Monday:
I stopped by mom’s house after work. You just have to love “Mom’s”. It’s the best damn restaurant/grocery store there is. Well because the food is usually free. Well as far as monetary concerns go. My mother, I have to do chores such as mow the lawn, fix something, or lift something heavy. Oh and I also have to wash my dishes. But that’s a small price to pay, well until something gets pulled or strained.
So I was dining happily (on a very delicious salmon) and making good use of mother’s cable connection. My sister and my mother stroll into the room flop on the couch and drop a bomb on me. The type of bomb that makes you drop your fork and stare slack jawed while your brain races at a million miles per hour with different variations of “WTF did they just say?!”. While I’d love to go into detail what family news was unleashed upon me I cannot. It’s not my story to tell. Well at least not yet. But truthfully the confusion starts on Sunday.
My mother had called while I was at Inq’s place. The phone rang
Me: Hello?
Mom: Hey!
Me: Hi mom.
Mom: Where are you?
Me: I’m at Inq’s place. I crashed here last night.
Mom: Oh, well do you think you could be home in about 30 minutes? There’s something I need to talk to you about.
Me: I doubt it. We went to bed about 5 hours ago, Inq drove me, and he lives more than an hour away.
Mom: Oh. Well nevermind then. We’ll talk about it later.
Me: What’s up? Is something wrong?
Mom: No no. It’s nothing traumatic. It’s not critical we talk today.
Me: No really mom… what’s up? Is something wrong?
Mom: It could be good or bad.. depending on how you look at it. It’s something that will affect you in the future.
Me: What? Just tell me please. You’re freaking me out.
Mom: I’d rather not talk about it on the phone. We’ll talk about it later.
Me: And now I’m worried.
Mom: Don’t worry. We’ll talk about it later. Come over on Monday for dinner. And don’t go trying to question around to find out.
Me: You’re being kinda cryptic and elusive. I don’t like this.
Mom: Monday.
Telling someone not to worry and then not telling them what’s going on is giving them a free plane ticket to Manic-Freak-Out-Land. My family is always like this. If they can’t get you face to face on the spot there’s always sort of cryptic bizarre message. It’s like being related to mystery novel writers. Something goes down and you have nothing but bread crumbs and oddly related clues until you come to the end of their machinations. That’s when you suddenly find out that it was the butler in the bathroom with a toothpick.
There will be more to this later.
Tuesday:
I was at the coffee shop drawing happily when I caught a glimpse of a face I hadn’t seen in a long long time. It was my friend Suzie. She’s a sweet girl who I met when she was 13. I used to work with her older sister, Jenn, at a bookstore called Bibelot. (Bibelot is French for small trinket or treasure. It’s also French slang for testicles.) Jenn was a lot of fun. We were both supervisors. She would bring her sister to work with her a couple of days each week. Those were always awkward days. Suzie is and was a somewhat artistic type. Once she found out that I made with the arts stuffs she would tail me. I’m not talking about having a shadow. I mean it was like having a growth that suddenly sprouted. You’d cut it off but a few times each week it would grow back. And it talked! A million words a minute talking. The type without breathes or pauses about topics you couldn’t care less about. A few times I managed to dump her back into her sister’s care. But sooner or later she ended up standing next to me prattling on and on.
Anyway, I had run in to Suzie and the told me that she worked at the Game Stop a couple of shops down. As it turns out she works with my old friend Yarnell. Yarnell is someone that I knew from high school. He and I used to get along great unlike most of my other high school “peers”. I strolled with Suzie back to her place of employment because Yarnell was working at the time. As I strolled into the store I came across another classmate. I will call him OE (yes those would be initials). I’d like to state that sometimes (most times) I really despise running to into my old high school classmates. The moment I walked in I realized who it was and I remembered my hatred for him instantly. He looked up with glazed over eyes and smiled. There were the usual greetings and handshakes. OE shook my hand and continued to talk as if we used to hang out as the best of friends in high school. (see where I’m going with this?) I guess for some, when they leave the Thunder Dome known as high school they forget things. And some of us don’t forget. (The majority of you I hate. HATE!) OE used to torment and torture me. I was just some chunky art freak and OE was a “jock” on the lacrosse, basketball, and football teams. He was an oversexed muscled up asshole. Day after day he would push, shove, spit on, beat up, or chase anyone smaller than himself, myself included. But now that time has passed he seems to have forgotten those moments. And I must say that perhaps the influences and vices he has caused the lapses in his memory.
