The Windsor Monarchs Senior Class of 1972 gathered at the town’s only restaurant for their pre-prom buffet of chicken breasts molded from pencil erasers and fake taters made from wallpaper paste, and shared laughs and tears and memories and plans for the other side of high school. Every one of its twenty-two parolees, in their own way, was rarin’ to enter life and kick its ass: most planned to leave the town of 800; a few more riskier, more confident soon-to-be-ex-classmates planned to leave Kansas all together.
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After all the jokes and awards and speeches, they stood, raised a water glass to their last twelve torturous years, belted out the WHS fight song, and were ready to dance into adulthood and easier times. Before that though, Principal Mack had one final announcement to make:
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“Young women and men, congratulations on your educational achievement. I wish you all the very best of luck in the future—most of you will need it,” he said sternly looking around the room at his young, optimistic charges. “Some of you won’t because you won’t be living that long.”
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The festive fun was stopped as cold as the green beans. For once, they actually paid attention to what the warden was yammering about instead of fidgeting, napping, or whispering through most of his boring assemblies that would be no more. What the f–?
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“Now I know some of you—most of you, perhaps—think of me as the devil in disguise.” He paused for chuckles. “Well, guess what, kiddos, your presumption is correct. I am him.”
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A collective, more confused, what the f—? sprang forth amongst the nervous laughter. Who knew Mack-the-Hack had such a fiendish sense of humor; a practical joker side? He always seemed sooooooo lame.
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“Oh you foolish, naive, shiny pennies—always hoping, always certain, that your lives will be so grand once you leave high school behind. Do you want to know how grand? Let’s take a little look see, shall we?” He fished a deck of index cards from his leisure suit pocket, and read as he flipped through them.
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“Rebecca Sue Anderson: You will graduate from Concordia College in Childhood Education and become a teacher in the Topeka school district. You will fall in love and marry, but you will catch him cheating on you after only three years. Divorce will follow. You will remain single, co-habituating with 14 cats. Your brains will be splattered all over your English classroom when a sixteen-year old student sprays it with semi-automatic machine gun fire on April 22, 1995.
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Teresa Jo Babcock: The large Catholic family you and classmate, Johnny Rappahoe pray about?—not on my watch. You two will marry six months from now, but Tess, you are going to die in childbirth five months later. No more progenies groomed in St. Peter’s unholy name.
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“James ‘Jimbo’ Blankenfield: Your love for mechanics and cars will be the death of you. You see, son, you will open up your own automobile repair shop right here in Windsor, which will turn out to be quite profitable. Enough to leave your widow and two girls pretty well off after an ‘86 Firebird falls off its jacks and crushes your chest like a pop can. You have exactly 7 years, 8 months, 21 days, 14 minutes, and 48 seconds left on Earth, so get to wrenching.
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“Mona Marie Eagleton: Your class play acting skills will take you to Broadway—not as an actress as you expect, but as a street-walking prostitute to supplement your heroin addiction. Your fresh-face beauty will be eaten away before you’re thirty, your dreams of stardom dashed. You will die by overdose on February 10, 1986. Ha, ha! You will take the train for New York the day after graduation anyway, just to prove me wrong.
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“Darwin Allen Grant: Son, I could smell your whiskey/mouthwash breath while standing in line at the salad bar. You have a fifth of Old Crow under your driver’ seat so to make prom more memorable. It will be memorable alright because you will slam into a tree while driving home drunk tonight and will be killed instantly. Make a close inspection of the powder-blue tuxedo you're wearing, son, because in 7 hours and 14 minutes it will be tie-dyed with your blood, brains, and internal organs, unreturnable to The Tux of the Town rental shop in Wichita. Totally, as you kids say.
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“Grant Lee Goodson: I could smell your whiskey/mouthwash breath tonight, as well. What can I say? Ask you to stop drinking? Not a chance. You, young man, won’t stop the bottle until June 9, 1999, when you will die from cirrhosis of the liver. A few of your bar buddies will see you off, but not the ex-wife and three kids that you will rough up pretty badly. How can you blame them? You will become an abusive alcoholic asshole that began fermenting your sophomore year here at good old Windsor High.
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“Sheryl Kathleen Higgins: So you, young lady, are planning to become a nurse. Sorry, Sherry, ain’t gonna happen. You’ll get knocked-up after a one-night stand later this summer and raise your bastard son, Joey, on your own, which won't be easy for a single mother in the coming decade. You will put your career on hold—bartending at the Windsor Palace until you’re fifty-six, always half-hoping Joey’s dad will walk through those swinging doors like he did that long-ago summer night in ‘72. He won’t.
