Lucas and The Time-Traveling Fog

As we were taking the stairs to my new English class, I admit being stuck for the time being wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But it was mostly thanks to my Grandmother, who distracted me by just chatting and asking away about me. Plus, telling a little bit about herself, too, if I might add. I didn’t really push for details about her because I knew all about her. But she wanted to know everything about me instead since, after all, I am the “New Kid.”

The questions she asked were personal...almost too personal if you ask me. She starts off slow by asking me, “What do you think of the school so far?̈” Not a bad question at first, so I answered, “I think it’s great, but that may change throughout the day.” Then she decides to throw this curveball question at me like, “How many siblings do you have?”

How am I supposed to answer that if my dream younger version of my Grandma doesn’t even remember? Now, I’m starting to think maybe this is some weird reality after all. I lied and told her that I had two siblings just to get that question done and out of the way. I’m totally being honest with you guys right now and telling you I was so annoyed by my own grandmother at first because one, I didn’t know that she acted like this before, and two, do I just tell her the truth and be done and over with of who I really am or not...since this is a dream after all? I then decided to just lie to her from now on. It made things so much easier for me.

But before she even had a chance to ask any more ridiculous questions, we made it to our English class. Before we even made it to the door, I stopped dead in my tracks because I had never switched schools before, unlike some people, and I didn’t know what to do or say just in case this wasn’t a dream but real. Janet, for whatever reason, decided to push me inside the classroom.

“Hey! Why did you do…ohhh--” I stopped talking immediately and just stared awkwardly as everyone was staring right at me as they were sitting in their seats.

I looked down and tried to find an empty seat, but I couldn’t help but notice Janet talking to some guy at his desk. This guy got up, walked past me, kind of hit me in the shoulder, and just sat across the other side of the classroom. Janet then said, “Gary...come on and sit here before Ronnie changes his mind.” I nodded and sat where this Ronnie kid used to sit.

You know what I just noticed? As soon as Janet entered the classroom, everyone was happy to see her, but as soon as I did, though, everybody was giving me the cold shoulder that Janet gave me earlier, which wasn’t a good sign, but I just ignored all the dirty looks and cold stares.

This day just couldn’t get any better for me because now, Janet wants to sit next to me. This is getting crazier and weirder by the minute. One second, she hates my guts, and now she wants to sit next to me in class. Just sitting next to her, let alone talking to her, feels like I am back in kindergarten, when my parents would spend a day with me in the classroom, but this is way worse. Sitting down at this desk felt like I was sitting on pins and needles, so I decided to take a closer look at the schedule that I saw earlier to distract myself from the pain. So, I opened my backpack and took a look at the schedule and was shocked to learn that Gary Walter is apparently a real person because why would a dream say a specific birthday for this guy, which was December 27th, 1941, while mine isn’t even close to that date or season.

Also, the school he went to before coming here to Burrowsville, Michigan, was James W. Marshall High School in Los Angeles, California. Which is somewhere I’ve never visited or even heard of. The supposed dream that I am currently in is running on thin ice here, and I’m starting to think I am actually in 1959, but I’m still holding on to some hope, which is becoming less and less. With this new information in hand, I quietly kept it all to myself and just memorized the schedule of this “new” school the best I could.

When the old school bell finally rang, which seemed like forever, the teacher got up from wherever he was sitting and started to say the standard introduction that I’m all too familiar with. As he was introducing himself and what we would be learning throughout the year and blah, blah, blah, a kid who was to the right of me whispered to me in a menacing tone, “Just so you know, even though you’re new doesn’t mean you get the right to hit on Janet ’cause you know she’s already going steady with someone...right?”

I whispered back, saying, “Well, I’m not trying to hit on her...what makes you say that?”

The kid replied, “The look on your eyes gives it away.” But before I could answer back, the teacher caught me off-guard.

“Now, starting today and finishing tomorrow, each and every student here, including myself, will go, stand in the middle of the classroom and tell us a little about themself and what he or she did this summer...But before we start it just so happens that we have a new student joining our class this year and his name is Gary Walter who is from California so let’s give him a warm welcome as he tells us a little bit about himself and what he did this summer.” The room got dead silent and all eyes were on me.

