(he was flunking school to get out of school plus he worked at kfc and loved his job, during the 11th grade btw)  summerize this:

      I didn’t know what I was doing or what I believed in, except the United States of America and the Cleveland Browns. Sometimes, to break my addiction to the tube[1], I spent the night in a derelict shed with mushrooms growing from the rafter boards. Back-yard rehab. I used to read in there, or, anyway, swing my eyes over the pages of library books: “Out of Africa” (the girl I was in love with loved the move); Donal Trump’s autobiography; Kierkegaard; “Leaves of Grass”; a book about how to make a robot from an eight-track player. As long as nobody had assigned the book, I could stick with it. I didn’t know what I was reading. I didn’t really know how to read. Reading messed with my brain in an unaccountable way. It made me happy; or something. I copied out the first paragraph of Annie Dillard’s “An American Childhood” on my bedroom’s dormer wall. The book was a present from an ace teacher, a literary evangelist in classy shoes, who also flunked me, of course, with good reason. Even to myself I was a lost cause.