The End Of Innocence

Part One - Innocence

I grew up in a fairly religious home. The only music I was allowed to listen to was 'Christian' music. There were some exceptions; DC Talk was eventually deemed acceptable to my mom once she listened past the rock riffs and heard that the lyrics were ultimately a good, Christian message for kids like me. But before that, it was mainly Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, Petra. It’s strange now, considering the blasphemous music my ears are drawn towards these days, but those artists really spoke to me in my budding youth. Michael W. Smith reminded me of John Stamos back then. He felt like a bit of a rebel in the Christian music scene with his long hair and chiseled good looks. I remember listening to one song he sang on repeat; Place In This World. I could sing it today, verbatim. The lyrics would haunt me through the days of my girlhood…

...If there are millions down on their knees, among the many can you still hear me? Hear me asking where do I belong? Is there a vision that I can call my own? Feels like I'm looking for a reason, roamin' through the night to find my place in this world, my place in this world. Not a lot to lean on, I need your light to help me find my place in this world, my place in this world...

These never felt like deep thoughts for a 10 year old. I never defined myself, or my thoughts by my age. I always looked & acted much older than I was, and that’s how people treated me. I still, to this day, consider this an epic song. It may have very well guided me down certain paths in my life and opened places in my mind I may have not been adventurous enough to explore without the help of my ruggedly handsome songbird. These were moments I look back on as pure innocence. Music can do that to you.

Wait, scratch that. Music can do that for you.

My music selection was limited as a child. I had a few select artists I was allowed to hear, with the few albums they had released. I would grab my Amy Grant Heart In Motion cassette tape and plunk it into my street sign yellow Walkman for long car rides and sporadic bicycle treks. She sang songs about being in love with life, men and above all else, God. I daydreamed about loving something so much I could create music, or something just as spectacular, for them. I even remember properly embarrassing myself by singing her song Breath of Heaven (poorly) in front of the church congregation during the holiday season. I think I've physically blocked out this memory, but there are pictures and stories that arise in the right environment, no matter how much I roll my eyes.

This was my life. Sweet, uplifting music created for sweet, loving little girls who go to church every Sunday and know nothing about the darkness of a world cloaked in the fabricated smiles of your devout peers.

We cycled in and out of quite a few churches when I was younger. The one that sticks out the most in my mind was a small white chapel with bright red front doors that would swing open with the thundering bell and organ hymns every Sunday. This would be the first church where I would learn that everyone who went to church was not perfect.

You see until I was about 6 or 7, I went to a Baptist Christian church, which was also a school. It was a good way of keeping parents and their children protected from the outside world. It was like our own little commune except we didn’t live there. It was a very precise, easy way of living. We all had rules to follow and nobody questioned anything. Girls were expected to have long hair, wear dresses, speak when spoken to and always, ALWAYS act like a lady. Which really meant, be submissive.

I’ve never been fond of rules or being told to act a certain way. I tried to behave, but the fluids of life were pumping through my veins! I didn't feel particularly girly as a child. I liked, and constantly had skinned knees, bruises and hair that looked like “a rat’s nest”, as my mother so lovingly put it. During nap time in kindergarten, I remember getting up from my cot and sneaking over to kiss the boys I thought were the cutest, and my kryptonite, the most dangerous. I realize it’s almost impossible to sort something like this out in kindergarten, but I was crafty. Plus, all I ever thought about were boys for as far back as I can remember. When I think of the bullet points in my life, I start by remembering what boy I was infatuated with to give me some kind of timeline.

In kindergarten, it was Alex. He had big, brown eyes and ashy brown hair that he kept buzzed, as most of the boys did in that school. There were no obvious distractions allowed, nothing to make you stand out. We were meant to blend and immerse ourselves in our sameness. Alex had an older brother named Adam, which happened to be chasing my older sister at the time. We thought it was cute, two brothers fooling around with two sisters. Alex and I would kiss whenever we got the opportunity. We would hold hands and team up for competitions in Bible study.

I remember moving to my public school when I started first grade. This was a huge shock for a sheltered little Christian girl like me. I came from a place of like-minded thinking and duplicated personalities. We were all alike in my little commune. We talked alike, we acted alike and we looked alike. The public school I transferred to was still fairly small, but it was where I first met and interacted with someone who was not white. It wasn’t something familiar to me and I didn’t know how to react to her. Her skin was slightly darker than mine and her eyes were not like anything I had seen before. She just looked… different.

My intrigue for her different-ness drew me to her. We became fast friends. We were always at each other’s homes, making up secret vocabulary and creating colorful cards that named who we would marry and where we would live.

She was even patient with me and forgave my ignorance when I got upset with her at a sleepover and called her black. I never knew there was Asian or Chinese or Vietnamese culture. I was only familiar with white. That’s what I was. And if you weren’t like me, you were black.

