King Dork Read Free

for us to finish designing the logo, let alone the album covers.
    When we arrived at school that first day, right at the end of August, the name was Easter Monday. But Easter Monday
    only lasted from first period through lunch, when Sam
    Hellerman took out his notebook in the cafeteria and said,
    “Easter Monday is kind of gay. How about Baby Batter?”
    I nodded. I was never that wild about Easter Monday, to
    tell you the truth. Baby Batter was way better. By the end of lunch, Sam Hellerman had already made a rough sketch of
    the logo, which was Gothic lettering inside the loops of an in-finity symbol. That’s the great thing about being in a band: you always have a new logo to work on.
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    “When I get my bass,” Sam Hellerman said, pointing to
    another sketch he had been working on, “I’m going to spray-paint ‘baby’ on it. Then you can spray-paint ‘batter’ on your guitar, and as long as we stay on our sides of the stage, we won’t need a banner when we play on TV.”
    I didn’t even bother to point out that by the time we got
    instruments and were in a position to worry about what to
    paint on them for TV appearances, the name Baby Batter
    would be long gone. This was for notebook purposes only.
    I decided my Baby Batter stage name would be Guitar Guy,
    which Sam Hellerman carefully wrote down for the first
    album credits. He said he hadn’t decided on a stage name
    yet, but he wanted to be credited as playing “base and
    Scientology.” That Sam Hellerman. He’s kind of brilliant in his way.
    “Know any drummers?” he asked as the bell rang, as he
    always does. Of course, I didn’t. I don’t know anyone apart from Sam Hellerman.
    TH E CATCHER CU LT
    So that’s how the school year began, with Easter Monday
    fading into Baby Batter. I like to think of those first few weeks as the Baby Batter Weeks. Nothing much happened—or
    rather, quite a lot of stuff was happening, as it turns out, but I wouldn’t find out about any of it till later. So for me, the Baby Batter Weeks were characterized by a false sense of—
    well, not security. More like familiarity or monotony. The familiar monotony of standard, generic High School Hell,
    which somehow manages to be horrifying and tedious at the
    same time. We attended our inane, pointless classes, in between which we did our best to dodge random attempts on
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    our lives and dignity by our psychopathic social superiors.
    After school, we worked on our band, played games, and
    watched TV. Just like the previous year. There was no indication that anything would be any different.
    Now, when I say our classes were inane and pointless, I
    really mean i. and p., and in the fullest sense. Actually, you know what? Before I continue, I should probably explain a
    few things about Hillmont High School, because your school might be different.
    Hillmont is hard socially, but the “education” part is
    shockingly easy. That goes by the official name of Academics.
    It is mystifying how they manage to say that with a straight face, because as a school, HHS is more or less a joke. Which can’t be entirely accidental. I guess they want to tone down the content so that no one gets too good at any particular thing, so as not to make anyone else look bad.
    Assignments typically involve copying a page or two
    from some book or other. Sometimes you have a “research
    paper,” which means that the book you copy out of is the
    Encyclopaedia Britannica. You’re graded on punctuality, being able to sit still, and sucking up. In class you have group discussions about whatever it is you’re alleged to be studying, where you try to share with the class your answer to the
    question: how does it make you feel?
    Okay, so that part isn’t easy for me. I don’t like to talk much.
    But you do get some credit for being quiet and nondisruptive, and my papers are usually neat enough that the teacher will write something like “Good format!” on them.
    It is possible, however, to avoid