I get paid to play

Hello, fellow readers and writers!

Sleep disturbance. So it's 2:10 AM and I forgot where the shut-off button is in my brain.

Summer Camp: It's the hardest job I ever worked, and I've had some tough jobs. What makes it even harder is the New Jersey humidity. The summer turns the air quality into a barely breathable pasty goo. It's a real energy thief. But the physical nature of this occupation really keeps me in shape.

Two things make this job different than your average gig. For one thing, the salary sucks in ratio to the responsibility. The other thing is this is the first job I ever worked that's actually rewarding. I mean, where can you go and hear hoards of special needs kids yell, "Joe, Joe, Joe!" when you arrive at the canopied picnic tables in the morning? The only thing those kids want is your personality. And unlike many mainstream people, hate or meanness never dwells within them.

Their minds have no concept of deception, back-biting, or cruelty. Fortunately I have an outgoing personality, and I don't mind sharing it with the kids. I'm not sure who has more fun, them or me. Also, I get to talk to their parents or caretakers and gather important information about each kid. A shy or stoic person who's unable break out of it wouldn't be happy in this career.

Being in the 'trenches' in this job means singing, dancing, organizing games, birthday parties, field-trips, being in camp shows, wearing wigs and hilarious outfits on theme days, and so on. Often times I can't believe they actually pay me to go there to play and to be my goofy self. The best part is I get to work there all year around! This is my fifth year there and I have no plans to leave anytime soon. To me, it's not a job, it's a way of life. And those kids want my laughter and enthusiasm.

See? There is a spot for a born ham after all.

Fun stuff

Top of the morning, everyone!

My career is really strange, but in a good way. There's a few buildings situated in a huge park. The park has a two pools, a spray ground, a play ground, tennis and basketball courts, a baseball field, a football field, three field hockey and soccer fields, a roller-hockey rink, and a really long walking path. In the Summer, all the other counselors and I have to report to the Therapeutic building at 8:00 AM. At about 8:30 our developmentally disabled kids start trickling in. I call them 'kids' even though some are in their 30's and 40's.

We have five groups. The groups are divided according to age levels. For instance, group one has the youngest kids. Group five is for the adults. That's my group. A client from my group is in the picture with me. Robert. Robert has Down syndrome. In fact, about 70% of of our Therapeutic Summer camp program kids have Down. Their functioning abilities vary a great deal. The other 30% have other developmental disorders such as neurological impairments, general retardation, brain damage caused by accidents, and so on.

When Summer Camp closes, all of the Summer camp counselors leave and go back to college. Only Mary (my group leader) and I stay for the Fall, Winter, and Spring programs. Mary and I are the only counselors there who are in our 50's. Four other non-Summer camp counselors also work those programs.

I have to leave now because it's Saturday and I need to get a haircut. And after that, I have to watch Ultimate Fighting from my enormous private DVD stock. I know, it's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. In my next post, I'd like tell about joys of my occupation.
So long for now, folks.
And have a wonderful day!

Gray Boy

Wanna know something? I am a person of unique distinction!

In fact, I should be famous. Maybe a bit of globetrotting and a few speaking tours, because. . . 

 Now there’s no way of knowing this for sure, but I may very well hold the World record for total school detention hours served from the 3rd grade through the 7th grade. I'll remind the school secretary to call the Guinness Brothers over in London and verify. Collect call, please. And make it snappy, wench.

 I'm not a typical bad kid—never loud or overtly disruptive in class. But there is one thing which I refuse to do; something that never fails to land me in detention—that's school work. To me, school itself is the most boring institution on earth. Yes, Federal law clearly states that school attendance is mandatory. Okay, fair enough. I concede. What's also fair enough is that there are no State or Federal laws dictating that I must pay attention while in class or do homework. And this is clearly stated by me. Check and mate.

 Actually, detention isn't so bad. It lasts only an hour, but a major offense could land you in detention for up to five consecutive one-hour days. On bread and water. And hung by the ankles. And beaten regularly by spiked-club-wielding guards thinly disguised as teachers.

 Ho-hum. Although we inmates are technically supposed to be studying during that hour, I've never actually seen anyone study during detention, including myself. Only thing is: I have a problem. My mind happens to be unusually and continuously active. I can't control it. A brain on continuous overdrive, one might say. So I must think of creative ways that will kill an hour of lock-up just to preserve my sanity.

