Ten Years Gone

Memories. I hate memeories. For the longest time, that's all I had. Just memories. Memories of a better time. Of her. Everyone has that one story. That one person that changed their life. She was mine. This is my story.

It starts in ninth grade Science class. I had Mr. Galiano. I hated that guy. I'm sure the feeling was mutual; he didn't like anybody. Some people become teachers to educate and inspire. Not Galiano. He became a teacher so he could yell at people all day and get paid for it. He never bothered to learn anyone's name; he just called everyone "freshman" in that condescending, excessively monotone voice of his. It was equal parts Ben Stein and Darth Vader.

Hello, freshman.

Where's your homework, freshman?

You underestimate the power of the Dark Side, freshman.

He'd get right up in your face and all you could see was this forest of tree-trunk-like nose hairs and horrible, nasty teeth that would make a dentist wake up in cold sweats.

There was only one thing that made sitting through that class tolerable. The girl that sat behind me. I didn't even know her name; it was the only class we had together and Galiano always called her "freshman." She knew my name though, probably because the only time Galiano would break his rule and say your name was if he was yelling at you. Let's just say everybody knew my name.

She always asked me how to do the lab assignments, and I never had a clue. I'm more of an English major guy. So I'd turn to my lab partner, Wah-Kee, then go back and tell her whatever he just said. Good old Wah-Kee. I found out much later that she was on the honor roll and probably didn't need help anyway. Maybe she was just wanted to talk to me. Or not.

She was just nice. To everybody; even people undeserving and unappreciative of such kindness. I actually looked forward to that class just so I could talk to her. It also didn't hurt that she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. There was a whole world in her eyes; you could get lost in there. And her hair; she had those hangy-down things framing her face. I don't know what they're called, but I love those things.

The class trip that year was to Williamsburg, VA. I went there with my family when I was younger, and decided to go again. This time around, there was no Winnebago, and anyone that wanted to go had to pay $300. I raised the money selling candy. It wasn't easy. The school gave us Kit Kats and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to sell. I figured since everyone was selling the same thing, if I brought in a box of Snickers, I'd have the edge. Give people an extra choice. Apparently, that was illegal. I was forced to stop immediately and was told everyone must sell the same thing. Sounds a bit like Communism to me, but rules are rules.

Maybe a month or so before the trip, Ms. Qualey held a meeting for all the students going. The girl from science class was there. All this time I didn't even know she was going. She had bought some of my candy bars, and I never saw her selling any herself, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her there. Ms. Qualey asked if everyone had a roomate, and neither of us raised our hands. I remember her looking over at me. Of course, co-ed hotel rooms were out of the question, but knowing that she was going to be there put a smile on my face.

The day of the trip finally came. May 25th. I'd just turned fifteen. About forty of us ended up going. We had to be at the school at five in the morning, which meant waking up around four. My dad dropped me off in the school parking lot, I put my bags away, and got the bus. I had never been so exhausted in my life. I found a seat next to Jason Crevison. Crevison's father was teacher at the junior high; I had him for Graphic Arts. The two of them are like shaved Yetis. They're huge. Very cool people, but still...huge. He gave me the window seat, which was probably a bad idea since now I was wedged between the wall and this massive kid, but I didn't really care at that point. All I wanted was to sleep. Never happened. No sooner had I closed my eyes, I heard someone say, "Hey, wake up!" It was her, sitting in front of me, smiling. If it'd been anyone else I would've punched them in neck. Instead, I sat up and we started talking. It was a little weird trying to carry on a conversation with her without the benefit of knowing her name, but after all these months I wasn't about to say, "By the way, who the hell are you?"

At first we talked about a video we saw in science class about a con-artist guy that said he could bend spoons with his mind and faith healers that smack little old ladies to expel their inner demons. I demonstrated the process for her, saying "Satan be gone!" Then, "BAM!" I'd take my palm to Crevison's forehead. I'm lucky the kid didn't break me in half. She loved it, though, even after about eight hours.

Satan be gone. BAM! You've been healed, praise Je-hee-zus!

I was saying "BAM!" way before that Emeril guy.

By the time the bus pulled into the Quality Suites hotel we'd talked pretty much nonstop for twelve hours. Twelve hours, I couldn't believe it. It went by so fast. We just went back and forth, going on about different topics. I even finally got her name, albeit through hearing someone else speak to her. All the while I couldn't help thinking, "What's a girl like this doing hanging around with a loser like me?" It seems someone else was thinking the same thing.

