Chapter 12: High School

September 1970

Tammy and I were friends for the rest of the school year, although we broke up when summer hit. With Tammy I had to start buying condoms, since she wasn’t on the Pill. It was worth it. She had a seriously nice set of tits and an ass to die for. Still, while we were ‘friends’, it never seemed to me to be a permanent thing. I always had the feeling that she was interested in someone else, but I couldn’t figure out who.

It turned out to be my buddy Randy Bronson, who had been messing around with somebody else at Towsontown and needed some maturing. By the start of tenth grade Tammy deemed him ready, and I was dropped like a hot potato. I wasn’t one to complain. Tammy and I were more like friends with benefits, and I have to admit, her benefits were bountiful! If she ever decided to breast feed her children, they would be very well fed!

Summer had some changes this year. Nana dragooned me into escorting her to Bingo at the VFW over in Perry Hall every Tuesday night (Mom was drafted on Thursdays) and that made me reschedule some of my aikido lessons into the afternoons. I was now orange belt and moving up towards green. When I ran in the morning, I would now carry my barbells with me, and I was running four miles. I was much stronger than I used to be. I also stopped growing taller. I hit 5’10”, and only grew another inch taller in the remainder of my time in high school. I had started Towsontown Junior as the smallest kid in the school and was finishing as one of the tallest.

A few other changes occurred at home. Hamilton was becoming seriously annoying. He had a major problem with the concept of privacy as it applied to anybody other than himself. Basically, if it was mine, it was his. I bought a very strong footlocker and a lock supposedly guaranteed to be pick-proof and kept a lot of things in there. The rubbers were just one item I needed to lock away. My spare cash was stored there as well, along with brokerage and bank statements.

I even had to get a post office box and have my mail sent there. I caught him going through my mail one time and showed it to my parents. He did the lie and deny trick, but it was pretty obvious, especially when he complained about how much money I had. Mom refused to listen to any blame of him, but Dad drove me up to Timonium and helped me get a PO Box. We didn’t tell the others. I would ride my bike up there once a week to collect my stuff.

I really wondered about my brother’s stability. I can remember telling my father once that he should have his head examined. Dad just glanced over at where my mother was, and then he looked back and told me to watch my mouth and take care of my own problems. I just shrugged and kept my padlock key on a chain around my neck.

When the school year started, Towson High was nowhere near as impressive to me as it was to the other graduates of Towsontown Junior. For the last year I had been taking the bus over after school on Mondays, to meet with Mrs. Rogers. She would give me assignments and monitor tests in Plane Geometry. Then I would walk into Towson and go to my father’s office and hang out there until he took me home.

The administration at Towson High either didn’t know or didn’t care about my reputation as a troublemaker at Towsontown. I endeavored to keep my nose clean. Still, there were a couple of things that caused trouble, but fairly minor.

The biggest thing was dropping Spanish. The rule was that students could take a foreign language, or a foreign language and an advanced math, however you couldn’t take an advanced math without taking a foreign language. That was just so much bureaucratic nonsense.

I had zero interest in taking any more Spanish. It had been a waste the entire first time around. The high school teacher, Miss Fontaine, was a very pleasant person, a spinster who was totally burned out from teaching us little assholes. Her one true passion in life was raising Blue Merle Collies as show dogs (imagine Lassie in a silver-gray color) and it was ludicrously easy to get her off Spanish and talking about dogs. At least twice a year she would do a show-and-tell and bring in her dogs. Nobody learned anything from her.

The administration refused to allow me to take math without taking another year of language. I responded by pulling out a copy of the graduation requirements and guidelines from the Baltimore County Board of Education and showed where they didn’t have a leg to stand on. They grumbled but signed off on it. I had my minimum two years of a foreign language and was out of Spanish.

I decided to push hard on math. Towson High offered a half year of Trigonometry, a half year of Analytic Geometry, a half year of College Algebra, a half year of Probability and Statistics, and a year of Calculus. I was going to skip the calculus and cram all the rest into the next year and a half. I intended to get out of there with at least one year of college under my belt. I would get the calculus over at Towson State. Mrs. Rogers thought me ambitious, but not crazy, so we worked out the schedule.

