Fast Times at SD High Teaser
Posted: 2004-03-07 01:37am
This will hopefully grow into a semi-regular series.
Fast Times at SD High
Written by Damien Sorresso and Matthew Lineberger
Principle Stravo slouched just a little further in his chair. What is this now, 10 times he's been in here? In two days? He asked himself. Sometimes he loved his job; other times he hated it. The kids saw him as some Orwellian nightmare figure. He could goose-step around the halls with a swastika on his right arm and one of those lens-on-a-string things that only evil Nazi guys in the movies ever wore without damaging his reputation.
Kids need to understand authority. That's why I'm doing this. To mold them into productive citizens. He pondered his own thoughts for a moment. Yeah, that should keep me sleeping at night.
"Are you stoned or something?" Stravo's head tilted slightly up, more as a attentive reflex than a result of actually caring about what the student on the business-end of his ornate, wooden desk had asked. The student in question, Walter, had to have possessed a brain. Stravo could simply not find a way around that simple necessity. Locked away, underneath the round cranium and face that looked like a pepperoni pizza that had been sitting under a sunlamp for the past 10 hours, there had to be a brain.
Mmm ... pizza. Stravo made a mental note to start having the cafeteria serve pepperoni pizza on ... What day is it today? Oh right, Tuesday.
"Listen Walter, I know that students often like to nickname other students, but that doesn't mean that–" Walter cut him off.
"My name is TRANSCEND!" He exclaimed.
"But that doesn't mean that teachers have to respect those nicknames in class during roll-call," Stravo finished, ignoring Wally's outburst. In the frequent times Wally had been in his office, Stravo had learned that it was best to speak in compound sentences. Wally had a propensity of cutting him off, so he figured that he'd like to at least get one, complete thought out of his mouth before the 15 year-old sophomore forcibly injected his conversational equivalent of epinephrine into the still-beating heart of a hapless sentence.
Wally, or Transcend, as he insisted on being called, had a problem with authority, specifically any authority which did not address him as "Transcend" or instead addressed him as "Tranny," "Wally" or "Dumb-ass." To this end, he often disrupted classes by yelling at his teacher for having the temerity to use his real name.
"Why is it so fucking hard to just fucking call me by my REAL NAME?" Wally asked. Stravo was beyond the point of caring about some foul language. Technically, it was against the rules, but a foul mouth was the least of this kid's problems.
Stravo sighed, exasperated.
"Just get out of here and stop harassing your teachers," he said. He wished he could get a button installed under his desk, one of the cool ones in the movies. A button that would activate the spring-loaded ejector plate underneath the chair opposite him. A spring-loaded ejector plate powerful enough to propel a student into low orbit. He'd even settle for a trap door leading to a fire-pit, like Dr. Evil had.
He was fairly certain that the board would shout down that budget proposal fairly quickly, though. Those were the types of hunches he usually followed.
Wally removed his ass from the chair which regrettably had no ejector plate underneath it. Stravo noticed a slight aberration in the boy's uniform as he was leaving the office. His navy-blue button-up shirt was defiantly untucked in the back. This was probably no fault of Wally. The kid had no relaxed state of being, so he was always leaning forward whenever he sat in a chair, pulling his shirt out of its housing in his khakis.
Nevertheless, it annoyed Stravo. The longer he spent at this school, the more little things began to annoy him. He was about to reprimand Wally for his dress-code impudence, but he figured it'd be best left to one of the student hall monitors, whose job it was to spot uniform violations and report roving students.
Who watches the office floor at eleven? Stravo asked himself. Ah yes, Spanky. Spanky was about as straight-arrow as students came these days. Though Stravo thought that he took his "power" as a hall monitor a little too seriously, at times.
Ah well. He'll give ole Wally Hell, Stravo thought to himself, satisfied at Wally's fate upon attempting to return to class while in violation of the school's dress code.
Stravo checked the time. Oh right ... eleven. 4 hours still until dismissal. Those 9 to 5 fuckers have it easy. His eyes wandered down from the clock to the second drawer on the right of his desk. He pulled it open, revealing the usual host of office crap that he didn't use. This drawer's sole purpose in life was to be filled with shit ... and a flask, which was in turn, filled with Captain Morgan's spiced rum. He lifted it from the desk drawer, holding it aloft like a prize and examining it as if he hadn't had it for decades.
It was quite a beautiful flask, all black with a silver etching that read "Class of 1969 Official Teller of Tales" in a pompously ornate font, with a quill pen and ink behind the text.
Aah, those were the days, he reminisced about his days at old Sunnyvale Central High, back when Sunnyvale only had one high school. The place had never been "new." It had been shitty and run-down as long as anyone could remember. The computer labs received an upgrade to 1997 technology around 2004, and the science labs were wonders of modern science in that they had managed never to kill a single student, despite numerous gas leaks and a 65% smoking rate among the student population.
