Richard Steele's Great White Kangaroo

By Zachary J D'Argonne

Unmistakably plain, Richard Steele is floating through his mediocre senior year of High School. Nothing beyond the newest Batman comic or Star Wars movie matters much to Rick, until the day Rosie Todd moved to his home town of Aurora, Colorado.

Rosie is a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime kind of girl that all of the guys want. A kind of girl Rick

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zachary D'Argonne
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9780578794631

Zachary J D'Argonne

Zac lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado with his beautiful wife (Meredith), daughter (Cecilia) and their dog (Chipper). He earned his undergraduate degree from The University of Denver in Creative Writing and Psychology. Zac has a Masters of Science from Columbia University School of Social Work, with an emphasis in child and adolescent grief and trauma therapy.

Book preview

I

Male Adolescence

1

Pleasantries

Hi, my name is Richard Steele. As I sit here to tell you this story, I am a twenty-three-year-old man, and though I am technically an adult in the eyes of the law, many would say that I have not yet reached adulthood. With my generation, the spectrum of ages that one becomes an adult varies from person to person. My cousin, a miserable bastard down in Louisville, Kentucky, had to be the man of the house at sixteen when his father died, and his mother was diagnosed with a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). So I suppose you could say Greg became an adult at the age of sixteen.

So perhaps adulthood is thrust upon you. If I had to guess, Greg must wish that he could still hang on to his adolescence or young adult label (whatever the hell the experts are calling us these days) for a little while longer. On the other side of the spectrum is my best friend, Stephen. I refer to him often as Steph, which can be confusing since it is stereotypically a girl's name.

Anyways, Steph grew up just as beggarly as Greg did, that is until his parents made a killing after they invented this new type of pseudo-foam roller for athletes. In all honesty, they did what any genuinely successful American businessman does. They took an already fine idea (the plain white foam roller that you see people awkwardly rubbing against their body at the gym) and made it better. Although, to me, better may be too strong a word, in reality, they just made it a bit different and more fun looking. Instead of the smooth foam, they made it plastic and put tiny little soft spikes on it that were guaranteed to stimulate neuro-receptors to dull pain faster and increase the recovery process. That part was, of course, bullshit. Still, the weird fitness nuts in Colorado ate it up, and eventually so did the rest of the western United States of America. Needless to say, after nineteen years of a tough life, Steph fell into wealth quite comfortably. Even to this day, he lives in a cottage on his parents’ lake in Western Maine. Yeah, they own a lake. So even though Steph is almost twenty-five years old, not many would call him an adult either considering he has never lived independently and still doesn't have what anyone would call a career.

I, for one, well, I guess I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Like I said, I am in my early to mid-twenties. I have a job. I have my own apartment, and I am not supplemented financially by any other party to live at this point, although that part is new for me. True that I still, on occasion, will skip work to go to the bar, or go buy the latest video game coming out. I read almost exclusively comic books and Harry Potter or Star Wars fan fiction. I think people say I am too immature. Which is a crock, I mean how many twenty-three-year-olds are mostly self-sufficient in this world we live in? Who cares if I am a bit flaky, say what is on my mind, and don't avoid confrontation? 

Either way, adult or not, I have come a long way since high school, which is where my story will start. You see, right as of this moment I just bought a ring to propose to a beautiful woman (yes I am straight, not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. [For an enhanced reading experience, please read that last italicized section in the voice of Jerry Seinfeld. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then shame on you, and go download {legally or illegally} the Seinfeld Episode titled The Outing. Once you have done that, you may continue to read.]). Her name is Silver St. Cloud. She is a supermodel with platinum blonde hair. Just kidding. But if you got that reference, then bang on for you. The rest of you may have to look that one up (I told you I read a lot of comics). 

I am going to get engaged to a girl, a woman, a sexy fox of a woman named Rosie Todd. And that, my friends, is how the story ends. With me getting engaged to the girl of my dreams. We meet in high school, and throughout a series of some stressful and some not quite so stressful interactions, squabbles, funny situations, et cetera, we end up together. 

