The Genius of Little Things

by Larry Buhl

  The next day, I had a new idea—debate. I barged into the windowless triangular debate team office, which was slightly more capacious than a storage closet. The lively conversation stopped dead. There were six students, three guys and three girls. A guy with a beaked nose asked me if I was sure I wanted the debate office. I supposed it was a kind of debate hazing. If I could present a well-reasoned argument for being in the room, I would be allowed to stay. I told them I was great at research and I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to start winning tournaments. Five of them cast their gaze away from me. The beak-nose guy informed me that if I came up with enough material on abstinence-only sex policies, they might let me “audition.”

  I spent two nights in a row at the library, cramming on sex-ed, faith-based sex counseling, teen pregnancy, and anything related to teen sex. Quite a bit of drug information came up as well, so I cross-referenced that. I knew from writing extra credit essays, the more statistics I could find, the better. The only difficulty would be the public speaking part. For three nights in a row, I practiced presenting my sex and drug findings to my bedroom wall.

  **

  September 22. At the supermarket, I skipped over the Cap’n Crunch and all highly sugary cereals. Muesli was unacceptable. Honey Nut Cheerios seemed like a reasonable alternative. But in light of the colony collapse syndrome, the happy cartoon honeybee on the box was troubling. It appeared to be making fun of the crisis. I chose Honey Bunches of Oats, with no bees on the package.

  I haven’t seen Carl or Janet in a few days. Today there was a note on the refrigerator white board. How are the bees? I don’t know who wrote it.

  I wrote back. Still dying. I almost informed them of the research I had done for my science fair proposal and how I was exploring the link between cell phone antennas, noise pollution, and pesticides, but it was too much to write in a small space.

  **

  The debate audition became moot when Principal Nicks had a change of plans. The special election for vice president of SGA was going to happen. But first I would have to present my case to the student body. Before I describe the disaster that was my unplanned campaign speech, I’ll back up and say I strongly dislike ambiguous messages, whether they are spoken, or, in this case, on a yellow slip from the principal’s office.

  Friday in physics class I received such a slip. Special election next week. Be at pep rally. Will introduce. In my opinion, will introduce, as Principal Nicks phrased it, should have meant this: Tyler is running for office. There’s Tyler. Stand up Tyler. Thanks, Tyler. Okay you’re all dismissed.

  But that’s not how it went down.

  Seventh period, Friday, as it was every Friday throughout football season, students were herded into the auditorium to GET! FIRED! UP! The chant was rather macabre, I thought, given that Firebird High’s symbol was a phoenix. Even worse, a flaming bird did not suggest a formidable sports team. It was not a dominating figure like a bear or a leopard. The raison d’être of a phoenix was incineration. For this pep rally, the marching band was being directed by the mascot, a large person in a bird suit, which was, fortunately, not on fire. Actually, it was a nondescript amalgam of an eagle, buzzard, and parrot. Its open mouth could be construed as a frozen shriek of agony.

  I stood near the stage, where Principal Nicks could find me. The marching band played a jazz version of the Firebird fight song. Principal Nicks walked up to me and squeezed my shoulder with one of his oversized hands. “Keep your comments to three minutes. Tell them your platform and don’t ramble.” It almost seemed like he was expecting me to give a speech, which couldn’t be right.

  Principal Nicks strode in front of the marching band and made a rolling motion with his hand. The band squeaked and bleeped into silence. He grabbed the microphone as if strangling a goose.

  “All right settle down. Before we get righteously crraa-zyyy we have some business to attend to.” That was met with some boos and hisses. This was probably because students don’t like hearing about business when they GET! FIRED! UP! In my opinion, he deserved boos for his dangling participle.

  “There’s an opening for vice president of SGA, and in accordance with the bylaws of Firebird High we must fill that vacancy, provided there is a student who is willing to run. There is one. Tyler… Super…an…askadid…ia. Tyler. Come on up and say a few words. Tyler?”

