Haunted by the Past

A lot of people give me the "Don't I know you from somewhere?" question. Maybe it's just that through my job I meet a lot of people. Or it could be that "wanted" poster they put up with my face on it in the post office...

Here's my favorite joke along the same lines: Two Irishmen, Paddy and Finnegan, are drinking in a bar when Paddy raises his glass to Finnegan. "Here's ta you gov! Where ya be from?" Finnegan replies, "Aye, I be from Dublin." "No foolin! I be from Dublin too! Where's yer alta mater?" "I graduated from St. Mary's." "No foolin! I graduated from St. Mary's too! When ya graduate?" "Graduated in 1952." "1952?! NO FOOLIN! I GRADUATED IN 1952!" Another gentleman walks in and asks the bartender what's going on. The bartender replies, "Oh, the O'Malley twins are drunk again." (Happy St. Patrick's Day).

It's kind of awkward sometimes when this happens--almost like the burden is on you to come up where you might have seen the person. I always say "Oh, this happens to me all the time--I think I just have one of those faces that looks familiar..." I usually get a distrustful sideways glance.

But when I walked into a meeting and saw Candace, I knew who she was and exactly where I had first met her. She sat immediately to my right on the back row of that small high school Biology class, which I hated. The teacher was a shameless flirt with the pretty girls in the class, which left little room in his consciousness for the guys, as well as the ugly girls for that matter. I remember making a "32" on one of his tests--everyone failed and he actually re-administered the test a week later. It was a college prep class--I went on to college and nearly failed the same class there. So I didn't consider myself to be well-prepped.

Candace had a very harshly pinched appearance, was extremely thin, with nearly luminescently white skin and a protruding chin with beady, brown eyes. Her dark brown hair hung limply to her shoulders, and her nasal voice was somewhat irritating. Candace talked with a very quick cadence, and it turns out that she was the smartest one in our class. Despite this fact, I can't remember the bastard instructor directing one word at her during the whole course. Maybe it's because she looked like a human skeleton.

Looking at her from across the room, now, twenty years later, she looked a little spinster-ish. No wedding ring, she is now a Ph.D in Biology, and just fast-forward all of those same features about 20-30 unkind years working in the lab. All she had to do was wear the Pink Floyd concert shirt that she always seemed to be wearing, and I would be 100% confident that it was her. But it was possible, just possible, that it isn't the same person. The boss told me that she grew up and went to high school in another town 40 miles away. She looks exactly the same and has the same first and last name--come on, it's her! Right?

I'm working on a project with the group, so I have to tread carefully in digging up past events, but nonetheless I wanted to see if I could confirm that this is absolutely the same girl that I went to school with--I mean, that would be kinda cool, right? Unfortunatley, it is a little bit of a touchy subject--I wonder if Candace had ever told them about her felony conviction.

Yep, that's right--Candace participated in one of the most famous crimes in our high school's history.

It was the middle of August 1986--school was going to start in about two weeks, and the Texas summer was still blasting down on us all. I was working until midnight every night at the local grocery store, a job which I loved--I was one of those nerds who got trained in every function of the store (my favorite was the week that I worked in the deli, because I would chow down on roast beef and potato salad at the end of the day). Sometimes, the guys and I would all get together and go out afterward to play video games, bowl, or anything to avoid going home, so it wasn't too surprising that I was asleep at 9:00 AM when my friend, David called.

"Hey, the school's on fire! There's black smoke everywhere!"

Later, we found out that a couple of guys, aided by a couple of girlfriends (which is where Candace comes in), broke into the school with a gas can and matches and set a fire in the principal's office. It spread rapidly, chewing up the whole front office of the school and causing tons of smoke damage throughout the building. I guess the saving grace of the school (and one of the plan's greatest flaws) is that there is a fire station directly next door.

The arsonists' motivation: They were "really bummed" that school was going to start again, and they thought that the fire would delay the first day at least a week or so (it didn't, but we had construction for nearly two years). They were caught immediately, and two of them went to jail. Candace and her friend got a conviction with probation. I remember her coming to Biology class after court one day and she had the documents with her in her backpack--the thick packet had a statement on the front that said something like "Decree of Probation". It really struck me that criminal court documents had such elaborate lettering on the front--it almost looked like calligraphy, and seemed like a waste. She didn't really show them to me--I spotted them as she dug her book out for class, and she seemed to be duly embarrassed. Someone later told me that she was one of the girls from "the school fire".

So, I can see why, during all of my dealings with Candace that she doesn't want me to recognize her. Maybe she's afraid that I will mention that she worked at Mr. Jim's pizza--worst pizza in town. Twenty years later, she's doing important research, and she seems to know what she's doing in the lab.

I'm still debating whether I will engage her in a conversation about school, and see if she confirms that she remembers me or even that she went to that school. Of course, I would be too polite to bring up the brilliant fire strategy, which was hatched by the "Mr. Jim's" gang (they all worked there) while watching "The Wall" and smoking pot, but maybe the dumb grin on my face would give it away.