Draco Means Dragon

The one thing that always sticks out in my mind when I think about Draco is that he made me laugh. It wasn’t that he had a great sense of humor or anything, but he made me laugh and at one time, that was something next to impossible to do.

I started working weekends at Rosa’s diner during the beginning of my senior year. I first met Draco there on a Saturday in January. It was fairly cool that day, around 65 or so. I remember because it never gets cold around here, save the rare day when the devil himself takes a day off and hell freezes over. Then the temperature will drop to around 70 – if we’re lucky. But that’s not really important. The only thing that truly matters is that it brought into my life the boy with the emerald green eyes, crooked smile, and mouse-brown hair that overtook his head in a mass of curls. What’s strange is that I couldn’t recall ever having seen before that day even though he claimed to be a regular there at the diner. I live in a small town and work at an equally small town diner which seats at most twenty people. At 5’11” and 270, Draco wouldn’t have been so easy to miss.

He wasn’t Draco then. He was Alex Ramstein. I dubbed him “Draco” because of the stupid ruby-eyes dragon pendant he always wore. He played with it all the time and his constant fidgeting really got on my nerves. He always did that when he talked. “Stop that, it’s annoying,” I would tell him as he repeatedly traced the intricate designs on the silver metal with his thumb. “Sorry,” he would say as he turned slightly red and dropped the necklace to his chest. It never failed, though, that he would be playing with it again with it again within a few minutes. The funny thing is, now that he’s gone, it’s one of the things I miss the most.

Ten years ago, I didn’t know that “draco” was Latin for “dragon.” Alex taught me that. He loved to talk, but he called it “enlightening.” I guess he saw himself as some great philosopher destined to spread the truth of life or something. Whatever his reasoning, I knew he just liked to talk, but that was okay by me. I had never been much of a talker and could sit and listen to Draco for hours on end and never be bored. He longed for social interaction and I longed for a distraction from my less than perfect life. We bonded immediately; probably because in our own way we were both outcasts. I live in virtually pure isolation by my own choice to dwell in self-pity. Draco just never got close to anyone…but me. He was a guardian, a teacher and a friend, but most of all he was just misunderstood.

My life turned upside down my senior year of high school. My parents were getting a divorce after twenty-seven years of marriage because apparently my father found his twenty-one year olds secretary more desirable than my forty-three year old mother. Their previously constant fighting turned into all-out warfare once my father filed for a divorce. My mother sank into a deep depression and when she moved back home with my grandmother, I moved in with my brother to escape the chaos at home. So, I was to live with him and his two roommates in an apartment meant for a single person until the divorce was finalized and things returned to some semblance of order at home.

It was shortly after I moved out that my boyfriend of eight months left me for some little short skirt that lived three towns over. I guess he wanted someone more open seeing as how they’d been servicing each other the last four months of our relationship. I knew just how my mother felt. Three months later, she left him. The gods have a way of getting their revenge. He committed suicide a year after that. Nobody knew how I felt. I tried to detach myself, but pain lingers longer than anyone would like to admit.

Between all that, trying to keep up in school, and working part-time in hopes of saving up enough money for the first semester of the college education that I was sure I’d never have a chance of getting. I knew I was slowly loosing my sanity. Draco waltzed into my life right about this time and not a moment too soon. He loved to entertain and his stories were a long-awaited distraction to my slowly deteriorating life.

That first Saturday together was a turning point in my life. I was supposed to be off that weekend, but Rosa’s daughter has come kind of competition to go to, so I was expected to fill in. For the first Saturday since I had started at the diner, it wasn’t packed and since there was no work to be done, I took to a booth at the back of the diner and proceeded to sit and feel sorry for myself. I was angry and depressed when I heard the bell at the door jingle, letting everyone know that we had out first customer of the day. I saw that tall guy out of the corner of my eye. In my opinion, he looked like a hobo and I decided to bypass him. Besides, there was another waitress on shift. But when he walked into the diner, no one else seemed to notice him. I rolled my eyes and decided against waiting on him. Let the others do their job for once.

It surprised me when I looked up from the table and saw him sitting in front of me. I was in no mood to talk. When he introduced himself as Alex, I smiled sarcastically and ignored him. When he asked me my name, I took out a napkin and started on some sketches for an art project I hoped to start later. Maybe he would get the hint. He didn’t. He just kept talking. And for a while, I just kept ignoring him. At one point, though, and completely against my will, my ignoring turned into listening.