I know, I know I’m cringing, too, but that was it! That was my life, that was my way of life. I was never taught any different until I met her. And she was a saint to put up with me. We remained best friends until about 6th or 7th grade, when she truly blossomed into the beautiful woman she is today. It was a phase where she was becoming the girl to notice and I wanted to slip out of the spotlight. We remained friends though, and I always look back on those days with gratitude for her opening my eyes. I believe she was a big part in me seeing beauty in diversity of any kind and made it okay for me to explore that within myself.

The change to public school is when we found the church with the huge, crimson doors. I always get this eerie feeling whenever I think back on it. A good portion of the congregation always seemed a little… out there, for lack of a better word. I distinctly remember a frail woman with glasses, which could have easily made up half of her body weight and mousy brown, shoulder length hair that was always pinned behind her ears. She was always smiling or crying. Her husband looked like he could have been her brother, separated at birth. They both had that look like they were falling apart at the seams and this church was the only place that made them feel whole and accepted by society. I don’t recall exact events, but her husband had a horrible temper. He would yell at their children in church like a tyrant, which was always quite baffling to me. I had been taught that you are anyone but yourself at church, that you hide the anger and hatred that is boiling over for your putrid relatives until you slam the sliding door of the family van. Everyone locked in and rinsing off the lingering residue of forced smiles and mock bliss.

The family van was a great source of animosity in itself. It was the place where we would all resent preparing to be someone else. The place we would return and get scolded for wiggling in the pew, asking for too much junk food while grocery shopping. A place where we were all verbalizing our hatred for each other, only to emerge with well-versed smiles and simulated, cheerful dispositions for the company we were about to greet.

This was a weekly tradition. Every Sunday, we would pile into the van of hate and drive to our sham of a destination and pretend everything is roses. The pastor had large, bulky brown glasses that magnified his pupil and iris. He kept, what was left of his gray, thinning hair slicked back. His face and neck merged into a mass of skin. I was interested in watching him speak, only to try find where his mouth opened and to distinguish where certain facial parts may have been in his younger days. There was a large, bristly mustache that sat atop, and covered his entire upper lip. It reminded me of a walrus and I wondered how his wife was able to kiss him without coming away from it with an open wound. Rotund would be the only way to describe the rest of him. He hugged us before and after every sermon and it was comparable to hugging a hot air balloon, packed tight with marshmallows.

His wife was, what I imagine, every pastor’s dream. She had an enormous, picture perfect, toothy smile plastered on her face indefinitely. She played the organ for their choir and always had a pristine, polished way about her. She was the type of person you felt you had to be perfect around constantly. If there was a God in this church, it was most certainly her. She wore dismal plum, brown and dark green suit jackets with matching knee length skirts. The material felt like the curtains we had hanging in my living room. Her hair was short and permed with tight, golden curls. My most vivid memory of her was when I was playing in the children’s playroom. It was right next to the women’s bathroom. I watched her walk in and close the door, flashing me that Lee-press-on smile, and then release the most horrifying moans I had ever heard in my life. I was startled and felt like I should go tell someone. I couldn’t make out if she was crying or truly in pain. Just as I got up to go tell my mom that “I think her poops got stuck in her butt!” (what else could it have been?), she emerged as if she had been baking cookies with Mother Theresa herself. As if she hadn’t sounded like she had given birth to the anti-Christ right there in the toilet.

Like an unaffected puppet, she gracefully descended and smiled with a knowing eye. She shot me a look that made me question everything that had happened to that point of my meager existence. I found her forever intriguing after that moment. Like I knew something nobody else knew. I knew she wasn’t perfect.

In the lineup of people to hug and greet on the way out was an old white-haired man with a cane. He lived with, or was in relation to the pastor (I can’t remember). He had some kind of disability that was absolutely terrifying as a child. He was a round man, probably late 50’s, and he always seemed to be hunched over. Whatever the issue, he wasn’t able to speak well. I would always cringe the closer down the line I got and the closer I came to him. He had this wanting look in his dark eyes. His large, black glasses and overgrown, yellow fingernails always came in contact. It was like he was adjusting his glasses in the form of a question. “Are you ready? Huh?” It reminded me of the way dogs look when you throw a treat on the ground and then tell them they aren’t allowed to eat it yet. He just looked too excited.

I would creep just into his arms reach and he would swoop me up in his arms and squeeze every ounce of breath out of my body. I know he was probably lonely, and he probably didn’t think anything of it, or maybe he was just a super creep using this disability as an excuse to hug young girls for what felt like hours. Minutes easily passed before he was willing to loosen his grip. I would catch my breath and run to the terror van and tell my mom, “I’m not hugging him anymore, it’s too weird. I can’t even breathe and I could die!” That was a legitimate fear in my adolescent mind. That he could, literally, suck the life out of me. “I know it feels a little weird, honey, but he’s sick and doesn’t have anyone to hug him. It’s just something we have to do, everyone hugs him. Trust me; I’m not crazy about it, either.”

