The Very Best Thing of All (1011 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryLabels: uberbook Favorites Ubermadness_II
Rating: 2 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-01-07 15:08:16 EST
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
I stood under a maple tree, in the early snowfall, in the night, in the cold.
It was quiet. I could hear the minute sounds of individual snowflakes as they struck the bare edges of dead leaves on the ground.
A maple leaf fell from the tree, spiraling down. It was the color of fire. The leaf landed on rough granite and stayed there a moment. Snowflakes pattered onto it.
Casey always loved maple leaves.
*
In 2001 I attended my twentieth high school reunion. I didn't want to go, but my best friend, then and now, practically begged me to show up.
I wasn't looking forward to seeing a lot of those people. Most of them were bitches, shitheads. It would be cool if I was going back a millionaire, or as someone famous, but I wasn't. It would be cool if I was going back with a wife and kids to brag about, but I didn't have that, either, just a long line of fucked up relationships.
It would be cool if I went back and showed them all up somehow, got them back for treating me and my friends like shit back then. I didn't.
In the end I settled for simply giving them something to think about. A new perspective on the past.
*
I flew into Syracuse International on a Friday, and Donnie picked me up. Soon we were headed north on the interstate. It was weird to think that after all this time I would soon be back in Watertown. I hadn't been back in the fifteen years since I had left.
Donnie pointed out that I had gained some more weight, and I pointed out that he had lost some more hair.
"This is gonna be awesome, man. It's gonna be wild." Donnie was just about jumping out of his seat with excitement. "Awesome," he muttered again.
He must have shot his load right in his pants when he got his invitation from the Watertown High Alumni Office.
Donnie was one of those guys who actually had enjoyed high school. I had not.
"Just shut the fuck up, Donnie, and keep your eyes on the road."
That got me a reproachful look.
It was the end of October, and although there wasn't any snow on the roads it was pretty cold. I'd been away so long I couldn't remember what the chances were that we might hit black ice.
As Donnie drove up the 81, we passed towns with names I hadn't heard since I was a kid. Nothing ever really changes in this part of New York State. Some people, like Donnie, find it a comfort. People like me find it stultifying. Donnie eagerly pointed out what changes there were.
Fair enough. I'd played host to him out west, every time we'd gotten together.
As we got closer to town he pointed out things that had changed from things I hadn't cared about to things I wouldn't care about. I tried my best to release intrigued grunts every now and then.
We passed a big car lot outside town. The sun was setting and it was getting colder. Well, colder for me, anyhow. I reached over and turned up the heat a notch just as Donnie hit a button on the radio. Our hands collided.
"Dick."
"Knob."
It was like being sixteen again, and Donnie was the only person I wanted to be that age with.
The Eagles were singing Hotel California. Christ almighty, you knew you weren't a kid anymore when a song that debuted when you were in high school was called a golden oldie.
I wondered about my old favorite radio station. "WOTT still around?"
"Yeah, but they've gone FM. It's all shit." Donnie hooke d athimb over his shoulder at the car lot. "Kevin Fisher owns that now."
I was quiet a moment. "I hated that fuck."
"Yeah, and he's selling Chevys for God sake. Chevys!"
Donnie was and always would be a Ford man. He said 'Chevys' with the same distasteful emphasis most of us would put on 'oozing puss,' or pedophile.'
Kevin Fisher. He was on the football team. He hung out with Tom Bleeker and Bruce somebody. Fucking Neanderthals. The girls that were always with them were the Three Ys. Stacy and Kelly and Nancy. I hated them too. They were pretty hot, but they were always ragging on the less popular girls.
Donnie had a good eye. He was a great artist, a great photographer. He did all the shots for the yearbook a few years in a row. He got around, people knew his face.
Nobody really knew me at all, because I liked scribbling stories and always had my face buried in a novel or a notebook. The only people who really knew me were Donnie, and Casey.
Sitting there with warm air blowing on my legs I felt a sudden guilty jolt. I realized that I hadn't thought of Casey Gray in years. Years. Jesus Christ.