  As if magnetized, my legs carried me to the middle of the stage. There was lethargic applause, and a few hoots. Some girl shrieked like her hair was being pulled. Principal Nicks leaned in and grunted. “Three minutes and out.”

  The microphone was heavier than I thought, and when I grabbed it from the bottom, it flopped over and hit my chest with an amplified thump. My nervous cough started, and this led to screeching feedback from the mic and angry groans from the crowd.

  I looked at Principal Nicks. He gave me what appeared to be a go on you idiot head nod. I knew a three-minute coughing fit was no substitute for a real campaign speech. But coughing would have been better, as it turned out, than what came out of my mouth.

  “Firebird High has a host of issues to be addressed. For example…” I hacked, then I took a deep breath and continued. “How many of you are content with no doors in the rest room stalls?”

  There were boos, laughs, and an impromptu cheer of, “Tyler, Tyler, he’s our man.” Principal Nicks made a karate chop motion at the crowd. The noise stopped. I resumed my stump speech.

  “We shouldn’t suffer from a lack of privacy, just because of drug incidents in which we played no part. I don’t think anyone wants to relieve themselves with onlookers. If I am elected…”

  My mouth was moving, but it was becoming harder to hear what I was saying, due to the roar of blood through my ears. I could not continue speaking about stall doors. There wasn’t enough to say about wanting to defecate in private, and that really wasn’t much of a campaign platform.

  I had just spent days practicing my debate audition, so I used a bit of that. But my facts got mixed up. My speech became a rambling mess as I tried to tie statistics gleaned from my research to my ability to affect change through student government. In my defense, it was not easy to transform a debate audition into a campaign speech on the fly. I am sure I said nothing specific about my own experiences with drugs, sex, and disease, because there was nothing to tell. I did use a few Latin phrases.

  I clearly recall the last thing I said. “With me, student government will be a font of information. Latex and facts, not fear and platitudes.”

  The crowd roared.

  The microphone was jerked out of my hand. Principal Nicks snarled something at me. I couldn’t hear him clearly. He made a spastic, up-and-down arm wave, which probably meant for everyone to shut up. The drum major took that as a sign to start up the marching band.

  The fight song played. The crowd parted. I walked off the stage to a cheering throng. I attempted to return a hi-five, but I hit some guy in the head.

  Not knowing where to go, I continued walking out of the auditorium and into the corridor.

  A flash. Temporary blindness.

  I refocused and saw the photographer, a thin girl with alabaster skin hidden by a halo of dark, flyaway hair. She lowered her camera and looked at me as if she were an anthropologist and I, a rare fossil. She said something but I couldn’t hear her. I rapidly shook my head.

  She shouted slowly. “I’m. Rachel. From. The. Clarion. Are you prepared for the consequences of what you’ve unleashed?”

  I nodded. I continued walking past her into the great empty hallway with no destination in sight, having no clue about what I had unleashed.

  SIX

  September 26. Talking points for when I see Carl and/or Janet:

  · Please don’t throw away my food, even if the box is nearly empty.

  · I don’t like muesli and I never will.

  · You can save a lot of money and prevent harsh chemicals from being absorbed into the ground and water systems if you make your own fabric softener out of
baking soda and vinegar.

  · How is work? (Use only if they are in a good mood.)

  · Who are those neighbors who keep looking out their window?

  · Who are the people in your photos?

  **

  I found replacement glass for the picture frame I dropped, and put the frame back on the bookshelf in Carl’s office. I don’t think they noticed its absence. They said nothing about it, either in person or on the white board.

  I was about to head to the library when I heard a clink-clink-clink sound coming from the dryer in the laundry room. Someone had left coins in their pocket, or that there was an exposed zipper hitting the sides of the dryer drum.

  I was surprised to see Janet in the laundry room. I was even more surprised to see her wearing skimpy running shorts and a clingy, sweaty top. It suddenly seemed like I was interrupting something private, even though she was only folding towels.

