u s e y o u r h a n d s

I hated high school for the same reasons that most people hated, do hate, and will hate high school: it’s a holding pen for hundreds or thousands of kids all struggling to find their own identities through the vehicle of institutionalized torture.

But I know I had an easier time of it that most people. I had a wide spectrum of friends because of my eclectic involvement in advanced placement classes, swimming and water polo, and drama. Some lunches were spent hanging out with my AP teachers and some were spent in the drama room. Nobody beat me up. I was a weird kid, but not an alienating one.

My first drama class featured a mix of popular kids, athletes, and the nameless and faceless kids who just tried to get through the day. But our group also included one of the great outcasts of high school history. Mary Cisco was definitely emotionally bizarre and probably mildly retarded. She was completely undeveloped and her stick-straight figure resembled a boy’s. Frizzy hair framed an uncharming face burdened with cheap glasses.

Perhaps she would have been an outcast just looking the way she did, but what just put her over the top, relegating her to a story people write on their blogs ten years down the road, was her behavior. Her most popular move was to run up behind her victim of choice ambush-style and grab their shoulders while yelling. It was completely disconcerting, but it gave you a great story for the rest of the day, joining that choice cadre of Cisco victims. This behavior never received our sympathy or open ridicule, but left her banished.

One day in drama class, the red-faced Mormon Napoleon who taught the class Tom Fearon, asked us to pantomime everyday activities. One by one, we stumbled and overacted painting a house, making sandwiches, and singing rock songs. Mary topped us all. Mr. Fearon asked her to pretend to pet a puppy. Mary bent down to the ground and scooped up an invisible puppy and cuddled it tenderly in the crook of her elbow. She did this for a good thirty seconds before turning to the back wall and throwing her puppy as hard as she could. When she turned back to her audience beaming and bowing, we didn’t say a word.

If one prowled the mall on weekends, you were sure to spy Mary shadowing mall security. Her diligent study of these rotund, power-mad figures seemed like an apprenticeship. Her single-minded focus on her future career, even though it was mall security, made the rest of us, unsure of what our futures held, deeply jealous. This emotion was tempered by the joy we’d get when she’d speak into an imaginary walkie-talkie to “headquarters.”

There are other anecdotes I could tell about Mary Cisco. There are many, many strange and funny stories about this girl. And as I’ve been writing this, I reflect on my teenage self and my 24-year-old self. I’ve always quick with a well-crafted barb, but I’m more willing to analyze behavior instead of just mock it. I still mock, but more to understand the subject, as a vehicle for comprehension. I have always been fascinated with people who (either automatically or by choice) let their freak flag fly. Maybe I just feel like I appreciate them more than others. Maybe I’m just jealous. Who knows. But I would never want a world free of Mary Ciscos.

Reading: The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever by John Epstein.

Attending: The first session of a writing and performance class I’m taking with the Neo-Futurists.

Overheard:

[At work] Co-worker: “I’ve got the theme to Gone With The Wind stuck in my head.”