Self-Esteem Read Online Free PDF Page B

25-mile-an-hour speed limit and peeked over his dark sunglasses to look at himself in the rearview mirror. Yeah, he looked cool. He knew there would be someone watching. There were always people watching. And yeah, he knew they would say he looked cool in that car and those clothes. He felt them, those unseen spectators, like he could feel the car itself, all fifty Gs of it, surrounding his body, making his high higher, making him invincible.
    He whipped down the hill next to the band building — trumpet, clarinet, and trombone players going inside. Then he went through the four-way stop, past the practice field, and into the high school parking lot where he politely slowed down and nodded to the assistant coach standing watch just inside the gate. Coach Lieberman, also a substitute teacher, gave Cal a smirk that spoke mounds of resentment. The way Cal saw it, for a kid to have wheels with a price tag that eclipsed the man’s yearly salary, how could he not be resentful? Cal understood Coach Lieberman’s pain. Yeah, his car felt good, but part of the bargain was that Cal saw hostility everywhere. It was Cal’s cross to bear. Most of Cal’s fellow classmates obviously resented his extravagant toy. There were many students from upper-class families at Valdosta High, but few had parents that would dish out that kind of money. A few students had inherited older sports cars from their families. Many drove relatively new Hondas and Toyotas. But none drove around in a brand new 911.
    Cal parked and got out of his car, beeping the security system with one motion as he swung his backpack over his shoulder. Then his momentary confidence disappeared as Coach Lieberman came hastily toward him.
    “Morning, Crawford,” he said in a coach’s soldierly clip.
    “Morning, Coach.”
    Coach Lieberman put his hands in the back pockets of his khakis and stuck out his aging abdomen. “Word has it you drive this thing pretty fast sometimes. And that you drive fast with loud music playing,” he said, sticking out his bottom lip.
    “Is that right?” Cal said, clutching his backpack like a security blanket. “Word has it?”
    “That’s right,” Lieberman said with a commanding nod.
    Cal looked at the whistle around the Coach’s neck and thought it looked ridiculous.
    “I’ve had people tell me you come down the hill by the band room in your fancy sports car here faster than a bobcat chasing a beaver.”
    Coach Lieberman waited for a response, even though he hadn’t asked a question.
    “Do bobcats chase beavers, Coach Lieberman?”
    Lieberman stood still and then raised his finger like a cop wielding a gun. “Don’t get smart with me boy, you hear?” He put his finger on his hip. “They’ll chase anything with two eyes and an asshole, bobcats will. Cattle, pigs, chickens.”
    “Really?”
    “Never mind about that. Just take it easy on the street out there, son.”
    “Okay, sir.”
    “I don’t care if your old man is a famous guru,” he added.
    That was below the belt, Cal thought. “He’s actually a writer and…”
    “Have a good day at school, now,” the man said, doing an about face.
    Cal walked toward school, his morning high now almost spent.
    Son? He called me son? Stupid asshole.
    Cal knew Coach Lieberman wasn’t so bad, not for a sports guy. After all, inside the school there were scary throngs of determined, hostile jocks everywhere, ready to harass anyone for having something they didn’t, especially a brain.
    Like every morning, Cal headed toward the front steps of the school entrance filled with fear and loathing. The contrary laughter, the hostile snickering, and the genuine threats were part of walking past the morning jock huddle, where all the guys that proudly wore a letter stood side by side, ready for battle.
    “There he is,” the first voice shouted. “It’s the son of Happy Pappy.”
    “Did Sandy the puppy pick out your pretty pants for you?”
    “I didn’t know she liked black so