I found myself dating the third-grade nosepicker--the kid would get lost drawing a picture and forget where he was. I knew why he left to take a test, for years, over and over again. His parents wanted to prove his giftedness. He finally made it to the gifted class by high school, which was a shame because the program sucked by then. Like, in 11th grade I chose medical illustration for the career I wished to observe. Mr. Sheranko told me it was a dead-end field, so I stuck with study hall instead.

By high school the boyfriend wasn't picking his nose publicly any more. He graduated up there with the top of the class and had signed up for the Navy. I don't remember him being a great kisser, but that's as far as we got. I must have had strong feelings for him because it was my idea for him to go where he needed to (not sure where that was) and trust me to complete the assignment.

We kissed goodbye in the lobby of a building that looked like a cross between the lobby in A Clockwork Orange, the lobby of the old Cleveland Justice Center (I was there once, innocently, on a field trip and once, frightened, to testify as a witness to pimp activity at the apartment complex where I lived when first married), and the apartment building where the first books are burned in Fahrenheit 451 (watched it yesterday). I stepped into an overcrowded elevator. The place wasn't usually very busy, I knew that because it was also where I lived, but with the government assignments, it would be on this day.

Everyone on the elevator had a quiet, serious look. Me, I was too afraid of the government to concentrate on the task. I roamed around the building for a while, and up and down the elevator. People were too preoccupied to notice how afraid I was to either leave or focus. I was going to let my boyfriend down, too. Then he and I would both get into trouble. Citizens had no choice--complete the assignment or die...

~~~

Okay, so he was never my boyfriend.