It was the year 2000 and Y2K had failed to cause the end of the universe as many had thought. We were seniors and the school year was ending. It had been a rough four years for David. He was in the advanced program classes and had a nervous breakdown last year that wound him up in the counselors’ office when he was supposed to meeting us for lunch. When Stan first started High School his dad tried to home school him but after two years and a lot of complaining from him and his mom Stan was back in school with us. Derek had failed a math and science so he would have to go to summer school, he wasn’t graduating with us. He’d actually miss too many days in summer school and end up re-doing his senior year. I remember being glad that he didn’t drop out.
Brian had passed. He was ready to graduate by some miracle. He had missed a lot of days of school and other than a few exceptions had fallen behind in his classes. His parents and partially myself convinced him how important it was to finish. It was sad, Brian was a smart kid. He had changed a little though. He still hung out with us but he had made some new friends as well. He lost his virginity to a girl named Peggy Laudner one Friday night and the rest began from there. He had started using drugs and drinking with his new friends as well as taking random day trips when he was supposed to be at school. He finally sat down and talked to Pierce one night after church and after a lot of encouragement from us stopped hanging out with that group. He said he needed it, I wouldn’t understand that statement until a lot later on in life.
I myself had made it through these four years better than I should have really. I killed my social side and buried myself in my school work. I had a short lived relationship with a girl named Kristina that left me weary of future relationships for a bit. That almost threw off my grades for a little bit, I now see how stupid it was to pine over her. When I wasn’t studying I read as much as I could, not just fiction but books on science and paranormal occurrences. I’m not sure if it did any good but it was what I wanted to do.
I didn’t ignore my friends, but there was a looming cloud that seemed to be in our way. We still hung out at church and on the weekends when we could. It just got a little bit harder with Derek’s sports, David’s studies, and mine and Stan’s jobs. On top of it all though there was a kind of off feeling I felt every time we hung out, like it would be the last time we were going to hang out. I feel bad for saying this but I had almost forgotten about that night, the time that Brian had left. It was all still looming over us like a sickness with tendrils in each of our minds. It wasn’t until that afternoon that Brian and I talked, that was the conversation that brought everything back into perspective.
We were originally all going to meet up but Stan’s dad needed him at the auto shop and David got an invitation to go to some computer graphics seminar at Macon State College. Brian and I decided to wait around the school until Derek was done with the team’s end of the year free-for-all game. We had walked around the school for a bit and said goodbye to a few more people. We would see a lot of them at graduation but not all of them.
There was a hill where we used to go watch the cheerleaders practice when we had to wait on Derek. Today the practice field wasn’t being used for anything so we had the whole view of nothing to ourselves. We sat down and threw small pebbled we had picked up from the senior parking lot. We would just see how far each of us could hurl the rocks. After several minutes of this though I felt the lack of conversation was going to kill me and I needed something to tide me over until we could get pizza.
The sun was hot, no surprise as it was June in Georgia. The humidity is really what kills you though. The smell of fresh cut grass had mixed with exhaust fumes from the multiple buses and near-by student parking lots.
“I can’t believe we’ll be graduating soon.”
He didn’t respond to my bait. He just threw another rock and watched it soar. I could see he wanted to say something, it was in his eyes.
“Hey,” I thought I’d at least make sure he could hear me. I hated being ignored.
“I should be going through a mid-life crisis right now,” he informed me.
“What?”
“Think about it, it’s been five years,” his words hit me like a run-away train. Everything flooded back in and the wound was re-opened as fresh as it was that night. “I have eleven years of my life left.”
I didn’t know what to say to him. My mouth was sealed shut against my will and I had no words of encouragement or sympathy that even tried to come to mind.
“I’ve been thinking about it and with everything going on lately I,” he paused. “I thought it was all just some stupid dream at first, like it never happened.” He looked at me. “It did happen though, that night, it was real wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly before even realizing the word came out of my mouth. I was on a five year streak of feeling like the shittiest friend ever with this being the peak.
