23. Excerpt from Anthony Stephens’ Mood Journal

January 22 2003

Morning: 3 out of 10

Afternoon:4 out of 10

Night: 8 out of 10

I passed by Miami Dade[1] this morning and spoke to one of their advisors, this old Cuban lady with gray-streaked black hair. She stared at me over her glasses and she looked bored the moment I walked up, before I even said anything.

And I know that look. I get it all the time now.

I know it, and I know where it comes from. It comes from this five o’clock shadow, the scars on my arms, the tattoos. I know, I know what I look like. They see all that, my wrinkled clothes, my permanent frown and my skin tone, and they give me that look.

People see me and, since I live in Miami, they assume I’m Hispanic and this Cuban lady this morning started in with her “Que lo que lo que” bullshit and I just held up my hand, said the only two words I know, “no habla.” And then she gave the look again.

Add that little detail to the whole package, my lack of bilingual talents, and people around here lose interest, start to think I’m just another junkie, recovering or not. Or a thief, a regular fucking clepto trying to prove something to somebody, maybe that I can go a whole semester without fucking up. They think I’m way older than I actually am, like I’m not still a kid, even though that’s exactly what I feel like. A kid. But they don’t see it like that.

It’s funny: once people view you as an adult, a grown man, they lose all sympathy for your troubles. You become more than just a burden; you become a problem.

I know what they say to themselves, to others when I leave.

“He’s probably on parole,” they say. They turn around to the person at the next desk and say, “if he thinks the government’s going to give him any money for school with his record, he’s lost his damn mind.”

I’ve never been locked up, but if it was up to these people I’d be behind bars just for looking like I belong there.

I can see it right now, when I close my eyes. They turn around to their co-workers when I leave and they’re like “he’s just trying to impress somebody so he can swindle them out of one thing or another. Like their trust.”

They say to each other that—when the novelty of the whole “school thing” wears off—I’ll drop it all over again, just like I probably have so many times before. Just like they know I have.

Usually, in the face of this type of oppression, I tuck my tail and run. Prove everybody right. I don’t know how to deal with that type of pressure. I had my rebellion stage, got over it, but that doesn’t mean I grew out completely.

Sometimes I feel like I haven’t aged at all. Sometimes I feel like all that happened to me after the accident was I forgot what I used to be like, and everything associated with it. Like my mind reverted back to middle school, where keeping up to date on video games and comics were all I had to worry about. Like I’m back in a time before all my friends left town for school and the ones that didn’t were either hooked on drugs or busy taking care of their kids, or both.

I have to tell myself every day I’m not living back then anymore. This is now. Today is today. But I feel like it’s hitting me now, like I’m finally realizing this is all I’ve got, today and tomorrow. Yesterday’s gone.

So I looked that old lady at the Miami Dade advisor’s office straight in her face and told her I wanted to enroll. Made sure my expression said “I don’t want any bullshit either.”

And, you know what? She opened up. Surprised the shit out of me. She eyed me up and down for a second then smiled and started telling me all types of stuff about degrees and colleges and state universities and the whole deal. Overwhelmed the shit out of me.

Funny thing, because I went in that room only trying to get a feel for it all, per Doc Silver’s suggestion. See if it really had been just too long for me to be comfortable coming back. I mean, it’s only been like two years since I was a “college student,” but so much has happened since then I can barely remember caring enough about an education to actually get one.

I went in today just to test it out, that’s all. But the way that lady looked at me when I walked in, I wanted to prove her wrong before she could even get herself started on judging me. And it felt so good, that feeling, that I want to prove everybody wrong now. I want to shut the whole world up, jab my middle finger in the air and wipe my ass with their doubts.

I know, hostile. But it’s not like before. I’m smiling as I’m writing this. That doesn’t happen very often.

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[1] Miami Dade College, formerly (at the time of this journal entry) Miami Dade Community College

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