Mentality

That Jesse Linus guy? The so called “bad boy” that all the gals are after? The one who gives me shit when there’s no shit left to give? Yeah, he’s always on thin ice with somebody. He’s been arrested 3 or 4 times for different things, drinking, stealing, fighting, all sortsa’ stuff. Yet, the sheriff always lets him out without postin’ bail. He doesn’t mean to be a trouble maker though, he’s just troubled. I heard from somebody that Jesse’s pops has been in jail for most of his young life, somethin’ about murderin’ his wife with a hatchet or somethin’. Jesse’s aunt Tanya (his mom’s sister) took him in when he was very young. She’s the nurse here at Roosevelt High. I think the staff hired her to keep an eye on ole Jesse till he finishes up his schooling, as if six years hasn’t been long enough. I just think he’s a phony. He’s a lousy, bogus, deadbeat, trashy, no good son of a gun. He’ll never amount to anything. He won’t go to college. He doesn’t want it, and it doesn’t want him.

Jesse cuts class pretty often, and even when he does go, he doesn’t bring a pencil or paper. He says he’s got a photographic memory or somethin’. If we have homework due at the start of class, he tells the teach his dog ate it. On nights before tests, him and his posse hang out down at the drive-in and blaze doobies. They wash it down with their forties in those brown paper bags that have the big yellow stickers on em’. Jesse drinks to get drunk, not for the social idea of it. He’s in the making to become an alcoholic if you asked me. Sometimes Jesse and his friends get sloshed down at Tilley Park over there off 32nd street. That’s where all the brawls go down. He gets a thrill from the adrenaline of a fight, and can’t wait to hear his buddies applaud him afterward. It’s the only place where Jesse can feel like somebody is proud of him. Jesse isn’t a stupid person, he just doesn’t apply himself. He has goals he will never achieve simply because he doesn’t believe there’s more out there than this little good for nothin’ town. He doesn’t believe in anything. For some reason girls seem to flock to Jesse and the whole “tough guy” mentality though. He usually treats the ladies the same way lots of people treat their newspapers. They order them thinking they’ll read up on em’, but after awhile they just start to pile up at the end of the driveway. They’re nothin’ but an afterthought. The ones after him are like the little religious ladies who go door to door trying to spread their word, but can never get in. Nobody can ever get in.

Jesse talks and walks like a tough guy on the outskirts, but he’s really a puppy dog. He’s a softy. He goes to the doc twice a month to talk about his self-esteem, about girls, about whatever is left of his family, about his life. The doc tells him that he shouldn’t refer to himself in the third person as much. He says it’s not healthy. Jesse thinks there are worse things in life, like mixing drugs. Doc prescribes Jesse with Ritalin, Zolaft, and Lurasidone. The dopamine pathways in his brain are so clogged up they dismiss any possibility of a chemical balance. Jesse tends to run out of his medicine really quickly. He takes more than he’s supposed to, and that’s when the “tough” guy in him really comes out. His pals usually wonder which Jesse will show up to school.

I know life is a buncha’ patterns and all, but I really gotta’ work on everything Doc has told me to. Otherwise, I’ll be stuck yellin’ at the mirror in my closet for the resta’ my life. I forget some things from time to time. Even the important things, but it’s usually by choice. I just don’t wanna’ have to remember everything, like my pops murdering my momma’ with a hatchet.