There was a rowdy bunch of the congregation like I hadn’t experienced before. She was a younger mom with three sons and she never came to church with a man. She talked about lipstick and wore low-cut blouses and sunglasses on her head. I don’t remember why, but I thought she was such a rebel for that. I admired her in a certain way, when I wasn’t judging her for being so disrespectful to God. I simply liked seeing a woman behave like that. And she was pretty. Her voice was raspy and she smoked cigarettes after the sermon. Her attitude and the strange sex appeal she oozed made me perk up each time she would sit near me. She was raunchy by most people’s standards, and I couldn’t get enough of it. She made for good entertainment in an environment I was perpetually disinterested in.

Her youngest boy had a fascination with flashing his penis to whoever was in the playroom. They would also swear as soon as the adults left the room. F-bombs and punchlines that could make beaten down old men giggle like 9 year-olds. I was shocked. How were they getting away with this? This was church, a sacred place and here they are screaming “FUCKDICKTITTTTTTYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!” at the top of their lungs.

This was absolutely rocking my world. People don’t behave like this. This church was a whole new experience. I felt like I had been kidnapped by my own parents and thrown into this broken down dungeon where everyone is mad.

All of these things would be an introduction to an outside way of life.

Part Two - Ugly Duckling

My body started dramatically changing in elementary school. Due to my religious background, nothing was really discussed about puberty, sex, or really anything personal. We also didn’t have the internet, so I relied on my friends and older sister to help me through the painful process of budding in to womanhood.

I like to think I was a fairly cute kid. There weren’t many physical flaws to make fun of. I had good skin, pretty hair and decent style. I ran with the popular girls in the class and never really caused any trouble. When I was younger, adults would say things like, “Look at those baby blues! She’s gonna be a little heart-breaker, this one!” Adults were always good about telling me how beautiful I would be when I got older, and I believed them. Why shouldn’t I? Besides the handful of idiotic, pre-pubescent boys in my class, no one had gone out of their way to tell me I was ugly or even unattractive.

When summer vacation was over, I returned to school to start 5th grade. I must have grown at least a foot over the break. It didn’t even fully sink in until the teacher had us form a line and I could see over everyone’s heads in front of me and behind me. I could count on one hand the kids I wasn’t positively towering over. I immediately hunched my shoulders down and bent one leg to bring me down closer to my peers.

I despised being tall.

Being tall suddenly made all of the kids notice me and give me an exorbitant amount of attention that I did not want. The most common name I heard was Sasquatch or Bigfoot. It was rare if they ever came up with anything more clever than that.

I had also developed a fresh set of tits over the summer, certainly more than any of the other girls in my grade. This seemed to highly confuse the poor, juvenile boys. They started calling me fat, along with the other humdrum names. Although I definitely had huge issues with my weight, this wouldn’t really become a problem for another couple of years. I was never a skinny girl, but I certainly wasn’t fat. I just had these newly formed flesh mounds sitting on my chest that I didn’t know how to handle. I started wearing baggy sweatshirts and did everything I could to hide them. I suppose this gave the impression that I was gaining weight. Or maybe kids just know how to hone in on every insecurity you have ever and will ever have...

I felt like my skin was on fire every day that I had to face these immature brats. Although I was not yet getting the all-day harassment that some of my other peers were enduring, it still kept me on edge; constantly worrying about my image and how I was standing, all the while trying to act like nothing these little pricks said could hurt me. These smaller insults would continue through my 6th grade year as my self-esteem plummeted and I became a festering ball of insecurity.

I was still running in a crowd of mostly popular girls. They had broken off into two separate groups at this point; one slightly more popular than the other. I was dumped into the less popular group now that I was getting made fun of a bit. Mostly, the two groups just needed to acknowledge the head bitch. That was always the case with girls like this. Knowing where you rank and knowing who is top dog so you can worship her to her face and talk about how many chips she ate at lunch behind her back. It was all petty girl shit. Constant gossiping about your 'friends' and making up fake stories about getting your period or a new bra to let everyone in the group know you weren’t the last to develop your wonderful gifts of becoming a woman.

I never had to lie about these things. I was the first to get my period and the first to get my tits. We would collectively talk about our new womanly woes and then, when we would separate, many of the girls would pull me aside to secretly tell me they hadn’t gotten their period and they were scared of what to expect. I would usually keep this quiet with the other girls. I played into the cattiness of running with this crowd, but I still had a good sense of morals instilled in me. I was still incredibly innocent.

A memory that peeks out at me often is being in my public school in the 3rd grade. We had an outside speaker come in and tell us how to protect ourselves from strangers. He showed us self-defense moves and handed out pieces of paper that listed all of the authorities we could call in case we found ourselves in trouble.

“Remember kids, if you’re alone and no one is watching you, you’re a prime target for thugs like this and you should know how to protect yourselves”, the speaker said in a stern voice.

