4
Looking back now, what surprises me the most is how little of what happened in Midtown High remains intact in the prism of my memories, and I don't think it's entirely my fault either. There's a limit to what I can do to remember things exactly like they happened before the inevitable flow of time comes crashing down and condenses the passing of months into days and hours and conflates my experiences across that period into crystallized moments that shine brighter than the other, let's say, more peripheral things. So much of what has happened is lost simply because as my teenage years get further down the road, the verdant green vistas of those days get pushed behind the peak of my other recent adventures. Yet some things still feel like they haven't changed at all. Some things stick out even to this day because of how significantly they changed my life and the lives of the people around me. And perhaps, there wasn't a more seminal moment of my brief time at Midtown High than that rainy day in mid-April where the most unthinkable piece of news came true. My only wish was that it wasn't one marred in horrifying darkness.
I am, of course, talking about the night Gwen Stacy died. Or as I like to call it, the night things changed forever.
You know, I've quite regularly thought about the awful circumstances surrounding that particular day for obvious reasons and what it came to represent among us 'Midtowners' It's one of those things that you can't forget no matter how hard you try and that's been the case not only for me but also other people like me who were there when it happened and who I've managed to talk to since then. Everyone had their own way of reacting to it all and some more than others went through different stages of denial. There was the initial disbelief by most in the beginning, which was swiftly followed by the horror and devastation of the next few hours and days as it started sinking in what had just transpired. But for me, the crazy thing that has always stood out is how clearly each of us remembers where we were exactly and what we were doing when the news came to us that afternoon. I remember where I was as well - backstage, preparing for Act Three of Coriolanus for a contingent of parent audiences that had gathered in the auditorium along with the rest of the school on a lazy afternoon.
It was supposed to be our final play of the school year before the exams kicked in and we had decided, along with the teachers, to open up the production to the adults. I was in the middle of changing my costume in the small strip of walking space behind the stage curtains where they kept all the camera stands and broken lighting fixtures and large swaths of red curtain fabric lying in heaps on the floor while we were trying our best to squeeze into our long flowing Roman styled togas when all our phones started lighting up. I had this habit of keeping mine away from me for the duration of the play because I wanted to appear professional and diligent. So, I was largely unaware of what was going on even as everyone around was already whispering and chatting and getting hold of the first trickles of information. I remember being so focused on my part, on my lines, on my performance, that I didn't even dare think that something more important than what I was directing my energy towards could be happening elsewhere.
But then, Misses Henley, the counselor, barged in through the auditorium doors spilling the yellow light from the outer corridor into the pitch blackness of the hall. The back-row chatter of the seated crowd grew quiet as she slid down the upper levels – tripping over someone's dangling feet in the process – before making her way up to us performers, hiding in the curtain folds. There was a brief discussion between her and the theater coordinator, Mister Tracy, who stood like a sentinel on the stage side overlooking our goings-on. It was dark but a faint silhouette was still burning against their bodies, and we all, stagehands included, rapturously watched a solemn conversation take place very quickly under the cover of their hands, possibly to keep everything hush-hush and beyond our hearing range. But even the most clueless of us had started to gain an understanding of what was going on at that point. Clearly, something had happened. Something terrible by the measure of their voice, and it was the repeated mentioning of that name - Gwen's name. It kept cropping up so many times in their talk that made me think if it was concerning one of those pointless school affairs: like maybe they had uncovered some kind of misdemeanor, or a minor scandal, or something along those lines. Maybe they had found her cheating in one of those quizzes or a round of MCQ, and maybe that's why they were talking about her in such urgent secretive tones.
Oh, it was much worse. Much, much worse.
Miss Henley broke away from the coordinator - almost like she'd been yanked by a rope - and rushed to the center of the stage with exalted and breathless steps, right into the firing line of the audience members. We heard the distant echo of breaker switches being pushed to life as the lights all over the hall started turning on one by one and our eyes recoiled from the blinding intensity that suddenly surrounded us. There wasn't a chance to settle down before she proceeded to deliver one of the most spine-chilling announcements over the stage microphone that I'd ever heard in my life and we were just shell-shocked and confused for a brief unedifying moment.
It was like the whole life and electricity had been sucked out of the room in one blow and we didn't know what to do and when the seconds stretched away towards what could only be described as breaking point, an array of gasps and terrified mumbles and raised voices filled the hall. Everyone immediately started filing out of the place, us included, some in helter-skelter fashion, some others not. There was not a shred of calmness to be seen as we abandoned Coriolanus to his own devices and the play midway, because it was suddenly remote to our attention. Because all of a sudden we were filled with the palpable dread of what awaited us outside the auditorium doors.
There was a TV in the coffee shop outside the school with the frosted glass panes where everyone had gathered that day, and when I mean everyone, I mean everyone including some of the janitorial staff themselves. We were all really talkative inside; it felt like our only way of coping with was going on. None of us were able to contain that brittle atmosphere or the vapid looks that hung over our thoughts and deep in our eyes, otherwise. Even Harry gave me a bone-crushing hug the moment I walked in, asking, "Is it really true what they're saying? Please tell me it isn't" and he just set me down immediately and led me to the back of the shop already packed with people - the door chime clinking behind us as someone else entered the shop - and pointed at the screen over the counter. I reacted with a sharp intake of breath because it was the only way of processing what I saw.
The ongoing broadcast was a low-resolution, dainty, handheld video of the George Washington Bridge from the street level, probably footage captured by an innocent bystander or on some reporter's phone. It was hard to make sense of what was going on with the deliberate blurring by the news channel but we tried focusing beyond it until a message popped up in the bottom portion of the screen, laced in flashing colors – Beware, disturbing images may follow!
A resounding gasp echoed around the entire shop as the camera zoomed in towards the action at nine-tenths the speed of sound and we all saw what we'd been expecting to see but hadn't been prepared for anyway.
The cascading body of a helpless girl was tumbling down the winds, down the length of the massive arches holding the Washington Bridge in place, and following her down that path, in a same-ish trajectory, was a red and blue blur.
I remember burying my head in Harry's shoulder immediately because I couldn't bear to watch, and yet, I couldn't bear not to because everyone else was. I just heard Harry whisper into my ears with a shaky encumbrance that I couldn't pin down – "I'll call my dad to pick us up" and I just gave a silent nod. The inevitable moment we all knew was coming, happened, quite surprisingly, in a flash, and I'm ashamed to admit, I was glad. And then I was ashamed that I was glad. The silk line of webbing, glistening under the waning light from the sun attached to the girl's body in less than a second, snapping her back in half, just as she was about to hit the water of the Hudson River. And even from a distance, even with the TV screen separating us, at that last moment of impact I'd felt like I'd heard the squelch of her spine giving in to the building pressure. Of her life being snuffed out just like that.
Everyone inside the shop went quiet, dead quiet, inside of a mausoleum quiet. There was suddenly a collective inability in all of us to muster a comprehensible thought to what we'd just witnessed except that it had all been too surreal to be true. In fact, the whole day had been like that. But it was very true - no matter how much we wished the opposite. Because only later that night, a doctor in Manhattan would pronounce that girl dead, and we would all hear about it. Just like we'd heard the definitive crunch of her broken body fill the vacuum of our silence.
I just buried my head in Harry's shoulder and let the tears roll down my cheek.