a change to the handbook: in median res
you would go somewhere private to sat.
eat your lunch,
maybe to sat on the edge of Lake Garda, a pond
which in the middle of the school buildings sat.
you moved Sal Monella in to the pond when you
didnt want him as a pet anymore.
your dad went with you
to let him meet the other
snappers. you
two stood on the edge of the pond together
until Sal swam down deep and was gone. you
thot at the time maybe the turtles in Garda
looked more like the box turtles you
remembered
from Ranger Rick, than any snapper. but you
didnt let on to your dad about it. you
spent a few minutes feeling the separation
together and went home for toasted tunafish.
since you
have been on your own you
have not
toasted the bread even once,
when and if you
actually eat a tunafish. you
would go there to Garda or find some other
place private on the campus to eat and sat and
be able to sing or enjoy the silence in median res.
once you
went to the bridge
strictly-speaking off-campus,
and you
brought
the Holden Cauffield book,
and finished it
without checking the time. you
knew you
were likely late, but you
didnt
wear a watch and had to finish. so you
stumbled in to the end of English but
your teacher let you off, tickled you
were
reading and maybe moreso by what youd read,
and so she warned you,
and laughed.
and you
laughed and were heady from the read
and felt superstrong.
the following year there was a change in the
handbook. all students were to consume their
lunch in designated areas of the campus.
and then they used the rest of the page to
designate the areas of the campus
where you
could eat.
once you
ate in the courtyard with
your bosom buddy and the two of you
danced and you
faked it on the
harmonica in the rain. you
played a Blind Melon song called 'No Rain,'
or something like 'no rain.'
they took your harmonica and told you
never to play one again,
in the courtyard like that, with nobody
around, and during a free period,
with a friend, like you
had.
but that was before the designation of areas.