“I thought so.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out something I hadn’t seen in years, the small red candy-like looking sphere that he had coughed up that night. “I don’t know what this thing is but I’ve thrown it away ten times and it keeps showing up back in my pocket or on my desk.”
“What do you mean?”
Brian stood and reared back chunking the small stone across the field, almost to the end. “I’ve done that more times than I can remember and every time it manages to come back somehow. My mom found it in my jeans when she was about to wash them one time, it was under my pillow last week. You told me this came from that night.”
“It did,” I said regrettably. “He said you would need to hold on to it, whether you wanted to or not.” I looked away from him. “I don’t know what it is but,” I stopped, not knowing where I was going with that sentence. “We still have time. I’ve been reading up on some of this and trying to find a way to maybe-“
“Reading up,” He said cynically. “They’ve written books and term papers on dying and your friends making deals with, with,” he stuttered to say what I had finally forced myself to say a few years ago, “what, Death? Making a deal to bring your best friend back to life, but not for good, just for a few precious years you shaved off the shit end of your life.”
That’s when I realized the situation had just become way too serious for me.
“Brian,” nothing came after his name, I still didn’t know what to say. He was angrier than I had ever seen him about this. “I think we can still do something, I haven’t given up hope and you shouldn’t either.” That was a virtue and a curse for me. Sometimes I had too much hope.
“Not to be that guy,” that was his new phrase for the last few months, “but it’s not going to happen to you is it? You’re not going to just drop dead on Halloween night eleven years from now because you made a stupid mistake, are you?”
“No,” I got defensive and I shouldn’t have. “I tried to give up my entire for you but he wouldn’t let me.” I stepped toward him almost wanted to shake him. “I tried to do everything I could, I wanted to give you more time but I couldn’t ask the others to do that.”
Brian looked down and away from me. Maybe he was trying not to cry, I’m not sure.
“I tried, and I haven’t given up trying.” Which was true, it had become a small part of my life to think of ways around it. “I mean it, I’ve been trying to research this, see if anyone else has had any dealings with these things. All because I don’t want to see you die.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“So you’ll forgive me if I haven’t given up and ask you not to do the same.”
He nodded and didn’t say anything. The next moment was a bit odd but I hugged Brian. I didn’t like people hugging me unless I was very physically attracted to them so I’m not sure what possessed me to hug him at that point. I expected him to give me one of his trademark odd looks with the right raised eyebrow. Instead he just nodded somberly agreeing with me. I heard a noise and quickly released him and he took a step away from me.
“It’s a doggie dog world out there on the field during those last of the year games,” Derek said coming up from behind us from the main field.
“Don’t you mean dog eat dog,” Brian corrected quickly, getting the last of his anger out.
“No,” Derek was good at letting stuff just wash off his shoulder. “That sounds stupid.”
We all laughed, it felt good to. I’m not sure if Derek realized how serious the conversation he had walked up on was but something tells me he did. Derek was emotionally strong and not stupid, he knew what he was doing even if he didn’t know anything. I’ve always thought that intelligence isn’t determined by factual knowledge and being able to recite passages from Shakespeare or mathematic equations, rather the ability to problem solve and understand concepts.
“We getting this pizza trip going? I could eat a horse.”
I nodded in agreement with Derek.
Brian smirked, “you’re always hungry. I don’t care if it is after a baseball practice or after dinner, you’re just so active no one can tell you’re a fat-ass.”
“Oh you’re full of shit,” Derek spat back as we all began to walk to his car.
His car was the only one with a CD player and mine had no air conditioning, so during the summer we just all gave him gas money in favor of comfort. Derek’s dad had found him an old 89 Honda accord with faded gold paint and a brand new CD player he bought at a police auction. It was hardly the “pussy wagon” Derek originally wanted to cruise around in but it was better than our cars.
“So you know Jenny Barton?”
“yeah,” I said, expecting a story from Derek.
“Her douchebag boyfriend Brad slid into my knee hard as shit, I think he was trying to hurt me because he saw me talking to Jenny last game.”
