Act 1

Two households, both alike in dignity. Along the fair Saskatchewan Prairies, we lay our scene. It’s not as flat as they say, you just have to go north. But it’s in the flat south where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the horny woes of adolescence, a pair of star-crossed lovers offer up their lives. Amongst pleas, the adults have heard enough. With his death, Romeo hopes to bury the strife. A fearful passage of death-marked love and the continuance of rage – which but marked their children’s end, naught could remove. What here was missed, my toil shall strive to mend it in the impending passages.

“Clean your room, Romeo!” Mother Teresa yells out.

“Give me an hour…” Tiny Romeo mumbles.

“Now!” Montague yells in a typical rage at Romeo’s lack of listening capabilities. I listened fine! I could hear my own heartbeat and thoughts after all… It wasn’t that Romeo didn’t listen; Romeo just listened when it made sense to listen. Midway through a video game level was not the ideal time to go and clean one’s bedroom.

“Eat your supper!” Mother Teresa yells out.

“But it’s gross…” Romeo says. A battle held in contention with the family over many years. Green beans were the worst. Which was weird because I liked them as a baby. But where could one put such foul offerings? I tried the top of the garbage, even the bottom. I put them in my pocket, but they ended up in washing machine.

“There are starving kids in Africa you know…” Montague would say.

“I’d be happy to mail them all my Green beans!” Romeo says trying to kill two birds with one stone. I could feed starving kids, and wouldn’t have to eat my beans!

“I don’t run a restaurant!” Romeo’s mom would say while she cut chicken breasts in half, and filled them with the most archaic stuff. That confused me. She seemed to definitely run some sort of 4- star Michelin restaurant for the family. I was just asking for a 1-star salt and peppered piece of chicken.

What nights didn’t contain battles often contained some sort throughout the day for Tiny Romeo. No one could really see a problem with me, perhaps because at the stem of it, there really wasn’t a problem. At 2 years old I had speech and hearing problems. We went in for a surgery to have tubes inserted. I seemed to display a lot while not displaying anything at all. The story was already shaping up so it could be a number of things. By grade 2 Tiny Romeo would ask Mother Teresa why I was different than the other kids, thought differently and liked everything they didn’t. But I was just unique or something, which just seemed like a nicer word then the one I’d used; weird.

Someone was hired to observe Tiny Romeo during class in grade 3. Over the course of the one- hour class, she observed that I got up, moved around, fidgeted, or disturbed a kid 67 times. On average I stimmed more then once every minute. She noted that I still did work the entire time. That prompted ADHD testing. That made me excited. Maybe I’d get some answers. The testing just looked like a video game. I was really good at those. Even better than my bullies! Maybe if I aced this test, I’d get those answers. I aced it alright and was told that all it indicated was “mild ADD tendencies”. Tiny Romeo was really mad at the psychologist and snapped at Mother Teresa after. Just a fluttering of wasted time. I’d done so good; they dropped an H altogether!

I was bullied before I even started in the school environment. When I did enter it, there was a girl who had a very big smile. I played musical chairs until it didn’t seem obvious that I was making a move. She liked art, so I offered to let her use my pack of 12 crayons. She didn’t even look at Tiny Romeo, just pulled out the holy grail of crayons. A 64 phat pack equipped with its own pencil sharpener. The Rolls Royce of crayons. But she wasn’t done. Next, she pulled out Mr. Smelly Markers. Tiny Romeo lit up. Mother Teresa couldn’t afford such pleasantries. I asked if I could use them, but still not looking, she said she didn’t want them to dry out. Tiny Romeo got the hint and receded to the outer belt of tables with the other outcasts.

I tapped my pencil while I listened to the teacher. It annoyed the other kids who would ask me to stop. I’d ask them what they wanted me to stop. “The tapping!” I tried tapping my foot, but got the same response, “You’re just trying to annoy us, Romeo!” and I’d grow sad, because I wasn’t.

I met a weird girl there; she wore a really soft sweater. I wasn’t too interested when she didn’t wear it. I wasn’t sure why she wasn’t getting the hint. Tiny Romeo had met his first infatuation. I quickly met my first heroine after that. By the time Tiny Romeo met Sydney, I’d already kissed 2 other girls my age and one in grade 4 or 5. I would dread Monday morning, until I met Sydney. One time she stood up for Tiny Romeo who had been pushed down by much older kids at the Daycare. She shined in the sun, while blocking it out of my face as I lay there helpless. She extended a hand, and brushed the dirt off my shoulders.

We were only a brief flicker of the candle. Even a Tiny Romeo was filled with passion, exuding from my big heart. I was so grateful to have her in my life. We cuddled under a blanket while watching a movie at the daycare. Except I pulled the covers over and we started to “Daycare Movie and Chill”. We were separated by adults that noticed the woes of tiny children under a blanket. After we just snuck glances back and forth at each other. Wanting more. Processing what just happened. Over-brimming with brain chemicals. She left shortly after and wasn’t around when Tiny Romeo started The Milk Mafia. If she had been, she’d definitely have been my Goomah. Even if she went to a different school.

I started a child enterprise at the beginning of grade 2. A chocolate milk scheme. Arcola had started offering a milk program. Chocolate and white milk at 50 cents a slurp. But 250ml cartons weren’t enough for such hankering of sugary beverages. By the time we reached the front of the line, we’d be informed they were sold out. I thought about it over one weekend, and thought up a plan. I opened my piggy bank, a replica of the piggy bank in Toy Story. I took out 50 cents. I raised my hand before the lunch bell and asked to go pee. The line for milk opened up before the bell. I was now one of the first in line.

The kids would be amazed at the magic Tiny Romeo would pull off later. We waited in line and as usual, we were told they’d sold out. I pulled out a lone carton of chocolate milk from my jacket, popped the top, and started drinking it to the other kids’ bewilderment. Even Tiny Romeo was looking for special effects. One of my bullies who was in the other grade 2 class asked how I obtained it. A magician never reveals one’s secrets though. I hadn’t learned how to sacrifice myself in order to try and survive yet. All Tiny Romeo needed at this point was a milk crate and I’d have been tall enough to reach some revolutionary status.

At first, I did what any noble revolutionary would do; I gave the people what they wanted. The smiles and sticking it to the man were reward enough. Work was hard though, time wasn’t cheap. I could get caught. Next, I did what any sensible revolutionary does; I have people pay for my cause. For each milk I get you, the Milk Mafia received one. Kids seemed addicted to chocolate milk. I had to start a chocolate milk loan shark service. I kept the tabs in my head and on days I’d have no customers, I’d hunt down someone who owed the Milk Mafia. Even I’d become addicted! But I ran the operation, so that was alright… right?

But what Tiny Romeo really fed on was the power adjustment. Be-tiny-ed for so long, and now the bullies didn’t dare lay a finger on me. The one time one did, he just watched his friends enjoy chocolate milk and pleaded for one. He learned a lesson, but I hadn’t learned that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I was only 7 years old, running a small enterprise. Otherwise, I’d have taken hard cash over liquid gold. Greed festered among the kids.

One kid seemed to have an endless supply of cash and the other kids started to question. Even I thought it was suspicious, but alas, my only concern was chocolate milk. I was just starting to get a lot of it, more then I could handle. Enough that the concession lady wonders how I’m buying so much and getting out of class. Tiny Romeo hates to lie, but needs to. “The teacher just lets me go get milk before the lines too long if I finish all my class work. I just buy for all the kids!” she said that was a great idea, while my teacher wonders about how regular I’d become in the bathroom. Must be that gross Red River Cereal the daycare fed me for breakfast.

The kid said he’d been stealing from his mother’s purse; she never noticed a couple dollars missing and we should all try it! The other kids took his advice, but they were already paying the Milk Mafia. I wasn’t concerned with getting payments of “dirty milk”, it all tasted the same to me.

The greed had seeped into the bathroom sinks where Tiny Romeo would dispose of contraband left over from the day. One day I watched it spiral down the sink, my curious nature for science, but instead I saw profits spiralling down it. The next day I took a couple home to see if they could withstand the travel sans a cooler. They had. Now I was bringing upwards of 4 chocolate milk home at the end of the day.

The older bullies that went to daycare with me went to a different school. I’d rub the chocolate milk in their faces at the end of the day, proudly drinking them as they begged for one. They wouldn’t let Tiny Romeo play their Gameboys though. No chocolate milk for them! What I didn’t drink at the daycare, I’d take home and drink while watching my favourite show, Pokemon. The Milk Mafia had expanded further then intended, out of school, passed the daycare, and into my home. Suspicions were on the rise.

The adults didn’t believe Tiny Romeo had a good memory, even if I was crushing math and science. I confronted my mother after she plotted with a daycare lady and took my baby blanket away. As soon as I’d gotten that as a baby, I’d quickly found the satin lining which I’d rub between my fingers. I just picked a new blanket; the point was mute.

I’d suck my thumb until 12, but I started hiding that as good as anything. It was like they were trying to make me think I was crazy! That’s exactly why I didn’t tell anyone about the voice of reasoning that I heard in my head. There was one place a 7-year-old boy didn’t want to end up for life and that was in an insane asylum, wrapped up in a straight jacket, giving myself the longest hug ever.

It had been the other kids who were stealing while I reaped the rewards but that caretaker started to wonder if I was stealing from Mother Teresa. The two cornered me at my daycare locker when it was home time, and I knew the rouse was up immediately. I melted down. I knew my power left with the business arrangement. When Mother Teresa asked about the stealing, I told her who was. I learned my first lesson in snitches that get stitches. The Milk Mafia was disbanded. The bullying had only increased after and so we made the first of many moves.

It had been a pretty lonely walk for Romeo and so I gravitated heavily towards video games. I’d often put myself in the shoes of a protagonist and follow my journey from a weakling to a force to be reckoned with. I also took on any challenge that seemed worthy of my attempts. I’d gotten a Gameboy Pocket but mom had bought the Red version of Pokemon. That was wrong! I needed the Yellow one! I didn’t understand much about economics, just that the yellow was the newer, apparently harder version. I also got Pokemon Stadium and I grinded both games. I put in enough effort throughout the years, that I was eventually awarded the ability to teach my Pikachu the move Surf. I was very proud. I only knew kids who said they had one, but were never able to prove it. I’d never meet a person who got one, that I wasn’t able to catch in a lie to figure out they just used a cheating device.

With Arcola being crap, we moved to Pile of Butts, where I met a group of boys that were quirky like me. I fit right in. I became a local celebrity since I was the spokesperson for Victoria Square Mall, voicing Ads on Z99. The store offered me a snowboard package since they weren’t allowed to actually pay me. Montague figured that I wouldn’t like to snowboard, so I got a gift card instead that I couldn’t afford a snowboard with.

Since I’d been off to a late start with the tubes, Mrs Trevena sat down and brought me up to a grade 2 reading level. We read Mr. Muggs. Mother Teresa had both Mrs. Trevena, and had read those books. I thought that was pretty neat. After the first couple months, I was on par with reading, but I wasn’t very interested in Fiction books. I didn’t know why. “Your books don’t interest me,” I told the teacher with a smile, not knowing I was really being rude. She asked what I would like to read. The only thing that looked interesting to Tiny Romeo was the Dictionary. She didn’t believe me, but I promised I wasn’t being smart with her. I got a Dictionary for reading time.

