On a Scale from Idiot to Complete Jerk (9 page)

ME
(
fighting to stay calm
). Okay, okay. Let's think. Who's big? Who can carry him? Alex? Spence? C'mon, guys!

(
The two bodybuilders of the class, who are always
flexing their pecs and chugging protein shakes, stagger
backward, holding their hands palm out as if warding
off a vampire
.)

ALEX
. No way, man! You
seen
that leg? (
Sprints off,
followed by Spence.
)

EDIE
(
calmly
). You guys are idiots. We can't move him. I'll call nine-one-one while we wait for a teacher.

ME
(
visibly relieved and shaking
). Yeah, yeah, that's right! We
can't
move him! We shouldn't! Nine-one-one…

(
The camera is still on, but Spin isn't aiming it at
Sanjiv anymore. All it's recording is grass and shoes.
Fortunately, the audio picks up everything.)

SPIN
. Yeah, we just gotta wait for an ambulance, make him comfortable. (
Shouts down at Sanjiv,
lying on the rocky ground in the driving rain.
) You comfortable, Sanjiv? You okay?

CHAN
. Does he
look
comfortable, Spin? Turn that thing off. Look, everybody give me your hoodies. (
The
camera clicks off. Everyone peels off their coats, and Chan
stuffs one under Sanjiv's head and spreads the rest on top
of him. We wait, shivering, for people who really know
what the heck to do in a crisis
.)

Conclusions:
So, obviously, not everyone acts perfectly in a crisis. Not muscle guys, not even scientists. There are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from this case study.

1) To be a jerk, you usually have to do something deliberately jerkish. But sometimes, not doing anything makes you a jerk as well. While Alex didn't deliberately cause Sanjiv to go flying (it was clearly an accident), he still acted like a jerk because:

(a) he was more concerned with telling everyone it wasn't his fault than apologizing or helping Sanjiv;

(b) he actually
blamed
Sanjiv for causing the accident in the first place (which was a total lie); and

(c) given the chance to help Sanjiv (okay, I admit that carrying him into the school was a stupid idea, but that's beside the point), he didn't.

I would appreciate it if this scientific conclusion remained confidential. Both Alex and Spence, huge and surly at the best of times, are more belligerent than ever since the whole school saw them run away during this case study. We are all quietly enjoying their predicament, but the situation remains delicate.

2) Sometimes, being in a crowd makes you act more stupid (though not necessarily more jerkish) than you would normally act. For example, we've all seen the shows, we all know you don't move people who are hideously injured. But it's completely different when it's real, when it's your friend lying there.

We all stood there, kind of numb and paralyzed, waiting for somebody else to do something. Angela finally started the rescue ball rolling when she ran for help. While only Alex was really a jerk in this situation, lots of people didn't act perfectly. I myself regret my lack of scientific objectivity. But maybe that's the conclusion—in a crisis, whether there are jerks around or not, leave the crisis management to the professionals.

***A note on informed consent of participants
to these scientific studies
: Sanjiv agreed to let me use this video clip in my project—I mean, after his operation, when his leg was fixed with hardware-store-sounding stuff like “screws and plates.” It was only right to get his permission and possibly only legal. He actually seemed quite proud of his leg being involved in a groundbreaking scientific study.

I also got Maddie's and Kaylie's consent for the previous case study. (In fact, they're still so mad at Shay that they want me to turn Spin's video over to the teacher as evidence that it was all Shay's fault.) And as for Shay, I'm taking “get lost, freak” as acknowledgment, which is sort of like consent.

CHAPTER 9
Jerks at School

Although the events in the last chapter technically happened at school, they were unusual, dramatic events. Most of the time, school is
way
less exciting, following a predictable, often grinding routine of same old, same old, day after day. The focus of this chapter is on the more day-to-day, routine opportunities for jerks to be jerks.

A) Students

It might appear that this topic isn't even very challenging, because everyone knows that kids at school can be idiots and jerks. It's totally obvious, even to non-sciencey types. So in this section I decided to do something different. I looked at
patterns
of jerkish behavior. Does jerkish behavior even follow a pattern? Does it peak at certain times of the day? Can one jerk acting jerkish cause other people to act like jerks? Prepare yourself for some amazingly impressive graphs.