OE prattled on and on as if I were not one the kids he harassed and beat back then. Glassy eyed and slurred speech he twitched and scratched his unkempt beard constantly. One thing I did notice was that in high school he was so much bigger and stronger than me. And now I am taller, more toned, and stronger than he is. (I found out the strength issue when I shook his hand. His grip was shaky and weak.) After a while of chatting, me mainly talking to Yarnell, I decided to depart. OE’s twitching and scratching was getting on my nerves. Our parting went like this:
Me: I’m taking off.
Yarnell: Take care man.
Me: You too.
Suzie: Oh… do you have to go? You could come to the club with my boyfriend and me. We’d have a lot of fun! You can crash at our place if you want.
Yarnell: Naughty!
Me: Thanks but I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn. And I am not a club type person. Unless it involves an actual club for which is used to dispense with the beatings profound. I’ll catch you guys later.
OE: *incoherent mumbling* Maybe I’ll see you again.
Me: I hope not.
OE: *scratching and stumbling* What?
Me: I don’t know what you on man, but if you even remotely believed that we were or are friends you are wandering a world of confusion. You treated me like shit in high school. And I despise you. I have a serious fully engorged hate-on for you. And lets face it you never liked me either.
Yarnell: *whispered* The hell?
OE: What? *twitch* I don’t… what?
Me: I’m not glad I ran into you again. Every time I look at you I get angry. Being that I don’t want to be arrested for force feeding you a brick I’d rather not run into you ever again.
(At this point OE shirks away from me and I derive so much pleasure from it. Idle threats go a long way.)
Yarnell: You alright man?
Me: Yarnell lets be honest. The next time I see skeletal ass monkey he’s most likely going to be asking me if I have any change. Then I’ll get angry. Because I saw him and he had the nerve to speak to me. And then comes the brick eating. I do NOT have fond buddy buddy memories of him and would like to go back to forgetting that he exists. And he can go back to rotting away.
(At this point Suzie is staring in disbelief at what is playing out around her.)
I really think that OE actually didn’t remember or know who I am. I was just a familiar face. But at the same time I garnered a delightful amount of pleasure from the incident. (yes I know that picking on a crack head is probably very petty. But dammit! I’ll get my vengeance when and where I can. Don’t you judge me!)
I don’t know what it is about running into assholes from high school. Every time they act as if you were good friends or at least chummy on some level. It’s like they’ve forgotten that they made someone’s life hell for 8 hours a day for 4 years. Maybe they haven’t forgotten. Maybe they’re hoping that their prey from high school doesn’t remember. If so, that’s both insulting and STUPID.
If I had spent 4 years torturing someone and ran into them on the street years later I would NOT go out of my way to speak to them. I would actively avoid them because my sense of self preservation is too strong. And if they saw me I would expect to eat a few bricks. Because I as an ass to them for 4 years. YEARS! The kind of stuff sticks and starts to rot (or it hardens into a nigh indestructible crystalline shell of angst and rage) . It makes for some very bitter memories and potentially volatile reunions. Because they HATE you. They associate your face with that of unhappy times.
Oh your probably thinking, “We’re all human. We all make mistakes. And most times after a few years people forgive and forget”. And I’m thinking that you’re a hopelessly optimistic moron. Sure they might forgive. But they sure don’t forget. (unless blunt trauma to the head or copious amounts of drugs are involved) And what is forgiveness anyway? Some intangible idea that someone is not going to hold your past misdeeds against you? Screw that! You’re going to have to give me some legal documentation stating that you will refrain from serving me lead pipe lunches as a payment for my high school assholery. (I like that. I might have to use that word later.)
Lucky for me I was not the high school bastard. Most people from high school I run into have fond memories of me. Although there are a few people I’ve run into who though weren’t mean to me, they weren’t kind to me. They were pretty apathetic towards my existence and that’s fine. UNTIL they, like most of the others, act as if we were buddies. To that I scream internally, “Mo Fo! You don’t know me! I have 5 good friends from high school and you are not one of them!”
I have a lot of anger muffins (I’ll tell you about it later) I’ve baked for these impromptu reunions and old high school “buddies” I keep discovering for the first time. And for those like OE, I have some lead pipe lunches and delicious brick deserts. Because we were such good friends, I figure it would be a good gesture to treat you to a meal.
Should any of you “buddies” be reading this please note that I will not be signing any documents.
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