One of my favorite bands is doing a concept album, songs inspired by stories of fans. To be considered you have to write them a letter and send it in through the actual post. I've got a bunch of stories. I've started with the best one. This post is just a cut & paste of the letter, more or less. Read and enjoy it, if you can.
Greetings Men of the Haggis,
I
read and backed your upcoming album on Pledge Music, just as I did your Modest
Revolution on Kickstarter earlier in 2013.
I guess you could say I’m a fan.
When I read about the concept for this album, I was intrigued. Some people live nice successful lives with
few headaches. I wonder what that’s like
sometimes. I live a strange and varied
existence, which results in lots of ups and downs, and many great stories. I figured I’d share one with you (or maybe a
few in separate letters) and maybe inspire something for the next album.
The
first consciously brave thing I ever did, I did as a senior in high
school. If I was brave before then, I
either wasn’t aware of it, or had no choice.
Kids’ lives, and even teens’ lives, are an odd mixture of doing what
you’re told and what you can get away with.
A lot of things happen accidentally, or due to the designs of
others. I don’t think behavior of merit
that happens that way, because it was either chance or someone else’s idea.
As
a senior in high school, your nerd narrator had a full course load plus two
classes. The class that this story takes
place is AP History, the kind of class that is more intense than normal, and
might be turned into college credits if you make the proper grade. It was a strenuous class for high
school. We had a research project every
quarter. We read multiple books in
addition to the text. The exams were
hard. The teacher was a pompous ass.
I’ve
met and studied under a lot of teachers.
Most of them genuinely care about the students or the material,
sometimes both. Some are burn-outs who
just sort of show up to get paid. Some
wish they were doing something else, and it shows. And, every once in a while, you run into a
good teacher, who is a terrible person.
Mr.
M. (because I don’t want you sued, not because I’m afraid to name names) was a
bully and, I’m pretty sure, a closet drunk.
He was loud. He could be
insulting. He played favorites in class. But normally the outbursts were short, and
the insults were just clichéd enough to be forgotten once class ended. A couple of people were shaken up by this
jerk in the early months of the year, but learned to fly under the radar in
short order. One of them sat next to me
in class. We hated Mr. M. together,
because we were there to learn, and he made it harder by making us feel
small. My best friend (let’s call her
Kay, not her real name) was also in that class.
Kay was smart and polite enough to never be the object of ridicule, and
so wasn’t toughened up in the early going like some of us. And then, one day, after months of great work
and near perfect attendance, she forgot her notebook before going to class.
Mister
M. was enraged by this. His face went scarlet. His voice rose, far beyond shouting and into
some sort of decibel warfare. He accused
Kay of some pretty awful things. And if
it had just been an outburst, a sentence or two, I think she would have
coped. But he kept going. I watched my best friend get closer and
closer to tears as one minute of abuse became two, and almost three. I remember being hot, and uncomfortable, and
angry at first. I remember literally thinking, he’ll stop in a second, and it’ll be over. When he didn’t stop, but instead began to get
coarser and impossibly louder, I thought, surely
someone will step in soon, but then I looked around and realized no one
was.
What
happened next was my first brave thing, and I remember precious little of
it. I popped out of my chair. It was one of those one piece desk things,
with the table bolted to the chair. I
had been unconsciously heaving the top away from me as I got angrier and more
uncomfortable. When I rose to intervene,
the arm of the desk snapped back into place as I released it, and the desk
tottered before it steadied. I remember
pointing at Mr. M. I remember shouting
back, but I don’t remember any of the words.
The gist of it was, either he would shut his mouth and leave
voluntarily, or I would shut it for him and drag him out of class. Later, other classmates told me I had
threatened to kill him. I don’t remember
that part, but if they say it happened, I believe it.
Obviously,
I hadn’t thought it through. I could
have been suspended, or he could have fought me. I might have won, I was a little taller and
thirty years younger, while he was bigger and stronger. I didn’t care about the consequences to me,
which was the main thing. I was coming
to a rescue, and succeeded. Nothing else
mattered.
I
remember everything after that with reasonable clarity. I saw his rage sweep from her to me. I was absolutely ready for it. When I said whatever it was, he stormed out
of the class intent on telling the principal.
About a minute after he’d left, I worked out that he couldn’t do that
without revealing his part in things.
Kay was shaken, but safe. I sat
back down, my heartbeat slowing back to its normal tempo. The room was eerily silent until the bell
rang ten minutes later. We had class the
next day, a strained facsimile of normal.
That Friday, I was the last person to leave class. I don’t know if I was still being protective or
just had more things to gather together that day. The asshat apologized to me. I called him stupid to his face. I said Kay was the one who needed the
apology, not me. The look on his face
told me he hadn’t even thought of that.
There really are some terrible people out there.
That’s
my story, and it happened just that way,
Kevin S.
Mahoney
@TheSagest on Twitter
thesagest77@gmail.com- Yes, you can throw me a comment either here, on twitter, or the e-mail I listed. I enjoy hearing people talk about my writing.
- No, I'm not tweeting @enterthehaggis a link to this. My letter will go in the mail Monday instead. That doesn't mean you can't do it for me, oh anonymous internet person.
- Yes, I know I kinda blew off finishing my novel this month. I apologize to the universe for neglecting both it and this blog.
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