Long dark hair, eyes such a dark blue they almost looked black, pale skin, kind of skinny, always dressed in black, always listening to music. When Sony came out with the first Walkman Casey had to have one. Her dad was always shouting. Her mom was quiet and fat. We lived on the same street.
Casey had a good voice, and she could play the fuck out of her guitar. The first and only time she ever showed off her talent in public, she got booed.
She had her music. I had my books.
Man, that was a long time ago.
The moment we started at Watertown High kids made fun of Casey almost as much as they trashed me. I was able to shrug it off.
Casey started wearing black.
Things were starting to look familiar.
Donnie asked me if I was hungry and I said I was.
We pulled up next to a Denny's on Arsenal Street and went inside. Donnie got a bacon cheddar cheeseburger, fries, and a coke. I got a couple of Boca burgers, and a chocolate shake.
"You still not eating meat?" Donnie had been convinced for years that I was just going through a phase, and that one day soon I'd cave and get a steak.
"That shit's deadly, man. Parasites, bacteria, viruses. I'll pass."
We got a table and sat down to eat.
"How's your dad," Donnie asked around a cluster of fries.
"Good."
I'd moved my dad out to be with me after I sold my first novel. He was a widower, and I didn't want him being alone. After a couple of years he met a nice lady and got married again and moved to Phoenix.
"Your mom?" Donnie's dad had died a few years back. He shared a big house with his mom.
"Good." He chewed and said, "The writing going okay?"
I shrugged. Every few years I sold a novel. Horror stories or thrillers that went straight to paperback. They were shit, really, but it kept me out of debt and paid the mortgage. I wrote under a pseudonym.
"You?"
"Same old thing."
I knew Donnie was doing okay even as he returned the shrug. He'd trained himself how to do all kinds of PC maintenance, hardware and software. Or something. I didn't know jack about the damn things. For me a computer was a fancy typewriter with a built-in pile of reference books.
Donnie belched and sat back. "There's some kind of little get-to-know-you thing tonight. Tomorrow is the real reunion. I thought we could swing by tonight. Grab a beer."
"Okay." I knew it would suck. What the hell.
"Want to crash at my place?"
"Sure," I said.
*
We drove over to the Sheraton. There were maybe twenty people in the bar. Music was blasting and colored lights were flashing. I could hardly see or hear a thing. There was a lot of back-slapping and bellowed laughter. Most of these people had never left Watertown. They probably did a variation of this every night.
Donnie and I got a couple of Buds. A tall, heavyset man sauntered over to us.
"Don Peterson! How are ya, man?"
Donnie put on a big fake grin. "Doing all right, Kevin."
"Gonna show tomorrow?"
Donnie grinned again. "You bet your ass."
Fisher laughed, and shook his head. He was gray and balding, and he had the beginnings of a serious beer gut hanging over his belt.
I seemed to remember that Fisher or one of his asshole friends was booing the loudest the first time Casey ever performed a song in front of a crowd. I called them motherfuckers and told them to shut the hell up. There had been a teacher right behind me, and I got a week's worth of detention.
Fisher looked at me, squinted, and let his mouth hang open. "John Smith! The Pilgrim!" He bellowed laughter.
Twenty fucking years and this guy couldn't come up with a new line? Jesus. I was surprised he didn't follow up with any of the other old standbys, calling me four-eyes or Ritchie Cunningham.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes. There were one or two strands that were as white as snow. The rest was as red as it had been twenty years ago. I got ragged about the hair almost every day back when I was a kid.
Fisher rubbed his chin, glancing at my hair with distaste. "Are you going to the reunion?"
"Thinking about it," I replied.
"Well, fuck," Fisher said. He walked away.
I looked at Donnie. "What the fuck was that?"
Donnie shrugged. "It's gonna be a bunch of fat asses and their fat wives. All the cliques getting together. I guess outsiders like you and I aren't supposed to show up."
"Fuck, man. Let's blow this popsicle stand."
"Go got it."