I can promise you right now that no one dies. No one gets cancer. No one has Alzheimer's disease, and there is no high school play. The couple's encounters are not so much serendipitous as they are a back and forth of them fighting for each other. I mean, who wants to read that crap? All right, fine, a lot of people, I guess. That's why so many love stories (and movies alike) are riddled with death, cancer, and sadness. But after all of the love stories I have read and the Chik-Flix that I have watched (did I mention I get sucked into the occasional romance novel too every once in a while?), I always feel so disappointed with how much sadness it takes until a couple of characters can finally be happy.

Or unhappy in the case of one best-selling novel, The Fault in our Stars, {SPOILERS} in which the teenage love interest dies of cancer in the last couple of chapters. Don't get me wrong, it is a masterpiece and a book every adult, and especially every young adult (which again can range from 10 to 112 these days) needs to read. But as much as I loved the book, I will never reread it, and I for damn sure will never watch the movie again. All I am trying to say is, you don't need to worry about getting your heart broken too bad if you decide to keep turning the pages of this story. And I will try to keep the word Okay to a minimum. It's been done and done well, so let's just steer clear of that, Okay? Okay.

The fact of the matter is this: most of us find someone, fall in love, and hopefully, if we play our cards right and fight hard enough, we get to stay with that person for a very long time. Probably most of us will not be utter shells of human beings until we find that one person. Most of us, as much as it would suck, probably could live a relatively comfortable life if we never find The One, but that doesn't mean we will ever stop searching. And, not that I am a relationship expert, but if we are shells of a person to begin with, does finding some other shell of a person suddenly make you both two wholes of a person? By my math, you are both still just two shells that hope this other shell will complete you. 

Sorry, I probably got a little bit preachy there, but at least for my reality, my worldview this holds true. Rose and I love each other, and it would hurt so bad if something happened to her or if we never ended up together at all. But at the end of the day, I like myself enough and well enough, despite whatever depression I may have from time to time, to survive a full life without her. She is not my whole world, nor I hers, but we certainly do revolve around one another. 

So, let's get started. I hope you like this story, and if you don't, well, so be it. This isn't some typical way of storytelling, as I have already mentioned probably too many times above, but this is how I would tell the story, and since I've never actually sat down and written this thing out, I am not entirely sure how it is going to unfold. So, let's see what happens. As they say, it is about the journey, not the destination. And since we already know the destination, let us get this journey started. 

And where does any good journey start for a seventeen-year-old boy in high school? With a really, really great ass.

2

The Meet Cute

Damn.

This word can be interpreted in a few different ways. It could mean that someone just got burned beyond belief, or that someone was unnecessarily rude or brutal to another person. But in this particular context, this was the first word I ever said to my bride to be when I passed her in the hallway halfway through senior year, just after winter break. Or rather, the first word I ever said at her. Thankfully she didn't hear. 

She wore the typical winter outfit for preppy girls at my school. Tan boots, which ranged in color from light tan all the way to dark tan (on occasion, you would see black too). She wore a long-sleeve white shirt that fell just below her wrists and tight black leggings. Add a puffy brown vest over the shirt, and you have what is popularly referred to as The Han Solo outfit for women. 

In this particular moment, she bent over to get something out of her oversized purse that all the women seemed to carry as an upperclassman. Swear to God, only the poorest bastards (female bastards that is) used a backpack. All of the guys, on the other hand, had a backpack on. So, yes, she was bending over—hence the Damn statement. 

Come on. Biology.

Uh, yeah, okay.

I pulled myself away with another little tug from Steph and floated down the small, cramped hallways to Biology with Mr. Franklin. Mr. Franklin was a hefty, slimy, and smelly man with unkempt hair and a thick southern accent that one didn't usually find in Colorado. 

Today, we gon’ learn bout da reproductive system.

