Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson owns; I'm just borrowing the characters to express my teenage angst.
MARK
It was April. I sat at my desk in my room, head in hands, doing nothing. Not nothing: I was crying. I was sitting at my desk crying without tears. There had been no tears lately. I held my face in my hand and dug little fists into my hair.
It was wrong, wrong, everything I was wrong! I was a failure. I was an inexcusable, monumental failure. I was nothing but a dead branch on the family tree, a burning mark of shame. I was a shmuck.
I was also hungry and sore, but that was beside the point. My window stood open, letting in the cool air, breezes keeping my room fresh and clean. I didn't care. All I felt was misery. Usually in these situations I felt the need to leave, to go far, far away from here, but that night all I felt was pain and churning and sickness. I wanted to curl up in bed and sleep forever.
That is precisely the reason I sat awake at my desk, trying to write something. I wanted to curl up, warm and safe under the covers of my bed, but I did not want to throw my life away.
"Hey, Mark." I turned. There was Roger, climbing in through my window. He slid down and sat on the floor, completely ignorant of the fact that my heart was racing just to look at him, partially with terror. My father was angry enough already. If he caught Roger here, he would be apoplectic.
"What are you doing here?" I hissed. "My dad'll kill you!"
Roger ignored me completely, or perhaps it was his way of answering. "I can't take it anymore," he said. "How do you manage? I can't do it." He shook his head.
I sighed. Roger wasn't going anywhere. It was strange: two minutes ago I was sitting alone feeling sorry for myself, thinking how much better I would feel if my friends were around, now my best friend was here and all I could think of was making him leave. "Manage what?" I asked.
Roger raised his eyes. His hair had grown out lately, and he was peeking at me through scraggly fringe. "Everyone expecting things. Giving a crap about you. A month ago, no one cared that I wasn't applying to college."
"So?"
"So now they do," Roger said, as though I should have known. "Mark--I'm not made for college. People like you go to college, not me. School isn't my scene. And now everyone keeps talking about it, saying what schools I might like, my parents are bragging to their friends about me."
I saw no difficulty. Roger's family was proud of him, so what was he doing in my room, sulking? "What happened, anyway?" I asked. "They never used to care."
"I know," he grumbled. "It's the stupid SAT. I had to go and get a fifteen-forty. What, I'm sure that pales in comparison to yours--"
"Pales?" I interrupted. "Pales?" Roger was looking at me, confused, his mouth hanging open as I rose. I didn't know what I was doing as I grabbed a pillow off my bed and began beating Roger with it. "Fuck you! FUCK YOU! Get out! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Mark, stop it!" Roger tore the pillow out of my hands.
I didn't care. I hit him with my fists, open palms, arms, just attacking Roger, tearing into him. For a while, he allowed this. When I slapped him full across the face, though, Roger caught my wrist and said, "That's enough, Mark."
"It's not enough!" I was crying, snot and tears smearing my face. "It's not enough!" Roger pulled me against him and held me. He whispered soothing noises in my ear and petted my hair. "I hate you," I sobbed into his shoulder. "I hate you, I hate you. Get off me!" I tore away from him. Tears clung to my glasses, obscuring my vision, but I saw the hurt look on Roger's face. "Don't you dare touch me! I hate you? Do you hear me? I hate you!" I shouted as loudly as I could, tearing my throat to destroy Roger.
And I did. Roger turned around and left my room without another word. I saw his lips move before he turned and I know he wanted to say that he was sorry, but he didn't and that was just as well. I wonder if I could have forgiven him.
Roger had no way of knowing how horrible that night had been for me. He had no way of knowing that my father, upon seeing my score, sat me down and shouted until I could not stop crying. And then he shouted some more. Don't think you're getting out of this one-- I won't fall for that so you can just stop it right now. Stop it, Marcus. Stop crying. Stop fucking crying!
Eli--!
No! Not this time. You hear that, Marcus? We are going to have this talk, so you may as well cut the crying right now and tell me what the hell I'm looking at.
M-my S-SAt-t-t-T score. Smack.
You think this is some kind of game, Marcus? You think you've got your whole damn life to run around with your friends-- dammit, Marcus, you stop crying now or so help me! Now I don't think we're being unreasonable here. But how could you do this to me, Marcus? Huh? I've always tried to do what's best for you, but now-- now, when you know what's going on with your sister, all you had to do was your best, Marcus. Is this your best? Well? Is it?
I… I tried…
That's it. Get up. GET UP, Marcus.
200 math.
200 verbal.
"I don't know what happened," I told Collins the following day. We were in the library, shelving books. Roger was at the desk. He and I had not spoken all day. "I just… couldn't do it."
