Dispatch by Bentley Little Page B

saving up for a word processor, but for the moment I had only my old manual Royal, and when I wasn't selling toys or picking up after bratty kids, I was impersonating men and women from all nationalities and all walks of life vehemently opposed to redeveloping the Eastside.
    I became a better debater with each argument I made, and the people responding to me in print sharpened their attacks, becoming ever more polarized until avowed racists were battling it out with Hispanic radicals, and redevelopment had become a single-issue subject.
    I stepped in as the voice of moderation—and opposed the marginalization of an important segment of our community.
    Throughout the rest of July and into August, the council dithered, hemming and hawing in the press, unwilling to publicly take a stand. I would have loved to know what was going on behind the closed doors of city hall, what the mayor was saying to the planning commission and the city staff members who had put this whole thing in motion.
    Finally, at a special meeting near the end of August that was attended by residents and reporters and even two Los Angeles TV news crews (who had been alerted to the controversy by "Carlos Sandoval"), the council voted on its plan for Acacia's Eastside and unanimously decided not to use its powers of eminent domain to displace current residents. They left off with a vague assurance that the issue would still continue to be studied and that a happy solution would be found that would result in a revitalized city.
    I had saved the Eastside.
    It might be overreaching for me to claim that I had single-handedly fought city hall and won, but I had no illusions about the part I had played in all of this. If I had not stepped in and written my letters, the council would have passed the plan way back in July. I had galvanized the community and given words to the speechless, even framing arguments that they could appropriate for their cause.
    Frank and I celebrated with tacos.
    I took the money I'd saved and bought my word processor.
 

*4*
    School started again in September.
    Senior year.
    I had no new cause for which to fight, but I continued writing letters to assorted media outlets, commenting on various issues of the day, making suggestions to television networks about TV shows, and of course I kept up my complaints to restaurants and amusement parks, expanding my horizon to include movie theaters.
    Despite my extracurricular successes, things weren't going quite as well at school. I'd never been one to think ahead, but I started planning out my life after graduation, and I decided I wanted to go to college. I wasn't ready for the real world. So for the first time in three years, I paid a visit to my guidance counselor to discuss my options.
    Mrs. Zivney was old and humorless and had no real interest in the affairs of students, though that was her job. She listened to me, heard me out, then wearily walked over to a series of file cabinets across the hall and pulled my records. I told her I had no money and my parents certainly weren't the type to pay my way. My older brother, I explained, had not gone to college and was basically a bum, and everyone expected me to follow in his footsteps. "But I want to go to college," I said. "I want to make something of myself. What kind of scholarship do you think I could get?"
    I wouldn't get any scholarship, the counselor informed me. My grades weren't good enough. It would take something spectacular on my resume to make up for the lazy pattern of slightly better-than-average grades in non-advanced-placement classes. Either that or I would have to ace the SATs—which wasn't going to happen.
    "She's a treacherous and evil old bitch," I said when I emerged from the meeting. "She should be put down like the mad mongrel that she is." I'd been reading a lot of Hunter Thompson and wanted to try out some of his lingo, but those sorts of words read better on the page than they sounded in person. Like most kids at that