I already knew everything I needed to know about the reproductive system. I, a man, wanted to have sex with a woman. Preferably a hot woman, like The Han Solo girl from a few minutes ago.

My mind wandered away from the naked cartoon drawings on the smartboard to some more realistic images in my head. 

I went to a private High School called Sudden Valley High School. It was technically a spiritual academy, but you didn't need to be raised spiritual, or Christian, or whatever to go there. I for one wasn't a really religious or spiritual person, unless getting blazed in Steph's car and Talking about life, man counted as spirituality. 

I wasn't a pothead, per se, but I did indulge probably once a month in the company of two of my other friends (and by friends I mean the two other guys that gravitated toward Steph in recent years. Not that we weren't friends, I guess we were, but at the end of the day, it was more about proximity than any actual human or personal connection), Jordan and Spencer. We would go out to the parking lot, pile into Steph's Jeep Cherokee and drive two miles down the road, and park on the shoulder. They would roll up the windows and start a Hot Box. Most of the time, I would just lean back and text girls in the passenger seat and not partake in the smoking. But looking back, I probably got high once or twice only by being closed in with the Cheeba.

Both Steph (he was a year before me) and I went to the same poor public middle school just outside Denver in Centennial. There were about 500 kids per class, and drugs and drinking were already relevant by the time I was a seventh grader. But don't worry, I was never much of an underage drinker, just a smoker, which was at least at the time somehow better. Halfway through my eighth-grade year, I was a C student barely on the cusp of making my middle school graduation. So my mother set up a series of interviews with the top private schools in the state. 

Her thinking was that her sweet little angel was not being challenged hard enough. Which I guess may have been true. I always felt like one of the smarter kids in the room, and even at this point in senior year, I didn't have a C on my report card. I don't think it was so much being bored as much as it was that I simply didn't give a shit. 

Either way, there I was in the eleventh-best private high school in the state performing just fine, and if I wanted to, going to a pretty good college. 

My mind fantasized about Han Solo throughout the rest of the day. And on occasion Indiana Jones, but that was just a weird association my brain made while woolgathering. Maybe I was a little bit too attracted to Harrison Ford, but who isn't? I hoped against hope that I would run into her again soon. In high school, it was never good enough to wait until the next day, I was very much in the Id stage of development. That is to say, or rather Freud would say, immediate gratification, and I wanted her, whoever her was, and I wanted her immediately. 

Mr. Franklin gurgled us a dismissal at the bell, and Steph and I moseyed to our lockers to stow our Biology textbooks. Steph and I both had top lockers in the C, or yellow, hallway of the school, which acted as a sort of senior annex removed from the rest of the population. Most of the high-performing seniors preferred to be in the newly coined spirit center locker space with their elitist robin shell blue paint, and lavender colored walls. But the average man, like us, liked the dank musk of the chipped yellow paint and brown carpet. The staff mostly left us alone over here, and it wasn't rare for one of the more bold seniors to light up or take a shot at their lockers. It also served as a convenient excuse for showing up later to the occasional class because 1) the hall was a good thirty yards from most upper classrooms, and 2) lockers frequently got stuck or jammed.

Wanna hit the Jeep? Steph slammed his Katrina-esque disaster of a locker shut. 

Yeah, sure. I closed my slightly more organized locker (let's call it, I don't know, Katrina-esque but, like, right after FEMA finally showed up). Gotta pee first.

One of the incredible perks of being a senior is one of mankind's greatest inventions: Free Period. If you've followed the thread, you know Steph and I are not exactly competing for valedictorian, which meant instead of punishing ourselves with six extra credits of class a trimester, we get one period off every day. Depending on what day of the week it was (we had abbreviated classes on Wednesdays), the free period could last either forty-five or seventy-five minutes.