*
Back at Donnie's place things were a lot more familiar.
We killed a few hours getting shit-faced and talking about high school. Donnie was helping set up some sort of 'memory lane' multimedia show at the reunion. He dragged a box of slides out of a closet and set up his projector, mumbling something about putting the things on a CD one day.
"It'll be cool showing the slides tomorrow," Donnie said. "A touch of days gone by."
The slides were already in carousels. He loaded one in.
Click. There I was at seventeen, sitting in the cafeteria, looking at a sandwich like it just came out of someone's ass. Click. There was Donnie, posing by the engine he had to rebuild in autoshop. He got the thing kicking and it was vibrating so strong it broke out of the wooden frame it was set in and rolled across the floor. Click. There was the chess club, the cheerleader squad, the football team, the AV club, the debate club. Click. Kevin Fisher. Click. Tom Bleeker. Click. Bruce somebody. Click. Stacy. Kelly. Nancy. Kevin and Stacy. Kelly and Tom. Nancy and—"
I couldn't stand it. "What the fuck, man?"
Donnie shrugged. "They are the popular ones. They have to be represented."
Click. Peter Hemmings. Now there was one weird bastard. Hair sticking up in tufts, oj stains on his shirts, and a fucking genius. He made me look extroverted.
Click. "Hey, remember her?" Donnie paused the projector. There was something about his tone that irked me. "Casey?"
She was standing under the big maple tree behind the school. She was holding her Walkman, the headphone wires disappearing into that crazy tangle of dark hair. She looked small and alone.
I was always behind the times when it came to music. Casey was astounded by my utter lack of familiarity with current bands and songs. And she was always lending me albums and cassettes and telling me to give them a spin.
When we were kids she always had a transistor radio with her. When Sony came out with the Walkman, she was the first kid in school to have one.
I remember her giving me a single back in grade school, 'Kung Fu Fighting.' I was a big Bruce Lee fan as a kid, so I got a real charge out of that song.
She introduced me to a lot of great stuff.
Both of us had hated disco with a passion. She said she couldn't decide what was worse; Yoko Ono screaming like a psycho, or anything by ABBA. I had nodded like I knew what the hell she was talking about.
I looked at the image on the screen again, wondering what she was listening to at that moment, realizing that the only pictures I had of Casey were the ones in my mind.
Donnie was giving me a weird look.
"Why the hell are you leering at me?"
He pointed at the screen. "You and her."
"What about it? She was a friend."
"Yeah, but, come on. I was always surprised you didn't tell me about it."
"Huh?"
Donnie grinned. "You lucky bastard."
I was getting irritated. "What, are you talking in fucking code?"
Donnie's face went through a number of changes. He advanced the projector. Click. Click. Click. Pause.
A shot taken in the library, Casey and me sitting across from each other, both of us absorbed in books.
I had a vague memory of that day in May. Donnie had been dicking around most of the year and was scrambling to get shots for the yearbook. It was our second year at Watertown high. I heard later that Mrs. Goetz ended up chasing him out of the library.
Some thick neck from the football team had mooned Donnie. Donnie had taken the shot. The thick neck demanded Donnie hand over his camera, and Donnie refused. Then Goetz accused Donnie of "perpetrating obscenity in a hall of higher learning." That line made its way around the school like wildfire.
I also remembered Casey and I talking before all the commotion started.
I was unsettled by how much I was remembering, and how much I had forgotten.
These were my own memories, but I was only becoming aware of them in bits and pieces. It was like I'd thrown a book into a pond a long time ago. Now the glue binding the book together was giving away and the pages were floating to the surface one by one, in no particular order.
Casey had been really upset, kicking at my foot under the table. We'd shared almost every class in every grade throughout the years, so her acting like a dork and bugging me was nothing new.
I'd asked her what was up and she gave me one of my first experiences with the mystery of the fairer sex.
She ignored me. A minute later, she kicked my foot again.
"What?" I whispered. "Fuck!"
"Nothing."
"Okay, then."
