My Own, Private Hell

I loved senior year of high school. Mostly, because I never went. One of my closest friends and I literally ditched about seventy-five percent of our senior year. We would write ourselves notes, saying that we had to leave campus at a certain time for a dentist's appointment, or a doctor's check-up, or a funeral, or whatever came to our minds that day. We'd then exchange notes and he'd signature as my mother, and I'd signature as his. This is what we usually did, or sometimes-- we just wouldn't go to school at all.
However this one day, for whatever reason, my partner in crime absolutely insisted he had to stay in school that day. Perhaps it was a test or some other reason, but whatever it was I found myself in desperate need to ditch Chemistry without anyone to do it with. See, I absolutely abhorred chemistry. I didn't get it. To make matters worse, I began to discover there was math involved. Learning about molecules and science is one thing, but why did I have to use quadratic equations to determine molecular weight? I wasn't going to be a damn scientist.
Anyway, I decided that day that I was just simply going to wander campus for the hour. I had it all planned out: I would place all of my belongings in my locker, then simply walk around school with a book in my hand. If I were to be stopped by a teacher or a hall monitor asking to see my pass(you needed a pass to leave a classroom, for whatever reason: i.e.,. bathroom, locker visit, etc.,.) I would simply show them my book and say, "Oh, I just went to my locker real quick to get a book." It was genius.
Chemistry class was in the middle of a brand new building. You could enter the building from numerous entrances, but the main one was also the entrance to Mr. Sismondo's office. Mr. Sismondo was the Vice Principal, and as soon as you opened the building door-- his office was directly to your right. Straight down the hall was Chemistry class.
I walked around campus for a good twenty minutes. I began to get nervous about my plan, and decided I'd wait out the remainder of the hour in the school bathroom, located just across the main entrance to the chemistry building/Mr. Sismondo's office. I went in and prepared to lock myself in a stall. As soon as a took a few steps in, I saw Mr. Sismondo taking a piss at a urinal. In my mind, I froze, but physically I never stopped for a beat as if I had done nothing wrong. Mr. Sismondo gave me an angry look, and it made the butterflies in my stomach furious with flight. Never stopping in stride, I walked directly past him, into one of the last bathroom stalls and decided to take a leak. He won't ask me, I hoped, he has better things to do. As I stood there taking a leak, I could feel his eyes on me. I don't think he was a gay, sexual predator, I just think he was an angry man looking to traumatize a student.
As I finished my leak, I turned and walked away, book in hand. Sismondo was at the sink, washing his hands. I didn't bother, I headed straight for the door anxious to get out.
"Hey!" he yelled.
I froze.
"Your parents never teach you how to flush a toilet?" he bellowed.
"Huh?"
"Come here."
Mr. Sismondo called me over to the stall I had just used. In my anxiety, I had forgotten to flush the toilet.
"You see that lever over there?", he yelled, pointing to the flushing lever, "you push down on that to flush!"
"Oh, sorry," I whimpered out, hands shakingly reaching out to push down.
I pushed down on it and watched the pool swirl away.
"The way they're made, you don't have to use your hands. You can just push down on it with your foot after!" he yelled in my face.
"S-sorry!" I managed.
I was about to break. He was yelling in my face and he was a huge, freakin' man.
"Where's your hall pass?" he yelled.
That was it. Time to test my plan. I raised my book so he could see and tried to build my voice with confidence.
"I didn't get one, I just went to my locker really quick--"
"Well, obviously you didn't! What class was it?"
"Chemistry."
"Who's the teacher?"
"Mr. Parks."
He gave me one more daunting look and told me to get back to class and get a pass. I nodded in fear.
He and I headed toward the exit, but I took the lead with a more ardent stride. I knew we were both heading to the same area, and I had a feeling he was going to visit my Chemistry class and chew out Mr. Parks for "allowing me to leave class without a pass." I couldn't imagine what was going to happen: the confusion, the look on Mr. Parks' face, and finally-- the realization that I had never gone there. I practically sped walk to the entrance door of the building and saw Mr. Sismondo's reflection not far behind me in the glass.