"Relax, man," Collins told me. "That's totally normal."
No one had said any such thing about my score. It had been pathetic, shameful, unacceptable. My response to the test had been childish, foolish, weak. It had not been all right. "But I have a 400! I can't go anywhere on that!"
Collins shrugged. "You'll retake the test. It's not the end of the world, Mark. You just got scared. People get scared, you know. Hey… your dad ground you?"
I shook my head. "No. Actually he gave me a book this morning." In my family, that was huge. A person was given nothing without reason. We did not believe in just-because gifts. At birthdays or holidays, for bringing home straight-A report cards, gifts were logical. For no reason… "He feels bad, I guess," I said.
"For shouting at you?"
"Um… no. For spanking me."
"Jesus!"
I was allowed over to Collins' house that Saturday. It was like no place else I had ever been. In my parents' home and Roger's, everything had its place. Everything was tidy, kept tidy, no question. My parents' home was a quiet place with too many words left unsaid to take a deep enough breath. No one mentioned my pregnant sister, who continued as though nothing had happened. Would she finish the school year? Graduate? Have the baby? I didn't know.
Roger might play music while his parents were out, but when they were home, the same silence descended. There were no raucous noises, except during family gatherings, and even then it was only at the 'party' times. Even then you might hear someone crying, might hear Mr. Davis shouting.
Officially, I had been banned from the Davis house in the eighth grade, not by my parents but by Mr. Davis. It was the night my grandfather died. Roger had put me on his bed and pulled off my shoes and socks before lying down next to me. I wanted to curl against him, but I didn't. Roger hugged me. He petted me and listened to what I needed to say. And when I was through, when I was nearly asleep, Mr. Davis came in.
It was years ago, before I saw Roger burn himself, when I thought he was healthy.
"Stay the hell away from my son, faggot!" It was the first time anyone called me that, and it was well before I even considered questioning my sexuality. The name hurt. It hurt me more than seeing Roger jerked around like a rag doll, and I have never forgiven myself.
Collins' place wasn't like that. The first thing his dad said was, "So you're Mark!" and he shook my hand. "I've heard a lot about you from Tom. It's nice to finally meet you." He was saying things a person ought to say, things usually rote that sounded so sincere from him.
Collins pulled me into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" he asked. "I'm starved." He and Roger had the same insane metabolism. I told him so, and he grinned at me. "Hey, I'm six-one and I'm still growing." He crushed a cookie into a glass of milk.
"My appetite just died."
Collins stuck out his tongue at me.
We went to his bedroom to hang out, and Collins and his dad would just shout to one another throughout the house: "Thomas, have you seen the matches?"
Collins paused, then called back, "Beatles tin on the third shelf!" Neither sounded annoyed or frustrated. It was incredible. My father would have been hysterical because he needed the matches and couldn't find them. Roger's would have blamed someone. Collins' dad didn't care. He just wanted information. And they shouted without sounding furious with one another.
I was only meant to stay until about eight-thirty, but around seven it got dark and the rain began to pour. Collins and I were still in his room, talking, not doing much. I was sitting cross-legged on his bed, watching the darkness and lightning out the window. "You're thinking about Roger, aren't you?" Collins asked.
I nodded. I had been. "Roger's my best friend. I mean… he was my only friend until you moved here. I just feel alone without him."
"I applied to college," Collins blurted.
I squinted. "What?" It was not that I didn't understand, but it seemed so irrelevant.
"I'm sorry. I just think you should know that. When I moved here, I was unhappy and alone, and I applied to a bunch of colleges just to get out."
Later it would occur to me to wonder why I hadn't been a good enough friend, why he needed to escape me and Roger, even though I knew. Collins wanted to escape Scarsdale, not us. "But… you have me and Roger now… so you can stay, right?"
"Mark, if they accept me…"
I was already near tears when we heard a high-pitched plea from downstairs: "Please, I need to talk to Thomas…" Then there was a pounding sound of footsteps up the stairs, in the corridor, and then nothing, a pause. Collins' visitor had stopped outside his bedroom door. He (or she) was crying. Collins and I glanced at one another. I certainly wasn't about to open that door.
When no knock or cry came after nearly one full minute, Collins stood and opened the door.
"Holy shit."
It was Roger-- Roger, standing in the doorway wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt on a cold night, soaking wet and trembling violently. His head was bleeding. So was one of his arms. He was crying horribly, spit collecting in his mouth and pouring out over his chin, tears streaking across his cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he told the floor, staunchly refusing to look at us. "I'm sorry."
TO BE CONTINUED!
Muhaha!
Please review? I would love to hear what you think.