The faded wood panel door, married with spotty gold framing, moaned open to the men's bathroom in the C hallway and creaked closed with a whoosh reminiscent of an elderly man breaking wind. My first few steps thudded with a dull splash to the urinal in what I hoped was either sink, or toilet water overflow and not some douche bag’s piss. When the floor wasn't sopping in some sort of adolescent or academic fluid, it was sticky, which made every step feel like Velcro as your sole ripped away from the garish tile. 

High pitched drips of water fell from the faucet, and the anti-bacterial hand soap dispensers grew a greenish-black moss. The tiled ceiling had various panels absent, and wires hung from the gaps above.

I unzipped and drained my fluid in the appropriate location. Steph kicked open the door behind me and trudged, spraying liquid with every step toward the urinal station. He shoved me in the middle of my back into the urinal as he passed. Usually, I would have been ready for his far too predictable attack, steadying my legs and clenching my butt cheeks in anticipation. But this time, for whatever reason, whether it was the girl with the yoga pants ( I wish Stieg Larsson had written this one before his untimely passing), or it was the fact I had very little sleep the night before, he got the best of me.

My leg slipped to the side, and I tumbled forward into the urinal. I attempted to prevent my fall, and stop the stream simultaneously, but I think only Bear Grylls and Jesus would be capable of such a thing. Something had to give. I had a nanosecond to either stop peeing or stop falling. So, as is common with this sociological nightmare of teenage bathroom insecurities, I flung my hands off of my Steve Irwin, and barely caught myself from hitting the floor. The stream of pee fell into the front of my pants, boxers, and shoes.

Dude. I said, sliding my legs back together, Fuck you, man.

You gotta keep your head on a swivel in here, men. Steph lowered his voice and picked up his posture. Stay classy. He flushed, zipped, and slogged out of the bathroom, not bothering to wash his hands. 

I flicked my willie, not in a gross way, and flushed the toilet. Fucking asshole. I shook my head and turned on the water to the sink, doing my best to wipe off my legs and crotch, so I didn't smell like the outback for the rest of the day. I pulled up my khakis (school dress code) and realized I had a decision to make. There was a distinctive stain right on the crotch of the pants. So two options went through my head: 1) take off my pants, put them under the sink to make them all wet before I could borrow Steph's car to get home and pick up a new pair, 2) risk the stain of social suicide. I opted for the latter, knowing the halls would be mostly empty, considering class had already started, and we had at least an hour still until the next bell rang.

Steph waited for me in the hallway, leaning against a locker like a Hilfiger teen model in the 90’s, his thumbs hanging over the side of his pockets. If he had frosted tips, the illusion would have been completed. 

Ready? 

Yeah. He kicked himself off the lockers and started down the hall. Three steps in, he took a sharp right turn and pushed open the swinging door to the girl's bathroom. The door didn't moan nor creek and fell softly back to a close. Steph kicked the door once more and shouted.

Housekeeping. His eyebrow raised. He stood in a power stance, both of his arms cocked like the Karate Kid, not the Jaylen Smith version. Do they call it housekeeping in a school? He asked out of the side of his mouth. 

I shrugged.

Housekeeping! He pushed the door open delicately this time. I uh, need to clean the bathroom. Anyone in here? 

There was no reply. Steph entered the bathroom in an instant. You see, for people like him, there are no wheels to turn for thoughts to develop. There was mere action or inaction. No contemplation. No planning. Just doing. 

Dude, I sighed. Can I get the keys to get out of here, please? I rotated around the hallway in a full circle making sure there was no one else around.

Man! I looked at the wooden door. It's awesome in here! 

Steph, I've got to go. The door flew open, and Steph emerged, glowing from his discovery. 

You gotta see this. Before I could protest, Steph grabbed me by the center of my shirt, pulling out the few chest hairs I had and ripped me into the bathroom. Look!

