It's a bit weird writing this, what with you knowing my name and me not knowing yours but there you have it, that is the way this have to go.
Beyond my name, which I have never really liked because it sounds, at least to my ear, like it doesn't belong to me, or I to it, I will tell you honestly that as of late, I have lost all me mirth. Who said that? Which character? Probably Hamlet. Or was it Horatio? Yeah, must be him. I can't keep my Shakespeare plays or character straight at the moment. And I know, I know, I'm supposed to be writing about one of his plays now, talking about the themes and meanings but, as you have probably guessed by now, I won't be doing that. I have read four of the buggers this term and as I say, they have all sort of bled into each other by this point. The language is totally confusing. You gotta read everything three times. Talking mules and fairies? Star-crossed lovers? Depressed Princes? No doubt about it the guy had a brilliant imagination. The one that really stood out for me was Titus Andronicus because it was such a bloodbath. Like a horror movie mixed with tragedy. Characters getting it left, right and centre. But getting back to the question on the top of this booklet, no, sorry to disappoint you but I won't be discussing how metaphor creates textual meaning in one of Shakespeare plays. Instead, I'll be writing about the last couple of weeks to fill in the time.
They have given me four more days here at the school. After that, I have to leave. Everyone else has already gone, off with their parents or alone on the coach, off into their bright and shining future. I am in no particular rush to leave or to encounter the future. No sir. I am enjoying the present.
Up until the end, the other guys were all shaking their heads and saying, I can't wait to leave this joint. And I was saying the same thing, although I don't really mean it. I guess I was just showing off. I said it because...isn't that what you're supposed to say when you've outgrown a place? When you have moved on? Anyway, the point is, I don't think I'm ready to go yet.
In a couple of days, I'll pack up all my stuff up and take down Ms November and Ms October, peel the ladies off the inside of my locker, leaving behind lumps of blue tac (or maybe I should just leave them for the next guy)?. I gotta say, it is very weird being the last man standing. I mean, walking around the grounds, past all the buildings, each one brainless with empty windows looking down on me. Eating alone in the cafeteria and sitting alone in the tv room or shooting pool, seeing all the dorms and common areas empty like the place was suddenly evacuated before something terrible happened.
I can stay up late as I want now, no problems at all. And they don't care if I smoke. A few weeks ago, we all still had to go up to the top of the parking lot, under the stone arch and behind the stables out back. They aren't stables anymore. Thirty years ago, when the school was still a grand old establishment they would have contained horses but not anymore. Now there is just some junk in them-gardening supplies I think.
But back to the smoking-the housemasters and teachers knew what we were doing, they just wanted us to do it out of sight. And now? No one cares what I do.
Speaking of authority figures, there are a few teachers still hanging around but they are all busy finishing up, so they can leave on their holidays. I can tell by the way that they talk to me that they don't consider me a student anymore. I mean I'm not quite one of them, an adult, but I'm not a student either.
I guess mainly I have been moping around, soaking up the atmosphere of this place, looking at everything real close, knowing I won't be back. Well, not until I'm an old guy, returning to reminisce about the so-called 'best years of my life'. By then maybe I'll have a sports car. A red MGM with ms October in the passenger seat. I'll drive into town and park and say to ms October (who I vastly prefer over ms November) "Well honey, this is where it all began." And I'd show her around, show her the classrooms, and then we'll drive off, her hair flying in the wind and me accelerating towards our quaint hotel where we will spend the night. But only the night because we won't live in poxy England. We'd live in a country like Argentina, high in the mountains overlooking....
You can see one of my main problem here, right? Instead of buckling down, thinking about what I should be thinking about, instead of ms October.
As I mentioned, I have been feeling quite melancholy and anxious about leaving this place and trying to figure out exactly what I am supposed to do with the rest of my life. I have had a few long conversation with Mr Trillo about this very topic.Trillo is a decent enough guy. He has his faults like anybody else (his BO, man, that is downright offensive), but that aside, he is one of the most truthful adults I know here. In these conversations, Mr Trillo keeps making the point that there is a certain amount of uncertainty in life, even with the best planning, so at the end of the day all you can do is be yourself. Certainly, make plans and have goals, but be true to thyself. More Shakespeare!
