Sample Chapter

CHAPTER 4
The Monty High Mafia

Richard was not the only student who terrorized me during my teen years. He belonged to a larger crowd I call, “The Monty High Mafia” after Montgomery High School, which all of us attended. Montgomery High School is located in South San Diego. In the late 1980s, the Monty High Mafia claimed exclusive rights to all that was good and honorable at Montgomery High School.

The Mafia ran most of the student organizations on campus, and, with the exception of Richard, were at the top of the class. Most of them were Filipino-American like myself, and like myself they too honors or Advanced Placement (AP) classes, typical college preparatory classes. However, they excluded me from their clique, not that I wanted to be in the Monty High Mafia.

During my sophomore year at Montgomery High School, all of the sophomores and the juniors were forced to take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT). Later, when the results came, the school counselors assembled both the sophomore class and the junior class in the cafeteria.

“The highest score of the sophomores went to Kenneth Molles,” said one of the counselors. Everyone in the cafeteria clapped for me. I felt honored that the school recognized me for my talents. Earning the highest score of my class was not something I had intended to do. It just happened.

In general I found high school easy, which generally I would not find of later life. Still, not everything in high school was easy, like dealing with the Mafia. After the assembly to discuss the PSAT results, I went to the band room, where I usually hung out since I was in the high school band. There, I met one pretty girl named Elaine DeVillena. She was a Filipina, like most members of the Mafia, and wore her black hair long. She wore clear braces and whined as she talked. She was on the tall flag team, part of the marching band.

“What was your score?” asked Elaine. I candidly told the pretty girl my score.
“Emma, you did better!” said Elaine. Emma Encarnacion, also on the tall flag team, and in the Monty High Mafia, was one of my closest academic rivals. Usually if I did not earn the highest score on a test of all the students in a given course, Emma would earn the highest score. Thus, we closely competed against each other.

Again, the Monty High Mafia held the delusion that they held exclusive rights to all that was good and honorable at Montgomery High School. That included the highest scores of all test-takers on tests such as the PSAT. Elaine, Emma, and I compared my PSAT score report with Emma’s score report. Indeed Emma did outscore me. The counselors had made a mistake in identifying me as the sophomore with the highest score on the PSAT. I could only leave the band room in anger.

Elaine acted as if honors in Montgomery High School belonged exclusively to her or to other members of the Monty High Mafia such as Emma. Mere mortals such as myself had no right trying to be the best at anything in the pond called “Montgomery High School”. I couldn’t swim with the big fish there such as Elaine or Emma.