The strange among us...

There is a young man that has been going to my school slightly longer than I have worked there.  He is one of the most original human beings I have ever met.  I'm not sure that I have the talent to convey just how different he is.  About the best I can do is paint the picture of a verbal Lurch from the Addams Family.  You know how Lurch only grunted and sighed?  Well, Mark has a brain.  One that works overtime to try and make sense of the world around him. 

I figured out early on that this strange persona was a ruse; a wall, a way to keep the rest of us at about two full, Shaquille O'Neil arm's lengths.  His deep, stilted voice and odd mannerisms always seemed a cover.  There was no question in my mind that this individual had been hurt in a way that most of the rest of us can barely, and thankfully, only imagine.

Despite his off-putting ways, Mark had built a little family for himself in our classrooms.  Though his classmates may have found him to be odd, he was also treated like the harmless, dark older brother who may or may not have done too many drugs in the wooded area behind the local high school.  He had found a place where he was accepted for exactly who he was.

Three years in, though, may have been enough for him.  Maybe we all got just a little too close.  Maybe we saw just a little too much of the real Mark, the guy who has been buried for far too long underneath the earth, wrapped in a bunker of shame.  Just when we all finally felt like there may be a chance that this kid was going let a little light into his soul, he has seemingly imploded. My best guess is he came from a household almost completely devoid of love, but rich in judgment and resentment. 

He showed up to a performance last Friday, in front of about 70 people, drunk off of his ass.  He showed up to class tonight, drunk again, with slave written across his forehead and a 40 of some cheap beer I have never heard of.  I have a visual of him with a black sharpie in his hand, staring with drunken concentration into his mirror drawing slave across his own forehead, not even realizing he was writing it backward. 

Mark, wherever you are in Los Angeles tonight, I hope you know that you are worthy of better things.

~Jenn