I glanced to my right. Stacy and Kelly and Nancy were sitting a few tables away. They were giggling and throwing paper balls at each other. Mrs. Goetz was glaring at them. Kelly had her back to me. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Every once in a while she would rise halfway out of her chair to toss a paper ball across the table. I'd been sneaking peaks for a while now.
It was pathetic, but when you are seventeen and a bit of a dipshit loser, seeing a cute ass damn near bursting the seams on a pair of shorts is a hell of a treat. Even if the ass in question belongs to someone who always looks at you like you are dogshit caked to the bottom of her shoe.
I started getting a hard-on. It didn't take much back then.
Casey kicked my foot.
That went on for a few more minutes, my foot getting kicked, Casey and I hissing at each other, my dick going up and down.
The Three Ys left the library. I tried reading. Every time Casey and I looked at each other over our books, she rolled her eyes.
Finally I got up and left, telling Casey she needed a rabies shot, or something equally lame.
I looked at the picture of us on the screen. I was feeling really uncomfortable, so I got up a grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge.
When I sat down Donnie was putting the carousel into a cardboard box. 'Reunion' was written on one flap.
I felt like I had to say something. "You know, she and I, we never—"
"Hey, it's cool. I just thought she was into you. I mean, you liked her, right?"
Another memory. Fall. Our last year of high school. Casey and I were shoving each other and goofing around in my backyard, throwing piles of fallen leaves at each other. She was still wearing the black jeans and black t-shirts, but there was something different about her. She touched my face, I don't know why, and I responded physically. I had a raging hard-on, my heart was racing, and my mouth was watering. But this was Casey. Casey!
She was my friend. Just a dork, like me. Not someone that other guys would start to notice. But if she was becoming someone that other guys would notice, I didn't stand a chance with her. She wasn't trying to start anything with me, anyway. She was just goofing around. Or was she?
"Yeah. I liked her. Shit, man. I liked her a lot."
Donnie grinned. "I knew it. And she knew it too. She was just waiting for you to make a move, you goof."
A wave of feeling hit me so hard that at first I didn't realize it was sorrow.
Casey had died in a car crash about a month after we all graduated, right about the time MTV was born. Her dad had been behind the wheel, drunk, and probably yelling at her, as her mom sat silently, not telling him to knock it off. She would have loved MTV. Well, for the first few years, before it mutated into the shitbox it is these days.
"Too late to do anything about it now," I said. "Not that she ever would have felt that way about me. We were just buddies."
Donnie sat and looked at me for a long time. Then he stood up and spoke as if reading a proclamation. "You are a god-damned idiot."
He started opening another box of stuff going to the reunion.
"Remember how I used to film all the old assemblies when they put on variety shows and shit?"
I nodded. I'd helped him film some of the football games and pep rallies with his super-8 camera. Later he took everything he'd earned on a summer job and made a down payment on a second-hand 16mm Arriflex. He would record sound on a Nagra he borrowed from an Uncle, and he could combine the two and do one hell of a short presentation. He showed me how to splice film stock and sync up the sound. Those had been some fun times.
Donnie set some paper sleeves on the table. The sleeves had big red check marks on them. "I'm running some of those old films tomorrow. I transferred them to disk so I can run them in a DVD player. They turned out better than I expected."
He took a disk out of a sleeve. I could see that it was labeled 'Music 80-81.'
"I think you should see this. I always thought you never mentioned Casey because you just weren't into her. What was it, really? You thought she didn't care?"
I didn't say anything.
Donnie slipped the DVD into the player. "This is the concert that Casey sang at, that last year. Remember how everyone laughed and some guys booed?"
I nodded.
"Look for her face in the menu. It's somewhere in the middle. That's the bit you saw from the audience side. I think you should see it from the perspective I had, up on stage, filming her."
He handed me a pair of remotes, and another disc.
"I've gotta burn another DVD," Donnie said, going down the hall. "Be back in a minute."
I got the dvd running. Donnie had made titles and a menu.
Not long before we graduated, Casey performed at an assembly showcasing school talent. One of those school spirit deals. I remember Donnie walking around on stage and filming various acts.