“Um,” Brian interrupted, “Didn’t you tell me she showed you her tits at one of the football games?” There was the expression he was famous for.
“That’s not the point,” Derek knew it was. “He didn’t know that and he’s just trying to start shit to make up for his lack of a dick. She told me about their first time in her parent’s pool house. It’s why all of her friends called him Mr. Two Minutes for the last year and a half.”
“So just because he doesn’t know of your transgression his anger isn’t warranted?”
“Exactly,” He said throwing his sports bag into his trunk and slamming it shut for emphasis.
“Your moral compass may be a bit skewed,” I said before laughing a bit.
We all got into Derek’s car. It was my turn to sit in the back seat. Derek pulled out his keys and was starting the car as Brian shot me a look. You see we had a game we played whenever we rode with Derek. In the past year or so he only owned about five CD’s and whenever you got in his car one of those five was blaring after he turned the car on. Whenever you asked him about expanding his music library or if he owned any other CD’s he would always become defensive of his choices and say it was all about his rock roots.
I’m not saying I was ever a music elitist or anything close to that but Derek really thought he was, at least when it came to the bands he liked. It was hard to be in Macon. There were no good radio stations that played anything other than eighties or top forty hits. We all hated boy bands and that fad, other than David whom we had caught with not one but two Britney Spears albums. Just to clue you in on how bad our area was they tried to do an alternative rock station when we were in the tenth grade. It lasted about a year and it was amazing. They played stuff like Nine Inch Nails, Tool, and Slipknot. After midnight they would even play stuff with curse words in it and seemed to genuinely not give a shit.
That particular day Brian had guessed it would be Bush that we would hear and I had gone with Disturbed. We were both wrong though.
“Die, die, die my darling, don’t utter a single word
Die, die, die my darling, just shut your pretty eyes
I’ll be seeing you again, yeah, I’ll be seeing you in Hell.”
The words of James Hetfield blared out from the two back speakers and almost hurt my ears. I liked the song but Derek had worn it out for me. I made a face and Brian laughed slightly at my pain. There was a moment where I started realizing that every time this song came on Derek would sing it to his ex-girlfriend Sharon and would head bang to the guitar riffs. Sharon tried to convince Derek she was pregnant with his child when it was really just a cry for attention.
We drove towards Ingleside Village Pizza. It was Derek’s favorite place to eat and over the summer he would get a job there as a cook. It was an interesting place, at least until they moved into their new building a few years later. There were Christmas lights hung along the ceiling and walls as well as many pictures of odd pop culture things strewn about. The staff wasn’t the most polite or on any cusp of fashion or anything else really, we always thought they were pretty cool though. A couple of the guys that graduated before us had gotten jobs there and, well you know how you look up to people for all the wrong reasons at that age.
We ordered two large pizzas with an assortment of toppings that would probably make my stomach turn now. Between the three of us the two pieces didn’t last that long. Derek was a big muscular frame who like Brian liked to point out was constantly eating. I was pretty big myself, having only taken weight training as my physical education classes. My dad had hoped, regarding my size, that if I wasn’t going to do baseball that I’d at least try football and he wasn’t the only one to say I’d make a good lineman. Brian was pretty skinny in High School and didn’t really do any sports but he could still put food away when he needed to.
“Man I love this barbeque sauce on here,” Derek informed us, again.
“We know.”
There was a pause as we all eyed the last few pieces trying to decide who would devour the last odd slice. I sipped my iceless coke from the large red cup and looked up at my two friends. This was comforting. Things were getting ready to change, more so than I knew at the time but even at that current moment the end of High School and such events just meant change and difference no matter how you looked at it. Still, this, though a thing that might end soon with my friends if we went different ways, felt good. It felt right. I saw Derek’s expression though as he was letting the first pizza digest and I could tell he had something he wanted to talk about.
“I can’t believe I have to go to summer school.”
“David tried to help you with your math,” Brian reminded him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s not that easy.”
I felt I had to point out, “David’s kind of a one that does and not a teacher. He helped me with my algebra class. The kid is crazy smart but sometimes he has trouble bringing everyone else up to his level and doesn’t realize it.”
