Bedhead Baldy, my Very Best Friend

It’s what everyone in the 6th grade calls him, thanks to myself, and it’s often shortened in silly ways for simplicity: Bed, Baldy/Baldo/Baldoid, Bebal. The full name never goes out of style anyway, because it’s just that hilarious. I don’t even know when I came up with it. One day, it just showed up at school. I’m kind of our grade’s class clown.

Cory Aronbald – yes, that’s his real, unfortunate name – was my longest friend by a lot until earlier today. I’ve known him since the 2nd grade when we started riding the same bus. He sat in front of me, and that’s how it all started.

His greasy, matted dark hair holds the tiniest bit of wave in the back of his head that, from a distance, resembles no more than just a few knotted bumps. The oil built up from the lack of a good, deep wash probably weighs down its natural texture. His head pretty much looks like a badly made, double chocolate sundae with no exciting toppings mixed in – hence the Bedhead – and I’m being nice. It really just looks like shit in an ice cream bowl.

Right on the back of Cory’s head, just a few inches above the nape of his reflective white neck covered in bite-sized freckles, resides a bulging bald spot – hence the Baldy – that his flat hair can’t ever cover up. It sticks out the most in gym class when he takes his baseball cap off for crunches and situps. Hell, it even turns a blistering bright red – very Rudolph-esque – from the Sun’s beating heat when it’s extra hot outside for the annual mile run.

The two of us started hanging out with the rest of the guys – some of the popular kids –  a grade or two ago because I make them all laugh. And Cory, of course, has always just been along for the ride.

I never fail at singling out Cory when our school pictures show up on our desks to take home. Cory, on the other hand, always fails at hiding his picture from me, no matter which place he puts it – his backpack, the inner part of his desk, his yucky mouth, he’s running out of hiding spots nowadays – I always find it and tease him to shreds. Mr. Dumb Teacher, our double whammy homeroom and World History teacher, always rolls his eyes. The rest of the guys always cackle with one another in their seats while I stand around feeling proud of myself for thinking I made them laugh.

I thought Baldy enjoyed his nickname until earlier today. He’s never made a fuss about it, and it’s not like we leave him out. Me and the guys all partake in afterschool video game grinding sessions that occur daily at my house, and Baldo’s always invited. Duh. Yesterday I even let him pick out what game we’d play – Donkey Kong Country Returns, a very hard game  – and the snack – apples and peanut butter, a very healthy snack – and the rest of us went along with it, even though I’m pretty sure we all prefer very easy games and very fatty snacks.

What middle schooler wouldn’t?

When I teased him for having the worst taste of literally any 6th grader ever, he just stuck his tongue out and said with a smirk, “You’re still playing the game and eating the snack, aren’t you?” The guys, as per usual, just laughed really hard to themselves. When I finished up my act with a side eye and a funny face towards them, they all laughed even harder, punching each other in the arms.

Bebal just makes the teasing too easy. Like it’s his fate, plain and simple. Like how I’m the class clown. It’s not like he doesn’t accept his role, and besides, what friend group doesn’t have that one friend who gets picked on more than the rest?

Baldy’s an only child. His parents, the artificially sweet and attractive Mr. and Mrs. Aronbald, don’t mind the teasing their son takes, and sometimes even join in as they overhear it happening. Especially the Mister.

Last week, I was hanging out with Bed at his house, and Mr. Aronbald waltzed right in as he tends to do – he’s the flamboyant type – while the two of us sat on their designated basement couch, the shapes of our butts imprinted into the cushions where we always sit. Him and me were playing New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii with a pair of bootleg remotes, and Baldoid biffed a major boss level by falling off the floating platform feet first into the fat pit of lava below.

Mr. Aronbald stayed quiet by the basement door, leaning against its egg white frame with his arms crossed, like he was waiting for me to pounce on his own kin. I saw him cross one of his ankles behind the other out of my peripheral vision. So, as if on cue, I blew an audible amount of air out of my nostrils with a smile before letting Baldo have it.

“Bed, maybe you oughta just give your Wii remote to your dad,” I gestured with my head to the tall figure, who also happens to have the fullest head of hair in the Aronbald family – and, I admit, in the room – across the room.

“The way you’re playing, I’m starting to think your bald spot could do better than your hands!” I grinned, trying to contain myself just a little bit, to which Bebal punched me in the arm in response, to which, in response to that, I broke out in a full-fledged laugh attack while he laughed with. Out of the corner of my eye, again, was the tall, thick-haired silhouette slapping one of his knees. 

Amidst Baldo’s laughing – which sounded forced, looking back on it – he gave the nastiest looking glare to his dad using his big black eyes. With any other skin tone they still would’ve managed to pierce right through their target, but the porcelain shade of his face, cracked with cystic pink zits like rotten cherries on top, gave them an even deeper effect in contrast.

