I was trying to come up with something new to write. Something entertaining and something vaguely readable. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about girls, music or sports. So what am I supposed to write? The answer—Karl Martin. Karl is a kid I met during my Freshman year of college. Karl is an awkward, strange, and stupid kid from Massachusetts, but for some reason he ends up being likable, even lovable. Karl Martin is worth writing about because he’s ****ing Karl Martin. I’m going to start a series of stories about Karl Martin and believe me—I’m not bereft of stories. I’m going to try to make the stories as chronological as possible, so that you can get a feel of what kind of progress my friend has made in his very short life. Here goes.

It’s kind of surprising to hang out with someone for a decent amount of time and then hear them say, “Yeah I got arrested one time.” Well, this is what Karl told me and my friends one day. Somehow when we were all getting to know each other he managed to leave out the fact that he’s had actual handcuffs around his wrists. 

Karl went to a public middle-school outside of Beantown—that puts him at the age of about 13 years old. Ask yourself, “What was I doing at the age of 13?” Do you have images of jumping on a trampoline or playing with action figures or putting on your baseball cleats for Little League? Good, you should. That means you had a normal childhood. Now ask yourself, “What was Karl Martin doing at age 13?” Do you have images of selling marijuana? As much as I don’t want to say it—those are the images you should have. For awhile it didn’t make much sense to me how a seemingly normal, non-**** up of a kid could have so much knowledge about the process of buying weed. He was so good at it; it just did not make sense. But then, we found out he sold weed when he was freaking THIRTEEN years old. Even Biggie didn’t get as quick a start as that. I’m pretty sure I was still too scared to go to an R-rated movie at the age of 13. My friend, Karl, was selling drugs at age 13.

          Surprisingly enough, Karl didn’t get arrested for selling marijuana. No, no—his criminal act occurred on none other than the bus home from school. So Karl and his buddy, his African-America buddy, are sitting on the bus. Suddenly, the semi-retarded girl from school starts fighting with Karl’s friend. She actually ends up dropping an N-bomb on the kid. So what happens? Well, Karl’s friend proceeds to pour Code Red on the semi-retarded girl. Let me repeat—she’s semi-retarded. So this girl’s soaked with Aquafina when Karl pulls out baby powder. What Karl was doing with baby powder is far beyond me but anyways, he takes the baby powder and dumps it all over the girl! The semi-retarded girl!

Code Red and baby powder is not a good combination to have on your body. Oh yeah, add spit to that mixture. So the score is Karl-1, semi-retarded girl-0. It’s a victory for the Martin camp. Or so he thought. The cops end up coming to Karl’s house with cuffs ready to be used. Karl insists he got arrested because the semi-retarded girl lied and told her mom that Karl and his friend beat her with sticks. So here the possibilities—Karl either lied to us and actually beat a girl with a stick, or he simply got arrested for completely accosted a semi-retarded girl, or the semi-retarded girl actually lied. The result is the same—thirteen year old Karl got arrested.

The story got printed in the local newspaper, he missed a few basketball games, and his reputation as a ridiculous human being took flight.