I also recalled that I hadn't seen much of Casey the week before. She'd been rehearsing. One more thing I had forgotten all about.
I advanced through the menu until I saw a familiar mop of dark hair, and hit play.
Casey walked out onto a stage that was bare except for a stool and a microphone. She set down the guitar case she was carrying, and opened it taking out her beat up old Yamaha guitar.
The moment Casey sat in front of the microphone kids started laughing and booing, the latter a lowing sound like the moo of a cow.
I don't know if any song could have changed the opinions of the kids who were set to rag on her, but her choice of Janis Ian's biggest tune was just fuel for the fire.
Donnie was in front and to one side of her, and for a moment Casey looked right into the camera.
Again I felt my skin flush and burn with shame. How could I have let my memories of her fall so far away?
She started to sing.
"I learned the truth at seventeen,
that love was meant for beauty queens—"
Someone hooted laughter and that started a cascade of chuckles. Someone shushed them loudly.
Casey pushed on, singing with a voice that was sugary sweet and rough at the same time.
Kids started booing loudly. Someone shouted, "Shut up!"
Casey kept going, watching her fingers on the strings.
Donnie came back into the room and sat down.
Onscreen, a much younger Donnie was moving around Casey in a slow circle, keeping the camera on her, keeping the audience out of the frame.
I could hear an adult voice bellow for silence, I think it was Mr. Sawyer, the gym teacher.
Donnie made another circle around her, and in the bottom of the frame was her guitar case. I saw something that made me blink.
Casey just kept singing. I don't know how she did it.
"To those of us who knew the pain,
of valentines that never came—"
I grabbed the remote and hit pause, and then reverse. When Casey's guitar case came into view I hit pause again, and advanced frame by frame.
"No fucking way," I said. I looked at Donnie. He was looking at the floor.
I used the DVD player's zoom feature, closing in on the battered guitar case. The case was still open, and there was a picture tucked inside of it.
It was a picture of me.
I don't know how long I sat there, not really seeing anything. I was thinking of Casey. I didn't know, I told myself. I didn't know.
Deep down, I knew the truth though. It wasn't that I didn't know, but that I didn't have the guts to find out.
My mind filled with images, questions, a million 'what if's.'
The biggest of those was, 'What if Casey and I had been together the day she died? What if she had been with me, instead of getting in the car with her mom and dad?'
I couldn't see for a moment. I took off my glasses and wiped my eyes.
The player dropped out of pause mode, and Casey sang on.
Amid all the noise of the crowd I heard, "-ucker!"
That was me yelling 'motherfucker,' more of a squeak than a roar.
Casey finished the song. Donnie was shooting her from one side.
She bent over and put the guitar back in the case. She closed the case, and walked off the stage.
The kids in the audience broke into harsh cheers.
The screen went dark, and another segment began. One of the Three Y's came out in a cheerleader outfit and started doing some embarrassing dance routine. This time the cheers coming from the crowd were the real thing.
I turned off the player.
Donnie stood up and cleared his throat. "Well..." he said.
I shook my head. "I didn't know. I didn't know, man. I swear."
Donnie nodded. "I know. I think you guys just... ran out of time."
He took the disk out of the player and slipped it into the paper sleeve. He put the sleeve with the others that had red check marks on them, putting them in the reunion box. Then he took another sleeve out of the first box. This one had no check mark.
"Now that you've seen that, you should see this," he said, tossing me the disk. "This is what Casey originally wanted to do for the show, but Principal Quinn and the teachers at the first rehearsal shit a brick. One of them said it was obscene."
"What the hell?"
Donnie laughed. "It wasn't that bad. And compared to the stuff you see today it's downright tame. Casey did the music herself. Borrowed an electric guitar and laid down two or three tracks. Then she played them back and did the vocal part live. She was good."
"Did I know about this?"
"No," Donnie said. "She didn't want you there. She had me film the rehearsal so she could watch it later and correct any mistakes she made. After the administration shut her down, she made me promise to never show it to you. She was afraid you'd laugh at her."
