NOTE: It's been about a year since I started Scoundrels and Vagrants. I was in bad shape, to say the least. I was going through this self inflicted depression that I can only refer to now as an identity crisis. S&V started off as my way to whisper to a world that other wise never seem to listen. I wanted the world to know how much I hated it for what it had done to me and people like me. It was my way to deal with my social anxieties and awkwardness, without drinking or drugs.Eventually, with a little help from my friends, I pulled myself out of that existential gang bang and emerged as a better, healthier, smarter, prettier Adam. That's when I sold out, I started writing with other people's satisfaction in mind, dumbing things down, taking out lines I thought would reflect myself badly. I forgot about empowering the wicked, wierd, disenchanted rebels and started thinking about all the skirt these words could get me. Then that sent me into another emotional shit factory, that I worked myself out of (well kinda, I'm still a little bit of a sellout, but fuck it, sell outs at least sell, right?) Anyway, lets cut this self-indulgence short and let me tell you that what you are about to read is a piece a wrote when I was 17 and completely honest. I was immature but at least I was sincere and my heart was good. My hearts still good, I think...
The truth regarding me and Karla Solis
Karla Solis is a girl. I am a boy. I met Karla Solis my junior year in high school. She was beautiful then, dark curly hair, beautiful eyes, and 36 C breasts. She was perfect for me. It wasn’t long after I noticed Karla Solis enter the lunch room that I would talk to her. Karla Solis sat at a table with the new crop of freshman girls, all of them as pretty as they were naïve, they laughed and whispered, they ate and talked with their mouths full, disgusting freshman, but not as disgusting as I was watching Karla Solis stuff her face with chips and homemade sandwiches and carrots and apple juice. I walked over to their table, they all seem to stare up at me, all of them were beautiful in there own right, but my eyes stayed on Karla Solis as she wiped her mouth and said. “Hello.”
For weeks after that day I sat at the freshman girl table, I had made casual friends with all of them, they liked me because I was funny, not because I was cute, not because I helped them with homework but because I made them laugh, which wasn’t very hard to do. I listen to their stories, they asked me my opinion on boys, I hated giving advice on relationships, but they all seemed to ask, I’d usually give them a half-thought out answer and being impressionable they hung on my every word. I watched as the freshman boys glared at me, they too wanted Karla Solis, but they were to shy to approach her, I had grown out of that phase, shyness, nothing good came from it, the quote “good things come to those who wait” is bullshit. I guess hey lacked confidence I had grown over my high school career,
After school me and Karla Solis would talk before her mom came to pick her up in her yellow van that often had a dog in the back, we would talk about how are days had been after lunch, we talked about other girls at the table, we talked about teachers, none of these topics I particularly gave a shit about, but it was what Karla Solis wanted to talk about, so I didn’t mind. One of these times after school Karla Solis had taken out her phone, to text someone, one of the goofy lunch table girls no doubt, I asked her, “Hey how come you never text me?” knowing that she didn’t have, nor did she express any interest in having my number.
“I don’t have your number silly.” Karla Solis said in her voice that if attached to anyone else I would hate.
I gave her my number, just as her mothers yellow van pulled up,
“Bye Adam.” she said looking into my eyes
“Peace” I said in an attempt to be cool, I waited to the yellow van and Karla Solis were far enough away , put my hood up, and made my way into the short white school bus that honked for me. I hated the school bus, and I hated people knowing I rode it.
Days past and no text or call from Karla Solis, it didn’t worry me to much. In school one day I decided not to sit with the freshman table but with my friends who claimed I was “Pussy wiped” and hassled me into sitting with them. I got my food from the lunch line and sat down and ate. I looked over at Karla Solis and her friends look at me and grin, I saw Karla Solis take her phone out, to text me no doubt. Seconds latter my phone vibrates with the immanent text message. I read “Why aren’t you sitting with us, get your but over here mister.” with one of those stupid fucking faces made with symbols…the one with the tongue hanging out. I escaped my friends and squeezed into the chair with her.
“I’m surprised you can fit with my fat-ass.”
Karla Solis thought she was fat, infect she wasn’t at all, its just the rest of her friends where twigs, Karla Solis brought her own lunch from home, because school lunches were fatting, although she would often pick at other peoples food. She was very self-conscious. She jogged and toke karate and dieted in attempts to loose weight.
