Eleventh grade is finally over and I can’t wait to be a senior in the fall, because being a senior means constant partying and the beginning of my BEP (Blaine Escape Plan), right? I mean, the end of my life in this depressed Twilight Zone of a town is within sight. College is my ticket out of this dump, the key to my BEP. I say bring it on as quickly as possible, because the last thing I want to be in life is a Blaine factory rat enslaved by a doomed American car company.

Speaking of constant partying, I have this older brother named Justin. He could write a bestselling how-to book on partying. My brother used to be my idol. Right now he’s twenty and comes home drunk every night. His one-year educational “break” after high school quickly turned into two. He says he’s having the time of his life, but I have a feeling he parties so hard because he’s freaked about entering the real world and has no idea what to do with his life. Justin isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the light store, but he’s not stupid, either. He hasn’t made it out of Blaine yet, but lately he’s shown signs of progress. I’m pulling for him and watching him closely. With Justin, it’s all about baby steps.

It wasn’t like that a few years ago, however. Justin was an all-state football player bound for a full-ride athletic scholarship, but he quit the team after his junior year. The whole town was shocked, especially yours truly. I couldn’t believe it. Talk about pissing away your future. To this day he doesn’t like to talk about why he quit. He was really miserable for a couple of years, but he finally saw the light and came up with a revised BEP a few months ago. He starts community college in the fall and has an interest in business. Then he plans on heading to Eastern Michigan University over in Ypsilanti to finish his degree. There. That’s his BEP. Yeah, it might not be the most ambitious plan in the world, but it’s something, right? And something is better than nothing, which is exactly what most people in Blaine have. Nothing.

Nothing.

Anyway, we live in this small, blue-collar subdivision lined with tiny old bungalows, mature maples, and uneven sidewalks. For the adults, it’s a safe, tight-knit world, the kind of place where everybody knows, or tries to know, what everybody else is up to. For guys like me, it’s like being a piece of shrapnel inside of a ticking bomb. I just want the thing to explode and propel me as far away as possible.