THE RETURN

The prison hues of that school which populated the most fearful and flavorful of my memories stood before me now, somehow changed in the glow of perspective, altered with the adjustment accompanying hindsight. The same aged cotton-afro crony we used to call Old Faithful stood watch in the gap between the gates, routinely checking identification, mostly by memory, with a sullen nod to familiar student passersby. She wore a brilliant yellow jacket with a Security Agency badge clipped to a chest pocket. A cousin to the shape of an upended cone, she awoke as if from a trance when I approached, immediately recognizing my anomalous presence.

--You're too old to be a student here.

--I was once, back in '85. Don't you remember me?

--They think because I'm nice when they're here that I care about them, that my life is so full of their vitality, that I can't get to bed without saying a prayer for each pastyface I have to deal with every day.

--I have an appointment.

--They see me here every day, like old faithful, ready to check their i.d., maybe call for backup for the ones who cause trouble on a regular basis. Like a fixture. Old Faithful, who is both old (pushing eighty checking i.d.'s at a crummy inner-city high school) and faithful, because I was raised in a time where you came on time, every day, every week. That's a good name, Old Faithful. Say it with me, Old Faithful . I like it.

--I want to visit old pals: the PE. teacher, the English teacher who pointed a troubled child in the right direction, the administrator who said I would never amount to anything. Those people I want to share my accomplishments with. I am expected, you know.

--You have i.d.?

--I'm not a student.

--Do you think I'm an idiot?

In the halls, my steps echoed in a solitary rhythm. The walls have been freshly painted a drab olive green, the faded equivalent of the official school colors. Rough, student-project approximations of the mascot (a rabid, dangerous lepus) stood watch over the hallway entrance, an insinuating finger pointing the direct way to the administrative center, classically placed on the first floor in the obvious middle of the crumbling structure. Outside, I could hear the soft slaps of rotating sprinklers colliding with the lawn trees. I used to sit beneath those trees, lost in the crowded entourage of popular cliques, feeling important, like days were the opening strokes of sunlight breaking through a dense fog. There was a kid who used to bring a lawnchair to school, tan himself for the lunch period, nearly naked, while the elderly, yellow-jacketed security guards shook their solemn heads from side to side.

Meanwhile, over on the dangerous, colored side of the quad, gang fights would break out with the regularity of a Swiss watch. Since most of my friends from junior high school were in gangs, I sometimes would leave the warm, comfortable clique to wait by the front gate when the police arrived, seeing if I recognized any of the injured. Several times I did. Once, an old kickball partner, Jaime, was carried, each arm across a policeman's shoulder, head wobbling on his muscular frame, blood trickling down his hairnet, to the gate where Old Faithful stood, grinning from ear to ear. He nodded briefly in my direction. I hopped in front of the progression.

--What's the nature of your injury?

Jaime groaned, straightening his unstable skull.

--Simple puncture wound. Grazed a rib. Also a couple of blows to my cranium, causing the bleeding you see here and here.

--What's the nature of the fight?

--Your common gang clash, the throwing of mutually exclusive signs. Set versus set. Problem was, my set consisted, at the time, of I and only I. Coop, here's a hint: if you are ever in unfamiliar territory, and signs are being thrown, do not throw sign if your set is less than the set confronting you. The net result will certainly be your garden variety puncture and/or bullet wounds.

--Shut up you...

...the cops would mutter and cart him off like an injured football player to the stentorian punctuations of tubas and bass drums. He dangled like a withered penis between the strong, erect officers, who slammed him into the backseat of their car, pushing his head roughly beneath the roof. Lights swirling, he was gone and I never saw him again.

Never any good at math, Jaime's words still cause me a deep, spreading unease. I wondered, sometimes aloud in the presence of past friends when I crossed boundaries into colored territory, what the possible permutations of such an equation could be. When confronted with insurmountable odds, how could your courage be otherwise measured should you decide against a solitary, defiant stand, bowing into panic and fear. Sitting in the Autoshop one Spring morning, another acquaintance from my past, Kool Aid, answered me, puffing weakly on a crooked joint:

--Simple. Figure that, at bottom, you have one good swing (I'll even let you arm yourself; how about a lead pipe?) against a group of, to be fair, five. That is the official count of a 'jumping' gang. If you are being jumped, chances are there are at least five. In the spirit of optimism, you clock two solidly against the temple with the pipe, meanwhile the other two, in a flash, have slipped around behind you and wrestled you to the ground. Then you are disarmed and, with your own weapon, your head is smashed from ear to ear. One variable we have not taken into account is, what we call, the ThanatoAdreno measurement. This is roughly the product offered after the multiplication of the remaining conscious bangers' adrenaline and their, for lack of a better term, 'killer instinct,' also termed, in some circles, as the 'death drive.'