Did you know, that even for weird boys, it turns out the Dictionary can be pretty stale? I started where any weird boy would, at the beginning. The beginning of each letter was the boring part. Once you got to the words, that’s when the fun began. I got through part of B, and hoped the teacher wouldn’t be mad, but I was getting bored. “Can I have an Encyclopedia instead?” Except that while knowledge might turn out to be power, it was very costly to incur. The school only had one set, and they couldn’t check a section out for my reading time. I looked back at her shelf and sighed as I took the Dictionary back to my desk. I’d made a promise after all.

I also partook in my first acts of thievery. The canteen left an entire crate of chips unattended. I fished for a dare. Could I take them? I plotted the route in my head, took the long way, and on the way back to my seat I grabbed four bags. Salt and Vinegar? Gross! They burned my mouth when I ate them. I’d never be good with spicy. I gave them to my compadres. I always wanted to learn and so I quickly became the teacher’s pet wherever I travelled. I’d tell them that I wasn’t, I hated most of my teachers, but I liked to learn. I’d be called a geek. They were wrong! Geeks wore glasses, I only had the overtly runny nose! I was a nerd! It was probably the ‘eek’ that I wasn’t liking. And eventually I wouldn’t want to be called a nerd either, tired of being ostracised for everything and anything. But when I’d started at this school, my parents bought me a desk for my bedroom. I’d hoped it would improve my grades and better organize me. Adults were always complaining about that.

We moved again as I bid farewell to a group of kids I didn’t want to leave. Me and another weird boy, having formed a bond. I moved to Saskatoon and I spent an amazing month with my grandpa. We made lots of trips to Ruckers and Dicky Dee’s. Mom and my step-dad Montague had married during the summer and I went to Jan Lake with them for the honeymoon. The month was even more special because we weren’t there long and things weren’t panning out like planned. I was eavesdropping and had thought that school had already started, so I thought while I was at Ruckers with Grandpa, the other kids were in school! I’d often lament at another kid I saw out with their grandpas; they must be having a special day too!

We moved back to Regina where Tiny Romeo continued a lonely walk. The bullying continued and Montague told Tiny Romeo that if the school wasn’t going to do anything about it, I’d have to deal with it myself. He told me that we don’t condone violence, but sometimes it’s the only way to get a job done. He tapped me on the nose and told me to punch him square right there. The bully pushed me up against a locker in grade 4 and Tiny Romeo snapped.

I grabbed his neck like I knew wrestling, and slammed it into the locker. But I wasn’t finished. As he looked dazed, I swung and punched him square in the nose. Now he was bleeding all over the place and crying. I smiled at my victory while the other kids looked in shock and terror. All they saw was a monster, not a kid who’d been bullied since I started in this sociologic environment. And now the school did have something to deal with, a bloodied kid and his parents. I got an in-school suspension and further confusion on this “zero tolerance for bullying” policy. It apparently just applied to Tiny Romeo.

I tried to reconnect with my buddy from Pilot Butte, but he started to seem different and we grew apart. It was hard to see him since he was out of town. Since I’d last seen him, he had all these level 100 Pokemon, and I didn’t know how he’d gotten so many. He must have played a tonne! He said that he didn’t have a Pikachu in his Pokedex and he wanted to take one out for a spin. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just try it on my Gameboy, but I always wanted to help. Reluctantly I traded him that while he said I could take a level 100 Vaporeon. I just told him we couldn’t evolve the Pikachu. I’d been playing by the TV show and Ash didn’t evolve his. Except his Gameboy randomly died, and he wasn’t able to trade me back. Mother Teresa didn’t understand how hard I’d slaved over that piece of data. He said he’d trade me the surfing Pikachu back next time. That was the last time I saw him for awhile.

I also couldn’t turn up a good opportunity for a punchline. Someone had been brought in to teach us the Dewey decimal system and even this weird boy rolled my eyes at the thought of finding a book via memorizing a number index. I was making a mockery of the presentation and so the teacher said, “Romeo… EXCUSE me!” but her tone was all wrong for her intent and I told her that she may be excused. I was instead escorted to another in-school suspension. But Tiny Romeo wasn’t stupid, just a misfit. I didn’t care much for sports, but when I saw a Tupperware container of NFL football cards, I wanted to organize them. $20 for some 2000 cards at a garage sale! It was a steal. Maybe they’d be worth something one day. I would spend days sitting on the ground. First organizing the cards by teams in alphabetical order, and then the players within in alphabetical order. That was all they were good for. No one collected them, and there was no game that came with the cards like Pokemon. After some time, I’d mess up the cards if they hadn’t already gotten messed up from moving around, and restart the process.

Without constant people in my life, I learned from the only readily available source to build life inferences on, the television. You shouldn’t believe everything you see on the television. By grade 6 I was forming logic gates that conflicted with my good will nature. It seemed that if you threw a raging party while your parents were away, all the kids accepted you. My parents had a bar in the basement, and it was an open bar. I invited the bullies and some cool kids over after school, knowing my parents were never going to leave me alone for a weekend, presumably for this very reason.

Montague had Subwoofers and I blasted music. Provided snacks. We didn’t know a thing about alcohol and didn’t want it to look to suspicious so we made a mixture of all the liquors, later to be referred to as ‘Combat Juice’. I was always a trendsetter. The first party went off without a hitch, all the bullies thanked me for the good time. It went around the school.

We agreed we could do it better a second time, so I invited them over again. It had been fun. Except we tried to be bartenders. We found a drink we liked that involved Polar Ice and finished off Mother Teresa’s entire 2-6 bottle! We drank fast and I’d probably skipped out on a baloney lunch. The room started to spin, the magical effects of the alcohol taking over my tiny frame. I told the boys that I’d forgotten my parents were coming home early today. They freaked out and asked if I needed help cleaning, but Tiny Romeo just needed them gone or I figured I’d be giving the school something different to talk about the next day.

They left and I tried to clean up between the bathroom breaks. I’d cleaned the basement and all seemed good so I crawled up the stairs, somehow reasoning that I needed some food. I grabbed Alphagetti and it would be the last time I ate it. I opened the can and ate it cold right out of it like I was Bear Grillz in the wild. Next, Tiny Romeo reasoned I needed some sleep, so I went to lay down. I’d done a good job cleaning up, but I forgot about a 2-6 of vodka that I’d left on the kitchen counter. Really, it wouldn’t have mattered since the entirety of it was gone. Tiny Romeo’s parents got me up to have a talk. I didn’t hear much in my drunken fray besides, “Actions have consequences”. I felt mine. Mother Teresa had already paid for my Home Alone course and I’d made the commitment.

I went there and didn’t retain much since I was sick and wasted. They certainly didn’t tell Tiny Romeo not to put an unfinished bag of popcorn back in the microwave with a twist tie on it. But I threw that in the backyard pretty quick! My second consequence was that I’d taken the course, but just had to keep going to the babysitters due to more mounting trust issues. My third consequence was the loss of Halloween privileges. Halloween was my favourite time of year. I got lots of chocolate! This hurt me good. But I’d get grounded lots. One time, my Gameboy was taken away for an entire month.

It was the fourth consequence that echoed the loudest. I’d informed Mother Teresa of the other kids I’d invited, even though I didn’t think they should get in trouble. I threw the party after all. The bullies I’d invited got in trouble, and all but one of the kids who hadn’t bullied me before the parties, now joined in. Now I spent the end of the days trying to collect my things and hoping for a safe exit from school. Tiny Romeo took the junior exit and that worked only once. After the bullies figured that out, they guarded all doors. When it seemed apparent that I couldn’t escape, I would just take it. It calmed down a bit as Winter approached. I reversed course. The teachers would ask Tiny Romeo what I was waiting at the school for, I always seemed in a hurry. I’d just tell them nothing, knowing by now that teachers just made things worse than better. Eventually they’d get cold and it came to an end. Not before Tiny Romeo had his first talk with death.

I’d gone home after one beat down and looked in the mirror, wondered what was wrong with me. Was there a target on my face that I couldn’t see? I cried and wanted the immense amount of pain I felt to be gone. I tried all the different kinds of knives I could find, but none were sharp enough to pierce the skin, my vein and to let all the pain rush away while I slept eternally. I tried to find Montague’s big hunting knife. While it could not be found that day, it would make many appearances throughout my life. A taunting sharp knife that haunted.

With all the crying and emotion, I’d grown tired. I went to sleep and when I woke up, figured the feeling was fleeting. I didn’t bother to tell my parents. We’d already started a cycle of me locking down and regressing. They’d ask what was wrong, and I’d remember all the times I’d told them and nothing changed. I just started to tell them that nothing was wrong. Montague had a hot temper and would insist that obviously something was wrong, or I wouldn’t be acting out all the time. But I didn’t seem like a bad kid in my eyes…

Tiny Romeo had always loved music. I would sing and dance, loving to entertain people. Making them smile. Nothing about life really made sense. One day a band was popular, and the next it wasn’t and you shouldn’t be listening to them. I loved Nickelback though. I’d sneak Montague’s copy of Silver Side up, listen to it on a grey portable CD player I had. One of the songs made me think of Bio-Dad. How he was a drunk and could be abusive. How he’d left, and left me to add it to reasons that only confirmed I was weird.

But until then, I only had a big boom box. I realized that if I had gotten famous over night, something would just change in my bullies. All a sudden, they wouldn’t want to bully me. The concept was stupid. People should just like me for me. But that was how I started to deal with the heaviness in my life. I’d close my eyes, and imagine all the people I needed to speak to were in the audience. They loved me enough to actually be there and actually listen. It wasn’t until I heard Dido’s “White Flag” that the ‘sport’ had become ingrained in myself.

I didn’t realize it was a love song, and I often misheard things and interpreted lyrics wrong. Tiny Romeo was convinced that the entire song had to relate to myself and how I was feeling. That I wasn’t going to throw the white flag up and surrender. I was going to go down with this ship… or shit… I couldn’t figure that part out. Mother Teresa would insist that Mrs. Morrisette was saying ‘witch’ and not the B word. I was always quick to point out all the rules’ adults told me not to break, while they seemingly just broke them anyways. I told Mother Teresa that they couldn’t expect Tiny Romeo not to swear, when they swore at everything. Like the drivers that cut her off.

But my imaginary world still needed to make some sort of sense to that weird boy. I reasoned I found a magical lamp that had a genie (because apparently that part was in the realm of logicality) that granted me three wishes. My first wish was for a magical notebook and any song/artist I put in it was erased from people’s minds. I didn’t want my reality to have the possibility of people calling me a fraud, even if I was. For my second wish, I wished for the ability to be able to sing and perform any piece of music I wanted. I listened to all varieties of music. For my last wish, I wished that the artists remained unaffected by my actions. After all, their music only made it into my imaginary world because of what it provided my being. Like most things, I knew this was weird as crap. I probably shouldn’t tell anyone.

I didn’t wear a coat for the winter of grade 6, but I did get a growth spurt so at least I wasn’t the shortest anymore. I’d seen on that TV thing that you seemed to be able to buy friends with money. I stole $20 from Mother Teresa and proved the TV wasn’t lying after all, you could buy friends! I also started stealing cigarettes from my Montague for my anxiety ridden trips to 7-11 after hours. Just one of many coincidences in Romeo’s life, I’d come out of the womb at 7 lbs and 11 ounces.

It was within that anxiety filled haze that I first learned the reason people smoked. I inhaled chemicals, and exhaled anxiety. That came to an end quicker then stealing the money. Priorities I suppose. And I was a cute Tiny Romeo, who’d expect I’d be a thief? I forgot about the ending of the show though, where you get caught. I didn’t like stealing, it made me sad, but the benefits were far outreaching the possible grounding.

