WHUMP!
I cursed quietly to myself as my head bounced off the window, jarring me awake. I looked around and remembered that I was in the van on the way to some lame-ass choir clinic with nine other kids selected from our high school chorus. Mr Meyers, our choir director (and the shitty driver of this van) took pride in always being able to boast about the large numbers of his choir members that always got accepted to these "invite-only" events.
Like I gave a fuck!
But the old man practically begged me to take this trip on this last chance; my senior year. And I kind of owed it to him. He had never given up on me, even when I blatantly disrespected him in front of his choir. Now I was a vocal lead in my high school's choir and musicals. I even had several scholarship offers to some various performing arts colleges. So I gave the old man what he wanted, for old time's sake.
I had dropped into the rear-most seat in the van as soon as it pulled up. This way, I didn't have to worry about Mr Meyer's lectures or getting sucked into a conversation with the seat behind me. This was the best of both worlds. I was even starting to believe that I might get the seat to myself.
But no.
I had forgotten about the new girl, Tori. She was the last one to climb onto the bus and looked around briefly before coming straight to the back and asking me if the seat next to me was taken. It would've been pointless to lie, so I just stood up to give her room to get to her seat.
"Thanks" she said, simply.
I'm pretty sure she picked the seat with the least talkative occupant on purpose. Tori was a junior who had recently moved to this dump in the middle of Ohio from good ol' Los Angeles County. A true Valley Girl, she didn't know how to react when her winter clothes from Cali didn't do a damn thing to keep her warm in this climate. She had learned this the hard way on her first day.
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She had dressed as she usually would for school. In California, nothing would've been wrong with her outfit. In fact, I thought it was damn sexy! It's just that by the time she had gotten from her car to the front door, the cold had screwed her nipples up so that they looked like pencil erasers. How did I know this? Because the poor girl didn't have a bra on.
I imagine this would be pretty logical in California. I mean, I wouldn't want to walk around all day with my tits sweating through my shirt, either. Plus, she had some beautiful breasts. Either large C's or small D's, they looked unbelievable on her 5'3" frame. I would bet she weighs no more than 130 pounds. However, her weight is distributed well enough to make any man drool. Her skin was still slightly sun-tanned and contrasted nicely with her naturally blonde hair.
She was gorgeous.
So of course the country-ass skanks at my high-school felt threatened. The first thing they noticed about the girl was her lack of an undergarment. I could hear the whispers of "Whore" from ten feet away.
I was leading Tori by about ten feet at this point. So I shrugged out of my leather jacket, turned around, and offered it to her. The look of gratitude on her face was thanks enough, and I walked her to the office to get her schedule. This way she didn't have to be bothered by the judgmental looks and sarcastic comments. The whole school was afraid of me, and I kind of preferred it that way.
You see, I'm mixed; half black and half white. Society seems to think that any black equals all black, so who am I to argue? I showed up to my first day of school here in some baggy-assed sweats and a loose fitting red Nike hoodie. My high-top Adidas matched the color of the hoodie perfectly. I had picked up the toothpick habit from my father, so a toothpick dangled from the corner of my mouth. I'm not the biggest guy, I'm only 5'8" weighing in at 140 pounds.
But, man, I terrified these poor muthafuckers!
In my second week there, the incident took place that would seal my social status at this school for the remainder of my high-school career. Ricky Clarkson, the star senior line-backer for the football team, decided that he and I had a problem.
"Why you have to act like such a nigger all the time, CJ?" He asked in that drawling accent that I can't stand. I must have looked pissed, because he followed up his first question with "What? Did I anger you, brutha? You lookin' to start a fi..."
That's when I punched him. I don't think he was expecting me to be as fast as I was, but he was out before he hit the floor. I locked eyes with everyone in the circle that had formed around us. I'll give em' this much, they learn fast. When the teacher came by later that day to ask what happened, no one had seen a damn thing!
