WANTED: Love of my Life

02. Old people's feet stink

With a 'Bing'-noise, the elevator door opened and I dashed out. The cable car line was only a block away. I jogged vigorously, finally catching up with the colorful vehicle, grabbing the stanchion and hoisting myself inside.

“Sorry, Enrique,”, I wheezed as I let myself fall onto an empty seat behind the driver. “Was a bit tired this morning, woke up late.”

“Like yesterday morning,” a lethargic voice came out of the driver's cabin.

“Yea, something like that.”

“And the morning before that, and the morning before the morning before that.”

“Yep.”

The old Latino turned around, examining me lazily through the dirt-encrusted glass. He chewed threateningly on his huge mustache. I faced him bravely, and smiled my most winning smile. He stuck his arm around the pane separating us and held out his hand. I promptly shook it. Always be polite.

“That,” he said, slowly but clearly, “was where you were supposed to put the passage money.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth – not the one I had been shaking his with, the other one. I've no wish to get typhoid fever. “Oh, I'm so sorry Enrique. You know, my mother sort of forgot to pack my lunch today, so I'll need the money to buy myself a bite to eat.”

“And that sort of wouldn't have anything to do with your mother being sort of a crappy cook you sort of complained about a million times, would it?”

“Come on Enrique! A girl's gotta eat. Please, please, please? A freebee? Just this once?”

“Just this once?”

“Yes, please.”

“You mean just this once like yesterday?”

“Em... yes.”

“And the morning before that, and the morning before the morning before that.”

“Yes.”

I gave him my most miserable puppy-dog face. I do puppy-dog well, if I do say it myself. He hesitated just a moment, then he grunted and pulled his hand back.

“Just hunch over a bit and pretend you're half as small as you are,” he said, gruffly. “Maybe then I can pretend the seat's actually empty.”

“Thanks so much”, I said, rather acidly. A low snicker from behind the glass. Did I mention that I hate people making fun of my height deficiency?

The cable car continued on. I leaned back, stared out of the window at the passing houses and dreamed of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other fast fast foreign things ending with 'i'. Why did my parents have to send me to a school several hundred miles away from our house? Oh, yes of course, because it was the only Catholic private school in the vicinity. Which led me to the next logical question: Why couldn't my parents have been Jews? Or Hindus? Or Sufis? Or at least drive me to school?!!?

Eventually, the towers of my school appeared over the rooftops and slowly drifted nearer. Towers? Yea, my school has towers – bell towers, to be exact. That's because I go to school in a church. Hindus would have just been so great.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

On rare days such as this when I didn't miss the cable cart, I attend Salesian. No, I am not attending school in an obscure eastern-European country and I haven't got speech problems. The several hundred miles were a figure of speech, okay? Salesian is the name of a Catholic school in northern San Francisco, founded by the honorable order of the Salesians of Don Brosco. You know Don Brosco, don't you? The guy who invented the prototype of the apple before Steve Jobs came along and improved it.

Can you believe that at first, I actually thought I would like going to school there? I perfectly remember the day when I was accepted there. My parents were very proud and happy, smiled a lot and said things like 'You are going to do fine there' and 'You'll learn so much, Angela, and the teachers will help you with your problems and make you into a fine young lady'.

I didn't exactly know what problems they referring to, but I must admit, I was pretty excited. My only excuses were that I was ten years old, therefore young and innocent of the wicked ways of the world, and also, that I recognized the school from the most impressive work of art I had so far stumbled across in my ten year long life, the one artistic master-piece that had given me inspiration and hope for the future of mankind.

As we drove up to the huge white building, I cheerfully smiled up at my mom and chirped: “Thanks so much, mummy! I'll be going to school here? That's fantastic!”

“I'm glad you like it, dear,” she said, looking down at me with an angelic, if slightly surprised, smile.

“Like it? That's the place where they shot the sniper scene from 'Dirty Harry'! You know, where the Scorpio killer is on the roof and aims at one guy after another, trying to decide which one he's going to off! That's so cool, mom!”

Whatever could be said for the quality of teaching at my school, Salesian undeniably helped me to learn one thing, and that before I even entered its hallowed halls: I quickly learned that my mother doesn't like Dirty Harry. She especially, it seems, doesn't like me watching it. I won't repeat what she said to me that day for the sake of any young impressionable person who might be reading this, (Hey, I may like psychotic killers, but even I have my limits!) but I can tell you, it was bad. Grounded-for-a-month-and-no-you-don't-get-to-go-to-the-movies-ever-again-bad.

If that didn't cure me of my first favorable impression of Salesian, my first day at school did. Can you believe that I didn't even meet one single psycho? Unless of course you counted the teachers. They were crazy enough: they honestly expected to remember the stuff they talked about. But it wasn't the fun sort of crazy.

I guess I couldn't blame the teachers for me not liking Salesian, though. On the school's website it clearly proclaims that its pupils are, and I quote 'Active Christians, Motivated, Life Long Learners, Responsible Citizens, Effective Communicators, Problem Solvers'.

Yes, and my parents sent me there. They really must have some serious denial issues.

After about half an hour of religion class, this active, motivated, life long christian communicator had retreated surreptitiously behind her math book in the back row of the classroom. No one had tried to make friends with me. No one had even spoken to me. Well, I guess being dragged by my ear by my mother into school on the first day (meaning that my mother was holding my ear, not the other way around) didn't exactly make me somebody very cool or desirable to hang out with. Add my imp status and my parent-prescribed overly conservative dress code, and you have it. I was the outsider of outsiders.

And as I sat in religion class, our subject wasn't exactly doing anything to brighten my mood either. Father Lucas was discussing the eternal punishment of hell, and he was doing a very good job of conveying the subject. Hopefully, I peeked out of the window, but there was no sniper hiding on the neighboring rooftop. Slackers! Never around when you needed them.

That was the moment when somebody kicked me in the shins.