Quad Squad Read online

  Tim

  If you don’t have your high school diploma you can’t be in the Marines and that basically right there is the entire explanation of why I go to school whatsoever any more. It’s not like you learn anything there, literally everybody knows that, like even the people who try and are all smart and everything know that it’s all bullshit.

  Jerry thinks he’s going to go to college and be an engineer and everything but personally I don’t mean to talk shit but I kind of doubt it. Because you have to be really smart for that stuff and don’t get me wrong he’s my best friend probably, but he just isn’t that smart, no offense. The main reason he even takes smart classes is because he wants to be in the same classes as Andrea and Sabrina and Rachel and them. He would deny it but it’s totally obvious. Andrea and Sabrina aren’t even that smart either but don’t get me wrong they’re both hot, like Andrea is beyond hot, but Rachel is nothing special. Basically she looks like a boy. She’s definitely smart, though, obviously, but if she thinks she’s hot then she’s so way off it’s not even funny.

  Although I guess who am I to say, because if I think I’m anything special then I’m sure everyone would laugh at me, but also if everyone knew how much I thought about the fact that I’m not that special they would think how pathetic I am, which would be even worse.

  But fuck school, basically. You only have to be a junior to start National Guard and I might do that instead of Marines so I don’t even have to graduate but you still have to pass the ASVAB test and I don’t even know why they bother. Like if there’s a war or an emergency and they call the Guard out, why would you need to know stuff like this?

  “At Joe’s Restaurant, one-fourth of the patrons are male and one-fifth of the patrons are from out of town. What proportion would you expect to be male and from out of town?”

  Like, what the fuck? I saw that on a sample ASVAB and honestly I was pretty bummed. Because I hate that kind of math question and there’s a bunch of other categories and I suck at that. Look, I’m not stupid, I just hate that kind of question. Teachers always ask you that kind of stuff and I hate that kind of thing. But the Guard is sick, my uncle Eduardo was in the Guard and my other uncle Nico was too, and my other other uncle Manuel was in the Marines, and if you have to figure out that kind of test question and they did it then I guess I can too. Hey, Semper Fi. That means always be loyal for Marines. Manuel has it on his shoulder.

  I hate how people think that if you’re into the military and are loyal to your country then that makes you some kind of redneck or like psychopath killer wannabe. Those people put their lives on the line for their country and they should get the most respect that anyone can get. And if I have to die in the line of duty then I think that’s just part of how it goes. Like that’s honor. I’m not saying I want to die young or anything but I just hate how everyone in Seattle is so PC that they hate the Marines and they probably wish Bin Laden was still alive although that was Navy Seals, those guys are seriously sick. Like even my mom and me were not into the Iraq war, a lot of good Americans died there for no real reason but I just think if you go and you serve then when you come back, people should treat you with the utmost respect that they have.

  I was in class and I was just checking out this site, it wasn’t that big a deal, it’s called Young Guns, it’s basically guys and maybe (I guess?) girls who are like our age but are into being in the military when they’re older.

  And Alex was all, “What is that?” because he could see my phone from over my shoulder and there was a sick video of a training course.

  “I don’t know where it’s at,” I said. “But if you can do the obstacle course in under 2 hours, that’s basically harder than anything on American Ninja and they said it’s like harder than an Olympic decathlon.”

  And Gino who sits kind of next to me but not, the row is kind of crooked, said, “That shit is sick.”

  We were kind of whispering but kind of not, because I am not kidding you I think Ms. Perez is literally deaf. Basically she gives you a worksheet and sits at her desk on her computer doing who the fuck knows what, looking at her Facebook and shit.

  The girls in bio are mostly a bunch of skinny 9th graders. I mean, I’m a skinny 9th grader and everything, but I’m just saying there’s nobody that’s that hot.

  Alex said, “Fuck, I could do that.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. There was a guy on his elbows and knees going through mud under this like wire mesh thing really fast like a long way super super fast, and then as soon as he was out he like leaped up on this climbing wall in one jump. It was so sick.

  And I’m not even kidding but Maria Esquivel was watching and I could kind of tell so I kind of tilted it a little, not a lot so I wouldn’t seem like I was trying too hard and she sits next to Alex, on the other side? And she was all, “That guy is hot,” and we all kind of half laughed because just hearing her say it was kind of like, oh we weren’t thinking about that. You could tell she wasn’t even at all doing her work and she just got straight out of her seat and came and looked right at my phone and I swear to God her right boob totally just, like, squished on my shoulder for half a second or even more, and I got all like, glad that the desk was covering my lap so you couldn’t see nothing. And then I was like thinking, oh, shit, did she do that on purpose? She totally pulled away after half a second and to be honest I had never really thought about her much because she doesn’t really do anything, but if you think about it she is kind of pretty although her earrings are way too big and now that I think about it she probably has like huge boobs but she wears like huge sweatshirts and you can’t see anything, but now I can’t get the, like, feeling of it off my shoulder.

  And I’m not even just about that. Like I hate when guys have no respect for girls. I’m not even just saying that. Like I know that I seem like this sex maniac and that’s all that I ever think about or whatever, and kind of it is, but right after she pulled off she was still like checking out the video and another one I pulled up, also from Young Guns, and I could feel her breath next to me and it was like, oh damn.

  And Alex said to her, “You like that, huh? I got some young guns you could check out.”

  And she was all, “Shut up,” and hit him on the shoulder, and he laughed all arrogantly like she was suddenly his girlfriend, and then Ms. Perez said, “Class,” from her desk without looking up and we had to be quiet for like three seconds.

  And I just think it’s so rude to just say that to her, like make a sex joke to her right to her face, and I was all going to say to Alex that he was being rude or shut up or whatever, but Maria already had sat back down and I was kind of pissed and disappointed or whatever and kind of relieved because I wasn’t exactly sure what was supposed to be happening next. I glanced back pretending I was scratching my neck and she was already braiding some chick’s hair, our whole, like, encounter was over.

  How pathetic is it that I even think that there was an encounter? I mean, I know that, I’m not stupid. I just wish I knew a way to make that happen again, but I am quite quite sure that if I just like, made conversation with her she’d totally diss me. And I’m not even that into her! I just kind of reminded myself that when she sat down and then when the bell rang.

  Especially because Jerry suddenly texted me that there was a party tonight and did I want to come and I was like who’s going to be there, but I just stopped walking and leaned against some guy’s locker who got pissed but fuck him, because if a guy says do you want to hang out that means hang out, like video games and shit, but if he says party obviously that means with girls. And Jerry was like, it’s at Andrea’s, and I was like ho shit.