A story about one of the greatest acts of kindness I experienced in my life.
When I was 17, my little country high school, down to 60 kids, was closed by the board. I was bussed to a huge high school in town for my last year. It sucked.
When I was 17, my little country high school, down to 60 kids, was closed by the board. I was bussed to a huge high school in town for my last year. It sucked.
I made a few friends, but I was quiet, bookish, and awkward; Pearl Jam's "Ten" was still a year from saving me. I was so forgettable that, after, in that giant photographic collage of graduates that schools make, I did not appear.
One day I had a terrible cold. Bus ride to school was eternal. Blowing my nose constantly. I get to school. There was this preppie kid, Sean, who always made fun of my clothes. He once made fun of me for an entire chem class because I missed a belt loop with my belt. That kid.
I walk into class. He looks at me and goes, "What the fuck is that?" Points at my chest. Where, to my horror, I have deposited a giant snot rocket. I have missed the tissue and blown a booger the size of a corn flake onto my shirt.
"Is that fucking SNOT?" Sean yells, loud enough, of course, for the whole class to hear it. Readers, I want to tell you, I was immediately the temperature of the sun. Other kids gather around and laugh and point. High-school nightmare.
One kid, Pete Simon, comes over. Pete was always a good guy—not super cool, but popular because of his energy. Just one of those happy dudes. He joins the crowd and his first instinct, quite naturally, is to be like: Dude, that's gross!
But then he looks at me, and he can see in my face, I guess, that I'm dying. Pete goes, "Guys, guys, that's a piece of banana. Did you have a banana for breakfast, Chris?" And I'm like, "Uh, yeah! Yeah, I did!" Pete looks at Sean and goes, "It's banana, idiot."
Crowd disperses, I clean up my shirt, class begins. What could have been a defining incident in the worst way—I could have been Booger Boy forever—never comes up again. Until today, nearly thirty years later.
I graduate, almost grateful for the invisibility. Then "Ten" comes out, and because I can do a reasonable impression of Eddie Vedder, and the flannel shirts that country kids wore suddenly became cool, I find my feet. I get the chance to figure out who I am.
And in some weird way, it's thanks to the kindness of Pete Simon, teenage hero of my life. I'll never forget the look he gave me later, during class: "I got you." I could cry, remembering it. Pete Simon. What a fucking champ.