He stood up then, gesturing expansively, across the ring of stoned comrades that had, dropping their wrenches and jacks, begun to pay drowsy attention to the lesson.

--The killer instinct is the given amount of the displaced death drive inherent to each individual. This amount is immeasurable prior to its exhibition. So, Coop...

...he turned quickly, leaning down, face pressed up against my sunglasses...

--...automatically you have to account for a wild and ungovernable element of this conflict. One of the three left standing may have a drive so excessive that, should he disarm you and start in on your tender head, he will not stop until you have stopped. Twitching, that is.

--But...

--Even if the other two are mild, which in a gang is highly usual since they probably have been pressured into the circumstance due to inadequate guidance by persons exterior to this primary group, there are almost always, as the odds will bear out, one who is simply out of his/her mind and wants to kill first and foremost. Fights are not the movies.

--OK, but...

--When you see some actionhero on the screen dispatch several bigger persons, with his bare hands, in carefully measured steps, that's choreography, not fighting. In real fights, especially one against a 'jump set,' it is usually over within the space of one minute. No sparring. No one-on-one.

I raised my hand:

--I understand. What if I fight dirty? You know, ball-grabbing and such?

--What planet were you raised on, boy? We have lived next door to each other for years and, even though you're not in a gang, you've been in confrontations before. What is with you and these questions? You have got one hand to clutch some nuts. If it's one on five, it's simple math: They have got a five-to-one ratio against you in the available hands department. That's five times the technology. No dirty fighting unless it's one-on-one. You run.

--I get it. Just run.

--Run like hell.

I stepped into the Gifted Wing of the Special Programs Building that sat adjacent to the main office. This is where the greatest gifted minds of the community were housed. They were bussed into the inner-city from the outlying suburbs under the auspices of being intellectually accelerated. It might have been the fashion at the time but I remember there was an unearthly glow that emanated from the bus windows when they lumbered into the campus parking lots, like rows of illuminated Japanese lanterns. They wore white clothes and muffled pastels. The hair was immaculate and crisp.

--Baby, it's you.

Fresh would step off the decrepit apparatus that the civic center of the Hub called a bus, with a finger extended, like the muzzle of a pistol, in my direction.

--Those Floyd shirts have got to go.

--Thanks but no.

--Hey, I wasn't offering you a joint. This is a simple matter of taste. Kill or be killed.

My English teacher, Mrs. Plaster, gave me my first break. She made me turn my desk toward the wall once for staring at Stella Jitter. Stella would begin to go into convulsions if I fixed my eyes on her long enough. It was a thrill to find out that my eyes had such power. As Mrs. Plaster's lecture progressed, I would stare directly into Stella, impassive, blankly. Moments later, like clockwork, her eyes would begin to wander to mine, then, sensing the surveillance, start to nervously switch from me to Mrs. Plaster, back and forth, until tears would crawl down her cheeks. Finally, her hand would jerk into the air.

--Mrs. Plaster!!

--...and Eliot's curious political affiliations sometimes got in the way of...what is it, Stella?

--Cooper's staring at me!

Quickly laying my head on the desk, pretending to be asleep, I'd try to hide the truth from my gnomelike instructor.

--Cooper? What are you doing?

--What?...

...I'd say, pretending to awaken. This went on for the entire year. What others regarded repetitive about this scenario would fill my heart with limitless joy and power. Stella tried unsuccessfully to transfer to an English class in another period. As punishment for my innocent pursuit of this bliss, I was forced to stare at the wall and conduct my membership in the class from over my left shoulder. Plaster felt that I would learn my lesson this way. She would warn that she was giving me healthy doses of what psychologists term, "tough love,' so my hours spent facing the wall of the classroom should pass with warm emanations of comfort and care. I scrawled my name into the desk with the blunt end of my pen. Sometimes I would raise my hand to questions I didn't know the answer to just to stay involved. I had a 4.0 in the class by the end of my senior year. Mrs. Plaster gave me confidence talks every week:

--Your younger years should not be wasted in this fashion. You really need to start doing the classwork.

--I know the material.

--It's not all about knowing the material. There will be times in your life where knowing the material will no longer be part of the equation. Just getting the material will be hard enough. You need practice searching (emphasis, hers) for material. Knowing what you know will no longer be adequate. Are you understanding?

--I am understanding.

She folded her thick arms over a broad chest stacked with rolls of extra padding.

--You will do the lessons assigned nightly. You will complete the lessons and return them to me the following day.

