"FOURTEEN" PART SIX: CRESTFALLEN

CRESTFALLEN

     Shortly before Christmas break, Craig returned home from school to find a plain, brown wrapped magazine waiting for him in his mailbox, adorned with the holiday themed inscription, “GIFT SUBSCRIPTION!” The only thing he subscribed to was “X-Men” so his curiosity was peaked. He grabbed the magazine and sat at his kitchen table to open the strange package. As he ripped the brown wrapping, he gradually saw the image of a particularly heavy set man with the title, “Weight Watchers” resting above his head like the most unwanted of halos. Craig blinked. He continued to blink as if he quickly fell into a bizarre dream world and was trying to wake himself into reality and yet, the magazine remained. He was definitely not dreaming this moment of humiliation and he quickly hid the magazine and its contents into his backpack to avoid the obligatory questioning from his parents. Later that evening, while finishing his homework, he took the magazine out of his back pack over and over and wondered just who would do something like this to him. To the best of his knowledge, he had no real enemies. No one who would take the sensitive subject of his weight and hurl it back at him with sheer cruelty. Even in the boy’s locker room, the harshest of environments, no one teased Craig about his size. His burning questions would have to wait until the next day before he could even begin to unravel this sadistic mystery.

     The next day at school…a Wednesday…Craig confided his quandary to Thomas Redfield, a friend he was currently unsure of the details of their initial meeting, with whom he quarreled with frequently but a friend who was loyal and was thankful to not have as an enemy.

     "Who the fuck would send you this?!” Thomas asked in his typically unfiltered vernacular.

     “I don’t know.”

     “This is twisted,” Thomas continued as he thumbed through the pages. “As a Christmas gift?! I mean-what the fuck?! And it’s not like you’re even that fat or anything. You’re just big boned…”

     “That’s not the fuckin’ point, man!” Craig interrupted. “Let’s get back to ‘twisted’. I mean…I don’t even know who would send this to me or even why.”

     Though Thomas Redfield was not the sharpest academically, he did have an uncanny knack for being able to bulldoze through the smoke and mirrors of the adolescent social battleground.

     “How about Meri?” Thomas offered.

     “Meri?” Craig asked, wondering if he misheard his friend. “Meri Skinner? That doesn’t even make sense. Why would she do that?”

     “Because you went with her, man. And Tanya Yang before her. You know they hang out together.”

     “So what? I mean..Meri came to me. I didn’t go looking for her. And we didn’t break up over petty shit like that. She told me so. I know she wasn’t lying and I don’t see why she would do this.”

     “Craig, think!” exclaimed Thomas, growing frustrated. “You go out with Tanya Yang, she dumps you. You go out with Meri Skinner, she dumps you…”

     “Is this for the benefit of those who tuned in late?!”

     “…Fuck you. As I was saying, those two are friends and they are both friends with that bunch. You know…Kate Walsh, Eileen Beil, Jenny Kulikowski, Mason Green…those bitches are a den of snakes. They think they’re so superior and they’re nothin’ but a bunch of five-minute-experts.”

     Craig knew Thomas was right. The girls in question were a spiteful sort. The thought of them sent a shiver through Craig and he realized that all of them constituted Tanya Yang’s gaggle of girls, which Craig had found himself avoiding after his break up with Meri Skinner.

     “Even if it wasn’t Meri,” Thomas continued to explain. “It was probably one of them. You know, just some sick message telling you to stay away from them or something.”

     “I just don’t…understand”.

     As he looked at Craig’s face, transforming from confusion, to disbelief to the hurt he had seen in his friend for the last several weeks, Thomas then began to notice that Meri Skinner wasn’t just anybody to Craig. Whatever Craig felt for Meri was beyond anything he could muster at this point in his own life yet he decidedly became more thoughtful in his comments.

     “Look, maybe Meri didn’t do this,” Thomas began. “Maybe she really liked you. But, that doesn’t mean that her friends did. And honestly, if she had to choose between her pack or you, who do you think she’d choose?”

Craig knew the answer and it pained him to come to this realization as Thomas’ words sank in and began to compose some sick sort of sense.

     With twenty more minutes remaining in their lunch period, Thomas convinced Craig to seek out the gaggle of girls and confront them head on. Initially, Craig protested but shortly agreed when Thomas suggested that he would perform the actual interrogation himself while Craig would be safely tucked away nearby within earshot.

The gaggle of girls were discovered in the middle school offices, keeping one member of the group, who worked in the office, company for lunch. Tanya Yang was present as was Meri Skinner and all of them looked upwards in shock as Thomas Redfield, with the unexpected speed and accuracy of a hit man, fired the “Weight Watchers” magazine squarely at them.

     “Which one of you sheep sent this to Craig Hughes?!” Thomas inquired, complete with steely eyed, “Man-With-No-Name” gaze and gravel.

     The girls, while surprised, remained frigid in their demeanor as Eileen Beil picked up the magazine, briefly fingered through it and replied for the collective, “We didn’t do this.”

     “Don’t waste my time!”

     “Really Thomas, we didn’t,” offered Mason Green, with a strand of lettuce nervously dangling from her bottom lip. “And why would we?”

     “Why not?”

     “I don’t know Thomas. Why don’t you tell us?” uttered Tanya, finally and sharply.

     “Could be anything…” Thomas volleyed back. “…You went with him. Meri went with him. You both dump all over him and break his heart. Especially you, Skinner.”

     Meri gazed downwards at her mostly eaten soup silently.

     “Kick him while he’s down. That kind of typical crap you specialize in,” Thomas concluded.

     “Get a life, Redfield!” offered Kate Walsh.

     “Was I talkin’ to you?!”