 My favorite method in which to keep my mind occupied is by hiding a book I happen to be reading inside of a larger textbook. Detention whizzes by as I lose myself in a good non-fiction story. But a few times I forgot to bring a book and I had to draw pictures instead. And I can't draw worth a shit. It is during those times that I am keenly aware of my surroundings for that one long and grueling hour.

 Today I forgot my book, but I don't feel like drawing. Instead, I'll eat the time by writing down my observations of today's detention. This is only the second story I've ever written. My first story (also, the last homework assignment I ever did) became a fiasco because when my English teacher read it, she insisted that I copied it from a book. Too much advanced dialog infusion for her to believe the work was mine. Yet it was mine. All mine. My stepmother ultimately was able to prove to her that, yeah, I wrote the fucking thing alright, and every word of it came from my head, and nowhere else. The accusatory teacher reluctantly conceded, and spun on her heel while tossing a spiteful sneer at me for good measure. Twat-waffle.

 After that bullshit, I vowed to myself that I shall never write again. But. . .

  Now I'm desperate. So, although I can't draw well (my poor spatial and abstract ability ties in with my math disability), I know I  can write. Hell, I'll bet I can pen a story, any genre, better then my jealous English teacher can, not that she'd ever admit it. It's now my secret anyway.

 So, using my sole God-given talent (if you exclude arm-wrestling), I'll continue writing this, um. . . thing. Only this time, nobody will be allowed to read it. 

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Lock Up

By Joseph Lupoli

 The crew of apathetic teachers here in this dilapidated gray elephant of an urban public school actually expect me, a twelve-year-old kid with the attention span of a mayfly, to sit at home and voluntarily do homework. That’s quite a laugh. A real scream. A knee-slapper. You’d think these teachers would have gotten the message by now. Doesn't the front office keep student records? Maybe some guidance counselor even reads 'em once in a while?

  For the record, I have despised school since my first day of Kindergarten, and I was never shy about telling this to anyone within earshot. I’ve never studied before (not for the sake of aiming for good school grades, anyway). I don't plan to start studying now, and I have refused to do homework since the 3rd grade.

 Anyone gotta' problem with that? Huh? HUH?

 Being in detention is not my favorite pastime, but the mere thought of bringing schoolwork home is far more repulsive. It’s like having a job and being forced to work overtime for free. All things considered, the price tag of not doing homework is affordable.

 It’s a light day,  (in terms of inmate numbers) in this hell-hole of a study hall.

The usual over-aged thugs are shifting around restlessly in the back-row seats. There’s Marcus, the class bully, a long-timer. Marcus strikes me as a sociopath in training. Next to Marcus sits Victor "The Ripper." Victor is Marcus's co-extortionist and loan-shark. Oh, and there’s Michael "The Mauler"—also an aspiring sociopath. He's a future lifer, plus 90-years. Michael is doing hard time in detention probably for loansharking or refusing to rat on a fellow hood under administrative investigation. He was once voted ‘Most likely to join the Black Panthers'. Unofficially, of course.

 Michael has sideburns and a five o‘clock shadow which make him look about 20-years old. For added emphasis, he smokes non-filtered Camels. All of this I find most disturbing. Michael "The Mauler" once threw a kid off the school roof for not paying his ‘protection’ tax on time. The kid landed in a deep mud puddle. He survived unscathed, thank you verily.

 They once tried to extort from me, but not only won’t I do schoolwork, I don't respond much to other demands either. I'm an equal opportunity ambassador of refusal.  Interestingly, when I nonchalantly told those creeps, "You want it? You'll have to take it," they just shrugged and shuffled away. I guess these clowns sensed resistance and were too lazy that day to kill me. Too bad. They would have done me a favor.

 Now, normally, this would be a routine school day in my hellish nightmare of a life. 

Only today is no ordinary day. For the first time ever, the brilliant and beautiful Amy is here in detention! Yes, Amy, the fair of skinned Nordic goddess with natural platinum blond hair and full lips and shapely of build, yet with uncharacteristically dark brown eyes. Amy's eyes are even darker than mine are. And that's dark to be. Ne'er a fairer skinned girl so round of face, in possession of eyes so dark has ever existed in the history of mankind, pray tell.

 Oh indeed, Amy is a sacred entity complete with a blueish misty hue and everything. Just her mere presence not only purifies the air within a hundred-yard radius of her, it also regulates the oxygen-to-nitrogen ratio as well. To me, Amy is light-years beyond mere mortal, and I fear her far more than all the school bullies combined.

