Choir classes are usually filled with a hodgepodge of students from various social cliques. You tend to get students from the far ends of the spectrum--some of the most popular kids, and some of the geekiest ones. Always the extremes; it's kind of rare that you find someone who's sort of in between.
That's Ha-Ha. He's an in-between.
Music classes just welcome lots of bad jokes. Especially music jokes. The musical nerds make composer references with the teacher, the not-so-musical nerds try to be funny and end up just making bad puns, and the nerds and teachers laugh while the cool kids roll their eyes.
Ha-Ha doesn't make jokes, probably doesn't even understand most of the jokes, but he's not mean enough to roll his eyes at them or make rude comments. So instead, he laughs along. But he laughs extra-loud, extra-fake, like he's trying to drop a hint to the nerds: You're really not that funny.
He usually waits a beat, after everyone stops laughing, before he starts in; as if it took him a little longer to get the joke. Then his fake laugh just fills up the room. "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!" Some of the other boys join in, and then he looks around, seemingly confused.
"How can you fake a laugh like that?" a girl asks him.
"What fake laugh?" he says, raising his eyebrows to punctuate the irony.
The boys in choir are famous for being obnoxious, but sometimes I think Ha-Ha is only obnoxious because he knows he's supposed to be. He's not really friends with anyone in this class, but he's found his niche here and he just wants to blend in with them and maybe have a good time until he graduates.
The hardcore choir nerds tend to hate him, because sometimes he seems to care about choir even less than the other boys. The laughing. The goofing off with the other boys. And also.
Sometimes, when the director's in the middle of a lecture or is working with another section on something, Ha-Ha just gets down from the risers and walks away. He goes over to the window, and leans against the glass, looking out at the sunshine and taking deep breaths, like he'd give anything to be out of here. It makes one wonder why he even joined choir in the first place.
Before class, he sometimes sits at the piano and tries to play Jason Mraz songs, making the freshman girls adore him and the junior and senior girls complain about cliché chord progressions. Whenever the freshmen ask him to sing, he gets a little nervous and makes excuses. They love him anyway, but he doesn't care one way or another.
He has a girlfriend. They're always making out in the hallways during passing periods. When the two of them are together (which is whenever they're not in separate classes), they're not affiliated with anyone else. They're always talking and laughing softly when they're together, but I've never actually heard her voice. I don't know if she talks to anyone other than him. They always make sure everyone can see them, but really, they're private about everything else.
After the spring concert, which was pretty much a failure, the choir director had everyone listen to the recording of the concert and write out what they thought was the problem. When Ha-Ha was called on to read what he had written, he kind of shuffled to his feet and wouldn't make eye contact with anyone, just stared at his paper.
"Uh...This is gonna be sort of a downer," he said. "Sorry. But uh...yeah, this is just what I wrote. Um." He cleared his throat. "I joined choir because I thought it was going to be a fun experience, but it isn't fun, because we all have really bad attitudes, and a lot of people hate each other. Music classes are supposed to be like a family, but we're not. This class always has a really bad feeling. I want to enjoy choir, but instead every day when I leave this class I just feel depressed about life. And that makes me want to just quit."
Nobody really knew what to say after that. The director frowned and said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, [Ha-Ha]."
Ha-Ha nodded awkwardly, blinking, and sat down. The director tried to start a discussion about what Ha-Ha had said, but it probably didn't make much difference. Ha-Ha still walks over to the window every day and leans against the glass, taking deep breaths, and trying to drown everything else out.
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(Long comment is long - sorry about that. I just felt like writing...)
ReplyDeleteMusic classes - they really are like that. I have to say that mine sounds a lot like your choir (although our actual choir could qualify too).
My music class is basically the same people as last year - same teacher, same students, same room. We all know each other pretty well from last year except for a couple of people who only joined this year. I sometimes wonder if they feel left out. Especially Corner Chick - she only came to the school this year and she always sits quietly in the corner.
There's a couple of music geeks - me, Notebook and Chocolate. Notebook sits next to me and she's the best out of all of us - full marks on our essay and everything. When the rest of us stop laughing at random jokes, she's always the one with the answer. Chocolate is... slightly insane, to be honest. Mostly in a good way though. We used to be really close friends but there was a fight and stuff. We're getting better.
There's the singing students, most of whom can play piano as well so they always grab the piano when we come into class and start singing songs. Strangely, all of us have similar tastes in pop songs so it's not that bad. We've come up with our own playlist of pre-class music - songs they sing are generally run by the class first.
We talk a lot but somehow manage to get most of the work done. We even have a grand plan - Music Camp. It will happen, we're determined. I think the class is the reason I'm having so much trouble deciding whether to take music next year or not. Subject-wise I can barely afford to, but something about my classmates and the fun we have just keeps drawing me back in. Who knows?
Once more, sorry for the length of this. I don't know why I'm writing it in the first place. What I will say is that I love reading this blog and (as you can see by what I just wrote) it is kinda forcing me to look at people more... complexly.