good guys always win

good guys always win

chapter 8

(8.14.02 )

"Take this, carry it to every class, and show it to everyone," I told Bo as I handed him a rolled up, off-white poster.

"Aw.. com'on; that's kinda gay," Bo protested.

"You did shit on our project. You disappeared on us and did absolutely nothing, so the least you can do is this," I said, clearly irritated.

Bo was what you can call a scavenger. And he was hands down, the best at his profession. Bo knew that he wasn't as smart as most other kids in the honors classes, and this awareness allowed him to act accordingly in order for him to still achieve top grades. Bo was slightly shorter than me, but muscular with no body fat, and small-eyed. He played on the football team with me and Warren, but he wasn't really interested and usually just chilled during practice. He was more serious about wrestling, but his weight class was a tough one to compete in, so he was stuck in JV until his senior year. If Wally and I used organized connections and Warren used stealth, Bo's method was sheer charm.

"Hey, so what are you doing tomorrow? Wanna do something?" Bo would casually begin with an unrelated topic. "Man, I have so much homework tonight. I'm probably gonna have to stay up all night again. Did you do it yet? Really? Was it hard? Did it take long? Oh... I'm having trouble with some. Hey - can I see yours for a sec?"

And before you knew it, he would have your homework in his hand and your answers verbatim. Bo was the Enron of cheating. He produced nothing on his own, but he was good at playing the middleman and even better at convincing people to invest their answers in him. He would take answers he had "earned" from one subject and trade it for another set of answers in another subject. As our friend, we gave Bo free access to all our goods and didn't expect much from him. We took pride in our academic life support system, in which lazy, unintelligent students were able to maintain high grades. Bo was special because he wasn't really that lazy; he was only lazy about doing his work, but the busiest beaver when it came down to cheating. Heck, he even had a higher GPA than Warren.

Bo took the poster and unveiled it each period. The poster was for a biology project and our topic was malaria. The poster solicited laughs and ridicule from classmates.

"What the hell? You just pasted a picture from Encarta and a wrote that 'Malaria is bad'."

The kids also remarked on the "Top 10 Things We Hate About Malaria" list that was written on the poster. The absurdity made many people question whether or not this was the real project. Bo cleverly kept a straight face and told everyone that it was our real poster. Of course, the insiders knew what was going on and this was definitely not the first time such exhibits were made.

Period 9/10 came, and I was eager to ask Bo how well our poster was received in his classes. The poster had been opened up so many times that the sides were beginning to tear and the poorly glued pictures were partly coming off. Wally, who also worked on the project with me, observed the other groups' posters and noted that ours was actually better than some of theirs. Head, who had worked in another group and had only a mediocre poster to show for, rolled his eyes at our amusement.

"Um. Ok, we know that's the LB one, so just take the real one out," he said, in a monotone voice. Head obviously knew that the poster Bo had carried all day was a decoy, intended to lower the expectations of everyone who saw our project. It would pave the way for the real poster to make an even deeper impression, on students and teacher alike.

I went to the back of the class to retrieve a cardboard tube with plastic caps on each end. I had put the real, "HB" poster in the classroom earlier in the day, and it was time to open it up. The packaging was done nicely by my dad at his photo store, and the poster was not your normal construction paper and glue; it was a digital image poster on glossy 20x40 inch paper, with a matte-like protective finish to make it waterproof.

"You can spit on this poster if you want and it'll still look the same," I boasted. The poster was done on my home computer. I had spent hours carefully constructing a digital diagram of a mosquito infecting a human with malaria, and Wally had furnished me with carefully researched information to complement the various diagrams. Bo was impressed on his first viewing of the poster and smiled at the prospect of a good grade for no work done. The malaria poster impressed the teacher so much that it was given its own space on the bulletin board and kept there for the rest of the year. The other kids had to hang their posters on wires that went across the classroom. Wally and I decided to put the LB malaria poster up just to make the point that a 10-minute effort was still better than half of the posters in the class.

"I bet your dad did everything and that's why it looks good," a disbelieving Indian kid said to me. I should've punched him in the face, but the obvious show of player-hating made me laugh.

"Yes, and we paid him good money, too."

The school day had been successful with the LB/HB scheme working to perfection. After a quick study hall period, I made my walk to the boys' locker room and changed for gym class. When the girls and boys filed out of the locker room doors, they took their seats in their assigned rows. I sat in front of a Jewish girl, who I called Tubs. She wasn't fat or anything. I knew her since freshman year, when I sat at the same lunch table as her, but we never really talked until I saw her everyday for gym class. She was one of the few genuinely good people I got to know in high school.

"Man, check out those thunder thighs," I said to Tubs as I poked her in the leg. She played soccer, so her thighs were on the muscular side. She just laughed and told me to shut up.

