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.iii.
Joey was a nice guy. Short, chubby fellow with a big rumbling laugh and good sense of humor. He’d been a high-school drop-out but his aunt was Polly, the founder of the donut chain, and he had some pretty shrewd business tactics.
Joey was talking on the phone when I knocked on his open door. He motioned for me to come in and I sat down, my feet clamping protectively around Ziddy.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, I gotta go, I’ll call you back later, around five. Alright, take care. Bye.” He hung up the phone and grinned at me. “Heya Felix. How’s it going?”
“I’m okay. You?”
“Spectacular. We are getting loads of business after that little superhero business you pulled last night. It’s fantastic.”
“Oh…great.”
“Listen, it’s really helping us out and the business could grow way bigger off this. What if you became a kind of…advertising key? Would that bother you?”
“So you mean I’d be like Uncle Sam, only for donuts and not the military?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
Could I honestly subject myself to such a blatant request for humiliation?
“I’ll pay you double on your same hours. Just a few pictures, that’s all I’m asking.”
“Sure.”
With effects like that, how could I resist?
“Alright, I’ll talk to the photographer on Friday and see when we can get you set up. And we’ll need to have a contract for this as well. Wow, this is going to be great! We’re gonna get big Felix, ya hear? Really big!”
&facestofillandcarstofeednothingcouldbeatcompletedenial&
The photo shoot took place in Joey’s office. The photographer snapped shots of me pointing and grinning enthusiastically at various kinds of donuts. They said they were going to put stuff like, “Parrot-man loves his apple fritters.” The heinous simplicity of it caused me to gag. Joey said he would still pay me double and I wouldn’t even have to work my usual shifts if apple fritter sales went up.
I wasn’t about to refuse that. I could stand complete and utter embarrassment if it meant I’d have enough money after saving up for a few months to flaunt my riches in front of the whole world. Ha, some superhero I am, eh?
I suppose the real issue was the fact that I was not wearing the parrot mask, just the suit. Joey had discussed this with me before he gave me the contract to sign. My parents weren’t aware of this part of the contract, but I decided, what the hell, might as well become a full-fledged poster boy. You only get this chance once in a lifetime, right?
And to think that I might have been dead at that moment. That the reason I was becoming an official mascot for a donut chain was because I’d hurled myself off the top of the building and dragged an infant down with me.
The world’s so crazy.
I vaguely wondered how many lawsuits we’d get against Parrot-man from money-hungry people accusing us of making them fat.
Just vaguely, because shallow people swimming in money don’t like to think a lot.
&youdontfeelsoweakaboutbeingsuchafreakalone&
School started the next week. My junior year schedule was dull. 1st hour Physics, 2nd hour Pre-Cal, 3rd hour Journalism, 4th hour English, 5th hour Spanish, 6th hour History and 7th hour Government.
I had only a few classes with my closest friends: Alex, Joe, Matt and Chris. Cliché as it is, one of the happier moments of my life was seeing the crew after such a long time. All four of them had gone somewhere over the summer, splurging their parents’ money and gaining tans- except for Joe, who had visited his cousin in Canada.
Physics was scheduled to be happy time all year round as I had all four of my buddies with me and we’d gotten the favorite teacher: Mr. Woods.
“Felix! How’ve you been boy? D’you get my e-mail?” Matt practically tackled me when he saw me at my locker.
“Hey Matt,” I grinned. He was a happy guy, always bouncing around making people laugh. He was a joker, the comic relief of our quintet.
“So come on, did you watch the video? Isn’t it hilarious?”
The video in question was a flash animation deal about a wannabe-gangster porcupine getting his ass kicked by a hippo that was a part of the animal mafia. The randomness was what caused its popularity.
“Yeah…it was pretty funny. Seen the other three around yet?”
“I saw Joe. Ha, it’s funny, he keeps on gushing about ‘this angel’ he met up in Ontario named Lorelai. Mind you, he’s flashing her picture to whoever feels like listening and she’s pretty hot. Oh, and Chris. He’s brown now.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Hey, I like the sun. It’s the one thing that can’t put me at risk to bleed eight gallons of blood. Seen Alex?”
