RYAN

I met Ryan on my first day at Oakmont High School.

I’d been kicked out of Roseville High, the other high school in town, transferring to a “continuation school,” which is the modern equivalent of reform school, the school behind the school, the school housed in trailers, like they’re trying to get us used to living that way, the school with the day care facility, and also the school with the awful name, always, continuation schools have the worst names, like they didn’t want to waste a good name on us. I went to Success High, which is either very optimistic or just the product of someone’s mean sense of irony.

“I know, let’s call the school with all the burnouts and screw-ups ‘Success,’ ha ha ha.” It was a perfect name, though, two words, Success High, the thing we would likely not achieve, and the reason why.

I was one of a small percentage who made their way out of the continuation school system back into regular school. All it took was getting punched by a guy who thought I was flirting with his wife. Yes, his wife, in high school. I was flirting with her a bit, but more like I was her gay BFF. She like burly bad boys, which I was not. I was a skinny guy who liked a lot of “faggy” music. I also arranged her a ride to a free clinic and went with her for comfort and support when he’d managed to knock her up, something he never knew about. If he had been privy to this information, perhaps he’d have been more tolerant of a little friendly flirting.

Instead, his fist connecting with my jaw hard enough to spin me around marked me as a punching bag, and a week later another student decided he’d have a go at me with very little provocation.

I was in art class, making a Pink Floyd, The Wall–themed mug. Glenn and his cousin Sandy were hurling insults at each other across the class. Sandy was sitting right next to me, and every time she called her cousin a “gap-toothed, chicken fucker, redneck piece of shit,” it took me right out of the Pink Floyd vibe I was trying desperately to hang onto.

Glenn called her a “fat cunt,” and I knew from the big breath she took in that her reply was going to be a loud, long one. I interrupted, “Hey, Sandy, I’m trying to work. Could you maybe go fight with your cousin over there, where he’s sitting.” She looked at me in disgust.

“What the fuck did you just say to my cousin?” Glenn yelled from his table.

“What? I just asked her if she could fight with you without me in between you guys.”

“You think you can talk to my cousin like that?!” he raged.

“Talk to your cousin like what? You just called her a cunt.”

And that was the switch. Glenn turned bright red. “YOU CALLIN’ MY COUSIN A CUNT?”

“What?! No! I didn’t. You did.”

“That’s it. I’m gonna fucking kill you after class. You are dead.”

This was all yelled at top volume, in a class with the teacher present. Mr. Fox didn’t seem to notice. The bell rang and the class emptied. I moved against the tide of students to Mr. Fox’s desk. “Hey, um, Glenn and his friends are waiting outside to beat me up,” I informed him, hoping to wake him out of the coma he seemed to be in.

“Yeah? Sorry about that.”

“Well, can you help me? Walk me to the office?”

“No. Sorry. They’d just go right around me.”

“Well, can you call Mr. Litke?” Litke was our principal, and a good ally.

“Nope. Phone’s busted.”

“Well, can you do anything for me at all?”

“I’m afraid not. You can try going out the back door.”

I made a note to spit in Mr. Fox’s coffee next chance I got and tried the back door. The way was clear. I figured I would run toward the office, and by the time Glenn and his thugs saw me I’d have a good head start. I took a deep breath and bolted.

As I rounded the corner I heard, “There he is, get him!” I was already running as fast as my legs could go.

I reached the office door, ran inside, and then stood, waiting. Glenn came whipping around the corner, fully enraged, and as he lunged toward me, I swung the metal door hard, smashing him in the face.

I ran through the front office into the principal’s office and again stood in the doorway.

“Keith, what’s going on?” Litke asked.

Just then Glenn came into sight again, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. Again he lunged, and again I managed to smash him in the face with a door. I then reached down and locked the door, and as Litke came around his desk I grabbed his phone and called my mom.

“Come get me. Now.”

Litke told me to stay put and went to try and calm Glenn, who was now pounding on his door yelling threats, and figure out what had happened. He knew both students well enough to assume that I was most likely acting in self-defense. I wasn’t interested in talking to him for fear that I’d start sobbing.

I watched through a window for my mom’s van and then beelined it from the office. Litke followed me, and my mom asked him what was going on.

“I don’t know. Keith isn’t ready to talk about it. Give me a call later.”

