It was a brisk August morning when I woke up. At least by north Texas standards. The clock said 5:48 and I wondered for a brief moment why I had set an alarm at such an ungodly hour, but I quickly remembered that this was it. Day one of the last solar revolution I had to spend in this arm pit of a town. The big meeting in the auditorium started at 8:00 sharp, and it is a long held tradition for the incoming senior class to meet at the IHOP in Magnolia, and I had to pick up Ric on the way. I took note of my erection and wondered if it were because of the thought of leaving or simply morning wood. Either way, I killed the music and rid myself of the problem in the shower.

After the morning purge and cleanse, I put on my uniform and strutted my way to my pickup, making sure to stop by my bomber jacket to start my Senior year off right. The clock read 6:08 as I pulled out of my driveway. Right on time, I told myself, feeling a little too pleased with myself. I made my way across the tracks to pick up my buddy Ric. Just as planned, he was sitting on his tailgate in front of his parents’ trailer at precisely 6:15.

“Do you believe it’s really here?” he asked upon getting in the passenger seat of my ’94 extended cab Silverado.

“I’m pumped. Less than a year left in this shithole,” I responded. “What say you reach into your pocket for that lighter and we whet our appetites on the way?” I asked, showing him the baby arm of a joint I had rolled the night before.

“Christ Jesus, that looks like a three gram joint!’ Ric exclaimed in excited disbelief. He snatched the joint out of my hand and put it to his mouth. Ric flicked his Bic, but before the flame met the paper he stopped. “We have to name it. A thing this beautiful must have a name.”

“How about ‘Adieu?’ That seems appropriate,” I said as I turned right onto F.M. 369.

“Yeah, adieu. Goodbye, Cherokee Hills,” he said before finally lighting it. “And hello pancakes.”

We smoked about three quarters of it by the time we reached our destination. We were among the first few to arrive. The only people there ahead of us were Toby and Stephanie in the white Mustang and Laci with a full load in her SUV. As soon as we pulled up, we were mobbed by the small crowd. I knew they were wondering if the heavy scent of pine would emerge upon opening my door, so I let them have it.

“Damn Ginnings, it smells like my brother’s room,” Toby remarked disgustedly.

“You know how we do. Ric and I got hungry on the way,” I said, looking into his eyes. Toby and I used to be the best of friends. He was the first person I smoked with. But over the past year or so, things have changed. He quit football, quit drinking, quit smoking. He quit hanging out with anyone but Stephanie for the most part. Something was wrong, and he would never let me know what.

After fifteen minutes of awkward conversation, enough people had shown to where we felt comfortable sitting in the half of the restaurant that had been sectioned off for our group. The whole senior class did not show up, but about half made an appearance.

Ric and I had to sit by the athletes despite the fact we loathed most of them since we both participated in sports. We listened to mindless dribble about how we were going to turn around the football program, and how we had a shot to make State. I never really cared. I had never liked football, I just played because I had to. Got tired of the other guys calling me a pussy. When you are six feet tall and weigh 185 pounds in seventh grade, you get the attention of the football coaches. Especially in a small town where football is the only religion competing with the Southern Baptists.

So Ric and I sat and listened for a while, feigning enthusiasm and ravenously devouring Big Country Breakfasts. At 7:25, we took our leave and made the journey to Cherokee Hills High School for the first day of school. We smoked a more sensibly sized joint on the way to make sure we were ripped to the gills by the time we pulled into the parking lot blasting “Cowboys From Hell” out of my Polk Audio sound system.

“How are my eyes?” I asked Ric.

“Closed,” he immediately shot back.

“Clear Eyes?” I asked while dropping the cool liquid into my barely-open peepers.

“Of course,” he responded, reaching out for the bottle.

And we made our way to the auditorium for the big meeting with Ric leading me by about five feet doing his best bad motherfucker walk and me lumbering behind him with an ear to ear grin. When we got to the door, trouble was waiting for us. In one line greeting all the students were Mr. C, Mr. Decker, and Ronnie. They were the principal, vice principal, and a local cop/Sunday school teacher, respectively. Ric made it through unnoticed, which is easy when you are five foot two and weigh 125 pounds. I, however, was none so fortunate.

