Something was up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In class. Civil<\/s> war week. There was a sub and that meant days of watching civil war movies on a television wheeled into class. A few minutes of fine tuning and then the lights go out<\/s>. We sit together in the darkened room as brother fights brother. The smell of bubble gum. The pop of the muskets. A kid suddenly farted and other than that silence<\/s>. I mean, He launched up out of his seat. Hovered. Landed. Quiet<\/s>. Laika or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First animal in space,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gory Gory Hallelujah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frank had the mother of all boners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that was a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was just something about her, the girl one row over and one up. Don\u2019t judge<\/s>, something anatomical. Frank couldn\u2019t put his finger on it. This thing he felt. It was ineffable<\/s>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He felt like an ass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t we all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And at the end of the class the grades for the semester were posted to the back wall. And he had to go look at them I guess. And he was stiff as a board. And kids were milling around. Hereto-therefore. And he was making deals with the devil which always have un-intended consequences. Trying to get things down. In control. He thought about brother fighting brother in a war to free Jefferson\u2019s slaves and the smell of gunpowder and violent death, and Simon says, and nothing worked. The flesh is stronger than the will sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thrice daily or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So he put his book in front of his pants, as Simon had done years before, and made his way to the back of the room. Casual<\/s>. And he got his grade. And this kid named Chance, a jock<\/s>, he sides in and says, in a loud whisper<\/s>, \u201cHard times, bud?\u201d And three or four people nearest sniggered away<\/s>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These were hard times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Something was up. In class. Civil war week. There was a sub and that meant days of watching civil war movies on a television wheeled into class. A few minutes of fine tuning and then the lights go out. We sit together in the darkened room as brother fights brother. The smell of bubble gum. The pop of the muskets. A kid suddenly farted and other than that silence. I mean, He launched up out of his seat. Hovered. Landed. Quiet. Laika or not. First animal in space, Gory Gory Hallelujah. Frank had the mother of all boners. And that...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3u13S-158","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1101,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/there-is-nothing-civil-about-this-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":4162,"position":0},"title":"There is nothing civil about this war","author":"David Raffin","date":"June 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Since Bree Newsome took down the Confederate battle flag isn't she a war hero? A living civil war veteran? She, with the help of Jimmy Tyson scaled the flagpole at the capitol of South Carolina and removed the Confederate battle flag placed there because the\u00a0state of South Carolina is unhappy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Info"","block_context":{"text":"Info","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/info\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Only non-racists get to eat ice cream.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/IMG_0458-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2250,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/trigger-warning-the-assassination-of-fred-hampton\/","url_meta":{"origin":4162,"position":1},"title":"Trigger Warning: The Assassination of Fred Hampton","author":"David Raffin","date":"June 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"It was not about the guns. We had them. They were a necessity. And a defense. That was the necessity. 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Who can bring us back together from these times of radical severance?Now we are all members of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/books\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2670,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/frank-talk-abounds\/","url_meta":{"origin":4162,"position":5},"title":"Frank Talk Abounds","author":"David Raffin","date":"June 1, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A story of mid childhood. \u201cSomeone Else\u2019s Memories\u201d from the album \u201cThe Politics of Desire\u201d by Revolution Void licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. 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