Broken Windows Chapter 11

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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Verge asks me if I wanted to stop at 7-11 which was right on our way home. Well, it wasn’t exactly on our way home. You had to walk about three blocks out of the way to get there. He also said he’d get me a candy bar.

“Hey,” verge said, “I owe you for the gum.”

Stink. In the back of my mind I was still seeing Mrs. Tender dialing the phone when I went into the VP’s office. I was so busted as soon as I cast a shadow in my yard. The longer I could postpone that, then the better. Plus, who the heck doesn’t like candy bars!

It was kind of cool to be hanging out with Verge. Somehow, being stuck in detention gave us a kind of camaraderie. You know, partners in crime, or something stupid like that. Even though we didn’t actually do anything wrong together, it was like we were both getting it from the adults. So it was cool.

We got to 7-11 and he told me to go over to the where the bottled drinks were and grab him a Snapple or something while he grabbed the candy bars. By the time I got back to the front Verge was already in line. There was a dude in front of him, and this really old man behind him.

“I don’t like that flavor,” Verge said as he pointed at the peach ice tea in my hand.

“What flavor do you like?”

“Forget about it. I’m not that thirsty anyhow.”

So I was about to go put it back, and Verge stops me and tells me to just give it to the clerk and that the clerk would put it back.

When it our turn, I handed the clerk the Snapple and told him that we changed our mind. Verge puts one candy bar on the counter and pays for it. I thought that was kind of weird that he was buying just me a candy bar and not one for himself also. Then I thought that he was buying one just for himself. And I started to feel awkward. Did I hear him correctly? Didn’t he say he was going to buy a candy bar for me also? Should I just go and get my own?

I hadn’t really finished working it out in my head when Verge turns to the door and starts to leave. I hesitated for a second and then just fell in step behind him.

Then I heard the old man that was behind us talking to the clerk in an old shaky voice that old people get. “That boy’s got more candy in his pockets that he aint paying for.”

To be totally honest, I didn’t really understand what the old man was saying. I mean not at first. I heard him and all, but it just didn’t make sense to me. Stink. I never stole a thing in my life. Not a penny. And I was thinking, why would he say that I took something when I didn’t?

The clerk then says, “Hey, you guys. Come back here!”

By this time we were already at the door. And Verge doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even look over his shoulder. He just keeps on walking. I am a bit stunned. I feel drawn to just keep up with Verge. It was like he had a rope tied to my neck and I couldn’t obey the command of the clerk. The door closed behind us.

Then I heard the door reopen and I can hear the sound of the clerk’s feet running toward us and he is yelling at us to come back. Verge says, “Lets go!” And he starts running.

Man, I don’t know what came over me. I could have totally stopped and just talked to the clerk. I wouldn’t get in any trouble because I didn’t have anything my pockets. I didn’t even really know Verge all that well. I just happened to be with him. It would have been so easy. So stinking easy to just let the clerk catch up to me.

But I ran. I ran as fast as I could right on the heels of Verge. We rounded the tree that was in the corner of the parking lot and kept on going. The clerk didn’t go any further than the tree. What was he supposed to do, keep chasing us and leave the stupid 7-11 all unattended? That would be really smart.

We kept running though, taking a few turns in the neighborhood so we could disappear. After a couple turns we slowed down to a walk as Verge looked behind us and saw that the coast was clear. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out two more candy bars and hands me one.

“You stole that?” I said. I was still catching my breath, and I just know my face must have been all scrunched up in disbelief. I must have looked like a total dweeb.

“Why do you think we were running? If that dumb ass old man hadn’t seen us, it would have been totally cool.” There were two things that kind of struck me. One was that he said “us”. There was no us in the stealing. It was Verge. The other thing was that the way Verge said this was that the close call was not the result of him doing anything wrong, but instead that the old man had done something wrong. “Why don’t old guys like that just keep their mouths shut.”

