God, I was going to miss him.
I know how childish and stupid I would look if I start to cry, but as I watch my best friend pile his belongings into the trunk of his beat up old brown car, I feel my throat constrict and tears threaten to rise in my eyes.
Mumbling to himself, Chris rearranges his bags so that he could make his hefty sports bag filled with clothes fit. He smiles, content, dusts his hands on his well-worn Levi's and then slams the trunk shut.
As he turns to face me with an awkward smile, I see everything.
I see us when we were ten, him being the cowboy and me the Indian, pretending to shoot each other's brains out in my backyard, until my mom came out and yelled at us for promoting violence or something to that effect. That was when we were still young enough to be innocent.
A heavy feeling of nothing crushed me when my older brother Denny died, but Chris had been there. Twelve years old, and yet he was the most worldly person I ever knew even back then. He knew the right words to say and he even knew when not to say them; knew when I just needed a friend to sit there with me and not laugh if I started to cry. If Chris hadn't been there- -if I had been trapped in a home with my uncaring, unfeeling dad and my lost-in-grief mother--I don't think I ever would have made it. I think I would have just stopped being a kid right then and there. But my best friend had been there to kick me back into shape if I ever almost came undone at the seams.
As he looks at me now, nearly an adult at the age of eighteen, I remember how his eyes looked when they met mine when we were still growing up. I still felt the understanding, the "take-me-as-I-am," the too proud to admit it love and secret admiration.
Stupid things come rushing back to me in this instant. The summer of '59, for one, irrelevant fights about our assumingly doomed futures for another, even our first girlfriends--Chris still had that first girl wrapped around his finger; she had been his high school sweetheart and I guess that nothing would be able to change that, whereas I went through a period where I had a new girlfriend every week, tossing the old ones behind me like used tissues.
Chris had sworn that he would never get out, but there he was, about to leave me behind in our narrow-minded town. Castle Rock had chewed him up and spit him out, but he had not been broken, of course not; he was my best friend. And now he was leaving with a smile on his face, a new and different glow of freedom around him.
"What are you looking at?" he asks.
I grin. "It's like sending my youngest off to kindergarten."
For the first time, his laugh does not seem haunted or old. "Oh, shut up, Gordie."
"You should keep in touch, you know," I say, trying to sound indifferent.
"Of course."
We fall silent, both of us with our arms crossed standoffishly, and our eyes averted towards the ground. When I look up, I saw that the early morning, late August sun falls across Chris' face naturally now. The light does not hit him and then melt away coldly as it always seemed to do before. Today, he looks like he belonged out in the light. "You're really leaving," I marvel.
He smirks. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"I did. I told you it would."
"Yeah," he barks out his eerie seen-too-much laugh. "You did. I never believed you. Thanks."
"You're welcome," I say automatically, although I am not too sure of what he was thanking me for.
"I'm not leaving you behind or anything, so stop looking sad like that."
"Like what?" I ask defensively, but I know well what my face must look like right now.
"Like you've lost your best friend." He shrugs. "We're still friends, Gordie. It doesn't end just because I'm going away."
"Yeah, I know." I try to laugh dismissively, but it comes out sounding nervous and afraid. I really don't know if I will manage. I don't want to be alone. I decide that I will save those thoughts until after Chris is gone.
'Until after Chris is gone.' Those are words that I hate and fear. I may sound like a fag, but what Chris and I have put each other through and have survived together just seems like too much to ever have to face again. I know I won't be able to if he isn't there along with me.
I have just lost my best friend, and Chris knows it. We know we will lose contact one way or another, and my childhood friend, my rescuer, my aged innocent, and I, a fearful, lonely boy who has grown up too fast but really am still so desperate need for some lessons in life--we will grow apart.
It seems so wrong.
"Anyway, man, I'd better get going," Chris sighs, sensing I am not too much of a conversationalist this morning. "And if you see any of the guys like Teddy or Vern, maybe, say goodbye to them for me."
"I will," I promise. He climbs into his car, closes his door and rolls down his window. It vaguely occurs to me that this is the last time I will see him do any of these things for a long time. "See you around, Chris."
The glimmer in his eyes is playful and childish, but it still bears a sort of haunted hopelessness. "Not if I see you first," he says with a slight smile.
I don't watch him drive away. I figure I will probably get all mushy or something moronic like that, so I turn around and begin my walk back home. I will start to pack today. Like Chris, I will be starting school in September, but I am going to the University of Portland, unlike him.
* * *
I did pray for Chris. What else could I have done? I prayed he could regain some of his innocence, and that he would be happy again, now that he had finally gotten out, now that he had finally proven everyone wrong, proven that he was a person that was more than just the fixation of small town gossip. I prayed that the tragedy that had always plagued him would not follow him to his new life.