I found my hand rising up to the air as he pointed to me and said, “Yes, sweetie?”

“Well, that’s not true”, I mumbled. “God is always watching over us.” I said in my diligently Christian-based voice.

The entire class laughed, as well as the speaker. “Sure, sweetie”, he giggled.

It was moments like these that made me keenly aware that I was weird, different, misunderstood. If I were still in my Christian school, this observation would have been applauded. I’ll even wage that the children would rise to their feet, lift me up to their shoulders and parade me around like the genius I was. My innocence was haunting me.

Towards the end of 6th grade, I was feeling a shift. Next year we would be at the high school. To me, this wasn’t just a landmark, it was trans-formative.

The school I attended was modest. There were probably no more than 100 kids in our class at any given time. Our Elementary school housed the 1st-6th grade students, which made being a 6th grader God-like in itself. You spent years awaiting the day that you would finally surpass the generations ahead of you, and finally, victoriously rise above and own what has become rightfully yours. Something about being the oldest class in the building makes you feel dynamic, vital. Like the walls might possibly crumble when you finally move on to your imminent transition.

I was feeling it all; the rush of seniority and power, the maturity of soon being in the Jr/Sr High, but also, the fear of being low man on the totem pole once again. I had to live in this, wade around in waters of now and drench myself in this short-lived confidence. It was all I had.

I started pulling away from my popular girlfriends. Who knew what 7th grade would bring? This building was bustling with kids all the way up to the senior level. How did I know if these girls would still be popular in the zenith of my awakening? I decided this would be my way out. This would be my chance to finally make a name for myself, to stop being a silly, innocent conformist and start to really experience life.

You get knocked down pretty quickly in a scenario like this. The first day, you’re full of the unknown and limitless potential. You walk through the doors where nothing is familiar. Anxiously trying to find your classroom before the bell is like aimlessly wandering through a labyrinth made of people. You half expect to see David Bowie and his hypnotizing bulge giggling at you in a corner somewhere.

I must take a moment to stress the importance of this movie for me growing up. I realize that I missed out on a lot of great movies as a kid because they were deemed inappropriate by my parents. Labyrinth was one of these movies. I finally watched this at a slumber party in the 5th grade. I always had an obsession with the fantasy of Alice In Wonderland. My imagination would constantly fall into this world when I was left alone in my colossal back yard or playing in the ravine behind my grandma’s house. I would take on the role of Alice and transform my surroundings into great adventures with hospitable characters. My head was nothing short of a dream land.

I will be forever indebted to this girl for my Labyrinth awakening. I rummaged through her cabinet full of VCR tapes, flipping past the usual John Hughes films and cartoon features. I wanted something different. I pulled down some of the aged cassettes to reveal an entire row behind them that I had never noticed before. That’s when I found it. I curiously pulled out the worn, plastic case and studied the cover.

“What’s this?...” my voice trailed off, as my puzzled mind tried to decode the plot from the artwork.

“Oh yeah, that’s Labyrinth”, she said, in a rather apathetic voice. “It’s pretty good”, she droned on while flipping through the pages of her Seventeen magazine.

Her dad chimed in “You haven’t seen Labyrinth before, Tiff?”

“Uh-uhhhh”, I said softly, opening the case and feeding it into the VCR.

“OK, kiddos, we’re off to bed, enjoy your movie”, her dad said as he pushed his wife up the steps.

He peaked his head back around the corner to yell a soft “Love you”, to which I instantly smiled back, “Love you, too!”

It was a habit of mine, and important to me, to feel like part of the family when I stayed at a friend’s house. Not in an I-want-to-wear-your-skin kind of way, but I was lacking the cozy father figure that my friends had in scads, and I liked the short lived feeling of that fatherly love.

I laid down in the middle of the floor on my belly, propped my head up with my hands and beamed at the screen in wonder as the opening credits appeared.

“The tracking, Jen! Where’s the remote, I need to fix the tracking!” I hollered and moved around the room at hurricane speeds.

“Here!” she cried, pulling the remote from between the couch cushions. “Take a chill pill!”

I grabbed the remote from her and furiously moved the up and down positions until the picture finally leveled out and almost all of the wiggled lines completely ceased. Yeah, it was a rough life back then.

I planted myself back on the floor like a dutiful cinema soldier and kept my eyes glued to the screen as my friend started to nod off.

It. Was. Glorious.

I laughed and cried and took the same emotional journey each character encountered. I scolded the evil Goblin King and snickered at each new furry accomplice that guided, or hindered the brave heroine. It felt like my imagination was being plugged into a colossal energy field and my mind was suddenly charged with creativity and fantastic imagery. This movie changed my world as I knew it.

I went home and my backyard was a vision. I had my stepdad mow out trails in the deep fields and I spent all of my free time pretending it was my own personal labyrinth. “Come on feet” became my mantra, and speaking the words would be the only way anyone would ever be allowed to enter the maze. I still feel a debt of gratitude to this girl for introducing me to such a revelation.