I didn’t open the candy bar. I just held it not really knowing what I was supposed to do with it. It was stolen, for Pete’s sake!

“Why did you buy that one?”

“Dude,” Verge explained, “if you are going to take something, then always buy something. If you walk in and just pocket a few things and then leave, man, you are going to get busted. But, if you pocket what you want and then buy something else, you always get away with it. Except when some old man is sneaking around. What does he care for? He doesn’t even work there!”

“Eat your candy bar,” says Verge.

“But you stole it. You said you were going to buy a candy bar for me and then you stole it.”

“I didn’t say that I was going to buy you a candy bar. I said I was going to ‘get’ you a candy bar. I got you a candy bar. What do you care for? You didn’t steal it.”

It was true. I didn’t steal it. I was clear of all guilt, right? But it sure felt like I was the one that did the stealing.

Then it started to bug me, you know, the other candy bar. I mean he bought one stinking candy bar, and then he stole two more.

“Why did you take two candy bars?”

“Oh, this one is for Jack. I owe it to him.”

“What for?”

“It was part of the dare about throwing the gum. I told him that if he hit the Vice Principle, I would get him a candy bar.”

I didn’t eat my candy bar. I just put it in my coat pocket.

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Broken Windows Chapter 10

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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Detention was in the library. Someone must have thought that people in detention would naturally be quieter in a library. But that’s where we were stuck, in the library with dumb old books that nobody every really checked out.

There were like four other kids in detention. And guess who one of them was- Verge. We just nodded our heads at each other. He must have thought that I was there to get a book out of the library or something. But then when I checked in with the teacher who was there to baby sit us for the next hour, I kind of glanced around at the other guys, and I saw that Verge was a little surprised.

I sat down by myself. Fact is, the baby sitter told me to find a seat at one of the study tables, but not next to anyone else. We were allowed to pick books off a shelf if we wanted to, but there was no talking allowed, and only one person at a time could get a book. I didn’t really want to read a book, so I just sat there for the whole hour doing not much of anything.

Actually, I remember doing one thing. I would stare at the clock on the wall and see how long I could hold my breath. The first couple of times I would do it for just a minute. But then the tricky part was letting the air out without making this big stupid noise and get everybody looking at me. Then I’d rest and do some quiet heavy breathing for a little bit, and then I’d do it all over again. I’d try to hold my breath just a little longer each time. Dude, I got up to a minute and a half! I’m not even joking. A minute and a half. Stink.

Finally detention was over and the baby sitter said we could all go. Fact is, he let us out ten minutes early. I don’t think he was being cool to us at all. He was just as sick of being stuck in the library as we were. He just wanted to get back to his stupid life and go home and watch TV or go to a bar or some other stupid thing like that. I didn’t care. I just got off ten minutes early.

On my way out the door Verge was right behind me. He knew I was a preacher’s kid and all. He had known me ever since he moved from Florida for stink’s sake. He just had to know what the preacher’s kid had done to land in detention.

“Hey, Randy. Why were you here today?”

I didn’t really want to get into it, but I told him anyway.

“I call the math teacher ‘Einstein’.”

“Why?”

“Because he is a total idiot.” Then I kind of gave him a run down of what had happened. I even told him how I was already kind of mad about how Wiggle Butt had made me late.

Verge lived in the general direction of my house so we kept waking together off the school campus together.

“Dude. I totally know who threw the gum at him.” Verge was all excited about this. “It was a friend of mine, Jack. Jack Fricker. You know him, right?”

I knew Jack. He was a goofy guy that kind of knew to school. I think he had been expelled from his old school, and our school took him in. And he was in my math class.

“I totally dared him to throw his gum at Johnson!” Verge said while he started to laugh. “It was so classic! You couldn’t have done a better shot if you were Michael Jordon. We were around the corner, and Jack stepped into the hall and just hucked at Johnson. Then, splat! Right on the back of the head.”

“Well, he thought I was the one that did it,” I said.

