[Legally Blind: The Book] Part 1: Chapter 13 - One, Two, Three, Four! We Don’t Want Your Fuckin’…Whatever!

I returned to school that fall wearing a Mexican poncho and Argentine gaucho boots, which I’d begged my mother to buy after seeing them in the Sears Roebuck catalogue. For reasons I didn’t yet understand or question, I had become preoccupied, almost obsessed, with Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I was 100 percent committed to my new direction, which took me even further outside the law, as the law now seemed even more irrelevant to me. Of course, this new path contributed greatly to the chaos and antisocial elements in my life. In addition other illegal activities, I was now dealing small amounts of controlled substances. I saw myself as a person who answered only to myself. Society saw me as an outlaw. I set to work reinforcing my bubble, and prepared myself to defend it with physical violence at the slightest threat.

I knew I needed a new “hunter” identity as well, one that would allow me to operate in the shadows, hidden from the eyes of the “gatherers,” and the law. I spent days walking through cemeteries and graveyards reading the dates of every tombstone until I found a child who was born when I was, and died soon after. Eventually I found one: Mark Stevens, who died at age two. I took over his identity, which was quite easy in those pre-digital days, and filed for his paperwork, social security number, etc. I was now two people, which my Geminian nature found very satisfying.

Anything I could do to disrupt The System, to find some advantage in the chaos, was my new passion. In eighth grade, another outcast and I organized a junior high school walkout to protest the U.S. military’s illegal invasion of Cambodia. I knew nothing about the Vietnam War and really couldn’t care less, but I knew it was a volatile issue that guaranteed a response. We printed hundreds of pamphlets and posters with the image of the red fist, the logo of the radical militant group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Word got out that I was the organizer and my father was informed. He was quite angry, understandably, and prohibited me to continue. The ghost of Mrs. Brown was closing in and had even managed to infiltrate my own family. I could no longer trust anyone. I was on my own.

The walkout was a phenomenal success. Almost every student, and even a number of teachers, joined in. My associate and I disappeared afterward and spent the rest of the day getting high.

When my father came home that night, he beat the shit out of me. He picked me up by my poncho and threw me across the room, then picked me up and did it again and again, catching me by my feet and dragging me from under the couch when I tried to escape. Oddly, I was not angry or resentful toward my father for this—the opposite in fact. I had reached a level that could touch him. His kicking the crap out of me made me feel like we were man-to-man now. More importantly, as the walkout was such a success, I’d won no matter how black and blue I was. It was a historical fact; nothing could undo that. I saw his anger and frustration as a product of his inability to control me. I had, for a few hours, brought down The System and irrevocably marked my territory. It was a good day.

Thirty-five years later, my son would do almost the exact same thing his first year in high school when he announced weeks in advance he would start a food fight at 10:35 a.m. Tuesday. I’d advised him that if he went through with it he could expect a tsunami of bullshit to fall on him. Then I secretly gave him a few pointers on how to do it right. He did it and was promptly thrown out of school for the rest of the year. That was somewhat drastic, I thought, but I also had no idea that in today’s nanny-state mentality he could’ve not only been arrested but accused of domestic terrorism. The school not only kicked him out but suspended his brother and sister as well simply for being related to him, no doubt fearing they were his guerrilla underlings, which could not have been farther from the truth. This was, again, a sign of the school’s own inability to control him. Actually, the school wanted to be even more draconian in their punishment, but they backed off after I called the principal and threatened to sue considering the event was announced two weeks in advance to the minute, and rather than take steps to stop him, they stood in silence and waited for him to act first. Their handling of the disciplinary actions against Michael could not have been more incompetent and irresponsible, and I assured the principal that the courts would agree with me. Of course I was bluffing—I was calling from Argentina where I myself was hiding from the law.

Nevertheless, because the school was still legally responsible for providing an education, a private tutor was sent to my son’s home every day—the list of “wins” was impressive.

• The school got to make an example of this would-be terrorist.
• My son got to stay home from school, which he hated for the same reasons I did at his age.
• He received private tutoring from a teacher.
• The private tutor had a gig for an entire school year.
• I was able to relive my own experience, now as the father, without the anger and violence.
• My son’s status amongst his peers was raised to that of a god thanks to MySpace.

It was a win–win–win–win–win–win situation, and honestly I was hard pressed to see who lost, other than the school’s pretension as an institution of authority.

The biggest win of all was when my son shared with me the bizarre circumstances of the moment when hundreds of students and the entire administrative staff stood in dead silence as they waited for him to make a decision at exactly 10:35 a.m. Tuesday. “I was scared. I just stood there with a chalupa in my raised hand. I knew if I threw it, I would be punished badly. I also knew this was a moment that would define my life, who I am, and what is really important, and I’d have to live with my decision for the rest of my life. I had no choice.” He was not apologizing. He was sharing with me. That he felt he could share his true feelings was far more important to me than whether he was being a good student or not.