Thus, I started a list in my brain. I started to keep track of things that weren’t bad enough to get me in juvenile detection, but enough that I should probably only try and get away with it once. I’d never thought about the stacking effect of the individual actions though. Over a short period, I’d taken $60, but had also changed the course of my future.

Shenanigans came to an end, but the reward still echoed throughout the remainder of elementary. Tiny Romeo had formed some right of passage through that evil act. I was becoming something that couldn’t quite be described. Nerds and Geeks didn’t steal from their parents. While I had nothing more to buy them, very few went back to bullying and some that had joined the ranks before stopped as well. I just had four main ones to deal with. Year by year, the quantity decreasing. But I’d also met a hero.

Another coincidence in my life was that all my major bullies had the same name; Jordan. From grade 3, up until grade 11, I always had at least one bully of some sort named Jordan. I started to wonder if a name could say it all. Our names started the same, both with a JOR. But while the first three letters were the same, it was the rest of our characters that were quite different.

Tiny Romeo was getting bullied by another kid when he first started at the fourth school, my parents having bought their first house and me moving again. Not very far. But one of my bullies at that other school had been the daycares son. We changed both schools and daycares, but the new daycare was no better. She told my parents that she didn’t smoke in the house. Survey said that was a lie.

Someone came to my rescue while I sat on a log asking to be bullied. “Hey Jordan, why don’t you pick on someone your own size,” Calvin said with his thumbs to his ears, wiggling them back and forth mockingly. From that point a friendship was formed that blossomed into best friends. Calvin taught Tiny Romeo how to deal with the bullies. If they couldn’t catch you, they couldn’t beat you up. “It’s okay to run away?” I asked confused. He asked why it wasn’t. “Because only chickens ran away”. Calvin said it was probably better to be a chicken that ran away, then to be the chicken cooked for dinner. That reasoning made sense. Run Romeo, Run! Calvin whispered. Calvin didn’t just teach Tiny Romeo, he helped me become a Little Romeo. One with a bit more strength. But I always knew I couldn’t rely on him to fight all my battles. I’d have to learn to fight my own somehow.

I tested many teachers’ patience and my organization skills still seemed lacking. In grade 6, my school work had engulfed my desk and had started spewing out into a pile underneath it. But I still knew where everything was, sort of. Nothing would really change throughout time, except that like most things, I picked it out as an abnormality. I was able to create inferences on general piles, the things teachers told me went in certain categories, but had a hard time sub dividing them into categories of their own. If I did, they really just became their own category. Since it didn’t make sense to put that in the same location as the pile it had just come from, I just confused myself. Tiny Romeo tried describing his brain to the other kids.

There was a bunch of Micro-me’s in my brain. They were in an office like area that looked a lot like an old fashioned newspaper office. When one of the Micro-me’s slacked off, Boss Romeo was quick to lash out. One time a Micro-me had misfiled something, and Boss Romeo bit a piece out of him, threatened to fire him! That concerned me. There didn’t appear to be anyway in or out of my brain office. I grew very concerned with what happened to Micro-me’s that did get fired. Did they just get put through a shredder? That didn’t seem fair.

Mother Teresa and Montague asked what Tiny Romeo had wanted to be when I grew up. Up until now, I’d wanted to be an Astronaut like most of the boys. But I tried typing up a giant space book on a 90s style computer with only a word document program as a ‘game’. It was quite boring to do. I also learned a lot about space in school. It became pretty clear that not many people even left earth. I played a sitcom (as Major Romeo would refer to them) of a Tiny Romeo sitting at the command station of ground control, asking someone else how it was in space. I had my CLOD on, my Classic Look of Disdain. I reasoned that I wasn’t going to be a very happy Romeo from ground control.

I wanted to help people though. I didn’t want anyone to ever feel as sad as I had. “I want to study viruses. Cure the common cold!” I said wide eyed at the idea. I reasoned that a lot of people got it, and that’s why it wasn’t called the uncommon cold. I could help a lot of people. Montague suggests that what Tiny Romeo wants to be is a Microbiologist. Micro? Tiny like me? And instantly I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I always had a philosophical and logical brain. Thus, reading Tuck Everlasting and watching the movie was a nightmare. I started a journey into the nights. One of not sleeping. I’d lay there and contemplate existence. What was the purpose? I reasoned that if I lived forever, that would be a terrible fate. To watch everyone else die. To learn everything and come to point where there was nothing to do. But the inverse, that life was so short, was just as scary. That meant that I wouldn’t have enough time to learn everything there was to learn. That thought scared and made me sad. I’d cry myself to sleep.

What of that about Young Romeo’s love life? It was a mess. All the girls expected me to make all the plans. I was good at planning something spectacular, but I could definitely not keep up such an energy consuming act day after day. I was confused in the offhand, what did girls expect a broke boy like myself to come up with? Did they really want to sit around, play video games, and drink/eat absurd amounts of sugar? I didn’t think so, so I often stressed over what to do with them. The only thing we seemed to have in common, was kissing. I couldn’t even understand where all the girls were coming from. I reasoned that it had to be my long hair, because it couldn’t have been my weirdness. Still, I’d entered the new school and immediately saw my intrinsic interest. There was a stereotypic group of popular girls. A trio of them. They were legendary. Articuno was the cold one of the bunch. Up until said acts of thievery, she wanted nothing to do with a weird Romeo. Zapdos was the erratic one of the bunch. She electrified the atmosphere and got everyone going. And then there was Moltres. She was the calm and collected one of the bunch, but had a fiery instinct.

I asked Calvin what grade she was in, me being in grade 4 when I first moved to this school. He told me she was only a grade higher. My eyes popped out. Tiny Romeo came to love girls cans quite early, while his friends continued to kick real cans around. But I mostly wondered where they’d come from. Tiny Romeo needed a health lesson. Did they start in kindergarten, or had they just popped into existence overnight? Would that growth spurt I’d been waiting on just happen over night? The slow game certainly wasn’t indicating it was working. I wondered on one occasion if I could use a medieval rack to stretch my body out.

Calvin went and told Moltres that a Weird Romeo had some feels, and she smiled. I’d grow even more confused. She had an amazing smile, it was warm and inviting, but the only thing the other boys seemed concerned with was what I’d first noticed. What about the girl? What about the personality behind the body? The boys would tell Romeo that I had no chances with the most popular girl in school. They didn’t have to tell me that, I already knew! I wasn’t in one of those weird boy movies I watched, this was real life. Still, I’d just say, “Watch me,” accepting a challenge.

It was a challenge that worked in my favour. I was looking for some fairytale style love, and started to reason I was far too young for it. Things kept ending for reasons far out of my control. I was looking to eliminate reasons for being bullied, and I absolutely despised the looney tunes. I got hot and heavy with one girl at a school dance in grade 6, and asked her out since she was in grade 7. I got a yes and ran away the next day when she came to school. She had a nylon bugs bunny head backpack. All I saw was endless bullying I could avoid.

After that I met someone who beat me up, but I didn’t like that sort of affection. I already had it hard enough, and I’d just sit there and reason that girls who picked on me because they liked me, would do a whole lot better for both of us if they just told me. Unless people were specific, Tiny and Little Romeo had a hard time reading them. Eventually she started sticking up for me against my bullies, and like Sydney, Sarah had this strong will and demeanour about her.

We started something, and she still beat me pretty good. One time my shoulder remained bruised for days from a ‘loving punch’ from her. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was actually inflicting damage on my frail body. But I also reasoned that if she could hit someone so hard that she had some feelings for, I could only imagine the place she’d put my bullies in.

The next dance we spent together and it was magical. It was the same experience as the previous dance with bugs bunny girl, but completely different at the same time. I couldn’t figure it out. Just knew I had to walk her home after. It was late when we left the school, I needed to know she got home safe. That was when she informed me that she was moving. She hinted at the slight possibility that our story wasn’t over. But I knew it was.

I looked at her sad. She was sad too, but had some words of wisdom. There was nothing that could be done, so we had better just make it a night we’d never forget. That boy never forgot. He went home and cried on the way. It was when I started to notice that I seemed to feel bigger than other boys, and that I seemed to want different things then they did. The smiles, the cuddles, the kisses of love and passion. Commitment. It had only been a month with this girl, but it took me just as long to get over her.

It didn’t get much better. I still kept chasing. Wanting romantic valentines and Christmas’ with someone special. Someone that listened. I got in one just in time for Christmas, just in time for Romeo to exude lots of energy after 10 days of being in a relationship. And an hour before New Years Eve, she called Romeo up. I’d hoped it was to wish me a loving New Years.

I hadn’t bothered because I knew something was up, and figured I’d already put the effort in for Christmas. Instead, she informed me that she cheated on me with another guy. I didn’t know what to say. We hadn’t even been together 3 weeks. I wasn’t even sure if that reasoning was good or bad. She said she was sorry and it would never happen again. I might have been weak. I might have lacked many qualities. But I’d figured abuse was something I’d never stand for. I told her that she was right, it wouldn’t happen again. I wouldn’t give her the chance to let it happen again. I hung up, and cried the New Year in. Now wondering not just what the boys found wrong with me, but the girls as well.

I read a book about summer love, and found my answer out of the pain. If I didn’t invest myself, I wouldn’t get hurt. As long as I stuck to my commitments. That’s what summers became. I could go out, meet girls, flirt and make them laugh and smile. I could have fun, and by the end of summer we could just say adios. I’d go back to trying and being a microbiologist.

I went to the exhibition. It was my stomping ground for meeting girls and out of all the things Mother Teresa couldn’t afford, she made sure I got to go to the Queen City Ex. Even if I was scared of any ride that went higher then my head.

Before grade 7 started, I’d gone with some buddies. I didn’t like entering public spaces alone. They were intimidating and the possibilities endless. I was walking backwards, not watching where I was going. I bumped right into a little cutie with a cute smile. I did my normal weird boy thing and introduced myself in a typical Romeo fashion. Said that we were meant to have met, since I walked right into her. She laughed and asked if I wanted to join her and 2 other boys. I asked my group if they cared that I ditched them, and they said not at all.

We spent the morning flirting. She informed me the she was Christian. At this point, that hadn’t seemed like a problem even to my logical brain. We were still just kids after all. After 3 hours, we went inside to eat. By this point, Little Romeo had started to notice that one of the boys seemed very sad. I was too broke for food, so I just said I was good, I never liked begging. However, it came out through the course of lunch that she was dating the very sad looking boy sitting beside her.

Little Romeo was shocked. I didn’t understand how we’d even gotten to this point. I wasn’t sure why that boy hadn’t piped up and said “Hey, you’re holding MY girlfriends hand,” and I didn’t understand why the girl had no problems with the course of actions over the past three hours. It further confused me since she told me she was Christian. That seemed like a normal human you added a whole bunch of extra rules to follow. Like being faithful to a partner.

I however reasoned, that this was all just too weird. That this was only one of those summer things. And she’d gotten us this far so I continued on the rest of the day like it was nothing. Except she told me that she really liked me and wanted to get some contact information. The idea scared me, but I let it slide. Not only did I get strung along only to be later told that “I’d never promised you anything,” but she got rid of the one boy and dated a third one entirely.

That made Little Romeo angry. I seemed to get used by most facets except Calvin. But like most girls, and even for what by appearances seemed to be one of the smarter ones, she seemed confused when I stopped being romantic. Tiny and Little Romeo got a lot of that. Girls wanted to flirt, but not commit. And while Romeo was a needy lover in the sense that he was very sad and craved the affection he couldn’t understand how to maintain, I managed to find girls equally if not greater in need.

