good guys always win

good guys always win

chapter 6

(8.1.02 - this chapter is dedicated to Head, on his birthday)

When you look out the window on a late November morning and see the front yard grass covered with a soft sheet of white frost, you know that it's going to be a butt-freezing walk to the bus stop. A year and a half [and a road test] was what it would take for me to stop the daily ritual of trudging towards the corner of Ashbrook and Visco Dr. at 7:15 am. The morning seemed especially cold, and I decided to prepare myself well. I made myself a bowl of oatmeal - in my preferred flavor, apple cinnamon - and delayed my walk outside to let my freshly wetted, gelled hair to dry. Like all other Asian boys at the time, I had a relatively short haircut that was spiked either upward or forward, depending on my daily mood. I packed my bags, slipped on my pre-tied sneakers, and walked out the door.

"Madduckkkkkkkkkkkkk!" I yelled, as I greeted my uni-browed, Indian buddy at the busstop. Maduck was a very nice guy who annually progressed from a smart geek to a clueless hip hop Indo-thug.

"Yoooo - wassup," Maduck replied, implementing his newly acquired "ghetto"-speak. He would eventually nail it down and make it very natural, but at this point, he was still only getting used to it just like he was getting used to wearing his baggy pants, Tommy Hilfiger gear, and lots of cologne. His transformation was laughable, but he was too nice to label a poser. The bus arrived as we began to talk about schoolwork. Our bus was always late, and this was both a good and bad thing. It was good when I woke up really late and had to rush to the bus stop, but it was bad because I never got to school on time and I had to explain to my homeroom teacher that it was the bus driver's fault. Today, the bus was running a few minutes earlier than normal.

"You think Jason will make it?" Maduck asked with a slight grin. The bus closed its door, turned the corner, and began to move up the street. Looking out the window, about fifty feet ahead of the bus, I made out an awkward figure running for its life. Hands down at the side and open, with every finger very tense, the arms moving back and form in a stiff motion, and the book bag bouncing up and down on the back -- it was Jason closing in on the bus. The only problem was that he was running towards the bus as the bus was going towards him. The bus driver observed the immense effort and stopped the bus to let Jason on.

"You're so goofy," I said to Jason as he walked towards the back of the bus while trying to catch his breath. "You should've just waited there and let the bus come to you."

"You're LB," Jason said to me, while making an "L" sign with his fingers. It didn't even really look like an "L" because he did it in such a goofy motion. It looked more like a "J."

Jumping Jack Jason could only be described by one word: goofy. He was a very nice guy and loved to talk to people, but his awkward body movement and funny facial expressions were his trademark. He was a bit taller than me at around 5'9" and could be considered built. He slouched and had a Beatles haircut, but messy and tussled. He had a hooked, Jewish nose and loved to talk about money. I started calling him Jumping Jack Jason when I first saw him do jumping jacks during a gym class in middle school. It was the most hilarious display of non-coordination that I ever saw in my life. The fun continued as he played football his freshman and sophomore year of high school. If I was having a bad day in school, all I had to do was watch Jason do his jumping jacks in practice to crack up and feel better.

"You're LB," Jason repeated again, as he made another unsuccessful attempt to form an "L" with his fingers.

"You got toothpaste on your shirt," I pointed out to him, as I let some other kids know as well. Laughter ensued as everyone stared at Jason's dark green shirt, now stained by a grayish spot left by the toothpaste.

"I must've rubbed it by accident while I was rushing to get to the bus stop," Jason tried to explain himself. He didn't need to; he had done his job and made everyone laugh.

LB. I first told Jason what it meant in middle school, when we had moments to talk at the same bus stop each morning. I had heard the full two words being used by my older friends as they watched poorly produced talk-show programs during summer afternoons. I also heard it one time when we were watching an episode of Batman, the animated series.

"Look at this low budget shit," an older friend commented as we watched a Batman fight that consisted of "POW" and "BAM" drawings, just like the old-school Adam West version.

"The cartoonists were probably mad lazy," the other older friend said. They flipped the channel to Ricki Lake, where scantily-clad, ugly guests were screaming at each other. "Look at that hoochie mama -- what the hell? When pre-teen daughters love having sex with their mothers' boyfriends? What is this low budget crap?"

I was exposed to the term often and I began to employ it myself. Things that I didn't like - lots of homework, super corny jokes, and unsatisfying meals all became "low budget." I then shortened the term into two syllables by taking the acronym, "L" and "B."

"Yo Rish - I heard your mom and dad like to make LB porn together at home," I said, during lunchtime in middle school. The creative and fresh use of "LB" was well received as my friends, including Rishi, laughed at the comment. My close friends began to pick up on the lingo, and we even had the antithesis of "LB" -- "high budget", or "HB." It was an "inside joke" for a while, as my immediate, close friends were the only ones to know what it meant. When I told Jason what LB meant, I had no idea that its use would be spread like a gospel, but by the time I was a senior, kids I had never met in my life were using LB and HB. This was all because Jason could never stop saying "LB" along with that ridiculous gesture.

The morning had passed by slowly. I was the only one who participated in my first period history class, sitting front-row, middle seat, right across from the teacher's desk. French, English, Computers -- all boring and sleep-inducing. My only anticipation was for Algebra II class after lunch; we were getting out tests back.

