For those of you following along, thank you, but also you may notice the new title, which is Never Let Me Down Again. Yes, after the Depeche Mode song, which I felt, lyrically, was appropriate. I toyed with the titled of “Never Let You Down Again,” but it was too on the nose when considering where the book goes. The song title as is provides enough ambiguity for my tastes. Chapters 7-9, published here outside a classroom for the first time, will be the last trio I do so before the rest, some odd 30 remaining chapters, are published in physical book form.
If you are new to this, know that this book is a love letter to my youth and the people I shared it with. Chiefly, it is an ode to my best friend, Chris, who killed himself in 2017, and the bond we shared. This is equal parts fiction and non-, but it tells a whole truth: to love always, because life is a candle flame. Thank you for reading.
7
I hated dances, and I especially fucking hated this one eighth grade dance in particular. My girlfriend at the time, Farrah, decided to dump me at this dance, which wasn’t exactly horrible, I didn’t actually like her too much. She was pretty, a curly blonde with a classic jawline and similar smile, and my initial crush was genuine, but it proved an emotion in response to my face value impression of her. We had a homeroom together, but I never sat with her, mostly out of shyness, also out of comfort being at the front of the room, a sharp inversion of my current self’s preference for my back to the wall. We also never hung out outside of school, the only times of which extended into afterschool activities, a veiled post-main day excuse for “studying.”
This particular dance was unique as its beginning connected with the after school lateness, abridged by a connective thread of dead hours wherein we were expected to occupy ourselves. At 13 or 14. Great idea. We had made plans for you to sleepover after the dance, the first one you had ever attended, given your antisocial, though not necessarily isolatory, tendencies. You had brought your GameCube to school with you, armoring it in a swaddling of towels as it traveled with you throughout the day. Brave, honestly, as kids in our junior high had no compunction about stealing, attested by the two Walkmen snatched right from my bag the following freshmen year. You did this at my wanting to play the GameCube, of course, since I myself would not own one until junior year, and desperately wanted to play Super Smash Bros. Melee.
After the stretch of dead hours spent fucking around in the gym had passed, we were herded into the dim cafeteria save for the usual seizure lights that lit our dances. The dusk outside the windows offered a sliver of warmth to the neon wrath that would quickly consume the large room. The radiators sat beneath every other wide-paned window, the only seats offered throughout the night. You sat atop one of them, perfectly fit due to your small stature, your black hoodie-wrapped arms hugging your baggy cargo pants to your chest. Farrah and her friend, a plump girl bordering on being offensively Italian, tried getting both of us to dance, a request you staunchly refused for the risk of losing your elusive seat. I acquiesced, both for my lack of seat and for the sake of boyfriend duties, taking my girlfriend’s hand as we walked to the outer edge of the dancing mass.
The slow song was only through its first bridge when we faced each other, my hands politely going to the sides of her hips, as was customary. Her hands caught mine as my palms settled gently on her hip bones.
“Elliot, I don’t think I like you.” Farrah said, her blue eyes meeting my hazel ones.
“I kind of figured,” I sighed, slightly heartbroken, as much as a teenager can truly be, anyway. “So we’re breaking up?”
She let her arm awkwardly grip her left shoulder, her eyes darting briefly to where we left you and her friend. “Steph likes you, actually. Would you go out with her instead?”
I cocked my head, not having ever considered her friend, Steph, in that manner. To be fair, I barely considered Farrah in that manner, either. It just felt expected. So here I did as was expected, while also not wanting to be a dick, and agreed to go out with Steph. Farah placed my hands on her hips again, then wrapped her arms around my neck, the soft of her wrists resting at the base of my neck.
“Friends?”
“Friends.”
We did not stay friends.
We returned to you and Steph once the song ended, Farrah giving me a gentle hug as the song, something by TLC, ended. You seemed relieved I was back, having been punished by Steph, who I would learn was quite unpleasant. I knocked on your folded up knees as I passed by, facing Steph.
“Hey, do you want to go out?”
Steph turned to Farrah, now leaning against the window, the night outside illuminated only the white-orange lights of the school parking lot. She gave a smirk to Steph, some measure of approval.
“Yes, I would.” She responded with a surprising lack of excitement.
