Like A Brick

During high school, I didn't know what direction I was headed for. I sent my SAT scores to scores of schools, and I'm sure I was accepted to a few. The ones that stood out were norfolk state, tuskeegee and the fake HU.

I really wasn't that supported by both of my parents as far as school. My grades were the type of grades that would only get me a scholarship at hair school, and that's even pushing it. I never really cared about anything in high school except maybe perforing. I was good at it. And I got a shitload of trophies for doing so. If I knew then what I knew now, I would have used that for my advantage to go somewhere. Unfortunately, my drama coach had only one prize student, and it damn sure wasn't me.
A friend from my block joined the navy the year before me.
One day he came to the school recruting. Unhappy with my home life, it seemed like a go. I could get money for college, travel the world, and most important; learn how to swim.
Long story short, I signed up. Since I wasn't a stellar student, I went to summer school. For the subject that I was the best at; history.
The thing was that, I was very good in history. I would cut 3 days of the week, come in the day before the test, and then come in the next day, and ace the test. The whole year I did that. Attendance meant nothing to me. Besides, I'm a fucking genius. And why would a genius have to live by the standards of everyone else? Damned that.
Anyways, that didn't make my recruiter that happy. The military always needs new blood. After summer school, I got a job at the most local mall. The job was okay. My cousin was a manager, and I thought I'd have it easy. Nope, he would be one of the first asshole bosses in my life. I worked there for about 6 months. I kept pushing back the date when I was to be shipped off. Bad move.
D-day finally came. The recruiter came to pick me up. He talked most of the time. He had stories about all the women he slept with over the world, and that he never got burnt. Great, I could play craps with my dick. What more could a 17 year old ask
for?

As we made the trip to the MEPS, I started to cry a little. I don't know why. I guess I just needed to let some things out. At the time, my girlfriend Ifa was preggo, not my kid though. I promised to take care of her and the baby. The dad was a deadbeat apparently. I remember her moms boyfriend at the time took me around, and made me an honorary q dawg so that I could get out the commitment before I left.

So anyways, we get to the brooklyn MEPS center. We take our oaths and all the basic bullshit. I can't remember too much of what went on there. I'm sure there was a lot of paperworks signing and what have you.
Queens Blvd, is where I would wind up that night. I think the place was the pan america, hotel or some shit. What I do remember is that where we were there was hella chinese folks around. Every corner seemed to have some chinese writing.

Its my type of personality to mesh with people right away. I got cool with this white kid from brooklyn. I forgot his name, but it don't matter. He called me Jerz all night, and I called the dude new yawk.

We was kickin it and we discussed how much of it was a mistake it was to join the navy.
We both had a sure fire way to get out of it. About 12 of us decided to walk around where we were and get drunk and smoke as much weed as we could consume.

In those days I didn't drink much, so it wasn't hard for me to get shit faced quickly. We must have pooled together and bought at least 8 fourty ounces, and a few fifths of I think brass monkey. They should have called it brass knuckles, because I got knocked the fuck out that night.

In our drunkeness, New Yawk and me started to reconsider our decision to try and get kicked out. I shouldn't say we, more like He. He started crying and shit, talking about how he wanted to do good, and show his pops he was worth something. Blah blah blah. It was touching, it touched me that I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I was regretting the decision to drink the old english mixed with hawaiian punch, and brass knuckles.

After getting close with the toilet, I went back into the room, and new yawk was mixing up something else for us to drink. I got on the floor and tried to turn it back the right way. I had a feeling I was on the top of a bottle cap and a giant person was tring to twist it off. That was my exact thought at that time. Yawk was mixing up something called the flush. He told me to drink it to clean my system. I was assuming that it would just make me un-drunk. I gulped the drink down, followed by the last of the brass knuckles. Smart, after that, the little man came behind me and flipped the switch to off. Goodnight.

To be continued.