Rich Bagan. The Moriarty to my Holmes. The Joker to my Batman. The Newman to my Seinfeld. The man who will forever be known as Dick had his own grisly plans for her. Plans that most likely involved whipped cream and gelatin. The fact that she had spent the entire ride down talking to me did not sit well with him, and he was ready to do all within his power to stop it.

Hey, show her your chest.

Damn. See, I've got a bone sticking out of my chest, slightly resembling the creature bursting out of John Hurt scene from Alien. My sternum, the reason I could never have a Slip and Slide when I was a kid. It serves no purpose, other than maybe conveniently fitting in the crevice between a woman's breasts. Hell, maybe that's what it's for, but I had yet to find a girl that wasn't freaked out by the damn thing. It was the sole reason for my role as an outcast of society. It was a constant reminder that no matter how much I tried to fit in, no matter how many people said they like me, they know I'd always just be a freak. Just a freak. I wish I could say that didn't hurt, but it ate away at me every day of my life. Funny thing is, I never even noticed it until I was in seventh grade. That's the first time we had to get changed for gym. The other guys were like, "Ahh! What's that thing?" At the same time I was thinking, "Hey, where's your lump?" What the hell did I know; I thought everybody had one.

There I was. Trapped. Damn. She was going to find out. I knew if she saw that I was just a freak, she'd never want to see me again. I wouldn't let that happen. I wouldn't let Dick win.

No.

C'mon, show her.

Show me what? What are you guys talking about?

Before I could protest, Dick reached over and pulled my shirt up, revealing my hideous deformity for all to see. She didn't say anything for a few seconds, but seemed relatively unfazed. I sat back in my seat and she picked up the conversation from where we left off before Dick interrupted. She didn't care. Wow. Didn't see that coming. I could almost see Dick twirling an imaginary mustache, muttering, "Curses! Foiled again!"

I never told her how I felt about her. I was too afraid. I knew she liked me a little, but I also knew she didn't feel the way I did. She couldn't. I looked like a failed genetics experiment. It's not easy going through life as a scrawny sack of bones that doesn't look like it's put together quite right. I have no ass. It hurts when I sit. Being skinny sucks. Every time I hear people complaining about wanting to be thinner, all I can think of is how I have to grab a hold of something every time a gust of wind blows by, for fear of being swept away to Munchkin City. Something to think about before you go buying all that GNC vitamin-enriched fat-free health food crap. I tried that Weight-Gainer stuff. What a load of garbage that stuff is! It's just chocolate milk, for Christ's sake, and it doesn't even mix right; it just lumps together at the bottom of the glass. Then again, maybe I just couldn't stir it hard enough with my tiny, useless arms.

I don't think petty stuff like that really mattered to her. But I felt that she deserved better than me. I didn't know what to do. She was unlike anyone I'd ever known. This was far beyond a schoolyard crush. I loved this girl.

I realized this when we were in Jamestown. It's a lot like Plimoth Plantation we have in New England, except for all the southern accents. We split apart from the rest of the group and went to look at the horses with a few of her friends. After a while I looked up and noticed that her friends had left. I don't know where they went; to the bathroom or something. It doesn't matter, they were gone. It was just us. I looked at her as she watched the horses. There was something about that moment as she stood there with the sunlight on her face; she was like some majestic beauty you always hear about in books and movies, but could never exist in real life. Yet there she was. She looked at me and I looked into her eyes. Those eyes held so many stories. I wanted to know them all. I could have stayed there forever. The perfect moment. Neither one of us spoke, we just looked at each other. That's all. It was at this moment that I realized how deeply I felt about her, but I didn’t say anything. I wish I had.

One incident that will always stick out in my mind is the flume ride at Busch Gardens. I was waiting in line with three other guys, Phil, Olsen and, you guessed it, Dick. She was ahead of us with her girlfriends, Cindy, Andrea, and some chick I didn't know. She turned around and asked me if I wanted to ride with her. I almost went into cardiac arrest right then and there. I collected my nerves and said, "Sure," as I looked over at Dick and gave him the most evil grin I could muster. I switched places with Cindy. Now you might think that riding the flume with the most perfect girl you ever met would be a good thing, what with all the screaming and wetness, but that just wasn't the case this time.

While we were waiting in line, Wayne decided he wanted to ride with us, too. Wayne. This kid epitomized nerddom to such a terrifying degree that...let me put it this way: he spoke fluent Klingon. Klingon! It's not even a real language!