--I will do the lessons assigned nightly. I will complete the lessons and return them to you the following day.

--At the end of each week, you will assess your progress and turn in a detailed report to me at eight o'clock sharp Monday mornings.

--At the end of each week, I will assess my progress and turn in a detailed report to you...

--...Mrs. Plaster...

--...Mrs. Plaster, at eight o'clock sharp Monday mornings.

--You have the utmost confidence in this mission.

--I have the utmost confidence in this mission.

One Valentine's Day, Fresh approached me at the quad in the middle of my homemade sandwich.

--Crystal Meth, in the locker room, now.

After three lines, Fresh glowed beyond the parameters encompassing his pastels.

--(in an excited state) You know, Coop, I don't think you fully comprehend this situation. You have to do a line or two yourself. It would be considered an insult if you fully refused the offer these gentleman have provided.

--I'm fine.

--Yes, I understand that, Coop. But it is within the interest of common courtesy and (with a snobbish lilt, italics his) brotherhood that you partake in the two gentleman's gorgeous bounty.

He gestured to two thin, taut suburbanite transfers, Pastel Boys the locals called them, warming themselves in the opposite corner of the locker room in a tight embrace. They were engaged in a heated argument, debating the benefits of inner-city school busing. Hearing Fresh, they turned, offering in unison:

--Hey! That's fucking money, right there!!

--See, Coop, you might be hurting their feelings.

--That's fucking cash! That's money, right there!

As they pressed their lips together, I heard the distant shots of Old Faithful's 9mm. I ducked hard and fast into the showers as three cops and Old Faithful burst into the locker room, grabbing Fresh and his comrades by the back of their pants. This raised the plateaus of their asses three inches skyward. They were visibly shaken.

--I finally got you, Fresh, you little cokehead. Nailed.

One of the cops joined in:

--Give him a pop, Shirl, we'll say he was running away.

As far as cocaine went, there was plenty. Amphetamines, thousands. Pot was as commonplace as the amorphous noon-time cafeteria meal. The school produced chemicals as brilliantly diverse as any Orwellian factory, as alluring as the poppies Dorothy slept in. We were on that plane, separated by synthetic auras. Fresh was the latest in the long line of mega-rich, inner-city dealers who made their homes in the suburbs. In his eyes, busing was state-mandated narcotics exchange, a glorious window into the methodical accrual of moneys resting quietly Uptown. "I can hear pennies dancing," he would moan through the haze of his highs. Old Faithful caught him doing a line in the boy's bathroom but he was back within a week. He parents bailed him out and promptly refilled his prescriptions. They were his most loyal suppliers.

Two weeks later, a fourteen-year-old confronted me at the vending machines, which were placed in a huge, hermetically-sealed, high-tech security cage in the middle of the quad, in plain sight. Videocameras were snugly fitted into each of the four corners of the vault. As I waited in line to buy a Coke, he approached. Tightly wired, hair a nappy black bush, he knocked my wallet out of my hand and to the floor. We both stood, eye-to-eye, for a minute. I broke the silence.

--Aren't you a little young for this school?

--I snuck in.

--To do what? Knock wallets to the floor?

--Aren't you going to pick it up?

--You want to go to this school that bad?

--Aren't you going to pick up your wallet?

--Someone as young as you should be playing kickball with a playground of friends. Innocently sucking milk through a straw.

--Are you going to pick it up?

--In a minute. Do you long for the days when confrontations like this become ordinary? Where you feel that to be on the offensive constitutes the best defense?

--Pick up your wallet.

I reached down for my wallet as he sent a mature right jab to my right jaw. He then followed that jab with a left, which he kept close to his body so as to deliver it with the full force of his shoulder, to my left eye. I grabbed my wallet and stood back up. He had not changed his expression. Staring into my eyes, trying to gauge the moment, I could see him try to predict from which particular angle my response would originate.

--That didn't hurt.

I saw him cock his arm to knock my wallet out of my hand again. Before he could, I quickly slipped it into my back jeanspocket. His hand sliced lonely through the air.

--No more wallets.

--A stalemate.

--That didn't hurt. I didn't feel it. I have a very strong head.

--A stalemate, then. We have a stalemate.

--Do you know Kool Aid?

His eyes widened. There was a look of severe apprehension visible on his young face.

--Why?

--He's a friend of mine. Very close friend. We used to play kickball together back at Robert E. Lee. We grew up together. He runs with...

--I know who he runs with.

--Have you auditioned for his set?

--Friday.

--I'll relay to him what a soft right you have.

--A stalemate. I forced you to a stalemate.

