These will be the last trio of chapters I will likely publish prior to the work at large. These continue the three timeline narrative structure that continues throughout the rest of the book, with only one deviation at the end. I wanted to note the use of second-person limited in the first (childhood) timeline was an intentional deviation from the first-person limited viewpoints of the second (adult) and third (summer 2006) timeline. This choice was intended to have the main narrator, Elliot, be addressing not just a younger James, but also his childhood in general, which is quickly feeling the encroach of time. The epilogue will deviate into third-person omniscience for the purpose of placing a fine point on James’ and Elliot’s parting characterizations. Enjoy, and thank you for reading.
4
If given the opportunity, I would relive high school again. I loved high school, it was when I first felt like a unique person. Junior high, though? Junior high can go fuck itself. Kids learn not just how to be cruel at that age, but also take time testing the depths of cruelty. Another thing that nobody prepares you for is loneliness, the way no other being could possibly understand the way you feel. Textbooks and everything under the sun would call it puberty, anyone living it at that time would call it Hell. Maybe it was the blossoming garden of inherited mental illnesses I was on the cusp of inheriting, or perhaps the materializing closet I was finding myself trapped within. Or both. Probably both. In short, if I could I would relive high school, but I would love to extirpate junior high from my memories.
Those two years were also odd in their structure: I had failed seventh grade, but did well enough the first semester of the following year to move on to eighth grade. The oddest part is that in slipping a grade, I somehow had made more friends than I had ever at that point. Somehow being the slightly older kid afforded me just that much more coolness. But then in an instant I was back to being a loser, as it were, so suddenly without friends it was a wonder I ever had any. It sucked.
The art class I found myself in with you was already a semester in, and I found myself sitting in the far corner of the plain room, doing my best to be invisible. You came in, saw me and somehow brightened, just a little.
“What are you doing here?”
“I got bumped back up. I’ll be in here for the rest of the year.”
“That’s cool. Was it because your grades sucked dick?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Yep.”
At the time I was obsessed with the latest gaming system, specifically the Nintendo Gamecube, despite not owning one, a byproduct of my father’s draconian anti-video game policy. To that end I had spent a gift card on a gaming guide for Super Smash Bros. Melee, to which you took immediate interest. I had been flitting through its pages, reveling in its cool roster of fighters, dreaming of one day playing them. You, of course, as you always were through the ensuing years, were in possession of a Gamecube, one that you would carry around in your famous backpack as you flitted from friend’s house to friend’s house.
We had since grown past drawing dragons and dealing with pungent drum pads, and the art class was, per all arts courses in our junior high school, loosely structured, if at all. In that lack of form we found time to gush over how cool Melee was going to turn out, when one of us bought it that is. That was how we spent that first art class, my foray in eighth grade.
The next day I found myself early to the same class, lingering outside the door, attempting once more to be as close to invisible as possible. The bell rang, the doors flung open up and down the school’s four floors. The art room was mercifully towards the back of the building, comfortably off the beaten path, affording me my much cherished anonymity. You were first to come around the corner, and upon seeing me, you brightened again.
“Hell yeah, Elliot’s here!”
“You’re really excited about that? He’s a fuckin loser.” Chided an unimportant classmate.
“Yeah, why not you fat fuck?” You spat in return.
I shrank a little bit away from the exchange, if only to hide my reddening face, which had taken the hue of flattery rather than embarrassment. It was a small defense of me on your part, but it was the largest kindness shown to me in weeks. I don’t remember when exactly I started falling in love with you, but I know that particular moment bore the seeds of affection.
As we sat in class, the nondescript teacher, different from the nondescript from last year’s music class, prattled on about whatever lazily structured project we were focusing on. I unzipped my bag and produced the Melee guide, to which you responded with an enthusiastic “fuck yeah” as you took the seat next to me. You leaned in close to me, your elbow brushing against mine, both wrapped in warm hoodie sleeves.
Eighth grade turned out to be considerably better.
5
My first mission upon entering the military was one of utmost importance: find which fucking flight James was in. This was no easy task, either, since Lackland Air Force Base was huge, James had departed two whole weeks before me, and was but one 18 year-old male trainee in 3000 other 18 year-old male trainees. Those two weeks in particular made all the difference, considering basic training itself was only seven weeks. As more information was made available to me, a process that was cruelly gradual, I began Operation Find James.