I guess Mr Trillo is trying to give me some last minute advice before I walk out the door. A lot of these guys, these teachers....you have to wonder. I mean to end up here, in this school? surrounded by a bunch of snot-nosed kids like us? How did that happen?
But seriously, Mr Trillo...he's all right, compared to the other teachers. At least he doesn't sound like a hypocrite when he gives advice.
I am pretty glad that McDouglas left. I couldn't face him anymore after the blackmail thing. I can see now that were all being a bunch of idiots. We should never have treated him that way but I guess you could say he should've been so careless about having sex with the canteen worker while his wife was away in Ireland. He acts like that and we are supposed to respect for him? The man was a jerk. And when Harrison got hold of that information...oh boy. McDouglas wasn't going to tell us what to do anymore. Harrison was a real dick about it as well, really playing mind games with him, rubbing it in. Harrison was my friend but I felt pretty bad about the whole thing, torn I guess, seeing someone my age treat an adult like that. It didn't feel right but then again, I just followed along. And being the last one here, it felt like I inherited most of the guilty about what we did. I tried to talk to McDouglas, tell him I was sorry, no hard feelings and all that but he didn't want to hear it. I don't blame him. Even though I wasn't the main instigator, I was involved. So I felt pretty bad about the whole thing.
To pass the time, lately I have been conducted a few experiments. I have been hitchhiking around the local area. All I have to do is go to the edge of town, sticking my thumb out and see what happens. Pretty stupid, right? Maybe I'm practising being independent and self-reliant. Weening myself off this place slowly. The thing is, I don't know if I'm, you know, ready to leave yet. As far as I'm concerned, this has all happened too quickly. Then again, it's not like I have a choice, do I? I can't stay here forever. I can't get a job in the chicken factory up the road and spend the rest of my life here. Imagine that. Right now I have this image in my head of some old guy dressed in his school uniform.
I get rides from different people: farmers, salesmen, factory worker and other people with lives I'll never know about. They see the school uniform, pull over and say, "Maybe you shouldn't be hitchhiking, kid. It isn't the seventies anymore". But I get in, into their cars and off we go, along the country roads, heading in different directions. And sometimes the drivers get a bit weird because I'm pretty vague about my destination and purpose. And I have noticed that people in the adult world really, really prefer it when you have an iron clad purpose.
With these side trips, I like the idea of starting in the same place and ending up in different places, places you would never have a reason to going to. Why the hell would I chose to end up in Chipping Warden? Standing in the middle of nowhere? I mean it's easy to find yourself standing in the middle of somewhere famous like Time Square or where ever.....But how many people have been here? The weather has been really good recently so off I go. I try to get back before dinner time. Every so often Trillo will go, did you study today? And I'll say, "A little," feeling bad that I have to lie to Mr Trillo.
Of course, I mostly end up in Oxford, Bunbury and once or twice, Northamptonshire because that is where everyone is usually heading with purpose. And yeah, there have been a few adventures. I got in this one guy's car not realising he was drunk and off we go, rocketing along the road, with him barely in control of the car, talking to me about his wife. And I was just bracing myself for impact and saying, watch out! Every three minutes because we were about to plough into a hedgerow or stone wall. Boy, I'll tell you that was, hands down, the most nail-biting ride of my life. After five minutes I said, "Well, thank you, sir, but I think I'll get out here". He dragged his eyes off the road again, looked at me with a kind of incredulous expression on his face, the kind that really drunk people will look at you with when you say something they don't like, and then he shouted, No! You said 'the end of line'!" (He had me there. When I first got in, I did say that). So on we went, swerving and skidding, way too fast, him red-faced, distracted by every bloody thing other than driving the car, lighting a smoke, dropping the lit butt in his lap, jerking the wheel, turning up the music, singing along to a White Snake song, trying to tell me long stories about how great his wife was, shouting over the noise of the wind coming in the car window. And me thinking, brace for impact. A real white-knuckler, I'll tell you.
