Hopeless Wanderers

Tough day at school, we’re taking the SATs at the library. The principal once told us that we should take the test seriously for it will measure our literacy, numeracy, and writing skills that are needed for academic success in college blah blah blah…I don’t really pay much attention on what he says, for me it’s just a big BLAH. It’s tricky you know? some questions are not shown on our reviewers that they gave us few months ago. I’m sitting in front of Devin Michael, he is my buddy, big guy, eats a lot. He’s neat, you can easily tell once you saw him and damn way different from me but, we have the same taste in music you know, we both like Alternative rock and Jangle rock, particularly The Smiths. Man, we just hangout and chill on his room or mine, either, just to listen to The Smiths the whole day. I told earlier that I’m way different from Devin’s look, you know why? Coz he has a short clean-cut hair while my mine is long like George Harrison’s hair on Rubber Soul album. He’s tall and chubby probably measures for about 6’2 and 172 pounds. I’m just 5’7 tall and 154 pounds and when I’m with him, he’s like my body guard. I wear band shirts a lot and sometimes, when I’m happy like damn happy, I wore Hawaiian polo and Devin likes to wear polo shirts and sweaters. He also like The Beatles shirt but he just wears them occasionally. It’s more like a collection.

I stared at him while we’re taking the test and hoping the he could give me the answers since he’s the one who put a lot of time on studying. I studied too but not as hard as he did.

I acted like I’m thinking deep on my table, looking up while taping my pencil on head and muttering random words just to look like I’m remembering something. “dude, help me, I forgot the answers.” I secretly whispered to Devin, “just tap the answers on the table just like how we do it on every exam.”. Tapping the pencil on the table is like the universal code for the answers like example, one tap is either A or True depends on the type of exam, two taps is B or False, three is C, and four is D. Everybody in the whole world knows what I’m talking about and if you don’t get it then you are probably a dork.

“hey Dev, what’s your answer on question 25?” I mumbled. It’s about math and I suck at it. He tapped 2 times so I shade B on the answer sheet. Just simple as that. Ringo Starr is correct that you’ll get by with a little help from your friends.

Beside me is Mike, Mike Miller, another friend of mine, wears black shirt all the time, never smile, creeps the shit out of our asses, smokes a lot of Marlboro, and love’s listening to Emotional Hardcore music. He’s 2 inches taller than me and way skinnier than me. I observed him and just seems so cool about the test. He’s quietly answering all the questions without any signs of hesitation. Oh my god, he finds the exam seem so easy. I’m screwed, am I the only one who didn’t study? I wonder.

He’s on my left side so I silently move leftward but still facing front “Mike, lend me the answers.” I whispered but the watcher seems to heard it.

“shhhh quiet please!” the watcher said so I quickly moved back to my original position.

I wish that Ron Taylor is near me. He’s my intelligent friend. Very clever and always under a lot of pressure specially in school. He is very similar to Brian Johnson from The Breakfast club, like really similar. How he wears clothes and the braces and stuffs. Me and Mike used to call him dork and it makes him really really angry. He told us that if we keep calling him dork, he will stop lending us his answers on every exam. Ron is really good, always the highest on every exam and he’s a quite a teacher’s pet. Today is just not my lucky day, he’s far from me like four tables away from ours. Stupid First come first serve rule, took Ron away from me. It’s not that I don’t actually know all the answers on every question on this test, I’m not that dumb, it’s just the hard part you know, math kind of thing. It’s the only part of the exam that I haven’t answered yet. The watcher on our side is damn strict that even one cough is prohibited… I want to punch that dude on the face. It’s nearly twelve noon and only got thirty minutes to finish the test. I saw Ron stood up and passed his questioners and answer sheet to Miss Pam, the guidance counselor. I still have twenty-three unanswered math questions and it’s all algebra and calculus, my worst enemies. Face palm on my table and stared at the questions while sobbing. All I can hear is the pencil shadings and the ticking of the clock, even my sweats are falling down from my head. Tick tick tick, the sound of the clock is just messing with my head so I dig deeper in my mind and that’s when it hits me that it’s no big deal if I get high scores or not, I’ll study art in college by the way. I randomly shade all the blank circles on the questioner and passes it to Miss Pam after. I stared at everyone in the building and chortled.

“shhhh, get out Mr. Sunny!” the watcher told me.

You get out dumb ass, I wonder. Man, he’s lucky that we’re on a fight-prohibited school and he’s older than me. I went out of the library and directly went to the cafeteria. I saw Ron sitting on our usual table, near the window, with Juliana Watson so I headed my way from theirs.

“how’s the test Sunny?” Juliana asked.

I’m still standing by their side “I killed it dudes,” I beamed “although, I randomly shade most of the math questions, not most…all.” I sat down besides Ron and chortled, “who cares about math when you will study art right?” I raised my hand upward asking for a high five. They did both ignore me.

“seriously? Man, you’re in deep shit.” Ron said then took a sip on his milk. “you can’t do that man, you’re not a hundred percent sure about art right?”

“I am, I really am. Gonna move to San Francisco for college man.”

