Ex-Ex Con's Tale

Eyeing the building with disgust, Taj walked slowly up to the front door. As he walked by he heard group of who looked like they had just come from a star wars convention. They were talking about sex and then he walked past a group of cheerleaders complaining about some wanton girl. The faces may have changed, but it was the same old stuff. Taj Mahal didn't look like your typical high school student because he wasn't; he was a thirty-year-old ex con who was trying to get his life back together more or less.

Taj pushed through the crowds of students into the office and stood at the counter waiting for a secretary. He surveyed the room, half dead plants covered the window sill and the walls were bare except for two posters; one with a cat dangling from a branch that said "hang in there", one that said "ignorance is no excuse of the law". Within a few minutes, a middle-aged woman wearing a tight, short skirt and a low cut top asked Taj what he wanted.

After Taj got over his disgust of such an old lady in such skimpy clothing he responded "I'm a new student." The lady handed him a schedule and Taj took off to his first class, physical education.

A man who looked about ninety years old and extremely out of shaped appeared in the gym, "Alright everyone, nobody has gym clothes but we can still play ultimate Frisbee. For the people who are new here let me explain what ultimate Frisbee is. You're going to take a Frisbee and throw it into the goal and you get a point. Now you don't have to be great, I'll be grading on improvement. For example, say at the beginning of the year you get one point in the game and then at the end you get five, is that better? Yes. Is it amazing? No, but you'll be rewarded for your improvement. Now, say we are playing basketball and at the beginning you make five baskets in five minutes and then at the end you make seven. Are you going to be ready for the NBA? No. Did you improve? Yes. Are you going to be rewarded for that? Yes. Now say"

By now Taj had tuned the man out after the second example. Twenty minutes later the

man had finally finished his lecture about ultimate Frisbee. Taj couldn't figure out what you would say about Frisbee for twenty-five minutes but this man somehow managed. During ultimate Frisbee Taj overheard two guys talking about whether putting Clorox in bean dip would kill them. Taj decided to enlighten them and interrupted their conversation, "Clorox in the bean dip doesn't kill them. They just end up with an awful case of the runs. If you really want to kill someone and get away with it you" Taj was cut off by the bell and the two boys walked quickly away from Taj. The rest of the day dragged on class by class each with a more idiotic teacher who hated teaching. Finally the day ended and Taj decided to walk to his halfway house. On the way home he took a shortcut through the woods and saw two guys smoking some weed.

He closed his eyes and kept repeating to himself, "Don't think about drugs, don't think about drugs, don't think about drugs Hey, guys, mind if I?"

The stoners gladly obliged and within one inhalation, Taj's "new" life went down the drain.

"Hey," one of the stoners said, "did you hear the history teacher talking about Homo Erectus today?"

The two boys started cracking up, "Homo Erectus, Ha Ha! You know what words that has in it, Homo, Ha Ha."

Taj would have rolled his eyes if he weren't so busy getting high.

Waking up in a pile of leaves and a pool of what he hoped was his own filth, Taj realized that at 3 P.M. all of his self-control and reformed self had gone up in smoke. Taj began to wonder if he should go back to school. He didn't know what time it was and he was in the woods about half a mile from the school. Okay he figured, maybe he could juggle a life of crime and get his high school degree. Taj jumped up and started to run through the woods to school. Taj arrived at school two periods late but was on time for art. Strolling into art he realized that he had homework in art that he didn't do. Taj sat down next to a junior named Tammy Littlenut. The art teacher was coming around checking homework so when Tammy turned her head, Taj grabbed the head off of her sculpture and quickly started molding it with one hand. By now, the art teacher was talking to Tammy Littlenut.

"Well Tammy I think your sculpture needs a head. And Taj...what is this?"

Taj looked confused for a moment; "Clearly...it’s a monkey’s paw."

The art teacher rolled his eyes and walked away while Tammy was looking on the ground for the decapitated head. The rest of the day flew by until gym, when Taj realized how much he wanted to fit in. With some trepidation he approached Orlando, an ultra-popular kid.

"Hey, Orlando, Maybe we could do something this weekend?" Taj said.
"Hey…maybe, not," Orlando responded.

Orlando then rolled his eyes and started to walk away when Taj stopped him.

"Wait! I can make drugs!" Taj said desperately.
"Really?" Prove it, bring them in tomorrow." Orlando said with renewed interest.

The next day, during gym, Taj and Orlando met in the locker room and Taj handed him a zip-loc bag with green goo in it.

"Its called Glint," Taj said, "learned how to make it on the street out of household products, just put some on your lips."

Orlando spread a bunch of glint on his lips.

"Wow, I've never seen anyone do that much glint before," Taj said.

Gym went as usual until halfway through when Orlando started fidgeting and starting screaming he had to get back the bee hive and tried to force himself through the key hole of the gym door. Orlando ended up in the hospital with a concussion and Taj realized that if Orlando woke up and ratted on him then he'd be in big trouble. So the next day, Taj sneaked into Orlando's hospital room and grabbed the extension cord attached to all the equipment and pulled it. He heard an old man grunt from the bed behind the curtain and quickly put the plug back in and apologized. Taj then grabbed the other extension cord when a doctor came into the room.

"Are you family?" The doctor asked.
"Yes, how is he?" Taj asked.
"You didn't know? He died this morning...I'm very sorry."
"Yeah...thanks," Taj said trying to act sad as he broke into a joy filled laughter.

He was off the hook. Taj did a little dance and grabbed one the stuffed animals someone had sent to Orlando and walked out of the room.

The next day, Taj woke up with a new attitude and outlook on life. He decided living a life of goodness and purity was basically, the wrong way to go. So Taj Mahal was going to go back out onto the streets and do a lot of drugs, make a lot of friends, and do a lot of time. Taj had transformed into an even harder criminal and now a new chapter in his was life was about to begin proving once in for all that criminals should never be given second chances.