There was also a pervert who asked me all these questions which didn't seem sinister at first, but the longer I was in the car, the more it started to feel like he had something in mind other than shooting the breeze. So I got out of that car in the next village. He pulled over and just sat there on the soft shoulder, the engine running, so I went into the pub, you know, one of these wonky stone, thatched roof buildings, and sat there, a few local people looking at me until I could see out the window he had driven away.
I wonder about this, I mean, why I am doing with all this hitchhiking? Because I'm young, people keep saying "You have your whole life ahead of you." Like this is supposed to be a good thing. Lately, I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this choice. And at the same time, it all feels so fucking predictable in a way, you know? Like no matter what car I get into, it has all been pre-determined. I don't know why I feel like this but I do. It's like....Because of who I am, I'll always be stuck on this one groove. This one path. Like any decision I make, even if it is against what I originally wanted to do, has still already been planned out. Do you know what I mean? Like changing my mind is just part of the plan anyway and nothing I think or do is original or unexpected.
And even when I'm feeling optimistic, thinking that maybe, by getting in this or that car, I could end up anywhere, a different country even, like in some Tin Tin comic, a little voice in the back of my head is saying, "Ah who are you kidding?" You know who would be there at the end of this magnificent journey into the unknown? Me. Thinking about things, in the same way, brushing my teeth the same way, obsessed about Ms October when I should be doing something meaningful or different, only I wouldn't be. I'd be thinking and doing something you would expect from someone like me.
Don't get me wrong. I like myself and all. I mean I want to stick around and see what happens. What choice is there? You can do a million different things and you'll still be you. You still have to put up with all this predictable uncertainty or....or what? Hope that there is a big party when you die. Up there in the clouds? It's a huge gamble. I mean I go past all these country chapels, pointing up at the sky like grounded rockets and it makes me think about these things. I think about other people. Do they ever just look in the mirror and think how strange it is to be someone? To have a face and a body and a name? Do they ever realise that, when it comes down to it, there are only really two choices? Be alive inside a strange life or don't be. On or off.
Anyway, the plan is, I'm going to France to see my father. And then we'll talk about what the hell I am supposed to do with the rest of my life. He has some ideas on the subject. He wasn't too pleased with me when I told him about messing up my exams but what could he do about it? He kind of shouted-whined at me. We will talk about this! He said, you promised me that you would work hard! I tried to make an excuse but I had run out of plausible excuses by then. Man, he was upset, I mean really upset, but then again, I guess he has had that kind of dragging disappointment now during all our international calls.
Yesterday, I said goodbye to my girlfriend Jessica. Or maybe she wasn't my girlfriend anymore. It was hard to say. We hadn't really done it properly yet, just messed around in my dorm once of twice. I'd been trying with her but I got too excited and she started putting the brakes on as soon as school let out anyway. I wish I was better and more confident with the whole sex thing but I'm not. I think about things way too much while it's happening. The wrong kind of things, I guess. I thought you were supposed to be swept up in all the lust. Sometimes it feels a bit instructional. In my mind, I keep seeing that old book my parents had. The joy of sex. All those illustrations of hippie with lots of pubic hair doing in it. It's kind of off-putting thinking about that with your hand jammed down a girl's pants. Like I have to be like the guys in those illustrations. And what if I don't want to throw my head back in ecstasy? What if I don't feel that way? Is something wrong with me?
Anyway, I got there (Jess lives in a village a few miles from here, just a pub and a few houses) and I'll tell you, it wasn't that great a visit. Jessica is going to Bristol University to study chemistry. Or what her dad calls a real degree. I guess she is moving on. From this place. From me. To be honest, it seems like her parents were happy to see the back of me as well. I mean, I get it: I am part of something that was, that has already happened. I'm the past tense baby. A phase she was going through.
Now she will move onto other opportunities. I don't think we really liked each other very much to begin with, not really. Like I say, you see these girls in magazines and they get you all excited but then you have to figure out real girls. It can be difficult. And sometimes, at least in my experience, it can be a sad prospect. Good but sad. Some guys are born good at it, or at least they say they are.
