SAMMY
Sammy wasn’t proud of who he was. Times without number he had gotten grief because of it. What’s worse was that he didn’t choose to be the way he was, he had been this way since he could remember. Queer.
“What you staring at, homo?” One of the students at his school asked as he passed by.
“It is ‘what are you staring at, homo?’” Sammy shouted back. If he was going to be insulted, he rather it was done in correct English than the nonsense the teenagers spoke nowadays.
He had spat the last word with equal venom as the boy had, the worst part was that he knew better. Homosexuality was something that was getting more accepted as days went by. People were no longer hiding in closets anymore, and he knew he shouldn’t be and it’s not like he was keeping it a secret but being gay made him every bit as uncomfortable as it made everyone else.
He didn’t understand it. He didn’t know how it worked, worse, he didn’t even know how he knew he was gay, he just knew. He didn’t get ‘those’ feelings or desires or anything, and he’s sexual life had been eternally dormant. So why did the absence of a sex life make everyone uncomfortable around him?
Sammy could no longer shower after gym because the guys felt weird around him. He never had any male friends because no one wanted to be associated with him.
Since he was a kid he always wanted to play football but never tried out for the team when he got to high school because everyone knew the coach was a redneck homophobe, who wore such ignorance proudly. He didn’t stand a chance.
Sammy had sworn that he was going to make all of them need him one day. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out what to do.
Weed. Everyone in school seemed to need weed, ganja, grass, whatever it was called. It wasn’t long when news spread about him dealing. And everyone was on his case. He loved when guys from the football team came to him for weed. They tried to act like being around him was no big deal which made him wonder…if they could pretend “his situation” didn’t exist when they needed something from him why couldn’t they simply pretend like it didn’t exist at all. But this was high school, no one thought normally.
It wasn’t long before requests for the big guns started coming in, roofies, uppers, ADHD drugs, ecstasy, steroids, instant weight loss pills, and even cocaine. This wasn’t just high school anymore, this was high school on crack.
It was never about the money, instead drugs had become his power over his school mates. He didn’t sell to anyone that had picked on him on the day in question, as a result people who needed him tried to be on their best behavior around him. Even his dealer had been especially proud of him.
He had the usual clients and the most unusual ones as well. He sold to the school nurse and some of the teachers as well but one of his most unusual customers was a student he often looked up to. Cole Turner was a straight A student, captain of the school basket ball team, he was junior spelling bee champion three years in a row but most of all, he never made fun of Sammy’s sexuality.
He was probably the only straight guy that spoke to Sammy in public. He was always well mannered and he got along with Sammy before he had started dealing. It wasn’t like they were best friends or anything but he knew his being gay had never been awkward for Cole.
It was almost three months ago when Cole asked for his first batch. He hadn’t had any then so he asked for any hallucinatory drugs and he had offered him salvia for half the price. The boy had seemed desperate, although he was reluctant at first, Cole had become one of his most frequent buyers.
A business man had to do what he had to do.
He felt a hand grab onto him and pull him into one of the classes. It was Chelsea, one of the cheerleaders. “I need some of those weight loss pills you got in from Mexico yesterday.” She said.
“Word sure travels fast around here, doesn’t it?” He said as all the evil things Chelsea had ever done to him ran through his mind. “Fine, how many do you want?”
“How much can two hundred dollars buy?”
“Quite enough.” He said as he planned to mix up the drugs with some weight gaining pills.
“Get lost twerp.” Chelsea said her voice changing from desperate to bossy. “I don’t want to be seen with you.” she added.
Yeah, she took away all guilt he probably might have felt about sabotaging her drugs. She was going to need him again and he wasn’t going to sell to her. And then she was going to beg. Power was such a beautiful thing.
ANDII
“Why were you talking to that drug dealer?” Andii asked as she saw Chelsea come out of an empty class room not too long after the drug dealer came out.
“Nothing.” Chelsea said. “Okay fine,” she added hesitantly when Andii was still skeptical. “I heard some of the girls on the squad are buying illegal weight loss pills from him and I called him to warn him. I just don’t want them to harm their bodies in ways they’ll regret later in the future.”
“Really?” Andii asked shocked “that is so risky.” Andii added “I suppose I should talk to them today during cheer practice.”
“I really don’t advice you to do that. Everyone thinks you’re so perfect. They’ll probably think you won’t understand what it is like to be them. They are after all trying to live up to the standards you’ve set. How about I talk to them? I debated taking these drugs too, but I resisted, I could probably give them a few pointers on how to resist temptation.” she added so sweetly.
