Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School ( a working title)
Category: Life

Chapter 1

High School

People use to say that if you couldn't make it at a regular public high school you would find yourself at a Vocational school, but really you had to be able to maintain at least a "B" average to even get on a waiting list for Tri-County. I think it was something like nine surrounding towns that were allowed admittance. Donna and Anna were from Norfolk, me, North Attleboro, and Tracy, Millis, MA.

All of us had some form of a learning disability, we later discovered about each other, and the usual above average IQ. That normally accompanies such conditions. Anna was known as the devious one; Donna could grasp a concept before you finished a sentence, Tracy had the innate ability to see things in a totally different perspective, and I could size up a situation, implement a solution, and convince everyone around me through diplomacy that it was the only course of action. I was the bullshit artist.

It was no wonder we found each other. I remember when I first met Tracy, she was a typical looking "farm girl", plump with long, strawberry blonde hair, fat cheeks, carrying a book bag, and looking disheveled in her peasant dress and work boots. She stepped out into the smoking area, and immediately some seniors started picking on her.

I don't know why I threw the snow ball, but I remember the triumphant feeling I got when it came in contact with Raphealla's face. It was awesome! Anna saw me do it, and she immediately started cracking up. I could hear that evil laugh bellowing from half way across the smoking area, and Raphealla turned her head directly in Anna's direction.

Raphealla Pioca. What a friggin name! She was the biggest bully out of all the senior girls in the culinary arts department. She was an asshole really. Most students had the attitude of live and let live, but she was always screwing with somebody, and she had set her sights on Tracy that particular morning. I couldn't stand her.

Suddenly she was in Anna's face, and I can remember a group of us rallying around Anna. There must've been twenty girls standing behind her, and the more we grew in number, the softer Raphellas' shouts of profanity and threats toward Anna became.

"I threw it ya fuckin Hag" I had absolutely no fear of any human being; I was just born that way I guess. Her mouth dropped, and another snowball came hurdling from behind the mass numbering somewhere in the thirties at Anna's back. Anna's laugh became more devious as the ball of ice splat across Raphealla's left breast. "Why are you given her such a hard time for just standing out here and trying to smoke a butt? What the fuck is the matter with you?" I started berating her with logic. "Did she sleep with your boyfriend? Did she steel something from you? Is her existence on this planet causing you some kind of health problems? I mean what the fuck is your problem?" Anna kicked in with the same line of overly mature questioning that just left Raphealla wide -eyed and speechless. "Are you being abused at home? Did someone bully you when you were in your formulative years?"... Donna stepped in, "Do you need a hug?" Another snowball came hurdling in like a missile and found its mark. "Knock it off you guys", I half-heartily slighted to the crowd. I looked Raphealla dead in the eyes and it really had a Lord of the flies feel to it. "I suggest you not do this again". She muttered something and found her way back to the other side of the smoking area and her little click of mean girls. One of them pointed at me as if to say I was on some kind of a list as they put they're buts out and headed towards the cafeteria door. I flipped her off.

Out of the thirty or so people, Donna Anna myself and Tracy were left.

"Hey", was the only word uttered in unison. We all became fast friends.

Some years later, maybe about twenty years had passed by; I got a phone call from Anna. I had managed a couple of years of community college, got myself into a situation where I bought my parents house with my brother, and landed a somewhat descent job in the restaurant business. Anna, whom I always considered to be smarter than most of us, had gone to nursing school, and had her own business of hospice clients, and was doing rather well for herself living in the Berkshires. Neither of us ever married.

"What's up"? It was like 2 days had passed, and not twenty years. her tone of voice was as if she was calling to make sure I would be skipping class the next day to thumb with her to Worster for the Ozzy concert.

"ANNA! How's it going, what's it been. fifteen, tenty years? How the fuck are you?"

"Donna's in trouble". It's funny to think how much that news affected me. I sat down as if someone had just sucked all the wind out of my lungs, and I had no choice. I hadn't spoken to or even seen Donna or Anna for that matter, since High School, but time had always been somewhat of an illusion to me anyway, here it was just illustrating itself. "What happened?"

Anna must've gone on for at least a twenty minutes starting with Donna's divorce, eluding to some highlights of her time in jail, losing custody of her two boys, and ending with the amount of pills she was now taking after being diagnosed with bipolar depression.