“That’s putting it nice,” Brian laughed. “When it comes to math or science he doesn’t think he’s ever wrong.” He paused before adding, “who am I kidding, out of all of us he’s got the best future ahead of him out of all of us.”
I nodded but I couldn’t help but think of what it meant for Brian to say that. For the rest of us our futures were in fact most of what we were thinking about right then, for him though it was a depressing topic at best.
“You guys are both going off to college aren’t you? Still Macon State?”
“I applied there and Georgia College & State University,” I told him. I was pretty sure I’d end up at Macon State though. It was cheaper and my dad had really scared me off from trying student loans after hearing his debt horror stories. For what I wanted to do though GC&SU would have probably been a better place for me.
Brian looked up to answer as he grabbed another slice of pizza. “Yeah I think so, haven’t applied yet though. Mom suggested I take a semester off and visit the rest of my family in Texas for a while but I’m not sure.”
“We know David is heading to Georgia Tech,” Derek said. “Not sure about Stan.”
“You’re assuming he doesn’t get in MIT, his parents are pushing him towards it.” I grabbed the last slice of pizza I would eat that night and looked at Derek, realizing he was getting to a bigger point.
“My dad wants me to get a job,” he said. “I don’t think they see me as the college type.”
“Nah,” Brian encouraged. “You can do it, if I can you can.”
“I just don’t want to be stuck here,” Ah, there was the problem. “Especially if you guys aren’t going to be around, it’s boring enough around here already I don’t want it to suck even worse.”
“You act like we aren’t going to see each other anymore,” I re-assured him in my own round-about way.
“Stan will most likely be here,” Brian said after chewing. “As long as his dad is alive he’ll want Stan to stay around and help him run it.”
I added, “and take it over when he dies.”
“He said something about tech school.”
“Why,” Brian asked Derek. “He’s been doing this his whole life. I bet he knows more about fixing a car than most of the teachers there.”
“How long was he a part of that car customization club?”
“A while,” Brian answered. “If it weren’t for his dad he’d be a ricer.”
“What,” maybe he was right but I doubted it. “If his dad wasn’t around he could be his own person. It’d be better for him.”
No one said anything about the subject after that. It was a thought we had all had but no one had really discussed with Stan. You can’t pick your parents after all. We were all products of our parents but Stan, out of us all, was the most influenced by them. Forcibly even. My dad, though I wasn’t exactly what he had wanted, would eventually come around and respect me as a man. I never realized how much I wanted that from him until the day I graduated college and he seemed so happy—no—content is the right word. I wasn’t the only one dealing with stuff like that though and I think I got off pretty lucky.
After each slice of pizza was finished and we drank another coke a piece while discussing our plans for after graduation we finally left. Derek drove us each back to our cars at the school; as was custom for us though we found ourselves in the parking lot talking for a bit longer.
“You’re all still going to Caleb’s party right?”
“I guess so,” I said looking back at Derek as I leaned against my car. “I didn’t play two different sports with the guy, but he seems cool and he did invite us all.”
“Well, except for David,” Brian pointed out. “Not even sure he knows David exists even though he is with us constantly.” He picked up a handful of small rocks. “I think I’ll go though, something fun to do and I hear Mindy Turner will be there.”
“And booze,” Derek quickly reminded us. The idea was sound. I had only been to one other real party and this one would be my first as someone outside of High School.
I had only ever tasted beer one other time in my life at that point. When I was ten or so I went to a bowling competition out in Warner Robins that my mom had signed me up for. While there and waiting for the next round of the competition I had decided to go off and play arcade games to pass the time since my only other friend in the tournament had already been eliminated and gone home. I didn’t hear the announcement about everyone having to switch lanes that came over the speakers and when I went back to what I thought was my lane I didn’t see my mother or any of the other usual people. I did see however what I thought was my plastic cup of sweet tea and drank heavily of it only to get a rather rude awakening. I remember quickly putting the cup back down and walking away to find mom, not wanting anyone else to see my mistake.