“Me? Perfect? That’s a laugh but thank you. Please talk to them, it would really help. I’m glad to have you as my second in command.” Andii said as she hugged Chelsea. She really appreciated her. She always had her back and kept an eye out for her, and she really appreciated that.
Perfect? Andii thought again as she walked away from Chelsea. She was anything but that. She lived a doubled life. Nothing like ‘Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana’, it was more like she was a criminal trying to pretend to be royalty.
And that was exactly how she felt.
She hated herself for not being able to speak up for the things she believed in because it was ‘uncool’.
For instance, she couldn’t stand bullying, it made her sick to her stomach but she couldn’t do anything about it because the bullies were her ‘friends’, the people she hung out with, her boyfriend…and her by default. She may not have literally laid a hand on any of the nerds but not doing anything about it was pretty much the same.
Nerds. Geeks. Jocks. Popular. What was it with all the labels anyway? She imagined a world with no labels were it was okay to hang out with whoever you want to hang out with without the fear of falling off the high pedestal she was placed on. Her parents, her teachers, her friends, everyone had put her on some sort of pedestal that it hard made it had for her to be anything than what was expected of her.
She had joined cheerleading because she loved dancing, being popular was meant to be serendipitous and fun but lately it had become a chore. She could no longer hang out with Hall, her child hood best friend, because Hall was incredibly nerdy, so nerdy it was almost unbelievable, she thought with a laugh. And he literally had a video camera attached to his hand at all times. It was so weird it was almost cute.
She couldn’t paint her room the color she wanted to, or listen to the music she honestly liked or dress the way she wanted for fear of being address as ‘Goth’. So she had to put on the preppy teenage act and painted her room white and pink, listened to Miley Cyrus and Taylor swift so she could sing along with her friends whenever.
And perfect was…was a really annoying word. Like every other girl on the cheerleading squad she felt really insecure about her body but she kept that to herself. She was their leader and she had to be strong for them.
Like them she had also done some things she wasn’t proud of, she still did, anything to look perfect, right?
Whatever problems leading a double life brought, she still had a role to play as head cheerleader and she was going to do it and do it till she graduated. She just had to pull herself together till she went away to university. It was going to be only a matter of time, right?
HALL
Hall looked through the pictures on his camera. He hadn’t been to school that day. He had called and pretended to be his mother to say he was sick. It’s not like his parents minded anyway.
He had pictures of his nine month old baby sister, and pictures of the football team, as well as the cheerleaders. He had discovered that the football players and cheerleaders made very unlikely subjects for his pictures.
They had so much raw emotion during practice that he almost loved them for the great pictures they gave him. ‘Almost’ being the key word. They had picked on him almost all his life and he did as much as possible to avoid them. Because of them, he was now failing classes from skipping school so much and matters at home weren’t much better.
He had spent his whole day at the train station, taking pictures. He had an amazing one of some Rastafarians drumming on buckets for change and one of the train speeding away…which was his personal favorite of the day.
He froze as a picture of Andii came into view, she lived about three blocks away from him and he had come across her at an art gallery on his street one Saturday.
The picture was an up close picture of Andii admiring a painting. She was so beautiful with the blonde streaks flowing through her hazelnut brown hair. He had titled the picture as ‘art appreciating art’.
He remembered the day vividly, he had pretended to be a journalist covering the gallery and they let him in with his camera. When Andii had seen him, she had pretended not to notice him and soon she had disappeared. Almost like she didn’t want to be seen anywhere near him, so much for childhood best friends. Sure it was years ago but he never forgot her. Her parents were never for them being friends as they belonged to different social classes but his mother worked at the elementary school where she went and got him in on worker’s discount.
He had loved Andii because she didn’t care about their social differences. She only cared about being a great friend. At least that was before, they entered junior high. All of a sudden social status mattered to her.
She had joined an off school cheer leading team where she had met some of her present friends and then she began avoiding him like a plague.
Till date she just sat by and watched as her friends made a fool of him daily and he couldn’t help wondering how she would have handled being picked on if the tables were turned.
He still had video tapes of when they used to hang out as kids. He had loved making videos of Andii because she had such an amazing spirit that bounced off the screen every time he watched it.
He wondered where that spirit had gone. Now, she just looked like a societal-zombie without a mind of her own. She wore those cute cheerleading uniforms all day and acted like the world revolved around her. When did she get so self centered?
He looked at the next picture, it was one of his immediate younger sister with a paint covered face. The little rascal looked cute when she was not up to anything.
He looked at his watch. It was a little after two in the afternoon. He stood up from the bench he was seated on in the park and began to hurry home. He had promised his parents that he was going to cook lunch for his sisters.
He knew what happened when he didn’t do as he was told. His father’s temper could not handle disrespect.
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