Juliana bites her apple “Ron, just let him…okay? He knows what he wanted to do and that’s fine with me as long as it’s fine with him.” she said while chewing her apple. Juliana Watson is my only female friend and no one can give a better life lesson than her. She’s more like a mom you know? I adore her, she’s like my big sister although I’m six months older than her. She’s blonde, read a lot of books, loves mystery, not that tall and sexy, you know, just a normal American woman. She loves plants too, especially succulent and cactus or any indoor plant.

“so…you’re leaving Santa Cruz skateboards?” she asked.

I worked in SC Skateboards, I’m their graphic artist. You’re familiar with it right? The hand with a mouth on the palm. It’s a classic skateboarding and surfing company. I’m incharge of the design of the shirts although sometimes they asked me to illustrate the designs of their deck. It’s more of a hobby you know, I’ll draw then they’ll pay me.

“I think I am. I’ll find another brand in San Francisco.” I answered.

“San Francisco huh?” Paul interrupts then sat beside Juliana and kissed her.

“how’s the test babe?” she asked Paul

Paul sighs “not good, I don’t know if I nailed it” he sobs and grabbed Juliana’s crackers on the table and munched it.

Paul Witherfield is Juliana’s boyfriend, tall and skinny, tanned skinned, dark haired, and knows how to wear his chuck’s. He’s the most patient man I’ve ever met.

Alexander Smith came to our table and slammed the chair. “stupid test, drained my mind.” he groaned then steals Ron’s milk from his hand and took a sip.

“dude?” Ron whined.

“is everything all right?” Juliana asked and held Alexander’s hand.

Nothing to worry about, Alexander is gay, but we don’t care, don’t care at all, really really cool with us. He always wore tight jeans, a coach jacket, and high-soled shoes to look taller. His shoulder is broad though which looks so cool in his jacket. Alexander doesn’t look gay, it’s the way he talks. He’s always using dear or sweetie when making a point for example Sweetie, you’re not far from here or I’ve got much better than that dear.

“no! Everything is not alright. Sweetie, I’m gonna fail this test.” he whined in his gay voice.

“c’mon let’s go home, let’s talk about this on our way home.” I said. We all stood up and left the cafeteria. Devin and Mike meet us outside Day Valley High. They walked right in the lawn and gave each of us a high five.

“where will all of you go?” Mike asked.

“home.” Ron answered.

“Home, this early?”

I looked at Mike while walking “why? Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“don’t know man, Pizza?” he stated.

Pizza parlor is like a twenty-minute walk from Day Valley High and like fifteen minutes away from home. We’re on the same neighborhood in Day Valley SC, California. They’re my friends since grade school except Ron, I met him when we’re thirteen. He’s originally from Anaheim CA.

After 20 minutes of walking, we arrived at Depeche Pizza Place, a fine Italian pizza parlor around town. I think the owner, Mr. Bundy, gets its name from the the new wave band Depeche Mode. I’m pretty sure about it because there’s a sign “Barrel of a Gun” hanging in the right side of wall inside the pizzeria. That’s where we go after class, like every day we hang out at Depeche. The place is so cozy with its blue and red neon lights, a well working jukebox that only plays new wave songs on the side, and most important is the mouth-watering pizza. We usually order their classic pepperoni and either a pitcher of root beer or 7 mugs of it, it’s their best seller. Fine-time right? just sitting on our usual booth, ordering the usual, and played Just Like Heaven on the jukebox. We normally stay in Depeche until the evening. Just talking about jokes, girls, boys for Alexander, life, school works, projects, music, mysteries, and lots of things.

The next day, I went to Devin’s house to listen to Oasis’s new album, What’s the story, morning glory. It’s just shipped from Manchester because it’s still not released in US. I didn’t order the album yet, it costs much more and plus, the shipping fee cost like half the price of the CD. Besides, I can wait till the album reached here. Devin pre ordered it last month and the record label assured him that he will receive it on the day of it’s released. Oasis’s album just got out yesterday in UK and Devin received his copy the next day of its release. He’s so stoked about it and called me that he already received the album.

He inserted the shiny disc on his stereo, pressed the play button, and blasted it in full volume. I’m stoked about this album, I’ve been waiting for this for a year now, I hope that it’s better than their first effort, Definitely Maybe. The first track is called Hello. The intro got us on our feet and when the drums blasted and Liam starts singing, we banged our head back and forth. It’s a good opening song, gonna rate it 10/10. We listen to the album the whole day because, who isn’t? right? Bet you will too once you’ve heard it. My favorites are Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back in Anger, Hello, and Champagne Supernova. There’s no doubt about it right? Not to be bias, I honestly love the whole album, I’m just obsessed about the said songs. While listening to Don’t look back in anger, me and Devin talked about things, you know, like about life just like what we always talked about. It’s kinda serious, it’s all about our friends, the gang, and leaving this town for college. The room is felt with melancholy vibes that time. I grabbed Devin’s phone and called Paul, Juliana, Ron, Alexander, and Mike and informed them about a road trip tomorrow and maybe stay there for the weekend. I stood up after.

“Dude can I borrow this album for just a night?” I asked Devin holding the CD case. I really like to jam it in my room.

He grabbed it on my hand, “no way dude, I’m gonna listen to this for the whole night.” he said “that’s why I pre ordered it the first place.”

I blew a raspberry noise, “fine!” I said.

I went out from his bedroom and left his house and walked home. His house is 2 lots away from ours by the way so it’s not that far.