he 'd begun to arrive at school with a wheelchair , brought by his mother , now in the throes of spinal pain from a slipped disk , and in this wheelchair he was positioned at the front , right-hand corner of his classes , near the teacher 's desk , a broken , freaky figure with a small pinched boy 's face , waxy skin and slack lips , drowsy from painkillers , or absorbed in his spiral notebooks in which he only pretended to take notes while in fact drawing bizarre figures-geometrical , humanoid-that seemed to spring from the end of his black felt-tip pen .