Phase Three - Loser

Late 2007 to Early 2010

Around the end of this Phase, i'd be leaving the catholic school after 5th grade, and starting new at a public school in the town my mother lived at. My oldest sister had made the switch earlier and I wanted to too after seeing we were basically allowed to do that. my younger older sister stayed with the catholic schooling though. Having friends in the neighborhood made me want to switch all the more, Despite us all being in different grades and rarely seeing each other in school. another perk was i wouldn't have to wake up extra early anymore. During my final year at the catholic school, my grades were slipping. I remember having to talk to counselors and them randomly observing me in different classes, taking notes. I still have some of them in this folder of stuff my mother kept. she had folders for us all.

The dude in the Neighborhood that got us into 'Runescape' also introduced me to the band 'Gorillaz'. I got hooked. 'Demon Days' was the latest album out when he found them, and I got curious when I saw the drawing he did of the album cover on his wall. I soon had both the self titled CD and 'Demon Days'. I listened to 'Gorillaz' a lot after that. it was another mini explosion and personality altering thing. I mean, I'm calling these different life stages 'phases' because of them using it in the past. But I guess in my mind, I was too poor to be a well-kept vampire goth kid. I was poor enough to be a Gorilla however, whatever that meant. The Phase 2 storyline they had going on at the time sort of made its way into my personality, especially with '2D' the cartoon singer. For some reason, he felt relatable. They had a really cool interactive website during those years where you could tour and play games around their home 'Kong Studios' , that was fun to explore.

My Neighbor and I got really into Halo. He showed me Halo 2, and then eventually after Halo 3 came out, I was able to get my own Xbox 360 and Halo 3. We loved it. We played constantly, from 3 to ODST to Reach and even a little bit of 4, though not much. We eventually had our own 'team', he was really good at holding maps down and i was okay at backing him up. I was never as good as him at it. We'd even watch Halo related content. He showed me Roosterteeth and their show 'Red vs Blue', I loved it and followed them for awhile. Another 'Machinima' series I liked was this dumb show called 'Arby n the Chief' . In hindsight, it's pretty offensive. But it was that weird ground were it was self aware and making fun of the type of people you'd meet playing games on xbox live. the halo 3, call of duty 4 crowd. but the way they did this was by having two characters. one being an obnoxious, offensive, lacking self awareness, not very smart, master chief. The other being the more calm, more level headed,more reasonable, more developed and better read arbiter. I felt like I had a bit of both characters in me, but i always liked the arbiter. My neighbor and I also liked playing the first 'Left4Dead' game when it came out. to this day i prefer it over the second one. we used to play some random FPS online, we'd play all night sometimes. Since we didn't have microphones, we'd use our home phones to call each other and be strategic. we'd also play a bunch of multiplayer indie games on some website he showed me called 'Byond' , there was a lot of fun stuff on there.

With my Final year at the Catholic school about to be over, I felt pretty excited for the future. going to school in the same town as friends. I had made another friend in the neighborhood across the road from mine during this time. We met when we crossed paths skateboarding in that neighborhood, and since we were both young boys who were on skateboards, we just started talking and would skate together sometimes. he was cool, we played halo 2 once at his house. He had a friend who was also into all of that and skateboarding who i'd eventually meet and become good friends with. My first time seeing this dude, me and the kid I met were skating one day, and we hear someone yelling "hey! hey!" at us. He spots his friend hanging out of his window. I don't remember what they talked about, they yelled back and forth to each other and it concluded with him not wanting to come out and skate today. we'd all start hanging out not long after that.

One day, it was raining really really bad, and my friend and I were loving it. Running around, skating, just enjoying the weather. we used to jokingly say "We're Tanning!" when people would ask why we're outside in it. But I remember one day, it was storming and we notice this storm drain that has a bunch of little baby ducks in it. just sitting and quacking, no larger mother duck anywhere in sight. we were confused and panicked "what the fuck, they're going to dieee!" , so we get a phone and call the cops on these ducks. we thought they were going to die and I don't think the cops took it seriously, I remember them taking our names but I don't remember anyone actually showing up.

