Quad Squad Read online

  Jerry

  So you know that song Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix? So if you listen to the lyrics it’s pretty obviously about acid, like LSD. I mean, he denied it when people interviewed him but it’s totally obvious when you listen to it, the music and the lyrics, and there’s no way he could have just said that it was back then, it was illegal and everything. But here’s the thing: my Grandpa Joel made that LSD. Way back in the day he was I guess an LSD scientist and he called some of it Purple Haze and stamped it on it and everything, and they were both living in Seattle at the time, so it’s kind of obvious that my grandpa made the same LSD that Jimi Hendrix made that song about. And I just think that’s so cool. I mean, I’m not at all saying I’m big into drugs or anything but I will definitely try LSD someday once, to see what it’s like. But the point is that my grandpa made his mark, sort of. Not to make too big a deal about it, but, like, whenever people listen to that song, which they will for like a million years I think, they’ll think of his LSD, and that’s just a trip to think about.

  I would like to have that, like something that I do that stands out to people. Like my dad and me go race RC cars sometimes on weekends and it’s cool and everything, but it’s not like a lot of people know about RC cars, like I think to be totally honest with you most people at my school don’t even know that the RC stands for remote control, because a lot of people at my school are kind of not into anything that isn’t like music or girls or whatever shallow thing is on their Instagram.

  Anyways it’s not like people will be thinking about me and my dad’s RC cars a million years from now, is my point. They probably won’t even have cars, there will be like flying cars and people will live on Mars and not have human faces or whatever. It sucks that people aren’t doing anything about global warming, because if they don’t then there won’t even be people a million years from now.

  But anyways it’s actually more interesting than you think, racing RC cars. It depends what you have, obviously, but watching them race is pretty cool, a lot of guys come out, some kids but not that many, and guys drink beer and talk and whatever and race their cars. To be honest it’s sort of cool and sort of pathetic old guy mixed in. Mostly old guy, I guess, but I don’t know why, but I like it. Sometimes. My dad let me have a beer a couple of times. To be honest it tasted terrible and I had to pretend to like it and finish it and nothing, like, happened. Anyway I have an HPI E-Savage and my dad has this Kyosho Mini-Z Monster. Personally I think the E-Savage is sick, it looks way better than the Kyosho and it has way better balance and control. Like, his Mini-Z even when you’re not racing it looks like it could fall over at any minute. For real, people are always telling me that my E-Savage is sick. My dad has a bunch of cars of course but he’s mostly been racing the Mini-Z because it’s his fastest, but nobody ever says that it’s sick, at least not that I’ve heard. Anyway it’s chill, hanging out with the old guys, I mean I don’t love doing it all the time but I guess it’s not bad.

  But not that I would tell anybody that. In high school, or at least at Kennedy in 9th and in my personal experience in every grade before that, if you stick out at all for anything that people think is weird, then they never stop talking about it or teasing you or whatever. I wouldn’t call it bullying but I definitely got called names. Like, a lot of names. When you have a kind of a weight problem or whatever starting in 2nd grade you get called all kinds of names and little kids can be totally cruel. Which is why Tim and me became friends, I think, because I don’t think he ever called me any of those names that I had before I lost my baby fat or whatever it’s called. I mean, I think people still call me stuff but I just try to ignore it. We used to play Pokémon and little kid shit, me and Tim, obviously we don’t do that anymore but back in the day that shit was dope, you know what I mean?

  I mean, it’s like I guess I can tolerate if from guys, because if you’re a guy and other guys call you a retard that doesn’t mean that you’re retarded, it just means that you’re a retard, and I know it’s not cool to actual retarded people to say that, but guys just say that kind of stuff. Same with fatso or whatever, lardo or a million other names I could tell you, but like I think after a while it just kind of got to be a habit in them and I don’t take it personal or anything.

  But if a girl called me that? That would kind of suck major. There’s all these girls that are in our group that I kind of don’t even know if they think I’m fat or not but they call me and Tim Ben and Jerry, so you do the math. And I don’t even eat ice cream! Is the weird part. But it’s hard to know sometimes what people think of you and you can’t just ask. I mean obviously I’m not as fat as I used to be, but I’m not like a male model or anything.

  Like everyone thinks that Andrea is hot and she is, of course, like from a neutral point of view, but personally I think that Sabrina is hotter. So pretty. Also Naeli a little bit, I guess. But it’s not like I could go up to them and go, like, do you think I’m fat, or do you maybe think I’m cute or whatever? Whatever girls call it? I mean, sometimes it seems like we’re all friends and it’s chill, but sometimes it’s like they just either don’t remember who I am or maybe just treat me like the jolly old fat guy like Santa Claus or whoever, like hey, you can joke with him, but you wouldn’t want to, you know, do stuff with him. When we go to DQ I get a burger which I probably shouldn’t because you would be surprised that it’s a lot of calories, but I never get any fries or shake or anything like that. It would just be stupid, especially in front of all those girls, they’d be like, have another french fry, fat boy, and I don’t even...

