"FOURTEEN" PART FIVE: MERI (3rd section)

MERI
(3rd section)

     Wednesday. As years would pass, Craig had a superstitious notion that if anything bad were to happen, it would always happen on a Wednesday. Bad news, difficult exams, angry parents, or some sort of humiliation always seemed to occur on Wednesdays and in Craig’s mind, this most unusual karma could be traced back to the very Wednesday in which he and Meri parted ways.

     It was a brisk, sun-drenched October day. The type that is custom made for Midwestern college campuses. It was a day Craig would normally fawn over but the day’s visual contrast with Meri’s sudden change in mood halted him. It began, somewhat innocently enough, with Craig waving to Meri from across the hall, yet Meri didn’t return the gesture. On the one hand, it seemed odd to Craig that she would not wave back. On the other, she could have easily been distracted by that gaggle of girls she hung around with. And she was laughing at something Tanya Yang said, wasn’t she?

     The next event to occur was one that could not be ignored.  After finally catching up to her between classes, Craig attempted to clasp Meri’s hand for a moment, to which she denied. And after asking her to have lunch, Meri refused, explaining that she had, “things to do.” Meri then promptly shut her locker and quickly exited towards her next class. Craig was disoriented. It was as if the world began to rotate in the opposite direction. For what reason could Meri have to not want to see him? It was a question that stalked Craig throughout his school day and was slightly addressed when Meri, greeting him after lunch period in the hallway, asked him tentatively,          “Can we talk after school?”

     “Sure. What is it?”

     “I just can’t…Not now, Craig. I can’t do this now. Please…after school.”

     As Craig nodded affirmatively, Meri walked away with a previously unseen sadness and it made Craig’s heart race with malaise coated curiosity.

     School could not end soon enough for Craig Hughes on this Wednesday. Once it did, he quickly gathered his things, stuffed them into his locker and raced to find Meri. After meeting at her locker, the two held hands (this calmed Craig a little) as they walked to the very spot in which they kissed just a day before. They sat behind the bushes and Craig placed his left arm around Meri again, yet Meri did not rest her head on his shoulder. Meri stared at the dirt that rested by her shoestrings. Craig did not speak. He had no words to fill the silence and he questioned to himself what could he say while not knowing exactly what Meri wanted to talk to him about. He decided to just let her speak when she was ready but the anticipation laid like the heaviest of weights on his heart.

After what seemed to be an eternity, Meri spoke. “Craig, I know this is going to be really strange and I never…never meant to hurt you.”

     Hurt me? What’s happening?

     “I don’t even want you to think that I never liked you. I did.”

     “Did”?

     “It’s just that…I can’t do this, Craig. I don’t want to hurt you but I can’t do this.”

     Oh no. Meri, please don’t…

      “Craig, I just can’t be your girlfriend.”

     Oh shit. Oh no, did I say that out loud?

     Suddenly, Meri rose to her feet and ran from the courtyard in tears. Craig, bewildered, rose after a few moments, and gave chase. He caught up to her by the school parking lot as she was making her way towards the college campus.

     “Meri,” Craig began, as he tried valiantly to keep up with her rapid pace. “I didn’t mean anything when I said that. I was surprised. I didn’t mean anything. Can we just talk about this?” Meri, wanting to excise herself from this moment kept on walking.“Did I do something wrong?” Craig feverishly asked. “Should we not have kissed yesterday? Just tell me what I did and I won’t do it again, I promise. Please, can we talk? Can we please stop for a minute and talk? Please, Meri. I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

     Continued silence.

     “Meri, can’t you tell me why you can’t be my girlfriend? Is it your friends? Is it me? What did I do, Meri? Please tell me why?”

     After more silent minutes during their walk, Meri slowed to a halt by some college dormitories and finally, turned to face Craig. The sight of Meri Skinner, face flushed with tears, was not a vision Craig ever expected to see. He had no idea of the future he and Meri would have but he never saw this image in it. And now, it looked as if there was no future to be had. All Craig wanted to do was reach out and hold Meri but common sense told him to stay back.

    “Please Meri. Why?”

    “Craig,” she began swallowing tears, “This has absolutely nothing to do with you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t hurt me. My friends aren’t involved either. Being your girlfriend is something I just can’t be and it has nothing to do with you.”

     For the second time, Craig faced rejection while being told not to take it personally. The ridiculous notion of this predicament confounded and slightly angered him. Yet, Craig was a fair person and he was deeply intrigued at what Meri was about to tell him. But, if Craig was unprepared to witness Meri in such an emotional state, he was even less prepared to hear, digest and truly understand her reasons.

     Meri Skinner led a more tumultuous family life than Craig imagined. Her father, Robert Patrick Skinner, a Linguistics professor, was a recovering alcoholic. His sobriety had been in effect during the previous year and for five years prior to that, he had been lost in an alcoholic haze. He was not a raving drunk or one who was cruel to his family. Robert Patrick Skinner was a devoted husband and father who, under normal circumstances, was not a particularly emotional man and his drinking increased his distance. When Meri’s father drank, he simply wasn’t there. His silence took its’ toll on Meri’s mother, Anna.

     Anna Lapham-Skinner, was a freshman English professor, known around the University Of Chicago campus as one who made the transition from high school to college English challenging yet accessible. After spending the early years in the lives of her children at home, Anna returned to the collegiate life with a vengeance and published two books, (The Hollow Years: A Critique of World War One Poetry and its’ sequel Freeing The Tigers: A Critique of World War Two Poetry) in the process. As a professor, she was demanding yet generous even once writing on a student’s essay exam, “While your conclusions are cloudy and not quite substantiated, it is obvious to me that you are deeply familiar with the material. ‘B’.”  She drowned herself in lyrical waters of language and literature during the day effortlessly yet the night harbored demons she struggled to anchor. Placing the key into the door of her home was an almost herculean task as she mathematically ran through the levels of distance her husband would place himself from her due to the drinking. Not to even mention having to face the task of continuing to raise Meri and her younger brother, Simon seemingly alone. Anna Lapham-Skinner’s personal candle was being burnt rapidly at both ends, which caused her own emotional state to fracture.

