Teenagers

Evening.

I know longer hold the curse of youth in my heart yet my soul remains tainted with memories of its greatest fear.

We talked a lot. Talked and argued and fussed about minor details that filled our half empty jar of existence.
That’s what teenagers do though; make a fuss about everything, that’s one of the separating factors between immaturity and wisdom.
Sitting in a public park under an orange peel sky with clouds of tiny intruders drinking out sweat. He was ancient; his type of persona was one the world produced just so it could spit it out in a mangled mess.

A loser, a jack-shit loser with no point of direction, but he seemed to enjoy the image. He thought himself as a blade of grass that gets trampled on by souls of leather boots.
Sentimental philosophy I thought.

Staying indoors during weekends when you were supposed to be kissing girls in your car parked at the top of overlook hill, wearing faded leather jackets with the radio on low while the only witness to debauchery was the gold carpet sunset.
He said the world needs outcasts so it can use them as bad examples.

Night time could never come too soon in the island of uncertainty which happened to be his sanctuary. His father was in a wheelchair and had a pony tail and always wore a tired expression that sometimes border lined weak confusion.
A faggot dip-shit was his name from what I gathered.

“Thing is,” he would start most sentences with that statement, “if I were to chose not to fit, then who’s business is it to say otherwise? I have my own ideas and goals that I will complete in my own time. I don’t care what no one has to say about it, not you, not some yuppie teacher, and not my faggot dip-shit father.”

I said that he does fit and patted his back. He told me to go fuck myself.

“Thing is, gay or straight, black or white, everyone’s pretty fuckin’ twisted in the end right?”

I laughed.

Obstacles were something that he was well use to by the time the final stages of puberty struck. Girls played on his mind like a mental hiccup; his romance with drugs was increasing to a predictable climax and his ego flared while true confidence remained under the foot of the leather boot.

His affection, or teenage lust, sealed his fate by targeting a single girl who he believed held the essence of feminine mystique between closed lips.
Sarah, a name you could sigh.
A cocktail of talent as well as a kind of shy beauty and sweet radiance which built a cobweb that captured many broken hearts.

I sat quietly and let insects crawl over and discover the linen of my school shirt as he paced back and forth, retracing his steps and words.

“I want her to know about me, you know?”

I nodded and caught the wink of the first star behind the bottle blue trees.

“If I could just get through to her that I’m different, like I’m on the same level as her, with all that art and theatre stuff.” He stopped and wiped his mouth. His voice was riddled with uncertainty. “I know about that stuff man.”
I caught a bug between my thumb and forefinger and rubbed its frail body into moist pulp.
I felt bad about it but I did it again. I killed about five insects before dusk swallowed the last gasps of daylight.
He was my reflection in some ways, and that scared me. Although somehow I was smarter; I always seemed to choose the right options. Luck, I think, was a friend who asked no favors.

Early Monday morning we stood in the half dark corridor with liquid shadows dripping from the walls, listening to her rehearse for a senior production a fortnight before graduation. She sung Memory with haunting bliss that made my fingers curl into sweaty knots. Her voice was smooth as glass. Beautiful.
He stood on his toes and peered through the window, watching her, with a rectangle of light printed across the top half of his face. He was hypnotized by desire that he believed insatiable.
His eyes were damp and he was shaking his head slowly.
I asked what he was thinking about.

“I can change for her.” He said, still glaring through the window.
I thought that it was just a waste of time because girls like her just don’t go for guys like him. Guys like us.
I kept silent as we walked down the hall under strains of Memory and towards the daily routine of classes.

The following week I heard and saw nothing of him. I went to his house twice, knocked on the door and was greeted by his chair-bound father who claimed that he didn’t want visitors at this time, try again in a few days. This came as little surprise to me; it was a regular occurrence for him to just close the drapes on everything.

I returned to the park by myself and wondered about Sarah; what kind of family she would come home to everyday.
Did her mother wear a KISS THE COOK apron with cozy wool mittens as she heated up a Sheppard’s pie in the oven? Was her father watching the sport channel with his shoes off and feet elevated on a cushioned foot rest? Her brother, if she had one, would be upstairs in his room playing video games and listening to The Strokes on a brand new stereo, while his sister would read Spot picture books and color them in with crayons, and all would be well in the land of Sarah’s home as she walked through the door with a heavy school bag making her shoulders slump, not that that was a real problem though, because she was walking into a house that welcomed genuine love. She could shrug off her bag with ease as well as any other negative luggage absorbed throughout the school day, because she had love to look forward to.

I found myself tensed and irritated at the image of her home life, as make believe as it was. Jealousy wrapped its cold fingers around me but I shook off the feeling quickly and got to my feet with haste.

The walk home was hazy in my mind; I remember seeing people at the corner of my eye, lovers mainly, hand in hand and walking dreamily to in rhythm to each other’s pace. Faceless silhouettes whispering and laughing together, teasing me. Laughing at me.
I squirmed rubbed my hand over my face, trying to push the thoughts out of my mind.
The last block or so I ran home because I felt choked with fear.

