Class assignment #1 - Person from my past, and where they are now

When I was in fourth grade, there was a kid in my class named Mark. He used to wear suits, and was obsessed about money – like a little Republican. His suits and nicely combed hair did not fit his demeanor. Though he was very smart, he was also a troublemaker. I will never forget his laugh. He had a laugh like Muttley from the old Hannah-Barbera cartoons. He caused trouble and got kicked out of class a lot – or used his wits to make the teacher his foil. An example of this deals with our assignment of learning a word, and teaching it to the class. Mark chose “mark”. After the teacher told him to stop making a mockery of the assignment and choose a new word, he pointed out that mark was a basic unit of money in Germany. I believe he knew that mark was a word we didn’t know, and that he could use this information to get a reaction from the teacher. I envied the guts it took for him to upstage the teacher. After a while, I became his victim.

One winter day, he took a piece of ice and packed snow around it. He threw it and it hit me in my head. I fell down crying, but no one watching knew about the hidden ice. They laughed and called me a cry-baby, because they assumed it was just a snowball. After that incident, his verbal attacks directed at me increased. He enjoyed the attention that this caused. I grew to hate him. One day, I had enough. I got out of my chair, walked over to him, and shoved him. He fell over a chair and hit the ground. Even back at that age, I think his fall was more of an act. He wanted the reaction – whether it was positive or negative.

After a while, he no longer attended our school. The rumor was that his parents put him in military school. When I was in high school, I heard he returned to public school. The new rumor was that he was kicked out of military school for drawing a swastika on his head and threatening students and instructors. He no longer wore suits, but wore mainly black. A mass of black hair now fell down in his face, close to covering his eyes. There were a few kids that followed him around like he was the new Jesus or Charles Manson.

I think he had the intelligence to be someone great. He just chose the wrong path. His job does not have him dealing with the public. Mark is good enough at his job where the bosses can’t fire him, but his coworkers are uneasy around him. He works at a job like a post office - a place where he can do his job, collect a check, and leave. He is left alone to his thoughts.

Mark owns a small house that is run down. Crabgrass makes up a large portion of the yard. The remaining grass has not been mowed. The interior is as unkempt as the exterior. Inside, his furniture is worn. There are cigarette burns on the coffee table. A metal ashtray is filled, with butts scattered around it. There is a hard pack of Marlboros on this table. The couch is stained from alcohol and past dinners. Empty beer cans and bottles are scattered around. Some on tables, but most are on the floor – surrounding the area where he sits.

The kitchen has grease and grime over the appliances. There is a partially eaten Stouffer’s Lasagna left in the oven from last night’s dinner. It will probably be his meal for tonight too. The few dishes he has are dirty – piled up by the sink. His refrigerator contains beer, some simple staples like cheese, lunch meat, and ketchup. There is a carton of milk that has expired weeks ago, but has not yet been thrown out. In the back of the refrigerator is a food container thick with mold. Empty pizza boxes stick out of the waste basket.

He currently lives with a female. It may be a girlfriend, or just the current girl in his life. She is skinny, and wearing a heavy metal t-shirt. Her hair is long, stringy, and dirty-brown in color. She loves him, but still is a little afraid of him. You can tell when she lights up a cigarette – her hand trembles as she lights her Newports with the disposable Bic.

There is about the same amount of clothes in his chest of drawers than there are on the floor. Dirty clothes are strewn about his bedroom. A small bag of marijuana sits on the stand by his bed. His bed has not been made in weeks, nor have the sheets been changed.

The only book he owns is Mein Kampf. This is mainly just for shock value, as he has not read it. Mark wants people to view him as an outcast, and actively tries to play that image up. He does not consider his friends as equals. They, in fact, see him more as a leader than a friend. He still has that power over some people.

Mark is mad at the world. He thinks it owes him something. He knows he is smarter than those around him, but has nothing real to show for it. He spends the nights drinking more Budweisers and vegging out in front of the television.


Conclusion of the exercises:

I think it was natural of me to view him going further down the wrong path. He started out as a bright kid who was well-dressed, but caused problems. Then the rumors I heard later showing that he no longer looked the part of what adults would consider a “respectable member of society.” I just continued the path onwards. People still were uneasy around him, and he had little respect for things and people around him. I attempted to describe his house to emphasize this.

There are two things that surprised me.

First, I am slightly disappointed that my description seemed clichéd. I almost feel like I went with mainstream Hollywood’s skewed view of “stereotypes are based on facts.”

Second, I thought I was going to make him in to a sociopath. He ended up being narcissistic, but far from a sociopath. When I first thought of using him as my character, I felt a twinge of deviousness, because I could exact revenge in my writing. I eased up on it though. Though, my portrayal would not be considered flattering, it is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It led me to think of what his life really was like back then. Did he have a bad childhood, were there emotional issues that he had? Maybe it is because I have always viewed him as intelligent. That is a character trait that I value. So, since I value intelligence, yet hated him back at that age, it makes me wonder if there were troubles in his life. I think that influenced what I wrote. What I expected to write is not what I ended up writing.