A further impediment to my mission was the distance at which all the flights were kept: we all interacted minimally, save for Sundays, which bore a wide variance of religious services. James and I were not the spiritual type, let alone religious, but these services often had free food that wasn’t rushed or the military’s caloric nightmare. And where there was free junk food, I knew there was a high probability of James’ presence. I decided to start the second Sunday of basic training by attending the Wiccan meeting, which turned out to be a loosely structured naturalistic meditation session. I found myself not so much meditating, but rather interrogating my fellows about whether or not a James bearing his surname was in their flight.
“Yeah, I know him. His feet smell like shit.” Laughed one nondescript.
“Sounds like him,” I laughed. “Can you pass a message to him for me? We grew up together, and somewhat joined this shitshow together, too.”
“Yeah I can do that!”
“Let him know Elliot’s looking for him, and to come here next Sunday,” I paused to consider adding anything else. “Also tell him I said he’s a cunt.”
The nondescript laughed as we went back to our meditation, though I found myself less than focused, instead excited that in a week I would get to finally see my best friend again.
The following Sunday saw the nondescript absent, but he was successful in his promise to deliver my message as James sneakily smacked the back of my head as I sat on the carpeted floor. Sneakily in how physical contact was disallowed.
“Heard you were looking for a cunt?”
“Heard you didn’t shower?”
“With sixty other guys? As little as I can.”
“Might as well be heaven for you,” I jested, burying my actual feelings on the rather nice shower situation in my closet. “You should shower though, I’d rather be a faggot than a scrub.”
We both laughed as you stood beside me, me wanting to rise to hug you, as I could feel the pull from you, too. Both our fathers had kicked us to the curb as soon as our diplomas hit our palms. We had spent a summer living together and these last few weeks thousands of miles away from heart and home still took their toll. Even on the usually stoic James, who now sat beside me, using the camo-patterned sleeve of his blouse to covertly wipe away a welling tear. I let my right hand stretch out beside me and gently, assuringly squeeze his wrist. A small smile spread across his narrow face, which had chiseled in the month of training he had seen. His skin, in all its olive beauty, was clear for the first time in years: he was so handsome. Most striking was his size, having gone from a narrow slink of a boy into a toned twink of a man. His hair, like everyone’s, was buzzed and scratched from the rush job the barbers did with their voracious industrial clippers.
“This meditation is horse shit,” James turned to me as we lay spread eagle on the floor, innocuous ambiance playing over speakers. “Where’s the food?”
“There isn’t any,” I whispered. “The treat is being able to socialize a little.”
“I heard the Episcopaleans have donuts.”
“Let’s do it.” I confirmed.
At this point, for some odd reason I can only associate with James, basic training went by faster, which was a small mercy, all things considered.
6
The sun clung just above trees wreathing the high school, the main building of which sat atop a large hill. The city itself, as with much of Rhode Island, was riddled with obnoxiously steep hills, something about them being the entrails of glaciers. Those fucking hills did a number on my brakes that summer, or maybe my shitty driving did. Either or. James and I walked everywhere, a blessing of being eighteen and nineteen, respectively, and had continued our multiple times a week trek to the high school near mine and Tasuker’s flop house.
The late afternoon was on the cooler end of those summer days, promising a night in which the heat would not burst from the ground like the damned. I stood leaning against the base of the goal post, James perched on his usual prong above, already two cigarettes deep. The track encircling the field was being used by the usual parade of soccer moms, heaving and hawing and gossiping as they feigned exercise. A few had side-eyed us as we came over the lower of the twin hills, ran across the field and settled at the goal post of all places. James, limber as hell, had climbed up the goal with all the assuredness he’d gained through repeated ascensions. We both had since given up on the whole running thing, deciding we were in good enough shape to endure whatever trials the impending doom that was basic training could throw at us.
“Will you just get the fuck up here already?” James chided from perch. “It is not that difficult.”