At that age the taste of beer was horribly disgusting to me. I’d re-acquaint myself with the taste and find it as my new friend later in college. Plus beer is cheaper. The great thing about going to parties like Caleb’s was that his parents were rich and really didn’t care what he did. So there would be no parents, a surplus of beer, and his little black book of girls which was not limited to our school. All and all it was a good idea.
“Well I’ll be there,” Derek reminded us as if we didn’t already know. “I have to get home though, my dad wants to talk to me about this summer school thing and run some errands for him early in the morning,” he said opening his car door.
We said our goodbyes. He cranked his car and we could hear his speakers blaring the music from inside, clear enough for us to hear every word even with his doors shut and when he got down the road a bit. Brian and I watched him drive off and we looked at each other for a long moment.
“Guess I should go too.”
“Brian.”
“yeah?”
“About what we discussed earlier, before Derek came up.”
“What’s there to discuss dude, it’s done. I just need to decide how I want to,” he paused uneasily, “spend the rest of my life.”
“See,” I was angry, maybe more at myself. “You’ve given up.”
“No, I’m just being realistic.”
He didn’t say anything else. He just got into his car and gave me one last look before he turned over the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. I watched, knowing instantly that I should have said something else. I had thought about it many times before and would more afterwards but I still to this day have trouble with this conversation. I’m not sure anyone could blame me though. No one has written a self help book on loved ones dying due to deals with death.
I stood in the parking lot focused on his tail lights as they turned the corner and disappeared away from the school. I told myself to go home and try and relax, I had a big day coming up tomorrow with graduation and everything but something I was powerless to stop nagged at me.
---
The year was 2005 and to say a lot had changed seemed like an understatement. I had been through college and after four and a half years I had a degree in psychology and a minor in science. I really owed David’s tutoring in High School for the interest in science, but it helped me out a lot either way. I had become a lot more serious about my studies, especially after I left Macon State when my core classes were done.
I had finally found a school I was looking for to attend for my masters program in Paranormal Sciences. Coralark University in Maine was the school I chose, not just for the program there but for the library and resources in the occult. I never fully explained it to anyone. I told my family I was furthering my studies in psychology, which I planned on doing at some point. I didn’t even really tell the guys much more than the title of the program. For people who had been through something like we had together you would think they wouldn’t question it, but the looks I got left me a little taken aback.
We hadn’t really hung out that much, at least not as much as we said we would. Things change after High School, and you think it won’t change you but it will. We had all gotten wrapped up in the directions our lives had been taking us. We had stayed in contact but David and I weren’t attending the church on a regular basis anymore due to where we had moved.
Brian, Derek, and Stan were still hanging out on a pretty regular basis for a while until Stan got busy with work and trade school. Derek had a number of different part-time jobs he had been through as well as, much to my surprise, a relationship with Jessica he was trying to nurture. He was taking it pretty seriously too. It was odd watching him give up his man-whoring ways. Brian and I started Macon State around the same time but his mother got sick and his grades fell behind. He lost his HOPE money, which made it really difficult to pay and in the end he just didn’t think college was right for him. It was a sad and very typical story. I had just wished it hadn’t happened to Brian.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed though I had to go back to Macon for a reason. That’s not entirely true though. I could have made an excuse or figured out some way to get out of it. The prospect of seeing all of the guys together again though really drove me to it. It didn’t hurt that my invitation came directly from Dana herself. The phone call from her came out of nowhere and brought back a lot of memories, good and bad.
Dana had gone to college at Macon State as well but ended up getting a scholarship to Wesleyan. She took the scholarship, in part to get out from living with her grandfather, according to Jessica at least. She was studying to be a teacher, something I thought she would be great at. She didn’t want to stop there though and had dabbled with the ideas of joining the Peace Corps or going to teach English in Korea. Maybe she just wanted to get out of Macon, I wasn’t sure.