As if I couldn't feel like any more of a shit-heel.
"Watch it," Donnie said. "Lots of people at school thought her life was all gloom and doom with the way she looked and how quiet she was. You know she wasn't. You've just forgotten."
He passed by me on his way to the hall and gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder. "I have to help set this shit up in the morning. I'm gonna hit the sack. You okay with the couch? There's blankets and stuff in the closet and..."
"Yeah, man. Thanks."
When I was alone, I played the disk.
When I finished watching the disk I was laughing, and crying. I kind of felt like a pussy and I was glad I was alone, but I also felt a little better.
I thought about all the great tunes that Casey brought into my world, where the most familiar rhythm was the statacco sound of my old typewriter as I cranked out abysmal stories... and some say today that nothing has changed in that respect.
'Walk This Way.' The Doobie Brothers. The Ramones. The Eagles. Kansas. 'Paradise By The Dashboard Lights.' 'Still the Same.' The Boomtown Rats. The Vapours. The Jam. XTC. The Sex Pistols. 'Cruel to be Kind.' 'Love Stinks.' Blondie, the early stuff of course. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. 'Against The Wind.'
I took the disk out of the player, slipped it into the sleeve, and put it in my coat pocket.
*
A few days after she had been booed off stage, I'd gone over to Casey's house to see if she was okay. She hadn't called me or dropped by to watch TV, which was weird. It was a Friday night. We sat in her room in front of her little black and white TV and talked for a bit, making fun of The Dukes of Hazzard. At one point she asked me, "Why can't I be one of the Three Y's?"
"What, are you kidding?" I'd replied. "You're better than that."
She'd given me a look that I couldn't fathom. Even when they're just kids, woman are good at that. It must be genetic.
I remembered that and wondered. Back in the library, had she been kicking me because she was jealous?
How could I have been so fucking thick?
*
I entered the big ballroom of the Sheraton alone. Donnie had arrived ahead of me to set up his part of the memory lane bullshit. I arrived late.
I checked my coat and somebody gave me a nametag. I didn't get any of the squeals of recognition at the door that everyone else seemed to get. It was like a TV-movie reunion. Balloons. A fucking mirror-ball on the ceiling. Six-foot tall blow-ups of old pictures, the popular crowd, of course. No shots of anyone sharing Peter Hemmings' status, or Donnie or Casey or me. There was a live band, and they were either drunk or just plain old-fashioned bad.
At least they had a bar.
I sipped a shot of bourbon, looking around the big room. There was a wide stage to one side. The band was at one end, a podium and microphone at the other. Between the band and the podium was a drop-down screen.
There was a smallish dance floor between the stage and a crescent of tables. Most of the tables were taken, and seating was assigned. The so-called 'popular crowd' was seated nearer the stage. I spotted Fisher and his buddies, and their wives. I also saw two of the Three Ys. None of them had aged well.
I found my name card on a table on the far side of the room, in near darkness, near the men's room. None of the others who were supposed to be seated at that table had shown up. I picked up the card and went back to the bar for another shot. I put the name card on an empty barstool.
I wandered to the station Donnie had set up. He had his slide projector there, along with a DVD projection system.
The band took a break and some balding guy with about nine chins stepped up to the podium to announce that the time for our trip down memory lane had come.
Donnie dimmed the lights and started showing slides, the familiar old ka-chunka-chunk of the machine getting a lot of laughs. Fisher and his buddies got cheers. The three Y's got cheers.
Almost everyone got cheers and applause, until the last few slides. The chess club got sniggers. The AV geeks got a guffaw. An assortment of minor players got scant recognition. I didn't get anything at all. I must have been the invisible fucking man back then. Donnie got a mix of applause and cat-calls. Then Casey appeared, standing under the tree. There were whispers and muffled laughs at the tables.
There were a few more slides, but I didn't see them. I was pissed. All this time, and nothing had changed. Casey was still a joke to them.
