Retrospecticus Vol. III

Tonight I recount my junior year of High School, 1996-1997. To say it was the best of times it was the worst of times would be an understatement. The summer of '96 was a great one. It was my last as a spoiled rich kid. It was also the first time Stone introduced me to the sexyness of RPG's. I remember the night well. Pappy had gotten his liscense first out of all of us, and he inherited his parents' Hyundai Excel. That was a phat ride. That night Pappy, Stone, Me, and Bean, who was up for the summer, went to the post mall, because we were young and were looking for a place to cruise to. Once there Stone decided that he wanted to dye his hair green. Since i was the only there who had experience in dying their hair (I had dyed it Green, Purple, and Ultra Violet prior to this) I was designated to do the job. So Stone and I picked out the colors and dyes he wanted, and we went home. On the way back home we got slurpees (that was a favorite beverage of ours when we first started driving) and stone said "We should play some RPG's". He said He'd run "ShadowRun". I was a little disappointed because I wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, because I'd heard that was a cool game. Anyhoo we came back to the Filth Hole, which we had just started hanging out in regularly, and started in on the hair. I told everyone that you mix the Bleach and Peroxide and just rub it all into the hair. No one agreed with me, especially Bean. He said that you had to comb a little bit of the mix into the hair evenly. Despite my protests, everyone listened to Bean. One hour later, Well after his color should have been nigh on white, nothing was happening. Stone's hair color had changed from a dark brown to a chestnut brown. At that moment my mom stumbled in the door, half in the bag from a night at the bar. She looked at what we were doing to Stone and said that we had it all wrong. She deftly repaired stone's hair and got it a beautiful shade of lime green, despite being heavily impaired. Good job mom. Later that night we started playing ShadowRun, and my life as a geek would never be the same. I created my character, or I should say robbed it. I couldn't think of anything cool to make a character with, so I thought to myself... What character in all of existence would I most like to be. The answer was immediate. Vega. For those of you not familiar with Street Fighter, Vega is a psychotic spanish assasin/ninja. He is also quite possibly the vainest man on earth. So vain infact that he refused to fight an opponent without a protective mask. So I made a Character based on Vega. His name was RazorJack. A spanish Bullfighter/hired gun. Vain to the point of wearing a protective mask. Although the character was completely ripped off, It allowed me to express a side of my personality that I had never been allowed to release. I could be vain, I could be cocky, I could be self assured, because I was no longer Lio... I was RAZORJACK. Upon further analysis of Role playing, I've found that the characters that I've made that I truly love are the ones that represent part of my personality. I've realized there are two parts of my personality, exemplified by two characters. One side of me is represented by RazorJack; arrogant, rude, vain, cruel and vengeful... all the things I want to be, in recent years this side of my personality would ressurrect itself as Marko Ramius, a Vampire character, same M.O. only not as nice a guy. The other is my public face, that everyone knows. This characater was Groba the Hutt, from the Star Wars game. A hutt Jedi who went around the galaxy having a fun time and writing wrongs. A fat and jovial character, he was how I really saw myself, physically disgusting, but so charismatic you just had to love him. Anyhow, I'd discovered a wonderful new passtime and I had to share it with my other friends. Prior to this summer I had 3 groups of friends. Stone and Pappy, Calliander and Blood, and Jujie and Drunkenwhorebag. So, I got Mike and Blood to play ShadowRun with Pappy and Stone. They caught the fever too. At first we were playing at Stone's place, but then we started alternating up between his place, my place and Calliander's. That summer my parents also told me I could invite friends to come to the medieval faire. I invited Stone, and Bean, and Peps. Peps wasn't apart of our little group yet, but I'd been hanging out with him regularly for years, going to eachother's parties, talking comics and crap, and sucking at Math equally in Algebra Classes. I knew this thing was right up Peps' ally so I asked him to come. He accepted, and from then on in he was also apart of our crew. That trip was lots of fun, I picked up numerous swords that trip. At night at the hotel Bean convinced us all to order softcore porn on the closed circuit TV, but I was to paranoid and spastic to enjoy it. On the morning that we left Stone and Bean decided it was a good idea to use the bed as a trampoline. I warned them not to do it but they still did. My mom knocked on our door to remind us we were leaving in five minutes. We all had our bags packed so we weren't in a rush or anything. Then as my mother left... KABOOM!!! The bed collapsed out from under Bean and Stone. It seems the base of the thing was made out of some sort of heavy cardboard that looked like wood. I threw a shit fit! But Bean, perpetually calm, perpetually cool, jury rigged the bed back together well enoug to stand on it's own. We left the room, sure we were gonna get nailed for something. We never got caught for the porn, and to my complete surprised, we never got caught for the bed.

