You Don't Have a Clue by Sarah Cortez

Author:Sarah Cortez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arte Público Press
Published: 2013-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Hating Holly Hernandez

R. Narvaez

Hating Holly Hernandez was easy.

She was the most insufferable, insidious, inane girl in all of Flatbush High School of Science.

I would do anything to never again sit behind her in Pre-Calculus, Advanced Biology, Creative Writing or Advanced Spanish, being forced to inhale the pungent strawberry scent of her shampoo and conditioner; forced to watch the perfectly coifed back of her auburn hair bounce when she giggled or raised her hand, which is far, far, far too often; or forced to reply to one of her cruel “Hello, Xanders,” accompanied by teeth that while imperfect had a dangerously pleasing quality to them.

Damn that Holly Hernandez.

At the climax of our incarceration in junior high school two years ago, she was dubbed Most Humanitarian, Most Fashionable and Most Likely to Succeed. The former two I could not quibble with, for I care neither for humanity nor have I ever spent a moment worrying over my sartorial deficiencies. But the latter, Most Likely to Succeed, a title that recognizes one’s obvious destiny to change the world, and the fact that it was not bestowed upon one who justly deserves it, truly enflamed my testicles.

We were the only two from our beleaguered, under-funded junior high school to pass the entrance exam for this vaunted school. Now, every day at Flatbush her popularity grows, as does my ire. And so I have resolved, by the great beard of Zeus that I will crush Holly Hernandez, if it is the last thing I ever do.

Option 1: Drugs. I could manufacture methamphetamines and plant them in her little red backpack then anonymously alert security. But my secret lab was demolished when my landlord converted the basement into three studio apartments.

Option 2: Gossip. I considered spreading news among her friends that she had AIDS, was carrying her father’s baby, or was a homophobic racist. This proved impossible since none of her friends were my friends, since indeed I had no friends.

Option 3: Academics. Eureka! Using funds I won playing online poker, I procured the answers for the upcoming New York State Regents Biology Exam. It would be simple enough to place them in her little red backpack and alert the proctor.

And thus Holly Hernandez would be destroyed.

On the morning of the exams, I awoke before anyone else in my family, even my vigilant Abuela. I walked into the bathroom and gazed at my own fiendishness.

“Good morning, Jawbreaker,” I said to my reflection, and then broke mighty wind.

Short, dry, curly hair. A face pockmarked with pizza-red pustules. A fat, flat nose whose only use is to prop up spectacles thick as glass brick. And then my most distinctive feature: shining out from between my thick, gibbous lips: the tinsel-shiny railroad across my teeth, perpetually on display, since I have been cursed to be an open-mouth-breather because of my asthma. In sixth grade, bullies dubbed me “Jawbreaker,” and so I proudly took the name for myself, eliminating the power of my foes to demean me, even using it as my online handle.

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