I have decided to show everyone where this story was headed before I stopped, looked it over, and realized it was a piece of garbage.  I thought some of the things I included in here were funny, though, but those parts ultimately didn’t fit or belong in the final cut.  I’ve posted it not only for everyone to see my screw ups, but for everyone to see and fully appreciate the creative process.  Remember, people, if your story isn’t going exactly the way you want it to, you can go back and rewrite.  Sometimes it’s the only way to fix a major problem.  It’s the only way I was going to get my desired effect on this story.

C is for Commie: OUTTAKES

The alarm clock screamed into Michael’s ear, opening his eye lids just slightly, allowing the sunlight seeping through the window shade to finish off the waking up process.  Michael Greco sat up in his bed, weary and not wanting to get up and go to school.  Luckily, he realized in the nick of time, it was Saturday and there was no need to get up or to go to school.  So he didn’t.

Instead, the shrewd Greco slept in ‘til noon.  Unfortunately for him, he was unable to sleep past that time because he was awoken with screams of terror.

Michael bolted upright, jerking his head back and forth trying to look in all directions so as to detect where the danger was coming from.  Was the house of fire?  Had a burglar come in and shot one of his precious loved ones that resided within this house?  But there was no danger.  There was only a very irate mom staring down at her lazy son.  Her grimace indicated that all hell was about to break lose.  This wasn’t a problem, Greco knew, because he had faced down Satan already.  He was very familiar with the paranormal powers of perdition.

Nevertheless, Michael Greco still wasn’t ready for the fury that was about to be unleashed upon him by his more than devilish incarnation of a mother (I jest?).

“What is the meaning of this?” Michael’s mother said in a barely audible growl.  Michael took the piece of rectangular paper that was handed to him and looked at it.  It was clearly a report card of some sort.  But surely it could not be Michael Greco’s school grades, for there was a big red circle (clearly a mark made by his mother) with a “C” clearly printed in the middle, as if it were the dot in the middle of a target.  Next to it, history was printed in that sketchy type that is only found on early twenty first century report cards.  Michael squinted, as if it pained him to look at the monstrosity of a thing that somehow had been passed as his junior report card.

“You’re grounded!” Michael’s mother snapped, after a moment of silence had passed.  She walked out the bedroom door, slamming it behind him.  Then she walked back in, ripped his monitor off his desk, and took that out of the room with her.

“That’s not the computer,” Michael mumbled, familiar with his mom’s ways of punishment, “it’s just the monitor.”  This fact didn’t clear Michael’s aggravation, of course.  He sighed in aggravation and thought about his history teacher.  He zoomed up on her ugly mug in his mind’s eye, and ended up with an image of Stalin with long hair.

“Of course,” Michael gasped under his breath.  “It makes perfect sense.”

Then he laid his head back down on his pillow to work out what he was going to do to fix this current inequity.  As he lay in bed, he concocted several scenarios in which his teacher was found to be a traitor to the nation and was brutally murdered, each different scenario with it’s own unique twist involving a different means of death that was, in every situation, at least a bit comical.

Greco chuckled at his wit and cleverness and spent the rest of the weekend figuring out what he was going to do come Monday when he had to face his teacher, once again.

On Monday, he awaited the end of the day, when he could confront his newfound adversary without the having the distraction of classmates around.  At lunch he was happy to be able to relieve his conscience by talking to his ever understanding Canadian girlfriend.  She was quite good at helping the groovy Greco put his mind at ease with whatever current problem seemed to be devouring him from the inside.

“So I’m grounded because of this ‘c’ I got in history which was clearly uncalled for and I won’t be able to go over to your house and make out with you and play those kinky sex games we like to play until this whole thing is cleared up,” Greco managed in one breath.  Of course, I’ve elaborated on some of the dialogue to show the fine audience the true, romantic Greco that they’d never see in public.

“Hmm…” Rachel contemplated the situation.  “I can see where this could be a problem.  We must get to the bottom of this!”

“Precisely,” Michael exclaimed.  “We must expose her for the undermining commie that she is…”

“Uh,” Rachel interrupted her ranting boyfriend, “the cold war is over, and with it the red scare…”

“No matter,” Michael brushed the problem away, as if it were a fly not worth being bothered by.   He retreated back into the recesses of his mind to concoct some sort of plan for the future conflict.

That afternoon, the bell rang releasing the high school hooligans to their shenanigans and releasing Greco to his pending confrontation.  He walked through the hall, twisting and turning to avoid the ubiquitous obnoxious teenagers racing down through the school to get to their own rendezvous.  Greco got the door at which he was dreading to arrive.  He looked at the number on the door and sighed.  066.  Michael pulled a marker out of his pocket and drew an upwards tail on the 0 so the number now looked similar to 666.  He laughed at his juvenile joke then opened the door.

He looked over at the desk where the devil woman sat with her eyes closed and hands folded.  It appeared as if she were in the middle of a prayer.  She quickly finished up her barely audible murmurs and lifted up her face, wrinkled with age, and shot a glance at Greco.  She had a scar on right cheek, a straight gash, that tended to freak out many of her students their first day in her class.  “Yes?” she said in a creepy voice.  It wasn’t a forced creepy voice; nor was it a creepy voice that came with years of practice.  This voice was naturally creepy and Michael was fairly sure it was like that from the first day this aberration of a human being was born.

