I've been cleaning my room and the basement, going through all of my old stuff before the big move. That included some old Robinson yearbooks, so of course I had to scan some embarrassing photos (Eugene, don't ever change). I've never put the infamous story of how I met Eugene in writing, so here it goes.
I knew Eugene through a mutual friend, Louise Winstead. I started hanging out with him near the lockers during the mornings before school (he looked exactly like the above picture). Anyway, we got to talking and realized that we both could not stand this one girl - let's call her Jessica. She was perpetually in a wide-bug-eyed daze and would ask the most idiotic questions in class. Being the teenagers that we were, Eugene got the crazy idea about writing an anonymous love letter to her. He wrote it and we decided that I would deliver it to her in my creative writing class. It wasn't exactly the kindest note ever written - but we didn't use profanity, and it was written in such a way that the mystery writer was obviously joking.
I delivered the note to Jessica, saying that it was mistakenly put in my locker (we both had "W" last names). She read it and slapped me. Well, that reaction got a few kids in my creative writing class interested in what was written. The note was stolen while she wasn't looking and passed around the room. Jessica got pretty upset, but never found the love letter.
The next day, xeroxed copies of the note were commonplace around the school. I received an office slip saying that I needed to report to a counselor's office after lunch. I ran into Eugene and showed him the thin pink slip of doom. "Oh no, oh no," Eugene said. I smiled nervously. "Don't worry, I'll take care of it."
I met with Mr. Cox, a large African American man with a commanding voice. He asked me to sit down. He folded his hands together and leaned forward. He did not have a copy of the note. "David, we have a very serious problem here. I like to try to help students. It's when students lie to me that I can't help them, understand?"
I nodded, then proceeded to lie like never before.
I said that the note must have been accidentally placed in my locker instead of hers - a believable claim because of our last names. When I saw Jessica's name on the note, I didn't open it and nicely delivered it to her. I was the innocent middle man that unknowingly started a terrible chain reaction. It worked. He walked to our lockers and I showed him the close proximity. Mr. Cox let me go, but not before showing me some handwriting samples of some students and wondering if I could match any of them with the name on the front of the note. I said one random one looked familiar - but Eugene was not included in the suspects.
I later found out the kid in my class who had copied the note, but so did Mr. Cox. The copy kid was suspended for a few days, and a few other students were given detention because they had helped pass the note around. But Eugene and I got away with everything. When the copy kid came back from his suspension, he talked to me in private. He was the slacker type anyway, and didn't care about being suspended. He just wanted to meet the man who wrote the awesome note. So during lunch, I took him to visit Eugene. The copy kid congratulated Eugene and said the suspension was worth it. Eugene was so happy of his freedom that he bought me the Bush album Sixteen Stone...and that was how Eugene and I became friends.
Wednesday, September 3 at 3:56 PM
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