But with the influx of soccer moms equipped with their fertile wombs and child-bearing hips, Sunnyvale, 10 years ago, decided that it was time for another high school. So was built Sunnyvale East, which quickly became the arch-rival of Sunnyvale Central. The Sunnyvale Central kids hated the Sunnyvale East kids because they were richer than a Corvette's exhaust, and the East kids hated the Central kids because the Central kids could kick their rich, pansy asses. Also, the East kids didn't like paying the Central kids' 50% markups on seedy dank. In fact, Central pretty much had a monopoly on supplying marijuana to the rich, white suburban kids, so the kids at Sunnyvale East began calling Central "Sunnyvale Dank," or "SD" for short.
They'd thought themselves terribly clever, but the Central kids had taken a liking to the nickname, much like early Americans had adopted the derisive term "Yankees." Despite their fondness for the nickname, they retaliated anyway by calling the East kids the "Sunnyvale Bitches," or "SB" for short.
Then the town decided it was time for Sunnyvale Central to go. Well, not so much "go" as "evolve into a parking lot," specifically a parking lot for a new high school. That school's name was Sunnyvale West High School. Brand new with state-of-the-art, spiffy-ass stuff. And it was all for the kids on the wrong side of town. Especially the metal detectors and drug-sniffing dogs.
This naturally infuriated the East kids, and thus did Sunnyvale West inherit the spot of Sunnyvale Central in Sunnyvale East's "People we fucking hate" book.
And now, Stravo was the head honcho of this institution. This institution, which admitted a kid who insisted on being called "Transcend." He eyed his flask again. Okay, you win.
He unscrewed the cap and brought the flask to his lips, slowly tipping back in his chair rather than tilt his head back to start the flow of liquor to his stomach. The alcohol hit his tongue like liquid flame, if there was such a thing. He inhaled the cleansing aroma and let himself forget about the bloody place for a few seconds. He imagined himself in a court room, arguing an epic legal battle about something important and awing the audience and jurors with his insight and powerful voice. Man ... why didn't I go to law school?
Mid-gulp, his intercomm buzzed, wrenching him back to reality. His eyes lazily rolled to where the obscene creation sat on his desk, partially obscured by the flask still held to his face. "Mr. Stravo, two students were just caught having sex in the janitor's closet. They're on their way down to your office right now," it squawked, ever the bearer of bad news. Stravo paused to consider this. A wave of apathy washed over him, and if he could've resigned himself any more to the bottle, he would have.
He tipped the flask again. God damn first week of school.
Fast Times at SD High
Written by Damien Sorresso and Matthew Lineberger
Principle Stravo slouched just a little further in his chair. What is this now, 10 times he's been in here? In two days? He asked himself. Sometimes he loved his job; other times he hated it. The kids saw him as some Orwellian nightmare figure. He could goose-step around the halls with a swastika on his right arm and one of those lens-on-a-string things that only evil Nazi guys in the movies ever wore without damaging his reputation.
Kids need to understand authority. That's why I'm doing this. To mold them into productive citizens. He pondered his own thoughts for a moment. Yeah, that should keep me sleeping at night.
"Are you stoned or something?" Stravo's head tilted slightly up, more as a attentive reflex than a result of actually caring about what the student on the business-end of his ornate, wooden desk had asked. The student in question, Walter, had to have possessed a brain. Stravo could simply not find a way around that simple necessity. Locked away, underneath the round cranium and face that looked like a pepperoni pizza that had been sitting under a sunlamp for the past 10 hours, there had to be a brain.
Mmm ... pizza. Stravo made a mental note to start having the cafeteria serve pepperoni pizza on ... What day is it today? Oh right, Tuesday.
"Listen Walter, I know that students often like to nickname other students, but that doesn't mean that–" Walter cut him off.
"My name is TRANSCEND!" He exclaimed.
"But that doesn't mean that teachers have to respect those nicknames in class during roll-call," Stravo finished, ignoring Wally's outburst. In the frequent times Wally had been in his office, Stravo had learned that it was best to speak in compound sentences. Wally had a propensity of cutting him off, so he figured that he'd like to at least get one, complete thought out of his mouth before the 15 year-old sophomore forcibly injected his conversational equivalent of epinephrine into the still-beating heart of a hapless sentence.
Wally, or Transcend, as he insisted on being called, had a problem with authority, specifically any authority which did not address him as "Transcend" or instead addressed him as "Tranny," "Wally" or "Dumb-ass." To this end, he often disrupted classes by yelling at his teacher for having the temerity to use his real name.
"Why is it so fucking hard to just fucking call me by my REAL NAME?" Wally asked. Stravo was beyond the point of caring about some foul language. Technically, it was against the rules, but a foul mouth was the least of this kid's problems.
Stravo sighed, exasperated.