--I'll let him know that, though the full weight of your shoulder was behind it, your left didn't even cause my eye to swell. I will now walk away from this completely unscathed.

He began to shake. His afro glistened in the cool rain of the September noon. I felt a warm spreading ease in my bones.

(Those days passed like memories of distant relatives. People who dropped quickly into and out of his life. Moments that sped away past him, weighed down by the undeniable force of their own inertia. He went back to feel the traces of those phenomena, to recapture by geographical association, the spent energies of recollection. It is known that his future is visibly darkened by matters out of his jurisdiction. After this all happened, after he moved on past this time, to college, his life was inverted as if through a lens. At college, the morning haze wandered musically into his ears from its base in the solar-powered Walkperson and the university, in response, would magically unmoor itself from the hollow concave of the hills and into the brightening sky. At eighteen. His single-room-in-a-four-bedroom-project sank into the dimming horizon, ignored. It perched precariously at the head of a flight of concrete steps (the Mercy steps, commonly known, the staid conclusion of sinuous Mercy street), filled with Jewesses whose parents had acted on their financial contemplation of the area, providing their daughters (who waxed wistful, misunderstood at their secondary institutions, they romanced, seeking only to sit and weep on the steps of Saks, armed only with Kafka) with the necessities of collegiate prosperity, safeguarding them in their personal journeys northwestward, nurturing the complex expositions of Siddhartha they still clung to, post-graduation. The project had been tastefully designed, its interior the clever warmth of chalet woodfires, a blue futon the key site of relaxation and soul-searching. In the corner groused an olive-green television, a squatting eye dead at the center. Music, everywhere. The deliberate beat of congas emanating from hidden caves in the overbearing hills. Tinkling guitar between the sparks of light clinging to the windows of silent structures. Muffled, microphoned speakers ranting in swallowed tones. At eighteen. The world opened like the mythologized clam offering its Venus, a figure not demure and secretive but glorious in its nakedness, a freshly expelled child. These are the purities of thought bouncing inside the heads of the lucky who make it there, who live the free dream of pursuit, of financial solvency, of nights bathed in the safe dark of secure rooms and inviolate bodies. The dreams stay dreams, the nightmares crawl back to the matter which spawned their malevolence, nurturing hunger and corruption for the moment in which they may strike. At eighteen.)

Mrs. Plaster was giving the English final when I approached the door. I recognized the rushed rustling of papers, backpacks ringing in unison as students dug through them, searching for extra time. I poked my head inside the door.

--Hello, Mrs. Plaster.

She looked through me to the door at my back.

--Son, will you shut that door, we have to start the final.

--Mrs. Plaster, it's me, Cooper, remember?

She paused. Then to the classroom:

--What the hell's going on here!? Did I say it was open-book? Put your stuff under your desks and pull out only a number two pencil!

--I went to the University of California, received a Bachelor's in English, with honors, in 1992. When I left this school, my GPA, without this class, which you taught, was a measly 2.1. Having corrected this matter with two-plus years of junior-college work, I then went on to Berkeley, where I excelled within and without my declared major of English, with a concentration in Literary/Critical Theory. Having graduated with the aforementioned accomplishments, I then went on to pursue a very successful career in critical/scholarly and creative writing. I have sold quite a number of stories to lauded magazines across the country. I also am currently enrolled in a Doctorate program at a university of no small repute on the East Coast.

--OK, you have exactly two hours.

...she warned, as she shut the door, pushing me out of the doorway.

Two hours later, I joined the Army.

Given that I believe the universe is made up of atomic particles. Given that I subscribe to the laws of thermodynamics, especially that which governs the laws of entropy, of the eventual breakdown of any complex system, including, but not limited to, stars, planets, organisms. Given that within those laws lie the code for my consciousness. Given that I am a complex structure of dependence and organization of those very same life-substances, but, as a product of the conglomeration of those singular elements whose being cannot be reduced to its monadic units, I realize that it is impossible for me to achieve this same state within another organization. I realize that, given the evidence of life and sentience laid before me through centuries of study and experimentation, in no other form can my sense of self exist. Given that I understand that I am one of the most unique of life forms, one which can sense its own inevitable end, I realize there is no possibility of transference which will allow me to conceive myself in another complex system, whether it be another similar form (the human body, for example) or an artificial one (a synthetic equivalent i.e. artificial intelligence/life). Given that I know I am going to die. Conclusion: there is nothing else.

Scott is the publisher and editor of the alt-satire pusher otherwise known as ...

... as well as a contributor to suckers like Wired, LA Weekly, Salon, XLR8R and onward. This excerpt is from his novel The Dangerous Perhaps. If you like it, let him know.