The Apple and the Tree

I’m sitting in Mr. Sessa’s English class in 10th grade, filled with what can only be described as an insatiable itch not to be there. These damn blue plastic chairs affixed to tiny wooden desks that prevent me from moving at all. No leaning back, no scootching back in the seat to lean forward, just forcing me to sit and attend, as if my body should be an afterthought. I look out the windows and see a beautiful blue sky with puffy white clouds blowing by, and I just know that a balmy wind is filling in. The grass in the school playing fields has just turned green. I need to get out of here.

My notebook is covered with doodles. I just can’t make myself care about what Mr. Sessa is saying. I like him, but he is boring me to death. It all seems irrelevant. I raise my hand and ask to visit the bathroom. He looks at me skeptically; I have a bit of a reputation, I am afraid. “Make it fast,” he says. I do.

I make it fast — down the hall and out the side door of the school. The air is balmy, just like I imagined. It smells sweet and enticing and I simply walk away from the school and all my responsibilities and constrictions. It doesn’t feel like a choice, but more of a need. 

I stroll down the road, with a purpose in my stride, toward the nearby park, out of sight from the school.  There is a pond there with ducks. I like to go wander in the woods and then sit by the water and write, draw, or just space out. The day before me has just opened up to a delicious feast of the senses and adventure.

I am failing high school. My parents aren’t aware of how bad things have gotten, but I have cut so many classes that I have gone beyond the limit of allowable absences. I have intercepted several phone calls home and modified several report cards this year. F’s are very easy to turn into B’s. If I think about what is going to happen when it all catches up to me I feel sick, so I choose not to. Instead, I climb trees and goof off, always smiling and acting like it is all one big romp. People tend to think that I am a stoner, but really, although I have dabbled, I am not. I am just pulled to be free.

I have become a pathological liar. The lies began as a form of protection and then became a way of life. They started to keep me out of trouble at school and with my parents, but then they began to enter all facets of my life. I created fictional as well as non-fictional adventures to keep me entertained. I have told my parents that I was babysitting and then gone into the city to walk the streets all night long. I have told people that I fell off my roof to get out of social commitments. I even told all my friends that I was dating the rock star, Prince. It has gotten out of hand. As I sit in the park, I fabricate more of these stories and excuses to get me through the next week. I think I have it all figured out.

But I don’t. The stress of trying to maintain all these stories is getting to me. As free as I long to be, keeping up these stories has become its own cage. Sometimes I hate myself and am so angry that I can’t do what everyone else seems to be doing. Why can’t I just “do” school? Why have I made my life so complicated? Other kids seem to balance it all, but I can’t seem to.  I feel different from everybody else. How can they follow the rules while I can’t? My lies and stories have definitely made my life exciting, but there is a thin line between adventure and disaster.

I have a group of close friends that often join me on my escapades. We have cut school and stolen off to amusement parks, snuck onto fenced in pastures and ridden bareback on police horses. We have run away to the New Jersey Shore and to a Pocono ski resort, all while fabricating elaborate tales of nannying jobs. It is somewhat of a miracle that we have come to no harm and rarely seem to get caught. Yet all those crazy friends are maintaining far better than I. They are doing well in school and I hear them beginning to talk about colleges and their futures. I have spent 28 days in in-school suspension due to cutting class. I don’t believe there is a college out there that would be interested in me. I dream of becoming a barefoot gypsy. The idea of staying in school a second longer than necessary or maintaining a 9-to-5 job is absurd.

In the end, I do get caught. One of my lies is that I am on the swim team and that practice is every day from 3 to 5. This gives me an extra two hours of freedom before I am expected home for dinner. The truth is that due to my failing grades I have been kicked off the team for several months. I was spending that time running wild. One day my mother comes to watch me in a swim meet. I am not there. She asks the coach of my whereabouts and everything unravels: cutting school, the failing grades and my status of being cut from the team long ago. It all comes crashing down.

So you see, Oakley and I are the perfect match. It is uncanny. I see him chafing at the bit, as I did at his age. I made it through due to luck, forgiving parents and a feeling of joy and belonging in the outdoors. I hope the same will work for him.