I didn't have time to get more pissed at him. The faucets shined like the lost city of Shambhala. The floor glistened like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The walls teased patterns of pink and purples that had to be painted by Mr. Cottontail himself. The toilets sparkled and curved like the Holy Grail. The cornucopia of smells made my mouth water: a combination of fruity, floral, and minty. Steph floated past me and sashayed onto the couch against the far wall. He pulled out his lighter, a zippo with Miles (the Broncos mascot) on the side of it, and lit a yellow candle. He flipped the lid of his lighter shut and dropped it in his front pocket. His open hand invited me to sit next to him. 

My body skated as easily as Steph’s. An all-powerful force, pulling and pushing me all at once to the couch. The smell of the candle hit my nostrils as my backside met the fabric. Pineapple. 

Our stress disappeared entirely. After what could have been a minute or an hour, Steph finally spoke after a deep, contemplative exhale.

Not bad, huh?

Not bad at all. We smiled at one another. He smacked my upper thigh, and I gave his arm a swat in return.

"I finally saw Force Awakens," Steph said, bringing us to one of our favorite topics: cinema.

And? 

Trash. He said, turning to confront me. Absolute, fan service bull shit.

You're insane, I said, an avid defender of the film. Only you can find a way to hate that movie.

Dude, Come on. He squared me up, even more, his shoulders now dead on me. "First of all, it is the exact same plot as A New Hope. We have no idea how the first order got to power. And Rey, well, she's not even hot. Her character makes no sense. How is she just absolutely fucking amazing at everything she does? She beat Kylo, like, in their first fight. Just end the series right there. We know she can beat his emo ass already."

You shut your blasphemous mouth. My voice bounced off the stalls. "Daisy Ridley is a goddess among us and wouldn't touch you with her staff. She's likely the strongest Jedi ever since Luke, if not stronger, and if we have learned anything, the old ways of teaching the Jedi don't really work. Also, Kylo got shot in the effing stomach like ten minutes before their fight—so he was hurt! Movies are about the way they make us feel. After the debacle of the prequels, which yes weren't as good as the originals, they needed to get back into the old way of storytelling. What better way than to bring back Han Fucking Solo to defeat the bad guys again?"

It sucks. He said.

It might be like the highest-grossing film ever.

"Just because it's Star Wars, dude, he coughed, doesn't mean it's any good."

Tell me you didn't shed a tear when Solo died.

Nope.

Don't fucking lie to me. My mind flashed to the Han Solo girl from earlier falling down a deep chasm, a charred hole through her abdomen. 

"It's worse than Clones."

"It's almost as good as Empire! I blurted. And Chewbacca even . . ." Steph's head turned from me to the open door, a young girl I didn't recognize, probably a freshman stood in the doorway.

Sup, Girl? Steph nodded, his hair flopping down over his eyes. The girl looked to me, her eyes flashed to my crotch, followed by a scream that gave six-year-olds jumping off the high dive a run for their money. The door swished shut. Time to go, Steph said.

Yep. We both stood up and took one last look at the mecca before exiting into the hall. Goodbye, new friend.

Farewell, Steph waved to the door.

Er hem. We turned to the grunt. Dean Schmicktendorf stood over us, his hands on his hips. His joy fomented a maniacal curl on his lip and eyebrow. His beak of a nose flared as sweat beaded in the middle of his cul-de-sac hairline. Gentlemen.

Hey, what up, Schmick! Steph held out a fist for a bump.

Let's take a walk to Principal Murphy's office. He sniffed his beak. Shall we?

Steph flopped down in the low blue fabric conversation chair in the corner of Principal Murphy’s office, a seat generally reserved for Dean Schmicktendorf. Steph was such a regular attendee that neither Principal Murphy nor Dean Schmickhtendorf seemed to notice nor take issue with Steph's blasé demeanor. I sat in one of the two stiff wooden chairs confronted by the principal's irresolute desk.

What seems to be the problem, Alfred? Principal Murphy clicked away on his computer, his eyes never leaving the glowing white light.

Caught these two miscreants in the girl's bathroom. Schmick crossed his arms and widened his stance. The sweat beads formed a tear that curved through his forehead and underneath his nose. A student screamed and sprinted down the hall, which is when I came running.

