The Freshman

by Kevin O’Neill

Once upon a time, in a land hella, hella close by, there was a freshman. You might think he was just an ordinary freshman, but if you did, you’d be wrong. Because this freshman was a special freshman. Yes, a very special freshman indeed. You see, this freshman was about to do something that no freshman has attempted since. He was about to attend class in the portables by Washington Elementary.

Now, there is a reason that today only seniors take classes in the portables. There is a perfectly good rationale behind why all the guys on McKinley Avenue have beards, none of the girls are virgins, and half the students think they have parking permits nearby. But this was a time, my friend, when the Berkeley High administration was not so experienced. They didn’t have the political strength to let thirty percent of the student body miss state testing, the organizational abilities required to ruin the schedules of every single senior, or the guts to place veteran teachers in an asbestos-infused public toilet known as the Old Gym.

Anyway, the point is that our favorite little freshman had to walk all the way down to the portables for third period, and he had no idea how to get there. From his first day at kindergarten, to his fourth grade field trips, to his eighth grade dance last June, his mom had been there for him. But today, his first day of high school, he was to walk to a class alone, without parental guidance, speaking of which, was still required for every movie his parents would let him see.

Finally, the bell rang. Or at least on campus, the bell rang. As it was second period, the particular freshman we are concerned with was off in the Old Gym, where such newcomers belong. Out there, no sounds from the rest of the campus, save the occasional false fire alarm, were ever heard. The only ringing in that side of Berkeley was in the freshman’s ears, since earlier that morning, he had been egged by an altruistic junior who was on his way to class after kindly running some errands at the grocery store for his parents. He would have been hit again as he was fleeing to his sanctuary in the Food Court, but for a sixty-pound, two foot thick, titanium shield he called a backpack.

This was where his plan failed. The freshman had stayed up all last night (an hour past his bedtime) preparing for this moment, but there was a fatal flaw in his scheme to find his next class. He had come up with the brilliant idea of asking his teacher what to do next, but she had one of those Berkeley-inspired triple-hyphenated last names that would be easily mis-pronounced. By the time he realized this and left the classroom, only one other classmate was still around, and he would have asked her, but she was a girl, and he was shy.

So, it was time for the freshman to devise a new game plan that would not only get him to the portables on time, but perhaps a minute early, in case the teacher was going to give a detailed explanation on how to ask to go to the bathroom. “I guess I’ll just have to find the portables by myself,” he thought to himself, completely forgetful of the fact that it took him an accidental trip through the guys’ locker room to find his class in the Old Gym. Or at least, he hoped it was the guys’ locker room. He did see some people there, but couldn’t be sure of their gender, having never thought about what a girl would look like naked before.

With complete and absolute confidence in his internal compass, the freshman turned left up Milvia Avenue, where he vaguely remembered walking during orientation a week ago. To his shock, he was then approached by an enormous black man at the adjacent gate. Completely oblivious to the uniform, walkie-talkie, and the security guard’s obvious age, the freshman assumed this man to be a senior. He walked away as fast as he could, lifting his backpack to quicken his pace, increase his height, and look like a turtle, all part of his natural defense mechanism to ward off more potential eggers.

Soon after this formidable encounter, the freshman arrived at the D-building, exhausted from such a long walk. He entered immediately, thankful to find a grown-up at the office desk inside. He paused for a moment, struggling to articulate his current problems and most inner emotions, but all that came out was, “Can I put my backpack down?”

After giving our innocent freshman a confused look, the woman at the desk told him to go ahead, so he took a fifteen minute break during what used to be recess. Eventually, even our sleepy little freshman grew tired of this and he left through the main doors of the building, landing outside, where he was surrounded by numerous buildings of utmost proportion, each bearing its own letter of the alphabet.

“Which one should I enter first,” thought the freshman. “Let’s see… first comes A, B, then C… Well, I guess it’s the A building then.” So, our surprisingly literate little freshman sang his way into the closest place he could spot.

While you may be thinking the freshman was ready to simply realize that he had entered the wrong building and turn around, you would be missing one important little detail: he had to make a stop at the potty.