We got a video camera one christmas, and it was cool. My friend and I decided we should use it to start recording stunts. I only remember us recording two, both of which had me performing the stunts. The first, I actually still have the video for. We go out by the side of the road near the entrace of his neighborhood so I can go 'Colorado'ing'. Essentially, you climb to the top of a tree, and lean back so it breaks and you fall down to the bottom. You could also have someone cut the tree down when you reach the top, but we couldn't do that. Not really much to say about it, it goes how you'd expect. I slowly climb up this little tree, we're laughing, and I get near the top and realize I can't go any further, the branches are too thin. I panic and start to lean, causing the top to snap, sending me tumbling down. My friend laughs, I laugh, and that was the stunt and end of the video. The second stunt, I lost the video years ago. The Premise was, I was training to fly my bike "to the skies above", and the first stage of training was this lost video and it included me riding a bike towards a ramp, and then crashing into a bike we parked in front of the ramp. because you know, if you're going to fly your bike to the skies above, you're going to have to be able to clear a bike. Well I don't clear the bike as we all expected. I ride up the ramp, my bike catches and hooks onto the parked bike, and it slowly tips me over sending me on my back. we all laugh and the video ended.

One day, we decided to make ramps in one of the under construction houses in my friends neighborhood. so we make sandwiches, and set out to look for our soon to be indoor skatepark. We find this one that's two stories, ground floor and a second floor up top. It's all pretty open on the inside, not much going on at all, and there's some spare wood laying around. We entered through the garage and start using whatever wood we find to pile up and make a little ramp. no nails or anything, it was wobbly. we "build" this tiny sketchy almost half pipe inspired thing and we're happy it works. we can skate down, turn around and skate back up. we felt cool. We head upstairs and have our sandwiches, I needed to pee and found an open air duct upstairs. I'm sorry whoever lives there now. We eventually go back down to continue skating a little longer before heading out, and this lady walking her dog sees us. "what do you think you're doing???" she asks us. It turns out, this lady owned the neighborhood and had actually been the one having it developed. She had a house near the front not far from my friends, and he knew she was actually who she said she was since apparently she knew his mom. We apologize and are told to take apart everything and put the wood back and not to do it again. she walks off, and we kick over the little ramp before riding off.

The Worst injury I had during this time surprisingly wasn't from any "stunt" or skateboarding. It was from a tape measurer. I was down in my friends neighborhood, and we were just hanging out, skating, riding bikes, all of that. I find this tape measurer off in the grass behind their house and start messing with it. I extend it super far and push the button to retract it. I don't know if I held it weirdly or what, but it retracts and proceeds to slice my hand right under my thumb, in that big fleshy part that connects on the palm. Well that gets sliced open, and I naturally drop the tape measurer, look down and it's bad. I still have the scar. There was like meat or fat coming out, whatever is in there and i'm just kind of shocked. I don't remember much pain at all, but there must've been some because I remember having my shirt in my mouth to bite on. I remember biting down on my shirt as I peddle my bike out their neighborhood and back to mine. I'm on my own, I didn't say anything afterwards, my friend just saw me riding off on my bike with blood on my hand. I end up falling over because it's hard to ride a bike with one hand, or atleast it was for me, and I instinctively put my sliced hand out to break the fall. It does, and I bite down on the shirt even harder before picking the bike up and just walking it home. I still have the scar but didn't get stitches. I remember my mom being pretty freaked out and saying that we'd need to go and get them, but i was scared and said "no! no! let's just wait and see" and eventually it healed up with no noticeable problems.

With School starting soon, I eventually decide to try to cut and dye my hair. I kept it long, only trimmed it up, and just dyed it black but I was happy with it. It felt like a freedom to alter my appearance, one I never really felt like I had before. It felt like a new start. Dying it black was semi inspired by the TV Show 'Metalocalypse' . My younger older sister and I would often watch episodes from season one when it was TV and Laugh at how Ridiculous it was. Another reason for wanting to dye it and have a change, was because a friend I had made, and I decided we should make a website for our stunts. We could have our own profiles and people could make their own and comment on the videos. I wanted to look 'nice' for our picture on there so that helped with that in my young mind. The website didn't get far, we had two videos on there but I don't think more than 5 people saw it.

