Even though we were out of district I wanted to go to Highland High School. We used my brother's address so I could go there instead of Albuquerque High which is the district I was really in. This was the school my oldest brother, sister-in-law and sister had all graduated from and it was where I wanted to go as well. My other brother graduated from Eldorado which at the time was the "rich kid school" soon to be replaced by La Cueva...but anyway...I had no urge to go be the poor kid in a rich school again so Highland it was.
The fact that my sister had gone there presented a few challenges at first. She had ended up at Highland when Eldorado kicked her out. Highland was the only school that would take her with her already impressive record for a freshman, but there were conditions. For instance, she and my dad had to go meet with one of the vice principals weekly at first then monthly to make sure she was being mostly good. So anyway, one of my first challenges at Highland with the last name of Clifton was the people that remembered my sister. The kids that were seniors my freshman year had been freshman my sister's senior year. Now even though she must have been mostly straight by then she had a huge reputation as a bad ass. Now think about how big and bad the seniors in your high school looked to you as a freshman, add to it the stories true or false that swirled around my sister and know that they hadn't forgotten her. This is important to remember.
But my first real challenge my sister actually gave me a heads up warning on. Looking over my schedule before my first day of class and she noticed who my typing teacher was. She let me know I would be wanting to change instructors. I asked why and it turns out my sister had punched her in class one day. Okay fine...well I am not my sister so I am going to go to that class anyway! First day of class comes and Mrs. J. calls role..."Denise Clifton? Are you related to [my sister]?" "Yes, she is my sister and..." and I see her beady little eyes narrow and her grip on the attendance book goes white...so I asked to be excused went to the counselor's office and transferred instructors. :-) I went home that night and let her know she hadn't been forgotten and that I had been able to transfer. She said she didn't doubt that, after all she was probably the only student to ever do that to her. I have to believe that was true.
Okay, a few months into my freshman year, I wear an outfit to school that I loved. But it was only, oh, 10 years out of fashion. After a morning of ridicule I convinced (bullied?) my best friend into wearing her sweats from gym and letting me wear her jeans. So I am rushing into Spanish after changing clothes in the bathroom. At the time the fashion was to wear a bandanna as a belt (how small were our waists?) I have my bandanna on the table while I tuck in my shirt and George picks it up and starts messing with it. I asked for it back and he starts twirling it around like he is going to pop me with it like a towel. I asked him again and no dice. I then told him he had 10 seconds to give it back or I would hit him. Now he thinks this is the funniest thing he has ever heard. He was a big bad junior boy and I was this little freshman girl and I was threatening him. So he doesn't give it back and I waylaid him. He was not one of those "never hit a girl" type guys and so he slugs me back. But the difference is, I knew how to give and receive a punch and he didn't. So we are duking it out in front of the kids shuffling in for Spanish when Senor Tafoya gets there, off to the principal's office we go!
Highland was a big school and each grade had their own Vice Principal. Since he was a junior and I was a freshman they sent us to the sophomore VP. Vice Principal Gonzales. Now, Gonzales thought that the whole situation was hilarious. Junior boy got his clock cleaned by freshman girl over a purple bandanna. By the time he was through laughing at us, we both thought it was pretty funny as well and ended up being pretty good friends over the next two years. But two other things came out of this. The first being my name started to ring a bell in Gonzales' head and he ended up pulling files, turns out he was the VP that had done those visits with my dad and sister, so he put in my file that he would be my VP no matter what grade I was in. So for all four years as everyone else changed vice principals I would stick with Gonzales and since I spent quite a bit of time visiting with him and he seemed to really like me for some reason that was nice. The second is the next big reveal.
Going back into class one of the kids sitting behind me kept bugging me about how I learned how to fight. I had a few choices at this point, first I could have told him it was none of his business which would have led to him bugging me constantly, second I could have told the truth, and we all know there was no way that was going to happen. So I told him that I had lived in the South Valley for a few years and he could figure it out. Yep. I had officially just joined an imaginary gang! And that one stuck with me all through the rest of high school.
The way a rumor blossoms is an amazing thing. Before I knew it it seemed like everyone KNEW I was a former gang member and you add to that those that KNEW I had a drug history and I was officially a bad ass. I got into one fight in high school and I just told you about it. But if you talked to people I fought all of the time. It would amaze me sometimes the things I heard I did. Some of it was actually things my sister had done. Remember those seniors who were freshman? Well, they took the stories they had heard about my sister and applied them to me. And what I would do is listen to them all and the ones that sounded the coolest or the most plausible I would take and use as mine.
I'm going to get into the whys in tomorrow's blog but I have a few more what the hells to cover in this one. :-)
There are two stories I wove that bit me in the ass. The first was my sophomore year. My closest friend at school at that time was this really wonderful girl who lived in Four Hills. Four Hills was the chi chi area in Albuquerque at the time. How I ended up friends with her is still a little beyond my grasp. I know that I wanted to be like her so very much but I am not sure exactly what she saw in me, maybe a project? Anyway...she and I became friends as freshman and she knew more about the real me than anyone else. I didn't really put on a front with her, now all of the stories about me were swirling around but we didn't talk about them. But I felt like with her I could talk a little freer and I had a ton of questions for her about what her life was like.