The thing that kills me is that I still don't even know where he came from. He wasn't in line with us; it's like he just sort of...materialized. The flume log seats four single-file. Ours managed to squeeze in five: the three girls in front and me and Captain Kirk in back. She sat in front of me, separated by a bar that divided the front and back portions of the log. Wayne was behind me. As the log clicked its way up the incline, I sat there baffled as to why Wayne was on my ride stealing my thunder. Again, where did he come from? We were standing in line for forty-five minutes and he was nowhere to be seen. I didn't have much time to think about it, because a few seconds later we went down that steep hill, and I slid forward into the bar (which caused severe man-pain), and my head flew back and landed between Wayne's legs. Somehow when I started I didn't think this ride would end up with my head nestled in Wayne's crotch. I washed my hair about fifteen times that night.

All my insecurities and embarrassing mishaps aside, the major thing I had going for me was that the entire time we were there, from the bus to Jameston to Virginia Beach to the Air and Space Center to Busch Gardens, I never left her side. Well, almost never. Our group of about twelve people kept getting smaller and smaller as kids broke off to go on different rides. She wanted to go on the roller coasters. Screw that. I had this thing about roller coasters. They scared the hell out of me. Now I go on them all the time, mostly because I got tired of seeing little five year old girls do something I was afraid to do. If I had a time machine, I'd go back and beat the crap out of me until I agreed to go on a roller coaster with her. But I don't, so she went off to go on the big coasters the park is famous for, and I, like a giant lump of concentrated idiot, stayed firmly on the ground and just sort of...wandered. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but before I knew it, I was alone and lost. I walked around for hours, trying to find somebody --anybody-- I recognized. All this time she was in one of those booths making a video with Cindy and Phil. They did the Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right to Party" under the name the Hammels. She named her group after me. That's so cute I could vomit. Of course, at the time I was completely oblivious to all of this, because I was lost in a giant amusement park. Ever been lost in a giant amusement park? It can be very traumatizing.

That night, after she had us watch the video several times, I headed back to my room and went to bed. Crevison was my roommate. He stayed up watching Platoon on TV. I was half asleep, but I kept waking up because the guys on TV were shouting "Ammo! Ammo!" but I was hearing "Hammel! Hammel!" I guess I fell asleep when that scene was over. And some time after that, the phone rang. Crevison answered. It was her. She asked for me, but rather than wake me up, he told her I was asleep. Gee, think it might have been an important call, Sasquatch?! I didn't find out until she told me at breakfast. But she didn't say what the call about. What could she possibly have called me for in the middle of the night, I wonder?

Whenever the group went out to eat, we'd always sit together, and if I didn't, she called me over to sit with her. Sometimes I'd sit somewhere else just to see if she'd call me over, and every time, without fail, she would. Everywhere I went, "C'mon, Hammel!" She'd grab my hand and take me with her. I don't think there's any greater feeling in the world than that feeling you get when a girl calls for you. But she never called me John. It was always Hammel. Did that mean she wasn't interested? I mean, you call your buddy by his last name, but I've never heard a girl say, "This is my boyfriend, Smitty." It just doesn't happen. That must have been what I was thinking of when I made The Mistake.

On the bus ride home, Dick kind of put me on the spot. Again. His earlier plans to get her away from me didn't work. This time he conjured up something far worse. I was sitting next to her now. I don't know how I managed that. Before the last rest stop I was sitting next to this kid who asked to borrow my Gameboy, and then I watched in horror as his festering, pus-oozing thumb mashed down on the B button for half an hour. But there I was. Sitting right next to her. Dick leaned over and asked me if we were going out.

Trapped. Again. What do I say? There was a number of things I could have done to get out of that situation. I could have just ignored him. I could have even asked her then, "Hey, are we going out?" I didn't really know. We were in a hot tub together, but there were other people in it too, so does that count? We were pretty much inseparable, and I mean, the Hammels? C'mon. But I couldn't help thinking it was all just a fluke, and that I didn't belong with her and it was only a matter of time before it fixed itself. I could have done lots of things but instead I blurted out "We're just friends."

We're just friends? We're just friends?!! Argh!! I never thought I'd live to see myself use the "we're just friends" line. What right do I have using that line? We're just friends, what the hell is wrong me? I should have let her answer. If she said no, she said no. None of the blame would lie with me, as it does so heavily now. I made the wrong move and Dick won. Dick's a jerk.

Regardless, the rest of that year we continued to talk in science class pretty much every day. A few days after we got back, she even wrote me note.

Hammel,
Did you get your pictures developed yet?
Danielle.

Tomorrow: The story concludes in Loss

Posted in: depressing,school