The bell rang and the students rushed into their seats and quieted down, knowing that good behavior would quicken the test-return process. The teacher, Ms. P (no relation to Mr. P, the European History teacher), solemnly walked into the classroom. She dropped her books and papers on her desk, turned around, picked up a piece of chalk, and began to write:

A - 2
B - 5
C - 10
D - 7
F - 2

The students eerily eyed each other as the anticipation transformed into sudden dread.

"This is unacceptable. You guys made dumb mistakes that we went over many, many times in class!" Ms. P yelled with increasing frustration. She took the tests out and began to pass them out. I desperately regretted having eaten the cafeteria spaghetti and meatballs for lunch because the feeling of a botched grade turned my stomach upside down. I looked over Wally's shoulder as he looked at the red number on top. He tensed up a bit and his head plopped down as he buried his face on his desk; "54."

I awaited as Ms. P walked from row to row, returning randomly-ordered papers. She reached over from the next row and handed me my test, rolled up halfway to prevent the grade from being seen by others.

"67."

A "D" was my status for the day. Wally was visibly irked by his "F." All the while, Head felt relieved that he had escaped with a "B." Slight envy ensued as Wally refused to look in Head's direction, and I sarcastically congratulated him on a job well done.

"Yo Pete, we have to figure out a way to do better," Wally said in a dead-serious tone. There was only one thing "LB" in this world at that moment, and it was the prospect of a sub-B marking period grade.

******

"Hey, do you have your Algebra II tests from last year that we can maybe see?" Wally and I asked as solicited various upperclassmen for old tests to help us study. The answers were all discouraging: "I gave them away"; "I threw them out"; "No."

Our salvation came in the form of a clarinet-toting, math and science whizzing, five-foot tall Chinese girl, Diane. She lived a few blocks from my house, and she took the same bus as me every morning, but I had never talked to her in my life. Thankfully, Wally was her friend, or he was at least someone she talked to at school. She was in our grade, but she had already finished the Algebra II course as a freshman. Wally used his charm, all five-feet, one-inch of it, and convinced Diane to "lend" her the Algebra II tests for study purposes. She relented, and we found ourselves more confident than ever. We kept the test a secret from Head because he had belittled our poor grades, and his head was already getting too big, no pun intended. The next Algebra II test came and we put our new-found knowledge to work.

******

"That test was easy. I think I'm going to get a good grade," Wally predicted with bold confidence.

"Yeah - it wasn't as hard," I added, with a sly smile.

"I think I did well," Head joined in, without a clue.

"Yo Head, I heard you got a 100 on the test," I said sarcastically.

"Really?? Where did you hear that?" Head asked. He became insecure. "No - shut up. You're just making it up. I mean, I did well, but I don't think I got a 100. Or did I?" I cherished the commotion happening in his unproportionately-sized cranium at that moment.

The tests were passed out one by one as Ms. P had less harsh words to say about the overall effort of the class. "Some of you made dumb errors that kept you from getting an 'A'," she noted, as we received our tests. Wally turned around and brandished his "96." I received my "94" and was content with the score. This was only the beginning because we had discovered something about these loaned tests: they were repeated. We had studied with the notion that every year's test would be different and didn't take the trouble to memorize the answers of the "practice" tests. Now, we knew that success would be a matter of copying down the work and answers correctly, rather than understanding concepts.

"What did you get, Head?" I asked.

"Ninety-seven," Head replied.

"Oh. Hmmm. But I thought you got a 100."

******

By mid-January, Wally and I had greatly improved our grades. Our first marking period was salvaged by a few good test scores in the end, raising our averages from C's to B+'s. Our second marking period was an absolute feast. We begged Diane every few weeks for the next test and got it. I would come to know her in person and even walk in the snow to her house to pick up the papers a few nights before the test. We even gave her a Hoching Music Mix CD as a show of our appreciation. But when Diane realized that our "unethical" behavior had given us outrageous A+ averages in Algebra II, she refused to lend any more tests.

"We'll be ok for the second marking period at least. We only have the quarterly left and Diane doesn't even have the papers for that anyways," Wally remarked.

A few days later, we were OK in the sense that we escaped with an A- for the marking period as we each scored "68" on our quarterly, which counted twice as a test.

98, 100, 103 (extra credit), 102, 99, 100, 68 [twice] = 92% = A-.
Not bad for two clueless kids who couldn't tell the difference between a matrix and a dominatrix. Math was easy.

Wally and I survived the 3rd and 4th marking periods by luckily obtaining the rest of the year's Algebra II collection from an upperclassmen. The same routine, the same failed scores on the quarterly - the teacher never figured it out and I managed to pull an "A-" for the year while Wally faltered even worse on some quarterlies and had a "B." Warren, who had a different Algebra II teacher that year, also struggled for most of the year, before taking a hint from our operation. He had an indirect contact solicit tests from the Sobbing Turtle and benefitted greatly from her tests. Nevermind that he made her cry a few times from humiliation in class -- he was taking care of business.

To go from "LB" to "HB" actually didn't take us much effort. We took the test the night before, checked any answers we didn't know with people who did, and then wrote it down the next day during class. It was a newly acquired technique that would come in handy again. Wally and I took our sixty-eights and smiled. It was HB enough. And Head? I heard he got a 100.