Diacope (di-a’-co-pee): Repetition of a word with one or more between, usually to express deep feeling.
“Why? Why me? Why, why, why?”
I said this when Miss MoCorkle called on me in class. I said it in an emotional tone, the class laughed and I was sent to the Principal’s office, where I met with Mr. Dogwood, the Vice Principal. He asked how I was doing and got out the deck of cards. We would play Poker for toothpicks until classes changed. He would say “Why me?” and laugh, and send me back to class. He was a lousy poker player, and I usually beat the hell out of him.
I left his office with a toothpick hanging out of my mouth. I ran into my woodshop teacher Mr. Auger. He asked me if I had made the toothpick in shop class. I told him I had, and now I was on my way to Shop to finish my gun rack. He took a swig from his silver flask. He asked me if I wanted a swig. I took swig. God, it was straight vodka! I took two more BIG swigs and handed the flask back. I was now officially feeling no pain. Perfect for working on my gun rack. The only gun I had was a .22 auto. Dad had a grease gun, a sawed -off shotgun, and a sniper rifle. Every once-in awhile, he would have a “special job” requiring the sniper rifle. All I did with my gun was shoot tin cans and any creatures that wandered into our back yard. So far, I had two squirrels under my belt. Mom cooked them for me after I gutted and skinned them. Yum, they were delicious!
I was putting the final touches on my gun rack when I heard a crunching sound and a scream. Joey Calorino had chopped off the end of his finger in the jointer—an electric bench plane.
Joey was bleeding all over and crying. Everybody ran to Joey and started rummaging for the tip of his finger in the collection bin under the jointer. Louie Driscoll found it and handed it to Mr. Auger who was holding a small Zip loc bag. He put it in the bag and sent Joey to see the school nurse Mrs. Helter. The Drivers Ed teacher, Mr. Vieghty, was “visiting” Mrs. Helter, and was able too drive Joey to the emergency room.
The fingertip couldn’t be saved. It was the tip of Joey’s pointer finger that he lost, so we would always say, “Joey doesn’t have a point.” We would all laugh wave our pointer fingers. Joey would wave his “pointless” finger around and laugh too.
After school we went to the local soda fountain. It was modeled after a bar, with a counter and stools and booths. It was called “The Waverly” after the street it was on near the train station. It had a pin-ball machine that we took turns playing. Willie Jackson could shake and cheat the hell out of “Buck Roger’s Revenge” without tilting. He held the record high score.
That’s where I learned that cheating pays, if you don’t get caught.
I started cheating in school. I copied from my “neighbors” whenever I could. I hired the class genius, Melvin Laird, to write my papers. I was good at two things: gym and woodshop. I was pretty good at art too. In gym class I did 500 sit-ups. In woodshop I made a miniature model of “Sam’s Appliances” out of toothpicks I stole from Mr. Dogwood’s office. For art, my final project was a rendition of “The Last Supper” where Superman was eating a big chunk of KRYPTONITE, while Jimmy Olsen was toasting him and Perry White and Lois Lane lifting their glasses too .
POSTSCRIPT
To make a long story short, I graduated summa cum laude, got into Harvard, cheated my way through, and now, I’m a candidate for U.S. Attorney General.