I’d gone to Fraser Lake to visit my favourite aunt and uncle. I’d first visited their riverside trailer in BC at the age of five. I woke up for breakfast the next morning, and they gave me a big slice of chocolate cake and Pepsi! I was excited to go down, my brain hoping for some sort of beautiful vacation away from my anxiety filled life no one was taking very seriously. Instead, I got an unpaid summer job and anxiety over a needy girl I’d just started dating.

I told her that two weeks wouldn’t be long, it would just make that first day back together more special. I’d gotten a lot of Christmas money so I bought myself a DS for the trip, and the girl had been part of the reason, except that it lacked a functional capability of keeping in touch with her. I asked my uncle for the wifi password, and he insisted that I was there to work, not be on the internet. He gave Little Romeo the job I hated most; sanding. I could never figure out what the point was. To take it down to wood? To make it smooth? It just frustrated me.

One morning I got up and reasoned that I didn’t come all the way down here for this, I hadn’t even gotten cake and Pepsi for a breakfast! I went back to sleep under the bed, hoping that Uncle Doug would think I’d gotten up to catch the worm. Outside wandering and being free. Instead, he knew exactly where I was and said if I didn’t want a bucket of water on me first thing in the morning, I should probably get out from under the bed.

A week went by and anxiety levels had reached peak values. I knew my uncle had a laptop, and I just wanted to send a message to a girl. Let her know I was thinking about her and that it definitely sucked where I was. I found the laptop, and messaged the girl. She messaged back to inform me that it was over, she was already with another boy. I didn’t have much feelings invested, but it still left me distraught none-the-less. I hid the laptop and waited for an opportune moment to put it back in its place. But as one might expect from the story unfolding, my Uncle needed it before I returned it. He asked what I’d done with it, and I fessed it up. He called me a little thief and I’d be in those bad books for many years to come.

But I never understood my being labelled a thief all the time. I understood when I’d stolen $20 from Mother Teresa’s purse, or smokes from Montague. That was tangible. It was irreplaceable in some sense. But after I started the dancing thing and got a functionable CD player, I didn’t have to rely on Ryan Seacrest and the American Top 40 for my latest craze of songs to sing to a fake audience. I started borrowing my parents CDs and would just return them after. It only continued a musical journey of a boy that would have almost no limits on the types of music I would listen to. I mean, I misinterpreted tonnes of songs, so listening to music in a language that didn’t make sense didn’t really matter.

I could more often than not, feel what the musician was saying through the sounds of the music. The overlays that it seemed like other people weren’t quite picking up on. When I’d forget to put back a CD, Montague would quip at Little Romeo in rage about my acts of thievery. The adults just didn’t realize that those CDs were my greatest escape from life, and that I couldn’t afford all the $20 CDs I’d have reasoned I needed. I’d often lament at an HMV gift card. I got one doing the dishes for my grandmother who managed a taco time when I was 7. My first steps into the work force. I didn’t think she should have to do the dishes. I bought a backstreet boys CD. They were romantics like this boy was.

I reasoned that I wasn’t stealing, just forgetting to put things back that I was borrowing. That wasn’t how my parents ever saw it. They would tell me to call them up at work to ask to use something. I had a hard time asking for anything. It’s why I chose to stand outside in the middle of winter having forgot my key, then to go and ask the girl next door if I could come in. She was mean and I just hoped my parents would be back soon. It was some forty minutes before they arrived, Romeo nothing but a frozen crying popsicle.

I wondered if they really expected me to call them each day to ask to borrow one of their CDs. It just made more sense to let me borrow them like I had been, and replace them if they got broke. But lifelong debts were only about to start piling up. I was and will most likely always be a very clumsy boy. Like most things, it wasn’t only my parents that gave me a hard time, I often gave myself just as hard of one. When I broke something of mine, my parents would tell me I needed to take better care of things, while I was equally mad that I’d broken something of mine. Tonnes of times my parents would warn me of not lending things out for such reasons, but I never listened. When I broke something of someone else’s, I felt twice as bad and added it to a list I started in my brain of things I owed people.

I’d come back but couldn’t help myself with girls. I just continued to change the rules. Now I could flirt with anyone, but it was only the legendary birds that I was allowed to catch. They were hard to catch, even harder for a weird Little Romeo. I figured I had a .001 percent chance of actually catching one. I reasoned I couldn’t get hurt, if I never reached the dating stage, by making it impossible to reach the stage. I still felt pretty lonely in that charade.

I couldn’t even talk to Moltres. I’d get up in the morning, roll up my sleeves, and tell myself that this was the day I said something more then ‘hi…’. Except each day I would get to school and as soon as I’d see her, I’d forget the speech. Mumble my words. Stumble on my way out. So, it was very strange when Calvin came up to me while I was playing football and said that Moltres liked me at the beginning of grade 7. I told him he was crazy. All I’d managed to do was draw weird boy pictures for her in pastel crayons and say “hi…”. I’d skipped the part in between. The flirting part that was easy with other girls.

Calvin rushed back and said that she wanted to kiss me. That made even less sense. Now we were skipping everything and going straight for a make out session. I’d put in a solid two years of cute picture drawing. He said she was waiting for me at the swings. I still didn’t believe anyone. This had to be a rouse. I walked over to the swings, said I heard she wanted to kiss me, all suave like. Sometimes suave me just came out of no where. I’d wonder where I’d been my whole life. She smiled really big, leaned over, and kissed the weirdest boy on the cheek, as the weirdest boy brimmed with emotion and made a weird “eek” noise. Wait. Was I a geek? I couldn’t process it. The most popular girl in the school, had just kissed the weirdest boy in front of the school. What was going on here?

Except something else happened. That .001 percent reality, was now seemingly the reality I lived in. I had never bothered to formulate an actual gameplan. That sort of thing seemed futile. Me and the boys would often ride our bikes and they’d ask if I wanted to visit Moltres. We’d go down her street acting like it had always been on the planned route. One night after the kiss, she was standing on the street. She smiled and said hi to me as I pumped the brakes and skid on beside her.

I said hi, but I couldn’t be bothered with her, just the two boys fighting each other. One was very muscular and had history with Moltres. She seemed as excited at them fighting, as she had been to see me. I reasoned they were literally fighting over her. I started to wonder if we’d even work out. I had an early bedtime, and she seemed so free spirited. I would try to defend her honour, given the opportunity, but just had a sitcom playing of the other boy beating me to a pulp and her walking away with him laughing at me. I wished Moltres a goodnight, the last of many.

I spent two weeks since the kiss just wrecking my brain over one girl that hadn’t been much but an impossibility up until now. I started checking out. I figured I was just going to get hurt. I figured it wasn’t going to be long before she missed the strength of the other boys she’d dated. I’d been in her bedroom once, and nothing was out of the ordinary, but I’d reasoned she didn’t want to just cuddle. I reasoned I was going to have to put in twice the amount of work to impress her. The talking part had become easy once I got passed hi. Probably because I finally had an inference of how it was really going to go and it didn’t involve her swallowing me whole. Calvin asked at the second week mark if I wanted to make another trip. I just had a foot in the water by this point and just remarked with “sure”.

Moltres wasn’t out and I tried to zoom in and see if they were gone. I veered off the dusty road and into parked cars. I hit the back of a tent trailer. Pelvis reeling into the bike handles, chest impaling the metal bar of top of the tent trailer, and my head bouncing off the top. When I came to shortly after, Calvin was laughing hysterically. I knew why he was laughing, but after a minute of reasoning that this one girl was too much work, I started to laugh too. I’d literally just knocked the feelings right out of me.

Since I gave up, I stopped trying to catch Moltres, and that only confused a popular girl that had just kissed the weirdest boy in front of the school. One day on my way home, she confronted me, asked me what was up. She looked sad as I told her that somehow, the two years hadn’t been much for my brain, yet the last two weeks had been unbearable. I told her I had to go, worried that I had really given her the feels, and knowing that if she cried, I was probably going to hop back in and sacrifice myself even at the chance I was going to get hurt.

It was confusing like most things for my brain. On the one hand, she’d also provided what the other two girls had, she stuck up for me, even during the time she clearly wasn’t interested. It was why I gained a favourite bully. Calvin taught me how to run, but Ben had long legs, Ben taught me how to run even faster. He had a thing for Moltres, but she often came over and told him to cut it out. He couldn’t tell, but I could. She wasn’t impressed with him bullying a little cutie that drew her pictures.

But by the time we kissed, she was also on her way out of elementary. The idea that the most popular girl was going to go to High school and continue to date a weird elementary boy seemed even less likely than the kiss I’d received. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Moltres wouldn’t have tried, I just figured the environments were vastly different. And like other kids before I found Calvin, I didn’t want her to get bullied, or lose her status for being with the weirdest boy on the east side.

Like most things, Little Romeo could only see myself. I cared for everyone, including my bullies, wondering what led them to be so cruel during the day. But I was unable to see how I was appearing self- absorbed. How unfair I was to the girls for not giving them a fair say. I’d just walk away, feeling like it was better for everyone in the end. I saw Moltres one last time.

I wanted to go to Campbell high school because they were going to start offering forensic science in grade 10. I wasn’t happy walking around Johnson, but then I saw Moltres. She looked at me a little sad. I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t sure if she was having a hard time at the new school. I wasn’t sure if she felt like we’d missed something special. I just prayed to a god I was slowly growing away from, that she was doing alright. But that meant I needed new legendary birds to catch. Before grade 7 ended, I found two. One at my school who was Christian. I figured I’d upped the ante there. Her sister was much older and despised everything about me.

I can’t explain it except the rockstar hair, but I was even attracting girls through the world wide interweb. I met one in an Online Chat room called Whyville. She told me that she was 16 years old and a model. That was crazy. If I was dating a model, surely the bullying days would come to an end. That long story short, was that I often wondered for a model, why she wouldn’t go on webcam, and why all her pictures were very dark and grainy. I told her if anything ever got serious in the real world, she’d be the first to know. But she was always finding reasons to be angry.

She said if I bought a webcam, she’d use hers, knowing my mom would have said no. Knowing that this grade 6/7 weird boy wasn’t even supposed to have MSM messenger. I saved up some money and secretly bought one though. It just collected dust in my bedroom desk. We ended that and deleted/readded each other a bunch of times before I reasoned she wasn’t going to change. But it was where I met another legendary bird, and she was from an entirely different region. Catching her would be impossible. She messaged me when her older sister left messenger unattended.

At first, she lamented at how her sister could ever be mean to me, I just sent her the cutest messages. It didn’t make sense to me either so I just said that I didn’t know either. But Little Romeo would meet the first real love of my life, Cindy Moon. I would deal with what I dealt with most girls. She was interested in a boy from New Brunswick that treated her very badly. But what started out as a cute online friendship, grew into something bigger by grade 8.

Grade 7 ben was gone, so I just had three bullies to deal with. I’d gotten that kiss, which gave me a confidence boost either way it had ended. Things were getting better in young Romeo’s life. A giant 7- foot-tall kid walked in my grade 7 class. The first thing Little Romeo thought was “I’ve been new before, it sucks. He’s super tall, he might get bullied…” I got in trouble a lot for getting out of my desk. I didn’t when the teacher asked us to give the tall boy a warm welcome though. I got up and went to the front to introduce myself to him. He became a part of our ‘anti-bullying’ group.

