Santiago
DeLeon
Lauri
Anderson
Intro
to fiction
December
2, 2013
Firsts
It’s
my first day of real school and I couldn't be more scared. We came into the
school to enroll me after my mom had already waited over a month into the
school year. But what’s six weeks when I'm already a year behind? I hated being home schooled. It just gave me a whole lot of time to think on my own, play video games when it was my turn, or maybe look at dirty stuff on the internet. I
hardly ever studied when I was at home. We all had a curriculum, but only one
of my brothers would really ever follow it. Still, he was slower than the
average classmate when he went to school.
I
told my mom that the main reason I wanted to go to school was because I wanted
to play basketball. I’m pretty good at my age. I love basketball. I’m pretty
fast too and I can touch my hand about a foot over the rim. That’s about how
far up the marks are on my arm anyway. I have a lot of time at home to practice
my jumping. Before bed every night I do calf raises, twenty on each step on the
way up to bed. I thought this might give me a good kick as I jump, and it does.
But I still don’t know how to dunk or anything like that. I’m able to get the
ball up there but I can never seem to get it to go in the hoop. And I’m also a
bad ball handler. My brothers laugh at me because I’m uncoordinated and I’m
sure I look weird when I dribble. This always makes me feel bad, and my throat
starts to hurt for some reason.
My
mom just got finished speaking to who should be my freshman guidance counselor.
The counselor said that I wouldn't be able to get into some of the classes that
my mom wanted me to be in because they are already too far into semester. In
response, after the counselor leaves to check the availability of other classes,
my mom seems to be infuriated.
“This
is bullshit. They get paid to have you here! They think that they can push us
around just to show that they have a better system than ours. You ready to just
walk out of here if we have to?” she asks me.
I
shrug my shoulders.
“They’ll
for sure let you do whatever the hell we want with a bluff. Dumb asses.”
The
counselor comes back and explains my schedule, says that she can fit a choir
class in with my schedule. My mom is calmed by this suggestion because she loves
music. And I know this, so I quickly agree to the suggestion to please her. I
tell my mom that I really just want to be in the basketball class. So they
figure out a way that it will all fit in with the schedule and it is set and I
will start my classes tomorrow.
On
the way home, my mom keeps talking about the education system and how it’s not
good enough with all of the taxes that we pay. But I’m not really listening.
I’m just sitting there, nervous, thinking about the other kids at school, what
they will be like, who will be my friend, which teachers will be impatient with
me, what they look and act like. I didn't get to see any kids today. But I will
tomorrow, without a doubt. And then I think about basketball, and will they
laugh at me like my brothers do? Or maybe even more than my brothers do? I want
to know these things. I’m just scared.
In the morning, I take the bus to school with my brother.
As I move down the aisle of seating, all seats are taken by at least one
person. My brother sits down, and I, immediately following him, quickly take a
seat so I don’t look weird standing in the aisle. I briefly pear over and the
person that I’m sitting next to is a girl. Holy shit, she’s hot. Shit, I hadn't even thought about how hot girls might be. I don’t talk to her. I look over a few times to see if she’ll look back but they were probably so fast that she didn't notice, so she didn't look back. Either that or she was ignoring me.
This
is my worst nightmare. I've never been this close to one this attractive
before, just seen them on T.V. I mean, the neighborhood that we live in isn't really a friendly neighborhood, so there’s not a lot of close friends to make.
In fact, when we first moved here, there was a drive-by shooting every few
months. So I haven’t really been able to be around this kind of social life.
Just church kids once a week. Our mom had to write a letter to the school
district to get permission for us to go to a different school.
I
arrive to school and my throat starts hurting. The freshman go to another
building that used to be a middle school but changed to the ninth grade center
because there were so many now, about a thousand in my class alone. So the bus
dropped the freshman off and took the others to the other campus, my brother
and hot girl included. When I got off the bus I felt fine because I got away
from that girl that was making me nervous, but now I’m nervous again. I walk
into the cafeteria side of the building and there are kids everywhere. They are
all talking to each other. Speaking to one another like it’s not the hardest
thing in the world to do. Like they’re heart doesn't feel like it’s trying to
jump out. Like a very sudden nauseating feeling in their stomach doesn't come
whenever they sense they might need to tell someone something.
I
got through all of my classes. I haven’t made any new friends yet. I didn't try
to talk to anybody. I guess all of the “get to know your classmate” games were
at the beginning of the semester. I end the day in basketball class. We played
a few games, but I haven’t shown them what I could actually do. I dribbled down
the court a couple times and lost the ball out of bounds without anyone near
me. After scrimmaging, coach tells me that I need a lot of work. I know I do.