Then Verge tells me how they had jumped out of sight and peeked around the corner and saw him talking to me. Then he says how he thought that I was the one that got blamed for it and that was why I was in detention.

He thought it was totally hilarious. Fact is, I kind of thought it was pretty funny too. I mean, who goes around throwing gum at the vice principles that dress up in stupid bow ties? It was pretty funny.

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Broken Windows Chapter 9

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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So the end result of that whole meeting landed me in stinking detention for like a week, or something stupid like that. It turned out that old Wiggle Butt was the son of a pastor too. He tells me all about his kidhood and stuff and how he had to live in this spotlight and stuff. He was all trying to build some kind of rapport or something like that with me.

I don’t know… I guess he wasn’t all that bad of a guy after all.

Check this out- he told me how he ended up with his limp. He even said he knew all about the Wiggle Butt name and all. Anyhow, when he was around fifteen or so he had just started to get into drinking and stuff, he had gone to this trestle, you know, one of those bridges for trains. Anyhow they were all going to the trestles to jump off it. It was over this bay by the beach and people would jump off it into the water. He said the trick was to wait for a train to come by and then wait for the last second before you would jump. Anyhow, he was getting all set to jump off the rail when one of his friends pushed him from behind.

So that totally set him off balance as he fell; and it was like way up there at about forty-five or fifty feet high! Stink, that is a stupid high to be jumping from. So anyway, he said that instead of hitting the water all feet first, he went in at some weird angle. And when he hit the water his leg was kind of yanked one direction and his body went another. Man, it gives me the willies just to think about it. His leg was ripped out the hip socket and all these tendons were like ripped to shreds. So ever since then he’s had this funky walk because he never quite healed all the way.

But then he got all preachy with me. He says he wouldn’t normally talk like that to a kid, but me being the kid of a preacher and all, he thought it would be okay. Stink. Then he starts telling me all this stupid stuff about how he had been doing bad things, and how his messed up hip helped him to get his “head on straight”. He said it was like this big wakeup call and how every limpy step reminded him of how he could have died and how he should be living his life for God and stuff like that. I mean, it was all the stuff I had heard before. Not the limpy part, but the stuff about God.

That’s all well and good when all you’ve got on yourself is your own hurt and all. I mean, stink, it wasn’t even his fault. Try being the guy that pushed him off the bridge. Was it a wakeup call for him? If I was Wiggle Butt I’d of given that guy a wakeup call with a few kicks to the head! That’s what people should get when they’re just joking around and they hurt someone really bad. What an idiot. What a stupid idiot!

So anyhow, I end up being stuck in detention. It was the first time I had gotten in any real kind of trouble at school. And it started that same afternoon. I was supposed to bring homework or a book to read because there was supposed to be no talking or messing around or having any kind of fun. Stink, you were in trouble. It’s not like you were supposed to be playing board games or something stupid like that.

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Broken Windows Chapter 8

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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Guess who the first person was that I saw when I walked into the office. You got it, Wiggle Butt Johnson. Two of the secretaries are looking at the back of his head and one of them is picking out bits of gum while he was telling them the story of how it happened. So they all look over at the door as I walk in, and Wiggle Butt raises one eyebrow and kind of cocks his head.

“So. Do you have some special reason for coming to see us?”

The secretary that had been picking the gum out his hair was Mrs. Tender, and she was married to the head deacon at my dad’s church.

Johnson gives his head a nod in my direction as he says to the secretaries, “This is the kid that I thought threw this wad of gum at me.”

Mrs. Tender smiles at me and says that there was now way I would ever do anything like that. “He’s my pastor’s son, for heavens sake.

“Hi, Randy. Looks like you got caught up in a bit of confusion. You would never do anything like that, would you?” And she said all that with this stupid smile and shaking her head no the whole time.

Man, did I ever wish she hadn’t said I was the preacher’s kid. Stink. When someone knows you’re the preacher’s kid, then everything you do wrong is twice as wrong than if you were a mechanic’s son, or candy maker’s son, or the stupid offspring of a Martian or something stupid like that.

