So in physics one time, to demonstrate the laws of electrical conductivity, our teacher brought in a little machine consisting of a light bulb and a crank. To light up the bulb, you turned the crank and positioned your finger so it could conduct the charge. The teacher asked the class if anyone wanted to give it a try. When Eva volunteered, someone yelled out: “Not sure it’s gonna light up.” Laughter all around. This apparent cruelty concealed the fact that we would all have lined up in front of Eva to serve as a human shield. She somehow brought out the noblest in our nature, represented everyone’s inner child. Car accident four years ago; killed instantly. I read it on Carol Anne’s wall.

Stephanie

If Eva was the class bozo, Stephanie was the school slut. Or at least that’s what people said. It wasn’t true. Our school was a small one, barely three classes per grade. Everyone knew each other and rumours spread fast. People used to say the only thing in town that hadn’t hit Steph was the train. I thought she was nice. I used to wonder why the other girls resented her so much. I have a theory: Stephanie was really pretty and had huge breasts, which cast a shadow over their own efforts to seduce the boys.

She just couldn’t win, at least when it came to getting some respect. The guys would say all kinds of dirty shit about her; the girls’ cruelty was more finely honed. But Steph kept her spirits up. She must not have known what people said about her. What strikes me when I remember Stephanie is how beauty and desire are at once sources of power and Pandora’s boxes of problems. She’s one of the few people I watched really closely during high school. You couldn’t take your eyes off her. I was just as fascinated as everyone else.

I realized that Stephanie incarnated the opposite of invisibility, a quality I’ve always viewed as a basic asset to my mission. Her every movement was closely watched by all, including the teachers, especially the male teachers. They must have had to steel themselves by reciting key paragraphs of the Criminal Code every time she bent over to tie her shoes. Steph got pregnant and dropped out of college, and then got a full-time restaurant job. I heard it from my mom.

Hurteau and Frosty

Another rumour going around high school was that Hurteau did hard drugs. Heroin. The truth was his backpack contained nothing more illicit than a tube of cortisone cream. He preferred to have everyone believe he was a drug addict than admit that the little patches around his elbows were eczema. The ravages of skin disease look nothing like track marks, but at my school no one was too scrupulous about that kind of detail.