Those soulless black eyes, alongside his bushy, furrowed brows the same sad color as the unkempt hair on his head, seemed so hateful in that moment, and so fast that I still don’t know how I even caught it. What I do know is that his mouth remained in its happy, chuckling position the whole time. I guess this is when I should’ve started questioning Baldoid’s true feelings, but I didn’t. Not until earlier today, anyway.

During our 3rd period World History Class with Mr. Dumb Teacher, at around 10 am, Baldy sits at the desk a few people ahead of me everyday. Earlier today, that shiny, hairless spot was on full display for 50 minutes since he left his trusty baseball cap at home. Big mistake, buddy.

I daydreamed about me being funny. A great idea dawned on me while Mr. Dumb Teacher droned on and on about Ancient Mesopotamia: it was my best one yet! The guys would get a real kick out of this one for sure.

I was going to take my black and white printout worksheet of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that we were supposed to be coloring in with crayons – we are 12, not 5, stop worrying about your highschool football team and start worrying about your middle school kids, Mr. Dumb Teacher – and fold all of its corners and edges so sickly and so slyly so that it forms the shape of an airplane. A fighter jet, to be specific.

Going right for the center of that scalpy, fleshy spot.

Crinkle, rip, fold, crease, more fold, and done!

I used the plane’s dimensions – I got its dimensions by eyeing it up and down for a few seconds – to try and calculate the precise amount of airtime needed to land on the exact center of Bed’s bald spot. It doesn’t need to go that far, only a few feet. That’s what it looks like, anyways. But I could totally make it go further, I’m pretty good at making paper airplanes and other things out of paper and—

Doink.

Perfect!

“Bullseye!” I whispered just loud enough for Baldy to hear and for the guys around us to start cracking up. It was epic! Yet, all of a sudden, Baldy got up on his two flat feet, scooting his chair out as loudly and as slowly as humanly possible.

The class was officially interrupted at this point, so before he even started berating me, I felt my cheeks – no, my entire face – turn as red and as clammy as his bald spot gets when it’s extra hot outside during that mile run. It was humiliating, and he hadn’t even started talking yet. The other kids in class that surrounded me, even the ones that weren’t paying attention to any of this, fell quiet, and their eyes widened with fear for my outcome. I could feel it…

…except for the guys, who I noticed were trying very hard to hold back their snickers, which at that point would have been pretty inappropriate. Did they not care that we’re all friends? We’re all friends, right?

Growling shot up from Cory’s body, so loudly it’s like I could feel the noise vibrating throughout the room, even after he stopped. I was half expecting my desk to start shaking like it had just been the victim of an earthquake.

“Hunter, you rat of a friend,” he murmured, just loud enough for everybody to hear. My mouth gaped open, just a little. I didn’t wanna embarrass myself by letting it gape open all the way. The guys were making those noises with their noses, the kind that happens when someone tries to laugh without opening their mouth. The kind that I did to try and impress Mr. Aronbald before I let Baldo have it.

“I don’t know why you’re so mean to me, and I don’t know why I’ve been so quiet about it for so long, like a little…” I watched, mouth still gaping, wider now, as tears welled up in those black eyes of his, no longer soulless.

“...like a little bitch, man! You say you’re my best friend, yet you’ve made my life worse and worse, every single day, for the past however many years! I feel like your little bitch–”

“Cory, watch your language.” Mr. Dumb Teacher said with zero excitement – almost sarcastically – in his voice whatsoever. I could tell this wasn’t his first rodeo, but that didn’t really help, because it was obvious he’d given up interfering with these sorts of things, and Cory didn’t really seem to be paying attention to anything else but what he was spitting out anyways. I started trying to find some words to respond with, but he wasn’t done. Oh no, he was still going. Cut me right off!

“I just don’t know how else to say it. We’ve always been friends, and the other guys just use you for your video games and your snacks while you use me as your sad little punching bag to make them all laugh…” I don’t even know if he took breaths in between all of this, because at this point his pale, white face had turned purple. Was it true?

“...but they all just laugh at you, at me! You really think that they think you’re so funny, Hunter?” He caught his breath in short, angry huffs.

I mean, yeah dude, I think I’m hilarious. I’m the class clown, after all.

But I say nothing.

All the guys, still laughing to themselves, paused for a second. Then they looked at each other, then at me, then back at each other, cheeks red and puffed with air. One slammed his fist on his desk over and over again while closing his eyes. Another covered his mouth while rocking back and forth.

Was it true?

“I’d call you dumb, but I feel even dumber. Isn’t that something?” Cory hissed, “Just leave me the Hell alone for now on. I’m serious!” He took a deep breath, “I think I’m finally done now. Thanks.” He said to Mr. Dumb Teacher. And that was that. He was finally done.

