FICTION: JAY SMITH'S BAD DAY

Jay Smith strolled from his shuttle bus, up the cracked concrete path toward East Shoaker High. He had the feeling this might not be Ins day. When he had gotten up, he had tried to make his way to the bathroom without turning on any lights and had painfully stubbed Ins little toe on a bookshelf. His yell then awoke his 9-month-old sister, who promptly woke the rest of the neighborhood. Then when he was ready to leave, his car wouldn't start again. He had to ride the bus, whose cigarette smoke, noise, and blaring music usually made him nauseous.

Now, as he entered the door, he passed the science lab and suddenly remembered that he had an important lab quiz that morning which he had forgotten to study for. He was engrossed in thought as he loped down the hall. Suddenly a hard impact racked his frame. He focused his eyes and saw the awful truth. He had just knocked down Cathy Johnson, a gorgeous senior cheerleader, who he had always secretly adored.

"Cathy, I'm sorry!" he cried, attempting to help her up. She got up herself, wincing in pain, holding her wrist. Jay knew she had just gotten it out of a cast after breaking it during basketball season. She kicked him viciously in the shin and marched off. Picking up his am bag, Jay continued on.

Suddenly Jay heard heavy footsteps behind him. He turned to see the school's star fullback, Bart White, running full speed down the hall, in pursuit of a small boy in a windbreaker. Jay froze. Both boys ran over him. As he lay sprawled on the floor, Jay saw the principal, Mr. Calhoun, standing nearby, laughing at him. After gathering himself up, Jay went on with a slight limp.

Rounding a corner, Jay came face-to-face with Kelli Masterson, his ex-girlfriend. After going steady for three months, they had broken up over the weekend. She was walking arm-in-arm with Jay's best friend Chad. She was wearing a Bulls windbreaker that Jay bad loaned Chad. They both laughed at Jay as they walked by.

"Curt Snyder!" bellowed a voice from right behind him. "I've bow looking for you!"

With that a strong arm whipped Jay around and a powerful fist smashed into his jaw, sending him sprawling into a row of lockers.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" cried Jay's attacker, a huge, musclebound wrestler, helping him up. "I thought you were somebody else!"

Not wanting to upset him again, Jay quickly accepted his apology and staggered away. He limped down the hall feeling dazed. He walked past the breakfast booth by the home economics room, barely noticing the aroma of brownies and doughnuts.

"Jay," came a voice from the stand. "Jay!"

Suddenly Jay snapped out of his trance and looked over. In the booth stood Tammy Fregosi, an attractive brunette who had sat by Jay in keyboarding first semester.

"Would you like to try our new brownies?" she asked, shoving one into his hand. Realizing he had no choice, Jay bit down and winced a pain surged through his mouth. He suddenly realized that the punch in the mouth had loosened a tooth.

"Oh, I can't stand it!" he cried, referring to the pain in his teeth.

"Oh is that so?" Tammy shrieked, abandoning the stand and throwing down her apron. "I hope you know I stayed up all night baking those, just so you ... you ... oh, I should have known!"

Jay looked on dumbfounded as she pitched the remaining brownies in a nearby garbage bin, tears flowing down her face. Before Jay could explain, she gave him a vicious kick in the knee and stalked away. As Jay lay rolling in agony on the floor, another girl explained that Tammy secretly had a crush on him and had volunteered for breakfast duty just to get him to try her cooking. Jay nearly laughed as she helped him to his feet.

Jay hobbled on. He was beginning to wonder if he would live to see first hour.

"Jay," came another voice, "wait up!" It could only be Bill Curtis -- who only came around when in need.

"How's my main man today?"

"I'm afraid I'm broke, Bill."

"What do you mean by that?" Bill shrieked. "Just because I speak to you, you think I want something! I don't have to take that kind of insult!"

"Besides," he continued. "I can borrow the money from somebody else!"

Jay sighed a long sigh. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. He'd run to class. Maybe -- just maybe -- he could out-run his problems. He took off sprinting down the hall. As he rounded a turn, however, he was involved in another collision. This time, to Jay's horror, he discovered that he had knocked down four-foot eleven-inch PE teacher Billy Roosevelt. The pint-sized Roosevelt was a hot-tempered terror.

"You stupid idiot!" Roosevelt bellowed, giving him a swift kick in the rear and omitting a few choice words. "What are you trying to prove?"

He then followed Jay some 20 yards, screaming at him as he passed the freshman lockers. Jay could see a bunch of ninth grade girls point at him and laughing.

"Jay!!" cried a high-pitched nasal voice, moments later. Jay winced, recognizing it as the voice of Sheila Eltrick, the school gossip expert.

"I heard you and Kelli broke up," she said. "Such a shame! But I knew it was gong to happen! I just knew it! But guess what?"

"What?"

"I've got the perfect girl lined up for you. She just adores you!"

"Really? " gasped Jay, suddenly interested. "Who?

"You'll just be perfect together, Jay. She likes sports, too, and she's a good cook, and a really sweet person."

"Who, who?"

"In fact, she stayed up all night baking brownies for you! She's in the breakfast booth now. You'll never guess who ... Jay ... Jay, where are you going? Don't you want to know who it is? Jay?"