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“Gina May Holmes: You will die from brain cancer before you’re forty. I won’t share your exact expiration date just to keep you guessing, worried, and scared shitless.
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Carol Jean Junker: How does death on December 16, 1984, sound to you? You’ll get hit by a city bus while Christmas shopping in downtown Wichita. Apparently you forgot that big cities have traffic lights and crosswalks! That’s okay because neither your husband nor your twins really like you much because quite frankly, your bitchiness that received high marks all through high school will only improve in the real world.
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“Richard Perry Martin: You will be lucky tonight, compared to poor Mr. Grant, your driver. You will survive the car crash, but will be paralyzed from the waist down for life—-a very long life because you won’t die until March 16, 2043.
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Rachel Eve Mericotti: Fifth time’s a charm, babe!
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Rodney Alexander Moorman: You will continue to farm the family land—until you’re thirty-one, that is. That July, a grain bin will collapse, smothering you underneath with tons of wheat. Your nine-year old son, Davey, will perish, too, as he was scooping alongside you because he wanted to “work hard, just like Daddeo.”
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Pamela Lynn Noonan: You will succeed in the corporate world as planned, but will pay the price in loneliness. No matter, your plane will go down in a Pennsylvania bean field on a business trip from LA to Boston when you are 53. It’s a good thing only bits and pieces of you will be identified, as all your friends and family coming to your funeral couldn’t fill a six-seat hot tub. Enjoy the feminist lifestyle, Ms. Noonan.
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Jarod Victor Okinga: You won’t live out the year. Pssssst!—a clue—watch out for passing trains!
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Carolyn Ann Prescott: Your perfect life with your three perfect kids comes to an end on New Year’s Eve night, 1990. You’ll all melt in a house fire caused by a frayed extension cord to the Christmas tree. Your perfect husband took out the smoke detector batteries to put in son’s new Gameboy and forgot to replace them later.
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Debra Kimberly Ponder: I’ve great news for you, dear child. Your low self-worth, self-esteem, and chronic sadness will end soon—unfortunately, rather unpleasantly, for your husband who discovers your body with a self-boring hole in the head on March 3, 1979. Too bad for you, him, and your newborn son, that mental health issues such as postpartum depression have such a stigma in American society.
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Randall James Quinn: I hope you’re ready to win 32 million bucks in the Kansas lottery fourteen years from now. And then being killed by a lightning strike two-and-a-half weeks later. Fortunately—yet unfortunately—the long odds of fate swings both ways, young man. Stay grounded, Randy!
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Johnathan Stephen Rappahoe: Geeze, I’m really sorry about the death of your future wife early next year. Don't worry, though, you’ll try for that large Catholic family again when you marry Tess’s little sister, Diana, who will also die in childbirth with your firstborn. You will then marry the youngest Babcock daughter, and have Rosemary’s Baby. What a great kid! He'll be like a son to me.
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Sarah Jo Rice: In the 70s, you will become the main Windsor supplier of marijuana; In the 80s, coke; in the 90s, meth. You will spend your early retirement in the state’s female correctional facility. Watch out for your “friends”, girl.
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Peter Samuel Sanderson: Look at you, you chiseled, handsome, star quarterback, with blonde flowing locks—you better soak up the attention now, Studly, because you won’t be here for the tenth class reunion. Pete, you’re going to drop with a heart attack at age 28. You will be balding on top and will weigh 317 pounds when you go because you will be a nothing at K-State, will flunk out your sophomore year out, and return to Windsor to sell nails and lumber. Junk food, lad, is your only solace—that, and a few accolades from town locals who still remembered your faded glory days tossing the pigskin.
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Susan Dawn Wagner: You will choke to death in a Kansas City Pizza Hut on May 16th, 2011. Your secret high school lover, Ms. Noonan over on table three, will remember your adolescent romance fondly.
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Michael Stephen Zapata: I have to admit, Mike, I feel most sorry for you. Bone cancer is a horrible, excruciating way to die, so enjoy your last birthday next week.
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“In closing, I want to wish you—the Windsor, Kansas, Class of 1972 the best of luck as you enter life. And you thought high school was a bitch!” “‘Principal Mack” said, laughing. His “announcement” had already mostly slipped from their collective minds—a frustration for educators, but a boon for Satan who then disappeared in a plume of orange and black smoke, the Monarchs school colors.
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and then Add to home screen.