“Hi, Mrs. Tender. Ah… no, I didn’t throw any gum at Mr. Johnson.”

“No, he didn’t do it,” said Mr. Johnson. “He had peanut breath, so he was innocent.”

The other secretary looked at Mr. Johnson a bit puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, this is grape gum. So I smelled his breath and he had peanut-butter breath. It couldn’t have been him.”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Tender. “What can I do for you, Randy.”

“Well…” I didn’t quite know how to broach the subject at hand. “Umm… Mr. Boardman… he asked me to come down here.”

The three of them stood looking at me waiting for more.

“Did he want something?” asked Mr. Johnson.

“Ah, yes. He wanted me to come down here and… ah… you know, wait for him.”

“Wait for him?”

“Yes. He said he was going to meet me down here.”

Now Mr. Johnson’s eyebrows dropped into a frown. “Why does he want you to wait for him?”

Stink. I was pretty much painted into a corner, so I decided I should just let it out. “I was kind of a little bit rude in class.”

“What kind of rude?”

“Well, I called him Einstein, and then he sent me down here.”

“I’m sure that most mathematicians would love to be given that kind of distinction. Is that what you were doing? Were you complimenting him?” I mean, what a stupid question. When is it ever a compliment to call someone an Einstein. You never see a courteous driver and call out the window, “You drive like Einstein.” It is always an insult.

“Not exactly.”

I could see Mrs. Tender’s face starting to grow a look of almost horror. It was becoming plain to me that she was now the one who was wishing that she had not pointed out my dad’s position.

Then the VP says, “So, what exactly was this Einstein comment meant to be?”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“So he sent you down here?”

“Yes. He said to wait for him.”

“And he is coming down after class?”

“Yes.”

“You know what Mr. Boardman is going to do?”

“No.”

“He’s going to walk you through that door, right there. Do you know who’s office that is?”

I was tempted to say something like it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out, but I’d gotten control of myself by then. So I just said, “Your office.” I mean, what a stupid question. Why are math teachers and vice principles always asking the most stupid questions in the world?

“That’s right. My office. Do you want to wait for Mr. Boardman, or would you like to take the walk in there now?”

What was the point of waiting? If Boardman was there, then everything would be lopsided in his favor- stinking teachers and vice principals always stick together like some stupid tweedle dee and tweedle dumb. But if I went on ahead I might be able to control things a little better, you know, without the bias of Boardman.

“I’ll go now.”

“Okay, lets go then.”

As the door to Mr. Johnson’s office was closing behind me I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Tender dialing her phone.

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If you like the book, please add a link to your Facebook wall. And leave a comment on here about what you think. I love feedback.

Broken Windows Chapter 7

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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So this one day I was late in getting to math class. To be honest, it wasn’t even my fault. I was on my way to class and the Vice Principal was walking down the hallway in front of me. He was the one that people got sent to when they were in trouble. He always wore dress pants and a sweater and a bow tie. What a joke, who wears bow ties except for vice principals that aren’t quit good enough to be a the real principal!

I was kind of snickering to myself because I was watching his butt wiggle as he walked. He had this weird thing going on that when he took a step with his right foot his hips looked like he was walking like a lady. But then when he took a step with his left foot, he went back to being a man. It was way weird, and well worth making fun of between you and your friends, only I was alone at the time so I only had me to snicker with.

So I’m walking behind Wiggle Butt Johnson when something goes whizzing past my head and hit the VP in the back of his head and stuck, for stink’s sake! He puts his hand up to his head and finds that a piece of purple gum was now fully stuck in his hair. Spinning around to see who had done the deed, his eyes fall on me! Stink! There were like a thousand other stupid kids all around me, but he decides it had to be me that had thrown the gum at him.

