Where did you go to High School?

Being from the Lou, I’ve heard that question more times than I can count. It is the city-wide inside joke that can place a person in an economic, social and ethnic class in one sentence. Supposedly, jobs are to be gained or lost by writing on the resume Country Day class of 1965 or Vashon 1993. However, for the most part it is all in good fun. Like New Yorkers wanting to know what burrow you grew up in. Personally, I am sort of happy I can participate in this ritual while my friends from other parts of the country wear blank faces while those around them talk about the Webster Groves-Kirkwood football game. But it can go too far….

C retires to the restroom, pushing and excusing his way through the packed Cheshire Inn. Yuppies, frat boys, wedding parties and a couple of middle-aged men with trophy girlfriends are all gathered in the closest 3 a.m. bar to Clayton.

C hails from the Hill Country of Texas: a place where the town had only one high school and the drive into Austin for dinner was only done for special occasions like Anniversaries and fortieth birthdays. So, for him, the St. Louis question is neither answerable or logical.

Inside the upstairs bathroom of the Cheshire past the large leather couches with a couple of partiers passing out, a threesome of young man are snorting coke-off their fingers. Not in little, neatly-cut, white lines or out of a bumper or even off a key, but off their fingers like greedy well dressed trolls. In that moment immediately after the syntax of the brain opens up, the thought on these gentlemen’s minds was? Where did C go to high school? Did he go to DeSmet? He looked like a guy they knew who went to DeSmet? C urinating and pretending not notice the drug use behind him has no idea what they are talking about. Did he just get back from Cement? (Is Cement some new club?) “Sure, I went to Cement earlier the night. See, ya’ll around.”
Back at the seats, I laugh as C tells me the story, and I relate to him they just wanted to know where he went to High School. He asks, “Who the fuck asks where you went to high school as they do coke?” I agree-Really, St. Louis, who asks that question all the time?