 And Amy does her school work and homework. All of it. She thinks school is for learning. Strange and bewitching lass. 

  Naturally, my curiosity is peaked. Why on God's Earth is Miss Britannica/Americana in detention? What could she have conceivably done? The romantic in me likes to think she stabbed some nasty trench-coated molester right through the heart with her longer and sharper than legally allowed, pearl-handled nail file, then gave the blade a sharp twist to sever the aorta, and then left it in the bastard's blood-soaked chest as a stern warning to others.

 But alas, being the loner I am, I'll never find out what really brought Amy to lock-up. I’ve never heard of her getting any grade lower than an B+, and she actually cried over it! Hell, I would cry in disgust if I  got any grade higher than a D! Amy never missed a day of school that I know of, and she made the honor roll probably from the moment the attending cut her enchanted umbilical chord and gently slapped breath into her sweet and Saintly pink lungs.

  I love Amy and I dream about her in color, yet she could and should have every reason to hate my guts—if she gave me half a thought to begin with, that is. To her, I'm probably just another barely noticeable  ship-rowing slave to be lumped together with all the other under-achieving losers. The only difference being (and it's a big one), I operate entirely alone. I don't want to belong. Because the risk of being  identified and known as who I really am is too dangerous. It would certainly pose a lot of questions. And that is why I'm a gray boy.

 I was taught to read (upon my request) at age-four; a full year before Kindergarten. It was toward my second year in the orphanage. Having had the power of choice, I learned to read in virtually no time at all.  Or so it seemed. By age-seven I was averaging at least one book every two-days, and they weren't comic magazines. We're talking encyclopedias, biographies, medical journals, etc.

 Now I can't afford became known.

 Because, had I come out of the shadows and cultivated friendships, many of the teachers and even other students would quickly discover that my vocabulary, geographical and historical prowess, and medical knowledge does not match my school performance. Next thing you know, some curious and over-zealous guidance counselor would catch wind and start digging into my history and home life. The whole thing would soon unravel and they would deduce that my bruises and cuts were not the result of schoolyard fights. Then I'd be removed from yet another home. Thanks, but I'll pass. I've been bounced around too many times. I'll deal with the hand I'm dealt.

 Besides, that clique bullshit is for fake tough guys and insecure types who can't think and act on their own.

  Being a gray boy does have its downside, however. For example, I am certain beyond doubt that all the smart and pretty girls find me, at best, revolting. It's not their fault. Not one bit. They would be foolish to think otherwise, considering that I spend more time in the Principals office and in detention than I spend in the classroom (general population). Not exactly a Most Likely to Succeed candidate.

 Amy is seated in the front row to my far right, near the door. Cautious girl, smart. And with perfect posture, naturally. I’m also in the front row, but to the far left. Though tempted, I dare not sneak a glance directly at her for fear if she might happen to look my way at the same time. What if our eyes accidentally locked? Fuck, there's a harrowing thought! What’s to say I wouldn’t have a heart attack and croak on the spot, or worse yet, experience some sort of embarrassing epileptic seizure and live to face the aftermath? No, I'll wait a while on that sneak glance thing.  Instead, I continue to write this story. That should take up the whole hour.

 Meanwhile, Marcus is busy cutting dirty words into the top of his desk with an unnecessarily large hunting knife. I've seen his pearls of literary wonder engraved on other desks. Suffice to say, the Pulitzer Prize for literature is not in Marcus's future. 

 I’m slouched down so low in my chair that I’m practically laying on the floor. Victor and Michael are engaged in a spirited spitball fight. They never bully me because I’m the one who taught them how to make the perfect spitball, perfectly round and with the right weight-to-size-ratio. And more importantly,  I showed them how to assemble and utilize two spliced and taped McDonald’s straws as the barrel to achieve maximum distance, velocity, and accuracy. Prior to that, they used hollowed Bic pens as their weapon barrel. Their weapons often jammed because the barrel was too narrow and the spitballs were not round and condensed enough. The stupid fucks.

 Spitball and projectile manufacturing combined with test practice and adjustments is truly a fine art and it should be included in the school curriculum to replace say, mathematics.

 Of course there’s Miss Camp, our math teacher, at her desk grading papers or something. I feel sorry for her. So few of us legitimately pass her class, yet the system pushes us ahead anyway. That’s urban life for you. Poor Miss Camp . . . burned out like the rest of the faculty.