“You weigh like 10 pounds and eat nothing but Mountain Dew,” I shot back. “You might as well be a fucking squirrel, ked.”
“Pussy.”
“Faggot.”
I looked up at him, a smile twisted around the butt of his stoag. Fuck it, fine. I pressed the butt of my smoke firmly in my mouth as I arched myself under the bend of the goal post. In the ensuing weeks since his first successful negotiating of this most unconventional of hang out spots, James had figured out the best way for my clumsy, uncoordinated self to join him atop his ivory tower. The idea was to go under to get over. I threw myself like a sloth against the warm metal of the goal, squeezing, my fingers interlaced as I inched up, up, up. I found myself at what usually was the zenith of my climb before I would hurdle back to earth back-first.
“You got it.”
The smoke from my stoagie danced over my face like the ghost of a mosquito. The cigarette, as usual, was a poor decision. I tilted my face to the right and spat it out into the damp grass below, then faced straight up, my eyes meeting the pink and sea blue of the incoming dusk. I tossed my legs up, over, followed by waist, my balls squeezing uncomfortably between thigh and goal. I groaned discomfort as I righted my upper half, the whole of me sitting awkwardly before the T-shape. I scooted myself forward, my poor balls, and reached for the unused prong parallel James. I barely negotiated my reach, before my foot slipped, the puffy skate shoe causing a pinging squeak that caught the attention of two of the soccer moms.
“You kids shouldn’t be up there.”
“Mind your business,” James yelled back. “We do this all the time.”
“It doesn’t seem like it.” One nondescript said, motioning towards me righting myself once more, this against the empty prong.
“Butt out bitch, I’m fine.” I sniped out of frustration.
The blood in her face seemed to reach a visible boiling point, even as far up and away as we were. She stomped over to the base of the goal, hands on the hips of her lavender sweatpants. Her friend strode cautiously off the track and waited a distance away on the rocks.
“You must live around here? Where do your parents live?”
“We just graduated from here,” James lied. “But our parents died during 9/11.”
I snorted, not just at the sheer crassness of his retort, not just at the idea that our parents, who were not even friends, died in such a way, but at the fact that either of our parents might as well had been nonexistent. Dad might as well have expunged the last decade of our lives here in a matter of a week before hightailing it to Virginia. James was still four months away from basic training and his parents had already turned his room into a spare bedroom, bereft of his tastes.
“That is not funny!” Soccer Mom roared.
“I don’t think so either. A plane crashing into our parents is definitely not funny.” I deadpanned.
“Gertie, do you have your phone? I’m going to call the cops on these little shits”
“Go ahead, we’re not vandalizing anything right now.” James scoffed.
Soccer Mom shooed away her friend, Gertie, apparently, as she assessed the situation further. The cops of West Warwick would give zero fucks about two teenagers climbing a goal post, let alone the bemoanings of our Shakespearan Soccer Mom. She huffed, uncrossed her arms and returned to her laps with dear ol’ Gertie.
“That was fun.”
“People are so annoying dude.” James sighed.
“Yeah, for sure.”
I wrapped my right arm around the prong next to me, letting my body rest against it as I took in the horizon. The radiant dusk began to curtain around us, the pink fading to lavender. The sun, a disc of radical pink, silhouetted James, a fount of smoke billowing from his face. Beautiful.
I patted my pockets for my smokes, then frowned at them lying on the ground beneath us, apparently having fallen out in my ascent. James noticed and reached across the distance between us, one of his own cigarettes, a menthol, spinning between his middle and index fingers like a drum stick. I reached with my corresponding fingers, which gently overlapped his briefly in the exchange of stogie.
Soccer Mom and Gertie were coming around again, the former still clearly quite bent at us, her face further reddened by the crimson dusk. James followed her line of sight like the prankster he was, ready to spring a jab.
Soccer Mom came around the track’s bend, her gaze boring into James. “You know what I wonder—” she shrilled.
“Is why I’m so fucking fat, Gertie!?” James crowed in a high pitch, imitating Soccer Mom.
Soccer Mom and Gertie gasped in unison, while we sat atop our twin towers of mockery and irreverence, enthralled with ourselves, our youth, its privilege and the time we hoped would never end.