She called me that night though and her sweet voice still sounded as warm and inviting as it had years ago. What she had to say though, wasn’t so sweet. Her grandfather, Captain Louis R. Crowne, had suffocated in his sleep two nights ago and his funeral would be on Friday. She told me it would mean a lot to her and her family if I could come down and that afterwards it would give us all a chance to catch up if I could stick around an extra day. I thought about it but the decision wasn’t hard, I wanted to go see everyone and if I could provide any comfort for Dana in the process so be it.
I took a plane down to Hartsfield airport and a Groome van back to Macon where my mom met me. We went out to the house where my dad was watching the ballgame. He had made steaks. It felt like a special occasion. We sat down to eat and the food was some of the best I had eaten in years. My mom was all smiles the whole time I was there. All throughout dinner my parents asked me questions about school, Maine, my internship I was trying for, and if I was dating anyone. They were the exact same questions she asked me on the phone every other week but I knew they made her happier so I rattled off the answers I thought she wanted to hear and returned the questions to catch up with them. For loving them so much I found it pretty hard to have a conversation with them. I couldn’t talk politics with my dad or religion with my mom and I was being pretty vague about my studies so there went half of my ideas there.
After dinner my dad told me I could use his truck while I was in town. I went and took a drive around to see what had all changed. I had been home since leaving for Maine but never long enough or with enough free time to cruise. Ingleside Village Pizza had changed. The High School had been completely re-done almost. Most of the people I knew had moved, even if not away to a different area. I almost didn’t recognize it.
I headed back home after filling up the truck with gas. I didn’t have a lot of money but I figured it was the least I could do and my dad would appreciate it. I pulled in the driveway though and when I did I looked past the house and down to the old shed. My sense of either curiosity or nostalgia won out and I soon found myself slowly approaching the old building. My pace was slow, cautious. I approached the metal building and slowly reached out for the handle. It didn’t turn as easily as it used to and when I opened it I saw why. The shed hadn’t been used in quite some time. Though my dad was spending more time at home these days, it wasn’t in here. He had moved a lot of things around. The old couch was gone and there were two large shop tools I didn’t recognize in the dim light. My childhood sanctuary had been undone with me not there to protect it.
I exited the shed with memories fresh on my mind, good memories. I turned and looked at the woods though and found myself frozen for a moment. It’s sad that good memories have such a short lifespan in the midst of such places. I took two steps towards the woods, unsure if they were my own. Looking into the darkness of the woods I lost the fight against the flood of memories from that night. As they hit I cringed, that chill from earlier that day so long ago returning. I shivered. I caught myself looking around for him even though I knew he wouldn’t be there. I opened my mouth to call out his name but stopped myself, what good would it do.
There are few times in my life I can say I was truly afraid. This was one of those few. I couldn’t do it. My legs would not allow me to go back to that clearing. I could imagine it in my mind; unchanged and still as foreboding as when I was first there. I hadn’t been back to that spot since it happened, since Brian’s death. A howl erupted from deeper in the woods that shook me from my frozen state. I quickly turned on my heel and like I had done so many times as a child I hurried up the hill.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I wasn’t one to have wild dreams but for the little bit I did sleep in my parent’s guest room I kept seeing images in my mind. I think they were trying to make a story or maybe just tell me something but it wasn’t coming together. Most of what I saw were faces, faces of people that were related to it all somehow but if it was trying to tell me more it had been lost. I woke up, sweating. Only in Georgia could the beginning of October still feel like summer with the humidity. I was up by six and in the shower before anyone else was up. I wanted to stay in there, it felt safe and I was now dreading some of the things I had been looking forward to.
Mom got up to start breakfast but I told her I was going to go ahead and get an early start on the day. I’m not exactly sure what I had planned at that moment. I knew I wanted to get out though. I grabbed a pop-tart and kissed my mom on the cheek. I told her that I would see her at the funeral and headed out to my dad’s truck.
I found myself driving around town again and texting each of the guys to make sure I would see them later that day. I had been to most of the spots I wanted to check up on last night but there was one place I hadn’t been to and I knew I wanted to before I left. I pulled into the parking lot between the two buildings of the old church. The truck crept to a stop and I hadn’t seen the old white van on the other side of the building. Thinking I was alone I stepped out and looked at the exterior of the two buildings. Pastor Bell was older now wouldn’t come to the church every day like he used to, unless there was actually a service or an event.