During this time, i'd see the first time someone 'defended' me physically. I had became friends with that dude in the neighborhood opposite of mine through skateboarding, and for some reason he was up in my neighborhood with me and he was jokingly shoving me, play pushing me up against this wooden privacy fence my house had. My Neighbor who I had been good friends with sees this, and walks over to us and just fucking pins this dude up against my fence, gets in his face and says "don't you ever fucking touch him like that again." and let's him go. The dude nervously laughs and looks at me, my neighbor looks at me and chuckles. I don't remember what we all did after that, but there wasn't any sort of "drama" because of it. I think I would've avoided A LOT of negative instances in my life had I stayed close with my neighbor. He was Great, and we got along like it was nothing. I hope he's been doing well.

I remember one day when it was storming, my neighbor and I had been out in the woods playing as we normally would. we're by the nasty mosquito lake and there's this little kitten in it and we're both just kind of taken back. "what the fuck, where'd you come from???" We quickly head towards the water to grab it, the lake wasn't deep and it wasn't far in. The water was up to maybe our calves, it wasn't deep at all. We end up getting this kitten out and it's shivering and looks freaked out but is relatively calm. We don't know what to do with that. We take it to his house and get some towels to dry it off. I bring some cat food from my house. It stays with him for a couple of days but it was rehomed not long after that.

I had met this girl in my class and soon she was always trying to embarrass or 'annoy' me. Just being friendly. One time, I was sitting alone in the lunch room and there was this window I could look out of. She suddenly appeared in the window, tapping on the glass and waving really wildly saying "Hello Chris! Hi Chris! Hello Chris!" and I remember getting a big embarrassed smile and hiding my face in my hands, not for long, and then I looked up and did a little wave to her and she smiled and did a little wave before walking off. She would randomly pass me notes in class, but never anything serious just stuff like, "Hello Mr Chris How are you today??". She would sometimes randomly and jokingly say that we were married. She introduced me to her parents. I remember developing a huge crush on her that was one sided. That crush would go on to last up until late highschool years. I would ultimately go on to put myself in bad situations around random people I didn't really know or care too much for, in some horrible misguided attempt at getting her attention. I thought we were somehow meant for each other, and for some reason I was seemingly doing everything except actually being her friend. I remember something bad I did, I dated one of the girls she was friends with because I figured that'd lead to us all hanging out and getting to know each other more. It's one of the many regrets I have, I wasn't a very bright or wise kid and I made a lot of mistakes.

There was one night, when someone called the cops on me and this girl I had been talking to from school. This cop randomly rolls up and says "excuse me, were you two laying in the road? yelling at cars??" , I reply "whaaaat?? no! why would we lay in the road?" . "Well. we had gotten a call about two kids, a boy and a girl, running around laying down in front of cars in the road. you know people can't do stuff like that." and for some reason, i say "well, you can trust us. I actually recieved the Purple Heart on my last tour, I wouldn't lie to you sir.". He starts laughing, and says "Oh yeah? the Purple Heart huh? where were you stationed?". "nam'!" I instantly reply because I didn't know what else to say I guess. He Laughs. The Girl and I Laugh. He tells us to keep it on the sidewalk and gets in his car and drives off. She looks at me laughing and says "oh my goddd I can't believe you said that!". We laugh and keep walking, off to meet some friends.

During this time, i'd get the first instances of kids my age dying. One was a girl in my class that was friends with a couple of the girls i knew. The Girl I had a crush on was with her when she got hit. apparently they were meeting on the side of the road, walking towards each other. she said a truck swerved onto the wrong side of the road and hit the girl and never slowed down. she said she was shocked and screamed towards the truck but that they didn't stop. In one of the statements she made about it when questioned, she said "How can you hit a little girl and just keep going?" The Poor girl is in the hospital for a little bit on life support, but ultimately doesn't make it and passes away. The school had a memorial for her, we all went out on the track and let balloons off, blew bubbles. The whole day was sort of deidcated to her memory. Rumors had started that someone a couple of grades above us wasn't in school recently because it was their dad that did it. it turned out to be true. The guy who hit her was drunk, and it turns out he lived in the neighborhood next to mine, passed the overpass. atleast that's where the dude and his truck were found. He ended up posting a small percent of his $200,000 bond and was able to get out a couple of weeks after she died.

