• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I had a crush on Alison but really had no chance. The juniors and seniors had swept up Alison immediately upon her entry into Shrewsbury High School. High school is not unlike a Mormon fundamentalist cult where the women are claimed by the older and more powerful. Alison would say things to me like “You know who Joe Barrett is? He’s on the varsity baseball team. Isn’t he cute?” And I’d have to swallow my pride and say, “Yeah, he’s cute!” This was the best I could do. I concealed my heterosexual impulses and played the role of gay best friend.

I could make Alison laugh, however. And that was exciting. After we got the word that Mr. Bobbin couldn’t handle his students, we did whatever we wanted to. We wouldn’t listen. We would carry on full conversations during lectures. I had this completely pointless bit where I would crawl on the floor when Mr. Bobbin was looking away and hide in different parts of the room. Eventually Mr. Bobbin would say, “Has anyone seen Michael?” And Alison would play along. She’d say, “I think he’s in the bathroom, Mr. Bobbin.” And then when he wasn’t looking, I’d pop back into my seat, and he’d turn around and say, “Michael, where were you?” and I’d say, “I think I was in the bathroom.” This killed with Alison. And made me want to push the envelope further.

Taunting Andy McGreevey made Alison laugh a lot. Although because he was something of a live wire, I never knew what his response would be if I made fun of him. He might laugh a little. He might flip out and then shout something at me really loud, which would get him in trouble with Mr. Bobbin, which was again funny because Mr. Bobbin’s nonthreatening high-pitched admonitions were hilarious. Around this time, I started watching Saturday Night Live religiously and doing terrible impressions of Dana Carvey’s impressions of George Bush. Another popular character at the time was Jon Lovitz’s “Annoying Man.” Annoying Man would come on Weekend Update and make excessively irritating nasal sounds and stick his fingers near Dennis Miller’s face until finally Miller would say, “Annoying Man—please!” and then Annoying Man would exit. It was hilarious. And my impression of it was terrible. Regardless, I used to do that impression in Mr. Bobbin’s class. I didn’t have a Dennis Miller, so I used Andy McGreevey, not as well known for his straight man work but frankly, I didn’t have a lot of options.

So one day in the middle of a lecture, I’m sticking my fingers in Andy’s face and ears and making these awful nasal sounds and Alison is laughing, hard. So I just keep doing it. “I’m Annoying Man and I like to touch your ears and they’re all filled with wax and your hair has all this grease . . . ” And then Andy punches me in the face—hard!

My nose starts bleeding.

And it fits in perfectly with the anarchy that is Mr. Bobbin’s science class. Mr. Bobbin turns around and with utter passivity squeaks, “Michael? Why is your nose bleeding? You’d better go to the nurse.” At this point, my face is a bloody mess; Mr. Bobbin is confused; Andy is pretty happy with himself. And the whole class is laughing.

All was well in the world.

My quest for attention ran into a serious snag when, at thirteen, I decided to go to St. John’s—an all-boys Catholic school.

The first few weeks overwhelmed me because there were all these kids from different towns: Shrewsbury, Worcester, Sutton, Oxford, Milford, and Leominster. (Or as we say in Boston, “Shrooz-bray, Wuh-stah, Suh-ehn, Ocks-fuhd, Mil-fuhd, and Le-min-stuh”). It was my first taste of the real world, and the real world didn’t like me.

Overall, I’m not sure that my sense of humor translated at St. John’s. I had a few small victories early on. I took a French class taught by a great teacher, Monsieur Girard, and his only rule was that you had to speak French. So as long as you spoke French, you could get away with just about anything. One day he asked me to read a passage aloud where one of the characters shouts at another character, “Dansez!” (Which means