The neighborhood was still bad and looked the part. The old house next to the church had looked like it had been gutted for one reason or another. There were no windows and the screen door on the back had been ripped off its hinges. The church now had bars on the bottom floor windows and a new more secure set of Plexiglas doors. The other building had blocked off the door at the basement level completely and the basketball goal had been ripped down, who knows how many times. Even changed I still felt comfortable there at the old Baptist church for some reason.
My thoughts were interrupted by the banging of a hammer that caught me off guard. I spun around and realized they were coming from the front of the fellowship hall. I made my way up to the front. One of the front doors was open with a cinderblock keeping it there. There weren’t many lights on inside the building so I couldn’t see what was going on without stepping further in. I heard the hammering again and didn’t feel like trying to yell over it. I saw an outline of a man working on a stage in old dirty jeans and a white t-shirt with a faded cross on the back. It took me a moment to realize who it was but the long brown hair with the graying roots and bushy beard.
“Pierce?”
The man was about to take another swing with the hammer but stopped hearing his name. He was banging at one of the light fixtures, trying to mount it apparently. The crate he was standing on shifted as he turned and he jumped off of it onto the stage. His eyes squinted at me, the lights on the stage effecting him the same way the sun outside had done to me.
“Jason Blunt,” he said my name in disbelief. “You were the last person I was expecting to see here. I thought you were in Maine.”
“I was,” I paused. “I needed to visit. Not the best circumstances but I thought no time like the present.” It was more complicated than that of course but no need to explain.
He approached me with a smile, “you’ve grown.”
“So has your hair.” I pointed out before he leapt from the stage and we both embraced in a light hug. He seemed genuinely happy to see me.
“So you’re here for the funeral?”
“Yeah, Dana called me.”
“Did she now,” I couldn’t read his tone if there was more to it. “It’s a shame. She was away and he was alone. He still came to church but other than that no one ever saw him really.” He put the hammer down beside some other tools and looked up at the light he was working on.
“Working by yourself today? Where are Harold and the others?”
“Harold hasn’t been around much since his wife died.”
“Oh,” I wasn’t sure if my mom forgot to tell me that or I had just forgotten. Harold was always such a nice man though. In the past the church had no problem getting people to help.
“I was trying to put these new lights up for the kids, they use this room now.” He ran a hand over his forehead wiping away the sweat, “and not sure if you noticed but the air conditioning is broken also.”
“Ouch,” I replied.
“Ouch is right. We won’t have the money to get it fixed for another two weeks or so.” He shook his head. “It looks like we will just move all of the stuff in here to the main building until then, didn’t see why I couldn’t still get some work done though.”
I nodded and looked around at the old brown walls and blue carpeting. It looked horrible to the eye with those colors. They had been slowly renovating the building for years though and if nothing it was still a work in progress. He paused and his expression became more serious.
“Have you talked to your friends lately? Derek, Brian, and Stan I mean.”
“Don’t forget David,” I added. “Yeah I keep up with them all, mostly online but we talk on the phone a lot too.”
“I’m not worried about David. David’s a good kid and he has a bright future ahead of him.”
“Not the rest of us though, huh?”
“I guess that depends. Did you move up to Maine just for school or to get away from something also?” He smiled, trying to keep the conversation cool.
“Maine’s a beautiful place. Everyone should go at some point.”
“I don’t think that answered my question really.”
“No,” I stiffened. “I’m not running from anything. Why?”
He paused and shook his head before he looked up at me. “Jason, I’m concerned.”
“Why?”
“Look this isn’t a “Hey I want to get you guys back in church” moment. I’m seriously your friend, not just your former youth pastor.”
“I can know that,” I said and nodded.
“Stan seems miserable every time I see him. His father is still running his life even though he’s in his twenties. He’s working almost every day at that shop his dad owns and takes no time off to do anything.”
