"Whoa!"
says Johnny, nodding. "Good answer."
After they eat more of their unrecognizable meals, Johnny tests
Albert again. "You probably like Quark, don't you? I mean,
Hell, he's the coolest character on Deep Space, right? Don't you
just love the Ferengi?"
"Actually," says Albert, "I like Odo."
Johnny is astonished. "Odo?"
"Sure," says Albert. "Odo is principled. You always
know where he stands." Albert loudly slurps up something
Jell-O-like before smacking his lips and adding, "And as
a changeling, he has the coolest powers."
Albert looks directly at Johnny as he says, "Plus, he's not
a dirty double-crosser like Quark."
"Whoa!" says Johnny, his eyes getting big. He recoils
so far back he almost falls off the bench. "Good answer,
dude!"
A few minutes later, as they finish up their meals, Johnny puts
Albert to the final test, asking, "Do you think Justin Timberlake
is hot?"
"Sorta," he squeamishly admits.
Johnny considers this for a long time, then nods. "Close
enough." He extends his hand again.
Albert shakes it again.
Johnny doesn't let go. "We're friends as long as I say, okay,
man?"
"Okay," says Albert.
Johnny squeezes his hand. "Don't ever double-cross me."
"I won't," promises Albert.
"Okay," says Johnny.
That night Albert tells his mother he made a friend. She doesn't
believe him and makes him call Johnny on the phone.
When he finally proves it to her, Agnes Albert says, "Good.
I would have hated rotting in jail because you made me kill you."
******
School provides Albert with all kinds of opportunities to be rejected.
He tries athletics, even though he's scrawny and awkward. He's
rejected by the basketball team, the baseball team, the football
team, the track team, the swim team, the golf team, the volleyball
team, even the kite team. He's also denied membership in the school
band, the school choir, the jazz ensemble, the chess club, the
Spanish club, the drama club, the crafts club, and the bird-calling
club (despite the fact he does a dynamite impression of an albatross).
All of Albert's grades are lousy. He's especially terrible at
math. He even flunks P.E. When he takes shop class and his entry
into the soapbox derby spontaneously combusts, injuring the shop
teacher, Mr. Bench banishes him from the shop building for life.
The only bright spot during this formative stage of Albert's education
is provided by his freshman English teacher: Mrs. English. One
day in the dead of a bitterly cold January, Mrs. English assigns
Albert's class the task of writing an essay about how the world
views them.
Cross-eyed Mrs. English looks directly at Albert and the student
to his left as she asks, "How do people feel about you? And
why do you think people feel the way they do?"
That night, a blizzard hits Indiana, burying Albert's town in
enough snow to close the school for the rest of the week. Albert
has five days to work on his essay and he spends virtually every
waking moment laboring over it. When it's done, he entitles it:
Everybody Haits Me and I Dont Kow Why. After offering a hundred
handwritten pages where he provides thousands of examples of people's
loathing for him, he then rambles on for thirty more pages about
his inability to fathom why he deserves to be treated like a pariah
(which he spells "paryea").
When Albert receives his novella back from Mrs. English, he's
stunned to see he's received a B-, the best grade he's ever gotten
in his entire life. At the top of the first page, his teacher
writes,
*I don't hate you, Albert.
Notice the apostrophe in the word: "don't." Notice it's
spelled "hate", not "hait." Notice the periods
at the end of these sentences.
You need serious work on the mechanics of your writing. This grade
is a gift.
But you clearly have a talent for creative expression. You should
develop it.*
Albert reads the sentence, I don't hate you, Albert, over and
over, without noticing either the punctuation or capitalization.
Tears well up in his eyes. To Albert, I don't hate you, is tantamount
to a declaration of love.
From that moment on, English is Albert's favorite class/teacher.
He has a crush on her, which Johnny picks up on immediately and
teases Albert about relentlessly.
Two months later, Mrs. English sees Jesus burned onto the face
of a pancake and heeds its/His call to pour syrup on her body
and run naked through the streets spreading the maple sweet gospel.