"She's working at Dunkin Donuts right down the street form you; I'll bet she'd really love to see you. I can't visit as much anymore, I mean it's not so much the two hour ride from here to Norfolk, but ever since Angelique arrived, (I didn't even know Anna had a child, but I kept silent and listened to what she had to say), it's been kinda tough to just pick up and take off whenever the fuck I want, ya know?"

The conversation went on for a couple more hours, and I think my ear was still warm and numb when I pulled up to the drive thru at Dunkies, and looked at Donna when she handed me my coffee.

"A Dolla Ninety". I just looked at her and said "I don't have it" She cocked her head a little bit and I could see the recognition in her eyes but it was quickly replaced with doubt and I think absolute reprehension. She started to slowly turn on her heel as if for inside help from the other counter girls, and I said, "Anna called me".

"Tee NA" she stomped her foot on the "NA" sound. we hugged through the drive thru window, which elicited a few howls and beeps from the cars surmounting behind me.

"Hey just hold on to that for a sec, and I'll come in". I flipped the people off behind me, and sped out of the drive thru into a parking space.

Donna had already found a window replacement and was on the other side of the counter in the Hug ready position. The usual "Where ya been' and I tried calling you a couple of times, were exchanged, and we agreed to get together soon, and talk about old times.

It really was as if no time had passed at all. Aside from the obvious physical changes, I mean my hair was no longer dyed platinum, Donna wasn't wearing her trademark AC/DC T-shirt and leather moccasins, and both of us hadn't seen a size 4 anything, in I was guessing quite some years. I flipped off the people waiting in the drive thru again as I pulled off, and beeped at Donna waving franticly in the window. It was nice to see her flipping the people off too in my rearview

Tracy never went away. She was a permanent fixture in my passenger's seat ever since I bought my first car. She had been in one college or another since we all left Tri-County, and really was nothing more than a walking Thesaurus. She still lived with her mom at the age of thirty five and was a perpetual part-time something at one department store or Quickie mart or another.

"So did you tell her I was coming"? "Trace, you have something on your chin". Tracy asked again as she fumbled for my visor mirror. "Well, what did she say? Does she know we still hang out?"

"I didn't get a chance to tell her anything really, and I don't think she knows what Anna told me over the phone, so when we get there, don't let on that you know anything other than that you haven't seen her for the past twenty years...Cool?"

"Gotcha".



Of course seconds after the car doors being slammed in unison, and the first initial screams and hugs, Tracy's first question to Donna was "What was prison like?"

"Shut-up Tracy, Donna hand me that thing of CD's", I barked out trying to erase the moment. Donna quietly answered "It sucked" and with a bowed head, and gracious smile towards the floor, she handed me the CD case. I popped in the CD, and tossed Tracy a bad look as we pulled out of Donna's driveway to the Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio".



We pulled into Wall mart, and headed toward the "Pit of Despair", as I like to refer to it, and formulated my plan of action out loud to the rest of my team. "We're going straight to the Photo department, getting the film, and coming straight out, everybody got that?"

Of course as soon as we made it passed the seventy-five year old "Greeter" in the hover-round, it was like watching two five year-olds racing toward the toy department in different directions, conquering any dream of getting out of there in less than an hour.



I caught up with the two of them as I was waiting with the other thirty or so Saturday morning shoppers at the photo kiosk. Tracy was jumping up and down trying to see over the five foot plastic walls to the cash register. "How long have you been waiting? Is there anyone here? Where does the line form?" It was at that moment that a three foot man came out from behind that wall and climbed onto a stepping stool in front of the cash register that Donna came alive just beyond Tracy's left shoulder interrupting my pondering of Tracy's line of questioning. "They should put one of those orange flags on him, yaknow the one's that we use to have on a long pole on our banana seat bikes, when we where kids…yaknow, so you can see where he is behind that kio….."



Donna didn't get to finish her sentence, which she very innocently dictated, I'm assuming unconsciously, loud enough for everyone to hear, including the tiny man, because it was at that point that I realized I could not retrieve Tracy out of her fit of convulsive laughter, and after that hard look I was thrown by the little guy, any attempt on my part,of receiving service from him would be an exercise in futility.

I grabbed at Donna and Tracy and pulled the both of them out of there.

"We'll hit a K-mart or something in the Berkshires, I have to call Anna, and let her know what time we're going to meet her". I was practically running through the parking lot pissing my pants all the way towards my car. Donna and Tracy were running to catch up with me.

Donna kept saying "Whad I do whad I do". Tracy was still having convulsions.



Chapter Two

On the Mass Turn Pike and the Truth about the effects of Masculine twenty years later.





(tomarrow)

T.