Totally Useless Guy

High school was a time of carefree days and friend filled nights. During the week we’d hang out at each other’s houses and talk while we listened to music, watched TV, and ate whatever we could grab. Our long weekends were spent camping miles away, in forests with names I could never remember a week later. We played games and drank Coke around campfires while the adults sat around drinking beer and laughing at jokes we didn’t really feel the need to pay attention to.

It was on these trips, when we’d gotten bored with the fresh air and dirt, we’d stay find ourselves in camp around a fire roasting marshmallows. The evenings that were the best were fire warm and bright and the adults were too relaxed from alcohol and exhaustion to pay complete attention to what we were doing. On those nights we told stories and played games based on the stuff we’d seen on TV. One of our favorites was called superheroes, where the audience thought of a crisis for unlikely heroes to fix. Funny names and strange scenarios were presented to befuddle the actors and amuse the audience. It was during on of these games that I was given the title 'Totally Useless Guy.'

When I heard the name I froze and stood under the gaze of my audience. They were waiting, wondering how I would react to the title they had given me. They wanted me to be crushed in under the weight of their suspended gaze, held over me by a string of courtesy, fraying with time. They anticipated that they were the only ones who knew what it meant for me to be totally useless. They were right.

The string frayed and their expectations descended on me to crush any chance I had of proving them wrong. Their bright eyes waited for me to become what they already thought they knew I was, but I turned on them at the last second. I took them by surprise and did the last thing they expected.

I asked them for the answer.