When Donnie started showing the DVD movies, the crowd was really into the show. Clips from various football games got explosions of applause and wild cheers. The cheerleaders got applause. An assortment of jagoffs who had run for student council seats got applause. Donnie switched disks, and played highlights of various talent shows. The cheerleaders and other dancing bimbos got cheers, as did a terrible band that called itself Molten Fudge. A few lame skits got big laughs. There was applause for snippets from musical performances, until Casey came on.
Beyond her singing, there was silence, broken by a few muffled laughs. In the half light I could see people smirking, shaking their heads.
A beam of light from the mirror-ball shone down on Kevin Fisher just as he let out a loud, exaggerated groan, and almost everyone laughed.
Son of a bitch, I thought.
I went back to my coat and got the second CD I'd watched the night before, the performance Casey had wanted to give at school, the one that was too racy or suggestive for the administration.
As the last of the old movies was projected onto the screen, I went over to Donnie and asked him to play the CD.
"That's not on the agenda," he said. "There's about thirty seconds of this old stuff left and then there are gonna be speeches and shit like that."
"Fuck them, man. Are you getting paid to do this?"
Donnie shook his head.
"Has even one of those fuckholes come up to you and thanked you for your efforts tonight, or are you just being treated like hired help?"
Donnie thought about it a moment. "Yeah, you're right," he said. "Fuck 'em."
"When I give you a signal, play the disk."
Donnie nodded.
The man with nine chins was making his way up the steps to the stage. I passed him and reached the podium just as the lights came up.
Chins whispered, "Excuse me, you aren't supposed to be here."
I whispered, "Get the fuck out of here, you bag of shit."
Chins hesitated. That was fine. All I needed was a minute.
I looked down at my former schoolmates. At every table I saw confused looks. I could see mouths forming words. 'Who is he?' 'What is this?'
I tapped the mike, and then spoke.
"As I look around this room tonight, I see a lot of fat asses."
I let that hang in the air for a moment. There was confusion. Questions. Uncomfortable laughter, in anticipation of a punch line.
Kevin Fisher looked like he was about to pass a kidney stone.
"I see graying hair, and receding hair. I see wrinkles, lousy facelifts, sagging breasts, and bulging guts. I see age spots and aching joints, and fading eyes and tired bodies that don't work they way they used to. I see old people, and from this day forward, whenever we think of each other, this is how we will remember each other. Old. Wearing out. Many of us closer to the end than the beginning."
I gave Donnie a thumbs up. He dimmed the lights.
"One of us is no longer here. One of us is remembered with derision, and scorn, if remembered at all. Her name was Casey Gray. And this is how we are going to remember her, for the rest of our lives."
The music started. Casey had used three guitar tracks, one was lead, one was rhythm, and one was just her slamming the shit out of the guitar to make up for her lack of a drummer. Her plan was to sing on camera and more or less fart around with her guitar as the pre-recorded and mixed tracks played on a pair of speakers sitting on the floor of a bare floodlit stage behind her.
Back in the pre-MTV days, this was what a lot of music videos looked like.
Casey started to sing, and her voice was strong, and sweet, and absolutely bubbling over with joy.
"Well you're the real tough cookie
With the long history,"
"Of breaking little hearts
Like the one in me..."
The Pat Benatar tune Casey was performing had reached the top ten by the time she died. Casey loved that song.
"That's OK,
Lets see how you do it
Put up your dukes,
Lets get down to it..."
Casey was wearing her typical black jeans, and black tee, but this time her clothes were skin-tight. She was wearing very little makeup. She shook her hair and wiggled her hips, and through it all she was smiling.
"Hit me with your best shot,
Why don't you hit me
With your best shot
Hit me with your best shot
Fire Away..."
Casey sang like I'd never heard her sing before, and when she reached the instrumental bridge she started dancing like crazy, just cutting loose. With the way she was using her body you would have thought she was either as sexy as hell or a mindless goofball having a shitload of fun.
I saw her as both.
