I am already two days into a three-week break from the seemingly endless drudgery of school. Two days of sitting and feeling lost. I’m caught in an awkward circuit of sitting, listening to music, pacing the house, coming back to sit, making phone calls, playing my guitar, more sitting, and intermittent bouts of unenthusiastic sex.

I think it’s the sitting that’s been getting to me most of all. I mean, I’ve spent fucking HOURS sitting in class every day for the past seven months. Now, when I’m sitting in my chair at home, or on the edge of my bed, this tension begins to wash over me. I can’t explain it. It feels as though someone is slowly pressing their knotted up fists into my kidneys. Jesus, is this what being normal feels like? If it is, I think I’ll pass, thank you very much.

Maybe that’s exactly what it is. Normalcy. Normalcy creeping over me with the same cold and inexorable certainty as the slowly growing shadows at twilight. Whatever the case, school is out for the time being. Hell, maybe it’s out for good…who knows? There is a very real chance that I won’t be allowed to return when the fall session begins. It’s a long story, really. It all had something to do with a prudish professor, and a thirty-minute presentation on contraceptive alternatives and their various physiological repercussions, etc…

I wish that she had chosen a different topic for me. Patient teaching, perhaps? Diet therapy for diabetes melitus? Congenital acyanotic heart defects? Nope. For me, she picked contraception. Holy-fucking-Jesus, it was almost like a dare. No, considering the nature of the beast, I think it was more like a well-executed trap. Oh, man…sometimes retrospect can sting like a mother. I should have known, and maybe I did know. Nevertheless, I was powerless against the pull of it.

See, a couple of months ago I nearly got booted from the program for administering I.M. Demerol to a patient, without the “necessary” benefit of a professor being present. For those of you who don’t know, arbitrarily doling out injectable narcotics, without a medical license, is some pretty heavy mojo in all fifty states. They could have really had me for it. They should have, actually. If it weren’t for the fact that I had just received a serious academic achievement award two-weeks prior, that damned professor would have nailed me. As it was, I’m sure that she tried.

For weeks, it’s been written all over her face, and in her demeanor. She had tried to destroy me, and failed miserably. Swatted down by some higher power, the vile bitch developed a gnawing hunger for that which she had been denied…namely, my pale, white, ass.

Well, to make an atypically short story even shorter, ever since the Demerol incident, I’ve adopted a “yes ma’am, no ma’am” bootcamp mentality that has managed to keep me safely beyond the reach of her questing tendrils for quite some time. While that worked rather effectively as a method of protection against her sinister intentions, it also served to foster a rapidly growing loathing within me. I’ve developed a strong disdain for her high-handed “teaching” methods. I’ve become ever more acutely aware of her glaring ignorance regarding pediatric medicine. What’s more, some twisted aspect of my interior self has become fixated upon her juvenile prudishness, and I have since burned to present any affront that I can muster to this cloistered aspect of her otherwise colorless personality.

So, the day came for the presentations. I sat through seven hours of seriously dry and humdrum bullshit, the muffled buzzing of my classmates snores my only distraction, before I finally got my very own chance to shine.

And, shine I did.

I sauntered up to the podium, satchel in hand, and talked, for a while, about contraceptives. I talked about genitalia. I talked about contraceptives and genitalia. I switched over to some nasty social diseases for a while, and then I talked about fucking. I mean, I talked about humpin’ baby. I discussed position and technique. I covered all the names, from Grafenberg to Helmschmidt. After that, I waded right into the important issues like, “how to apply contraceptives without ruining the mood,” and, “how masturbation is an oft-overlooked and very effective method of birth control.” I might add that my masturbation piece was liberally peppered with advice for both men and women. Advice such as, “Hoffman technique nipple stimulation to encourage deep vaginal and uterine contractions in order to assist reaching the orgasmic plateau when pleasuring oneself avec le battery powered rubber pee-pee,” and all sorts of other niceties that you would never expect to hear in pleasant and well-educated company.

(Damn Warhol, but everyone does have their fifteen minutes of fame, don’t they? I spent mine as a self-declared, bona-fide guru of bean flickin’. What a way to check out, baby.)

In the end, I produced a 10” long rubber phallus dubbed the “Coitus Maximus,” that I had proffered from the local hump-shop the day prior, and invited one of my very enthusiastic and thoroughly sexy classmates to approach the podium and demonstrate the proper technique of applying a Trojan Magnum with nothing save her tongue and lips.

It was, all at once, both a stunning and very disquieting sight.

I left the podium to an almost deafening mixture of laughter and applause, with my giant, moistly glistening, condom-clad rubber dong slung over my shoulder. Sparing only the briefest of moments to gather the remainder of my possessions from the classroom floor, I strolled toward the purple-faced professor and shot her a quick wink as I passed through the doors for what very well may have been the final time ever.

Now, while all of this might make a suitable story for a feel-good, teen-angst, college-flick, this is real life. There ain’t no credits rollin’ here, know what I mean? There’s no strolling off into the sunset while the music swells to crescendo. There’s just me, and this gnawing tension in the small of my back that reminds me that I don’t know whether or not I’ve just completely screwed myself for the sake of haughty vanity.

And, either way, it really doesn’t matter at all, does it?

I’ll tell you what. Once, I knew a secret. It was a beautiful secret that lifted me up and lent me grace when times seemed tough and uncertain.

Hold on, I’ll be right back.

Yes. It’s an immaculate summer night. The sky is all diamonds and black velvet, and a cool breeze is washing over my face, smelling like the four hour late leftovers of fresh baked everything. The midnight wind carries promises.

Beauty renews, and I return the promise. It is this: I will not let tomorrow pass unnoticed.

(“I love a good story” is only one letter apart from “I live a good story.” One letter, but what a world of difference. Come tomorrow morning, I think I’ll invest in a brand new vowel.)

Right now, though, I’m tired. I need to rest my head, my weary head. Tomorrow, I’m going to remember that secret. I am. But now, I’m going to close my eyes and rest for a moment; close my eyes and let the silence roll in like thunder.

Tomorrow. I’ll see you there.

Redguard@blackvault.com