 I take a writers-cramp break and my mind wanders aimlessly. I feel my forearms and biceps. Today my muscles are hard and well defined. It's scary. Yesterday I was a skinny toothpick. My bones have been hurting for over a year; a frequent dull ache. I’m growing too fast. Okay, enough break time.

 Sure, this prison sucks my fat one alright, but I imagine all public school detentions are similar. Then I begin to wonder how my defiant behavior all started, and why I always become so bored so quickly in school. Certainly, it's not because I'm too smart. I just compromise doing the right thing in favor of adhering to my own set of principles, half-baked though they are, and then wind up in miserable detention. Will I ever pull it together? No time soon, you bet.

   Maybe I'll start learning on my own after I hit sixteen, once they can legally expel me. It's a cinch to work, though the plan is not entirely risk-free. In a nutshell, my simple theory is this: once the school system gets rid of me, the stakes between learning and not learning will become much higher. I'll have to make a living and whatnot. Then who knows? In a decade or two I may even consider a career and return to school. . . on my own terms, of course.

 Come to think of it, there is some amusing irony to be recognized here: because of my stubbornness, anything I’m forced to do generally remains undone, yet that same task might be inviting and fun if only I had the power of choice.

 Ah, to hell with them all—I’ll do it my way; take the long way around, the hard way, the uphill way. Sure it’s stupid, but if I make it I’ll wind up stronger than the rest. And why? Because I will have paid a higher price than the rest.

 And if suffrage doesn't bury me first, it will temper me, and ultimately I'll have developed too much self-confidence to even remember what a hue looks like.

 Ring, ring goes the bell. Time for us to scramble the hell out of here. The inmates and Miss Camp head home to live their lives. I'm headed toward the woods; I need to think first about going home.

And so I begin ...

Hi, fellow readers and writers!

I've written a few things over the years, most of which disappeared when an ex-girlfriend crashed my computer. Whether or not I have any literary talent - I have no idea, but either way, I don't plan on quitting my day gig anytime soon. Becoming rich and famous doesn't really interest me. Just being read is enough keep me happy.

Recently, I was encouraged to start this blog and share my stories and to network with others.

The smaller stories I create are born when I look at photographs or paintings. A while back, I came across an old U.S. Civil War photograph of a young teenage boy in uniform waiting to have his picture taken. His facial expression and his body language told me all sorts of things, so I decided to pen my impression of what might have been going through the boys' mind as he stares into the camera.

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The Soldier

by Joseph Lupoli

Now I sit forever in this hot, humid room waiting for a light flash. For hours, it seems, I wait, still and numb. At only 15, I am prepared to die for The Mighty Cause.

My sentence is already decided by the Confederate Army.

I will die.

Surely, I would have fled had they not conditioned me into trading my life to take two so that freedom for the Great South may live forever.

Everyone sings and boasts loudly, but at night I hear anxious whispers. The Union is fast pushing south.

I wonder what would happen if I just stood still on the battlefield while everyone else thrashed about, loading and firing and stumbling and cursing? All the muskets and cannons would miss me. But no, my own side will shoot me for that.

There’s a funny yet chilling feeling in my gut as I recall that only a couple of weeks ago, I was fishing along the banks of the beloved Mississippi and skipping stones along its nearby estuaries without a care in the world. Then two important looking officers on horseback came riding tall in shiny boots and gold buttons. They told me to “Sign this paper, son, and make your mother proud!”

Pretending to know how to read and write, I looked at the tiny words on the paper and then I marked an ‘x’ after the ‘X’.

The men squared up and one boomed, “Were looking for a war hero just like you, young soldier. Follow us!"

Hurry up and take the damned picture, please! This too-tight, wool uniform itches something awful. Why didn’t I pay attention in Sunday school and later in church? Is my soul clean and good? Is it pure? I think now is a good time for a solemn prayer: God, please forgive me for stealing that ladies’ underwear catalogue from Rodger’s and Drysdale’s. And please forgive me for anything else I did wrong, too.

I wonder if the other soldiers in my outfit are as scared as I am. Our grim, dirty, hungry expressions all look the same, despite our age differences. I feel drained and swindled. God forbid if all these people in here should realize how terrified I really am. My never-ending fatigue is all that keeps me from trembling or from even allowing a big tear welling in my eye to fall noticeably down my cheek. Why do we do this? Why don’t I know anything?

At last, the light flash is seen and heard, and that little puff of smoke seeps upward. I wipe my eye.

Frozen within myself, I now wait for somebody to tell me what next to do.