He talked about how much he loved coming here, how he adored Rosa’s cooking. There wasn’t anything like it back home. I had never seen him before and told him so. He shrugged, “I get that a lot.” Uh-huh. He sure was creepy. Interesting, but creepy. But I was finding myself intrigued and that irritated me. I wasn’t in the mood to be intrigued. This stranger was disrupting my plans for wallowing in my self-pity. Finally, I met his eyes with the coldest glare I could manage.

He stopped talking for a moment and established unyielding eye contact, firmer than I would have expected. His bright green eyes took me aback and for a short-lived moment, I was speechless. In a cruel way, I almost felt sorry for the guy. He looked like I had gotten his hopes up, like I was going to listen to his rambling. I smiled inwardly as I imagined myself brutally shooting down these hopes.

“Yes?” he asked, inquisitively. Is face was still open and warm and his voice was soft. It produced the kind of sound that just flows through your mind. My heart melted just a little.

“Why are you still here?” I asked. I was a bit disappointed when my voice wasn’t as cold and cruel as I had hoped.

“Because you need someone to talk to,” he said plainly, looking at me with a strong confidence that I took to be nothing more than a lonely guy looking for a sad little girl to save. I wasn’t in the mood to be saved.

“I don’t want to talk to you or anyone else for that matter,” I said flatly, “Please leave now.”

Alex didn’t flinch. He simply replied calmly, “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

My response was a bitter attitude combined with a sarcastic raise of the eyebrow. “Look, buddy, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but why don’t you spare yourself the embarrassment and just leave now. I’ve already made it crystal clear that I don’t want –“

Alex put his hand up to silence me. My eyes bugged; I wasn’t about to let some holier-than-thou punk cut me off. But when I opened my mouth, no words would come. I guess he shut me up anyway. “I never said it was what you wanted,” he said warmly, “I said it was what you needed.

I didn’t know what to say. I don’t think there was anything to say. We just became friends and every Saturday after that was the same. We got together every weekend after I got off work and sometimes Alex would come and talk to me during my lunch hour. Most often, though, we met in the park and sat on the grass until the sun went down. The entire time, Alex talked and the entire time I listened.

Time told me that Alex was as unique as the hand-carved dragon that hung around his neck. The ruby-eyes pendant, he told me one Saturday, was to remind him if where he had been and where he was going. I’m guessing I had a confused look on my face because Alex willingly took this opportunity to explain. Or maybe he just wanted to talk some more. I knew that Alex’s life revolved around magick and fantasy and I shouldn’t have been surprised at the answer I got.

“I was a dragon in a past life,” he explained to me, his green eyes darkening in seriousness, “and not just any dragon either. I was the great Draconis Maximus, the grandest of all dragons. Now, it’s true that all dragons exhibit strength, power, wisdom and longevity, but I was the epitome of all these things,” his eyes took on a sad look as he continued, “I had a horrid flaw, though. I had a love for beautiful things that slowly shifted from obsession to greed. In the end, it cost me everything, even my life.”

I was listening with a half smile and a raised eyebrow. Alex smiled slightly and continued, “Everyone has a lesson to learn in life. I need to learn to appreciate beauty and value without lusting after either or allowing them to destroy my humble person. When my lesson’s been learned, I’ll enter a utopia so grand it can’t even be conceived by the human imagination. The necklace reminds me that my end reward is greater than any petty thing this life could offer.” His eyes were sad and he war a far off look on his face.

I sat there for a moment, smiling and taking all of this in. Listening to Alex meant listening to a master storyteller. He took me on grand adventures though we never went further than the park five blocks from my house. Alex entertained me and made me think. He made me think a lot. And now he had me thinking about his destiny…and my own. Looking at my own life, I couldn’t help but think maybe there was some hidden meaning in all the chaos.

I leaned over and took the pendant between my forefinger and thumb tracing the designs in the cold metal. “So where’d you get it?” Alex shrugged, “I never got it. I always had it.” Uh-huh. “Lesson, huh? Interesting.” He nodded.

