ARTSY-LOOKING STUDENT
(Standing in front of a wall mural at school—it’s not necessary that the mural really exist, of course:)
Check out this mural. Yeah—take a second.
(Beat.)
It’s called the Unity Mural. You know, like peace and love, flowers in your hair, lighters in the air—you know.
(Points at a specific spot, center:)
So here you got a bunch of jocks—the guys with the exaggerated biceps in the football uniforms—sitting around this dorky-looking kid with a pocket protector. And then over here,
(Points to a slightly different spot:)
you got a Goth hugging a prep. Look—the Goth is giving the black shirt off his back.
(Beat.)
Of course, my favorite part is this one here,
(Points again somewhere else:)
with the principal and his oversized arms reaching around the entire student body and lifting them. But if you don’t count the parts of the mural I did—my favorite part is this one over here.
(Points far right:)
Emmett did this part. It looks all shiny happy people like the rest of the mural. The student polishing the apple for the teacher, a study group in the library that’s one of those Disney movies: white kid, black—African-American—kid, Latino kid, Asian kid—two boys, two girls.
It’s trippy how he does it, ‘cause he’s got four different study groups—there’s hardly any books in the library there’s so many study groups—it’s like what’s the point of it being in the library? And each study group is a different combination. Black guy, white guy, Asian girl, Latin girl. Black girl, white girl, Asian guy, Latin guy. You get the idea. Disney.
(Beat.)
But if you look really close—
(She points at something very small in the mural:)
and it’s not just way small, it’s upside down—if you know what you’re looking for, it’s there. The principal going through a student’s locker. A cloud of smoke in the bathroom filled with unflushed toilets. Books covered in cobwebs ‘cause they’re older than the teachers. A kid being shoved into a garbage can for being…maybe just for being.
(Beat.)
It’s like those animators who slip that one frame into the G-rated movie, or “I Am the Walrus” played backward. Emmett was the Walrus. I don’t think the school liked that. He’s lucky he’s not John Lennon, ‘cause I don’t think they liked it at all.