But now I was about to enter high school. There wouldn’t be time for these friends or make believe or childish movies. I had to think about acting older, looking older, thinking older, being older.

Part Three - Twister

I was 14 years old when the movie Twister came out. This was an epic movie for me in the timeline of my life. I would watch this movie whenever I got the chance. I loved the special effects, the characters, and of course, the fantastic tornado scenes. My fascination grew and I was seeking out any information I could find to do this for a living.

I remember my grandma asking me, “TJ, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Without hesitation, I excitedly squawked out, “STORM CHASER!” She told me recently that she wasn’t able to sleep at night knowing I could possibly have that as a career. She, literally, stayed up at night worrying. I was 14 years old.

There were quite a few good scares for tornadoes where my childhood home was. There would be sirens and the wind always felt otherworldly. It was the warmth of the gusts that would hypnotize me. The haunting dark sky felt like a morbid background for the leafless, dead trees spotted along the property line. Everything about it was seductive. I could be found in the middle of the yard with my 35 mm disposable camera, furiously snapping and winding the device, trying with all my might to somehow capture the feel through the lens and trap it in the dark box. My mom would be yelling for me to join them in the basement, but I would always hold out as long as I possibly could to try and catch a glimpse of the funnel or feel the frigid, unforgiving hail on my warm skin.

These moments before the storm, where the smell of the unknown could invade every part of my senses, these were the first moments I truly felt ALIVE. It was a rush. My face would flush and my heart would begin pumping through to the outside of my body. It was more than me. It was power and raw, unfiltered energy.

We would sit down in the basement by candlelight. My parents would try to downplay any danger and keep us occupied and entertained. They made it feel more like a secret club than a possibly life-altering event. It sounded like there was a train running by our house, through our house. The feeling that the world could end at any moment. It was never as scary as it probably should have been. The next day, there would always be large amounts of debris scattered throughout the yard. Sometimes parts of the barn would be missing, but we always seemed to get out without a scratch.

I also recall wanting to be a teacher, a scientist, an actress, a dancer, a singer, well, that was what I thought I was destined for.

A big idol of mine growing up was the 80’s icon, Tiffany. She had the legendary hit; I Think We’re Alone Now. This poppy mall princess was the girl I was aspiring to be. I had it all figured out. She was probably about 10 years older than me. By the time I turned 18, she would be too old for show business I would simply take her place. It was pretty obvious to me; we shared the same name already, so I could easily just replace her once I was old enough to be a professional singer. I duplicated her style the best I could and started to spend hours on perfecting my hair each day.

I had two older cousins that I would see on occasion, who lived in New Jersey. When I saw them for their most recent visit, their bangs had a complete presence of their own. Style moved slowly in my little town and I hadn’t been introduced to something so alluring in person before. They had hair like my favorite television and rock star icons. I immediately seized the girls and demanded that they do my hair like theirs.

First, you had to have fairly long bangs. They smoothed mine, which were ‘a little too short and might make things difficult’ over my forehead with a bright pink, fine tooth comb. Then one parted them vertically, leaving a bit more on the bottom portion, while the other cursed the fat, round curling iron for taking too long to heat up. She finally decided it would be hot enough and clamped the barrel around the upper portion, curling it upward. They only had hairspray in over-sized aerosol cans with names like White Rain and Aqua Net. She told me to close my eyes and hold my breath as she sprayed an abundance of sticky droplets all over my bangs and face. After a couple of minutes, the chemicals dried and hardened with a crispy outer shell. The next step was to tease the dense hair and douse it again with hairspray until the maximum height was achieved. The girls also liked to curl the bottom portion under, trying to leave it less sprayed and more feminine looking. I never felt like feminine worked well with my face. I’ve always had androgynous features, something in my bone structure. I felt that curling my bangs under somehow gave me more of a pretty, boyish air.

This would be my look for a few solid years. My bangs would feel like five pounds of concrete on my forehead while the rest of my hair was slicked back in a perfect ponytail, so tight it gave me headaches and even made my roots sore. But alas, beauty is pain.

I felt that this new hairstyle was a natural progression to achieving my goal to be the next Tiffany. I wondered who it might be after I would hit my impending plateau after a few years and be forced to retire.

Part Four - Charm

My junior year of high school was when I started to really break out of my shell. I refused to conform to cliques or any kind of bogus social statuses. My mind was highly advanced and the very thought of school bored me. I wanted to party, drink, laugh, escape. I clung to senior girls, anyone with a car or license. I would do anything for a laugh. Anything.

Gym soon became my favorite class of the day. The teacher was a skeleton, covered with leathery, creased skin. She was the same gym teacher all of our parents had, and probably their parents before them. The coach for the boys would drag her out on her marionette strings and prop her up on a set of cold bleachers. She was absolutely horrified by me. She was born, I believe, in the late 1800’s where there was no excuse for a lady not to act like a lady. She was meek, submissive and her eyes would swell every time someone turned her facial carcass in my direction.