I was the summer of '96, and everyone in the media was getting haircuts. My own hair, which I'd been growing since '93, was starting to go flat and shitty looking despite being well below my chest. One of the final straws was that the Crow sequel was coming out, and the new Crow had short hair. Well, at this time I was still a Crow FANATIC. So, it was time to get a hair cut. When I got it I knew it was a mistake. But I thought "oh well! It'll grow back", Heheh... how stupid i was.

I was starting to feel great about myself. I had one group of friends who were fun and were into the same shit I was. And I had another group of friends who centered around some pretty cute chickies. All that summer I'd been having adventures with Jujie and Drunkenwhorebag also. We'd hang out after hours at Branford point, or just ride around. It didn't really matter, I was so enthralled by Drunkenwhorebag that I could have had my penis sawed off in her presence and it would still be a great time. Jujie's boyfriend, and Drunkenwhorebag's boyfriend had grown to be a part of this group too. We ran all over Guilford committing acts of vandalism with pumpkins and putting various peices of Jujie's hosiery on parts of the car. One night Jujie's boyfriend, Drunkenwhorebag's boyfriend and I visited Jujie and Drunkenwhorebag at a Lutheran campout. While there I bumped into one of the Trumpores who was sucking my ass because I had gained some ounce of respect among the popular kids for being an outsider and not just a fringe person. I quickly dismissed him like the gutter trash he was. We saw Jujie and Drunkenwhorebag, and then left, but not before their boyfriends left some anti Lutheran grafitti on the message board they had posted... heheh... that was funny. Well, I knew it wouldn't be long before Jujie and Drunkenwhorebag would try to fix me up. I figured, oh well, as long as she doesn't weigh 400 lbs, she can't possibly be as bad as Burger Bob. I was wrong. VERY VERY VERY wrong. I always felt that the only thing that would stop me from going out with a girl was weight issues. Burger Bob and this next one proved that personality does matter in a girl. For those girls out there, granted, looks play a role, but personality is very important. I'll call this girl... BaneOfMyExistence, for though she started out benign enough, she would become the only person that I would truly ever hate. Anyhow, Drunkenwhorebag had just broken up with her boyfriend, and I figured that if I would ever strike, it would have to come now.

Julie set up a sort of date for me and BaneOfMyExistence. I wasn't too interested to begin with, I loved Drunkenwhorebag, but I figured, hey, what the hell. Maybe that was not the fairest situation for BaneOfMyExistence to be brought into, but I did not ask to be set up. So Jujie, Drunkenwhorebag, BaneOfMyExistence and I headed out to see "First Wife's Club" for BaneOfMyExistence's birthday. So, Jujie drives me to the Friendly's where I am to meet BaneOfMyExistence. I walk in... First off, BaneOfMyExistence is nothing to look at. Oh well, I'm no prize either, at least maybe she's cool. So Jujie, Drunkenwhorebag and I sit down with BaneOfMyExistence. No such luck. This girl is totally flatlining on the personality scale. She spoke in a low monotone that felt like having sand in a speedo. She was making remarks that I just didn't find very interesting, and the movie sucked, not that that was her fault, but it added to the epic failure that was that night. Eh... that was a fuckin' bust. On the way back, after dropping off BaneOfMyExistence, Jujie and Drunkenwhorebag were on my case about getting together with Bane. "I can't do it. I'm in love with someone else." They left me alone for a sec. Jujie stopped, because she knew I was in love with Drunkenwhorebag. But Drunkenwhorebag kept pressing. "[Drunkenwhorebag] the girl I'm in love with is you!" That shut her up for a bit. Then Drunkenwhorebag started with the rejection speech. "Blah blah... I just ended a relationship... blah blah blah... I'm not ready... blah blah blah I'm a lying cunt...". They dropped me off, and I cried myself to sleep. Drunkenwhorebag never hungout with me again.