“Ok, I get that but,” he saw where I was going and cut me off.
“I know that doesn’t seem like much but you’ll see when you talk to him. Derek is the same way. I’m happy for him and Jessica and I know they’re trying to have a kid but he seems different. Jessica says he’s been really having trouble with his anger lately as well. I tried to talk to him and he blew me off.”
“That doesn’t sound like Derek,” it really didn’t. Well, not with how he acted with us. I had to think about it for a moment but Pierce kept going.
“Brian’s the one I’m really worried about though.”
“What’s up with him?”
“Brian’s mom has gotten worse. They think the cancer has spread too far and have given her another year, at best.”
I looked down at his comment. He was right, that would really hurt Brian. He and his father had a decent relationship but in the end Brian loved his mother more. I suddenly found myself listening to Pierce and taking what he was saying a lot more serious.
“He dropped out of school,” he continued. “He hasn’t been working. He made a couple of comments about how he doesn’t need money and he has been drinking. I’m also not sure if it hasn’t gone further than drinking. I know at one point he had been trying drugs and I’m afraid he might be again.”
I knew that too. I knew that it was a very real possibility, one I didn’t like to hear.
“Then there was the other night,” Pierce sighed. “I’m not exactly sure what happened but he was really drunk and he called me. Shelly was away at her mother’s luckily, I talked to him for almost an hour before he just started crying.”
“About what?”
“He was mumbling. He said he didn’t want to die and that he needed to confess his sins to someone.”
“Sins, what kinds of sins,” I should have known right then but I didn’t think of what happened as any kind of Christian sin. Unless it was against us, for letting Death be so care free with life.
“He started going on and on about all of the drugs he had done and the girls he had slept with. He told me about minute things he stole and people he felt that he had wronged. In the end he started talking about how he didn’t have the time to let his life amount to anything.”
Pierce must have been able to read from my expression that I didn’t see where all of this was going. The truth was I had just put it together and was really just wondering what Brian might have told him about that particular night.
“He seemed to,” he paused. “He was rambling at first and it was hard to understand, but he mentioned something about something horrible that happened. I couldn’t understand all of it but he said something about dying.”
Shit, that was all that I could think. How was I going to explain this or convince him to just overlook it.
“At first I thought he was talking about committing suicide but as he went on I realized he was saying that he had already died.”
“I don’t,” He cut me off again. That annoyed me a little.
“He said “we”. He said something “we” did. It took him saying it a few times but I finally heard it pretty clearly. He really worried me Jason.” He took a step forward and gave me an even more stern look. “So I’m asking you, what was he talking about? What did he mean? You’re his closest friend.”
“I don’t know,” I lied. It bothered me just a little how easily that lie rolled off my tongue and how I had no trouble looking him in the eye with it.
“Well,” he said disbelieving, “if you don’t know I doubt anyone does.”
“I can talk to him.” That was the first sincere thing I had said to Pierce, even if I’d be talking to Brian for different reasons. What was the big deal at this point? Keep this hidden for six more years until Brian died under mysterious circumstances, for what? At least if others knew then we could try and talk to them. I still had that thought in the back of my mind that if we got enough people to donate then maybe Death would just let Brian finish out his natural life.
“Maybe you should,” Pierce said putting a hand on my shoulder. He put his other hand back on the stage and pulled himself up. “I should get back to work,” he said picking up the hammer. “I’ll see you guys at the funeral.”
I nodded but he didn’t see me. “Alright,” I said with my word catching in my throat; a guilty tinge perhaps. I watched him go back to trying to hammer the frame of the light back in place and heard the thunder in the distance before I turned. In the time of our conversation the bright sun had turned to grey looming skies that hid me from God. Rain fell in a slow stride at first and as I took steps towards the truck it picked up pace to emphasize it was there before I could get into the truck. I sat in the parking lot of the old church for a few minutes and listened to the rain bombard itself against the windshield before I thought to actually drive off. Slowly but surely the trip back home that I had been looking forward to was turning on me and something inside told me I deserved it.
No comments:
Post a Comment