I was then signaled to get up, so I nervously got up from my seat and said to the class, “Hello ...my name is Gary ...Walter, and I’m new around here, as you can tell, and up until now I lived in Los Angeles California with my family. The one thing that I did this summer was...went drag racing with my friends.”

The teacher asked, “What kind of ride did you drive in this drag race of yours with your friends?”

“Well...uh, you see, the ride that I drive is not really mine, so to say, it’s...my father’s but he kind of lets me borrow it.”

The teacher then said, “Hmph, that is a very interesting summer, Gary, and I bet your father would love to hear more about it, especially the part where you were “borrowing” his ride right after school today. You may sit down now.”

I nodded my head and headed back to my seat where Janet, who sat on my right side, whispered, “Nice going, kid, you got in trouble on the first day, and now you may never be driving a nice car like yours ever again.”

The teacher then began calling someone else up, which was so boring to watch and listen to. He then told us that we had homework. Like, who the heck gives homework on the first day of school?!!! To be fair, it was easy; it was just writing down one word of how you are feeling right now and why. But everyone would be sharing this once we were done with introducing ourselves tomorrow.

Sounds simple enough, and by the end of class, all of us students left the classroom and went our separate ways, at least up until lunch. As soon as lunch came around, I arrived at the cafeteria, and when I entered, I had no clue where I was going to even sit because one of my real friends would’ve called me over by now, but they weren’t in sight. As I was walking around the cafeteria looking like a complete idiot, I heard my name or “Gary’s name” being called over. I turned around to see who was calling me, and I was surprised it was Janet. She wanted to know if I wanted to come sit with them.

I obviously said “Yes” because I didn’t want to sit alone or eat in the bathroom, so I followed Janet where she and her friends were sitting. As soon as I got there, I immediately told her, “Thanks for letting me sit here.” She replied, “No problem. I don’t want you to sit alone on the first day.” She then started to introduce me to her big group of her friends, which were about 15 people. Her main group of friends was not as much as I first imagined, but hey, friends are friends, I guess. Her group consists of four boys, if you include her “steady” boyfriend, Henry.

Those are the only boys in her group while she had a lot of girls. Janet introduced me to all of them, even the boy group. The first thing that one of the girls asked me was, “Is what you said in English class really true?” Seriously, what is with these people? What I said was around two hours ago, and they should really move on, but I guess not. I tried to answer the questions the best I could, but I had to repeat the story that I told Janet, which was saying that I’m from Los Angeles, California, and we moved to Michigan because of my dad’s work in the car business.

Every one of Janet’s friends felt satisfied with my answer and didn’t ask any more dumb questions and decided that I was totally cool enough to hang out with them, which I so desperately needed if I wanted to fit in. Shortly after being accepted in this new group of friends, the girls started to fill me in on their conversations and things that had happened before I came here, like how there’s a new diner down the street and more stupid stuff like that.

As I was trying to listen and keep track of their conversations, it was just impossible, especially with them arguing with each other almost all the time, like one person said, “That’s wrong. This place opened on June 12th, not August 15th ...what the heck are you talking about?” and so on and so on.

While they were busy arguing, I was thinking to myself, Man ...this has to be the most boring boomer decade to be trapped in, and I hate to be the poor sucker that’s stuck here.

But as of now, I just cannot for the life of me stand all the constant chatter like do they have nothing better to do? I wanted to tell them to shut up, but I couldn’t.... it’s like someone wouldn’t let me. But hearing them and everyone in the cafeteria doing it as well was stressing me out. I’m serious. I can hear every single kid in this school’s annoying voice and tone as they chatter away about beef with friends or sports games that happened or are going to happen. It’s almost as if the voices are circling around my head at full volume.

Now, I’m starting to see why my generation takes cell phones for granted, or else I’d end up like these folks. Ahhh, man, I’m starting to miss my reality already, especially my family when or wherever they might be. Just as I was thinking about them, Janet had to ruin my moment and said, “Have you not been paying attention at all, kid?”

I replied, “Was it something about going to the movies, right?”