So he walks right up to me and gets all in my face and starts chewing me out… no pun intended, but that’s what he does! He just starts asking me who I thought I was and what my name was and if I like the idea of spending the rest of my life in detention and all this stupid stuff. To be honest, I got all mad at him for blaming me. After all, I just happened to be there!

So then for the next few minutes I tried to convince him that I didn’t do it, but he wasn’t buying it. Fact is, I would have been crucified if I hadn’t remembered that I had just finished a bag of peanuts. My mom was always sending a bag of peanuts for a snack. You cant do that anymore. You know, send bags of peanuts to school any more. Everyone is afraid of those stupid peanut allergies. Some dumb kid gets all puffy at the site of peanuts and that’s the end of peanut butter sandwiches and little snack bags that moms send with their kids so they don’t starve to death before lunch. I hate peanut allergies.

So I told him to smell my breath. You know, because I had just ate that snack. That would prove that it wasn’t me. After eying me suspiciously, he leaned over and gave my breath a whiff. I wish he had a peanut allergy right then and puffed up. But I wasn’t lucky enough for Wiggle Butt to be allergic to peanuts. Sure enough, I was in the clear because there wasn’t even a hint of grape in my breath. So I was free to go after he told me to keep my nose clean.

But by now the bell had rung and I was late and I was mad. Now, I wasn’t totally late. Stink, I was like ninety-five stupid seconds late, or something like that, and the teacher is just looking over the class for attendance when I stepped in through the door. So Mr. Boardman, he was the math teacher and had this big birthmark across his bald forehead like Gorbichev, you know, the guy that used to be the President of Russia… anyhow, he calls me out just as I got like three steps into the classroom.

“Mr. Woods, you are late.”

He was always calling to us like that, “Mr. Woods…” or “Miss Smith…” as if we would feel more respected or something like that. I always thought it was just plain old stupid. Plus he would always point out the completely obvious like it was some kind of breaking news story or something. I knew I was late. The whole stupid class knew I was late. And there was Mr. Boardman with his big stupid birthmark making the most obvious statement ever. And it really bugged me. Not to mention that I was still mad about VP Johnson. So instead of saying sorry or just keeping my mouth shut like my mother always advised, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” No, I completely ignored Mom’s advice.

I said, “No da, Einstein.”

Man, you could actually hear a couple of the other kids just gasp. I mean, I never talked like that to anyone. I mean, I was the Preacher’s kid, and there I was smarting off to the teacher, for stink’s sake!

“What did you say?”

And here was another opportunity to turn things around, but I thought going from bad to worse wasn’t all that bad of an idea. Especially when everyone was now watching me. I had to go to the next level.

“I said, ‘No da.’ I know I’m late because everybody is sitting down and I’m not.”

Dude, you could totally see his birthmark suddenly going neon, and I knew it was not a good sign. But, instead of blowing up on me, he sent me to the office with instructions to wait until he showed up after class.

Look, I know I was completely stupid, but it was all a bit too late by then. Then, about half way to the office, I started to think about what was going to happen when word got back to my parents. I was sooo busted.

Stink!

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If you like the book, please add a link to your Facebook wall. And leave a comment on here about what you think. I love feedback.

Broken Windows Chapter 6

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

Also, if you read chapter 5, I added five paragraphs to the end of it. So you may want to just check to see if you read the updated version before you read chapter 6. I appoligize for the confussion. I'll try not to do that to you again. http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/broken-windows-chapter-5.html

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There was this one dude that I kind of knew since I was in grade school. Fact is we were in like the same class every other year or something like that. He showed up in second grade after his mom moved into town. I think she was on the run from her husband that was probably hitting her or something. Verge never talked about it much, except for just a few times. Turns out that his mom ended up shacking up with another guy that must have been just as bad. Man, I could tell you stories about that guy.

Anyhow, Verge just showed up half way through the school year right after Christmas break. He ended up sitting behind me one row over to the left, closer to the door.

