If there's one thing I'm good at, it's making a goddamn scene and getting myself in trouble.
The thing is, I've lived this long and I'm already dead, so nothing really matters.
Late 90's
I was a young punk with long hair.
I fucking hated school.
Being the cool kid wasn't something I wanted, yet I hated how others treated me.
I didn't like being messed with either.
One day a friend of mine decided to bring whiskey to school. He was one of those fifteen year old alcoholics nobody knew existed.
I didn't even know he was drunk most of the time until that day when he brought whiskey to school and told me he was drunk most of the time.
I just laughed. We were already outside smoking our cigarettes between classes so I figured sure, why not. Took a swig. A big one. Had a nice buzz for math class.
Then it was lunch break; so we had whiskey for lunch, finished the bottle, went our separate ways.
The next day I was called into the office and suspended from school. The reason was because apparently, I brought whiskey to school, gave it to my friend, and that's why the principal found him passed out on the men's room floor, two hours after the final bell rang.
So I was pretty mad about that.
Ended up getting suspended from school again for pulling a pocketknife on that kid and pressing the dull side of the blade up to his throat.
I just wanted to scare him, and I did.
I never got free whiskey again after that. Karma.
The talks before that knife incident backfired when I confronted him and he insisted, in front of all our friends, that it was me who brought the whiskey, made him drink it, and got him suspended from school.
He had already prepped the group. I came late to the party. Nobody believed me. I lost all my friends. Could have punched him out but nothing would have been gained. Bottled up that anger until I burst with a knife in my hand.
I already had a bad reputation.
People knew I was a nutcase.
The year before, I had snapped on another kid.
I was new to the school. Didn't really have friends aside from a few kids who would at least talk to me, sometimes.
There was a hall I had no choice but to walk through, daily. There were benches along one side and behind them were massive windows containing a view of the courtyard.
These dudes that dressed like cowboys were always on my case. They'd sit and mock me every single time I walked through that hall. They'd throw things at me, push each other into me, and just fuck with me in general.
The ringleader had a lot of acne. I still remember his face. He wasn't the biggest one but he was the loudest. He'd always be the one to make damn sure everyone noticed I was coming.
It went on for months. I hated my life.
One day he said something nasty to me, again; I was already having a bad day.
He was sitting on a bench in his spot, surrounded by hicks. I calmly walked up. Kicked his face as hard as I could with a steel toed boot I was required to wear in shop class. In an instant his head flung back and hit the window behind him, cracking the glass in several places.
I calmly walked away.
He was hurt pretty bad. I got suspended. They'd glare but mostly stay quiet after that. I didn't feel like a champion and didn't really win any friends, since you already learned what happened...
A year later.
School was finished early, for me.
Alone. Always beating myself up internally for being so stupid. All the kids knew I had pulled that knife. A marked man that nobody would mess with, or even talk to.
Most of the time I'd skip class. Eventually I was kicked out.
Was introduced to a new crowd through a few hockey teammates. Many of those folks came to be lifelong friends.
A couple left me for dead outside of a bar one night, years later, when I was nineteen.
Drinking the whiskey again.
Stumbling drunk, sitting at a table. Was having a blast.
Got up to take a piss. Bumped into a dude. The way I was stumbling, he thought I did it intentionally.
I shrugged his attitude off, carried on, did my business, then eventually found my seat after grabbing another drink from the bar.
He approached me, threatened me, walked away. My friends said don't worry about it.
Big dude. I was just a kid at the bar.
Once the night was over, we all gathered outside. The big dude and his crew stepped out. My friends ran!
So, whatever, I tried to run but slipped on some ice, hit the ground. Took an unnecessary beating of punches and kicks to the head.
I woke up in the hospital. They said I almost died.
But they lied.
And I've been dead ever since.