“Cool.”
She and Farrah hurried off, arm in arm, giggling as junior high girls do, whispering what ended up being a horrible secret between each other. I leaned on an uncovered part of the radiator, somewhat processing the odd events that had just transpired. You quizzically scratched your acne-ridden face and turned to me.
“What the fuck just happened?”
“Uh, I guess I got dumped.”
“But I just saw you ask her fat friend out?”
“I did that, too. I guess she likes me.”
“Do you like her?”
“I guess. Farrah said she likes me.”
“I thought you liked Farrah?”
“I mean I do, or I did. I don’t know. It is what it is.”
“I don’t know, man. It’s kinda fuckin weird.”
I tilted my head in agreement, then let it bop up and down in time with “Ride Wit Me” blaring from the twin speakers flanking the DJ. As the dance ended we were cattled up to the second floor to retrieve our bags, Steph insisting on my arm being draped over her broad shoulders. Our nondescript science teacher stood at the end of the hall, shrieking commands at the already compliant student body.
“Somebody’s on the rag today.” You taunted in her direction.
Steph stifled a snort, while I had no idea what you were talking about. The science teacher glided up beside us, her face awash with molten granite.
“How dare you say that to me!?”
“It was just a joke, no need to scream at me more.” You laughed.
“Come with me, we’ll wait for your parents together downstairs.”
“My dad is picking him up.” I interjected.
“This isn’t your business, Elliot.” She snapped.
“Actually it is. You can call my parents, but they won’t answer.”
She had you by the arm at this point, the stone in her granite gaze softening a little as she looked down at you, seeing the seriousness in your educated guess about your parents. She looked at me, then to Steph, then released a frustrated sigh.
“We will settle this on Monday, young man. You don’t speak to women like that,” she released her grip on your arm. “Go get your bags and go downstairs. And Mr. Elliot, I don't think that young woman’s father would like to see your arm over her like that.”
I let my arm limply, but swiftly, fall down to my right side. Steph giggled, while you rolled your eyes. Retrieving your backpack, tucked behind a nook formed by the odd placement of lockers, your GameCube nuzzled in its core. Once we got to my house, played our fill of games, we crashed together on my then newish, rather luxurious for a fourteen year old, queen bed. I slept under my covers while you insisted on sleeping in a sleeping bag on the bed.
“You know you can sleep under the covers.” I laughed.
“Nah, dude, that’s gay. And you’re not wearing a shirt.”
“So? I’m wearing shorts,” I shrugged. “Are your parents gonna be pissed?”
“No. They’re not going to give a fuck.”
“Not even your mom?”
“Nope.”
“What the fuck does ‘on the rag’ mean?”
You brought your hands up over your face as you often did when you found something hilarious, but didn’t want to laugh too loud. “It means I was saying she was on her period, bro.”
“Ohhhh,” I exclaimed as the whole situation clicked. “That makes sense.”
“Elliot, I gotta ask,” you squirmed to face me in the sleeping bag. “There is no way you like that Steph girl, right?”
“Maybe, why?”
“She looks like a warthog.”
“No she doesn’t,” I laughed. “Why do you care though?”
“Because you were with Farrah, who’s hot, one sec, then next you’re with this girl who has a mustache.”
“I don’t know. It seems like it’s worth a shot.”
“Seems like a waste of your time to me.”
Years later, during senior year, I would learn in a casual conversation with Steph, who I dumped a month after the dance, that Farrah had paid her $20 to date me, out of guilt for not having ever liked me. Fucked up situation, honestly, but also just an anecdote here.
I was taken aback by your concern for my dating life, but of course didn’t think much of it. We talked for a while longer, laughing about the dance or some other bullshit, then began to drift off with our sentences. Your right hand lay still but a few inches from my left. I considered it for a second, wanting to hold it. I shrugged off the notion as a passing fancy, turned onto my stomach then passed the fuck out.
8
Basic training was only seven weeks, give or take a day or two, and, even at nineteen, time had yet to begin its mad race to the end, so back then those seven weeks felt punishingly long. It had been even longer for James, who had managed to get “recycled,” the colloquial for repeating a week, each of which containing a specific conditioning regimen. His recycling put him in basic training for a full two months, versus the barely seven weeks that was the norm. It did work out in our favor in the end, though, as we ended up graduating at the same time, though not quite together, per us being separated into different flights.