What a funky name for a kid to have. It wasn’t really Verge- fact is nobody called him by his real name except for maybe his mom when she wasn’t really happy with him. Now that I think about it, she was always called him Virgil.

So, on the first day that Verge shows up in class, the teacher brought him to the front of the class to introduce him and put him on the spot and all. Why do teachers do that? I mean, take a total newbie and stand him up in front of everybody and introduce him like that. That’s the last thing he wants is to have everybody staring at him like he is some sort of freak or something. My dad always used to talk about this crazy study that was done about what were the top ten things that people were scarred of. He would say that the number two fear was dying. Then he would ask someone that was new to the story, “What do you think the number one thing people are scarred of?” Then, after what he would call a “pregnant pause”, he would say, “Speaking in front of a group of people!” Then without skipping a beat he would go on to say, “In other words, people would rather die, than talk in front of a crowd.”

I always rolled my eyes when I heard that one coming, but his audience would always laugh. He was always saying stuff like that. But stink, it’s true! And that’s exactly what every stupid teacher does to every new kid that shows up half way through a school year right after Christmas break. She makes him stand there and introduce himself, or say something about himself, or say where he is from, or give some kind of report on life in Africa, or something stupid like that.

And that’s what the teacher does to Verge the first day he shows up in class. I don’t think she even talked to him before class. She must have had some note from the principal or something like that on her desk saying she was getting a new student or something.

So she gets up in front of class and says that we have a new student in class and calls him to the front of the class to stand with her. After he timidly climbs out of the safety of his desk, he drags his feet to the front of the class and then, while the teacher is looking at a piece of paper, she says, “Class, this is Virgil Hamperray.”

I tell you what, I’ll never forget the look on his face as it went three colors of red which set off his freckles like nobody’s business.

“It’s Verge.” His head was kind of hung low as he glowered out from under his mop of red hair at everyone in the classroom. It was too late though. The damage had already been done. A laugh went up from the class when they saw that his name bugged him.

“Now, now, class,” the teacher says. “Simmer down. This is not how you make someone feel welcome on his first day. Let’s be kind.”

We slowly stopped the snickering as we took a better look at Virgil. His clothes were clean, but were showing signs of prolonged use. His pants were starting to play peek-a-boo with his ankles, and his shoes were starting to bulge like some fish net that’s bursting with too large a catch.

“Tell us where you are from, Verge.”

He didn’t say a word for a moment. “Verge,” prompted the teacher, “do you want to tell us where you are from?”

He mumbled something that only the teacher could hear, so she repeated it for the rest of the class. “Oh, you’re from Florida. Well, by coming to Vancouver you’ve moved about as far away from Florida as you can get?” She sounded all pleased with herself as if she had just showed us all how important it is to know geography or something stupid like that. She even stepped over to the map of the U.S. and pointed where Florida was. Why do teachers always try to teach you geography when they are introducing some newbie? Stink.

So that’s the first time I ever saw Verge. Then every other year or so we were in a class together, but we never really got to being friends or anything like that. He kind of hung out with his little crowd of friends and I hung with my little crowd. I mean we knew each other by name and all, but we just didn’t hang much together.

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If you like the book, please add a link to your Facebook wall. And leave a comment on here about what you think. I love feedback.

Broken Windows Chapter 5

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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My dad’s church was really small and we had this tiny little youth group of about… I don’t know, there were about ten to fifteen of us? And we used to sing these lame songs about trains bound for glory and do these stupid hand motions where we would pretend to be yanking down on some train whistle and we’d all say,“woo hoo”. And what does a train have to do with going to heaven or whatever. Unless it’s a train that runs you over and sends you to heaven. “Woo hoo.”Splat! That’ll send you somewhere for sure.

Anyhow, corny as the songs were, I was in this stinking fish bowl. Stink! I was the pastor’s kid for crying out load. Man, you couldn’t fart without some lady in the church mentioning it to Mom or Dad.