On my desk there were three items laid side by side. My father had collected the mail before leaving for work and there was a letter from my bank, something about over-drawn money. Next to it was a James Herbert book that I never got around to reading, and beside that was my mobile phone with 2 missed calls on the screen. I didn’t have to guess who they were from.
I called him back and he answered on the second ring, his voice was tired and he sounded drunk.

“Hey, man, sorry I haven’t been around for a while. Just fixing up some stuff.” He said. I didn’t know what he meant by that.
“Listen, I have some tickets for that play if you wanna check it out with me. Its next week in the hall. Front row.”
I didn’t want to go but I said I would anyway.
“Thanks.” He paused and cleared his throat loudly. I asked if he was all right.
“Yeah, yeah, the thing is…I dunno, I’ve been thinking real weird lately, and I don’t know why or anything. I think it’s coz I want to change. Like, do good at stuff.”
I asked him why he thinks that change is good, and he said he didn’t know. I understood; people do things sometimes without really knowing why.
We spoke a little longer, mainly just guy talk; bands, chicks, magazines, the guy at school who looks like one of the Muppets, small talk. I heard his Dad say something in the back ground and he had to go.
I hung up and sat down for a little while, thinking about nothing in particular. I picked up the James Herbert book on the way to bed and started to read.
A thump startled me into consciousness some hours later. I sat up and scrambled for the light switch on my bed side table. There was another series of loud thumps, then I realized where they were coming from. It was some one knocking on the front door, rather aggressively by the sound. Numerous thoughts sprung into mind: I was home alone without a weapon of any kind, so if it was a psychopath making a house call then I was in serious danger. I found an old hockey stick that was leaning on my wall and crept towards the door, gripping it’s handle with pressure until my hands hurt. The knocking continued, louder and in more frequent bursts. I opened my mouth to ask who was there.

“Police.” A man said in a deep voice. “Is any one there?”

I exhaled an enormous sigh of relief and dropped the flimsy stick to the ground before unlocking the door. There were two men, one short and flabby looking, the other tall and feeble with sharp facial features. Both held out wallets with laminated ID cards flipped open.

“Excuse me, son,” the fat one said, “my name is Sergeant Neal Lemming, and this is Constable Robert Taylor. Sorry for the late call, but we think you should come with us.”

I knew straight away, without even giving it a second to think over, but I asked anyway. The tall man had produced a note pad and was scribbling something in it. It made me feel worried, even though I had no reason to be. I asked again what happened but they wouldn’t say, not yet, had to wait until I get to the station. I saw over the stubby man’s shoulder that someone was already in the back seat of the police car. The light was bad, but I could make out a pony tail and knew that it was his father. He was looking at me, even thought his face was drenched in shadow, I could see that he was looking right at me.

The main reason, I found out throughout the course of the night, that his father was in a wheel chair was because he had suffered Gangrene infections in both of his feet when he was younger; a brutal complication caused by type 2 diabetes. To control this disease requires a set amount of insulin to be injected when required. His son, who was my best and only friend throughout the years of high school, found a stash of this substance in his father’s draw and injected approximately twice the lethal amount directly into his blood stream, ending his life almost immediately, according to the doctor.
As the police explained this to me under the dull burn of the station lights, I found that I could only think about one thing: Sarah singing Memory while we stood in the pail morning light in the school corridor, and it just made me so happy. Perhaps my mind put up a barrier to shield the reality of his death so I wouldn’t just break down in a crying fit in front of every one, but I believed whatever triggered the thought truly saved me that night; I just felt so joyful, so wholesome.


I don’t entirely remember the funeral, I remember feeling strange and somehow disconnected during the proceedings, as if I were in a dream. I didn’t cry then, nor did I when they held a memorial service at the school assembly hall two days later. I was mentioned a few times as his friend and that made me feel oddly uncomfortable.
I couldn’t bring myself to take up the suggestions of seeing a councilor or the school pastor; I felt that it was something that I could and would deal with in my own time.
I really can’t say that I ever did.

The performance took place on a Thursday night and I decided to go, not for any reason other that I felt it was the right thing to do.
I arrived late and shuffled noticeably down the isle towards the front row and I wasn’t surprised to see that it was crowded with faces locked in a daze.
Sarah was centre stage with the narrow cylinder of light cast upon her exaggerating her make up. From what I can recall she was dressed as a feline, but it really worked for her. Everything did I guessed.
It was then that the wall that made the dam of blocked emotion concerning my friend began to crumble and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I wept and sobbed with my hand covering my mouth while the play continued with people clapping and cheering.
Maybe he wanted me to feel this.
Never in the entirety of my life had I felt so lonely.

I wanted to know what he was so afraid of. I think maybe it was that he was scared of succeeding through change, that he had chances to make something of himself and that was terrifying.
I am in the midst of adulthood now and I have reached its general achievements: Parenthood, a wife whom I adore greatly, a full time career that I suppose is going in a positive direction and a home that is illuminated by love, but there is still a fear and a guilt that hangs off my life like an iron ball changed to my leg every moment I think of him.

I find myself asking the same question and giving the same answer.
Why did he choose not to be loved? Because he did, and no one could tell him otherwise.

But it didn’t even matter then, and it still doesn’t, for love was his greatest enemy.



Midnight.