James’ parents didn’t even bother to write him during training, let alone make the trip to San Antonio for his graduation. Not the one to let his mood be reflective of how he actually felt, you could barely tell he was perturbed by it. My Dad and stepmom, Trish, and Nan and her second husband all made the flight to see my graduation, for which I was grateful, but also felt bad for James. My Dad, at the time swelling with pride at my enlistment, being prior military himself, was quick to ensure that James be part of the family for the weekend, on his dime or be damned. Having known James for years at that point, including him seemed to happen naturally, and remains among the fondest memories I have of my father.
Our graduation fell on Thanksgiving weekend, which gave us the rare opportunity of having an extra day to spend with family before we were shipped off once more to our respective technical schools. I was given the task of, in a nutshell, being a computer administrator, which would eventually give way to being a flat-out administrator after only a select few were IT-certified. James was to be trained in “services,” or a jack-of -all-trades-master-of-none type position, such as working in the base gyms or chow halls. Our naivete at the time didn’t consider that his loose parameters of his position put him at a higher risk of deployment, but then, that one weekend where we felt a notion of freedom again for the first time in months, we thought little of all that. We were still technically teenagers, barely out of high school, and on what we thought was just another small journey in the greater adventure.
The weekend opened with all the pageantry one would find with the Air Force, perhaps the fanciest of the branches, or so other branches would chide. The Texas field had been covered in a thick fog that slowly peeled away as the morning progressed, revealing our respective formations like ghosts awaiting the light. The eerie shroud curled away to reveal a strangely cloudless sky, the morning sun pissing heat upon us through the residual humidity. In our service dresses, a plain blue ensemble of various shades of depression, the heat was bordering on punishment, even in November. Our march across the curving square of the field and promenade had us demonstrating the small bag of marching tricks the last weeks had taught us. They were rigid motions, minute shifts in step or a focused head turn, each a fluid twitch of elegance. Weeks and subsequent hours of practice, all for forty minutes of hollow pageantry for a general we never met, and families who last saw us as our better selves. After this ceremony, we never did half these movements again beyond the occasional “see if you still can” moment years later. I still can, by the way.
Once the ceremony ended, James cut through the crowd to my flight like a spry knife through bothersome margarine. The crowd, composed of the families of the thousands of other airmen graduating just that week, were emptying into the field for pictures and hugs. I produced the small brick of a flip phone from my inner pocket, its impression hidden by the sheer facade of the service blazer. I awkwardly keyed a brief sentence across the number pad to my Dad, clapped it shut and returned it to my pocket.
“I told my dad to meet us over there,” I said, pointing to a picnic table a nice distance from the racket. “Want to chill there?”
“Yeah, I need a minute anyway. I want to read about the Legend of Zelda game that came out last week.”
“Read about it?”
“You’ll see.” James smirked.
Once we got to the picnic table James asked me to block him from view as he quickly unbuttoned his own blazer, then untucked the back of shirt, producing a gaming magazine he had hidden between his shirt and undershirt.
“When the fuck did you get that?”
“I had time to get to the base store near my squadron last night.”
“Yeah, but we’re not allowed to have shit like that till today.”
“Hence why I waited to reveal it until now. Nobody saw it, and nobody’s gonna snitch in the last weekend of training.”
“No wonder you got recycled,” I pinched his cheek as he buttoned up his blazer. “All that risk just to read about a game.”
“Fuck yeah, man.”
“I’m gonna try to break away at some point for a cigarette.”
“Yeah, I have definitely needed one.”
“Just can’t let the drill instructor’s smell us.”
“This late in training, I doubt they care. It’s more paperwork.”
“You would know.” I prodded.
“Suck a dick. I miss music more than anything, though.”
“Well you’ll be happy to know I asked Nan to bring my CDs with her.”