This is a good story because of the reality of things. People find it hard to change and start new things. That’s why when people do or start new things that feeling of sickness always happens. It’s the grim reality and we don’t know what’s going to happen and that scares us but that’s also what makes this story so good. It keeps the readers interested because we want to know what happens. We want to know if anything will go right for him. We all want to see that hope at some point but everything just keeps going in the opposite direction. That is exactly what keeps the readers interested though. We want to know if he makes friends, or if he talks to the hot girl later, or even if he makes the basketball team, and when one of these things don’t happen we wait to see is something else happens for him. Another thing that I thought was really good was the relate ability. Everyone gets that feeling of sickness when trying new things or we all get that feeling of our throats closing when something is about to happen. It creates suspense and we as readers need it to keep us on our toes, too see if something actually good happens. If I were to change something in this story it would be the ending. Everything leading up to the ending was really good because things were bad and readers like that to happen. It makes them feel better about themselves, but they always want to see hope in the end, whether it be small or big, we still want something else, so I would suggest that instead of just saying you need a lot of work from the coach I would have ended saying you need a lot of work but you have potential. Then from those few words us as readers would have got that hope and it would have made this story great instead of good. There is a book in particular that we read in class that does this though and it wasn’t my favorite, but it was Virgins from Danielle Evan’s book “Before you Suffocate your own Fool Self.” They are alike because everything in their story basically goes wrong all the way to the end and then when readers expect it to turn around for them it doesn’t but again that’s grim reality. People read books to escape from the crazy world we live in and create a happy one because life can be so chaotic. That’s why I think we want a happy ending because most of the time we are trying to put ourselves in the narrators shoes and relate and when everything goes wrong it scares us even more. This was a good writer choice though; it could have easily fit in Evan’s book along with the other stories, good job.
ReplyDeleteI found this story to be very interesting, and also extremely relatable to many people through the inner dynamics of the narrator's mind. The way his dialogues/experiences contrast with the constant self-reflection and observations provides the framework for a thorough spectrum of character development that would otherwise be unobtainable in a story so short, and a good example of this is when the narrator says, “When I got off the bus I felt fine because I got away from that girl that was making me nervous, but now I’m nervous again… They are all talking to each other. Speaking to one another like it’s not the hardest thing in the world to do.” This self-reflection functions not only as character development, but also sets the tone of the story in such a way to give a feeling of almost validated reality that is supplemented by the relevant use of language one would expect a teenage boy to demonstrate. One of the things I credit to this story most is its aptitude to relate to more than just a homeschooled boy going into high school, it illustrates many of the feelings associated with any teenager dealing with the complexities of high school for the first time, and also seems to provide some defense against the stereotype with which much of the public has endowed upon kids that were/are homeschooled.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this story has done quite proficiently in so many aspects, I do feel that there a couple of things that you could have done that would have made this short story even better. All of the narrator’s talk of aspirations for basketball seemed to come without closure, or a sense of finality. I feel that if you provided some kind of epiphany about basketball at the end, or some conclusive endpoint on the dialogue with the coach, that the thesis of your short story would have been more clear and organized. One possibility is that if the coach would have decided to supercede the narrator’s self-prescribed feelings of inadequacy by asking him to join the team or some form of positive reinforcement. Other than that, this short story was well done, and even enthralling in its ability to relate at an emotional level.
I don’t feel that any one story that we read in class can be entirely related to this one, but it does however, encompass certain aspects of many various short stories. The most relevant of which, “worst-case scenario, seems to be similar in more ways than the others. In worst-case scenario Wilson also emphasizes the utilization of the inner workings of the narrator’s mind to validate the first person perspective of the story. Another similarity between the two is the overwhelming sense of fear, inadequacy, and confusion towards the narrators' varied encounters in life.
Santiago, I really enjoyed this story because I feel like it was just a simple tale of reality—which is kind of an oxymoron, but speaking in terms how matter-of-fact it was, I liked it. Your story was not overly suspenseful like you tried force it since this was a written fiction assignment, and I believe that was the aspect of your story kept things interesting for me as a reader. Although it was possibly realistic, the simplicity of your story really kept me on the edge of my seat because it all just seemed too normal for something off the wall not to happen. It was great how you left readers anticipating something crazy to happen with how casually the story progressed, and I liked that. Your story was very easy to follow, and did not make me feel scatterbrained like other fiction stories have. And I think that is a great thing considering your narrator was a freshman in high school and will obviously not voice his thoughts the same as an adult would, so I think you were spot-on there, too! As a girl, it was funny to read about things that a boy might freak out just thinking about, but not express that at all with body language, and that was really cute! It was honestly kind of difficult to find one story in particular that really reminded me of yours, but I would definitely have to say that Kevin Wilson’s, “Worst-Case Scenario” was the closest I could get. For example, the main characters in both your story and Wilson’s, are facing no major outward struggles that are anything besides “realistic” or let’s even say “normal”, but they both face binding internal conflicts that appear to be holding them back from trying to achieve something greater than what they presently have. That was the greatest similarity I saw between your story and any other we have read this semester. If I could change anything about this story it would probably be the ending. I was just hoping for, maybe, a little glimmer of hope that his basketball skills would improve in the future, or that the coach would reach out to him because he sees the child’s potential and inability to come out of his shell. I think that something more along the lines of giving readers an ending to this story that allows their minds to form the real conclusion, and you just provide them the possibility of “what happens next.” Although your chosen ending did make me think about what I wanted to happen, I really just would have liked a small insight to what you wanted to happen. I think that would have really gotten a reaction out of your readers and leave them interested for more after the end, right at the closing of your work. I thought that overall, your story was great, and I very much enjoyed getting to read it! You are a very good writer and this story reflected that.
ReplyDelete