  “How’s school?”

  “Fine.” I wanted to do something about the metal clanking in the dryer. Was she not bothered by that?

  “Just fine? Nothing new with you?”

  “There’s going to be an election.”

  She groaned. “Throw the bums out. Our mail carrier could do better job than those idiots in Washington.” I was going to inform her that I meant my SGA election, not the national one, but she kept talking. “My tax dollars for war, but fat cats get all the benefits. Nobody even listens to us—”

  “I don’t like muesli.” I sort of shouted this. “I’m sorry,” I said, softer.

  She stopped folding a dark green towel. “I told Carl not to do that. But you don’t have to buy your own food. That’s what the state is paying us for. But if you do spend your own, we’ll just save whatever we don’t spend and give it back to you.”

  “I switched to Honey Bunches of Oats,” I said.

  “Give the muesli to Carl. I hate it, too.”

  “I have to go.” I bolted out of the laundry room, having done nothing about the dryer clanking.

  The implication of what Janet said didn’t occur to me until later that night. They were going to give me the money from the state? I didn’t believe it. What was the point of having a foster child if they didn’t benefit?

  **

  Unlike many students with scientific accomplishments who may apply to Caltech, I also am comfortable explaining challenging topics like HIV and other STDs in front of an entire student body. A scholar, leader and a public speaker, Tyler Superanaskaia is a triple threat man of many contradictions too good to be true (TBD).

  **

  Monday, in homeroom, on what should have been the special election, there were no ballots. The monitor was a sub, and she spent most of her time telling everyone to stop using their phones. I saw a couple students reading the Clarion. The lead story featured the headline, Maverick SGA Candidate Vows Reforms. There was picture of a guy with a clenched fist raised in a defiant salute. I didn’t recognize the person as me until I saw the photo caption. Advocate for closed stalls and open discussion on sex and drugs.

  My physics teacher was unimpressed by my stall door campaign promise. In the middle of explaining error analysis, Mr. Zirke told the class, apropos of nothing, that western society was too afraid of excrement. “We anesthetize everything about our bodies, hide in shame, irradiate our food. I’ll tell you something. I love to take a dump in the woods. I feel alive when I’m doing it. I mean we don’t have to be like Angola, but stall doors? Gimme a break.”

  In English lit, Mrs. Yglesias asked the class the meaning of canard. Her question was met with open-mouth stares. She informed them canard was a lie told often and universally believed to be true. “Tyler used it well in his campaign speech. Abstinence-only sex education is a canard. Thank you, Tyler, for saying what needed to be said.”

  Student reactions to my presence included whispers, furtive glances, exaggerated pretend-laughs, and “hey, condom guy.” One creepy guy in physics stopped me after class and asked whether he could get HIV from oral sex. Reflexively, I asked whether he meant giving or receiving, because there was a difference in risk factors depending on how it was performed. He became angry and told me to forget it. That was fine. I didn’t want to be talking about that subject with anyone, especially him. As he rushed away, I told him to talk with the school nurse.

  The most annoying reactions were guys who squatted down and comically pretended to have a painful bowel movement.

  This was not popularity. Notoriety was more like it. My reputation was, at that moment, somewhere between football captain/prom king and black trench coat/army boot types. This was far more attention than I had received after my science fair achievements. But it was not something Caltech would care about. Their admissions committee wanted an elected class leader, not some guy who gave a scheizen mixed-up speech about sex and drugs and toilet stalls.

  But the promised election wasn’t happening. There had been no announcement of it, and none of my teachers had heard anything.

  During biology II, a goth-looking guy came to Mr. Proudfoot’s class with a pink slip. Mr. Proudfoot waved the slip and said, “for our speechmaker.” The class laughed. I felt a familiar tickle in my throat.

