School vending machines have Hershey bars, which to my youthful palate were a divine, luscious reward for a day spent among the munchkins and societal rejects who constituted the population of my school. When I felt those creamy chocolatey squares melt on my tongue, I would get excited, which was, now that I think about it, largely a reaction to sugar, and I would energetically seek my lone friend Mikey.
Mikey had a rat tail. He wasn’t the most popular kid in school but because his mom had left him when he was younger and his dad was never around he was well-respected. Mikey wasn’t a chocolate guy per se, but he knew that when I ate chocolate I became a kind of Mr. Hyde.
Together, we snuck into the girls’ bathroom and made gross farting sounds when we heard the door open, we climbed out of windows into areas of the school marked no trespassing, and we generally did whatever we weren’t supposed to do. Finally Mikey was expelled for lighting a cherry bomb in the boys bathroom. I lost my only friend. But that didn’t stop me from eating those Hershey bars from the school vending machine once 2:30 rolled around.
