I’m going to try this out for a few weeks and see how it goes. Here’s how this will work: I will publish either a full story here on the blog, or half of one. If I reach ten comments on each story, I will A) post the rest of the story if only the first part was shown; or B) post another full story.

In other words, if you like my writing, you’ll get more of it. So tell your friends to stop by and make a comment. Ten comments—of anything! Tell me you love it, tell me you hate it, tell me you just ate waffles for breakfast—gets another story posted.

Here’s the first story.

I am posting only a few pages of it, but I’m going to try something a bit different for this one.  Like it? Want to read the rest? Check out the Brown Tie Publishing Store where you can purchase the whole story for a bank-breaking $0.99!

Part of Us

I had forgotten my gym uniform, so I had to wear my regular school slacks to class. I wasn’t the only one either, but it felt that way anyway. Brown slacks, brown tie, brown shoes. White shirt. This new lady, we didn’t know who she was, we just knew Mr. Martoni had quit a week ago and this new lady was here now. She was wearing gray sweatpants and Converse sneakers, and she had a whistle strung around her neck. In the January cold of the schoolyard, her breath came out in gusts that made her look like an overheating K-car. We hated her.

“I’m Ms. Nellie,” she said as she stood before us, a line of eighth grade boys and girls itching to run. Kickball, dodgeball, even just sprints across the schoolyard would do. We only had a half an hour and she was wasting it. I looked to my right at Joey, and his face was contorted like he had to pee. He just wanted to run. We all did. I did, even though I had forgotten my gym uniform.

Ms. Nellie had other plans.  She blew her whistle. “I’m happy to be here with you today,” she said as she paced the line of us. “Today we’re going to play one of my favorite games.” She smiled like she knew something we didn’t. We stood still, knowing we hated her. She retreated behind the corner of the schoolyard fence and came back with a green sack. “Super Shoe is the name of the game,” she said, dumping the contents of the green sack on the asphalt in front of her. Old shoes tumbled onto each other, covering the worn out foursquare paint beneath. Old Keds, Converse, no-name white sneakers with Velcro that looked as though they had come straight from the big blue dumpster on the other side of the school yard. They stopped tumbling and Ms. Nellie blew her whistle again. “Grab the first shoe you can get your hands on!”

Eager to run, most of us burst forward and grabbed at the shoes that did not look like they had been recently worn by homeless people. I ended up with a brown Converse shoe. A left shoe. Joey ended up with the dirty white sneaker with Velcro straps. He still looked like he had to pee. Ms. Nellie paced the line again, back and forth, her whistle swinging across her chest where here breasts should have been but inexplicably weren’t. Her hair was knotted back in a ponytail, and her bangs wisped across her forehead as a winter breeze swept past. It subsided, and Ms. Nellie explained the rules.

“You will get in line,” she said. We did. “You will place the shoe on the top of your head.” We didn’t. “And you will walk—not run!—around the perimeter of the school yard. Does anyone know what perimeter means?” Becky Digiovanni raised her hand and enlightened the class with an almost-accurate definition of perimeter. We waited for further instructions, but none came. Ms. Nellie said, “ready, set, go!” We went, not sure why we were going. We hated her more with every passing moment, every shoelace that fell down off the shoe and smacked us in our eyes. I got to the second corner of the recess yard when I spotted Jenny Amboy on the other side, in her gym uniform and a puffy blue coat, a green Keds shoe on her head. I hated the thought of her seeing me with the Converse on my head, and I began to sweat. Unbearable sweat. Winter sweat, the worst kind, the kind that makes you hot and cold at the same time. I hoped Jenny would not see me. She probably already had. I was still in my school uniform, and that was bad enough. Now I had a shoe on my head. Agony.

Ms. Nellie blew her whistle again and shouted, “Stop!” She stood in the middle of the schoolyard and yelled, “The first person who can tell me the capital of Wisconsin can skip to the head of the line! Don’t forget to raise your hand, and if your shoe falls off your head, you go to the back of the line!”

Becky Digiovanni raised her hand and answered the question correctly, then sauntered to the front of the line. The rest of us just focused on hating Ms. Nellie, but we were good kids. Parochial school kids. We did not talk back, we did not act out. The only kid who ever acted out was Michael Carrington, and he picked his nose and ate it when he thought no one was looking. The rest of us just waited it out. A few minutes passed before Ms. Nellie asked another question, and to everyone’s surprise, Gary Janes answered. Gary was always last in line, and happy to be there. His shirt was never tucked in. His hair never looked combed. Everyone wanted to be his friend because he could kick the ball farthest when we played kickball at recess, and he swore in the lunchroom sometimes.

“Abraham Lincoln,” he shouted after Ms. Nellie had asked us who was president during the Civil War. Gary sprinted to the front of the line, and everyone followed him. We walked with the stupid shoes on our heads, each of us wanting to grumble, wanting to curse and spit, none of us having the courage.

Then we noticed that Gary was picking up the pace. The line moved faster around the perimeter of the yard, and we had already looped around twice. None of us wanted to go any further. We wanted Mr. Martoni back, we wanted to play dodgeball and run around and sweat, the good kind of sweat, in the cold winter air. Instead we were playing Super Shoe, and we were hating the new lady. But Gary was picking up the pace, and at least that was fun compared to walking with a stupid shoe on our heads, and the line kept going, faster and faster, and Ms. Nellie was shouting, “if you run, you go to the back of the line! Slow down!” and we wondered silently to ourselves what kind of gym teacher ever said ‘slow down’ to a group of kids, and Gary kept going faster until we were all running. We could not stop ourselves. Ms. Nellie had not yet disgraced herself by yelling, but she had put on her stern voice and was warning us, warning us, don’t run, walking only, runners get disqualified, runners go inside, and we all wanted that, to go inside, even though math was next period, and even though this was gym class and it was supposed to be fun…

Gary took us all on a full-on sprint, and we all followed because we were in eighth grade, we were kids, and Jenny Amboy was looking at me, and I felt okay now with that stupid shoe on my head because we all had them, all of us, and we were all embarrassed together. But at least we were running. I can’t remember who was the first person to throw their shoe, but it went sailing to nowhere in particular, landing on the far end of the schoolyard after two bounces and a roll. Then Gary threw his, and it skipped over Joey’s head, knocking his shoe off onto the asphalt. He picked it up quickly, sprinted with the rest of us, and threw his shoe past Ms. Nellie. Then everyone was throwing their shoes at Ms. Nellie. No one had the gall to hit her, but we all threw our shoes near her, picking them up again and throwing them again, and she finally yelled, and we hated her more, and she yelled more, and we hated her more.

Then we stopped.

Not all at once, but we stopped.

A few people, girls at first, then boys. Then finally Gary, and behind him, Michael who just could not stop laughing no matter how hard he tried. Even after he realized the rest of us had gone quiet and we knew something had happened, he laughed. It was the only sound in the schoolyard. We lined up automatically, not questioning what we should do because we knew that’s what we should do, line up, that’s what good kids did.

Ms. Nellie was crying, though, and we were no longer good kids. Not one of us.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY BY PURCHASING IT AT THE BROWN TIE PUBLISHING STORE!