“Hello, Mrs. Woods. The other day I was sitting in church when I heard someone pass gas right behind me. And who do you suppose it was? Your Randy. I don’t think that’s very reverent to be doing that during worship,” or something stupid like that.

Dude, I’ve got to hand it to my mom. One time I had been over heard saying dam, not the cuss word, but the kind that holds back water and makes a lake. In fact, it was part of a joke I was telling a couple of guys. I said that I had seen a documentary about beavers. Then I said, “It was the best dam movie I ever saw.”

Anyhow, there was this dude in the youth group named Ted Winchell. We used to call him Donut because he had the same last name as the donut place, Winchell’s. Not only that, but he was kinda shaped like a donut too. So Donut has this really stupid mother that is walking by just as I said the punch line and his mother hears me say it and then she runs straight to my mom like some snotty little girl on a playground to tattle tail and tells her that she heard me cussing in front of her little Teddy. She always thought her son was so stinking perfect even though he was always a smart mouth.

Then she asks my mom where the son of a pastor would learn such language. I tell you what, God bless my mom! Without batting an eye she says, “He probably learned it from your son.” I swear that’s the honest truth! My mom had starch in her underwear and refused to be bullied by all the stupid church ladies.

But it was like that all the time. I had to watch what I said, and what I did, or who I was friends with because it all reflected back on Dad, “The Pastor.” The pastor’s kid was supposed to be perfect, the model kid, a “shining example for all the other kids to strive to become”, and who would never fart out loud! How stupid is that!

I didn’t want to be perfect and I sure as hell didn’t want every thing I did, or every thing I said, or every stupid burp to be analyzed for how godly it was or wasn’t. You know what I wanted? Freedom. Plain and simple. Freedom to be, to do, or to say whatever the stink I wanted!

Every high school is exactly the same, at least I’m thinking they are. What I mean is that they all hang out in their stupid little groups. Call them what you want-stoners, jocks, geeks, pretties, uglies, harries, or whatever the stink you want to call them. At youth group we were always being preached at about“cliques”, that’s what the church called them. And the youth group was always talking about how cliques were bad and all.

You know what, that never quite made sense to me. First off, wasn’t our little youth group a“clique”? It had all the stinking earmarks of one. No one new ever became a part of it, and we had our own little secret insider behavior accompanied with train whistle blows. Then the youth group leader preached to us about never belonging to a clique. So I remember asking our youth group leader one time if I needed to stop coming to youth group.

“Why would you ask that?” He was all confused and thinking I was trying to trick him or something like that.

“Aren’t we a clique? I mean aren’t we just like one of those groups that we aren’t supposed to be hanging out with?”

He went on to tell me that I was missing the point and all this other stuff about being open to others and junk like that. But it was too late as far as I was concerned. I knew it was all a joke and twofaced. Even if I was the pastor’s kid and was expected to be at church and all the other little stupid events, I knew it was time to get some elbowroom. I knew that school was my only opportunity to break free.

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Broken Windows Chapter 4

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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I used to hang out with this guy named Jeremy. That dude was cool. We used to call him Jerm. You know, like germ, but with a “j” in place of the “g”. His parents used to let him draw on his bedroom wall and stuff like that when he was a kid. Most parents would hit you up side your head for being so stupid. They’d say, “Draw on paper, not walls,” or something stupid like that. Tell that to that Wyland guy who paints whales on walls and stuff. That guy’s a billionaire or something crazy like that for coloring on walls.

Anyhow, Jerm got to draw on the walls of his bedroom and his parents didn’t care. Maybe they thought he was like that little prince who spelled sherbet all wrong and everything he did was cute. Stink! He draws some stickman on the wall and his mom walks in and says, “Isn’t that cute” or some other proud stupid thing like that. The family that could do no wrong cause they were always right or something dumb like that.