I also had a walking buddy, a friend, who was a girl, but could never be a girlfriend. I reasoned I didn’t want to ruin our friendship over that. But she poked me in the stomach on the way to school at the start of grade 7 and I giggled like the Pillsbury dough boy. That’s what I was going to be for Halloween! I missed out on the previous year of Halloween, so I had to make up for it double this year. I used MapQuest to print off maps of the Town of Pile o’ Butts. I marked the areas that always had cans of pop and giant chocolate bars. Me and the tall boy got 7 pillowcases full of candy that year. It took me a large chunk of my day to sort it all out. One man ran out of candy, and said we were probably too young for beer. I asked if he saw how tall my friend was, we were obviously old enough! He laughed and brought back two cans of V8. I hated V8, but I didn’t intend to leave empty handed. We convinced one of the teachers to let us use computers instead of going outside. Mr. Zak agreed for lunch only as long as we did something constructive. We started an electronic band called “Free Hotdogs”. Montague was a creative writer and he’d come up with the name. Said when the intercom announced that “Free Hotdogs was now in the gym, all the kids would come rushing for food, but stay for the performance”. I loved the idea.

Mr. Zak also said if we created enough music by the end of the year, he’d cut our CD for us. We had all sorts of hits, from a poppy love affair with food, to a sad country song about shoes. By the end of the year, the other band members were checking out at the lack of cheques. I managed to get enough songs for the CD, but Free Hotdogs had dried up into Stale Hotdogs. I’d hoped for a revitalization tour in our grade 8 year, but other things would become priority.

I wanted a dog. Which is one of those weird boy weird ideas. I hated dogs, but I was wanting that companion and maybe where I couldn’t get other kids to like me, the dog could fill in the gaps. My parents weren’t sure I could handle a dog, so they bought me goldfish instead. I tried to reason for something a little more exotic, but they told me to start off with goldfish. I asked if we could get the only remaining black goldfish. It had very bulgy eyes, looked weird like me. We bought regular goldfish along side it.

I didn’t bother to name the fish. I read that they only had an attention span of 3 seconds, I just have to constantly remind them who they were. I took my job as caretaker seriously, although admittedly I forgot to feed the goldfish from time to time. I did reluctantly clean the tank; it was a lot of work. But Goldfish kept dying and my parents kept saying I needed to take better care of them. I would insist that I was. I was feeding the fish, and it looked like a couple were playing so I started observing their actions. It looked like tag, but there only seemed to be one fish that was ‘it’. The weird goldfish with bulgy eyes.

I watched as it chased one fish around the tank, and eventually it swam right into the side of the glass tank. At first, I was gleeful at the entertainment I was watching. UFC. The Ultimate Fish Champion. One and only one fish got a nickname. I named bulgy-eyes Crasher. My attitude started to change as fish continued to die. My parents wouldn’t believe me. Mom only started believing me one time when I was cleaning the tank and shouted out “neat!” as I pulled an eyeball out of the filter. I wasn’t sure how that had gotten there until I later observed what appeared to be Crasher evolving his forms of killing tactics. I wondered if he had tattoos of all the nameless fish he was murdering. I watched as he lured the other goldfish not towards the wall, but now towards the filter. I watched as one got sucked up and caught in the filter. I freed it. Confirmed that Crasher was a psychotic goldfish.

Still, my parents believed that I was the reason for the dead fish and like most things, I became tired of arguing over what I knew. One by one the fish died until it was just Crasher and one other goldfish. But Crasher wasn’t acting normal, he’d gotten sick; Fin Rot. How appropriate I thought. I was going to let him die, to atone for his crimes, but I had too big of a heart. I reasoned that maybe if I cured him, he might see the light and change his ways. I applied the medication, but Crasher didn’t make it. I held an actual ceremony for Crasher. Stating that he was going where he sent all the other goldfish, down the toilet.

Now I just had the one goldfish and parents still convinced I couldn’t even take care of goldfish. I gave up. They said they weren’t buying anymore. I didn’t see the point of having one fish. I didn’t even care enough, just thought it must suck to have watched all his friends die and now to live alone. I fed him from time to time, but stopped cleaning the tank. A month and a bit went by. I got up one morning, the sun shining directly on the tank, and couldn’t help but notice how green it was. All the algae that had grown. Everything this lone goldfish had been through, flashed before my eyes. Now he was living in a tank I couldn’t even see the other side of. I was amazed at this goldfish’s constitution. He became the second out of probably 13 goldfish to get a name: Hero Fish.

I was so proud of Hero Fish that I told him as soon as I got home, I was going to clean his tank. It was the least I could do. When I got home, Hero Fish was belly up. I hoped he was just sleeping so I poked him a dozen times to no avail. I hadn’t cried for the other fish or Crasher, but I started crying for Hero Fish. I gave him a proper ceremony and apologized for not cleaning Pollution Park. I didn’t realize it yet, but procrastination literally killed.

Kid life continued through grade 7, and things mostly got better. The teacher commented that I was rude and blurted out all the answers. I didn’t give other kids a chance. That was because they took too long… and for once, I’d just have what still feels today, like a normal summer with friends. Something I’ll always cherish. That normality of it.

I started grade 8, knowing that yet another bully was off to high school. I’d told the boys over the summer that we were going to be the kings of Stewert Russell our grade 8 year. I’d hoped for Mr. Zak for grade 8, but was only told I would get yet another fresh face to the school. I’d always wanted a hot teacher, but I’d given up by grade 8. When Mrs. K walked in the first day and smiled, my attitude certainly changed.

I always had a thing for the older ladies. I reasoned if my mom’s friend wasn’t married by the time I was out of high school, I would marry her and treat her right. She had long legs. I caught her garter band at her wedding. I definitely wanted to take it off in the same fashion as her new husband had. But I was just a Tiny Romeo. Instead, I rode around greer court with it on my bike handles until mother Teresa put an end to that.

I also seemed to get much affection from the mothers of other boys I knew. I went along with it, but never figured out the intent. One of the moms said I was the cutest and kissed me on the cheek. Who knows? I was the most naïve boy after all. The older daughter also thought I was very cute and smiled a lot, but she was in high school. Girls were confusing. I’d wonder where the manual for each model was. And now at the start of Grade 8, I was hot for teacher.

It had been a year of talking with Cindy and things only got more heated after the summer. We made it online official while keeping it open. My group had a bet about who could lose their virginity the fastest. We assumed it would be Calvin, he had it all going for him. The looks, the athletic ability. I knew I was only screwing myself by having fallen for someone 4000 kilometres away. But my parents were quite snoopy and eventually my mom came across a webcam. For a couple years it had no use. Now I was using it with Cindy. We both had the same low self esteem. She insisted I was very cute, and I’d believe her even if I didn’t agree.

My parents didn’t know much about anything, and that included my dating life. Mom knew a tad about Moltres, and about the Christian girl. Sometimes the elusive words that I was meeting up with a girl, but I didn’t let them in much. My mother assumed my first date was in grade 7. That was a mess. I’d met her online and met up to do what kids do. But she tried too hard to like everything that I liked. I often had a hard time following my own logic, often trying to like everything a girl liked.

Our conversations lacked substance. But she looked at me with longing eyes, and I figured that I liked kissing so went in. I was immediately taken aback by the foul smell. I knew I had cleanliness problems, but girls? They were supposed to always be clean and pristine, worried about the smells one might be exuding. I didn’t know what to do.

I freaked out. She wasn’t going to be happy if I told her, she stank quite dank, and also wouldn’t be happy with no answer. After, I tried to lay it down that it wasn’t her, it was me. That was the one and only time I used that line. It worked about as well as my failure with English communication. I just let her lash out about how I was like the other boys until she deleted me.

Cindy had been found out so my parents said the only way I could continue talking to her was if they got to meet her. That was an embarrassing thing for me to have to ask this girl, but in typical Cindy fashion, she said it was no problem. She hadn’t even laughed. I was worried, because she swore a lot and could be quite spunky. She was a year older and was now in high school. I loved her more after the interview. She smiled so cute. Put my parents’ minds to ease. My mother would say she was very beautiful, and Montague would comment on her composure. But it only grew harder for me.

One night Cindy asked if I could get a later bedtime. That seemed impossible, it was during the week! But she insisted that she had a surprise worth me fighting for one. I reasoned with mom until she let me stay up. Not only had I taken grade 8 extra serious for the microbiology, and for the teacher I was hot for, but also for Cindy. If I had no homework, I got on the computer a lot earlier. Everything pointed to me having earned it this time, and that Cindy was good in my life. I’d started opening up to her about the things that riddled my brain. But she didn’t make me feel less-then, and I’d already reasoned she couldn’t run away. She was 4000 km away after all. She didn’t always have something to say, but she always managed to be there. I stayed up and waited.

She worked me up. I didn’t know it, but my greatest loves were also my greatest teases. Probably because I was very impatient and the longer I waited, the more I wanted it. I really couldn’t guess what the surprise could be. I hate surprises, so I pleaded and begged for her to stop making a naïve boy guess. I reasoned she wasn’t planning a trip down my way; she could have just told me earlier. I’d snuck a seed into my parents’ brain about us taking a vacation to New Brunswick. I reasoned it couldn’t be anything physical and was stumped.

She asked Little Romeo if I wanted to see her boobs. I became wide eyed. I’d noticed she was packing something under the sweaters, but her smile and demeanour always kept my eyes away. I always wanted to be Prince Charming, but my brain often got the best of me, “Shit yeah!” I replied.

She showed me them, and I told her how beautiful they were. They certainly weren’t the first pair Romeo had seen, but it was something else. Everything was so effortless with Cindy. It was why it started becoming so hard. We had unlimited long distance so I started calling her on the phone. I’d feel bad at all the things the other boy was doing. He’d tell Cindy he had feelings for her, and then go and kiss other girls. He was doing all the things to her, that girls were doing to me. It hurt me, because all I wanted to be able to do, was to really love her. I reasoned that she wasn’t showing me her boobs, but she was showing me that she trusted and loved a weird boy 4000KM away. That’s what was special to me. I asked if I was allowed to tell the other boys. She just laughed and said she didn’t care. Just asked if I’d taken one of those screen captures. I didn’t know how to, and was far to naïve to have been prepared to screenshot her boobs, but I also respected her far too much. I told her that even if I had, and she managed to make me so mad that I never wanted to speak to her again, that I still wouldn’t leak the image. I gained far too much in my online relationship with Cindy, to disrespect her like that. She had a classic awe, and I would often get my classic drooping Morty face.

I could only think of the one girl during the relationship period, and she seemed pretty open to my brain, so I asked if I was allowed to do unsavory things to myself while having her in mind. To fly solo missions. She laughed and said I was weird, she didn’t care. But I did. I didn’t want to disrespect her in any form. Even if I’d already told her the size of Stumpy, the nickname my Johnson would get in grade 8 and like most nicknames, it would stick for life. Even if we debated about flying solo missions on webcam but both reasoned it was too weird.

She started smoking Marijuana. I’d been told terrible things about the devil’s lettuce by my parents. I asked why she was smoking it, I hoped it wasn’t to impress the other guy. I told her she shouldn’t need the Marijuana, just my love. But Cindy sadly pointed out the obvious, that I was 4000Km away and not even in high school yet. I agreed that it was going to be a hard wait. And I worried that I might just wait, only to gain the ability to actually meet her, but only to find it had been a waste of energy and time.

Because in that sitcom, the other boy smartened up by grade 12 and they became high school sweethearts. All I’d have managed to do was waste some 5 years on a girl 4000 Km away for nothing. It didn’t make much logical sense in the slightest, no matter my level of feelings. I’d always love the song she chose for us though. I listened to the backstreet boys and she listened to rap. Our song became “Suga Suga” by Baby Bash. It has always felt appropriate to a boy who knew his reality. I was just that weird wide eyed boy from the movies. These girls just didn’t seem to realize that they were my girls-next-door.