“Mr. Ginnings, good to see you again,” Ronnie said, reaching out his hand. I attended his Sunday school classes for a brief time after a failed suicide attempt a few years ago. I figured I may as well try religion as a source of comfort. It seemed to work well for the masses. But when the church I attended began a four week Sunday school program titled “The Evils of Mormonism,” I decided that Southern Baptism was probably worse, so I stopped going.

“Been a while since I’ve seen you at church,” he said. “Will I be seeing you this Sunday?”

“Sunday is truck day down at the store. I have to be there to unload it during the service,” I respond, desperately trying to avoid any further discussion. The attempt was successful.

“Well, have a good year. This is the time of your life,” he said, finally letting go of my hand.

Time of my life, I thought. You’ve got to be kidding me. The senior year of high school is the pinnacle of existence for most people in Cherokee Hills. Most of the kids I have grown up with will marry their high school sweethearts, or at least someone they went to school with, and fill their lives with meaningless jobs and their children’s sports practice. Nothing was more disgusting than the idea of becoming one of these middle-America, middle-class, middle-of-the-road mental midgets.

The big meeting in the auditorium went as it had the three previous years. Mr. C talked about how much he looked forward to the upcoming school year, how excited he was about our opportunities in football and UIL academics, and after a complete waste of forty-five minutes my buzz was gone and it was time to go to our advisor for student council elections. Another pointless activity in a town so small. With a student population of under 700, there was never much for the Cherokee Hills High student council to do. It was more of a way to segregate the “good kids” from the “troublemakers.”

I tried to get involved my junior year, but when the only thing we ever did was organize a donut sale fundraiser for the UIL academic team, I lost interest and stopped going to the meetings. I wanted to be involved in matters of policy. The school board and administration did not share my view. After the ballots were counted, it was time to be introduced to the schedule. I was looking forward to the year academically. This year I was going to get to sit in the classrooms of James Griffin and Robert Williams. These men taught my father when he walked the same halls twenty years before. They had stellar reputations as stand-up guys in addition to their teaching credentials.

I had Mr. Griffin for English first thing in the morning. He only taught two senior classes in addition to his dual credit British literature and rhetoric and composition classes. The man was undoubtedly intelligent and quite eccentric. His favorite band was The Crystal Method. He kept a ping-pong table in his classroom. His walls were lined with movie posters: Apocalypse Now, Reservoir Dogs, Night of the Living Dead. He was an intimidating character despite his rabbit like appearance and five-foot-six frame.

As the class piled in before the bell, I quickly discovered I was in fairly good company. About a third of the class played football (no surprise there considering half the male population was on the team), only two other top twenty students were with me, and a handful of my off campus running partners were there.

Mr. Griffin handed out syllabi, and spent the allotted twenty minutes going on a tirade on how everyone should watch more werewolf movies and not worry about their grades.

“If you do all your work, I will guarantee you will pass. I’m not here to ruin anyone’s senior year. I’m here to help prepare you guys for college-level coursework,” he said with a bucktoothed grin I would come to love.

When class let out, I walked across the hall to Mrs. Dooley’s classroom for PALS. What the acronym meant was not as important as what the class was. PALS was a selective group of seniors who were assigned to elementary classrooms to help out with kids in need of a role model. It was an hour and a half off campus with several perks attached. The application process is supposed to weed out all but the cream of the crop. Which is apparently where I stood. If you have a PALS badge, you were automatically excluded from suspicion of impropriety. This was a good thing for me considering my after school activities.

The introductory class was used to assign each of us to a class. I ended up assigned to my brother’s fourth grade class, which put a smile on my face. I already knew most of the boys, and they all respected me from my time babysitting them. I went to Mr. Williams class on cloud nine. I should have seen it coming.

Mr. Williams was the government and economics teacher. Until my senior year, he was the only government and economics teacher. Nearly every person I had ever talked to said he was their favorite teacher in high school from my dad on down. But apparently he was through. He told us all that he was sticking around for six weeks of economics while the school found a suitable replacement for him.

