LOND HO ADVENTURES PART ONE

OCTOBER 1992

Bill is a barrel-chested giant of a man with a booming voice and a booming footfall with his size fourteen Doc Martens. He loves watching CNN and debating the merits of organized religion with Christian Fundamentalists and Mormon Missionaries. He is a great guy to go out and drink with, as his mere size is usually enough to discourage any asshole from starting a fight. His size also attracts young tarts that are doubtless dying to see if his wang measures up to the rest of him. On these evenings I either end up the odd man out or with the crazy roommate/friend who wants me to spank her bottom, or pour Coors Light on her muff and suck it from her short hairs. So, it’s not really all that bad. He is my second choice as a roommate, my first being my old pal MacGreggor with whom I had lived for six months the previous year. When I axe him does he want me as a roommate again somewhere he says no, being happy where he is in the basement suite of a local celebrity’s old house in Ramsay.
I met Big Bill in the twelfth grade in an art class where we were introduced by our mutual friend Paco who thought we might hit it off as we both enjoyed the work of Stephen King, and Jack Keroac. Bill was taking the class for the easy credits, where I was more interested in furthering my understanding of art history, and certain painting techniques, not that I received any of that from the class mind you. This is not to say that Bill wasn’t a skilled illustrator, he was and still is as a matter of fact, the biggest problem he had was with the instructor: Mr. Coppola.
Coppola was a bald, leather vest, and lab coat wearing ex-hippie who had long since fallen to the dark side of the work a day world which seemed to leave him bitter and callous in his middle age. This also seemed to turn him into a harsh task-master who attempted at every turn to “shape” student’ work towards what he himself considered to be a worthy piece. This of course infuriated people like Bill and Paco who felt (rightly I thought) that a person’s art should be a reflection of themselves and not of the person handing out the grades. There came a point in the semester when neither Bill nor Paco were doing anything that Coppola was assigning, instead choosing to work on their own personal projects, including a comic book called Psycho Chicken, and various and sundry sketches, paintings, sculptures, and murals depicting bald, officious lab coat, and leather vest wearing art instructors in various states of mutilation.
When Bill received a big fat zero after the second grading period, he wrapped a pencil in some chicken wire and jammed it into a bench power socket, tripping the breaker and leaving that side of the art room without power. I chuckled, having witnessed the whole thing, and almost laughed myself off my stool when Bill attempted to extricate the offending device and found it had “welded” itself into the socket! This was all Coppola was going to take, and he stormed to the back of the room and in a quiet rage escorted Bill to the vice principal’s office. That was the last time we saw Bill in art class. Bill’s expulsion from the course seemed to enrage Paco to an as yet unprecedented degree. The next day Coppola was looming over his shoulder, trying to give him advice on how to better shape a huge drawing he was working on in which many costumed superheroes were in an apocalyptic battle with an army of vicious, bald, leather vest and lab coat wearing villains when it finally clicked in for him. He axed Paco to explain to him what the bald men in the picture represented. I could see Paco was ready to snap, as the tendons in his neck were sticking out like high-tension wires. So I decided to put in my two cents.
“Yeah, man what exactly do the bald, leather vest and lab coat wearing men represent?”
The tension in the room became so palpable I could almost see it. Coppola’s face and bald-head was turning bright pink. Paco finally erupted.
“THEY’RE YOU GODAMMIT! THE FUCKING BALD GUYS ARE YOU, YOU FUCKING PRICK!” And with this he jumped up off his stool, shoved everything from his desk on to the floor, and stormed out of the class.
Coppola stood there for a moment, shaking with rage and all eyes in the class on him. He whirled on me and told me to get to the vice principal’s office.
“What? What did I do?” I snapped.
“GET OUT!” He screeched, looking totally demented. I did what he said.
I found out later in the day that Paco was expelled for his actions, and Bill was “this close” to being booted himself.
Years later we would go back to the old High School for a visit to find a great many things changed, seemingly for change sake. For instance the great pyramidic seating area in the main rotunda was gone, giving students no place inside to gather in between classes. Coppola was still there, still teaching art, but he seemed to have mellowed. He held no ill will towards Paco or Bill and claimed not to remember the incidents when we brought them up to him. Curious that.