She ended up going completely steady with the other boy and I never blamed her. For what she provided, I’d have always just wanted her to be happy. But I was starting to reason that I loved differently then other boys. I hoped that he didn’t just want her for her body, she was worth so much more then that. It was something that would take an intelligible boy too long to figure out though, I wasn’t in control of other people.

I’d try to remain friends with Cindy, but it became too hard to continue hearing about the crappy things the other boy was doing, and at the same time have to hear about the good things. While I knew that only I’d committed fully, it still hurt the entire time being romantic to a girl who would sometimes end the conversation by saying “Well g2g, I’m meeting up with said douchebag now”. And like most girls in young Romeo’s life, she was confused why I stopped being romantic when she entered a relationship.

To my logical brain, that seemed like any form of cheating. Office flirting might be no less confusing. In fact, I’d added her friend who had the same sort of sentiment to begin with. I figured that Cindy wasn’t with the boy because he couldn’t figure out what he actually wanted. Cindy’s friend seemed convinced that a weird boy 4000 Km away was the sole reason they weren’t together. She’d ask why I didn’t just flirt with her instead, she was single after all. I told her what I told all the legendary birds in my life, I didn’t seem to really have a choice over the love part, it was the girls that gave me the reasons.

I was just a good flirt and I did flirt with anyone. I felt like all the girls deserved to feel special, not just the legendary birds, but Little Romeo could have never guessed he was also being a heartbreaker at the same time. Or portraying an image. I also wondered if Cindy’s friend wasn’t just jealous at how cute I was to Cindy. I knew that most boys weren’t poetic at heart. But jealousy wasn’t a very attractive feature. I’m sure my anxiety often came off as such. Maybe the two just went hand in hand. We just fought a few times until we deleted each other. We did the re-adding thing like her sister and I had, but I needed to focus on school, and was now sad so I needed to put her aside. I just wished her luck for high school.

Little Romeo took on a lot my grade 8 year. The title of king sounded good, but I figured if I added a presidential title, that would be even better. I reasoned the school needed better organization and leadership! This was coming from what seemed to be a highly unorganized boy. I was sad at the lack of campaigning, I figured that was going to be the fun part. Instead, we had to write up speeches to present in front of the teachers. I’d grown comfortable speaking in front of other people at this school, plus the extra motivation helped. I knew some teachers wouldn’t vote for me no matter what, so I didn’t write my speech to them, nor did I write it to the teachers who told me they saw protentional. I wrote it to the ones on the fence.

Little Romeo did get the position but had to share it with Moltres younger sister Entei. Her legendary trio had quickly picked up the reigns when her sister left. It was a split vote between the two of us, and I wasn’t happy with it. They said to look at the positives, it just meant more leadership for the school. It just meant a boy with big ideas battling a girl in a younger grade then me. She wanted to have twice the amount of bake sales. All Little Romeo could think of was a time in grade 4 when I’d overheard a couple girls from the SLC complaining about how much work the bake sales were and they never made much on them. My brain shouted in agreement. It didn’t make sense to do something that wasn’t working. I thought about the chocolate milk line and I tried to come up with ideas that would be more affordable to all the kids. $2 didn’t seem like a to some people, but it wasn’t definitely a lot to others.

One time Arcola school had put on a dollarstore of sorts in the gym. People donated goods and the kids could go around and buy their parents Christmas gifts. One boy younger than me either forgot his money, or couldn’t even afford the $2 to get both his parents a gift. But one of the teachers felt bad, and they reached into their own satchel to pull out money. The little boy would get to surprise his parents after all. I liked surprises, not ones that required someone to sneak up on me though, but I also didn’t like waiting for surprises. I bought mom some heart shaped rainbow earrings, and a silver watch. I reasoned that girls liked shiny things, my mother should be no different.

When we got home, mom told me to put them under the tree, but I couldn’t wait until Christmas. I knocked on the bathroom door and asked her to guess what I got her. But she wasn’t working with me so I started to get angry. I told her she had to open them up now. She told Tiny Romeo that if she did that, she would be very sad because she would have nothing to open up on Christmas. I said I didn’t care; we could rewrap them up and she could act surprised on Christmas. She laughed and I stormed off. I came back with the two presents the school had wrapped and burst in the door while Mother Teresa was on the toilet. I angrily ripped the wrapping paper off. “You got earrings, and a watch. Happy?” I said with my CLOD on. She just did her Mother Teresa thing. She hugged me and told me that she loved me to the moon and back. I still wasn’t very happy. I thought we should have more school dances! Invite girls from other schools! My priorities didn’t always lie in the best interest of the school. While most of my ideas were applauded, it was clear that the school lacked the funding to do such things. I didn’t know what else I could really do. I learned a lot from the position, but I reasoned it was quite the sham.

The boys convinced me to join the basketball team. I was reluctant. Band hadn’t gone over so well. I wanted to play the Saxophone because of Lisa from the Simpsons. Initially I connected with Bart. He got picked on, but while his bullies didn’t get in trouble, Bart always seemed to. He was a smarty pants and pulled neat pranks. Also wrote tonnes of lines like I did. But I’d watched an episode of Lisa and her saxophone and I was moved by the soul of it.

The school was small so they told me I would have to play an Alto sax. It was half the size of a Little Romeo! I insisted I would only be able to play soprano but they didn’t listen. I didn’t get very far with the heavy sax. I’d show up to band class, and often just pretend that I was playing, or sit there sad/mad that I couldn’t understand music theory. I felt like I was bringing down the class, but I’d also promised Mother Teresa if she purchased the rental, I would stick it out for at least the year. My first catch 22 of many. I opted to let down Mother Teresa who I figured would always hold love for me no matter what. I knew friends were different. I could pick my friends, I could pick my nose, but I could never pick when my friends and their noses would move out of my life.

The boys convinced me and said they’d be there to help up my game. I really did it to play with Calvin. It wasn’t just me that had a bunch of bullies from older grades, apparently so did nearly every kid that year. There were some sports the school had considered cancelling altogether. I tried out but it was no better then it had been when I tried with the bullies at daycare. I hadn’t figured out dribbling, that I needed to put forward momentum into it so that it came with you. The coach would tell me to look up and the ball would go elsewhere.

I also didn’t understand any of the rules. They seemed quite like the rules for the game of Monopoly. Sometimes they existed and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they were interpreted one- way, other times a different. Sometimes people would just add rules. You almost needed a lawyer in your life. I tried to do the lay up, but even if I managed to get the ball there without looking, I screwed up on the follow through. I would reason that it probably didn’t matter, I was probably travelling anyways.

The humiliating try-outs ended and I thought, “Well this is fine, I tried for the boys, now I can go back to playing video games,” I had a lot going on. I was trying to %100 complete The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as well as Final Fantasy 7. My uncle had given me his old Playstation One. I’d also decided that although I was never getting my surfing Pikachu back, I still had the entry in my Pokedex, and I could complete that. Instead, I did have to play stupid basketball.

I went to go read the list of who made it and all my buddies were on the list except me. “Oh well, have fun,” I said walking away. But I was stopped by a coach who announced that there had been so many that tried out, they decided to form a B team. Again, I was like, “Oh well, have fun” figuring that they didn’t have enough kids to make a Z team. Instead, the coach stopped me, since I’d told him that I was only joining for the other boys. He could even just sit me on the bench. I’d have quite preferred that.

He told me that I’d been chosen for the B side but not to look down on that. Too late, I did as soon as he said “you’re on the B-side, without your best friend, and this is going to take a lot of time out of video gaming”. He continued by saying that I showed great leadership in my role as president and on the ground as playground supervisor. He told me that the B-side needed good leadership too. I rolled my eyes. I’d figured they’d have put the tallest boy in class on the A side, but it turned out that being super tall didn’t matter if you had two left feet. At least I wasn’t alone.

There was another reason Romeo came to despise sports. Like most things, I couldn’t figure out if I was somehow solely bringing down the entire team, or if I was okay and we just all sucked. Mother Teresa insisted I be in activities, and so I was on a lot of sports teams that received participation medals for coming in last. I tried to instill my role as leader. We ran through the plays during practice, but during the game we just ran around like we were all Michael Jordan. I’d be yelling to pass the ball and run the plays. I wanted to quit so bad but I knew that both my parents loved that their boy was on the court and being a team captain.

We still managed to lose every game of the season. Some of us wondered why we should even bother going to the tournament. We were so bad, that the other schools had started talking about us. I don’t know what happened at the tournament, but it was some sort of miracle. I’ll have to make a list someday of just how many movies could fit in my life. We walked in there, ready to lose and they announced who the completely defeated team would be going up against first. The undefeated team. Again, we groaned, wondering why we even got out of bed for this thing.

The coach pulled us aside and did what any completely defeated coach did, at least ones with good composure. He said we’d never won a game, but that didn’t matter, he was so proud of us. I got frustrated. What did the coach have to be proud of?! We were a team of wildebeests! He told us to just go out and have fun, not to worry about winning, the crowd, the other team, just to have fun. Again, I was growing quite frustrated. I’d figured that’s what the wildebeests had been doing, so I piped up as captain. “Okay. We need to pass more. All I want to see is that we pull off a play we’ve rehearsed all season,” The coach had simplified it down to just one play for us.

The miracle happened. I pass it to one kid, and another saw what I’d started. They moved in for the screen. It worked! The player ran past! We were halfway through the play. I prayed we weren’t going to be ball hogs. Instead, the second pass was made, and the last screen. The third and final pass. A toss in the air. A basket! I jumped up and down. We pulled off the play! I could rest in peace now.

Another miracle happened. I scored a basket. My parents loved it. I was like “soak it in, it won’t happen again”. But I got a few baskets and the completely defeated team, ended up knocking out the undefeated team in the first round. We cheered. But the crowd wasn’t happy. They didn’t think it was fair that we hadn’t won a single game, and knocked out the team that had won every game, in the first round. I was mad at those parents. Weren’t they paying attention?! We just pulled off our first coordinated play and scored a goal! I mean, basket. Tiny Romeo said something in my sleep once when Mother Teresa tried to move me, “People people people…”

At least that was over. I worked on the video games. Me and Calvin had come along way, I couldn’t imagine life without him. He lent me his Gameboy Advance, and I paid a cheapskate in our group to rent his version of Pokemon, a second Gameboy and link cables. I’d acquired a blue version so I was calculating in my head the best and fastest way to get this done. Buddy wanted his stuff back ASAP. I was also not allowed to keep any Pokemon that came from his version. This meant an obvious waiting time of double per trade I couldn’t do between my Yellow and Blue version. It’s when my showering habits started declining. I didn’t like water on my face. I took something into the shower in a Ziploc bag and man handled it pretty good under the water, but it came out dry at the end. I didn’t tell Calvin, but I started playing his Gameboy in the shower in a Ziploc bag. My parents started to wonder about my thirty-minute showers but chalked it up to a boy reaching manhood.

I completed the Pokedex and hoped the internet was lying to me. I hoped I was going to get the elusive Mew you could get on the Japanese Green version. Instead, I walked up 3 loading screens, up to a guy, who congradulated me on completing such a feat. He gave me a diploma in the form of electronic bits. I was mad. All of that, and that was all I got? Professor Oak couldn’t even be bothered to give me it himself? He was the idiot that sent me on this fruitless quest to begin with! I did all his work for him. Where was he now? Chilling on a beach?