  By the time I reached Principal Nicks’ office the tickle had turned into a cough. I was experiencing the beginning of acid reflux as well. To calm my nerves I began making a grocery list in my head.

  Principal Nicks tossed me a heavy document, Guidelines for Student Government. He explained that the role of SGA leaders was to improve the lives of the constituents, AKA students. The point he made, over and over, was that SGA was a governing body for those who are serious about government, and, therefore, it was not the SGA candidate’s role to advocate for sex lit or condoms.

  He leaned forward. “Capiche?” I could smell menthol lozenges and aftershave.

  I nodded. I couldn’t say anything because I was trying to suppress my coughing.

  “And in the unlikely event you ever speak in front of the student body again, you’ll run it by me.”

  I nodded vigorously. A bark-like cough slipped out.

  He wasn’t done. “Did you know I was a member of a task force on drugs in schools, in the Bush administration? The first Bush, the better one.” He segued into a monologue about keeping kids off drugs. “So many lives lost. For what? Freedom? Fun? While pushers profit and kids suffer.”

  His extended rant reminded me of a poem written and performed by Thor, a strange guy with a nose ring, in the Creative Soul class. “I am your cowboy, your muscle man, your lover, your fighter, your savior. Do you like my stirrups? My smoking gun?” When it was all over Thor did an elaborate curtsy. Ms. Gurzy cooed and students murmured enthusiastically. Zoe snickered silently, her shoulders bouncing. I enjoyed watching Zoe bounce.

  “I said am I making myself clear?” Principal Nicks was glaring at me. Or maybe he wasn’t. It was hard to tell with his tumbleweed eyebrows. “The stall doors will stay off, and you will stay off the ballot.”

  “Who’s on the ballot?”

  “Nobody. There’s no special election.”

  I still had the guidelines for student government in my lap. Why had he shown me this book when I would not be in the SGA? What I really wanted to say was there had been no time to run the farking speech by him, and the whole thing had been his farking last minute idea.

  He emitted a breathy cough. I could feel the moist wind on my face. Great. He was going to give me a virus along with a lecture. He snatched a box of lozenges from the desk and tossed one into his mouth. “And you’ll walk back your comments on pot,” he said, while loudly clearing his throat. “Marijuana is a dangerous drug HACK-HOC-HOC so what you’re going to do is aaarUUGHAHH write an op-ed in the Clarion denying everything you said. Capiche?”

  I gave up trying to suppress my cough. Now we were both coughing. I didn’t bother covering my mouth, because he wasn’t covering his.

  During a break in his hacking, he reminded me I was on thin ice, as if tha
t weren’t already clear. “Twice in a month I’ve seen you in my HACK-HACK office. That doesn’t CARRUGH-KA-KA bode well, does it?”

  I shook my head. Counting a short visit to drop off the election petition, I had been in his office three times. I didn’t correct him.

  I had made an enemy of Principal Nicks. But Mr. Proudfoot was pleased with my predicament. Being banned from student government meant I could devote more time to the science fair. He loved my idea about investigating the cause of the massive bee die-offs. Even though the proposal wasn’t due until November 15th—and that was only a suggested deadline because the fair wasn’t until February—he wanted me to start working on it right away.

  “Forget about viruses,” he said. “If it’s bacteria killing the bees, then it’s bacteria that will save the bees.”

  He wanted me to work on the project every lunch period, with him. I told him I did my best thinking alone.

  “A lone wolf with a he-uuuuge ego. You’ll be right at home at Caltech.” I liked the term right at home. It was confirmation that I belonged somewhere.

  SEVEN

  Contrary to the figures I presented in my campaign speech, many studies show that marijuana has a profound effect on the still-developing adolescent brain, including memory loss and permanent impairment of motor skills and reasoning. As for frank discussions about sex and distribution of condoms and safer sex literature, I’m informed that such activities cannot be conducted under the auspices of the Student Government Association. Please discuss matters with the school nurse, your own doctor, or faith practitioner.