iwasthinkingthatilostmymind Here you go, Ab. Happy reading!
It seemed to me like I was the only person who wasn’t shocked when news broke about Andy’s suicide.
The entire school buzzed with hushed whisperings of mused motifs as though it was just another high school scandal, which is technically what it was seeing as it only took them twenty four hours to move on to Cindy’s sleeping with the Trig teacher, and Andy was forgotten.
A closet-gay football star with a display trophy girlfriend, whose sport of choice was wrestling other adolescent boys. Why wouldn’t he kill himself?
I was one of the only people at the funeral, my ass one of four that temporarily warmed the pews under the bold but wavering gaze of a poor quality, blown-up photo of Andy in his too-white football strip. Not even his family could attribute anything but sporting achievements to his name.
Gemma, his fake-girlfriend had taken the day off school but hadn’t attended for sake of ‘wanting to mourn alone’, but we all knew she was just bitter because Andy never put out.
I sat at the back, quiet, unnoticed and borderline invisible as his mother sat in the second row up front, tucked into the side of one of her many men, flanked on her other by Andy’s kid sister dressed head to toe in black, but there was nothing new there.
“She has a different man every week. Sometimes two,” Andy confided in me once, back when stereotypes were for the older kids we swore we’d never become.
We’d been friends in middle school, before the jock image appealed to him and gave him the facade of a Class-A jerk. We’d go to his place after school and sit in his treehouse playing with his Dad’s inappropriate playing cards with naked ladies on them. That was before he left. Maybe that’s when it all fucked up for Andy.
I slipped out of the building when the pastor’s tone suggested the low scale ceremony was coming to a close, finding my way to the hole in the ground that would become Andy’s final resting place, or so they said. Technically, once the casket’s gone, we’re all free food for whatever bestialities lie beneath the earth’s surface.
I watched them lower his casket into the ground from the depths of the dancing shadows cast by the rustling trees overhead, leaning against the sturdy trunk of an out of place looking oak and trying to ignore the mother’s wailing cries as the wind carried them in my direction. The party of three each scooped a handful of dirt and scattered it over the coffin where it lay in its bed, a customary gesture rather than one of respect, and they each disappeared into a dusty old Chevrolet without a backwards glance.
I waited until Andy’s grave was filled before I walked over, giving a short, humourless laugh when I noticed the pale, wooden cross marking his grave. Andy was used to big, shiny trophies with his name engraved in gold, and medals that weighed your neck down, not a supposedly religious marker that didn’t even bear his name.
I sat down next to the pitiful gravestone and crossed my legs, leaning my elbows on my knees and pouting as though I was waiting for him to speak first. He didn’t, but I wasn’t mad.
“How’s it going?” I asked, but the conversation went no further that day.
I visited Andy’s grave at least twice a week for the next few months, reminiscing about old times to ears who’d never hear me.
“Like that time I nearly drowned because you held my head down the toilet for too long, Andy, remember? That was fun.” My following laugh was a single, quick exhalation through my nose, the rest of my expression remaining deadpan and unmoving as I remembered the bullshit he’d put me through in high school.
“Please!” I’d shouted breathlessly when he’d yanked my head back by my shaggy hair just long enough for me to get the words out.
“Hey, shut up!” had been his only reply, his gritted teeth and cruel eyes my last sight before my head was dipped again and water swirled around me, making me gag until my nose stung.
One of his jock 'friends’ had my hands bound behind my back, and I was helpless to the push and pull of Andy’s wrestler’s grip as I got repeatedly dunked into the toilet, the only motif being that I’d asked for Andy’s new phone number since he and his Mom had been evicted from their old house for falling back on payments.
“You remember that, Andy?” I asked, pulling out a cigarette I’d stolen from my brother’s bedroom and lighting it with a matchbox I hoped my Mom wouldn’t realise was missing. He didn’t reply, but I could practically hear him pounding at the encasing roof of his casket, yelling “Hey, shut up!” at me.
“How about that one time I walked in on you and Eddie Malone fucking in the janitor’s closet? That was fun,” I remarked sarcastically, remembering the beating I got afterwards and the purple tint most of my skin had worn for weeks afterwards that I’d had to tell my Mom I’d gotten after playing too rough with my brother. “I never told anyone, you know. Even if you hadn’t fucked up my nose, I still wouldn’t have.”
I stayed quiet as I finished my brother’s cigarette, spluttering occasionally when I pulled too deep and the smoke inhalation made me cough. I wasn’t really used to smoking, nor did I really want to be.
“You hated smoking, remember? Used to say you’d never get into that stupid fucking habit, that you valued your life more than to smoke yourself into an early grave with a hefty hit of lung cancer. Look at you now,” I added, purposefully taking a too-long drag of my smoke as though I was trying to annoy him. If I’m honest, I was; I felt powerful, knowing that I could do things that just weeks earlier would have earned me a heavy backed right hook without having to fear losing any of my teeth.
I smiled around the disappearing butt of my nicotine fix before standing up and flicking it down onto the slightly raised mound of dirt separating the two of us, lifting my foot and grinding it into the ground with the soles of my scuffed Chuck Taylors which looked rusty with dust stains at the fronts.
“Andy, you’re a star,” I said, gliding my tongue over my bottom lip and shaking my head before turning away for the last time. “In nobody’s eyes but mine.”
