The Todd Glass Situation by Todd Glass Read Free Book Online

class, Dave Olsen, started acting like he wanted to be my friend, too. Everybody liked Dave—he was smart, friendly, and got along with all different kinds of people.
    I didn’t really understand why he was being so nice to me until years later, during a visit to his house, when his dad said, “Dave, don’t forget—remember to be friends with someone who doesn’t have any friends!”
    â€œWait a minute,” I said, looking at Dave. “That’s me ! You became my friend in high school because you felt sorry for me.”
    Dave denied it, but I was smart enough to know what was up. And at that point, who cared? We’d already become friends, which still amazes me. A lot of teenagers use their popularityfor evil. But if you want your kid to be really, truly cool, teach him or her to use popularity for good, like Dave Olsen did.
    I can’t overstate how great it felt to have a friend like Dave. For the first time in my life, I was looking forward to going to school. I liked having friends. We had a good time doing the kinds of crazy things that high school kids did. My friend Jamie bought a used unmarked police car. It didn’t take long to notice that the other cars on the road were slowing down when we pulled behind them. “Oh!” it finally dawned on us. “They think we’re cops.”
    So we started pulling people over. No one who looked dangerous, just kids about our age who were doing something erratic—there’s nothing more fun than catching someone in the middle of doing something stupid. We’d flash the high beams and the car would pull over. Jamie and I both looked a lot older than our age; later we’d wear blue windbreakers and tuck them into our pants, just like we saw cops do, before we approached the driver. “How ya doing? You know, the reason we have unmarked cars is so we can catch people doing the kinds of things that you were doing . . .”
    Look, as a full-grown adult, this is an embarrassing story—we were in it for the power and the fun. After we were done scaring the crap out of some poor kid, we’d get back into Jamie’s car and giggle like no real cop ever would. It was a great gag, at least until it came to a screeching halt when, one day on the way to school, we accidentally pulled over the principal.
    For the first time in my life, I was really enjoying school. I was having a great time with my new friends and there was no way I was going to mess it up. Any romantic feelings I had for guys got pushed into the back of my mind where I hoped and prayed that they’d stay.

CHAPTER 10
DIM PROSPECTS
School is coming to an end.
    Having friends made high school a lot more fun, but it wasn’t like I was suddenly going to become a better student. When (big surprise) I failed tenth grade, I seriously considered dropping out. By then it was clear to everyone around me (and, most importantly, me) that college wasn’t an option. We would have had to move to Mongolia to get away from my school record.
    I probably would have quit out of sheer embarrassment if one of my teachers, Mr. Smedley, hadn’t felt sorry enough for me to let me walk into assembly room with my eleventh-grade friends, allowing me to hold on to some small shred of dignity before heading off to repeat the same lessons that I still wouldn’t be able to retain.
    But my school days were coming to an end. What the hell was I going to do?
    Fortunately, I had a dream: I wanted to be a landscaper like Comar.
    Comar ran his own landscaping business, but he never seemed to have to do any of the backbreaking labor that should have come with the job. He’d pull up to a site in his $45,000 pickup truck, climbing out to survey the scene like a king stepping out of a royal carriage. His perfectly pressed shirt was always tucked neatly into his immaculately spotless pants. The few times I saw Comar pick up a hose, there were three guys