Small School

by Carson Pytell

My friend was a prick. His parents would tell us that someday, someone was going to kick his ass. His mother would go so far occasionally as to ask why I hadn't already. Always was a good question, but I remained the good one of the two even if good is kind of a misnomer. I mean, we had fun growing up.

We smoked pot in the middle of the courtyard, cigarettes at the far end of the track while walking the mile, drank, and cut lines in the stalls. Life is only tough if you don't do your homework, but we had the internet. Of course, everyone did by then. Still, teachers seemed clueless as to why we were rarely not stoned during class and always laughed when lectured about it.

Jobs, they'd bring up, and how important grades are in attaining whatever kind of one they meant when they said good. They weren't aware that we could look up any state workers' salary online, though, and what they didn't know only helped us.

Halfway through senior year, after our constitutional midday blunt, the kid I was with darted quick into the cafeteria for tater tots before lunch period was out. They were fresh, I could smell them walking in front of him, so I didn't blame him at all for shouting, "Yo, these shits are pif!"

What I did blame him for, however, was getting angry at me for not being so stupid as to get caught myself. The vice principal heard him, called his name, and I ducked into the bathroom nearest me. Yes, I wasn't there to hear him rat on me, but knew from experience that that's what he does. If we were the last two on the team playing tag at ten years old and he got caught before me, he'd get so upset that he'd immediately tell the other team where I was, sacrificing our win. Also, the next day he invited me out for another smoke. Some people, huh?

Look, I did learn a lot in school. Like how to deal with people, people like them. Himself and the administration which worked with him like cheap police trying to nab someone else. Unlike cheap police, however, they wouldn't have gained anything from that, only he would have. Only his ego back.

Sure, yes, of course it was correct for the adults in charge of us at school to punish us for such misdeeds committed at school, to try and teach us little lessons. What it also was, though, was an irresponsible overstep into the parental. Pretty damn sure in our school of only 1,000 where everyone either knew each other or didn't want to find out they were related, only about five of us didn't have fathers.

I'm very happy I've always known a rat. I'm glad I work as a janitor now, am sober besides pot and wine, and going back to college. I'm also glad to hear that that other kid works at an accounting firm making good money, plenty to pay rent for his townhouse and feed his dope dependence. I'm only upset that the asshole hasn't died yet. Remember, the appellation of good is kind of a misnomer.

This past Easter I tried to see him again, he was back in town. Seven o'clock was the plan, and when I messaged him to say I was headed up he told me he'd already had half a bottle of Canadian whisky, half a psilocybin chocolate bar his mother split with him, and was fixing to get well as he typed the message to me that he still wanted to hang out by the fire to catch up for the night. I don't even think he smokes pot anymore, he didn't mention any. I said I didn't feel well suddenly, but we still kept texting.

By 8:30 he was passed out in what I can understand only to be some beautifully ignorant restfulness. Some people are like that, irredeemable. If I had any money I'd bet it all that if you'd ask him, he'd say he's always been a great guy.

I wish I had had a dad to have made me kick his ass around six or seven. I'd have been good then, I think. At least better. Shit, I'd have been better just to have had the chance to screw him over in the most innocent way I know just one last time. I'd have loved to go up and watch him roll a sloppy blunt, take two puffs, pass it over then pass out while I enjoyed the rest of it on my own, and myself.

Carson Pytell is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated writer living outside Albany, New York, whose work has appeared widely in such venues as Adirondack Review, Sheila-Na-Gig and The Heartland Review. He serves as Assistant Poetry Editor of Coastal Shelf and his most recent chapbooks are Tomorrow Everyday, Yesterday Too (Anxiety Press, 2022) and A Little Smaller Than the Final Quark (Bullshit Lit, 2022).