“I have taught some thousands of students in my days here at Cherokee Hills. I recognize many faces and names in this classroom. I’m sure some of your brothers, sisters, parents, et cetera have sat where you are now. If I don’t get out now, I’ll probably die in this classroom. But at any rate, I’ll be here for the first six weeks,” he said, nearly bringing me to tears of disappointment.

The rest of the day ran together after that. Spanish led to theater turned into calculus and ended with a trip to the field house for athletics. The first after school football practice went like they all did: hot and miserable. After running gassers for conditioning, we all went in to hit the showers.

On the way in, the offensive line coach pulled me aside.

“Ginnings, that letter you wrote to the paper disappoints me,” he said in his best let-down father voice. The letter in question dealt with the rumor of Cherokee Hills beginning a random drug testing policy for students involved in extracurricular activities. In a town this small, that amounts to an overwhelming majority of the student body. The letter was a strongly worded argument against such a policy and all but an open admission to marijuana use.

“Well, I couldn’t stand idly by. I had to say something. No one else was going to,” I responded.

“I understand that, but why did you have to put your name on it?” he asked, understanding my position.

“If you’re going to speak out, you have to stand up,” I responded

“Just be careful,” he said, concerned.

“I know there’s a sign on my back. I’ll be fine,” I lied.

When I got to the locker room, it was filled with steam coming from the showers and horrible rap music. Like most of the small towns in my region, Cherokee Hills was about 98% white and overwhelmingly lower-middle class. And like most middle-class white kids, rap was the rebel music of choice. I was a metal head, which had me in the minority.

I put my pads up, got undressed, and headed toward the showers. I was met with great laughter and a few extended index fingers.

“Holy shit, Ginnings, what happened?” one of the backup defensive ends asked me.

“I shaved. You should try it. It makes your cock look bigger. It feels great,” I responded.

“You look like a nine-year-old boy,” he shot back.

“Please, Jason, I don’t want to know about your sex life,” I said to a crescendo of giggles. After getting cleaned up, I headed to the parking lot and hopped into the Silverado. I reached into my overhead glove box and pulled out my chillum and bag. I loaded a bowl and headed down Falcon Lane and took a right toward the back roads. I put on Ænima and drove around for about half an hour settling down from the first day of school. When my munchies kicked in, I headed home.

The smell of sausage and tomato sauce slapped me in the face like a sledgehammer when I walked through the garage door. Spaghetti was no surprise considering we ate it at least twice a week, but it was a pleasant non-surprise.

“How was the first day of school?” my mother asked in a tone displaying less than enthusiastic interest.

“It was ok. Mr. Williams is gone after the first six weeks though. I was really looking forward to his class,” I responded in brief.

“Mr. Williams is retiring?” my father queried from his recliner. “I thought he’d be there forever.”

“I heard rumors that he was going to retire after last year, but when I saw him at the orientation this morning I got excited. It sucks that he’s going, but at least I’ll get him for a little while,” I said, genuinely feeling disappointed.

During dinner, my mother informed me that I would be taking Devon to school in the morning, since she had to be at the restaurant at “six in the fucking morning.” After dinner, I helped her put away the leftovers and get the dishes in the dishwasher. We sat in silence around the television until Dad told Devon to go to bed at 9:00. Mom shortly followed suit, and Dad started sawing logs by 10:15. He jerked awake before the end of the local news.

“Ahh-ahhh!” he grunted, startling himself awake. “Get to bed at a decent hour,” he said while tossing me the remote.

“Will do,” I said, thankfully.

“G’night,” he mumbled.

“Goodnight,” I echoed.

I stayed in the living room another twenty minutes until I was sure he had gone to sleep. Then I made my way back to my room. I gently shut my door behind me and grabbed the incense holder off the shelf next to my frame of concert tickets. I lit a stick of Nag Champa and a candle and took them to my walk-in closet. I dug my hand pipe and a small sack of grass out of my bomber jacket and proceeded to smoke my bedtime bowl. When I finished, I put out the incense and the candle, put on some Tori Amos, and put myself to bed.