are mostly military-issue camouflage? Why is it considered any of their business that he prefers eating lunch alone in the back stairwell reading military histories instead of braying in the cafeteria with the other sheeple? Everyone appalls him with their frivolity and inane cheerfulnessâwhat the hell are they always so daggone happy about when the country, the world, is how it is?
His first year there he does not say a word to anyone except in class when they make him. Joey Whitestone is the only one who is friendly to him but he does not like Joey Whitestone being friendly to him. He tells Joey Whitestone to leave him alone but Joey Whitestone does not leave him alone, so Lee Fisher tells him if he does not leave him alone he will blow his head offâand now Joey Whitestone knows to leave him alone and the rest of them know too.
It feels good to drive them off, to control people in such a way. You have no control when you let people change you. Blast them with coldness and it solves the problem, keeps them from hurting you. All people will hurt you. You must guard against them. When he gets home and is alone in his bedroom, he lies on the bed sobbing.He is so lonely but does not know what to do about it, he wants people but he hates everybody.
In English class where they are taking a test on To Kill a Mockingbird , Joey Whitestone passes him a note: I stole my uncleâs smokes, weâre meeting at the railroad tracks after school, want to come? Yeah, rightâitâs a trick, Lee can see that, payback for what he said. Who knows what they have planned for him when he shows up? Humiliation. In some form or another, humiliation. He knows how to handle this: he raises his hand for the teacher, waving the note in the air. Joey serves ten daysâ suspension, the school administration tells Lee he did the right thing. It feels good. Right. He wants that feeling all the time. He will be a police officer, he decides, when he is eighteen and may leave. He will go to New York and be a police officer. With his mother. His mother is not there anymore and has not been for a long time but that does not matter, he does not need her, he needs no one. He will be in New York, alone. Far away from here.
The principal recognizes him as one of his own kind, not just another moron student. Here is a boy with responsibility and virtue and values, a boy I do not have to worry about. âIf only I had a school full of Lee Fishers, the principal tells him, in his office, splitting a Coke, excused from that period of algebra class.
Lee takes it upon himself from then on to collect intelligence on all illicit activity perpetrated by students on school grounds during school hoursâdrinking in the bathroom, weed in the parking lot, cigarettes in the woods, sexual activity in the stairwells, unauthorized absences, cheating on testsâand deliver the evidence to the principal so that justice may be served and Lee may feel love. The other students start calling him McGruff the Crime Dog. They taunt him, threaten him, but most important, they stay away from him.
Someone writes on the mirror of the boysâ bathroom: LEE FISHER IS A CHOAD . Lee sees it when he is in there washing his hands, sees his reflection looking back at himself through the insult, his hair close cropped with electric shears, done himself like a self-sufficient soldier. Does his face not reveal that he is unmoved, hiseyes that he is unshaken? Is this not the reflection of a good guy being persecuted for his soundness of character, mocked for his having done the right thing?
Joey returns from suspension, does not look at Lee, does not invite him anywhere ever again, is always surrounded by friends, is always laughing or making them laugh, does not seem to have the problem with life that Lee has. Leeâs problem with life is everything, everything to do with life and living. Lee sees Joey blowing smoke from a joint down Tamra Rileyâs throat in
His first year there he does not say a word to anyone except in class when they make him. Joey Whitestone is the only one who is friendly to him but he does not like Joey Whitestone being friendly to him. He tells Joey Whitestone to leave him alone but Joey Whitestone does not leave him alone, so Lee Fisher tells him if he does not leave him alone he will blow his head offâand now Joey Whitestone knows to leave him alone and the rest of them know too.
It feels good to drive them off, to control people in such a way. You have no control when you let people change you. Blast them with coldness and it solves the problem, keeps them from hurting you. All people will hurt you. You must guard against them. When he gets home and is alone in his bedroom, he lies on the bed sobbing.He is so lonely but does not know what to do about it, he wants people but he hates everybody.
In English class where they are taking a test on To Kill a Mockingbird , Joey Whitestone passes him a note: I stole my uncleâs smokes, weâre meeting at the railroad tracks after school, want to come? Yeah, rightâitâs a trick, Lee can see that, payback for what he said. Who knows what they have planned for him when he shows up? Humiliation. In some form or another, humiliation. He knows how to handle this: he raises his hand for the teacher, waving the note in the air. Joey serves ten daysâ suspension, the school administration tells Lee he did the right thing. It feels good. Right. He wants that feeling all the time. He will be a police officer, he decides, when he is eighteen and may leave. He will go to New York and be a police officer. With his mother. His mother is not there anymore and has not been for a long time but that does not matter, he does not need her, he needs no one. He will be in New York, alone. Far away from here.
The principal recognizes him as one of his own kind, not just another moron student. Here is a boy with responsibility and virtue and values, a boy I do not have to worry about. âIf only I had a school full of Lee Fishers, the principal tells him, in his office, splitting a Coke, excused from that period of algebra class.
Lee takes it upon himself from then on to collect intelligence on all illicit activity perpetrated by students on school grounds during school hoursâdrinking in the bathroom, weed in the parking lot, cigarettes in the woods, sexual activity in the stairwells, unauthorized absences, cheating on testsâand deliver the evidence to the principal so that justice may be served and Lee may feel love. The other students start calling him McGruff the Crime Dog. They taunt him, threaten him, but most important, they stay away from him.
Someone writes on the mirror of the boysâ bathroom: LEE FISHER IS A CHOAD . Lee sees it when he is in there washing his hands, sees his reflection looking back at himself through the insult, his hair close cropped with electric shears, done himself like a self-sufficient soldier. Does his face not reveal that he is unmoved, hiseyes that he is unshaken? Is this not the reflection of a good guy being persecuted for his soundness of character, mocked for his having done the right thing?
Joey returns from suspension, does not look at Lee, does not invite him anywhere ever again, is always surrounded by friends, is always laughing or making them laugh, does not seem to have the problem with life that Lee has. Leeâs problem with life is everything, everything to do with life and living. Lee sees Joey blowing smoke from a joint down Tamra Rileyâs throat in
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