Jay was beginning to feel ill as he trudged off, leaving Sheila flabbergasted.

Soon Jay's first hour class loomed in front of him. Just 20 more feet remained. Fifteen ... 10 ... five ...

Suddenly Valorie Jaahoirst, a foxy blonde exchange student from Norway, came into sight, right in front of him.

"I did it! I did it!" she was screaming joyfully to some friends nearby, leaping up and down excitedly, waving a shot-put. "I broke the school record!" Suddenly it slipped from her fingers, sailed several feet through the air and landed on Jay's toes. He had finally given in to the sandal craze and was wearing a pair for the first time that day when the 16-pound shot bounced off his unprotected toes and began rolling down the hall.

Jay let out a wail of pain and danced on one foot, clutching his throbbing toes.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "You poor thing!" She walked over and gave him a sympathetic kiss on the cheek.

"Aha!!" came a bellow from down the hall. Looking up, Jay gasped in horror to see Gregg "Death" Rowe, a 270-pound all-state tackle, who was going steady with Valorie.

"I knew you was foolin' around behind my back," he cried. "Now I've finally got the miserable little creep!"

With that he grabbed Jay and began damming him into a row of lockers, then socked him viciously in the stomach, stomped his sore toe and head-butted him in the stomach. Finally Valorie was able to convince him that nothing had happened. Jay crawled the rest of the way to class and dragged himself into his seat.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Mr. Monroe, a young teacher known for his needling. "Too much boozing and carousing last night?" He cackled with laughter. Jay groaned and lay his head on his desk.

Fifteen minutes Later the bell suddenly let fourth a loud continuous ring.

"Tornado drill!" yelled Mr. Monroe. "Everybody to the basement!"

Jay followed the rest of the class down the hall, down the battered old staircase and into the basement. There in the sweltering heat he had to stand by Gavin Green, the one person in the school he simply could not stand and listen to him make fun of his new haircut.

On the way back to class, Jay stopped to get a drink and was sent to the office by Mrs. Graham, a 78 year old substitute teacher, whom many thought was getting senile. So in he went to see Mr. Ralph Fischer, the much despised vice principal, who was known by the students as "Bass-Face."

"Well Mr. Smith," gloated Fischer, after Jay had entered, "This is the second time you've been in here this month. What was it this time?" Jay quickly explained what had happened.

"Well, do you think l should let you off -- again?" asked the arrogant Fischer.

"Well, Mr. Bass -- er, I mean, Mr. Fischer - I certainly would if I were you."

"What did you start to say?" Fischer asked. "'Mr. Bass-Face?' Maybe a week of ISS will help you better remember my name!"

On his way out of the office, Jay tripped over something and went flying head-first into the faculty mailbox. When he looked up, he saw Tammy Fregosi smiling evilly at him.

"I hope you broke something!" she cried.

"Tammy, I've been wanting to explain that to you all day," Jay said urgently, the room still spinning.

Before he could say more, she marched past, stepping on his hand with her spiked heel, as she did.

Jay was a few minutes late reporting to his next class, PE. When he walked into the gym, grizzled old Coach Thackberry had just begun demonstrating boxing techniques. He eyed Jay.

"Smith, come 'ere!" he barked. Jay stepped up to Coach Thackberry, who he knew had once been a Golden Gloves boxing champion.

"Now pay attention class," he growled. "You never hit below the belt, ... like this..."

"000000000F!!!" gasped Jay, doubling over.

"You always want to make solid contact with the main part of the glove -- like this ..." He sent Jay reeling to the floor again.

"Never use the side of the glove -- like this ..." Jay picked himself off the floor again.

"You don't understand?" Coach Thackberry said, as a chubby freshman gave a puzzled look. "Here, I'll go through it again . . ."

---

Twenty-year veteran Garry O'Toole was reclined in his swivel chair, behind the main desk of the Ninth Police Precinct. He was reading through a manual recently published by the state.

"Would you believe this?" he said to his friend, Sergeant Frank Womack. "The crime rate for the 12 to 15 year old age group has gone up 27 percent in the last two years!" Womack whistled.

"The kids today have just turned rotten," O'Toole growled. "I'm sure glad mine grew up before everything started getting so bad.

"I'll tell you what the problem is. Kids today have it too darn easy. When I was a kid, I bad to walk six miles to school every day until high school. Then I had to pay for my own gas! Them kids get everything they want. Roller blades? You got it! VCR? You got it! A car as soon as they turn sixteen? You got it! None of them knows what it means to suffer a little bit, like we did. That's the cam of the problem right there. If ..."

He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. He answered it. In a moment his jaw dropped open with shock. He hung up, sadly shaking his head.

"It's amazing," O'Toole said, shaking his head again. "We were just talking about lads today, and here I get a call that a high school student at East Shoaker just attacked a gym teacher ... tried to shave a boxing glove down his throat!"

His partner shook his head.

"I'll tell you," O'Toole said, as he picked up the radio to dispatch a car to the scene, "it's just like I said: if that kid had ever suffered a little bit, this never woulda happened!"

The other officer nodded his head.