“Nope. He’s probably down in class already, the nerd.”
My somewhat degrading theory about Alex was right. He was already in the classroom talking to Mr. Woods about extra credit opportunities. Alex was the responsible, super-intelligent one of us. If one needed help with anything academics related, they just gave him a quarter and he’d tell them more than they needed to know.
I playfully shoved him as he turned around from Mr. Woods. “Hey nerd.”
“Felix! How are you? How was your summer?”
“It was good. And yours? Did you launch a rocket yet?”
He gave his trademark geek grin. “Aw, nah. My mom was afraid I’d blow up her petunias. I tried to tell her that I was a good responsible boy and that I’d aim for the weeds if need be, but she stillsaid no. Say, I heard about you being on the news Parrot-man. Why didn’t you tell us about it?”
“It kind of slipped my mind.”
Matt popped into the conversation. “Dude, you jumped off a five-story building in a parrot costume and saved a baby. How does that slip your mind?”
“Maybe it was grossly exaggerated. It didn’t feel like I was doing anything remarkable.”
“Pfft, modest. Hey, wait, let’s test your super-hero reflexes!” He climbed onto a chair and said in a panicked, high-pitched voice, “Save me Parrot-man, save me!”
I knew he was joking and that he wouldn’t hurt himself, but I still felt a faint twinge of alarm looking at him mock-flailing on one foot on top of a wobbly chair. Matt was a hemophiliac, prone to severe blood loss with even the tiniest cut. I held my arms out and caught him as he jumped off, pretending to shriek.
“Oh, thank you Parrot-man, thank you!” he said, throwing himself on me.
“Settle down please, boys,” Mr. Woods’s kind yet authoritative voice addressed us.
Matt and Alex cracked up and went back to our table, while I became distracted by a very tan boy entering the room.
“Chris?” I asked incredulously.
“Heyyya Felix. What’s up?”
“Not much. Jesus, look at you! What the hell did you do down in Australia?”
“A couple of manta rays and a shark.” He grinned. “Haha, not really. The shark would have killed me, that’s for sure. Nah, I just did a whole bunch of stuff outdoors.” Oh hey, look, it’s Joe!”
The rest of the class period was us goofing around and Mr. Woods giving us the run-through of what we’d do during the year, the usual stuff for the first day back to school.
Pre-cal was a drag. Even though math came easily to me, I decided that my teacher was a witch. Journalism was surprisingly productive as our teacher wanted us to publish a new issue of the school newspaper by the end of the week. English, dull. Spanish, boring. History was fun because Mrs. Fitz liked to throw stuff at sleeping students.
I was dreading government. It was known to be the most boring and pointless class offered at the school, and students were required to take it as the federal education system was desperate to instill some sort of patriotism in its scholars in the making.
I was making my way slowly towards the classroom when a small figure who’d been distracted by something out the window ran straight into my chest. It squealed and fell at my feet while I had remained relatively unaffected.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” The voice was definitely female, although it sounded oddly strangled. I offered a hand to help her up but felt my body stiffen in recognition when my eyes caught sight of bright blue hair. A tiny, tan hand accepted my own and pulled herself up from the floor.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, are you okay? Umm…freshman!” She laughed nervously as if her grade would explain everything.
And then she looked up and I was drowning in unknown emotions as our eyes met.
“You have beautiful eyes,” I said before I could stop myself.
She blushed. “Wow…thanks.” There was an awkward silence. “Uhm, well, I better try and find my class so thank you and sorry about that…” she giggled nervously and then hastily grabbed her backpack, rushing away.
I looked back at her, but she’d managed to easily disappear in the crowd, despite her bizarre appearance.
&youresomethingbeautifulacontradictioniwannaplaythegameiwantthefriction&
I’d like to thank my beautiful friend Grace and my fantastic friend Wendell for their encouragement, and Wendell for helping me out so much with writing from a guy’s point of view.
Seperating lines are from, “Succexy” by Metric, “Outsiders” by Franz Ferdinand, and “Time Is Running Out” by Muse.
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