CASE STUDY #8
The Arc of Jerkish Behavior

Subjects:
No real names will be used in this example, to prevent my having unpleasant experiences if this report ever gets seen by somebody other than my teacher. So, say there's this known jerk at school who has blond, not black, hair. He's also got green, not brown, eyes. This known jerk is really, really good at math and is not on any sports teams. We'll call him Kevin. Any resemblance to any real person or persons in this case study is purely accidental.

Laboratory:
Math class

Experiment:
Kevin is a guy who goes looking for ways to be a jerk. There is no doubt that he
is
a jerk (ask absolutely anyone at my school). So in this experiment, I decided to observe not
whether
Kevin is a jerk, but
how
he is a jerk.

Observations:
Kevin hates math class because…because he's so good at it. Yeah, because he's so
good
at math. He's bored. He looks around. He crumples paper and fires it at a nearby girl's head. She ignores him, so he looks around some more. The student in front of him is working. Kevin grabs his ruler and pushes the other kid's arm so that his pencil goes skidding across the page. Again and again Kevin does this, despite the kid becoming more and more upset. The substitute teacher looks up from whatever she's doing (reading a novel? texting?) and tells him to “stop it, mister.”

Kevin then waits until the substitute teacher figures she should probably at least pretend to teach something, just in case another teacher walks by. When the kid next to him is trying to answer a question, Kevin whispers random numbers, just to confuse him. “Four, nineteen, seventy…[giggle, giggle]…six.” The guy's a total idiot as well as a complete jerk. Anyway, when the teacher's back is turned to the class, Kevin quietly rushes to the window. He slips out and slides down a nearby tree to the ground floor.

When we all look out, Kevin is across the field at the elementary-school playground, flinging the swings so hard that they go around and around the bar until they're too short for the little kids who are looking forward to using them when recess rolls around. When he's finished wrecking the swings, he wanders around the field aimlessly. Later that afternoon, the school custodian has to bring a ladder out to fix the swings.

I could go on. Kevin could probably fill up this project. But I won't, because it's illustration time.

Scientific Illustration #5: Bell Graph of a Jerk

This bell graph, which is a kind of graph often used for
illustrating important scientific things (and not only bells),
shows how a school jerk's jerkitude builds steadily, then peaks.
Apparently, jerks have to wake up fully to really embrace
their inner jerk and sustain a period of busy jerkishness.
Then boredom or exhaustion sets in, and jerkitude diminishes.
Jerkish behavior clearly takes a lot of energy.

Conclusions:
Kevin became a jerk gradually during this math class. He sort of slid up the scale from idiot to jerk, peaked at complete jerk, then slid down as he got more tired or bored.

Jerkosity seems almost impossible to sustain over a long period of time (such as, for example, a whole school day), though some very special jerks (such as some celebrities) appear to have set records in this area.

***A note on jerks and bullies:
Are complete jerks always bullies? How about bullies? Are they
always
complete jerks? The way I see it, bullies are always complete jerks, but complete jerks are not always bullies. Now that's getting pretty philosophical, but it's scientific too. For example, a person can be a complete jerk in one random situation (say, standing up and deliberately rocking a canoe at camp when all the other kids are terrified of falling into the leech-infested water). But unless this kid keeps targeting certain other kids over a longish period of time, he doesn't quite enter bully territory. Bullies, the super-jerks of the world, are a topic all on their own. But that's a science project for another day.

CASE STUDY #9
Graphing Solo Jerks and Groups of Jerks

Subjects:
The popular kids in grade eight

Laboratory:
The lunchroom

Experiment:
I secretly studied this group over a series of lunchtimes, my notebook hidden under the table. I didn't actually need to be very secret, because this group never notices me, and they expect people to watch them. What's the point of being popular if nobody's looking?

Observations:
Unlike Kevin, the jerk from Case Study #8, the popular kids in grade eight aren't all obvious jerks. In fact, many of them behave quite normally, if maybe annoyingly. But I sacrifice four lunchtimes to science and observe many jerkish events, best displayed on another amazingly scientific graph, this time one of those very official spiky, heartbeaty-looking graphs.