“I lost 10 pounds Adam, aren’t you proud of me?” Karla Solis would ask me one day
I walked up to her and poke her stomach, “yes” I’d reply.
We talked and text on the phone everyday, stayed up way past her bedtime and laughed thru the night, I’d go to bed thinking about her, I’d read her texts over and over and over again. I’d look at her myspace, that I had convinced her to get, when ever she had a new picture posted I’d look at it, and smile. I was becoming very smitten with Karla Solis, no longer did I just want her 36 c breasts on my face, I wanted her. I was falling for Karla Solis. With every word we said to each other my heart grew fonder of her, I’d hug her and kiss her forehead everyday, I’d watch her blush when I did. I put my arm around her in hallways. She wouldn’t jerk away like some, she wouldn’t even ease out like most, she just stayed there, in my arms, like she didn’t mind that Adam Lawson was touching her.
As the year progressed the freshman boys gained enough confidence to ask Karla Solis out, I was jealous but never came right out and said it. She ask me if I should go out with them, I would take my anger out on her.
“Sure fatty, you need all the love you can get.” I berated her even more, calling her all types of names, like a lover scorn, She cried that day, her deep brown eyes peered at me a welled up with tears and she cried and cursed me. I was glad I made her cry, I was glad she cared enough about my words that she cried.
“Fat whore.” I spat.
“Why are you acting this way?” Karla Solis would say.
“Why are you acting so fat.” I couldn’t tell her, I could only insult, and insult I did.
She eventually ended up going out with him. I apologized and we were back to the way it was before. Us on the phone every night, she told me how much she wished her boyfriend could be like me, funny, charming, honest. When she said charming I laughed, I was in no shape nor from charming, at school I was known for my vulgar jokes and how I wrote “balls” on every black board in the school. And as for honest, if I was so honest why couldn’t I tell Karla Solis I felt, how I was falling in love with her, how I’d give most anything to be her boyfriend. How I’d Love her, How’d buy her presents, How I’d probably cheat on her, How I’d hide it, How I’d marry her.
Going into my senior me and Karla Solis didn’t speak much, I ignored her, I wanted her to come and speak to me first, She did, once a week almost she’d make an attempt to talk to me, I’d pretend I forgot the memories she brought up, I’d pretend I didn’t want to text her, I’d pretend to hate her, I’d tease her. Karla Solis went thru boyfriends fast, bout one every month, one of them was my friend. I’d casually ask him how things were going between them, how far they had gotten, how her room looked, how she was doing. He said he hadn’t gotten far, didn’t even let him grab her boobs he said.
“Oh man, what a bitch” I’d say, inside grinning, and thinking that a girl.
One day her boyfriend got hurt in a wrestling match, being a witness to the injury I thought it the perfect excuse to call Karla Solis, I didn’t care that he was hurt, I just wanted to talk to her.
The phone rang, she answer almost immediately.
“Hello?” she said in a shaky voice, obviously surprised by me calling.
“Hey, just thought I’d tell you Mario is getting hauled off in a ambulance.”
“What!?”
I explained the situation, she said she’d call him. The next day at school Karla Solis hadn’t said a word to me. Her boyfriend came back to school in a cast few days later.
“Hey man, I just want to thank you for telling my girl I was hurt, that’s respect man.”
“Yeah, no problem.” I said almost sincerely. “She told you about it.”
“Yeah she said that you called her and gave her the news, she said she was surprised, she thought you hated her…” he talked for awhile after that, about how much his arm hurt, and how good he had it and how much he was entitled to a sympathy lay.
Me and Karla Solis had a few conversations after that, I would text her occasionally, she’d text back. One of my favorite memories of her is after school it was raining softly and we talked in the rain while everyone else was under the small shelter under the schools awning. I toke my phone out I played with it.
“Eww still have that old crappy phone I see.” Karla Solis joked.
“Shut up.” I said, and opened the phone and grabed her lip with it. She looked at me, I looked at her with my phone attached to her lip, she didn’t mind it, I loved that about her, she didn’t me. I’ve sense graduated, moved on. I still think about Karla Solis. Still look at her text messages sometimes, still wonder what could have been. I hope I see Karla Solis again.
Post script:
I thought this one was important because I still find myself pushing people away, for no good reason but my own self consciousness. Man, I was 17 I'm 20 now, nigga's gotta grow up.