I gave my mom the whole story and I informed her that I was done. I would not be going back to that school. My dad had other ideas and arranged a meeting with Litke. On the day of the meeting, Dad got his first look at my schoolmates and changed his tune immediately.

“Keith doesn’t belong here. These kids look like convicts, adult convicts. Keith just has a big mouth.”

The faculty agreed. I’d been a good student, and they decided it was time to give me another shot at attending a regular high school.

And so I was enrolled at Oakmont High School, the only school in our town I hadn’t yet sampled. I was glad to be away from the prison-yard mentality of continuation school, but I wasn’t thrilled to be starting over again with no friends. Then I spotted Ryan.

Sitting by himself in plaid pants and a flannel, his long Mohawk down over half his face.

I just sat next to him. Our clothes and the musical tastes they were associated with said that we were supposed to be friends. This schoolyard tribalism has always baffled my dad but it served a purpose.

Ryan was very skinny, and he had bulgy eyes. We often teased him that he looked like a mosquito. “I have clogged tear ducts! I was born premature,” he’d explain, to anyone and everyone. This was his excuse anytime he was driving people crazy, like when he had trouble ordering at Taco Bell, the old lady taking our order giving him her sympathy and maybe an extra taco.

Ryan may be the sincerest person I’ve ever met. Logic and truth meant everything to Ryan. And as a result, his mouth would get him into conflicts he was not physically fit to deal with.

As I sat on the cement next to him and leaned back against the wall, he just started talking as if we were old friends. “Look at this lunch. Who would feed this to their kid? My mom is the worst.” He had a sandwich consisting of two pieces of white bread and one piece of bologna. He took the one sad round disc of processed meat byproduct, and he flung it absentmindedly. We both heard the splat and looked up to see that the offending piece of meat product had struck a girl easily a foot taller than us in the face before landing on the cement between our boots and her sneakers.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“I thought you looked hungry,” Ryan answered.

We exchanged names and became friends as we ran from her, having to jump a fence before she finally gave up on kicking our asses. It felt like he hadn’t intended to be mean but just had no control over his mouth. This would be confirmed over time.

Ryan would confront skinheads, and anyone else who he disagreed with. He’d be very logical in his argument, more often than not resulting in them calling names, attacking his character, or threatening to kick his ass. This too he’d respond to logically, like a punk rock Mr. Spock. “Why are you insulting me? That isn’t a good rebuttal. Do you have a rebuttal? You’re incorrect, I’m not gay, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re talking about. You’re threatening me with violence now. Does that mean you can’t answer my question?”

Even people who like to hit other people will puff up their chests and try to get some kind of return huff, some physical response that will help them justify throwing a punch. Ryan confounded them. He would not change his body posture, not defensively or aggressively, and would just keep his mouth going. He’d put them in a position to look really bad if they hit him, and it was beautiful. I didn’t know how far it could go. When the other party started looking like they were gonna deck him regardless, one of us would start walking Ryan away, usually to the relief of whatever bully he was arguing with. And even as we escorted him away from the scene, the mouth would be going, going, going.

One night we were at a warehouse that had been a church that later became an all-ages dance club. As things were closing down a batch of Nazi skins showed up, as they always did.

Ryan decided to engage. He wanted to know why they came to dance clubs when they didn’t dance. He wanted to know how they justified thinking white people are superior when they themselves didn’t have very many exemplary traits to speak of. A whole group of them, maybe a half dozen, was standing around him as he took them on in debate using all of his usual tactics.

I was trying hard to convince him to leave, while strategically not standing where the half circle of skins could close in on me. One of them prided himself on being an intellectual and he tried to take Ryan on. He didn’t stand a chance and the guy got angrier and angrier. One of them turned to me and said, “You better get him the fuck out of here, now.”

I worried it was too late as the would-be intellectual bonehead stepped forward and gave Ryan a hard shove. Ryan used the backward momentum to run, but there was nowhere to run, they had him against the wall. He jumped and grabbed the carpet that had been hung on the wall as a sound barrier, and it came down on top of him. He grabbed one edge of it and started rolling back toward the skinheads. The carpet rolled up around him, wrapping him up like a burrito. The skinheads hopped over it, and one or two gave a sloppy kick in its direction. Ben and I reached down and grabbed the Ryan burrito, picked it up, and told the bald guys, “We’ll take care of him,” as we hurried out the door. We threw the package in the back of Ben’s car and drove off, Ryan once again escaping unscathed other than a few rug burns.