The Dog Boy

The fall before Dog-Boy ate the whole world, I stood in front of mine to try the same. Behind the large velvet red curtain in front of the me my peers shouted– crying for their futures. No, I’m just kidding... the screaming wouldn’t start for another week. For now, a blood curdling thunderous applause roared in the dim, cramped auditorium instead. It begged for mercy in the form of a worthy 9th grade class president. Of course I, Alfie Drey, stand as the only true contender for our Student Body President.

Around me stood my friendly enemies. Logically, I trusted that even my weakest strengths stepped over them. Highest GPA in my class, check. Invited twice to Homecoming as just a freshman, check. I opened my mother’s pocket mirror I stole this morning and checked the part of my freshly trimmed hair. Absolutely flawless execution Alfie. Suddenly, a bead of sweat from my temple started streaking down to my cheek. My breath sharply recoiled I tore the river off my face.

I rose my gaze from the reflection to a cheshire grin around a bald head.

“You’re up next Alfie, break a leg”. Mr. Dougherty’s coffee breath stank.

The once explosive room turned to a lingering silence. A wash of fear soaked me as my feet stomped through the unfinished concrete backstage onto the brightly lit linoleum. Below me sat almost 100 freshman waiting with mouths agape. The spotlights narrowed, focusing on the altar and I in the center stage:

“A dreadful darkness closes in on my bewildered mind. O we suffer and do not sin. We’re tortured yet resigned through all this world of whelming mist. Still, let me look to you all, to gain the courage to resist the tempters till they flee. Weary I am — O give me strength and leave me not to faint, to sacrifice to thee the whole of my identity”. My misquoted verse boomed like a preacher’s sermon. My fellow students below me looked up to me in a confused silence.

“I refuse to stand here and make the empty promises that my peers before me have made so many times before. No, I stand here to wage a war my fellow freshman. For too long the faculty and upperclassmen spit on our faces, kicking up dirt in our paths and treat us inferior. We’ve only been high schoolers for a few months, and everyone, especially we freshman, know the terribleness of the senior class. Yes, they bring in drugs, they bully the weakest of our class, and taking from that recent incident, the worst of them sexually assault our female peers. Yet those same violators continue to roam the hallways, virtually unpunished by an administration with socks in their mouths.”

Mr. Dougherty’s cheshire smile seemed to disappear from the audience below me, leaving only his reddending piggish face behind on his stout body. No, this speech didn’t pan out like the cliche spatter I shilled a week ago to the advisors.

“As your president, I will hold accountable our morally bankrupt administration. We will end the abuses of the upperclassmen. Standing together in the faces of any and all injustice towards our class will be a more powerful legacy than any of the meaningly pandering my any of my rivals promise”. I sweep my hands towards the back of the stage where the other candidates watched my tirade in silent disbelief.

“Join Alfred on his crusade thro–” The microphone cut off and my spotlight dimmed out. A thunder struck the room, with rolls of clapping and applause demolishing the stern looks of the chaperones in the rooms to surprise. Even though I couldn’t see the scene I felt the enormous weight lifted from my community, allowing hope to ripple through the atmosphere.

A greasy hand reached out at me and grabbed me backwards into the stage. It lead me past the stone cold unfinished backstage and past my fellow student council contenders. Through the poor light, their faces appeared as though my rivals smelt something foul as they saw the piggly man dragging me through the area.

A force downward plummets me into a cold metal chair placed strategically in a small nook where no one could hear me scream. A very fake cheshire smile reappears through the poor light and through the teeth of a portly man, I hear a voice just about to, but not quite, crack from frustration:

“What on earth happened to our speech about getting better dance fundraisers and better school lunches? You can expect to see some serious disciplinary consequences from this whole incident young man, not only for lying but for also spreading false information! It is absolutely not your–”

Suddenly the thunderous applause from the back grew significantly louder and more synchronized. Then it grew into a small rhythmic pattern that preceded the growth of powerful prepubescent and half-pubescent voices:

“ALFIE, ALFIE, ALFIE, ALFIE…. “ The crowd of my future followers look towards me as their leader now, and now they call for my name, awaiting for salvation.

It seemed that the demonstration of love from my peers only made Mr. Dougherty even angrier. His face contorted and double backflip, pinched between his index finger and thumb. He looked at me again with calmer eyes.