“TIFFANY!” she would yell, in her understated, feeble voice when she caught me air humping the basketball, volleyball or random girl.

“WHAT?! JEEZ just shut up and go die already.”

I had a considerable disdain for this corpse of a woman. I had a considerable disdain for anyone who lacked a sense of humor. This was the one class I could totally let loose in and this woman would watch me like a hawk. She fought with me constantly, attempting to fumble towards me and scold me for being loud, abrasive, uncouth and ALIVE. I think part of her was secretly jealous that she never acted out in any way. At least, that’s what I like to think now. I allowed her to take the seemingly hours it took to get right in my face, then laugh atrociously and run away from her screaming that I was trying to get in the game and you’re distracting me!

For an old dog, she was still pretty sly. She knew she could get her moment when we were back in the locker room changing. I refused to shower in front of anyone, as most of the girls did. Mainly because our lady dinosaur would become aggressively social when we started stripping down. Maybe she just wanted to see firm, fresh, elastic flesh. Maybe she felt like one-of-the-girls when we were giggling in our t-shirts and Tuesday or Thursday print panties. My deep sense of rebellion always forced me to wear the wrong pair on the wrong day. I loved the day of the week undies, but damn if I was going to conform to the fascism of matching the appropriate pair to the actual day.

She would turn the corner just as we were exposed and at our most vulnerable. I would usually wear my favorite lipstick red push up bra that I stole from a woman I babysat for when I was younger. It made me feel like a porn star when I wore it and my gym girl army even made up the nickname 'Big Red' for the beautiful bustier. But Big Red truly made her debut on a sunny day out on the soccer fields.

We were rarely allowed to interact with the boys during gym class, but when we were able to be outside, we shared the small field as our hormones ambushed each other. The air was thick with pheromones as we assembled and pulled out the rancid, unwashed nylon jerseys to throw over our shirts. When the box of smells finally reached me, I saw that all of the red jerseys were already gone. I had to think fast. I was practically the mascot for the red team; I had to have a jersey or some kind of article to represent my un-enthralled squad! And that’s when it hit me, of course! I was already wearing the perfect article of crimson excellence!

I immediately unclasped the back of Big Red, yanked one strap over my arm, then the other, unveiling the pristine, cardinal specimen that would ultimately lead my girls to our victory! In a moment of sheer elation of my stupendous plan, I whipped the garment around over my head as if to signal “IT’S HAPPENING!!!!” to the crowd. I then quickly clasped my flaming centerpiece over my shirt and ran straight into the herd screaming

“IT’S THE RED BRA REBELLION! IF YOU’RE NOT WITH ME, THEN YOU ARE AGAINST ME! AND IF YOU ARE AGAINST ME, YOU MUST DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”

Or, something like that.

I watched the shock turn to unadulterated joy on the faces of my peers. The girls were laughing so uncontrollably, many of them hit the ground and grabbed their stomachs, as if they were having laugh seizures in the scratchy grass. Even the boys on the other side of the field were giggling and pointing in amazement. I was charging and humping anyone I came in contact with, but then… I glanced over to the glimmer of what I can only describe as pure venom hobbling towards my peripheral.

“TIFFANY MOORE! GO TO THE PRINCIPALS OFFICE RIGHT NOW!”

It was all, and everything she could muster. It was a tone I had never heard her take on. In the five full years I had known and harassed this woman, I had finally broken her in moments. I laughed ferociously and high-fived the sea of people as I jogged back towards the building.

Our principal at the time was a former teacher for years at our school. The top of his head was bald with full, little brown curls above his ears. I never had him as a teacher, but his reputation preceded any ideas we could have had about him. He was known to the entire school as a tyrant. He would make a fool of you if you were a millisecond late to his class and send you the most threatening looks I have ever seen if you misbehaved in the halls. Once he attained the role of principal that year, we accepted that our life as we knew it was over.

I spent good chunks of my high school years in the principal’s office for one reason or another. The guidance counselor and I became good friends in Elementary school, which continued to high school once he suddenly had an office there as well. He knew everyone in our little town, but was good friends with my stepdad. He would call me into his office to bull shit and get me out of the classes I despised the most. He would always have grape flavored Big League Chew bubble gum for me and we would sit in his office laughing and pretending to chew tobacco.

We provided some type of excitement for each other in the cold, sterile building. It wasn’t anything abnormal for me. I could charm anyone, especially the male teachers.

I took a machinery class my senior year because girls were driving me crazy and I knew this would be a good escape. Plus, someone told me you could make your own pot pipe and the teacher wouldn’t say anything. He was cool like that. He was also beyond thrilled that I had been interested enough in metal working to take his class. I think there were maybe 3 girls in his entire school career that had joined the class and he was absolutely smitten when I walked through the door. He gasped at everything I created and shot me a knowing smile that seemed to say, “See! Girls can do this stuff just as good as boys!”

