Janel Delgado

Janel Delgado wanted to kick my ass. Everyone was telling me so. I had never spoken with her before. I was a sophomore in high school and she a senior. I had no idea what I had done to her but apparently she wanted to kill me.

“I heard she broke someone’s ribs once,” someone said to me.

Janel was six feet tall if not taller. She was a “new waver” as we used to say. She had long black permed hair that she used to spray up real high like Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” days. Janel was also easily 200 pounds. She had an entourage of boys who followed her around the halls of our high school. Despite her weight, she was actually very pretty.

Her brother had been killed on graduation night by a drunk driver a year or two earlier. He had been beautiful and popular and was much missed. He was gone before I ever started high school so I had never known him though I was familiar with his photograph. Word had it he and Janel were best friends. She was the “girl who lost her brother.” It was part of her identity.

It just so happened that Janel and I hung out with the same crowd when we’d go out dancing. Our only option was Fort Ram. The bar was exceptionally for teens on Sundays when there was no school on Monday. And you could smoke there. The dance floor was a big wooden square surrounded by long tables and benches. The four sides of the square coincidentally served as population markers. One side had all the New Wavers, a second side for all the Mexicans, a third side for all the hicks, and the fourth side for all the jocks and popular kids. As soon as you walked into Fort Ram, you knew which side to go to.

I met many boys at Fort Ram. I made out with punks, skin heads, guys adorned with earrings, tattoos and Mohawks, skaters, anyone who hung out with the “misfit” crowd on our side of the room was game. The gay guys made up our population too. They were the best dressed, best dancers, and most sexy but they were only interested in themselves and mainly in the closet. They were well-respected in our group for their exquisite taste in fashion and music.

Anyway, back at school I had a zoology class with Janel. My best friends at the time, Kayla and Sidney, sat on either side of me in class. Janel and her boys sat directly behind us. My friends were scared of Janel so they would laugh every time she’d aim and shoot her finger at the back of my head and say “boom.”

“Don’t laugh,” I told my friends once. “That’s not very cool. I wouldn’t laugh if she hated you.”.

“She’s never done anything to me,” Kayla said, “I have no reason to hate her.”

The fact Janel wanted to kill me, didn’t seem to influence Kayla at all. Maybe she figured if she laughed, Janel wouldn’t hate her too. Towards the end of zoology class, I couldn’t take Janel’s fake shooting and my friends giggling. So, I got up to go to the bathroom and just before I stepped outside the classroom, I abruptly turned around, stared at Janel and gave her the bird. I quietly walked into the bathroom and closed the door to my stall. As I sat down, I heard the bathroom door slam open. Not a sound after that. I knew Janel was waiting for me.

I opened the stall door and proceeded to wash my hands, very aware of her presence by the sinks. She moved towards me, towering over me and staring down. I pretended she wasn’t there, not sure what to do.

“You wanna do that to my face?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Flip me off!” she bellowed.

“You actually think I’d flip you off?” I said conjuring up something plausible. “I was flipping off my friends,” I said but then losing control and all sanity added, “You actually think I’d waste my time on you?”

Her eyes dilated. She looked at me not knowing what to do next. “You better watch it,” she said and left the bathroom abruptly.

I waited a couple minutes before returning to the classroom. It wasn’t as if we could both walk in together. When I finally came back, the teacher looked at me petrified with fear and hung up the classroom phone. She had been calling for help, I was later told. All my classmates were staring at me expecting a bloody nose, anything, something.

I calmly returned to my seat as if nothing happened. After class, Kayla said, “Janel jumped out of her seat when you left and said ‘I’m gonna kill her!' Everyone was really scared.”

“Oh, my god,” added Sidney with his hands covering his mouth. “You are so lucky you didn’t get hurt. I was so worried,” and he truly looked like he had suffered a mild heart attack.

I just sat there speechless, my adrenaline still pumping. I imagined Janel leaping from her seat enraged. The class must have come to a grinding halt while we were in the bathroom. That was interesting. Though, sadly no one had been brave enough to come looking for us.

Several weeks later, we were all at Fort Ram. I was dancing to some new wave song, my head cocked to the side, an expression of new wave sadness mixed with a little lethargy. Someone came up to me, “Hey. Janel wants to talk to you.”

“Huh? Why?” I asked.

“She says you keep looking at her.”

I looked over and Janel was seated on a big long table, her feet up on the bench. She beckoned me over with her index finger like a villain in a children story. I walked up to her and waited for her to say something.

“Leave us alone,” she said to the crowd that had gathered around. After our friends walked away she said, “Come here.” She pulled me dangerously close to her. I was standing between her knees. “I’ve gotta talk to you,” she said.

“Okay, what is it?” I asked not knowing what in the world she wanted.

“Do you have any idea why I’m such a bitch to you?” she asked.

“Not really. Cuz you hate me?”

“No. I don’t hate you,” she paused. “I’m jealous of you.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” I was not expecting that explanation from her.

“Yeah. You’re so cute and pretty. I’m jealous of you. I know it’s stupid. I’m really sorry. You seem cool. Do you forgive me?”

“Um,” this was so bizarre, “sure, okay.”

“Friends?” she raised her eyebrows.

“Okay.”

“Give me a hug,” she enclosed me into a big mushy warm embrace.

“Let’s hang out,” she said, “come over tomorrow. I’m having a little get together,” she scribbled down her number and handed me a piece of paper. “Call me tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said. I turned and walked over to my friends who had been gawking at the entire event.

“What was that all about?” asked Kayla.

“We’re friends now. She wants to hang out,” I smiled feeling really cool. The next day I told my mom I’d be going to Janel’s house.

“Janel? The girl who wants to kill you?” asked my mother.

“We’re friends now. We made up.”

My mother turned and looked at me. “How did that happen?” she waited to hear my story.

“She was just jealous of me. She thinks I’m cute.”

“Wow. She told you that?” my mother asked surprised.

“Yep.”

“Okay. Be careful,” she said.

“Don’t worry. She’s cool,” I smiled thinking of my new friend. That evening at Janel’s was pretty mellow. I was drinking like a fish with the others but Janel wasn’t. She told me about her brother and was nervous I wanted to drive home after drinking. She told me to stay the night but I talked her into letting me go. She reminded me of how she lost her brother and how adamantly against drunk driving she was.

“I’m fine,” I said. I don’t know how I managed to get home safely. Today, I still thank my lucky stars I made it home without hurting anyone and without hurting myself.

Janel and I hung out a couple more times and then she graduated and began working at a make-up counter in a department store. She wanted to save her money and go to fashion design school. Once in a while, we would run into each other. She was always tough but always said hi.

I think back and still find it hard to believe someone with such a strong personality and presence could actually have been jealous of me. I don’t think I told anyone what she said to me that night at Fort Ram. After all, she was someone people both feared and admired. But to me she was Janel Delgado, the gentle giant.