"You come on with a come on,
You don't fight fair
But that's OK, see if I care
Knock me down, it's all in vain
I'll get right back on my feet again..."
And from the looks on the faces turned up to the screen, I knew what they were seeing.
They were seeing long, dark hair without a trace of gray, flipping and swirling like a free-falling piece of the night sky. They were seeing skin that was tight and smooth and free of any lines. They were seeing eyes filled with mischief and fun, eyes that would never be clouded with age. They were seeing little tits jutting out before gravity ever had a chance to get them in its clutches. They were seeing an ass so firm and tight you could bounce a quarter off of it, and sleek legs that were taut with seemingly endless energy.
They were seeing and hearing Casey in all her glory, in all the fullness of her youth. They were seeing her the way they should have seen her back then.
They were seeing her the way I should have seen her.
And this is how they would remember her.
"Hit me with your best shot,
Why don't you hit me
With your best shot
Hit me with your best shot
Fire Away..."
The song came to an end. As the picture faded Casey was breathless, and laughing, and waving 'bye-bye' at the camera.
Donnie shut down the projector and turned up the lights. I gave him a nod of thanks and walked out of the ballroom.
He told me later that the reunion was very subdued after that.
*
A lot of good came from that first trip back home after so many years away. I got to see Donnie again, and that was a good thing. I remembered Casey in all her goofy glory, and that was a better thing. And I realized that once upon a time, when I was pretty much a zero, I had been loved, and that was the very best thing of all. Instead of being filled with sadness, I was filled with hope.
I took a cab to the cemetery where Casey had been waiting for me for all those years I was away.
During the ride I thought of things Casey had not been able to experience in the two decades. She would have loved the internet, and being able to use a home computer as a recording studio, mixing her music and burning her own CDs. Like me, she grew up hearing about the Red Menace of the Soviet Union. She would have been amazed to see how that situation turned out. She never got to see how the first Star Wars trilogy ended. She never got to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think she would have liked that a lot. She would have gotten a kick out of cell phones, and iPods.
Then again, she didn't have to witness AIDs, 9/11, the Indian Ocean tsunami, or any of the other shit that has darkened our TV screens and our lives.
I nearly castrated myself climbing a wrought-iron fence, but I soon found her spot.
"Hi," I said. "I'm back."
*
Since 2001 I've come back to Watertown once a year, to hang out with Donnie, and to visit Casey. The more I remember her, the more I miss her. The more I remember her, the more she inspires me.
I went back again last year.
I stood under a maple tree, in the early snowfall, in the night, in the cold.
It was quiet. I could hear the minute sounds of individual snowflakes as they struck the bare edges of dead leaves on the ground.
A maple leaf fell from the tree, spiraling down. It was the color of fire. The leaf landed on rough granite and stayed there a moment. Snowflakes pattered onto it.
Casey always loved maple leaves.
I watched the maple leaf quiver as more and more snow covered it.
I took a photograph from my pocket. Donnie had made a copy for me. It was Casey under another maple tree. So pretty, so long ago.
A gust of wind ruffled my hair, stroked my cheek.
The leaf spun free, shaking off the snow, and landed at the base of Casey's tombstone, a blaze of color.
User Reviews
Submitted by SkullBiter (user info) at 2008-02-29 15:10:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I was sure it was going to be a one word post.
Sex?
No? Ok.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-02-29 14:58:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by mynameisandy (user info) at 2006-12-31 02:51:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very moving stuff. Some of your stories have the ability to make me feel like a total gay. Well done!
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-10-26 13:17:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I've been looking for this one for a while.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-08-18 23:32:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was fantastic.
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2005-07-21 23:04:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
...
Submitted by Supreme_Overlord (user info) at 2005-07-21 22:19:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shite
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-06-22 20:31:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack, this piece moved me to tears.
Submitted by Stin (user info) at 2005-01-18 06:34:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No comment necessary.
Submitted by runninginplace (user info) at 2005-01-17 12:01:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
again, congrats.
Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 11:25:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by foodman (user info) at 2005-01-16 07:59:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuckin' A, man.