Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(60)
28 Untethered from my awful future.
29 I try to imagine being married to Mrs. Shanahan, eating root beer lollipops for every meal. Having a guidance counselor for a wife—she’d probably take good emotional care of me, or maybe she’d be so tired of taking care of people all day that when she came home from work she’d just be a selfish bitch. I can’t decide which I believe. Probably the latter, I think.
30 Herr Silverman is forever experimenting with facial hair. Last week he had an ill-advised Abraham Lincoln beard going. Students make comments about his various facial-hair stylings, but he never gets mad. He returns their digs with this smile that is more like a wink. It’s like he’s immune to the comments of other people, which I think is admirable.
31 That’s basically the mantra of Herr Silverman’s teaching—think for yourself and do what’s right for you, but let others do the same.
32 This is probably the standard answer that would score you the top mark on the essay portion of the SAT.
33 You may think that lynching is a means to an end if I wish to die, and I do, but being ripped apart limb by limb by übermoronic classmates is hardly a picturesque way to go. Death by übermorons is überunappealing.
34 You should read about all of those killers. They all have a lot in common. I bet they felt lonely in many ways, helpless, FORGOTTEN, ignored, alienated, irrelevant, cynical, and sad. Read about them. You really should. You can learn a lot. More than I can explain here.
35 Most teachers refuse to close the door when they are alone with a student, saying it’s against the law or something, which is pretty stupid. It’s like everyone thinks teenagers are about to get raped every second of the day and that an open door can protect you. (It can’t. How could it?) But Herr Silverman closes the door, which makes me trust him. He doesn’t play by their rules; he plays by the right rules.
36 Of course I’ve already written these letters, but just haven’t shown Herr Silverman because the words are too intense and personal and insane—and maybe not what he wanted me to write. And yet, I feel like the letters are really important. I’m just not sure why and so I don’t want to risk ruining the words. If Herr Silverman said the letters were wrong, I don’t think I could handle it. Especially because he keeps saying the letters can save me, which means he believes I definitely need saving.
37 Asher and I had that in common—oblivious mothers.
38 I was already weird back then, and people were starting to notice more and more. Asher had lots of friends, but I really only had Asher.
39 Why is it that we love surprising people? Is it because we like to know something they don’t? Does it give us a sense of power over others? Was I happy because I was controlling Asher? Or was I simply just trying to do something nice?
40 My dad was always in a good mood when he was about to gamble.
41 Kids are like blind passengers—they just don’t see what’s coming down the road.
42 Did you ever think about all of the nights you lived through and can’t remember at all? The ones that were so mundane your brain just didn’t bother to record them. Hundreds, maybe thousands of nights come and go without being preserved by our memory. Does that ever freak you out? Like maybe your mind recorded all the wrong nights?
43 What I noticed first was that she didn’t look anything like the other girls in my high school. She was cat-faced and throwback-looking, like the old classic type of girls you see in Bogart films. More sophisticated. Mysterious. Dangerous. Femme fatales. The type that makes you risk being murdered by her enemies just so that you will eventually be able to kiss her as the string music cranks up and she’s about to faint. The kind of girl for whom you happily lose your mind. She wasn’t like the 1970s sunglasses femme fatale I had followed in Philadelphia to an unfortunate ending, I could tell. She seemed less manic, happier, brighter, kissable.
44 The scenario is complete bullshit, because the girl he’s “parking” with keeps feeling his inner thigh, and he keeps pushing her hand away. No way a teenage boy pushes some girl’s hand away from his crotch when he thinks she’s attractive. Also, everyone knows Jesus drank wine with his buddies, so why would he be disappointed in a beer drinker?
45 If you can believe it, this was the first time I had ever been to a church service other than funerals.
46 Beautiful women make any situation bearable.
47 Weird what we remember and what we don’t.
48 It was strange how I wanted her to be both a sexy Bacall-type figure and I also wanted her to be a kid at the same time, because those states are pretty much opposites, so she couldn’t be both simultaneously.
49 Why is it that people only like it when you ask questions that they have answered a million times and hate you for stumping them? I love questions that stump me. I really enjoy thinking about possible answers to those types of questions for days and days. Does anyone else like to ponder anymore, or am I just a total freak?
50 Religious pun?
51 I looked up the origin of that “reaching the end of my rope” expression. The Internet told me that people used to say “at the end of my tether.” And tether referred to the leashes of horses or dogs. So I guess the phrase is supposed to evoke the image of a dog running for a squirrel or something and then suddenly being jerked back by the rope tied around its neck. It’s reached the end. It can’t go any farther. So I guess I’m beyond Linda’s reach now. Her tether is too short. Like she’s told me over and over again. I wonder what the hell she’s tethered to? NYC? Fashion? Jean-Luc? Take your pick. Lauren is tethered to religion.