And so it is that Albert's favorite teacher is committed to an
asylum in a distant town and never heard from again.
The new English teacher flunks him.
******
On the night of their freshman sweetheart dance, Albert and Johnny
hang out in Johnny's room and watch the Sci-Fi channel.
Suddenly, Johnny says, "In TOS, in the episode Mirror Mirror-"
"One of my favorites."
"The bearded Spock from the other dimension helped the Kirk
from our dimension. But he betrayed the evil Kirk from his own
dimension." He glares at Albert like the rest should be self-evident.
As far as Albert is concerned, nothing is ever evident with Johnny.
He says, "So?"
"So!" says Johnny, his glare intensifying. "Was
the bearded Spock a dirty double-crosser or not?"
"No."
"No?" squeaks Johnny. "He betrayed his own captain!"
"Oh, no," says Albert. "I submit to you, his captain
betrayed him. Spock didn't owe his allegiance to a temperamental
weasel who was killing people behind their backs with a death
button in his cabin! No, no, no! The bearded Spock helped our
Kirk because his Kirk was a dirty double-crosser!"
This seemingly has never occurred to Johnny and it takes a long
time to sink in. "Whoa, man! That's really deep." He
acts as if one of the great mysteries of his life has just been
solved. "Good answer, dude!"
Albert knows Johnny doesn't really like him but he does like his
answers.
It gives Albert's life meaning.
*****
On the night of their sophomore sweetheart dance, Albert and Johnny
are hanging out in Johnny's room, watching the Sci-Fi Channel.
"So, you like Star Wars, right?"
"Sure."
"So." Johnny nods as he gives Albert that enigmatic
glare of his. "Darth Vader."
"So," Albert mimics Johnny's tone. "What about
him?"
"Anakin Skywalker started out as a Jedi Knight. Then he went
over to the Dark Side and betrayed the Jedi."
Albert nods. "Sounds like a dirty double-crosser to me."
"And yet!" Johnny holds up a finger, pointing at the
ceiling. "In Episode Six, he ultimately fulfills his destiny
and brings ba-lance to the Force!" Johnny scoffs at the absurdity
of it.
"So. . . ."
"So? So, how in the Hell does someone who's clearly a dirty
double-crossing villain bring ba-lance to the freakin' Force?"
Albert frowns, starts to say something, then stops.
"Ah-ha!" says Johnny, pointing at Albert. "Explain
that, dumb ass!"
For a moment, Albert is stumped. He thinks hard, causing his head
to hurt.
Johnny says impatiently, "I'm waiting!"
"Obviously, he wasn't a dirty-double-crosser any more when
he brought balance to the Force!"
Johnny looks bewildered. "What?"
"The Star Wars saga is the story of a dirty double-crosser
who sees the light after he's dismembered by it in saber form.
He realizes the errors of his ways, repents, defeats the evil
Emperor, and only after he's forgiven by the Jedi -- symbolically
represented by Obi-wan and Yoda's ghosts -- only after he's forgiven
for being a dirty double-crosser can he bring balance to the Force."
"Whoa!" says Johnny. He mulls this over. "So then
-- And that would mean that -- So when Yoda said -- And the wookie
-- whoa!" Johnny begins nodding. He looks at Albert and says,
"Good answer, dude."
Albert feels like he just barely averted losing his only friend.
******
One day, quite unexpectedly, a momentous thing happens to Albert.
His father takes him out into the back yard and tells him, "Today
is your birthday. You're sixteen years old. In two years you'll
be eighteen and then you'll be out of this house for good."
His father seems deadly serious when he says, "Some of the
other boys are marginally tolerable but you're different. Screw
you, Albert. Nobody likes you, least of all me."
Albert points out, "Actually, I think Mom likes me least
of all."
"Good point." His father nods. "So, you must hate
living here, I'm sure. Even though it's just two years away, it
probably seems like forever before you will ever be out on your
own."
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