September ...

... in which We Meet Matthew, a Boy with a Dream

Monday, September 30

People Who Ruin My Life

My dream is to be a writer, not to work for one.

So what the hell am I doing here?

"Thank you," I say as I slide SheldonCraig's debit card back into my wallet. It's his "businessaccount" card. I'm not quite sure what "business" he'srunning, but I can certainly tell you that being a publishedauthor does not necessarily constitute being a capitalist.Especially not in Sheldon Craig's case. Then again, I guesswhen you're as acclaimed and successful an author asSheldon Craig, you can do just about anything that you damnwell please and get away with it. On more occasions than afew, Sheldon likes to leave articles from the New York Timesor Time Magazine or Writers Weekly lying around that renownhim for his, as he puts it, "impeccable literary craft." But as areader, I can tell you that I've read most of his books, and it'smore like impeccable literary crap.

The man has written seventeen novels—three of whichwere a trilogy-turned-movie-franchise that made Harry Potterand Katniss Everdeen cry like newborns—and now writes forone of the biggest and most popular homoerotic magazines inthe nation.

Maybe there's more business to this than I thought.

After taking Mr. Craig's dry-cleaning from the stout Asianman behind the counter, I step out onto the hot pavementof Houston, Texas, and make my way to the "company"vehicle with which Mr. Craig has supplied me. Sure, maybeI shouldn't stop complaining. After all, if it hadn't been forSheldon—which I am never allowed to call him to his face,or to any of his colleagues, friends (assuming that he hasany), or employees—I wouldn't be driving the newest JeepGrand Cherokee that I'm walking toward, not to mentionnot spending a single penny on the gas. Thank you, BusinessAccount.

Oh, shit—literally.

As I'm stepping off of the curb to hang Sheldon'sdry-cleaning in the back of my car, I catch myself steppinginto a pile of dog poop. It reeks. And of course it is now onmy shoe.

I can hear my friend Karlee in the back of mind saying,"Always keep a change of clothes and shoes in your car. Younever know what's going to happen to you between home andschool."

Hey, Karlee, why didn't you mention the dry-cleaners?

As it happens, I'm going to have to risk being late toschool so that I can drive back home to change my shoes.There's no way I'm going to walk around school beingPoo-Shoes all day. It's not worth the mass of people pullingtheir shirts up over their noses and fleeing from me in thehallways.

I wipe as much of the crap off of the bottom of my footand onto the curb as I can—who lets their dog take a dump inthe street anyway?—and search my backseat for anything toput my shoes into. There's an empty lunchbox, but somethingtells me that my size-thirteen shoes aren't going to fit insideof it. There's also my backpack, but there's homework inthere. Although, English homework smeared with dog shitmight serve Ms. Castro right for giving me a D—on mynarrative.

Don't assign me a story at the beginning of the schoolyear and give me the freedom to write about whatever I wantto if you're only going to give it a D-. Clearly, Ms. Castrodoesn't recognize a writing prodigy when she encounters one.

Okay, "prodigy" might be a strong word.

But I am a damn good writer.

I'm an award-winning writer. And not those stupidawards that they give you in elementary school that comewith a certificate and a book-shaped sticker either. Thesewere legitimate awards in which I competed against some ofthe most talented young writers in the state. And twice I won.Suck on that, Ms. Castro.

The story that I wrote for Castro's class was about a boymoving to a new town with his estranged aunt after the deathof his parents. Shortly after moving to the new town, he met ayoung girl whom he fell madly in love with. Despite this, thegirl died of leukemia just after she professed her love for him,driving the boy into a mad depression.

Ultimately, he killed himself.

The only nice thing Ms. Castro wrote on my paper wasthat when she usually read something that dark and twistedthe law required her to report it to a counselor. However,she wasn't going to because she didn't want to fill outall the paperwork. That God-sent woman truly has herpriorities in line.

Castro's sort of a Nazi.

She too is a writer. I've never actually read anything thatshe's written because she's very private about her work andhas never been published. But she has her master's degreein English and teaches not only high school level Englishcourses, but college courses in rhetoric and composition aswell. I'll never tell her this, but I kind of want to be betterthan her someday. I mean, c'mon. Every student must surpassthe teacher eventually, right?

And I'm sure Ms. Castro was never the personal assistantof one of the world's most renowned authors. She definitelywasn't one as a senior in high school.

If you ask me, I may just be doing something right for once.

After a change of shoes, a Starbucks coffee, and twocigarettes, I'm pulling into Sam Houston High School'sparking lot over an hour after the first bell has rung. I wouldn'tbe quite this late if it weren't for Karlee's car breaking downon the side of Highway 59. I had to go and pick her up beforea sex trafficker did. After all, this is Houston.

I put my cigarette out on the back of a jet-blackmotorcycle. I'm pretty sure that it's Ms. Castro's, but concernisn't one of the many emotions that I'm feeling right now.And trust me when I say that there are many. I have theemotional capacity of a teenage girl watching Titanic andeating Velveeta right off the block. I'm kind of a hot mess, bythe most traditional of standards.

"How late are we?" Karlee asks as she puts a cigarette outon the sidewalk. It's menthol because I'm too poor to affordcigarettes and gum. Karlee doesn't even smoke, typically. Ithink this day has just really gotten off to a bad start for her.Not that it's my...