Is this true, boys? Murphy clicked one final time on his mouse and turned to meet us. Who is this? He pointed at me, never once taking a glance at Steph in the corner.

Uh, Rick, I said, sitting up. Rick Steele. 

Rick, He typed into his computer, most likely my name into some delinquency system. Of course.

Sir, Schmick spoke up again. These boys need to be suspended if not expelled! They were unsupervised in a bathroom of the opposite gender! God knows what they did to that student!

She wishes, Steph grunted. Murphy didn't respond to the comment.

Rick, what happened in there?

Nothing. I’m dead. He is going to call my mom, expel me, and I will have to do senior year all over again at some other school where the students don’t know I’m a sexual predator.

Nothing?

Nothing. Steph corroborated.

Yes, sir. I wiped my hands on my khakis. The pee stain mostly faded. I went in because I . . . My eyes fell to my crotch. I had an issue, I guess. Steph muffled a snorted laugh as I continued. The guy's bathroom didn't have any paper towels, so I had to . . .

Likely story. 

It's true, Schmicktenpoof. Steph stood up. The real injustice here is, why are the female bathrooms in this institution so much incredibly nicer than the men's?! Steph stood on the chair now, I invoke the inalienable right of Brown V. Board of Education as founded by our constitution of the United States that all bathrooms shall be created equally! He jumped in the air and landed in a thud back in the chair.

You little shi—

Alfred. Murphy sighed. You may go now. He leaned back in his chair. Please figure out if you can find the student who was with these boys and get her side of the story. I will deal with this.

Sir, I want to . . .

We will be fine right here. Murphy waved his hand and nodded his head in a thank you motion.

Mr. Steele. Murphy clicked through my profile on the computer. Don't think I've ever seen you in here before. 

No, sir.

Good. That means you're a good kid. He sniffed his nose. You may go. He gave me a pink slip of paper. We will have to notify your parents that you were sent here today. Protocol. 

Yes, sir. Parent. Thanks. I hid my smile.

Let's try to avoid meeting again until graduation, shall we?

Yes, sir.

And you. Murphy glowered. "Are you trying to make us keep you here another year, Steph?"

What can I say? Steph flung his leg over the side of the chair, his pants rode up just enough to see his ankles above his Chuck Taylors. I love it here.

Get out of here, boys. Murphy opened his drawer and threw me a pair of dark brown pants, corduroys. I tilted my head at him as I caught them. Happens more than you think. 

I'm serious about this bathroom situation, Pete. Steph slouched in the doorway.

I'm sure you are. Murphy turned back to his computer. Oh, Steph?

Yeah, Pete?

Are you in any history classes right now?

Don't think so.        

Find one.

After the last bell—which for me was gym class taught by an incredibly unfit balding man who should be the last person teaching health or fitness; he was a bowling ball with a head on top if bowling balls weighed 350 pounds and needed a green gator golf cart to drive around campus because walking got too hard—I made my way toward the lockers where I first saw my Han Solo bending over. If I was lucky, I may just again catch a glimpse of her or even, maybe, get a chance to say hi and introduce myself. Why hadn't I ever noticed her before?

I looked, and I looked but had no luck. I even hung out near what I assumed was her locker (a bottom one) for a few minutes, trying to play it aloof while talking to a crowd that I normally didn't fraternize with. I spoke with an awkward kid named Michael for a few minutes, but it was really more me talking and him exhorting a series of different pitched grunts and ums. 

Finally, I cut my losses when Steph walked by for the third time, talking to a third different female, and caught my eye. We piled into his jeep and started to pull out of the space. I was pissed. The backside of my dreams gone for what felt like forever. Tomorrow would be an eternity away, and by then, well, the way things went in high school, she would be attached to a College guy before I ever learned her name. The hottest of the hot women in high school never date in their age group, they are always one year ahead. The freshman date the sophomores, and the sophomores the