenes, board games designed
on huge pieces of oak tag that my teachers
willingly supplied; anything to keep me happy
and productive.
"He's so creative, Mrs. Vahsen.
We don't want to get in his way."
As if I'd let them.

On the contrary, I had them wrapped.
Sometimes I'd go so far as to request
the assistance of a classmate or two.
Certain projects needed more than one
person and my collaborators were always
grateful to me for being rescued
from the mundane lessons being taught
in those stuffy classrooms.
There was a boy named James Hilligas
who was frequently my partner in pointless ventures.
His sandy hair covered his head in tight curls
and his pale blue eyes and milky skin
gave him the appearance of a ghost
which is all he is anymore.
Other kids would be playing tag
during recess, but James and I
would be too busy finishing our latest project for that.
I don't know what ever happened to him
but I doubt he remembers the shy kid
with the big brown eyes who would
spend hours coming up with plots
and pictures for assignments that weren't assigned;
wastes of paper, more than anything.
A crusade against the grain.

My best work was done alone, of course.
Without the need to filter ideas through another mind
one could really lay it out there, really make those
stick figures come to life in whatever they were doing.
Choosing adjectives were never a problem that way either.
The down side of working alone on that glossy floor
in the hallway was that people walking by
often got the wrong idea and shook their heads.
They assumed I had misbehaved and was being punished
with banishment from the rest of the class.
It shamed me to feel that way in their eyes
but I never bothered trying to explain myself.
Besides, maybe in a way they were right.

Here I am sixteen years later
still under those stairs in a sense
and the only real difference is that
my poems don't rhyme.
No matter, though; it's gotten me this far.
Jimmy? You out there?

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