It was in the depths of the A Building where he first realized this. While immediately regretting cutting his stop at the Old Gym stairwell short, the freshman was aware of the task at hand. He knew it would be difficult, but he was comforted when he reflected on his summer training, and remembered the advice offered by the main character of his all-time favorite movie: “everyone poops.” With this inspiring thought, he opened the door of the nearest restroom and began preparing to solve this inescapable dilemma.

The freshman then entered the next section of the exam: finding a way to wash his hands when he was finished defecating. It was stuck deep inside him (the answer, I mean; he was done already, having not yet mastered the ability to multitask/masturbate while on the toilet), but if he just leaned back into his thinking pose, it might come out. And so his tiny, little freshman mind started to develop a method for overcoming such an obstacle, shifting his center of gravity further back than his backpack would allow. And in doing so, he fell backwards onto the floor with the force of a school-wide book drop.

Now, the A Building was an old building. It had aged more years than our innocent little freshman could count. In fact, even today, if you decide to make the perilous trip to the abysses of the A Building, you may find typewriters from the first writing class ever held there, sextants from an old navigation class, or even caveman paintings from the first art class. So, when the freshman fell to the floor, he produced a minor dent, which quickly transformed into a small crack, then a large crack, and finally, a gaping hole through which he plummeted.

It was some sort of tunnel, or cave, rather, as the sides were rugged with dirt and there was no lighting system. Fortunately for the freshman, he had a mommy and daddy who cared about him very much and made him carry special GPS-assisted night-vision goggles at all times. A graduation gift from his grandfather, the goggles were supposed to work anywhere on the planet, from Mt. Everest to Death Valley, from Hong Kong to Timbuktu, yet they failed to function in this Gateway to Hell.

The freshman had to admit it: he was lost. Hopelessly lost. Many a freshman before him had entered his same predicament, and none of them had been found alive. Of all the freshmen who had traversed this path, one had been found as a skeleton, another feasted upon by rats and locusts, and yet another covered in egg yolk. Had he been just your usual freshman, this would be the end of the story, and I would be able to go to bed and not have to do any more work for this stupid short stories class. But anyway, remember that this was a very special freshman, and despite the odds being against him, he would not give up. In the sixth grade, he had refused to cry when his hat was stolen. Last year, he had managed to say hi to a girl without jizzing in his pants. And now, he was ready to go to class all by himself.

With a valiant effort unrealized by mere mortals, the freshman began to crawl on his knees in search for an exit. Through mounds of dirt and clans of homeless people, he found his way to the Choir Room, where he was greeted, surprisingly, by an actual choir teacher (yes, we used to actually have choir; deal with it).

“Oh my God,” said the choir teacher.

“Oh- my- Goooooodd,” sang back the choir in a wonderfully appropriate D harmonic minor.

“Not now, class. I have some shit to take care of,” said the teacher, pointing to the freshman, who was by then covered in so much dirt, he looked like he might finally consider using some deodorant. “So, I take it you’re trying to find the portables.”

The freshman nodded.

“Well, all you have to do is walk down along King until you get to Bancroft, and your class is right there.”

So excited that he forgot to say thank you (risking a timeout from his mommy), the freshman rushed out the door and off campus to the specified location. “Even I know how to read street signs,” bragged the freshman to itself, reminiscing back to the old days when he was the only third-grader on his entire bus to pronounce “Bonar Avenue” correctly.

The freshman ran and ran, with the hyperglycemia of a million bags of Skittles in his bloodstream, finally reaching the desired intersection and entering his classroom.

“Oh there you are,” said his new teacher. “Did you have trouble finding class on the first day of school?”

“I sure did,” said the freshman. “But now I’m excited for some super-duper learning funtime.”

And with that, the freshman sat down on the rainbow-colored rug and began to learn. First he learned that lizards are cold-blooded animals, and then how to write in cursive. He learned that the War of 1812 started in 1812, and then how to not pick his nose so often. But most importantly, he learned that his school was named after an 18^th century American hero, the great George Washington. It had taken the freshman a lot of time and effort, but he had found his home at last.