Pep Rally - Chapters I, II, and III

The Pep Rally
Chapter I - Sweet Dreams.

Johnny knew that his mother would be angry. She always told him, "Now you get your sorry ass home before dark.", and Johnny had always done what his mother told him, until tonight. Johnny spent his last token, left the arcade, and started walking. It was dark, and Johnny wasn't home. Johnny was scared, and although he didn't know it yet, he was lost.

Johnny rounded the corner at a slow trot and started down the
alley. It was dark. So dark that Johnny didn't see the hulking figure
lurking behind the dumpster; until it was too late. In a flash Johnny
was knocked to the ground, straddled by the figure. Johnny wanted to
give the figure some money, but he knew that it had all been spent on
Q-bert. It didn't matter anyway, Johnny was too scared to speak, or
move. As the figure leaned over Johnny, a large object slid off of the
figure's back and landed with a thud on the ground near Johnny's head.
The object was a tremendous burlap sack and as the figure opened the
sack Johnny first experienced the stench. An odor so foul that Johnny
never forgot it. How could he. That odor, that night, would haunt him
for the rest of his life.

Johnny looked up as the figure lifted a soggy yellow mass from the
sack. A cabbage. A very old, very rotten, very large, cabbage. The
figure forced open Johnny's mouth and crammed the fetid cabbage in.

"Eat!"

Johnny did.

Then another cabbage. "Eat!"

And another, "Eat!"

At some point, during the next hour and a half, Johnny started
crying ... stopped resisting ... surrendered his will to the figure ...
and started counting. He counted them one by one, cabbage after
cabbage ... eighty six, eighty seven, eighty eight...

Johnny woke suddenly from his nightmare the same way that he had
for the last six years, with his mother slapping his face and telling
him that it was alright.

"Wake up sorry ass, you were having another nightmare. Its
alright."

But it wasn't alright.

It wasn't just a nightmare.

Chapter II - A short walk.

"What color will it be today Johnny?", asked Johnny's mother.

"How about blue.", Johnny replied.

"Blue it is.", Johnny's mother said as she opened the box and
handed Johnny a brand new, blue, Renuzit air freshener. Johnny tore
the plastic covering off of the Renuzit, pulled down his drawers,
removed the red Renuzit from the day before while holding his breath,
and quickly stuffed the exposed wick of today's blue Renuzit into his
anus.

"All plugged up!" Johnny exclaimed as he grabbed a pop-tart on
the way out the front door to catch the school bus. Johnny hated
leaving the house each morning and boarding the school bus which
stopped right in front of his door. It was only a short walk of a few
steps from his front porch to the bus stop, but to Johnny it seemed
like an eternity. On this particular Friday the short walk was long
enough for the following insults and jeers to be hurled at Johnny
before he could board the bus and take his usual seat right behind the
driver:

"Its poot boy!",

"He smells like my baby sister's puke!", and

"That's Johnny, the kid who constantly rips the disgusting acidic
cabbage farts!"

Johnny didn't pay much attention to the taunts of the other children
riding the bus on the way to school. If today was going to be like any
other school day, things would only get worse. At the time, Johnny had
no idea exactly how much worse things would get.

Chapter III - Same old, same old.

On his way to lunch Johnny was thinking that if he could just make it through the rest of the day then it would be the weekend and he could spend Saturday and Sunday locked in his bedroom, safe from the stinging jaunts of his peers.

Home-room and first and second period were relatively uneventful. Johnny sat in pretty much the same position in each class, sandwiched between the largest window to the outdoors that could be opened and one of the industrial sized fans that his parents had been forced to purchase by the school board. This arrangement worked to the extent that none of the other kids had to endure the malodorous gasses that sometimes slipped passed Johnny's renuzit plug. However, the noise of the industrial sized fans often made it difficult for Johnny to hear what his teachers were saying.

No one ever made the connection, but that is probably why Johnny had ended up in so many "special" classes. That also explained why, on this particular Friday, Johnny never heard the announcements and was unaware that a school pep rally was scheduled for seventh period in the gymnasium.

Johnny carried his textbooks and notebooks for every class along with him all day every day. Although it made it harder for him to try and defend himself with his arms full of books, it also kept him from having to go anywhere near his locker or the locker area where Johnny would inevitably encounter Dodie and Murf.

Dodie and Murf were big bullies at Johnny's high school. They tormented any kids who looked funny or were different. Johnny was their favorite victim. Dodie and Murf had even been known to turn their attention from wedgy-ing the "mainstreamed" retarded kids to Johnny should he walk past in order to deliver a boot to the kneecaps or a forearm to the back of the head.

Every fall when Johnny came back to school from the summer he would be almost positive that Dodie and Murf had to have graduated the year before. But every year they were there waiting for him. Johnny didn't know how many grades Dodie and Murf had failed, but he estimated their ages at twenty four and thirty respectively.

The books that Johnny was carrying on this particular Friday were stacked so high that his vision was partially obscured. Obscured to the point that Johnny couldn't see the bottom line of the daily menu posted outside of the cafeteria as he walked inside third period for lunch. The line that read,

"Fried fish ... and s l a w."