Round would be the way to describe him with thinning, short silver hair and a full, red nose in the middle of his face. He was always wearing safety glasses and rubbed my back while I worked to let me know he was watching, and most likely, nodding in approval of whatever I was working on. It was harmless enough. He was a sweet, lonely man. I didn’t even mind hugging him back when he ran into me in the halls. I just had that effect on people.

No one was more shocked than I was when my buddy guidance counselor retired and I was old enough to actually take the heat from the principal for my misconduct. Once again, I was sent to the office so that another poor teacher wouldn’t have to deal with me in their class, and I realized for the first time, I was actually a bit nervous. Gone were the days of making fun of the hacks that would turn me away with my chewing superior. I would now have to face serious consequences for my actions from a man the entire school was terrified of.

He opened the door with a piercing look that I felt at the core of me and motioned me into his office with one, flicking finger. I sat across from him in a flimsy chair and averted my eyes to the window, as to not make eye contact. I thought for sure he could smell the fear on me, like any great beast.

“Let’s see…Tiffany Moore”, he expressed as he flipped open an overflowing folder. His eyes scoured the pages of the obese record as his head nodded in disapproval. “So, what do we think is the problem here?”

I sat in silence until he finally looked up to greet my eyes with an annoyed smirk.

“I don’t know. These teachers just don’t get me. And I’m bored, like, all the time. There’s nothing here I’m interested in.”

I was being honest, candid even, while still maintaining an I’m-just-a-loner-badass shell.

“OK, so what do you think would help with that?” he asked in a seemingly genuine reply.

“I don’t know.”

This was my immediate response whenever questioned by authority. I wanted to scream, “YOU DON’T GET IT, MAN! NONE OF YOU GET IT! You’re all the same lifeless, spineless sheep that live the same dull life day in and day out! You all forgot how to BREATHE along the way and now you’re trying to suck that air out of me!”

‘I don’t know’ was an easy phrase to frustrate adults. That gave me some kind of sense of weird pleasure. Like I knew what they wanted to hear, but I just loved watching them squirm.

“Yeah, I get it”, he laughed. “Sometimes people and school just don’t mix, but ya know, we all gotta do it.”

I looked up, slowly, so slowly that I feared anything more abrupt could somehow turn back time, and make him eat his own words. I stared at him, hopeful and nervous as to what he might say next.

“I know what you’re going through; Mr. Pennyman told me all about it.”

I paused for a moment trying to connect the dots. I had to think of who Mr. Pennyman was. It was Jeff, my old buddy guidance counselor. I only knew him as Jeff. When other kids would say 'Mr. Pennyman', I would silently giggle imagining the formalities of their encounters with him. On a few occasions, Jeff was able to coax out some issues I was dealing with at home. He was a good listener and good at making light of the things that were perpetually, secretly weighing me down.

“Ohhh…” my voice crept out as I sat up and adjusted my seat.

“He told me you were a little… different. No, no… special.”

Just the thought of Jeff gloating about my uniqueness to the threatening new principal made me blush.

“Oh did he?!” I chuckled and quickly relaxed my demeanor.

After that, I knew things would be alright again. Jeff’s ghost was living on in the school even without his physical body. And I was eternally grateful for that.

This secret bond was only made better by the unbridled fear the student body felt from this dictator. My weekly office visits with him showed me a man with great humor and the need to laugh.

This bond also made it incredibly helpful after the 'Red Bra Rebellion' scene. I stalked the halls for a bit before I made my way to the office. The haggard and irate gym teacher had already phoned the office to attack the ear of my principal and tell him to be expecting me down there, soon!

I nestled into a chair outside of his office and waited for the stern look he would always shoot me to deride the other office employees. He motioned me in and slammed the door behind me. It even startled me for a moment until he burst out into the most ferocious laughter I had ever heard.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME, TIFF?!” he squealed as he wiped his eyes with the tips of his fingers between fits of laughter.

I joined in and explained, “Hey man, we were out of red jerseys, what’s a girl to do?!”

We sat there and chuckled, maintaining eye contact with what felt like our own secret language in the howling alone.

The grown men in my school loved these outbursts of mine. It kept them on their toes; it kept them young in some way.

Once the roaring finally calmed down, he whimpered, “You know I’m going to have to do something, Tiff. She’s losing her mind over this one.”

“Yeah, I figured. It’s cool, don’t even worry about it. It was beyond worth it!” We both started giggling again.

The old, cranky bag of bones swore she would raise hell if I didn’t get at least a week of out-of-school suspension, if not expelled. He calmed her down after a while and they finally agreed on three days of in-school-suspension and I would be encouraged to eat my lunch in his office. I eventually concurred that the punishment fit the crime and served my time, passing on the lunch visits as a gentle reminder of who was really in charge here. But I didn’t hold it against him.