     “We didn’t do this, Thomas!” fired Tanya.

     “Really, we didn’t,” said Mason.

     “BAAAAAA!!” Thomas shot back with the perfect amount of unaffected cool.

     With her voice raised, Eileen Beil spat out, “Redfield,…”

     “That’s MISTER Redfield to you,”Thomas interrupted.

     “Redfield, since you’re Craig’s errand boy, give him a message. Tell him that we-didn’t-do-this and to leave-us-alone,” Eileen continued, slowly with and with more than detectible venom.

     “Tell him yourself, Eileen.”

     “You’re one to talk. If Craig’s so upset, why isn’t he here?” asked Eileen spitefully.

     Craig Hughes quietly sat outside the middle school offices next to the nearby lockers listening in on the melee. He listened to the escalating voices as well as Thomas’ smug determination in attempting to make the girls crack, yet not once did he hear Meri’s voice, either in confirmation or denial and this fact troubled him. Not one for confrontations, Craig initially felt fine in the background but soon, he felt embarrassed at his self-perceived weakness and his embarrassment shortly led to anger. Anger directed at himself for allowing anyone to get to him this way. For allowing Thomas to take on his personal battle. But, much of his anger was finally directed at Meri Skinner. He had spent so long in the mourning of lost love and the constant questions of “Why doesn’t she talk to me anymore?” that he never allowed himself the opportunity to experience the anger. Anger at Meri’s control over the destiny of their relationship, helming his emotions in the process. Anger at Meri’s subsequent distance and apparent stance of irrelevance, lack of concern…and, oh, yes…apathy at how deeply she did hurt him. And now, here he was, cowering in the hallway, consumed with the powerful silence of Meri’s apathy and before he knew it, he had risen and stalked over to the offices and stood in the doorway with rage in his eyes. You couldn’t see me when you sent me that magazine, but you will look at me now! he thought and projected through his stance.

     Just as he reached the doorway, Ms. Jayne Follett, the amiable yet pathologically no-nonsense middle school office secretary, exited Mr. Pashigian’s office to the now deafening barrage of shouts, insults, accusations, and denials. Upon the sight of Ms. Follett, everyone’s collective volume silenced like an abrupt click of a radio switch. Meri Skinner looked up to see Craig Hughes, in the middle school office doorway, violently staring directly at her.

You knew. Don’t ever cross me again. And…fuck you! Craig’s eyes seared.

     Meri finally met Craig’s eyes and gave him a final kiss of apathy with a glare that looked clear through him, much like the predatorial gaze of an owl.

     “Let’s go, Thomas,” Craig said not once taking his eyes away from Meri.

Thomas Redfield backed out of the middle school offices as if departing a saloon from the old west, newly disposed of enemies yet always curious if there was just one more lurking in the shadows.

     Late that night, Craig Hughes ran the day’s events continuously through his brain. Unsure of whether he experienced a victory or defeat, Craig did determine something. Thomas was right. Even if Meri Skinner didn’t send the magazine herself, she knew all about it and did nothing to discourage her friends. With that knowledge, Craig made a pledge to himself. He promised himself that he would never treat anyone the way Meri had so cruelly treated him. To never become a pawn in someone else’s life size chess game. He cried that night. A deep and complete cry that purged himself of the hurt he had felt. Afterwards, for the remainder of the school year and the entirety of high school, Craig ceased to shed tears for anyone or anything. He did become more protective of himself and by high school, he had learned (however damaging) to internalize all of the emotions he was unwilling to share with others (except for a drastically chosen few) for fear they would be used against him. Craig Hughes remained gregarious and able to slide in and out of social circles easily regardless of cliques. Externally, he would learn to use his “insider/outsider” status and his humor as a survival tactic. Internally, he would become increasingly mercurial, and even quite savage with his humor and asides to friends over the next four years. So much so, that comments written to him in yearbooks would almost appear to be directed to a completely different person. He would gain the ability to discard anyone who conflicted with his otherwise compassionate world view. High school would mark a murky and lonely period in his life. A time when he felt most alone in the world, hanging on for dear life until graduation when he would be rid of these people, this place and all of the baggage that came with it. It was a journey he chose for himself. It was during this stage that he began to think of himself as a “Cynical Optimist”; one who was uncommonly aware of the darker corners of his world, yet somewhere in his wiring, he hung on to a belief that things may turn out for the better. If he did not believe, he mused, then what’s the point to anything?!

     Craig Hughes also promised himself (however unrealistically) to never be that emotionally open again. Unfortunately, throughout high school, it was an easy thing to say, much harder to do. Craig fell in love again. He became an expert in the mess of unrequited passions. He was hurt again, especially during his senior year in which he experienced romantic highs and lows through his innocently torrid and brief relationship with a college freshman who worked in his high school library. Most disturbingly was the fact that he never did truly shake Meri Skinner’s hold. Aside from perhaps two fleeting words, Craig and Meri continued to not speak to or acknowledge each other, and it troubled him. He could not believe that it was possible to hold a grudge for this amount of time and the pointlessness of it all made him want to scream. Worst of all, was the ghostly presence of Meri in his thoughts. She would appear, unwanted and undesired, in his dreams in which he would ask her why she didn’t love him. It was an unanswerable question, to be sure and it plagued every romantic entanglement Craig would have in his life. The fear that the one he desired most would immediately and unexpectedly tire of him and excise him from their lives without a reason why. With the pain came that optimism; that one day, someone would see his true worth.

     On this winter night, as he laid in the darkness listening alternately to Tangerine Dream and Mark Knopfler’s all-too-knowing guitar, Craig said goodbye to a piece of his innocence.

Copyright 2014 by Scott Collins All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.