Since I had the surgery for tubes, I was required to wear a water cap, nose plugs, and ear plugs. Since I was looking for reasons not to get bullied, I had never learned how to swim. For a boy who ran like he was doing the egg beater, I was never able to do it well in the water. I had troubles keeping myself afloat. I’d done bowling as my grade 2 activity. I’d been the only Rookie, but I won second place at the tournament. It was really because first place had a Mario medallion. And the other kids convinced me it wasn’t really a sport, and that I hadn’t accomplished anything.

By grade 8, I was good on the sports thing but mom said I had to do something. Maybe it was time to learn to swim. I pleaded for a private instructor, knowing that I wasn’t going to be comfortable with my performance or my body with the other kids. But like most things, that cost more and was out of our budget. I was tested at the Sandra Schmirler Centre and placed at level 4. I was learning to swim with kids in grade 2. One found it very appealing that a grade 8 was learning to swim with them. I was at a standstill. The instructor was probably 16 or 17, I was 13, with a bunch of kids that were 7. I was embarrassed a cute girl only a few years older was teaching me how to swim. I was embarrassed that a 7 year old spent each class mocking me and there was nothing I could do about it. I’d thought about beating him up, and quickly remembered I was 6 years older and didn’t like violence. I figured I learned enough after one year of lessons.

I did find some time to get into some stressful trouble. Now I was down to just two major bullies. A kid younger named Jordan tried to assert his dominance, but he wasn’t very threatening. Just another Jordan. I’d simply run out of things to try. I tried the friends, but it was a lot of work for their attitudes to change at random. I tried to be a dick. I got an in-school suspension for sticking the middle finger at them after they’d done so to me. The same thing had happened with verbal swearing at Arcola.

They wanted to fight the one day, and were pushing me around. I got as livid as I had been pushed against a locker. They asked why I wouldn’t fight them, and I said, “Because even if I did get the upper hand, one of you is just going to jump in,” And of course, they didn’t think I could beat even one of them up so they convinced me that it would be a fair fight. I let it out on the one bully, and like I’d guessed, the other one just jumped in and it became a 2 versus 1. I wasn’t winning at the physical in any realm. Telling adults led to more beat downs. Taking it, led to more beat downs. Sticking up for myself, led to gang beat downs. Running away and the like was awarded with verbal assaults. The adults would say, “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will never hurt you,” and I told them I didn’t understand it. The language was there, but it didn’t make sense in my life. The bruises from the beat downs healed, it was the words that stuck. I reasoned if I couldn’t beat my bullies physically, maybe I could get them psychologically.

Pretty much all the boys at school started playing a game called Runescape, an online multiplayer game. Like in real life, I was just as broke in the game. My friends would tell me the way to make money, and my brain was like, “I’m doing it my way, even if I’m broke”. I was stubborn in nature. While other people did the smart thing, get a money-making stat up and buy the rest of their stats, I did it the hard way. I just actually wasted my time. I shared an account with a buddy in our anti-bullying group, the bullies also shared an account. I decided to try and hack them.

My hacking days first started in grade 6 when we got the family computer. My parents put a hint for the password; a type of constrictor. Well, obviously we were talking about snakes. I googled it and found out there were only two kinds, Boas and Pythons. I did all the combinations for boa since it was shorter. No luck. I tried a series with Python, but was dismayed that I couldn’t see the characters I was typing. Just before giving up, I decided to try one last thing. I capatalized the P and N, while I made the letters in between lowercase. I thought the PC was teasing me, but I got in!

It wasn’t long before I was found out. And it was my parents who called me a hacker. I think codebreaker might have been more suitable. But since I had the world-wide internet at my fingers and no parents home, I found porn. I could not believe the number of boobs you could find by just searching “boobs” into google. It was fantastic! One morning, I’d found some porn I really liked, so I just kept it on the PC all day. Montague came home and found out that I had both figured out the password, and was now motorboating the PC screen. He asked Tiny Romeo why I hadn’t just shut it down and I replied, “Because I found a good one!” Except my parents were highly religious and so I was strictly told none of that. It wasn’t too hard. I had a vibrant imagination after all.

They changed the password and provided no hint this time. Little Romeo didn’t know the password was in a book in the desk drawer. Instead, since my parents called me a hacker, I decided to try and actually be one. When mom left the computer on but wasn’t around, I tried to install a keylogger. It would record strokes from the keyboard as soon as the PC turned on. I figured the first things typed would contain the password. Except that I had major anxiety about the keylogger. I’d only heard about it from having played Runescape. I also didn’t have admin privileges and wasn’t able to hide it very well or install it cleanly. Montague found it, and my parents said they were going to use it against me instead. I stopped hacking them. They did not need any more tools to snoop into my life with. I already felt violated.

I’m not sure how I expected to get away with it, but I hacked my bullies. I memorized their security questions and went to school the next day. I talked to the kid I shared an account with, just in case things got dirty. He didn’t care. I asked around to friends to secretly find out if anyone had answers to these random questions. I got three answered. Next, I waited for an opportune moment, one where my bullies were caught off guard. Casually I asked the two remaining questions. Does his mom have the same last name? Yes. Yes she does.

I went home and entered them in. I didn’t think I was going to get anywhere, but that was usually how I thought. After a couple days I checked again. To my surprise, Jagex ate it up. The bullies confronted me the next day and I just told them that I didn’t know what they were talking about, I wasn’t smart enough to hack anyone. They bought that, but I had a big mouth and so did some of the friends in our group. By the end of the day, the bullies knew it was me. “I’m trying to teach you a lesson!” I told them.

Bullies were hard to reason with though. Instead, they went to work and hacked us. I didn’t have much to take, I was more concerned with the levels I’d obtained and that it wasn’t even my account. Over the next month leading into fall, it was a back and forth of hackery. No one considered just making another account and hiding the stash there. That didn’t really matter, because when their attempts weren’t working, they resorted to the physical at school. I just held my ground.

After a few weeks, the anxiety was too much for my brain and I had to put an end to it. I approached the bullies and tried to come to a meeting ground. We’d had our fun, points had been made, I’d give them back their stuff and we’d call it there. They just told Little Romeo that there was a lesson I needed to learn now. Negotiations were a wash. They hacked me again, and I followed course. Except when there was fire, I’d often just throw diesel on it.

The next time I hacked them, I went around and swore at the players of Runescape. Told them how much this game and all the players sucked. It worked. I got my bullies a three-day ban. I thought it was over, figured they’d take me up on the offer for a peaceful resolution. Nope. Not bullies. They hacked us, and added more fuel. That started calling people racist terms, which is far worse. We got a seven-day ban.

I’m sure by now, someone at Jagex was just sitting their scratching their head, looking at the sitemap of the last month and just not knowing what was really going on. Or perhaps, someone there knew exactly what was happening, since our IP addresses were located in the same district and found the entire thing amusing. I was getting exhausted as the snow started to fall. We were in for one more round.

By now, pins had been added to the game. We started using those and it took 7 days to remove one. Cracking the accounts took 3 or 4 recovery attempts, getting harder as time progressed. I got them banned one more time. But my bullies could show moments of aptitude. There was a three strike policy. I knew that. I figured they knew that. And since I’d started the trend of banning, they’d reach their third strike before ours. I just didn’t figure they might be smart about it.

They hacked us for the second time, and did everything in the book. They had a problem play for a bit, they did the racism, they told people they cheated, everything in the book. Our account had broken all the written commandments. I successfully got the account back, but we didn’t just get a three-day ban, or a seven-day ban, we got a semi-permanent ban. An actual ban of 11 years. I couldn’t believe it for multiple reasons. I wondered if they really expected me to give up playing for 11 years, and then just be like “Oooo… I can finally play again,”. I didn’t even know if this game would be around by then! People were already complaining about the lack of graphics.

I apologized to my buddy, but he wasn’t mad. He’d been on board the whole time, and was nearly as responsible. I’d asked for permission. He had 3 other accounts that were pures. But I still felt bad that it had reached that level. I stopped playing. I’d put 2 years into one already, and didn’t feel like making a new one just to continue the hacking wars. At the end of the day, if I didn’t have a Runescape account, they had nothing to hack. The bullies had won. Like my parents, I’d only managed to give them more ammo for their arsenal. I just wasn’t winning. Mother Teresa starts to notice an absurd amount of Kleenex in Little Romeo’s room. It isn’t what it looks like! Sort of. Little Romeo would cringe when pee dripped down my leg. Everything about my own bodily fluids grossed me out. But I did also find my body. I’d received a book “emails from god” and one page asked about masturbation. “Yeah! What is Masturbation god?!” He didn’t answer so I asked google. I was curious so I tried it out, “This is weird…” I thought, “What is the point- OH GOD! No wonder this is a forbidden act!” But Little Romeo didn’t receive the best sex education. Montague was uncomfortable talking to me about the Birds and the Bees. I never understood the term. Was I a bird, or a bee?

One time I was cuddling with Mother Teresa as she watched a soap opera. Two of the characters started kissing, “Uh oh,” Tiny Romeo said as Mother Teresa inquired what was wrong, “She’s going to have a baby now,” and so Mother Teresa was curious on where Tiny Romeo thought babies came from. “Well… first it starts with the cuddling,” I started, “And then they start kissing…” All seemed par for the course, “And then the man spits down the girls throat, and she has a baby. She carries it for 9 months and then the doctor comes with a giant meat clever and extracts the baby out,” There was not even the mention of a stork. Mother Teresa gave that boy a book “Where do babies come from?”. I didn’t want to read it then, but eventually I got curious. I stormed out and confronted mom, “This is how babies are made?!” I sternly said. “Yes?” Mother Teresa said like it was nothing, “And you and Montague do this?!” Mother Teresa replied, “Yes, when two people are in love, sometimes they do that,” but young Romeo had heard enough, “You two are gross!” I said, throwing the book at my mom and storming off.

In grade 8, mom tried a different approach upon finding all the Kleenex. Montague had asked if Little Romeo was stuffing. What a stupid idea, I got mad. I just didn’t tell her the majority was just from using the washroom. Mother Teresa tried to explain to Romeo that there was a difference between having sex and making love. I thought about it and grunt laughed at the idea. In the sitcom, I made coffee, I tasted the coffee, and it tasted like coffee. I rewound, and I made love with the same machine. I drank the love, it tasted like coffee. I reasoned that it didn’t matter if I said I was making coffee or making love, it was all the same thing. Mother Theresa offered words of wisdom, “Romeo, don’t waste your love on someone who doesn’t value it,”

The contest to lose the virginity was over, but Little Romeo still found his first opportunity during spring break of grade 8. I thought that was pretty appropriate sounding time. Girls Gone Wild told me so! The tall guy was dating a girl in our class, and I’d often hang out with them. I knew how much I liked cuddles and kisses, and I hoped that in the off time, I’d make the kid love thing less boring by being weird. Except that she had a twin, who was a lot meaner.

They would insist that she just liked me, but I was good on that sort of affection. The tall boy asked me to come hang out over the spring break and I asked if he’d made it clear to the other wheel that I wasn’t looking to make a side by side, I was a good third wheel. He said he had, and they’d invited a friend. She was wild and had a couple things he knew a Little Romeo would like. He made coconuts and danced around. Had me sold.

I first met Aphrodite at MOP (Make Out Park), named for obvious reasons. We met up, but it was filled with adults that night, and we knew that they didn’t come there to make out. At least not that we’d seen. We opted for a much smaller park by the tall boy’s house. I wasn’t good at body language unless it was overt, and Aphrodite made her intentions clear. Little Romeo gently chased after her, I’d known I could catch her, but that wasn’t the point. We kissed once, and she ran away again. Teasing. I ran after her but the grass was wet from the weather. She slipped and rolled over laughing. I timed a slide so that I’d stop right next to her. We both laughed and she gave me the kissing look. I went in. She broke away, asked if I was thinking about touching her boobs. I asked if I was allowed. She just laughed, grabbed a weird boy’s hand, and stuck it right on one. They were huge. My eyes almost fell out of my head. We started kissing, and my hands trailed down south. She was making the same weird noises girls had at the dance. It was the opposite of a dry spell down south. Very strange to weird boys.