What I knew, and what Mrs. Rogers knew, but didn’t know that I knew, was how tied together math really is. For instance, a big part of Plane Geometry is devoted to logic and proofs, which feeds directly into Boolean Algebra for computer studies. Likewise, Discrete Math and Finite Math are really nothing more than very rigorous studies of set theory, which feeds back into Probability and Statistics. Likewise, Calculus provides the language for everything, but you won’t really understand parts of Trigonometry or College Algebra without learning Calculus. You’ll never figure out Cryptography without a background in Information Theory, and ... you get the idea.

I didn’t get into any trouble with the school over the second item. I never even got detention from it, and I still ended up getting grief about it from my parents, even though they didn’t learn about it from the school. They learned about it from Tessa’s parents.

We had already been back to school for a week. It was a Thursday night, about seven or so, and dinner was over. I was sitting in the living room going over some homework in Trigonometry. I was already at least a week ahead of things. Mom was in the kitchen with Hamilton, and Dad was upstairs. Nana and Suzie were downstairs watching television. At that point the doorbell rang. Mom told Hamilton, “Go see who’s there.”

I didn’t pay any attention, because I figured it was probably a salesman of some sort. Hamilton opened the door, and I could hear the voices. “Good evening, Hamilton. Are your parents home?”

I swear to Christ, he actually said, “I’ll let them know you’re here,” and closed the door on whoever was there. I swiveled in my chair and looked out the picture window to see Tessa Harper and her parents standing there on the stoop. I muttered under my breath at his behavior. It was typical Ham; it wasn’t for him, so common courtesy to people he knew were neighbors didn’t apply.

It pissed off Mom, too, because the next thing she said was, “Well, for the love of God, don’t just close the door in their face! Let them in!” I was already starting to stand up, but Mom beat me to the door. She opened it and said, “Come in, come in! I don’t know what that boy has on his mind!”

Dad came down the stairs asking, “Who is it?” He eyed the Harpers curiously as they came in the door. “What’s up?”

I looked over at Tessa as she stood there. “This really wasn’t necessary.” She just shrugged her shoulders and gave me an it’s-out-of-my-hands look.

Before the Harpers could say anything, my mother immediately asked, “Carling, what have you done now?” Dad just stared at me.

I just shook my head. “Rousing vote of confidence, guys.”

Tessa’s father looked at us. “I don’t understand.”

Before my folks could say anything, I looked at the Harpers and explained. “Well, two parents have shown up with their teenage daughter in tow.” I pointed at Mom first, and then Dad. “My mother thinks I’ve done something to get myself in trouble. My father thinks I’ve gotten Tessa in trouble. Like I said, a rousing vote of confidence.”

The Harpers stared at my parents, and my mother protested their innocence. I also noticed my father not arguing. Tessa simply smiled and shook her head in a silent laugh.

It was her father that said, “Good heavens! It’s nothing like that! My God, they’re only children! We came by to thank your son for saving Tessa.”

“Saving Tessa?” Both my parents started squawking at that. It got equally loud with the Harpers.

I just rolled my eyes and grimaced over at Tessa. I mouthed a silent,’ Thanks!’ to her, and she silently laughed back at me.

“I think you’d better start explaining, Carl,” said my father.

“It really wasn’t anything. Why don’t we all just sit down...”

It had been a normal day so far. Trouble didn’t start until after lunch. I headed back to my locker and was getting my English textbook when Tessa Harper showed up. Her locker is two down from mine. I nodded at her and she smiled back, and she worked the combination on her locker.

I’ve known Tessa for years. She lives about a block from us, rides the bus with me, and her family is in St. Paul’s with us. All that being said, I can’t honestly state that we were friends, but were more like acquaintances. We didn’t have the same set of friends, and despite both of us being in the college prep group, didn’t actually have too many classes together. She was a quiet girl, very shy, and her family raised her fairly strictly. Her skirts were always knee length, her white blouses were always buttoned to the collar, she always wore flats - that sort of thing. She never wore makeup, and her strawberry blonde hair was always kept back with a headband or barrette. Despite that, she still managed to get a fair bit of attention from the guys. She was very pretty, in a peaches-and-cream, wholesome, girl-next-door sort of way.

It worked against her that day. Three of the upperclassmen came up to her in the hallway, and one of them leaned up against the row of lockers and started talking to her. I could tell by their letter jackets that all three of the guys were on the varsity lacrosse team.

You have to understand, at Towson High, lacrosse is the big sport. Screw football or basketball, lacrosse is the big deal. We had been top ranked in the state for years, and lacrosse players routinely got scholarships to NCAA Division 1 schools.