“So…what do you think my lesson is, then?” I asked cautiously. I didn’t want to appear too overly interested in what he had to say or too eager to hear the answer, but my curiosity was killing me. The growing seriousness in Alex’s face wasn’t helping the situation one bit. “I mean, there has to be something, doesn’t there? Look at this, look at me, look at my life, what the hell kind of lesson am I supposed to learn from this mess?”

He leaned in close to me, his face inches from mine, “There is so much anger in such a pretty face. Nothing I the life has been easy for you and it never will be.”

I scoffed, “Thanks for the encouragement,” I said sarcastically. It surprised me when I heard his voice in my ear. I could feel the heat from his breath on my face; feel his body close to mine. His liquid voice poured forth wisdom I’ll never forget, “Your lesson, my love, is to learn to love yourself.”

I smiled and responded playfully in a forced whisper, “Draco, you’re so full of shit.” He just sat there and smiled. His stories were just that – stories, but the look in his eyes when he talked made me wonder at times what was going through his head when he spun his tales.

Over the next eight months or so, we had endless conversations just like the one about the dragon pendant. In the beginning, I took a chance and invited some of my friends along. I wanted more than anything for them to see Draco the way I saw him. His smile laugh were contagious and I loved to watch his eyes dance as he told stories. He talked of things that enthused and thrilled me. Time and time again, he told of far off places full of beauty and life. He talked of being one with the earth and said that, if you listened close enough, you could hear her speaking to you. He loved to tell stories of parallel universes where the booked we read, the films we watched, and our fantasy became real. He talked endlessly and I listened faithfully.

My friends, though, didn’t trust the confidence with which he preached his extremely unorthodox views. They didn’t trust his sleepy eyes or crooked smiled and they didn’t care for his choice of clothing. According to them, his choice of tattered jeans, old t-shirts under flannel over-shirts made him look like a homeless tramp. They thought he was dangerous and an overall lunatic. I saw a side of my friends I had never seen before, a side that distrusted anything they couldn’t understand. Sure enough, they stopped coming around. I didn’t care. I thought he was a genius, but that wasn’t what made me stay. It was the way he made me feel. The way his eyes lit up when he knew I was wrapped up in another one of his stories reminded me of a child on Christmas. The pure, raw emotions in his eyes made me feel like my own happiness was the sole source of his.

At first, I attributed it to nothing more than coincidence, but when Draco came into my life, things started to change for the better. It was nothing big at first, but I soon found myself smiling and laughing more. Looking at my life, things were no different. My family was still being ripped apart at the seams and I couldn’t return home because of the constant chaos that ensued there. My brother’s apartment was still cramped and unsanitary and I was still sleeping on a couch that seemed to have been ripped of all its cushion surrounded by piles of dirty clothing and empty pizza boxes. My life was still a mess and yet, I didn’t think things were so bad anymore. Despite it all, I was happy. I had learned to see the world through Draco’s eyes. It was so easy for him to find beauty in the strangest places and, lying beside him in the dark counting the constellations, I had finally found the sense of peace I had lost so long ago. All the while, Draco sat by and watched with a sleepy smile on his face.

Graduation came and went, but all it meant for me was the chance to spend the summer with Draco. August seemed far away and college applications were a thing of the past destined to not pan out. The only thing that meant anything that summer were the nights spent with Draco under the stars. The stars hold a special meaning for me. I think that’s because it’s one of the few things I can honestly say I associate with Draco. He left without a trace that summer and the only things that remained were the memories. Even now, they’re the only things that remind me that summer was real, that I was alive.

We were lying by the lake on night, looking up at the stars when Draco said something totally out of the blue. I had known him for almost a year now, but it still took me by surprise.

“I’m going home someday,” he said, looking up at the stars.

I looked over at him in the darkness, confused, “What?”

“We all are,” he said, matter-of-factly, “We all get to go home in the end.”

I thought it was going to lead to one of his long-winded stories and I was disappointed when he was silent. I studied him in the darkness. His features seemed magnified in the shadows and he looked almost ethereal. It sent a chill down my spine, and for some reason I felt an emptiness form at the core of my soul. I had the urge to keep him talking. I couldn’t let him stop talking.

I rolled over on my side next to him. “Tell me about your home, Draco,” I whispered into the night.