The night came to an end shortly after. But we made plans to meet up at 3 in the morning. I casually agreed, although I didn’t believe 3 grade 8 girls were going to be able to sneak out of their parents’ house. But I gave Aphrodite a kiss to leave her wanting more. If she was as wild as they said, I was sure that if no one showed up, she would for sure.

I set my alarm and when it went off, I got ready. I’d ensured that they went to the front of the house. The tall boy had been there lots, he should know. No one came and after 30 minutes I grew tired and went to bed. I confronted the tall boy at school the following Monday. He informed me that they had, they’d thrown rocks at my window. “The front…?” I’d asked, having been waiting. “Oh, we thought you said the back,” and I lost my weird boy crap on a tall boy. I could have lost my virginity! One less thing to be bullied about!

I wasn’t good at many sports, but I’d become a good runner. The first year I’d asked my mom to write me a note to get out of Track and Field. By grade 8, I couldn’t wait for the running events. I wasn’t good at triple jump, tripping over my feet in the follow through. I didn’t understand how to do high jump, often just body slamming the bar. The shot puts weighed a lot… But running? I started to excel at. I’d gotten silver in grade 7, and learned my lessons from that year. I didn’t need energy drinks to win. The sports guys had been promoting them, so I figured I could use the boost. What I really needed was to stay hydrated and eat lunch. I just hated the taste of water most of the time. The 800M long distance run? That was my jam. I was going to pace myself. I followed closely behind as Calvin and another boy battled back of forth for first place. They’d forgot what I hadn’t this year; slow and steady might actually win the race.

We approached the final stretch and I had started to give up, their gas reserves seemed endless and although I’d been trying to save mine, I seemed to be running out. But Calvin started to pull ahead as the other boy fell back, soon behind me. Now it was just me and Calvin. Me and my best friend, racing down the Track and Field track. He’d taught me so much. I loved him. He looked back and I was smiling big, soaking it all in. I’m pretty sure it was really the first time that time had slowed down in my life as my brain tried hard to record every detail. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. Did he find it all so weird? That we’d made it this far together? That we owned up grade 8 and were now heading across the finish line together? Either way, one of us was going to get first, and one was going to get second. I didn’t really care who got what, just cared about Calvin.

He was on track for a perfect record, a gold in every event. As much as I wanted my first gold, I wanted him to have a perfect record just as much. He started to slow down just in the final 50. Run Calvin, Run! I knew that I wouldn’t have liked to win anything but the fair and square way. As soon as I thought about giving up so he could have a perfect record, I reasoned that wasn’t fair to Calvin. I ran harder. He laughed as I overtook him. It’s a beautiful memory to remember. Little Romeo might not make it out with very many. I got the first place, but I questioned my best friend. I wanted to find out if he threw the race. Did he secretly care for a Little Romeo as much as I had for him? He insisted that I won it fair and square, I knew he wasn’t as good at long distance as sprinting. I was never as good at the track meets though. I’d run like I was doing the egg beater to float in water. It’s very strange indeed. I knew that even when I tried to observe and run normal, I still ran weird. It was just another thing people pointed out. I liked getting out of class to go on these special field trips, but always flopped knowing I ran weird.

I stayed around to watch Calvin partake in his events. That’s when I noticed a really beefy kid was picking on someone. I guessed he was two years younger than the bully. I politely went up and said that we were all just here for a good time, there was no need for that. I had a big smile. He informed me that I should mind my own business, it was his cousin after all. Which made less sense. Why would he want to beat up his own family? He put his palm up to rest it against Little Romeo’s chest. After a couple seconds, he thrust it forward, a showing of how little force he’d actually have to use on this squirt. I reasoned that that was what I got for sticking up for another kid.

The end of grade 8 was approaching and something new had formed in my brain. I didn’t want it to end. I finally had stability. Friends and a place I fit in. I was getting good grades. Some sort of routine had formed. Tiny Hannah had been born the year before. I’d been asking my parents for a little brother, needing a constant friend in my life. I reasoned that no matter how much we fought, he couldn’t just leave my life. I wasn’t too happy to hear about getting a little sister. I already didn’t know what to do with girls my own age, let alone tiny ones. But I quickly grew affection for the microscopic thing growing inside Mother Theresa’s belly. And when Tiny Hannah was born, I would rush home just to see her.

Unlike Tiny Romeo who slept a lot, Tiny Hannah cried through most of the nights. It wore on my mother and I noticed that. I didn’t understand why Montague wasn’t getting up. I understood he worked and the insistent crying was annoying, but I figured he was missing a key opportunity to form a connection with his kid. In their times of need. One night, Tiny Hannah started crying and I woke up, having prepared myself to do so. Usually, I’d just roll back over.

I didn’t hear mom get up, but remembered her crying before. I went into Tiny Hannah’s room, and I said “What’s wrong baby girl? No need to cry, big brother’s here,” and I picked her up as I smiled. Mother Theresa had gotten up by now, but didn’t send Little Romeo back to bed. Maybe she knew it was a good opportunity for me, or maybe I’d convinced her myself. She gave me a bottle, and I rocked Tiny Hannah back to sleep. A bond formed that night. I promised to never let anything bad happen to her. I hadn’t learned yet that promises could be hard to keep, and that I had a hard time dealing with ones I couldn’t keep.

I still owed one of Montague’s work buddies some $300 dollars for a gambling expense incurred on the night of Y2K. I thought I was the best in the west at Backgammon, and learned quickly I wasn’t. I was confused if the game was more luck than skill, or if adults had been going easy on me. I just kept trying to make it back. He didn’t seem very concerned; just said he’d collect in the future. The future part scared and stuck with me. But I also made him another promise. He said he was opening up a shop called Hagel’s Bagels. I told him that I loved bagels and I’d be his first customer. One time, Mother Theresa asked what I wanted for a breakfast, she was going to take me out. I recalled the promise I made, and she laughed when I explained it to her. She said he was pulling my leg. I was mad. I’d held onto that promise. I was getting good grades and the teacher helped me out along the way. She said if we didn’t agree with a mark, to come up and explain why we were right. She offered it, so I ran with it. Anytime I had a logical reason for why I should at least get a half mark, I went up and told her why. I figured maybe intelligence would interest a much older lady. I also cleaned my desk. Wow. The things a girl can do to a weird boy. I figured she’d want a neat boy. She didn’t always give me bonus marks, but she always laughed and always made me feel smart. I couldn’t tell if she was being friendly, or if it might be going anywhere.

It was one of few times I saw someone elses consequences over mine, but presumably because I’d seen it time and time again on TV. I reasoned that even if she was secretly one of the wild teachers, I had a very big mouth, and she would get caught and reprimanded. Now the benefits didn’t outweigh the possible reward. Even a kiss wasn’t worth it. Not at the cost of her career. I continued my weird flirting game, but didn’t attempt any big moves or gestures.

I was curious how I was doing that year though and I asked her my grades towards the end of grade 8. She said there was this honour roll thing and she couldn’t tell me anything because they liked to keep everything a surprise. I didn’t care much for surprises I already knew were coming. I told her that she had nothing to worry about, I might have pulled up my socks, but I was not honour roll material. She told me not to put myself down, I’d done amazing. She didn’t tell me my mark, but she said that I had over a 90% average. I was shocked. I’d worked hard to manage everything that year. I still didn’t see myself as honour roll material, but I figured that meant I had to have gotten an A in every class. Maybe an A+ in math, and a B in social studies…

A lot of things didn’t make sense that year. I didn’t understand the point of Grade 8 grad. I wasn’t even close to graduating. I still had high school to contend with, and even then, I’d looked it up. I was looking at some 8 years to be a Microbiologist that could do research in a laboratory department. I needed the whole enchilada, the master’s degree. So really, I wasn’t even halfway done! The adults were also talking about how the school would be closing down for good.

I walked by the front office one time and looked at the photos of past grade 8 graduates, some of which I’d known. I’d gotten mine taken, with my rockstar hair that was now down passed my shoulders, but a sitcom played in my brain. The school was being demolished with a wrecking ball. I walked over the rubble once the dust cleared and came to find that no one had bothered to take the graduation photos down. I reasoned it was because no one actually cared except the kids that were in them. In the middle was a pristine version of ours. I realized that unlike my parents and their friends, we weren’t going to be able to come back in our adult lives and visit the school. I reasoned that the only school that had been good to me, the only one I fit into, was being demolished.

I fought with my parents about going, and then decided to go for mom. All the boys at school agreed it was stupid so the day of we all agreed we weren’t going. Our parents had different ideas. So, I went with my CLOD on, and realized that no one else had gotten out of it. I sat their while they announced a bunch of weird technical awards. Some sounded very professional in nature and came with scholarships! I didn’t get anything. And I grew frustrated. I figured at the very least, I was going to get an award for actually cleaning my desk that year.

Then she announced the honour roll saying that it was for anyone that got above a certain mark. So I was going to get something. She announced the kids that made it, but I still hadn’t been called up. I was growing quite livid. It was an emotional roller coaster for me. Then she announced that above all, there were three students that excelled above the rest. My ears piqued up. But then she announced the name of someone I hadn’t expected. And I went right back to being mad. I didn’t understand how this teacher could have lied to me about my grades. After all we had and hadn’t been through! All those fantasies! Second was obviously going to go to the guy in our group that never came out because he was always studying. Third would go to one of those two twins. This whole charade was useless!

But then she started to announce the second highest honour roll as Little Romeo sat stubbornly cross armed. But it didn’t take long for me to pique up again. It was the language she was using to describe the kid. I’d already gotten my hopes up like ten time in one night already, so I was like, “Well, there’s only one weird kid like that, but let’s not jump the gun again,”. She described a bright young boy that put in so much extra credit to get where he was. I’d go above and beyond. That not only was she proud, but so were many of the teachers that had watched me grow since I’d come over in the last month of grade 4. That if anyone should know that hard work really did pay off, it was me. I got second highest on the honour roll. 95.3%. I couldn’t believe it. How did I get it done? It must have been because I was hot for teacher. I certainly wasn’t smart, I figured.

While I ended Grade 8 off on a high note, the summer was going to bring the low ones. My parents became concerned with the level of drugs in the area. I’d smoked, I’d drank, but our group was convinced that we weren’t interested in doing drugs. I’d smelt the Marijuana once, and it smelled gross! Why would they want to smoke it in the elementary school parking lot? Who wanted to smoke something so foul smelling?

Like they’d been throughout childhood, my thoughts were irrelevant. My parents acted like I had a say, but I knew I didn’t. They decided we were going to move back to Pile O’ Butts. Mother Theresa insisted that it would be like nothing changed moving back to Pile o’ Butts. But I knew that it had. I knew that I never got my surfing Pikachu back. And I knew that while I’d been forming that bond with Calvin, they’d only continued forming their bond the entire time. Even to people I’d known, it was apparent I was just a wanderer. She insisted that nothing would change with my friends back home, but I already knew it was like pulling teeth to get anything out of my parents. Montague had all these life lessons he needed to instill in a boy, had told Mother Theresa that I needed to act more like a man. I’d try. I definitely wanted to be a man more then feel like a girl. I didn’t feel much in control of anything, in any aspect of life.