Anyway, it wasn't a very good visit. I just sat there in the living room not knowing what to say or what to do. Jessica talked for a little while about going to college but then the conversation sort of ran out of steam. When Jess's dad asked me what I would be doing, in the all important future, I just shrugged and said, I don't know. Then I looked at my hand which was on my lap, kind of open, five fingers not doing anything and then I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. I noticed Jess's dad, Ken, looking at me kind of strangely. You know when that happens? When you catch someone giving you a weird look, like an expression you haven't seen before? But then they quickly correct themselves. They reassume their fake expression, and in that moment you realise they have probably been faking it all along. It was like that with old Ken. Thinking about it now, Ken was a complete fake. He would always get stuck on this one story, telling me how he made his fortune in the city before moving out to the country to get away from the old rat race and give Jess a better life. But Jess told me that he got most of his cash from her grandfather, that he was kind of an embarrassment when it came to the world of high finance. Anyway, I laughed because I suddenly thought about Jess's tits, which are nice with pink nipples and that smutty image in my mind contradicted all this polite sitting around. I laughed because my visit had become so uncomfortable and stagey, like we were actors who had run out of things to say but we were still stuck on this stage. Like the walls were fake and all the things: the clock, the books, the knick-knacks and the fireplace had all been carefully set up by somebody. Like the view of the paddocks outside the window was just a painting and if you turned on the TV it wouldn't work because it was just an empty shell.
"Well, it has been great getting to know you Bobby," said Ken, all manly, as he stood up and shook my hand. And then Jess stood up as well, smoothed her skirt down. But the problems was, well, I wasn't quite really to leave yet. I was the only person who was still sitting in that room. Usually, when I come to Jess's house, her parents would make a big fuss and insist I stay for dinner but not this time.
But before I left, I had to go to the toilet. I had no choice. Whereas before I could go pretty much anywhere I wanted in their house, they made me go to the toilet downstairs. The little guest one under the stairs. I sat there in complete silence doing my business which was embarrassing because my business was particularly loud that afternoon, and it felt like the whole family had stopped moving around and they were all just sitting there in silence, listening while I defecated. The living room was only across the hallway, separated by one thin wooden door. It's funny how you can be talking about lofty things one minute and then the next, you excuse yourself to go shit in another room. And then when you come back everyone pretends nothing happened. And the real kicker was, there was no toilet paper in there. Just a cardboard roll with one tiny flap of paper stuck to it. No way near enough. I mean who would make their surrogate son go through this kind of embarrassment?
Anyway, I guess it was closure because I had to use a flannel covered with little embroydered bluebells, which was pretty disgusting but I didn't really have a choice. I folded the flannel up and put it back in the cupboard. Of all the lousy craps you can take, this was one of the worst. When I came out, they were all sitting there waiting. I said goodbye and that was it. Jess only came as far as the front door. I appreciate that we didn't go through some big fake thing about seeing each other again and all that. Ken was standing behind her, that same expression on his face. I walked out of that little cul-de-sac and that was it.
Anyway, you probably don't need to hear about any of this. I picture you probably as some guy dressed in a sweater with elbow patches. You probably drive a Volvo and you're working on your first novel in a converted barn, sitting there by a fire. I bet you only mark these papers for extra money. I wish I could have given you something more appropriate, something about those plays. Something meaningful. To be or not to be, and all that shit.
If you didn't know it (and how could you)? They had me reset this exam because I messed up the first one so badly. They gave me one more chance. They told me to buckle down and hit the books. In the end, I didn't study. I hitchhiked around and listen to music (three Cure albums mainly) and thought about everything. And when I came in here at 9 o'clock this morning, I decided I wasn't going to try and bluff my way through this. The truth is, I was never any good at exams.
I have another hour sitting in here with Mr Daniel, just the two of us in the empty hall, with sunlight coming through the stain glass windows and me scratching away, pretending to take this all so seriously while Daniels sitting up front with his newspaper. And when the clock hands swing around to 10:30, Daniels will look up and say "Time is up, please put down your pen". And I'll leave. And in four days I'll go to France on a boat. And I'll probably stay up on the deck for the whole crossing, depending on the weather.
Many thanks,
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