But of course it did.
I know how childish and stupid I would look if I start to cry, but as I watch my best friend pile his belongings into the trunk of his beat up old brown car, I feel my throat constrict and tears threaten to rise in my eyes.
Mumbling to himself, Chris rearranges his bags so that he could make his hefty sports bag filled with clothes fit. He smiles, content, dusts his hands on his well-worn Levi's and then slams the trunk shut.
As he turns to face me with an awkward smile, I see everything.
I see us when we were ten, him being the cowboy and me the Indian, pretending to shoot each other's brains out in my backyard, until my mom came out and yelled at us for promoting violence or something to that effect. That was when we were still young enough to be innocent.
A heavy feeling of nothing crushed me when my older brother Denny died, but Chris had been there. Twelve years old, and yet he was the most worldly person I ever knew even back then. He knew the right words to say and he even knew when not to say them; knew when I just needed a friend to sit there with me and not laugh if I started to cry. If Chris hadn't been there- -if I had been trapped in a home with my uncaring, unfeeling dad and my lost-in-grief mother--I don't think I ever would have made it. I think I would have just stopped being a kid right then and there. But my best friend had been there to kick me back into shape if I ever almost came undone at the seams.
As he looks at me now, nearly an adult at the age of eighteen, I remember how his eyes looked when they met mine when we were still growing up. I still felt the understanding, the "take-me-as-I-am," the too proud to admit it love and secret admiration.
Stupid things come rushing back to me in this instant. The summer of '59, for one, irrelevant fights about our assumingly doomed futures for another, even our first girlfriends--Chris still had that first girl wrapped around his finger; she had been his high school sweetheart and I guess that nothing would be able to change that, whereas I went through a period where I had a new girlfriend every week, tossing the old ones behind me like used tissues.
Chris had sworn that he would never get out, but there he was, about to leave me behind in our narrow-minded town. Castle Rock had chewed him up and spit him out, but he had not been broken, of course not; he was my best friend. And now he was leaving with a smile on his face, a new and different glow of freedom around him.
"What are you looking at?" he asks.
I grin. "It's like sending my youngest off to kindergarten."
For the first time, his laugh does not seem haunted or old. "Oh, shut up, Gordie."
"You should keep in touch, you know," I say, trying to sound indifferent.
"Of course."
We fall silent, both of us with our arms crossed standoffishly, and our eyes averted towards the ground. When I look up, I saw that the early morning, late August sun falls across Chris' face naturally now. The light does not hit him and then melt away coldly as it always seemed to do before. Today, he looks like he belonged out in the light. "You're really leaving," I marvel.
He smirks. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"I did. I told you it would."
"Yeah," he barks out his eerie seen-too-much laugh. "You did. I never believed you. Thanks."
"You're welcome," I say automatically, although I am not too sure of what he was thanking me for.
"I'm not leaving you behind or anything, so stop looking sad like that."
"Like what?" I ask defensively, but I know well what my face must look like right now.
"Like you've lost your best friend." He shrugs. "We're still friends, Gordie. It doesn't end just because I'm going away."
"Yeah, I know." I try to laugh dismissively, but it comes out sounding nervous and afraid. I really don't know if I will manage. I don't want to be alone. I decide that I will save those thoughts until after Chris is gone.
'Until after Chris is gone.' Those are words that I hate and fear. I may sound like a fag, but what Chris and I have put each other through and have survived together just seems like too much to ever have to face again. I know I won't be able to if he isn't there along with me.
I have just lost my best friend, and Chris knows it. We know we will lose contact one way or another, and my childhood friend, my rescuer, my aged innocent, and I, a fearful, lonely boy who has grown up too fast but really am still so desperate need for some lessons in life--we will grow apart.
It seems so wrong.
"Anyway, man, I'd better get going," Chris sighs, sensing I am not too much of a conversationalist this morning. "And if you see any of the guys like Teddy or Vern, maybe, say goodbye to them for me."
"I will," I promise. He climbs into his car, closes his door and rolls down his window. It vaguely occurs to me that this is the last time I will see him do any of these things for a long time. "See you around, Chris."
The glimmer in his eyes is playful and childish, but it still bears a sort of haunted hopelessness. "Not if I see you first," he says with a slight smile.
I don't watch him drive away. I figure I will probably get all mushy or something moronic like that, so I turn around and begin my walk back home. I will start to pack today. Like Chris, I will be starting school in September, but I am going to the University of Portland, unlike him.
* * *
I did pray for Chris. What else could I have done? I prayed he could regain some of his innocence, and that he would be happy again, now that he had finally gotten out, now that he had finally proven everyone wrong, proven that he was a person that was more than just the fixation of small town gossip. I prayed that the tragedy that had always plagued him would not follow him to his new life.
But of course it did.