  I was just thinking that if I was my Dad, I would totally get the Traxxas T-Maxx nitro the 3.3, it’s 10-1 and it’s so sick, and the thing is? He has the money, it’s not like we’re that poor or anything but it’s just weird how when you’re an adult you can just go buy stuff. It’s much faster than his Mini-Z, I’ll guarantee you that.

  I want to get a job soon. I’m fifteen and a half, and in Washington, maybe in all of America you can’t work most jobs until you’re sixteen. I want to be either a photographer or a chef or something like that, but people would maybe make fun of me if I was a chef, like, oh, have you been making the food or eating it, or whatever. But I haven’t really looked for jobs because like I said I’m not old enough. Anyway, my mom wants me to be an engineer so we’ll see about that I guess.

  But honestly? If I could I might want to go out with Rachel. I mean, she’s not exactly my type, even though she’s sort of pretty and she has a cool voice but she has no tits. I’m not saying that to be mean, it’s just obvious. Also her butt is shaped kind of weird, kind of not exactly too skinny but bulgy in the wrong places, does that make any sense? Anyway, I really like Rachel, because she’s really cool to people. Like not just to me, to everybody. Like if she sees a dog on the street I’ll bet she stops to pet it. Honestly I would kind of like to just talk to her more and see what’s up. Because she’s totally not judgmental. She never would ever call a person fat, I can tell you that. She seems also totally like the kind of girl who if you told her you were into RC cars wouldn’t be all judgmental about it. Also she smells good, I know that for a fact because I sit right behind her in Accelerated English which I’m not even that accelerated but Rachel is ridiculously accelerated, but everyone knows that, she’s read like a million books, but she smells like I don’t know how to describe it. Now that I think about it maybe it’s like a perfume or something that girls put on themselves, maybe on her hair because that’s what I usually smell sitting behind her, but anyway to me she smells like those flowers, the little ones with white flowers on them, that smell so good. It totally is sexy so it kind of makes up for all the ways that she’s not really that hot. But like I said, super nice. She helps me sometimes on class work and shit and she’s totally helpful and she smells so good I want to, like, smell her shoulder up close or something. Not being weird, I wouldn’t do it! I’m just saying. Like, that smell makes me want to do something, like, physical with her, and every
thing like that.

  I forgot to say that I’m only going to get a job like I said if being a skateboarder doesn’t work out, but I kind of think it will, straight up. Like I have honestly only been skating for serious for about six months or maybe maybe two more months than that, and already I’m pretty much the best skater at Kennedy. I’m not just saying that, Karen and Naeli said it too, like right to my face, and they posted me skating, which was cool. You can get sponsorships and everything, which I am definitely going to do. Right now my phone is messed up because I dropped it but once I get my dad to take it to Verizon I’m going to go around to skate shops for sure.

  They kind of shouldn’t smoke so much, Karen and Naeli. Like, everybody smokes, but personally after a certain point I don’t even enjoy it anymore. I think there’s a difference between a person who smokes because it’s fun and a person who does it too much to cover up how bad they feel because their life sucks, and I think that’s what those girls are doing. It’s kind of problematical.

  I think that Karen’s dad is mean to her or something? I’m not exactly sure, I kind of half overheard people talking about it, like Maya and Sabrina and them. I forgot to say that Maya is also pretty hot. It goes Andrea hottest, then Sabrina for most guys I would estimate, but for me reversed, and then Maya third. Like I don’t think her dad beats her or anything, nobody said that, but he’s basically extremely uncool. I don’t know exactly the details but I know that she gets pretty sad about it. I mean, I would. Not everyone has a cool dad and I’m not saying my dad’s all that cool but we can talk about stuff and he’ll help with homework if he knows what it’s about and since my mom -- anyway, we can hang out and race RC cars and all that stuff and I guess I wish Karen had that.

  But it’s like, I just don’t get why everybody gets so worked up about everything. Like things will work out, is how I like to look at it. People get way too majorly upset about everything and I just think it makes them feel worse to focus on the negative. Seth didn’t get on varsity and it was like being around a suicidal depressed maniac for a week, he wouldn’t shut up about it, how stupid they were for not taking him and everything. Him and Bryan tried out and they wanted me to but I was like no thanks because A. I would like to keep my brain and not have concussions, and B. If you’re kind of sizable or however you want to say it then they put you on the offensive line and that’s boringer than anything. Also C. The games are on Friday nights, which is when RC races are.

  Half the guys in our grade would have tried out but their parents wouldn’t let them, is I think true. I personally think that it’s crazy that they let you play although to be fair it’s not like everyone gets a concussion but one thing that is true is that girls like guys who play football. Like if you don’t understand that or think it’s untrue then I just feel sorry for you because it’s so obvious. I think Eric C. got on JV and I was watching him and Sabrina hanging out and it made me ill, to be quite honest with you, like I was going to puke right there, but then I was like, don’t focus on the negative.

  It’s just that -- I don’t know.