Unrolling a Twisted Impression

By Melissa Hochman

I grew up in a one-hairstyle-town. In Santa Barbara, California, you’re nothing if your hair doesn’t flow down to the middle of your back in lustrous, straight, sun-kissed tresses. The messier, the stringier, the more it looks as if you’ve just emerged from the glistening sea, the better. Because of this, every girl on the street looks as if she’s auditioning for the Brook Shields role in Blue Lagoon.

***

I hated Terry. He sat next to me in Creative Writing and plucked keys off the keyboard to serve as his own personal set of Scrabble pieces. He’d form various words from curses to body parts, SAT vocabulary to interjections. He’d make a ruckus by both stripping and then replacing the entire components of the keyboard as I struggled to write a story or a poem on the computer beside him. He took great pleasure in restarting my computer while I was on page four of an unsaved document (I could never grab his dirty fingers in time to stop him from pressing the button). He wore the same outfit every day: green flannel button-down with an Allman Brother’s Peach album t-shirt underneath, faded blue jeans, brown oversized belt (oversized so that the leather after the buckle swung low to his knee) and brown combat boots. He carried a distinct odor with him that smelled of tuna fish and peanut butter and intensified from the tips of his shaggy hair to the soles of his clunky combat boots. When he wasn’t destroying the computers, he was sleeping. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was roaming the halls looking for trouble.

When I first met him, I had attempted to talk to him, befriend him even. I brought up an Allman Brother’s concert I had gone to over the summer and how I had seen him working at Auntie Anne’s in the mall. He took one look and scoffed at me; he would have none of my company. I decided I didn’t like him. For the rest of the four years, he kept to himself, drew cartoons, and created random objects from long pencil shavings. But the thing about Terry was that he was a genius, and everyone in the class knew it.

My intensive creative writing class consisted of 12 people and spanned my entire high school career. We shared our most intimate thoughts, our most private work and our most absurd ideas, as well as a passion for creating beauty from 26 letters. Although our small family all shared talent, we did not all share an appreciation for it.

While we all worked, Terry goofed off. While we all spent time and exerted will power for a contest piece, Terry slept. When we read our own pieces aloud and engaged in constructive criticism, Terry remained silent.

When he did write, which was only during times of mandatory in-class story development and workshops, it was flawless. He drafted screenplays I could envision on the feature screen. He crafted characters and defined not just what they did for a living, but how their morning coffee order included two espresso shots, soy milk, and the plop, plop of three sugar cubes, which set off a series of waves whose waters rose and broke against the interior of a recycled cup—every detail, every grimace, and every conversation came full circle. When he tried, he made allusions of the rarest form, had impeccable word choice, and wrung sentences with a syntax so right it made you want to call a publishing company and exclaim, “Yes it was ME, I discovered him and I want half the profits.” A film of jealously clung to my body like thick sea foam when he read his pieces aloud, because I knew I was not as gifted as he was and that his potential far exceeded my own. I couldn’t help but wish that I could capture dialogue as he did; understand and describe distinct movements as he did; set up a solitary scene with comedic, horrific, romantic and dramatic elements as he did.

However, outside of the creative writing classroom Terry was not viewed as brilliant. Consistently in the principal’s office for various acts of vandalism, setting off the fire alarm and cursing at a teacher, Terry spent his weekends smoking marijuana alone outside of the 7-11.

During the September of senior year, Terry decided to bring a BB gun to school. He brought it to lunch, drew it from his backpack while he was outside, and pretended to fire the pellets at his surroundings. Though he never aimed it at another person, the administration dealt with the matter seriously. Considering Terry’s record, they decided to search his locker. They found Shakespeare plays, textbooks that did not belong to him, and a poster of Sigmund Freud. Behind the poster of Freud was a half-filled Ziploc bag of marijuana and a separate bag containing three LSD tabs. Terry was expelled and placed in a juvenile detention facility twenty minutes away from the high school.

After the news surfaced, there was a shift in our creative writing class. I looked over at the keyboard that had all of its keys intact. I looked at the electric pencil sharpener that had all of its shards still entangled within its clear plastic base. Gone were the intermittent grunts, gone were the strumming sounds of five fingertips on the desk next to mine. In some strange way, I sincerely missed that smelly genius.

Three months after Terry left, my creative writing teacher carried two manila envelopes into the classroom. Her normally pale complexion was rosy and bright. She proudly laid the envelopes on the table and allowed everyone to take note of the return address: The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. An award from Scholastic meant you had it. It meant a certificate, it meant an awards ceremony, it meant a cash prize, and it meant that someone besides your mother saw a spark in something you had written. My name was on one envelope and Terry’s name was on the other.

After the excitement settled, my teacher wondered what to do with Terry’s envelope. She didn’t want to send it to him at his new school and she didn’t trust his family to recognize the significance of the award. No one had Terry’s phone number or had kept in contact with him since he had left, but we couldn’t allow it to just sit there. I assumed that Terry still worked at Auntie Anne’s so I volunteered to deliver the envelope.

As I walked up the mall staircase to the second floor, I could hear his familiar, raspy voice chanting, “Roll, twist, pat.” As I hid out of sight behind a tall beam, I watched him continue to roll, twist, and pat pretzel dough for a few more minutes before someone came over to him and told him he could go on a break. Terry threw off his hat and apron and jumped over the side of the counter, heading for the staircase. I stepped to the side of the beam so that he could see me and he made his way over to where I stood. As he came closer he extended his arm and pointed at the envelope clutched in my hand.

“That my X-Mas gift?”

I handed him the envelope. After a moment, he lifted his long, shaggy hair to reveal a large forehead with a furrowed brow.

“No fuckin’ way,” he said, before opening the envelope. He took out a small gold key, a certificate with his name on it, and a copy of his science fiction short story.

“This was the only thing I typed up all year. It was a first fuckin’ draft.”

It was the first emotion I had ever seen him display: he was surprised, humbled, and in disbelief.

“Yeah, winning that’s a pretty big deal,” I told him, ignorantly assuming that he hadn’t realized the significance of what he was holding.

"No shit,” he said. “You win regionals and then you’re eligible to go to nationals. You get to nationals and it means you get to go to D.C. for free. Get out of here for a little while.” He ran his fingers over the raised seal on his certificate and traced the letters of his name.

“Well, uh, congratulations,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

He held up his hand and told me to wait a minute. He went back the Auntie Ann’s and came out with a notebook that had doodles and holes on the front cover with loose paper sticking out of the sides. He rolled the notebook, making a twisting motion with his two palms before patting the notebook flat again.

“I’ve been workin’ on some stuff, nothin’ great. But I want you to take this back and have everyone look at it. You know, just a couple pieces, if you guys have time.”

I was in shock. I couldn’t believe that he still wrote, let alone had enough work to fill a notebook. I couldn’t believe that he cared about the opinions of his fellow classmates, or that he hoped to improve. I couldn’t believe that he was capable of saying so many words at once.

I nodded and walked away. As I placed the notebook in my bag, a card fell out. It was an Auntie Ann’s frequent buyer card, with six pretzel punches already stamped through. According to the card, I had purchased six pretzels and was due for a free one.

I turned around and Terry said, “That’s to make sure you come back.”