Bullets for Everyone

Saturday detentions are a load of bull. I’ve met some people who’ve gone through them, saying that they either met interesting people or thought it was a waste of time. I don’t have a statistic for people who enjoyed themselves, or slept through the entire damn thing. I never had a reason to go, but people assumed I’ve gone through it more than anyone else. So why am I here? The vice president of my class got on my nerves that my patience wore so thin, that I knocked him down and beat the crap around his belly till people pulled me out of it. The people in my class brought me to the counselors and now I have to report to detention today. I don’t mind going to detention, and it felt pretty damn good to torment that prick.

The questions I get from the school officials is always the same one, “Why did you attack Rick Cameron? You’re better than this Mr. Donne.” My answer to that? He pisses me off, and I had enough. To think I have to sit through majority of my periods with the same asshat for a couple hundred lectures and deal with the worst cringe sessions, and go home with headaches. Not exaggerating the latter. Everyday, I wished I had an IV drip dispensing thousands of grams of Tylenol every time I’m nearby that idiot. Spike it up with a close-to-an-overdose measure of morphine, and I might get through a month of school. Don’t like my opinion? Not my fault you decided to read what I remembered. One of the councilors I actually enjoy talking to tell me it does well with self-discovery. It’s a biased perspective from what you can see so far, but this is the initial reason why we’re here.

The six of us reported inside the auditorium. Nobody planned on using it today, so we have endless space for doing whatever the hell we wanted to. On stage, was a white board on wheels.

“Why are you here? What do you think you should do next time? What have you learned from all of this? Minimum of 500 words.” Was written in purple marker - an essay with a pretentious word count.

I sat on the third row from the top and took out my yellow pad and pen, “I’m here because some idiot pissed me off! Should I go on for the next two hundred and thirty words about how I enjoyed shutting him up? I already wrote a damn love letter kissing his older brother’s ass!”

“Hey! Quiet down Donne, you don’t have to voice out your ‘concerns’ about the essay, go and write it down!” Taryn Spring yelled from his seat in the last row. He’s this morally obliged kind of person who would try and make you feel bad, but it’s never worked on me. I’ve been told off as a punk jerk that any form of compassion surprises me nowadays.

“Would you like it if I called you Spring for the entire day? Don’t call me by my last name! We’re not going to hang together, and I sure as hell won’t listen to whatever the hell you’re saying. You’re here for a reason too! Did you come here to do some Spring Cleaning in hell?” Okay, that was a bad pun, but it was all I got.

“You think you’re so cool with your punk-rock aesthetic? You’re just masking your insecurities! Do you think life is going to pass you a bong, then let you burn down fascist cities?” Spring Cleaning was so furious, that you could see his shoulders move up and down.

“Give it a rest! Look, we just need to get rid of this damn essay, and wait out the next seven hours in here, either you two shut up, or take it outside!” Now Jay Holman, one of the members of the swim team, tried to stop us from our arguments.

“I’d take it outside alright! I can beat him in, like how Rick Cameron turned into a prune!”

“That’s enough! I can’t concentrate when people are going to start fights in here. It goes against my philosophy,” Lila Phipps said. She’s a part of the photography club in school, and she occasionally writes poems for the school newspaper, she’s an interesting person.

“Fine, I’ll listen to the lass. But you still haven’t answered my question.” I pointed at the white board and looked at Spring Cleaner, “Why?”

Everyone stopped writing. Everyone wanted to know why a person who’s not known to do anything so rebellious, end up in a detention group with other people.

He was quiet for a bit, then he spoke, “Someone snuck drugs in my locker.”

“You sure it’s not yours?” I chimed.

“Save it, Felix,” he yelled back at me.

“’Kay. Well, we might as well know each other and why we’re here. We might learn something about ourselves and why we’re here today.”

“We all did different things, I don’t think we could learn off each other,” said Richard Morris, who is known to be a total f-boy. If the school newspaper could write down articles of all the girls he’s banged, it would be a weekly list. Some rumors say he’s got an STD on him.

“We’re all curious people. I’m sure you know that.” He shrugged it off, and tilted his snapback. “Anyway, I’m Felix, and I beat the crap out of my class’ vice dictator, and now I’m here wasting my time.”

Quiet.

“I’m Jay, and I’m here because I was bullying an asthmatic kid in the pool locker room.” Good sport. He got my respect for doing that.

“I’m Mara Ross, and I’m here because I skipped class for a road trip.”

“Where’d you go?” I asked.

“Just the next town over, wanted to go ’cuz I was so bored.”

Another moment of silence and casual shrugs.

“I’m Richard, and I was caught in a different bathroom.” I called it!

“When are you not in a different bathroom?” For a bit, we all snickered at Richard’s adventures in Ladyland.

“And lastly, we have you. Why are you here, shutterbug?”

We all looked at her. She raised a brow and shook her head, “Um, it’s nothing interesting.”

“Did you do it with Richard?”

“Ew! No, I did not do that! Listen, it’s not worth it, and I don’t want to bore all of you, okay?”

We all nodded, and we were quiet again.

“You sure?” I asked.

“Shut up Felix.”