He was silent for a moment and I was almost afraid that he wasn’t going to talk again. It was strange, but I had a hanging hear that it was the last few words I would ever hear him say and it brought tears to my eyes. Looking back now, though, it made perfect sense.

Looking up at the sky, he put a spread palm against the darkness. He moved it across, motioning towards the stars and the endless night above us. “My home is in the stars,” he said. There was almost sadness in his voice, but I was just glad to hear it again. A wave of relief came over me. “It’s beautiful there.”

“What does it look like?” I asked quietly.

“What does it matter?” Draco whispered, still gazing up into the stars, “There is more to beauty than what the eyes can see. True beauty is seen with the heart. You know you’re home when you know you belong.”

I nodded and laid back in the grass. It was getting late and I knew I had to be getting home. It was the end of the summer and the August non hung low in the sky. I love the outdoors and I loved being with Draco, but I was longing for the couch in the dirty little room I called home. I sat up and patted Draco on the shoulder, “I gotta get going,” I said. He nodded and stood.

We stood face to face in the moonlight and for the first time I realized how beautiful he really was. His eyes sparkled and his smile brought a warm feeling into the atmosphere. Moonlight shone off his cheeks, giving him a vague silver halo. There was a sadness in his though, a look of loss. It wasn’t especially depressing, but it made me wonder what going through his mind. And then he hugged me. No, hugged isn’t the word. He took me into his arms and then took me into his soul; for a moment, I became part of Draco. He held me inside him and it hit me that it was the first time he had ever touched me.

In the entire time we had known each other, there had been no physical contact. But I hadn’t missed it and now he held me and I held him. His body was warm against mine, a reminder that what I held was real – at least, it was to me. I think at the moment, I knew what Draco meant by “true beauty.”

Walking home that night, I half expected to feel a sense of loss. I think a part of me knew I would never see Draco again, but all I could find was a sense of peace I had never known before. I couldn’t help but smile as I walked up the stairs to my brother’s apartment and slid the key in the door.

The moonlight poured through the windows into the dark room, giving me light to see my way to the couch. I sat down on the rock that had been my bed for over a year now and as I laid my key down, something on the coffee table caught me eye. A simple envelope was sitting there for me. I recognized the emblem on the white background immediately. It was from the college I had applied to earlier that summer. Picking up the letter, I felt its weight in my hand. I didn’t even have to open it now to know it was an acceptance letter. I laid my future back down on the table and laid my head down on the couch. Tonight, though, it wasn’t the discomfort that wouldn’t let m sleep.

I picked up the letter and walked out the door again and back down the stars. I wanted to say goodbye to Draco one last time before I left, but something told me that it couldn’t wait until morning. There was an urge in my chest that called me back to the park, the grass and the silver moonlight.

When I got to the park, though, Draco wasn’t there. I knew he wouldn’t be. My heart sunk a little as I walked to the lack and sat on the edge. I turned the envelope in my hands, feeling a little empty. As I witched the lake’s ripples play with the moon’s reflection, a mix of emotions I couldn’t explain overwhelmed me. It wasn’t a registered though, but an intense feeling that I had lost something beautiful and not realized its true worth until that very moment.

I laid back in the grass and closed my eyes. Draco’s smile appeared in the darkness and I heard his whisper in my ear again, “We all get to go home in the end.” I smiled and looked up at the midnight sky. The stars shone brilliantly and I took in the beauty of the night. A cool summer breeze crossed my skin and as I watched the sky, I saw a beam of life shoot through the night. I laughed and whispered into the darkness, “Goodbye, Draco.”

Everything that happened after that night isn’t important. Nothing will ever change me the way Draco did. They say that when a person comes into your life in your darkest hour, they’re your guardian angel, your lucky star. The problem with shooting stars and guardian angels is that they never stay for long. They waltz into your life, shining with brilliance and energy and make an imprint on your soul that you know time will not erase. Then they leave; just like that, they leave without a trace. No one else will remember them like you do, but in the end I don’t think that really matters. The only think that truly makes a difference is that your life is better because your paths crossed. I couldn’t say that he was lucky or even my guardian angel. All I know is that I couldn’t have gotten through what I did without him by my side. He very well could have been, but I’ve never put much stock into things like that.