In the 6^th grade there was a girl named Angelina Jolie. I don’t know if her parents were expressly trying to evoke the famous film star when they named their daughter-I never met them- but we have to assume that with the 24-7 saturation of celebrity coverage, they were aware of the screen goddess. That being so, we also have to assume they either a, had a  perverse sense of humor or b, were gently retarded for you see ,their daughter, Angelina, was shockingly ugly. She was morbidly obese and her head got by without a visible neck. Her skin was so pock-marked it made you wonder if she were wounded in a chemical-related accident. Her filthy-brown hair was naturally damaged and grew in different directions and different links. Beady brown-yellow eyes set close together shown dully in even the brightest of light. He skin color suggested a liver or pancreas problem. At this point a reptile would have committed suicide but Angelina came to school everyday. Actually, she was not a bad student although she never opened her mouth once as I recall. Perhaps she could have finally gotten by the gauntlet of middle school torture that everyone knows so well if the above tribulations were all there was to it but no, fate had more punishment to mete out when it came to Angelina Jolee.

One, her parent s insisted on dressing her (We were sure she did not choose her clothes herself but really, who knows? We never asked) like a circus clown with mild cerebral palsy. There were no outlandish color schemes she would not sport, no ensemble that was too incongruous, or no accessory that was inappropriate for a 6^th grade child. Even teachers did a double take when she took her seat. Two, Angelina Jolee, out of nervousness or inconsistency, peed herself so often the smell had seeped into her skin, her desk, her chair, her immediate atmosphere. To say her classmates tortured her is to put it lightly. She became numb, much like a animal that has taken so much abuse it stares blindly as it is being viscously beaten with a stick, and went into another world as she took her lot in life. Her eyes, having stopped tearing up long ago, would glaze over and she would collapse onto the ground as folks like John Rook and Tommy Morefield prodded her with a stick, pulled down her pants with needle-nosed pliers, as the rest of us shouted and screamed with pleasure. The insult of that 6^th grade year was to “eat Angelina Jolee.” Students would say “Your mother wears combat boots.” “Oh Yea? Your mom eats Angelina Jolee!”

I have to admit right here I was considered a bit weird by my classmates. This you must know. Nothing overly serious but still. I also have to admit that I often wondered about Angelina Jolee and what she did when she went home. Did she watch TV with her mom and dad? Were there stuffed animals in her bedroom and posters of the ‘Teen Dreams’ of the day tacked or taped to her wall? Did she look at them as her private parts began to ache and touch herself? Was she AWARE of the fact that so far in this life, when it came to love, she would never, never experience it? That in fact, she inspired the opposite emotion in every boy and girl she met?

I wondered about these things.

Looking back, I don’t know why I did what I did. I just did it. One day right after recess was over and Angelina had had dirt stuffed into her mouth and panties, I pulled my desk close to hers. I touched her arm and smiled at her. For two weeks there was no response at all, nothing. Then one day when I touched her arm and smiled and chatted mindlessly about a class assignment, the yellowed skin of her face turned bright red and she almost smiled. At the end of the day, I walked with her almost all the way to her home despite the other kids pelting us with dirt clogs and pieces of trash. The next day she showed up to class with a bow in her combed hair and a trace of pink lipstick in the area where her lips should have been!

The laughter reached a point where some of the students were starting to hyperventilate. Even our teacher made a witty remark as I recall. Angelina set frozen in her desk until the teacher called the class to order. Angelina, like a tortoise that perhaps has seen to many moons, began to draw herself back into her young shell. She opened her textbook and took out her notebook as the other students reluctantly did the same. I noticed, from four desk away, her hand trembled for a moment and then was still.