Severe Loyalty

by Vannesa Blanco

“You have to go to the best college in the country, remember the best!!”

This is what my dad wrote and somehow was able to put as my computer wallpaper. See my father is a bit too obsessed with me going to the best college in the world, but he mostly only thinks of the stereotypical Ivy League schools like Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and lets just throw in Cal. I didn’t even know what those schools were, I’ll ask him ‘What are those? Cigar companies?’. And that was because I was only a young mustache, an eight grader, a little boy that just wanted to see a couple girls naked, and talk back at old people, and watch Sponge Bob, a true artist. So I had a lot of pressure on me, I sometimes wonder if my dad just had me to be a college conversation starter. But the problem was that I didn’t feel like I could get in any sort of university, not even a community college. There was nothing interesting or outstanding about me, I didn’t play five sports, I didn’t volunteer to help disadvantaged kids, I wasn’t in special programs that their goals were to end world hunger, and I didn’t have special circumstances that could separate me from a twin.

Whoa! now that I have ranted let me introduce myself, my name is Jonayest Marshall V, I live in Panvu, California and I have a mom and dad, nothing special, exactly that’s why I freak out everyday. When I sit down to write my college letters what am I going to write?

‘Hey I’m Jonayest I like to watch SpongeBob, not do my homework, and eat rocky road ice cream.’

I had nothing.

So that’s why I created a master plan, no one in my family knew, and neither did my friend Mitza, and she has a crush on me, so she usually tracks my every moves. Starting Monday I’am going to join my local gang, and hopefully hurt many people, and then I’m going to develop a drug problem so I can overcome it. Genius? I know it is.

I went to downtown Panvu and I looked for some specific pops of colors, red or blue? I didn’t know which to choose, so I just went with blue, since they were standing in front of the store I was coming out of.

“Hey what up guys? How’s your day been going? Mine, pretty chill,”

“Uhh yeah little man, what you want? No! more like what you claim?”

“Yeah what you claim?”

“Guys, guys I claim blue, thirteen all the way,” I said. Yup I had done my research I knew what their favorite numbers were.

“Cool man, so you hanging with us now?” said what seemed like the leader.

“Yeah fo’sho. What’s your name man?”

“You can call me Dr. Tiny and I indeed am the leader.”

Just listening to him gave me all sorts of chills, he was so intellectual. My first task was to officially become part of the gang and that was to be done by getting beaten up. It officially happened on a Wednesday, it was in Softies house. I had arrived from a hard day in school and I was greeted by a huge fist in my face, then suddenly five of my gang friends started kicking the guts out of me. It probably lasted five minutes which if you ask me, it was more like ten minutes because they took a five minute water break and then they went at it again for five minutes. It was pretty awesome and painful at the same time, it was aw-so-painful. I had a huge blackberry eye, and my bottom lip was ten times its normal size. When I went back home my parents asked if I had fallen of a building, I was like ‘Uhh I would be dead, therefore I wouldn’t be here, gosh guys try to guess a little better’.

Well I was officially a gang member, and I needed to start to do drugs, remember this was all in the name for college, I had to stand out. I asked my friend Crybaby if he knew of any good drugs.

“Hey Crybaby do you know which is the best drug to get addicted to?”

“Little dude what kind of question is that?… of course I know what the good shit is. I suggest that China White, Crack, Hillbilly Meth, or Cocaine,” he said while popping his fists.

“I don’t know… those sound scary, maybe I should just do weed, and some coke. Okay I’ll do those!” I yelped very loudly.

“But where should I get it?” I said.

“There’s some in the kitchen, go to the cookie jar, but only get one bag, or else I’ll kill you and cut you after.”

“Jeez man, okay.”

So I became a junky, but I wasn’t like any junky, I only did drugs when I needed to, more like before the gang was going to kill someone, I couldn’t experience that again while sober. No one in school seemed to noticed my new lifestyle, even though I wore blue head to toe, and I twitched a lot, they probably thought I was going through some self esteem problems. Which is weird because during our last ten minutes of class I was writing an outline for a poem, until I started shaking very hard, I thought we were having an earthquake. I was yelling to everyone ‘Earthquake! everybody get down, and get under your desks…and cover your heads’ but I was actually having a seizure! Everyone just stared at me, they apparently thought I was asking for attention. Who asks for attention like that?

This was how my lifestyle was, until the middle of my junior year, remember I had a plan, I had to give myself time to write a scholarly essay. That meant my days of gangbanging, violence, and addiction had to come to a sad end. But the homies didn’t take it as well, they actually told me that they had to kill me if I left the gang. The whole thing went like this:

“Hey guys I think its time for me to retire. Its been a great three years,”

“What do you mean retire? Little Dude once a gang member always a gang member, you are with us till the day you die.”

“What? No one told me that, which seems a bit important, since it involves my life, which I like very much.”

“Don’t get smart with us, there’s nothing you can do,” Dr. Tiny said.

“Uhh I’ll give you $40,”

“Okay Little Dude nice knowing you, see you in the streets.”

Now getting off the drugs came a bit harder, I thought I would be off by just not being in Crybabies house since he had all the crack. So I found some sort of substitute, I had to try a couple of things first, coffee, special brownies, gum, but I finally became addicted to salads. And I now have to eat two salads a day, I change it up, I sometimes add a lot of celery, eggplant, or cilantro, if I want to get a little bold I’ll add some blue cheese dressing or a dash of garlic powder. I diffidently don’t miss crack anymore.

When it came to write my banging college essay, I knew it was going to come easy because I actually had stuff to write about. Junior year was going great because I had C’s and one B, those were good enough grades to at least qualify, plus I was in the woes of gangbangin for my “survival”, so I had a story. I was taking five AP classes, I was in six clubs, and I was an active leader in my community, the admissions people were so going to see my transformation into a beautiful butterfly, or a least girly insect.

A grueling day of school was over, and I had to start my essay, I arrived to my home tired but ready. I went to my room, closed the door, lit some candles, and started to write. Yet I couldn’t concentrate because I suddenly had a rush for drugs, I was addicted to salads, but I assume I was getting tired. I needed to make a better salad, with more cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, or beats, just any vegetable. I headed to my kitchen and whipped myself three huge bowls of salads, my cravings got a little better.

I didn’t think I was going to struggle without my coke, but I guess I really liked taking drugs, Oh well.

Since I was in a huge stress storm, I went to my college center and I asked for help from an essay reader.

“Excuse me sir, I need help with writing my college essay,”

“Okay, what grade are you in and what are your prompts?” he asked

“Well I’m in 11^th grade, but I just want to get an early start,”

“Okay, I guess that’s good, let me take a look.”

Now he wasn’t what I expected from an essayist, if that’s a word, since he was a college student, and he had a “I’m better than you” attitude. His voice was so slow, like he had to force himself to talk to me.

“Whoa you were really on drugs, and in a gang?” he said.

“Yeah those were some hard times, but I actually just did it to have something good to write in my college essays you see…”

“What? You actually did all of this for a college essay?” he said laughing.

“Uhh… yeah, you know it had to be real,” I said.

“Dude you know you could of just lied in writing the essay, like they have no way to verify your obstacles,” he said, “That’s how I got into Cal.”

“Mhhm, that would have been nice to know three years ago,” I said in disbelief, was everything I did stupid?….

No I don’t think so.

Either way I got into UC Berkeley since I took that dudes advice. He helped me perfect my paper with precious lies. My essay was even published in a book about really good admission essays. I say it was all worth it, sniff after sniff, blow after blow, I’m in Cal. I feel great now, even though I don’t have a sense of smell anymore.