The silence in the room felt loud enough in my brain to blow out my eardrums. I felt dozens of pairs of eyes, including the ones belonging to the guys, from all angles of the classroom. On each other, Cory, myself, and my sad paper fighter jet on the floor beneath Cory’s empty chair. I actually think Mr. Dumb Teacher’s mouth fell open a little bit – I saw him wipe some drool off of his beard scruff with his shirt sleeve when he thought nobody was looking. If it was from shock or from boredom I’ll never know.

Cory might’ve been done talking, but had one last trick up his sleeve to top everything off – or topple everything down – he got up, stomped on my paper airplane, and twisted his shoe on its remains so that the poor thing actually tore to shreds. Then he stormed out of the classroom, slamming the door shut behind him so that it echoed and made even the kids with the big headphones over their ears jump. The stomping of his footsteps down the hallway faded out after some seconds that felt like some of the longest I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

Out of plain embarrassment, I also got up and left when I was sure he was out of the vicinity without saying anything to the rest of the class. I’ll email Mr. Dumb Teacher about this all later. What a joy that’ll be. Maybe he’ll think I’m funny for it.

I’ve spent the rest of the class period thinking a lot about things in a shitty school bathroom stall, which is where I am now. I guess I’m keeping my distance from him and also calling him Cory from now on. Jesus, I’m definitely calling him Cory from now on.

Does anybody else even call him those things? I thought so.

It’s just that hilarious, right?

Whatever. I’m super glad I didn’t leave anything at his house the last time I was there, though. That would’ve been really awkward.

Flute for Thought

This is humiliating.

I started playing the flute in the first grade, when I was about 6 or so, and I actually picked it up pretty quickly.

So much so that I just as quickly became the first person in my entire (albeit, small,) family to ever learn an instrument, at least ever since I’d been born, which sounds pretty cool, but I was a shy kid, so I didn’t play in front of my family members for a while. They were so supportive of me, but the thought of disappointing just one of them scared me more than anything else, even if that was pretty hard to do, in retrospect.

Mom would try to overhear me play sometimes through our shared wall (her bedroom was right next to mine), but I didn’t really like that. And Lily would pretend like she wasn’t sitting right outside of my bedroom door as I opened it up after a long, couple hours practice, so I formed the habit of not playing at home at all unless I knew that I was absolutely, completely by myself.

But that was still pretty often; Mom worked both days and nights ever since Dad fell out of the picture (I don’t remember him), and Lily’s older than me and did lots of afterschool activities, like track and volleyball and cheer and basketball, so she would often just catch a ride with one of her friends and come home much later than everyone else. And Paul’s way older than me, so by the time I even started playing the flute, he had already moved out of the house and attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, leaving his room behind for us to use as yet another storage space for more junk (Mom was a hoarder in denial), and it became the True Gal Pal Nation: Mom, me, and Lily.

So, to my family, the flute really just became a thing that I did at school, and I’d probably quit it in a few years anyway, and I’d get busy with different things as I got older that I’d show off more often (sports, academics, friends).

But I knew that Mr. Kibble, the lead band director for my elementary school, saw something special in me, and after a year or two, I must’ve started seeing what he and all of his assistant directors saw too, because I never really did get busy with different things as I got older (sports, academics, friends).

All through elementary school I played the flute; Mr. Kibble put me in the honors band (finally), and I took lessons as part of the curriculum at my school. I practiced everyday during school for an hour, along with practicing even more at home, regardless of if I was alone in the house or not. I enjoyed it so much that I could finally show it off, and I felt like I was the best flute player in my school, by far.

And, maybe for a little, I was right.

The living room (or what we could see of it, anyway) became my stage, and all kinds of different people (Mom, her friends, Lily, and her friends, and sometimes even Paul, too, if he was around) became my audience. I was the star, and everyone loved it (they thought it was cute). This made me like playing the flute even more, naturally.

Early baroque music, specifically Monteverdi, is what I felt most drawn to when I played alone or during school practices, but when I played in the living room, I tended to keep it lighter with well-known, easier songs that, when a child played them, got everyone going, like Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” “Take On Me” by A-ha, and the spiciest rendition of “Hot Cross Buns” that you’d probably ever heard.

The crowd always went wild for it.

Eventually, in turn, I tried this newfound trick on my two newest (and only) friends, Anita and Mary, at the beginning of the fourth grade, on the playground during recess. We all became friends because our moms were PTA members. I played songs everyday that I thought were funny, like Offenbach’s “Can Can,” and the Star Wars Theme (I’ll admit, there wasn’t much variety,) to try and make them both laugh.

I thought it was fun for them at first, but they must’ve started getting bored, because they threatened to leave one day to go play foursquare instead.

In bed that night, I thought about what I could do to solve the problem.