The switch happened our sophomore year. She had a clear goal in high school, she was going to be one of the popular kids. Me? I could give a rats ass if people liked me (remember,I wasn't even going to give them a shot at knowing ME) but it was important to my friend so I tried. Now at the time my mom worked at The Car wash. That's what we called it, The Car wash or her Car wash. So in front of the group of girls my friend was trying to impress I mentioned needing to go by my mom's car wash to pick up something after school, one of the girls said something about is that where she works in a really nasty tone (now I could have been just looking for the tone, since I didn't much care for most of these girls) and I said, no she owns it. Bam. Locked into the lie. And it would have been okay except one of the other girls knew the actual owners of the place. Oops.
Now I didn't like them and they didn't like me. And they really didn't understand what she saw in me. So this was the perfect opportunity to drum me out of the group. Instead of calling me on it right that minute they waited and planned for the "perfect time". So we are on our way to the State Fair. Back when I was in school we would get a half day off to go to the Fair every year. Crazy right? Anyway, we are on the way there and I need to stop by the car wash to pick up money. So innocently one of the girls says, "Didn't you say your mom owned it? I thought that my neighbors owned it." oh hell..well what do you do at that point you are busted right? So I said, "hmm...she must have sold it." Yeah, lame. So anyway we hit the fair grounds and I know my time with them is done. They have me dead to rights in a lie and I am not going to be able to put up with them anymore either. So we are walking around the midway and they don't want to ride rides because it would mess up their hair, they don't want to eat because it's all fatty food, they don't want to play games because the carnies are gross. And I had enough. A group of guys that I knew from honors English came by and they were going to the livestock barns to pet baby pigs. Made sure I could get a ride from the one driving and bailed.
Next day in school I walk in to the main hall where all of their lockers are (I was sharing a locker at the time with my friend from the group) they see me all make sure I see them and then turn their backs on me. I had been shunned. And it amused the hell out of me. I really thought, this is the worst you have for me? Turning your back like it's some sort of after school special? Really? I didn't feel bad for lying to them, there was no way I was sharing with them any more information than I had to, but I did feel bad for embarrassing my friend and if you are reading this J, I am so sorry, I should have been more respectful of you than I was. The funny thing is, even then, I understood that she had to stick with them and "shun" but she and I maintained a friendship through out and she is the only person to have signed my yearbook all four years.
The second time a big lie bit me was actually the end of the road for weaving false history for me. Junior year in honors English. Mrs. Toregeson (is that right?) anyway, this woman should have quit teaching about 10 years before that. She had reached the point where she wasn't teaching so much as preaching. She and I had already clashed on a interpretation of poetry. She had given us a poem to read and then write a paper on our interpretation of it. Then she proceeded to mock all of us who got it "wrong". I told her it was a poem, and if she saw the imagery one way and we saw it another that didn't make us wrong any more than it made her wrong. But she wasn't going to budge and I had to rewrite the paper. Which I did. With the same answers. So we are sitting in class one day and she is lecturing us on a poem about death and how we as teenagers had no idea about death and dying. I was getting madder and madder at her. Of course we had lost people in our lives, most of us had lost at least a grandparent by then. And the week before a friend of a few of us had died of a heart attack. Twenty years old out dancing, died. It was shocking and still raw and new. So I was furious with her by the time class was over. So I waited until everyone had left and marched up to her desk and informed her that I knew all about death and dying the impermanence of life. Because I had cancer. To this day I cannot believe I did that. But I did. And then I pretty much forgot about it. I just wanted to shut her up and make her think.
But what I didn't take into consideration was that though Mrs. T. might be a bitter lonely old lady she still was a person. And she still worried when the child she was teaching who she thought had cancer didn't show up for class for a week. So when she called the number in my files to check on me and my sister-in-law had no idea what she was talking about and took her number for me to call her I knew I was screwed. Completely and totally and most definitely screwed. This is the only time in my life I have ever been this desperate or this panicked, but I actually considered suicide at that point. I knew I had blown it and I knew I was going to have to admit it, and I knew that nobody would understand it, hell I didn't really understand it, and I just wanted out. I sat on my bed that night counting out Tylenol pills wondering if you could OD on them. Then I bargained. If God would let me out of this then I would NEVER do it again. EVER. So I marched in to Mrs. T's classroom the following Monday and....now if this were an after school special this is where I would have admitted lying and explained that it was because I thought she was being unfair in her big brush strokes of kids not understanding and I wanted to teach her a lesson. She would see the error of her ways, I would see the error of mine and she would become a better person and a mentor to me, guiding me along to my first best seller...instead I...
Lied my ass off. I told her I had done it on a dare from someone who had questioned my acting ability. Theater kid, seemed like a good story. I apologized all over myself and cried (the tears were real) and told her how horrible I felt and how I was so sorry she had gotten hurt but I had been selfish and stupid and had just not realized that she would get caught in the crossfire. And I made it through and even passed her class.
And I then held up half of the bargain. No new lies. But what I didn't do is go back and clear up everything that was out there. I thought about it but when faced with the very daunting task of correcting everyone's version of me that they had it just seemed too overwhelming. So I didn't. So even through my senior year people thought that then knew me and they really had no clue. The only person I confessed it all to was Brent, and only because I felt like he should know and have a chance to back out of the marriage proposal. He took it in stride and told me that I might think he didn't really know me, but he knew me better than I thought, and that was that.
Tomorrow I'll talk about the other things going on but I thought I would cover all of this first.
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