I opened the door and disappeared inside, quickly. I looked down the hall and saw my chemistry class: the door was open and I could see my classmates inside. I made eye contact with some of them, who gave me a curious look. I had no time to acknowledge their looks, for I knew it would be not two seconds before Mr. Sismondo came straddling in behind me. I approached the open door of the classroom, waited to hear the building door behind me open, then quickly made a left, down an adjoining hallway that would take me to another exit. A few steps down the adjacent hall and I heard the building door open. Mr. Sismondo had entered the building. As far as he knew, I had beelined straight into class. He couldn't see down the adjoining hallway, and I quickly(and silently) ran down the hallway and made a right. There, was another exit/entrance.
I bolted out the door into the sunlight fearing for my life. I was picturing what was going on in the classroom:
Mr. Sismondo: Hey, John[Parks]?
Mr. Parks: Yeah?
Mr. Sismondo: Next time you let one of your students out to go to their locker, make sure they have a hall pass. The kid you just let out made a pit stop where he wasn't supposed to.
(A long beat)
Mr. Parks: What kid?
I was imagining the situation being played out and all the confusion going on inside. I took off down a dirt road down to the P.E. (Physical Education) area. I didn't know what to do and I didn't know where to go, but something told me I'd be safe waiting out the remainder of the hour down by the basketball and tennis courts.
When I got down there, there were about two or three P.E. classes in session. The tennis courts were filled with gym-shorts wearing P.E. students, and so were the basketball courts. Shaking, I sat down just outside of them and began to look through my book. It was a history book. I realized I had never really read it. I tried to calm my nerves, not knowing my next challenge would come. Only a few minutes after I sat down, one of the P.E. Teachers blew his whistle, signaling the class had ended and it was time to head back up the stairs to the locker rooms to change. I didn't budge. I didn't have to. Mr. Davis came to me.
Mr. Davis was one of the P.E. Teachers. He walked right by me and stopped.
"Who are you?" he said, looking me up and down in my civies.
"Uh... Edgar Ma." I replied.
Edgar Ma was a dunce around school, and us both being asian, I had always intended to use his name in case of any academic trouble in school where I didn't want to receive the blame.
"Who?" he replied, stepping towards me.
By this time, the P.E. students had began passing us and heading up the stairs towards the lockers. I saw my friend Joe approaching, who somehow knew I was up to no good. I could see it in his eyes.
"Who's class are you in?" Mr. Davis questioned.
I racked my brain trying to think of the other P.E. Teachers' names. There was Mr. O'dell, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Roscoe, and Mr. Hardaway, but for whatever reason-- maybe the pressure and stress of the situation, I couldn't think of any.
"YOURS." was what came out of my mouth.
Mr. Davis took another step forward and opened his attendance book.
"What's your name?" he asked again.
"Ma," I said, knowing that the gig was up.
He opened his book right in front of me. Using his pen, he went down the list of names looking for a "Ma" last name. He couldn't find one. Fortunately for me, I did. There was a name in there, "Ma Yeh", a chinese kid who spoke little English. I knew who he was and decided to claim him as me.
"Right there!" I pointed, "Ma Yeh!"
I followed Mr. Davis' pen scroll across Ma Yeh's name. There, at the end of his checklist, was Ma Yeh... check-marked as absent. Son of a bitch. How lucky was I? The guy was absent that day.
"You have to let me know if you don't dress, okay?" Mr. Davis said. "See? I marked you as absent."
"Sorry." I said.
I watched as Mr. Davis erased the check-mark and re-checked Ma Yeh as "did not dress."
"Go on up," he said.
And with that, I was gone.
The period was over. In the locker room, I tried to explain to Joe what the hell had just occurred, but I was too exasperated to make any sense. I waited until the bell rang and went to my locker, got my stuff, and made my way over to my next class.
The next day I expected a mass of confustion in chemistry class but there was none. No one made any mention of anything, except the students with whom I had made eye contact with in the hallway. One of them told me Mr. Sismondo had come in after they'd seen me but didn't know what he talked to Mr. Parks about. The class ended and I was finally stress-free. You would think that would keep me from ditching chemistry again, but a few days later, a fellow classmate and I snuck out the open classroom door during class, while the lights were out and a video was playing. We literally crawled out of the classroom while the video was on, leaving all of our stuff on our desks. I never got in trouble for that day either, but it was another heck of an ordeal, another day of private hell, and another story for another time.