“No, I was talking about how.... how--” she stops and sees some kid in a letterman jacket and says, “Oh, isn’t he dreamy?”

“Who’s that?” I asked. She said “Oh right...I forgot to tell you, that’s my steady partner Henry…. Robinson, and he is our star quarterback.”

I insisted that Janet should circle him if she finds him so dreamy as I laughed. But as I laughed, I thought about what I just said and why, but I brushed it off by convincing myself that their unknown slang or language was starting to rub off on me almost like a virus, and plus, this is only a dream and sayings like this don’t usually make sense to anyone. She suddenly said, “Maybe someday I will, and you will never hear the end of it.”

Right…...but Henry decided to stop and drop by our lunch table and right away noticed me but didn’t really point out and said, “Who’s the fream, and what’s he doing at our lunch table?”

I asked, “Who, me?”

Henry answered, “Ya... you kid...who are you, and what are you doing here at our table?”

“I’m Gary, and I’m new...my family came from California, and Janet was the one who invited me to this table.”

“Oh really….so what’s really bringing you here to Michigan? Is it the dolls or--”

I interrupted him and said, “Well, my daddy works in the car industry, and--”

“Well, well, did you hear that, fellas? Looks like we got ourselves a drag racer on our hands, and where is this new ride of yours, kid?”

“Oh, it’s parked,” I said as I looked outside the window, “right there, actually.” I pointed to my car.

“What...that ride over there?” as he pointed to some rusty-looking 47 Hot Rod.

“No, it’s actually the one right next to it.”

Henry looked impressed and said, “I dig that ride, man. But first, I want to blow you off in a little drag race tonight at seven on the new highway on fifty-first street. You can’t miss it. So, what do you say, New kid? Have we got ourselves a deal?”

I said, “I think I can dig that,” as we shook hands. Henry and his gang then left.

When they left, Janet screamed at me, “Are you crazy going against him? Now, who do you think you are?” Before I had a chance to say something back, the bell rang, and everyone, including me, started to head back to their classes. I’m just glad that this first day of school was almost done because so far, only three classes left to go until I leave and forget this first day of retro school for good.

Throughout the rest of the day of “school,” I learned more about Gary than I did in class. For example, Gary takes classes that I would never take, like lots and lots of math classes. My guess is that he wants to be an accountant or something, which is the complete opposite of what I have in mind, and by the way, did I ever tell you that Henry, you know the one who challenged me, is my grandfather?

I tried to deny that Henry Robinson is my grandfather, but I couldn’t help but notice my scary resemblance with him because seeing pictures that were once black and white now in color really make a difference, let me tell you. But still, I don’t know what my grandmother saw in him because what I could gather about my Grandpa so far is that his younger self is a genuine, smart-aleck who’s very competitive, unlike his older mature self, and is quite the bully.

How I found that out, you may ask. Well, I apparently have the same 8th-period Gym class and teacher with him! Lucky me, huh. I’m in class with a school bully, and it is, of course, gym...a bully´s playground and Henry didn’t even hesitate to bully me when he tripped me during the first lap on the first day of school where our teacher Mr. Jones or mad-dog as he wants us to call him from now could see and didn´t do a thing. As soon as we were done running, he took attendance.

After attendance, Mr. Jones then proceeded to tell us of all the units we will be doing in all of his classes and how we will have the special honor of doing everything in reverse, starting tomorrow, and that is my least favorite sport, basketball. I hate that sport. I was never even good. But before Mr. Jones could say any more about this unit, the bell rang, and that meant the first day of school was officially over, and I could finally go home to my era and not this “boomer” era.

But not before Mr. Jones had to dismiss us so we could go to the locker room and change before we went home. So, with that, all of us boys headed to the Men’s locker room where we changed, and once everyone was ready, we headed home. I was more excited to go home than all these fellas because I wasn’t from here ... or I should say “this time.”

Outside the doors, I noticed that everybody was cheering as they were leaving school with their books in hand and getting into their cars. As I was trying to find my own, I noticed that there were tons of cars that I don’t recall parked near me. I managed to find mine only because of the California plates. Ha, take that, Janet.