You wanna know the funny thing? He ended up becoming an artist and all that junk, and he painted this one picture and put it in an art show. Then some crazy Japanese rich guy digs the painting and offers to buy it. And here is the part that’s so crazy insane. Instead of giving Jerm money for his painting, this Japanese guy sends him on this all expense paid trip to Japan! That’s crazy! I guess a little crayon on the wall wasn’t so bad after all. I bet his mom really is proud of him now.

I always like him, my friend, Jeremy. He was like one of my all time favorite people to hang out with. He was always saying funny stuff. One time he said- and this circles back around to the letter “r” again. Talking about that missing “r” made me think of Jeremy. Anyhow, he said that we should all be thankful for the letter “r”, because without the letter “r” all of our “friends” would be “fiends”. Get it? Fiends is friends without the “r”! Isn’t that hilarious? I always get a kick out of that whenever I think of it.

It was good having friends like him. Stink, that whole stupid group of friends were really good to be with. But somehow I got the idea that there was something better out there. You know, better friends and stuff. There wasn’t a lot of glitz with the gang, but they were still good to hang with.

But my eyes were wandering to a more, you know, “in” crowd. And I thought that this mythical “in” group would somehow be better and more fun and less constraining and… well, I don’t know, just different. I wanted different for no other reason than it was different from what I had.

It must have been around that time the “r” dropped out of me. You know, I went from friend to fiend. Stink, I guess you could pretty much say that that’s the kind of friend I ended up being. I didn’t mean to, but as sure as I’m here today with you, that’s what I became.

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Broken Windows Chapter 3

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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I guess that’s something I’d change. I wouldn’t be getting all pissed off and bent out of shape about getting milk, even if it was only one percent milk.

And I’ll tell you something, once you got used to one percent it’s not all that bad. Just don’t try to make me drink that nonfat junk. That’s when they take the milk out of milk or something stupid like that. Might as well get a cup and just put two drops of milk in it and then fill the rest of the cup with water. I can’t stand nonfat. Nonfat anything. Give me a burger that sets the barbeque on fire and sets off smoke alarms and the fire station has to come and check that everything’s okay.

And who wants sherbet? Give me some ice cream! Hagen Daaz Rum Raisin or Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. That stuff has lots of fat and lots of yum in it.

Hey, did you ever notice that “sherbet” doesn’t have an “r” at the end? What kind of stupid person spells a word like that without an “r”? I remember the first time I saw it when I was a little kid. I said “sure-bet” or something stupid like that, and my sister laughed at me. “It’s ‘Sher-bert’, Dummy.” How was I supposed to know? I think the real dummy was the first person who spelled it without an “r” in the first place. It was probably some little snot-nosed kid who’s dad was the king or something and all the stupid people around him had to act like everything the little prince did was so cute and next thing you know everyone is trying to be cute like the king’s son or something and they start leaving the “r” out of “sherbert” and now we’re stuck with “sherbet” without an “r” at the end.

I don’t know. I guess when it is all said and done that’s kind of what I’m like, that letter “r” at the end of “sherbet”. Nobody misses it now that it’s gone. People aren’t walking around and talking about how sherbet isn’t the same without that “r” at the end of it. People are still buying it and eating it- well, people who don’t mind food without fat. Stink, you could take both the “r’s” out of it, and people would still get it. You’d say, “sherbert” but you’d spell, s-h-e-b-e-t and everyone would still eat it and nobody would even care that the “r’s” are completely gone. This world is the stupidest place I’ve ever been.

But that’s what I’m talking about. You can’t just go dropping letters whenever you feel like it. If there is an “er” sound in the word, then give it a stinking “r”. That’s all I got to say about it.

Why don’t we do that to my name? You can be calling me “Randy” all you want, but when you write me a note or something, you can spell it A-n-d-y, and we’ll just know that the “R” is still there. I mean, how stupid is that.

Anyhow, nobody is walking around somewhere saying, “Sure do miss Randy” or something like that. This whole stupid world just keeps going and going whether I’m there or not. When it’s all said and done I don’t think anyone is missing me.

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