|
I look deep into the eyes of every kid in the classroom in turn, earning their trust individually with the iron-willed, unflappable honesty of my gaze. My gaze could cut diamonds. My gaze could talk its way out of goddamn prison. "I want you kids to know that my door is always open," I say, leaning on my desk. "If for any reason for any reason you want to get high, I want you to come to me first. I'll match whatever price you're paying right now. That's how serious I am about this. " I am confident this offer will earn me that most elusive of treasures when dealing with the modern American teenager: respect. And possibly even tail, which I won't lie to you, would be nice. Though given some of the mutts in the Grade 10 English class at Fairfield High School in upper New York State, I'm not exactly crossing my fingers on that one. But mostly, I'm just trying to blend in. These kids need to think of me as a substitute English teacher and not the most insightful and, yes, bangable journalist on the Western hemisphere if I'm going to be able to exploit them for my article and get the investigative goods for The Trailer Trash. My name is James Pinkerton. I am a journalist. And I am deep undercover as a teacher in the high schools of America. |
|
One of the beefy kids in the back actually laughs at my generous offer to sell them discounted drugs. If this isn't proof of the gradual dumbing-down of America, I don't know what is apparently getting cheap drugs from your teacher isn't cool. Personally, if someone was offering me crack rock at $60 a half-gram, I'd buy that rock from a zitty Hitler. That's just buddy prices, man. But teenagers are apparently all about image first, getting cheap rock second. I weep for the children of tomorrow, I really do. From his posture and the sheer volume of sports clothing hanging off his chubby frame, I peg him as one of the popular, ringleader teens. How anyone could pack away that many Burger King Whoppers and retain cool status is beyond me. Evidently you can still sink baskets with a fat stomach and flabby arms. I'm sizing him up as soon as he speaks. I could take him. "Like I'm gonna buy drugs from you, narc," says chubby cool kid. Narc? I think. You fat-shit bastard. "Narc?" I say. "You fat-shit bastard." Here I am offering to sell my stash at competitive rates, and these ingrates don't even bother to recognize the sacrifice at play here. "What are you gonna do about it?" he says, crossing his arms. A titter from the rest of the class. "You gonna send me to the Principal's Office, narc?" I dive across three desks and strangle the P. Diddy out of him. Three students try pull my hands off his big neck. * * *
But then, I blame the critics in the first place. According to my agent, the book was singularly awful, but I still maintain that awful books fly off the shelves every day. Mine would have too, if the critics hadn't leapt all over me. Read some of these quotes:
It's admittedly pure conjecture on my part that the reviewers quoted above were all evil clones of Mussolini; however, I invite you to ask yourself who else would be capable of that kind of merciless slaughter. The worst part is that those were the best pullquotes, and ended up on the dust jacket. In my opinion, that was a mistake but the publishers seemed to think that putting glowing quotes from me on the cover of my own book might be seen as excessive. With my novel-writing career temporarily on hold, it was back to investigative journalism to pay the rent. Sadly, after I'd found out I'd be getting Murder Sandwich published, I made it a point to call every one of my old editors and rub my privates on the phone until they hung up. Though I didn't realize it at the time, the move had severely limited the number of people currently willing to admit I was alive. Except for The Trailer Trash, the only publication who not only didn't seem to have any problems with my earlier phone call, but ended up stealing the idea for their answering machine. My last piece of Trailer Trash investigative movie journalism had me going deep undercover to find out hardcore fans' reactions to the upcoming film The Punisher. While of course immensely thought-provoking and staggering with emotional weight, the article to my mind had one flaw: namely, that it forced me to hang out in a comic book shop with nerds. So when I showed up at The Trailer Trash's offices to meet with the Editorial Committee, I made things clear: if I was going to be doing any more undercover work with young American adults and their thoughts on popular culture, I wanted to do so in an environment that would allow me the opportunity to check out and possibly even nab a few handfuls of ass. The Editorial Committee suggested an open-ended piece, infiltrating a normal American high school and finding out firsthand what movies the kids were excited about based on the trailers. Content Editor Lucy Harrowsmith painted the picture. "We think it'd be interesting if you found out what the 'buzz' is with the young adult age bracket on upcoming films. Teenagers typically go to the theater more than any other age group, so the movies they're interested and not interested in will basically tell us what will be big in the months to come. Matrix Revolutions, Catwoman, Stuck on You..." "Is that the film with the two guys stuck together?" I asked. "Yes, exactly," Lucy responded. "What do kids think about Stuck on You? Do they want to see that?" "God Jesus, there are people out there who'd want to see that?" The import of this sinks in. "And you want me to mingle with them? You're throwing me to the fucking wolves, aren't you?" "We've lined up a perfect high school," explained Lucy. "They don't check backgrounds and the Principal's a drunk, so it should be a breeze sneaking you in." "Fine, I'll do it," I said. "But I'll have to brush up on my rock groups, and buy some phat pants, so I'll need an expense account." "Actually... we were hoping you could go undercover as a substitute teacher." "What?" I said. "Substitute teachers aren't cool. How am I supposed to gain the kids trust in bephatted pants if I'm a teacher? Kids kill teachers now, don't they?" "Jay, you're almost thirty." "I'm almost twenty-nine," I corrected. "Twenty-PHAT-nine." "Jay, you're going in as a substitute teacher." "Fine," I said, pouting. "But I at least get to pick my undercover name." "Fine," said Lucy, pulling out an application form. "Last name?" "David Lee Roth." "First name?" "Diamond." I may have been imagining things, but I could have sworn a detected a slight pause and sigh as Lucy read my undercover name back to me. "Professor Diamond David Lee Roth." I made the Devil Sign to signify my approval. "Did you have a back-up name we could use if th" "Fabio Cockrockington," I said without hesitating. "Professor Roth," said Lucy, filling in the application form. I gave another Devil Sign. * * *
"Is he alright?" I ask. "I think he's dead, Professor Roth," says a blonde girl with braces, her eyes starting to pool up with tears. "Hmm," I say, thinking about jail. "Alright, class time to learn a new word. Who here knows what 'alibi' means?" |
In a just and fair world I wouldn't be in some shitty upstate
high school masquerading as an English teacher and strangling some punk
student, but rather hanging around on the set of some film translation of
one of my best-selling novels, boning the hell out of Sharon Stone. In
fact this had been the entire plan all along a plan that hit a small
snag six months ago when my first novel, Murder Sandwich, hit
bookstores all over the country and, with the exception of a few copies,
stayed there. I would point out to my critics that Murder Sandwich did
break several records for instance, I am currently in the Guinness Book
of World Records for having written a novel whose unsold copies currently
take up something like 20% of all bookstore shelf space in the country.
The other
students pull me off of the chubby kid. I straighten my tie, trying to
make it look through body language that I'd only accidentally slipped over
the three desks and had innocently grabbed chubby's throat to steady
myself. I'm darting glances around to see if anyone's buying it, but
everyone's still frozen in shock, so it's hard to read them.