"My brother says that to me, too," she told me. Tubs was cool because she wasn't one of those Jewish American Princesses at all. She was quite down-to-earth, hardworking, and very modest. She also had no problem hanging out with a bunch of Asians. She would talk to me, Wally, and some Asian girls regularly and avoid being clique-y with other, snobbier Jewish girls. Wally, who sat in the next row, scooted closer to my row.

"Yo - did you hear about the cards? I heard Walker found a bunch of printed definitions from the board," Wally said, in a concerned voice. And that was only the beginning of the speculation.

"Who the hell would print them and bring them to school? That's so gay," I said, angered at the security leak. Others joined in the conversation and more speculations came our way.

"I heard Walker's going through each set of cards to see who cheated," Ligi said. I began to worry and hoped these rumors were no more than false alarms. The rest of the period was a blur as I contemplated all the scenarios of being caught. Would Walker fail us? Would he keep us out of the National Honors Society? Would he keep us from going to the college of our choice?

I went home after school and chatted with Huhzoo on-line:

Me: shit man - you think we'll be caught?

Huhzoo: i don't know. brb.

Me: yo, seriously. we wouldn't be able to get into NHS. i'm going to take down the board tonight.

Huhzoo: hi.

Me: if i take it down now, they won't be able to catch us, right?

Huhzoo: i guess so

Me: that walker mofo - his ass ought to retire and shit so we wouldn't be in this mess. did you do the packet yet?

Huhzoo: yes. i have to use the computer now. goodbye.

It was a brief conversation on-line, but it was weird that Huhzoo wasn't as concerned as I was. He had obviously used the same cards and would be subject to similar punishment. I guess he didn't believe in the rumors. I did my homework and had a tough time getting sleep that night.

In Walker's classroom, there was a shelf next to the door that had old, tattered history books and lost-and-found items. I usually never looked at the shelf because Walker was smart and hid all his Bailey books after the first day so that nobody would steal them. I think Warren still managed to pick one up, but I actually ordered mine from Amazon.com for 70 bucks. Each one of us - especially Warren and me - stocked up on stolen books every year. We hated lugging around books back and forth from school and home, so having a copy at home and a copy at school was the logical thing to do. The first day of school was usually a frenzy because it was the best time to steal a book. I had some bonus moments when I found the appropriate books left behind by someone in the previous class. That was how I got myself a coveted Algebra II book. But Walker's shelf was usually boring - except for today.

"Yo Pete, what's that box with all those index cards in it?" Truz wondered alike as he looked at the box containing several rows of index cards, each marked with a big, red "X."

"I'm not sure, but I heard that people who copied from my board are gonna be busted," I told him.

"Shit. Ferreal? That blows, but I don't care - I'm failing this class anyways," Truz said with a grin.

"Today we will be talking about robber barons and graft...." Walker began his lecture, "Graft is for CHEA-TERS who LIE and are DISHONEST. Tammany Hall was known for graft in the late 19th century. There are some in this classroom, even, that do similar things, such as LYING and CHEATING," Walker angrily laced his lecture with direct attacks. If the box of cards on the shelf weren't enough, then his verbal hints confirmed all rumors: we were busted.

Later, in the evening, I talked on the phone with Warren about the scenario:

Me: This sucks. But what if Walker didn't have the cards - then he can't accuse us, can he?

Warren: I dunno. But there were a lot of cards - did we even give it out to that many people?

Me: Yeah, I know, right? Well, if we go down, at least we'll have good company. Yo - how about we break into school and jack those cards?

Warren: Yeah? You mean, sneak in the middle of the night?

Me: Yeah - we can dress in black and bust a window and steal the cards.

Warren: Well, I can wait til my parents fall asleep and then we can try.

Me: Hmm.. yeah, but I guess they would know it was someone who definitely cheated then. And then they have alarm systems and cops would come get us. I guess that's not such a good idea. Damn. This sucks.

It was as if a dark cloud had descended upon us. The next few days, there was no word of the cheating from Walker, but the "X"-ed cards remained on his shelf. It was an agonizing wait as we all knew that trouble was coming, but when?

****

It was late-April and the weather was nice. I woke up for school, read the sports section of The New York Times to check if the Knicks had won, and walked to my bus stop. I love the air in the spring time because you can take a deep breath and not have it pierce your lung with cold air. The sun was shining with only a few clouds in the sky. I had my blue spring jacket on, and I felt good. At school, I stopped by Wally's homeroom like every other morning, said "sup" to Nigi, Ligi, and Triple H, who were also in the same homeroom, and made my way to the trailer outside, where my homeroom was. I sat in my seat, smiling because I had cracked a funny "homo" joke on Triple H, and I looked in my bookbag to see if I had all the books for class ready. I turned around to receive the goofy "L" sign from Mintz and to remind him that he was a total goof. Then my homeroom teacher motioned me to come up front.

"Here Peter, I got a slip from the office for you," she told me. It was a small pink piece of paper that told me to report to room 148 at 8:43 am, which was at the start of period one. My stomach sank immediately. I knew I was on death row, but it was finally my time for execution. The bell rang, and I walked towards room 148.