The Day in the Hall at School- unedited- everything to the best of my memory

Today he figured it all out- what to think of me- for the millionth time.

It was because of the day in the hall.

It was when I figured out his dorky wine

And why I could never really catch his thrown ball.

It was during class and I was alone in the hall in front of my locker.  Before I left that school I remember needing to confront the fact that I had fruit in my locker- a plum, purple and overly ripe, almost to the point of it imploding itself.  That was one of the things I used to have in my locker.  I didn’t keep pictures and stuff hanging in my locker- I know one girl who did- of a Halloween night- we all had shaving cream in our hair.  Was I in it?  I think so.  But anyway, I was gathering my stuff and/or standing in front of my locker, and the kid walked up to me.  His face was kind of red- if I remember correctly- maybe I remember it as red because that’s how I used to think of him, maybe because the girl he would unabashedly flirt with- her face would often turn beet red- to the point where, in my older years, I wonder if she had rosacea.  He walked up to me, said something like he did often- that usually made me laugh but this time made me show empathy- it was 18 years ago but I remember it being about something about life is hard and he was a victim to it (not those exact words)- and when I said I feel the same way, maybe a bit too roughly, he turned around like a soldier and walked away from me, down the hall.  Was it coincidence that this happened in front of a classroom- one where I had seen a girl that I just started to be friends with?  And I wonder how this action passed along to the girl I had just made friends with- I think it was her cousin- the one who used to torment me to almost the point of metaphysical death at the third school I went to- when I was 16- he did the “soldier move” where he would pivot with his foot from one direction to the opposite- and this just hit me that the girl and other boy were related- so what else did this pivoting boy know? 

And then when this boy walked away from me, from in front of me to down the hall, he stopped and did the thing where he would flirt with someone else- J, a girl he flirted with sometimes.  He said in his whiny Jewish flirting voice “J!”  (stating out her name) and then he took her hands and looked her in the eyes- and to this day this event was infamous- because he did this exact same thing- the flirting in front of me thing- with the girl that may have had rosacea.  So who knows who else he will flirt with, if I were ever to know him again?  I have told this story through written word to people of a younger age, and they believe that something magical happened in the hallway, something that can only be received by flirting and love and the surreal.  So maybe I’ll meet him again tomorrow, walk away from him, and then pivot just to see the guy that I used to want to be friends with (or love)?