His head snapped up from the magazine, his face having already been buried into the opening page of his desired article as we talked. We had spent the previous summer, amidst our mischief, listening to a wealth of newer bands, a burgeoning scene infamously referred to as “deathcore,” a portmanteau of death metal and metalcore, the latter a portmanteau of metal and hardcore punk, to put it succinctly. The idea that my cherished tome of discs was within reach after months of hearing men yell in ways that were not appealing to us was exciting. After running him through my mental list of CDs in the book, we both took to reading about the games we had missed during our sabbatical from civilization. My phone buzzed in my pocket, indicating my parents were en route.
“Block me again.”
Our first order of business was to simply relax away from the base and its overbearance. My Dad snuck a pack of menthols and lighter up my sleeve as he shook my hand with pride for what felt like the tenth time. The rest of the present family would not have approved, but he, being prior Army, had a grasp of what this first taste of freedom was like. He and my stepmom left James and I in their hotel room so they could walk the river area at the base of the hotel.
“Shut the door when you go out on the balcony,” Dad motioned to the French doors. “And I have a can of body spray on the bathroom counter.”
“Thanks Pop.”
“Yes, thank you so much.” James added.
We draped our rigid blazers over a chair, untucked and unbuttoned our shirts so as our white undershirts would allow a breath of wind to save our suffocating bodies. The uniforms looked nice, but they were about as breathable as rubber tarp set on fire. I kicked off my jet black dress shoes against a brown sofa. We made our way outside and stood at the edge of the balcony overlooking the bustling San Antonio below us. As we were about to light our stoagies I remembered glimpsing a familiar relic on the room’s desk. I went back in, leaving James holding the cigarette with the lighter mid-click.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Just wait.”
I snapped the CD wallet from the desk, turned on the TV and DVD player, then popped in James’ likely favorite disc in my collection. The DVD player, capable of reading CDs, whirred for a second, considered the tray’s contents, then blared to life. The low-tuned guitars roared from the speakers, scaring the shit out of me as I fumbled with the volume. I dramatically flung the doors back open, letting the thunderous tones burst from behind me, the first welcome loudness in months.
“You brought Doom?!”
“Fuck yeah, son. Job for a Cowboy, Suicide Silence, The Black Dahlia Murder, Through the Eyes of the Dead, A Black Rose Burial, Waking the Cadaver, Cryptopsy…” I rattled off the contents of the wallet like they were pride and joy.
James and I excitedly huffed down three cigarettes each, letting the whole extended play finish as we did. My phone buzzed once more to life.
“Hey Dad! Yeah we can meet you downstairs. Is 10 mins okay?” I snapped the phone shut, then gasped in horror at the wide open hotel room I had exposed to our chain smoking.
“Get ready, dude.” I yelled as I ran into the bathroom, my dress socks almost causing me to slip on the gleaming white tile. I grabbed my Dad’s can of body spray then ran maddeningly about the room, my finger pressing on the bottle’s trigger, a constant burst of punishing masculinity filling the small space.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” James laughed.
“Open the doors,” I barked. “I left the doors open while we smoked, which is the opposite of what my Dad had asked.”
“He’s going to know something’s up when all his body spray is gone.”
“Yeah, but I guarantee Trish would rather it smell like body spray than smoke. And I also guarantee my Dad would rather deal with an empty can than an angry Trish.”
The wind was gracious enough to sweep the abundance of the cigarette odor into the skyline, and we made it downstairs with a minute to spare in the time frame I had promised Dad. Nan was with them, having stayed on another floor of the hotel. She walked towards me, her sunshine smile spread across her equally bright face, a face that belied her age. I brought my right arm into a sharp, sturdy right angle as she wrapped her left arm through its crook and we walked to the hotel’s grand dining hall for their hosted Thanksgiving dinner.
“Did you smoke a cigarette?” Nan asked, sniffing the crisp shoulder corner of my blazer, which thankfully covered the brunt of the clothes that were exposed to the cigarettes.
My Dad turned his head back, giving me a pleading look not to rat him out to his mother and wife. “No, not at all. We went outside to try to find everyone and passed through a cloud of it from some guys outside.”
“Oh good,” Nan sighed, patting my chest playfully, right over where the cigarette back was hidden. “It’s a nasty habit. Took your father years to quit.”
