Changing Tyler-Chapter Two

Dylan was in the school showers, steamy clouds puffing up, fogging the bath mirror. I could smell the rock hard scent of his soap, and feel the heat of the water in the air. I heard the slick sounds of a juicy washcloth and Dylan’s voice as this chab softly hummed along with the music in his head.

Dylan Anderson was the hottest thing on two feet, in my humble opinion. Skimming the six-foot mark, Dylan had impossibly wide shoulders, a narrow waist, legs that went on forever, and the finest gazoo in town. His hair was thick, black, and wavy; his eyes were blue-green and a shade darker than the turquoise stone in his class ring. that guy was the starter for the school’s track team, owned a blue, ‘92 Mustang hardtop, and when he made appearances in my daydreams, was usually exposed.

I approached the shower stall, stripping out of my T-shirt and jeans as I went. Dylan heard me and turned, blinking water out of his eyes. he wasn’t surprised to watch me – he’d been hoping that I’d be there, but when this chab opened his face hole to invite me beneath the spray, the voice that came out wasn’t his ordinary baritone.

“Mr. Waters, perhaps you would like to explain to the class the theory of Occam’s Razor? Mr. Waters?”

My head snapped up, eyes front as Mrs. Sero’s grating voice cut throughout my pleasant daydream, shredding it painfully, like a pair of dull, rusty blades through paper. this babe stood at the head of the classroom with her hands on her hips, looking like a withered, angry garden gnome. Mrs. Sero wasn’t an inch over five-feet tall, possibly ninety-five pounds soaking wet, and the oldest living creature in the universe, but she still managed to cow students twice her size and a third her age with a single, malevolent glare.

Me, included.

A few students snickered around me, but the rest sat staring into space, twirling pencils in their fingers, tapping pens against notebooks, and generally just existing until the bell rang. Let’s face it – almost any of us didn’t care about Occam’s Razor. We cared about the Whos, as in Who was dating Who, Who was available, Who was not, Who might be breaking up with Who in the near future, and whether that Who might be interested in that some other peculiar Who. We cared about Who made the beginning line-up for the team, Who was applying for which college, whose parents gave Who a new car for their birthday, and Who just got the newest CD/DVD/video game/fill-in-the-blank. The civic-minded among us cared about Who was doing what about the environment, Who was running for office, and Who was saving the whales or beating baby seals with big sticks.

With all those important distractions, Occam’s Razor didn’t stand a chance.

“Uh, Occam’s Razor…yeah…um…it’s a…um…” Brilliant answer. Give that lad a gold star.

Mrs. Sero sniffed, wrinkling her nose at me as if I were a hawt bowl of ear wax and snot, and thankfully turned her attention to Mary Jo Parker, resident class brainiac. I dimly recall hearing Mary Jo’s answer, smth along the lines of Occam’s Razor stating that the simplest explanation was usually the correct one.

What do you know? I learned something. Harvard, here I come.

It wasn’t that I wanted to sit and waste my time, not paying attention. I wanted to acquire decent grades and go to college. I wanted to acquire a car, a job, and out of this crummy town. I wanted a life. I just couldn’t assist myself. almost all of my brain cells were constantly involved in creating interesting recent dreams starring Dylan, and I had very hardly any left over for cognitive thinking.

The bell rang and I virtually shot out of my chair, stuffing my books, pens, and whatnot into my backpack, out the door before it had stopped buzzing. My next class was the one I looked forward to each day, the one that dragged my sorry arse to school rain or shine, the reason I’d had consummate attendance that semester. It was the one class I was not ever late to, not at any time missed, and indeed did my homework for – English IV.

Not that I was particularly interested in whether my participles were dangling or in writing a term paper worthy of a Pulitzer. The reason I loved English IV was coz it was the one class I shared with Dylan.

this chab sat directly in front of me, in fact. For forty-five minutes every day I got to stare at his broad shoulders, and the smooth, tanned patch of skin between his inky black hair and the neck of his taut T-shirt. I’d watch the way his muscles moved below the thin fabric as this guy flipped a page in a book, or zipped a spitball across the room at one of his buddies. I was so close to him that I could smell his cologne, when this guy wore some.