It was time to start anew. It was a new school year. I was a little upset, I hadn't seen the Demon Queen or LipSchtick around anywhere. As it turned out, the Demon Queen had pulled a knife on LipSchtick's friend, I'll call her... Rail. Anyhoo Demon Queen and LipSchtick got suspended for like 2 weeks, and after that were not allowed to have contact with eachother again. Eventually I saw DemonQueen again, this time she was dating some scumfuck from North Branford. A kid so scummy, when you saw him walking down the street you'd say... "GODDAMN, THAT KID IS A SCUMFUCK!!!" Gatekeeper, you know this kid back me up on how much of a scumfuck he is. So, I tolerated his scummieness with a grin and waited for my opportunity. After a couple of pregnancy scares they broke up. A wide grin fell over my face, I knew my time would soon be at hand.

In November of that year something horrible happened. My father's main client went to jail, and we lost most of our income. My parents argued a lot. I remember going to sleep a lot to avoid hearing them argue. This was the most frightening time of my life. I didn't know what would happen next. Would we lose our home? I didn't know, and what was even more frightening... neither did my parents. I had to find a way to escape this. Sleeping was not working anymore. The Demon Queen made this time a lot easier for me too, she was on the phone with me every night, just chit chatting, it wasn't important matters, but the conversation kept me sane. Then I decided to have the weekly gaming sessions at my place all the time. It was great. We'd get junkfood delivered, watch movies, play games. It allowed me to forget how shitty life really was. I thank all of you, my friends who were with me in that time.

It was around this time that Spo entered my life. I didn't really have a great love for him. He had been one of the Dorks in middle school, and we'd constantly get in insult matches... so I just sort of tolerated him when he first started hanging out. I took every chance to take a stab at him. Including this one time when his character did something to jeopardize mission in shadowrun. So my character told his character that he would cover him... then my character shot him in the back... heheh. All well and good. But after a while spo became a pretty good friend. We liked a lot of the same stuff, and were equally shy. I remember this one time I was fretting about asking the Demon Queen out. He said, "[Lio] I'm about to ask out a girl from Ansonia, if I can do that, you can ask out the Demon Queen. This instilled me with courage.

The time was nearing to make my strike on the Demon Queen. Much to my dismay, in the time that LipSchtick and Demon Queen had been separated, BaneOfMyExistence had become Demon Queen's new best friend thanks to that god awful literary after school group Blue Coffee ( You know, now that I think about it, lots of evil resulted from Blue Coffee, Demon Queen and Bane becoming friends, Calliander's sister unraveling and becoming a basket case, listening to horrible goth poetry...). When the two of them got together, BaneOfMyExistence amplified Demon Queen's worst characterestics ten fold. The two of them would just feed chucklehead energy off of eachother. It sucked, I hated the person Demon Queen was with BaneOfMyExistence. Oh well, I wouldn't let some girl I ditched months ago get in the way of my happiness.

Months went by and I was building my strategies to attain the Demon Queen. I was still talking to LipSchtick, and one time LipSchtick, Demon Queen and I were hanging out in the school after hours. It was becoming more and more obvious that I liked the Demon Queen, so i had to do something. They called me on it and I was like "I don't like [Demon Queen]... I've got a crush on... [ [Rail]". Ha ha... The perfect lie. Rail didn't like me, I'd only spoken to her a few times. And besides she went to a different school. I'd never see her. Word would never get back to her. Plus the Demon Queen hated Rail with a passion (she'd already pulled a knife on Rail), so if I liked her, there's no way I could be suspected of liking Demon Queen. HAH... She'd never know.