The dinner, the weekend, all of it went by too fast, but not so fast as so we did not enjoy ourselves. We rode a trio of roller coasters that made me particularly sick to my stomach, likely due to the influx of non-regimented food the weekend brought with it. We had gone to a mall wherein James and I spent a grip of our hard-earned government money on bullshit like band shirts we could only wear in our dorms when we got to tech school. But it was mostly food, lots of food, all the food our lightspeed metabolisms could burn through. This ceaseless banquet, and the weekend at large, culminated at the base Burger King, wherein I sat at a table, the second of two large burgers before me, while James’ new laptop whirred with life as it burned copies of my CDs.. A stack of brightly colored discs in matching cases sat beside the laptop, each marked with garrish font of my doing in black marker. My parents sat on the other side of me, eating their own meals just as slowly, knowing it would be goodbye until Christmas. The same for James, who I would see upon my return trip to Rhode Island after visiting my parents in Virginia for the holidays.
We finished our meals, crumpling them up in trays and walking together to the trash cans. James went back to collect his laptop and stack of burned discs, placing them neatly into his new backpack before meeting us outside the restaurant. My Dad and Trish each gave him a hug, he in turn thanking them for a fun weekend. He then turned to me, a wry smile spread across his face, hiding the fact that his eyes were suddenly red from withholding tears.
“I know, man.”
“Fuck you.”
“You too.”
We dapped up, then mutually pulled each other in for a hug. “Please take care of yourself.” I said as I let him go.
“You too. I’ll see you next month anyway.”
James turned back to my parents, thanking them once again, back to me, bearing the bird, then walked down the street towards his squadron. I turned to my parents, also thanked them for a wonderful weekend, however with tears in my eyes. I was still a kid, after all, a fact my Dad was all too aware of as he took me in for a giant hug.
“I’m proud of you, kiddo. You two did well.”
“Thanks, Pop.”
After bidding them farewell, I found myself on a long lonely walk back to my own squadron, wiping the tears from my eyes before I got back with my flight, though doubtless I was the only one who cried in front of their family that day. I walked down the side aisle of our making living quarters, everyone getting ready to ship out to their respective tech schools in the morning. Music of various kinds coalescing with our jubilant voices into an oddly pleasant cacophony. I produced my old Walkman Nan had also brought with her, wrapped the earphones around my head, then threw on Cryptopsy as loud as I could bear.
“Turn that shit music down.” A nondescript yelled across from me, his grating Southern accent piercing through my solitude.
“I have headphones on, and it isn’t shit.”
“It is, and I don’t care if it’s important to you. I have a beautiful wife and child.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant, but fuck you and them.” I sniped.
The room swelled with bellows of caution for the both of us, while whiffs of taunting snuck in here and there. The overall mood was one of bittersweetness, leaning more on the sweetness, so why ruin it over trivialities like music taste. These couple of months had garnered me the unexpected reputation of being a hothead, and others’ tolerance of me, and mine for them, had waned in this last week. Thankfully I would never see most of them again after today, a true blessing.
I waved off the nondescript’s misgivings about my music, returned the headphones to their place and the volume to its apex, and let my softly bobbing head get lost once more in the bedlam of None So Vile.
9
Mine and Tasukers’ room was lightless, the shades drawn, the light out. James lay on the floor, tripping his balls off, but fighting off a stomach ache from eating frozen White Castle burgers. I lay on my bed, tipsy but trying to fall asleep. The rest of our side of the duplex was alive, as Tasukers and the rest of our roommates had friends over. The other side of the duplex, where her brother lived, had melted into the crowd on our side, and it had all started to overwhelm James, who was a bottle of Robotussin deep. He decided to escape to the safety of my room upstairs, sprawling out on the blanket he had spread on the carpeted floor.
“You doing alright?” I slurred down at him.
“Fuck no. Those burgers were not worth it.”
“I offered to drive us somewhere to grab food,” I shrugged. “But now neither of us can drive.”
“I’m just trying not to puke…waste the Robitussin.”
“I wanna try it already.”
“Definitely soon, but not with me yet…,” James swallowed a questionable burp. “I don’t want to risk you freaking out and ruining both our trips.”