The following day, I tried playing them the family approved classics (Beethoven, A-ha, spicy buns, the ones that were supposed to keep the crowd rolling!) but it didn’t work. Anita yawned once or twice, and Mary was nice enough to fake her laughter, but it wasn’t that convincing, not even to a fellow fourth grader.

It was official, they had gotten bored. And they both left soon after to go play foursquare instead. Mom didn’t sacrifice much time to being a PTA member and just sort of abandoned it for paid work, so we all fell out of touch.

Our moms stayed friends on Facebook, though.

The flute never stopped being fun for me.

Middle school I played the flute, high school I played the flute, flute, flute, flute….

I had band classes everyday. I was in the marching band, the concert band, the jazz band (and flutes are, like, never really in jazz bands, so they made a part just for me because I was so determined, and also still the director’s pet, too, thanks to all the good things Mr. Kibble had told the high school ones about me), basically, if it involved playing the flute, I was probably there. And we had a pretty decent music program, so I was especially able to become one with my instrument.

I truly grew to love it, and I didn’t want it any other way. I didn’t have many friends, but I didn’t really care. I just loved what I did, just as it was, and it was all whatever, right? Well.

Mom thought my hobby was cute as a kid, but she quickly turned me away from the idea of implementing the flute into my future. At least once she realized that I had gotten to the age where that’s what I thought about the most (What the hell am I going to do with my life?).

“There’s no money there, darlin’, unless you really strike it big somehow,” Mom said to me once in my junior year.

She’s from a small town on the border of Oklahoma and Texas, so she tends to speak like she still lives there.

“Like, lucky lucky, like some talent agent was out at one of your concerts, lookin’ for a hot young flutist or somethin’, but no talent agent out here lookin’ for a hot young flutist or nothin’, ‘cuz that just don’t happen.”

I looked at her, a little puzzled, then chuckled, “Oh, so you don’t think I’m hot enough Ma?”

“You know that ain’t what I’m sayin’,” Mom didn’t think this was funny.

“I know,” I said, confused. “Where’s this ‘money,’ then, to you?”

“I dunno, like, business,” Mom had her own little Eureka moment. “You should major in business!”

Mom and I got along on most occasions, but we had very different ideas of what ‘money’ meant.

To me, the flute was the money, even if that meant I’d actually never make that much. Not physically, anyway. It’s what I enjoyed, and if that’s what it took to make me happy, then that’s what I felt like made the most sense for me to pursue as a career. Afterall, everyone’s always told me while growing up that it’s the things that make you happy in life that really matter the most.

So why not make a little money from it too, right?

Mom didn’t think like that. She did what she could to make ends meet, but she loved her material possessions. So much so that she stopped caring about how it affected the entire family’s environment and just kept buying. Buying, buying.

To her, it’s her possessions that matter the most in life, and what better way to get more possessions than to save and earn as much money as possible? That’s why she always worked both days and nights.

And somebody still had to fuel that desire to buy every single little tangible thing in the world when she was no longer able to work both days and nights. All so she could continue filling to the brim our already very average-sized house with it all; Like she’d done the whole time, which was why we needed to be concerned about money in the first place!

I ended up thinking about what Mom said, and absorbing it, and I found myself in my senior year taking more business classes instead of music classes: calculus instead of jazz, statistics instead of concert, marketing instead of marching, the like. I tried to rack up my AP credits. I applied to colleges that were further away than what I had initially anticipated wanting to do.

I had less time for the flute.

One day, right after I had finally turned 18, I got my acceptance letter from Rutgers, and with all of the credits I had planned to transfer in, it was actually affordable enough! I celebrated all my hard work paying off with Mom and even Lily (who had already moved out and attended Creighton University at that point, partly on a basketball scholarship) and Paul too, because they were all so excited to see me move somewhere bigger than Nebraska, since none of them ever did it, and I actually began preparing for my future. I’d gotten quite business savvy, told myself and others that it felt like a new beginning, but Mom still didn’t seem all that impressed.

“Look at what Anita and Mary’s moms are postin’ on Facebook, oh, they look like they got some shiny sports scholarships or somethin’,” Mom said once. “That’s how you make the real dough! Do you still talk to ‘em anymore?”

“It’s been years, Ma.”

“Why ain’t you get any scholarships?”

(Maybe because I quit what I was best at to try and support you, and you still don’t act like it’s enough) I never told her how I really felt, at least not effectively, anyway.

I finally graduated high school, spent my summer days saying goodbye to Mom, whose hoarding problem had already started spilling into my emptying room, and Lily and Paul, and I began thinking about where the flute would fall into it all, if at all.

But it wouldn’t (and it didn’t).

And the worst part of it all? I never once stopped thinking about the flute even though I’ve been tricking myself into thinking I had all these years.

I graduated from Rutgers last spring with a business degree, and I’m currently planted in the East Coast, alone.

It’s humiliating.

I listen to early baroque music through my bulky headphones.