That line of reasoning blew up in my face. Rail found out, and asked me out. I was petrified... I couldn't say no. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. geh... what a fine problem this was. So I cowarded out and said yes. So Rail and I were an item. I saw her once a week after that and talked to her on the phone maybe once or twice. Yeah, a long distance high school relationship... that can work. Oh well, I might as well use this farce to further my advances at the Demon queen. The Demon Queen was pissed that I was going out with Rail, and I could see it. She was not happy. I invited her over to my place one weekdend to "play ShadowRun". We played some, then afterwards we spent a couple of hours in eachothers arms on my bed. We were still friends of course! heh. She went home and promised she'd be back the next day. She did come back. That day was of course a much more laid back affair. Me, Demon Queen, Arjie, and Bleaker were sitting around watching my new Highlander LaserDisc. It was dark, and I decided to make my move. I kissed the Demon Queen, she reciprocated, and the rest was history. I broke up with Rail a week later, citing that we didn't see eachother enough... she said something about being on vacation for the week were going out. I wasn't listening. It was at this time that my distaste for BaneOfMyExistence turned to anger. In this week, Demon Queen and I were in limbo. I asked her where we were. She said "I can't go out with you, [Bane] really likes you." GODDAMMIT!!! First she amplifies the Demon Queen's negative qualities, now she was going to stop me from being with the Demon Queen. I said that it would be unfair to Bane for me to go out with her, if i were still in love with Queenie. She could not contend with that, and we became a pair. We had our little time together, but after a few weeks, the Demon Queen broke up with me, siting that she "loved me like a brother". I was dismayed.

Spring came and life was progressing. I was still good friends with Demon Queen although BaneOfMyExistence was making that more and more difficult. The Demon Queen always did have a thing for deriding me and making me feel less than human, but when she was with Bane, she was merciless. And Bane would join in on it. She was angry because I chose Demon Queen over her, so she took every chance she could to get a crack in at me, and since I was still in love with the Demon Queen, I sat back and took her shit with a smile. Kudos to BaneOfMyExistence because she got back at me the way I only wish that I could get back at some of the girls who have slighted me. She befriended the girl I loved and made a horrible person even worse. This was where my anger for BaneOfMyExistence turned to hate. Also around this time, Gatekeeper came to our school. At first I saw him walking around, and I thought he was a substitute teacher. Then I saw him talking to Demon Queen a lot, and realized he was a student. THIS PISSED ME OFF. Wilson and I mocked him effortlessly, Wilson because he mocks everyone, me because I thought he was trying to horn in on the Demon Queen. We mocked him a lot, and for that I'm truly sorry, because he has changed my life in the most remarkable way. But I digress. Gatekeeper hung out with BaneOfMyExistence and Demon Queen, which meant he was one of them. The Chuckleheads. Those weiners who sat at Blue Coffee, and whined about how horrible their suburban lives are. geh. I hated the lot of them. But because I loved the Demon Queen, I tolerated them.

Also in spring of that year another event happened. The re-release of the original star wars trilogy. I can remember it so well. Packing 10 people into what was then Calliander's car, the Lil' Box o' Death. Waiting in line for hours and just having a great time. It was awesome. Another important release that spring was the Fifth Element. While the fifth Element has not stood up to repeat screenings, it was the dopest shit ever when I first saw it. Originally, Calliander, Spo, Arjie and I were supposed to go see it, but then Calliander backed out, luckily Arjie was able to supply a ride and we all saw the movie. Now I wasn't too thrilled about just going with Spo and Arjun. Arjun I thought was great. But Spo, although I didn't dislike him anymore, I was worried that we wouldn't have much to say to eachother. So the three of us went, We saw it, and then, when Arjie dropped spo and i at the filth hole, We both stood there, and for a half hour the only thing either of us could say was "That movie was soooo phat!!!" after that half hour, the two of us launched into an hours long diatribe about everything we considered phat, and low and behold, we had almost the exact same taste in everything. I'd say that night was the most important night of my friendship with Spo. For it started a relationship with a man who I now consider a brother. And Spo, you and i have said and done some things to eachother that we both regret, but until the day I die, you know I'm there for you.

This was the end to Junior year pretty much. Was this article too long? Probably. But if you don't like it... suck my balls.

Till All Are One...

LioConvoy out...