Senioritis: The Wonder Disease

It’s August. I’m in bed. Class starts in a few minutes, but I just kinda lay there, staring at the ceiling as it scolds me for not getting ready. In my mind’s eye I see the old faces of my professors, and the new faces of strangers to the university. I decide to shut all my eyes and go back to sleep, and when I wake up it’s almost September.

I groan. I stretch. I sit up.

I say fuck it.

I lie back down.

Then it’s really September. I can tell, because outside, the sky is crying. There are two words for crying in Chamorro, “kåti” and “tånges.” Kåti is a baby’s wail, or a child’s tantrum. But tånges is crying with a reason. The kind of crying adults do. The kind of tears I shed when I left home for the first time. When Dad hugged me before I got in the terminal. When Mom kissed me after Dad hugged me. Each time Baby Brother called to say, I wuv u. Tånges, each one of them.

But not only people shed tånges tears.

Tumåtånges i kurason-hu.  

Outside, grey September thunderclouds yell, “Get up! You’ve spent close to three grand for those classes! Leche. You act like you’re rich.”

The heavy blinds leave this place dark. I reach out in front of me, unsure of what lies ahead. There is much chance that I’ll stumble. My room is so messy; my life is messy too.

By some miracle I make it to the bathroom. Brush my teeth, shower, dry my body. Throw on a faded pair of cheap jeans. Throw on a wrinkled, generic white tee. Look for my hat. Leave the bathroom. Enter the living room. Remember that I forgot to do my homework. Remember that I haven’t called home in too long. Cuss, cuss, cuss.

A cockroach scampers across the floor and wishes me good morning. I wanna kill him but he was so polite; he watches as I step over the pile of clothes, brush past the bottles of beer, open the two day old pizza box as if pizza were to magically appear. A lump on the couch shifts his sleeping position. Heading to class? The lump grumbles and says no. How you been bro?

Silence.

I step out the apartment front door, all dressed and smelling good. It’s close to October. I still walk to class because my family can’t help me buy a car. It doesn’t rain as much in October as in September, thank God, but the clouds manage to get grey from time to time.

I worry.

The middle of the semester is slow like my footsteps that drag across the cracked asphalt road. Why is it that all the things around me need repair? The road—the journey—stretches out endlessly; I feel I won’t ever get to where I need to be. The distance between me and my classroom is like the distance between two hearts that once loved each other but have since grown apart. That kind of distance is farther than the Marianas Trench is deep, and twice as cold. Maybe just as dark.

In the middle of my walk, a group of people on the side of the road says, “Hey che’lu, match?”

I have a joint to spare and agree to the match. They bust out their joint too. I smoke, but we don’t match. We smoke, and I turn complete strangers to fake friends.

Mom is calling my phone; I ignore. I blink.

The end of October already? I rush down the road to the university front gate to find it locked.  Good fences make good neighbors, so they say, but bad students still jump good gates anyway.

I hit the ground unprepared for the impact, and November is a shock that runs up my body; how did time sneak up on me like that? November can be a few things. November is sneaky, that’s one thing November can be. But it’s sometimes more. To guys who haven’t done their papers (guys like me), November is the feeling at 11:54 p.m. when your paper is due via email at 11:55 p.m. and your internet is down. November is anxiety, that’s another thing November can be.  I walk across campus in November and I am irony incarnate; in a sea of knowledge I am brain dead. I  traverse these campus walkways, always in movement, never with direction. November is uselessness, that’s another thing November can be.

The end of my wandering brings me to the entrance of the giant stomach that is this university’s lecture hall. It smells funny. I inhale boredom and exhale interest. I’m not surprised to be the only student here at the moment. I am surprised by what I see ahead of me.

A white note pinned to the door glows through the dimness. I pull it from the door and in doing so slash my index. Nasty paper cut. The note has a lecture in store for me. It starts by saying all I do is waste. Every opportunity, every chance I get; waste. You were sent here to do one thing, one simple thing, the note says, and you blew even that. Waste. Tears you cried, nights you staid up, waste. So leave now, you who so eagerly ignored opportunity, leave to the darkness of your room. Leave, and do not return ‘till next semester.

I look out the window; I look back at the note. December.

Note still in hand, I take my phone out of my pocket and call home, looking for Mom, looking for Dad, looking for anyone to talk to. The voice that picks up is a woman’s; a woman I don’t recognize. It is calm and soft. It is sorry. The number I have dialed is out of service. If I would like to try again, I can do so at another time. But for now, I’ll have to make due with all I’ve been given.