For forty-five minutes each day, I was in Heaven.

It was important to me not to look like a total idiot in front of Dylan on the occasions that Mr. Grayle called on me, so I made sure to take time from my normally constricted schedule of rocking the abode on Guitar Hero to do my homework. Not that I always answered him correctly – I wanted Dylan to think I was smart, but not loser-smart. I didn’t wish him to think that I didn’t have a life, and spent all my free hours with my nose in a book. To that end, I came up with a schedule. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I answered to the most good of my ability. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I dumbed it down a little.

It was a formula that appeared to be to work for me. As a result, English IV was the merely class I had where I usually scored A’s. Go figure.

At the moment, I was staring at the hairline at the back of Dylan’s head. His hair had just reached that need-a-trim stage, and was beginning to curl. I wondered what shampoo this chab used – his hair looked truly soft.

Suddenly, a loud sound startled me, making me glance up. Grayle had slammed a textbook onto the top of his desk. That had to be Number One on the US Educational Department’s list of Things to Do to Scare the Crap Out of Your Students. each teacher I’ve ever had has used it at least once, and it’s not at any time failed to work. All across the classroom, heads snapped up like a herd of antelope hearing the roar of a lion.

“SAT’s, people!” Grayle shouted from the front of the classroom, “This will be your final Chance to get into a fine college and become productive members of society. Mess up, and you can forget about ever owning a Porsche or a house that doesn’t sit on wheels.”

I almost swear that I could hear Grayle capitalize the words, “Last Chance.”

Grayle continued listing all the exciting career opportunities that would be accessible to us should we fail to score at least a 1550 on the SATs, including arson and robbing convenience stores, as this chab strolled up and down the aisles, depositing our latest graded test papers on our desks.

I heard Dylan swear underneath his breath as he picked up his paper. English was not Dylan’s strongest subject. I saw the grade marked in red at the top of his paper when Grayle had plopped it on his desk. He’d scored 72 out of a hundred, which equated to a big fat “D.”

I was on the track team – I knew that Dylan needed a C average to proceed as a starter, and I was willing to bet that his test grade was going to put a serious crimp in his chances at the pumped up scholarship I’d overheard him talking about. Add that to Grayle’s overly dramatic announcement about the SAT’s, and I wasn’t at all surprised by Dylan’s colorful language.

There were times in life where no thing short of dropping the F-bomb sufficed. For Dylan, that would have been one of ’em.

Grayle finished distributing the test papers, and returned to his desk at the front of the room. that guy waited until that guy had our attention again or at least as much of it as that guy was likely to acquire.

“In light of the coming SAT’s, I’m going to set up after school peer-tutoring sessions. Take advantage of it, people. I’ve posted a list on the board on which I’ve coupled tutors and students. On your way out of class today, find your name. Participation is not voluntary. Tutors will be given study packets, and there will be a test at the end of every week on the material.”

The class groaned as a single, collective unit. It was one of these infrequent moments in high school life when all the barriers melted away and differences ceased to exist – when everyone, male, female, preppies, geeks, beauty queens, jocks, goths, gay, straight, what-have-you, become kindred spirits, united in their singular hatred of being forced to do something that they otherwise wouldn’t do without a gun held to their heads.

Then it was gone, and things went back to normal.

Grayle would not ever assign Dylan to me for tutoring. It was likewise much to hope for, I said myself. I just wasn’t that fortunate. No, I’d get stuck tutoring Molly Fredericks, who had yet to develop a working relationship with deodorant and firmly believed that everyone from the school janitor to the President were involved in one conspiracy or one more. Or Frank Hughes, who I suspected tortured miniature animals in the comfort of his basement, and who would no doubt be featured on a future movie scene of Cops.

When the bell rang, I wasted as much time as possible putting my things into my backpack. I wanted everyone – especially Dylan – gone previous to I checked the list. I took a unfathomable breath, feeling like I was walking Death Row instead of the not many feet to Grayle’s desk, and looked up at the paper tacked to the bulletin board on the wall behind it. I ran my finger down the list of names until I discovered mine, there at the bottom, wedged betwixt the names Vincelli and youthful. Waters, James, it told underneath the column marked Tutors.

The name next to mine was Dylan Anderson.