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By Root 419 0

us to button our pants uncomfortably at our hips. Back when we were freshmen, and PHS was ranked last in the county academically but came out on top when it came to suspensions and expulsions. When a whopping 35 percent of the student body had been booted out for one wacky infraction or another. When we were routinely herded out of the building because another anonymous misanthrope had called in a bomb threat to get out of taking an exam he didn’t feel like taking, threats moronically called in from traceable cell phones, but that still required football field evacuations while the police dogs sniffed for keg bombs made with kerosene, paper clips, and chewing tobacco, or whatever crafty suburban psychopaths supposedly used. When my biggest concern was not only having someone to sit with at lunch, but finding a bomb-scare buddy to chill with in the bleachers.

I know I sound callous and uncaring and cruel. But really, anyone with any sense knew that the average PHS dreg would never jeopardize losing his liquor store deposit by rigging a bomb out of a rented keg.

I can’t believe I’m making jokes at a time like this. And about Columbine, for Christ’s sake. What is wrong with me? Why do I have the compulsion to make jokes at a time when nothing should be funny? Why do I mock others for coping with this tragedy with sensationalized sentimentality, when my methods are far worse? Has my mind been so tainted by our culture of irony that I’m incapable of feeling any real emotion? Is this my way of denying the depths of the horror of what happened?

Or am I just irreversibly fucked up?

the twenty-first

Other evidence that I am a seriously disturbed individual:

All students were encouraged to wear red, white, and blue clothing to show our solidarity. I complied the first day but stopped on Thursday because the denim and American flag aesthetic made us all look like we were in the chorus of a Broadway musical version of The Dukes of Hazzard.

When our football pep rally was canceled in favor of a candlelight vigil, I genuinely thought the latter would be more fun, anyway. This turned out not to be far from the truth.

I’ve been glued to CNN, not because I want to see more disaster footage, but because I developed a little crush on one of the hunkier anchors. Last night I even had a dream about him in which he wore a Superman costume.

I’m freaking out because I have to re-reconsider my college choices. If this had happened two weeks from now, I might have already sent my early-admissions application out and I would be screwed. Not like I’m not screwed now. Because I had my heart set on Columbia, but obviously, NYC is out of the question now, and I have no clue where I want to go, or whether I want to bother going to college at all because I feel like the future isn’t going to be there anymore, which makes no sense. This is all so small and self-absorbed that it’s beyond disgusting.

There is only one thing that has given me any sense of hope, and it’s not Oval Office rhetoric or stars-and-stripes patriotism or religious zeal—the things that seem to be working for everybody else. It’s something that probably isn’t really happening at all. But in the past two weeks, I swear I’ve caught Marcus looking at me. It’s not a “Can I borrow your pen?” look. It’s a “Can we talk about this?” look. The look I haven’t seen since December 31, 2000. Leave it to me to turn a national tragedy into fuel for my sexual daydreams. I am one sick mofo.

Haviland has already approached me about writing an essay about the impact of 9/11 for The Seagull’s Voice. She thinks it will be cathartic for me and the student body. I know I should try to sort out my feelings by writing, but I don’t know if I can. I doubt my ability to muster a socially acceptable response out of my twisted psyche. I told her that until I can guarantee something normal, I’m better off not writing anything at all. This isn’t an essay that airs all my petty grievances against Pineville High. This is World War III.

And she said, “That’s exactly why you need to write, Jessica.