     The delicacy of the children’s emotional state was also an issue. While Meri didn’t seem to be affected herself, there was the matter of Simon. Typically an excitable little boy, Robert and Anna’s stress levels did indeed transfer themselves. Simon’s stress presented itself during outbursts at school from either throwing chairs, attacking other students, frustrated screaming fits and even one morning in which he ran away from his classroom during a recess period. As Simon got older, he began to also exhibit some of the introverted qualities of his father, which terrified Anna, who was determined to not raise an emotionally closed son.

     During one particularly sleepless night the previous year, Meri overheard a hushed discussion between her parents. Anna had finally taken all she could and demanded Robert seek professional help or face the consequences that she would leave him and take the children with her to her parents in Michigan. Robert sorrowfully agreed and soon entered himself into an Alcoholics Anonymous program. The conversation petrified Meri. Due to her well-read nature, Meri had been aware of the reality of human frailties, yet she never expected to witness it within her own parents. What she always knew as the stability of “Mom and Dad,” suddenly became the fragile state of two sad professors, clawing onto themselves and their family. Meri crept back to her bedroom and spent the rest of her night laying awake, determined that whatever worries her parents were to have, she would do everything to not be one of them. Since that night, Meri obsessively tried to anticipate every request and obstacle, conquering them all with the hopes that she will be one less thing her parents would have to concern themselves with, therefore doing her part to keep the family together. Already a fine student, Meri became an excellent one. Already a responsible child at home, she became tirelessly productive with household chores. Everything was going as well as it possibly could when an obstacle she never expected crossed its path into her life: Craig Hughes. 

    When Meri accosted Craig on that first day of school, her intentions were honorable. In fact, she was the one of Tanya’s gaggle of girls who even suggested how hurt Craig might be if she casually tossed his affections aside. Yet, her growing infatuation with him mirrored his for her. In fact, she liked him more than she was initially willing to admit and her emotions blindsided her. Unfortunately, there was an inner conflict between her feelings for Craig and her responsibilities to her family, including the shattered feelings she had whenever she thought of her brother. After the dance, and especially after the kiss, her conflict reached a fever pitch in which she truly wished she could become two people: one to be the glue in her family and one to have Craig as her first boyfriend. It was not to be. Meri Skinner was a realist, not a romantic like Craig Hughes. She knew that the luxury of a boyfriend would not mix and she, unfortunately, convinced herself that possibly falling in love with Craig would be too much of a selfish act when her family needed her.  How apathetic of her to neglect flesh and blood over a boy! Something had to give and, while willing to make a self-sacrifice, it killed her to do the very thing she warned Tanya Yang about. And there she stood, crying on a street corner in the gorgeous chilly afternoon, facing Craig, and telling him (however, abbreviated) her reasonings for not being able to engage in a romantic relationship.

      The world seemed unusually still to Craig as he stood listening to Meri. Every sight and sound seemed amplified, to a point of previously unforeseen sharpness. The sun seemed brighter, the air brisker, more biting. He even picked up on some music blaring from a dormitory two blocks away. He couldn’t help himself but to notice how his racing heartbeats compared with the percolating ARP synthesizers as Pete Townshend pleaded to him, "Don't cry!” Most of all, it was the quiver in Meri’s voice as she spoke, trying to remain stoic and when she failed, nothing was clearer than the glass-like tears which stained her glasses and flowed down her cheeks. He wanted to find the perfect words to say to her, and as hard as he grasped, none came to him. In fact, it was only after the longest two minutes of his life that the only words he could think of did arrive. He said as truthfully and purely as he could, “Meri, I love you.” Craig didn’t know exactly what was to be gained from speaking those three words but what he received was the image of Meri Skinner, face flushed with tears, releasing a mournful sigh as she walked away from him. Craig stood on that corner, watching Meri become a visual speck of dust before returning to school to be picked up. He walked back to school replaying the afternoon’s events wondering just what went wrong, what he could’ve done differently and trying to figure out just what Meri meant when she quickly stated, “My brother has emotional problems.” Nothing made sense, and the emptiness and hurt were not the least of his confusion. He wanted to talk to her again. To gain a better understanding but as before, thought better of it. That night, he ached himself to sleep. And aside from a brief conversation two days later in which Meri feebly agreed that she and Craig could still be friends, that one Wednesday was the last time Craig and Meri spoke to each other.

     Craig spent the next several weeks in a dilapidated state. While trying hard to maintain his jovial image at school, he was pained to even look at Meri Skinner in the hallways, always questioning why she ceased to even look at him, let alone speak to him. At home, Craig was not one to inform his parents of matter such as this and in not coming forward, his parents were unaware to the seriousness of it all. So clueless was his mother that one afternoon, she proclaimed with satirical intent, “Stop moping and go outside and get some air on your face. And besides, I always told you to find the right girl, not the white girl!” Seeing how this unsympathetic comment affected her son, Exzine quickly and more tenderly suggested, “Craig, if she didn’t want you, she wasn’t worth the trouble or the heartache.” Somewhere, Craig knew his mother was right yet, this was not going to be a time where his sense of perspective was at its strongest. In his quieter moments, Craig wallowed in music filled with weeping guitars and crying mellotrons. Nearly a month and a half passed before Craig began to feel more like his old self. Unfortunately, as soon as he was to return to steadier footing, the proverbial rug was yanked from him again.

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