The door then burst open, a slash of light briefly illuminating the black room. I raised my head to briefly catch two silhouettes: I could recognize Tasukers’ cape of lovely curled hair anyday, but the other, a bony masculine shape, was unknown to me. The door slammed shut as quickly as it had opened, and we remained quiet, unsure how to respond. The darkness became filled with the sound of deep breaths, the soft clicks of lips against skin, the rustling of clothes, then all became quiet. The stillness in the air was then shattered by a vigorous sucking noise, interrupted only by the brief slurps.
“Uh can you guys stop?” James bit from the darkness on the floor.
“James!?” Tasukers sonorous voice squealed.
“I’m here too.”
“Elliot?!”
“We’re both here,” I answered. “But I think we’ll go.”
“Yeah, we’re not going to stop.” She laughed.
“You’re right in front of the door aren’t you?” James asked.
“Yeah, uh, we can’t really move either.”
“I don’t really want to see that anyway.” He griped in return.
Not wanting to see whatever compromising position she and her mystery man were in, I felt along the wall to draw the shade on the window closest to my side of the room. The room lit only a little, just enough that we could see but not to rob Tasukers of her privacy.
“We’ll take the roof.”
“Are you sure, Elliot?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Dude, I’m going to puke, I’m tripping ba–.” James started before I grabbed his wrist to lead him to the window.
“It’s fine, man. I got you.”
I helped him through the window onto the lower roof, keeping hold of his hoodie in case he got too dizzy. How I managed this tipsy I have no fuckin clue as I helped him climb onto the upper roof, a broad dark gray landing at a gradual slant. We climbed at a gap in the gutter ringing the roof, myself keeping a close distance behind James as we ascended. We reached a point right before the roof’s summit, where I helped James, clutching his stomach, onto his back. I sat pretzel leg beside him, myself starting to feel a little dizzy.
“Do you still have that beer in your pants pocket?”
“Yeah,” James reached down his left leg to produce a cold can hidden in his baggy leg.”Here.”
I snatched the can he was waving in the dark, the streetlight illuminating the condensation across its cool surface. I cracked it open, bringing it quickly to my lips, letting the cold of it fill my mouth as it surged from the compression. It was still early, the stars a black curtain that faded into the deep pink of dusk. The streetlights were a dull orange, their uniformity broken by the odd off-white light. I pulled a half smooshed pack of smokes from my jeans then smacked it against my palm. James reached his hand out, his index and middle making pincer motion. I took two cigarettes from the pack, placed them in my lips then lit them both at once. I took one, placed it carefully between James fingers, then tapped his knuckle to notify him. In the dark I saw the orange cherry rise and fall with grace as he took drags from it. I exhaled a cloud of my own, the white smoke catching the orange of the streetlight.
“Do you think it’s always going to be like this?”
“Like what?” James inquired.
“Us – all of us, being friends and hanging out like this?”
“I doubt it,” James rolled onto his left elbow, the cigarette in his lips muffling his already hazed speech. “We’re leaving, Elliot.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know when.”
“Sooner than later, though.”
“Do you even want to leave?”
James fought off another questionable burp. “Fuck those burgers ruined this trip. I think I do, I don’t know what else I’d do with my time.”
“I guess me neither. I don’t want to work at a grocery store forever.” I let the last word trail off as I watched the last pink of dusk get swallowed by night.
“I do think I’ll always be your friend, Elliot,” James said, an uncommon solemnity to his voice. “Thank you fo—”
James quickly got up, clenching his stomach, his balance shifting rapidly forward from the incline. I clumsily pulled myself to my knees as I caught the seat of his pants as he keeled over. A putrid geyser erupted from his mouth, a concoction of cough syrup and gas station burger. Once the geyser ceased, I yanked him onto his ass, a deep sigh exiting him as he landed.
“I feel better now,” he burped. “Do you still have that beer?”
“Yeah,” I handed the half empty beer to him. “You can keep it though. You alright?”
“Yeah, thanks. What a waste of Robutussin, though.” He burp-laughed as I comfortingly scratched the back of his head.
“We should go downstairs soon. I don’t think we should be up here like this. We can get drunk anyway.”
“Yeah, in a minute though. I need to catch my breath. Plus I don’t think Tasukers would be done by now.” He laughed as he scooted up towards me, angled himself beside, then rested his head on my shoulder.
“This cool?”
“Yeah, man,” I said, smiling. “It’s cool.”