I’m in high school and I’m in speech class. I’m supposed to give my five minute speech on a historical figure today, only, uncharacteristically for me, I have arrived utterly unprepared. My procrastination binge the night before ended in a procrastination overdose straight into a deep, albeit short, night’s sleep.
So I’m up this morning, in this 7am class and I do not have my shit together.
I’ve got a biographical speech to give on Malcolm X. I’ve got plenty of notes. They’re just not in any particular order, so I’ve got no speech. I’m slated to go fifth, right after R., the very big, tall guy who’s doing his speech on Lyle Alzado, a man who had, in three years, made a failed comeback attempt in the NFL, been diagnosed with brain cancer, publically confessed to year’s of steroid abuse, then died. I don’t recall who gave the first three speeches or even what they were about, since I only tangentially listened. While pretending to take notes on their speeches, I was trying to write mine. Simultaneously, I was also praying and chanting in my head, over and over again, for a small miracle.
Please, God, may I not have to give my speech today. May I give it tomorrow.
Malcolm X. was born Malcolm Little, the son of a follower of Marcus Garvey.
Please, God.
He had a religious conversion in prison and joined Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam.
May I not have to give my speech today.
Malcolm X. influenced Nelson Mandela, Public Enemy and shit shit shit shit.
May I give it tomorrow.
Our bespectacled freshman speech instructor with the lop-sided mustache closes the questioning after the third person’s speech. He calls up R., who wears a baggy gray sweatshirt, jeans and a bandanna, not not unlike what a last-days Lyle Alzado would have worn himself. He puts his notes on the front desk, along with his visual aids: a poster of Lyle from The Destroyer, a biography, a Raider’s Jersey.
R. smiles a laid-back smile and starts his speech.
I stop my frantic scribbling.
Either something will save me in the next five minutes or not.
I go very still as I listen to R. give his speech. I’m not blinking very much, my breathe become very deep, methodical, focused. My focus goes in and out in waves—listening to the speech, searching it, very still–listening to my own mental chants—listening to R.’s speech—listening to my own sub-vocal petition. The whole time I am looking straight at R. As I continue to look at him, continue to breathe that deep, methodical breath, he becomes more and more nervous. At first, it manifests as a grimace here and there, then his voice starts to break. Three minutes into his speech and he’s speeding up as if trying to finish as soon as possible so he can end the agony. But no sooner does he speed up, he stumbles, stammering and stuttering, and has to back up and repeat himself. He begins to flub some facts, facts I’m sure he knew pretty well, getting increasingly exasperated and frustrated.
By the time he finishes his speech, he’s sweating and shaky.
There is just enough time, seven or eight minutes, for my speech. If any miracles are going to happen, they have to happen now.
“Okay. Thank you, R. Any questions for R?” asks our teacher.
I have yet to drop my gaze from R.
I raise my hand.
R. calls on me.
“I just wanted to clarify something. You said Lyle Alzado started using steroids in 1969 and you also said he started using steroids in 1989. I was just confused: which one is it?”
R.’s lip begins to quiver. The rest of his body tenses up, as if it’s all he can do to keep his head from exploding like in Scanners. That’s when he screams.
“I don’t know!” It’s a loud thunderclap that begins a storm of snot and tears showering down his face. He throws his notes on the ground, shoves his Alzado poster, Alzado book, Alzado jersey, and all of the teacher’s stuff off the front desk and runs out of the room crying.
The teacher turns to us nervously and says, “Give me a moment, guys.”
He exits the room.
The other kids in the classroom immediately begin discussing what just happened. Me, I’m not saying anything. I’m shocked, then, perversely a little happy. I knew I shouldn’t be and it didn’t take but a seconds for me to realize why. Hell, I deserved to be R. at that moment, out in the hallway crying and embarrassed. I’m positive he was completely and utterly prepared for his speech today, unlike me. No one would ever know that, though.
Five minutes later, the teacher steps back into the classroom.
“We won’t be doing any more speeches today. You guys can get your things together to go to your next class.”
I hadn’t read any woo-woo magick stuff back when this stuff happened, though being of a certain bent (the superstitious one), I figured on that day that I had caused R.’s melt-down. In a way, I probably did. Speaking in public always ranks high among American’s greatest fears, and that’s among adults, and Freshman Speech was a class most of us would not have taken if it had not been a requirement. It’s not unlikely R. fell within that camp. Add to latent public speaking fear, a brainy motherfucker sitting in the front staring you down, even if he’s not even a quarter of your size, and all that’s left to do is nudge things with a pointed question from that same brainy motherfucker’s mouth. Non-verbal communication? Psycho-dynamics? Hypnosis? Magick? Whatever term trips your switch. It’s just one of those things. It’s mundane or meaningful or somewhere in between simply depending on where you’re standing.
I do know that the medicine I needed was not the reprieve of fate in this fairly minor but note-worthy moment in my former life. The better pill would have been the exposure of my laziness in front of all those people, knowingly and willingly, with the acceptance of all that would have meant.
I gave my speech on Malcolm X the following day. I didn’t even have to look at my notes once.
I got an A minus.