“Uh, hi, Mrs. Schlischinger.  I wanted to talk to you about my grade...”  Michael felt that was a good start.

“What about it?  You brought it upon yourself, you elitist scoundrel!”

“Excuse me?”  Greco didn’t understand where the hostility had appeared from.  He had never insulted her before.  At least, not to her face.

Realizing she fell out of character, Mrs. Schlischinger quickly withdrew her hostility.   “Sorry, but you never turned in your book report.  The one that required you to analyze a piece of literature and uncover the underlying meaning through exploring the various usages of various rhetorical devices and literary techniques.”

“What are you talking about?” Michael asked in the most polite manner he could muster at the moment.  “It’s sitting right there on your desk,” he pointed, “where it’s been sitting for month.  It’s the one on Animal Farm.  It has my name on it.”

Mrs. Schlischinger turned and brusquely snatched the report up off her less than immaculate desk and dropped it in the waste basket.  “You expect a grade for that anti-communist garbage, you capitalist bastard?  Don’t try to fool me with your bullshit techniques.  I know what you’re up to. Now piss off!”

Afraid his incensed teacher might pull out an AK47 and blow his head off right then and there, he promptly bolted for the door and, not pulling it open fast enough, smashed right into it.  He recovered fast enough, however, and was out the door all within five seconds of his teacher’s last command.

After what he had just been through, home was the last place he wanted to go.  In fact, Michael Greco, similar to every other frightened, frustrated, irritable, teenage male, went straight to his girlfriend’s house to confide in her the events of the last half hour (most of which had been spent mustering up the courage to confront his horrifying history teacher).

After explaining the situation to his understanding Canadian girlfriend, Rachel offered, “We’ll just have to pay close attention to anything that might be said in class.  Then, when we feel we’ve gathered enough information, we’ll strike.”

“By strike you mean…” Greco groped for an answer.

“You know… strike.”

The conversation did little to diminish Michael Greco’s unease, but it was a start.

“You’re grounded.  Aren’t you supposed to be at home?” Rachel suddenly realized.

“Meh.” Michael shrugged his shoulders.

For the next week, Rachel and Michael kept a close eye on and paid specific attention to Mrs. Schlischinger.

“Regan,” Schlischinger was shouting to her class of what she considered degenerate lowlifes, “was not a hero!  He was a scum sucking bottom dweller who received Alzheimer’s because of his crimes against humanity.”

Strike one.

“I’m sick of you adolescent reprobates believing there is something fundamentally wrong with communism.  What, like it’s a bad thing to have politicians think for you, tell you what’s right and what’s wrong?  And what’s wrong with them killing your family?  You would have ended up doing it anyway.”

Strike two.

“I’m an ex-CIA agent and even now I’m a full blooded communist who believes the US government must be overthrown.”

Strike three, the most damning evidence of all.

“Well,” Rachel said at the rendezvous after school, “I think it can be confirmed.”

“What can?” Michael asked, leaning against a tree in front of the high school.  A cool breeze blew by and it reminded him of the chill he felt every time he had to think about Mrs. Schlischinger.

“That our history teacher is a commie,” Rachel said.

Michael just grunted.  “You needed four days of her propaganda to come to that conclusion?”

“No, but now it’s Friday afternoon and we can see what she’s really planning,” Rachel explain and smiled.  Michael was reminded, once more, why he loved her.  She was so mischievous, so adventurous, and so Canadian.  Why did she have to be plagued with a dislike for Barenaked Ladies?

The ever-loving duo entered the now nearly vacant school, heading straight for Mrs. Schlischinger’s classroom.  They were going to spy on her and see if anything unusual would happen.  Usually, this would be wasted time.  But the incomparable action-drawing prowess of the astounding Greco should not be underestimated.

As the couple prowled the halls, a very familiar tune filled the near-by sound waves, seemingly from nowhere.  It was the Mission Impossible theme.

“Where the hell is that coming from?” Rachel snapped.

“Oh,” Michael hit a button on a small contraption on his waist,” sorry.  That’s me.”

Rachel scowled.

“What?” Michael asked.  “I thought it would be nice… to set the mood, you know.”

“Just get rid of that music,” Rachel demanded.  In order to appease his ever-demanding girlfriend, he turned off “that music.”  It was quickly replaced with Mahler’s 7th Symphony.

“Damn it,” Rachel cursed, then realizing they had arrived at their destination, quick clammed up.

The two high schoolers peeked inside through a window into the classroom.  They watched for a few minutes as the evil despot who passed as a teacher scribbled tomorrow’s assignments on the chalk board.  Then she did something quite odd.  She walked over to her desk (that’s not the odd part) she lifted up a paperweight then returned it (that was slightly odd) then she crawled under her desk (that was quite odd, indeed).  Michael and Rachel stared at each other, exchanging thoughts as only lovers can.

What the fuck is she doing?

Hell if I know.

Maybe she’s waiting for the principle.

So that’s how she’s been able to keep her job!

And this, my friends, is where I decided it was best to stop and reassess where I was headed.  Obviously I was displeased, but I hope you all enjoyed this little view of a snipped from the World of Greco that isn’t really a part of the World of Greco… if that makes sense…  Of course it does!