"Just get out of here and stop harassing your teachers," he said. He wished he could get a button installed under his desk, one of the cool ones in the movies. A button that would activate the spring-loaded ejector plate underneath the chair opposite him. A spring-loaded ejector plate powerful enough to propel a student into low orbit. He'd even settle for a trap door leading to a fire-pit, like Dr. Evil had.
He was fairly certain that the board would shout down that budget proposal fairly quickly, though. Those were the types of hunches he usually followed.
Wally removed his ass from the chair which regrettably had no ejector plate underneath it. Stravo noticed a slight aberration in the boy's uniform as he was leaving the office. His navy-blue button-up shirt was defiantly untucked in the back. This was probably no fault of Wally. The kid had no relaxed state of being, so he was always leaning forward whenever he sat in a chair, pulling his shirt out of its housing in his khakis.
Nevertheless, it annoyed Stravo. The longer he spent at this school, the more little things began to annoy him. He was about to reprimand Wally for his dress-code impudence, but he figured it'd be best left to one of the student hall monitors, whose job it was to spot uniform violations and report roving students.
Who watches the office floor at eleven? Stravo asked himself. Ah yes, Spanky. Spanky was about as straight-arrow as students came these days. Though Stravo thought that he took his "power" as a hall monitor a little too seriously, at times.
Ah well. He'll give ole Wally Hell, Stravo thought to himself, satisfied at Wally's fate upon attempting to return to class while in violation of the school's dress code.
Stravo checked the time. Oh right ... eleven. 4 hours still until dismissal. Those 9 to 5 fuckers have it easy. His eyes wandered down from the clock to the second drawer on the right of his desk. He pulled it open, revealing the usual host of office crap that he didn't use. This drawer's sole purpose in life was to be filled with shit ... and a flask, which was in turn, filled with Captain Morgan's spiced rum. He lifted it from the desk drawer, holding it aloft like a prize and examining it as if he hadn't had it for decades.
It was quite a beautiful flask, all black with a silver etching that read "Class of 1969 Official Teller of Tales" in a pompously ornate font, with a quill pen and ink behind the text.
Aah, those were the days, he reminisced about his days at old Sunnyvale Central High, back when Sunnyvale only had one high school. The place had never been "new." It had been shitty and run-down as long as anyone could remember. The computer labs received an upgrade to 1997 technology around 2004, and the science labs were wonders of modern science in that they had managed never to kill a single student, despite numerous gas leaks and a 65% smoking rate among the student population.
But with the influx of soccer moms equipped with their fertile wombs and child-bearing hips, Sunnyvale, 10 years ago, decided that it was time for another high school. So was built Sunnyvale East, which quickly became the arch-rival of Sunnyvale Central. The Sunnyvale Central kids hated the Sunnyvale East kids because they were richer than a Corvette's exhaust, and the East kids hated the Central kids because the Central kids could kick their rich, pansy asses. Also, the East kids didn't like paying the Central kids' 50% markups on seedy dank. In fact, Central pretty much had a monopoly on supplying marijuana to the rich, white suburban kids, so the kids at Sunnyvale East began calling Central "Sunnyvale Dank," or "SD" for short.
They'd thought themselves terribly clever, but the Central kids had taken a liking to the nickname, much like early Americans had adopted the derisive term "Yankees." Despite their fondness for the nickname, they retaliated anyway by calling the East kids the "Sunnyvale Bitches," or "SB" for short.
Then the town decided it was time for Sunnyvale Central to go. Well, not so much "go" as "evolve into a parking lot," specifically a parking lot for a new high school. That school's name was Sunnyvale West High School. Brand new with state-of-the-art, spiffy-ass stuff. And it was all for the kids on the wrong side of town. Especially the metal detectors and drug-sniffing dogs.
This naturally infuriated the East kids, and thus did Sunnyvale West inherit the spot of Sunnyvale Central in Sunnyvale East's "People we fucking hate" book.
And now, Stravo was the head honcho of this institution. This institution, which admitted a kid who insisted on being called "Transcend." He eyed his flask again. Okay, you win.
He unscrewed the cap and brought the flask to his lips, slowly tipping back in his chair rather than tilt his head back to start the flow of liquor to his stomach. The alcohol hit his tongue like liquid flame, if there was such a thing. He inhaled the cleansing aroma and let himself forget about the bloody place for a few seconds. He imagined himself in a court room, arguing an epic legal battle about something important and awing the audience and jurors with his insight and powerful voice. Man ... why didn't I go to law school?
Mid-gulp, his intercomm buzzed, wrenching him back to reality. His eyes lazily rolled to where the obscene creation sat on his desk, partially obscured by the flask still held to his face. "Mr. Stravo, two students were just caught having sex in the janitor's closet. They're on their way down to your office right now," it squawked, ever the bearer of bad news. Stravo paused to consider this. A wave of apathy washed over him, and if he could've resigned himself any more to the bottle, he would have.
He tipped the flask again. God damn first week of school.