“Listen kid, I’m not going to stand here and tell you what to and what not to say during a speech. But you’re dead wrong if you think I’ll take a bullet for you when Mr. Delano asks why your speech flew so out of line. So I cut your mic. Wait hear for Mr. Delano, he’ll take matters from here” With that, he waddled away in a huff. I turned my head down in embarrassment.

This whole idea was stupid from the start. What if the principle makes me drop out of the running? Just before disappearing back onto stage, Mr. Dougherty turned around and said half begrudgingly, “Listen kid I’ll try to do my best to keep you in the running for council…”

I sat by myself in the dimly lit room carved somewhere in the backstage. My cold metal folding chair uncomfortably comforted my heavy legs. I still didn’t quite wrap my mind around what just happened. I most certainly made myself into a target. I deeply inhaled the musty air of the room and quietly spoke Father Jonas’s shield:

“I summon today all these powers between me and those evils, against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and soul. Christ be with me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

With a great inhale, I see my savior approve my destiny to lead my classmates.

Then footsteps. Thud, thud, thud. My heart leaps into my mouth and my stomach turned knotted. My judgment won’t be an easy one, it would be from the from the devil himself. Faster, faster, faster. A dreadful demented figure encroached into the quiet of the room.

He’s going to absolutely rip me a new one...

Sweat started piling onto my forehead and I felt a hair from my perfect part fall off. I listened closer:

Tap…….. Tap.

Tap, tap….. Tap.

Each step taped a bit delayed from the last. A sigh of relief. I released the tight grip of my abdomen and relaxed as a funny looking boy formed out of the darkness.

“You’re a real freak, you know that?” Simon’s voice quelled my anticipation. His lopsided legs gave his head a permanently slight tilt. I wonder how I looked from that angle.

“How’d your speech go Simon?”

“Is that a real question? After your Jesus speech, how am I gonna top you? Besides, I’m the only real candidate for Vice President”.

“Not biblical, but rather its a Brontë poem. It symbolizes the–” He punched me fiercely in the arm, “Shut up you absolute nerd. Lets go before someone tries to question you’re dumb actions”.

Just then, a loud thudding started. Expensive wooden dress shoes likely stomping on linoleum. A low voice sounded from the nearby backstage room distinctly questioning about a certain fugitive named Alfie.

“That’s probably our cue to skip out of school for right now. For your sake, I hope they chill out soon.”

Standing up, I caught a glimpse of an invisible golden chain. A fragment of holy fate connecting us, and our destinies by the waist. In another second, that golden beam disappeared.

“I can’t just skip out of school Simon. I have a reputation to uphold. Besides, the Fuhrer wants to see me”

“C’mon, the only thing left for the day is our pep rally. If we escape through that back door we can get out of here without anyone seeing. Let’s grab some ice cream from Lady Margaret’s Confectionary, I’ll even pay for half of yours since I encouraged you to say that dumb speech…”

“Man, you really love the grandma’s home-style ice cream don’t you?”

I guess he didn’t hear the ice cream parlor foreclosed last week. No shop in Lowfields has had any customers since the Coal plant moved out last month, with all the jobs and money. I bet that some weeks, Simon was Lady Margaret’s only customer.

“Tell ya what, we’ll go after the rally Simon”. Yeah, I can’t be the one to break the news, he loved that place.

“Alright then I’ll catch you there. I can’t stand being in this dumb school any longer”.

I looked at him with a half smile on my face. He only thinks the school is dumb because he’s not running it. But with me as President and Simon behind me as the Vice, I bet we could build a school he’d love.

Simon cracked the back door exit, letting in a cutting breadth of autumn into the back room. Through small peak of the door, I saw the final writhings of the summer in whirlwinds of fallen leaves and scampering chipmunks. But before even a millimeter of sunlight could escape in, Mr. Delano’s quaking steps froze everything in place.

“Did you have plans on leaving Simon?”, Mr. Delano spoke at him with a glare that could stop bullets.

I heard that one time he expelled 10 seniors the day before graduation before even finishing his morning coffee. Back in middle school, I heard that before getting rid of Timmy Walle in 7th grade, he showed him his “favorite toy”: a steel paddle under his desk used only on the worst of the worst. You’d rather get hit by a truck than go out for “batting” with Mr. Delano . I’d believe it– how else could one man reign over the Elementary, Middle and High School of Lowfields. Rumor has it that he’s been the Principle-dictator since Simon’s grandparents graduated from the Lowfields Unified School District. I should probably worry even more, since this is my second run in with the law of Lowfields.

“Both of you, come with me”. With a vice grip around our wrists, the dragon of Lowfields dragged us away.