The other was an older boy I didn't know. They went to a different school but people in my class were friends with them so I sort of remember it happening in more detail than I should. I think he'd hangout at the skate arena a bunch of us would be at but I really don't remember ever interacting with him, maybe a passing glance at most. I didn't know the guy, apparently he was great and very nice to people and just a joy to be around. Long story short, his mom leaves their house to go pick up his little brother and he hangs himself in the closet. I heard his brother was the one who found him but I don't know if that's true. For a few weeks, people were wearing these white shirts with black X's across the front that they had made, I guess he was straight edge? But they also wrote some messages on them and RIP messages with his name on them.

I Remember the first school fight I saw at the new public school. It was in the bathroom during lunch. These two dudes were meeting in there and somehow a friend and I had heard about it. We follow some people into the bathroom and wait. The two kids show up, and before you know it they just start swinging on each other. I don't know why. One kid gets the upper hand and just keeps hitting this kid over and over in the head, and the other kid slips but manages to catch himself on a urinal. The kid who had the upper hand proceeds to grab him, and starts slamming his head into the side of the urinal over and over again before letting go and dropping him, and walking out. it was silent. Some people start to move in to check on the other kid, he was mostly fine, had a gash on his head but nothing else. The kid who beat him up and walked out, ended up getting suspended for a couple of weeks and had to go to another school for those weeks.

The first time I was ever 'challenged' to a fight was over a girl for some reason. This random girl in my class was being nice to me and some other dude got upset at me and told me to meet him in the bathroom before next class starts so we could fight and I guess 'settle it'? I'm confused but agree. After the bell I head to the bathroom, he's in there washing his hands. I walk in, there's like one other person in there minding their own business. The kid who told me to meet in there looks at me and says "hey man what's up?" , I don't know how to fight or what's going on and he didn't look hostile or sound agressive. "what's up?" i reply. After a short silence, he says "just using the bathroom" and walks past me and leaves. that was it. it never came up or was referenced ever again, the kid never picked at me again, it was just weird and confusing to me.

I Remember my neighbor was friends with this really cool blonde girl everyone liked. We'd all hang out sometimes but not too much. I remember her and I used to talk about Gir from 'Invader Zim'. One night she and I were on the phone, and I was telling her how my Guinea Pig was acting strange. She jokingly said "it's going to die!" and weirdly enough that night It did die. In the morning when I texted her and told her it actually did die, she freaked out and was like "I didn't mean it!" as if it was her fault somehow. we both wore black to school that day. I remember sitting in the back of my 6th grade math class waiting for it to start with the other kids, and this 8th grade girl in all black walks in and makes her way to me. She comes in and gives me a big hug. I remember her saying something like "cheer up! maybe all these kids will be jealous of you and wonder "who is that pretty older girl with chris?" ". I give a little laugh and she does too, we stop hugging and she says she's sorry again, and again I tell her not to worry about it and that it wasn't her fault, just a really really weird coincidence. She smiles and leaves to go back to the 8th graders hallway.

My oldest sister had made friends when she switched schools earlier, and sometimes they'd be at this skate arena a bunch of kids would hang out at. It was really cool, there was a bunch of arcade games inside for people like me who didn't rollerskate. I remember one night one of her friends had a taser, and was running around zapping people with it. I was so nervous and scared he'd hit me with it but he never did. He did however give me firecrackers and a lighter with bob marley on it. That was cool. There was some highschool kid there I never saw before, he once complimented me on one of my shirts. He would sell cigarettes for $1 dollar each to all of us, and he made a killing doing it apparently. I remember buying a few for my oldest sister at home sometimes. He would later be my drug dealer in later phases.

During this Phase, I would try my first cigarette, though I didn't start smoking regularly until Phase 4. I would also smoke weed for the first time, but there really isn't much to talk about. My new friend told me he had some from when he was down in Louisiana, and that we could smoke some if I wanted. We end up going into the woods behind my house with a little bowl and smoke. It was chill nothing really to note. I remember afterwards walking past my mother and sisters as they were getting in the car to leave and being really nervous they'd notice something was up but they didn't say anything. I had my first kiss during this phase. The girlfriend I had my first kiss with was older than me and would later go on to cheat on me at that skate arena one new years night.