We remained close until the day I graduated, which, I believe to this day was due a good portion to that man. I failed almost half of my senior courses and skipped school more than I attended it.

My best friend at the time was a fucking force. There was no other way of describing her. She was a bouncing ball of energy and curiosity. She was the one truly pushing the limits of people. Her in-your-face personality and double-dog-dare-ya attitude positively enticed me. She had no problem approaching anyone with a vehicle and listing off the multitude of reasons why they should drive us wherever we wanted and go have fun and fuck this place! And she was good. Most of the times this worked. Her energy alone could have you arguing any kind of sense out of your own head to stay.

We would meet in the hallway before Homeroom and scout out our potential driver victims. We had a good amount of people we asked almost daily, but it was rare that they ever wanted to do it as much as we did. She did this when we were Juniors as well. Making close connections with seniors kids we knew didn’t give a shit and coax them into joyriding all day. She would beg and plead and even guilt them into taking us away from this horrible place, even just to drop us off somewhere if you don’t want to miss the whole day! Most days we would just walk out the side door of the building. We would laugh when we passed teachers on the way out, especially hard when it was the crotchety gym teacher.

But the best is when she would convince someone the night before school. I would get a late phone call with her voice on the other end of the line “It’s a go! Pick you up tomorrow at 8:45!”, then, ferocious laughter from her maniacal scheme working. I would wait, impatiently, telling my parents a friend was taking me to school because the bus driver hates me. My parents and little sisters would shuffle out of the house at their leisure for their daily responsibilities as I glued myself to the window in an anxious state, watching to see what car was going to pull into the driveway.

Sometimes it was kids from the neighboring school, kids we knew from local punk rock shows. Those were my favorite days. We would pile into the beat up car and drive for miles on adrenaline alone. We went to fabric stores to steal rubber stamps and little beads for the gifts we made for each other. We would try on sunglasses at dollar stores and walk right out with them on our heads and in our pockets. These days made us feel invincible, blasting Cyndi Lauper and Boy George through the tired, worn cassette deck. We drove to any city bigger than our own, yelling lyrics at stop lights to the surrounding vehicles. The world was ours for the taking.

She and I idolized riot girls like Kathleen Hanna. Our theme song was Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill. We would scream and moan the lyrics while punching the air that was bathing in our angst. We even started a short lived punk band called 'God’s Favorite Panties'. The name was truly the best part, but we were able to play a couple of local shows and could entertain a crowd. Our set consisted of little girl panties we would buy and hang up on string all around the small stage. She played keyboard while I wailed out lyrics about feminism, refusing to shave or wear makeup, all while screaming incoherently.

We were rebelling against everything. The small minded hicks we went to school with, the sheeple who would try and force us to conform and refuse our own originality. The jocks who would yell at us when she and I would forcefully make out with each other at the end of the day.

We did it to throw it all right back in their smug little faces. We did it to get them off, and they did. No matter what they were screaming at us, they would continue to watch until our little session commenced and we parted ways with an ass grab or a tit squeeze. She was forever drenched in sex appeal. Her hobbies were making out with boys & girls, and playing with peoples belly buttons. Whenever we went to a party, we were always the first ones to crush a jug of wine and recruit people for spin the bottle.

She could make people do whatever she wanted and I was consistently in awe of her. There was no excuse; you just had to be with her. She wouldn’t allow for a single dull moment until her eyes finally closed at the end of fun.

I’m still shocked, and even carefully inspected my diploma, looking for a false watermark or smudged white out. The hard-ass himself handed out our certificates of completion on the day of the ceremony. His steel, cold exterior and tough, professional handshakes shaking the gleaming young adults that walked across the stage.

Under my robe of freedom I wore a men’s short sleeve white button down shirt, a navy blue tie and a gray, pencil skirt I had made myself. I pulled up my black thigh-high pantyhose and buttoned my favorite platform leopard print heels (which I immediately regretted wearing). He called my name and I bounced down the steps of the risers with a smile of a thousand smiles packed into one. He saw me and cracked a smile for the first time around his disciples. I rushed towards him and threw his hardened, robotic hand aside giving him the grandest bear hug in the history of bear hugs. I smooched his neck and tried to lift him as he fought to control his laughter and scream whispered “I’m going to kill you!” over and over in my ear until I finally released him.

He shimmied out of my death lock and I noticed his entire face was a glowing shade of crimson, moving into a purple hue. A fat, toothy grin plastered on his face was my ultimate prize. It was his first moment of sheer vulnerability in front of the crowd and they absolutely devoured it. The pro that he is, he quickly waved his hands in a nothing-to-see-here kind of motion and continued with the next name, still a violent burgundy.

That had completed the cycle for me. It proved to me that I could do anything I wanted, as long as I could charm the pants off of whomever I would have to encounter. And I would always win.